problems

My dream job

| Mairead

(One paw, two pause…)

We have a George Foreman grill. It’s a thing you plug in and when it heats up you put in your rashers or burgers or some other thing you might want to grill. It was advertised as a healthy way to cook because all the fat from your chosen meat product drips down into a tray and you don’t eat it! Also, in the ads it seemed to be really easy to clean, most of the mess goes into that drip tray.

(A cactus in a salsa jar, kinda poetic)

The reality hasn’t exactly lived up to the dream, though. Possibly it is healthy, but watching fat drip is a real appetite suppressant. And the easy cleaning? It’s not…. easy. Well to be clear, (and this might seem a little moany but I’m telling anyway) the one who uses it most, doesn’t clean it after using it. So it needs heavy duty cleaning ten days later!

(Very wet bumble bee)

And this reminded me of when I wanted to be a receptionist. I was a trainee software programmer and I was finding the work challenging (in other words, I was fed up and miserable). In the same company there was a receptionist and each day she would come in, go to the bathroom, put on her makeup and come out to the reception area with a big smile. She answered calls all day and at five she went home. It looked like a dream job to me. To me she had no worries, she knew what she was doing and she did it well. My fantasy of getting her job went on for weeks until one day I met her in the bathroom and she was crying. I did what you do in these situations, I sat and listened. Well, long story short, it turns out being a receptionist isn’t the dream job I had imagined!

(More nice Irish clouds)

So… maybe the George Foreman grill has lived up to the dream….. but just not my dream. Maybe it’s George Foreman’s dream or the advertiser’s dream or the manufacturer’s dream. Someone else’s dream life may not be a fit for you…. you’re an original, live your own dream life.

Anyone want a slightly used, very dirty, signed, George Foreman grill? Mairead.

Don’t sweat the meatballs!

| Mairead

(Damien and Nat are organising a Flamenco Festival in Dublin 23rd to 31st July www.dublinflamencofestival.com)

The de-clutter is continuing slowly, and today (Sunday) we went to Ikea. Not entirely sensible, because we might have been tempted to buy more clutter. Fortunately we were not tempted… and we came home with only what we went for… drinking glasses. But we were tempted by the restaurant.

(An Ikea glass?)

Well, Denis was tempted by the fifteen meatballs. Yes, exactly fifteen, there’s a choice, you can have ten, fifteen or twenty. He choose fifteen along with potatoes, gravy and some fruit sauce… Watching the woman speedily scoop the meatballs onto his plate, I couldn’t believe she had time to count them. She didn’t. When we sat down and he went off to get a knife and fork, I counted. Only fourteen…. Oh no, we would have to do something… what? Ask for an extra meatball? Would they need to check the cctv footage to make sure we hadn’t eaten it? As I contemplated our position Denis returned. I told him about the problem. He took out his fork to investigate further.

(Blue benches along the pier in Dun Laoghaire)

And he found the missing meatball… along with its friend. He had been given sixteen meatballs! Noooo, now we had a different problem. How would we return the extra meatball? And which one was it anyway? I seemed to be handling this problem on my own and expected some help from Denis. But he hadn’t let me down, he had formulated an inspired plan and had even executed it, while I was panicking.

He ate the extra meatball!

(Orange worms spotted near the pier….)

And it made me wonder…. is it possible that we sometimes make a mountain out of a meatball? Maybe it’s just a meatball? What if all our problems were just meatballs?

It’s just a meatball, Mairead.

The front of the Westport train goes to Galway

| Mairead

(Comfy throws at my Somatics class)

I was travelling on the 7.30am train from Dublin to Westport, last year. I had brought my crochet needle and wool, a magazine, bottle of filtered water, snacks, a pen and some paper. It’s a three and a half hour journey, I wanted to be prepared! Something you may not know about that Dublin to Westport train is that it goes to Galway too. Well, only the front bit of the train goes to Galway. It’s an efficiency thing, I think. The whole train goes as far as Athlone and then the front bit is unhooked and it goes onto Galway while the back bit goes to Westport. A bit worrisome the first time I travelled on it,  but once I realised which bit of the train I needed to be sitting in, it was fine.

(Rua the horse)

Anyway, this time I had spread my things out on the table and was settling into my crochet when the ticket collector came to check my ticket. He also checked the ticket of a male passenger (there was only two of us in the carriage) in a seat on the other side of the aisle from me. It seemed the man was going to Galway, but here he was sitting in the back bit of the train. The bit that was going to Westport! (Are you’re feeling my anxiety here?) Anyway, the ticket man explained that he needed to go to the front of the train and the man nodded. But… he didn’t move……

(Sally the angel and her stars)

The ticket man left to check the passenger’s tickets in the next carriage. I was doing my best to concentrate on my crochet and remain calm (why was I so worried?) when the man for Galway gets my attention by showing me his ticket and pointing to a station we are flying past.

I realise something….. he can’t talk.

I read his ticket, it said Galway (which I knew). I can talk so I assumed I could communicate. But I couldn’t. Not that I didn’t try. I did try…. (remember the problem with trying….?)

(Thierry’s cook books)

First, I spoke very clearly and concisely, saying, “No, you must move to the front of the train for Galway.” He nodded, and smiled, a lot, but he still didn’t move. So I had another idea, I wrote the same message on my notebook and handed it to him. He smiled and nodded again but still didn’t move. I began using hand gestures towards the front of the train. He had a lovely smile…. but he still didn’t move. My message was not being understood. I was starting to feel anxious again. There was still another hour until we arrived in Athlone, there was still time for him to get to the right part of the train. I had to come up with a plan. So I did. I decided I would take him by the arm and guide him to the front of the train just before we arrived in Athlone.

(Poker food….)

But I had a problem…. I had been up since 5am to get this train and I was now starting to feel drowsy. Usually I just doze off at some point but now I couldn’t possibly close my eyes in case I was asleep when we got to Athlone! While I’m contemplating this I look over and the man has fallen asleep! Now we are close to Athlone, I am a nervous wreck and I’ve ripped the crochet five times.

And then the ticket man returns.

(Poker chips)

He patiently wakes the man and tells him it’s time to move to the front of the train and communicates this somehow because the man gets up and follows him…. but not before giving me a big smile, a lovely smile.

And I thought….. there was nothing for me to worry about. I didn’t need to fix anything. All is well. It always was….

All is well, Mairead.

Debugger is not a rude word!

| Mairead

(Old door handle at Sheena’s house)

Last Friday night Denis and I sat on the sofa together and watched a session from the Apple Developers Conference. I was not sitting there because I wanted to watch grown men applaud software – it was Denis’ turn to choose a movie…..

(Avoca in Ashford serves Robins too)

But, you know, after a while it started to get interesting. This particular session was about a new debugger. Yes, that’s a real word (isn’t it great, it sounds rude, but it’s completely legal!). A debugger is a software program that helps programmers to de-bug (take out bugs, errors, faults from) the software they are writing. So if you’ve written a piece of software and it’s not doing what you thought it would be doing you use a debugger.  It steps through the lines of code you’ve written and shows you what’s happening, every step of the way. So you can see which line of code caused the problem. Apple have gone to great lengths to add lots of helpful bits to their debugging software, to provide more useful information and to make it even easier to use. And lots of people (well…men) at the conference were very pleased.

(Look! A heart-shaped stone!)

That got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be really helpful if we had a personal debugger. It could be attached to our phones or even better it could fit in our ear….. Then when something we’re not expecting happens, the debugger could replay the scene step by step and we would see what’s gone wrong, and change it.

(Daisies)

So for example: You’re chatting with significant other (could be partner, mother, friend, sibling) and suddenly (or slowly) you realise you are really irritated and you have even begun to say some potentially damaging stuff. What’s more, you’re saying it out loud! The “other” either storms off / says some of their own stuff / starts to sob / looks stunned – take your pick.

(Little kitten legs…. cute)

Wouldn’t it be great at this moment to be able to click the debugger in your ear and find the moment where it all went wrong? Then change that line of code so it wouldn’t go wrong again? We have loads of code in our heads, written by others or written by us for a good reason, at the time, but the time is different now. We are much more intelligent than any computer, so we can debug our own code just by noticing it.

Debug yourself, Mairead.

Morning Pages

| Mairead

(Come on in….)

A long time ago I read the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In it, there’s an exercise called Morning Pages. The idea is that every morning before you do anything else, you take our your A4 pad and your pen and write without stopping for three pages. What do you write? The first thing that comes into your head and if nothing does, you write “nothing is coming into my head” and usually that’s all it takes for something to come into your head!

(Patterns)

I think the rational for this exercise is two-fold. One, it’s practice at writing and two, it clears all the thinking stuff out of your head and onto the page. When the thinking stuff is gone, then there’s space for the good stuff. The good stuff is wise and helpful and intuitive. The kind of stuff that gets buried under the worry and trouble and problems. The whole process  is a bit like weeding a vegetable patch so that your crops can grow.

(Pink geraniums)

I wrote my Morning Pages for at least eighteen months. Clearing the thinking stuff was very useful and of course I enjoyed the writing. But the added bonus was the structure and discipline of daily practice. Practice makes Perfect. In order to become good at something we need practice. That includes being calm or staying grounded or accepting ourselves or living a less is more kind of life or whatever it is that floats your boat! We need to practice…. daily.

(More patterns)

Practice, practice, practice, Mairead.

Raindrops

| Mairead

(Rain on the red flowers in the front garden….)

I was out walking in the rain today. Not really by choice, I had some things I needed to do. I was wearing a raincoat and a hat and a skirt. Sorry men, but a skirt is the most comfortable thing to wear when it’s raining. It doesn’t stick to your legs and when you get into the car you can turn it around and not be sitting on the wet bit…. comfy! So I was dressed to withstand the downpour. But I’m not usually.

(Very wet rain)

I was wondering about that. The fact that I know it rains a lot here and yet I don’t usually go out prepared for rain. Am I crazy? What’s that about? Never mind, the result is I’m wet and miserable and I don’t notice all the lovely things going on around me. Not useful.

(Rain on the things that grow from the big plant….)

How might I improve on this? What if I start acting as if it rains a lot in Ireland – by bringing an umbrella and a hat and a coat and a skirt? Or by wearing the motorbike rain gear all the time? Both those solutions are grand but it’s all a little heavy to carry around in my handbag.

(Rain on the lovely looking leaves….)

There is one other solution. I could let go of resisting the thing that’s already happening and consider getting rained on as a nice enjoyable thing,or just a thing that’s happening.  When I get home I could change into the dry skirt and hat and maybe even the coat (in case I’m a little chilly). Less to carry around, nice attitude to be feeling, probably good for health. The great thing is, there’ll be plenty of opportunities to practice letting go of resistance (with all the rain, I mean).

Embrace your rain (whatever it is…), Mairead.

I (almost) like book-keeping!

| Mairead

(Garden chair in dry weather – not as nice as when it’s wet – isn’t rain great?)

Since coming back from holidays, things have been different. Well, nothing has changed, but …. something is different. Take the book-keeping (balancing bank accounts, paying tax etc.)…..

Ever since I started helping Denis with the book-keeping I’ve hated it. Really. Hated it. I think it’s mental….. as in I’m thinking fearful thoughts about it. It’s a physical thing too, because it feels like a heavy weight on my shoulders and another heavy weight in my stomach. Not much fun at all. As the date for sending something, anything, to the tax man draws nearer the weights get heavier. The thoughts get a bit heavier too.

(An old bench in the back garden)

This seems to have the same effect as trying (so they may be related) – everything takes much longer, more mistakes are made and it’s no fun… none… at all.

(The garden shed)

But then last year we found a lovely calm accountant (Hello Clodagh!) and I can ask her questions and she can fix my mistakes and she knows what she’s doing – always useful. So everything was great for a while. No more fear of the tax man. No more worries about mistakes. Someone knew what they were doing. Yet…. there was still something heavy in me.

I still hated the book-keeping.

(I love material, sigh…)

But since coming back, the book-keeping is different. Well…. no it’s not different but the way I think about it is different. In the first week back I heard myself say about it to Denis, “this is easy” (he was too surprised to react). By the second week, it had got a bit harder but something had shifted in me, because I wasn’t so heavy. And this week I find myself wanting to hate the book-keeping but not feeling it! While I still don’t like it, I no longer have the heavy weights and mostly my thoughts about it are hopeful and extraordinarily light.

(The garden gate)

I notice I have a pattern of acting and thinking in a particular way in relation to the book-keeping and I haven’t let that go….. yet. Funny thing is, I’m noticing this pattern in other areas too…… The thing we think of as a problem is only a waving flag. There are no problems only flags, waving at us to wake up!

Wake up, all is well, Mairead.

Just do it.

| Mairead

(Irish sky – we have the best clouds!)

We travelled for 4,500 kilometers in wind and rain and sun. We were coughed on and sneezed near, and we were never ill. But we’re home now and we have the ‘flu…..

(French sky)

So my thinking is not very clear today and that may lead to this post not being very clear but I have hope! It’s about trying. We use that word all the time but do we really know what we’re saying?

(More French sky)

Today I’m trying to write my blog. Trying involves a lot of effort. There’s a lot of gazing out at the cloudy blue sky. There’s a lot of thoughts about all the other things I should be doing at the same time. There’s a lot of re-writing and deleting. It’s very hard work. Very serious work. Do you realise what work is involved in this blog writing? Oh, its tough. It’s not much fun either and I doubt if it’s fun to read…..

(Spanish sky)

Usually, I don’t try to write my blog. Usually, I just write my blog. There’s no effort. I hardly look up. Once I start I couldn’t care less about what else needs to be done. I hardly change a thing (except spellings, I still manage to mis-spell!). It’s very easy. It’s not serious, it’s funny in my tummy! There’s no work involved. It’s not tough, it’s fun to do and maybe it’s even fun to read……

(Irish sky)

It’s so much easier when I don’t try…… and instead just do it…… Trying is no fun, I like fun.

Was that clear? Mairead.

PS I have set aside a large inbox area in my email for correspondence relating to recipes from you…. but so far there’s only one recipe in there (thank you Madge, we will be eating Chicken in White Wine and Mushroom Sauce tonight and thinking happy thoughts about you). I’m guessing you might be trying to get around to sending me one…. stop trying! I need your recipes, now. Thank you.

Don’t just say No – feel it!

| Mairead

(Spot the difference?)

I was at my friend Ashleigh’s (www.timeforbusywomen.com) workshop on Saturday. It was held in a beautiful setting in Co. Dublin. I really enjoyed it and I now feel very focused on my next project. On the day Ashleigh talked about a lot of things and one thing that struck me was what she called the “Internal No”.

(Ashleigh’s notebook, where she keeps all her quotes)

The way I understand it, this is something you can use when you want to change the dynamic of a relationship. The kind of relationship where you might have been saying “Yes” more than you want to? Or maybe the kind of relationship where you have been saying “No” but you haven’t been heard? Where your “no” turns into a “well, no, not really, oh well, ok then go ahead, alright yes”.

(Lunch at the workshop)

So, maybe you’re asked to work an extra shift. But you don’t want to and it doesn’t feel like you’ve been asked. It feels like you “have to ” say “Yes”. Using the Internal No, you get a strong sense of the “No” you’re already feeling. By that I mean you feel what “No” is physically to you. Too crazy? Do it even if it seems crazy! Do it even if you don’t know what I’m asking for and see what happens…..

(What’s different about these flowers?)

Because our body knows a lot more than our mind gives it credit for…… Stop thinking “No” and start feeling “No” and then, when it’s good and strong in your body, say it. Doesn’t have to be loud, definitely doesn’t have to be angry, it’s just a word you body is feeling right now. Honour your body! Say no!

(Shiny floor)

What’s your body feeling? Mairead.

PS can also be used with children, friends, dogs and even cats! Ashleigh is running another workshop in September.