Head & Heart – 10 July 2016

Once again I’ve found myself several months behind on my regular Head & Heart posts so I’ve decided to try something different. While I enjoy the practice of doing some reflection and documenting what I’ve been doing and thinking, I’m not sure the monthly timeframe is working for me. I feel like there is so much swirling around in my head that it’s hard to remember a month’s worth of content for each post and I feel some pressure (self-imposed) to make the post interesting, comprehensive and mostly coherent. It feels a bit counter intuitive that if I’m struggling to fulfil a commitment to post monthly then weekly might be easier, but I’m going to give it a go. I’ll also give myself permission to make these posts scrappier and less ‘complete’. The goal is here is building a regular practice rather than perfecting a writing craft.

So, in no particular order, here are some of the things I’ve been doing, reading, listening to and thinking about this week…

• My daughter Ella turned 3 on Monday. Birthdays are a significant reflection point, and I’ve found her birthdays to be quite emotional as I reflect on how becoming a mum has changed my life and how I see myself and the world.
• Not enough exercise, meditation or sleep had me in a funk on Wednesday morning. One of those (thankfully rare) mornings where I’m feeling sad and unable to get out of bed. Staying in bed never helps though. Once I did eventually get up I spent some time clearing my head by mind-mapping (using MindNode – a recent purchase that I’m enjoying using) how I was feeling and why, the things that I know impact my mental health, the barriers to me doing the things that I know make me healthier, and ways to overcome those barriers. Getting it out of your head makes it seem less significant and more able to be actioned. I felt much better afterwards.
• Jason and I went on a rare date to see the documentary Minimalism. It was good, but as I’ve been thinking and reading about minimalism for the past year or so, there wasn’t anything particularly new. But one of the most powerful things in it was a statement from author Patrick Rhode which was something like ‘the easiest way to deal with the overwhelm is just simply to turn it off’. This really struck me, particularly because I have been feeling quite stressed and overwhelmed lately. It made me think of a sink that’s full of water and about to overflow. Instead of trying to find ways to manage the water in the sink and keep it from overflowing, perhaps it’s easier (essential?) to first turn off the tap.
• I finished reading The Coaching Habit. If you’re new to coaching or you’re a manager wanting to have better quality interactions it’s a good read.
• Emi Kolawole’s post on learning how not to be angry was good and her thoughts and advice about how to look after one’s mental health resonated with me.
• I did session 1 of the C25K program (using the Run5K app). Feeling excited to get back into running which I know is good for my mental and physical health.
• I listened to Mia Freedman’s conversation with Natasha Stott Despoja on the No Filter podcast. Natasha made an interesting comment about multi-faceted women (specifically how difficult she thought the media/public/established political players found it to respond to a multi-faceted woman – someone who could be on the cover of a magazine AND have a serious policy debate on Lateline).
• I’ll also include in these posts a screenshot from Way of Life of how I’ve gone with my 3 priority habits (bed before 10.30pm, meditate, 30 active minutes). This week wasn’t great. Only 1/3 completed. I reckon that it’s about 2/3+ that I need to be hitting to be functioning well and maintaining good energy and mental resilience.