Tag Archives: The Power of Now

Stocktaking

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It might not be New Year’s Eve, but I have the time and inclination to do a little precis of what I have found worked for me this year, in terms of improving my mood and general happiness levels, and what has not. My son will be one in a week, and it’s been an incredibly full-on year, spending a lot of his early weeks in hospital due to his severe reflux (and time at home managing it), but also the more prosaic aspects of juggling life with a toddler and a newborn.

Fortunately, I was able to identify my PND in the first half of the year, (thanks, in part, to having experienced it exactly two years before) and seek medical help straightaway. The rest, however, has been an effort on my part to seek out practical and enjoyable ways to help myself. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…

What’s helped

  • Anti depressant medication. Sertraline is my particular poison, and it’s been invaluable in giving me the energy and resilience to connect with my children and get through the days intact.
  • Short, relaxing exercise breaks. I realised I needed to find something quick and effective to slot into my day. A lot of people swear by the 30 Day Shred, and I gave it a whirl, but I only had the energy to do it on holiday. It definitely worked from a purely physical point of view, but was too hard work to be enjoyable, so got sent back to Love Film pdq. I found Erin O’Brien’s 15 min Postnatal Rescue suited me much better, and I was still able to do it after an exhausting day and see the effects.
  • Short breaks in the day – I downloaded the 20 and 40 min “energiser” tracks from Pzizz. The voice is a little irritating, but it’s been useful when I’ve been too wired to sleep, but have the odd half hour to switch off.
  • Having a project – i.e this blog. While I’ve not been working, it’s been great to have something that has a sense of purpose, that I get a sense of achievement from (and connection with those who read it). I’m not currently keeping a journal and it’s very helpful both in terms of having a “brain dump” but also clarifying my own thoughts and feelings.
  • Staying in the present. I got halfway through The Power of Now before giving up, but want to look more into mindfulness. Would welcome suggestions of good books on the subject.
  • Connecting with old friends and not talking about children.
  • Various exercises from specific self-help books (see previous posts).There are loads more I’m sure, but these are the main ones that spring to mind.

What hasn’t worked for me

  • Attending to my personal appearance. Of course, I follow basic hygiene rules, I mean more wearing make up or getting my hair done, or buying new clothes. I know this works for many people, but I’d rather spend the precious minutes in other ways.
  • Denying myself particular indulgences, such as coffee, Diet Coke, sweets, choc, wine etc. I realise that all the research points to Diet Coke and booze being depressants in themselves, but I find depriving myself when my world is so small even more depressing.
  • Sleep! Or rather, I had hoped the kids would be sleeping better by now, so I’m not feeling any benefits yet. But on my list for the New Year is sleep training for the baby now he’s 1, so I hope this can move up into the first list soon.

Looking forward to trying out some new stuff in the New Year, thanks for reading this year, Happy Christmas!

Enough for now

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It’s about time for an update on my attempts at living in the present. I’m finding the style of The Power of Now a little wearing and repetitive (and isn’t it funny how all these books make their point in around 250 pages? It’s almost as if you couldn’t write anything profound or meaningful in any less). However, I’m convinced of the benefit of increased consciousness of my present life even without the spiritual element that Tolle promotes. I’m trying to remember to be grateful for what I have, even when I’m having a terrible day, but don’t always succeed.

I do find it helpful to recalibrate and go with the flow when the unexpected happens and be aware of my thoughts rather than be a total slave to them. But to be honest…I can happily leave the rest. The fact remains that I do have to multitask and plan ahead for a large number of activities, and all of that requires being ‘in the head’. You can’t lose yourself entirely in whatever you’re doing when there are many, many things to do. Maybe someone will come along and tell me how they do it (for which I’d be very grateful) but I think I’ll take the basic principle of trying to live more presently and keep on keeping on…

Right here, right now

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So… on my quest to find self-help books that are actually helpful and not too annoying, I’ve stumbled across Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. Maybe stumbled across is too disingenuous – it is, after all, a worldwide bestseller. I’m halfway through it, but the basic premise is that in order to be happy, you have to focus on your life in the present, rather than the past or future. And by present, he means this very moment, not what you’re doing this afternoon, or were planning on doing when the doorbell rang, etc.

It’s incredibly hard to do, and has made me realise how much I live in the future -in my head, that is. I’ve always been a daydreamer – I remember as a teenager thinking wistfully about what I was going to do when I became famous. I suspect I’ve always carried that with me, so that when I became a mother for the first time at the age of 31, I also had to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to achieve some of the totally unrealistic dreams I had. Not that I think motherhood means the end of dreams – far from it – but my dreams were of being an actress when I couldn’t act, or a singer when I sang very averagely.

I have often found solace and inspiration in plans and schemes, and have spent a lot of my life identifying goals and working out how best to achieve them. The problem with goals isn’t the aim in itself, but the feeling that you’ll only achieve happiness when you get there. I found in my notebook the other day a piece of writing from about seven years ago which said “by the age of 35 I plan to have published my first book and be living by the sea with my family”. This did, in fact happen, and I truly believe in the power of writing down what you want and then working towards that.

The problem was, that I didn’t feel half as excited as I thought I would when I identified that goal. At the time of writing, I thought it really was my dream life, and that I would be completely happy when I was living it. But of course, I didn’t factor in the tiredness of having young children, the everyday stresses and strains, plus the banal reality that once you are living a life, you adjust to new changes pretty quickly.

So I can totally “get” the idea of living in the present, as that is all we really have. The challenge, of course, is to undo the thought patterns of a lifetime and try to live that way, being aware of each moment, the sights, sounds, smells, tastes. I hope it will also work on my impatience with my children, how each stage will bring its own difficulties, and yet i know I will look back and treasure these times.

So that’s my intention. I’m sure it won’t happen overnight, but I hope to at least be aware of my “future thinking” and to try and bring myself back to the present where I can.