Taking time off

My daughter likes to think she’s independent. She lives away from home in a city, with a mostly healthy, happy life. But whenever she’s unwell with a temporary bug or a bad cold, she calls me.

Of course it’s completely normal to call your mother when you feel ill, looking for some comfort and sympathy. But my daughter also contacts me for another reason: because I can help her phone in sick to work. It’s not that her work has a strict attitude to sick days, or that her boss is particularly terrifying – in fact, every time this has happened so far, she’s been met with nothing but understanding and acceptance from her colleagues.

The problem for her is taking that step to sign off for the day. It’s as though she thinks she doesn’t deserve it, and she can’t bring herself to do it without a push from someone else – usually from me.

Struggling to take days off work sick is far from a unique problem. It’s very common for people to feel guilty about signing off, for a wide range of reasons. Perhaps you’re worried your symptoms aren’t “bad enough”, and your colleagues will think you’re slacking off. Maybe you’re under a lot of pressure and stress and it feels as though you can’t afford not to be at work. For people who work for themselves or will not be paid for the time off, there are a whole host of other considerations.

I’ve had this discussion with many of you, as chronic pain sometimes results in long periods of time off work. In my view, taking a few days off over a stomach bug or a bad cold should be a much simpler consideration. I tend to pull the “wise mother knows best” trick on my daughter. “When you are 80 years old looking back on your life, do you think you’ll wish you spent more time dragging yourself into work while you were sick?” I ask her sternly. “Which do you think your boss would rather have, you off for two days and back at 100% the rest of the week, or you miserable at 30% the whole week?”

While it’s always lovely to get phone calls from my children, I prefer dispensing general sympathy when they are sick - rather than reviewing in minute detail the process for them calling in absent from work, what their boss might say, who else in the office has been ill recently, and whether anyone might think they are slacking off. My next challenge is to get my daughter to speak sternly to herself in these situations, without needing anyone else’s permission.

Blackberry picking

A few weekends ago I went blackberry picking. They were huge, bursting with juice that ran down my fingers and dripped from the colander I was using to put them in. I sneaked a few while picking them – of course you have to run quality control – and they were delicious, sweet and perfectly ripe.

I’ve written before about the joy of picking berries – the methodical, absorbing task which keeps you busy outside on a warm summer evening. I enjoy the picking so much I often create problems for myself, as I end up with a bountiful crop of more fruit than I know what to do with. This time I couldn’t face making any more jam, which while joyful is quite an effortful task. Instead I picked just enough blackberries for a crumble, delicious with an apple added in to add a little extra sweetness.

Many people have suggested that the blackberries ripened earlier this year after warmer weather. It’s true that I found myself collecting them sooner than I usually would have – normally I associate blackberry picking with the back-to-school feeling of September.

Now that back-to-school feeling is here, I’m looking forward to the other benefits of autumn, like stewed apples - on their own or in crumbles and pies. And homemade soups - a friend recently gave me a leek and potato recipe which I couldn’t face trying out while the weather was still warm.

Of course, sometimes you don’t have the time or energy to go fruit picking or cut up apples or make soup. There are other things to look forward to which don’t require as much time or effort, like the crisp air of an autumn morning, or the crunch of leaves underfoot as they begin to fall. I love to watch the trees as they change, spreading a riot of colour across my local woodland, and then opening up the view to the fields beyond as they begin to fall.

Making the best of it

Recently all of my children have been living in different cities. None of them particularly enjoy this - as some of you remember, their childhood home with my Pilates studio was up a hill beside a farm, a world away from the busy and bustling streets of Dublin. One of them recently told me about a realisation she had though, which I thought was a helpful way of looking at things.  

Since she had moved to the city, she had been trying to get outside into green space as much as possible, to make up for the lack of countryside. She had been walking through parks, strolling by the canal, and taking her lunch break on a bench under trees. But none of it was enough. Wherever you go in big city parks you can still feel the presence of buildings surrounding you, still hear the traffic, and you still have to fight your way through crowds of people wherever you’re trying to go. The green spaces in the city were never going to be enough, she realised, and when comparing them to life back home they were always going to come up short.

So she shifted her perspective. Instead of trying to replace what she had lost with a poor substitute, she asked herself what benefits a city could bring that the countryside didn’t have. She made a list of museums, galleries and tourist hotspots to visit – after all, tourists visit cities for a reason. By their nature, every city has a wealth of fun free things to do, and so she started making the most of them.

She still goes for walks in the park, but now instead of thinking about how much worse these are than hill walks back home, she tries to consider them just an addition to the other great things the city has to offer. It seems a bit contrived but it shows how much of an impact consciously changing your perspective can have. Or as her grandmother would have said, sometimes you just have to make the best of it.

Sharing success

I was recently reminded, on the anniversary of her death, of something Maeve Binchy once said. Binchy was an enormously successful author and journalist, and had a reputation for being approachable, generous and kind even after her rise to fame and fortune. 

She was born in Dalkey, in South Dublin, and started her career as a teacher. One summer some parents of her students at a Jewish school in Dublin gave her a trip to Israel as a present, and her own parents were so impressed by her letters home that they submitted them to the Independent. She continued travel writing, and then joined the Irish Times as a journalist. A decade later she published two collections of short stories, and then her first novel, for which she was paid a record sum. Her success continued, and she became well known and loved the world over, selling over 40 million copies of her books during her lifetime.

She was also known for her reflections on life, and her words of advice are widely quoted. One of my favourites is: “Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It’s more like a heap of stones – a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn.”

I love this quote, as it rails against the all-too-common temptation for comparison. It is so easy to allow your own success to be blighted by that of others, whether it’s comparing your career trajectory to those of your schoolmates, or as simple as feeling flat about good feedback at work because a colleague also received praise. There is space for all of us to do well, and success is sweeter when shared and celebrated with others.

Binchy’s reputation for generosity certainly ties in with this approach. After her death, family, friends and colleagues told stories of her having shared her fortune with them, and it was said that she made an effort to respond to everyone who sent her a plea for help.

In another of her most famous quotes, Binchy advised: “Don’t agonise. Don’t regret. Don’t fuss. Never brood. Move on.” In reality it can be much more difficult to follow this advice than Binchy’s no-nonsense delivery suggests, but nonetheless, it is certainly something to aim for!

Simple things

It’s a beautiful time of year, even if we have been getting a bit of the rainy side of summer recently. I’ve still been enjoying the long evenings and the chance to get outside whenever possible, and hope you have too. Last weekend we were invited to pick fruit from our local village community garden. We went along on Saturday, and spent a very happy few hours picking gooseberries and strawberries. It was so peaceful, and there was something wonderful about spending the afternoon picking fruit grown locally by a group of volunteers. Several neighbours were there too, and it was great to catch up with those we hadn’t seen in a while, and get to know some new faces as well.

There was a plentiful bounty of fruit, more than we could eat in a dessert or adorning our morning porridge. So what better way to spend the evening than making jam with our hand-picked spoils? This is one of my favourite activities, it’s time-consuming but I find it very calming – and the result is not only delicious on toast, but it makes an excellent homemade gift. My friends and family invariably manage to make off with a jar or two every time they visit.

The day after, inspired by our success in the community garden, we took to our own blackcurrant bush, picking berries long into the evening. The bush was so covered in fruit that the heavy branches were sagging onto the ground - we made as much of a dent as we could. We then stayed in the kitchen topping and tailing them until midnight – they really are among the more fiddly jam fruits! But the effort will be worth it, I’m convinced.

Spending time on these fiddly but peaceful activities has reminded me how joyful the simple things can be. It can be hard to get away from the stresses of work, relationships or caring responsibilities, but when possible, spending however much time you can on something simple like picking fruit – even if just enough for a dessert – can be a huge boost to our mood.

More than we bargained for

Some time ago we said goodbye to our beloved cat, Norbert, whom some of you remember from the days of my Pilates studio. It took several months, but after a while we felt we were ready to get another pet. This adorable fluffball of a kitten, whom I introduced in a previous blog, was christened Freddie. We had hoped that he would help to fill the Norbert-shaped hole in our lives, and curl up with us on the sofa while we watch films in the evening.

As I wrote before, Freddie was not a replacement for Norbert. On reflection, it was unfair to expect him to be so… but none of us really had any idea just how different in personality our next cat would be. We had thought perhaps that he was just a particularly exuberant kitten and would settle down as he got older.

It’s now two years later, and all I can say is that Freddie has fully grown into his reputation as an abject troublemaker. Curl up and watch films? Freddie doesn’t sit still for more than five minutes a time. He will very happily come and visit you when you’re sitting on the sofa – but only to nibble your chocolate biscuit, lap up your cup of tea, or knock over your glass of wine.

We pride ourselves that we take good care of Freddie and feed him well – but he would tell you a very different story. No morsel or scrap of food can be left unattended in our house, and you cannot take your eye off your plate for even a moment. Chris, who helps us with the garden, unfortunately learned this the hard way. Freddie often turns up to visit, brushing himself affectionately against Chris’ legs and getting a nice scratch of his ears, purring sweetly. He then dives headfirst into Chris’ backpack and streaks off with his tuna sandwich. The number of times I have had to, mortified, offer Chris a replacement lunch, is more than I want to admit.

Apart from lunch thievery, Freddie’s other favourite hobbies include playing for hours with my hair bobbins, fighting cardboard boxes (the cardboard boxes always lose) and hunting toilet paper. We have to keep all the bathroom doors strictly closed so as not to find a teepee mess looking like something out of a film about rebellious American college students.

He doesn’t have worms, or any other issue the vet can identify. We have showered him with the same love and discipline that we bestowed upon Norbert, with very different results. Perhaps we’re getting soft as we get older – initially we kept bottles of water dotted around the kitchen, and Freddie got sprayed when he jumped onto the countertops. But he wasn’t deterred in the slightest, and there’s only so many times you can berate a beloved pet. Now we keep everything that could possibly be eaten, played with or knocked over hidden in cupboards, dreading the day when he learns how to open them – we might just have to move out.  

Trying it

My husband is not the fighting sort. So needless to say, I was surprised to hear he had decided to start going to boxing classes. He came back from his first one thrilled, having loved the physical exercise and the different kind of movement.

Basic-level boxing has become a very popular way to keep fit, and expanded recently to be accessed by many more people at an introductory level. But it was not something my husband ever expected to get into, thinking more of blockbuster films and broken noses whenever the sport came to mind. And while he enjoys the exercise, I think part of the fun is the thrill of doing something new and unexpected.

My husband’s foray into boxing coincided with another family member taking a short course in sailing, which he had never done before. He joined a group for a weekend in Dun Laoghaire, and despite the fact that it rained that weekend, had a fantastic time.

I recently read a great interview in the Irish Times, about a Dublin-born dancer, Claudine Van Den Bergh Cooke, the lead dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. After performing there for 11 years, she is leaving to become a lawyer. She’s already done a law degree online, which she began by doing just one module, and then another and another, as she realised how much she enjoyed it.

It all got me thinking about how brilliant it is to try new things, and to keep doing so at every stage of your life.  Sometimes it ends up being just a one-off, but you never know what might turn into a new favourite hobby or even career!

Conference in Canada

As many of you know, I recently travelled to Canada for a week. It was a work trip to Vancouver, to speak at the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Exploration (SEPI) conference with Dr Jennifer Franklin. A psychologist, Jennifer is part of our professional clinical TMS/PPD list, and we have been involved in several writing projects together, and speak regularly. Even so, I was surprised one day to get a call from her out of the blue. Take a look at the theme of this SEPI conference, she said, I think we would be perfect for this.

Our skills neatly complement each other, but Jennifer is from Los Angeles, so we had not met in person before. This seemed like a wonderful opportunity to combine making that connection with speaking at the conference. I made the trip over to North America, and Jennifer headed up to Vancouver, ready to speak first thing in the morning on the third day of the conference.

Our workshop was focussed on the importance of feeling safe when working with patients experiencing psychophysiologic disorders. We believe the effective approach is through healing, and to begin the healing process the patient needs to feel safe. It is then possible to address the root causes, rather than be restricted to managing symptoms.

Jennifer began with some thoughtful and thought-provoking exercises about external safety, how to acknowledge the fears we all have when meeting someone new and being in a new environment. I led the section on internal safety, using an experiential approach focusing on four movement and body awareness exercises. We covered posture, ribcage breathing, creating an internal Victorian corset of muscle engagement, and segmental movement of the spine. This linked to another portion about the pedagogy of PPD, focussing on health practitioners working with patients, and the therapeutic relationship between them. 

The session was well-attended, and we had some excellent feedback. It seemed people enjoyed being given practical movement exercises they could take with them, as well as some thought-provoking ideas about our approach to teaching how to resolve chronic pain. It was also wonderful to speak to a group of people on the other side of the world who were nevertheless fascinated by the same issues that I speak about regularly with all of you.

Cut yourself some slack

A few weeks ago, I was packing for a work trip. Without thinking, I threw a few face masks into my bag, as I had done for every previous journey over the past three years. And then I paused – it had been just the previous day that the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 global health emergency over.

The announcement was widely reported, but it wasn’t billed as major news – many people had been thinking of the pandemic as “over” for months, returning completely to a “normal” life. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but then a day later, looking at the extensive collection of face masks I had built up over the years, it really hit me.

Humans are really fascinating, and it’s amazing what we can get used to. Almost every aspect of our lives was completely upended in March 2020, and we entered a situation that many of us could never have imagined. If you had taken someone, in the spring of 2019, and showed them images of the deserted streets of Dublin, closed schools, empty offices, and people wearing masks and not approaching each other, I think they would have been more likely to believe it was a science fiction film than the reality of just a year later.

Now that those restrictions are behind us, it might be possible to forget that they happened at all – indeed, many of us may prefer that. But they did happen. Our lives were disrupted, in a completely unexpected and very unsettling way. It’s right for us to move on, and put the pandemic behind us. But it’s also important to recognise the impact it might have had. I was recently speaking to a mother who explained that her son, who graduated from university last year, seemed completely lost. Apart from the fact that many people feel lost at that age, she believes he is still struggling to come to terms with the huge unexpected changes brought by the pandemic. She told me she had been trying to help her son realise that it was ok to recognise how difficult the past three years had been.

I was reminded of hearing others speak about delayed plans, qualifications which they expected to have by now, or job moves they wish they had already made. It isn’t fair to judge our progress in the past three years in any area of life on a “normal” scale. We have experienced something devastating, and while it’s good to move on from that, we need to recognise it in evaluating how far we have come – and how well we are doing just to have come through it.

Good habits

A few weeks ago, there were roadworks on my morning commute. “What commute?” I hear you ask - I know many of you are aware that I don’t work in a corporate office. This was relatively common before the pandemic, but has of course multiplied hugely since then, with many people choosing to continue working from home as it suits them better.

During the pandemic, like many people I used to spend a lot of time outside. There wasn’t much else to do, so one benefit amid all the terrible events was to be able to get out into the fresh air, either in gentle movement or wrapped up well.

Now that “normal life” has resumed, I realised I wasn’t spending nearly as much time outside. I was enjoying a return to various other things, and especially in winter, there was no need to venture out into the cold. However, the negative consequence of this was feeling cooped up, and not getting the benefit of fresh air which I find always lifts my mood.

During lockdowns, some people created an artificial “commute” for themselves – walking the same route each day, before returning to work from home. I didn’t get into this habit during the pandemic, but found I needed it afterwards. Throughout the winter this year, I made sure to take a short walk most mornings – just 10 minutes. I was spurred on by encouragement from my wider family, through a challenge we set up to support each other to get outside and get active in the first 100 days of the year, which I wrote about in a previous blog.

A few weeks ago, my walking route was blocked by some work being done. It was only for a few days, but I made the mistake of skipping the walk rather than redirecting my route. I didn’t feel any immediate impact, but by the end of the week I could tell I wasn’t feeling my best self, a bit less upbeat than usual.

It’s funny how with good habits sometimes you don’t notice how beneficial they are until you stop them for some reason. The experience made me resolve to make sure I keep going on my commute every morning, and just getting outside for a few minutes every day.