Head & Heart – July 2015

Head & Heart is designed to be “a monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw.” 

What I’ve been doing

• Finally getting around to doing/finishing my Cert IV in Training & Assessment (thanks to work supporting/sponsoring my participation on a course).
• Meditating. After last month’s thoughts on why I don’t meditate more, this month I’ve committed to doing it and it’s feeling great! Key things that are helping me integrate it into my day and start to develop a semi-regular practice – the Calm app (I completed the free 7 days of calm course and have now signed up for an annual subscription), and making time (it only takes 10 minutes) to meditate earlier in the evening rather than waiting until all my to-dos are done (which of course they never are)!
• Exercising. Another thing that I’ve prioritised this month is getting out for some regular exercise. I’ve realised that no-one is going to magically create time for me to exercise, so I need to carve it out. I haven’t been walking far or fast, but regularly getting out a few times a week for 30 mins is better than what I was managing before. Jason and I have also started a block of personal training sessions with Simon Le. Jason and I used to do training together many years ago, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed that. We managed to find a little window of time on our lunch break one day a week when Ella is in daycare, so we’ve decided that doing PT will be our weekly ‘date’. We’ll invest the $$ we might otherwise occasionally spend on dinner and babysitter on getting physically (and mentally) healthier together.
• Practice recording for the Women Talk Work podcast. I’m still way behind where I hoped I’d be, but this month I’ve been doing a bit of practice recording/editing, just playing around with microphone technique and the basics of recording and editing in GarageBand.

I’m grateful for

• The wonderful people in our life that love and care for Ella. She turned 2 this month and her birthday (and the gifts and cards that she received) was a lovely reminder of all the great people in her/our life.

I’ve been thinking about

• Being my best me. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about how I can flip my thinking to stop focusing on the ways in which Ella/being a parent prevents me from being my ‘best me’ – like finding it difficult to get time to exercise, getting enough sleep, spending quality time with friends etc – and instead focus on how I can be the ‘best me’ in the moment, whatever and whenever that moment is (including at 2am with a sleepless toddler). I’ve also being trying to think about all the benefits I do get from being a parent (rather than the things I’ve ‘lost’) – like learning patience, creativity, thinking on my feet, being less self-conscious etc.
• My addiction to sugar. I’m becoming increasingly aware of the ways my body reacts to sugar – particularly in my skin, and also my sinuses (that might sound weird and maybe it’s just a coincidence, I haven’t investigated the link properly) – but yet I still consume more than I’d like to and struggle to cut back/eliminate despite knowing that it would most likely make me feel much better.

I’m excited for

• Getting fitter and stronger. I feel like I’m right back at the beginning. There are muscles that I haven’t used in years and I feel like a tightly coiled little ball. I feel frustrated by how far I am from where I was at my fittest/healthiest and my inability to manage even quite basic movements. But I’m excited for having started personal training and having being here before, I know that I can and will get stronger and fitter.

I’ve been reading

• This month I only finished one book – The First Stone: Some Questions about Sex and Power by Helen Garner. Having only ever read Helen Garner’s shorter, more recent pieces, and hearing Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales rave about her on Chat 10 Looks 3, I was keen to read more of her work. Despite the controversy surrounding this book, and the condemnation of the book by some feminists, I enjoyed reading it… for two main reasons. Firstly, I love how Helen Garner writes and particularly how she injects so much of herself in her writing, and I enjoyed the experience of almost being witness to her own self-reflection and exploration about the issues of feminism, sex and power. And secondly, this book made me think. It made me reflect on how I might have acted if I was playing any of the parts in real life, and the complexity of human behaviour and relationships.

I’ve been listening to/watching

• Lots of podcast listening this month – favourites were Osher Günsberg‘s interviews with Ita Buttrose and Naomi Simson, and Krista Tippett’s conversations with Mary Oliver and Eve Ensler on the On Being podcast.
• I’ve also been listening to more interview style podcasts including Like I’m a Six Year Old with Tom Ballard, and Meshel Laurie’s Nitty Gritty Committee.
• I’ve shifted from the default iPhone podcast app over to Overcast and I like it a lot. The ‘smart speed’ feature is great, and for a heavy listener of conversation style podcasts I’m pretty sure it’ll save me quite a bit of time.

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