I’m off to a conference on End of Life, and ‘brave conversations’, today. It is so much my heartfelt spot. I will be amongst clinicians and hospital managers. I will be representing an End of Life charity. I am due to facilitate part of the day. I hope to do well. (I am also so tired and have a stinking cold.) Your gentle advice?
Talk about what you do… very simply. No jazz-hands. No persuading others of your credibility. Softly. Simply. Gently.
Ok. Keep it simple…. Ty.
Today I am keeping it simple.
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Meditation:
Mindful breathing exercise in the car on journey to conference.
Today I am simplifying my professional ‘value proposition’
I’ve set myself up a document on my Drive, called ‘MEDS Checklist 2018 + Notes’, to prepare for my new dietary protocol. It captures research on the various diets. I’ve also given myself a new box for the MEDS today. The aid-memoir colour-coding signifies the following (I’m so Aspie…):
Blue-Sky Meditation
Exercise in the Sunshine-Yellow
Leafy-Green Diet
Stop-Sign Red for Sleep
Yesterday’s work on dopamine was so good. The realisation that dopamine comes from dropping the “I gotta” mindset, and shifting to “I wanna”. You have to follow your own bliss, not oblige someone else’s needs/wants/desires, to get the reward/achievement dopamine.
So, today. What do I want? I’ve had to spend the morning in bed with a sore throat and cold, but I will do my Daily PURR (Power-Up Rituals Routine – developed yesterday) next, and then do some work before I have a client meeting at 2pm. I started getting good momentum yesterday. I knocked through a lot. I want to continue that. What shall I bear in mind today?
Read a little of Reality Transurfing. It’s been a while. Good stimulus.
Today it was a description of the ‘Transaction’ exercise. What stands out for me is the practice of simultaneously boosting our energy (turning the key), and gazing gently upon the goal (or ‘target slide’).
So there is wisdom in ‘powering up’ the energy pathways (as you do in qigong and walking) and ‘powering down’ the analysing part of the mind.
I guess so. It’s the fact of calming the overactive mind, and settling the amygdala. While boosting the flow of energy through the body and meridians.
Do you have stuck energy in your meridians?
Yes! I’m sure I do. I need to walk and move and sweat and swim more.
Ah. Ok. Like you used to do (in 2016) before….
…before I started over-complicating my working life again! I really need to simplify what I do, don’t I? Yesterday I was looking at the simplified business model canvas exercise we developed for some students we are teaching. I need, and want, to apply it to myself, and get clear about what my offering is, who it is for, and what value it provides: i.e. my value proposition.
Lovely. Would you like to do that today then?
Yes. I would. Today I am simplifying my professional ‘value proposition’ – so that I can have freed up energy and time for self-care and health-creation and wellbeing…. so that I can be better at what I do professionally too.
Excellent. Time to Power-Up then. 🙂
Well ok then I will. 🙂 Ty.
Today I am simplifying my professional ‘value proposition’
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Meditation:
10 min on Insight Timer – x 2 – in morning and evening
Exercise:
10 min freestyle stretch/qigong/yoga with music from Insight Timer – x 2 – in morning and evening
Evening: roast chicken piece, fries, broccoli. Bit of ice cream. Lemony snicket. Half can of lager.
Sleep:
Screens off: 11.30pm
Lights out: 11.30pm
Wake up the next day: 5.15am (with a cold, and needing to leave for a conf at 7am)
Total sleep: Awake in the night too… 5 hours? :///
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I did do my ‘value proposition’ statement last night – using the exercise we designed for the student training later this week. It was a great exercise. Now I need to translate it into text, and then the brochure. So help me, goodness.
Look up new meditation app (“if you like Headspace”)
Plan to purchase a Fitbit again – after I’ve paid the rent
See if I can book another round of nutritionist/kinesiology support and treatment with the amazing Maria Bez at Nourish again (last time was 2016 I think – life changing – it’s just I slipped back to my old ways in the last 18m)
Make colour code for MEDS daily chart – and then design a new daily checklist for here
Decide on which protocol to follow (of the books cited yesterday – or other)
Research: how do you get referred for methyl B12 injections (if appropriate) in the UK?
Set this coming week as a prep week and write and list of things to do / prepare
So…. I gave myself a lot to do yesterday, and there’s a week’s worth of (business) work to be squeezed in to today. It’s mid-day already. Advice?
Start the day. Return to this later. All is well.
— So I started my day and had brunch with the radio on… There’s so much pain out there… I could cry…
12 million people on the brink of famine in Yemen following 3 year civil war
Syria has used chemical weapons against its own people, its confirmed
Loneliness in the UK reaches epidemic proportions
Home Front (BBC Radio 4, follows WW1 day by day exactly 100 years on) – war sending people insane
Suicide as the leading cause of death for men under 50 (exceeding car crashes, heart, cancer…)
Oh God, please reconnect me to my self. Give me the strength to recommit myself daily to doing my small (yet important) bit for peace and dialogue.This is why I need to get healthy again. The world needs us to be brain- and body-fit to be able to hold space for unity consciousness.
Let’s practice your Daily ‘Power Up Rituals’ Routine…
The what…? Ok… Sure. Let’s… (Ha.. “Daily PURR“… Very good.)
So, start with Meditation? I need a new app… {Researches ‘like Headspace’}
Ok, I’ve found one which comes highly recommended and is free.Insight Timerseems to be a repository for lots of people’s meditation resources, and also a community of meditators. Cool. I’m going to start with the ‘Learn to Meditate Course’. It seems to be 10 mins of breathing. Adios.
~~~ It was an excellent starter meditation which I might use in training. I think I’m ready for a bit longer next time. Anyway, I liked the reminder to focus on ‘feeling the breath to pull ourselves into presence’ and to relax the whole body’s nervous system. (I used the ‘5 in, 9 out’ technique last night during acute anxiety at about 2.30am)
Next I’ll get the mat out and do a 10 qigong routine. What’s the thought for the day, dear higher self of my heart?
~~~I’m a bit distracted…. but thought I’d quickly google ‘methylation UK’: https://mthfr-genetics.co.uk/nutraceuticals.html#/products/dna-test-and-genetic-variant-report.html There are these guys who do DNA tests for £179 – from this you work out what steps to take. Food for thought. Maybe I need to talk to Maria Bez about this… Man, I’m exhausted and wired. Need to work, and get some relief. It’s 1pm…. What’s the thought for the day, dear higher self of my heart?
It’s time to settle in again. You will feel much better for clearing your list. Get up, get dressed, power up… and do your stuff. Later you can return to the ‘power up’ list of actions for today, listed above. Ok? Remember yesterday you left everything ready on your desk? Hm? Yeah. Get to it. Go now. You will feel so much better for action, achievement, reward. Get the dopamine.
Ok! Today I am going for the dopamine! Sense of achievement and reward. Excellent brain work. On with the Daily PURR (Power Up Rituals Routine). Diet – done. Meditation – done. Now Exercise (qigong, maybe a quick trot outside?, shower and dress… Then: power through the day.
~~~ Holy heck… sorry to be back again… but I have found something so special in Insight Timer! It’s like coming home: a) the community of beautiful souls b) the generosity of sharing of resources c) the opportunity to feedback and review people’s lovely meditations, music, talks (“help them build an audience”). It reminds me of the world of spirituality, sharing and peace I grew up in, in Edinburgh, in my 20s…
Today I am going for the dopamine!
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Meditation:
New app: Insight Timer – starting off with the beginners course. 10 mins of breathing. https://insighttimer.com/
Exercise:
Freestyle stretches / yoga / qigong on the mat, to a beautiful 7 minute song on Insight Timer. The body knows what it needs, and I’ve studied enough to have a whole repertoire of moves… So nice to be in the moment and flow with the body and the sound. My first time using the mat in a while – really helpful.
And the same again before bed (13 mins of Insight Timer music) – so good to stretch out. Really relaxing and rest-inducing.
Diet:
Coffee with cream.
Brunch: 2 sausages, bit of rice, sauerkraut, tea, two pieces of 100% choc
Evening: Veg (Stir fried onion, chilli, cabbage) and tin of sardines. And sauerkraut. 2 cans of lager. ? 5th of a tub of ice cream. ?
Sleep:
Screens off: 9.10 (except for using Insight Timer)
Lights out: 10.25pm! Yes!
Wake up the next day: Hm… 5am with a cold/throat/temp… but sort of sleep again, 6am til 7.30ish.
Total sleep: a solid (if broken) 8 hours = Brilliant.
A long peaceful morning in bed, reading. I came across, and read almost in its entirety, The UltraMind Solution, by Functional Medicine clinician, Dr Mark Hyman – in terms of ‘powering up‘ and the MEDS Project it was the perfect reminder of:
a) the gut / brain connection (I studied and practiced the Brain Maker diet with extraordinary benefits in 2015/6; also the GFCF diet revolutionised life for my daughter in 2009+)
b) how the symptoms associated with (‘my’) autism / depression / CFS / anxiety can be radically treated through diet and supplements
c) how carbs (especially gluten-based) really affect me (and many of us) badly – see The Obesity Code, I Quit Sugar, Grain Brain, the GAPS diet… – causing inflammation and brain fog
d) how methylation might really help me (ie injections of methyl B12, and supplements of B6 and folate)
e) how we can recover a healthy brain via using food (and behaviours like exercise, meditation, sleep!) as medicine.
I realised this: I am ready to rescue my brain, and repair it. I am tired of being tired! I know it’s hard to make these dietary and lifestyle changes. But it’s NOT as hard as living life in an exhausted fug.
My symptoms have been pretty bad recently:
‘plumptons’ on the rise again – my term for my pre-intentional speech (like tourette’s)
kidneys (adrenal /cortisol glands) ‘on fire’
brain fog and poor executive functioning
social exhaustion – but no energy to push back and prioritise self-care, so simply going along with the masking in social situations
an extensive list of things undone – like really crucial ones…..
This is partly because I’ve been busy falling in love and launching my business over the last 18 months. It’s time to regain balance in terms of putting lifestyle changes in place that work for my neural wiring and my gut’s proclivity to get full of candida. The ‘clown show’ on the telly (see image) was a shock and a wake up call. I am not ‘that person’! The archetypal ‘poor soul’? No. I am truly blessed. I want to re-access my power so that I can get on with my work in the world. I have an amazing profession. Time to rescue my brain (via my body).
Today I am ready to rescue my brain.
Actions for tomorrow (Monday):
Look up new meditation app (“if you like Headspace”)
Plan to purchase a Fitbit again
See if I can book another round of nutritionist/kinesiology support and treatment with the amazing Maria Bez at Nourish again (last time was 2016 I think – life changing – it’s just I slipped back to my old ways in the last 18m)
Make colour code for MEDS daily chart – and then design a new daily checklist for here
Decide on which protocol to follow (of the books below)
Research: how do you get referred for methyl B12 injections (if apporapriate) in the UK?
Set this coming week as a prep week and write and list of things to do / prepare
15 mins silence.. I need to find a new app – I loved Headspace but need something new. Will Google “if you like Headspace”…
Exercise:
10 min walks to and from car/pub for lunch
Movements to Music – gentle and meditative
Diet:
Coffee – no breakfast
Lunch: Huge roast lamb, potatoes, yorkshire pud, veg in a pub. Diet coke.
Evening: at 10pm! 😐 …. 1 egg and 2 mushrooms with cheese, sauerkraut (new, for gut bacteria) and a can of lager… oh for heavens’ sake…. then I woke throughout the night. Eventually got up at 3am to have some porridge oats and recalibrate..
Sleep:
Screens off: 11.30pm – that is too late – the melatonin window has long gone.
Lights out: 11.30pm
Wake up the next day: (after very broken night) 9.20am
Monday:In Spain, for the final farewell to the family home… and flight back to UK. Fall in to bed at 1am.
Tuesday: Up and out by 8.30am. Delivering training to the senior leadership team of a luxury hotel. They give me lunch in their beautiful brasserie to say thank you. I crawl home, cancel evening plans and collapse into bed.
Wednesday: Up and out by 8.30am. I run the morning section of a day of training for HR professionals, to mark World Mental Health Day. On the side, my daughter’s been interviewed for a popular national BBC radio station, on why she (and young people in general) drink very little. She cites her mother’s drinking as inspiration for her not to drink… Crikey. I head off to a music jam session in the evening, with my sweetheart.
Thursday: Go and meet my Job Coach at the Job Centre, for the bimonthly check-in necessary to claim the Universal Credit benefits which have supported my working while I recuperate from a period of physical and mental ill health. I’m ashamed to turn up without a sick note for the first time. I try to blame my GP practice changing hands – the lovely Job Coach tells me her parents use the same practice… Ehem. (The fact is, that I’ve been in overwhelm for weeks and failed to find or use the new number for the practice…)
I walk on through town towards my office (I have free access to an amazing co-working hub, as one of their business incubation residents). I pass a curious scene – a Hari Krishna type guy scans the busy street for someone to pounce on with his book offering and request for donations. Today I deftly put my head down and avoid eye contact. He spots a different target and goes for her – a middle aged women clutching her bag to her. She says “no, thank you” several times, and eventually, “Please, no, I’ve just received the most awful news.” And yet, eyes now glistening with this new piece of information…he goes in again! I step over and square up to him wordlessly… The woman and I exchange glances and she heads quickly off. Realisation: in the moments we are our most vulnerable and shocked and low on energy, psychic vampires can see us a mile off and they target us and we have very little psychic power to fend them off. It’s so important to learn to power up energetically, however we can, especially when life is tough, because vulnerability attracts predators. It’s a really sad fact, and one I’d have denied years ago… but I have lived it so very much. People smell vulnerability and it brings out something sick (or at the very least, dismissive/ uncaring/ judgmental) in way too many people.. In fact, I think, in most people. We humans seem to be programmed to recoil from (and even seek to feed off) those in need.
At my office half an hour later, hoping earnestly to get to the things on my list from two weeks ago when I darted off to Spain at short notice to help with the move, I receive a phone call. It’s the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, specifically the case worker who has been working on helping me receive the correct benefits for the last few months. He tells me they’ve just received a call from the BBC requesting help finding someone local to interview on the current hot topic of Universal Credit, for the national evening news. The BBC’s (famous) Deputy Political Editor is on the train, arriving in the city shortly. Could the CAB put me forward, I am asked? I say yes. Half an hour later a producer calls for a chat – and it sounds like I’m probably not quite what they are looking for, but she’ll call me back later. I relax and go back to work. Another 30 minutes later at my desk, my phone goes again: “Hello, this is [BBC Deputy Political Editor]. Could you tell me your story…? Uhuh…… Could you be at your house in 20 minutes for an interview?” I get a hasty media-training briefing from my (ex-BBC) business mentor at my office and jump in a taxi. When I arrive at my house, the interviewer, and crew of two, bundle into the house with me. They’ve invented some ruse about placing a camera in my ’empty fridge’ and how I will be filmed fishing out a lone milk bottle from said fridge, and pouring milk in our mugs of tea before a cosy chat. Fine. Cliched beyond reckoning but fine.
What’s less fine is that, though the interviewer and I had had quite a nuanced conversation on the phone, he has now scripted two sentences that fit his story, and that’s all he wants me to say. They ran like this:
‘There was a 6 week wait for the first payment, and I had to take a loan – I’ve never caught up.’
‘Any money I scrape together from working part-time gets pretty much taken off my benefits, and the money I do get just about covers my rent – it’s really tough.’
We do a couple of takes and it’s a wrap. It’s now 3.30pm and they have to film a street scene in town, and edit the whole piece and send it to London for the Six O’Clock News… They’ve gone. And I’m at home wondering what hurricane just passed through my day.
When it goes out on the BBC News at Six, I watch in astonishment, thinking what have I done?! I’m wodged in there, as the hard-up housewife in the suburbs, between interviews with the Tory Home Secretary, the ex-Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader… I console myself that a) I put out some bold messages on social media ‘owning’ the piece before it went out, and b) “Who watches the News at Six any more?!”
My sweetheart comes over and we process it all together. Messages start to come in. What I don’t know at this stage, and won’t til the next day as I’ll be asleep on the sofa by 9pm tonight, is that the segment will also go out in the lead story on the BBC News at Ten. Which, yes, people do watch.
Friday: Wake up to some 40 messages (mostly from my astonished and supportive siblings) and the news that I was on the News at Ten too. I try to get on with my day… But to be honest, I’m feeling completely knocked out…
Saturday: Today. Reflection time. So, dear Heart of my Being, wtf…? How on earth did I manifest this particular week? Day? Life? What am I invited to learn from it? I am so very much aiming to simplify my life. Why is it ever more complex and way-out?
Excess potential. Reality Transurfing teaches that if you pour too much energy (effort, importance, attention) in to anything, you create ‘excess potential’ which invites and summons ‘balancing forces’.
I think of it as too much electricity in a circuit and the switch tripping to divert the excess…
And to protect the system. This is why a church spire has a lightning rod. Should it attract lightning, being the highest object around, it can easily ground the electrical charge.
It’s not so very much about the grounding or discharging of energy, as it’s about the gathering and directing of energy.
Like a kung fu master?
Like a qigong master.
Aha. Yes. How can I gather and direct energy better? How can I CEASE to be the ‘vulnerable’ one who attracts predators, who allows herself to be the patsy picked for telly…?
Hang on. The national media coverage you had this week was not about making a victim of you, or even for the ‘healthy dose of public shaming’… But it was about ego purification. Don’t underestimate the gifts therein.
Back to the energy conversation. We’ve talked about electric circuits and energy flow. Try thinking today about batteries: charging them up, or better, think about powering up the batteries.
Yes. This is the heart of the MEDS Project! If I Get This Right, I can foster enough power in me that I shift into a different paradigm energetically.
A couple of years ago, the idea of being a poster girl for welfare claimants would have horrified me. But, it happened, and the world has not ended. In fact, I feel somehow freed from the compulsion to mask/pretend to the world that
a) everything is fine
b) I’m a self-sufficient professional
c) my health is fine…
There is permission to be more authentic, however complex, unexpected and far from societal approbation the reality has turned out to be. And in owning one’s truth, one stands in sovereignty,and one’s apparent conditions do not lend themselves to that ‘vulnerability’ that the predators seem to feast upon.
Tell me about powering up the batteries.
These are matters you know about. Find the will to have. Find the determination, the pure intention, the calm desire to attain / magnetise / reach out and take… the means. Ponder on the meaning of ‘powering up’. Rest with this phrase for a couple of days. No rush to move past this one. Ok?
Yes. Thank you. Very much. I like this. Amen.
Today I am powering up.
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Meditation:
15 mins silent breathing with a timer
Exercise:
None… :/
Diet:
Brunch: Coffee with cream. Leftovers from supper(s).
Evening: Amazing dinner at my dearest friends’ house after an evening at the theatre – Salmon, veg, salad, sweet potato fries, chocolate brownie, wine…
Yesterday saw unexpectedly me appearing on the main national television news, at 6pm and 10pm, being interviewed in my home by the BBC Deputy Political Editor about…. my being on benefits/welfare. I’ll reflect on this extraordinary fact more tomorrow (Sat)…
Today I am responding to messages from long-lost friends/relatives – and the odd kind/stalky stranger – making contact to say they saw me. I finally went outdoors, and the first person I walked past when I got out of my car was an acquaintance from choir, who instantly said, “I saw you on telly last night!”
What happened yesterday?!
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Meditation:
15m silence – prayerful today.
Exercise:
None (! … I am so exhausted, and tense, and in need of unravelling, and I’m fact losing condition… I’ve downloaded a Walking app – will look into that tomorrow…)
