Family wisdom for a world gone mad

Positivity for challenging times

2020 has been a bit of a bitch so far right? Although I will qualify that by saying I think that very much depends on your perspective and where you are personally right now. There’s no doubt that the coronavirus outbreak is causing a lot of problems for many people. I feel incredibly lucky that I’m healthy and not in an industry that (so far) has been significantly impacted by the outbreak.

Given that I already live alone and work from home for the majority of the week, I’ve not had to change my routine up too much. I know that’s not the case for a lot of others though, and there are plenty more still going out to work every day because they have to (and we’re so grateful to the NHS staff and other key workers - thank you!)

But the rapid pace at which things have developed in the last few weeks got me thinking, and then Stace told me I should write a post about all of this, so here goes.

There are two phrases that I’ve grown up with that I think are especially applicable at the moment:

“Life is what happens when you’re planning something else” (thanks Mum)

“Worse things happen at sea” (thanks Dad)

“Life is what happens when you’re planning something else”

Hell yes it is. 2020 is a classic example of that. Pretty sure none of us planned to be on lockdown, in our homes, sitting on piles of toilet roll with a cupboard full of tinned tomatoes, peanut butter and eggs (based on what’s not available at my local store?!) at this point of the year.

But that’s where we are (hopefully most of us minus the ridiculous stockpile). At times like these, I think it’s important to remember that life goes on. It throws you curveballs and you have to find a way to knock them back, or duck pretty quickly.

When I was younger, I used to have a ‘plan’ (in the loosest sense) for my life. You know the one: go to university; get a degree; start a career; fall in love; get married; have a family etc etc etc.

Aside from getting my degree, pretty much none of that has worked out how I thought it would when I was in my early 20s. And I’ve realised that’s a great thing. I’ll spare you all the details, but when I turned 30 my life got turned upside down. 

The direction I thought I was going in took a dramatic and sharp swerve and turned a corner I didn’t see coming. I’ve never looked back. I found myself moving countries, changing jobs and buying my first home within six months (the latter two happened within a week of each other). That was when I stopped planning too far into the future. 

Life has a way of leading you in a direction and it’s best to have some flexibility to follow it. Sure I make plans, but I no longer have a ‘grand design’ for my life and, you know what, I’m so much happier for that.

Being flexible leads to opportunities. Where other people see obstacles I tend to see a fun climbing frame. Since becoming a freelancer, I’ve engineered my life to make it more flexible and I try to embrace that flexibility as much as possible. I know I’m lucky to have that option. 

My point with all these ramblings is that I’m much happier because I can be flexible and I’m happy to be flexible. This works on a small scale too, not just when we’re faced with a global pandemic. For example, I generally have the flexibility to shuffle work around to meet changing client deadlines. 

Or I can choose to work late one night to give myself an afternoon off the next day for an extra-long dog walk or coffee with friends (when we’re no longer self isolating). 

In the greater scheme of things, I feel being flexible allows me to find and take different work opportunities. It’s given me the chance to do some amazing travelling the past 12 months too. It’s helped me cope with plans changing, sometimes quite quickly. I stress less and feel more comfortable. What’s not to love?

“Worse things happen at sea”

This phrase is a running joke in my family because my dad uses it all the time. Really. Smashed a glass? ‘Worse things happen at sea’. Pranged your car? ‘Worse things happen at sea’. Burnt your dinner? ‘Worse things happen at sea’.

While we all laugh about it, the sentiment is actually pretty true - situations certainly escalate to become more life threatening more quickly when you’re on the ocean. But to me, this phrase has always helped me focus on the positive in any situation.

With everything that’s happening at the moment, it’s really easy to focus on the negative. I think we can all agree, collectively, that the current situation sucks. But I am so grateful for what I have and where I am during this period.

I’m grateful that I have my own space that’s warm, safe and secure where I can ride out this storm, and I’m so happy to live within walking distance of the beach so that mine and Franklin’s daily exercise still contains a dose of Vitamin Sea.

I’m excited to be able to spend more time cooking and experimenting with some of the many recipes in the collection of cookbooks I’ve acquired. 

I’m really thankful that I still have work and am able to do my work from home. I know that’s not the case for a lot of people right now and I really am aware of how lucky I am in this situation. 

Try putting a positive spin on things and they’ll feel better and more manageable. Even if you can’t see how spilling a glass of wine on the carpet could be positive, be grateful if that’s the worst thing you have to worry about right now. 

Sometimes when the whole world is going crazy, it does indeed pay to remind yourself that worse things happen at sea. 

There's always hope

Why is it so hard to give yourself a break?

Whatever you do for work, in your spare time, or generally in life, I’m willing to bet that you probably feel like you should be doing a little bit more.

As a freelancer, I’ve increasingly noticed how I’m pushing myself to just do a little more work; to just spend a bit of extra time hunting for new projects; to just write that blog for myself that I’ve been meaning to do for ages.

And when I don’t do those extra bits, I feel guilty. Sometimes I even get angry with myself. Not just over work-related things either. If I skip my morning yoga practice I feel like I’m failing in some way. If I don’t use my free time productively, I feel as though it’s wasted (even though sometimes we all need to curl up with a book or movie and some chocolate and not move for a few hours).

Since the start of this year, I’ve realised how silly this is and how much I’m doing it to myself. At the beginning of January, I told myself my aim for this year was to post one blog a month in 2019. 12 blogs in total. Simple. Except January came and went, and this is now my first post of the year.

I was feeling annoyed at myself for failing so early in the year. And then I stopped and started to think about why I felt like I’d failed. Did it really matter if I wrote two posts in February? Probably not.

Writing a blog for myself has been on my to-do list for the last three weeks, always getting overlooked in favour of something else; usually work I’m getting paid for. I realised I was making things more difficult for myself.

I’ve been beating myself up about not writing anything for well over a week. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know what I wanted to write about this month. I’ve actually started and abandoned two other posts. But as soon as I stopped being angry that I hadn’t done it and just accepted where I was, I had an idea. And now I’m writing.

One of my yoga teachers is always saying that we’re often our harshest critics. She’s absolutely right. I know I am. It feels as though there’s always something else I should or could be doing, but sometimes, what I should be doing is nothing.

Last year I made a conscious effort to be more present – take a look at my blog about it if you’re interested. This year I’m going to give myself a break. I’m going to try really hard to be content with what I’m achieving and to allow myself a bit more downtime.

That’s not to say I’m going to lose all motivation and stop trying to improve personally and professionally. But I’m hoping that if I give myself a bit more time off and am a little kinder to myself that the motivation for self improvement will come more easily.

We’ll see how it goes. For now I’m just pleased that I’ve written a blog and published it.

Taking a stand against a plastic tide

Anyone who knows me well will know that I’ve always had a love affair with the ocean. To me, it’s always felt like home. It’s the part of the planet that I think needs our help the most, and the one that often gets the least attention.

When I was younger, the cute and furry creatures that inhabit the rain forests of the world captured everyone’s attention and won their hearts. Sadly, for most people, fish and the other incredible sea creatures don’t have the same ‘ahhhh’ appeal.

Don’t get me wrong, I also care about what happens to our rain forests, but the oceans hold a special place in my heart. I’ve been both encouraged and dismayed by what’s been happening in recent years.

Seeing people galvanised to action to protect and save the oceans has been wonderful. I feel like it’s long overdue. But the documentaries and evidence that’s been provided to show just how badly they need saving has frequently left me in tears.

What to do?

When faced with such a monumental task, it’s hard to know where to start, especially when you’re just one person. I’ve been trying to make lifestyle changes to do my bit to reduce plastic waste and to generally be a better human.

That means I avoid plastic packaged products when I’m shopping, I’m supporting ethical and eco-friendly businesses and I’m trying to be a more conscious consumer. I’ve noticed in just the year and half I’ve been doing this how much my attitude to shopping has changed. And I’m glad of it.

I’m making little changes when I can, and gradually they’re stacking up. It feels like an uphill battle at the beginning but once you get going it becomes easier and easier to make the next change, even if it’s less convenient to start with.

Getting better at baking bread is on my list of things to master this winter, for instance. And I’m really lucky to finally have a health food store in Bournemouth (Sunrise Organics for anyone who’s interested) that has a zero waste section where you can buy dry goods like lentils, beans, rice and nuts in bulk with no plastic packaging.

Raising awareness

I’ll happily chat away to anyone about how to move away from single-use plastics. I’m not even going to pretend that I’m done with my journey, I’m only just getting started. But I’m encouraged by how many people I know who are doing the same thing. Making similar little changes for the better.

One of the other things I regularly do is pick up litter, especially from the beach, on my dog walks. This summer I’ve found that there was a lot less litter than last year, and that in itself is an extremely encouraging sign that some of the messages are getting through.

Often on my beach cleans I’ll find beach toys, and in particular sand moulds, that have either been lost or discarded. They’ve been stacking up in my flat and this year I had an idea for a little art project. I’m not going to claim to be an artist - far from it - but apparently I can sketch a half-decent sea creature.

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen some photos of my sketches popping up, but if not I’ve shared a few in this post. The idea is to highlight the scale of plastic pollution in our oceans. Do you want your children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces and all the other kids in this world to grow up with more chance of seeing a plastic fish, or the real deal?

Current projections suggest there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans by 2050. That’s really not all that far away and that statistic terrifies me. If it also terrifies you, and you want to chat about cutting your plastic use, drop me a line. I’m happy to share the solutions I’ve found that work for me.

Seahorses are too cute to go extinct

One of the feistiest creatures in the rock pool

Plastic doesn't seem quite so appetising

We don't want common to become a misnomer

These little guys are just awesome