I was back in the UK this week, staying in my parent’s house.
When I went to take a shower, I saw that a spider had taken over the bathtub. There was an impressive amount of webs that had covered the whole area.
I needed the shower, but I saw that it would most definitely kill it. So with a bit of paper I managed to poke at it.
I couldn’t help but reflect that my act of mercy on this poor spider probably felt like a deeply traumatic event for it. I had come along and essentially destroyed its home, along with hurting it from its fall.
Tag: #change
Learning to express our internal anger
Anger is often seen as a negative emotion. Anger is often synonymous to being petulant or violent. We get angry because we are not accepting something that we ‘should’.
In many social settings, it’s seen as better to refrain from displaying anger. Anger is seen as impolite, or inconsiderate.
It’s true that uncontrolled anger can be unhealthy, and even dangerous. When we are consumed with rage, it can be hard to think clearly. We might act on impulse, or enter into violence.
But the problem is that by trying to avoid conflict, we often unintentionally suppress our anger. Suppressed emotions doesn’t lead to a healthy emotional status.
Managing my life’s dopamine rollercoaster
Recently, I realised how boring I had made my own life.
That’s not to say my life is objectively ‘boring’. To many it probably seems I do lots of fun and adventurous things. But subjectively, it’s felt unexciting. The things I’ve been doing haven’t felt particularly enjoyable.
In the quest for commitment, consistency and hailing ‘the grind’, I seemed to lose the idea that things were meant to be fun.
I think I have been suppressing my chaotic nature. I’m an emotional being who thrives upon a mix of planned and spontaneous excitement. It’s what makes me buzz and really thrive in life.
It’s coming home. Or at least I did, I think.
Just as I arrived at St Pancras, my internet reconnected. I refreshed the BBC Sports page to find Ollie Watkins score a 90th minute winner. Welcome home. Perhaps football will be coming home too? But is the UK actually home for me anymore?
Not only that, but this was the first time coming back to the UK since the General Election. The result was both a mix of momentousness and anticlimax. For the first time in a long while I felt like I could actually be somewhat content with the result. That’s probably the first time in the last ten elections I’ve followed.
More fundamentally though, I find myself falling into the sense of questioning how much will really be different.
Keeping focus on the positives in our lives
When our life routine gets thrown up in a huge way, it can be hard to not fall into a sense of despair. I’ve questioned myself a lot. Sometimes I’ve felt guilty for taking time for myself. Other times, I’ve wondered whether I’ll ever recover again.
These are legitimate questions, and is a key part of the process.
Nonetheless, solely focusing on them only leads to a downward spiral of anguish. Our brains tendency to think negatively is much stronger than its ability to look at the positives. It’s part of our survival mechanism, and it was necessary to keep ourselves alive during our evolution. So it is up to us to set a better balance.
Letting go of our mind’s self control mechanism
You’ve probably heard about the importance of letting go of the things that we can’t control. I’m pretty sure I’ve written about it several times myself.
But what about letting go of the things that actually, we can control?
Whilst it is good for us to have some level of filter, turned up to the extreme this can make us seem robotic and inauthentic. We can quickly get to a place where we are constantly second guessing ourselves. For much of my life, I’ve felt like a chameleon and found it hard to know what I really thought.
Keeping grounded in a changing world
Change is a constant, whether we like it or not.
The European elections took place last week. For those unfamiliar, it’s the voting across the EU Member States for the representatives in the European Parliament.
But one election was not enough. There were also federal elections in Belgium on the same day. The results of the EU elections led French President Emmanuel Macron to call for elections in the coming weeks.
Oh, and did anyone also notice there were elections coming up in the UK?
Those will take place on 4th July.
In the midst of all these political shifts, it can be pretty easy to get overwhelmed. I certainly have felt it. And yet, it’s important to keep on going with our lives rather than falling into despair.
The importance of trusting our own senses
Earlier this week, I woke up at 4am with the distinct smell of burning coming through my nose.
The last time I smelt something like this, I ignored it. I thought that my sense of smell was playing tricks on me. Turns out that there was actually something on the stove downstairs burning to a smoke.
So this time, I got up to investigate.
Taking time to appreciate our physical bodies
My injuries have been relatively minor. This has meant that I somewhat forgot how frustrating and painful it can be when we have an injury. Yet getting one also is a reminder of how well our bodies function – most of the time we use them without even thinking much about how much they do.
On Tuesday, I rolled my ankle whilst walking down Brussels’ infamous pavements with a random hole in the middle of it.
The tale of the misplaced wallet
Grand philosophical ideas around peace and harmony are great. But they are only useful if they can hold up when coming into contact with our real, messy and unpredictable lives.
This week I had the fortune (or misfortune) to be tested on my worldviews.
On Wednesday, when looking to leave the house I simply could not find my wallet. After a rather long search I came to the conclusion that I must have dropped it when coming off the bus the day before.
Here I had a choice of how I reacted to the situation.