Mind, Body & Scroll

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

2012-02-27T19:23:00.002Z

I wrote a rememberance last week about my great aunt who passed away. And I mentioned a story involving a suckling pig. My dad read my blog post out at the memorial service and a cousin emailed my mom a photo of said event, in which I happen to look on in shock (horror? fascination?) at the piglet. Thought you might be interested:

A picture really is worth a thousand words.

I love old photos -- particularly the fashion. I am rocking red overalls. It also gives me hope that when I go gray, perhaps I could actually go blonde again? When you lived in 1981 you had no idea what it actually looked like (scary), so it's cool to revisit the experience.

I won't write a long post this week as I am running behind on February's New Year's resolution project, which actually was January's, which over ran into February. You see? This is the problem with New Year's resolutions.

So now I have two days to finish clearing off my netbook so I can pass it onto a friend and figure out how to recycle my old blackberry (this year's first project was about updating my technology).

Then in March, I'm onto the wedding photos. This means actually printing out and framing our wedding photos and displaying them (just in time for our first anniversary). It also includes making copies for my in-laws and putting together some albums for everyone.

The part I forgot about getting projects done is accountability. So please remember to bug me in March about whether or not I'm working on those photos. It's important, because after all, someday, they will be worth a thousand words.

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Problem? What Problem?

2012-02-20T19:19:00.001Z

Most troubles, when left to their own devices, go away. Would you agree?

After reading the fabulous A New Earth, I've been trying to put the lessons learned to use. It's not supposed to be difficult because, after all, it's just a shift in consciousness – you don't have to really do anything. Still, old habits die hard, and I just find it so easy to worry.

So I got to thinking about what my 'problems' really were and wondered if it was possible to stop worrying about them?

I've come to the conclusion that there are three things that happen when you leave your problems to sort themselves out:

First, you relax. You don't worry about the problem anymore and therefore your mind becomes free to come up with a creative way to solve the problem. Richard Carlson calls this the 'back burner' effect. If you have some big problem you don't know the answer to, just get on with other things. Your subconscious mind will 'work' on the problem, but that pesky ego part of the brain that really blows everything out of proportion and gets itself tied into knots won't get involved. This happens to me all the time with work difficulties or writing problems. I can't figure out how to get something done so I just stop thinking about it. Usually when I am on the train or on a walk somewhere a solution will just pop into my head out of nowhere. Putting problems on the back burner really does work.

Second, it gives you the space to assess if it really is a problem. Sometimes 'problems' are just uncertainties or worries you've created. (Actually, most of the time that's what they are.) If you tell yourself that a problem will sort itself out, sometimes that's just the right amount of space you need to realize that it isn't really a problem. And, if you do decide there is a problem, and there's something you can do about it, then you can come at it from a relaxed, clear mindset, instead of a flustered, angry one.

Third, letting problems sort themselves out gives the universe time to, well, actually sort it out. Most things aren't really in our control. You may decide that you can't stand your boss and you don't know what to do about it. But then your boss might get transferred, or a new job opportunity comes up. You don't have to do something about everything. Sometimes all you need is a little acceptance and before you know it, the situation will have changed.

I know that many would argue that real problems don't go away, that there is always something to worry about and bad things do happen. And while bad things may happen, so much of what we worry about is in our mind. When you think about the now – the right now – what really is the problem?

So for now, I'm taking a stab at truly believing that my problems will get sorted out and leaving them to it, so that I can relax and actually enjoy my life.

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Great Aunt Ruthie

2012-02-14T20:22:00.005Z

My great Aunt Ruth died a few weeks ago. I won’t be able to be there for the memorial service on Saturday, so I wanted to write a remembrance of her – she was a really special lady.

Aunt Ruthie gave me my first real Christmas tree. She and Uncle Rolland brought it to our house along with red shiny Christmas ornaments. She showed me how you put the small ones at the top of the tree and the larger ones near the bottom. She gave me dolls from China and Hawaii. She made cotton candy at the local fair. She had a certain magic to her.

We cousins always liked going to Ruthie’s. Perhaps it was the cookies we got to eat in the kitchen on first arriving. Or the fact that there was always a treat on the pillow of the bed we were sleeping in. But then there was the plant incident. We were running around the house and I knocked over a plant. She got really mad – I’ll never forget that. Knocking over plants was not the sort of thing you did at Aunt Ruth’s house.

As a young child who hadn’t been much further than the bounds of New York state, my first glimpse into the worlds beyond came from sitting on the floor in a darkened room as Ruth (and Rolland) conveyed their trips to exotic places like Europe, Japan and China, through the clicks of a slide slow carousel projected on a real screen. It felt like going to the movies, but better, as they narrated, which often included a slightly heated ‘discussion’ of where the photo was actually taken.

Then there was the Thanksgiving when Ruth and Uncle Doug plotted together to surprise the family with a suckling pig, complete with a shiny red apple in its mouth. I was five and I’ll never forget the mix of fascination and (frankly) terror, seeing that piglet brought out on a platter.

The thing about Ruthie was that she never did anything half way. When you arrived at her house she always had something new to show you. There were artifacts from the latest trip overseas, or a tour of the two or three Christmas trees, each with their own theme. She loved so much to create beautiful things, whether they were gingerbread houses or pristine jars of real jam preserve. And the joy that she found in crafting things shone through in the excitement she had of sharing these treasures.

I miss you, Ruthie.

Book Review: A New Earth

2012-02-05T19:08:00.000Z

Now, some people love self-help books and others groan at the thought of them (guess which one I am). So let me start this post off with a question:

Do you ever wonder when you're going to be happy? Do you feel like you live in a constant state of wanting things to be better, waiting for the day when you have less stress and find some peace? Do you often find yourself thinking that you will worry less and be happier when [fill in the blank] happens?

The first self-help book I ever read that really started to get at the root of these issues was Richard Carlson’s Stop Thinking, Start Living. It was the first time I realized that perhaps I was causing my own unhappiness. That I really didn’t need things to be a certain way for everything to be OK.

I will continue to recommend Stop Thinking, Start Living as a must-read, but A New Earth: Create A Better Life by Eckhardt Tolle (you may know him as the author of The Power of Now) is the newest must-have self-help book to sit on my bookshelf.

Tolle explains that the root of all our suffering comes from a lack of awareness of the fact that the person we know to be 'I' is split into two parts – consciousness and the ego. The ego is that part of your brain that you 'hear' all the time. The thinking part. It spends its time getting attached to things, not just material things, but any kind of form. It likes to be right (and for others to be wrong). And it's also a big fan of drama and storytelling. It is – essentially – our identity, our personality.

Its purpose is to survive, no matter what, so it attaches to whatever it can. For example, if you decided to rid yourself of the ego and attachment by renouncing all possessions, the ego would look for something else, say attachment to anti-consumerism. How many people do you know who have tried to search for greater meaning through something and then become unbearable with the steadfastness with which they attach to it?

Understanding the idea of consciousness versus ego is not an easy one – for the very fact that we are so strongly identified with our ego. But Tolle does an amazing job of making it all so clear, through examples and approaching the concept in many different ways until you find your perspective slowly shifting.

I believe (myself included) that most of us experience a background unhappiness without realizing that we are creating this ourselves. The ego makes assumptions – unexamined thoughts that are then confused with reality. As Tolle himself says, "Listen to people’s stories and they could all be entitled 'Why I Cannot Be at Peace Now.'"

And how to be at peace now? We’ve all heard it before, but by making peace with the present moment. The problem is that people don't really believe this will work. They live the future, they live in the past, and they are skeptical that if they just focused on what they were doing right now, at this very moment, that nothing would change., nothing would get better.

Read the whole book, I say. Because it will tell you again and again in different ways, effectively drumming it into your head so you can finally start putting it into practice:

To the ego, the present moment is, at best, only useful as a means to an end. It gets you to some future moment that is considered more important, even though the future never comes except as the present moment and is therefore never more than a thought in your head. In other words, you are never fully here because you are always busy trying to get elsewhere.

And the best part? You don’t really have to do that much to make peace with the present. All that is required is a subtle shift in consciousness; an acknowledgement that maybe there is a different way. And it might just get you that one step closer to peace.

P.S. I clearly thought this book was fantastic. However, I will caution that there is a chapter on the 'Pain-Body' which I thought was a little out there (and I am pretty liberal when I read these books). You'll know when you get to it. I suppose I am not sure I agree with his assessment of collective pain-bodies, particularly the bit about women.

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Coming Home (Again)

2012-02-01T20:00:00.000Z

Before Christmas I had been feeling homesick – really homesick. If you want proof, you can have a little read this of my ridiculous posting on sandwiches. The homesickness had clearly reached crisis level.

But what I found is that the only cure I needed was three weeks at home in New York over the holidays. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things that I genuinely miss about my life in the United States, mainly the people – my friends and family – and pizza by the slice, and of course meatball sandwiches. (Mozzarella sticks also rank up there, but let's not go too crazy.)

I loved my time at home, but like any three weeks of my life there were ups and downs. There was exhaustion from jet lag, work stress (I worked from my New York office for some of it), and adjusting to my parents' love of a chilly abode. Christmas day even included a hearty snooze in my parents' walk-in closet, which to clarify for those English readers who have been asking me about it, is more like a little dressing room. But there was also lots of time to see – nearly – all of my friends and family based locally. It was truly great to be there for such a long time. I'm just never there long enough usually to actually miss London.

Which is what happened this time. I started yearning to go 'home', to get back to my own house (where I control the thermostat) and the air is damp enough that my hair has less static electricity trouble.

This is a recurring theme for me ('home' not static), and one that I've been thinking about a lot recently. Is it because I am approaching my 10-year anniversary of life in the U.K. in May 2012?

Perhaps. But what I decided this Christmas trip is that home is where your life is – and at this moment, for me, this is London.

So what is homesickness, really? Is it longing for home or is it just longing for life as you would prefer it to be? When I used to come to London for work, long before I actually lived here, I would fantasize about what life would be like living here. And it wasn't a complete picture of course, just a flashy image of an exciting ex-pat life, nothing like the rich complexity of life as it actually is, including the tough stuff.

In that case, homesickness is probably just the common yearning we all have as humans for things to be easier and better, instead of focusing on the good things we already have.

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Is It Too Late For a New Year's Resolution Post?

2012-01-29T20:00:00.004Z

Like any self-help reading, list making, delusional perfectionist, I have always loved New Year's resolutions. But these days I am a fan of making one resolution. I have the rest of the year to try to improve myself in other ways anyway.

Last year my one resolution was: Music. I was going to go to more live shows, seek out new bands and update my ipod. Or something like that.

The only music I really got involved in was choosing our wedding playlist and figuring out how to program our new stereo (wedding gift) to Radio 3 and Magic FM (just kidding, I also put XFM on there, because, of course, I am very indie). But even better, after a week in

Croatia

watching German MTV, I learned who Pit Bull is, so I consider last year's resolution a resounding success!

So this year's resolution is called: Projects

It all came about from a conversation I had with a friend over a bottle of wine. We were lamenting about all the projects we could never get done, things like sorting through photos or cleaning out this or that, because there was always something more interesting to do. Mainly sitting together over a bottle of wine to discuss such burning issues.

And here was my thought on the matter. I believe that sometimes the reason I (and feasibly other people) never get around to those projects just waiting in the wings is that 1) there are too many, which is overwhelming and 2) there is no deadline.

So what I proposed to my friend is that we try the one-month, one-project approach. That would mean by the end of the year we would have completed 12 projects. Which, in my opinion, sounds like a whole lot.

January's project for me has been 'technology' and has mainly consisted so far of spending a lot of money on a new laptop and getting a souped-up smart phone whose operating system still somewhat baffles me. I had to actually call Vodafone to figure out how to lock it. But I have downloaded some apps and have even been reading books on it as an experiment in e-reading (not so bad, actually).

Next month's project… wedding photos! Just in time for our one-year anniversary, I would like to have at least one photo from our wedding framed and on display. I was pretty embarrassed in December when we had some of the Hub's family over and there was nary a wedding photo in sight. Although with the Hub's lack of enthusiasm for photos in general (he hasn't even looked properly through our wedding ones) perhaps they just thought I was being a supportive good wife?

Happy (Belated) New Year's!

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Friday Find: Joy In Just One New Year's Resolution?

Holiday Chaos

2012-01-08T23:27:00.000Z

There are so many things that I love about the holidays. From Halloween to the day after New Year's, there are amazing things like trees turning autumn colors, turkey and stuffing, Christmas carols, mulled wine and trees with twinkling lights. I love buying presents for people that I know they will like. I love the feeling of sitting at Heathrow anticipating my trip home to New York, secure in the knowledge that my dad will be making me nice meals and I can eat as many pizza slices at New York delis as I want.

But how are the holidays really? Are they as sparkling, glittery and as filled with glee as I always anticipate?

This year the sewer line in my Grandmother's house backed up and all 11 members of my dad's side of the family had to decamp to my parents' house. We were not at all prepared – in fact, the two 'guest' rooms only have single beds in them. But with the help of air mattresses and cots, we all piled in and made do. My brother and I slept in my parents' room with them (with me in the walk-in closet) and my dad just happened to have a ham in the fridge that we ate for Christmas dinner.

And it was all going so well until my brother's dog ate an entire bar of dark chocolate and had to be rushed to the pet emergency room so vomiting could be induced.

It was certainly not a perfect Christmas. Although it was certainly memorable.

No matter how good your life is, no matter how many things you have to celebrate, I always think of the holidays as a time to imagine that other people must be having a better time – a more perfect family and of course a more perfect holiday celebration.

So I have decided to create my own new Christmas tradition – Christmas as a reminder to celebrate the chaos of life. The fact that life – and in particular family – can never be perfect. That sewer lines will back up and dogs will eat toxic substances just because they taste so good. But I often need a reminder that beauty doesn't equal order or perfection.

I have a lot of good memories of this Christmas in New York – there certainly was a lot of laughter. And I'm pretty sure the Hub is glad he arrived after Christmas day – otherwise he would have been sleeping in the closet with me. I'm still in New York, by the way, and it's bloody cold (-5 degrees celcius). And it's making me really appreciate England at the moment.

Hesitation Builds Resistance

2011-12-09T17:40:00.000Z

I was at my yoga class the other day and the teacher urged us all to get into the next posture as quickly as possible. "Hesitation creates resistance," she counselled. I couldn't stop thinking about the phrase.

As someone who feels like she is constantly struggling with procrastination demons, it made me wonder if the crux of all my procrastinating was actually hesitation itself.

Recently I've been thrust into a procrastination-free zone at work. I sit right next to my new boss. And yes, there are ways of procrastination that are not immediately obvious to the person sitting next to me, such as staring out the window or staring at objects on my desk. However, there is a limit to the time one can spend doing these things.

So I am forced to just get on with my work. And as much as I hate starting tasks, once I have started, I am fine – absorbed and in-the-flow, so to speak. And even when I get stuck on something difficult, I am forced to confront it straight away instead of procrastinating. It even helps to have my boss right there – he can't avoid answering my questions!

Which makes me think that (at least for me), it really is the hesitation that's creating the resistance.

But I'm still not sure how to create the-boss-sitting-next-to-you effect for other dreaded tasks in life, such as getting your taxes done or clearing out stacks of papers at home.

Perhaps that is why the idea of working on something for only a few minutes (many experts recommend 15 minutes or 30) can get people over that dreaded moment of starting. It's one of the tools recommended in The Now Habit, one of the best things I've ever read on procrastination.

I also wonder, if like in yoga, that it helps to think about any task as a physical one. Sometimes instead of thinking that I will start working on an article I just tell myself that I'm "just opening up Word." It's the same reason why I go through all my work emails (and actually respond or write down tasks in my to-do list) first thing – it seems like a harmless task, but it gets me in the work 'mood' and soon I forget that I wasn't really interested in working.

It's worth thinking about ways to overcome hesitation, because if all it does is build resistance, then it would be a really good idea to find a way to get beyond it. How do you keep from hesitating?

Routines (Again)

2011-12-01T08:00:00.002Z

I've written before about how routines can be calming for those who suffer from anxiety. But as I've discovered in recent weeks, routines can also be essential for just getting your weekly 'stuff' done. As I mentioned earlier this week, in my first post back in a while, I've got a new role at work. It's a good thing, I think, long-term, but in the short-term, it's completely wrecking havoc with my weekly routine.

In addition to the fact that I just have more work to accomplish, I am also more tired and stressed and unable to concentrate on much else during the weekdays. So when it comes to things like doing our weekly online grocery shop, exercising and blogging, the old way just isn't working anymore.

Emails are going unanswered and the Hub is wondering why suddenly there is no food in the house (thank goodness for our local Chinese and pizza place – although I am sure our sodium levels are through the roof). My role change also resulted in a desk move and I accepted (foolishly) new monitors that couldn't be adjusted to the right height. My neck and shoulders were not happy and it took a few weeks (and some begging and pleading) to locate some better monitors. My body is still recovering from the strain.

This post is not meant to be a whining session, but a look at how we sometimes feel like we aren't going anywhere fast or getting things accomplished. But in fact, it takes a break in routine to realize just how much we were already getting done.

I've been playing around with getting into a new weekly schedule. My first line of attack is to try to shift my exercising to the weekdays – yoga on Sundays was great for me and worked really well, but I think I now need Sundays for writing – an activity which I don't have the energy for after a long day at work. Swimming, I was already starting to do after work, and in fact, that may serve me even better now as it's a good excuse to get up from my desk and leave the building – even if I feel like I have more to get done. It should also (hopefully) keep me focused on accomplishing enough daily to get to the pool at a decent time.

Obviously my job is very important, but I can't neglect my health and I've come too far with all my physio work to fall back into neck and back pain from working hours that are too long and at the same time not progressing with other exercise. And, well, if you're reading this blog, you must also know how important Mind, Body & Scroll has become to me in the past year as a way to work on my non-work writing. It's one of the last things I want to let slide.

And, as for the groceries, I'm sure the Hub will be happy when I have worked out a way for us to eat properly again. Dominos' shareholders, however, may not be as delighted.

Pre-Made Sandwiches?

2011-11-29T08:00:00.000Z

I have a dream. I want to start up a New York deli in London, where anyone can get any sandwich they want, made-to-order. The deli would, of course, also sell pizza by the slice.

I've been feeling a bit homesick recently and it seems to have manifested itself in a real irritation with the British love of the pre-made sandwich -- particluarly pre-made sandwiches heavy on the mayonnaise. With no choice in the manner. Even ham and cheese sandwiches are coated in mayo, while they should so clearly have mustard on them, if you have to choose a condiment.

I probably wouldn't have become so irritated were it not for the fact that the one sandwich place in Canary Wharf that I liked and that actually made sandwiches to order (although they would still give you the hairy eyeball if you asked for anything even slightly wacky) struck my favorite sandwich off the menu. It was essentially the closest thing to a meatball parm sub that I have found in London and I believe I was probably the only person in all of Canary Wharf ordering it. Sans spinach of course (which was their 'recommended' combination) and with cheese instead.

Did I handle it with grace? No. I screeched, "but that was your BEST sandwich!" followed up by a scathing, "Well, you've lost a customer." I don't think the people at 'Baguette' even batted an eyelid as I turned on my heel and walked away. People are never surprised by the behavior of Americans abroad, really.

Thing is, although I'll definitely miss my pseudo meatball sub, I think it was a bit of a scapegoat for my general feelings of homesickness lately. For some reason, I seem to associate Italian-American cuisine with my love of America, which is strange because I have no Italian roots. I suppose it's
just my comfort food. When the Hub and I had our brush with watching Jersey Shore last summer (we loved to analyze Sammi and Ronnie's complex relationship) I believe I enjoyed it mostly because they were constantly chowing down on things like Chicken Cutlet and Baked Ziti – dishes that when mentioned here elicit a blank look.

Why the homesickness? It could be that this past week was Thanksgiving, which, like Fourth of July
always makes me a little sad. Or that I have recently been thrust into a new role at work, which although a good thing, is new and therefore stressful and my routine has gone amok (more on this soon). Or, maybe it's just because I haven't been back to the States in a year.

What's interesting, however, is while most people might just say they feel a bit sad or in a rut, ex-pats have a very convenient scapegoat. There's always something concrete to blame the malaise on. For me it's the loss of the meatball sandwich. And tomorrow it will be mayonnaise-coated ham at Pret. But the truth is that sometimes we just feel sad or stressed for no real reason at all -- and sometimes that's hard to stomach, almost as much as excessive amounts of mayonnaise.

Pain: The Great Teacher

2011-11-27T15:52:00.002Z

I've been absent from blogging for weeks now due to a new role at work -- which for many reasons is occupying a lot of my time. I considered skipping this month's Self-Discovery Word by Word but decided last minute on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to make sure I contributed. After all, as someone who writes about her recovery from severe neck and back pain, how could I consider not writing about 'pain', this month's word?

If you're new to my blog, you can read the long version of my struggle with pain here. But a quick synopsis is that I had repetitive strain injury (RSI) from poor posture and long hours spent hunched over my desk. Unfortunately, I also threw out my back last year and it has taken me a long time to recover from it. But with the help of an excellent physio (physical therapist), I am now essentially pain free.

And what did I learn? Pain is a great teacher. I would say that the most important thing is that everything in life is temporary. One minute you go from a carefree lifestyle and the next moment you are in debilitating pain, worried that you won't be able to continue earning a living. But it's not limited to that one experience. Everything you have in this life, on this earth, can be taken away from you in a short moment. We forget that most times.

But lying awake in the middle of the night with a neck ache so bad that you can barely sleep makes you acutely aware of how precious things like your health truly are.

I was lucky enough to find someone who could help me get better -- to lead me through the pain and out to the other side. And I think that's true of any kind of pain -- physical and emotional. Although life is tough on this planet, we are not alone and I think one of the most important things to realize that there is help out there to get through just about anything.

Pain has been a great teacher to me: it is tough but it is not insurmountable, particularly with help. On the other side, life looks different -- you realize there's just not enough time in this short life to take things for granted.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word Series. For more information and to participate, check out November's kick-off post here.

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Physio For Life?

2011-11-10T12:00:00.002Z

Often, when I tell people about everything I've gone through on the physio (physical therapy) front, they ask me if I will have to do my physio exercises forever.

The answer is yes and no. It really depends.

When you have a muscle imbalance problem, the first order of action is to fix it. This is done using a series of exercises that strengthen the muscles that are too weak and stretch out the muscles that are too tight. The really good exercises work a charm at doing both (for more detailed info, you can read The Whole Story).

Once your muscles are in the right balance using the specific physio exercises, then you can move on to doing more normal physical activities – for me swimming and yoga right now – and those muscles that are now strong get even stronger. In many cases you don't need to do certain physio exercises because they have just become too easy – you are essentially too strong to do them anymore.

I was talking to someone I know about this and she challenged me, saying that she could do her physio exercises until the cows come home but because she sits at a desk all day it undoes all the effort.

Sitting at a desk is bad for your posture. In fact, it's what did me in in the first place. However, now that my muscles are in the right balance, I can pretty much sit at my desk 9 to 5 ish with the correct posture. When you are strong enough, your posture cannot be thrown, unless certain things happen, and this is where the 'it depends' comes into the equation. If you are extremely stressed or working super long hours, then you might not be able to sit up straight. You might find your shoulders creeping up around your ears as you rush to finish that report that is due. Or your back hunching over in exhaustion. Because, after all, your body is not a machine. During times like these, I do need to do my physio exercises to stretch myself out again.

But, over time, I will gradually reduce the frequency of my exercises. I will probably always check that I can do certain exercises required for strength. And I may need to do some of my neck exercises on days where things are stressy at work or if I have a cold, which tends to tighten up your neck because your glands get swollen (I bet you didn't know that!).

If your physio is a good one, they should correct the problem for the long run. And give you the tools to keep the body a well-oiled machine when activity spikes for whatever reason – perhaps stress that's out of your control or even learning a new type of exercise. As much as I love having the excuse to watch whatever I want on TV while I run through my basic set of exercises, I am now testing my ability to go for a short period of time without doing them. First every other day, then every three days and so on. Everyone's body is truly different, so I may need to do them once a week or I may only have to do them once a month. Or perhaps I will prefer to keep doing a few each day, just because I won't have to ever worry about being stiff even if I get stressed and busy. Figuring out what is right for my body (and mind) is truly the next challenge in my rehabilitation process.

So as for most things in life, it all depends. But at least I am safe in the knowledge that I have fixed my posture for the long-run, which is a big relief considering that life can really throw anything our way.

As The Nights Draw In

2011-11-03T08:00:00.002Z

Sunday was my favorite day of the year. Getting an extra hour in the day is the most glorious thing. The Hub thinks I'd prefer to be a bear if I could. I like sleeping so much that hibernating a few months of the year would suit me just fine.

I do appreciate the extra hour of sleep, but I also feel like the extra hour we receive on this weekend every year is a small gift that makes the blow of next week easier. Autumn just seems to get busier every year. Christmas comes faster and I seem to be involved in more at work as the years go by.

And next week the darkness in England really arrives. By mid-December I usually start to notice signs of the sun setting by lunchtime. I don't know how people in Scandinavia and even Scotland survive as the days are short enough for me in London. If you didn't know, London is much further north than New York (Madrid is approximately the same latitude line as New York). I had no idea about this when I moved here (apparently I don't pay much attention to maps). On December 16th of this year, the sun will rise at 8 a.m. and set at 3:52 p.m.

I don't really mind the darkness that much. I'm lucky – I know people who really suffer in London winters. I actually like the fact that winters here feel completely different than the summers. Although we don't get too much heat in the summer, we get plenty of light and it makes the days feel long and full of possibilities.

But I'm not so great with change and this week I'll feel disoriented. When it starts getting dark at 4 p.m., I'll feel sad. It's the shock, I guess, and the feeling that once again, time is passing. Things have happened to me and friends of mine recently that has made me think a lot recently about how little control we have over our lives.

The only thing we do have control over is the way that we react to our constantly shifting lives. We can take the challenges and difficulties in stride and focus on what we are grateful for and enjoy the small things that we love daily – for me: morning walks, reading books on my commute, writing, cooking and being able to exercise again (more on this next week). We can choose to be tenacious, to approach life with humor and joy.

It's not always easy, but it's at least something to strive for. And as the nights draw in we can appreciate seeing friends, eating good food and drinking nice hot drinks, like mulled wine or hot cocoa. Light a candle in the darkness, so to speak. How do you cope with the winter blues and our lack of control in life generally?

Round Up: On Love

2011-10-31T08:00:00.002Z

I was a bit sheepish when I chose 'LOVE' as October's Self-Discovery Word by Word post. I thought it might be a bit cliché. But I was wrong – the posts on 'love' were truly beautiful and incredibly authentic!

So here are the posts, all very much worth reading, in no particular order…

I (Love) This: Self-Discovery Word by Word – an inspiring and poetic post from Mary at Miss Mary Max about loving when you get the chance. "Regardless of the feeling," she says. "Do love when it’s easy and joyous and fun and when it’s hard and grueling and against your instinct."

Margarita from Weightless gives us all 4 Ways To Truly Love Yourself. Four practical, doable ways to show ourselves love unconditionally, as she so clearly puts it, "beyond the curve of your hips or the shape of your thighs."

And Mara at Medicinal Marzipan takes the concept of loving yourself that one step further, asking the question: What happens when you love yourself, find someone to love you, and then fall out of love with yourself? In On Loving Someone Who Doesn’t Love Themselves, Mara explains that "the thing about love – reciprocal, intimate, lasting, nourishing, fantastic, gorgeous, exciting love – is that it requires that both parties believe that they deserve to be there."

Finally, Ashley at Nourishing the Soul did something brilliant in its simplicity with What I Love Today, a list of what she is loving right now, both big and small. I particularly liked her list's intro – "Love ain't easy, but it's always perfect."

So true. And if you haven't read it already, here's my post on love and why it's big.

If for whatever reason you didn't send me your post or thoughts yet, don't hesitate to send them now. I will quickly add yours to the list - the beauty of blogs is you can edit them (without having to stop the press)!

I'd also like to point out that this month is SDWW's one-year anniversary! Ashley started the series last October 2010 with GRATITUDE. If you'd like to read all the past posts and roundups you can find them here. She's looking for bloggers to host upcoming months so if you're interested in taking part, please do contact her. You won't regret it – it's such an interesting series and a great way to find new and interesting blogs.

So with love, have a great week and hope to see you for next month's word.

Related Posts (from the first three months of SDWW last year):

Some Things Are Better... Some Things Are Worse

2011-10-26T08:00:00.001+01:00

There's a column that Bill Bryson wrote that has stayed with me throughout my ex-patriot experience. Bill Bryson is an American who moved to England at the age of 26 (same as me!) and married an English woman (same as me! – except I married a man). When he and his family moved back to America in the mid-nineties he wrote a series of columns for The Mail on Sunday's Night & Day magazine.

In this one particularly memorable column, Bryson talks about how efficient and agreeable his local U.S. post office is – best of all the fact that once a year it hosts a 'customer appreciation' day where coffee, donuts and pastries are served free of charge. "Much as I admire the Royal Mail," he writes, "it has never once offered me a morning snack, so I have to tell you that as I strolled home from my errand, wiping crumbs from my face, my thoughts towards American life in general and the U.S. Postal Service in particular were pretty incomparably favourable."

However, he goes on to point out the U.S. Postal Service has some drawbacks. The same day as 'customer appreciation day' he had a letter returned to him because he had neglected to address it properly with a street name or number. He wrongly assumed that Black Oak Books in Berkeley, California was enough of an institution that the letter would arrive regardless. Unfortunately, not only did the letter never make it there, but it had, in fact, spent six weeks in California.

This was in clear contrast to the fate of a letter addressed to Bryson in England, with the address simply written 'Bill Bryson, Writer, Yorkshire Dales', which arrived within 48 hours of its posting with the help of the industrious Royal Mail service.

His conclusion? "The lesson to draw from this, of course, is that when you move from one country to another you have to accept that there are some things that are better and some things that are worse, and there's nothing you can do about it."

This advice has got me through many a bad moment as an ex-pat.

There are days when I worry if I did the right thing moving to another continent and country. I often wonder if I'll ever feel at home anywhere ever again. There are times in England when no matter how amazing my life feels and how many friends I have, an ache remains from somewhere within that I am really far from everything I truly know. But there have been trips home to the U.S. when as much as I enjoy catching up with all my friends and family, I feel anxious to get back 'home' to England to the life I've built here.

I have decided that 'home' is now a mix of both – and there is one group in which I do feel completely at ease – with my ex-pat friends. Whether they are American or from another far-flung place, there's a connection that doesn't necessarily exist with others who haven't strayed as far from their home towns. Don't get me wrong – I love my English friends too (and the Hub, of course). But there's a comfort I think we all need sometimes – the comfort of someone who has stood in our shoes and can truly empathize. And can understand why it's strange to have a washer but not a clothes dryer.

And although some things are better and some things are worse, I find it's best to try to focus on the good stuff (when I can). In honor of that, here are lists of my favorite things from both countries.

England: Pubs, topiaries, fields with cows and horses sheer minutes away from cities (even London), savory pies made with things like steak and ale, gin & tonics (acceptable to drink one at any time of day, really), the fact that everyone else is as pasty-skinned as me and people actually notice when I get a 'tan' on vacation, you can take the train to France, orange squash (a drink, not a vegetable), the fact that they call lady bugs 'lady birds', people are polite even when they are not very happy with you, Pimms cocktails in summer, curries and a seemingly endless supply of tea.

America: Thanksgiving, the abundance and constant availability of ice, Triscuits, Twizlers, clothes dryers, endless optimism, ordering anything in a restaurant 'your way' and never getting the hairy eyeball, strangers striking up conversation at any moment in any place, hotdogs – particularly at baseball games, the sound of a screen door slamming on a hot summer day, Fourth of July picnics, fireworks and fireflies, and pizza by the slice.

Love: It's Big

2011-10-21T12:56:00.000+01:00

My first love was Andy. With his red yarn hair and overalls, being the better half of a rag-doll pair, such was my love that 'Andy' became one of my first words. What happened to Ann is a bit of a mystery. The other mystery being why my parents at the time let me drink a lot of iced tea. I've seen the baby book and 'tea' was one of my other first words.

But it was the 70s. Feeding your kids iced tea was OK back then and being in love with a rag doll was alright as well.

Young love is an amazing thing. It's passionate and all-consuming. I would call it infatuation, in fact. But it certainly feels worthy of a much stronger word. Anyone who has had their heart broken in two knows exactly how strong young love is.

As my life progressed from age two to present day, I experienced much more love. Crushes, boyfriends, love of family and best friends. And as I changed, my definition of love changed.

Young love is about ourselves. We want so much to be accepted and secure. To be taken care of, to be assured that everything will be OK. Sometimes I am sure it was akin to looking in a mirror. Does this person reflect back to me all my beliefs and thoughts about this world, do they make me feel alright about myself?

But mature love is about something bigger. It's not small. It's not about making yourself feel better. It's not selfish or jealous or something that you can tether yourself to in the hope that maybe some day you'll be safe.

That old expression – if you love someone, set them free – rings true in many ways. If you want to truly love, you have to let go of everything. You can't trap love. When I let go of who I think I am and all my petty worries and when I realize that no matter what, I will be OK, it's then that I am prepared to love with all the reckless abandon I can find (in the back of cluttered closets is a good place to look if you're missing it). And I'm not just talking about romantic love, but being part of something bigger.

It's not easy. It's much easier to try to hold onto things that we think will make us happy and safe. But ironically, love is the big thing that allows us to let go of the small things.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word series started by Ashley a year ago at Nourishing the Soul (Happy Birthday SDWW!!). I'm hosting October's word so please do think about participating. If you want to be part of it, read my kick-off post, post something on your blog and send me the link (ideally by October 28). If you don't have a blog, never fear, just send me your thoughts and I'll post them in the round-up on October 31.

Broken Windows

2011-10-12T19:32:00.000+01:00

I'm a moderation girl. I don't do fasts or detoxes. I don't exercise every day and I think the best kinds of exercise are the moderate ones – walking, swimming, yoga. A little dancing. I've never 'given up' drinking in January as I don't tend to go on a Christmas binge. I make sure I eat some fruit and veg every day but pretty much everything else I consume is what appeals at the time and meets my hunger levels. And although clutter stresses me out, I don't mind a bit of mess as long as it gets cleaned up eventually.

In fact, my modus operandi when it comes to mess is that I make one and then when I can't stand it anymore I clean it up. Typically this happens at home twice a week – once on Sunday evening, when I clean up the chaos of the weekend and once on Thursday when our cleaner tidies up the chaos of the week.

It got me thinking – is this the best way to handle mess?

If you've ever read Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, you'll know about the 'broken window' theory. It's a crime theory. It states that repairing broken window in a neighborhood in a timely manner prevents further vandalism and therefore stops escalation into more serious crime. I suppose it equates to setting a tone. A sidewalk filled with litter is more likely to induce further littering.

I feel like the broken window theory could apply to mess in my life. If a counter/bed/chair is already littered with 'stuff' then what's the incentive to put away the clothes I'm wearing on that particular day or wash that one extra bowl I'm adding to the dishes by the sink?

Would it work to have a 'no tolerance' policy on mess? Or is that just asking for trouble?

I wonder how much of my aversion to putting things away right away comes from my overall tendency to procrastinate, and my belief that tasks are always difficult. Funny enough, bloggers Leo Babauta and Gretchen Rubin give some similar advice this week. Babauta talks about how cleaning as you go is one of the seven little things that make life effortless. And Rubin discusses how important it is to put things away where they want to be.

I always used to think that these types of techniques were geeky and I'd be even more of a geek if I was well-organized and neat, but the reality is that the more organized I get, the more time I actually have for fun things (including writing a blog). Life doesn't have to be so hard all the time. And a lot of it is being prepared to let go of bad habits – procrastination and mess are, after all, anxiety relieving in the short term, but don't do us any good in the long run.

So I'll have a go and try what I will call the 'broken window' anti-mess technique. I'll let you know how it goes. Only one question remains: who is going to tell the Hub about our new household policy?

Change Without Change

2011-10-06T22:38:00.003+01:00

Often when people get frustrated with their chosen career, they panic and think they need to change it completely. This could even involve a retraining of sorts – courses or even a whole new university degree. Sometimes this is the answer. But more often than not, I don't think it's necessary. It's worth considering another alternative.

Take me for example. At least five years ago I decided that I was fed up with being a journalist. But I wasn't sure what else I was qualified to do. Journalism requires all sorts of excellent skills (dealing with tricky people, boiling down an argument to the essential, questioning things, to name a few), but it's not always clear how to apply these skills to other jobs. So I panicked and began worrying that I had probably chosen the wrong career to begin with – what an idiot I was!

Immediately I started sending away for brochures on going back to school. I even applied for a psychology conversion course. I got in and then kept deferring my acceptance (twice I believe, if not three times). Then, after I eventually decided not to attend, I took another journalism job (indecision, indecision). I also flirted with the idea of retraining as a lawyer and applied for public relations jobs. But the thought of neither thrilled me. It wasn't until I was out for lunch with a contact of mine as a journalist, and I admitted that I was unhappy in my job, that I found something to do next. He worked for a financial services firm and they were looking for a writer – one who understood the markets. I applied, was offered the job and took them up on it in less than three days.

Sometimes you don't even know that the job you want exists. I certainly didn't. And when I look back on it, it wasn't that I wanted to change my job entirely, but only certain aspects of it. I still wanted to write, and speak to people, and do research. I just didn't want the extreme deadline pressure (I still have some deadlines). And I wanted to work inside an organization and have more variation in what I did. All of which I now have with my current role.

My hunch is that whatever job you're in at the moment isn't entirely wrong. Make a list of the things you like about your job and what you don't like. It may tell you a lot.

So if you're thinking of re-training in anything, take a moment to consider – is there any way you can use the skills you already have as a stepping stone to what you want to do next? There's a chance you may already be doing what you want to do to some extent and your dream job may be just a lunch conversation away.

Either You'll Love It Or Hate It

2011-10-04T11:20:00.004+01:00

I'm incredibly excited to be hosting this month's Self-Discovery Word by Word series, started by Ashley at Nourishing the Soul. It wasn't easy choosing a word and either you'll think it's incredibly clever or I'll be inciting the biggest collective eye roll in history. Thing is, it's one of those words that I think is so broad that we should discuss it on a more in-depth level. Because it's so emotive and also so important. In fact, some people think it's the most important thing: love.

Although it is perceived to be of incredible importance, 'love' it's a word we bandy around carelessly and at the same time use to describe such a range of emotions and actions. But what does it really mean to you? Does it have a variety of meanings or is it all encompassing? Is it overused? Or not used enough?

I was out to lunch with some work friends and I was telling them about choosing a word and polled them on what I was thinking. When I mentioned the L-word they both seemed a bit disappointed – what a simplistic and common choice! We talked about a few other options, but when I finally explained why I thought 'love' might be a good word, we embarked on an in-depth (and a little heated!) discussion that turned out to be really interesting. Immediately there was a clear and strong difference of opinion on the subject.

So as when taking a standardized test, I decided it was best to stick with my first choice.

If you'd like to participate in this month's SDWW, write a blog post on 'love' during the month of October and let me know you did by emailing me (also paste in the image above so it's easily recognizable). If you don't have a blog, then you can just email me your thoughts and I'll add them to the round up at the end of the month. You can even do it anonymously if you're shy!

Looking forward to your take on the word that writers, poets, artists and musicians have been obsessed with since about the dawn of time. It's time we bloggers joined in the discussion too.

Hygiene Factors

2011-09-30T12:37:00.000+01:00

It's a big week for me – our new fridge/freezer arrives on Saturday. It inconveniently broke the week of our wedding when about 30 of my family members descended on London. And despite writing on this blog at the time how easy it was to get the repairman to come in and fix it, now it just sits there dead and broken. And we are finally defeated; we are just coughing up money for a new one.

Turns out it had a faulty part. And all three subsequent replacement parts were faulty too. We both did a good bit of chatting on the phone to the retailer, me in an entitled American not-so-composed sort of way, the Hub in a rational English way with dulcet tones. He did his best to coax them into keeping us as 'life-time customers' if only they would just replace the bloody thing.

Eventually it seemed our only option was to get it written-off, but that seemed to take even more effort. When it came down to it, I couldn't bring myself to make onemore single phone call about it or work from home for yet another morning to greet yet another repair man. (I learned a lot about the electrical goods retail industry: 1) they make a lot of money from selling you expensive guarantees and goods of dubious quality 2) they sub contract out the repair work, which is then sub contracted out again to local repair people, who never answer the phone.)

The one good thing that came of the whole palaver was that one of the repair men found the Hub's wedding ring, which we lost about two weeks post wedding. (It was mysteriously sitting on top of the fridge).

Refrigerators are something that you only truly appreciate when they are gone. And I believe this makes them, in management/business school speak, hygiene factors. A hygiene factor is something that doesn't motivate you, but causes angst when it is no longer available. Like hot showers. No one jumps out of bed, excited by the prospect of a hot shower (do they?). When people talk about whether or not they are happy they don't usually say, "Things are good – the showers are hot." But when someone's shower runs out of hot water, my guess is that you hear about it that day at work – probably in more detail than you care for.

Having an extra fridge is definitely a hygiene factor. I'm sure once we get our new one you won't be reading any more blogs about it – I probably won't opine about how it's great to have the room to freeze extra bagels and have lots of ice handy. Or how we will now be able to keep white wine and beer nice and cold for when guests pop in unexpectedly (which happens ALL the time)*.

Hygiene factors mystify me. Why can't we harness them more for our happiness levels? Why don't roomy fridges, hot showers and warm beds send us skipping down the road?

Why does the absence of something annoy us but its presence is taken for granted? I don't really have much of an answer here, but I think it's worth thinking about as generally there is much we take for granted.

As a generally grumpy morning person, when things are worse than usual, I do try to turn it around by thinking of what I've got to be thankful for on my walk to the train station. Sometimes it starts with a very grim "I least I have legs." But at least that's a start.

*For full disclosure here, the tiny fridge that came with the flat is an under-counter one and we also have a small dorm-sized freezer from our old flat. We have been surviving on these two boxy devices since March. I spend my days sitting on the floor to look in the fridge and trying to cram everything into the freezer without ruining our four frozen wedding cupcakes that we hope to eat on our first anniversary.

Enough: Limits Can Be Expansive

2011-09-23T12:52:00.001+01:00

I've always been a bit of a more-is-more addict. In high school, perhaps driven by the need to impress college admissions officers or just the enthusiastic, inquisitive part of my personality, there was always one more activity I wanted to do. The French club, the Environmental Club, Drama club, Chorus, Key Club. I was on the swim team, the soccer team and even tried track for a while (although thank goodness that didn't work out as my posture problems later in life feasibly could have been worse). It's good to try things: you make friends and get to know your likes and dislikes and hone in on what you're good at.

There's definitely an argument in life for pushing yourself and trying things. But when to say when? When is it time to decide that you are enough already?

When I think back on times in my life when I've been the happiest, it's when I've scaled back. I fought the urge to dive in head first when I joined my university's daily newspaper. I wanted to strike a balance at university that I didn't have in high school. So I sat it out my freshman year and then sophomore year I started devoting one day a week to writing a news story and eventually did one copy editing slot a week as well. But I knew I wasn't interested in becoming an editor.

I studied a lot at university, but I also knew that going out on the weekends with my friends, going to concerts and just hanging out in our dorm rooms was essential to having the whole experience. I remember thinking: I want to enjoy this time.

Any kind of limit on what you do, what you own or how much you work can seem just that – limiting. But paradoxically, I'm discovering that when I reduce my focus, I am actually able to grow on a personal level that is impossible when I'm stretched too thinly. Learning and understanding become deeper, more fulfilling and expansive. What's more, honing in on the things that you really love means that challenging yourself is more rewarding. Being content with who you are and what you are about gives you the freedom to say: I don't need this extra distraction.

There are so many things in life I enjoy and peak my interest. We'll be going to a wedding in Italy next year and I'd love to take a beginning Italian class so I can actually speak to people. But when I actually did some research on the time commitment involved I had to consider my priorities right now. There are (sadly) limitations on my time and energy. And I've done that sort of thing before – life drawing classes in New York, French lessons in London, and tap dancing in both cities. It's not as if I've lived a deprived cultural life.

These days I'm focusing on writing and activities I feel are essential – reading (as a necessary part of writing, I think), exercise that works my mind as well as my body and relationships that sustain me. I am done with thinking that the things I'm good at and enjoy aren't enough. Because having enough and being enough is a state of mind.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word series started by Ashley at Nourishing the Soul. To find out more and learn how to get involved yourself, read Miss Mary Max's kick off post for September here.

Back Soon...

2011-09-16T14:49:00.000+01:00

It's been a long two weeks. Although I'm not a teacher or in a job that is officially dictated by the seasons, in Europe, after August, everyone comes back to work. Suddenly things are happening fast. Everyone wants everything now.

This dynamic has also meant that I have attended two industry conferences in the past two weeks, which has knocked the stuffing out of me. Hence the lack of blogging, or replying to emails. So apologies for the neglect and I will be back next week, hopefully with my regular schedule of posting twice. I've written the posts in my head already -- just need to type them up now!

In the meantime, I leave you with a link to my friend Donna's blog, where she not only described some sailing I did over the August bank holiday weekend (so you can see what I've been up to), but also made the important point that you don't have to love everything your partner does. Well said, Donna, and a good reminder to us all that we have to be true to ourselves.

100 Butts

2011-09-06T17:22:00.000+01:00

What is this post going to be about, you might wonder. Well, I have received one more exercise from my physio – perhaps the final exercise – and she calls it a 'bum' exercise, being English. I like to refer to it as a 'butt' exercise, since after living here for almost ten years I still feel silly saying 'bum'. I suppose one could sound more technical and call it a 'glute' exercise.

No matter what you call it, I have to be able to do 100 of them on both sides before I am allowed to swim again. Evil woman! It was a dirty, if effective tactic, to get me to actually do them before I start building in other activities again. I'm up to 50.

So the good news is before too long I should be swimming again, but the really good news is that all the MRIs on my spine and hips came back clear – no slipped disc or anything else. (If you're just joining this blog, the background on this particular story can be found here.)

And after doing about a gazillion hip stretches on the side where my back was hurting, the pain is almost completely gone. So we were being overly cautious with the scans, but at least I can rest assured that it was all residual muscle pain from either my fall down the stairs pre-wedding or the yoga injury made worse by jumping around on it, or maybe even just a lack of hip stretching. Whatever the reason, Super Physio has fixed it – or rather I have fixed it with exercises and stretches.

I don't want to speak too soon here, but for the first time in nearly six years – since I originally started work on my RSI and my more recent back injury from moving house a year ago – I feel really well in my body. And I just want to say, for anyone out there who is currently in pain and is putting in the hard physio work, it's worth it. Don't give up, because getting better is possible. I've had some really dark hours, lots of tears and lots of sweat. It's not just been a mechanical muscle problem, but a work problem (a too-stressful job) and a health problem (chronic sore throat that ended in a tonsillectomy) that also had to be tackled. And it took a long time – but I did it.

Who knows what the future holds for my body. You can't control everything – accidents do happen and age plays a part too. But for now, in this moment, things are good and I'm going to bask in it, at least for a little while.

And only 50 more butts to go.

Routines

2011-09-02T15:42:00.000+01:00

What is it about routines? Why is it that even something nice like a bank holiday on a Monday throwing off my routine can make me feel a little icky, a little unsettled?

In my early 20s I discovered that I was having panic attacks. I wasn't sure what to call them and didn't even know that they had a name, in fact. The only 'mind problem' I was aware of was depression. But I didn't feel sad. I was just having moments of sheer utter panic for no apparent reason. Sometimes it would happen late at night while I was awake lying in bed, or on the subway going to my art class downtown. I knew something wasn't right, and looking back I even remembered having some attacks when I was very young.

Eventually I did something about it. I went to see a psychologist and had sessions with her for about two years. I learned what a panic attack was, that they were actually very common, and she taught me some techniques for dealing with them. Doing some therapy was a great experience actually. I think everyone should do it at some point in their life – it's like taking a continuing education course – on yourself. As long as you are ready to work, because facing your own demons ain't always pretty.

I truly believe that people's general anxiety levels are set pretty early on. And I am a worrier. Give me a spare moment and I will come up with something to worry about. My parents used to call this my 'overactive imagination', like it was something good or at least interesting. But when you draw pictures age five of giant blue monsters that tower over the end of your bed, I do wonder.

As I talked about in my post Baby 19, there is some scientific evidence out there to back up my anecdotal evidence (my own observation of myself) that we don't have much control over our anxiety levels.

But what we do have is control over is how we cope with our anxiety.

I was given a great cognitive behavioural technique (CBT) by my therapist back in the day that helps if I do find myself having panic attacks. But I find these days I don't need it so much as I've developed other coping mechanisms. In fact, I don't have many panic attacks anymore.

One of the most helpful things is just knowing my triggers. Holidays (sad, but true), routines being broken, extreme work stress (particularly working late at night), lack of exercise, too much time alone, not enough time alone (ironically) and abundant amounts of drinking. Alcohol may soothe the anxiety short-term but a build up of cocktails – no matter how nice that cosmopolitan tastes – isn't helpful.

Exercise helps, especially taking long walks and yoga. Writing helps too. Having a place where I can fully discuss things that emerge from my 'overactive imagination' (such as Shrapnelphobia) is a Godsend (so thank you, MB&S readers, for listening). But mostly, knowing that my anxiety is normal for me and will happen at certain times, allows me to just hang on and live through it. I know it doesn't feel particularly nice, but I know it won't kill me and that it will pass eventually.

I don't know, I think I'm not alone in suffering from anxiety – the world can be a pretty sad and scary place sometimes. And people do seem to love their routines, and things I feel are helpful too, like exercise or meditation. We all need our coping mechanisms. Do you suffer from any kind of anxiety? How do you cope?

Pack Your Bags!

2011-08-31T08:53:00.001+01:00

While we're on the topic of holidays, I recently received a reader question about something vacation-related.

How do you manage the stress of getting ready to go on vacation so that you're not totally at wit's end by the time you get on the plane? I find it very difficult to get everything tied up, packed, all travel and directions under control - it's exhausting.

And this reader has a small child and a husband who travels a lot and can't always help out.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret of adulthood that I've learned recently: people who make things look effortless are usually working pretty hard at it.

I'm always surprised to learn that some people who I thought were 'cool' or 'relaxed' are actually just more organized that I am. Like the friend who always looks put together for work. I thought my inadequacy in this area was just my lack of talent. But then I found out that she actually plans her whole work wardrobe for the week on Sundays (sneaky).

So if you feel like you always have too much to do before going on holiday, leave yourself more time. And be honest about it. If you need to start getting ready a month before, no one needs to know (unless you write a blog about it).

My one caveat is that there are some people for whom getting ready to go away on holiday isn't a problem. You know the type: the carefree, happy-go-lucky ones, who can throw some items into a rucksack (backpack) the night before leaving, usually after pounding some shots at work drinks. I envy these people.

But if you're not one of them – how to get ready for a holiday without losing your mind?

The first step is to start packing early. And by early I don't mean a few days before. I mean at least a week. I discovered how amazing this was when packing for our honeymoon. I knew there was no way I would be able to pack after the wedding, so two weeks before (don't judge – the weekend beforehand I was turned out of my own house for the 'stag' party) I spent an afternoon trying stuff on and deciding what to bring. Thing is, without the last minute pressure, you can actually enjoy it. It cleverly adds to the anticipation and reminds you why you are going away, as you pack your sun block and wide-brimmed hat and imagine how nice it will actually be. Don't get ridiculous or anything, you can pack your toiletries and carry-on the night before. This strategy, however, leaves you time to edit, time to wash things you want to bring and make a list of the stuff you still need to buy at Boots (or your neighbourhood drug store). And you will have a whole week to do it.

But what about all the other stuff? Finishing up at work before the holiday and all the other unexpected things that happen last-minute, before you go away? My reader explains what happened before her last holiday:

I had to scramble to find workmen to sort out a window with broken locks, wasps, another window letting all the rain leak in and finally a leaky toilet.

Again, what you need is time. So clear the decks. Don't plan social events in the week to the run up to a holiday. Leave time for disasters. Aim to have your packing done the week before and use the same tactic for other things that have to get done. For example, I try to make sure I've got all the 'urgent' work that needs to be completed before I go away done by 5 p.m. Thursday, instead of Friday, for example. Sometimes these tricks don't work, but it's worth a try.

If you're a list maker, make a list and a schedule – and as geeky as it sounds, set yourself deadlines. I do a lot of project management at work and I'm learning that setting small achievable deadlines is really the only way to get monumental tasks done.

To some, getting ready to go on a big holiday may not seem stressful, but who cares – if it's stressful for you, it's got to be tackled. Because not going away on vacation is not the better option.

If you have a question you'd like Mind Body & Scroll to try to tackle, don't hesitate to email me. Or use the comments section.

Balance: Not A 'Nice To Have'

2011-08-24T18:27:00.003+01:00

Balance is essential. When I began thinking about this month's word – balance – as part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word series, I couldn't think of a metaphor. Until I realized it was staring me right in the face – it's one of the reasons that I actually started this blog.

When I was suffering with extreme pain in my arms and neck (what is typically called RSI), what I was really suffering from was a muscle imbalance. So even the name told me that it was a lack of balance causing me pain.

My problem was caused by poor posture – some muscles being too strong and others not enough. My entire body was out of whack (if you're interested in all the gory details, read The Whole Story).

So balance is necessary for the body, but it's also key for the mind. And that's because, to me, balance is all about sustainability. When I think about making any change in my life, I always ask myself if it is sustainable. The Hub was laughing at me the other night as I told him I needed to start getting up at 6.30 a.m. again when we were back from our vacation (I have been pretty relaxed about mornings lately and for various reasons need to shape up a bit). He said that I'm always saying that, but when he leaves for work in the morning I'm still snoring away.

Fair point. But 6.30 a.m., I know I can do, 6 a.m. – not so much. Any earlier than 6.30 a.m. and I crash and burn later in the week. It's not really sustainable.

It's like with exercise. In January, my Bikram yoga studio was so packed – even on a Sunday afternoon – that it was hard to move. Such was the crush of people wanting to get in shape and excise the demons of the Christmas period.

The New Year's resolution pack doesn't really get it. Since October, I've been going to yoga once per week without fail (except for once or twice). And I'm pretty sure I've clocked up more hours than those people who attend class three times per week for the first few weeks of the year, only to get burned out and lose interest.

Once a week doesn't seem like much, but over time it can make a difference to your life. And you can build up from there – I've now started practicing twice a week. And it seemed like a natural progression, not something I was forcing myself to do.

Balance is the middle ground. It's not the ideal and it's not total chaos. For me, there can be a lot of unhappiness in stretching for the ideal. I try every day to remember that it's better to get something done, instead of doing it perfectly.

There are, however, times when your life isn't balanced. Sometimes you don't have a choice. There are people who need to give up whole food groups due to a food allergy. Or when you have a newborn, there's not a lot of time for anything else. There are people who find themselves in a work situation where there isn't an immediate way out and they have to devote a lot more time and energy to that than they'd like. And when I had so much pain in my arms and hands that I could barely type or pick things up, I couldn't really opt out of doing physio exercises for nearly an hour a day.

But realizing that there are times when balance will be impossible should make it all the more imperative to try to practice it now. And it's not a 'nice to have' – it's a necessity. Because otherwise how can you manage everything in life (your house, your body, your food, your schedule, your relationships) without going berserk? You can try to live in the middle ground – where life is sustainable. Because ironically, with sustainability, usually comes change and growth.

This post was part of this month’s Self-Discovery Word by Word Series. To find out more, or to participate, click here to read Myrite at Tasty Life's kick-off post.

Holiday Honesty

2011-08-22T20:37:00.000+01:00

With a holiday, comes expectation. Living in the UK, which is (sort of) part of Europe, the holiday is regarded with the utmost of respect. People here actually insist on taking them, no matter what. There are no mutterings about how they don't actually have time to take all their vacation days or tales of working all the way through holiday time (although this may not apply to all professions, particularly investment bankers). But generally, holidays in this country are put on a pedestal. And whenever there is a lull in the conversation, you can bet that talk will turn to upcoming holidays or the glory of ones just past. "Have you taken your summer holiday yet?" is the question that invariably comes up at some point during a business lunch. Usually while eating the little chocolates that come with the cappuccino.

Coming back into the office after a holiday, you must be glowing. And not necessarily in skin color (although I must say, one of things I love about this country is people actually think I look tan sometimes – this never happens in America). It is not the done thing to speak ill of one's holiday, like it is a revered dead person. You can't say, "Actually, the holiday was horrible – we argued the whole time, the food was gross and I had a nervous breakdown about the direction of my life while standing in a church trying to look interested in a triptych."

This is not what just happened on my holiday. I promise you. It was a good holiday, in fact. We pretended to do some serious tanning and then spent an unusually large amount of time discussing if we had turned a darker shade. We learned that all's fair in love and war and also when it comes to sun loungers. We didn't realize that you had to 'reserve' one at about 7 a.m. with your towel and actually had to steal one on our first day (we did not get caught).

There was a nice mix of sitting by the pool reading and also driving around seeing interesting hillside towns and old churches. We even saw some really creepy relics and two whole mummies. It's still not clear why they – plus the torso of Saint Sebastian – are kept in a small Croatian village, but visiting them was interesting nonetheless.

We ate really good food (perhaps a little too much) and sat outside most evenings looking at the sea and drinking cocktails. Occasionally we played cards. And sometimes there was live music.

It was a great holiday. But it was not perfect. Whenever you go on holiday, you take your life with you – which unfortunately includes your anxieties, idiosyncrasies and problems. We were not happy every second and there were moments during the week when I felt quite sad, or even just average, and then annoyed with myself for feeling something but sheer joy (!) at all on an expensive holiday. But a holiday isn't an escape from yourself and often when you strip away your daily routines and coping mechanisms, issues can often be magnified. I am actually more likely to feel anxious on a holiday. And I am certain to have a grand sense of humor failure because there will definitely be a moment when I can't get anything to eat and I am actually very hungry.

I think the best way of approaching a holiday is seeing it for what it is – it's a break, a chance to change up the scenery. I may see some new amazing things and experience another culture. I'll eat some good food, enjoy The Hub's (or friends') company and maybe do some good reading. I know the types of things I enjoy (like getting extra sleep), so the more I infuse those things into my vacations, the better they become. But a holiday is not a panacea for all that ills you. And sometimes I feel like that's the perception, so I become worried that my holiday was not the most amazing week ever – while surely everyone else's must have been just perfect.

I feel as though I've made a confession, a little bit like the ungrateful turncoat. But like so many things, appreciating life as it is instead of yearning for perfection makes it much more enjoyable, in my opinion. And I read an Edith Wharton quote just today which sums it up all so well:

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time."

Do you agree with me? Or do you want to have me condemned for holiday treason?

Holiday Styles

2011-08-11T17:32:00.003+01:00

I've had a request to write about surviving married life. I'm not sure I qualify as I've only been married five months tomorrow. But Saturday, The Hub and I set off on our 'summer holiday' as they say here (as if everyone is entitled to one), and it reminded me that one of the secrets to a happy relationship is figuring out how to mesh your two holiday styles. I suppose it's also a possibility to avoid going on holiday together, but it doesn't sound that romantic (even if it is only a couple of weeks a year).

So if you prefer the latter, best to hone in on your holiday style and that of your other half. In our case, the Hub likes to go places to see things, preferably in a car, and he likes to cover as much ground as possible. I like to stay mainly in one place. Also, I am the only one of the two of us who has a driver's license. So you can imagine the trouble.

After a few knock-down blow-out fights, one of which consisted of me literally pulling over to the side of the road and refusing to drive any further (after three days of non-stop driving), I think we've got it figured out. A holiday where we can stay in one place and take little day trips in the area with the car (preferably every other day, to allow some time sitting by the pool reading or something similar) works pretty well.

This is exactly what we are doing this week. We've both got our books picked out and a list of things to see including churches that contain weird relics, a set of caves and a little island, all in the Istria region of Croatia.

Everyone always thinks that holidays are stress-free and just a barrel of laughs, but the truth is that if you don't plan a vacation that is enjoyable to both of you, it can actually create tension and strife, which can be a really unpleasant surprise. Like the ear ache The Hub developed in Corfu back in 2007, which he still blames on me for taking him to a water park called Aqua Land (he loved it – the water park, not the ear infection).

Enjoy the dog days of summer and see you on the other side!

****

If you're interested, to finish up the story, there seems to be no disc problem with my spine. In fact, the spinal surgeon said my spine looked very good for a 35-year-old! However, he is being careful to check that there's nothing else wrong, so sentenced me to some blood tests and yet another MRI. I had it done yesterday and this time they kept my head out of the machine (thank God) and let me listen to music. All-in-all it was a much better experience than last time.

He was pretty sure nothing would turn up in the tests, however, so I suppose the pain is actually muscular (confirming what my physio thought -- getting the scans done was always erring on the side of caution), meaning that it's back to physio exercises – particularly those pesky hip stretches – to finally sort out this one lingering bit of pain. It's a relief though.

Shrapnelphobia

2011-08-05T11:55:00.002+01:00

I'm glad that I didn't know I was going to have an MRI scan yesterday until about an hour before I did. There was no time to discuss it with friends or look it up on the Internet – in other words, no time to fret. Because I'll tell you this, I had enough to worry about when I was actually having the MRI. Extra time to create dreaded scenarios would not have been a good thing.

My first thought? Being put into this type of contraption is definitely what would happen to me if I was ever abducted. This is an amazing way to torture someone – it's just like being buried alive in a space capsule. And I wonder why I was breathing so heavy during my first five minutes in there.

I was also sure there must be some shrapnel in my body that I didn't know about. Before the scan they ask you about all the foreign objects that could be in your body. Dental work, IUDs, metal shavings in your eyes (say what?), and of course, shrapnel. What if I have some shrapnel that I'm not aware of? Secret shrapnel. At one point my knee hurt and I was sure it was because some sort of metal was going to work its way out, like in Alien.

The MRI was loud and long – even though technically, it was only 20 minutes. I did lots of slow breathing and pretending I was in Bikram yoga, comforting myself that at least I wasn't also sweating my brains out. But I swear I could feel the liquid in my body sloshing around due to the magnets moving around my body. And I really have never thought I was claustrophobic, but apparently I am and maybe have some other phobias I also wasn't aware of, like shrapnelphobia.

Of course I was cool as a cucumber on the outside, joking with the radiologists about Grey's Anatomy. This is typical of me. No one believes I'm as anxious as I am. "But you are so calm," they always comment. Honestly, I don't know why this is. Perhaps it is one of my superpowers, the other one being my ability to eat more cheese in one sitting than should be legal (all without an ounce of tummyache).

The day started out nice enough. I went to my spinal surgeon appointment (for the background to this story, click here). And even though he actually made me wait for an hour to see him, he was so nice that I felt guilty and easily forgave him.

After listening to my story about the back pain that has persisted on and off since a year ago and examining me (in addition to reading the detailed letter from Super Physio), he said that my symptoms – where the pain comes and goes, often getting better only to get worse again – was consistent with a disc problem. My heart sank. I was hoping he would say the opposite, such as: "No need to get a scan, you sound fine!"

But no, he said we would get an MRI done and take a look at my spine. He added that typically we'd see a bit of damage to my spine anyway, considering I was born in 1976 and it was now 2011 (his exact words – I like the way he phrased it). Over the years it sees quite a bit of wear and tear, he explained, which is kind of amazing as I'm only 35 – what would an 80-year-old spine look like? Or do you see most of the damage in the first 30 years? (Something to investigate, perhaps)

I am kept quite calm by the fact that my physio sent me to a surgeon who she considers is not "knife happy" (her words). Also, that she thinks the most likely scenario would be a shot of cortisone to calm down the inflammation and then continue with the physio I've already been doing. And what the surgeon said, finally, was that we would look at the MRI scan to see how to make my physio work "most effective". That didn't sound like someone prepared to cut into me.

Luckily, I am seeing him on Monday, so will know quite soon what the scan shows. In the meantime I've been going to yoga and trying not to think about it (not really working). But I have to say, if there is a disc problem, I might actually feel happy, as this past year has been quite frustrating. Now that my neck/shoulders are behaving so beautifully and there's no more pain there, I could really do with having my back sorted out too. And the Hub – he'd really like to play tennis with me. It's a small thing, but it kind of represents the difficulty with the situation. There are tennis courts near our flat and it would be really nice to meet after work, hit the ball around a bit and then go get some dinner. It's the kind of thing that most people in their 30s can do without hesitation. It would be nice.

Commitment

2011-08-02T08:00:00.000+01:00

I'm a little stuck. I know I only post twice per week, but nothing is gelling in my head right now. I debated over the weekend what to write about but nothing really hit me. It's not that I don't have ideas – just take a look at my blog notes list and you'll find all sorts of confusing ideas jotted down. The current list includes such things as 'muscle inhibition', 'why James Herriot would make a good blogger' and 'celebrities getting in shape for movies'.

Typically I have lots of ideas on the go, either written down in my little green notebook that I keep in my bag or on the spreadsheet that controls my life (it is ominously titled 'TO DO' and contains an imposing nine tabs, one of which is called 'Wish List'). My ideas float around inside my head but I'm never sure exactly how they'll turn into posts. It is usually when I am on one of my daily walks to and from the train station that I think, "Aha! That's how I'll write a post about pizza!"

Here's the thing. I think that if I had waited to start blogging until I felt ready – or at least confident that I'd have enough to write about – I never would have started. And if I only posted to this blog when I felt like I had something amazing to say, well, it would be a pretty sparsely populated blog.

Working in publishing has taught me a lot about writing. If journalists waited until they felt they had a great story to write, not much would get done. No, it is precisely the pressure to fill the newspaper on a daily basis that generates so much news. Even when you are phoning around and all your contacts tell you that nothing is going on, there is always something to write about.

It is the discipline of the deadline that generates good work. Not every story is award-winning, but if you aren't out there everyday talking to people, pounding the pavement and writing up the goings on, you certainly will never get the great stories.

It is by committing to publish posts a few times a week that allows me to get posts written, and not the other way around. If you want to make progress in any area of your life, just commit to show up. If you want to start swimming, get in the pool twice a week – even if it's only for 20 minutes each time. And if you want to start meditating, sit for 10 minutes a day. After all, you can have all the talent and intention in the world, but it's impossible to do good work until you're actually doing the work.

The Perfect Pizza (to see how I eventually wrote a post about pizza)
A Happier Immune System?

Why I Pity My Friends

2011-07-28T13:40:00.006+01:00

I pity my friends, I really do. If you're my friend and you're reading this, I hope you don't come up with a million reasons why before I actually tell you what I am talking about.

If you're my friend and you have a backache or your knees are giving out and you start complaining to me about it, you will soon wish you hadn't. Because, if you live in London (where I live), I don't really want to hear about it until you've gone to see my physiotherapist.

This may sound harsh, but when I first had debilitating pain in my arms and neck I had no idea what do to, where to go or what was happening. I even saw a crazy pseudo medical professional who tried everything under the sun except maybe voodoo and nothing worked (see The Whole Story). My friends, on the other hand, have the advantage of knowing someone who had done all the hard work, separated the wheat from the chaff and has found a really amazing physio who can actually fix people's aches and pains and also their posture for life.

I know it's expensive (not everyone has insurance here) and I know it's time consuming. No one wants to spend 30 minutes a day (or more!) on the floor trying to tighten their stomach muscles and push them straight to the floor (no matter what your problem is, everyone seems to have to do this exercise). But seriously, it's the only body you have. Think of it as an investment. And believe me, that pain in your back or your neck is probably not going to get better on its own. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but whatever you're doing with your walking or sitting that's causing it – you're not going to just stop doing it. You're not just magically going to be given the sudden gift of a full knowledge of the physiology of the human body. If you find another solution, great. And do tell me about it (there's never only one way). But if you're asking for my advice, this will be the advice you get.

Do you see why you should pity my friends? (At least 10 of them have gone to see my physio and they are actually pretty happy campers – although they probably won't comment and I will look even crazier!)

I suppose I just wanted to get this off my chest because although I feel bad for being so preachy with my friends, I won't apologize for it. I only tell them what I tell them because I care and don't want them to end up in pain. I've been there and I wouldn't even wish it on my worst enemy.

****

So, if you're still reading and interested in last week's physio trip, where I went crawling back, as the pain in my lower right back isn't ceasing (see What I Can Do), here's the end of the story:

Super Physio thinks everything is probably fine. I probably pulled a muscle in yoga and then hopped around on it in Zumba, not giving it the proper rest it deserved. She pointed out that my right hip was mega tight – which was a result of the back pain and then also the cause of it not going away (see Hips Don't Lie for a full explanation of this).

However, there is a small possibility that there is some sort of damage to my spine. She thinks this because she is watching out for what is called 'reliability'. Is my back reliable? Right now, not so much. There was moving house last year when all the trouble began, but there was also the fall down the stairs pre-wedding. But for the past year my back has been getting better and then it relapses, so this is something to take into account when managing my treatment.

Damage to my spine would be rather unfortunate. She did seem quite relaxed about this possibility, but we still decided I should get a scan of my back – just to be absolutely sure. So now I am engaged in the admin of getting the appointment, referral, approval from my insurance provider. You know the rigmarole.

At least I'm still allowed to do yoga. And walk. I'll keep you posted but please keep your fingers crossed for me.

Introducing: The Resource Page

2011-07-26T13:29:00.001+01:00

I mention a lot of books in my blog postings and one of my friends suggested she'd like to be able to see them all in one place. As a bit of a self-help maven, I've read through many of the duds as well as the good ones and I think these are the best of the best.

So... introducing the Resources page!

I've arranged the books by category: General Well-Being, The Brain & Meditation, Food & Body Image and Writing. If you have a great self-help book you've read, please email me to tell me about it. I'm always looking for new ones and it may just end up on this list.

Happy reading.

What I Can Do

2011-07-21T12:00:00.000+01:00

I've been feeling a bit bummed that I have to go back to my physio today. Not that I don't like seeing her, but I was only discharged only about eight weeks ago and was hoping I'd be able to handle things on my own for a while. But then last week I broke down and called her as the pain on the right side of my lower back hasn't been calming down as quickly as I'd hoped.

One of the hardest things about being in physiotherapy is that you have to do lots of exercises. And they're not easy to always fit into your schedule. But another tough thing is that you can't always do all the other activities you like. Sometimes you have to explain why you aren't on the tennis court during your friend's grass court barbeque. You end up sitting on a bench telling someone about your struggles with your neck pain or your back pain instead of actually playing.

The good news is that it's possible to get better – the bad news is this takes time and patience, particularly if it's been a problem that you've had for a while.

I've noticed recently that when it comes to exercise, I often focus on what it is I can't do – which creates frustration and struggle. Instead of being happy that I can walk and go to yoga I can't stop thinking about how things would be so much better if I could go swimming, play golf or tennis or go to Zumba.

And it made me realize, this is what unhappiness is all about. When you want to be doing something you're not and when there's something better out there that you desire, it's impossible to be happy.

It's a very simple thing, but wanting to play tennis when I can't isn't doing me much good. And throughout the last six years when I was really struggling with becoming pain free (which I mostly am now), I was constantly waiting for the day when I was 'better', when life would begin, when I would be happy again. Not that I wasn't ever happy, but when it came to my body, I was engaged in a constant struggle. And this wasn't only because of the pain (although sometimes it was the pain – ouch!), it was because I was focusing on what my body couldn't do. And I wonder how much more quickly I would have gotten better if I hadn't fought things so much. If I would have rested more and respected my body for where it was at that moment, instead of yearning for where it was I wanted to be.

That's in the past now, but I can certainly learn a lesson from it. As I go back to see Super Physio today I need to accept whatever it is I need to do right now at this moment to get the pain in my lower back sorted out. I'm afraid she'll tell me I can't go to yoga for a while. And afraid that she'll say that it will be months and months until I can take an aerobics class again. But I'm going to try to accept whatever it is my body can do right now at this time – because anything else isn't doing me any good.

Beauty: Owning It

2011-07-19T12:47:00.002+01:00

Celebrating beauty is not a new thing. But the modern age gives us much more exposure to images of beauty as well as more opportunities for superficial interaction with people. Take the film The Social Network, where Mark Zuckerberg's inspiration for creating the company that is now facebook – today an integral part of our social media environment – was a program he wrote called facemash, where people could compare photos of two women and click on the most attractive one.

We are hardwired to seek out attractiveness. Watch any science program on sex or mating and you will find that men prefer women to have symmetric faces and features that indicate fertility (like bright eyes and good skin). There is even a hip to waist ratio which indicates optimal fertility. So we are hardwired to ensure the survival of our species. However, life is a bit more interesting than that.

Attractiveness is not the same as beauty. When I sit in a darkened theatre watching a movie (which happens more often than not on a Sunday evening for myself and the Hub), I often think about how most A-list actresses are so similar. Not only are they extremely thin and always pretty but they also have very similar body types – big boobs (but not too big), a small waist and curvy hips (but of course not too curvy).

But before I go to the movies I usually go to yoga. And things are different there. You've got a room full of really sweaty men and women (I do Bikram), wearing very little clothing, due to the excessive heat (104 degrees Fahrenheit). If you really want to see how much variety there is in the human form, go to a Bikram class. Not only are there a collection of sizes there, but also you can really start to understand that no one has exactly the same frame or proportions. Some people have really long legs and some people have shorter ones. Torsos are different sizes, waists are of different proportions and even necks are shorter or longer. But yet, everyone is using their body to the best of their ability and striving to increase their strength or their flexibility the best that they can. And despite the beginners flailing around and not really listening to the teacher, you know at some point they will get it and start to understand their body and struggle less.

I love seeing how everyone is different, but their bodies still move in sync, all together as one. Despite the sweat and the heat and sometimes the real loss of composure, the real variety of people is a beautiful sight.

Beauty is about individuality and being truly who you are. Not only owning your short wide hips, but also your tastes and abilities and the stylistic things that define you.

There's a television presenter here in the U.K. who I love. She's called Kirstie Allsop and she presents a show (along with someone called Phil Spencer) about real estate, called Location, Location, Location. It's been going for 10 years here and it's really popular.

I'm going to sound like a stalker here, but Kirstie epitomizes what real beauty is to me. Of all the women on TV, she's always stuck to her own style and exudes confidence. She's got a womanly body and wears fabulous dresses and skirts and suits and coats – she never wears trousers – because that's what looks good on her and it's her distinct style. She owns it.

True beauty to me is having the confidence to be yourself. And we all have the capacity to do this, but we have to stand up for ourselves and own it. Because people are more than a snapshot on a computer screen – and thank goodness for that.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word series and this month's word was chosen by Val at Balancing Val. Click here to read her kick-off post and find out how to participate.

Book Review: The Now Habit

2011-07-14T12:44:00.001+01:00

Run -- do not walk -- to the nearest book shop or visit your favourite online retailer and buy this book. You will never look back.

In recent weeks (perhaps months) I've been stuck in a real procrastination rut. One could argue that I'm too hard on myself (true) but I'm also sick and tired of feeling bad that I'm not accomplishing the things I want to get done. I've made the decision that either got to find a way to do them or just forget them and enjoy my life. I refuse to be caught in a constant stress cycle of wanting to do things, but not being able, and then feeling disappointed in myself.

So thank goodness I picked up The Now Habit by Neil Fiore, PhD. Compared to the last book I read on procrastination -- The Procrastination Equation -- this book gives the reader some really specific and novel ways to tackle procrastination. I read this book last week and although I do tend to get a little excited about new self-help books, I honestly feel like a different woman. In the last few days not only have I done much more work than usual but it also has been accompanied by far less stress. Perhaps I was ready for a solution (which always helps) but still, I can't see how reading this book could be a bad thing for anyone.

According to Fiore, there are three major fears that block action and create procrastination: the terror of being overwhelmed, the fear of failure and the fear of not finishing.

As he so aptly puts it, this is what a typical procrastinator thinks:

"I have to finish something important and do it perfectly while enduring long periods of isolation from the people and things I love."

Procrastination is a coping mechanism. Putting off something you are dreading is a reprieve from these feelings -- albeit a temporary one. It just creates more dread, terror and fear as the deadline fast approaches.

Fiore explains that people who procrastinate need to change their thinking about work. Those who are likely to procrastinate have often been told from an early age that life and work are hard and things won't be easy.

For example:

"You have a lot more work to do before you can rest on your laurels; you'd better get used to things getting tough because adulthood is even worse than childhood; and while you're out having fun, some catastrophe is lurking around the corner, waiting to surprise you."

Sound familiar? Even if we haven't been told this specifically by our parents, there are other ways to pick up these types of messages: school, work, religion, our bosses, the media and the IRS (or your government equivalent). The reason these types of messages are so stressful is that they invoke feelings of "I have to" or "I should" and mean that your brain has to not only muster the energy needed to do the dreaded task but also provide the energy needed to resist threats to the integrity of the self.

Fiore's book spells out new ways to speak to yourself and ways to change your thinking. It's a clear and easy method to follow and even if you don't believe what you're saying at first, over time the brain should experience some rewiring.

But Fiore also offers a novel way to get started on projects. He explains how to break things down into manageable chunks (which we are probably all familiar with), but also gives a concrete method for getting started while at the same time alleviating the pressure to do things 'right' from the get go. He calls it the 'unschedule' and it's brilliant. I won't give it all away -- also it sounds a little silly unless you read it all the way through and actually try it out (but it's an exercise that's really worth doing).

I can't recommend this book enough. Not only has it given me hope for completing my projects, it has also taken me a step closer to being kind to myself without sacrificing meaningful work, creativity or leisure time. Go buy this book. You can thank me later.

A Belated Birthday

2011-07-12T08:30:00.002+01:00

I don't know how I forgot. Will Mind, Body & Scroll ever forgive me? Last week was this blog's birthday – July 7th. Not sure how I missed it -- perhaps it was the excitement over my own birthday this week and the fact that my mom was arriving from the U.S. for a business trip on Friday.

It's hard to believe I've been blogging for a year now (does this mean I'm a 'real' blogger now?). It's been a learning experience. I started out very ambitiously, convinced I could post Monday through Thursday, but quickly realized that was quite a task with a full-time job and a wedding to plan. I've settled into a twice weekly posting schedule now, which while not as prolific as I'd like to be, will just have to do for now.

I've learned a lot about myself during the year – most importantly what I like to write about. I knew I wanted to discuss my physiotherapy journey and my quite strong opinions on all matters mind and body, including what I've learned from my life and my slightly obsessive relationship with self-help books. But I have been surprised at how much I like to write about everyday life – particularly what it means to be an American expat living in England. That's the thing about any journey – you never quite know where it's actually going to take you.

I would like to say a very big thank you to you, my loyal readers, who have kept with me on the journey all year and have been so supportive – so often telling me that you enjoy my blogging. Thanks for your comments on the site itself and your emails, as well as signing up for email subscriptions and continuing to open those emails. Writers (if I may call myself one) are notoriously insecure and I'm certainly no exception. There have been days where I wonder if I'm just blathering on to no end and it always seems like those are the days when one of you just happens to say something encouraging. It's as if you know. And long may your psychic tap into my brain continue.

It's exciting entering year two of Mind, Body & Scroll and wondering what it will bring. Please do continue to let me know what you think, especially if there are any areas you want me to write more about or specific questions you want me to address. You can comment (you can create a pseudonym if you're shy!) or email me here.

And thanks again for a great year.

Here are five of my favorite posts from the very beginning in case you missed them:

Good Old-Fashioned TV News

2011-07-08T17:28:00.001+01:00

Very early this year I stopped reading the free newspapers in London because of the miserable news they are laced with. I felt that it wasn't really doing me any good and decided to be more selective about the information I digested – you can read further about it in my post from back then: To Know Or Not To Know.

It's been going pretty well. I've had more time to read on the train to and from work and I haven't been as upset by all the news of torture and death. However, I've started to feel slightly disconnected from what's going on in the world. I'm finding that when I meet up with friends, particularly when it's a group, current events naturally come up. It's as if I live on another planet sometimes. I find myself saying "Wait, what's going on?" in disbelief probably more than I'd like.

But I was a little puzzled as to how to rectify the situation. I certainly didn't want to go back to reading the free newspapers. I could always buy another paper (everyday? or just once a week?) or read news online at lunchtime. But lunch is one of the only times that I have to read other people's blogs.

Then, the other night, the Hub switched the TV to the national news at 10 p.m. We've been trying to get into the habit of turning the TV off at a set time (10 or 10.30) so that we can wind down before bed – reading, tidying up the kitchen (me, not him). So he left the news on and went off to do something and I, too exhausted to move from the sofa, laid there and watched the whole half-hour program.

And it was amazing! In our Internet age of online news sites, commentary, blogs and twitter, I had forgotten there was another way to get news. And it was packed with all the major national and international news stories, succinct and it was finally, finally information given to me without reading (I didn't feel guilty - I read a lot). I know TV news can be biased ('the establishment's' side of the story, I suppose), but really, all I want is a way to just know what's going on generally. If there's anything I want to know about more specifically, I can go online and read more about it.

It's also a good way to punctuate the end to the evening. If I know I'm going to turn the TV off at the end of the news, I'll do it. Habit-forming and all that.

But it does seem so old-fashioned. Getting news from the TV, the broadcast TV, when it's actually going out live? What will I be doing next – buying a rotary dial phone?

To Know Or Not To Know

Know Thyself, Know Thy Work

2011-07-05T12:31:00.001+01:00

When you're little and someone asks you what you want to be when you grow up, you usually don't say things like: "I would like a reactive job," or "I don't really like working in teams – I'd rather plug at it alone," or "I love project management."

But yet, these are the things we need to think about when deciding what kind of job we want.

I was thinking about this the other day as I've just come out of a really busy time at work – I just published a report and helped to organize a conference, spoke at the conference and did some internal presenting of my work as well.

The adrenaline rush from these sorts of things is great. Speaking to people about what I've published and realizing it matters in some small way is encouraging and fun, but it also confirmed my belief that there's only so much of this type of work activity I can take. The exhaustion I felt after last week was incredible.

Now is the time to regroup and start working on new research and writing projects. Not only do I enjoy this part of my work, but I think I also need it. It's not downtime per se – in fact it's hard work and requires a lot of discipline – but it's certainly calmer and quieter work.

When I was a journalist I tended to like the constant deadline pressure as it kept me disciplined, but realistically, it was probably too much adrenaline for me on a daily or weekly basis.

There are so many aspects to work that we don't even think about before we set out to become a writer, journalist, teacher, programmer, doctor etc. But sometimes the way we work can be just as important as the topic we are interested in. We may want to be a writer and work for a glossy magazine, hoping to some day be a high-profile editor, but are we aware that being an editor is often more of a project-management job and has little to do with writing?

As we grow older we start to learn this. As hard as it is to admit, we realize that we are good at some things and not so good at others. And although there is always something to be said for learning new skills and challenging ourselves, we get paid more to do the things that help us shine. And the very good by-product is that it often makes us happier too. Even employers acknowledge that it's best to give people tasks that they are best at – and actually like doing.

School doesn't prepare us so well for these realities. We pretty much all learn the same material, take the same classes – and the same exams. There's not much opportunity to put your own stamp on your day-to-day life. But now that we have some choice, we should actually take advantage of it. Every job is going to have its stinky annoying bits, but the more you get to know yourself, what drives you and keeps you motivated (and calm!), the more you will get out of your everyday life. After all, we're at work for a big chunk of our lives. Living for the weekends just doesn't seem like the best option.

Success Is Fun, But Work Should Be Too

Taking The Wheel

2011-07-01T17:03:00.002+01:00

You don't need to be in physiotherapy for six years to know that a ping in your back during a yoga pose – while standing on one leg – is not a good thing.

I've been discharged from my physio (for the third time) for about six weeks now and I've already managed to be in a position again where I'm wondering if I should go running back.

The head is swirling with all sorts of 'what ifs'. What if I've done irreparable damage? What if I'm doing all the wrong things to fix said 'ping' and have totally misinterpreted my symptoms – that I've actually learned absolutely nothing in the past six years? What if I do go back and she says that I have serious problems and should probably just live in a padded room for the rest of my life where I can't fall down any more stairs or pull any muscles? (Did I mention that I fell down the stairs three weeks before our wedding?)

I'm trying to stay calm. And I'm managing it so-so.

I've already made one mistake in my 'ping' treatment. I kept going to Zumba. For those not in the know, Zumba is a dance-based exercise class, which involves a lot of fun hip shaking and jumping around. I thought maybe it was helping as I was at least moving my back and I was keeping it all pretty low impact. But then last Saturday, after two sessions of Zumba during the week, my back was pretty beat. I had to spend all day on the couch lying down watching Wimbledon and drinking lemonade (which wasn't so bad).

So I started thinking that maybe Zumba wasn't really the best idea. I pondered going in to see Super Physio, but then again, I probably already know what she would say: Do my exercises, don't hop around on it (for Chrissake!) and take some ibuprofen. I think yoga is still OK to do – although this is where I get on shaky ground. As you can see from my Zumba misstep, I tend to overestimate how much I'm capable of.

But I went to yoga on Thursday night and the heat plus all the spine movement allowed me to get to the really sore bit when I did do my physio exercises later in the evening. It was a little alarming just how sore it was, but at least it actually moved.

I think I'm going to give it one more week. I'll keep doing what I think is right and see what happens. It's a safety net after all – I don't have to go it alone – I have the resource if I need it. But I'd also really like to sort this out myself, and take the wheel, if at all humanly possible. It would be nice to be in the driving seat of this body – it's been a long road.

First Things First

2011-06-28T12:56:00.000+01:00

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I try to clean up. Whether it's my desk at work, or our home, or the kitchen – after a cooking session that makes me look like I employ similar preparation techniques to the Muppets' Swedish chef.

Life is messy and chaotic, but cleaning up at least gives me a tiny, if temporary, moment of calm to feel like I can face a difficult task head on.

Lately I've been giving myself a hard time that I'm not working on my book proposal. Or more accurately, completely re-working my book proposal which I first wrote nearly two years ago (how did the time go so fast?). I had an idea late last year on how to make it more interesting (hopefully) but haven't done any actual work on it, let alone get started on some sample chapters.

I've had some good excuses, the biggest being planning our wedding, which was a pretty time-consuming task. But now that it's over and I've done the most important post-wedding admin task – thank-you notes – what's the problem?

I've been thinking about this a lot, mainly during my 'thinking time' – my walks to and from the train station. Like most problems, or should I say challenges, you sometimes have to let them simmer for a while before what is bothering you, or blocking you, rises to the top and presents itself.

Thing is, although I would like to get started on the book stuff, there are a lot of admin things hanging over my head, including many that I put off when I was planning the wedding. And I feel like they're cluttering up my brain. Now I know that life will always be filled with red tape, so it's impossible to get to the point that it's all done, but there is something to be said for getting projects completed. As I've pointed out before (in my post Making Peace With Red Tape) clearing away the clutter does leave room to focus.

There are some things that I really should have never put off, like buying some smoke detectors for our flat. (Please don't yell at me – this means you, Mom! Your new son-in-law could also be held to blame.) Other than said anti-death-wish tasks, there are some projects that although not totally necessary, their completion would probably make me feel calmer. Like finally getting that external hard drive and backing up all my photos. There are also a lot of things I'd like to do to promote this blog that I've been putting off too (see my addendum below).

It's probably a good idea to give myself some deadlines, just to make sure that these little admin tasks don't take years. The point is to tackle them head on to make room for more creative and exciting stuff, not to just procrastinate. Ah yes, and I should probably put to use some of those good techniques I learned in the Procrastination Equation. Especially acknowledging that I shouldn't be too hard on myself – we are impulsive creatures and my desire to hang out with The Hub and watch the Apprentice will probably always come before buying that external hard drive or actually finishing my filing backlog.

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Do you enjoy reading this blog? I'm going to be exploring how to reach out to new as well as existing readers, such as by finally getting to grips with using twitter to its full advantage, creating a facebook page, etc. But I'd also be grateful if you could help spread the word. If you have any friends who you think might be interested in reading my musings, please do forward them the link. More importantly, if you have any suggestions for how you think I could be getting myself out there more (I know some of you are probably really good at this) or even what type of posts you most like reading, let me know. Either email me here or post in the comments section. I really would love to hear from you.

Friday Find: On Mental Illness

2011-06-24T16:22:00.000+01:00

Mental illness isn't something that only happens to other people – in fact, according to the UK's Mental Health Association, one in four British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year. And mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain.

Whether it's you, or someone you know – a close friend or family member – the likelihood is that mental illness has touched your life in some way.

And even though our society has come a long way in acknowledging that mental health is something that needs to be cared for, much like our physical health, there remains much stigma attached to illnesses like anxiety and depression, let alone bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia.

Journalist Alice Bradley wrote a great piece this week on her own decision to medicate for her depression, something I just couldn't help but share. Because it's when people share their stories – their feelings and experiences – that stigma falls away.

It's when we realize that mental illness doesn't happen to other people and other people's family members, but to people just like ourselves, that we can develop compassion and facilitate an open discussion on the topic.

I think there's so much work to be done generally in this area, especially in the public sector's treatment of those with mental illness, but breaking down stigma is something we can all help do right away.

In fact, just this week, there was a NY Times article about the creator of a treatment used worldwide for severely suicidal people, who told her own story of mental illness in public for the first time last week. According to the article, Dr. Marsha M. Linehan of the University of Washington said, "So many people have begged me to come forward, and I just thought — well, I have to do this. I owe it to them. I cannot die a coward."

The Summer Coat

2011-06-23T13:38:00.001+01:00

It's been a very hectic week. And when I realized that I had left my coat at my in-laws' house on Sunday I sort of knew it would turn into just 'one of those weeks.' You see, my summer coat is a real victory for me in the battle with the English summer.

Let me explain.

The seasons in England (at least southern England where I live) are of two sorts: coldish (autumn, winter, spring) and warmish (summer). I find dressing for the coldish weather very easy. When it's cold here, it's cold – everywhere – outside, in shops, at work, at home. England is a very damp country and so most homes have these charming ventilation holes which just let in cold air, constantly, so that mould doesn't grow on the walls. So why even put the heat on? (I'm being slightly dramatic here).

But dressing is easy. It's all about extra layers, warm sweaters (or jumpers as they say here), tights and boots. But in the summer, it gets tricky. You see, it doesn't often get very hot. For maybe a week or two the thermometer will hit 80 degrees or above, but for the rest of the summer it's actually in the high 60s, low 70s. Which would be fine and pleasant, except that when it does reach the higher 70s, it starts to feel very warm on public transportation, in shops or restaurants or even at work (buildings are not over air conditioned here, in fact, I've worked in buildings with no air conditioning – and when it does reach the 80s you aren't allowed to just not show up for work!).

There's also the added complexity that even when you might not think it's warm enough to be outside, the British will see the sun and feel cooped up after months of shivering indoors and will want to shiver outdoors – usually around a barbeque. And that can be grand, but only if you are warm enough.

For years this dressing in the summer perplexed me. Just wearing a sweater wasn't enough. And a fleece or sweat jacket is just not smart-enough looking. I usually took to wearing short sleeve tops under my spring/autumn coat – usually a trench coat. But this can look really bah-humbugy, as if you're denying that it's actually summer (even if it is freezing or raining). Wearing a blazer is also handy, or a suit jacket if you are going to work, but although a blazer is fine on the weekends too, I am a woman with hips and sometimes it's more flattering to be able to wear a longer outer covering.

And then, I discovered the summer coat. I had been looking for it for a while. I thought: if only I could find a smart-looking lightweight coat, maybe something you might wear over an Easter dress in a more normal climate, it could work for work and at weekends too. I finally stumbled on one from one of the catalogue companies here in late March – Boden – think a cross between J.Crew and Land's End. It's navy blue and has a sixties look (thank goodness for the Mad Men craze).

When you're an expat there are always challenges – and you have to adapt. The summer coat is a pretty light example, but it certainly demonstrates how you can't control your environment at all times (no matter where you live) and so it's worth being crafty and coming up with solutions that work for you.

Luckily, I was able to retrieve my trusty summer coat from my father-in-law at his London office yesterday. I should also add as a point of information for those still learning how to dress for the British summer – I also usually keep a cardigan and one of my two 'summer scarves' in my bag for use at any summertime outdoor event. You can never be too prepared.

Bravery: A Little Every Day

2011-06-17T09:40:00.000+01:00

I am struggling with writing a post on bravery. Usually when I write a post for the Self-Discovery Word by Word series I think about a personal anecdote I can share to help me make my point. But nothing comes to mind immediately -- or at least nothing I think is worthy.

When I think of bravery, I usually think of people who have died for their causes, like William Wallace being drawn and quartered (think Mel Gibson with a blue face in Braveheart).

I'm not capable of such bravery.

Even Zen Habits Leo Babauta's recent post on when being who you are challenges the norms made me feel quite cowardly. He's taken a real stand on some issues that really go against the grain in our capitalist society, like being a vegan and not owning a car. (We don't have a car, but that's because we live in a big city and neither of us has a UK driving license. At some point one of those things may change and we are likely to fold.)

So leaving aside big ways to be brave, are there small ways we can face our fears? Even on a daily basis?

I believe there are. For some, like those who suffer with severe depression, even getting out of bed can be brave.

Being brave means feeling the fear, but doing it anyway. Standing up for ourselves, quitting a job that's not good for us, ending a relationship honorably (this does not include being so annoying that you force them to dump you), or making conversation with the really irritating person at the party that no one else wants to speak with. There's volunteering despite being tired after a long day at work, visiting someone who's ill, choosing not to gossip, facing grief straight on, not losing it with a child who's throwing a tantrum, or doing something you don't want to do just because it makes your partner or someone else in your family happy.

It's doing the right thing – when the right thing isn't easy.

I could certainly do more of this. At some point we may have the opportunity to make a big difference, but then again, life is actually made up of small moments strung together. Making a small difference in someone's daily life could actually make a big difference.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word series and this month's word was chosen by Dr Dana at The Body and the Brood. Click here to read her kick-off post and find out how to participate.

Related Posts:

Book Review: The Procrastination Equation

2011-06-14T17:57:00.000+01:00

Do you think procrastination is about perfectionism? Fear? Yeah, me too.

Though apparently not, according to The Procrastination Equation by Dr Piers Steel. The first lesson I learned reading this book was that perfectionists don't procrastinate anymore than anyone else -- it just upsets them more. And so they are more likely to try to fix it, or see therapists about it.

Steel's book lays out very clearly the reasons why we procrastinate. I found this refreshing, as once you know why you do something it is often easier to do something about it. And learning that it has nothing to do with perfectionism (or at least less than I thought - more about this later) was a relief.

There are three reasons we procrastinate. The first is expectation, the second is value and the third is time.

Expectation
People who have low expectations of the outcome of an event or task are more likely to put it off. This is where I think that Steel may be slightly wrong about perfectionism not being part of procrastination. Although those people with low self esteem or a history of failure may have low expectations, perfectionists may also suffer with debilitating fear of failure (I wrote a bit about this in Life Is Messy). Regardless, whatever your reason for poor expectations, it can contribute to procrastination.

Value

Tasks that we don't value, or we perceive as boring, are also targets of procrastination. No one really wants to file their tax return or do the dishes (well mostly no one). So if you dislike your job (or any task) or find it boring, you will be more prone to procrastinate.

Time

Start saving for retirement or go on a cool sailing holiday? We are conflicted. According to Steel, this is an evolutionary problem. Our prefrontal cortex, which controls our thoughts and ability to do long-term planning is constantly battling against our limbic system, which is what makes us want to eat that snack right now (especially if we've just seen food), watch yet another episode of the Wire (even though it's midnight) and check our email over 50 times per day (sometimes not an exaggeration). Our ancient ancestors didn't need to plan ahead in the same way that we do, so the limbic system is slightly more troublesome for us when it comes to tasks that require a head start. It's what kicks in when you realize that the report for work is actually due tomorrow. But it certainly doesn't help you start it four weeks in advance – the time you really might need. Instead it keeps you checking your email or making yourself yet another cup of delicious hot tea.

After laying out the reasons why we procrastinate, Steel goes on to give helpful tips on how to avoid the three different pitfalls. Some of them are quite clever, others are common sense. But they all basically admit that our willpower is never strong enough to override the pesky limbic system, our low expectations or boredom. Instead, we need to devise methods of tricking or motivating ourselves. It made me think that we're all really well-developed children, deep down. I don't play video games because I know I would get addicted, and Steel pretty much confirms this. We are impulsive creatures.

At one point he even invokes the language of a 12-step program addict – admitting that we are powerless against procrastination can help. I'm not sure if I liked this association or if it was flippant, but procrastination can be a real problem for some people if it is incredibly chronic. Not filing your taxes can land you in jail and not addressing your present or future finances can have really serious consequences.

Accepting that procrastination is natural is a good place to start. You're going to want to do it, so devise some tools that work to help prevent it. And second, if you want to motivate yourself to get things done earlier, you have to think about the positive aspects of this.

I tried it last week with something that I hate doing at work – following up with people I've met. I speak at conferences and also go to meetings. And so I often collect cards and also promise to send people things. But there's nothing I like about entering their details into my database or following up with an email. So I thought about why I was doing it – and imagined meeting them again at another conference and how I would feel about actually following up with them. I thought about how they would treat me differently and also how they would be more willing to help me if I needed it. It actually worked. All of a sudden I had changed my relationship with the task. This was a clear example of procrastinating due to placing a poor value on something.

As with any self-help book, there were parts of this read that I could leave behind*, but also lots of good ideas contained within. Like anything, of course, you do have to adapt them to your own life and what works for you (Be Your Own Expert is my tag line).

I also think Steel could have taken his study of the limbic system versus the prefrontal cortex further. I wonder if meditation exercises or more specifically people's ability to focus and drown out impulsive distraction would be linked with better success at battling procrastination. My guess is it would. (There may even be research out there on this, but I have procrastinated on looking it up and now it is too late.)

*Steel isn't an expert on the science behind eating and weight and in the book constantly refers to dieting as yet another thing people procrastinate about. Of course, this book is not primarily about dealing with food or body image issues, but the number of ill-informed statements he made regarding this did irritate me.

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Speaking of procrastination, if you read this blog (or any blog) but often forget to visit the site, try signing up for an email subscription. I was talking to a friend who sometimes reads my blog but said she doesn't really have much time to go online. She didn't realize she could get it delivered into her email inbox. Just pop your email address in the box on the right hand side of the blog. Easy as pie.

Becoming British

2011-06-10T08:42:00.001+01:00

I'm starting to fear that I'm becoming British. Or maybe more correctly, English (but the alliteration is better with British). 'British' isn't really a national identity in the same way as 'American' is – people here tend to identify with being English or Scottish, Irish or Welsh. Although, technically, I am British – I hold a UK passport and am a nationalized citizen.

Before you ask, yes, I also still hold my US passport – why would I want to give up the privilege of paying US taxes? And culturally I still see myself as first and foremost American, no matter how much I love my adopted country.

Still, some days I think that I am adjusting to life here a little too well. There were two scary things that happened to me last week, for example.

The first had to do with our broken refrigerator. As much as I thought getting it fixed would be easy (as I wrote in Easier Than You Think?), it has proven incredibly difficult. We had a part replaced and it broke again in exactly the same way. Now let me clarify. This is our additional refrigerator/freezer. Our flat came with a fridge – one that sits underneath the counter, disguised in the panelling, like you might do with a garbage can in the U.S. This fridge is the same size as the one that most U.S. college students had in their dorm. The flat did not come with a freezer.

We had a small freezer from our old flat that we bought with us because that flat did not come with a freezer either. So I told the Hub that I needed a regular fridge/freezer, like most sane people should have, with both components in one place. We bought one that is probably half the size of your regular American size fridge (when I go home to my parents' house at Christmas I stand in the kitchen and stare at the fridge for extended periods of time because I can't quite believe how large it actually is).

So now that our second fridge is broken we have been surviving on a dorm-sized fridge and a dorm-sized freezer. For three months. I balance ice trays on bags of peas and fret over how the four cupcakes I froze from the wedding won't make it to our first anniversary because the Hub keeps piling the frozen hash browns on top. I sometimes sit on the floor to think about what to make for dinner because it's the only way I can get a really good view of what's in either appliance.

But yet, I thought the other day: Maybe we don't actually need that second fridge. Perhaps it's wasteful and excessive. We're only two people after all.

This was my first warning sign.

The second has to do with friendliness. Americans are notoriously friendly, even overly so. They are everyone's best friends, and straight away. The English are more reserved. Although polite, they won't invite you over to their house the minute you arrive into town. It could take slightly longer – like even a few years. Americans think this means they are cold. English people think Americans can be fake.

But it's more complicated than that. In my limited experience (of nine years here), it's not that English people don't want to invite you along to their barbecue this weekend, it's just that they think you might find it awkward, you won't know anyone else there, after all. You might feel embarrassed, and there's nothing worse for an English person than embarrassment. One of my first friends here described it to me like this: An Englishman (or woman) just tries to get from birth to death with as little embarrassment as possible.

Americans, on the other hand, don't even know the meaning of the word. And they are shamelessly optimistic about their ability to do everything and be everywhere. They may be your best friend right away, and they mean it, they really do -- but they are just not realistic about their time and their capacity to love everyone. I do believe the English find this a tad annoying.

So my second sign that I was becoming a little further from American and more toward English was when a very friendly Irish person moved into a desk near mine at work.

A few times she said she was going to get food or coffee and asked me if I wanted anything. And you know what my first reaction was? Total suspicion.

Alas, this is all troubling. But being an ex-pat, you never quite fit in anywhere again and I suppose my life will be forever filled with surprising happenings and conflicting feelings. And as Bill Bryson says about having lived in two countries the reality is that some things are better and some things are worse.

P.S. The fridge got fixed yesterday and I'm really relieved.

Trial And Error

2011-06-07T18:43:00.000+01:00

If you've been reading my blog from the beginning or at least over the past few months, you would be familiar with my morning struggles. To summarize, I'd like to be a morning person. They seem more productive and happy or something. But I'm not.

So over the past year I've been attempting to either try to become one or at least get up a little earlier in order to give myself some extra time to do the things I like to do, or at least not arrive at the office late and in shambles and feeling guilty (which happens a lot).

Growth and change are never linear. When I set out to 'fix' my posture/RSI problems, things would improve, and then they wouldn't for a long time. Sometimes I would feel like I was moving backwards.

Changing anything usually involves a lot of mistakes. And so has been my challenge with mornings. I've tried to bribe myself to get up earlier (pizza for breakfast anyone?), commit publicly to getting up earlier, spend the early mornings at home hanging out doing stuff, spend the early mornings at work doing stuff. I've made lovely breakfasts, bribed myself with cream cheese, eggs, bacon, etc. (the food list goes on and on), tried meditating early in the morning, writing in the morning, doing absolutely nothing in the morning except giving myself more time to get ready and last but not least, putting my blackberry in the living room in the hope that I would at least get out of bed to check my email.

Well, I've learned a few things.

First, I'm not sure if this is ever going to change, but the absolute earliest I can get up, without thoughts of ending my life (I'm only partly joking) is 6.30 a.m. For some reason, that half hour between 6 and 6.30 is a real necessity for me. And don't give me the whole have-you-tried-going-to-bed-earlier? speech. I've tried for a year. A year. I give up on 6 a.m. Also, even if I can get up at 6.30 a.m. most days of the week, there's always going to be one or two where I need to sleep until 7 a.m. I haven't been able to prevent this.

Second, my body is not ready for breakfast right away. It takes me at least until 8 a.m. if not 9 a.m. to be ready to eat. It's just the way my body is and I'm going to accept it.

And third, being creative isn't happening in the morning. I can get up successfully at 6.30 a.m., get into work a little early and answer emails or do admin, but I'm not ready for writing or anything of the sort.

But there's also some good news: I've realized that the morning walk I started doing a year ago in the summer when we moved into our new flat was really the happiest morning activity I've ever engaged in. So I've re-instituted it. I don't know what it is, maybe it wakes me up, or cheers me up. But whatever the reason, it works. I just go to the train station that is a 25-minute walk from our house (instead of the one 10 minutes away). I sometimes even do it on the way home as well. Hey, when you sit at a desk all day, some light walking isn't going to hurt. It also gives me time to think and be alone, which I love. We'll see if I'm so enthusiastic in the winter months.

I don't know if this is the end of the morning story, but I think I've settled on a happy medium. Maybe I'm not a morning person, or will never be one, but through trial and error I've at least discovered a few things about myself that help me to navigate the mornings OK and at the very least I'm late for work less often.

P.S. The most ironic thing about this is that if you read my first post on this subject, The Magical Life Of The Morning Person, I already knew a lot of what I discovered this past year, which means maybe I need to trust myself more. Although I seem to have at least programmed myself to get up some days half an hour earlier than before, so that's some progress!

Ten Bags Of Clothes

2011-06-02T17:20:00.000+01:00

On Sunday my brain forgot that Monday, as a bank holiday (Queen's Birthday) was not actually Sunday. So there was no Bikram Yoga class at 3 p.m.. Not to worry, the extra hour and a half was a very good reason to do what I had been putting off – finishing up the "Great Clothing Clean Out."

On the bus back from the yoga studio (yes, I actually went all the way there) I pondered why I had been putting off the final stages. If you haven't read my original post, I'm finally getting rid of all the clothes I don't wear anymore, including (gasp!) the clothes that don't fit and the ones I've been holding onto for sentimental purposes.

I did give myself a small margin of error – two tiny cloth storage boxes. In which I deposited a few special dresses, including a bridesmaid dress, the old wool sweater I stole from my Dad when I was in high school, a pair of sweat pants I stole from my Mom in high school (when she reads this she will think I'm ridiculous) and a wool skirt my Grandmother made for my Mom that never quite fit her right, which ended up in my possession. I shortened it to make it a bit sexier – as sexy as blue tartan plaid can be – but it no longer fits.

I also saved a tee-shirt from the publication where the Hub and I worked when we first met. He actually made me keep that one – but don't tell him I told you that.

I had already made the purge from my closets and drawers, but I was procrastinating going through it all again, deciding what to throw away and what to give away, because I knew it would be hard. I am a sentimental person, and also, part of me is kind of sad that I don't fit into the clothes I wore in my 20s. I've been holding onto the hope that I'd get back into them. But regardless of what happens to my body, holding onto a lot (yes, 10 bags worth) of clothes that mostly don't fit isn't helping me in any way. Holding onto things you don't use is living in the past or the future. And that means living in fear. Leo Baubata at Zen Habits wrote a really good post on this recently – about using decluttering as Zen meditation.

But it was still hard. I felt the anxiety rise as I put the clothes in bags to go, but as with all anxiety, if you just hold tight and let it happen – instead of avoiding whatever it is that's causing it – the fear eventually dissipates. And I thought about the people who would stumble upon my cast-off clothes in the charity shop and actually wear them. Even after my smaller cousin went through a lot of them while she was here for the wedding, there were still nice things in the pile that someone else could be using.

I also discovered something else about my procrastination in the process. Whenever I am avoiding something, it's usually because I think it's going to be hard. And I basically run a little film in my head imagining how long it's going to take me and how difficult it will be. So in my pondering on the bus before I got home I decided I was going to change the reel. I started visualizing how I was going to tackle the clear out easily and quickly. I conceded that I might have a few moments of anxiety but I would deal with it OK and I'd finish the project easily before something we had planned at 6 p.m. And guess what… I did! It actually worked. So I plan to now test out my weird 'visualization' technique with other things I'm dreading. If it got me from a messy attic strewn with piles of clothes to 10 bags ready to go to the charity shop, it might just be an effective technique.

Third Time Lucky

2011-05-30T17:55:00.002+01:00

Last week Super Physio effectively discharged me. For the third time. Hopefully third time lucky.

The average number of sessions for patients my physio treats is 12. So, typically, treatment takes about three months. I've been in treatment on and off since 2005. That would make six years.

To be fair, I've had a lot of complications and extenuating circumstances. It initially took me about two years to get better from my long-standing neck and shoulder problems (read The Whole Story for well, the whole story).

So in 2007 I was discharged for the first time. I was doing extremely well when on a weekend trip to Bologna with the girls, the muscles in my neck suddenly and inexplicably went into spasm. That was when my physio realized that there might be an additional problem in my neck – which eventually led to a tonsillectomy in early 2008 (carried out by an ear-nose-throat doctor and not my physio, in case it might have sounded that way).

After the tonsillectomy it took a long time to recover. Although the surgery changed my life for the better by dramatically decreasing the number of sore throats I suffered from and eliminating tonsillitis (strep throat) attacks completely, the year I had the operation and for some time afterwards, I remained very weak. I lost so much blood during the operation that I was anemic for months. And that Christmas I got the flu (the real flu), and a persistent cough that lingered for ages. It took a long time to build my strength back up and throughout 2008 and 2009 I really struggled with being able to move into doing more 'normal' exercise while still remaining pain free.

In hindsight I probably didn't 'get' it – all I wanted was to be able to go to the gym when I wanted to, just like 'normal' people did. But I most likely set myself back by trying so hard to push myself into a regular exercise routine. For example, since last October, I've had great success easing back into exercise at a slower rate – going to yoga once a week – a method that the old me would have definitely thought wasn't 'enough'.

But regardless of how long it took, by early 2010, I was effectively discharged again (second time) and back at the 'review' stage (meaning a check-in every few months or so just to make sure everything was still working OK, at my own discretion).

But in an unfortunate turn of events, as we were moving house in May I packed and cleaned and unpacked a bit too much and threw out my back. And astonishingly even after all my years of physiotherapy I somehow missed how bad it was. I was having trouble walking, but I thought I could fix it myself with my exercises, missing the fact that I had never really had lower back problems so might not be able to address such an acute injury to the full extent necessary on my own.

It was during a review in June that my physio saw how bad it was. And so I spent all of last summer fixing my back (which included stretching out my hips big time). We got there in the end. But with the wedding coming up, I kept going for very regular reviews just to make sure we kept everything in order before the big day. After all, I had no time to deal with some sort of injury or even stiffness (so when I fell down the stairs three weeks before the wedding I was in good enough shape to keep everything moving and was pain free on the big day).

But now the wedding is over and I have healed from my freakish stair spill, so I'm back to dealing with my body on my own again. I hope that I've learned enough from all my experience over the years not to push myself too hard this time. I've got the tools I learned in physio to keep my muscles from getting tight and my posture in good form, but I still have to take things slowly.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that this is the last and final discharge. As much as I like and respect Super Physio, it's high time I saw her less.

A Snail's Pace

2011-05-25T18:20:00.000+01:00

The other day at lunchtime I went to a meeting of my company's Toastmasters club. Toastmasters is a group for people who want to improve their public speaking and communication skills through 'doing'. For example, there is even an impromptu section of each meeting – where people are chosen from the audience to come up and give two minute speeches on surprise topics (can you imagine?). And the whole thing has a timed itinerary. There is a time keeper and a grammarian and all sorts of other scary things I can't remember.

I do a lot of public speaking for work. I enjoy public speaking and would love to improve. And joining Toastmasters was one of the things I put in the 'after-the-wedding' basket of my to-do list.

But after a packed-full hour of people speaking and clapping I went back to my desk and thought "over my dead body am I going to that every other week." Not as keen anymore, eh?

Other people have told me about feeling bored or at a loose end after planning their wedding. I feel quite the opposite – I am so completely and utterly exhausted that even sometimes meeting up with people seems like a big task.

I just want to be a 'normal' person right now. Go to work, cook some food and exercise (including my physio work of course!). My tap dancing class seems too difficult. And reading my book club books is obviously creating trouble for me (see Tinker Tailor Soldier – Why? for a more in-depth study).

I wonder if part of my malaise is that a wedding is about a lot of people other than you. It's about taking care of them through the organizing of a million little details. Sure, it was about me and the Hub, but it was also about our families and friends and making sure they had a good time (and that we didn't lose any Americans in London). And I'm very good at taking care of other people.

So perhaps this shift in mood for me is part exhaustion but also part of a retreat back to myself. I'm feeling a little spent – like I don't have much to give – which is probably why a lunchtime speech-a-thon is a little too much for me right now. Time to re-group and get my energy back. I'm sure it won't be long before I'm tap dancing again, but for now I'm much more into long solitary walks.

P.S. The blogging stays. I'm much better when I'm writing.

Good For The Soul (not totally related, but I don't think I've linked it before)
Taking It Easy
Friday Find: Go Easy On Yourself

My Top 5 Wedding Tips

2011-05-23T17:36:00.002+01:00

It's been over two months since the wedding. Which means I've had some time to reflect. On my mistakes. So if you're ever planning a wedding, this is what I think is the boiled-down essential to know:

1. Most decisions can wait.

When you get engaged, there are lots of questions from people. Where will it be, how many people will you invite, what kind of cake will you have? There is a real feeling of urgency to make as many decisions as you can right away. Don't. Don't start asking bridesmaids, don't start inviting people and don't worry about what your color theme will be.

There are a few decisions you do need to make and they concern how much money you have for the wedding and then where it will be (aka choosing a venue). Also, it may help to map out a guest list to get a good sense of how many people you plan to invite (and ask your parents how many people they were thinking they'd like to invite – if you're doing that sort of thing). These are the big decisions and everything else can wait. Besides, you will change your mind on all those little decisions. Don't get ahead of yourself.

Which brings me to…

2. Realize family + money will = some discomfort.

Even though deciding who would pay for our wedding was relatively painless, there was still tension, at least on my part, as I worried about who would pay for what and specifically whether or not there would be enough money. I also worried over how many people we could invite, who would actually come and spent many sleepless nights fretting over not having enough space in the venue to feed all of our guests (I also had a dream at the early stages that we had to get married in my high school gym). I suppose everyone in the world has some sort of issues with money, so there's going to be some discomfort when you're suddenly asking for money from family members or deciding how much money each month you can save before the wedding. In the end, everything was fine. So just expect the discomfort and realize it is normal, which may make it easier to stomach.

3. Stay away from wedding magazines!

I know some women swear by them, but they gave me the shakes and made me break out into a cold sweat. Remember people, glossy magazines sell lots and lots of advertising! I found that paging through bridal books only made me start sweating the small stuff, like why hadn't I thought about what my place settings would look like?

During every part of the wedding-planning process I never actually needed a magazine. I only bought one once, when I was trying to decide on the flowers. And I regretted it, as it cost nearly £5 and there was a very limited selection of flowers in there – I had much better luck googling 'red and purple' flowers and seeing different combinations in the pictures results.

Instead, whenever I had a decision to make I would find out my options and then make a decision. Need a veil? Go to some bridal shops and try them on. Pick the one you like best. That sort of thing. It worked just fine for me. Bridal magazines just made me more confused about what I wanted and encouraged me to spend more money – a lose-lose situation.

4. If something isn't working, change it.

Essentially, I had to fire my hair lady about six weeks before the wedding (I swear, I was not a bridezilla). I should have gone with my gut as I knew from the trial that it wasn't really working -- she made me feel stressed out. But I thought I was being silly and uber sensitive (turns out I wasn't).

It transpired that although she had agreed to come to the venue and do my hair, my Mom's and my Maid of Honor's, she told me about six weeks beforehand that she couldn't get the time off from the salon and could she come to the house and start on our hair at 7 a.m.? I politely told her, via email (thank God for email these days) that I was sorry if there was a misunderstanding but I really needed someone to come to the venue, so it just wasn't going to work out.

In retrospect, it was a blessing in disguise as I still hadn't settled on someone to do my makeup. And when the hair lady flaked it gave me the opportunity to find someone who could do both. And Pam, my hair and makeup lady, was amazing. Not only did she do a good job, but she kept me calm -- and your hair and makeup person is the last person you really have contact with before you head off down the aisle. (If you live in London and you ever need someone to do your hair/makeup, check out her site here. And you can see a photo of my hair/makeup here.)

Thing is, you need to be comfortable with your vendors. Go with your gut and don't be afraid to make changes if things aren't working out. You might be happy you did.

5. No matter what goes wrong, it will be worth it on the day!

As I've written about before, I lost my voice the day before the wedding. It was pretty horrible. But it still didn't ruin things! (I got the vows out and gave a croaky speech.) In hindsight, I probably would have taken the whole week before the wedding off from work -- instead of only three days -- which may have helped me recover from my cold faster. But who knows? Maybe something else would have happened in that case.

You just can't plan for everything. So you do your best, but then also be safe in the knowledge that something strange will happen. But it will still all be OK, and in fact, wonderful. I promise.

Tinker Tailor Soldier - Why?

2011-05-19T19:48:00.001+01:00

I've now mentioned in two other posts that John Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is making me angry. We're reading it in my book club and my reaction to it has been strong. I can usually read my book club book in enough time to read an additional book between meetings, but this month I am struggling with finishing it.

So why is this interesting, or relevant? And why should you care?

My experience with Tinker Tailor has taught me two things that I thought I'd share: first, that every thing you are upset about now is actually something that has already happened to you, and second, that I am afraid of things that are difficult, which is not a good thing.

Now, one of the 'charming' aspects of Tinker Tailor is that it is a spy novel, and as the reader, you are as much in the dark as the main protagonist, who is recruited to root out a high-level mole of thirty years standing. I have not found being in the dark charming.

It has clearly rustled out some insecurity I'm storing in the depths of my soul (dramatic much?) about not being able to comprehend literature on a high level, unlike some friends of mine who studied literature at university (or college, for the Americans). Despite being an English literature whiz in high school, I was not allowed to study such a subject during my higher education.

Before handing over the tuition money, my Dad specified that I would have to find a career-oriented topic to study that wouldn't leave me jobless and directionless post-graduation. So I ended up studying applied economics and working for the college paper, in order to make myself employable as a financial journalist. I figured such a path was the best chance of making me not just a journalist, but a highly employable one. And it was certainly not a bad strategy. I've had an interesting career – one that gave me a very decent salary in Manhattan at the young age of 22 and then eventually paved the way for me to move overseas.

Dad's strategy got me thinking about how to make myself employable, which was a good thing, but it doesn't mean I'm not still a little sad that I wasn't able to spend my college days reading and analyzing literature and having lively debates with other like-minded people (like in the movies), instead of grinding my way through stats classes and business law. I also know many financial journalists who majored in English, so who's to say I couldn't have had the same path?

When I read a book 16 years after I filled in those college application forms and feel like crying because I don't understand it, could it be that disappointed 18 year-old rising to the surface?

So that's point one.

Second point is that the panic I feel at not being able to understand a complex spy story on first read and letting said 18-year-old take over, is clearly not a good thing when it comes to continuing to develop my skills as a writer (a big chunk of which involves reading).

When things get tough, fearful backing away only limits you. Yes, I know it's just one book, but I try to read all sorts of books -- not just my favorite types. Perfectionists (including me) will often turn back at the first hurdle because they are deathly afraid of failing, and so it's easier not to try.

So faced with my own perfectionism and my discomfort at reading a book which is not entirely clear to me from the get go, I decided that as much as I hated it, learning this lesson was important. When I'm faced with a task that seems tough, I sometimes shy away. But when I actually try, I always learn something. So why can't the process be less traumatic, why can't I be OK with not understanding everything right away? Learning requires a little bit of discomfort, but the rewards in the end are well worth it.

And so I plow ahead with Tinker Tailor. I am no longer actively worrying about understanding everything, but trying to enjoy and absorb. And maybe by the end I'll get it a little more. But more importantly, I'll have increased my tolerance to discomfort and confusion and realized it's not all as bad as it seems.

Anger: A Warning Sign

2011-05-17T08:23:00.003+01:00

The other day, the Hub asked me, "What's all the anger about?"

Sure enough, I had been feeling angry more than usual. Angry about the book we're reading for book club (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), angry about the number of cars I had to wait for before I crossed our road and angry about how the British love to congregate outside pubs when it's actually not that warm outside, so I spend 'summer' freezing. Which is also how I spend winter in this country, due to lack of proper heating and insulation in buildings. In a completely temperate country, how is it that I end up so cold all the time?

But I digress.

I've been struggling with trying to figure out if anger is a good or a bad thing. It's certainly real, in the sense that it's a genuine emotion, but it's not really productive. When you're angry, it's typically because you can't get your way, and you feel you have lost control. Which happens in life – a lot.

With all this anger floating around in my head I was pleasantly suprised to find out that this month's Self Discovery Word-by-Word word happens to be 'anger' (see the end of the post for more information on this series).

I think anger is a warning sign. It's a signal that things aren't right – that I'm not paying attention to what it is I truly need at that moment. It's a sign that there's something going on that requires attention. I may be over tired, doing too much, not eating well enough, not getting enough exercise, or even socializing too much (even a social creature like me requires quite a bit of down time, and particularly alone time).

Or maybe I'm just going through a low patch. Whatever the reason, anger is a warning sign that I need to step back and take some time out. But it is also, maybe even more importantly, not a time to mull over what's wrong, or try to 'solve' the problem.

One of the most important things I learned from reading so many of Richard Carlson's* helpful books, is that typically when you feel down, you also have an overwhelming impulse to 'solve' the problem, whatever it is. Maybe you need a new job or a new boyfriend, or maybe it would help to lose 10 pounds (as if). Sometimes even moving to a new city (or country) seems like just the ticket!

But big life-changing decisions cannot be made from an angry state, but with a clear and healthy mind. Have you ever had one of these moments where you are feeling down and decide you must change something, only to find that the next day when you are in a better mood you realize that things aren't that bad – that maybe the fact that your husband has left the wet towel on the bed isn't a reason to leave him? (I promise you I've never thought this.)

I think that anger is mainly reactionary. It's not in itself helpful, except for the fact that it can make you sit up and take notice that something's not right. It's probably a good time to try to clear the thoughts and the noise away and just be for a while. Do something that gives you comfort and take care of yourself. Maybe there is something big that needs changing, but anger isn't the path there. By slowing down, noticing the anger and then sifting through it and seeing what emotions lie beneath could actually help sort out what's really going on.

P.S. I'm still not sure what's making me so angry, by the way, so I will be following my own advice, which serendipitously comes at a very appropriate time.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word blogger series, started by Ashley at Nourishing the Soul. This month's word was chosen by Jules at Big Girl Bombshell -- you can click here to get the details and participate too!

*The late Richard Carlson is the author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and my personal favorite, Stop Thinking, Start Living. I give him credit for giving me some novel ways to ponder life when I first started reading about psychology and the philosophy of happiness.

Those Pesky Hips

2011-05-14T10:33:00.000+01:00

Although my story of pain is a success story, sometimes there are still setbacks. This week, shortly after publishing Monday's post about moving my exercise routine forward, my body reminded me that I can't take anything for granted. I've been reminded of this before, like when I fell down the stairs three weeks before the wedding, but at least this time things were slightly more under my control.

On Wednesday I noticed my back seemed sort of stiff. I've been working on getting my hips stretched out fully so that I'll be ready to play golf and tennis (if I so fancy it), but for whatever reason – perhaps I've been sitting more than usual or skipping my exercises on Monday night wasn't the best idea – the stretches were not doing enough. Or I wasn't doing them enough.

In case you weren't aware, stiff hips can cause lower back trouble. And then when the back gets stiff, that can exacerbate the hip tightness even further, causing more back pain. It's a vicious cycle. Read my post Hips Don't Lie for a more detailed discussion of the matter.

Of course there was the little twinge of panic. Does this mean I'm back to constant pain and popping ibuprofen constantly? It doesn't take much to throw me over the what-if cliff. If you've suffered from chronic pain before you know how frightening it can be.

I was also annoyed that I might have to skip swimming on Thursday night. And the Zumba class I had been considering going to today. I was really annoyed, actually, to the point of thinking maybe it would be OK, when I know full well that those are two activities that don't loosen the hips and in fact would make things worse.

A quick call to Super Physio's office confirmed this fact, much to my dismay, but not to my surprise.

So I've been stretching out my hips for the past 48 hours. Every chance I get. Luckily I know three variations of the stretch, so can do some at work, and even when waiting for the bus.

I'm irritated I didn't get to swim or dance this week, but I was also reminded of an important lesson. I need to pay attention to my body even more when I'm adding in new movement. If right now I was just doing walking I wouldn't have this problem. But I'm (very happily) going to yoga, taking a tap class and getting back into Zumba and swimming. It's an increase in activity that seems amazing when viewed from the standpoint of where I was last summer – when I was having trouble walking because my back was hurt so badly.

But it also means that I'm more likely to get stiff hips. And my neck and shoulders will also be more prone to tightness. I know the exercises and the stretches to do to fix these little wobbles, and if I want everything to work, I need to be vigilant and actually do them!

Pasta (And White Bread) Mi Amore

2011-05-11T08:27:00.000+01:00

Intuitive eating is a lot like meditation.

When I began experimenting with intuitive eating about two years ago, it all seemed so simple. Eat what you like, when you're hungry, and stop when you're full. And pay attention to what you're eating – eat mindfully.

It's a little like meditation in the sense that it sounds simple, but then, it opens you up to a whole other world (and at the same time, a proverbial can of worms).

Meditation, at least as far as I can figure out, is about attention. You sit there all by yourself, counting your breaths, observing your thoughts. And when you mind starts to wander, you bring it back. Through this process you learn about yourself – the real you – stripped away from the usual noise that surrounds your life.

When I started intuitive eating, the first thing I really allowed myself to eat, at the frequency I desired, was pizza. Pizza had been my nemesis, that food that I was sure was causing me to store some extra poundage. It was like Stephen King says about being an alcoholic – I couldn't understand how anyone could leave pizza lying around (he says this about alcohol, however, left carelessly behind in a glass). My desire to eat the whole pizza was overwhelming. But I tried so hard to control my pizza intake. So when the limits were off, I ate pizza like a champ.

These days, I still love pizza, and I do eat it when I want, but I think I've had my fill. It no longer has the same power over me. As intuitive eating experts say, releasing restrictions on the frequency I could consume pizza – effectively legalizing it – really did the trick. But make no mistake, this was not a quick fix. It took probably a whole year to come to terms with my pizza 'addiction'.

These days I've moved onto pasta. And white bread. These are two of the things that in the dieting world (and in celebrity magazines) seem to be off limits. If you want to be thin, you must replace them with chicken and veg and whole-grain pita bread, or whole-grain whatever. It's not that I don't like whole-grain bread, but I'm so fed up with thinking that I have to eat it to be healthy, that I'm resisting it for the time being. So these days, when I pack a sandwich for lunch, I use white rolls.

I'm not sure how long this will go on, but I'm not worried. I know at some point that I'll have had my fill. Or maybe not. Maybe I like to eat my sandwiches on white rolls and I'm pretty sure it's not going to kill me.

So as I continue with the intuitive eating journey, I just pack my lunches and boil my pasta and observe. I'm mindful, but I'm no longer controlling. These days, my body is in charge and I listen. It's scary to stop controlling everything, but that's what meditation teaches – that actually you can't.

Exercise, Again

2011-05-09T17:56:00.002+01:00

It's not easy to get into an exercise routine. For anyone. But you've got to be strategic. It's got to be right for your body type, something you actually like doing and the right frequency to keep you from just giving up.

As you may know, I am now recovered from what was a terrible problem with my posture that resulted in muscle imbalance and pain. Unfortunately for me, after recovering, I had a few set backs, including a tonsillectomy and then a back injury last summer from moving house that was totally unrelated (apart from the fact that I am hypermobile, which means I will probably always be a little more prone to injury than most people).

So it's been a long time since I've had a regular sustained exercise routine for more than a few months – besides walking. And that's been tough. Both physically and mentally.

But last October, the stars finally aligned and my physio cleared me to start exercising again. First, I started going back to Bikram yoga. I was thrilled– but had to remain calm about the whole thing and not overdo it. I just went once a week. I also went back to my tap dancing class. This was all amazing.

And then, it got better! I was cleared to do some aerobics again, so I started getting back into Zumba (a dance exercise class). This trio of activities got me through the five months prior to the wedding.

So what happens now? I've been getting stronger and although I don't want to overdo it, I wanted to up things a little more, considering that tap class doesn't happen every week and sometimes we don't even really work up a sweat (we all usually just wear our work clothes). And even though I'm not sure I'll settle at this level, I think exercising three to four times per week seems like the right amount for me.

I'd been toying with a few ideas – including going to yoga twice a week. I tried it, but it was just too much for me. I know that the Bikram yogis swear you have to go at least that much, if not everyday, but it's expensive, and it's time consuming. Apart from being a 90-minute class, you get so sweaty that there's no way you can leave the building without a shower. Plus there's the 15 minutes I spend after class sprawled on the floor unable to move before I can even get to the changing room.

Going once a week is still really challenging, but I also don't dread it. For now, that's my Bikram yoga equilibrium.

One thing that has influenced my decision about what to add in next is a pesky bit of a click in my right shoulder (not sure how else to describe it). According to Super Physio, this will go away once my right deltoid (the big shoulder muscle) gets just that bit stronger to hold one of the joints in my shoulder together better.

I have weights that I use to do specific physio exercises with, but SP said that I need to do more varied work (i.e. faster and in more directions) to actually get that deltoid muscle as strong as it needs to be to stop said pesking 'clicking'. And this doesn't mean I need to become a body builder – no, it means going to Zumba and waving my arms around more and doing things like swimming or tennis or golf.

So I've now started adding swimming back in on Thursday nights. In the past I've struggled a bit with trying to incorporate swimming into my routine. But I am pretty interested in getting rid of that click and I think it's probably the safest bet right now as I don't feel ready for tennis or golf yet. Also, there's the added incentive of a little lie down in the sauna afterwards.

There's a lot to think about when it comes to exercise for me. I can't just plow ahead and try out every new exercise fad that comes along (and who really wants to fly with Jukari or throw those kettle balls around anyway?). Sometimes it stinks, but I know that in the end my body will thank me for it. I have to be my own expert, as only I know the type of exercise that works best for me, what I really like and how I can make it sustainable. And I think that might even be true for everyone, even if you don't have a pesky shoulder click.

Friday Find: Urban Mavens

2011-05-06T13:01:00.000+01:00

As a relatively new blogger myself, I am always happy to help out other newbies, eager to find interested readers. Two friends of mine have recently started blogs – and if you're interested in all things urban, you should check out their online musings.

Sara, who pens High Street Main Street, writes about urban living – both in the US and the UK – and how the physical aspects of town and city centres interact with the people living in them. You can read about such things as heated sidewalks, what monopoly boards and localism have in common, and ethnoburbs (I had no idea what they were either until I read the post!).

Over at Urban Clever, you can follow along on Molly's journey to downsize her belongings and re-think consumerism in the big city – without giving up style and good design. Read her post Take My Stuff… Please, and see if you can keep a dry eye while reading the everyday stories of the people who helped her to empty her flat by taking some of her possesions (although I am a crier!).

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On a different note, don't forget that today is today is International No Diet Day! And you know how I feel about diets. If you're interested in reading some of my posts on the delights of intuitive eating, and why it makes sense, check out these links:

Making Peace With Red Tape

2011-05-04T14:51:00.001+01:00

I have finally finished my U.S. taxes. Well, I have finally finished gathering together the materials to do them, so that I could send them to my tax preparer. (Doing my U.S. taxes as an expat is clearly out of the question. I am still traumatized by my Dad making me do them when I was in college and I had to try to figure out how to account for share sales that were paying my tuition).

Life is full of red tape. There's always something you need to be doing admin-wise. Whether it's making a dentist appointment, figuring out how the heck to send a postal ballot in the U.K., applying for a mortgage or doing your taxes, it will probably never cease. There are thank-you notes to send, birthday cards to write and garbage to take out. Living in a society with other peoples comes with all sorts of rules and responsibilities this way. Even dying requires a certain amount of admin.

I've started making a sort of truce with red tape. Not sure if I'm at peace with it yet, but the light bulb has finally gone on and I've realized that putting things off doesn't make them go away and instead creates more pain. Playing catch-up is always a grind. So why do so many of us keep things on our to-do list for ages, taunting us?

I was thinking about it last night and realized that sometimes completing things frightens me. When things are all done, beds are made and the admin is under control, what's left? If I didn't have silly things to worry about, would I be faced with the really scary things – the fears that I don't particularly like sitting with?

Ironically, having all sorts of admin hanging over my head avoids a certain amount of discomfort. Clearing away all the excess clutter leaves me alone with whatever is there (whatever that is). I suppose it's a little like meditation. Just sitting there, doing nothing, alone with your thoughts. No wonder people turn the other direction when you start talking about meditation.

But the flip side – and the less scary side – is that when you do clear away all the clutter of life, you can also find the space to focus. You can touch base with the uncomfortable stuff and then make choices about what's actually important.

But practically, how do you get started on clearing all the admin away?

What has helped me is finding some time to focus on it – a scheduled time. Setting aside a specific time does two things – it makes sure you stay focused when you're doing it and also it gives your brain space to do other things when it's not the time to do admin.

For example, when I do manage to get up early (at 6 a.m.), I'm not actually ready to do creative things, but I've found that I am really good at clearing my inbox and sorting out other tasks like bills, online grocery shopping or figuring out how to get to an upcoming country wedding by train. I prefer to get serious writing done instead after work and before dinner. Also, starting the day with admin sorted makes it much easier to really concentrate on work at 9 a.m.

Another thing I do is set aside some time on Sunday nights to go through the stack of papers that has accumulated throughout the week (mail, magazines, odd scraps of paper with lists scribbled on them, etc.). I file away important bits and decide what to chuck. That means during the week I can open my mail without worrying too much about it. I can just put it in the pile if it can wait until Sunday. I know piling things is another form of procrastination, but I'm OK with only sorting it out once a week (hey, nobody's perfect).

Also, if I have a bigger project I want to do, such as cleaning out a closet, or putting together a flat-packed piece of furniture (don't get me started on how long this actually takes – I am never ordering furniture in pieces again), I schedule it in. Block out a Saturday afternoon. Just like I would do with a social engagement. If you want to de-clutter your life and your brain, you have to build in the time.

Obviously, you have to be your own expert and find what works for you. But before you just sigh and forget about it, thinking red tape is the bug bear impossible to conquer, it's worth examining what it is that keeps you from actually dealing with annoying admin. And what you could gain by getting it under control.

Mixed Reviews

2011-04-28T11:59:00.002+01:00

The Hub says I'm reacting emotionally to things that are incredibly un-emotive. Like barbeque arrangements (our house or theirs?) and the book Tinker Tailor Solider Spy ( I hate it! I'm terrified of it!). Perhaps, like Sampson, my hair is where I carried all my strength.

I cut all my hair off last weekend. Apparently this is what brides do after the big day is over. In fact, my hair guy was extremely nervous I'd set my mind to do this – according to him, this is what always happens post-wedding and nine times out of 10 the women hate the result and he is left picking up the pieces.

I certainly don't hate it, but I'm still undecided as to whether or not it's really 'me'. You can see from my new blog photo that it's not all that short – although it probably is the shortest I've ever had it. It also had to be super long for the wedding, you see, so that I could do this with it:

(That's my amazing Mom, by the way. One of the biggest fans of the blog!)

So it's a big change. I wrote about change last week and the importance of embracing it and ironically, when I changed my hair (a temporary change as hair grows back) I still managed to freak out a little.

It didn't help that there were clearly mixed reviews. Some people didn't even mention it when I ran into them in the kitchen at work. Clearly a negative sign. But there was also lots of positive feedback and comments that it made me look younger (!) and even taller (!!).

But all of this made me think about the importance I place on approval and how that might be detrimental.

I have found that generally, when I do something for myself instead of seeking others approval, the result is usually better. In terms of quality, and happiness, and general well-being. But why is this such a difficult thing to do?

I once took a job because I was flattered it was offered to me. I used to go out with some guys because they liked me. Big mistakes.

I've been thinking a lot about the future of my career and writing post-wedding (now that I have more time to ponder, and also to breathe). And I think one thing that is particularly important is to be really honest with myself about what it is I want – instead of all the notions I have had floating around in my head since I was a kid, including other people's pesky opinions. Because I think that once I figure that out, then the more practical steps will be much easier.

There's a part in Anne Lamott's wonderful book on writing, Bird by Bird, where she talks about how you can't write to get published – how you have to be enough already (despite the fact that being a published author is a good thing).

The reality is that we get mixed reviews our entire life – but it's us that has to be happy with what it is we're doing (or how our hair looks). Defining ourselves by those around us is a losing game.

Perhaps it's hard to deal with real-life post-wedding because you've just had the one day where you can do no wrong. With a wedding, there are no mixed reviews. Even if you have no voice and in some photos your boobs are kind of jumping out of your dress (I told the dress lady it was too tight!). Coming crashing down is always a shock.

PS Do you think that Kate will cut all her hair off after the Royal Wedding? I would certainly bet on it.

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The Great Clothing Clean Out

2011-04-22T08:00:00.009+01:00

Clothes can often be loaded for women. They are our protection, a statement, and can represent what we desire or what we wish was better about ourselves. For some, buying clothes and going shopping can be great fun or a distraction. It can also be an addiction.

I have to admit, I am not the biggest fan of shopping. No matter how at peace you are with your body, sometimes it's no match for the dressing room lighting. Or pick out the wrong cut of skirt and suddenly you appear to have lumps jutting out of your body in places you didn't even know there was a problem. It's not for the faint of heart.

For me clothes shopping is also interlinked with my constant battle not to hang onto old clothes -- things that don't fit, don't look nice or just contain a sentimental value (but yet they sit stuffed away at the back of the closet or in the bottom of a drawer). What if I need it again? What if I ever do some painting and need overalls? I keep old pairs of jeans in case I can use the material to patch another pair. As if I have ever patched anything in my life.

Earlier this week I wrote about a program I watched on hoarding and it gave me a renewed drive to try to grapple with my pack-rat demons when it comes to my clothes.

And the truth is, that in the past few years I've got better. I try to do a good clean out of my clothes at the end of each summer/winter season (there are only two seasons in England - warmish and coldish). I seek some honesty with myself: did I actually wear it all season?

When my cousin came over for the wedding I asked her to go through all the clothes that no longer fit me. Twelve years my junior, in her early 20s, there was a lot of stuff that looked great on her. And it was much easier parting with things when I knew they were going to my lovely cousin.

But still, there are loads of dresses I hang on to that I don't wear and all sorts of strange things I can't seem to throw away, like oversized tee-shirts with the names of trade publications I once worked for stenciled on them. These are not high-fashion items I should be treasuring.

I think the crux of my problem lies in my refusal to see my own wardrobe as a changeable, living thing. I'm not even the type who buys 'investment' pieces! But the reality is that we buy new things all the time, our lives change, our jobs change, our shapes change, and our tastes change. Even if I like something a lot, I can grow tired of wearing it. And there's that old chestnut of hanging onto clothes that don't fit. If you lose or gain weight, guess what, you can buy new clothes – the ones you are holding onto may no longer be in style or to your taste anyway.

Keeping things that you actually wear now and make you feel good is the stuff equivalent to living in the moment.

So this past weekend I took my first step in the getting-rid-of-things-I-don't wear cold turkey process. Without questioning, I asked myself, 'do I wear this?' and if the answer was no, then I took it out of the drawer or closet. Everything is now sitting up in our attic for phase two.

I plan to ask myself three questions when the real sorting begins:

1. Do I wear this? Right now?

2. Do I feel good in this?
3. If neither are true, why am I hanging onto this… and it is rational or just emotional?

I'm planning to give myself a little leeway. I have two small storage boxes. I will allow myself to keep some sentimental items, but only as long as they fit into those two boxes. Everything else will go to the charity shop or be thrown away. I'll let you know how it goes.

Change: Acceptance Is The Hardest Part

2011-04-20T18:27:00.001+01:00

My Mom says that my personality was fully formed before I was even born. Nearly two weeks past my due date, in the scorching summer of 1976 (I am a bicentennial baby), I had no interest in leaving the safe harbor of the womb. My Dad even took my Mom bike riding through Central Park to try to induce labor. In the end, it was a dinner of tuna casserole that finally caused her to go into labor – perhaps my distaste of fish and seafood started at a very young age.

I've never been too interested in change. I'm the kind of person who is usually content where they are, craves routine and generally fears too much upheaval and chaos. I sometimes take it to an absurd level. I never actually feel like getting into the shower, but then once I'm in, I don't want to get out.

When I found out this month's word for the Self-Discovery Word by Word series was 'change', I was slightly terrified. How do I write about something that I struggle with every day? (Ah wait, I write about things I struggle with every day all the time!)

The problem with not being comfortable with change is that change is the constant. And change is what provides growth. I may not like it, but I know its importance. Which is why I do crazy things like move to other countries without really knowing anyone. And why although marriage is a terribly risky thing to do, I am willing to take the plunge and try to figure what love really is.

You can face life head on and take things as they come, experiencing them fully, or you can hide away under the blankets grasping onto the fantasy that you can control things and as long as you are able to do that you'll be safe. But that's exhausting.

There are also those who love change – crave it in fact. But I think that can be a problem as well. When we are not prepared to accept life as it is, when we are constantly looking for something better, brighter and different – that elusive thing that will make us happier – it's easy to get caught up in the illusion that what we need to do is change our circumstances, rather than our attitude to life itself.

Unhappy in your relationship? Dump him. Unhappy at work? Switch jobs. Feeling like things aren't complete? Move. I'm not saying that there aren't times to do these things, but it's worth examining our own attitudes to life and whether or not our perception is actually the crux of the problem. Learning that I create the life I have from my own set of thoughts and beliefs was the biggest revelation I've ever had. It's up to me and no one else to make me happy. Not my partner, my job, my friends or even my breakfast (even if it contains bacon!).

I think maybe those who fear change and those who crave it aren't actually that different from each other. Both don't want to accept life as it is – and rightly so, as it's a hard thing to do. But when we accept, we break down the barriers we've created, which ironically, makes life that tiny bit better.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word blogger series. Mara, over at Medicinal Marzipan, came up with this month's word. Learn more about participating in Mara’s post and you can also read her excellent post on change here.

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What I Wear Now (Right Now)

2011-04-18T13:38:00.002+01:00

I was watching a fascinating program the other day on T.V. called 'Hoarders'. It's a show on the Bio channel (don't judge me) that aims to help hoarders clean up their homes and also deal with the mental health issues causing the hoarding in the first place.

It may sound unethical to put someone on television with mental health issues and let other people watch them, however, at least this program is trying to help. And there are some programs that put those with mental health issues on T.V. without trying to help them – which is pretty bad, in my opinion. Also, if someone watches a program like this and it encourages them to get help for any type of anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder that they are suffering from, it can only be a good thing. Right?

Laying aside whether or not I should have been watching this program, it really made me think about the way I deal with stuff. Objects. Things.

Hoarding is a real risk for me. As an anxious person, I do feel particularly attached to things, especially those that have sentimental value. I also just like having stuff. Especially extra stuff. Just in case I need it.

I'm determined to fight it, particularly as I get older, which is apparently when hoarding gets worse. Also, I feel surprisingly great when clutter is gone.

Apparently, like anything in life, there's a real spectrum of hoarders. From people who just have a lot of stuff (perhaps classified as the 'cluttery sort'), to those who literally keep garbage. The latter is considered a 'Stage 5' and often they are health risk to themselves and those around them.

Also, people generally can be prone to hoarding, but it is traumatic events in their life that cause it to get out of control. I was particularly struck by one woman on the program whose hoarding had worsened after she gave birth to a still-born son. One of the professionals on the show explained to the viewer that she was using hoarding as a coping mechanism. She was surrounding herself with things that were a part of her past or things she had bought for the future – but that she was no longer allowing herself to live in the present.

This really hit home for me. That's exactly what excess stuff is really about. It's the embodiment of what, in my mind, is living in fear and misery. Being stuck in the past or the future and now allowing ourselves to experience the here and now.

I was in our spare bedroom last night looking at a blue fleece I had taken out of one of our closets. And I thought, "I don't wear that fleece anymore," but yet I had folded up to put up in the attic with the rest of my winter clothes. So why was I planning to keep it?

My Mom bought that fleece for me. It's a good brand. And I have a very fond memory of wearing it to visit my aunt in Holland, about a year and a half before she died of cancer. I know because there's a picture she took of me in the main square in Haarlem, smiling and wearing the blue fleece.

But I don't wear it anymore. Which made me think: what if I got rid of all the clothes I don't wear, right now, at this moment, no matter what the reason?

It was one of those moments, where your vision is clear and you can see the issue for what it is.

Getting rid of everything I don't wear would mean no longer having that yellow dress I once wore so much and wish I could still fit into. And the bridesmaid's dress from my friend's wedding in 2005. It would mean shedding all those things I keep 'just in case'.

Could I do it? I don't know. I'm kind of scared, but also completely exhilarated by the idea. I just might try it – I'll let you know.

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What I Wish I Knew Then

2011-04-14T08:00:00.001+01:00

One of my friends recently met someone who is coping with back pain and just starting out on her journey to find some help. My heart goes out to anyone with any type of muscular pain. It's certainly not easy. So what would I tell someone like this, or anyone who is beginning (or continuing) to deal with a sore neck, back, knees, elbow or whatever else?

Get a second opinion, or third or fourth.
Most people whom my physio treats have had at least one failed treatment. I certainly did. The sad reality is that there is a wide variation in the quality of physiotherapists (physical therapists) or medical practitioners of any sort out there. Make sure to find someone you are comfortable with on a personal level and who makes you feel confident in their abilities. They should also be able to express exactly what is wrong with you, how they plan to fix it and what the long-term plan is. Most muscular pain – typically caused by an imbalance in the musculoskeletal system – can be treated. You shouldn't have to keep going to see someone for the rest of your life. Also, be sceptical of practitioners who say things like "you need to get stronger" without actually helping you to do that. Getting stronger is no good if it's not targeted at the specific muscle groups that correct the imbalance.

Just because a pain is in one place it doesn't mean that's the root of the problem.

I had severe hand, elbow and neck pain. I had extremely tight muscles in my arms, but that wasn't the root of the cause. The problem was the alignment in my neck and shoulders. There was nothing wrong with my hands and arms! Even tennis elbow may not be caused directly by a problem with your elbow. Funny enough, you may actually need to strengthen your legs to run to the ball faster instead of reaching further to hit it and therefore straining your shoulder/elbow.

Evaluate your posture.

When the pain first hit me I was totally in the dark about what was causing it. Someone I worked with took one look at me and said, "Your neck hurts because you don't sit up straight." I was really taken aback and thought, that's not possible, that's too simple an explanation. Turns out, essentially, he was right. An older colleague from the time when children were taught to sit and stand up straight, seems he actually knew more about the body than the first physio I went to see. So look at how you're standing and sitting. Also, take a look at the way you walk. Your feet should be straight, your bum tucked under, your strides should be long (short strides can indicate stiff hips) shoulders shouldn't be hunched forward and the chin should be tucked in, not sticking out ahead of the rest of you. It's simple stuff, but very important.

Know your body type.

Are you bendy, flexible? No problem touching your toes? It may be hard to tell, but flexible people, known in the medical world as hypermobile (which is what I am) are more prone to muscle imbalance problems. It's because our ligaments are longer than other people's and we need more strength to keep everything in place. While stiff people have other problems, one advantage of being less flexible is that getting stronger isn't necessarily a part of your treatment – you only need to stretch out the overly stiff parts. Hypermobile people, on the other hand, have to get strong enough to hold their posture in place properly. It's definitely helpful to know where you stand when seeking treatment.

Avoid surgery.

Surgeons like to do surgery. But before you let anyone cut into you, know that even when you have some sort of surgery to eliminate pain (hip, knee, slipped disc, etc.) you STILL have to do physio work to correct the muscle problem that got you into trouble in the first place. Surgery should be a very last resort. And sometimes doesn't even help. Which is why it's worth attempting to correct the muscle imbalance before going under the knife.

Be sceptical of some alternative therapies.

I'm a big fan of acupuncture, but I don't think it would have ever fixed my problem. There are other therapies that people try, like massage, that may alleviate symptoms but don't usually get to the root of the problem. If you have tight muscles and need regular massages, or a chiropractor to crack things constantly, something isn't right. Fixing the muscle imbalance is usually cheaper in the long run. The thought of getting a massage doesn't even interest me anymore as I don't ever need one. The exercises work much better.

A pain that isn't that bad now may still be worth fixing.

You may be able to get by now, but trust me, that neck ache or knee twinge will probably only get worse (sorry – it's the truth!). I had twinges in my arms/hands for years before the pain got nuclear. A pain in the same place all the time isn't just a coincidence, there's something you're doing to cause it. Fix it now when it's easier to sort out and feel much better later (also, save money on painkillers, future physio trips etc.). And improving your posture is a long-term investment. You don't necessarily need to walk all hunched over when you're 80.

Don't give up.

Fixing a long-term problem (most pain only occurs after quite some time) isn't easy. It's hard work. Including finding the right practitioner, doing the exercises, and dealing with setbacks. It took me at least a year to find someone right to treat me and then the better part of four years to get better (I had some complications, however, so don't let that discourage you too much). Hang in there. There is a life without pain.

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I'm still looking for books to recommend to people with muscular pain. I haven't found any that are good enough just yet, although I've got a few that I'm evaluating right now. I can't refer everyone in the world to my physio, so would like to have a good resource page on this site.

What Next? Start Small

2011-04-12T13:07:00.001+01:00

Ever since we got back from honeymoon I've been the queen of procrastination. There's actually quite a bit of clean-up admin left over. There's the thank-you notes and the wedding album to put together (most couples I know who got married in the past few years still haven't done it) and the honeymoon pictures to sort through. We went on safari and I kid you not, took over 700 photos, I think, of mostly giraffes. Why so many giraffes?

I know, you're weeping for me, right?

I'm not complaining about all this nice stuff I have on my to-do list. Rather, I'm thinking about motivation a lot these days in terms of how to get things done, while prioritizing the important things and also keeping myself from getting knotted up about everything on the list.

And I think (just maybe) that planning a wedding taught me some important lessons. Because actually, even though I say I'm the queen of procrastination, I've already written 20 thank you notes and we've unpacked and put away all our gifts, broken down the boxes and I've even checked the file size of the wedding photos (so my parents could send me the right size memory stick). Which is one of those fiddly things that in the past I just never would have done quickly.

So what have I learned?

You've got to prioritize. And then you've got to start small: do just do one thing. Which will eventually lead to others.

I suppose, also, that I'm making some progrees on shedding the perfectionist tendencies, because I'm learning that posting twice a week is better than not at all. And writing even one thank-you note per day will get you there faster than you thought.

Also, focusing on one task (or a small number) at a time really does work. Last week I was going a little bit crazy. My mind was racing about trying to solve/get organized/deal with everything else in my life that I haven't had much time to focus on in the past eight months.

My brain was like a runaway train, unsatisfied with the state of my wardrobe (must clean out those ratty winter clothes) and my inability to get up earlier in the mornings on a consistent basis (again). I was also mad at myself for sticking to cooking and eating my rota of 'easy dinners' that recently got me through the busy times. Why hadn't I broken out the new cookbook my brother and his girlfriend gave me for Christmas and learned some amazing new dish to serve the Hub?

Then I stopped the insanity. And thought about what were the most important things right now. Writing the thank-you notes, filing my US taxes and getting back into the rhythm of blogging. (I won't take credit for the three-most-important-project method – I read it in Leo Babauta's book: The Power of Less. But I find it works – three projects is a good number to juggle.)

Also, I've again started using a technique that my Dad once told me about. Whenever there's something that you don't want to do, just do it for 30 minutes. It really works, usually 30 minutes of just about anything is tolerable (if it's not, reduce it to 10 or 20 – I find 25 actually sometimes works better than 30 as it seems like so much less), and once I'm actually doing something I get into it, and don't mind it so much. Or, if I don't, I just take a break after the 30 minutes is up and then start again.

It's interesting, this compulsion to get everything done at once, and right away! Perhaps it's time to start meditating again. My initial thought on that: but there's no time! I wonder what I'm afraid of – maybe that I'll have to slow down and forget about my to-do list for a while. Maybe the best thing I can do for myself post-wedding is to start examining my obsession with 'getting things done'.

Well, maybe, but after I finish the thank-you notes.

How do you deal with procrastination? Or the never-ending to-do list?

So Plans Really Are Useless...

2011-04-07T08:07:00.001+01:00

As we've established before, I'm a little bit of a control freak. And with the wedding I planned for everything, down to getting a UK cell phone for my parents so that people could call that number if they needed anything last minute. And the wedding really did go without a hitch.

That is, except for me losing my voice. That's right, me – verbose, wordy, chatty me – lost my voice. Oh, the irony.

The Tuesday before the wedding the Hub and I woke up with terrible colds. We never get sick at the same time, in fact, I'm convinced we have completely different immune systems. When I had the flu a few years ago with a temperature of 104 degrees, he never even sneezed. So I know the colds were pure stress-induced. We both recovered, but mine took my voice (like Ursula in The Little Mermaid). I guess it was the stress and the fact that we had social events every day leading up to the wedding. With so many people in town, I was talking up a storm on what were comprised vocal chords. I'm also prone to losing my voice when ill – apparently it doesn't happen to some people?

To say I was upset about it was an understatement. People roll in from all over the world and I can barely speak. On Friday I had to leave the drinks reception we had for our out-of-towners at 9 p.m. because I physically couldn't talk and I thought some extra rest was my one hope for being able to say my vows the next day.

It was the only time all week I got really upset. I had a little cry about the whole thing to my cousin (and bridesmaid) who took me home from the reception as she was staying with us. She was brilliant. She told me that everyone was there for me and didn't care what I sounded like. But I wanted to speak to my guests, I said. She told me I was a perfectionist and it didn't matter. Everyone would still love me anyway.

And she was right, it didn't matter. If you had told me a few months ago I'd have laryngitis at my wedding I would have cried in misery. I would have said I didn't want to have the wedding. I would have been incredibly angry.

So thank goodness I didn't know! Because it was still wonderful. I said my vows and even gave a short speech (which made everyone think I was so very brave). And although it was a little hard to make conversation with everyone especially when the music was loud, I still had a great time. I spent most of the night on the dance floor – if you can't talk, dance. And so while the Hub chatted away to our guests, I danced with them. And no one cared what I sounded like anyway – when you're the bride it's all about how you look!

Perfectionist that I am, this was a good lesson. You can plan for everything but the powers that be will always remind you that you're not in control. And wonderful is actually possible, even without perfection.

Worth It On The Day

2011-04-05T08:22:00.001+01:00

Well, okay, so I'm a little depressed. Sad, at least (don't want to trivialize depression here). Not just because the wedding is over, but because for a fleeting week I had so many of my family and friends in London and I want to do it all over again – and spend more time with each and every one of them. I feel really homesick for them all.

The photographer sent me the photos on a DVD and it arrived today. As I looked through them again I had a flashback to when I was a child and would point at the pictures of books and exclaim to my mother, "Be in there? Be in there?" I consistently wanted to get out of everyday life and be part of the much more exciting story, whatever it was.

And so, I wanted to jump into the cocktail reception again. I could see groups of people talking and wanted to go back and wander up to them, maybe not in a white dress, but as a bride-double in a black cocktail dress and chat with them for ages. "So what do you really think about Taron's dress?" I'd say.

I suppose that this is a good thing – that in the end, despite all the work and the stress and the time I went to the ladies room at work one day at 11 a.m. and cried for no particular reason for a good 20 minutes, it was all worth it on the day. All the Saturdays spent running around London doing cupcake tastings and hair trials (and firing my first hair lady – this sounds more bridezilla-ish than it was), a never-ending e-mail inbox filled with questions from vendors and guests, hours of addressing envelopes and decision-making that ranged from the ridiculous (what proportion of chocolate cupcakes should we have) to the more serious (which vows should we say) – despite all this, I'd do it all over again.

And the Hub (at long last!!) actually summed up the reason why quite nicely. He said that he was a little surprised at how easy it all was. Not a performer like me, he had been worried about standing up in front of everyone so much – during the ceremony, while making a speech and the (very much dreaded) first dance. But in the end, he didn't find it nearly as hard as he thought. Why? Because everyone is rooting for you (I'm paraphrasing here). When you're getting married and everyone has come to see you, I think you could literally be speaking Pig Latin, wearing a garbage bag dress (as long as it's white) and everyone would still think you were the bees' knees. (Note: the Hub's speech was genuinely good and he said really nice things about me – he even mentioned Mind, Body & Scroll!)

There aren't many times in life when you can do no wrong. That's why, if you're not planning to get married, or if you just haven't yet, make sure you have a really big birthday party at some point in your life (see my post on More Parties, Please for more on this). Invite friends and family far and wide. There's no reason that everyone shouldn't have an opportunity to spend a lot of money to look good and then have a queue of people come up and hug them.

The Hub and I have been together for quite some time but it was great to finally say it out loud. And even better, to let everyone else celebrate it too. So I will say, for the record, the whole thing was pretty cool.

Easier Than You Think?

2011-03-30T17:14:00.009+01:00

It's intimidating to try to write a post-wedding blog post. After being away from blogging for three weeks and embarking on a life-changing experience, I've been wondering how I could possibly pen a good-enough comeback post.

In fact, everything feels that way right now. There are actually still wedding-related tasks to complete, I have a very full personal email inbox, work projects have been sitting there waiting for my return and after eight months of wedding planning there are certainly a lot of tasks that I put aside in the 'after the wedding', category which are now waiting patiently for me.

I haven't really known where to start. So I figured that eventually I'd get around to writing (hopefully) something good and meaningful about the wedding. But until then, I suppose the first step is to just write something.

This little thought process made me think about procrastination in general. What keeps us from doing the things we either need or want to do? It boils down to fear for me – fear mostly that either I can't handle what I'm going to embark on or that it will be terrible in some way.

It's nearly comical that no matter how much I am dreading a task, it is usually easier than I think. For example, our fridge-freezer broke the week before the wedding. I've been dreading trying to get it fixed. But finding the receipt took me about 30 seconds and calling the retailer to arrange for someone to come and fix it took only a few minutes (and was painless). Not even close to the time I've spent feeling annoyed it broke, anticipating that I wouldn't be able to find the receipt or that the shop would refuse to fix it and then staring at it on my to-do list, dreading it.

But it was easier than I thought. The repair man will come tomorrow and I'll work from home.

I suppose, however, I'm still not convinced that everything will be easier than I think, as I'm still feeling quite overwhelmed. I was in an adrenaline-fuelled mode before the wedding, a to-do list robot, if you will. And now the adrenaline is gone and I'm not sure where to start. I know a lot of people have told me I'd be depressed after the wedding – that there would be a big hole to fill. But that's not what it feels like to me; it's more like I need to figure out how to shift gears and where to direct my energy. Also, I'm exhausted (perhaps the adrenaline come-down?). So I'm not sure how much energy I actually have to direct.

Like most things, I'm sure once a little time passes and I get started on things it will end up being easier than I think. But for now I'm just muddling along (and at least have finally written a blog post!).

P.S. The wedding was brilliant. Definitely worth all the hard work. More to come on that.

Opportunity Cost

2011-03-05T10:00:00.003Z

There is a big opportunity cost to planning a wedding. I suppose there is a big opportunity cost to anything in life though, really. If you're not familiar with the economic term, opportunity cost is the cost of passing up the next best choice whenever you make a decision. For example, by going to university/college you sacrifice three or four years of income you could have been making. That money – or whatever your next best choice is (travelling the world, perhaps?) – is the opportunity cost of going to university.

So I suppose when I tally up what this wedding actually costs us and our families I should also think about the pay check I could have made by having a part-time job. (It’s definitely THAT time consuming.)

The other 'cost' of planning a wedding is the toll it takes on your energy for other things. It’s quite ironic that I am spending a small fortune to have my hair and makeup professionally done on the day. Because for the past few months I have been incapable of wearing any makeup to work and because I am wearing my hair 'up' have not been able to have it cut and styled – so it has grown out way too much. Alas, most days I just wrap it in a bun at work like an old school teacher. And today I’m not sure that my clothes actually match.

I think it's fair to say that I was a bit of a mess this week in general. I left the deli one day without my lunch. The woman had to run after me. When I told her I was getting married in less than two weeks she understood! She also nearly hugged me with joy, which was actually really nice (since I was having a bit of a wobble that morning over a family issue).

It's funny, the less I sleep and the more of a sort of general mess I am, the less I feel worried and anxious. People keep telling me to relax or try to give me tips on how best to sleep. It's all nice and I appreciate the thought, but strangely, I'm actually ok with feeling a little strung out. Because I know it will pass. I really wouldn't expect anything different at this point in time with what's about to happen. I think if it were things as usual and I wasn't sleeping well I'd be far more worried.

This is actually a big step for me. I'm no stranger to being stressed but I'm also no stranger to being stressed about being stressed. Which is taking things a bit too far. But these days I'm busy and have a lot on my mind, and I'm ok with that. I'm just checking things off the list and trying to be kind and nice to myself. Being alone sometimes helps me – so I worked from home one day this week just to feel the peace of being by myself and not being distracted. It was really helpful -- not just for my sanity but also getting things done (need to remember that for the future).

As we gear up for the wedding 'week', when everyone starts arriving and all the finishing touches need to get done, I'm not going to be able to keep blogging (at my pre-wedding turtle-like pace). I think it will be a good three weeks where I won't be here much – although if I am so inspired and can manage to sneak away in a closet somewhere with my laptop I may do a cheeky post…

But in case I don't, thanks for listening, dear readers, to my musings and tales about the wedding and everything else in the past few months. I'll be back with a lot more time on my hands and lots to say (I'm sure) towards the end of March.

Friday Find: Go Easy On Yourself

2011-03-04T08:00:00.009Z

I was really excited when two of my friends (and readers) sent me a link to this article from the New York Times health blog:

Go Easy on Yourself, a New Wave of Research Urges

First I was excited to read the article (Dr. Kristin Neff's book sounds really interesting), but I was even more pleased that two readers said it made them think of my blog! Which may just mean I'm getting across my intended message...

So read it, and then go easy on yourself this weekend.

Plans Versus Planning

2011-03-03T08:00:00.001Z

"I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

When I posted last month about planning and control I got an interesting comment from a loyal reader about how she too was plagued with whether or not planning was a good thing and how did it fit into her creative process?

She said:

When it's good it makes me feel like I'm in control and I know what's happening, a good thing. But often I make elaborate plans (lists broken into lists, notebooks which reference other notebooks, etc.) which I follow for a day or two and then let drift. It's as if The Plan itself is the activity, which is okay, except that it's important for me to produce objects creatively (my job), and the plans end up taking away a lot of the pleasure I used to experience when my life was less structured. I'm now trying to NOT PLAN my creative life AT ALL.

To read my original post and her whole comment, click here.

This got me thinking more about planning. And so I dug out a quote I remembered from (I believe) a corporate finance course I took at university (college). It's the Dwight D. Eisenhower quote above. At the time of course I didn't quite get it as I was much more interested in my first real boyfriend and the next keg party, and not in planning much else.

Planning is indispensible, for me, at least. Planning is what gets me thinking about things. Maybe I know what I want, but how will I get there? Like my friend, I like the process of thinking things over, coming up with ideas for how I might get to the places I want to be, learn things I want to learn and essentially just do something. If I want to actually work on my New Year's resolution (music), then I need to schedule time in to go see more live music. If I want to see my friends, then I have to organize events with them.

But plans, plans are useless. And this is the part I have some trouble with. In order to make planning alright, you have to let go. You have to see plans for what they are – a plan, and not 'how things actually went'. Plans don't take into account changes in life or the things you learn along the way. Planning is done before you know how things will actually work or how long they will take. Or that you actually wanted to head in a different direction.

I think this is a very important thing for me to keep in mind as I head into the wedding week. Things are not going to go as planned. And already I've experienced this. I was planning to buy one of those custom-made gorgeous big picture-frame seating charts with decorative ribbons etc. I know someone who had one and she totally sold me on it. And then the events woman at our venue said she would do two seating charts for me – one downstairs where the drinks reception would be and one upstairs by the tables. And I thought, what am I, crazy? – someone is offering to do something for me and ribbons or none, I'm not going to pass this up. (She did promise me it would look pretty, but even if it doesn't, at least it was one less thing I needed to do, or pay for!)

A work person told me that one thing to remember is that on the day we won't stick to the schedule and not to go nuts about it. He said, in a quick lift ride up (it's always in the lift that [elevator] I get the best wedding advice), that this woman ruined her own day because she couldn't let go of the fact that they weren't 'on schedule'.

I will have to remember that one. I'm terrible about time. I hate being late – it makes me really anxious.

Planning is great but I guess the moral of the story is that it's ok to have plans so long as you can let go of them. It will be very interesting to see how well I do with this! (I'll revert back post-wedding)

Book Review: Poser – My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

2011-02-24T08:27:00.001Z

It's very clever. A book about yoga, that's not really about yoga. Claire Dederer writes a memoir told through 23 yoga postures – an incredibly savvy marketing technique because everyone is interested in yoga these days. And I'm glad the marketing ensnared me, anyway, as I probably wouldn't have picked up a memoir about motherhood in Seattle in the 1990s.

Dederer tells the story of being a young mother, trying to do everything 'right' and how yoga helped her to realize that life is more about being real and joyful than being 'good'. She weaves in her own mother's story – and that of her mother's contemporaries – a group of women who in the 1970s decided they had been sold a bum deal with the whole marriage and motherhood thing, and fled their husbands in a sort of mass migration.

I found it striking that every generation has its backlash and new ideal. For Dederer and her contemporaries, being a good mother and staying married became the ultimate antidote to what they perceived as their own mothers' familial betrayal. And it involved a heck of a lot of cloth diapers and wooden toys from Europe. Only a decade or so later and I think there are a lot of women who will identify with this. Although I'm not a mother, I have plenty of friends who are and I observe their struggle to do things 'right' – stories of women in their area who have a strict 'schedule' for their babies and can't get together at certain times because they are beholden to it. There's also a lot of guilt going around about breast feeding – or more accurately when there's a lack of it.

Dederer is brutally honest – the main component, I believe, of a great memoir. And she addresses some of the key questions of our time: what defines family and what really matters in life. I found the perspective she comes to in the end about her marriage and her husband's depression enlightening as well (mainly it's OK and doesn't need to be 'fixed'). Which made me think that maybe my contemporaries' main obsession – of trying to be 'perfect' – is not far removed from Dederer's own age group's obsession of being 'good'. Perfection these days is de rigueur, whether it refers to looks, size, relationships or real estate.

There's a lot of talk of yoga thrown in, which was quite interesting from my perspective as I only practice one kind and am keen to learn more about yoga in general. I was surprised at the depth of this memoir as from the outside cover one would be forgiven for thinking it's about yoga, and maybe shopping or wine (some sort of melange of Sex and the City and triangle pose), which certainly doesn't do the book justice. But that's marketing for you. And to be fair, using yoga to structure the book does work well. After all, you can write a great book, but you still have to get people to read it.

Related Posts:

Book Review: Women, Work and the Art of Savoire Faire

My Wedding and Beyond Chocolate

2011-02-23T07:00:00.001Z

I know I've mentioned it before, but in case you didn't notice or are new to this blog, I'm a big fan of the company Beyond Chocolate. I believe Audrey and Sophie Boss are helping women in the UK to stop punishing their bodies (through yo-yo dieting and overeating) and develop a healthier attitude to food and body image.

I've written a guest post for the Beyond Chocolate blog about my upcoming wedding and how it has impacted the way I feel about my body -- mainly the pressure when you're having a big wedding to lose weight and look 'thin'. If you're interested, click here to have a read.

Pleasure: Seeking It From Within

2011-02-20T10:40:00.002Z

Writing a post on pleasure has made me think of so many things: the work ethic I grew up with, how puritanical America can seem when viewed with ex-pat eyes, and 'The American Dream' – and whether it is giving us any pleasure in the end. But I didn't want to write something about society as a whole – I wanted to think about day-to-day life and how I (or any of us) can experience pleasure more often. Pleasure comes with all sorts of good and bad connotations – how to know the difference between pleasure that is harmful and pleasure that is helpful?

What it comes down to for me is the difference between internal and external pleasure. Let me explain (because I know this sounds weird!). There are so many times in our life when we're looking for something outside of ourselves to make us feel good. Look at anything – work, relationships, food, friends, family. When I am praised by someone else it gives me pleasure, when I am loved by someone else it gives me pleasure. However, when this is what you seek, it's a losing game. I think that's because you're starting from a position of fear – and looking for something else or someone else to make you happy.

Even with something as confining as a job, I've noticed that when I seek out the things that I really like to do and try to steer it in the direction of things that excite me (including taking a job in the first place to begin with), I get much more pleasure from what I am doing. When early on in my career I took jobs because I thought that they were what I should be doing or that I'd impress someone by doing them, I got very little pleasure from the actual job.

It's when you realize that you've got the ability to create your own pleasure and that you don't need to get it from someone else or somewhere else that suddenly things feel lighter and easier. We didn't know it, but we already had the ruby slippers and the ability to get back to Kansas all along.

Seeking pleasure from within can be summed up in one of my favorite lines that Geneen Roth has written (from Women, Food and God), "We don't want to EAT hot fudge sundaes as much as we want our lives to BE hot fudge sundaes.We want to come home to ourselves." Again, the theme of pleasure linked with coming home. With what's within us already. Finding pleasure in food and relying on food for pleasure are two very different things.

Jealousy is my clear sign that I've strayed down the path towards seeking external pleasure. I know when I am feeling hurt by someone else's actions (that really have nothing to do with me) or when I suddenly feel like someone isn't meeting my needs then I need to re-think what is it I'm actually looking for. Trying to gain approval or acceptance from someone else is a dangerous way to live – it essentially boils down to controlling that which we have no control over.

Letting all of the uncontrollable things in life get in the way of finding pleasure would mean being miserable pretty much all of the time (since there are far too many of them). But when you can rely on yourself to generate pleasure, then you can suddenly stop worrying about everyone else. Not to say this is easy. I fall into the trap of trying to control things around me on a daily basis – trying to make sure that I stay padded against reality. A classic control freak.

But I'm working on it. With the wedding, for example. I'm working like a dog right now on all the details. But I am enjoying a lot of things I'm doing (perhaps despite appearances). And I've made a pact with myself that even though I'm working really hard right now, when the wedding week commences and my friends and family start descending upon London, I am going to stop worrying about all the little details, just let go and enjoy the time I have with them. Because I'm never going to get that time back.

Seeking pleasure from within isn't easy all the time, but in the end it's much more, well, pleasurable. But even more so, reliable.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word series. To read more about it (or participate) check out Joy Tanksley's kick-off post for this month's word. She'll be posting a round-up at the end of the month.

Our Bodies, Ourselves

2011-02-16T21:51:00.000Z

I am trying really hard not to freak out. It's surreal that the wedding is now less than four weeks away and the days are flying by despite my best attempts to stop the clock. How is it possible that there's so many itty bitty things to do right now? How long does it take to pick up a veil? Decide how many of the cupcakes will be red velvet? But I still have to schedule it in somehow.

I went to yoga on Sunday night. I needed it big time. I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have this new tool for when I'm feeling stressed or a little down, or just disconnected with myself.

As I worked through the postures in the hot room I finally started to get it. I don't know very much about yoga in general, but I do know there are many different kinds. And despite this, I would think this one thread runs through them all. Somewhere in the midst of all the sweat and the other bodies in the room, I started to just feel like it was me and my body. How could I think/worry about anything else when I was just moving through the postures, breathing?

So often I feel disconnected from my body. I may have mentioned this before, but I am such a 'thinker', so inside my own head that I sometimes forget that I'm an actual physical creature. I'm not just a little thought bubble floating from place to place. But how could I forget that when for so many years my body – and the pain I was experiencing – affected me to such a degree that I had trouble working, sleeping, sitting and doing just about anything (if you're new to my blog, check out the About This Blog section or The Whole Story for the background).

It's so easy to be cruel to our bodies. Poke at them, wish they were just a little bit more this or that (taller? thinner? bustier? name your poison). We can easily work them too hard. And in this day and age it's so easy to confuse taking care of your body with punishing it. No one does things by half anymore.

But I have to say, my mind felt so much lighter and less sandy after doing my grueling 90 minutes. I know this may all be chemical but it made me think about how moving and connecting with our bodies is essential for staying in the present moment. Everyone has to find their own form of exercise, but anything where you can focus on the fact that you're a physical being, at least for me, helps me to keep everything in perspective. I may not be squeezing in any meditation right now but the yoga is at least helping me keep two feet on the earth and at least attempting to ground my overactive brain.

It would be easy to forget to take care of myself right now, but I've learned too much over the past few years to do that. Hence the more frequent physio trips pre-wedding and prioritizing yoga (including scheduling in an extra session per week not as an edict to go – just in case I need to go). Hopefully this will all help me to remember to breathe, if nothing else.

Guilt And The Cleaner

2011-02-12T09:21:00.000Z

Lately I've been feeling really guilty about having a house cleaner. No matter what I'm doing on a Thursday morning I am filled with shame and remorse at how messy the flat is as I put the dough out for our cleaner extraordinaire (let's call her CE). One morning I got really mad at myself – I was actually running around trying to look good for a conference I was speaking at (read: an actual full face of makeup) – and yet still I felt bad about the state of our living quarters. Why do I need to able to do everything perfectly? Isn't speaking at a conference enough accomplishment in one day for me? Just because what was a tidy flat on Sunday night comes apart at the seams by Thursday morning, doesn't make me a bad person. (Right?)

I made the decision to hire a cleaner a few years ago before Future Hub moved in with me for two reasons. First, my aunt, who was a very wise woman, once told me that a woman should choose between cleaning and cooking, but never do both. As I love to control the kitchen, that one was a no brainer. And it made sense to me, this rule. My parents have never employed a cleaner, but my Dad does all the cooking and grocery shopping as well as fix things around the house. My Mom gets rid of the dirt.

Second, at some point Future Hub was over at my place and I was cleaning (this sounds weird to begin with). Anyway, he saw me dust the TV and exclaimed, "Why are you doing that? That's the kind of thing you only have to do once a year!"

It was that point that I knew we would never see eye to eye on cleanliness standards and there had to be a third party involved to settle this kind of dispute. We often joke that the pounds we spend each week on CE is really money spent to keep us from arguing – hush money, if you will.

If there ever comes a time when we can't afford it, I will gladly clean the flat. I also won't be able to afford my weekly Bikram yoga fix either in that case, so I would actually need the over four hours it would take me to do all the housework as my weekend exercise (CE does it in three and a half, but she's a professional).

This week I got a bit closer to getting over the guilt. As you may know from an earlier post this week, I've not been well. On Thursday I went into work but really couldn't hack it. My even-tempered colleague who sits next to me told me to go home after I sneezed about five times in a row. There was sputtering and coughing and just general lurgy-ness* seeping out from around my desk. So I scampered home, only to find that CE had not arrived yet… she was running late and so came in around the same time as me.

Can you imagine the guilt? I actually had to be there when she first encountered the mess and so immediately started tidying things up even though I was feeling like death warmed up. After a few minutes I decided enough was enough. If I wasn't well enough to do the job I actually get paid for, what kind of nut was I to start cleaning up when I was supposed to be resting? Sometimes I just reach a point of such ridiculousness that I have to follow my friend's sage words from our crazy days living in New York City (usually used in reference to some guy situation):

You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I clambered up to the loft and curled up on the sofa to watch some old taped episodes of MasterChef, eventually dosing into some sort of Sudafed-induced dreamlike state, with the comforting sounds of CE vacuuming** downstairs. It was really nice to have someone else taking care of things for a while. Almost like having a mom around. Almost.

*Lurgy is the generic English word for being ill. Noun. Typically used to mean some sort of icky cold with sneezing, coughing and the like. Also, it might be interesting for those American readers to note that in the UK 'sick' means to puke, as in, 'I was sick' to mean 'I threw up'. When you have a cold or flu or something you say you are ill, not sick. 'Sick' can also be used as a noun, as in 'I cleaned up my sick'. Ew.

**Sometimes I'm not sure if I should use American or English English words in this blog. I keep going back and forth. Vacuuming is very American, whereas here they would say 'hoovering' – the Brits call vacuums 'Hoovers', after the brand. And we all thought Americans were the big consumers!

The Common Cold And Not-So-Common Hysteria

2011-02-10T12:47:00.000Z

I have a cold. And I am miserable. I don't know what it is, but getting ill – even with only a common cold – sends me into a hysterical state of mind.

I think a lot of it is the fear that my old fragile state has returned. Before I had my tonsils out in early 2008 I was constantly sick. I felt like everyone pitied me as I went from one razor blade throat to another. When I didn't actually have full-blown tonsillitis (or strep throat as it's known in the States) I still had a dull ache in my throat and was pretty much constantly tired.

One of my first-ever bosses came to the conclusion that I just had a weak constitution. The NHS doctors here either told me there was something wrong with my head (seriously – one said to me, "sometimes there's something wrong, but often it's in our heads") or that I just needed to take more vitamin C – as if I had never had that brainwave before.

After fully recovering from the surgery, I have gone from weeks of sick days a year to one or two here or there. But still. I hate any form of sickness, even the common cold, as those old feelings of inadequacy and freakishness come creeping back in, as if my gunky infected tonsils that I carried around with me for years was my fault.

It doesn't help that I've got the "biggest day of my life" looming in four weeks and my perfectionist fears are starting to take hold.

Being sick reminds us that we're human and fallible, and worst of all, don't have absolute control over our bodies. I'm seeing Super Physio more than usual right now even though I'm not in any pain, as we are trying to make sure that my body stays in tip top shape before the wedding – the right muscles loose and the right muscles strong.

As she said, it's not time to experiment with new radical exercise routines or seeing how long I can go without doing my physio exercises! There's no time in the next few weeks for my hips to get tight (causing backache) or for my neck to get sore from shoulders hunched up around my ears. As much as I want to be hard on myself right now for all variety of reasons (like not posting frequently enough!), now is the time to take care of myself, be kind and (gasp!) even try to enjoy the run up to the wedding, as everyone knows it will go fast enough. This is the one thing that all former brides and grooms have said – the actual day goes by in a heartbeat.

I don't always enjoy things as much as I should because I'm too busy thinking how I could be doing them better. It's a miserable way to live when I do fall into that trap and it's quite interesting that the next word in the Word by Word Self-Discovery Series that I've been participating in over the past few months is 'pleasure'! So stay tuned for a more in-depth look at that concept… I'm still mulling what exactly to say, but I'm forming an opinion pretty fast. If you want to learn more about the series or participate yourself, click on Joy's kick-off post. I think it's a great word choice!

In the meantime, it's soup for me and some rest (today it's Wagamama's Chili Chicken Ramen - pricey but effective). As much as I'd like to go to Bikram yoga tonight I don't think it's going to happen. I went through a whole pack of tissues in my last meeting. Yuck.

Calendar And Control

2011-02-05T09:06:00.000Z

The other night over Thai food Future Hub looked at me and said, "We're in countdown mode, aren't we?"

Soon he will just be the Hub (gasp!).

We proceeded to spend the rest of the dinner verbally checking things off, sorting out our schedule, trying to figure out when we'd have time to complete the laundry list. We aren't discussing our lives anymore, but one event. It's a little like the weeks before we exchanged (closed) on our flat last year. Every night after work we went through the checklist of what needed to get done. In some ways living like this is unbearable – in other ways it's good, as I feel like we're in it together.

And there's the whole 'controlling the calendar element' to these days, which makes me feel calmer. As I add appointments into Google calendar I feel a sense of control – at least that there will be some sort of order to the weeks ahead. However, it struck me yesterday that this isn't much different from my regular life. Emails come in about planning things, emails go out. And then dates go in the diary. I move a yoga class from a Saturday to a Sunday. And thus my life is planned out, controlled, OK.

Some people are addicted to drugs, others food, others video games. I am addicted to planning. This addiction, like most, I assume, doesn't provide long-term happiness, but sustains me in some way as a quick fix. I get a buzz from seeing my future weeks so full and ordered.

I don't know. Part of me is alright with the planning – I am a social creature, I like to do things and go places, primarily with other people. And if you want to see anyone in London, believe me, you have to book ahead. I recently got an invitation for a 30th birthday party – in June.

But then again, what is it about empty space and the absence of a fixed plan that makes me feel so nervous?

This calendar obsession also dredges up memories of when I couldn't control my body at all due my neck and arm pain. When I was doing well and getting better I would schedule in exercise classes on my Outlook calendar, recurring appointments – a fantasy schedule, if you will. Maybe I thought if I used enough willpower and hope, I would make it to all those classes or pool swimming sessions.

But life isn't like that.

I'm contemplating trying to go back to a short daily meditation (10 minutes tops) as the weeks roll forward closer to the big day. I was planning (again, here we go) to try to go to yoga two times per week as a way to de-stress, but I'm not sure my body likes that idea.

In the spirit of my post on listening to myself, from earlier this week, I have asked my body what it thinks. Right now it's very cool with the rhythm we've got going of yoga, tap, Zumba – three distinct classes a week. It's quite happy, can handle it and isn't going to rebel. But I feel like it's whispering, "Go ahead, just try it lady, see what happens if you push me."

So I'm keeping it as a free option. I've blocked out Thursday nights in the old Google calendar in case I feel like going. For someone as controlling as me, that's a big step. Clearly.

Listen, Don't Tell

2011-02-01T08:41:00.003Z

Do you trust yourself?

When I first started physiotherapy, I certainly didn't trust my body. And why should I? It had turned on me, corrupting my life with pain and making me realize that things I had always taken for granted weren't a sure thing anymore – for example, being able to use my hands. (For a more complete tale of what happened to me, read The Whole Story.)

When I finally found a physio to help me get my life back I plunged head long into doing everything she said to fix it. And sometimes we talked of the day when I would be better. How often would I have to do my exercises, I asked? Would I have to do physio exercises every day for the rest of my life?

Her answers were murky to me. We would see, she said. Maybe I would need to do them once a week, or once a month. It would be a matter of how I used my body on a day-to-day basis and what else was going on in my life.

I didn't get it. At all. I wanted prescriptive answers. I wanted to be told I would need to do X static abs X times per week.

But I'm finally getting it. Even when I do my exercises now I don't necessarily do the 10 repetitions she prescribed to me at the beginning. These days I can feel when my back is flat enough on the floor and when my shoulders are loose enough. These days I listen to my body – I have finally stopped telling it what to do.

Generally, I think we have stopped listening to our bodies as much. We are like deer in the headlights when it comes to all the 'health' advice we're getting from T.V., magazines, and newspapers. Our lives are so fast paced and we're so stressed out that we need others to tell us how to take care of ourselves.

It's bull puckey (I once had a camp counsellor who used that phrase – I haven't used it in about 20 years).

Yesterday my body was a mess. I felt completely pre-menstrual (even though I wasn't, which was slightly worrying). I was stressed about a million little things that all added up to make me feel terrible. So I slowed down and listened. I wasn't very hungry, so I ate very little. I drank a lot of water. Even though I went to yoga on Sunday I still felt like I needed to move some more – so in addition to my tap class last night, I skipped the bus and walked up the hill home. Even though it was freezing!

I'm feeling much better today. I don't know what was going on yesterday, but it's not important. Listening to ourselves extends far beyond the physical, including some harmless bloating. It's not just about what we want to eat or whether it's a day to put our feet up on the couch or go for a walk. It's about what we want to do with our time, our days and our lives. This past weekend I really didn't want to do any writing. So I just stayed away. I know that's a luxury – many of us get a pay check to do things for a certain set amount each day and each week – but there are so many other choices we make. So until I'm in a situation where I don't have any choices, I will try to take advantage of the ones I do.

Six Weeks To Go

2011-01-28T09:16:00.002Z

Tomorrow it's six weeks until the wedding. Am I freaking out? A little.

I have my final dress fitting tonight. I'm looking forward to what the dress lady comes out with this time. Last time she tried to push all sorts of bling-y jewellery onto me as well as headpieces (one of which fell out of my hair onto the floor coming dangerously close to breaking – and giving me a near heart attack as it cost at least £100). Then when I said that maybe the dress was a little too tight she told me, "It's a wedding dress, not pyjamas, you know."

Maybe after the wedding I'll sleep in it. It's certainly warm enough with all the layers and our flat has been freezing lately.

It's a strange time – part of me wants the wedding to be here tomorrow because I'm so excited about seeing everyone and celebrating. Another part of me wants to put it off longer so there's more time to get everything done. The last part of me is so nervous I want to puke.

So maybe it's a good time to recount the absolute best story of wedding planning I've been able to collect thus far. Not to talk it up too much (and if you speak to me on a regular basis you've definitely heard it already).

A few months ago it was time to select a photographer. So I made some appointments – one of which was with a guy who has a really lovely online portfolio. To avoid brushing up against England's not-so-friendly libel laws, let's call him Bob.

I brought one of my trusty friends along to meet Bob in the outskirts of London as Future Hub couldn't leave work in time to meet him . The meeting started out awkwardly to begin with, which was a sign of things to come.

First Bob questioned our decision to get married at such a late time in the winter (3.30 pm, FYI). What about the lack of natural light? Helpfully, since we had already decided on the timing for our wedding and shelled out loads of deposits, he informed us that people who get married in the winter typically get married earlier in the day – to catch the natural light. Apparently Bob had never heard of a flash or artificial lighting. In the end, he did look up the sunset time on his iPhone for that day and conceded there would be some natural light left, which might suffice.

Phew.

Then we moved on to family photos. Bob considered himself a photojournalist of sorts (and I suspect was extremely bitter that weddings pay so well and he had to degrade himself by doing them) and explained that he didn't really like taking family portraits. He might do three or four if we were lucky, like the groom's blood relatives, and my blood relatives and then maybe shots with both parents. I kid you not – he actually used the phrase 'blood relatives'. After all, he tried to joke, why would you even want a picture with your cousin's wife, who you don't even know?

This is when I started to get a little snippy. After all, I actually know my cousin's wife quite well and would love to be in a picture with her. As far as I'm concerned weddings are actually about family, so his attitude seemed really off-base. Besides I'm sure most photographers don't like taking portrait after portrait, but tough, that's the job. There are parts of my job I don't either – but I also like to get a pay check.

Then it got even better. He inquired about the first dance. Did we plan to do a choreographed routine? Because if not, it probably wasn't worth it for him to stay after the speeches. I was a little aghast, but I probed further. I told him I'd actually like a few photos of people dancing (not just me and Future Hub) to capture the celebration spirit. Well, if you hadn't already guessed, he didn't do that. For health and safety reasons. "After the first dance, I get off the dance floor," he deadpanned.

As my friend and I walked into the parking lot I said to her: "There's no way I want that man anywhere near me on my wedding day." What a total downer.

Needless to say, the next photographer who I met was completely lovely. He even acted like he might enjoy taking photos at our wedding. I was totally sold.

A Christmas Story (In January)

2011-01-27T13:14:00.002Z

I've been accused recently of being out of season. Why? I served mulled wine at our book club meeting last night. Mulled wine is clearly on the pre-Christmas side of the calendar in this neck of the woods. However, in Germany, the drink made at Feuerazngenbowle (meaning literally 'fire-tongs punch') parties is a type of mulled wine where a rum-soaked sugar cone is set on fire to drip into the wine punch.

And although these parties happen before Christmas, they also typically happen in January when the weather is cold and you feel like having your friends around to sip a hot warming drink and watch a grown man set fire to a sugar cone. It's a great tradition (our friends who threw these parties have sadly left London).

So perhaps that's why I thought to serve mulled wine in January. Along the same lines I'm wondering if it's too late to tell a Christmas story.

But in light of last week's post about skipping the news, I thought that maybe the time was right. Sometimes there are good stories –and parents who do nice things. And who cares if it's not Christmas anymore? I'm so busy right now that I have to just be thankful that I get any ideas for blogs at all!

When I arrived home in New York this year for Christmas, my parents had moved all the furniture around for various reasons, which of course unnerved me to no end (heaven knows how I'll react when they eventually sell the family home and move South in pursuit of warmer weather and cheaper taxes, as they are threatening).

Due to the fact that all the furniture had been shuffled around, coupled with my 24-hour stay-awake-a-thon on Christmas Eve – a day that was populated with a 5 a.m. wake-up, a seven-hour flight, two Christmas parties, a Christmas pageant and a midnight Christmas Eve service – I didn't really notice that the piano was gone.

When I was young I wanted to play the piano more than anything. I had a little toy piano with a minuscule keyboard that I used to play the easy songs taught by my music class teacher. I'm not sure it even had an octave on it. I was only five years old, but was completely obsessed.

But we didn't have a piano. I have no idea what our family's financial situation was at the time (I've never asked), but I assume that plunking down thousands of dollars for a piano was either not an option or not an option at that particular moment. Luckily a family at our church had a spare piano that no one was using, so they lent it to us. They never wanted it back, so it became ours (or mine, I guess) and has been sitting at my parents' house collecting dust while I live my life overseas.

When I finally noticed it was gone this trip home, we had just sat down the four of us to do our 'family Christmas' after the drive back from Grandma's. The tree was sitting it its former resting place so really it couldn't have been more obvious. When I asked where it was, my parents told me "I'd see" what had happened to it.

My parents had decided the piano could be put to better us than sitting there with no one to play it, so they contacted my piano teacher (also a close family friend) and found out if she had any students or potential students who needed a piano. Turns out she did, so the piano made its way into the little girl's hands. My parents had two terms – they wanted a picture of her with the piano to show me and an invitation to her first recital.

When I saw the picture I burst into tears. My Mom said, "Are you crying because we gave your piano away?" (Apparently when she told my brother the plan he assessed, "Well, it could go either way…")

What kind of person do they think I am?

No, I wasn't crying because I was now lacking a piano (that I wasn't even using) but because I was so moved by their gesture and in fact remember very clearly how badly I had wanted to take piano lessons. I was barely six when it arrived and I still remember that day and the excited happiness I felt. And to know that someone else could experience that same feeling (coupled with very bad jet lag and all the general emotional stuff that comes along with Christmas with the family), was more than enough to send me to that teary place and over the edge to actual real crying.

I ended up studying piano for 12 years after the borrowed piano arrived. And I continued to love it. I will study again at some point, but as I talked about in my post on creativity, I do think there's a time for everything and now is not the time for it (we also haven't found a space for a piano or even a keyboard in the flat yet).

Not to brag too much about my parents – but I do think what they did is pretty cool. I only wish I had thought of it.

To Know Or Not To Know

2011-01-21T08:33:00.000Z

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but all of a sudden Future Hub was mentioning current events and my mind was just coming up blank. He was incredulous that I wasn't aware of some parliamentary scandal or another. "You mean, you haven't been following it at ALL?" he said, probably one normal Tuesday evening.

Thing is, one day I just got tired of reading the free newspapers in London. In the morning there's Metro and after work The Evening Standard. Everyone seems to read them and they litter the train seats and the tube seats and the flat bit in the middle of the escalators. There's a lot of highly entertaining stuff in them – restaurant reviews, celebrity gossip and of course news. The regular serious stuff like budget cuts and politics and business news but also pretty much every horrible thing that happens in Britain and the world. Children being tortured and abused, accidental holiday deaths and women cyclists in London being run over by lorries (trucks). The women always seem to be exactly my age. And of course whoever she was, she definitely had a promising career and there's always a pretty picture of her smiling back at you.

A week ago the header read: Mother and Son Killed in Bathtub. Apparently they were electrocuted when an heater fell into the tub. I didn't read the story, just peered over at it across from the tube aisle (which also toughened my resolve to write this particular blog soon).

I am aware that horrible things happen in this world. Everyday, all day long. But does it do me any good to read about them morning and evening, day in and day out? Perhaps it would be useful to know not to keep electrical appliances close to the bathtub, however, my Mother has hammered that lesson into my head for as long as I have been alive. And in Britain they don't even have electrical sockets in bathrooms, such is the fear quotient about mixing electricity and water (which begs asking how this freak accident actually happened – and I don't know, not having read the story).

I'm not suggesting totally cutting oneself off from the news flow entirely. For work I need to know what's happening in financial markets, so I read the free business newspaper (City A.M.) every morning and also get to the Financial Times later in the day as well. I also digest all sorts of trade journals about my particular industry.

But do I need to know about every terrible thing happening in the world? Does it help change things in any way? Would I be more likely to make a difference in this world being a calm, happier person who doesn't dwell on every real-life horror? I hope so. Because that's the particular tack I'm taking at this moment. Not only does reading the daily free papers upset me, but it also takes up precious free time when I could be writing or reading books on my long list, or spending time chatting with friends (here and abroad).

And I still find out about stuff. It's amazing how much people tell you about current events. If you're interested in something in particular you can then go and read about it. Even just reading the Saturday paper once a week will tell you more than you need to know about anything that has happened in the past seven days (if indeed you want to know about it).

'They' say knowledge is power, and it is, but is all knowledge power? And there are always things we'd rather not know. Does idle horrible gossip about friends or co-workers help anyone? I say, when it comes to knowledge, be selective. Pursue what you're interested in, challenge yourself, but don't think you need to know everything that's going on – all knowledge certainly isn't equal.

Related posts (on attempting to avoid some stress):

Creativity: This Time It's Personal

2011-01-18T08:39:00.001Z

I often hear people saying they're not creative. And I say: rubbish! Creativity is personal – and therefore it comes in all shapes and sizes, just like people. And I also think it emerges in different forms throughout our lives.

When I quit my job as a journalist and started my current one I wasn't doing any creative writing. I suddenly had my sanity and my evenings back and I found I had a lot of energy to cook. I tried all sorts of things. I deep fried for the first time – making onion bhajis for a somewhat shocked Future Hub. Who knew you could deep fry right on the stove top with a regular pot and some vegetable oil?

I was sort of lost at the time, but downright happy. After nine years as a journalist I was surprised by finding some spare brain capacity and energy to try something new. So I cooked – quite a bit – not anywhere near that whole Julie/Julia level, but still, I picked up recipes in the supermarket all the time and altered them to my own taste, writing them all down on index cards in a recipe box.

Future Hub's favorite is my Cincinnati Chili. I am partial to (and still somewhat shocked by) my Chicken Piccata.

Since I started this blog and we bought the flat and started planning the wedding I've just rolled out all the favorites time and time again. Plus there's been a little help from Waitrose's 'Easy Cook' range.

Creativity takes all forms. From thank-you note writing to cake baking, gardening to applying makeup, I believe there aren't boundaries when it comes to what constitutes creativity. There are people who can make you a good meatball and those who can make you laugh until tears are running down your face. It takes all kinds. Some people amaze me just when they speak – the phrases they use or their certain type of humor. I wish I could write it all down sometimes.

I think everyone can be creative, but here's what I think is the most important way to develop it: space. Just yesterday I wrote about this a little. Giving myself space in the morning (I hope) will be good for my creativity.

I didn't know how much I wanted to cook until I had the space to make that choice. And when I decided it was time to start writing, it took me a long time to figure out how I was going to do it. Not that I'm even close yet. But I took a summer narrative non-fiction writing course and it was wonderful. I was excited and I wrote a lot, but then for months and months afterwards I couldn't figure out what to do next. So I mulled and met with other writers and I waited until the blog idea finally came to me (and I was brave enough to actually do it).

Creativity is not a rush job. It must unfold in its own time. The most important way to lead yourself to it is to do something you're excited about. Whether it's cooking or writing. For me, I'm not sure if I would have gotten to the writing if I didn't have the cooking. It also gave me time to heal, and practically, time to do my physiotherapy exercises. I had had a hard couple of years (read The Whole Story if you're not familiar) and I needed to find some joy again.

And to me, when it comes down to it, that's what creativity is about most of all – joy. I think the best way to find your way back into life when things get tough is to seek some joy through creating. Because as long as you're creating, you're living.

This post is part of the Self-Discovery Word by Word Series which Margarita (of the great blog Weightless) kicked off this month by choosing the word creativity. To read more, check out her original post for the series on Body Image & Creativity

Making Morning Space

2011-01-17T08:48:00.000Z

As you may or may not have noticed, I took last week off from blogging. Wasn't intentional, but last weekend we were in New York partying it up pre-wedding. And then, back to work, dealing with jet lag and a pile of work to tackle after being on vacation for (gasp!) two weeks straight. Blogging just wasn't in the cards.

Plus we're gearing up for the stretch of time right before the wedding when things really need to get sorted out, so I'm kind of busy panicking.

However, I have made some progress on the morning front! I thought I'd share, because you all know how much I have struggled with this. It's probably too early to even talk about because I've had a lot of false starts before, but as is always the case, I am hoping that this time is different.

Here's my new approach. In the past, I was trying to get up earlier to get something done. Most recently writing. However, I think this may have been where I was going wrong. This past week (and mind you, I was jetlagged) I started getting up earlier but avoided doing anything more than I typically do before work – you know the drill: shower, dressing, eating, getting to work. This week I just gave myself more space and time. Time to actually put on makeup, time to make a nice breakfast, and an actual feasible time for commuting.

The results were astounding. Not faced with a new task to get done but just more time to enjoy getting ready in the morning and subsequently not feeling rushed and panicky has done wonders for my mood in the morning. I'm getting into work before 9 a.m. – instead of wondering how late I'm actually going to be that day.

And because I don't feel rushed or stressed I am not so devastated when I don't get a seat on the train or the tube. I'm even feeling like I'm more productive at work because I don't start the day feeling behind.

One of my issues – I believe – is that my stress over needing to be more productive is actually detrimental. Because I'm always trying to 'do' so much, I don't have time to just 'be' and that, counterintuitive as it may be, actually impedes creativity and productivity.

Perhaps – and one can always hope – that this time I have it cracked. I spend so much time trying to be something else, someone better, someone more interesting and more productive. Maybe for me the morning isn't a time to get more done, but a time for me to just let things go and make more space for being.

Again, as usual, I'm worried this is the millionth false start. But I'll keep you posted.

Book Review: Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire

2011-01-07T10:00:00.001Z

I have mixed feelings about Mireille Guiliano, author of Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire. Although I think there are truly great parts of her French Women Don't Get Fat two-book series, and I do think she has a very healthy relationship with food, her philosophy on weight loss in the books cuts a little bit too close to a diet. Although she does advise eating everything in moderation, she also tells readers to do a weekend leek soup fast to kick start things and then cut out certain types of foods until the weight starts to drop off.

However, her newest book is not specifically about food or lifestyle, but about women and work. She does put a fair dose of lifestyle advice in there – and I don't object to that. In fact, it's a good summary of things we already know but probably should be reminded about from time to time, like 'get enough sleep' and 'decide what you're going to wear the night before'. These things can actually save a lot of stress when it's time to get ready for work (it's a no brainer – but I still need to be reminded about them quite frequently).

Guiliano's writing style is engaging and her anecdotes in this book are very interesting – in fact, I think the book might have been better if it actually was written in memoir style instead of as a self-help book. My feeling while reading this book was that of confusion – which is it exactly? I felt that the lessons she was painting were good ones, but everything was so specific to her own experiences that I wasn't sure I could really apply them.

I've read a few books about women and work and have been helped the most by very specific advice that can be applied in a variety of situations. Like, 'don't apologize (which women tend to do) unless there's a very good reason for it', and 'treat work like a game, not a meritocracy' (something women – probably from years of conditioning – also tend to not 'get').

That said, I think reading a book about one very accomplished woman's experiences with work, particularly as an ex-pat woman in the male-dominated drinks industry in the US during the 1980s was fascinating (she was a senior executive and spokesperson for Veuve Clicquot). There's always something we can learn from reading about someone else's experiences told from their unique point of view.

There is one other issue. Guiliano chose not to have children. And she doesn't really address how she thinks this may or may not have affected her career path. I raise this issue delicately as I don't want to imply in any way that her success is linked with the absence of children. In a recent column in the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway (who writes about work life) addresses the same issue. She didn't do any scientific research, but trawled through a list of prominent women CEOs and found that what they generally had in common were husbands who either had more flexible working schedules or worked for themselves and were able to pitch in more than their fair share on childcare and other family-related tasks.

Most women (and men) don't make it to the echelons of their company's highest ranks, so Guiliano's success does raise this kind of question. Would things have been different if she had children?

If you like reading about other people's experiences, want a good few common sense tips, and don't mind feeling slightly inadequate (I mean, she does sometimes seem like a superwoman), I think this book is a good read. But don't expect to get any heavyweight insight into how to climb the corporate ranks at your company – I'm just not sure there's enough advice packed in.

Unhappiness

2011-01-06T22:43:00.010Z

I've finished reading both books that I brought home with me for vacation, so my Mom gave me another book to read – one which she has really enjoyed. It's The Art of Racing in The Rain by Garth Stein and it has testimonials all over the back cover from authors I respect, so I'm sure it must be pretty good. However, I read the first chapter on a train ride to visit one of my friends and by the time I had finished it, I had to use all my strength to keep from sobbing in public.

I'm not sure if I can handle reading this book. I'm going to try again, but the beginning just reminded me so much of the ending of the movie Marley & Me that I felt it was insurmountable. I watched Marley & Me on a flight once and let's just say that although I'm not the biggest animal person (spoiler alert), by the end of the movie I was in pieces, as if my own dog had died. I turned to Future Hub and told him we were never having a pet and 'I don't know why people put themselves through this sort of thing'.

Why would you subject yourself to an unhappiness you know you will experience?

I suppose what people who give cats and dogs (and other animals) a home believe is that the happiness they will experience over the life of their pet will much outweigh the sadness they know they will eventually face when that pet passes on to the big farm in the sky.

Life is full of unhappiness. So how do we cope?

I think that humans are very capable of handling it. And on some level we know that we must experience sadness with all the good stuff too. I've read numerous times in books and articles that people who consider themselves happy actually don't experience less pain or periods of sadness than others, it's just that they are aware that they get the bad with the good and know they will experience thoughts of sadness, depression even, bouts of anxiety, self-doubt and just that general feeling of itchiness and nothing being right – and that it too will pass.

I am reminded of this all the time. When I'm having a crappy day, just feeling down for no particular reason, I think, I will feel better again. I just have to ride this out, be kind to myself, not try too hard. It helps.

I'm going to make another attempt at reading that book. Mom says it's really great – as long as you can get past the bit in the middle when you get really angry at some character or another. I'll just try to ride it out.