podcasts

Head & Heart #39: Muddy water

July 28, 2019 By Clare Leave a Comment

A quote I’m pondering…

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone” ~ Alan Watts.*

Since making running a regular part of my routine I’ve noticed my mental health has been pretty good and I haven’t felt as strong a need for regular meditation in my life. But while the running helps with my mood it doesn’t quite deal with the mental clutter and distraction and reactiveness in the same way that meditation does. This quote has got me thinking about the importance of quiet and stillness, and it also reminded me of something Julia Baird wrote in a New York Times opinion piece about her cancer diagnosis…. ‘stillness and faith can give you extraordinary strength. Commotion drains.’

Our modern lives are full of commotion and chaos and muddy water. Perhaps our way through that to improved wellbeing is not found in personal productivity hacks or new technology or to-do lists or outsourcing, but in more silence and stillness.

* I read the above quote in a recent installment of Ann Friedman’s weekly newsletter which I’d highly recommend. We’re apparently at ‘peak newsletter’ so you probably don’t need anything more to read, but in case you do, I also enjoy receiving updates in my inbox from Emi Kolawole, Austin Kleon, Adam Grant and Jean Hannah Edelstein.

Adding value to my life right now…

Reframing ‘I have to’ into ‘I get to’. A little tip I took away from James Clear’s interview on the 10% Happier podcast – next time you find yourself saying (or thinking) that you have to do something, try reframing it and tell yourself that you get to do it instead. ‘I have to pick up E from school’ -> ‘I get to pick up E from school’, ‘I have to deliver 3 workshops this week’ -> ‘I get to deliver 3 workshops this week’. It’s a great way to quickly shift yourself into a place of gratitude rather than obligation.

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Head & Heart #37: Don’t pee on the gift

April 13, 2019 By Clare Leave a Comment

One of my favourite pieces of advice from Jancee Dunn’s How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids is “don’t pee on the gift”. It means don’t tell your spouse you’re OK with something he or she wants to do (a weekend getaway, an hours-long bike ride, an afternoon nap) and then fume about it after the fact.

Our dog has just had surgery and has been pretty sick with an infection. However, the (very shiny) silver lining is that I get a weekend at home to look after her, while J takes the kids on our planned family trip to visit his parents. This is possibly one of the greatest gifts J has ever given me and just the anticipation of a forthcoming weekend alone brings me so much joy. I am very conscious that J’s weekend (involving 7 hours of driving with a 5 and almost 2-year-old) might not be quite so joyful, but I’ve told him (repeatedly) that he can’t pee on the gift!

Other things that have brought value/joy to my life lately….

Chat 10 Looks 3

I was in a bit of a blergh mood during a morning commute to work this week. Chat 10 always makes me smile and the latest episode was no exception.

This Jamie Oliver salsa recipe

It was J’s birthday last week and I made these chicken fajitas for his birthday dinner. The salsa is especially delicious (note: I used some chipotle sauce as a substitute for the dried smoked chipotle) and it made me appreciate the value of a great sauce/dressing/condiment to transform an ordinary meal into something super tasty. On a related note, I’ve just started having Dijon mustard on my toasted sandwiches and have added this to the long list of things I wonder why I didn’t discover sooner!

iOS Shortcuts

I’ve recently started experimenting with the Shortcuts app on my iPhone after listening to this episode of the Day One podcast (Day One is my journaling app of choice) and subsequently a few episodes of Automators. Much of the technical detail goes over my head but it’s still been fun to engage my brain in a new and geeky way and come up with interesting ways to quickly/efficiently handle some of the things I do with my phone – like journal entries, starting new timers in Toggl (for time tracking), and one I set up recently where Siri will tell me what time I’m expected to arrive home.

The ‘Week in Review’

I wrote about this in my what worked in 2018 post, and last week my dear friend Emily and I sent our 52nd weekly reflective update. This practice continues to be so important to me and I’m so pleased/proud that we’ve been able to keep it up for a year (I doubt I would have been able to without the accountability to Em). Last time I posted about the WIR, lots of people asked for the questions and I do intend to do a separate post at some stage. But in the meantime, these are the questions we’re currently using (they’ve iterated a little over time). Credit and much thanks is owed to Amanda for introducing me to her similar practice and sharing her questions.

Bluey

As most Australian parents of preschoolers would know, new episodes of Bluey are out. J and I think Bandit and Chilli (Bluey’s dad and mum) are pretty great parenting role models!

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Head & Heart #36

March 30, 2019 By Clare 1 Comment

These Head & Heart posts, like many things, get harder to write the longer I put off writing them. I’ve found that there is a small window between feeling like I have enough to say and having too much – when I struggle to know where to start and to end, what to leave out and what to include. But inspired by the ‘good list’ episodes on Tsh Oxenrider’s The Simple Show, I’ve decided to simply share 3–5 things that are adding value to my life right now.

Getting up early to exercise and meditate

For the past six weeks or so I’ve been getting up around 5.15am and going for a 1/2 hour walk or jog with the dog, followed (on most mornings) by a quick 3-minute meditation. Exercising and meditating have such a significant impact on my mental wellbeing and I’m definitely feeling happier, calmer and more positive. And I’ve been surprised how easily I’ve adjusted to the pre-dawn start – I suspect it would be even easier if I could consistently achieve an earlier bedtime (that’s another challenge!). I’ve been plodding my way through the C25K program again. I want to run a 10k this year and a 5k still feels a long way off – let alone 10! But I’m trusting the process and the program. As a facilitator and trainer (that occasionally has a tendency to want to have a lot of say over outcome!) this feels important to practice. I’ve also been using this Intervals app which is great!

Jar salads

Jar salads have been a game-changer. This roasted spiced chickpea & sweet potato salad with orange vinaigrette from Jar Salads: 52 happy, healthy lunches by Alexander Hart is our favourite. We got some glass jars from Target and I’ll make up 5 or 6 at a time.

Using Siri + Reminders to manage our grocery list

I got an Apple Watch for Christmas and one of my favourite and most used features is being able to ask Siri to add an item to our (shared) grocery list (in Reminders) at any time, wherever I am. I’ve also changed my Siri to the Australian male voice after reading this post (see tip #34).

Derek Sivers’ bike-riding story

As we, like many families, try to navigate the demands of kid drop-offs and getting to work, I’ve often found myself feeling rushed and rushing the kids (which never ends well!). So I’ve been thinking about this story from Derek Sivers a lot lately.

New podcast discoveries

After a bit of a run of audiobooks earlier in the year, I’m back in a podcast phase. I binged the entire series of The Drop Out, and two other recent discoveries that are on heavy rotation are David Tennant does a podcast with…, and Feel Better, Live More.

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Head & Heart #34

July 20, 2018 By Clare Leave a Comment

My big baby turned 5 a couple of weeks ago! Ella’s birthday is always a time of much reflection and this year I’ve found myself considering how becoming a mum, and Ella’s mum specifically, has changed the trajectory of my life. Her arrival felt like an asteroid had rammed into me and thrown me from my orbit leaving me lost and spinning out of control. But now, as we traverse further into this new identity and relationship I feel more confident that this path I’m now on is providing me with the lessons and opportunities I’m meant to have. In the lead up to her birthday I also found myself filled with enormous gratitude for all the wonderful people that have come into my life that I probably wouldn’t have connected with otherwise – my mother’s group, working at YWCA Canberra, the She Leads students and facilitators, Lead Mama Lead, my new colleagues at the APSC…

With each birthday it’s interesting to notice how parenting challenges shift from the basic needs around sleeping, eating etc, to deeper ones around raising a decent human being. This post on fitting in vs belonging was one worth reading and will be something I try to remember as Ella gets older and continues to navigate friendships and social structures.

I love love love this idea! If you’re expecting a baby, or know someone who is, why not skip the baby shower and throw a post-partum party instead?

Recent favourite podcast discoveries that I’d recommend include Self-Helpless (3 comedians discuss various self-help topics/books) and Briget Shulte’s Better Life Lab (on the art and science of living a full life). I’m also excited to see that Jamila Rizvi’s new podcast, Future Women, is launching next week. I also really enjoyed this episode of Hidden Brain – The Edge Effect – which includes some fantastic stories about diversity and creativity.

Some people in my network who are doing great things and that I think you should know about….

My friend Zoya Patel‘s debut book, No Country Woman, is coming out next month! I’m so excited to read this and share it. Zoya is one of the smartest, most insightful people I know and her writing about race, feminism and identity always makes me stop and think. She’s doing a number of events over the coming months – including a launch in Canberra on 19 August, and the Melbourne Writers Festival!
Julie Boulton has an excellent weekly newsletter, The Greening Of, about her journey towards more sustainable living. I always learn heaps and I love her honest, engaging, humourous writing style.
Lead Mama Lead founder, Summer Edwards, is running the next intake of the Overcoming Overwhelm course in September. This is an online course for mamas who are struggling with and/or feel like they’d like to get better at dealing with feelings of overwhelm, guilt and exhaustion in their life. It’s a supportive, gentle program (designed to fit in around the lives of busy women). I’m about 2/3 through the pilot program and it’s definitely led to some increased self-awareness around the priorities and values in my life and the habits and practices that help and hinder my wellbeing. (You can also get 25% off if you sign up before 1 August).
A couple of months ago, my friend and former colleague Stefan Kraus from RGB Collective took some wonderful portraits of us (and did incredibly well to capture the easily-distracted and not-always-compliant kids). Getting some more family photos on the wall was one of the things I really wanted to do this year, now I just have to get them printed and framed…. (I’m also thinking about getting one turned into a custom illustrated portrait from Able & Game)

My feet (and pregnant belly) – 3 July 2013

On the topic of photos, Ella uses an old iPhone to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. She’s recently discovered the camera function and has taken (quite enthusiastically) to documenting her life and creating movies! It’s been fun to look through the pictures and videos and get a glimpse of what the world looks like from her perspective. There are lots of selfies and posed pictures of toys and hundreds of walls and windows and floors and ceilings (some quite artistic, some not so much).

I particularly love this one – mainly because exactly 5 years and 12 days earlier I’d taken a very similar shot (in almost the identical spot) as I paced my lounge room in early labour about 10 hours before we met Ella.

The other big news to share since my last H&H update is that I’ve returned to (paid) work following my maternity break. I’m pleased to be facilitating some of the core skills and graduate development training programs at the Australian Public Service Commission, and I’m also doing some freelance facilitation, coaching and training. Helping individuals and groups to learn and change and to see themselves and the world a little differently has been a pretty consistent thread through my work for the past 8 or so years, but facilitation has been a somewhat peripheral part of the various jobs I’ve had. I feel so excited to be diving deeper into this work and to commit to building my own skills, knowledge, experience and practice – it feels like the work I’m meant to be doing. I have some availability for work for the remainder of the year, so if you need some support with running meetings, workshops or training, please get in touch. All the details are over on the Sticky Note Consulting site.

Finally, I’m going to trial sending out Head & Heart updates as a newsletter which may make them easier to follow (for the handful of dear friends that actually read them)! If you’d like to sign up, you can do so here. I’ll keep posting them to the blog too!

Head & Heart #33

February 15, 2018 By Clare Leave a Comment

Parenting milestone achieved – surviving our first family bout of gastro!

Last week, in addition to my daughter starting pre-school, we achieved another family milestone – our first bout of gastro through the household – and the experience got me thinking about change.

When you’re in the throws of a gastro bug often all you can do is wait. Although you feel absolutely horrible, there’s some comfort in knowing that things will change and in 24-48 hours you’ll almost certainly feel much much better. All you have to do is simply survive (and try to maintain some humour and perspective). Similarly, in parenting, what I’ve learned 4 1/2 years in is that sometimes just waiting it out is just what you have to do to get through a period of discomfort, pain, frustration or suffering (whether that be related to sleep, toileting, eating etc). Often trying to initiate, force or speed up change is ineffective or just not worth the effort. It makes me wonder how often I’m getting stressed and trying to intervene and change something in other parts of my life, when I’m better off just having faith that the hard stuff will eventually end? But on the flip side, how often am I clinging to some hope that things will be different without making any (or sufficient) effort to bring that change into being???

In other news, I’ve taken my friend Summer’s recommendation and started using some bluetooth headphones (well, I’ve appropriated Jason’s AirPods) and am finding evening chores much less painful with a good podcast or audiobook to listen to. A few new podcasts that I’ve been enjoying over the last week or so are Women At Work from HBR, The Pineapple Project (which actually makes personal finance interesting), and Anecdotally Speaking (a business storytelling podcast).

I read this article – Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read – and saved the link in my journal. A day or so later when reviewing my saved links, I couldn’t remember what the article was about, or why I thought it was important to save, which just kind of just proves its entire point! On re-reading, the key takeaway was acknowledging the difference between simply acquiring information and actual knowledge. Often I’m sucked into seeking out new information and the momentary experience of feeling like I’ve learned something, without actually learning. So one thing I’ve decided to do, instead of always focusing on the new article/book/podcast, is embracing re-reading and re-listening. This week I’ve relistened to Episode 1 of the brilliant 3-part Making Oprah podcast series (if you’re searching for it in your podcast app search for ‘Making Obama’ – the new series name), and I’ve just started re-reading Sarah Ferguson’s The Killing Season Uncut. So many life and leadership lessons from both (and plenty of #stickywisdom too) that I plan to blog about separately.

Stephanie Coontz (a historian who studies family and marriage) has been popping up in my feeds in several places this week – in episode 2 of Women at Work on couples that work, on the most recent episode of Hidden Brain (When Did Marriage Become So Hard?), and she also wrote this NYT opinion piece – For A Better Marriage, Act Like A Single Person. Date night always feels like enough of a logistical challenge to try and organise, but this article has inspired me to try and schedule in a few double dates this year!

Finally, I’m really enjoying walking Ella to and from pre-school. It’s so nice to live within walking distance from the school and it’s great to have the opportunity to chat. Asking ‘how was your day?’ is a hard habit to break, but I’m trying hard to ask better questions that get her sharing more. This list gave me some good ideas to try.

**Head & Heart is an occasional capture of what I’m thinking about, doing, reading and listening to**

Head & Heart #25

August 14, 2017 By Clare Leave a Comment

Last week I ended up in hospital with pneumonia. After 3 days of IV antibiotics and fluids, I’m feeling like a totally different person, but it was a really tough week. Being so sick really knocked me around mentally too, but now on the other side, things feel so so so much brighter and more positive. I am grateful for the wonderful public hospital care I received and have taken on board the message the universe has been sending about being willing to ask for help and not trying to hold everything together!

Three things that engaged my head and/or heart this week…

1. Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast

Oprah has a new podcast – Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations – a personal selection of her interviews with thought-leaders, best-selling authors, spiritual luminaries, as well as health and wellness experts. I’ve listened to the episodes with Brene Brown and Sheryl Sandberg – two women I’ve heard interviewed many times before, but whose messages and insights are worth re-listening to. I’ve also been listening to this podcast as I go to sleep in an attempt to distract myself from my annoying lingering cough!

2. How to be kind when you’re upset with your partner

There is no shortage of relationship advice online, but this post had some useful reminders. Processing my thoughts and feelings through journalling is something that I’ve found enormously helpful and has probably prevented many arguments!

3. Our 6-year-old has a fun, comfortable life. Why isn’t she grateful?

This advice made me reflect on how much of our weekend/leisure time revolves around Miss E (4 years old) and what she wants to do or what we think will make her happy, and resolve to plan more family interactions and outings based on what makes Jason and/or I happy instead!

Head & Heart – 12 July 2017

July 12, 2017 By Clare Leave a Comment

Progress shots from the 30 Day Minimalism Game

Last week my big baby turned 4 so we’ve been enjoying ongoing festivities as we celebrate with family and friends. Each birthday feels like a massive milestone for me as a parent and a real opportunity for reflecting on how our lives have changed and what I’ve learned. Motherhood has transformed me in many many many ways – some which I’m very aware of, and some that I’m sure I’m yet to realise!

Just over 4 years ago I attended antenatal classes with a wonderful group of women and their partners. Their friendship and support has been so essential to me as I’ve navigated my way through the uncertainty and challenges of parenthood, and there has honestly not been a week that’s gone by in the last 4 years when I haven’t felt enormous gratitude for having them in my life. I love that Ella has such wonderful ‘aunties’ who have watched her grow up and genuinely care for her, and it’s such a delight for me to do the same for a great bunch of gorgeous kids.

Last week also marked 50 days since our little man arrived. What a ride! He isn’t so keen on napping during the day (but is doing well overnight (and a billion times better than his big sister did) so I definitely won’t complain!) so I’m doing lots of baby-wearing again. When it’s too cold/dark to venture out we’re doing lots of dancing around the house. Thank goodness for Spotify’s Disco Forever playlist. Dancing seems to put him to sleep and calms me down too. Right now we’re bopping to the Have a Great Day playlist. If dancing to Bill Withers’ Lovely Day doesn’t brighten your day a little, I’m not sure what will!
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