The Reward is the Journey

My Amazon account tells a story.  I'm in over my head.  And so I order books.  I am grasping to understand.  For, through understanding, I hope I will come to accept.   Acceptance is a live project for me right now.  I'm trying to walk the walk.  And this particular road seems all too often cruelly uneven.     "Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured, and to endure what cannot be cured."   B. K. S Iyengar (1918-2014)     Amidst my reading, I have been trying to breathe.  Breathing into stretches, seeking out the 'yield' the DVD's accompanying audio repeatedly refers to.  For this, apparently, is where it's at.   This is the 'yin' of yoga.  It's slow.  And it gets stuck.  30seconds...  90seconds...  4 minutes.  And rel-ease.    *SIGH*   It seems apt for me just now.  My focus has shifted.  The rules of this game r...

Deep within that hollow stare, of our presence they're unaware. A life that is fading away, in spite of things we try to convey. Memories locked up in their mind, and there they're kept all confined. Good times spent long ago, and all their love they did bestow. For these moments will live forever, Seeing them lying there we know why, Dementia is called the long goodbye.      The cards, we hoped, would serve as something of a memory jog.  We asked staff for some string and were granted our wish, meaning we could hang them as you might (and indeed, we might do) Christmas cards.  She seemed happy enough.    Whatever that means.  It is, I think, perhaps easier to get angry than feel the sadness that this sorry situation entails.  And I have been furious.    I'm angry that I've lost her:  I've lost my mother.  What I'm left with is a shell.  And one I don't yet know how to relate to. ...

It was, quite simply, perfect.   Just, precisely, what I needed.   I was so pleased to make it to the 'Slow Down' yoga workshop at the end of the working week.  A rare opportunity to properly mark the transition between Friday and Saturday.  To honour it, in fact.   It was a terrific way to unwind, and allow my mind and body to get back in sync with one another.    All too often one is ahead of the other.  The body is tired, but the mind remains wired.  It is far harder to really, truly relax than many of us realise.    Graham gently reminded us of the reality of chronic overstimulation and the impact that this has.  He described what I already knew to be the case:  not from the headspace, but from deep within my body.  Between my shoulders, and around the base of my skull.  Tightness and tension.  Holding.  On to what?    Relaxation is a challenge for most of us...

    This is, I think, a particularly taxing leg of the journey and one that I have struggled to enjoy having found it so relentlessly demanding.  Stretching on every level.    I have learnt much.  All of it along the way.    Never did I envisage a task so massive.  Or complex.  Or convoluted.    My advice to anyone is simple:  Think about things in advance.  But do not assume that prior planning will save you hassle as, when it comes down to it, there is still the same amount of red tape to navigate your way through.    The first step of the process is arduous in that it requires a solicitor to confirm that the 'donor' still has capacity to make the decision authorising someone to act on their behalf if, or when this should change.    The Office of the Public Guardian has a significant backlog.  There is no hurrying the powers that are.  They simply cannot be ...

Thought for the Day on Radio 4 is one of my morning pleasures.  I will often catch-up if I miss one, or listen again, as I did to Brian Draper's recent thought, on work-life balance and the importance of recreation.  He asked a question that quite often comes up in workplace counselling, is the way you're working, working for you?   I regularly assess individuals for whom work has become a serious battle.  It's not necessarily conflict in the workplace, but the stress and strain that they find themselves taking home each day and remaining connected to, even at the weekend.   All too often I find myself having discussions with clients about the 'performance recipe':  where challenge must have an equal counterpart of support, else most people will (at some point) likely buckle under the pressure.   The territory of stress and burnout are very often avoidable, but awareness is rarely enough.  Action is essential, if stress is to be taken...

As a child, I was regularly reminded that if I watched television for too long, I'd get 'square eyes'.  I had not come across anyone with this unfortunate condition (and have yet to do so) but, having been a visually impaired wearer of glasses since I was just 4, I was keen to avoid it.    Television has not featured prominently in my adult life.  On leaving school, my televising declined rapidly.  As a student I never bought myself a television and, I'm rather pleased to say, still haven't.  I have nothing against TV, per se, and have been known to enjoy a documentary or a drama, but my preference remains for the big screen.        I wonder whether youngsters today are given similar warnings.  The risk of ophthalmic angulation must have increased exponentially with the birth of the smart phone, and the tablet.  Studies suggest that childre...