Month: February 2023

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Making Use of Unwelcome Change

Pre-covid I thought I knew as much as there was to know about change, though I have been accused of not having spontaneity. Never mind! It doesn’t take spontaneity to move from a small town to a big city or from one country to another. It takes nerves and planning, which has been key to my ability to insert change into my life and then manage it, come hell or high water.

And even the changes I did not drive such as a seemingly shift in societal norms the world over or a personal loss, I’ve somehow managed to stay in charge of my experiences to a certain degree, using my resolve, though I have learned along the way that grief doesn’t give a toss about resolve.

Admittedly, getting my head around change has not been easy, but it has been doable, if it meant somehow moving forward.

A former boss of mine used to say, “if you don’t do something to turn your life inside out for growth and development, something will happen to spur you on.” I took her at her word.

But here is the thing about change, it doesn’t always make clear growth opportunities, even when you have spearheaded the change. On the contrary, most times, particularly after a failure it suggests dead end after dead end.  Following a loss, which happens without warning, this is often the case, too.

Take Covid for example. For three years now, we have been waiting for this master of disaster to pack up and leave. It hasn’t and who knows if it ever well; it just keeps metamorphosising, throwing more blockades in the way. What now?

Acknowledge it, learn to live with what you cannot change, make the best of it, and change what you can, we are told repeatedly. Though it sounds crass, this way of life has worked for many of us over the years when we face seemingly insurmountable challenges brought about by change through no making of our own.

So why does it feel so much more challenging now? It could be the fast and furious nature of the change on a global, national, local, and personal scale. It is constant and tends to rob us of feelings of certainty which we need on a primal level to feel safe and well. We are living in uncertain times.

“The only thing that is certain is change itself.” says Anj Handa, founder of Inspiring Women Change Makers and guest of UIO’s How to Use Change for Betterment. That’s hard news, even if we have known this on some level all along. But as it is too close for comfort now all the time, thankfully, there are ways to make use of all unwelcome change.

Alongside accepting it as constant, Anj and I talk about the importance of being flexible and considering the ripple effects that offer positives, if you will. For example, though it was shattering to be outside of the US when I lost my father, one thing that the horrible experience gave me was the comfort that far more people attended his service online than would have ever fitted into the small church he loved so much. He was a great man and deserved a great homegoing.

This has been the case for others too, including the growth of online courses to support mental and emotional wellbeing, as well as marriage and other important causes and issues, for example.

Another way to use unwelcome change is to recognise imposter syndrome and send it back wherever it came from. Often after experiencing a challenge at school, in sports, at work, in our personal lives, we doubt our abilities. I see it time after time when a star athlete, for example, has a bad game, and is moved out of prime position.  Imposter syndrome creeps in. Only when they look for lessons learned and build upon those and go back to their own head and get the rest of us out of it, do they rise again.

Anj points out that even weighing in on an important conversation can be daunting for many people, especially young people, triggering imposter syndrome. Take advantage of technology and write a blog and if this feels too scary, choose an alias.

In a similar vein, when dealing with a change that causes conflict, use emotional correctness when speaking, whether voice to voice or through your writing. Anj explains that this means taking a viewpoint that doesn’t shame or upset people.

This is not always easy when your viewpoint differs from another, but the point is choosing correct language and delivery can be the difference in getting something achieved rather than being misunderstood. Hang on to who you are, no matter how tempting it is to react.

Finally, no need to go at it alone. When change is overwhelming, find a support network and develop your own coping strategy, a self-care plan if you will. If nothing suits, start your own group like the teenager who started Teen Grief Sucks.  And if this is not an option, it always feels good to help others—a neighbour, a friend, a stranger. The idea is to keep moving ahead.

While we can’t predict the future, we can accept that unwelcome change, as well as some welcome, is a sure shot.  For more information on making use of unwelcome change, check out How to Use Change for Betterment.

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Reframing Friendships for Growth

Friends have played an integral part in my life ever since I can remember and still do. Though I have lost touch with many friends over the years, and gained many more, I do remember who I called a friend during each period of my life and what this meant to me. As life changes, so does our centre of gravity, and what a friendship means.

But one thing tends to remain the same about friendships, regardless of the time in life—they are a crucial part of social development.

From a childhood friend, who happened to be a cousin, who lived nearby, to my closest friends as a teenager, to my bestie in university and my BFF today, we showed up for each other, during good and not so good times. And we grew together in most instances. Over the years, I’ve had several other friends who fit that category too. More about this later.

In the meantime, I remember the teenage years being most pivotal to social growth and development. Like most, I hung out with people who had similar interests, values, etc… and I learned a lot about valuing differences, too.  According to experts, this comes as no surprise because as a teen we spend more time interacting with others outside of the family, discovering more about ourselves, establishing values and boundaries, and even learning how to face adversity and conflict. Friends, they say, are crucial to feeling a sense of belonging and familiarity.

This makes sense because our friends are roughly our age during this time and know more about what is going on in our world than those outside of our generation. Granted that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our family and other generations; it just means that during adolescence friends tend to have more influence than others.

No wonder it is crucial to understand what a healthy friendship looks and feels like. Like other relationships, friendships twist and turn and can often provide the glue that we need to stay cohesive when life seems to come unstuck. Our podcast, How to Nurture Friendship During a Crisis with parenting coach Sue Atkins, offers great advice on how to keep a friendship healthy, particularly during a difficult time such as the lockdown era of the global pandemic.

Sue points out the importance of reframing situations when necessary to keep the friendships alive. For example, as people were no longer able to meet up in person, Sue suggested having planned and regular times online, enjoying activities together as you would have in person such as breaking out of an escape room.

Reframing works equally as well outside of a physical crisis. Though the pandemic has taken a different shape, it is still lurking around, as well as many other atrocities. So, if a friend is grieving, for instance, or having difficult times due to personal hardships, it is key to empathise and offer support. This could be as little as texting an emoji that represents your support or as much as sitting in a quiet space with the person. The key is to remember that your friends’ centre of gravity has changed, even if only for a while.

Sometimes long-term changes can come after joining a sports team, a club and so on. The key is to focus on things that interests you both and offer support and encouragement for each other’s growth.  Sadly, sometimes friendships run their course for one reason or another. This presents growth opportunities as well, whether you end the friendship, your friend does, or it just ends.

Certainly, I have had situational friends over the years at university, work and so on and through no fault of either of us, the friendship came to a natural end. Also, I have ended friendships when growth and interests took a different direction and friends have ended our relationship, as well. This can be hard but offers opportunities for resolving conflict, internally and externally.

The key is all friendships offer growth opportunities and while some end prematurely, others stand the test of time.

Case and point: the relationship I developed with two women writers when I arrived in London some 25 years ago. Without the two of them, I might still be wandering around looking for a way into the writing community. Seriously, I remember vehemently disliking the idea of joining groups and short-term courses and was quite happy to sit in a room of my own and teach myself about novel writing and do without constructive feedback. Though such activities were worthwhile, barring the dislike of feedback, they did not get me over the social hurdle. Being on my own in a new country often felt isolating and paralysing.

But after becoming close with these two women and receiving their support and honest feedback, I found the courage to work on honing my craft out of a vacuum, which meant socialising, joining, receiving, and giving.

And here I am, wiser for it and though my novel writing career has seemingly ended, the friendships have not. They have simply been reframed, allowing us to encourage each other to move upwards and onwards in whatever direction our centre of gravity has shifted to.

On that note, I encourage you to have a think about your own friendships and what they mean to you. Remember to take care of you inside out, keeping friendships healthy. They’ll serve you and your friends well throughout the good and bad times in life.

For more tips on nurturing friendships, see the podcast mentioned above How to Nurture Friendship During a Crisis, as well as On Dating Inside Out with Cat Williams and Your Identity Inside Out with Rachita Saraogi and Rebecca Thomson, co-founders of Sisterhood.

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Self-Esteem for Motivation, Self-Confidence for Action

I am not sure I’ve always understood the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem but one thing for sure is that I have always known the importance of both.

When I first moved to the UK, if I was asked once, I was asked a thousand times: “where in the world did, you get the confidence to make such a move. Aren’t you afraid of failing?”

Fear of failure, I often thought, has nothing to do with confidence. But trust in your skills and abilities does. I had relied on this trust when I went to university, when I landed my first job as a reporter, when I moved from Southwest Georgia to New York City, and then when I returned to Georgia to take a job that would send me around the world.

Granted, none of the experiences offered complete smooth sailing but I hung in there, chiefly because I believed in myself. And well, if I failed, and sometimes I stumbled, I would chalk it up to experience.

No wonder I have often been told that I wear confidence in my body language, in how I walk, talk or in how I perform a task, for example.  But make no mistake about it, people with oodles of self-confidence have low moments, too.  One for me is learning to swim—I simply don’t trust myself to do it. More on that later.

In the meantime, however, confident as I might be, I have been told more times than I care to hear that my self-esteem is often lacking. How could this be? Aren’t the two inherently linked.

Of course, they are, as Kai Graham points out in UIO’s podcast: Your Voice Matters.  But they are not one in the same. Self-confidence shows up in skills and abilities to act, to do something like drive a car, play a sport, a musical instrument, bag a job, talk to people, set up a business, learn to swim. You get the picture.

In UIO’s first podcast ever, Your Confidence Inside Out, Cheryl Grace says we need confidence all the time, as much as we need warm clothing in inclement weather. So don’t turn up at your swimming lessons without it, right. And Cheryl never does.  If her own life is a measure of how far self-confidence can take you, then we should all seek it in abundance.

But how do we do that? It is as complicated or as simple as believing and trusting in your abilities, which overlaps with self-esteem, all about how you feel about yourself. Low self-esteem can certainly shake-up confidence. I know this first hand from feeling bad about myself for some odd reason or another, don’t like this or that, which starts the vicious cycle of self-criticism often leading to a downward spiral.

Looking over my shoulder, I can see that such feelings start inside and pull you down faster than you realise. Thankfully, I have managed to recover quickly from any such falls.

Sadly, however, low self-esteem can and often does hold people down. It often lurks in body image, for example, taunting self-belief and directly or indirectly impacting confidence. That is why it is so key to work inside out, looking at self-esteem from a mental/emotional perspective. Several of our podcasts offer tips on how to build good self-esteem, including the two mentioned above, as well as How to Take Care of Your Body During Tough Times with Hope Virgo.

The key is to practice self-love, however that works best for you.  It could mean repeating a mantra each day such as looking in the mirror and saying, “I am enough”, learning new things such as how to swim and testing the waters in small doses, if you will. Got it! Swimming lessons coming up for the third time.

Finally focus on what you do like about yourself and less so on what you don’t. Change what is changeable without compromising who you are or engaging in unhealthy behaviours. Remember, you are enough. As for the things you cannot change, change your perspective.

Once you feel good about yourself, you will intuitively gain more confidence to make new friends, try new activities, master new skills and so on. And remember it isn’t always about winning or losing, it is about having the motivation to play the game and enjoy it!

 

 

 

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Using Self-care As Preventative Medicine

So, what is all this talk about self-care on a regular basis? You’ve heard it, too, right?  Is it the latest craze, a buzz word or a practice that supports a healthy lifestyle?

Though the volume has been turned up on emotional and mental self-care lately—perhaps a credit to the pandemic and other challenging events—it has been around for a long time.  From prayer to yoga to Tai Chi to fad diets, self-care dominates our minds particularly in January and during difficult periods in life. It sometimes offers a narrow path out of the darkness, if not ways to cope while in it.

But here lately, self-care talk is not just about the dark days but about all days—using the concept as a preventative measure instead of a reactive one.

I like the sounds of this and here is why. Self-care has a positive influence on maintaining a healthy mind and with a healthy mind, life is easier to navigate.

As I think back over the years, I have always understood the importance of self-care on some level. As a young PR director at a Girl Scout Council, I remember announcing to the team that I was going home early to take some time for myself. Life was a bit of a circus, putting it mildly and I was the feature tight rope walker.

Yet I’ll never forget the eyeballs I got and the suggestions that our boss ought to put a stop to what was perceived as prima donna behaviour. And he might have, had he not understood a little about self-care. Bless him, I think he must have.

This was more than 35 years ago. And admittedly, for many years I would only take time to get the rest I needed just before breaking point. But after the loss of my mother in 2016, my anxiety and worry stepped up a notch, getting me an official diagnosis of generalised anxiety disorder.

Only then, did I truly come to understand the importance of daily self-care. Without it, it is easy to let one’s mental health go. And while there are ways to recover, as from a physical illness, it is far healthier to practice preventative medicine, if you will.

That for me often means several practices.  For example, honouring a strict social media diet is at the top of my list. As much as I love connecting with friends and family, it doesn’t serve me to binge on social media. One thing for sure is that everybody else’s business and problems makes its way into the chatter box in my head, along with the bad news of the day and so on.

In rushes anxiety, robbing me of any sense of calm and of course, sleep, which is a great segue to another form of daily self-care. I have developed good sleep hygiene, as the experts call it, which is all about setting a routine, not only for what time to go to bed, but also the time to begin winding down, and what to include in my diet throughout the day, particularly if I have had a bout of insomnia.

Other daily practices I use include saying ‘no’ to asks that either disrespect my boundaries or trigger anxiety; taking a daily walk, even if it’s a bit gloomy outside and that happens often in London; admitting when I can’t take on someone else’s problems because I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with them; and practicing mindfulness throughout the day, if only for a few minutes to focus on what I am grateful for. 

Gosh, it sounds so selfish, or does it? On the surface it might, but underneath self-care has a dominant element of selflessness. As one expert puts it, self-care is as much for loved ones as it is individuals. It simply makes us better, healthier people, which enables us to show up for ourselves and for others, not only during the best of times but also in the worst of times.

Considering what self-care is all about, I, for one, am hopeful that more of us will infuse it into our daily lives as we do other remedies that nourish us and act as preventative medicine, if you will. After all, good health is the key to better living.

For more information on practicing self-care to manage anxiety, check out UIO podcasts On Social Anxiety with Claire Eastham and On Undiagnosed Mental Illness with Eleanor Mandelstam (formerly Segall). To learn more about getting good sleep, listen to On Sleep with Dr Nerina Ramlakhan and for more insight on setting and honouring boundaries, check out On Girls Rights with Lindsey Turnbull.

Our podcasts offer great tips and timeless advice on many contemporary issues. Thank you for listening!