Webby Clare

Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

Head & Heart #30

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I feel a bit like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day at the moment – reliving an experience over and over until I’m finally able to reflect and learn some lesson. But instead of watching Punxsutawney Phil emerge from his hole, I just keep getting sick – over and over again!

In my quest to figure out the lesson, I’ve been thinking about ‘me’ and ‘my body’ and the connection (or lack thereof). I tend to think of my body as something that serves me – or that can fail me and let me down, and that something that is somehow separate from ‘me’. I don’t think that this is particularly uncommon. Just the way that we talk about someone’s relationship with their body implies some kind of distinction between the two. By definition, a ‘relationship’ requires a connection between two or more things. I’m not quite sure where this thinking will lead and I haven’t tied the ends together to make a neat and coherent answer, but I do wonder if I could be healthier and happier if I was able to integrate my body and physical health more with my sense of self.

When I’m sick I also do more mindless scrolling and Netflix viewing than reading, but I still found three things worth sharing this week…

1. Feed a cold, don’t starve it

Related to the above thinking about my physical health, I’ve also found myself asking ‘why?’. People who have worked with me will know that I’m always trying to analyse failures and improve systems/processes, so I’ve naturally being asking ‘what went wrong?, what could I have done to avoid this?’. It’s impossible to know for sure, but one of the possible answers I’ve come up with is sugar. In my subsequent Googling I came across this piece which reveals that glucose can dramatically impact the type of inflammation that different infections cause.

2. The great nutrient collapse

The increased light was making the algae grow faster, but they ended up containing fewer of the nutrients the zooplankton needed to thrive. By speeding up their growth, the researchers had essentially turned the algae into junk food. The zooplankton had plenty to eat, but their food was less nutritious, and so they were starving.

This is a long but fascinating (if rather depressing) read on the impact that increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are having on plants and the potential implications of this for human health. It also makes me wonder how we can get more smart people to solve problems that matter.

3. A mother-daughter tradition worth sharing

Teenage girls now live in a world where reality is warped by Instagram filters and Photoshop, where friends look like models and models feel like friends. They exist in a society that values ‘likes’ and ‘comments’, ‘follows’ and ‘shares’, one where beauty is defined by brands that profit from your insecurity.

So what does all this have to do with hiking? Everything. Because hiking can dismantle it all.

Although E is only 4 I already feel a little anxious about how best to support her through the social/emotional challenges of being a teenager! In recent years I’ve been noticing more and more just how beneficial walking in nature is for my own mental health, and I’ve loved beginning to share the joy of bushwalking with her (the 800m Koala Path at Tidbinbilla is one of her favourites and manageable for little legs without too much complaint!). This piece makes me feel excited and optimistic about continuing to build on our little nature strolls.

Head & Heart #29

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On Friday evening I drove into town for my Genius Bar appointment (sadly nothing could be done to revive my Mac, so this is another post from my phone) and I saw the huge, bright moon in the sky. I’m rarely out at night anymore so when I am I try to make an effort to look up. On nights when the moon is full and huge I like to think about who else might be looking up and pondering the same thing. This feeling of connection to people I’ll never know makes me smile. (Just like those night feeds at 2am when you feel some kind of invisible bond to the other unknown women you know are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time.)

One Sky Project by Women Who Draw (Sophie Beer, Brisbane (79) and Rachel Chew, Melbourne (80))

So I was particularly delighted to read about the One Sky project in Austin Kleon’s newsletter this week. Eighty-eight women from around the world all looked up into the sky at exactly the same time and drew/painted whatever they saw. The result is this lovely wholistic capture of what the sky looks like from different perspectives. It’s a great metaphor for how a simple change in position (physically, but also mentally) can provide new perspective and change what we see. 

There are so many things I could share this week that have made me stop and think/feel, so it was challenging to just pick 3….

1. How Friends Become Closer

as time goes on, friendships often face more hurdles to intimacy than other close relationships. As people hurtle toward the peak busyness of middle age, friends—who are usually a lower priority than partners, parents, and children—tend to fall by the wayside.

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about friendship lately with the sudden shift in demands on my time that full-time parenting with a new baby brings. In many ways the constant hands-on work means that I have less freedoms to catch up with a friend for a meal or coffee, but in other ways, without the constant intellectual stimulation of work and the interpersonal connections that work brings, I’ve felt a loneliness and longing for connection with friends that has often being hard to satisfy as they deal with their own ‘peak busyness’. This piece has some interesting insights about the contexts and containers that adult friendship exist in, which makes me appreciate the complexity and requisite effort required to sustain these relationships.

2. The Power of Anti-Goals (via Adam Grant’s newsletter, Granted)

…problems are often best solved when they are reversed… it’s often easier to think about what you don’t want than what you do

Our new nanny started today (yay!) and so I’m right in the thick of figuring out what ‘work’ might look like for me over the next 6-12 months. Without a functional computer I was limited in what I could do this morning so spent some time with a pen and paper using this technique to brainstorm what I don’t want my work to look like.

It’s a technique I’ve used before (and have blogged about) particularly in relation to business improvements, but this was the first time I applied it to my own life design.

3. How to fix the person you love (via Emi Kolawole’s newsletter, E is for Everything)

To make us feel loved and valued, our spouse must convey appreciation for the person we currently are. To help us grow, he or she must emphasize the discrepancy between that person and the person we can ideally become, typically by casting a sober, critical eye On our faults.

I feel I’m frequently navigating (often awkwardly and painfully) the tension between playing the role of supporter/empathizer or coach/advisor in my own marriage, so this piece particularly resonated.

Head & Heart #28

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Day 10 – Asleep #100happydays
My computer has died with little prospect of resuscitation and no Genius Bar appointments available until Friday, but I’m maintaining my commitment to weekly posts and atttmpting to write and publish this post from my phone (please forgive any odd formatting!). 

Linc upgraded from a bassinet to a cot last week which necessitated some furniture rearranging, purchasing and culling, and resulted in us selling our old spare room double bed on Gumtree. Selling on Gumtree provides such an interesting (and often frustrating) insight into human behaviour! I had several people just not show up and stop responding to messages – to the point that I wondered if I was being trolled! Anyway, it was a good reminder just how rare doing what you say you’re going to do is, and how much you can stand out simply by keeping your word. 

This week these three posts have made me think and feel….

1. The normalisation of awful 

I loved this piece by Yolande Norris so so much. It’s such a beautiful, vulnerable piece about her experience with post-natal depression (PND). But it’s not just about PND – it’s about the how we respond to women with kids who are struggling. The language we use matters. Telling a woman who is struggling that what she’s going through is normal, or comparing her experiences with our own or others (‘it could be worse….’) can seem like a helpful thing to do, but can actually be really isolating and deflating. 

2. The right way to be introspective (yes, there’s a wrong way)
As I shared last week, I’ve been reinvigorating my journalling habit with the new Day One app and spending some time copying over seven years worth of writing from other platforms. From reading these old entries I have no doubt that I’m very capable of introspection, but less confident about whether that introspection actually elicits any worthwhile insight! I’m going to try using more ‘what’ rather than ‘why’ questions in my journalling and see what difference it makes.

3. 5 self-care strategies that aren’t fucking mani-pedis

Advice can be valuable, but in my experience, what people most want from their interpersonal relationships is to be seen, to be heard, and to feel connected. Unsolicited advice does not accomplish any of those things and can work toward the contrary.

My friend Summer Edwards shared this over on the Lead Mama Lead FB group (which I highly recommend for any women wanting to be engaged mothers and have engaging careers). It’s prompted me to be more aware of whether I’m asking for advice or empathy, and what others are asking of me. 

Head & Heart #27

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Day 6 – A gorgeous morning for a little family adventure. #100happydays
This week I’ve restarted another #100happydays photo project (on Instagram). Over the last couple of years I’ve become more conscious of what habits and practices impact my happiness, and this is definitely one that has a significant postive impact by giving me a reason to seek out, notice and create little moments of gratitude, connection and joy.

Another positive habit is daily journalling. I’ve been using the DayOne app for almost two years and this week I decided to upgrade to the latest version which includes the ability to keep multiple journals (plus some other nice features). Journalling has immediate benefits for me in that writing often helps me to figure out what I think, but the ability to look back and kind of join the dots to make better sense of who I am (or who I am becoming) is also really valuable. I’m also beginning to realise how much I’ve forgotten from the last four years of Ella’s life so I’m also trying to capture notes and insights about the kids – mostly so that I can remember, but possibly also so that when they’re older they can get a deeper insight into who they are.

Three things that have engaged my head and heart this week…

1. Jon Kabat Zinn interviewed by Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast

…living with children is probably the most powerful spiritual practice that anybody could ever be engaged in if you open yourself to it that way. I like to look at them as when they’re little as little living Zen masters that are sort of parachuted into our lives to push all our buttons and see how we’re going to work with the challenges they throw at us in addition to, of course, having to put food on the table, pay the rent, build a career, have a loving relationship…

This was a podcast episode with some wise messages about mindful parenting that I really needed to hear this week (see this Sticky Wisdom post). In moments of complete frustration, imagining E and L as little Zen monks brings a smile to my face! And I’m trying to remember to ask ‘what are they trying to teach me?’ rather than ‘why are they doing this to me?’!

2. Robert Sapolsky talking behaviour and biology on the Here We Are podcast
A friend recently recommended Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. I have it on hold at the library but to be honest I’m a little daunted by a 800-page book on neuroscience so I went searching for a podcast instead. This episode had some fascinating insights and anecdotes about how the brain works, including a super interesting conversation about how ‘disgust’ is perceived/felt.

3. Jacinta Tynan: Why I’m Compiling a Daily Record of My Boys’ Childhood
This article was definitely part of the motivation for updating DayOne and starting journals for each of the kids. I really like the ‘one-sentence journal’ idea and it only takes a couple of minutes at the end of each day to jot down a few words to capture how they spent the day, a special moment or a funny quote. But listening to Sherry Turkle’s interview on On Being has me thinking about what physical artifacts from my kids’ childhoods I’m keeping (I’m very ruthless and there aren’t many artworks that get kept!) for them to discover later in life, and how I might ensure that the digital memories I’m capturing can also be retained and discovered.

Head & Heart #26

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Three things that have me thinking and feeling this week….

1. The New Work Smarts Report
The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) have released The New Work Smarts report which forecasts the type of activities and requisite skills/knowledge that will be involved in work in 2030. In 2030, Ella will be 17 and probably embarking on first jobs and navigating the minefield of post-school career/education choices. Of particular interest was the fact that work in the future will be much more self-directed – with less management and training. This is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the future of work and what their job/career may look like in 10-15 years, but I think it’s especially relevant for parents and educators to consider what kind of skills and experiences we should be supporting children to develop.

2. Lessons of Labor: One Woman’s Self-Discovery through Birth and Motherhood

As I work on letting go of the pressure to be self-sufficient, I see that accepting help allows others true entrance into my life, creating the stronger community that I always longed to have.

Being back in the thick of newborn life I’ve found myself doing a lot of reading and thinking about birth and motherhood and reflecting on the ways that these experiences have shaped me. This week I read Lessons of Labor – a fairly short book in which the author, Julia Aziz, uses the stories of her three births (and miscarriage) to distill a number of life lessons. Although the birth stories are the framework for the book, I found it to be more a book about parenting and it reminded me a lot of ‘Buddhism for Parents on the Go‘. There were some particularly timely insights for me about asking for and accepting help, and about accepting rather than resisting some of the daily frustrations and challenges of life with little humans!

3. ‘Kids are gross’: On feminism and agency
Consent, respect, and bodily autonomy are at the core of feminism, but this piece reminded me that even when we’re loudly banging on about these things in our own lives it’s so easy to overlook them in our interactions with children. While I try to be mindful of these values in my parenting, I often find myself underestimating the perceptiveness and capabilities of my 4-year old (and her friends). This post definitely made me want to do better – and to expect the same of the other adults in my kids’ lives.

Head & Heart #25

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Last week I ended up in hospital with pneumonia. After 3 days of IV antibiotics and fluids, I’m feeling like a totally different person, but it was a really tough week. Being so sick really knocked me around mentally too, but now on the other side, things feel so so so much brighter and more positive. I am grateful for the wonderful public hospital care I received and have taken on board the message the universe has been sending about being willing to ask for help and not trying to hold everything together!

Three things that engaged my head and/or heart this week…

1. Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast

Oprah has a new podcast – Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations – a personal selection of her interviews with thought-leaders, best-selling authors, spiritual luminaries, as well as health and wellness experts. I’ve listened to the episodes with Brene Brown and Sheryl Sandberg – two women I’ve heard interviewed many times before, but whose messages and insights are worth re-listening to. I’ve also been listening to this podcast as I go to sleep in an attempt to distract myself from my annoying lingering cough!

2. How to be kind when you’re upset with your partner

There is no shortage of relationship advice online, but this post had some useful reminders. Processing my thoughts and feelings through journalling is something that I’ve found enormously helpful and has probably prevented many arguments!

3. Our 6-year-old has a fun, comfortable life. Why isn’t she grateful?

This advice made me reflect on how much of our weekend/leisure time revolves around Miss E (4 years old) and what she wants to do or what we think will make her happy, and resolve to plan more family interactions and outings based on what makes Jason and/or I happy instead!

Head & Heart #24

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A semi-regular capture of 3 things that have engaged my heart and/or heart…

1. Relationship vs transaction
I was talking with a friend last week about interpersonal interactions being motivated by either a desire to build a relationship or to complete a transaction. So I was surprised to hear these words – relationship and transaction – come up in the recent episode of the Dear Sugars podcast on saying no (with Oprah Winfrey). I believe that when the universe keeps unexpectedly throwing up certain words or phrases in front of you, it’s worth paying attention.

2. Deep work with deep responsibilties
In her email newsletter this week Laura Vanderkam asked can you do ‘deep work’ if you also have deep responsibilities? It captured some of the frustrations I had with Cal Newport’s Deep Work, which I love the idea of but struggle to see how it can be implemented in reality by people with lead parenting (or other primary caregiving) responsibilities – which are most often women. However, I like Laura’s suggestion that perhaps Deep Work can be achieved in smaller blocks or through ‘retreats’.

3. Drop the Ball
I also finished Tiffany Dufu’s Drop The Ball – a book for women about letting go at home. My friend Ruth wrote an excellent review of the book, and if you’re not inclined to spend the time or money to read the book but are still interested in the idea, I recommend listening to Tiffany’s interview on Jonathan Fields’s Good Life Project podcast.