perfect as you are

Sometimes it rains in Portugal…

| Mairead

It’s raining! I know you will be disappointed for me but I’m ok, I have some work to do so it’s probably just as well I won’t be able to sit outside sunning myself… I hear it’s sunny in Ireland!

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(Rocky and a bit cloudy in the distance on Saturday)

My friend Linda (of the tours around Porto) and I ran a workshop called MindCraft at the beginning of February and we’ll be running another one in May and again in June. This week I’m working on explaining what it’s all about for our website. I’ll send you a link as soon as it’s up and running but I thought I could start explaining now to get my thought processes working.

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(Smooth and blue skies on Friday)

MindCraft is a combination of Mindfulness and Crafting in a one day workshop. The Mindfulness part of it is all about staying present with what’s happening around you and within your body instead of the usual things we do. The usual things like  thinking and worrying about the future or thinking and worrying about the past. Or regretting the past or wishing we could repeat it or change it. Or wishing the present could be different. Or wishing we were different. Or wishing other people were different. We sure do a lot of useless thinking when all we really need to do is stay present and aware and deal with what’s right in front of us, right now.

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(There are lots of small gardens like this around here, all dug by hand. In need of rain, I suppose)

Last year when Denis was diagnosed with prostate cancer, everything slowed down to the essential – what do I need to be doing now? I don’t think it’s the big things that cause worry and anxiety… it’s the thinking about what if the big thing happens. In my experience when the big thing does happen you are kinda too busy dealing with it to be thinking about anything.

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(Another one, the small plants look like potatoes, maybe))

Mindfulness is about making us strong enough to deal with whatever life throws at us. So we have a little calm, contentment and the space to think about the important things… love, joy, peace, purpose, relationships, family, connection, community. The crafting is all about creativity and creativity is the route to finding solutions to our challenges. This is important: Thinking and anxiety are not the route to finding solutions to our challenges. Creativity is the route to finding solutions to our challenges, problems, concerns, difficulties, dilemmas, quandaries, troubles, irritants, stumbling blocks, obstacles, the lot! Creative solutions are what it’s all about. Every one of us is creative but not every one of us knows it.  MindCraft wants everyone to know they are creative and that they can come up with their own creative solutions.

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(And another one, I think there’s spring onions there)

So here I sit doing the work I need to do to make the message clear and simple… Mindfulness Strengthens Your Mind, You Are Creative, Creativity Solves Problems!

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(Interesting looking rocks on the beach)

But it’s not enough for me to just make the message clear for myself or others. Writing about mindfulness will not help me to be mindful, thinking about creativity will not help me to come up with creative solutions. So here I sit, also, doing the work of living the message. Everyday I practice mindfulness, I practice noticing what is around me, I practice exchanging worry and anxiety for beauty, I practice exchanging thinking for feeling my feet on the ground, I practice writing and photography and I practice telling myself, this is enough, you are doing enough, you are enough.

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(Behind the harbour buildings there are tables where the women sell the newly caught fish. That’s a cat on the fish scales. Fish weighing scales I mean…)

Step 6. Do the work, Mairead.

Making peace with embarrassment

| Mairead

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(Palm tree trunk)

We’re still in Luz so I’m getting comfortable here, starting to feel right at home… which means some of my old habits are popping up. (By the way, I’m working away happily on my book so that’s probably why I keep thinking of habits and beliefs.)

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(Lagos, old town)

So… one of my habits is, I see something I want to do but just before I do it, I think, “nooo, I would look stupid, much too embarrassing to do that!”  Then afterwards when I don’t do it I feel a bit miserable for not doing it. A bit of a misery cycle. This habit is masking a couple of beliefs. The one that stops me doing the thing I want to do: What other people think of me is important and it needs to be positive. And the one that makes me feel miserable when I don’t do it: Trying new things is really good for my health. A bit of a self-judgemental cycle.

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(Like blue sky)

At the same time I have returned to meditation, fifteen minutes every morning. And there’s something useful in the meditation practice that can help me untangle the misery and self-judgemental cycles. It’s about noticing whatever it is you’re feeling, just noticing, not thinking, just noticing… in your body. Not in your head, in your body. (Over emphasising might be a habit too?)

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(Blue water, blue boat, blue jacket, blue hat)

So… I’m practicing meditation on my embarrassment. Each day (since Monday) I do one thing that I know would cause me to feel embarrassed and I notice what that’s like. In. My. Body. Monday morning I went to the outdoor gym! I had been looking at the equipment since last Wednesday when we arrived, thinking that looks like fun! Then the misery/self-judgemental cycle began, so I didn’t dare. 

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(Boat for sale…)

But on Monday morning I got into my baggy pants and approached the gym area. Slowly. Giving me time to notice the embarrassment and I noticed it… but it was a bit different. Too late to turn back I arrived at the area and there’s another camper doing gym things (and doing them really well) smiling and saying hello. Having a lot of embarrassing thoughts now but remembering just in time to NOTICE IN MY BODY I squeak out, Hi, which one of these is good for a beginner?

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(Cobblestones)

She is really friendly, Dutch or German I think and delighted to point me towards a swing-swong kind of thing and I start swinging and it is fun. So much so that I try a stand-up-rowing machine thing next but that’s a bit harder. Just as I start to feel stupid and think this is too hard I remember to NOTICE IN MY BODY and I slow down and it’s ok. Feeling embarrassed is actually ok… the thing that’s upsetting is the thinking about being embarrassed, the thinking about the people watching, the thinking about the people who are good at this fun thing. 

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(Rocks and sea at Luz… doesn’t it look like Greystones? Or does everything remind us of Ireland?)

Sooo, I’m stand-up-rowing with a smile on my face and a hello for all the people walking by and my new Dutch or German friend says, the hardest thing is to stop yourself competing with other people, just do your best. Well, wasn’t that lovely? I feel quite emotional all of a sudden. I’m rowing away and I’m thinking this embarrassment thing isn’t so bad. Then a group of six toned Swedish women jog past and I wave and nearly fall off my stand-up-rowing machine.

There should be a health warning on these machines, Mairead.

Feeling some madness…

| Mairead

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(Can you see this kite surfing guy’s feet and surfboard are out of the water?)

It rained a lot last night. Lots of rain, lots of wind. Teeny tiny bit of sleep. Not feeling too bubbly today. So I’m reminded of something Eckhart Tolle wrote “When you complain you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation or accept it. All else is madness.” It’s kinda nice to find patterns in the things you see and experience and relate them to the way you feel inside, isn’t it? I think so. I think it helps to understand the feelings inside.

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(This boat was just sitting on the beach this morning… could someone look up French salvage laws, please – we might own a boat)

So, here’s us having a nice old-time wandering around France, minding our own business. Loving the sun and the pleasant temperatures at this time of year. Then, the storms arrive. From nowhere they come…. And one might be tempted to whine and grumble. At home we might say “desperate weather, isn’t it?” to the postman or the assistant in the bank or the next door neighbour.

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(More doodling today)

In France I haven’t a clue how to say anything about the weather and when I consider looking it up (or asking Thierry) there’s no incentive to do so. There’s no good that can come out of telling the French people in the camper van next door that it’s raining… They already know. Sometimes it rains. Get over it. There’s at least four guys out on the water doing their kite surfing thing. They’re already wet so a bit of rain doesn’t bug them and the wind is very useful when you have a big huge kite.

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So how’s this relate to feelings? Sometimes we feel down, maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s an insensitive friend, maybe it’s a disappointment – life can be very disappointing. So we talk to ourselves or others with words something like “desperate feeling, I’m having”. Maybe we whine a bit, grumble a bit and complain some. What if we had to translate our complaints into French (or Swahili if you’re fluent in French) would we bother? Like the rain, the feelings will be gone soon and like the wind for the kite surfers, they are useful – they remind us we’re alive!

Sure isn’t it great to be alive? Mairead.

My (not so) Big Secret

| Mairead

I think I might be suffering from an addiction. Don’t tell anyone. I want to keep this a secret just between us. Ok? You have to promise before reading more…..

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(Photos from Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow)

So if you’re still reading you have agreed to keep my secret, right? Or are you still reading because you are curious and you will decide later whether or not to keep my secret? Or do you never keep secrets? Well in spite of your silence I’m going to trust that you’ll know best whether or not to keep my secret… since I’ve been foolish enough to tell you….

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(The old fence between the avenue and the golf course)

I am addicted to picking up autumn leaves. There, I’ve said it. I walk around with my head down searching for the perfect examples, then I stop short, drop to the ground and pick them up. I even do this when I’m on a walk with someone else. They’re happily chatting and walking and I’m on the ground picking leaves. I may have missed a few interesting topics of conversation doing this.

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(Seedling on the forest floor)

But the weirdest thing about my addiction is the reason why I can’t seem to stop… but I might just have sussed (old Irish word meaning solved) it. Ok, so come along on a walk with me: We’re on a path bordered by grass and tall trees.The grass is green, the tree trunks are grey with a dusting of green moss towards their bases. They are deciduous trees and their leaves continue to fall all around us as we walk. Our heads are bent down looking for the perfect leaf. We are not talking, we are concentrating. From time to time one of us spots the perfect leaf and drops to the ground, picks it up and has a good look at it.

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Lets say it’s you and you’re now holding a maple leaf, so it has three big pointy bits, two small pointy bits and it’s chubby. Too bad… unfortunately the middle pointy bit is a bit off-center, so you know it’s not perfect. Ah well, you hang onto it anyway because the colour is wonderful and the veins on the underside feel lovely to the touch.

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(Oh the perfect feather?)

We walk on and continue our search but when it’s time to go home we are no nearer to finding the perfect leaf. All the leaves in your hand have little imperfections, same for me. And yet we’re still carrying them. We seem to like them anyway….

There are no perfect leaves, just amazingly beautiful leaves, bit like us then, Mairead.

Quiet – the book…

| Mairead

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(Solitude)

I’m reading a really interesting book at the moment. It’s called Quiet by Susan Cain. There’s also a TED talk. She writes about extroverts and introverts and thinks the extrovert personality type has an unfair advantage. The extrovert is seen as the ideal type, which can mean those of us who favour the introvert way of being can seem odd. Cain suggests the world needs introverts to be introverts. Although the words introvert and extrovert are not new to me, it is new to hear that it’s perfectly acceptable, in fact necessary (for an introvert) to be an introvert. No one told me.

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(Old weather-beaten wall)

Cain explains that extroverts are energised when they’re with large groups of people – they love parties, they dislike solitude. Wait a minute… they love parties? And they refuel their energy when surrounded by lots of people. I didn’t know that was even a possibility. While introverts prefer solitude and get energised in nature or alone and they like to chat with one person at a time. Turns out the introverts often push themselves to be more extrovert so that they can fit in or get things done….. like give dinner parties or talk to a committee or whatever. But it is a very tiring activity for introverts to behave in an extroverted way and they need to refuel with space and solitude.

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(Old wood)

I used to be very shy as a child and I remember when I went to college at seventeen making a decision, from that day forward I would be outgoing. It was easy, no one knew me from my previous school and I was good at pretending. So I watched outgoing people and copied them. I enjoyed it and since there were only four girls in a class of eighty I got a lot of attention! I was rewarded well for my efforts, but it was very tiring. I often used to wonder why I didn’t like parties, I thought there was something wrong with me.

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(Old hearts)

It’s okay to love solitude. Mairead.

Potato Soup Time

| Mairead

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(The stained recipe page)

I’m making soup. I love making soup. I love how it tastes, how it smells and I even like looking at it. It’s potato soup (it’s always potato soup) well, there’s also thyme in it but the main ingredient is potato. I’ve been making it for about fifteen years. Well, no, I mean, I’ve been repeating the soup making procedure for the past fifteen years, not, it’s taking fifteen years to make some soup. But… also, I mean it’s taken fifteen years to make this soup.

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(One of my second-hand French tea towels –  beautiful shadows! Into the soup too!)

When my little boy was in primary school sometimes I would make the potato soup early, just before driving down to collect him. When he got into the car he would know that I had made it. How? He’d smell it on my clothes!! Now I know this might not please everyone but I loved it. You see, he loved the soup and he was happy when I smelled of soup because he’d soon be having soup! And I loved that I could do something so simple and have that impact.

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(Snow from 2010 – into the soup too! It started snowing in my sister’s town in Canada today – oops)

So that and everything else I’ve experienced in those fifteen years goes into the soup I’m making today. Even though I use the same (stained) recipe book (I can never keep a recipe in my head…) and stick to the same basic recipe, the soup is filled with much more than the list of ingredients. It’s filled with the stories, the lessons, the happy days, the sad days, the angry days, the embarrassing days that I’ve experienced, because all those things are part of me now and they’re here as I make the soup. They’re in my arms as I dice the onions. They’re in my hand, full of thyme –  bigger and nicer because now I grow it. There in my choice of real butter, for a time it was olive oil, before that it was coconut oil. They’re in my back as I wonder about the weight of the saucepan, because a few years ago I longed to feel what my grandmother must have felt using a giant saucepan on a solid fuel cooker to make soup for her six children.

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(Love, love, love stitches, especially if they’re HUGE – into the soup too!)

The soup we’re going to have today for dinner owes its magnificence to the complete picture of the person who makes it, warts and all. Mairead.

Fearlessness in Baby Steps

| Mairead

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(French window)

Ok….. so, I’m supposed to be practicing (from the dictionary: the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use) my fearlessness this week. I was figuring that might include some standing up on a soapbox or knocking on people’s doors or listening to a lot of criticism. It turned out to be a lot simpler than that. (Thankfully.)

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(French gate)

But before fearlessness there came little drops of sunshine. I have no idea who reads my words, unless they tell me. So I don’t know if the person who sent me this beautiful Ted talk about creativity read my last post. Or the person who met me for coffee…. Or the two people who gave me massages… Or the person who listened without asking me anything… Or the person who sent me a text to tell me she was doing lots more creative things since talking to me… Or the person who told me she was thinking of me… Or the person who sent me a link to hens (yes hens)… Maybe their kindness was a coincidence, but this week I got a heap of kindness. And the best bit? No one encouraged me. No one told me it was easy. No one told me to just do it. No one told me not to do it. No one pointed out that I didn’t know how to follow my dream… The silence was beautiful, thank you 🙂

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(French garage doors)

And in the silence there was the first fearlessness – listening to myself. You might be surprised to learn that the one who thinks I should be doing things better… is me. Funny that. (Well, no not that funny, really.) Yep, there’s no group of protestors with banners outside my door calling TRY HARDER IN THERE! The protest is inside. This might be a good time to silence the protest inside my head.

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(French church door)

And in that (at least partial) silence there was the second fearlessness. Anytime I’ve encouraged others to practice fearlessness (or any other new behaviour) I’ve known it needs to be done in baby steps. And it needs to include gentleness as you would towards a baby taking their first steps. Loudly shouting at the baby to GET UP OFF THAT FLOOR AND WALK, NOW! rarely brings success. This was a good time to practice the baby-step theory.

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(French hiding door)

So, my itsy, bitsy, baby step happened quietly, gently at a small table in a pretty little coffee shop. I sat with an old friend (she’s not old, she’s… ah, you know what I mean) who definitely didn’t read my post and I haltingly (at first) began to tell her about my hopes and dreams for getting other people to connect to their creativity and to their peace… and no one died… and she understood… and then we talked about something else.

Brene Browne

(And my favourite sister sent me this photo-quote… It’s Brené Brown who is also running a creativity course… with Oprah! Creativity is very in…..)

I’m grand, how are you? Mairead.

The Tunnel I love

| Mairead

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(Leaves and seed. I pick something up every time I go walking)

I went on my walk this morning (of course I did!) a bit earlier than usual because it’s not so pleasant to walk in the heat. Anyway, there’s a stretch of the road which I call the tunnel (or tunnel as I like to say in French) and I absolutely love it. It’s dark and incredibly quiet in there. You can just about make out the light from the sky in the distance. This morning I had to stop and get a good feel of its magic.

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(Duck. From the riverside in Vouvant)

I never bring the camera out on my walk, much too much distraction, but two nights ago I had my phone and I took a picture. It might not be very clear but I wanted to give you a visual sense of my tunnel.

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(My tunnel, sigh)

So… I’m standing in my tunnel this morning and the phrase the darkest hour is just before the dawn comes to mind. And it got me thinking… my tunnel is such a comforting place to be, I wonder how it would work if the next time I’m feeling down, I imagine myself in my tunnel. A place to be held safely in the dark until it’s time to venture out into the sun. I’m definitely going to try it. (By the way, in case I forget and you notice I’m needing my tunnel, could you remind me please?)

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(Love this quote from Maya Angelou, it’s now in one of the journals I’ve been creating here)

With only a week left (I think I’ll keep saying that every day from now on….) I’ve been thinking of all the things I want to do before we leave and on the very top of the list is… getting a video of the hens running to me (their surrogate mother…) So far we have a startled looking hen standing very still so hopefully they’re not camera-shy. If we do manage to capture momentum I’ll find a way to share it with you.

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(Very cute sign in Vouvant)

From the sunny swing, Mairead.

Pensive on a rainy Monday

| Mairead

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(Photo I took of Glendalough round tower last weekend)

The weekend before we left Ireland I was down in Glendalough at a family gathering. Sixty-five cousins (four generations) from my Dad’s side of the family came together on a Saturday morning to walk in the hills and share a meal. My Dad had three brothers and the organising committee was made up of one member from each of the four brother’s families. I was my family’s representative. It was a very easy committee to be on, everything seemed to slot into place.

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(It’s raining today…)

I think that’s due to my cousin Charlie. He was the one who had the idea for a gathering and so we made him the president (chairman was too ordinary.) He was exceedingly good at his job and exceedingly good at delegating. He’d say “Now, I want you to do that, but only if it’s okay with you, now tell me if it’s a problem, but you’d be great, you’re exactly the right person for it.” Apart from not being able to get a word in edgeways, who could refuse him? None of us did. It wasn’t until the Sunday morning at breakfast that I found out his wife, and not he, had been answering all the numerous emails from the other members of the committee over the past few months.

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(…so I’m looking out at the pretty raindrops… )

Charlie got an idea into his head all those months ago and he did what was necessary to make it happen. He didn’t do everything. He did what he was good at and he asked for help with the rest. It worked. We sat around tables in the hotel in Glendalough and reminisced about our childhoods, about parents and grandparents who were not there, about cousins who could not attend. We had a great time. We said “This was a great idea.” I’m glad Charlie had an idea in his head and I’m really glad he shared his idea with the rest of us. I think it takes courage to share your ideas.

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(…and working away inside)

The sun has come out now so I’m off to sit in the garden, Mairead.