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Head & Heart – October 2015

November 12, 2015 By Clare Leave a Comment

October already feels like a long time ago, so I’ll do my best to capture and reflect on the last month. Despite the usual delays in getting the posts up, I like the impact this monthly practice is having. I like that it forces me to take stock, to reflect and to document what I’ve been doing, thinking and feeling. The deliberate act of paying attention gives me insights into what fuels me and what drains me, and allows me to relatively quickly course-correct where needed.

What I’ve been doing

The most significant achievement (and the one that has taken up much of my time in October) is (finally) recording, editing and publishing the first episodes of the Women Talk Work podcast.
I went to my first No Lights No Lycra (thanks to my friend Paulina).
Developing new course content for YWCA Canberra’s She Leads Diploma.
Writing emails to (future) Ella. I’ve been wanting to start a regular practice of writing letters to Ella (to be given to her at some point in the future) but never got around to it. I figured that a significant barrier was having to handwrite the letters, so instead I’ve set up a Gmail address for her and am sending her regular messages. The email format means that it’s quicker and easier to send short messages and there is no clutter!
I’ve started #another100happydays – a daily photo project capturing something or someone that made me happy. I enjoyed doing #100happydays so much earlier in the year, not just for the record it produced but also as a kind of daily gratitude and mindfulness practice.

I’m grateful for

Hayfever medication, especially because it’s the first time in 3 years I’m not pregnant or feeding and can actually take it!
Friends. This month I had a couple of great dinners with good girlfriends and some great phone chats with my dear friend Emily in Hobart. I love spending time with people that not only make me feel loved and valued but who help me to get greater clarity and insight about myself and the challenges/opportunities in my life.
I think I’ve posted this in a previous month, but being able to see the stars is often something I feel grateful for on my evening walks.
My job. On the morning of the latest She Leads Diploma class I woke up so grateful and kind of in (good) disbelief that I get to hang out with a group of awesome, smart, engaged women twice a month to talk leadership and to support them in their personal and professional development.

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Head & Heart – September 2015

October 2, 2015 By Clare Leave a Comment

Only 2 days after the end of the month (a record!), here’s my sixth Head & Heart post – “a monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw.”

What I’ve been doing

After my blergh August, I’ve got on back track with a few things that make me healthier and happier – meditating (on my bus commute using the Calm app), tracking my spending using YNAB, walking more regularly (and I’ve started tracking my steps using the Fitbit app). I’ve also been blending fresh juices/smoothies and feel like they’re (positively) impacting on my energy levels.
September also involved quite a bit of work preparing for the new She Leads Diploma intake. I am really committed to continuing to improve the course to make it one of the most innovative leadership development programs for women in Canberra. Like conference organising, I feel that designing training is something that aligns with my strengths, providing an opportunity for creativity within a structured program.

I’m grateful for

Sunshine. I’ve been noticing and appreciating feeling the sun on my skin as I exercise.
FaceTime. We don’t have any family in Canberra so FaceTime is such an important way for E to get to know and maintain connection with her family.
My family’s good health. We were all well this month (apart from a touch of hayfever) and what a difference it made to how productive I felt and my mental wellbeing.

I’ve been thinking about

Tooting my friends’ horns. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg shares a story of a workplace/team where instead of asking the women to talk about themselves, she asked them to tell one another’s stories, which made the women more comfortable and also helps to avoid that perception that women who talk up their own accomplishments are less likeable. This month I was listening to an episode of Chat 10 Looks 3 where Leigh Sales mentioned that when Annabel Crabb’s book The Wife Drought came out she purchased 1000 copies and sent them (with a personalised note) to leaders all around the country. These two stories got me thinking about how valuable it is for women to call out and promote the great things that other women in our networks are doing and has motivated me to start doing this more regularly for my friends and colleagues.
How we talk about/the assumptions we make about the division of household/parenting responsibilities. An except from Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new book, Unfinished Business, was published on Time – ‘Women are Sexist Too’ – and it, along with Jess Irvine’s opinion piece on parenting and inequality, has got me thinking about the default language I use in discussions about division of household/parenting responsibilities. No longer will I talk about male partners ‘helping’ around the house or with kids, and I’ll fight any tendency I have to leave ‘instructions’ for Jason next time I’m away!

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Head & Heart – August 2015

September 12, 2015 By Clare 1 Comment

August was a bit of a blergh month. Nothing major, but I was sick and certain things just felt like they fell off the rails a bit – I stopped meditating, stopped tracking my budget/expenditure and hardly did any exercise. But I guess sometimes you need these kinds of down periods of time to really notice and appreciate what a positive impact certain activities actually have on your physical and mental well-being. But in the true spirit of Head & Heart – “a monthly capture of my feelings and doings, in the raw.” – here is August’s instalment…

What I’ve been doing

Being sick… again. Colds (and then secondary sinus infections) bought home from daycare are really not much fun.
I went to Adelaide for the YWCA Adelaide She Leads Conference – which was great! I took away some great ideas for our Canberra event.
An example of the excitement my 8.36pm photos tend to capture – this one from 24 August!

I’ve re-started taking photos at 8.36pm. This is a project I started back in September 2009 (inspired by Buster Benson). I’ve started and stopped a few times (with a long break between April 2014 and August 2015), but so far I’ve taken 797 photos (37% of days since starting). I love the unfiltered ordinariness that this project captures and it’s role as a kind of digital time-capsule of my life. The photos are generally very boring – I’m most often involved in some kind of domestic pursuit (packing lunch boxes, ironing, trying to get my kid to sleep) or working at that time. But as boring as they seem at the time, I still find it fascinating to look back at what’s changed (and what hasn’t). Buster’s project is a public one, but after doing it for a while I’ve decided that my 8.36pm photos are primarily for me (my future me), and so most photos are just posted to Flickr privately.

I’m grateful for

Mum coming to visit us in Canberra. Not only am I grateful for having an extra set of hands to help with the toddler-wrangling, but I’m super grateful for the time E gets to spend with her Grandma. I have such fond memories of spending time as a child with my own grandmother and I’m sure E is collecting some great memories too. It’s 3 years this month since my Grandma passed away, so perhaps that’s making me particularly reflective. E would have made her laugh so much!

I’ve been thinking about

Writing (and in particular, blogging) as a method to discover your own opinions and beliefs about a certain topic.
My diet – and how it is impacting on my physical and mental health, and wondering what I can do (diet-wise) to improve my immunity and potentially reduce the frequency of colds.
Turning 35. It was my birthday this month and it got me thinking about what I want the next 35 years of my life to look like.

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Head & Heart – July 2015

August 5, 2015 By Clare Leave a Comment

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.

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Head & Heart – June 2015

July 5, 2015 By Clare Leave a Comment

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

What I’ve been doing

I mentioned it briefly in last month’s post, but this month started with a trip to Adelaide to do a Executive Certificate in Event Management.
I’m also super excited to have commenced in a permanent part-time position at YWCA Canberra as the newly created Leadership Programs Manager. I’ll be managing and trying to grow the range of great women’s leadership development initiatives under the SheLeads brand.
A message from one of my aunties via Ancestry.com got me interested in delving into more details of my family tree. I tend to do my family tree research in bursts – mainly because I only want to pay for Ancestry.com premium access for a month at a time and try to get maximum value out of it! In this recent round of research I discovered a few new interesting facts… My 2nd great-grandfather, Robert McDonald, was the keeper of the Gladstone Gaol in South Australia for over 20 years in the early 1900s. My 3rd great-grandfather, John Tortoise, built and was the first publican of the Western Hotel in Port Augusta.

I’m grateful for

Sunny Canberra winter days. Even when it’s freezing outside, being able to see the sun is such a delight.
My brother Neale coming to stay at short notice to help me out with caring for E while J was away for a couple of weeks.

I’ve been thinking about

Meditation, and why I don’t do it! Reading 10% Happier (see below) really highlighted so many of the benefits of meditation (many of which I was aware of) and I can see how a regular meditation practice would be a valuable thing to do. But for whatever reason, I’ve never been able to get into the habit of meditating regularly – perhaps it’s the difficultly in finding a time/space where I know I won’t be interrupted for 5 minutes, or the belief that I need to finish all of the other things on my to-do list first before I can sit down and take a few minutes for myself.
June marked one full year of using You Need a Budget (YNAB) – the longest period that I’ve ever stuck with any kind of expenditure tracking/budget program – so I’ve been thinking about the impact that it has had. I won’t delve too deeply into money stuff (and all my associated money hang-ups) here, but while I can’t credit YNAB with magically transforming our spending habits or financial position, it’s helped me to get my ‘head out of the sand’ and as a result feel more in control and less anxious about where our money is going and ensuring that all our major commitments will be met.

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The Wannabe Minimalist

February 28, 2015 By Clare Leave a Comment

I’m convinced. I need less stuff. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has, as the title claims, changed my life.

I’ve read posts and books before on organisation and ‘speed cleaning’ and living simply, but this book was different. I think it’s largely because the author, Marie Kondo, is kind of crazy, in a totally endearing way. Her passion for tidying is so deep and real, you can’t help but be swept along by it. She’s Japanese and the book was presumably originally written in Japanese so there are somethings that I’m putting down to cultural differences/translation that kind of give the book, and her method, a bizarre, but comfortable, quirkiness. Although she explains that tidying is simply two physical actions – discarding and deciding where to store something – she also focuses heavily on the emotional and spiritual experience of tidying and living an uncluttered life.

My two key takeaways were firstly, decluttering starts with discarding. ‘Organising’ doesn’t actually solve the problem and and in fact ’storage solutions’ actually encourage hoarding. Before you start doing any kind of organising, rearranging etc, you first need to discard. It makes so much sense now but I admit I was one of those people who just thought I needed to get more ‘organised’ and would be easily lured by crates and containers and fancy storage shops.

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