Why I Meditate and Why You Should Too.

If I asked you what type of person meditates what would you say? Someone who sits on the floor chanting? a new age hippy who wants to reach enlightenment? a Buddhist Monk? Whilst this may be true, the chances are that the average person who meditates looks just like you and me, someone with a busy life and all the stresses that go with it.

 

Now, if I asked you why they meditated, what might you say? “I don’t know”, “They want to clear their minds”,”They have nothing better to do”? Again, maybe, but let me answer by telling you why I started to meditate. During the time spent with my Black Dog (by now it had grown to the size of a Grizzly bear and insisted on being carried around at all times), I had a whirlwind of thoughts going through my mind, all self-critical, all ultra important, all damaging. I didn’t know how to help myself or how I could stop myself thinking of all the things in the past that I could have done differently, or fearing what the future would hold for me, in essence I wasn’t living as I let the present go by unnoticed.

I’d read that yoga was good for stress and depression, so I managed to carry my Black Dog to a class. There I was introduced to guided relaxation and when I left the class the dog was a little lighter, so I attended a meditation class run by my yoga teacher. I learned that meditation was not about clearing my mind, that would never happen we are human and need to think, but it was about acknowledging my thoughts and letting them pass through whilst noticing and observing my breath, being in the present. After a few sessions I was able to walk the dog out on a lead, it was like I had taken my depression to doggie obedience classes.

So why should you meditate? Life is full of stresses and demands and sometimes we can feel overwhelmed and under huge amounts of pressure, but did you know that this is not just a thought that we can “get over”, it is real, when we are stressed we release chemicals into our brain that prepares us to fight or flight, blood flow is diverted from the brain to the muscles, blood pressure goes up, heart rate increases and if stress levels are elevated over a sustained period of time it can cause stress related illnesses.

All grim news and anyone who is stressed now feels ten times worse, thanks Ang I hear you say, but good news, meditation has been proven to reduce the symptoms of stress. Just as little as 5 minutes a day can have the opposite effect to the fight or flight response, releasing “feel good” chemicals into the brain and helping us to relax.

Don’t believe me? Give it a go, there are many ways you can fit meditation and mindfulness into your day. When things were particularly stressful for me at work I would get to the car park 5 minutes early, turn the engine off and sit quietly with my eyes closed and take a few deep breaths, then return my breathing to a normal rate and count my breaths backwards from 20 to 1, acknowledging any thoughts and returning to count the breath. I would feel calmer and ready for the day rather than starting the day with elevated stress levels after driving to work. You can try this anywhere, if you are doing the washing up relax your shoulders and count your breaths. In the shower, notice how the water feels, the temperature of the water, the smell of the shower gel or shampoo, anything that helps you to be in the present moment.

The important thing to remember is that you give it a go, if you feel the benefits straight away then great, if not don’t worry and don’t give up. It’s called a meditation practice for a reason, your brain is a muscle and the more you train it the stronger it gets.

Your life is yours to live, it is your choice how.

Bye for now friends and enjoy the Easter holidays, see you in two weeks x

Angela

 

 

 

On the Market

A thought struck me, as I lay there wide awake last night, that trying to find a job is about as soul-destroying, and self-esteem damaging as any thing I’ve encountered before. I even have dreams about being in a ‘Take Me Out’ situation, with Paddy bringing me down the lift to face potential employers, and then I’m asked to do a list of ridiculous things whilst they watch on with their hands over the buttons, ‘No likey, no lighty’. I wake up in a cold sweat shouting ‘But why? I’m really nice in real life’.

Then it occurred to me that I am trying to play a game with an outdated set of rules. I imagine it would be like getting a divorce and jumping into dating again after 21 years with the same person, suddenly thrust into a world of Tinder and Happn uploading profiles and trying to get that selfie that doesn’t make you look like you are a) desperate, b) technologically challenged, or c) a serial killer/stalker. A world where it’s not enough that you can rely on going out with friends to find ‘The’ one or at best even ‘Any’ one who is like-minded and available.

Apparently the job market is the same. A friend and I went on a one day event for people who had been made redundant to discover how to deal with the outside world after so long in the darkness (I’m sure it had a more catchy and fancy title) and I was shocked and just a wee bit scared at how things had changed. When I first started looking for jobs, many years ago,  you had to wait for the weekly paper with the jobs section and then send your paper CV to them with a covering letter (remember there was no internet), and if you were feeling very brave you could go around companies and hand your CV in yourself.

Not now, God forbid you would leave it that late, apparently by the time a job gets to external recruitment it’s already likely to have been given to the bosses’ dog walker’s niece who was looking for a job before it even existed!! 80% of the job market is hidden so networking, uploading profiles and CV’s are necessary (my friend and I felt like we were being judged because we didn’t have a LinkedIn profile, “What you don’t have one? How on earth will people know how much you really rate yourself?”). To be honest it’s totally exhausting and every rejection feels like a personal insult.

That was until this morning. As I mentioned last week, when you are feeling low anything can knock you back into old habits, I have been allowing my body and mind to be possessed by the ghost of the old me, I didn’t really notice as she looks an awful lot like me, just more tired and incredibly miserable. But this morning, during meditation, I understood who had been the controlling force lately, so I pictured the old me, thanked her for getting me this far in life without picking up too much damage, and told her that she can move on as I’m ready to let the new, stronger me take control.

So here I am, ready to meet Paddy and nobody is going to turn their lights out for me, If I don’t like them I’ll go over and turn them out myself, my life will depend on the choices I make, not the ones that are made for me.

You are the sum of the choices you make in life my friends, make the ones that are right for you.

Angela

 

 

Confessions of a People Pleaser.

Hi, my name is Angela, I’m a people pleaser. I’ve been a pleaser for about, um, I guess on some levels, all my life now. I know I need to change and I’ve tried, but when I have a real low point and I don’t have the strength to fight it, I relapse back into old habits. I accept invitations to things I don’t want to go to but I’m scared I’ll offend someone, I’ll volunteer for things I don’t have the energy for because I don’t want to look mean and even worse I try and fit everybody else in to the point where I leave myself approximately  5 minutes to get from one town to the next, stressing myself out completely.

Many of you, my dear readers, will probably recognise yourself in one or all of the above scenarios. How many times have you put your wants and needs to the side so that you can please someone else. For me it’s the desire to be liked, I could give you the sob story of the child who was always the smallest, quietest, smartest who always shied away and allowed the loudest, popular crowd to grab all the attention, always on the edge of the groups but never part of them. As she grew up she convinced herself that she didn’t need to be part of the popular crowd as she was happy on her own, whilst desperately hoping that one day they would notice her for all the right reasons. I’m not saying that was me but if it was I’m sure it led to some questionable decisions through all stages of her life, some regrettable, some downright humiliating, trying to be something she wasn’t to impress someone who really didn’t deserve her time.

I think that it all came down do the fact that I didn’t know who I was, my personality, likes and dislikes were determined by who I wanted to impress at the time, more importantly who I wanted to like me. I went through a phase of drinking coffee black because my husband does (I don’t now, it is disgusting), luckily he understands that I am a people pleaser and a bit of a basket case and still loves me anyway.

Going through therapy really helped me to understand that whilst we think we are making other people happy, it’s making us miserable, and ironically when we are not happy others around us tend not to be happy, so we try harder because we are not making them happy and so on and so on until we breakdown, or get divorced, or curl into a small ball on the floor and weep until it all goes away…nobody else?….just me then?…..

Shall I end on that jolly note? Of course not, there is a way out, a light at the end of the tunnel. We have to learn to love ourselves and say ‘No’. In the book “The Power of No” by James Altucher and Claudia Azula Altucher, they talk about the importance of being able to say no, that we have the right to say no to things that harm us physically, emotionally and spiritually;  you are entitled to healthy relationships and say no to those mood hoovers that suck the life out of the room; you are entitled to take your time, to say no to people who insist that things are done now; you are entitled to live in the present, to say no to those who try and make you re-live the past; you have the right to be yourself and say no to wearing a mask. They argue that by learning to say no you will have room for the things that you want to say yes to, to being happy.

So my friends, go out and say a big NO to things that do not make you happy, for my part I am going to say no to a job that in my heart I don’t want, that would have taken me away from what I really want to do,  but I considered it because I didn’t want to upset the people who thought I was perfect for the role, totally wrong reason right? Hopefully it will allow me the space to say yes to the one that I think is perfect for me.

Stay strong friends and lots of love

Angela

PS In the words of Zammo (look him up if you weren’t a child of the 80’s)