Tag Archives: self-care

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

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Have you done it all? The presents, the cards, the food – all the paraphernalia of Christmas… It is easy to forget what it’s really supposed to be about: ‘ peace on earth, goodwill to all mankind.’ Whether you are a Christian or not, these are surely good sentiments to bring to the fore at this time. And if we want them to be a truth in our world, we have to look at how we can create peace and goodwill in our own world.

It starts with ourselves: do you feel goodwill towards yourself? Be kind to yourself during this time, allow yourself to relax and indulge in pleasurable activities. When you are treating yourself with kindness and respect, you are far more likely to treat others in the same way.

And add a little more kindness, just to celebrate the season. Begin with those you know and love: stop and play with the children for a little while; phone a friend and tell them how much they mean to you; invite a neighbour for coffee.

Then spread your goodwill a little further, to strangers you come in contact with: give a homeless person some money when you’re in town; thank someone properly for the way they serve you or deliver something to you; give some attention to someone you are usually too busy to speak to.

And are you feeling peaceful? Let your mind relax and give yourself a break from all the busyness. Just for a day or two, don’t worry about what else you should have done. Write it down on a list somewhere and leave it for when you are ready to pick up the reins again.

And as you create a little peace for yourself, being quiet and at ease, imagine your moment of peace as rays of warmth and calm, gently spreading out over those around you, at home, in the supermarket, in the street. Just stop for a moment and imagine you are enveloping others in that peace blanket.

And maybe in a quiet moment in the morning, or before you go to sleep, you can transmit your peace towards all those who are suffering disruption, war, misery, anger, and imagine them receiving just a moment of calm, of hope.

Let’s remember what this season is really about this Christmas, and celebrate our ability as human beings to find joy, love, peace and kindness in the midst of chaos.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

ARE YOU CAUGHT UP IN THE STORY?

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Do you ever find yourself repeating a familiar and not so useful pattern? Beating yourself up, getting worked up about something relatively trivial, feeling anxious for no good reason, having the same old argument with yourself! Sometimes we just suddenly notice that we’re doing it, and wonder how we managed to get ourselves in such a state. And sometimes we manage to stay there for hours, or even days!

I think of it as being caught up in a story, like when you read or watch something gripping and feel as if you are one of the characters being portrayed. It is a narrowing of perspective, focussing in on something as if it is your whole world and nature. Yet a part of us knows that it is not real, that it is not who we really are, nor the whole story. So we need to know how to ‘un-catch’ ourselves, regain a fuller perspective, and find a more useful way forward.

First of all, we need to recognise that we are caught up in a story and not just sit there. That part is easy: just notice how your body is. When we’re caught up, it literally feels tight, restricted. Our breathing is faster, our shoulders are tense, and our bellies are uncomfortable. We feel like we would if we had been trapped in something unexpectedly. And our minds are out of control, whizzing through all the stupid things we’ve done, or all the possible reasons for being anxious now and in the future, or all the ways in which we’re hard done by.

Once we get better at identifying the signs of being caught up, we can begin to release ourselves more quickly. We need a trigger to start the process – or, more accurately, to begin to stop it! I tend to say something to myself, like: ‘Hang on a minute!’ or ‘This isn’t me’.

Just by breaking into it for a moment, we interrupt the story enough to reduce its stranglehold on us. Sometimes I can then bring myself out: a couple of deep breaths, a step or two back from the narrative in my head, and I can begin to regain some perspective. At that point, I can start to see how I can deal with it differently.

And sometimes I know that I need help. I may have recognised that I’m caught up in the story, but it’s still running. That’s when we need a friend, someone who will play witness to our story and help us to remember that we’re more than that, that we have it out of proportion. Thank God for friends!

Being caught up in the story is neither comfortable nor useful to us. It restricts us in our thinking, our behaviours and our souls. Let’s break out of those nets as quickly as we can, and be the wonderful human beings we really are!

SPENDING TIME

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Have you noticed that we describe time in the same way as we do money: spending, wasting, saving, not enough, running out of. It makes sense because our time is a similar resource: we have a clear ‘budget’ of 24 hours in a day, and once it’s gone, we can’t sneak in an extra couple of hours from another day!

So what do we spend our time on? Do you stop and think about it? Every day, we have the chance to start afresh, with a new budget of hours, and use our time well. To me, this means that we need to consider what we want to feel like at the end of the day, and then decide what will make it likely that we will feel that way.

Of course, we usually have some things that are ‘fixed costs’ in our daily budget of time- sleeping, meals, work – yet we all have some ‘spare’ time that we can make choices about. Do I watch random TV at the end of the day, because I’m tired, or do I watch something that inspires me or makes me laugh? Do I do the housework, or do I spend my time with friends or family?

If we stop to think in terms of how it will make us feel, rather than automatically ploughing through the habitual list of things to get done in the day, we can change the nature of our days. And it is obvious that we haven’t thought this through properly, because we now have so many ‘time-savers’ like internet shopping, washing machines and driers, our own cars rather than public transport etc. etc. When this advance was talked about before it happened, the prediction was that we would all be able to work fewer hours, and have much more leisure time to do what we wanted. Yet we all seem to be busier than ever! My mum had more to do physically than I do – food shopping for her was three times a week by bus – yet she had more time to talk with neighbours, to play a board game with us kids…

If we are saving time, what are we saving it for? What are we spending this spare time on? I don’t know about you, but I know I would prefer to spend it on things that make me feel good at the end of the day.

So let’s start with the fundamentals: what use of my time makes me feel good at the end of the day? You need to consciously think about this and create your own repertoire, so that you have a clear idea of what is good use of your time for you, and can spend any time you save wisely.

It will probably be a mixture of categories, which you adjust according to the demands of that particular day, and your mood in the morning, to give you a balance in the day. For example, if I have been working all day, I may want to spend some of my spare time doing something physical instead of mental, or I may want to do something relaxing and quiet.

Possible categories of daily activities for your repertoire

I have developed a set of categories that help me to find a balance in my days, so they may be a useful starter for 10 for you.

  1. I like to feel I’ve achieved something in the day: done some work, done some writing, answered some emails, sorted or cleared something (Careful! This list can take over!) So I choose 1 or 2 priorities in a day.
  2. I like to have spent some of my time doing something physical: pilates, a walk, some gardening. It feels good to use my body and nowadays that isn’t built into our normal days like it was for my mum.
  3. I like to have spent some of my time in contact with others: time with friends or family, phone calls, chatting to the sales assistant – something which is proper human interaction (facebook doesn’t count!)
  4. I like to have some stimulation in my day, something to get my creative mind going: writing, a documentary or article on something that interests me, a good conversation.
  5. I feel good if I can just be for a little while, time to keep it all in perspective, to assess where I’m up to.
  6. And I feel good if I have allowed myself some time to just relax and do something I enjoy: a good movie, reading a good book, pursuing a hobby.

This sounds like being busy all day when I spell it out like this, doesn’t it! And of course in some sense it is – after all we do all use our time each day in some way or another. The difference is that by thinking about the different ways in which I can use my time, I am more likely to keep a balance and not waste my time on things that don’t enrich my day.

Notice that some of the things we have been taught to think of as a waste of time are really valuable. Waste of time seems to have become linked to not having a result or product that is tangible, instead of what is truly a waste of our time – engaging in activities that don’t add anything to our feeling of well-being. Which is better for our soul, clearing our in-box or taking 15 minutes to stroll in the fresh air on a pleasant autumn day?

The criterion for whether something is a waste of time is not the activity itself, it’s how you feel at the end of it.

And remember that often the things that make all the difference to how we feel at the end of the day don’t actually use that much time. Just 15 minutes of sitting back and just drifting can make us feel so much better when we resume what we were doing. And some categories can be catered for in one activity: I can be with friends and have stimulating conversation, and relax – what good use of my time resource!!

So, how are you spending your time today? You can’t save it for tomorrow: the budget disappears at the end of each day. And each morning you have a new budget, so there is always another chance to choose to spend your time in a way that makes you feel good, and sends you to bed saying: ‘That was a good day!’

 

WHAT ARE YOU NOTICING?

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I am still surprised by how different our interpretations of the world around us can be. It is a fascinating phenomenon that brings into question whether there is such a thing as a set reality or the truth of the matter, because whatever you consider to be ‘the fact’, someone else believes the opposite.

When I was studying with John Grinder, he gave me an invaluable way of approaching this. He suggested that, rather than trying to prove whether something was true or right, we paid attention instead to whether it was useful to us to believe that it was true or right.

This takes us to recognising the effect of that belief on us: whether it makes us feel better or worse; whether it enhances our attitude or behaviour or leaves us suspicious, disempowered, miserable.

I used to be someone who ‘knew’ that life was stressful, that the world was messy, that we were victims of circumstance – the list goes on and on! I had absorbed a lot of the cultural norms for how I viewed the world and the effect on me was pretty disastrous! I found life hard, the days full of problems or potential problems, and if I lifted my head above my daily concerns, the state of the world looked rather awful as well. I was a prime candidate for his message!

So I began to gradually shift my perspective, looking for more useful things to notice, so that I could begin to change my beliefs about how things were. I began to notice how much of what I did worked fine, how many people were pleasant and kind, what good things were happening in the world.

This doesn’t mean denying the bad bits and living in cloud cuckoo land. It is just about a re-balancing of perspective, so that you feel more able to handle the crap that comes your way with a more constructive attitude, because you can see that the crap is not the full story.

So just consider your average day, and notice how much of it goes well: you can eat and drink things you like for your meals; you are generally healthy; you enjoy the company of most of those you spend time with; your work or other activities are mostly straightforward for you to achieve; you get pleasure out of your leisure time. Of course there are glitches occasionally, but most of it is pretty good. (And if it isn’t, then for goodness’ sake do something about it!) If you notice and appreciate what works in your life, it feels better and you can enhance your energy to deal with those glitches.

And don’t allow the tendency of our media to emphasise the disasters and horrid human behaviour to colour your whole view of the world. Find out about the good things that are happening: the kindness of people, the innovative approaches to problems, the only newspaper I read is called Positive News and I find it an enlightening re-balancing of reporting, telling me about the good things in our world.

I’m not proposing this adjustment of what you notice and pay attention to in order to turn us all into naïve optimists – or maybe I am! Because it is optimists who enjoy their lives, and more than that, make a difference in the world. They are only called naïve by cynics!

It is useful to believe that your life works pretty well, that people are generally good, that things can and do get better. It encourages you to notice what confirms these beliefs and to actively take part in building those confirmations.

Come on, let’s count those blessings, and believe life is good – isn’t it what we’re here for?

 

YOUR ENERGY BANK

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Have you ever noticed how your energy levels vary significantly from day to day, week to week? I think of it as being like a bank account: sometimes there’s quite a healthy balance and then a big bill comes in and you’re back in the red again! I find this a useful analogy because it reminds us that we need to monitor our energy bank balance, just as we do our financial affairs.

We need the basic regular incoming of energy: the ways in which we give ourselves energy to fulfil our daily requirements. There are the straightforward physical needs: sleep, food, drink, and physical movement. Then there are the metal stimuli to keep our minds active and alert, which may be our work, reading, or crosswords and Sudoku! And the third category is those things that give us emotional energy: good conversation, activities we really enjoy, giving and receiving love and affection.

These categories of energy supply are like three different sources of income, and we need input from all three to ensure we have a good energy balance. It is not enough to keep one of these topped up, and neglect the others, because it is the combination of them that forms our energy levels. So to maintain our regular ‘income’ of energy, we need to ensure that we actively build our energy physically, mentally and emotionally.

As we become aware of how we can actively fulfil our energy requirements, we begin to accumulate a repertoire of ways of enhancing our energy levels, should we need to, or want to. And the good thing about energy income is that we can easily increase our income: it is not dependent on outside sources, it is within our control to enhance those levels through things we choose to do or not do.

Then we need to assess what drains our energy, empties the account. You do know this: there are certain activities and interactions that leave us feeling drained or use up a lot of our energy. The first question is, can we limit those or even eliminate them? Usually these energy-drainers are linked to things we do out of duty or obligation. Now I’m not suggesting that we don’t do them any more – unless we really don’t need to and only do it from force of habit – but we can certainly reduce their impact.

If you want to maintain your good relationship with your aunt/brother/old friend, but find them draining, arrange to see them in a way that allows you to limit the time you spend with them. If you need to sort your emails regularly, but it’s an activity you don’t like, then allocate specific times to it. What we can also do, having reduced the impact of our energy-drainers, is make sure we have some energy boosters in place for either before or after, or both!

And as we become more aware of what empties our energy account fast for us, we can be more careful about how many of those drainers we allow into our lives. Many of us have too many energy expenditures and it is hard to keep that balance topped up.

I want to make a final point about our energy banks. The sources of energy for us, and the things that drain us, may not be consistent. Sometimes going for a walk is just what we need, and sometimes that would be just a step too far, so to speak! Sometimes a friend’s company re-energises us, and sometimes we just want to be quiet and on our own to recover our energy levels. So keeping your energy bank balance healthy requires staying aware of your own wisdom and intuition.

When our energy levels are down, we don’t think straight, or feel good, and everything can become draining, causing enormous overdraughts on the account very quickly. The good news is that there are always sources of energy within our control, no matter what’s going on in our world, so when we are feeling drained it is always possible to do something about it.

Identify your sources of energy, use them, keep topping up your balance, and life gets easier. Go on, find an energy topper now, and allow yourself to use it!!

THE GIFT OF LAUGHTER

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‘God gave us a gift of smiles and laughter – use them.’ The Dalai Lama.

Oh, isn’t it lovely to laugh wholeheartedly! I was watching an interview with the Dalai Lama when he said the above quote, and boy does he live what he preaches – he is constantly smiling or laughing. And I realised that every time he smiled or laughed, I did too – his joy was so infectious.

It feels as if our whole body is grateful when we laugh: our muscles relax, our hearts open, and it feels as if we let go of all our tensions. And of course we do! There is a saying: ‘Laughter is the best medicine.’ It automatically sets off the positive health-giving chemicals in us, it makes us breathe more deeply and oxygenate our bodies, and it releases tensions in our muscles. What an easy way to enhance our health!

And it does more than just enhance our physical health. At the same time as letting go of our physical tensions, we stop, for a moment, holding on to our mental tensions. Our minds go quiet, that damn voice in our heads shuts up, and we just allow ourselves to be in this moment of joy. Mentally we become whole again, leaving behind our fears and worries.

Those moments of laughter free us from being caught up in our story, giving us space to regain perspective and remember who we really are. So thank God for those who make us laugh: the comedian, the pet’s antics, the small child, the friends, and the Dalai Lama!

And remember that laughter is infectious. If you see someone laughing, it is hard to resist joining in: our facial muscles automatically copy those of someone we’re watching – we mirror them at a micro-muscular level – so you’re already halfway there. It doesn’t take much to go all the way and join in, and it is a really enjoyable thing to do.

So for goodness’ sake, find reasons to laugh every day, allow yourself to be infected by the laughter of others, and actively use this gentle, God-given gift to keep yourself healthy.

ONE STEP AT A TIME

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It’s a common maxim: ‘if it looks too big to tackle, break it down into small chunks.’ We’ve all heard it, and if you’re like me, often forget it! I think the clue is in the first part – ‘if it looks too big’. Somehow we assume that this is some objective measurement, that it only applies when everyone would say that it was too big to deal with in one go. Yet in my experience, this is about personal perception, not what someone else might think. In fact, it doesn’t even stay constant in our own perception, because that changes depending on our mood, our energy levels, our thinking about it.

I used to disappoint myself a lot more, when I assessed the size of something I had to do by some external measure. I would tell myself that I should be able to do whatever it was in the time I had, and that I needed to just get on with it. And of course, I often adopted avoidance procedures, or put it off till I was forced to do it by deadlines, or failed to get it completed, if there were no deadlines to meet.

Eventually, I began to realise that if I perceived something as daunting or overwhelming, it would elicit these non- useful behaviours in me, or at the very least, leave me exhausted by the end of it, even if it were only a small thing to do objectively. Furthermore, this was doing the opposite of what I intended: it was resulting in negative results and negative feelings, instead of positive energy and a sense of achievement.

So I began to experiment with different ways of approaching the things I have to do.

Firstly, accept that it feels daunting to you. It doesn’t matter if this is because it’s a big job, or because you don’t really like doing this sort of thing, or just because you’re not in the mood for it. If that sinking feeling is there, then it’s valid, and it’s time to break the task down.

I’m an expert on this – I can break down even the smallest jobs! There are two ways to break down a job into smaller pieces: time you spend on it, and amount of it you do. For example, I might say I’ll clear 10 emails, or that I’ll spend 20 minutes clearing some emails. Or I might choose to clear one flowerbed of weeds, or spend half an hour doing some weeding in the garden. It is important to keep the amount you set yourself small and easily achievable, so that it has the opposite effect of the original job – it is going to be easy to feel you’ve achieved something.

It is also important to let go of ‘in the right order’. Often a task looks daunting because of what we think we have to do first, so do something else that will contribute to the overall, but looks easier. For example, rather than starting by deciding how you want to organise that messy garage of yours, or by taking everything out on to the lawn – that commits you to doing a lot of it! – why not just take a black bag in there and wander around putting the obvious rubbish in it. Doing some of the smaller steps involved in the job means that you can cumulatively reduce the size of the job overall, and it becomes less daunting.

Now doing this breakdown into small, bite-sized chunks, has several neat tricks built into it:

  • It’s easy to find 10 or 20 minute slots, and you can even reward yourself afterwards by doing something you like doing!
  • You’re more motivated to do a bit more, on another day – the next chunk – and the overall job reduces to a manageable size remarkably quickly.
  • You often find that, once you start, you can easily do more than you have set yourself originally, so you feel an extra sense of achievement!
  • Because it’s easy, each chunk energises you rather than leaving you feeling tired and resentful.

 

I know you all know this really, but I also know that we all tend to save the technique for those officially big projects we have to do occasionally, the ones where we feel we can justify taking small steps towards it. What nonsense is that! If it’s something I can’t face doing, then I need the technique of breaking it down – it’s a simple emotional equation. Otherwise we are forcing ourselves against our natural flow, and that is a terrible waste of energy.

Eat your ‘elephant’ in bite-sized chunks of course, but eat your ‘tiny mouse’ in the same way and give yourself permission to make your life easier!

SPENDING YOUR TIME WISELY

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We all do it – waste our time – well, I certainly do! And I have been thinking about how we can do something about it.

Firstly, I want to be clear about this: if we are going to spend our time wisely we need to clarify what is a waste of time. Our culture has become one of doing not being, which means we often call something a waste of time because it wasn’t productive, rather than because it really did waste time.

Wasting time is when you feel like you’ve lost energy rather than gained it, as you finish whatever you were doing. Examples abound in our everyday life: the row with someone that you fell into; the mindless watching of whatever happens to be on the TV; the avoidance procedures which then tighten the deadline you had in the first place; the time spent worrying about something that didn’t actually happen.

However, that walk you took to clear your mind, that time spent talking with a friend, playing with your child – these are not a waste of time, even though they have no obvious ‘product’, because you feel better afterwards, they give you positive energy. So spending your time wisely means gaining energy through the use of your time, and using your inner assessment of your energy levels as your gauge, not some cultural norm of being busy.

This requires that we create our own unique version of spending time that works for us.

  1. Notice, in the course of your day, what gives you energy and what drains you.

Then you will develop your own sense of how your energy levels are affected by what you do with your time.

  1. Start noticing the times when you contradict your own measure of positive energy

This is when we know that we feel better for it, but then contradict the positive effect by imposing a cultural norm on it: ‘ I shouldn’t go for a walk before I’ve finished this task’ or ‘ I shouldn’t read a chapter of my book until I’ve done my chores’. The give-away is the ‘shouldn’t’ – it indicates that we are taking on someone else’s definition of wasting time. So change these to: ‘ if I go for a walk first, I will finish this task more effectively’ or ‘ if I read a chapter of my book first, I will be more ready to do the chores’.

  1. Notice what helps you to spend your time wisely

Maybe you are more effective in the morning than in the afternoon – I know I write best after my second cup of coffee! Maybe you are more productive if you take a break every half hour. Maybe you function better if you allow yourself time to plan your day in the morning or reflect on your day in the evening.

  1. Allow yourself the non-productive energy givers

Getting lots done but being exhausted by t is not good for you! If you actually analyse it, you will find that it isn’t effective either; it is forced productivity at a high cost. The paradox is that if we allow ourselves that time out that isn’t productive, and spend our time wisely, we often achieve more in the longer–term, without wearing ourselves out. We weren’t designed to be robots, and just mechanically go through our days. We are organic creatures, designed to work rest and play, to ebb and flow. We are also designed to need the emotional ‘food’ of good company, time to stop, enjoying our time, to be at our best. We waste time because we are trying to push ourselves to be something we’re not designed for, and our inner wisdom rebels against that pushing.

We all have an allotted span of time on this earth. And it is irreplaceable – once it’s gone, it’s gone. Let’s not waste it, let’s spend it wisely, and make that time we have worthwhile and full of energy.

THE SOUL FOOD OF MUSIC

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I love music don’t you? We won’t all love the same songs or tunes of course, but all of us do have favourites – I have never met anyone who didn’t like any music at all. Music evokes fond memories, makes us smile, moves our hearts, and feeds our soul – so why don’t we use that music to make us feel good ore often?

When I was a small child, the music played in our home was either on the gramophone (the old record players that were a major piece of furniture, for those of you too young to remember!) or on the radio. It was not for background filler, we actively listened to it. And it was a source of great delight when I got a red Dansette record player that would take 6 singles at once and play them automatically – the next stage in the evolution of record players. Because a new record was a special treat, we listened to it avidly, over and over again, until it was part of the fabric of our being.

Then, as a teenager, I discovered live music. In those days, a tour wasn’t one main act and a supporting act. It was a whole plethora of bands and singers, each doing maybe 15 minutes of their particular music. Despite the often poor sound quality, we had the excitement of actually seeing the performers, and the atmosphere created by a whole bunch of fans watching their favourite bands and singers. I was well and truly hooked!

Only later in life did I begin to wonder what made music, especially live music, so compelling. At the time, I just knew that the experience transported me, took me out of my self-conscious teenage self, and allowed me to feel joyous and free of the constraints of everyday life.

Now I realise that music we love reaches straight into our hearts, bypassing our judging heads: we only get caught in our heads if we don’t like what we hear. This has to be good for us – we spend far too much time in our heads rather than our hearts. It also affects our emotions directly – music can make us feel calm, joyous, uplifted, happy, energised – wow! What else has such a direct effect on our mood?

When I first got hooked on music, it was only available in a limited way. Nowadays we can easily listen to almost anything we can think of, and we can all watch live music on U-tube even if we don’t go to concerts (although I would still recommend the live performance if you can get there).

So why do we deprive ourselves of this instant treat? It feeds our soul, it allows us to choose how we feel, it enlivens us, and it’s easily accessible – so what’s stopping us? Only our silly heads that tell us it’s not the right time, or we don’t deserve that treat. It’s nonsense!

This isn’t s step-by step reminder to look after ourselves in this way. It’s a one-stop decision. You deserve to listen to some music you love at least once a day: do it today, and tomorrow, and the next day. Stop listening to the news – that doesn’t make you feel good! Pull out that favourite music and feed your soul!

WHAT IS ‘NORMAL?’

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Recently someone described me as abnormal – and I decided that it was a compliment! It got me to thinking about what normal is. The word means: ‘according to the customs and habits of the time or place.’ It is the accepted way of being and behaving within a specific context. We also call this being conformist.

Now, at some level, we all need to conform or fit in. There are laws to hold us in check: if I don’t pay for my utilities, or injure someone deliberately, I will be called to account.

There are also some universal ‘laws’: being kind and courteous, doing no harm, which most of us live by, because they are fundamental human values, and we are basically decent human beings.

However, most of the rules we live by without even thinking about it are not in these two categories. They are just the way we do things in our culture. To take a simple example, most people take a shower every day. Yet when I was young, we just had a bath every week – there weren’t showers in most homes. And it was not that long ago that even baths were a special occasion, indulged in once a year!

Again, having a mobile phone is now considered the norm – in fact, it has to be a smartphone, because then you can respond to emails as well, and be available 24/7 by one means or another. Yet I remember when lots of people didn’t even have a landline, and the phone-box at the end of the street was used if there were an emergency. Otherwise you wrote letters.

These examples just illustrate how ‘normal’ changes over time and is an ephemeral phenomenon. So it is worth questioning whether you feel that the norm suits you, or whether you want to create a new ‘normal’ that fits you better and makes your life feel better.

Now, anyone who knows me will know that conforming is not my strong suit. In fact, I am actively working on being who I really am, rather than who I am expected to be. And I believe that we are lucky in this day and age, because we have so many more choices of ways of being and behaving in the world. We can call on different examples from all over the world and from history, because that information is readily available, and do a ‘pick’n’mix’ selection of what suits our personality and preferences.

So let’s begin to make conscious choices, to establish our own personal norms, instead of being and behaving normally. Lets’ question the norm before we just conform to it.

How do we do this?

  1. Once a day notice something that you’re doing that’s habitual: answering the phone as soon as it rings; starting on dinner as soon as you get in from work; agreeing to do something you don’t really want to do – you’ll find lots of examples. Now check this particular behaviour out: are you doing it because you feel better if you do, or are you doing it because ‘people do’ or ‘they’ expect you to.
  2. If it makes you feel better, then it’s fine to carry on.
  3. If it doesn’t make you feel better, then ask yourself: ‘How would I prefer to behave?’ ‘What would feel like a better fit for me?’
  4. Next time that habitual behaviour comes up, experiment with a different approach: let the phone go to voicemail, and ring them back if you really want to speak with them now; sit for five minutes and have a cuppa before you do dinner; ask for time to consider before you say yes.
  5. If the experiment works for you, start to do it more often, until it becomes you new normal. If it doesn’t, try something different until you find what does.

Be warned, this can create two different forms of pressure to return to old habits – after all, they are pretty ingrained in us.

  1. Others expect you to behave as you always have behaved, and will ask you why you didn’t or in some way make you feel guilty for changing.
  2. Even more insidious is our own mind, which tells us we are causing a problem or upsetting others even when there’s no evidence for it.

The good news is that if you stick to your guns, it becomes easier, and others come to accept your new normal.

So come on, make life work a little better for you by changing those ‘rules’ you’ve been living by that don’t really fit for you. Join me in being abnormal and proud of it!