12 JUNE 2012

MORE procedures scheduled - all in one day.

1) A 'minor' operation (Is any operation 'minor' for the person having it?)

2) Steroid injections

3) Laser surgery.

A never-ending story.

Action Vs Procrastination and getting that Friday feeling

It's fun to talk.  I'm a woman so (apparently) I utter around 20,000 words a day.  When I was locked up at home with only myself for company those unspoken words cluttered up my brain.  I drove myself mad in thought.

Alongside those 20,000 words are: the emails I write; the texts I send; my blog;  diary; even the comments on the pupil's workbooks.  That's a lot of communication!  It's outward communication, linking to others and gaining responses.  It keeps me busy. Communicating creates tasks: you make plans; accumulate errands and reach decisions by bouncing ideas off people.  It leads to action.

Conversely, constant isolation and inward communication can cause you to procrastinate and ruminate endlessly on thoughts, feelings and ideas.  It can lead you in a circle; a state of flux where nothing ever gets finalised.

Whilst walking one day, I thought (inwardly) how much happier I am now I'm working longer hours.  My body is in 'action,' running here and there.  So it's still not the same as before and I still have a while before 'normal' arrives but I have a busy-ish schedule.  Thinking and self-procrastination are now limited for walks to and from the supermarket.  I don't wake up and spend the day considering the meaning of life anymore.  Thank God for that!

It is my opinion that individuals are made for action, not procrastination.  Obviously I'm not knocking the great thinkers of our time whose 'eurekas' have changed our lives yet I have reached the conclusion that too much thought is a bad thing.  In the prehistoric days our time was eaten up by survival, the hours filled by finding food and keeping the human race going.  Now we have too much on our minds.  Research has shown that although we are more comfortable, we aren't any happier.  I can imagine this is because our place in the world is vanishing; our purpose is no longer to just survive and procreate.

I am happiest when I am taking action.  Going to work, making things happen, meeting friends and walking virtuously to the supermarket.  Blocking out the diary is much more fulfilling than lolling on the sofa procrastinating about all the things I could be doing.

It's also such a relief to be able to do these things and enjoy them.  As events in life constantly remind us (especially as we get older, ahem) life is too short for just talk.  So stop thinking about 'tomorrows' and do it today, put the busy hat on.  That 'Friday' feeling only exists when you've had a productive week.  Otherwise Friday has no feeling, it ends up just like any other day.

No such word as can't!

I've come across a fellow blogger who has definitely got achievements to shout about.  This lady is writing an online autobiography and has this to say:

I do hope that by writing my Blog that it may help people with a disfigurement. When I received my burns in 1966 there was no support groups/burns clubs to turn to for advice, it was just a matter of getting on with life and making the most of it. So that's what I did, and I believe I have been lucky to live such a great life filled with family and friends who have always gave me encouragement and support.


Her blog has a jaunty and easy-to-read tone but inside the posts are many poignant moments and a difficult journey.  Burn technology has come along greatly in the last few decades and some of the less refined procedures this lady has endured bring sympathetic tears to my eyes!  Grafts are a vicious procedure today, even with all the medical advances, so I can't imagine how it was for her.

This lady has defied expectation, from simply surviving to becoming a Mother.  She's an inspiration for others who are coming to terms with a difference.  Definitely worth reading and following!

click NO SUCH WORD AS CAN'T.

Clocks and clouds

Ever heard the expression 'her head's in the clouds?'  Or, 'I wonder what makes him tick?'  Character is defined by both these innate items, one ticking merrily away and one wafting dreamily.  We are all made up of both.

According to David Brooks, 'clocks are neat, orderly systems that can be defined and evaluated using reductive methodologies.  You can take apart a clock, measure the pieces and see how they fit together.  Clouds are irregular, dynamic and idiosyncratic.  It's hard to study a cloud because they change from second to second.   They can best be described through narrative, not numbers.' (from The Social Animal.)


Recently I've noticed the clocks and clouds within me are at war.  The clocks used to have the upper hand.  Measured, precise and logical, they follow rules.  They offer explanations and restore order.  Yet my clouds keep rising up with some over-wrought, emotional point that has no real basis in truth, evolving unpredictably as the emotions beneath it change.  It used to be that my inner clock would take a mechanical step forward here, providing a logical explanation.  Instead, the clouds are winning.  A great grey cumulonimbus has drifted over my mind, causing me to forget the logic behind life and leaving me a product of my feelings.

Feelings are great.  Studies have shown that 'gut instinct' is a real phenomenon and you're wise to go with it more often that not.  However, feelings are also irrational and often out of context.  It's important to acknowledge your feelings, examine them and then readjust or regulate them.  To be completely controlled by feelings is to be out of control.

There are several examples of my inner cloud taking over, struggling against realignment by the rational hands of my clock.  One of them is road rage.  Since my accident, I've become completely incensed by the stupidity of other drivers and pedestrians.  I am sure that if everyone had already experienced an accident, the world would be a much safer place.  The risks people take are truly breathtaking.  Do they do it for the adrenaline rush?  Are they really that late?  Or is it just that they feel invincible?  Whatever the reason, it infuriates me.

Once an example of this human stupidity has taken place, I sit and seethe.  If I am affected I bash my horn aggressively to make my feelings known.  Skipping a red light while on the phone and nearly hitting pedestrians is not o.k.

I'm using breathing exercises now to help puff away the clouds and bring back the clock who will help me remember that life isn't about controlling everything, that nothing bad actually happened and that people's actions are not a personal vendetta against myself.  If I let it get to me all that will happen is that my mood will be ruined.  Crazy driver couldn't care less.

I have to take a deep breath and reexamine my emotional process because there are some days I've found myself wound up and neurotic for, when considered, very little reason at all.  Having feelings makes us humane but it is logic which turns us into humans.

 Of clouds and clocks, Karl Popper 

Wiki - Karl Popper

Honestly, is honesty the best policy?

I often receive emails from various organisations overseeing my rehabilitation.  When I'm asked to comment on my progress I usually give a glass half full, positive spin on how I'm feeling and how my recovery is going.  I always get a speedy response along the lines of 'good for you!  Keep up the good work!  You're doing so well!'  Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Last Thursday I was having a bad day.  Things weren't so great.  When I received two progress emails asking after me I replied honestly.  No, things weren't so tiptop, happy-clappy today.  Truth be told, I was a bit lonely in my new flat, what with all the rain and my bitty back-to-work timetable.  I was sick of medical procedures and jumping through hoops.  Go to a physio, check.  Go to a therapist who is expecting to hear all your deepest, darkest thoughts, check.  Go to the hospital again and again and again...check.  Recovering from an injury is an exhausting, never-ending experience.

It didn't help they'd sent a couple of progress reports for me to sign off.  Someone sitting in an orderly office in Swansea had complied a nice neat report about how well I'm doing.  The report was factually accurate but I found it lacking.  The first issue is that the reports make it sound like one day I woke up 'much better.'  A mystical healing finger came down and touched me in my sleep.  There's no mention of the journey I've been on; it's completely free of the personal effort I've pumped in to getting better.  Staying positive, getting back to work, going to the gym, filling my days and generally making the most of a truly, terrible situation has been completely omitted.

The second is the 'that's all right then' attitude.  On paper: wounds are healed; stamina has improved and 'I can make a cup of tea unaided.'  (One early report actually said this.)  That's ok then!  There is little acknowledgement that I'm scarred for life.  There is no acknowledgement of my mental state.  I feel reduced to a check-box.  I know this is illogical, my inner clock rationally tells me this is a side effect of policy and procedure.  People are only trying their best.  But my inner cloud, my shifting emotional side, feels angry and sidelined.

Funnily enough, neither party has responded to my recent emails.  Next time I shall just tick the 'everything fine' box and get on with it as usual.  Anyone fancy a hot drink?  I hear I'm really good at making tea....

100 posts and 5000 page views!

This is my 100th post in 7 months.

So far I have had 5000 page views from all over the world, even in places I've never heard of.

Thank you for reading and I hope some of my ideas and experiences have been helpful to you or at least whiled away a boring afternoon at work...

Enjoy and keep reading! 

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”

The world is my oyster or so I keep being told.  I can do whatever I want with my life.  Our generation has endless fruit just waiting to be sampled from the opportunity tree but which will taste the sweetest?  Should I have a career or should I have children?  Perhaps I should get married or buy a house...but life's too short so maybe I should just spend my money on a year travelling around having experiences.  We're told to: enjoy the single life but find our soul-mate; wear trendy but classic clothes; eat, drink and be merry while staying thin.  According to modern culture; I can have it all if I want to.

Today I went to see 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.'  Before the film I sat through a reel of trailers and I felt mildly anxious because the new releases all looked so entertaining.  I started planning what I would go and see next.  That one...no that one...perhaps that one might be better....and all before I'd even seen the film I was there for.  There was a low-level concern that I might miss out, that life was too brief to get everything done.

You don't get salmon in the Yemen for a whole host of reasons, the main one being, you can't have everything.  Our generation are terrified of missing out, frozen by the fear of making the wrong choice and getting decision envy.  Put 10 twenty-somethings in a room and they will be taking a multitude of paths at a fast pace, all the while looking back to see if it's the right option.

Whilst I do agree this is an age thing, I also think it's just the way the world is now.  Life is a list of things to be ticked off; no longer a journey to be taken.  There's even a social network site where people can create and tick off their 'bucket list.'  I don't know if this is time-efficiency at it's best or an example of experience for experience's sake. There's a self-awareness that wasn't there before, an enlightenment of all the things on offer which has both positive and negative repercussions.

This feeling is magnified after an accident or illness, when you become aware of just how vulnerable you are and how fleeting life is.  You need to put things back into perspective.  There are some things you might have always wanted to do that you've been putting off; do them.  But there's lots of things that you didn't get around to doing, probably because you weren't really that bothered.  The first trick is to distinguish between these two; then choose what you're going to do and do it.  Stop going round and round in circles wondering if there's a better choice.  The second trick is to get to the cinema 15 minutes late post-trailers or order Sky+, so you can record everything on release.

http://bucketlist.org/  Resourceful or depressing?  You decide.
http://4020vision.com/ - Advice from 40-something women to 20-something women.  Same as above.

Title quote from 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' by Johnathan Safran Foer.

'Subconscious reluctance' or 'excuses for being late.'

Punctuality.  It's something I take pride in.  I find lateness rude and unnecessary.  Consequently,  I'm hardly ever late, I inform people if there are delays beyond human control and I rarely miss an appointment.

A couple of weeks ago, a Thursday, my therapist called me up.  "I was just wondering if everything was ok?" He asked.  "As you've missed today's meeting."

"Today?!"  I exclaimed as I fumbled with my diary, preparing to prove him wrong.  "I thought it was tomorrow..."  But there in stark black and white was my very own cursive proclaiming, 'Thursday, 4pm."  We rearranged and this time I turned up extra-early to reinstate my reliability.  I could only hope, as he didn't know me personally, that there was no slur on my character.

The next day, Friday, the hospital called me.  Why wasn't I there for my steroid injections at 3pm?  Oh, that's next week!  I told them.  I had definitely, totally, completely booked it for the following Friday.  This time it was in my diary as I had thought, so I put this down to their mistake.  But was it?  I wonder now...

I checked my diary this week and knew, as if it was scored into my pre-frontal cortex, that today's therapy appointment resided at 9.30am.  I was pleased; I would be up and out early and would have the whole day to get things done.  (Indulge myself by drinking coffee, buying books and going to the cinema.)  Even the rain couldn't dampen the feeling of busy efficiency that zipped round my veins as I marched to the centre.

As I launched into a full-scale explanation of my week and my new plans, therapist listened dutifully and asked questions.  After about 20 minutes he said, "yes we can talk about that.  Now, I'm aware we've only 5 minutes left..."

Five minutes?  That hour went quickly....only....

"Your appointment was at 9am....."

Out came the diary and there, in stark black and white sat "Thursday, 9am."  I had obviously plucked 9.30am from thin air and so had arrived 30 minutes late.  As I sat and blustered over the frankly unbelievable fact that I had misjudged two, possibly three timings severely in a short space of time, my therapist chuckled.

"It's common for your unconscious to skew timings in counselling.  We revisit incidents that are unpleasant or painful and so you don't really want to come.  It happens all the time."
So I booked for next week and sent my Mum a text to remind me the night before of both the date AND time.

Now whilst I hate to think I'm just like everyone else and that I may have a subconscious giggling away at the tricks she's playing, I am intrigued.  I haven't been late for any lessons that I'm teaching or for the hairdressers or social arrangements; just for hospital appointments and counselling.

When I looked up strategies for being on time I was much amused.  According to many sites, there are grounds for 'subconscious reluctance' causing lateness.  I couldn't find one with enough gravitas to cite here but I came across it enough times to mention.  What an excuse!  I would like to point out here that if one of my class is ever late because of 'subconscious reluctance,' I will be reluctantly giving them a detention!

Disneyclips.com 

The Princess and the Glass Half Full; A Fairy-Tale for Adults

Is your glass half empty or half full?  Do you while away minutes, hours and days lamenting your sorrows or do you flip the pancake of life onto it's less burnt side and cover it in sugar?

Being able to see the glass half full is important to those who are recovering from injury or illness.  It's important for your quality of life in general but also because thinking positively helps you rehabilitate more effectively.

I've talked about this before in my post *written in the stars* .  The way we interpret our experiences can have a huge impact on our feelings, our relationships with others and what path we chose to take next.

I can hear you groaning at me from your sofa.  It's easy to say and not so easy to put into practise, you point out.  I know that not everyone can naturally exclude positive rays in the face of dark, dismal events.  I know that sometimes you want to fall down the rabbit-hole and run away with the cheshire cat (who is, incidentally, always grinning.)  Well, recently I read about a psychologist, Yves-Alexandre Thalmann who believes in adult fairy-tales.

He believes that we should exchange negative thoughts for nicer, more friendly explanations, more likely to result in a happy ending.  For example, you might be stuck in traffic.  When you get to the office you're in a bad mood.  When your colleague is short with you, you get really irritated.  It's a bad day all round.

The nicer version might see you sitting in traffic, thinking how nice it is to get some time to listen to your own thoughts or perhaps your favourite radio station.  When you get to the office, you've been bopping away to Bon Jovi so you're feeling in a darn good mood.  When your colleague hasn't much to say you ask them if they're ok, perhaps they slept badly or had a falling out with their partner.  Your day's course has been changed because you rewrote the story as it happened.

Why don't we simply kick the negative thoughts to the kerb for the foxes to snuffle though and think positively about the situation we are in?  It's not easy, so we assume that some characters have it and some don't.  This isn't the case.  People who see the glass as half full are people who have a natural aptitude for looking on the bright side of life, but this doesn't mean they have an inbuilt function the rest of us are missing. Anyone can turn some thoughts around if they become conscious of them.

Although the fairy tale seems to whisper eternal happiness if you think of rainbows and butterflies, when the truly difficult times happen, they can't be rewritten.  Sometimes terrible things take place and to try to see the positive in them would be condescending.  Yet like any wicked witch casting enchantments, the time will eventually come when the spell will break and the clouds will clear once again.  That horrible time, that bit of grit that wormed its way into your life just to make you squirm in horror and discomfort, will slowly become smoother and smoother, less and less of an intrusion.  And one day, when you least expect it, it will offer you what's left, that pearl of wisdom.