The Reward is the Journey

It has been a strange few weeks.   This week, I was struck by the contrasts I have experienced of late. Autumn presents a choice for this swimmer.  To swim outdoors, or to retreat indoors? I have preferred to swim indoors recently.  And it's not, I think, because of the relatively cooler temperatures.   It is the sense of safety that the indoor pool offers me.  The known.  The familiar.  The lane ropes are comforting rather than confining.  I can choose my course and stick to it without difficulty.  Right now, great satisfaction is mine in the pool.  The water warm.  Sometimes a little too warm.  The lengths add up, and I swim for several kilometres.  I explore the line between effort and ease, and quickly find my way into the latter.   Elsewhere, I have found myself entering alien environments.  I have visited the hospital ward on which my mother has lain with hideous trepidation. ...

I am privileged to work with a great many HEIs - Highly Effective Individuals.  I am frequently astounded by just how much we, between us, manage to achieve in any given day or week.  I am concerned by how infrequently we step back and take stock of exactly how much we are doing, or how well we are doing it.   It is perhaps symptomatic of the fast paced world we occupy.  Life seems to be set on fast forward and we, as a result, are constantly chasing to keep up.   Too many people undervalue what they are, and overvalue what they are not. Malcolm Forbes Think about it, for a minute.  What have you done today?  Break it down - what, exactly have you done?   It is only when we are prevented from getting on with 'the business', by illness or injury, for example, that we notice how much it is that we ordinarily get done, and how we take it for granted that we can set out to complete a set of tasks and, circumstances permittin...

I wouldn't wish this particular chapter of the journey to anyone.  Having entered into previously unknown territory, my eyes have adjusted to the dusky conditions, and I am learning more each day.  The landscape of dementia is anything but pleasant.    It is everything I feared it would be, and a whole lot more besides.  I find myself uncomfortably perched in limbo.  I see a corridor of doors ahead, but have come to realise that many of them are illusions.  It is as though I am surrounded by mirrors.  I am horrified by the awful reflection I have beheld a hundred times.   Chasing the diagnosis which seems ever more elusive, I have had no choice but acknowledge how cunning a villain this illness is.  A cluster of symptoms that leave you guessing whilst facets of the character of the person you love fade to become a little dimmer each week. It is as though the lights that once shone bright are now an intermittent twinkle. ...

I have a new friend.  I adopted her a few weeks' ago.  Her face jumped out when I looked, for the first time, at the charity's 'rehoming' pages over the Bank Holiday weekend. It was, I think, love at first sight.  For me, at least. I had travelled the 30 mile journey with more than a little ambivalence.  Was now the right time for me to be assuming another commitment?   Sometimes, things happen.  Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.   Thing is, relationships don't just turn up when you're looking for them.  Sometimes, cats come into your life when you least expect them to. She is not what I had in mind, but then some of the most rewarding connections I've made to date have been with individuals I couldn't have foreseen having much in common with.   I vacillated over the decision, weighing it up and canvassing opinion from trusted friends (most of whom were, as they would freely confess, unduly bi...

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...

  Sleep is the golden chain that binds health and our bodies together. Thomas Dekker     Sleep is something most of us need.  I certainly benefit from a decent night's kip.  The more regularly I sleep well, the better I am able to function.  Long gone are my teenage days when I was able to lie-in once a week(end) and sleep until midday, when would wake feeling refreshed and recharged.  My body tells me it needs at least seven and a half hours of proper sleep each and every night to feel restored upon waking.  Which requires some conscious effort.    My working day tends to start late and finish later.  The practice of psychotherapy is, in this way (and perhaps some others), something of an antisocial vocation.  I have something of a routine on concluding my client work which enables me to shift mental gears and adjust into my evening.  I have another routine prior to going to bed, again facilitating a...

I see him most days.  He sits there.  Unassuming.  Undemanding.  Yet he captures my attention, and my imagination.  Who is he?  Who was he?  How did he come to be there?    Sitting outside Sainsbury's, he passes his day it would appear deep in thought.  Pensive.  Considering what, I often wonder?    We've had only the briefest of interactions.   I do not usually give directly to individuals, choosing instead to set up Standing Orders which leave my bank account each month.  I review these annually, selecting charities whose mission appeals to me in some way.    This, I find, is a straightforward way of giving.  But not, I think, a terribly engaged manner in which to do so.     We make a living by what we get But we make a life by what we give Winston Churchill       I've noticed a great many more prompts to give on the Underground of l...

I have not yet got my head round it.  In a month's time, my mother will have been discharged from the nursing care home at which she has been a resident for the last four and a half months.  The news has hit me hard.   I did not see it coming.  I have been coming to terms with her transition into residential care.  It has been a far from straightforward road for either of us.    I feel a mixture of emotions.  Disappointment is prevalent.  We had, I think, all been hoping that she would adjust to the new environment, and make herself 'at home'.    Why this hasn't happened isn't entirely clear.  But it's obviously not the right place.  For her.  For now.      And so the mission continues...  Trouble is, its terms are not yet entirely clear.  And the hardest thing is that it may be too late to adequately refine them with their subject.      The...

I have been fortunate this summer to discover some new places that have become immediate favourites.   Having enjoyed swimming at the Lido (something of a favourite haunt of mine for a little while now), I was blown away by the skyline I found to stand above it when I wandered through Brockwell Park on a Sunday morning recently.    Observing the city from a distance struck me as a great metaphor for what my mindfulness practice stands for.    It was possible to see the landscape more clearly, from a distance.  The City of London looked beautiful and manageable, from where I stood.  With regular practice, I have come to see that by seeking to know better the landscape of my own mind-body I have a better chance of recognising those familiar 'signatures' - physical, emotional and cognitive.    And, by standing back, to observe these clearly, I have the benefit of a space to pause, and remember that I have a choice....

I wouldn't say that it keeps me awake at night, but I am aware of a low level hum of a concern that I have been sitting with for a while now...    To become a mindfulness teacher I undertook one of the most rigorous trainings I could have stumbled across (and which, truth be told, I probably rather underestimated when first applying).    I was given fair warning at my interview.  Sat in front of me were three individuals whose names I had been familiar with for several years, whose thoughts and opinions I had read and respected.  Ascertaining what cognitions were around for me at that particular moment was none too tricky.  And naming my feelings would have come very easily there and then.     It had been a while since I sat in a panel interview situation and I can't recall ever jumping for joy on discovering that such a scenario would feature in any recruitment process.  I was daunted.  But the...