The Reward is the Journey

My body tells me it is unhappy.  Physically, 2016 does not feel to have got off to the best start for me...   I have been plagued by several bugs which feel to have got me in their grips one after the other.  Or perhaps I have failed to shake off the original which has lurked within my system. We are beyond honey and lemon.  I have exhausted my supplies of Echinacea drops and Manuka honey.   Paracetamol, ibuprofen and decongestant have all been surrendered to.  And now antibiotics have been introduced to the mix.  I must confess to feeling somewhat self piteous.  In all likelihood I have a chest infection.  I only hope it will respond to the prescribed penicillin. As my GP efficiently signed the script that had only just emerged from the printer, we discussed how long I was to consider myself 'signed off' for.   As a self employed practitioner I have nobody to give my sick note to, but my doctor knows that its best...

The trailer promised great things.  Eddie Redmayne for one.  His performance as Lili Elbe (born Einar Wegener) was masterful.  Set in 1920s Copenhagen, I wonder how much things have really changed?  I felt the film portrayed very accurately the awful cost born by so many of the trans* community as they navigate worlds in which they feel bound to conceal their true selves beneath constructed identities.   As a therapist who specialises in working with gender issues I have the privilege of supporting gender variant, queer and querying clients who do not fit neatly into the boxes so many quarters of society still seek to prescribe.   To speak of the challenges this presents hardly does justice to the daily battles being fought that the cisgender majority are unlikely to ever face.  Unless of course, that cis individual is in a relationship with a trans* person...   This was, for me, what the film spoke to most directly observ...

I have had a cold since Boxing Day. Having been celebrating my apparently indestructible immune system in the lead up to Christmas, I fell at the first hurdle and have been limping ever since.  My friend and colleague Sarah tripped on New Year's Eve and fractured her fifth metatarsal.  Our workshop could not be better timed... 'Shattered but still whole' has been something of a mantra for me at different times:  the challenges life throws at us can often feel to shatter the bodymind, mindfulness has helped me to remain connected to a sense of wholeness, come what may. The opportunity to practice alongside others is always a privilege.  Yesterday's workshop which we had given the title 'Let it Begin with Me' at the dawn of the new year was a particular pleasure, and I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on what we do when we set our intentions - both for our practice and beyond. Intentions, like seeds, are what we plant, in the service of an eventual yi...

Birthdays are important.  Mine included.  Tho' it falls precariously between Christmas and New Year in recent years I have thrown caution to the wind and marked this thing called the ageing process on or close to the day itself trusting that whomsoever should be there will be there. And so it was this year...  I celebrated my birthday amongst family and friends.  It was a lovely evening during which we shared good food, yummy cakes, and laughter.  Sitting around a large oval table were 18 very important people, each of whom has played a significant part in making the last year a special one. When seeking to gather a group for such a purpose, one must be wise to the fact that life happens and plans change:  I was not to know exactly how many people would be attending until the day, and that was fine.  There are things that merit worrying about.  This was never to be one of them.  For things, I have found, more often than not, work ...

And the day finally arrived.  We had been to meet them the day before, but there could be no preparation for the feelings that followed.  Anticipation.  Excitement.  Nausea.  Impulse buys are strange things.  They can go one of two ways.  Time will tell.   There was a concentrated atmosphere around the hall.  An unconcealed competition.  A rivalry.  It felt risky.  Edgy.  Unnerving. I could hear the adrenaline building.  Slowly, but surely.  As the lot numbers increased, and we approached.  My luck was in.  I had only a commission bid to contend with.  And then it was over.  I held up my paddle:  479. I won!  I won!  I will take delivery of the piano that is new to me in the new year.   Life is like a piano.   What you get out of it depends on how you play it. Tom Lehrer

Time is a strange thing.  We know how long a minute is, and how many minutes are in an hour, and how many hours make up a day, and yet a moment is so intangible.  Time is but a series of moments.  And moments pass at different speeds.  This year feels in some ways to have flown by.  And yet, when I survey it as I have done recently, I can acknowledge how much has happened.  How much has been achieved, and how much growth has occurred.  I wanted to be present with myself and to mark the day in a way that felt right for me, right now.  My feelings showed me the way and guided me as I allowed more moments to unfold, and to envelop and hold me.  I felt peaceful with the reality that it was a whole year ago that we finally said goodbye.  It was a long goodbye and, in many ways, it was last year that I was faced with the biggest loss:  the gap between the mother had known, and the woman I went to visit in those final months. ...

It's gotten colder. Quite a bit colder, actually. I woke up to a fluttering of snow on Saturday. It was crisp and bright. Winter made her long awaited appearance. It was the most beautiful day to give my long winter coat (something of a favourite that rarely fails to attract remark amongst my generously complimentary friends) it's first outing of the season.  I was attending a Study Day in central London meaning that I didn't manage to really greet the elements until Sunday.  The pool beckoned mid morning, after the Club races had concluded, at which time I swam mostly toute seule. My swims follow something of a predictable routine: creature of habit that I am... I get changed quickly and sit on the edge at the deep end, legs dangling, gauging the temperature whilst I adjust my swimming caps (I have been wearing two since the end of September; silicone for now, to be replaced with neoprene shortly).  My toes alerted me to the fact that the te...

Teaching with Sarah was something I had been looking forward to for some time... The idea came about a little while back, when Sarah returned from India having completed her yoga teacher training. The theme came to us without much need for deliberation. Life has thrown plenty at both of us recently and we have found ourselves staying close (rather than clinging) to 'Let Go' as something of a mantra... For me, teaching on a Saturday involves letting go of several things: my typical routine gets adjusted. The same is I know true for most who attend the weekend workshops: we let go of things in order to come along. Attending is a choice. Choice involves sacrifice. And that's worth acknowledging.  The hatha based practice was just what I needed. My body welcomed it. And has reminded me of it since (thanks, Sarah!). Moving before sitting seems to work well for most bodies.  Ajahn Chah's statement makes sense:  If you let go a little, you will ...

I felt like a winner. And the race hadn't even started. I had turned up. And so, I felt justified in claiming a victory. I have not swum competitively since childhood. My sister and I used to clear up at the South London Brownie Girl Guide Swimming Galas. It was all terribly serious.  This morning couldn't have been more different. The competition was not in the adjoining lanes but upstairs - in my own head. Doubt began to creep in the moment I managed (finally) to open the attachment efficiently emailed to me by the Club Captains earlier this week. There appeared my name - down to swim in Races 1, 8 and 11. Three times I met my greatest contender: the nagging doubt. It didn't stand a chance - submerged in 11° it soon dissipated. Biology took over, and I splashed my way across my first width doing an impression of the Butterfly.  I didn't feel like I managed to take flight but I did, somehow, make it across the pool.  The water level must have...

This week served as a good reminded as to why I do what I do. I do what I do because I love it:  It really is as simple as that. On speaking to someone (the thought of whose own exercise regimen makes me wince) I was slightly taken aback when he remarked upon my 'commitment' (in a respectful, slightly concerned manner) in response to my cold water swimming disclosure. I don't swim because I have to...  I'm not 'training' for anything per se.  There are no upcoming events.  I'm not seeking to improve my time.  Or my endurance.   I swim because I love it. The only commitment I have made is to myself:  to do something everyday that makes me smile (whilst shivering). Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.   It will not lead you astray.   ~ Rumi

The real privilege of any working week is to find 'flow'.  Flow does not, I think, lend itself to easy description; rather, it has a quality that you can feel, and I am delighted to say that I experience this most pleasant feeling at fairly regular intervals.  A facet of the flow I seek to describe is that sense that you are just exactly where you are meant to be...   On retraining to become a therapist, I'm not sure I was able to imagine what it might feel like to practise as one.  I had, of course, spent a fair bit of time 'in the other chair' (the chair closest to the tissues) but this was to be just the beginning of this wondrous journey.    Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,  but anyone can start today and make a new ending   ~ Maria Robinson In so much of my work I feel connected to my purpose.  I have the luxury of doing work I love.  My work and the way I work are much more than my job.  S...

Self-portrait (truck) 2012 A spontaneous trip to the small but perfectly formed gallery threw up a wonderful treat for us to enjoy.  The photographs were stunning.  It was an exhibition I had not planned to see, but am delighted to have done so. Jess' work speaks volumes to me without saying a word.  Her engagement with her subjects gently invites her audience's participation without making any demands.   It is powerful and provocative, threatening nothing except a preconception.  It is challenging but throws down no gauntlets.  It is as though she intended any consequences to be thoroughly conscious and wholly consensual. Art is the sex of the imagination George Jean Nathan Jess and Vanessa, 2013 The images are, I think, a wonderfully colourful depiction of gender, sexuality and love.  The fluidity of each concept is given vast space to find both shape and form, and you can make of that what you will.  I stoo...

I was sad and probably slightly relieved to discover it was no longer available on iPlayer.  I had read the glowing reviews of the BBC's adaptation of Lisa Lynch 's book of the same name.  I didn't expect it to feature as one of my in-flight movie choices but am glad it did... Sheridan Smith as Lisa Lynch in 'The C-Word' (2015) Lisa's journey was hers and hers alone.  Yet there are clear resemblances to a journey of someone I hold very dear, whose  own courage and graceful determination continue to humble me on a daily basis.   Watching the 90 minute feature sitting amongst strangers, each busily entertaining themselves as we crossed the Atlantic was an experience I am unlikely to forget in a hurry.  My anonymity meant that my tears fell silently and, I imagine, largely unnoticed.  And yet it felt difficult: I wanted to insist everyone behold this wonderful portrayal, and soak up the many reminders it contains for those of us who live beyo...

The exhilaration I feel when out and about on two wheels is hard to describe without sounding gushy.  At times, I fear I may even sound evangelical.  That said, I'm going to risk gushing evangelically and share (yet) another bicycling anecdote... I did not conceal my excitement at being invited to take to the roads of Kent on a Sunday morning. The autumn sunshine greeted us.  Whilst it couldn't be described as warm, our meeting point coffees certainly were.  We were off to a good start before we left. The roads were pleasantly quiet, save for a few hurried drivers (presumably making their way to morning service).  I knew not the route ahead of us, but was given ample warning of the sticky climbs and one 'rather naff' descent. For all my evangelising, the only action this bike has seen in over two years has been to be moved from one hallway to stand wistfully in a sitting room - only to return, rather unceremoniously, to inhabit another dra...

I was delighted to be asked to prepare and deliver a 'taster' of mindfulness at a recent Family Forum hosted by the charity Missing People. If we can deeply understand the power of the mind;  how we can both injure and benefit this world, we see how practice is not a luxury, but an imperative.   It returns us to ourselves, to our sanity, to our true capacity. Geoffrey Shugen Arnold I have yet to attend an event organised by Missing People from which I depart feeling anything other than very deeply moved.  Being in the presence of those left behind when a loved one has disappeared is a difficult pleasure.   It is difficult in that it challenges me from the inside out.  Despite having been heavily involved in the development of the work the organisation does with families of missing persons in recent years, I have yet to develop any immunity from the shock that reverberates somewhere deep within me, as I contemplate what it means to f...

Another swim inspired post...  Swimming:  it shifts my mood like nothing else.  And only for the better.  It is the best mood enhancer I know.  I have resolved to continue swimming outdoors as long as possible.  I am still without wetsuit.  Much to the confusion and concern of those that never remove theirs.  Mine, I have decided, is to be kept for when the temperature drops to single figures.  It was a lovely 13.5° today.  Fresh, but not yet cold.  The sunshine helps. Sunshine always helps.  But, from the water, there is so much more sky to behold.  It is the expansive sky that shifts and lifts my mood, and allows my soul to soar.   Staying indoors when I could be in the pool achieves very little.  Opportunity presents itself, and asks to be taken.  Hence the renewed resolve.  Bring on the cooler weather, the leaves, and the endorphins!  You may be whatever you res...

It was quite the highlight of my weekend.  I had been looking forward to the evening since Charlotte booked our tickets.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  So I expected nothing, and looked forward with tremendous anticipation nonetheless.  Expectations are rarely helpful. The performance was like nothing I have seen before.  It was beautiful.  It was harrowing.  It made me think.  It forced me to feel.  It challenged me.  It humbled me.  It reminded me what a privilege it is to be alive.   Their wonderful show was about difference.  And it was about commonality.  There in front of us were a cast united in their mission.  They entertained us.  But they did so much more besides.  They invited us to look beyond physical ability.  And there it was.  Talent in abundance. Each one of us is so much more than a physical being.  And that was what I was reminded of by Amici.  In t...

I felt a pang of guilt as I turned my back on her and left home today.  Off we went, me and my new love.  Three and a half years ago, I blogged about getting out and about on my trusty single speed. She has been a stalwart.  And yet, I came to the decision not so long ago, that it was time for a change.  She has not been replaced.  But today she was substituted.  It's good to mix it up...  Right? Someone once asked me whether I knew the answer to the all important question.  The question that plagues the mind of an enthusiast contemplating an expansion of the collection.  How many bikes does one need?  The answer is, of course, N+1. I am the proud owner of a(nother) pair of wheels that truly suit my commute.  I have joined the Fold.  I have become a Bromptonite. Bigger is not necessarily better.  My new wheels fill me with joy.  I cannot remember enjoying my journey to or from work as much on any...