The Reward is the Journey

When she suggested that she suspected I would not be able to relate to what she was saying, that my life was presumably sorted and serene, I felt as though I had failed.  It didn't strike me as a compliment but rather that what I had been exploring with her had been perceived as an intellectualisation or an imagining of her situation, rather heartfelt empathy from a place of shared experience.  To admit powerlessness and unmanageability is to take an enormous step towards change.  Acceptance can only follow awareness and without it action is likely impossible.  Awareness alone is painful.  Awareness with acceptance is uncomfortable as, without action it's a useless combination.  There is a significant relationship between powerlessness and unmanageability but one that has to be experienced to be fully understood.  To acknowledge one's powerlessness over people, places and things is to become almost instantaneously more manageable.  Without a...

It's that time of year.  Less than nine months til Christmas and Easter is upon us.  And with it the great chocolate binge.  Or so it seems.  The supermarkets have been rearranged, Valentines were swiftly replaced with Mothering Sunday cards and it's all change once again as the aisles are currently crammed full of cocoa solids and, more often than not, cocoa substitutes shaped into eggs, bunnies and everything else besides.  The colour scheme is pinks and pastels, and the buy two for... appear to have very little to do with the Holy Week, or the conclusion of Lent on Resurrection Sunday than with unrelenting commercialism and massive sugar highs. Not that I mind.  Per se.  Chocolate has its place in proceedings.  Particularly the good, dark variety.  I prefer mine a minimum of 70%.  Particular favourites include Willie's Delectable Cacao varieties, anything by Artisan du Chocolat and William Curley's truffles. ...

Ok, so I'm just a tinsey winsey little bit in awe of this woman.  But, before you leap to any conclusions, allow me to illuminate you as to her recent triumphs.  As though surviving three rounds of chemo weren't enough, this lady is on her bike, and racing through the cycles.  Inspiration personified.  That's Charlotte. She certainly is fighting a good fight, and my own little battle which takes place in the gym most days continues alongside her awesome efforts.  As I approach my yoga practice, I offer my poses up in her name.  As I swim lengths, I think of her.  As I lift my weights, I add an extra 1.25kg on each end, in her honour.  As I clip onto pedals, I do so with pride.  In Combat classes, I punch harder than my shoulders are inclined to and kick higher than my hips hope to.  I am so full of loving admiration for the person who inspired me to exercise as an undergraduate where such pastimes were frowned upon by...

Learning about a colleague's practice in which she works with children and young people diagnosed with psychopathology integrating mindfulness in all her work and involving the parents in her interventions gave me tremendous hope about the future of mindfulness and the extent to which MBCT and MBSR are already being used in a wide variety of clinical settings.  As Prof. Mark Williams, one of the three fathers of MBCT was saying, the recent trends and excited curiosity (ok, hype) about mindfulness is only the beginning of a two or three hundred year project the conclusion and outcomes of which none of us will be around the witness.  What remains to be seen is what will happen once the froth settles, and we can see the wood for the trees.  What will be left on the beach?  I feel privileged to have been supervised by Mark, and to have had the opportunity to deepen my knowledge and expand my understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the brilliant approach the a...

I go to the Pool not to think, but to be.  To be with the water, and without language.  Yet, after a swim I am often conscious of the benefits I derive from the experience, and the clarity I gain from this important component of my self care.  For some people, swimming up and down for anything more than a few lengths, must seem arduous and tedious.  Not for me.  I am so thrilled to have swum twice this week in the open air, I feel positively exuberant and have finally delayed no longer in sourcing myself a new pair of goggles my current favourites no longer truly being waterproof (and therefore hardly capable of their purpose).  Whilst 'doing' swimming, I find it far easier than most other situations to truly 'be', and herein lies the magic.  There's nothing mystical about it and yet it feels precious and valuable.  Having spent the day tasting and digesting a lot of material, focusing on the conceptual and intellectual, I was ready for a swim...

I received some feedback from a client with whom I recently concluded therapy which confirmed something I know but rarely acknowledge - the value of the space.  The dedicated space each week to come into afresh or to reflect on something we discussed previously.  The space into which anything and everything could be allowed to emerge, and if nothing seemed present, to share in the silence, itself a voluminous communication.  The consistency afforded by the routine, of the time at which we met and the space in which we met.  How these created stability, and containment from within which it was possible for us to identify the contrasting aspects of life in flux, and courageously explore their impact.  Sometimes it really is good to talk.  How rarely we find ourselves with an hour, or fifty minutes without agenda or obligation.  My former client intimated that this might indeed be the height of self care, reflecting on the extensive benefits that were to ...

Observing the pupils of a local prep school running around the playing field brought back memories of cross country, an inescapable part of the school curriculum and something I have confined to the archives of my mind and rarely revisited, as it did not comprise an aspect of my school career I enjoyed much.  There they were, following the seemingly endless track around the perimeter of the games fields stretching as far as my eye could see (probably partly due to the fact that I was observing from out of a window with an incomplete vista of the landscape).  Each boy clad in identical uniform games kit, legs propelling them around the course.  There, in front of me, was a teacher holding a clipboard, accompanied by a couple of other members of staff half-heartedly applauding the students as they ran past, and continued running.  I imagined the clipboard was to count down the number of circuits as individuals completed ci...

I believe that our thoughts have tremendous power over our emotions.  This echoes but goes further than the traditional cognitive therapy premise that by changing attitudes we can change our experiences - the way in which we incline our minds can change our lives.  I believe in the power of positive thought and have been giving this some consideration recently.  There are times when we need to believe in something.  When feeling as though we tread this earth alone without a bigger picture is perhaps a rather off putting notion.  At times like these, anything will do.  The saying goes that there weren't any atheists aboard the Titanic when it sank though plenty of agnostics may have set sail in it.  I have come to believe that there is something directing this game called Life.  It helps me make sense of the challenges I've encountered myself and the struggles that beset each of us.  Whilst I couldn't paint what it looks like, and am unlike...

An empty lane awaited me.  Bliss.  Just what I needed after a day during which little felt to have gone smoothly, or easily, or straightforward-ly.  I could have just returned home, with a bitter taste in my mouth, complaints and resentments aplenty and licked my wounds.  I could have easily found a sympathetic ear to bend awhile, to harp on about the disappointments and frustrations and set about putting the world to rights.  Instead, I head to a pool I've not visited before.  In fact, I had two to choose between - one indoor, one outdoor.  Having admired the clouds this morning, I decided to pursue the cooler option and am so very glad I did.  Refreshment indeed.  I had only a brief swim (by my standards) but delighted in it.  50 lengths at a moderate pace reintroduced what had been lacking in to my day - spaciousness and perspective.  I was faced with a choice: whether to focus on the bottom of the pool where I could see the odd...

Serious About StreetDance provided a fantastic conclusion to my working week.  The acts were polished and I sat aghast at the talent before me, most of the performers being in their mid to late teens.  If ever there were an alternative version of the stereotype that gets attached to adolescents who choose to wear baggy clothes, trainers and hooded sweatshirts, this was it.  It was a spectacular evening.  Everything we saw was a spectacle.  No two acts were the same, yet the performers within each were beautifully choreographed and perfectly synchronised.  As someone who appreciates but claims no expertise in the genre, I was simultaneously amazed and impressed by the versatility - streetdance itself comprising a broad spectrum of very different dance styles.   There was plenty about the evening that was serious - serious talent, serious creativity, serious dedication but it was full too of 'wow' factor (in fact, I c...

It was a pleasure and a privilege to celebrate Mothering Sunday with my own mother today.  Our Piscean pedicure made for a pleasantly unconventional way in which to honour our relationship, and was something of a novel experience for both of us.  The sensation on first exposing our feet to the Garra Rufa or ‘doctor’ fish is hard to describe, but has been compared to mild electric shocks, or pins and needles.  It was extraordinary, extremely tickly and caused me to squirm and laugh simultaneously, which was amusement in itself.  After the first five minutes I had acclimatised, and the fish had got to work.  As we sat beside one another - mother and daughter trying out something new and nurturing, admiring and appreciating the concept, I began to reflect on our relationship and the journey so far.  Mother's Day is celebrated on different days in different places, but March, April and May are the most common month in whic...

Shock can affect us in all sorts of strange and unexpected ways.  It's highly individual and we're unlikely to have a sense of what we might experience until we actually do.  Not only will it differ from person to person, we are likely to respond differently depending in the situation, and a whole variety of other circumstances.  It cannot be planned ahead of time but an awareness of the process can be helpful and reassuring when we find ourselves confronted by the all too often overwhelming reality that challenges even the most resilient of us.  Recovering from a traumatic incident takes time and tremendous attention to self care.  Healing is required, and this cannot be hurried.  A trauma, by definition, is an incident that is so painful, emotionally or physically, that one tends to flinch away from it, not to let oneself be aware of it, to repress it.  It is the flinch and not the 'objective' description of the incident that makes it a trauma....

I am very pleased to have achieved a level of proficiency in my new hobby, BodyCombat.  My hard work and commitment has paid off and I am no longer standing there sweating, clueless and breathless (I'm just sweating and breathless, for much of the 55 minute class).  I've been going three times most weeks, and I'm finding my feet.  I've found muscles I didn't know I had, but the reminders are briefer.  I think I'm improving.  My coordination perhaps more slowly than my stamina.  I have a powerful incentive, which drives me into the studio and carries me through every class I attend.  I have a purpose.  I have engaged in an intense psychic battle with an uninvited and unwelcome alien invasion, and am giving it the very best shot I know how, to kick it out of my best friend's body.  I have pledged allegiance to the cause and nothing will deter me.  Little can stand in my way.  The classes assume a priority that my ...

A while ago I undertook a training in anger management.  As a therapist I take my continuing professional development very seriously and as someone with a particular interest in working with individuals for whom addiction is an issue, I work with individuals for whom anger is very often (if not always) an underlying and yet rarely acknowledged issue. There are imploders and exploders.  Know which category you fall into?  Some people can be both - depending on the situation which is often determined by a power dynamic.  Jung referred to our shadows, as sides of ourselves that can either be split off, neglected and unknown, buried deep and prone to being inflamed and unleashed or as those parts of ourselves we courageously acknowledge, and befriend, in order that we come to know ourselves as best we can, as unified whole beings rather than pressure cookers likely to boil over, if the flame gets hot enough.  Anger, if l...

Were someone to ask me why I practice yoga, I'm not sure I'd be able to provide a succinct explanation.  The relationship I have with yoga is pretty subtle and yet at the same time somehow deeply profound.  As such, it's complicated.  What relationship isn't?  I am a relative newbie to all things yogic.  I began in 2009, specifically to participate in a sponsored 'Yogathon' in aid of Action on Addiction for which I was sponsored to do an arduous number of sun salutations at the gorgeous Alchemy yoga centre in Camden.  Yoga, of course, isn't about aesthetics, and traditionalists would take issue with the fact that I tend to practice in a multi purpose studio surrounded by mirrors, let alone my affinity for beautiful practice spaces of which the Alchemy certainly is one. So, I started from scratch and worked hard to ensure I'd survive the Yogathon (which I did, albeit suffering something akin to tennis elbow for the following 3 days from all...

I have attended rather more funerals than I would have liked to have done.  Attending a Memorial Service this weekend was a very different experience.  I learnt of the untimely demise of my school chaplain last year, when he lost a battle to pancreatic cancer.  When I later became aware that a memorial service was to be organised by former colleagues from both my own rural alma mater, and other establishments his career had taken him to, I made a decision to try and attend.  St. Marylebone Parish Church made for a superb venue and accommodated the many family, friends, former colleagues, and students who attended the extremely moving celebration of a remarkable man's life and work.  Standing amongst the congregation I realised I was amongst fellow beings whose lives had been touched by the same man to whom I wholly attribute my first spiritual awakening.  As such, whilst surrounded by strangers, I knew I w...