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Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

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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).

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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

Head & Heart – 2 May 2017

May 2, 2017 By Clare Leave a Comment

Noticing how much happiness walking in the Canberra autumn brings me (#100happydays Day 40)

Krista Tippett’s conversation with Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on the On Being podcast prompted lots of insights. Sandberg and Adam Grant (who is one of my most favourite leadership authors/thinks) have just released ‘Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy‘, so this conversation was largely focused on the death of Sheryl Sandberg’s husband, what she learned through that experience, and some of the research on resilience and overcoming adversity that is included in the book. It was such a good conversation for getting some insight into what the experience of traumatic loss is like, and tips for how to support people who are greiving. Some key takeaways for me were: saying nothing is worse than saying the wrong thing, offer specific assistance rather than open-ended offers that place the burden of requesting help back on the person who is greiving, and the subtle but important difference between asking ‘how are you?’ and ‘how are you feeling today?’.

The emotional story that Sheryl Sandberg shared about ringing her cousin on her 50th birthday also stuck with me (“…there’s only two options: we either grow older, or we don’t”). Birthdays aren’t something that I’ve really paid much attention to (mine or others), but this story has made me think about using birthdays as a reminder to really be aware of and express gratitude for the people in my life.

The themes covered in the conversation overlapped quite a bit with this article on how to speak to someone about an unspeakable loss which popped up in my Facebook newsfeed lately, and it also reminded me of this great piece on how not to say the wrong thing.


I’ve been working my way through another #100happydays on Instagram (although have had several lapses along the way), but I do find it such a valuable practice for being present and finding happiness in small and seemingly insignificant moments. Adam Grant made a comment in the podcast that “it’s actually not the intensity of your positive experiences; it’s the frequency that really matters for how much happiness you find in life.”, and I find that the more I practice, the more frequent those positive emotions are in my own life.


“Several long-married people I know have said this exact line: “I’ve had at least three marriages. They’ve just all been with the same person.””

I thought this Modern Love article on embracing change in relationships was great.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Head and Heart, Journal Tagged With: #100happydays, happiness, lead mama lead, listening, podcasts

Sticky Wisdom – Happiness

October 27, 2015 By Clare Leave a Comment

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Some #stickywisdom from Osher Günsberg. Great interview with Mia Freedman on the No Filter podcast.

Filed Under: Sticky Wisdom Tagged With: happiness, podcast

Is happiness beyond our control?

August 1, 2010 By Clare Leave a Comment

My personal test of a life well lived? To me, the answer lies in the quality of our personal relationships and the care we devote to them. Everything else is peripheral, and mostly trivial. Our personal relationships – the test bed of our sensitivity, our moral courage and our capacity for love – are not only the source of life’s richest meanings, but as we struggle to establish them, nurture them and sometimes forsake them, they teach us that notions like happiness or sadness are mere accidents of our fluctuating emotional state, and are incidental to the great realisation that it is in loving we are made whole.

Extract of a fabulous speech from Hugh Mackay at the Happiness & Its Causes 2010 Conference.

(via Zoe Lamont)

Filed Under: Link Tagged With: happiness, Hugh Mackay

Treat your mind as a private garden

July 10, 2010 By Clare Leave a Comment

Living the focused life is not about trying to feel happy all the time…rather, it’s about treating your mind as you would a private garden and being as careful as possible about what you introduce and allow to grow there.

(via The 99 Percent)

Filed Under: Quote Tagged With: focus, happiness, mind

What Makes Us Happy?

September 7, 2009 By Clare Leave a Comment

A great article about a 72-year longitudinal study of the mental and physical well-being of 268 men who entered college in the late 1930. It’s a long article – but worth the read. Lot’s of good stuff here…

(via Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist)

Filed Under: Link Tagged With: happiness, psychology

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