Beyond Melancholy Hill

Tags

all we have is now, BE HERE NOW!, Burnout, corona vaccine, Cosmic ordering, depression, gratitude, love, love what you have, make do and mend, marriage, melancholy hill, mental health, mindfulness, Narrowboat, narrowboat life, second hand, the present moment, values, Vegan, Voluntary simplicity, want what you need, Work, writing

On repeat every day

This morning John got up before me and fed the cats and lit the fire and made me a cup of tea, having first gone outside into the engine room to get another box of cat food,* and to the store bin outside to get kindling whilst I dozed in bed. As well as our new-to-us sofa- which even reclines!- we have at last bought a comfortable mattress, having been using a futon mattress ever since we moved onto the boat. After a year of the mattresses of low-budget accommodation of India and Southeast Asia it actually felt comfortable but over recent weeks it has become unbearable. This one is a Silentnight with integral topper, firm yet comfortable, and only slightly hangs off the edge- its 4’ a small double but too thick to fit under the lip in the wall like the futon did, bought from Gumtree for £50, second hand but apparently new. John says this might give him a few more good years!

I got up and we wrote out Christmas cards- just a few to elderly relatives and the kids- and walked to the village shop to post them. John filled up the water while I washed the dishes using the ‘emergency’ five litre bottle we keep in the kitchen. Then he went to work for a late shift- 2pm-10pm- and I did the washing in the twin tub and lit the fire, and settled down to write this. My plan for the rest of the afternoon/evening is to eat Marmite on toast, watch Ashes to Ashes (Season 2-3), eat stollen, perhaps cook something,** and watch more Ashes to Ashes.

I’ve been working hard on reaching an accommodation and acceptance of my current circumstances- I know this is ridiculous, since I live a life that so many people would dream of, but it’s part of my makeup to be striving, pushing; pushing against my natural state of melancholy. Looking to the future and the next big thing, or hoping that one day it will all work out. I’ll get a publishing deal, come into money when all along my life is as it is and I’m missing the moment. Being so focussed on creativity can be just another way to push away the present moment rather than accepting it and then hopefully enjoying its richness. Also from a practical point of view I get a lot of RSI so it’s really good for me to have a typing break when I can.

So I guess this is a kind of gratitude list: my husband John, my anchor and my guide.

There’s so much to be grateful for in terms of us sharing the same outlook that I forget that so many people can’t even find (as they are so rare) a vegan boyfriend or husband. I wouldn’t dream of being with someone who wasn’t vegan, and bearing in mind we only know about three vegans I’d probably be lonely. Above all, I am consistently accepted for and as myself, with absolutely no expectation or pressure to be anything but, even though I’m always changing.

John and The boat & The cats= Home and the perfect home and lifestyle for me

My job/financial circumstances. I qualified as an occupational therapist in 2000, naturally rising up to become Head Occupational Therapist at a secure service from October 2010- February 2018. That job was so involved and me being me that by the end I was pretty burned out. We went travelling March 2018- March 2019. March 2019-July 2019 back in the UK and in a state of shock and finding it hard to imagine ever working again. July 2019 we both started working as Bank (meaning you can pick and choose when to work) Health Care Workers. December 2019 I stopped, feeling the work was too physically demanding. I went to India December 2019- February 2020.

On return I took a deep breath and signed up to an agency to get Occupational Therapy work, which involved making an introductory video interview and going for mandatory training. A job would have probably involved full time work and up to an hour’s commute each way. The night before the training I said out loud, ‘I don’t want to do it, somebody please save me!’ An email from the occupational therapist at the place where I’d done the healthcare job came through saying there’s a three day a week occupational therapy job if you are interested. Although it’s a bit out of my comfort zone as it’s not the clinical area that I’m really confident in, it is fifteen minutes up the road, the people are all really nice, and working at a lower level and only three days means I have enough time and energy to try and build an alternative career- ghostwriting and editing via Upwork and of course editing and pitching my own book.

Agency work, either full time or at a higher level, or both, is still an option, and might be a good idea at some point- we could be here in the UK earning as much money as possible for six months, and in Italy/India/Phnom Penh for the other six months. But for now, whilst we 1. Can’t go anywhere and 2. I want to try and build an alternative career, this is ideal. If I did a job like I did before, with a commute, all my energy would be taken with that. Plus I am a real homebody, and rather lazy, and enjoy nothing more than sleeping in and hanging about on the boat with the cats and the swans.

I’m getting the Corona vaccine tomorrow – as a worker in a care home I am in the first batch, everyone at my work got a link sent to us through which we can book in at the local hospital. So that’s our fun activity for our date day- Fridays are the day John and I always have off together. In January we’re getting eyetests! (not been done since just before we went travelling- I still have my reading glasses and their bright pink/orange case which went everywhere and never got lost, its catch long broken but held closed with a hair elastic…) And I’ve got a £25 M&S voucher from work as a Christmas present as well so I could also go and spend that on yummy Christmas food. Or perhaps a dressing gown. I’m not being sarcastic when I say that truly, my cup runneth over.***

Modest/tentative plans for next year

Focus on eBay and selling the India stuff we bought in Pushkar- a narrowboat really isn’t big enough for a business involving stock!

Go to the Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch exhibition in London and hopefully see my friend Molly at the same time!

Go to Italy to check out property- still thinking about it

Go off for a week on the boat- we have people’s dream holiday beneath our feet yet don’t really use it

Phnom Penh, Cambodia and/or India, are still hoped for for winter ‘21-‘22 but of course who knows?

Go cold turkey on Waitrose Essential Mince Pies and Aldi Holly Lane Marzipan Stollen (both #accidentallyvegan) I haven’t had a drink since August but I have bought Vegan Baileys (from Waitrose), Champagne (from Aldi), Gin and Tonic ready mixed in cans (from Aldi) and Fosters lager for Christmas Day and Boxing Day so will be probably ceasing all that in January too

*The cats have decided that the only food they really like is one particular flavour only of Morrison’s own brand, which involves a special trip to Northampton a half hour away.

**I never did, I just had a bowl of muesli

*** I’d nearly finished when a knocking/tapping sound on the window alerted me to the swans outside wanting food. I rest my case.

Sending you all warmest wishes and lots of love

Thank you for being here

On the way to London last weekend to meet up with John’s kids before Christmas- just in time as London shut down again a few days later

Rachel

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How to Write a Book Part 2

Tags

conditioning, editing, editor, escape the matrix, how to write, How to write a book, narrowboat life, Personal growth, Travel memoir, Work, writing

Photo of me from a couple of weeks ago
Since I last posted I have discovered bright colours! (Thank you to Julie for my beautiful birthday top!)

Turns out, editing is harder than I thought, total focus is required, hence my absence. Plus in March I started work, part time, at a lower level but back to Occupational Therapy. Stepping down, and into a new clinical area, albeit just up the road and with a lovely team, is actually harder than I thought. I’m even wondering about stepping up again into a senior role and back into a more-hardcore-yet-familiar clinical setting.

As far as the book goes, there’s only so much writing I can do without my hand, wrist, arm and shoulder hurting. So there’s that. One or two evenings after work I do an hour or so, then on my days off I do around two hours. John my husband works 3-4 days per week in a shift pattern, giving us every Friday together and every other weekend, and time alone on the boat for each of us.

Book update: I’m giving myself a long weekend off, which feels like coming up for air, between the last pass through and the next, which will be editorial advice, mainly cutting here and there and working on strengthening the endings of each chapter, and adding a little personal background as needed.

I’ve been helping a friend with some editing and as I had hoped, have discovered a talent for this. I am very gentle, supportive and responsive and I have a sharp critical eye I can access to help you. If you want help I am available for editing work, use the contact box and I’ll get straight back to you.

More big news: We are in the process of putting a website together to collate all the information and knowledge we have about the nature of reality, the conditioning we are all a victim of etc etc; an online community for exchanging ideas and asking questions about our own experiences… Watch this space, as they say!

The cats came back at the start of lockdown!

Follow me on Instagram thisisrachelhill (mainly writing stuff and photos of everyday boat life)

Thank you for visiting

Rachel xxx

Life Update: Lockdown in the UK countryside

Tags

awareness, Corona, Covid19, India, Narrowboat, narrowboat life, nature, patriotism, question everything, racism, simple life, Travel memoir, Vegan, Voluntary simplicity, Work, writing

Sitting outside after work or on days off the canal has been busy with ducks, ducklings, a moorhen and swans and new babies, way, way better than tv! I am working three days a week, my husband three or four days per week, as we both work in care. There have been some adjustments to working practices but I’ve really enjoyed the way people at work have come together.

There are a lot more walkers, cyclists and joggers both on the towpath on the opposite side of the canal, and also on ‘my’ walk. Living quietly on a narrowboat our day to day lives haven’t really changed, it’s the monthly social/family trips to London and overnights with family in Norfolk which have stopped, although we’ve been to Norfolk to get prescriptions and seen my mum in her garden, wearing masks and keeping a distance.

We do not watch tv and I limit the amount of news media or commentary I absorb. I have taken a light interest in and listened to anyone I know sharing conspiracy theories but I avoid totally believing in anything that will scare me (whether conspiracy or on the ordinary news.) Aside from a few moments right at the start neither of us have felt anxious. I could be accused of being a Pollyanna or an ostrich but that is the same as usual.

I was interested to hear some of the news from the US, parts of mainland Europe and Ireland, about protests against the lockdown. And also news about how countries such as Sweden and The Netherlands have done things differently. In the UK we have seen very little in the way of protests. I sometimes question if it is really as bad as we are being told and is the lockdown proportionate, but I do go along with it all because I don’t think we’ll know until afterwards, and maybe not even then.

I like that care workers and supermarket staff are being valued. I am not a fan of the patriotic sentimentality of the clapping, although I go along with doing it, or the fact that some people on Facebook shamed someone for not joining in! This duality, the good (appreciating the NHS) and the bad (shaming people publicly) of people, is the same as always.

Extroverts in the UK are having Skype dinner parties and nights watching live lockdown performances etc. For us, a few extra phone calls made and received, that’s it. But then we are both still seeing lots of people at work, living together, in an idyllic setting, with a place to walk on site and a footpath right across the road. I feel for those in cities and in flats with no gardens, and those who live alone. I think it’s harsh not to be able to meet a friend at a distance.

Duality again, a sense of us being one world, vs casual racism, which I have been disappointed to hear. I have enjoyed reading blogs from Japan, Cambodia and India. WordPress is great for connecting all of us.

The newspapers report daily deaths and pay tribute to individuals who have died of Corona, which is nice in one way, although it induces a lot of fear, but what about all the other people who have died and will continue to die, of suicide, road deaths, and cancer?

Already people are noting the costs of the UK lockdown: a doubling in domestic violence killings; several instances of whole families being killed in murder-suicides due to worries about money as a result of the lockdown; people suffering and even dying due to all non urgent appointments and surgeries being cancelled; a rise in suicides as people are isolated and mental health support systems taken away; and children at risk or just really missing their friends and extended family.

There has been some confusion amongst both the general public and different police forces about what things are actually part of the new Coronovirus law and what are just things the Prime Minister has said in briefings. Me too so I won’t go into too much detail but for example according to the law we shouldn’t be out without ‘reasonable excuse,’ eg food and essentials shopping, caring for relatives etc, exercise, going to work if you can’t work from home. Non essential shops closed, although some more shops are beginning to re open. As my husband said, the list of what is essential begins to expand as time goes on eg items for repair around the home etc, rather than just food and medicines.

Police forces have differed in their approach. One police chief said the powers they have been given are normally only seen in a dictatorship, and that they were mindful to police by consent and that particular force had only issued one fine at that time. Other police forces have been much more heavy handed, threatening to search people’s shopping trolleys for non essential items such as Easter Eggs; The Government had to step in and say that if a shop is open you can buy anything in it. One police chief said a few days ago that some of the rules don’t make sense to police let alone the public, such as, why can’t people sunbathe in a park at a safe distance but they can queue for an hour outside DIY stores?

Some local councils shut parks, later the government told them they had to open them, but I don’t know if they all did. Some benches in parks had tape over them for people not to sit down, what about old people who need a rest when out for a walk?

Most people myself included shop for necessaries and then add the non essentials with them (for us, some chocolate or alcohol on top of necessary food items.) Shops limit the number of customers and often have queues outside with people spaced out. I have made one trip to Superdrug and bought things I needed such as moisturiser and some nice things such as face packs. I really enjoyed that nice, quiet shopping session, and I was glad to support them as they are treating their staff well and also have lots of vegan items.

I’ve managed to get some potting compost and some onions, bought at the same time as buying logs, and have planted one lot which are coming up, the second lot had to wait until I was able to get another bag of compost.

There are new, adorable Easter card worthy lambs in the field right by us. Last year I struggled with this, knowing what lay ahead for them. This year I seem to have managed to switch off more. This week we have both struggled with watching wild birds trapped in cages; the sheep man traps crows and magpies and kills them later. We have checked and he is allowed to do it so there’s nothing else we can do. We considered leaving but have decided to stay. He’s moved the cages slightly so they are not right by where we sit. I cope by reminding myself this type of horror is everywhere, we just don’t always see it. Other neighbours are not upset by it but they love the swans and ducks. My mother in law has pet chickens but eats other chickens. But I have not always been vegan, and I use a car and fly, against some people’s ethical code; as my husband said, we’re all of us responsible for everything.

My book is almost all at the stage of being ready to be read, and then it will be a finer edit to do, as well as submitting to agents.

We still hope to go to India a few days after Christmas and return around 18th March. Flights are still cheap and oh so tempting to book as they might go up but we know that would probably be unwise, as India may not let us in, or may not be open, depending on a second wave, etc.

Wherever you are, I hope you are doing okay and I wish you all the best

Thank you very much for reading

Rachel

Throwback Thursday: The Process by Which It Happens

Tags

acceptance, anxiety, Burn out, Burnout, creativity, Elizabeth Gilbert, Personal growth, Reflection, therapy, Work

The Process by Which It Happens

First published in July 2017

I am not aiming for balance, or a balanced life, oh no, Elizabeth Gilbert says you cannot do that and I largely concur.  I am aiming for a happy life subject to circumstances and a ‘spiritual’ life whatever the circumstances, indeed friction helps me grow.  I am glad to be developing and all my life is helping me to do that (all my life as in all that’s going on in my life right now and all my life as in past, present and future).  I fully know I may concentrate on one part sometimes and other parts other times and that life will show me what to do next.

Money:  ‘Studying’ (aka obsessively binge watching) Shameless USA, reading about the Buy Nothing movement, hibernating, in order to get my finances under control.  I didn’t set out to watch Shameless in order to do this, but I am sure it helped.  Spend as little as possible.  Who needs money when you’ve got words.  Not being flippant about people who don’t have money for food, I just mean that I can cope with staying in etc because I have this to do.

Work:  I got locked in my pattern again:  I take on too much, get too tired, or in this case, there just was too much happening (lots of people leaving/off sick); me pretending to everyone including myself that it is okay and not accessing support.  I end up feeling burned out, thinking I have to meet the every emotional, professional, advisory and every other need of everyone in my team whilst also doing a good job for my patients, other dept. duties, answering emails, thinking up new stuff, keeping one step ahead, keeping everyone happy… all of which is obviously ludicrously impossible.

The next thing that happens is that I start to get self conscious and paranoid, worrying about what everyone thinks of me, wondering if anything I do is any good, wishing I could start over again and be different- stop being shy, communicate better, stop avoiding the strong senior managers because I’m intimidated.  I avoid criticism, I am scared of it so I avoid people, and that just makes everything worse…

To contradict what I just wrote, I have actually in many ways been more relaxed at work.   I have stopped to chat.  I have worked slowly.  I have left things undone.  I have chosen the fun things and put off the boring ones.  I have cancelled things to make my week manageable.  I have noticed that I usually go around on full pelt (resenting others who stop to chat!) and the busier I get, the more I take on; working up to the last minute so I am always late and stressed, as if I don’t deserve to take it easy and sit calmly in a room waiting for a meeting to start (I have done this at least once recently!).  It’s going to be an adjustment…

So although tonight’s writing mission was mainly about dealing with work stress, and was more about writing as therapy than writing, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to finish this book:  Don’t get distracted by the idea that you should be so ‘spiritual’ as to be above wanting or needing to do anything.  This might be idealised as sitting on top of a mountain meditating but in practice becomes eating oven chips and cold baked beans and watching rubbish on Netflix*.  A creative mind is like a border collie, remember…

*There is really great stuff on Netflix but it is definitely possible to waste time on it as well.

April 2020

Ah, the joy of burning out! Now that I’ve left it behind there are things I miss and value about that job: The feeling of working at the outer edges of my capabilities; the sheer creative freedom: being given big projects with little support and direction, and having a team to lead meant I could at least in part set the tone and direction of my department; the buzz of so much pressure, both external and from within myself. Finding creative ways to postitively engage patients and provide hope within a medium secure forensic setting was what I was good at and felt rewarding. Working in such a heartbreaking and violent setting meant that what we did felt really important, and the fact that we were there meant that we were strong. But ‘You can have it all, just maybe not all at the same time,’ and right now, working three days a week in an easier job, I have the time and space to keep on finishing my book.

Thank you very much for reading

 

Throwback Thursday: Therapy Part Two

Tags

CBT, healing, OCD, Self healing, stress, therapy, Work, Work place stress

At the start of every ‘therapy for the therapists’ group there was always a mindfulness exercise and for the first time I understood why we teach this to our patients who have severe emotional and mental distress.  I was nervous, but I focussed on the task:  I am sitting here, in a chair, the table is brown, the window is square.  Just the bare unarguable facts, no suicidal despair, no ‘I can’t cope, I am a leper’.  Just deal with what is in front of me.

A few weeks’ later and a few more weeks of Jaim’s lovely therapy and another therapy group meeting.  This time the mindfulness was not a ‘describing’ exercise like before but a ‘doing’ exercise.  In silence, the group leader handed out photocopies of Valentine’s Day themed Sudoku.  Printed on the bottom of the sheet was the website address: Activities for kids.  Now, when Sudoku first became a thing in England, I did try it and did know how to do it.  But that was a long time ago, and faced with this sheet, in the tense silence of the therapy group, I realised I had absolutely no idea what to do.  I ran through the options in my mind:  stay still, be mindful of the discomfort, and say nothing.  Or ask for help- traditionally we don’t often speak in mindfulness, but mostly the task is relatively simple and clarification isn’t normally needed.  I thought that if it was my turn as facilitator I wouldn’t mind if someone asked- in fact I wouldn’t want them to sit silent and confused.  So I broke the silence and asked the facilitator and my neighbour who both tried to give me brief and hushed advice.  Unfortunately it was no good, maybe because I’d got even more tense at speaking, maybe because the mindfulness section is so short they didn’t spend long explaining it, so I sat, writing anything in the boxes with no clue, feeling hot and uncomfortable but at the same time, a bit of me was laughing, a bit of me was looking forward to telling Jaim about it.  And a whole lot more of me knew that whatever was happening in that moment, underneath and beyond it I was still intact, still me, and would come out unscathed.

Jaim and I laughed long and hard about it.  ‘What, you mean, you, 15 years experience as a therapist, head of department, manager of a team of twenty, don’t know how to do Sudoku, I mean, really, what will everyone think!!!’ Jaim laughed.  He added more seriously: ‘the aim isn’t to avoid ever having a low mood or a bad experience, but to be able to let them go afterwards’.

Eliminate these behaviours and thoughts and I can experience pure happiness at least for a period, until and unless events in life happen as they do but it is true that at present I have no sad events or issues so it would be a shame to waste this opportunity to be perfectly happy.  

Driving home from work, listening to Radio 4, I heard someone say:  ‘Treat it as normal, that will help it to become normal’.  Yes, I thought, that is exactly what I need to do.  That could cure my suicidal thoughts and urges, my workplace anxiety, my body issues, my self consciousness, my OCD and all the rest of my various neuroses.  They were actually talking about Northern Ireland, but that kind of detail doesn’t bother me, I was listening to the radio at the time, so I’m taking it for my own.

But even as counselling is releasing years of blocks and bad habits from my mind, and recently rediscovered yoga and recently discovered deep tissue massage is releasing years of guilt and tensions from my body, a part of me is fighting to undermine this new found happiness.  New OCD behaviours appear and strange new worries spring up.  The mind is fighting back: Well you could be happy, but stuff always happens.  What if he’s just waiting until you are strong enough to manage on your own and then he’ll leave you?  What if he has an affair with your friend?  What if he dies?  What then?  But like in Eat Pray Love (the book, always the book) when she just sits on the beautiful island in silence for days and days while all her guilt and neuroses surface and then subside, I am just going to look kindly and patiently on whilst all this stuff works itself out and is eliminated, out of my mind, out of my body.

And then, in meditation, the thought came:  what if this feeling that I am interpreting as stress, anxiety, tension, confusion, OCD, what if it’s just a pregnant transition and is just me, teeming with energy?  It isn’t mental illness; it’s me, teeming with energy, coming into my powers.  And the power, the energy is just waiting to be told what to do, or for me to put them into action.

I’ve still got a fear of madness when I open doors in my mind.  Just like I have a fear of getting fat, stiff and unfit if I stop exercising and let myself off for a few days.  A fear of being totally lazy and losing all my drive if I sleep in or rest up or do nothing.  A fear of losing control at work or being sacked if I don’t work 100% all the time.  What if all these fears are equally unfounded? 

Like how anorexics, with devastating consequences, absorb the public health messages about food whilst obese people ignore them; I absorbed the ‘take responsibility’ and ‘accept guilt’ messages when I didn’t always need to.  Could it be possible that I am not guilty of everything that I accused myself of?

… Each moment is both unique and yet also the result of the previous moment and all previous moments, like beads being threaded on a string.  Is that that what heaven or enlightenment is, simply the result of day after day of right living? 

What if the happy, positive me, like when I am all chatty and cheerful and friendly at work, is the real me, and the dark, miserable one is not, is just a shadow trying to drag me back down, yet I used to think that was the real me, and the cheerful one was false, a front.

I went on facebook for the first time in weeks, and Elizabeth Gilbert had posted that having a creative mind is like having a border collie for a pet: if you don’t give it work to do, it will find itself something to do, and you may not like what it chooses.  This aligned with what the man on a work wellbeing course said: worry is a misuse of the imagination, give your mind something better to do.

It made me think of worry and also OCD.  Is it as simple as that?  Forget all the exposure exercises and behaviour charts; just give myself something big and all consuming to do- fall in love, write a book, etc.  I remember someone on a creative writing course writing about OCD, maybe she would be able to cure herself by writing more?

I didn’t tell Jaim about the OCD:  I didn’t want to be like one of those patients that goes to a ten minute appointment and adds loads of other issues on at the end of the appointment and anyway I was prioritising the most dangerous.  I also thought that maybe it would recede as all the other stuff got sorted.  And that if it didn’t, well, I’d got help once, I could always get help for the OCD later.  Or just employ same method: awareness.

One night late, on my own, before I went to bed I looked up some OCD self help information.  It was reassuring, very reassuring, as long as I can fully absorb it:

• Intrusive thoughts are common and are an OCD symptom, i.e. they are not me.  Sad, to think of all those people persecuted by thoughts, that they can’t share, and that get worse and worse until they are totally taken over.
• Worrying about them, blocking them, or taking them seriously are all things that make them worse.
• Laughing at them can help, as can reminding yourself that everyone has them and they don’t mean anything.

I thought about all the other healing I have done and realised that I can easily cure myself of my OCD, simply by using the method I have thus far employed for everything else I have done:

• Let go of it.  Un-hook my attention and my interest, hook by hook, until it disappears.  It is my attention and interest that make it a thing, that give it form, without that, it is nothing.
• And realise that even when I do have it, it doesn’t bother me, I am still intact underneath.

It’s like healthy eating:  in the moment of deciding and then starting you can feel totally healthy and transformed even whilst accepting that the body and health you have is the result of years of poor eating and will take a while to change/catch up.  Perhaps this is a secular version of the nature of forgiveness?

Postscript:

Gratitude on top of gratitude:  In January the man I had had all the difficulties with before Christmas was moved to another job and I never had to see him again.

Thank you very much for reading

Throwback Thursday: Therapy

Tags

CBT, stress, Suicidal, suicidal thoughts, suicide, therapy, Work, Work place stress

The night before I returned to work after Christmas, Anthony asked me if I was ready.  I said, ‘well my work clothes and bag are sorted’.  ‘I meant psychologically’, he said.  ‘Well in that case, no, not at all’.  The thought of facing that man (just before my Christmas break I had a horrible meeting at work with a very confrontational man) again was unbearable.  ‘Surely you must have a strategy for dealing with him?’ Anthony asked.  ‘Only the ultimate one’, I muttered.  ‘For God’s sake Rachel, you can’t kill yourself over someone at work.  You aren’t a depressed Goth teenager anymore.  I really think it’s about time you got some help with this’. 

I had been thinking about it.  The idea of getting help had come to me in meditation.  I had never sought help before, although I had had suicidal thoughts on and off since I was fifteen.   

I had even imagined myself doing a talk about it, at some kind of mental health event, about being in that lonely attic office at work where no one came to see me without an appointment, and then my knee started really hurting so I had to move to a downstairs office that is much more public and you can’t hear people coming from a distance, they just appear.  Just before I was moved downstairs I was having very strong suicidal urges.  I had brought a craft knife in from home for an art session, but it sat on the top of the filing cabinet screaming ‘method’ to me.

So on the 12^th January 2015, coincidentally (i.e. I hadn’t done it intentionally) one year to the day since I had driven to Wells-next-the-Sea with my swimsuit on under my clothes and bathed in the cold North Norfolk sea as a commitment to the spiritual path, (described in my previous book How to Find Heaven on Earth, which is for sale super cheap on Amazon) albeit my own eclectic and ever-changing made-up spiritual path, but still, I meant it, I picked up the phone and rang the work telephone counselling service.

The phone was answered with a lovely softly spoken Spanish accent, by a man called Jaim. Talking with this calm, gentle man every Friday morning… I sat on the floor of my office with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and an A4 pad in front of me and as he talked I scribbled down as much of it as I could.

Gently, he dismantled the strange framework I had built inside and around me.  Rachel, he said, ‘Thoughts are not real; they are just like when you are watching a film or reading a book, there is no obligation to engage with them.’

No obligation to engage with them?  Are you sure?  The idea of letting them go and letting myself off was tantalising and delicious but I felt conflicted and guilty at the same time.  Surely, if I have an idea as serious as killing myself I should give it some attention?  I mean, I must be thinking it for a reason?  Or at the very least, the fact that I have thoughts like this surely means there is something very wrong with me and that I am not like everyone else.  And if I did give up the suicidal thoughts, I wouldn’t have an ultimate Plan B or anything to hang onto In-Case-Of-Emergency.  

But Jaim helped me see that the thing I’m hanging onto is unhelpful to the extent that it has become the problem itself, rather than a solution to the problem.  The original problem has gone and all I am left with is the original solution, which has now become a problem:  The Problem.  I used to think it was a safety net for when I got all freaked out and scared about things that I found difficult.  But what if I just say fuck off to it as it as it arises?  And what if instead of freaking out over challenges and fears I just get on with whatever task is in front of me?  But what will I do without all that to fall back on?  Answer: Probably manage quite well or even better:  suicidal thoughts do not actually help.

If thoughts and what I think isn’t really who I am, then who am I?  How do I know who I am?   Is it rather what I do, and the reflection of myself and my actions in the people around me?  Question:  What to think about instead?  I don’t want to stop thinking, I like thinking…  Jaim said:  ‘Why should you stop the activity of the mind?  But you can direct it more consciously to what you want.  It’s a myth that stopping the mind, that that is what meditation is all about.  Imagining, creation, ideas, are all good things!’

My mind is working better- not thinking unhelpful thoughts.  I am learning not to fill my mind with noise except when chosen:  a subject of interest on Radio 4, music for pleasure, choosing consciously, rather than ‘filling without knowing’ in Jaim’s words, when you don’t allow yourself any silence or space to choose:

‘If you work too hard and fill every moment with purpose in a rush of doing you forget to just be.  Allow yourself times of silence and moments of non doing.  It’s in these moments that you realise who you are.’  Jaim said:  ‘Accept who you are, warts and all.  You have been afraid of showing yourself to be weak, forever trying to please someone else, to be ultra efficient, perfect and invincible but nobody is that.  Ask when you don’t know.  Tell yourself that it’s okay for me not to know.  It’s okay to sometimes not be on top of things.  Your previous assumption- ‘I can’t cope’- meant you had to demonstrate the opposite and that was the cause of much stress.  The need to prove is a constant source of nervousness.’

I told him about the man I had the meeting with, and that I was scared of facing him again.  Jaim said calmly:  ‘In my experience there is something simple that will perhaps help you; to be aware, preferably in real time, or if not as soon as possible after, of how you are feeling.  Monitor carefully your changes of mood.  This is the first indicator that something is happening.  If you feel upset, sad or worried, just notice, enquire with an open mind, what is going on, not criticising, not should, not should not, just:  Why?  What is the reason?  What is actually happening?  Outer event?  Memory?  Interpretation as threat?  Understand your interpretation:  what are you thinking?  I’m not good enough?  I won’t cope?  Deal with these asap- of course I am good enough, I can cope.’

 ‘Watch out for winter and being tired.’

‘The more you cultivate and develop the ability to observe yourself (your thoughts, feelings and behaviour), the more you will be able to deal with adverse circumstances without panicking.’

‘Your observing mind is the wise part of you that is there to keep an eye on things in the control room, ready to respond to any variations:  red lights= respond quick.  Observe the dashboard of your life, trust you have the ability to deal with it.  Choose to take appropriate action instead of panicking and giving into depressed or unhelpful thoughts.  There is usually a way out.’

‘Every half an hour, stop and check in, how I am feeling and why, very simple.  You have been so scared of not coping but don’t pre-empt it, don’t assume.  Whatever comes to meet you you will find time and a way to deal with it.

You have done it so far! (You have been around a while)’.

‘Being aware stops you being on autopilot, and when you are on autopilot your subconscious mind takes over and can lead you astray.’

‘When we are well we feel well, it’s an inbuilt gauge telling us life is going well.  When you get an uncomfortable feeling, that is a warning light:  use your feelings to help you.  Sometimes it will be a simple solution, sometimes it will be more complicated, that’s okay, we will never understand everything.  Feelings are valid:  they are telling you something.’

‘You are making decisions every minute, you start afresh every minute: life unfolds in the present.’

Then as I began to get better:  he said:  ‘The difference is, you are not beating yourself up.  You might be doing something wrong, if so, you can correct it.  You are walking through life with your wits about you, paying attention to yourself and what’s around you.  Observe your thoughts and behaviour, watch the dashboard, watch for changes in mood and take action accordingly.  Do you realise how important this is?  Feels life changing!’

Replacement coping strategies:

• Help is always available, all you have to do is ask
• Whatever comes your way you will be able to deal with it, as you have always done thus far

Thank you very much for reading

 

Update

Tags

Blogging, Cheap eats in London, cygnets, decorating, Indian veg, Life on a narrowboat, Narrowboat, Narrowboat living, swans, Travel writing, Vegetarian food London, Work, writing

Photo of the whole family- just.  I have the greatest respect for wildlife photographers; trying to take a picture of this family wasn’t easy!  We also have a group of three female Mallard ducks who wait for us each morning and hang out near the boat most of the time.  A moorhen has appeared recently although they are very shy and spend most of the time hidden away on the opposite bank.  Also we have had one visit from a pair of Canada geese and their almost-grown family.

We’ve been painting the outside of the boat, starting with the roof.  The weather needs to be dry, but not too hot or the paint dries too fast on the metal.  So we’ve been getting up early and doing an hour or two in between the overnight dew drying and it getting too hot.  Green is the top coat (coat one of two or three), the red is the red oxide undercoat (two coats) and the white is the original.

It was so hot yesterday it was like being back in Cambodia!  In the end we drove to London, only an hour and a half away from our place, enjoying the breeze/AC in the car and going to eat at the wonderful Indian Veg (92-93 Chapel Market, The Angel, London N1 9EX) an all-you-can-eat Indian vegetarian food buffet for less than £10 per person.  The walls are covered with quotes and facts, you can bring your own alcohol with no extra charge, and they give takeaway food to homeless people.  It’s a wonderful place.

Writing

I’ve almost finished Cambodia then onto Vietnam, the last part of the trip.  Then of course it will be editing and polishing.  I’m also working on two things I have been asked to do; a magazine article and a book review.  Unsurprisingly, the blog has felt a little neglected lately.  While out for a walk today I came up with an idea for a series of posts, easy to produce, inspiring to write and hopefully interesting to read, for whilst I am occupied with other writing and haven’t got a chapter extract ready to post.

Work

I start work a week on Monday, a one week full time 9-5 induction, then after that a few shifts a week depending on what’s available.  I’m half looking forward to engaging with the outside world and doing something valuable (care work with people with brain injuries) but the getting up early will probably take a bit of getting used to…

About the author

Sold house, left career, gave away almost everything else.  With husband went travelling for a year, mostly in India.   Here are my India highlights.  Now back in the UK, living on a narrowboat, and writing a book about the trip, a spiritual/travel memoir, extracts from which appear regularly on this blog.

 

Throwback Thursday

Tags

anxiety, creativity, relationships, spirituality, stress, Work, writing

What strikes me the most when reading these old posts is that I was trying to do too much; working full time in a demanding job, swimming several times a week, writing, spiritual seeking/meditation etc, trying to keep in touch with friends and family, and enjoying and being present for the relationship of my life with the love of my life.

Yes, creative people need time alone.  Yes, I had been used to solitude as a child and as a single parent with those lonely evenings and weekends.  Yes it was an adjustment living with someone.  But I think it would have been easier if I hadn’t been rushing around doing so much, if I had made some space and learned to prioritise the most important things and let go of the rest. 

I still have those tendencies (to overdo the busy-ness), but I am more aware of them.  Right now we are living and travelling together, and are with each other most of the time.   I can write when my husband is there, and I don’t worry about doing much else.

The possibility of ease (first published August 2014)

When the going’s good I find it almost impossible to imagine feeling down, low in energy or less than totally happy and supremely grateful for my life.  When things occasionally dip a little, I find it so hard to get out of and such a puzzle to work out how it happened.  That’s because I am a thinker, an over thinker, and it is not easy to think yourself out of a slump.  Easier to think yourself into more and more happiness, if one is already happy, like a snowball of prayer and gratitude and bliss…  When actually down, thinking is not the answer.  Waiting, or waiting with faith, is.  After a few days it comes to me: what it is that’s the matter, what I did or didn’t do to get me to this place.  Sometimes it’s PMT, sometimes I’m just tired.  This time, it was neglecting my need to be alone sometimes.

I prayed for my house to be filled with Love and I realised, it’s me who can fill it, God gives me the support and motivation to do so, but it’s me who actually does it.  When there’s any friction, it’s all the more noticeable because it’s such a happy house usually.  On the other side of friction there is learning, closeness and new insights.  But in the middle of friction is such confusion and muddy thinking that I couldn’t even write anything for a few weeks.  Now, however, I am bursting, I had to take the morning off work just to write down all the thoughts that were pouring out of me and to organise all the little scraps of paper with notes and ideas on.  But in the middle of friction, everything bad is magnified.  It is easy to become irritated and irritable, even whilst wondering fearfully about what is actually happening, where all the bliss went…

One day after work I stopped at the supermarket and instead of rushing home I paused in the car park for five minutes.  It was close to sunset and the sky was shot with yellow and gold, the clouds luminous at their edges.  The air was cool and warm at the same time.  I had bought myself a little tub of fresh olives and I leant against the car, eating them carefully so as not to spill any oil on myself, whilst looking at the big, open Norfolk sky and feeling the air on my skin.

I have just finished reading Whit by Iain Banks.  It is about a religious cult that tries to operate in the spaces, to be creative in all that they do, in order to be closer to God.  So they travel the most complicated or unusual way rather than just hopping on a train, because in those interstitial places, is where God is found.

In the supermarket car park that evening, I realised: Be Creative.  It doesn’t have to be at home.  I have Saturdays or Sundays most weeks to myself anyway, I also swim two or three times a week, I drive an hour each way to work five days a week, composing my thoughts, my writing.  Sometimes I pull over and write things down in my notebook.  I realise driving is not quite the same as being alone not having to do anything.  Reading Iain Banks, I realised I’ve always enjoyed interstitial time.  Like when I pull up at the pool and instead of going straight in I read for a while or just listen to something I’m enjoying on the radio.  Or when I pull over and park up for a nap during a long journey (or let’s face it, not that long, it’s just me, creating a little pocket of space, although the talcum powder footprints on the passenger door hint at something more exciting than just curling up on the back seat and dozing to The Archers).  Often it has revolved around food, especially ‘naughty’ food that I am happier not admitting to eating.  Smokers do it with cigarettes, I suppose, that little bit of semi forbidden or secret time.

Sometimes I’m a bit slow when it comes to realising things about myself.  In the middle of the friction time, I was chatting to a work colleague I hardly know, in a rare moment of sharing and we were both saying about how we struggle to get any time alone in the house, as our partners are usually home before us.  She told me the story of how the other day she had hoped and looked forward to an hour and a half at home, but what with being delayed at work, a phone call from her mum, and new neighbours deciding to pop round and introduce themselves, this time dwindled as she counted it down in her head until she was left with just five minutes.  I understood completely.  I said, but I feel so bad, I so longed for my man to come to live with me and now he’s here I’m talking about wanting time on my own.  She replied smartly, but you must do it, because otherwise you will get irritated.

But it still wasn’t until the olives in the car park a week or so later that I realised what had been the cause of my uncharacteristic irritation.
I will endeavour to make the most of the little spaces of time alone I get in the house, to use them for writing or reading or napping or whatever I want to, and appreciate them!  But I must also accept that they are rarer and learn to be flexible and to create little pockets of alone time outside of the house: really feel it when I go swimming, for example.  Go upstairs and nap or write even when I am not alone in the house.  Create a pocket of independence and stillness whatever and wherever.  It doesn’t take much.  An afternoon alone in the house to write once a week.  Ten minutes alone with a tub of olives and a pretty sky.  And then I am back, full of love.

The Minimalists

Tags

Minimalism, The Minimalists, Work

The Minimalists is a Netflix documentary.  It is what I watched last night whilst trying not to cry about the cats.

I remember reading some time ago that people as they get older tend to stop wanting to read fiction and instead turn to autobiographies.  I understand that, although it is hard as in my experience a lot of autobiographies aren’t that well written, or else the best and only really good bit in it was the bit that was read out on the radio that got me to buy it.

That said, even if there’s one good bit in a book, if the bit is really good, it’s worth it.  Chris Packham’s bit about suicide in his book Fingers in the Sparkle Jar, about all the wonders that he’s seen, which encouraged him, and then about his dogs, which stopped him.  Guy Martin’s description of the big crash, that was the bit that was read out on the radio.  But the bit I really liked was him walking home after a hard day’s work mending trucks and seeing all the houses with people sitting around a big screen tv and him saying:  You don’t get that time back at the end you know.  I love, love love that, and I say it to myself regularly.

Anyway, maybe the visual equivalent is getting into watching documentaries on Netflix rather than watching films.

My husband said that maybe everyone has to experience capitalism and materialism before they can begin to reject it, and so it is fitting that this documentary is American and the movement is being started by super successful people.  These people are smartly dressed, ex high powered career people.  They are not scruffy unwashed hippies.

Oh, and to go off topic for a moment, their teeth!  How do Americans have such incredible teeth (or why do us Brits have such bad ones?  What is the American situation with fluoride?  We have it in our water and in most toothpaste, but some people think it blocks your third eye.)  My teeth are considered good by British standards, but they are not white like kitchen paper, or white like a thick blanket of freshly fallen snow.  It is one of the few things that annoys me about the Walking Dead, although it’s not unique to that show.  Their teeth are still perfect, wouldn’t they be stained and worse, have some missing either from decay or having been knocked out in battle?  Are they all still flossing?  Have all the dentists survived?  I have to suspend my disbelief about the teeth, I complained to my husband.  What, that’s the only thing you have to suspend your disbelief about?! my husband said.

So back to the message of the Minimalists.  I agreed with everything.  It was just what I needed.  If anyone thinks what I am doing is weird, I can feel reassured.  I could even say, ‘I’m a minimalist, there’s a film about it on Netflix’.   I love Netflix.

The people in the documentary had fewer clothes, but they loved them all, and they tended to be better quality, thus showing how we should be both less and more materialistic:  really value and take care of the things we have.

Obviously this would be terrible, but I used to say that I’d like to lose everything in a house fire, so that I could just start again.  This shows what a gloom merchant I was, but my husband is saying he isn’t going to keep any of his clothes (aside from ones he’s taking travelling) and I’m seriously considering doing the same.  I was going to keep work clothes and warm clothes.  But if I’m not intending to do the kind of work that entails shapeless black trousers and modest frumpy tops (a lot of the patients I work with are sex offenders), and my warm clothes are all either poor quality/worn out, isn’t this my golden opportunity to fulfil my long held dream and get rid of everything and start again, with a few well chosen quality items from Cotswold Outdoor?  Alongside my more recent dream of getting rid of everything and just being left with a backpack?  (Plus duvets, pillows, blankets and a few essential crockery items left in someone’s loft or garage for our return.)

It’s not just stuff, it’s ideas I’m realising might be superfluous distractions and worth shedding:  my step grandma picks up litter everywhere she goes, with no gloves, then eats cake at the cafe.  No wet wipes, no alcohol gel.  I’ve never heard of her being sick.  Spending time with her also made me wonder whether all this concern about nutrition is really worth it.  She eats a cereal bar for breakfast, then goes out to the cafe for coffee and cake, followed by a good walk.  As far as I can tell she doesn’t eat lunch, I know she never cooks at all anyway.  She grazes on custard creams and chocolate chip cookies and in the evening she has white sliced bread with organic lettuce and tomatoes.

I’ve been wrapping my mind around letting go of my career, and what that means, prompted by interactions with three separate people on the subject.  At work, one of the admin staff told me to ask the admin people for help.  We’re not here to have a career, she said, so we just want to be busy, it helps the day go quicker.  She is a smart, interesting person, with whom I had a good chat about Christmas and minimalism.  We’re not here for a career, rang in my ears.  For so long, I have been all about the career, but what if I could just become the kind of person who wasn’t bothered about all that?

Then there was this blog  about changing attitudes to work and different ways of working, and our happy little exchange in the comments section.  Lastly, me and my husband working out that if we lowered our overheads by living on a boat and sharing a car, maybe we’d only need to work an average of 2-3 days per week each.  We bounced around ideas, cleaning houses for letting agents, especially really filthy houses.  Neither of us is bothered about cleaning up shit.

Just think, he said, if you weren’t bothered about it being a career, then you’d be free to just do anything that came along.  It made me think that the whole career thing is a trap, you think you’re getting something special and even feel superior sometimes, I am very sorry to say, but really, by letting go of all that, I’m free to make my life, rather than my career, the centre of my life.  And that is what The Minimalists are trying to teach us.

Visions of female power and creativity

Tags

Feminism, reality, Work, writing

I felt this person come into me, like being possessed, except that it was me, coming into the present moment.

I always wanted to live in a gypsy caravan.  I actually did for a while in a person’s garden when I was sixteen.  It had two narrow bunks that came down from the ceiling on chains, like hammocks.

I’ve been away from the alternative world for a long time now, wrapped up in working in a professional environment.  My husband and I are going to a party soon and there will be three, possibly four vegans there in a room together.  It will be the first time that we’ve been in a room with so many vegans aside from a meet up.

If I don’t have to go out to work to this job, what will I look like, how will I dress?  (Warm, I have a long wish list for Cotswold Outdoor (if you’re reading this, I am happy to write detailed reviews for you; I am quite capable of writing an entire blog post devoted to the joy of a new winter coat.)

I’m going ‘back’ to who I really am, back to being really me.  Maybe I’ll rediscover elements of my early punk/vintage style.  When my new tattoos are completed I’ll be able to wear sleeveless tops and dresses and show them off.  Maybe I’ll dress up sexy and we’ll go out.  I’m going forward, with awareness, with this love for myself, with this feeling of being loved, without the lost exploitation of me at sixteen.

Remembering who I was originally, as a child.  And now I have my experience, the awareness to make the most of my talents.  Even back then, it was all about writing, sex, love and finding out who I was.

I have always been so anxious at work:  as a student, knees knocking together on my first day at placement,  feeling like I was going to pee myself on the bus to college; even now, I park up and have to psych myself up to go into work each morning.  At my computer I am over tense with hunched shoulders and I type too heavily on the keyboard.

I’m often late because I am so anxious about whatever it is I am doing.  It’s never felt comfortable.  The body knows.  I wasn’t meant to be there.  Not because I wasn’t good enough, but because it wasn’t me.  I like to be quiet and alone.  I like to be outdoors.  I like to be creative.  I like to think deeply about things.  I like to be with my people.

Is this a midlife crisis?  Or is it, as my husband said, a midlife awakening?  I’m looking around, I’m seeing the billions of ‘suggestions’ for life, I’m realising what I want.