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Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

Head & Heart – 2 May 2017

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Noticing how much happiness walking in the Canberra autumn brings me (#100happydays Day 40)

Krista Tippett’s conversation with Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on the On Being podcast prompted lots of insights. Sandberg and Adam Grant (who is one of my most favourite leadership authors/thinks) have just released ‘Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy‘, so this conversation was largely focused on the death of Sheryl Sandberg’s husband, what she learned through that experience, and some of the research on resilience and overcoming adversity that is included in the book. It was such a good conversation for getting some insight into what the experience of traumatic loss is like, and tips for how to support people who are greiving. Some key takeaways for me were: saying nothing is worse than saying the wrong thing, offer specific assistance rather than open-ended offers that place the burden of requesting help back on the person who is greiving, and the subtle but important difference between asking ‘how are you?’ and ‘how are you feeling today?’.

The emotional story that Sheryl Sandberg shared about ringing her cousin on her 50th birthday also stuck with me (“…there’s only two options: we either grow older, or we don’t”). Birthdays aren’t something that I’ve really paid much attention to (mine or others), but this story has made me think about using birthdays as a reminder to really be aware of and express gratitude for the people in my life.

The themes covered in the conversation overlapped quite a bit with this article on how to speak to someone about an unspeakable loss which popped up in my Facebook newsfeed lately, and it also reminded me of this great piece on how not to say the wrong thing.

I’ve been working my way through another #100happydays on Instagram (although have had several lapses along the way), but I do find it such a valuable practice for being present and finding happiness in small and seemingly insignificant moments. Adam Grant made a comment in the podcast that “it’s actually not the intensity of your positive experiences; it’s the frequency that really matters for how much happiness you find in life.”, and I find that the more I practice, the more frequent those positive emotions are in my own life.

“Several long-married people I know have said this exact line: “I’ve had at least three marriages. They’ve just all been with the same person.””

I thought this Modern Love article on embracing change in relationships was great.

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Head & Heart – 2 March 2017

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It’s been a long time between posts, but here are some of the things that have been rattling around in my head and heart lately….

On happiness
I recently listened to Tim Ferriss’ podcast with Mr Money Mustache (MMM). There were some really great insights on the podcast – in particular the reflection about happiness coming from reducing ‘life suck’ (ie. reducing or removing something negative in your life) rather than adding something more positive. It’s such a great question to ask before making a purchase or committing to doing something – is this thing removing a negative, or just adding a positive that I don’t really need? For example, while a new computer may make my life better in some way (faster, more storage, and upgraded OS), my life really doesn’t suck at all with the completely functional computer that I already own. The other excellent insight was about ‘optimising your life for happiness’. Often I choose to do things or buy things that I think will make me happier (or that society (or clever marketing) tells me will make me happier), without really critically reflecting on whether they do or not. Further, I know that there are certain things that I know make me happier (like bushwalking and simply being in nature), that I don’t make enough of a priority in my life. This prompted me to start a Mindnode with branches for things I know make me happier (stuff I should be optimising my life for), things I think would make me happier (and should create experiments to test and reflect) and things that definitely don’t make me happy (that I should seek to optimise me life to reduce/remove).

After the podcast, I spent a bit of time exploring the MMM blog and this blog post, ‘Happiness is the Only Logical Pursuit’, really resonated with me – particularly the part about consumption often being driven by a desire for self-actualisation, which then undermines a more basic need for financial security which leads to feelings of unease/unhappiness.

On anger
In another recent podcast, Krista Tippett and Tim Ferriss spoke about anger really being just how pain or fear manifests in public. This insight prompted me to reflect on how I can best respond when people I love are expressing anger. If their anger is really pain/fear, then me pointing out the anger and why and how it’s hurting me is really like throwing fuel on the flame – it’s just likely to cause more pain or fear. So, in the moment, it is really helpful for me to try to look behind the facade of anger and try and see what else might be going on.

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Head & Heart – 8 December 2016

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It’s been over 3 months between Head & Heart posts! The short story (excuse?) is that work and life got on top of me, and I was questioning/doubting the impact that some of the regular habits/practices (including these posts) were having on my life. There’s been a fair bit of change over the last 3 months – including resigning from my job to take a break, revaluate priorities, and recalibrate a little – and I’m certainly not going to even attempt to catch up on 3 months worth of thinking/learning/reading/listening in this post!

As well as determining that writing (and later re-reading) these posts is in fact a valuable practice for me, it turns out that there a few people who actually read these posts and find them useful or interesting, so it’s definitely something that I intend to get back to doing more regularly.

Pausing for a moment to ponder why I give spending time in front of screens such priority in my life, when this is what actually makes my body, spirit and mind come alive.
Pausing for a moment to ponder why I give spending time in front of screens such priority in my life, when this is what actually makes my body, spirit and mind come alive.

Related to the above comment about resigning and recalibrating, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reading about burnout. Articles/resources that particularly resonated with me included:

Since I last posted, I’ve finished a few books (and started and abandoned quite a few more):

  • Deep Work*
  • Unconditional Parenting* (like most parenting books, this one caused me some initial ‘oh my god, I’m doing it all wrong’ anxiety, but with some time to let the thoughts settle I’ve taken some strategies/approaches from the book that I think will work for us, and am ok about leaving the rest! One of the things that I’m consciously trying to do is give E more opportunities to exercise control (trying to say ‘no’ less – especially where it doesn’t really matter) and really listen to her without rushing or interrupting.
  • All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood* (for a summary of some of the key insights from the book, check out Jennifer Senior’s TED talk)
  • Designing Your Life*

Some posts that I thought were worth bookmarking/sharing:

I’m super late to the party (in fact I think the party is well and truly over), but I finally watched Making a Murderer. It’s a bit of a joke in my family about how I can’t handle mistaken identity/wrongful conviction movies – I find them so distressing that I feel physically uncomfortable (watching The Fugitive practically causes a panic attack!) – so I wasn’t sure how I’d cope with this. I’ve read some of the criticism online about the potential bias of the filmmakers in selecting what to show in the documentary, but regardless, I do think it raises really important issues around the level of unquestioned trust and confidence society places in law enforcement agencies, and the significant disadvantage that poor and less educated people have when it comes to navigating the legal system. Alec Baldwin’s Here’s The Thing interview with defence lawyer Dean Strang is worth a listen for anyone who watched the series.

As for podcasts, Longform and Hidden Brain (a recent discovery) episodes have featured heavily on my playlist. I also enjoyed Carly Findlay’s interview on the Osher Gunsberg podcast. Carly is awesome and I’ve been lucky enough to work with her on a couple of She Leads events, and I think it was actually through Carly’s blog that I first discovered Osher’s podcast.

This post, ‘How getting rid of ‘stuff’ saved my motherhood’, has re-inspired me to cull our own stuff, maintain a more organised, simple home and be more conscious about what we keep and let in to our space. It’s probably a subject for a separate, longer post but since E came into our lives we’ve experienced new demands/constraints on our finances, time and space – which has forced us to be more intentional about how we use our resources in all of these areas. I’ve still got a long way to go, but so far I’ve used some of my current period of unemployment to cull and tidy a few of our main living spaces/storage areas and I feel lighter and less overwhelmed as a result. Now the challenge is to maintain relatively organised spaces and avoid letting clutter back in. Rather than get caught in this cycle of tidying up / mess / tidying up / mess etc I’m trying to take more of a design thinking approach and really study why and how our spaces get cluttered and messy and try to put in place solutions to resolve these (rather than just dealing with the symptoms).

Toys and trinkets that E collects feel like a big source of the clutter in our home, so Christmas (as well as birthdays) can often see a new influx of stuff into our home thanks to extremely generous family! The Minimalists recent podcast episode on giftgiving had some useful ideas for a more intentional approach to giftgiving.

Head & Heart are approximately fortnightly posts about what I’ve been reading, watching and thinking about – things I thought were interesting, and that you might find interesting too.

* These are Amazon Affiliate links.

Head & Heart – 2 September 2016

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Over the last week or so, I’ve tried to practice more conscious consumption of information. I have a love of learning and it’s easy for me to spend hours listening to podcasts, reading blog posts, and following endless internet rabbit holes. However, I’ve noticed how little of this information I actually retain, and even less is translated into some action in my life. As Derek Sivers said, ‘if information was the answer then we’d all be billionaires with perfect abs’.

So, what I’m trying to do is commit to not consuming anything without also producing. This doesn’t have to be something significant or public. It can just be a couple of notes in my DayOne journal. Already I’m noticing how it’s made me more selective in what I consume, and I consume less. I guess it’s like making a deal where every time you eat a biscuit or cake you have to do 10 pushups – it makes you ask yourself, is this cake worth the work I’ll have to do. And doing the work seems to make the consumption feel more worthwhile.

One of the best things I’ve read on the internet lately was Asher Wolf’s ‘Fuck You, I’d Spit in Your Cupcakes‘ and it definitely got me fired up on Monday morning. Becoming a mother has affected my sense of self and my thoughts on feminism and so I very much enjoy reading about other women’s experiences.

Several late nights unable to sleep with a nice viral cough provided the opportunity for binge watching the fabulous You Can’t Ask That on iView.

Cats!
Cats!

The other thing I’ve been watching quite a bit this week is clips from Cats the Musical. E loves drama and dancing so I thought she’d enjoy these and I was right. I have very fond memories of seeing it as an 8 year old when the production toured Australia for the first time, so it was fun to share it with her.

I learned that the French have a term for the predicament of thinking the perfect reply too late – ‘l’esprit de l’escalier’ (staircase wit).

This post about attempting to go for 21 days without complaining got me noticing just how much complaining I do! I have too many ‘challenges’ on the go (habits, #100happydays etc) that I’m failing to keep up so am not going to start this challenge right away, but it is something I’m interested in trying.

When I’m sick I’m particularly conscious of practising more self-compassion, and I think that’s the reason that this week I sought out Tara Brach (I started reading Radical Acceptance*) and Brene Brown (I re-listened to her interview on the Tim Ferriss show).

I went and saw Annabel Crabb & Leigh Sales at the Canberra Writer’s Festival last week which was delightful. And this was followed up by a new Chat 10 Looks 3 episode, which always puts a smile on my face.

We’ve had some pretty challenging episodes with E recently. I suspect that it’s just ‘being three years old’, but I could do with whatever help I can get, so I’ve also started reading Janet Lansbury’s No Bad Kids – Toddler Discipline without Shame*.

Last week was Book Week and I’m super grateful for my mum making a gorgeous Gumnut baby costume for E. She also made a Princess Leia costume (which was E’s original request). Yay for amazingly talented family!

Head & Heart are approximately fortnightly posts about what I’ve been reading, watching and thinking about – things I thought were interesting, and that you might find interesting too.

* These are Amazon Affiliate links.

Head and Heart – 21 August 2016

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I didn’t post last weekend, so this is almost two weeks worth of thinking, reading, listening and watching….

A recent conflict prompted me to reflect and write about the pebble and the pond.

As a parent of a young child, sleep is still an irrational obsession of mine. Karen Hitchcock has a great piece in The Monthly on ‘precious sleep’. Somewhat related, I also enjoyed this post on why we need more time and less clothes. This Brain Pickings post on the psychology of your future self and how your present illusions hinder your future happiness had my brain whirring for hours afterwards.

Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite
Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite

I randomly picked up Paul Arden’s Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite* off the bookshelf one evening last week. I love the simplicity and how it shifts my perspective. This sentence particularly struck me “The problem with making sensible decisions is that so is everyone else.” It reminds me of one of my favourite Seth Godin quotes (from Linchpin* I think) “You can fit in or stand out. Not both.”

Coordinating a workshop on emotional intelligence and communication with a new facilitator provided the opportunity for new learning about people styles and the Johari window.

I watched the Tony Robbins’ documentary ‘I Am Not Your Guru’ on Netflix. It was super interesting to see what a Tony Robbins event is like and the way in which he is very skilled at reading and connecting with people. I just wish it had more ‘behind the scenes’ to explore what really drives Tony and his team.

Every year Timehop reminds me of Ben Pieratt’s great post – ‘In Praise of Quitting Your Job‘ – and it’s so worth revisiting annually. So much of what he says about the challenges of creative work and motivation resonate with me and it makes me feel like some of the struggles I have with my work aren’t unique. [Note to any of my colleagues reading this post, I’m not actually seriously contemplating quitting my job right now!]

Another worthwhile read was this post on why you should stop spending so much time in your head. My internal monologue has felt louder and more incessant than usual lately, so this was a good reminder!

Habit tracking (sleep, meditation, active minutes) has been ok this fortnight but has fallen off a little toward the end of the week. I’ve been re-evaluating the important of these habits (and the process of tracking and reporting on them) this week and will post an update in the next Head & Heart.

* These are Amazon Affiliate links.

The pebble and the pond

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Image credit: Chris Chan
Image credit: Chris Chan

Last week I saw a rock being thrown into someone else’s pond and watched the ripples that followed. I was surprised to see waves. I judged the reaction. I told them there should not be waves. It was just a tiny little pebble.

But here’s the thing – it wasn’t my pond, and my view of what happened in their’s was brief and hazy.

Maybe the waves were too big for the rock that caused them, or maybe they were just right, in fact perhaps they were too small. I can’t decide that. Only the person to whom the pond belongs will really know if the reaction was right.

The best thing I could have done was not to be an ill-informed commentator or judge, but rather a questioner and listener. Seeking to understand how the other person saw and experienced the rock and the ripples. Helping them to evaluate the cause and effect so they could ultimately judge the balance between the two.

It was a good reminder for me that two people can experience the exact same event, but have wildly different interpretations and recollections of what happened. They perceive the rock differently – not only it’s size but density and smoothness. And their ponds are different too. Different sizes, shapes, depths, weather conditions. Two rocks, two ponds, two sets of ripples.

I know this stuff. I think about this stuff often. I talk about it regularly with my students and friends. But when I was in it last week, I forgot. I forgot the metaphor. So now I’m pondering how I can store this closer to the front of my mental filing cabinet, or what hook can I use to remind me of this when I need it?

Head & Heart – 7 August 2016

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Head & Heart is a (now) weekly, quick and rough wrap-up of what I’ve been thinking about, listening to, reading etc. A few days late, but here’s my post from last week…

I started the week with a meeting with my lovely friend Amanda Horne. Amanda often speaks about words that emerge for her at a particular time. Kind of like themes that connect a whole heap of thinking, feeling and happenings. It’s not so much about picking a word to think about or meditate on, but rather stopping and listening and seeing which word bubbles to the surface. This week, for me it was the word ‘ask’ (prompted in part I suspect by #5 in Nick Crocker’s list of ’30 Things I’ve Learned’ that I linked to last week). I’m trying to be more aware of what I actually want (without dismissing it without it really entering conscious thought), and putting that out into the world.

I finished Helen Garner’s The Spare Room (audiobook) and am now onto Liane Moriaty’s The Husband’s Secret. Three novels in just over a month! I wouldn’t quite call it a rule, but up until recently I’d just tell people ‘I don’t read fiction’. It’s not that I didn’t like fiction, I just had so much that I wanted to learn that I didn’t think I had time to read fiction. I saw reading fiction as purely recreational and not as valuable use of time as reading non-fiction. But fiction works my brain in a different way. I’m so used to information being presented to me in a factual, logical way, it’s nice to experience narrative storytelling where information is presented in a way to generate an emotional response from the listener. I’m not sure quite what I’m learning, but I’m sure that it’s using different parts of my brain which must be a good thing.

But I still had time to get my dose of non fiction podcasts, listening to a Dear Sugar Radio episode on introversion and extroversion, an interview with Kathryn Schultz on Longform, and Jane Caro’s chat with Wil Anderson on Wilosophy.

Time alone in the car is rare for me, but when it happens I usually do is listen to Radio National. I really love being surprised by the stories. I curate my inputs so heavily and I often feel like it’s a bit of an echo chamber – the stuff I seek out – books, podcasts etc – is often people whose views I know and share, or on topics that I have an established interest in. It’s nice not to know what’s coming up and to learn something new. This week I learned that one third of customers steal when using self serve checkouts, and about Reposit Power, a Canberra company that makes smart batteries.

I’ve started a new Coursera course on Psychology at Work (from the University of Western Australia) which I’m enjoying so far. I’ve long had an interest in doing some further study – particularly in organisational psychology, management/leadership. Having no psychology training, this is a good way to tip my toe in and see if it is actually something I enjoy, rather than just something that I think I’ll enjoy.

Habit tracking 1/8-7/8. Notice the 'Jac effect'!
Habit tracking 1/8-7/8. Notice the ‘Jac effect’!

I stumbled across (via Shawn Achor) the delightful Seize Your Moments project.

What started off as a very poor week in terms of habits, turned around from Friday onwards. Things bottomed out a bit of Thursday (and involved more tears than I normally would like!), but sometimes it takes things to crack a bit before you actually pay attention and do something about it. Reflecting with my friend Jac over dinner on Thursday led me to the conclusion that nothing (except physically attending to my daughter’s immediate needs) is more important than my three key habits (30 active minutes, 5+ minutes of meditation and bed before 10.30pm). As a result, things have turned around considerably and I’m still on streaks for all three habits (I’ll call this the ‘Jac effect’).