The inconvenience of convenience.

Taking the tram to work is the most convenient mode of transport for me, in terms of speed, traffic and parking fee avoidance. However, it is also a reminder that we humans for all our advancements are mere animals who forget all our usual boundaries concerning of personal space and decorum when it comes to everyday activities such as getting to work.   

Having just had someone jab me in the back with their ridiculously oversized handbag, I toss my head in despair and think no she didn’t roll my eyes and give her my best death stare and ask “Really?” She backs off the most she can -  about 1 mm – and keeps glancing at me nervously for the entire 10 minutes we must share atoms. I am standing beneath a fellow sweaty passenger’s armpit and read another’s WhatsApp message as she pretends not to hear the impatient request from commuters hoping to get on the already packed tram, I let out a sigh and ask the universe why it is punishing me so. Seriously people won’t look you in the eye or even say hi before brushing up against you, making you smell them and accidentally on purpose sharing their oh so glam social media pics and engaging in rather personal conversations quite loudly e.g “…my man’s just been sent down and I don’t know what I’m going to do about the rent.” As amused as I am by other people’s lives I would rather be at home reading a book or thinking up ways in which I can heal the world and I can’t help thinking how inconvenient life’s conveniences are.

Take for example convenience food which Uncle Wikipedia tells me is “commercially prepared (often through processing) to optimise ease of consumption…. Including ready-to-eat dry products, frozen foods such as TV dinners, shelf-stable foods, prepared mixes such as cake mix, and snack foods.” Thanks to our dear brothers’ industrialisation, technology and capitalism convenience foods are thriving, but what are they doing to us? Slowly killing us that’s what and taking the joy and challenge out of providing sustenance for oneself both of which are fundamentals, in my humble opinion, to our stability. Imagine explaining to a caveman that rather than preparing tools for his hunt developing crucial skills in the process while satisfying the human need to be useful and getting all pumped up with his boys for their adventure ahead filled with social interactions and stories to keep the young’uns entertained for generations he could simply pop over to the shops buy some sugar filled synthetic yumminess that will fill him up for a bit, damage his health but leave him plenty of time to sit about indulging in idle gossip and other pointless activities. I am sure he would worry for our sanity.  I’ll admit I often consume and condone consumption of convenience foods for convenience although I know I am definitely inconveniencing my body and health. Why can I not just stop the madness?

On a personal heart and growth level I have conveniently stopped blogging and creating because I was too busy being inconvenienced by life which has severely inconvenienced my soul. I started off saying that I would get back to writing in a week, I was just taking a break to get used to my new schedule but the longer I stayed away from it the more I filled my life with less soul satisfying things like worry, guilt, Netflix and random staring into space, but something was always missing, and I knew what it was it just took a little while for me to admit it to myself. As a person who likes to analyse and learn lessons and move on (no matter how long it takes) I have accepted the lesson here which is life is about balance, it’s about change, adaptability and finding out what matters to you and what needs are being met. While I loathe the tram at rush hour I have learned to endure it and be thankful for it as I means I get to the place that provides me with my monthly pay. To amuse myself more than anything, now I smile at people and say hi some smile back others back away and give me space, either way I am winning! As for food I am taking baby steps to reduce convenience to find the balance that works for my constitution.

There will always be good versus evil, yin and yang, bitter and the sweet, deficit and surplus. It’s about balance.

Happy balancing x

If you need help balancing I am offering free coaching sessions this month to the first 3 people to reach out,

smilelifemgt@gmail.com

I love MCR!

What happens when you can’t simply turn off the TV and choose to ignore all the bad news. It’s easier to distance yourself when you believe something does not directly affect you, but you come to learn that everything and everyone is connected. This week my home city got a taste of the daily struggle of people in conflict zones across the globe.  I don’t have the option of simply disengaging because terror came knocking on our door. My adopted city, Manchester, is an amazing place to live I have been leaving Manchester since I was about 6 but it keeps pulling me back, I’ve never fully understood the attraction until this week. The people are a diverse bunch, the overwhelming majority of whom are warm and friendly, the city is full of life with events and attractions all year round for all to enjoy, Manchester Arena is one of them.

I have been to concerts at the Arena, taken my kids there, walked passed there on many occasions never have I had a reason to feel unsafe. For a couple of days, that feeling changed and I began to think about whether going into town was ever going to be an option again. Thankfully the spirit of Manchester has helped me realise that with love and hope we can move forward and towards eliminating hurtful hate and actions. Loving and finding acceptance through pain is a tough thing to do but with time and the right people around it does happen. I can’t even begin to imagine what the families of those who lost their lives and those who were injured are going through but with the wonderful compassionate response from around the world and from the local community, things are made just that little bit easier.

What doesn’t break you makes you stronger and Manchester is definitely not broken, I sincerely hope terrorists are noting that their actions serve no other purpose than to bring the rest of the world closer together. Do they not realise that all their efforts are in vain? For centuries terrorists have been losing, they have been causing disruption, hurting the innocent and spending their lives hidden in the shadows only to be thwarted and meet miserable ends themselves. The positivity of unity, empathy and solidarity will always win over negative divisive behaviour, yet repeatedly new threats arise signifying an imperfect system. While we are good at rooting out evil we need to get better at stamping out the seeds of evil which include inequality, injustice, ignorance, and isolation. I've just realised all the seeds I have identified begin with 'I', the message that sends to me is selfishness or the interests of the individual or few breeds hate. 7.5 billion of us share this tiny planet, if we were meant to live isolated disconnected lives surely we would all have our own planets or at least Islands, but that was not God's plan. He created us all equal and gave us each other with our individual strengths and weaknesses so that we could work and live happily together as one and thrive. 

I encourage you to do as much as you can in your homes and communities to stamp out the seeds of evil. Change begins with the individual and quickly spreads, as it should, making positive change viral should be a global goal.

Make time to make time.

Getting my priorities right has always been hit or miss. I have never been very big on order and for a long time this worked for me, I managed to get things done and convinced myself that I was better at doing things last minute as this somehow produced the best results for me. I was operating from a place of limited knowledge as I had never given planning and its associated benefits such as having extra time left to perfect projects a chance. As responsibilities in life increase so too does the need to organise, staying on top of bills, work, assignments, keeping relationships going and looking right all require planning. The most important resource, time, being unreplenishable is the most precious resource of them all so use it thoughtfully.

When my first child was born, I was so stuck on getting everything right for him and being his only source of everything which led to my chaotic world becoming even more chaotic.  I had a team of helpers that were for a while redundant because of my stubbornness. One afternoon as I wandered into the living room still in my pyjamas, hungry, exhausted and on the verge of tears, my mother offered me breakfast, but I declined as baby comes first and I was sure he needed another feed. My darling sweet as pie mother replied, ‘how are you going to feed the child when you are dead?’ Extreme but fair. Normally this would have sparked an argument but I could only muster a shadow of a smile, defeated chuckle and accept the food. As I ate the baby lay happily in grandma’s arms, the two of them were so lost in their bonding session that I was able to sneak away get clean and put myself together, and learn the lesson that prioritising my basic needs was necessary for me to be there for the little person I had brought into this world. In taking care of me I was also allowing someone else to help and develop a relationship, bonus and I woke up to the fact that mum was not going to be around forever so something needed to change.

Bringing a child up away from extended family is tough, being from an African family where normally the village that is needed to raise the child is readily available, be they hired or not, adopting a routine for mother and child did not come naturally but it came because it had to. When prioritising it may be necessary to delegate and assign tasks to others where possible and that is ok it does not take anything away from you. Sometimes we want to do everything to prove how strong or capable we are, there is strength in admitting weaknesses and the need for support. I appreciate that there are circumstances in which we are truly alone in this regard I would say do what’s most important first but remember what’s most important may not be what you think is most urgent. Identifying what is important to us and acknowledging that matters of importance are as unique as we are starts with considering your values and beliefs. Rather than being constraining mapping or planning (and writing it out) our life’s and goals frees not only mentally but it creates more time and space for other things too.  Once you have a plan commit to it, but make changes as needed no process starts off perfect. Committing to a process brings with it focus and improved quality when you know you have a limited amount of time to do something you make the best of it.

A perfectly timed one-liner from someone who cared changed an aspect of my life for the better, imagine what a quick call to check in and let someone know you care can do for their life, all it takes is making the time. 

Chinese Whispers.

 “If your lips would keep from slips,

Five things observe with care;

To whom you speak, of whom you speak

And how, and when, and where.” – William Edward Norris

The game Chinese Whispers teaches us an important lesson. For anyone who has not had the pleasure of playing this game: a group of people stands in a line or circle, the first person whispers a message into the second’s ear and so on to the last person who then delivers the message aloud to the group. 99.999% of the time the message that comes back is totally different to the original one, a perfect example of the waste of time gossip is and to illustrate the purpose of seeking truth in everything. I used to be a fan of gossip, I’ll hold my hands up, I’m not proud of it, I never gave it much thought I don’t think any of us really do we just get caught up in it. What we can do is choose whether we are going to pass on this information and to whom and to what end or stop the fake news in its tracks. My personal view is if we are not bothered enough to seek the truth then really what we heard need go no further and we must question why we are filling our time and minds with such useless information when we could be getting on with more important tasks like minding our own business and fixing our lives. That said I’ve realised I play Chinese whispers with myself and that can be the most damaging gossip we can ever hear.

We hear what we want to hear and this is normally dictated by what we are feeling, suppressing, or fear. Many moons ago a helpful person told me that it was so much fun to hang out with me because “you are so much fun when you’ve had a few.” …I heard, “the only time you are worth being around is when you are in party mode.” Not wanting to be out of favour I obliged and partied hard even when I didn’t really want to and even long after I lost touch with her. I don’t blame her one bit for my partying habits, she couldn’t have known what was going on in my insecure mind but that stayed with me for years even after the parties were over because in my mind I just was not interesting enough. Taking care of ourselves includes auditing and processing messages we receive, thoughtfully. But be careful not to overthink, just listen to what you are saying to yourself and turn on your truth-o-meter. As we hear what we WANT, changing what we want can also have an immediate effect on what we hear. With my truth-o-meter in check, I came to know that the truth about fun is that it is safe, non-toxic, and free and sure enough out clubbing one night a more helpful person said to me, “I’m so jealous, to dance and have fun like that I need at least three drinks!” Transcendence achieved and still being perfected, it was a long process with relapses but I see those for what they were, lessons pushing me towards what truth told me I not only wanted but needed as well.

While we can’t take responsibility for the way messages we send out are received by others we have a duty of care to humanity to watch what we say about and to others. We talk about people we know little to nothing about to make us feel better about ourselves, to detract from our own shambolic lives and maybe to feel like we are part of a group. Often the more negative and inaccurate the messages we pass on about and to others the more mess we are refusing to deal with. You fix nothing, least of all yourself, by being so concerned about another person’s life, while you’re so busy talking about them they are probably busy getting things done achieving goals and living life in the meantime your dirty laundry bin runneth over. As a parent and former child, I have experienced the power of words in their ability to empower, deflate, encourage, influence, and confuse. Kids can bounce back and move on from many things but there comes a time when words stick. If they repeatedly hear ugly words they will have ugly thoughts about themselves and the world and may carry this through to adulthood. I endeavour to build my kids up with the appropriate truth and words so that they have strong foundations, it’s a tricky game this thing called life but if we simply learn our lessons and enact the good we’re one step closer to a life less misunderstood.

Speak life and truth to all you encounter, beginning with you.

Breathe … It’s life.

Pausing for a minute, an hour, a week or even a year is something we do less and less in this microwave one-click culture we have created. We want everything now and are led to believe if we don’t have it or can’t get it now we are somehow inferior or less deserving of success and all the good stuff. I know time waits for no man and truly these days you blink and there’s a new iPhone out but we can get so busy trying to keep up we lose focus of what really matters to us and makes a difference to the way we experience life. On the flipside, there is the rebirth of the Nokia 3310 symbolising a return to slowing down and simplifying of life to me. I remember a time when there were no mobile phones and therefore we were uncontactable for the majority of the day sometimes even days if we were relying on the post. Life didn’t stop, there was no FOMO, you simply were where you were and got to hear great stories about events you were unable to attend.

I used to love receiving and writing letters the waiting gave me something to look forward to and the writing helped me process events whilst practising an actual skill. Now the only letters I receive are bills and emails are nothing to look forward to. With all the advances in technology and communication devices we are losing some basic language skills like spelling and talking, I know I used an acronym before, I too am occasionally a culprit. Messaging or IM or whatever the kids are calling it has killed conversation, I would love to sit down and have long phone or one on one conversations with people but there is just not enough time in the day, what it is I am busy doing I could not tell you. There is so much pointless distraction out here.

Browsing through magazines in a shop the other day I read an article warning about the danger of rapid weight loss and fad diets and how they speed up the ageing process. As a “passive diet addict” (I plan diets that I will attempt sometime in the future to unleash my inner size 8 who has never and possibly never will be seen) this was reason enough for me to journey towards getting happy with myself as I am and focus on health and increased enjoyable physical activity. The magazine had pictures of celebrities who have achieved and some over-achieved their weight loss goals and added years to their looks in the process. I am not a medical professional but to me that signifies that something isn’t quite right. Slow and steady wins the race, I want to stay looking as young as I can for as long as possible, although my grey hairs are telling on me lately.

I sometimes catch myself holding my breath and need to remind myself to breathe. It’s normally when I am over thinking, worrying, stressed or anxious about something. The fact that I am thinking so much that I am cutting off the one thing I cannot live without tells me that I need to pause and simply just breathe.  What good does thinking or worrying actually do? As someone who suffers from anxiety, I can tell you it does no good at all, this does not mean that knowing this I don’t worry it just means I acknowledge my worries and move forward the best I can asking for help if needed.

We have a lot to gain from slowing down. Call someone or invite them over for a drink. Tell a story,  breathe.

Nature is a great educator.

Nature throws out lessons for free we just need to turn up to a class and appreciate it. I was looking at a plant I have on my windowsill and apologising to it (yes out loud) as I sometimes forget to water it, yet still it grows. So much so that it has outgrown its pot, some of its leaves have browned but for the most part it is flourishing and still a beautiful deep green, it is much fuller and does not look as manicured as it did when I first bought it. An option could be pruning it to keep it looking good in its little red pot, which I bought specifically for it but imagine how much bigger it could grow if I changed the pot and I took better care of it, keeping it in a small pot could also on the flipside be stunting its growth and killing it. There is no wrong option, it's more about intention. To make sure we choose the right option there needs to be a plan and clear alignment to intention. If there is no intention or goal, we are fighting a losing battle.

As we grow in life we outgrow situations and relationships. We can outgrow a job but stay there because we are afraid of the unknown or lack the confidence to step up. This is something that I have suffered, the job/career market can be a battlefield from applications/interviews to office politics. If we arm ourselves with knowledge, skills, courage and an army of mentors and encouragers it can and should be a supportive environment that helps us grow to give and be our best whatever our interests and skills. For a while, I was the Queen of leaving jobs because I thought I had outgrown them but what I didn’t have much of was a plan for how to get what I want and I had stopped believing that I could secure my dream career and even lost touch with what that was. I let life do the choosing which has left me right back where I started more than once, life has a way of bringing you back to square one as many times as you need to learn a lesson (as I write this I am having a revelation – mind excitedly blown).

I have a habit of going back to what is safe and familiar but in so doing I have been playing it small. My branches were growing wild, roots stunted and within no time I was banging my head against the proverbial wall and handing in resignations with no plan for how not to find myself here again. What I know would be more helpful is creating a supportive environment keeping the goal in mind and looking for opportunities to deepen my knowledge, expand my horizons, network and find mentors and encouragers or five to guide and cheer me on. Recognising your opportunities, mentors and guides is whole other post, they are easily missed and mistaken. The pruning I need is in the limiting beliefs I hold about my capabilities, mistrust of the “system”, and engaging in activities that do nothing to help me reach my goal.

I received an inspirational message from a friend this week that exemplifies the depth of lessons from nature. It was about the eagle and its potential to live 70 years, but it can only do this if it makes the bold life or death decision at 40 to undergo a gruelling 150-day process of transformation that involves it going through the pain of plucking out its beak feathers and talons and then wait for new ones to grow back. Change is scary and hard but necessary, imagine the joy when the hard work is done, picture the eagle soaring through the sky with his rejuvenated set of wings. That could be us if we just made the bold choice to do away with that which no longer serves us.

Today I pay respect to the trees that against all odds expand their network of roots beneath the concrete, in this hostile jungle us humans have created and stands majestically enabling us to breathe.

Get out there, breath, listen and learn.