Emotional intelligence

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Boiling frog syndrome… Yup, I got hot (or why I need to rehab myself).

It is true – it IS a psychological syndrome!  who knew!  I shouldn’t be cynical – I am still a psychologist.

The story of how the poor amphibian was enjoying its tepid bath and stayed so long it didn’t notice the water getting hotter and hotter until it was boiling alive, is also termed a ‘parable’ by Wiki wonderland.   If the frog was thrown into the boiling water it would jump out.

This syndrome or parable came to my mind when I realised that I was having health and well-being issues again.  I didn’t see how bad it had become till I was struggling enough to call a halt and shout help so I could ‘rehab’ my self and my life.

It was just easier for me to just keep going enough to manage the stresses and strains of impending relocation,  possible retirement, spouse’s health issues, adult children needing support, poorly grandchildren.  I had already stepped down from one on one counselling or coaching so at least in that I had identified I wasn’t functioning at the level I had been.

Changing seasons in the UK mean changing the type of clothes you wear. The cottons and linens get put away or kept somewhere on hand in case of a winter sun getaway. Sandals make way for boots and heavy shoes.  It was the fitted winter clothes that were far too tight around the middle that alerted me to exactly how much my girth had increased.

Most of us know these days that a real ‘baddie’ is fat round your middle.  Even when I was thinner I didn’t have much of a waist but when even jeggings get hard work to put on… well….

I know the theory of healthy living.  I watch documentaries, have studied the biological basis of psychology, human physiology.  I have been a returner to a certain weight watching program, counting whatever points they say I should.  The latter has changed over the years as updated research on weight loss suggests different balances for proteins, fats and sugars can assist in losing the pounds.

It is the stress and pressure that sends me into the mindset of ‘survival at all costs mode never mind the flippin’ points and I havent got time to go to the loo let alone exercise’. Just bring on the tea and cake – now!  I need to keep going…

It is generally agreed that some stress is good.  I have known someone get ill from a kind of boredom sickness.  No motivation and not enough to interest them in life.  I know that we get good input from being active and gaining achievements.  I am also aware that that needs to be balanced with feeling connected, being a part of something and giving yourself comfort and care.

This balance is very well described by Paul Gilbert, who wrote The Compassionate Mind and Compassion Focussed Therapy.   Likewise, ‘moderation in all things’ is one of those quotes where “I hear what you are saying” but struggle to implement the concept in my life.

I am just not designed that way.  I have a neurodiverse profile, a quick mind, I see things in insights, am better at leaping forwards towards a perceived outcome than following a process.  I take it up with God on a regular basis: “You made me this way!”   He smiles back and almost winks, “Yes, but I didn’t design the lifestyle you have apparently chosen.”

Did I choose the way I have been living, or, like my poor friend the frog, did I just let it get hotter and hotter till it was scalding me?

In moving house, as well as all my books and papers, I can see that I have brought my “stressed lifestyle” choices with me.

I have more things to sort out post move, but not things or stuff.  Rather, what choices and habits do I keep and what do I dump?  What needs a fresh approach, a change of mindset?

These questions are all part of the ‘rehab’ process… and I need to remember it is a PROCESS.  I cannot leap to the end but will walk the path step by step, seeking to enjoy each one.

Enjoy your path and journey!  See you later …

 

 

 

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Rehab – no no no!

Okay don’t panic folks – life rehab not drugs.  Although many things that seem innocuously themselves,  I may use as crutches during difficult times: decaf coffee, red bush tea, low cal breakfast bars,  quaffing grapes (raw and a glass of the fermented type with dinner), reading improving books, educational TV documentaries, going to church, listening to spiritual development teaching…  

It is all about balance and I have gotten out of balance. 

Rehabilitation has many connotations – mostly negative.  Sadly Amy Winehouse, writer of the song of my title,  didn’t manage life balance or rehabilitation.  Tragic waste of talent in her life cut short.  I spent two weeks on an arthritis and joint problem rehab course January two years ago.  Life got so busy  and intense after that I didn’t really get the benefit I should have.  My outcome wasn’t as final as Amy’s but I did end up much where I started.

Since then many loose ends have been tidied up: best beloved has two new hips and a resorted eye lens, we have sold up and moved house, I have retired and come out of retirement into consultancy and writing again.  Another grandchild arrived to bring the total to 16 – 8 of each sort now.   We are delighted with our new home (a separate office for him and me – most important), its location on the coast, the ease of living in a house designed for modern living.  Yes, we loved the Old Toll House and using it as a retreat facility.  However the older grandchildren were getting larger and the smaller ones more mobile and I needed to keep an eye and ear out for them.  A more open plan downstairs became essential.  A larger kitchen helped with the irritation of, ‘you’re in my space again!’

However the time of transition and changes have left me with dodgy joints, an overweight unfit body and the old anxiety and stress levels have risen…  

I recognise it is time to mentally’roll my sleeves up’: get back to the remedial exercises, start swimming and Pilates again, remember to take vitamin D supplements (there seems to be a genetic tendency to get low on this baby) and then address the dreaded Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  I researched the nutritional issues which may be upsetting the gut causing the dreaded bloating and mid section weight gain of stress and hormone related IBS.

The nutritionalist lady I spoke to asked, 

“When were you first diagnosed?”  Can you believe over 30 years ago!  

“Have I tried …. ”    Yes I have – everything!  Don’t get me started…

This well qualified and very sensible lady said she didn’t want me to tackle gut and diet problems if it was going to make me more stressed.   Not turning down a client but making sure the time was right.   I was impressed.   She was right.  I am having dental work done, getting used to exercising again, we are travelling to Africa shortly, then it is Christmas with the family visits round the country… Put something else into that mix and the result may not be pretty.

Rehab of any sort is a process.  It can be tiring.  It takes energy, focus and commitment.  You can’t wish it away to be at the end.  It is the process that makes the change not looking forever and wistfully at the longed for outcome.  I am always nagging my clients to ‘focus on the process NOT the outcome’. 

I am on the way to rehabilitating my mind, body, gut and spirit… I am on a new journey.  One step at a time.  

I will let you know how it goes!

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what do I ‘do’?

I am in the process of re-organising my files, books, papers, computer files and all the material I have collected over the last 16 years in this home, plus the ‘stuff’ that came with me in the previous four moves.

I always find it hard to make up a file title let alone a snappy title for an article, blog piece or book.  Definitions of words have to be checked out for my ideas and they can often give a clue to something quite profound.

My journal writing files are full of typed documents, scribbling, sketches, photos, film clips and music.  How did someone who wasn’t much of a writer at school come to begin pouring out poetry and prose when I was coming up for thirty years old?

Therapy.  Therapeutic. Downloading swirling emotions into words and drawings and onto pages. Better out than in.  Better than clogging up my inner world.

I found this link whilst trawling the internet: http://welldoing.org/article/expressive-writing-for-mental-wellbeing

It was a blog post published Feb 27, 2015 by Dennis Relojo with tags of  anxiety, creativity, depression, wellbeing.
I get anxious, depressed, I am creative and am attempting some form of wellbeing by writing to aid my mental health.
Thank you Dennis Relojo for being able to explain what I ‘do’ and what I have been doing for 35 years!

 

 

recommended: To Let Go Takes Love – a beautiful poem about the power of letting go
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recommended: To Let Go Takes Love – a beautiful poem about the power of letting go

This is one of my most treasured poems and has helped me through many times when I wanted to cling on to someone, something, or some aspect of myself that needed to change. Charles Swindoll’s book The Grace Awakening was a revelation to me when I first read it years ago. It is one I try and re-read every so often just to make sure I am living Grace-fully to myself and others.

Majestic wonder

Majestic

Photograph Vancouver sunset taken by Rob Newey http://www.robneweymusic.com. February 2014.

Seeing this scene filled me with awe at the majesty of nature, but also the technical skill that Rob employed in composing and taking this shot. He is a skilled and talented musician and song writer who also has this creative talent.

The shot is artistically beautiful and well composed with a clarity in the photograph difficult to attain. The colour combinations and the texture of the trees and mountains, the movement in the sky was thrilling. Just to meditate and stop to gaze at this picture took me out of myself and my little world of doings and endless ‘stuff’.

On another level, Vancouver was a special place for me as it was where my long lost half brother had grown up. We met when he was 33 and I was 44. I went to visit with him in this country that my mother and I weren’t taken to by my father when he emigrated. Years ago of course…. I was three when he left.

Crossing the border from USA to Canada was a watershed in that I had been given to believe I wasn’t legally allowed to go into Canada. Funny how things can come into your mind that aren’t at all true! I wonder who put that thought there… Hmm.

So, I may have grown up a Canadian had things been different. Would I have been so impressed by the countryside and scenic beauty of the land had I lived their always? Do I remember to look at the South Downs where we live and appreciate what is around me?

A reminder to me : Embrace all you see Sharman and let it into your soul and spirit so your body may vibrate with the wonder of it all.

A place of serenity, cleansing and escape.

A place of serenity and escape.

A South Coast Beach ( taken by Steve Jenkins): we all need a place to go to ‘be’, to think, to explore our inner world. Living near one of these beaches 15 years ago, the beach was that place for me and for our children. They still come down here from wherever they are living now and recall those times of hanging with friends, chilling, crying, escaping from being ‘grounded’.

All my senses loved the place: the salty smell, the sounds of lapping waves and seagulls calling on a calm day or the crashing of rollers at high tide on a stormy night, could all match my mood and draw me inside myself.

Such a vivid place could also draw out the emotions I didn’t realise were lurking beneath my surface and, as the seaweed and rubbish werer left visible after the storms and tides, so were my deep hurts, confusions and pains.

The cleansing and visibility of what needed to be revealed, no longer stored up clogging my emotions and thinking, would leave a peace, freshness and joy.

It is probably time for me to take a trip there again or to find another such place…

Maybe it is ALWAYS time?

“Don’t ask your…

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

― Harold Whitman

I found this quote in an old Filofax.  Then found a quote that says “getting excited about an idea is not much of a plan”.  Mm

yup, I am good at excited but need a more focussed thinker to help me with my plan. So it’s TEAMWORK folks!

Corrie ten Boom…

Corrie ten Boom: “But, she said, “this is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”

Corrie ten Boom replying to John and Elizabeth Sherrill, co authors of “The Hiding Place”, in their forward. This book was made into a film portraying Corrie and her sister, Betsie (who died in Ravensbruck concentration camp), and  the ten Boom family’s experiences during the Holocaust and the part they played in rescuing many Jews only to be arrested themselves.

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Peace Roses, aging and a mind that is like a Zoo

A Peace rose, lavender and thyme in our garden (C) Sharman Jeffries 2013

A Peace rose, lavender and thyme in our garden (C) Sharman Jeffries 2013

Everything in our home says ‘calm, rest here, be at peace’ – it was designed that way as we renovated our old property.  Even the roses in the garden are ‘Peace’ roses and there is a Quiet Room (summerhouse) at the bottom of the garden.

People come here, walk in the door and say “It’s so peaceful here.  Wonderful.”  Guests come to retreat with us and remark of the restfulness of the entire property.

I am so blessed to live here and offer the serenity of our home to others.  Do I feel that way though?

Not always!  It can be busy running a home and family, several businesses and the retreat.   But the busiest place has been in my mind …

I have attention deficit hyperactive asset (according to Dave Gilpin – see his Twitter page and Hope City Church UK) and have some amazing gifts and abilities but these need some good support to keep them positive.

The actress Betty Davis said: “Getting old isn’t for wimps” and how true that is!  I am now able in the UK to get free prescriptions (very useful – read on…) but have to wait another year and a month to be eligible for free bus pass and state pension (ouch – now you know how old I am!).   Things don’t work as well as they used to.  My slightly off beat brain needs a bit of support, my body needs regular exercise and it likes pretty sensible food and levels of alcohol.

Anywhere, where was I?  Oh yes, that happens too… the old cognitive processing systems seem to need a bit of oiling. I have always had ‘dyslexic moments’ where I could tell you the first letter of the word but not recall the word itself until after four or five shots of trying different ones out.  Now that has increased to a word or a name itself.

I don’t think I am at the stage yet portrayed so honestly in the film about literary and philosophy genius Iris Murdoch.  That was quite upsetting to watch yet so beautiful at the same time. I don’t think my loving spouse need worry about having to run down the road after me quite yet!  

However, back to main topic.  A busy mind, neurodiversity for the aged, and revelations…

I am planning to write up some academic papers long outstanding to submit for publication.  Am I up to the job given my present state of mental health?  Here is where the free prescriptions being so helpful comes in…  I take medication to calm my brain down and medication to calm myself down.  I am not however in a state of lethargy or vagueness… I feel more… LIKE ME!

Unlike Kay Redfield Jamison the fine author of a fine book, “Touched By Fire” (her autobiography “An Unquiet Mind” should also be read -or listened to as it comes on audio book also), I do not have to take and balance levels of Lithium for manic depressive illness (also called Bi polar disorder).

Stephen Fry has done excellent programmes on this illness, which he himself has, interviewing celebrities like Robbie Williams and Carrie Fisher (others are listed on Google: Vivien Leigh, Catherine Zeta Jones, Jean Claude van Damme,  Van Gogh to name a few ) .

I am not having the level of struggles of those creative wonderful people. I am hopeful that my support strategies and my medication can offset my busy mind, my post menopausal weird hormones and my tendency to collect gadgets and any form of information and knowledge indiscriminately – and thus I get all my filing systems, book cases, computer filing, email accounts clogged up.

Stephen Fry also collects gadgets … and sports cars apparently… out of my league!

I am very hopeful and quite excited to enter a new phase in my life and would offer you a poem written about my life without my strategies and supports:

My chattering mind.
It does seems to me that strange animals live inside my brain:
Some are woolly, jittery and ‘tiggerish’, others are still and wise.
 
It’s a funny thing to hear them chattering away to me, some contradicting the other.
There are times they all manage to be still when I’m without distraction or urgency
 
But this doesn’t happen often and extremes of noise or quiet may cause some of them to take fright, some become tired and confused, others begin to rant and rave.
 
Those tell me horrid, depressing things about myself that I don’t think are true. But they do make me doubt and I begin wonder if I am as awful as they say.
 
If I could choose, I would have just one animal in my head, perhaps an owl crossed with a worker ant: one useful, helpful creature instead of the cacophony of my zoo.
 
Imagine how wonderful a person I would be if I just had one crossbreed of practical and wise in my conscious mind, and not this contentious menagerie?
 
Ah well, I suppose I should just accept the diversity of my personal zoo and make sure I don’t pay attention to the wrong animal at the wrong time in the wrong situation. 
 
(c) Sharman Jeffries  19.6.02