Webby Clare

Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

  • Home
  • About
  • Head and Heart
  • Sticky Wisdom
  • Women Talk Work

Head & Heart #32

October 3, 2017 By Clare Leave a Comment

Whenever E wakes in the night to tell us that she’s scared of monsters, spiders, or a Backson (thanks Winnie the Pooh) we tell her that we’re nearby and that ‘mummy and daddy won’t let anything bad happen to you’. This shooting in Las Vegas just makes me realise that of course that’s a promise that is impossible for us to keep. Pain and hurt and fear and disappointment will inevitably be part of our kids’ lives, and I need to remember that it’s not our job to protect them from it, but rather to ‘assure them that when the turbulence comes, we will all hold hands and get through it together’ (and keep serving the peanuts!).

Our little bushwalking guide!
On a happier note, we got out for a family bushwalk at Tidbinbilla and it was great. I’ve mentioned it before, but bushwalking is really my happy place and it’s so nice to be sharing this with E. I listened to a recent episode of the Australian Hiker podcast on hiking with kids (#40) and used some of the tips on this most recent outing – getting E to be the guide, hold the map and look for the trail markers, and to carry her own water and snacks. She really took to the leader role (which won’t be a surprise to anyone that knows her) and managed to walk 3.3km herself (although there was a fair bit of whinging at the end and we had to pull out the promise of an icecream).

1. How Honesty Could Make You Happier

…one of my biggest takeaways was that we shouldn’t lie to children when they are asking us about grown-up words or ideas — otherwise, they will just ask Siri. If it’s between YouTube and me to explain prostitution, I pick me.

Part of supporting kids through hard stuff is being honest (in an age-appropriate way). While I try to avoid lying to E (as I know she’ll figure it out eventually and I want us to have a relationship that has a strong foundation of trust), I find it difficult to find truthful and acceptable alternatives to ‘we won’t let anything bad happen’, and the more innocent ‘I don’t know where that picture/bag/toy is’ (when it ended up in the bin during last night’s clean up)! This piece has prompted me to pay more attention to those moments duing my day where I have to make a choice about honesty.

2. Terrible, Thanks for Asking

This is my latest podcast discovery (thanks to Carly Findlay’s recommendation). I started with the latest episode (#14 – Best Friends Forever) and I’ve been thinking about it for days. It made me cry and reflect and filled me with gratitude for the wonderful friendships in my life. I’m now making my way through the back catalogue. Such a great podcast about love and loss and the hard and beautiful parts of being human.

3. Step into the sunlight

Most of us, I think, have had this experience: behaving quite differently according to the people in the room at the time. With some people we feel in perpetual shadow; with others, the sunlight seems to angle in and we are aglow.

This piece by Richard Glover was published almost 5 years ago, but it’s one that I think and talk about often. This week it came up twice in conversations, so I thought it was worth sharing here too.

 

Filed Under: Head and Heart, Journal Tagged With: bushwalking, friendship, honesty, parenting, podcast, Tidbinbilla

Head & Heart #29

September 11, 2017 By Clare 2 Comments

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.

Filed Under: Head and Heart, Journal Tagged With: friendship, marriage, work

Head & Heart #23

July 30, 2017 By Clare Leave a Comment

I’m going to iterate the format of my Head & Heart posts (again) and, inspired by Dan Pink’s recent changes to his newsletter, instead of trying to comprehensively capture all the interesting (at least to me) things I’ve been consuming, doing, thinking and feeling, I’m simply going to focus on sharing three things that have caught my attention – a blog post, book, podcast episode, quote etc.

1. New Friendship is the Last Great Romance

I don’t know whom I’ll meet and I don’t know if we’ll have a pleasant, but forgettable connection, or if some part of me will light up in her presence and crave to keep lighting up. I don’t know if our illumination will be reciprocal. Maybe I’ll be totally hyped by being in her presence and she’ll find me interesting enough but not someone she can’t live without. That’s the risk, and it’s part of what makes the whole endeavor so intriguing.

I love love love Courtney Martin’s writing. We’re roughly the same age, with two young kids, and often when reading her posts I feel like she has perfectly captured what’s going on in my head/life. This piece about initiating new female friendships as an adult is lovely.

2. Running as Spiritual Practice

This episode of the On Being podcast made me so excited about getting back into running in a couple of months time once by body is fully recovered from L’s birth.

3. Eve Ensler: Happiness in body and soul (TED)

…happiness exists in action; it exists in telling the truth and saying what your truth is; and it exists in giving away what you want the most.

Eve Ensler’s advice about giving away what you want the most is something that I often find myself thinking about and it came up again in a conversation this week, so I’ve gone back and listened to her wonderful TED talk and also to her On Being interview with Krista Tippett (which now makes me want to re-read In the Body of the World).

————————

Some other updates…

Day 100 – It actually took me 145 days to get there, but I finished #100happydays with a lovely family bushwalk.

  • Today I finished my latest attempt at the #100happydays photo project (it took me about 145 days but I got there in the end). This is one of the most consistently beneficial practices for my happiness. It forces me to actively look for and appreciate the moments of happiness each day (even if the day on the whole feels hard or exhausting). Photos are on Instagram.
  • I’ve been less successful with The Minimalism Game though. A week of visitors + E’s birthday meant that I got a bit distracted (and we had an influx of new stuff as a result of the birthday celebrations). I reckon I got rid of 200 items/books/pieces of clothing, but the house feels as full as ever. August provides a new opportunity to start again.
  • I’m excited to be working on an upcoming Lead Mama Lead workshop on Creating Your Own Definition of Success. If you’re in Canberra please consider coming along.

Filed Under: Head and Heart, Journal Tagged With: eve ensler, friendship, happiness, on being, running, TED

Recent Posts

  • What worked for me in 2019
  • New school
  • Bike riding lesson
  • Head & Heart #40: How could it be worse?
  • Alarm

Categories

  • Books
  • Journal
    • Head and Heart
  • Link
  • Links for light reading
  • Picture
  • Poetry
    • Daily Haikus
  • Quote
  • Sticky Wisdom
  • Video