*Edit: I say this (above), but actually at the time of writing (Friday) I am navigating a departure board of cancelled trains due to a tree fallen on the railway track, so I don’t know yet…but am hopeful that by Sunday I will have made it there! Currently diverting to meet up with some fellow retreatants in the same predicament.

**Update: We’re on a train! And as I can’t seem to forward-schedule post this from my phone, I’ll send it to you in real time, to start the weekend off, instead of round it off.

Anyway.

Having the opportunity to slow down and be in nature has been such a treat, so I thought I’d share a video of a beautiful stream and wooded area from the retreat in Mid-Wales, in case you want to join in a moment of wonder and exhaling deeply (if it translates over video!).

To watch the video click here.

The Welsh retreat was a course in ‘Fierce Self-Compassion’, so I thought I’d share a brief mention of this. Fierce self-compassion is the idea of being kind towards yourself in a more assertive and active way than you might think when you imagine the calmer, soothing nature of tender self-compassion. So fierce compassion might be:

• Protective: Standing up for yourself or the things you care about, or setting clear boundaries and preventing people from overstepping them.

• Motivating: Encouraging yourself to get up and do something active when you know it’ll make you feel better, even when the appeal of the sofa is hard to override.

• Providing: Making sure you’re getting all your needs met, nourishing yourself well etc.

And then there is the softer, or tender side of compassion which is more about soothing, validating and supporting. We need both the tender and the fierce.

And though I don’t manage to capture many of the fierce moments* on camera, here’s a pic of Spooky who definitely embodies both tender and fierce.

*Spooky’s fierce moments include facing off with other cats that come into our garden, and hissing at me when I bring her inside against her will :/ That’s called protecting her boundaries.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend & week, hopefully enjoying some glorious weather!

Xx

And for some practice building that self-compassion ‘muscle’ (or in other words, gradually rewiring your brain so that self-compassion becomes the default, rather than self-criticism), have a go at this:

And now for your favourite bit…photos from the week!

Have a good week!

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Also yesterday, the UK local election results came out, showing massive gains for the far-right party that has stood on a platform of anti-immigration.

The Green Party hsa also gained lots of councillors (and I have been a fan of the Green Party since reading the memoir of Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate, about 15 years ago).

It feels like an uncertain time, and feels scary to see the rise such overtly hate-driven politics (albeit the major political parties have been pandering to, mirroring and fueling these attitudes for many years too).

So I’m mentioning that to acknowledge what a strange and wobbly moment this is. And to extend a note of solidarity if you’re feeling the weight of despair pressing heavily on you right now. Parts of me feel that way sometimes. There has been so much scary stuff going on in the world. We are human in our fears - perhaps we can be together in them, too.

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And at the same time, I’m going to acknowledge that I feel a bit detached from that despair right now, and am also soaking up the lovely feelings of connection from spending such special time in community with loved ones. I really felt a very deep appreciation of those feelings of togetherness yesterday, remembering how it was only a few years ago that we were unable to do such things, due to COVID.

So I thought the most relevant thing to share, on this occasion of strange dualities - joy and despair, connection and disconnection - would be this piece I wrote a while back, about how joy is essential, even if the darkest of times, and that there’s no need for guilt in feeling joy. That in fact, we NEED joy even more in these times, to fuel us up so that we can keep going and keep supporting one another:

And here’s the beautiful quote that inspired that piece in the first place:

So I hope you are fueling yourself up with joy as and when the opportunity arises (no forced happiness here!), and letting the despair out when it needs to come out too.

And maybe some self-compassion will help that along - here’s a 15 minute practice I shared earlier in the week:

Sending you all lots of love,

Miriam xx

ps - Some pics from this week:

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I’m self-employed now, but two sets of colleagues/former colleagues have been going through horrible redundancy processes over the past year or so, which are beginning to come to an end. The way the processes have been so poorly handled, and the people involved left feeling totally disregarded and disrespected has been both shocking and not that much of a surprise at all.

I say this not to be doom and gloom, or horribly critical of the people in charge, or the system. I just feel it’s worth sharing because I know that so many other people will be going through similar at the moment - following the closure of NHS England, massive restructures and job losses across tons of NHS Integrated Care Board/Systems, and many other organisations across multiple sectors.

And not to mention the thousands of UK physician associates who have been totally chewed up and spat out by fights which were really between the medical establishment and political leaders but played out in the horrific scapegoating of an entire profession and group of staff, ending up either unemployed or deeply undermined (after taking on tens of thousands pounds of debt in postgraduate studies on the premise of being so incredibly needed and valued). But that’s a story for another day! (Sending big solidarity to any PAs reading this!).

So yes a bit of doom and gloom. Where am I going with this?

Well, perhaps I can share a bit of my story here.

I took an unconventional career path and found my way into medical education after working clinically as a doctor. I did some psychotherapy training, worked at three different universities over the course of a decade, went through several periods of strikes, trained as a coach, and took the leap into self-employment.

And there were several times along the way when I felt the rage of working within a system where it felt that what was driving the decision-making in senior places was not the best interests of staff (nor the people we served).

The phrase ‘corporatisation of the university’ felt very apt.

And it was such a sad thing to experience, looking back. Because so many of the teams I worked in were filled with brilliant people who really cared. But somewhere along the way, being under constant strain - constantly firefighting and battling for the survival of the department - led to tensions rising and toxic behaviours bubbling up.

I can remember it now - the stomach-churning feeling of frustration and resentment at having given so much to this workplace - in heart, in time, in energy - and then being treated like the enemy, or as if you didn’t matter at all. Feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass, unable to change things because people with more power were controlling what you were unable to influence.

And for me, there were long periods of time when these experiences felt all-consuming. I resented how much of my attention they had taken. And I didn’t realise it at the time, but a lot of my energy was sapped by the layers and layers of reaction that I experienced, on top of the difficult experience in the first place.

For example, I didn’t realise it at the time, but the experiences of being undermined and picked on by senior colleagues left me questioning myself. It makes total sense, when you think about it - if someone you had trusted suddenly becomes angry and critical, that does throw you. But from right in the middle of it, it was a bit of an overwhelming blur. I felt like at any moment someone might turn round and tell me actually this is all my fault and I’m some terrible person.

Now that I’m out the other side of those experiences, and have spent a lot of time learning and processing them, what it leaves me with is a deep sense of solidarity for friends and colleagues going through similar.

So if that’s you - let me say this: It’s not you that is the problem.

It’s natural to feel undermined, question yourself, feel drained by the rollercoaster of emotions, and feel rightfully fed up. And letting yourself feel those feelings is important.

(What do you think of that gif? First one I’ve ever made! To Dad, Mum and anyone else who might be baffled, it’s from this song. I’m not sure why she’s naked in the video.)

After all ‘what we can feel, we can heal’ and all that (this is a quote from the Mindful Self-Compassion course by Drs Kristin Neff & Chris Germer). More on that in this throwback article:

And if you do feel totally fed up, know that there is a place of connection and community and acceptance for you here.

And if the self-doubt is creeping in - if you find yourself wanting to defend every action you’ve taken, needing to explain why you weren’t in the wrong, or questioning if there could be some way that this was all your fault - know that this self-questioning is a reaction to how destabilising the whole experience was, and is not a reflection on you.

And you can let go of it. Whenever you’re ready to (or whenever the self-doubting parts of you are ready to).

By the way, if this is something you’re currently struggling with, and letting go of self-doubt feels like a big ask to navigate alone, book a free call with me to explore how 1:1 coaching could help:

Book A Free 30 Minute Call

We’re all allowed to be imperfect, and while it’s great to learn from experience, if you feel like your thoughts are running away with questioning and debating and analysing and defending, it might be a sign that your brain needs some rest, and that finding a place of warmth and acceptance is what’s most needed.

With that in mind, below is a meditation I’ve just recorded - complete with husky laryngitis voice - to support busy thoughts to let go a little of the angst that’s driving them, and to land into a feeling of safety. Know that there’s no wrong way to do this practice, and if your thoughts remain busy, that’s totally OK too. Even just sitting down to notice that that is happening is valuable.

That’s pretty much it for this week!

Except to say…

…If anyone else also thinks of this every time you get a husky laryngitis voice, please enjoy the nostalgia:

…And here’s my cat Spooky being an absolute cutie:

Have a lovely week!

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So if you imagine yourself back on Sunday evening…

As I walked through Burgess Park yesterday at sunset, and soaked in the breathtaking colours of the clouds reflected in the lake, it made me remember once again just how powerful it is when something beautiful stuns us into presence.

When I’m struck by something beautiful, it brings me into the present moment - into a state of mindfulness (awareness) where I’m taking in every detail, and into a state of wonder at how such beauty exists. Not only that, it interrupts whatever anxieties or preoccupations might be rumbling around my psyche in the preceding moments, introducing a wider perspective that loosens the grip of those preoccupations.

It’s like coming home to myself.

And not only that, it’s like coming home to the wider world and all the beauty and wonder within it.

And do you remember when I’ve described the qualities of ‘Self’ described in IFS (Internal Family Systems)? It’s very much like coming home to that Self too.

Because Self is that quality of connectedness, calm, presence, perspective, creativity and playfulness that we all have access to, in those moments when something clears the way and we remember those feelings.

For me, it was the breathtaking skyscape that cleared the way for me to access Self. What is it for you? What are the experiences that bring you back into those feelings of Self energy?

Here are snippets of some of mine from yesterday:

In Case You Missed It:

This week’s midweek meditation was a 7 minute ‘soften, soothe, allow’ practice - to help with creating space for challenging experiences to pass.

And I shared this video yesterday of my Saturday early morning escapades:

That’s all for this week! Hope you have a lovely week ahead.

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Some holiday snaps (photographer credits tbc but not me!)…

The trip gave me some much needed fuel for my soul, and a reminder of the power of presence - which I find is always easier on holiday anyway, where there’s sun, beautiful scenery and slower moments when you can really soak things up.

Since being back, two separate conversations have brought up the idea from Paul Gilbert’s Mindful Compassion work of the three different emotion regulation systems we have:

• The threat system (adrenaline, cortisol, survival etc).

• The drive system (dopamine, focus, getting things done).

• The soothing system (oxytocin, expansive, calm, connected).

That’s a very quick summary and I will write more about it in future, but for now I just wanted to celebrate and share the opportunities I’ve had (and invite you to share yours) to spend more time in the soothing system, allowing myself to wind down and feel more at ease.

So here are a few photos from moments of savouring that have helped me to tap into the soothing system recently:

1. Tunisian Sunrise:

2. A nice flower in a pavement flower bed:

   

3. Looking up through a tree’s newly opened spring leaves, while light rain pitter-patters from above:

So, what have you been doing lately that gets you into the soothing zone?

In case you missed it, this week’s Midweek Meditation was a 7 minute ‘RAIN’ practice (radical acceptance) -

Wishing you a lovely week ahead :)

Miriam x

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Here in the Northern hemisphere, days are getting longer and the greenery is starting to emerge. As I looked through my photos from the week it made me think about moments of transition, so here are a few ponderings for you.

And if the photos give you new ponderings of your own, please share them too! I would love to hear.

1. Space.

   Inspired by the sky this week.

   The feeling of space and possibility, once the longstanding clouds moved off.

   Can anyone else relate to the parallel that has in our inner worlds too? Periods of total heaviness where you’ve forgotten the sun even exists, and then periods of lightness and joy.

   

   The Reconnect is a reader-supported publication - subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

   So it makes me think…

   How could you give yourself more space?

   Maybe that’s physical - clearing clutter or getting out into open spaces in nature.

   Maybe it’s related to time - finding ways to slow down, do less in one day, give yourself more space to be present and move slowly.

   Maybe it’s space to feel emotionally held and supported by someone who you know will listen to you and allow you to untangle your thoughts and feelings without judgment.

   (And sidenote - this is what I do professionally, so if you could use this in a big way, book a 90 minute ‘Decompress & Untangle’ session with me - and remember to use the code NEWCLIENT for 50% off [if you’re a returning client but cash-strapped, send me a message!]).

2. Hiding away.

   

   I was rearranging furniture this weekend and when I opened the lid of this previously folded away box, Spooky got very excited and jumped straight in. She seemed unphased when I started closing the lid but I couldn’t bring myself to close it entirely so here’s the solution I came up with!

   

   So that makes me think…

   Where do you go when you need time away from the world?

   What makes your hideaway space intriguing, comforting, nourishing?

3. Appreciating Growth: What fruits are already growing, for you?

   I LOVE seeing the ways new leaves emerge, and I noticed that this little fig tree in my garden already has tiny figs on it.

   

   It makes me think, as we come into Spring and this feeling of newness and opportunity - which can sometimes be daunting too - what have we already cultivated? It might be something that’s in its infancy right now, but all the efforts we’ve forgotten we’ve made will already have paid off and paved the way for something fruitful and nourishing, further down the line.

   So what have you maybe forgotten, that actually deserves acknowledgement? Maybe you’ve gone through something challenging, and without realising, have come away with new insights and capabilities. Could you step back for a moment and appreciate the progress you’ve made?

And with that in mind, here are some more snaps of the cusp of Winter moving into Spring:

And I don’t know why it entertains me so much, but Spooky snoozing with her head rolling off the cushion. I think we can take it as inspiration to let go into trust, and to feeling held, every now and then:

And here is the midweek meditation from the week just gone - a shorter version of the ‘Soften, Soothe, Allow’ practice:

Have a great week!

Miriam xx

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I was talking to a friend today about something that pops into my thoughts on quite a regular basis. It came to mind because we had been discussing multiple situations where we’d been shocked by the way loved ones had acted: Tensions and conflict arising out of minor disagreements, off-the-scale defensiveness in response to feeling challenged, using ‘the silent treatment’ as a way of dealing with difficulty in decades-long friendships.

My friend also mentioned that she’d been shocked hearing the level of violence in things her primary school age nephews and their friends have been saying lately. And that’s what brought this thought back to my mind:

We are all interconnected, as human beings, and we are all affected by the level of anxiety, violence and division going on in the world in recent years, and that is playing out in so many different ways in our lives.

I’m conscious that you might find this thought depressing and it might not be what you want to read, as we go into a new week. I hope that if you read to the end you’ll find something useful and maybe uplifting. And after all, name it to tame it and feel it to heal it, hey! For me it certainly felt like a relief to just name and acknowledge that this phenomenon exists and validate the ways in which we’re affected by it.

But if you’re not in the market for thinking about this right now, here’s a nice photo of some Egyptian Goose goslings, and then skip the paragraph underneath!

In the last ten years, we’ve seen global politics swing in a mindblowingly violent direction, with war and destruction on a monstrous scale. We’ve seen painful realities and conversations about racism, misogyny and other forms of oppression coming out into the public space in the sort of confronting reckoning we’ve never seen before, while the realities of those injustices continue on. We’ve had a global pandemic. We’ve had our public services bending to breaking point after 14+ years of austerity. And we’ve had it all in era of social media and smart phones, which for all their benefits also serve as very effective brainwashing tools spreading fear, division and mistrust. (Unless you successfully train the algorithm to only send you videos of animals doing heartwarming things).

The Collective Unconscious

When I learnt about Jungian psychotherapy, I learnt about this idea of ‘the collective unconscious’ - that as well as our personal unconscious mind, there is a collective unconscious that we’re all connected to (not to be confused with the collective punconscious - a term I coined with a friend when we were particularly on fire with puns - once you get in the zone, they keep coming). Now, when I first heard about the collective unconscious, I was like:

But regardless of that (ponderings for another day), I can say one thing for sure: We are definitely all affected by the interactions we have, the information we take in, and the emotional content underlying it all. Our emotional lives are all interconnected. So is it any surprise that in our work lives and personal lives we are, I think, experiencing higher levels of fear-based behaviours: Conflict, defensiveness, avoidance etc etc. I’m curious to know whether anyone else relates to this - have you noticed this??

And then something else occurred to me:

The Mind’s Negativity Bias

Our minds are hardwired to get us to focus more on fear-related experiences than enjoyable experiences. It makes evolutionary sense: If something has the potential to kill you, you really want to make sure you do everything within your power to make sure you stay safe. Which means you think about that thing a lot, problem solve as much as you can, keep reminding yourself of it etc etc.

The downside of this is that we can have a hard time letting go of unpleasant experiences, and they can cloud our reality so that it seems like that’s all there is. I’ve heard it said that you need to hear 7-8 compliments to compensate for an insult (so the famous ‘sh*t sandwich’ model of feedback actually needs an entire loaf of bread for a tiny portion of filling).

It made me think: Do we realise that ratio when we think about how we’re spending our time? When trying to find the right balance between engaging with difficult stuff so that we can stay informed and take appropriate action, and doing things that nourish, soothe and energise us, are we getting a 1:8 ratio? I suspect not.

I previously wrote about how joy is an essential resource that fuels us when times are hard. It was inspired by hearing this quote on a podcast:

So where many of us might feel guilty for having fun when at the same time we want to be taking action against injustice, or taking action to help those we care about, it might be helpful to remember that in order to be effective in that action and not burn out, we need to fuel ourselves up too.

Because as well as all of the disturbing stuff of the past decade, there is also an infinite amount of mindblowingly beautiful and amazing stuff going on too. There is a phenomenal amount of love, and compassion and creativity, and cause for hope.

So maybe we need to aim for an 8:1 ratio - doing 8 things that bring you joy, connection, love, laughter and hope, for every 1 thing that generates fear.

How do I actually do that, in reality?

I’m working on an activity sheet that helps you explore this in more detail, and work out ways to realistically make helpful changes. If you’d find that helpful, send me a message or email reply with the word ‘yes!’ and I’ll send it over to you once it’s done.

This Week: Soften Soothe Allow Meditation

This weeks’ midweek meditation was ‘Soften, Soothe, Allow’, a really powerful one for meeting discomfort with care. I’m planning to share a shorter version of this in the coming week.

Photos

And finally - some photos from Burgess Park this week, and Spooky sleeping on my leg.

Have a good week!

And let me know if you know what I’m talking about, down in the comments.

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Photo Reel From The Week Just Gone

1. Beautiful street art on a side alley of St George’s Hospital in Tooting, London. I go there roughly once a month to teach final year medical students Breaking Bad News, and Friday was the final session for this year. I don’t know who the artist is but the vibrant colours and beautiful image really brightened my lunchtime walk (literally, as everything was looking so grey under a very cloudy sky).

2. The same artwork from around the corner.

3. Oh this is embarrassing… I don’t know what these things are called but they’re the bits that fall off certain trees at this time of year (not sure of the name of the tree or the thing). I thought they looked nice.

4. This incredible tree in the park in front of St George’s Hospital. It caught my eye as it looks like 3 trees intertwining.

5. And this is from the other side - it looks as it one trunk has fused onto another, part way up.

6. And the latest Spooky nesting photo. Spring is in the air but cosy protocol is still in full swing.

Why does putting something into words make such a difference?

Have you ever noticed that when you put words to something, say some difficulty you’re going through, something shifts? Whether it’s by writing your thoughts down, or talking it all through through, when you put words to the feelings you’ve experienced, sometihng changes. Why?

Well, putting words to things changes what’s happening in our brains, so that we can begin to process our experiences, and even experience them differently. Not to mention that if we’re talking to loved ones who ‘get it’ and respond with care and understanding (and not necessarily trying to ‘fix it’ - raise your hand if you’re with me being guilty of this sometimes…and there is a stress-related reason why this happens too!), then we get the added benefit of receiving acknowledgment, validation and compassion. I suppose that’s a second element, so (1) = putting words to something and (2) = having your experience witnessed and responded to with compassion.

Anyway, this is a topic I always come back to in workshops and talks as it’s something we often overlook or undervalue, and is actually very powerful. Many of us have the inclination or have been encouraged to swallow feelings or avoid expressing them, or to only share experiences if they’re seen as ‘positive’ and uplifting for others. Bottling up the difficult stuff, or pushing it down. We can particuarly feel that pull when feeling unworthy (see the graphic from this post for some insights on how shame sucks us into silence and isolating). But actually, putting things into words can be transformational.

So I’ll come back to this in more detail next week, but for now let me leave you with some reflective prompts, if you’re interested in exploring further.

Reflective Prompts

1. Can you think of any times when you have felt unsettled or upset but have avoided thinking about or talking about the issue? If it feels OK to explore this, what sense do you make of this now? Or in other words, what do you think was creating this avoidance? (Only go into this as much as you feel comfortable to - avoidance is there for a reason, and it’s important to go gently when coming out of it).

2. How did things unfold? What was the impact (benefits, drawbacks or otherwise) of not thinking/talking about the issue?

3. If you did end up talking about it or putting words to it eventually, what was the impact of that?

4. If you do sometimes use writing or speaking as a way of processing your feelings, what’s your experience of that? How does it help you (if it does) to process those feelings?

   Feel free to share your reflections with me if you’d like to - I’m always very interested to hear!

   I’ll be back next week with a deeper dive on this topic.

   ---

   Wishing you a lovely week!

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This weekend I am in Sussex with some lovely friends, so I’m writing this on Thursday night (live pic here of Spooky sprawled (and yes I am writing in bed)). So I thought I’d do a quick share of some ‘in case you missed it’s of some moments I’ve enjoyed on The Reconnect recently.

1. In at number 1 (it’s not a countdown or in priority order but anyway) - the conversation a friend and I had after I shared this ‘History Repeating’ post a few weeks ago:

   We were talking about how we both knew the song by diffusion from childhood (‘it’s all just a little bit of history repeating’), but had been oblivious at the time that it was sung by the legendary Shirley Bassey. But that bringing the song to mind now, I realise in my head I’m always recalling it in her distinctive voice. If you don’t know who she is, she also sang this (theme tune from the Bond film Goldfinger).

   And I don’t know why but there was something quite intriguing about realising that. It makes me wonder how many things we absorbed as children without realising how significant they were. I heard this song (below) on the radio earlier (Queen Latifah U.N.I.T.Y.) which gave me some similar feels, in a different way (though I don’t know if I ever heard it back then, and would have only been about 5). Maybe it's not that deep, but I've enjoyed revisiting songs I wouldn't have otherwise been listening to, and who knows, maybe you will too.

2. I shared a midweek meditation about self-compassion this week, and it set me off thinking about how powerful this is for alleviating feelings of shame (‘I’m not worthy/not good enough’ or ‘there’s something wrong with me’). And particularly how powerful it is to recognise that our distress and angst is human and we are not alone in feeling that way (common humanity). I wrote about it in this note:

   and was pleased to see some readers engaging with this older post, about shame resilience theory, as a result. It reminds me that I want to come back to this topic.

3. And on the theme of topics I’m keen to come back to, here is one of my most viewed articles from the last few months, where I explore the issue of toxic work environments in helping-people fields, and how big a factor that is when it comes to burnout (and my wealth of experience with this…eep!).

That’s all for this week. I’ll leave you with these pics of me basking (squinting) in the sun because I was just so so happy to see it, and Spooky chilling by the laptop.

Have a good week! :)

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I enjoyed noticing the Google Photos suggestion on this grey day pic ‘Fix lighting’. Yes Google Photos, if you could do that for this period of grey gloom that would be much appreciated, thank you!

Having said that, the day of glorious sunshine yesterday yesterday was exceptionally glorious - as modelled by Spooky here:

How Is Compassion Different From Kindness?

So that rainbow today - it reminded me of a drawing one of our trainers shared, on the Mindful Self-Compassion Teacher Training. It was to illustrate the difference between kindness and compassion: She had drawn a sun, a raincloud and a rainbow.

The idea was that you can think of the 2 concepts like this:

Kindness is like sunshine - there’s no particular reason for it, but when it’s there it brings some brightness and nourishment. And self-kindness means offering well wishes or support to yourself, for no particular reason other than to keep nourishing yourself.

Compassion was illustrated by the rainbow that appears when sunshine shines through a raincloud. The rain and the raincloud represent suffering. So compassion is a particular form of kindness you offer to yourself, that is combined with a deep understanding and care, in the face of suffering.

In the book 'Atlas of the Heart’ by Brene Brown, compassion is described in the following ways:

“Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting that we’re all made of strength and struggle - no one is immune to pain or suffering. Compassion is not a practice of ‘better than’ or ‘I can fix you’ - it’s a practice based in the beauty and pain of shared humanity.” - Brene Brown in Atlas of the Heart.

And

“Compassion is the daily practice of recognizing and accepting our shared humanity so that we treat ourselves and others with loving-kindness, and we take action in the face of suffering.” - Brene Brown in Atlas of the Heart.

What I love and want to highlight in these insights are:

1. Shared humanity is at the core of compassion - recognising that suffering is a universal human experience, and that whatever we or others are experiencing is something that can be met with solidarity, rather than shaming/isolating.

2. Offering compassion (to ourselves or others) comes inherently from first listening, learning about and understanding the experience of that suffering. This is why ‘it’s not that bad’ and ‘cheer up’ or ‘I just need to pull myself together/get over it’ can feel dismissive or undermining and can lead us to feeling more wound up and stuck in a feeling - because these responses miss out the part where we offer acknowledgement and understanding about the suffering being experienced.

So…there you go. Those are some thoughts I had. If you’re interested in reading more about the difference between empathy and compassion, what happened when a monk practiced each of those within a functional MRI scan, and how joy feeds compassion, check out this 2024 post of mine:

What Next?

I suppose what it leaves me with, and what you could take away and ponder on if you like, is this:

By their very nature, those moments of our own suffering are harder to respond to with compassion - because we experience them from a stressed-out state which tends to put our inner critics into high alert (understandably, because they’ve gone into survival mode to try [often in misguided/ineffective ways] to protect us from that suffering). Given that this is the case…

• What could you do to help interrupt that cycle of inner criticism/self-aversion/shame in the face of suffering?

• Is there anything you notice that happens within you (physical sensations/body posture/facial expressions/thoughts/emotions) that you’re aware that you experience at these times? If so, could you use this as a flag to help you notice that this is what’s happening, and see if you can pivot towards giving yourself some acknowledgement of what’s painful, and some care? (Which may include acknowledging why your inner critic is upset too. In fact, you could also use a free resource I made a while ago called ‘Calm Your Inner Critic’ to help with this.)

• What kind of things would you find helpful in those moments? It might be writing down your feelings and then writing down some acknowledgement (writing letters to yourself, from a place of understanding and compassion, can be a nice one). It might be offering yourself some comfort - maybe a hand on your heart or giving yourself a hug, or seeking that from loved ones. Or maybe some other gesture of care (feeding yourself well, making sure you have time to relax and connect with people who make you feel supported and loved). Keeping in mind that you’re offering yourself that simply because you’re suffering, and not to try to ‘fix’ or force anything.

If you’d like help exploring some of the above, I highly recommend the 8 week Mindful Self-Compassion course, and you can find listings for that (and shorter workshops) here.

In Case You Missed It - Midweek Meditation

This week’s Midweek Meditation was Affectionate Breathing and you can access it here:

Have a great week, and here’s that rainbow I mentioned:

It got even more stunning a few minutes later but my phone died at that point.

And in other news…

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Anyway, as I had a regroup with myself this week and realised that in my efforts to simultaneously embrace several things I want to do (teach mindful self-compassion, develop a community interest company (CIC) in order to do that for a wider audience, become a grant writer for other CICs, all while building a coaching business), I had started to draw myself into that slippery slope of overwhelm, and one of my own making, no less!

I’m happy to say that I made use of the big being-my-own-boss benefit and decided to pause work on certain things and take them one at a time. But the experience left me with a valuable reminder.

It was the reminder of this poem by Portia Nelson (1977) - Autobiography in Five Chapters. I’ll read it for you:

It comes from this book (I’ve just ordered a copy from Abebooks):

The jist is, we keep learning the same lessons over and over again. And it can feel frustratingly like we’re just stuck in the same loop, but actually it might be that we are learning and growing, each time we go round that loop. And that eventually, we learn to deal with things differently.

What looks like depressing repetition could actually be the slow and gradual experience of change.

And it made me think of that lyric that had already been in my head for other reasons: ‘It’s all just a little bit of history repeating.’

(You can listen to the song I’m talking about here:

And if that weird intro to the video also reminded you of the Jazz Show bit from the 90s/00s The Fast Show, please enjoy an extract here.)

Anyway, the song had been in my head in a more depressing way, thinking about the terrifying rise of far right regimes and attitudes around the world.

When I remembered the Portia Nelson poem, a little hopeful thought popped into my head: What if history repeating doesn’t mean that we’re circling the drain of human society, but rather means that we are experiencing the inevitable circling back that happens when collective grief happens on a global scale - and that in itself doesn’t mean that no progress has happened, or that nothing has been learnt.

It could actually be part of the learning process. Maybe we are collectively somewhere along those five chapters of the poem. I know that’s not hugely reassuring if the current result is that we’re falling into the hole again, but still. For me, it interrupts that feeling that all the efforts to learn and change, after the pain and suffering of the past, were for nothing. I think they have left us with some valuable things that we didn’t have before.

At least for a moment, I did enjoy having that thought - that maybe history repeating isn’t as doomful as it seems.

To be honest, I think despair and hope are both valid responses to what’s going on in the world (despair more obviously, of course). And I think it can be helpful to connect with moments of hope to give us relief from despair and to see things from a different perspective.

(And perspective is another quality of ‘Self’ that I was talking about last week - as well as all those words beginning with C, Self is characterised by some P words as well: Presence, Patience, Persistence, Playfulness & Perspective).

And I have an interesting piece cooking, related to perspective and some great reads…maybe next week!

I would love to hear your thoughts on any of this - hit reply or share in a comment.

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For now, I will leave you with these pics from the sunny moments of the week - a happy reminder that the sun is still there, despite being hidden behind thick cloud for what seems like an eternity, here in London.

In case you missed it…

This week’s midweek meditation explored 3 of the qualities of ‘Self’ that I referenced in last week’s post. And they nicely parallel the 3 components of mindful self-compassion. Listen here for more:

Access All The Meditation Recordings Here

And I’ve also just realised that all the audio posts I’ve shared can be found in this one place, so if you want to choose a meditation to listen to based on topic or duration, you can see them all listed here: https://miriamfine.substack.com/podcast

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…If you haven’t booked into the workshop yet, book here —>

Info & Tickets 5th Feb

Here’s one of the Soul Collage cards I’ve made in previous workshops, for inspo…

What is creative rest, again?

In that October article, I explored the idea that rest comes in many different forms, not simply physical. Creative rest is a form of rest that we need when our brains have been in ‘problem-solving mode’ a lot. When all our creative juices are poured into firefighting whatever the latest issue is. And when our creative cup, so to speak, is empty.

So we get creative rest from things that begin to refil that creative cup. Things that inspire us, and fill us with wonder. Things that allow our minds to wander, and play, and feel excited to create and explore and generate ideas simply because we remember that that can be FUN!

And I think we are seeing this in all our lives, to a greater or lesser extent - feeling constantly stimulated either by the overwhelming information about what’s going on in the wider world, or by personal responsibilities at home or work, such that our minds are constantly whirring into survival mode, directing all our creativity into ‘fixing’ mode.

I have followed the 12 week process from the book ‘The Artist’s Way’ a couple of times, and one of the things it asks you to do is to take yourself (or specifically, your inner artist child) on an ‘Artist’s Date’ once a week. For some reason, this was the thing I found most difficult to prioritise. The book suggests that we treat these dates as an opportunity to inspire and encourage the artistic inner child within each of us. To create wonder, to spark ideas, to be wowed by beauty and expand our ideas of what’s possible.

In other words, to get creative rest.

How do IFS, Mindful Self-Compassion & Soul Collage fit into this?

As I was mulling this over, deciding what to write, a question came to my mind:

If Creativity is this powerful, healing, thing, then why is it that people become depleted from using creative energy on things like problem-solving?

And then it occurred to me: It’s not the creativity that drains our energy, it’s the pressure and striving that does. When we’re constantly moving from one demand to another, yes we’re using our creativity to solve problems, but it’s coming from a place of urgency, anxiety, and ‘have to’.

And then we start to run out of steam.

Coming up with ideas and creating space to find inspiration starts to feel like hard work.

But actually, creativity is something we can access precisely when we begin to let go of that hard work, that striving.

IFS (Internal Family Systems) is a model of the mind and psychotherapeutic approach that conceives of each of us being made up of many different ‘parts’. A part might be, for example, an inner critic, or an inner child. At different times, different parts become activated and become more vocal. For example, when you have a demanding task or a problem that needs to be solved, you may well have some helpful (or sometimes less helpful) parts of you that get activated and want to make sure you do it properly, or are worried about some aspect or other, or are annoyed about it, or etc etc etc.

Now here’s where the creativity bit comes in. As well as ‘parts’, IFS describes another element of our experience: Self. Self, or Self energy, is similar to the concept in Buddhism described as ‘Buddha nature’. It is the state of mind we’re sometimes in, when we’re more relaxed, we’re able to see things in perspective, and approach things calmly and with compassion and understanding. Self energy is characterised by these 8 words beginning with C:

• Calm

• Connectedness

• Confidence

• Clarity

• Compassion

• Courage

• Curiosity

• Creativity

So creativity is actually something we can lean back into, through this state of Self. Rather than being something we have to strive for, we can actually access creativity when we start to let go of striving and lean into trust and openness.

This is what’s so lovely about the Soul Collage process, and why it fits so well with IFS and Mindful Self-Compassion - it recognises that we need space for our nervous systems to calm down first. These 3 approaches all support us, in different ways, to connect with our inner experience and recognise what is here. Which means that we can switch over from that state of autopilot to one of connectedness, calm and spaciousness.

If you’d like to read more about the 3 approaches, you can do via the link below, and you can also book tickets for Thursday’s workshop there.

Tell me more :)

So, how do you get creative rest? I would love to hear your experience in the comments, and get some inspiration from each other!

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From earlier in the week:

This week’s midweek meditation was a radical acceptance/mindfulness & compassion practice called RAIN:

Photos from this week:

That’s it! See some of you on Thurs, and have a great week! :)

Info & Tickets 5th Feb

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Mark your calendards for 5th Feb because this is going to be a good one.

I’m collaborating with a fabulous friend and colleague, Carla Alpert, to bring you this online workshop:

Connect to Self-Compassion & Love: A Mindful IFS SoulCollage® Experience

Since first going to one of Carla’s Soul Collage workshops a year or two ago, I’ve been hoping I could share her work with more of my community, because it is just so lovely!

Carla and I met on a CPD course to become IFS-informed practitioners (IFS = Internal Family Systems). IFS is all about building a compassionate relationship with the many different parts of yourself - recognising that all parts of us are valuable and loveable, even when protective parts go awry and do things that we don’t particularly like (you know, those parts of us that might act controlling, judgmental, superior, inferior etc etc). And the idea of IFS as a transformational modality is that when we give space for these parts of us to express themselves and feel heard and cared about, they’re able to let go of the roles and burdens that they no longer want or need to carry. Which can help us get out of those patterns (e.g. feeling stuck in self-criticism and shame).

IFS therefore fits beautifully with Mindful Self-Compassion, which helps us notice our feelings and respond with kindness and understanding during times of stress and upset.

Soul Collage is a creative process which combines collage with meditation, reflective practice and writing, to help you connect with different parts of yourself. Combining reflective practices with creativity is such a powerful way of enabling you to express things you didn’t realise you were feeling, and the card that you make in a Soul Collage session (see the bottom of this post for an example of one of mine) then acts as an ongoing piece of inner connection, as it prompts new insights and reflections each time you look at it. I found it such a lovely process to engage in, partly because the physicality of cutting and sticking images was (a) fun and (b) soothing, and (c) took me out of my ‘thinking’ way of being and more into ‘feeling’ and ‘playing’ as a way to listen to my inner feelings.

So the 3 approaches (Soul Collage, IFS and Mindful Self-Compassion) are a perfect match. I’ll be leading some meditation, and Carla will lead us through a Soul Collage card-making and journalling process. I’m so looking forward to it, and hope you can make it! Details below, and booking link is here.

[For screenreaders: Photo of a Soul Collage card with text stating ‘Virtual Soul Collage Event - Mindful Self-Compassion - a Mindful, IFS ans Collage Making Experience. Guided Meditation - Introductions - Card-making - Journaling - Sharing - Closing. Thursday, Feb 5th 12-2pm EST; 5-7pm GMT (ages 18+) Supplies needed. Co-hosts: Carla Alpert - Miriam Fine. Learn more & scan QR code or click this link for tickets. Tickets $33. Limited Space. Sale Ends Feb 4.]

In the lead-up to the workshop I’m going to share some of the Soul Collage cards I’ve made in previous sesssions, so here’s the first one…

In other news, here’s some lovely winter sun:

And a cool whale sculpture made out of old plastic things, which I spotted in Canary Wharf:

And I’ve been enjoying repotting some of my plants, including this monstera which didn’t look very well (any advice re: brown blotchy leaves gladly received).

The new leaf below abandoned its attempt at life (possibly due to neglect, sorry! :/) but in better news, there is another healthy one coming through.

That’s all for now. Hope you have a good week and I’ll see you next Sunday (and on 5th Feb if you can make it!).

Miriam x

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Featuring some bonus miaows from my cat, Spooky, towards the end. Reminding us that we’re not striving to quiet the mind, but rather to be present and aware of all that’s present in the moment - miaows and all.

Thanks all, have a good week!

Miriam x

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Wintry photos this week:

As I scrolled back through photos of 2025, watching the seasons change through the pictures, and remembering events that seem like eons ago, I appreciated the activity as an opportunity to acknowledge the many things that have happened last year. It filled my heart in a variety of ways - appreciating the wonderful things, recognising the successes and and the challenges, and all the growth that came with that.

It reminded me of what I mentioned this time last year - that January is named after the god Janus who had one head facing the future and one facing the past (if I remember correctly). And that similarly, January can be a good time for taking stock - for reflecting and noticing what has passed and dreaming about what might be to come.

In case you fancy using your photos as a reflective activity in a similar way, here are some possible prompts to use to compile some of your own ‘2025 in 12 photos’ records. Maybe I’ll do some more of these myself and share them too.

Looking back through your photos from 2025, pick one from each month (or change that up however you prefer) to represent… [pick one of the following prompts or do more if you like]

• Moments of connection.

• Growth, learning, and recognising ‘wow, look what I/we/you can do!’.

• Delight and savouring.

• A favourite (or random) photo from each month.

If you do any of this, I wold love to hear what comes up for you, and to see anyhing you’d like to share! Or if you have other prompt suggestions, share them in the comments!

Here are mine:

1. January 2025

   

2. Feb 2025

   

3. March 2025

   

4. April 2025

   

5. May 2025 (please submit entries for caption competition via the comments)

   

6. June 2025

   

7. July 2025 (Football final, soon before England won! [and it was the women’s team] woohoo!)

   

8. Aug 2025

   

9. Sep 2025

   

10. Oct 2025

    

11. Nov 2025

    

12. Dec 2025 Peckham Rye Park Run on Christmas Day

    

Wishing you all the best for 2026, and I’ll be back next week with the next instalment of The Reconnect. :)

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For the last ten years or so, I’ve been thinking of these Solstice/Equinox times as a time for reflection, noticing the season past and thinking about the shifts to come. There’s something I’ve really loved about that. But at the same time, I’ve often noticed it coming with a sense of ‘oh gah I can’t keep up!’. Like it comes around so quickly and I don’t quite get round to doing whatever nice idea I might have had about marking the occasion.

Earlier today, something popped into my head that I found really soothing. It was from a conversation I had a month or two ago with a colleague. We were talking about how, when seasons change or when a course or therapeutic experience of some kind or other comes to end, we often are presented with the question ‘what’s one thing you’re leaving behind’.

(I’ve also realised, half way through writing this, that I asked a very similar question 3 months ago, case in point!)

My colleague mentioned how she had realised some time ago that she no longer wanted to answer that question, because she found it undermining to her sense of wholeness, to her sense of being enough as she is right now. It feeds the sense of seeking to change yourself. Being discontented with how you are, or how you have been.

And funny enough I had also noticed how some of the times I’d answered that question, I started to lament the fact that I always seemed to be attempting to leave the same things behind. It’s a questoin at risk of translating in your mind to ‘what’s one thing I don’t want any more’, and to gain a subtle edge of judging yourself as ‘not yet enough’.

Noticing my own repeating pattern felt frustrating, and also made me roll my eyes and laugh at myself. But it also really made it appeal to me to get on board with my colleague’s philosophy. That we don’t need to frame things as ‘what are we leaving behind’.

So I thought that to mark this Solstice edition of The Reconnect, I’d give myself permission to be, just as I am, and I’ll invite you to do the same, if you like.

Solstice: Allowing Myself to Be, Just As I Am.

So as I look forward to nesting in and getting cosy over the next few months, where does that leave me? I do feel reflective and aware that I’ve been carrying various stresses over these months just gone. And I am appreciating being able to pause and notice the after-effects of that, as my body winds down and recalibrates.

And I’m feeling grateful to be able to take all these parts of me forward into the next season too.

It’s true that it’s not much fun when my inner critics go into overdrive and parts of me start to think that everything is urgent and that not ‘getting things done’ as I had envisaged can leave me feeling less than, somehow.

And it’s also a real gift to be able to start noticing that, and interrupting the cycle by introducing some self-compassion into the mix, knowing that these ways of reacting are human.

So I’m celebrating my whole imperfect humanness, and I hope you might be celebrating yours too!

Sometimes the utter mayhem of the current world drifts into the background of our awareness, and we forget how much it’s influencing our unconscious sense of insecurity and un-ease.

I hope you’re having a lovely Solstice and have been having/will be having some wonderful festive times. And at the same time, recognising the tender parts of ourselves that can feel particularly vulnerable and on edge around this time of year, or around big get togethers, family tensions, memories of years gone by, and all the rest of it.

And as a little festive solidarity from me to you, here are a couple of things to dip in to over the next week, if they take your fancy:

1. Music to soothe the soul. I’ve been going through songs that caught my ear during 2025, and have picked 5 that I find particularly soothing and put them in a playlist just for you. Mix-tape style!

2. 4 Minutes To Reset. Here’s a 4 minute audio guided meditation you can use if you need an anchor to enable you to pause and tune in for a moment. All the aforementioned stressors can pull you into reactive mode, losing touch with what you really need, and what’s going on in your internal world. If you’re anything like me, 90% of the time you might not think to do a practice like this, but for the 10% of the time when you do remember, even a few short minutes can be a real game-changer.

3. 11 Minutes - Affectionate Breathing. For when you’ve got a few more minutes to spare.

4. 20-30 Minutes *featuring Spooky cameo* Self-Compassion Break. Practice itself starts from 7 mins in.

And from the photo reel - some impressive tree-dressing, some end-of-the-autumn leaves and some Spooky snoozes.

Green crocheted frogs fixed to a tree trunk.

Crocheted mushrooms affixed to a tree trunk.

One yellow leaf left as the brown ones blend into the mud.

Some shrivelled blackberries.

A sea of brown leaves on the pavement.

A few red and yellow mapley leaves left on a nearly bare tree.

Spooky (cat) on a blanket-draped wooden chair.

Spooky wedged between blankets and cushions.

Spooky asleep, resting her chin on my arm…

…And gradually sliding off.

And that’s all for now. Have a wonderful Christmas, last night of Chanukah, Solstice, and anything else you’re celebrating.

See you on the other side!

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It was so lovely hearing your comments on last week’s post, where I spoke about the pain of being stuck in dysfunctional systems, and the knock-on effect of institution-wide stress on the relationships between people. If you missed it, you can check it out here (and I have also recorded an audio version if that’s more your speed):

This week in London the sun has been out and it is feeling crisp and wintry. I had my final supervision session to complete my training as a Mindful Self-Compassion teacher, and we landed on a concept that has been one of my favourite take-home messages from the whole course - ‘being a compassionate mess’.

A Compassionate Mess

Now, this doesn’t refer necessarily to physical mess (though in my case, being something of a clutter-magnet, it also helpfully applies there), but refers more broadly to the messiness of our lives. And the messiness of our emotional states and our general human-ness. And it doesn’t mean mess in a judgmental way either. It’s just referring to the fact that things are not neat and tidy, they’re tangled and complicated and splodgy.

You see, there’s a tendency that most of us seem to have, to view our current selves as incomplete in some way - striving towards a future version of ourselves. My co-teacher very aptly referred to it as ‘trying to get myself ‘sorted’’. If only I could get on top of this anxiety or that insecurity, or master this habit or feel better about this thing, THEN I’ll be sorted.

Oh boy can I relate to that. That way of thinking can slip in even when you think you’re doing the opposite.

But there are downsides to striving to ‘improve’ yourself. I spoke about them in articles on the Life Coach Directory here and here.

The quick summary of those articles is this:

1. ‘Improving’ yourself implies that one version of you is better than another. Which is self-judgment. Which makes you feel not good enough as you are. i.e. It leads you to feel shame. Shame is a really painful feeling to feel (since we’re social animals and our survival depends on the acceptance of other people, so rejection can be pretty threatening). And, contrary to what some may have you think, shame is not an effective motivator for creating change.

2. Self-acceptance and self-compassion are much more powerful balms when things feel difficult. They are also much more powerful enablers of change. I know I’ve quoted it a million times but it never ceases to be mic-drop-worth - that quote from Carl Rogers: ‘The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.’ (When we don’t accept ourselves, we just get stuck in endless striving).

So how does this relate to being a compassionate mess?

Well, much as we all experience these human tendencies to feel that everything will be better once we change this or that thing, and to strive to change those things - even to the point of perfectionism and self-flagellation sometimes - there is something very liberating we can also experience too: The realisation that maybe all we need to be is a compassionate mess.

What if it’s OK that my flat is untidy, even if there are people coming round?

What if it’s OK that I said things that I didn’t mean, because that’s just how the words came out in the heat of the moment, and this is a human thing that everyone does sometimes?

What if it’s OK that this piece of work takes longer than I thought, and I give myself time to rest because that’s what’s neede right now?

What if it’s OK for things to happen in a scattered and imperfect way sometimes?

What if the thing I’m really seeking is to be able to be compassionate towards myself in spite of all that?

To forgive myself for all these imperfections.

To see myself as human for experiencing all this messiness.

In fact, what if that messiness is actually a part of what makes me belong. It gives me understanding of what it means to be human, and connects me to others who go through the same feelings.

What a revelation. (Maybe that sounds silly at times at times when things feel smooth sailing, but when it’s rockier, wow do we need to be reminded of this). We are not alone in being human and being messy! We all get lost in our emotions sometimes, feel like we’re failing in some way, or like we’re not good enough.

What if, rather than jumping into working harder and harder to try to combat that sense of ‘not enough’, we could pause to feel it. Maybe then we’d see that what we need is actually to work less hard, and be more present and and accepting of ourselves, and all our humanity. To give ourselves some love an care.

That’s certainly what I’ve been leaning into this weekend. And I think both the winter season and the festive season can leave us needing a bit more of an emotional pick-me-up - a reminder that we are OK, we are enough. And what better way to do that than allow ourselves to be messy, just like everybody else, rather than holding ourselves to unacheiveable standards?

So I would love to hear - what’s your go-to way of taking care of yourself and allowing yourself to be a compassionate mess?

Mine, this weekend, has been to give myself some cosy nostalgic film time and postpone the work I thought I’d catch up on this weekend. I googled ‘Films like Cool Runnings’ (a childhood fave - which, by the way, I have half a post written about and will share soon!), and Google helpfully suggested Mighty Ducks (classic 90s film about a team of underdog kids playing ice hockey with this arrogant lawyer coaching them as part of his community service for drink driving, but of course they win him over and remind him that the true meaning of the game is not just about winning, it’s about teamwork and having fun. What more could you need.). So I watched Mighty Ducks 1 & 2.

What about you?

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Piccies…

This one was in Vondelpark in Amsterdam earlier in the week. I actually did take some photos of leaves while I was there, but they have sadly disappeared from my phone.

Beautiful sunset in London later in the week. One thing I’ve been delighting in, in these short days, is seeing the sunrise and the sunset.

Sending love, have a good week!

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I started my career as an NHS doctor, moved into university lecturing, and then coaching, and encountered bullying a couple of times along the way. In the last five years as a coach, I've done a lot of work with trade unions, educators, charities and healthcare workers.  All of the above provided me with a lot of fuel for exploring this question:

Why are dysfunctional team dynamics so widespread in organisations centred on helping people?

Let me explain with a story.  (Content: medical emergency/cancer).

I was a final year medical student, on placement in A&E in Aberystwyth.  A blue-light call came in and brought an incredibly unwell man and his wife through to the resuscitation room.  He was terminally ill with cancer and was bleeding a lot.  I remember watching on and helping to bring things, as this flurry of activity ensued.  I was taking it all in - the helplessness of this poor man, and his wife so distressed by his side.  I wanted to be able to reach out and help take some of their pain away but there was really nothing I could do.  

Eventually the A&E team managed to stabilise his bleeding, and the specialty team took over his care.

Then I remember following my supervisor back to the A&E desk and sitting down.  And nothing more was said about it.

I was very shocked by that.  I mean, the experience overall was very upsetting, but I was shocked afterwards by the expectation that we would just carry on our day as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  And perhaps it wasn’t so out of the ordinary to my supervisor.  But for me, the emotions stirred up were…a lot!

I tell that story to illustrate the levels of distress that happen on a daily basis in people-helping organisations.  While that example is stark and obvious, there are many other situations where the distress may be less remarkable, but no less impactful.  

The GP who has seen 15 worried patients in a row, attempted to reassure and take appropriate action, knowing that they’re holding all the risk while the wider system is unable to provide the services and support needed.  The receptionist speaking to the umpteenth person annoyed by the lack of available appointments.  The teacher dealing with classroom mayhem, with children whose needs for specialist support go unmet due to overwhelmed services.

When we work in organisations that deal with people’s distress - directly or indirectly - that distress gets passed around the organisation, in some form or other.  There’s a technical term for it: ‘Vicarious traumatisation’.  It means that the organisation becomes, in a way, traumatised, by witnessing so much distress.  

It’s made worse when budget constraints mean that people in the organisation feel that their hands are tied and they can’t do what’s really needed to provide adequate support.  I remember that very well from my days working in A&E.

This relates to why in-fighting is one of the number one causes of burnout in social justice movements.  Working at the coalface of injustice means witnessing a lot of suffering, which can be painful and difficult to process. And as Brene Brown so wisely said “Blame is simply the discharging of discomfort and pain.”

And what makes it even harder to deal with - we usually don’t realise that this is what’s happening.  Without space to process, those short tempers and blaming attitudes seep in and become labelled as personality issues, rather than recognising that they are a reaction to unsettled and unprocessed emotions.

I share this because I know how valuable it is to be able to put words to your experience.  The examples I mentioned might feel very familiar, but without the words to describe them, or the recognition that this is ‘a thing’ that can be talked through and acknowledged, we end up internalising all the bad feeling, instead.  We end up asking ourselves ‘Is there something wrong with me?’

I hope these words provide some connection and some relief, if you recognise your experience within them.  It is human.  And it is incredibly draining.

Some organisations engage in initiatives to provide space to talk about this stuff - for example Schwartz Rounds (3 cheers for this!). Talking things through one-on-one can also be invaluable for untangling some of the overwhelm (I'll link here & below to my 1:1 session info in case this is what you're seeking right now).

In my own experience navigating toxic workplaces, I’ve been through the rage and the disillusionment, the despondency and the insecurity about whether I’m in some way ‘not enough’.  And I find myself in a place of a bit more peace and acceptance.  For me, the thing that made the difference was talking it all through and making sense of what was happening.  

Mindful self-compassion practices also helped me realise (a) how I was feeling, and (b) that this was all part of the human experience.  That really, there was nothing wrong with me.

It can be deeply undermining, working in environments with all that toxic stuff flying around.  So in case you need to hear it let me reiterate - there is nothing wrong with you.  You are not alone.  Sending solidarity your way! 

And here's the link for my 1:1 session info. If you're struggling with this stuff right now, book one of these to take a load off and work out what you don't need to keep carrying around with you.

I'm posting from my phone (I'm in Amsterdam for a few days!) so I can't add a ‘comments’ button, but I would so love to hear your thoughts on this via email replies or DMs. Lots o love.

Some end-of-autumn beauty:

Just a very short update today to say…

…I’m setting up a community interest company!

‘Huh?’ I hear you say.

Well, a community interest company (CIC) is a type of organisation that can run like a business, but also can apply for grant funding to run projects that benefit the wider community. So I am setting one up in order to deliver mindfulness & self-compassion trainings and workshops.

It’s very early days and I am yet to choose a name, but I thought you’d be interested to hear about it, and might like to see my scribblings of potential names (along with prompts) (it was a ‘no bad ideas’ situation) (still haven’t chosen one so ideas on a postcard)…

Spooky offered some sage advice which I understood as being ‘none of this matters, get over it’.

[Sidenote - she’s actually helping me write this piece:

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Gimme A Breeeeak - Nervous System Soothing

If, like me, you’re feeling a bit frazzled at the moment (from taking on too much, from the general state of the world, from the impending busy holiday season when really you just want to nest, or otherwise), here’s a post from a while back which includes some short soothing practices and a reminder of what’s going on in our nervous systems:

Collaboration & Solidarity: Past, Present & Future

On Tuesday I found myself in Shadwell (in East London, just north of the river) for a really cool training day on transdisciplinary research (i.e. how to approach working together in a way that brings together real in-depth understanding of the differences between disciplines on how we look at things. And how we can celebrate and utilise these valuable different approaches in order to come up with better understandings and solutions to real world problems).

I was on Cable Street and stopped off to look at the Cable Street mural - commemorating the anti-fascist blockade that prevented fascists from marching down the street in 1936. That was a collaboration of local people from different backgrounds - Jewish, Irish, socialist, anarchist and communist. Another example of power through collaboration.

As I spotted the photos in my camera reel just now, I thought it would be nice to share, almost like people from past generations sending solidarity our way as we continue to celebrate and protect our humanity, in the face of far right movements attacking and marginalising.

Here’s that mural:

First Wintry Skies

I think that’s all, other than the obligatory weekly update on how the season is looking here. And I must say the wintry skies are on their way in…

I’m not sure my pictures did justice to these impressive skies, but here’s a photo of other people on the bus trying to capture the same beautiful scene. So even though you can’t see how beautiful it was, you can sense the collective urgency to try to capture it:

Have a great week!

Buy me a coffee!

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