things to remember

Coffee. A daily essential, much like writing.

In my recent article about journalling, I mentioned that I often dedicate several pages - usually the first or last two or three - of my journal to “things to remember”.

By that I mean, I write down phrases, affirmations or reminders that ground me, things I find useful to hear often depending on what is currently going on. If I read something in an article or book, or hear something someone says in a podcast, that particularly speaks to me, that might be helpful for me to bear in mind at the present time, I will write it there. I also sometimes write down insights that occur to me in daily meditation.

I highly recommend this practice of writing down things you find comforting and grounding that you can look at and remind yourself of, especially if you’re a bit like me and find your anxiety running away with you at times. It can be really handy to look at it in your over-thinking moments.

As I’m just coming to the final few pages of my current notebook, I thought I might share some of the things I felt moved to remind myself of or ground myself in the truth of this last little while, in the hope it might be useful for you too. Perhaps I’ll make sharing these a regular thing.

Things to remember

• Karma never loses an address.

• When victory comes at too heavy a price, there’s honour in choosing defeat.

• The seeds we nourish and cultivate within us are the seeds that grow.

• Every storm eventually runs out of rain.

• No matter what you do, someone is bound to end up disappointed…so do what you want.

• There is no ahead or behind, everyone is walking a different path to the same place.

• You can have what you need, even when others need you.

• Confidence is quiet, insecurity is loud.

• How other people treat you is a measure of who they are, not a measure of your worthiness.

• Live with reverence for what truly matters.

• Be radically responsible for yourself.

Daphne (my favourite winter flower) on my desk at work as the sun started setting.

• No one has any power over you, only the power you’ve given them.

• Other people’s opinions are always one of two things: completely irrelevant or feedback you can choose to take or leave.

• Resilience is an asset.

• Live, and write, with audacity.

• The work is your domain, you are not in control of the rest.

• Finish what you start.

• Ripe fruit falls quickly.

• Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.

• Being hard on yourself is never the route to more joy.

• You are going to be OK, regardless of the decisions and behaviour of others. You have survived everything so far.

• You are at your most powerful when you trust yourself.

• You are more than your thoughts. You are more than your body. You are more than the place where you live, your job, your bank account, your current health, your trauma, your highlight reel and accomplishments, your lowest moment and your worst day. You are enough. You always have been.

And finally….

“You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetic justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.” - Albert Camus

40 things i've learned about life, now i'm 40

1. If you don’t own it - your life, your past, your story - it will own you.

2. The messiest times in life are often, looking back, the most interesting and nearly always a source of growth. Hold your nerve, stay the course. Trust it will all work out.

3. A life filled with magic, adventure and fun does not just happen. You have to make the choice to cultivate those things in your life, every single day.

4. Playing small doesn’t serve you, only the people around you who want you to stay that way.

5. “See what happens” is not a cop-out, it’s a way of taking the pressure off. Letting things evolve naturally is a lesson in grace and patience.

6. You can't change anyone. People only change because they want to and there’s got to be something in it for them to do it.

7. We all have a choice in how we want to live - the trick is to make conscious choices rather than unconscious ones.

8. Tables always turn.

9. It is possible to be strong and fragile at the same time. Both are courageous.

10. Change is what it is. It’s all about how you negotiate it.

11. Anyone who believes gossip and lies about you before hearing your side of the story was already looking for a reason to be against you. Let them go.

12. Protect your mental health and inner peace by any means necessary. You never have to apologise for protecting yourself.

13. Old ways will rarely open new doors.

14. Perspective is everything (thank you Sandi Sieger).

15. Your passions are not accidents. They are the clues to where you will find meaning in life. Embrace them. Follow them.

16. Three things always come out - the sun, the moon, and the truth.

17. You have to go out on a limb in life, because that’s where the fruit is. Corny but true!

18. There are many universal needs that human beings have - one of them is to feel appreciated. Showing gratitude, for others and for life, as often as you can is an instant mood lifter.

19. Love will never feel like love unless you also love yourself.

20. Comparison is the quickest route to despair.

21. No is a complete sentence. And you can say it - just do it politely and fast.

22. Most people deserve a second chance. But no one deserves a third (see point 12).

23. Likes and follows are empty calories that never satisfy. Find what really feeds you instead.

24. There is no shinier, more successful, more likeable, more accomplished, more together you waiting in the future. You are only you, now. You are only ever here. Accepting that will make life so much easier, and sweeter.

25. Confidence doesn’t come from achievements, it comes when you decide to have it. Confidence is a choice.

26. So is self-pity.

27. You are the only one who can give yourself what you’re seeking from others.

28. When change comes, it’s likely that opportunity will also knock at the door. Keep an ear out.

29. Nothing is forever - pain or joy.

30. Boundaries will protect you, and allow you to love and give more freely. Without them, you will be constantly resentful and disappointed.

31. It’s amazing what can happen when you drop all your expectations and attachment to an outcome.

32. Continuing to choose joy in the face of adversity is an act of courage and resistance (thank you Holly Ringland).

33. Meanings of words change all the time. “Success” is probably the most mercurial. You do not have to hold yourself hostage to past definitions if they no longer serve you.

34. You can endure a lot more than you think you can.

35. If it makes you happy, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.

36. Slow progress is still progress.

37. It is possible to one day laugh in places where you used to cry. Know that you can always change the story.

38. Failure and defeat are better judges of character than success.

39. Fighting ageing is a battle no one has ever won, and getting older is a privilege denied to so many. Look forwards, not backwards.

40. When in doubt, be bold, generous, loving and unafraid.

learn to be hurt

“Oh God, those wasted years! If this is ever read by posterity, let posterity ponder on this: You cannot run away from life. If you try, life will only catch you in the end, and the longer you’ve been running the more it will hurt. Learn to be hurt as early as possible, welcome being hurt; face pain, humiliation and defeat in your teens; accept them, let them go through you, so that you cease to be afraid of them.”

A few years ago I read the diaries of Jean Lucey Pratt, a lifelong diarist who also contributed to the Mass Observation project. She was my age during the Second World War and her diaries, of course, focus on those events but also her daily life and concerns, her dreams, anxieties and longings which for the most part remained unchanged by the war and all its dramas and hardships.

Despite all the upheaval of wartime, Jean was still figuring out who she was and what she wanted, and was starting to panic about all the what-ifs, missed chances and the might-have-beens.

I absolutely loved this book but this passage particularly, because I too have learned this lesson from life. It’s not an easy lesson, but an essential one. Don't run from pain, humiliation or defeat. Face them. Persevere. You're stronger than you think. 

how wonderfully precious this one life is

“When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness.

All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. It is always there and the more deeply you learn to listen, the greater surprises and discoveries that will unfold.

To enter into the gentleness of your own soul changes the tone and quality of your life.

Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event, experience or achievement.

You learn to come down from the treadmill and walk on the earth.

You gain a new respect for yourself and others and you learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is.

You begin to see through the enchanting veils of illusion that you had taken for reality.

You no longer squander yourself on things and situations that deplete your essence.

You know now that your true source is not outside you.

Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you.”

- John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher (excerpt from his book Divine Beauty)

when the bottle breaks

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” - Andre Gide

I think we are getting a very clear message from the Universe that we need to get better at living in the moment.

When I started a daily meditation practice nearly three years ago, my aim was to get better at living in the present and meeting life on its own terms. To relinquish my need for control and simply be here now in my life instead of creating an identity out of stories, whether they were past dramas and traumas, or worries about a future that hadn’t happened yet.

I can’t say I’ve mastered it. I still get lost in drama and stories every now and then. But right now, with everything the world is facing, I am grateful for my meditation practice. For the past three years, I have been training my mind to accept every thought it has, including my deepest fears, and to listen to them with mindfulness and compassion.

And yet, until the recent pandemic crisis unfolded, I was still just as guilty as the next person of putting things off until X happens or when I’m fit enough to run a half-marathon again or when I’ve had my hair cut/brows waxed or whatever feeble excuse it might have been.

I still did this, despite having learned the lesson long ago that the present moment is all we have. A lesson which current circumstances are really hammering home.

Let me tell you a story.

A few years ago now, I was living in a tiny flat in the centre of London and I had a bottle of expensive body lotion on my dressing table. It was a Christmas gift and I'd been saving it - but for what, I'm not sure.  I would occasionally put a tiny daube of it on my hands when they felt dry and I wanted them to smell nice.  That's what I was doing one morning as I was about to leave the house for work, just picking up the bottle to put a tiny bit on my hands and be on my way. 

I must have squeezed the bottle too tightly because the next thing I knew, the bottle had broken, with jagged pieces of sharp plastic now sticking out of the thick lotion, and it had also sprayed lotion on to the floor and the wall. Just what you want when you’re running for a train, right?

Luckily, once I had wiped up the mess and got rid of the shards, I realised that if I lay the bottle on its side, with the broken side up, I could still use what was left of the lotion.  But it couldn’t be "saved" any more.  I would have to use it. So I did and, for the few weeks it lasted, I smelled lovely.

Why am I telling you this? you might ask. Because, like many epiphanies, it was a very small thing that held a much larger lesson.

Once my bottle was broken, that was it.  I couldn't save the body lotion for another day or once we move to the new house or whatever reason I wasn't allowing myself to just use it.  I had to use it now.  I had to just get on with it. The choice had been taken away from me. As it has with many far more basic everyday essentials, things we used to take for granted, now.

I don't think there is anything wrong with saving things for "best" or for a special treat. When you do indulgent things all the time, they stop becoming special and just become the norm.  So I think it's important to have a balance and definitely have some things that you do save for special times to add to that sense of occasion, and truly savour them when you do. 

But I'm not talking about buying a bottle of Pol Roger every weekend (though that would be amazing) and indulging in all kinds of extravagances as a distraction, although we all need those occasionally.  I’m also not talking about blowing your rent money on things you don’t need or can’t afford when you need to prioritise other things at this time.

What I'm talking about are the small things that you deny yourself, or put off, or only let yourself have when you’ve “earned” them, when actually those things would add so much joy and contentment to your life right now.

It could be a mug of that gorgeous, vanilla-scented loose leaf tea you love. The expensive shower gel that makes you think of ripe pears and spring flowers. New bath towels. Using the ‘good’ wine glasses, or the pretty dinner plates that your Mum gave you once a week, not just once a year.

It might not even be a thing. It could be allowing yourself to plant a garden. Get a puppy or a kitten. Learning to knit or play the piano.

Why, before everything changed, were you denying yourself these things? Why would you not have wanted to be the happiest and most fulfilled that you could possibly be? And are those reasons still valid now? It’s worth thinking about.

You never know when the choice is going to be taken away from you or when the illusion of control will be shattered. When you realise that even the ability to put something off for another time, an undefined moment in the future, was a privilege in itself.

When we save things for "later" or "for when X happens", we’re convincing ourselves that the future is going to be somehow better than what we're experiencing right now, in the present.  The truth is, the future is an illusion - it doesn't exist yet.  And the past is gone.  All we have is now.

So don’t put off your big dreams and your tiny joyful indulgences for another day, for a far off time where you envision you might be happier, more deserving, more accomplished, more worthy.

You are worthy of your dreams and your desires in life, right now. Just as you are.  

I realise that some things you want to do or treat yourself to may not be advisable or particularly do-able right now. You’re probably prioritising the basics like food and medicine and making sure your loved ones are OK over fancy hand cream, as I am.

But things won’t always be this way.

When all of this is over, I hope you will go and do all those things you’ve put off. And in the meantime, let yourself have the small moments of happiness and pleasure in your every day, whatever they might be for you. Don't wait until the bottle breaks. Or until you’re forced to stay at home.

Tell me, how are you going to look after yourself and live in the moment today?