Half an egg shell

While I walk my dog Buster I try to walk mindfully, especially first thing in the morning, when I am often the only person in the park.

The other day while I was walking I came across half an egg shell, a delicate light sky-blue egg shell. I was delighted, the egg shell means that somewhere nearby a baby bird had just hatched and was starting its way into the world, that a mother bird was probably out catching the early worm bringing it back to feed her baby. I was also really pleased that I spotted it before I stood on it and crushed it. It is a standing joke in my family that I am clumsy and that I do things like that. According to family tales when we were abroad when I was young everyone was standing around saying ‘ooh, look at that’, and I walked up, said ‘what?’ and stood on the beautiful stag beetle that everyone was admiring. I do try to walk lighter these day and more observantly, but I still am clumsy – it is part of hypermobility, but also I normally rush around and don’t pay attention.

I carefully picked it up and managed to get the fragile thing home without breaking it. I put it on my desk to show my husband and maybe ask him if he though varnishing it would protect in some way.

The days passed, back into very busy work mode and then a I got home one evening, put my stuff down and started to move things on my desk. I put a glass down *crunch*, dismayed I looked at the desk and there, scattered in tiny fragments was the beautiful shell.

One moment of inattention ruined a small piece of beauty.

I was gutted.

I guess pride comes before a fall, I had been patting myself on the back about being mindful enough to notice the shell that I had forgotten that one is supposed to try to be mindful all the time, not just at select points in the day, that our focus is supposed to permeate all of our life, not just the morning walk.

Now I am trying to focus on not beating myself up about it. It is a difficult practice, to be present all the time and not to be distracted by the daily grind. If it were easy then we would all be so much happier and the world would be a more peaceful place. Now I just think of the fleeting beauty that I allowed into my life through my mindful practice and how much more it will bring as I allow it to spread into all of my life.

Loss of labels

The loss of a label is a difficult thing. It is not just something we ascribe to ourselves, it is something which we use to identify ourselves with.

I have recently discarded the label ‘Pagan’. Amusingly this was just as I had been accepted as a Pagan Chaplain and I had just resigned as the General Secretary of the Pagan Federation – I am possibly the shortest lived General Secreatry, but the main reason I left was I no longer felt I could say I was a Pagan.

Now, considering oneself a Pagan is an interesting thing, I have met many, many people who use their label as a weapon- something to attack with. Others a flag of righteous anger to bludgeon with. I will admit to doing both at times in my life.

Even if one didn’t use it in this way there is no denying that saying you are a Pagan usually elicits a response of some kind, and it is definitely alternative, to say the least. As I am now in my 30s, my neck is playing up, there are wrinkles slowly apppearling and my hair is turning gray (and I am resisting dying it), I am feeling old and losing the Pagan label has made me feel like I am losing my edge. That I am no longer cool.

But lack of cool (imagined or otherwise) is not a reason to halt spiritual growth. But I have to say shedding this label (and I use the term deliberately as I feel like I am metamorphosing, although hopefully not into a beetle) has made me take stock of my life again, assess where I am and how I see myself. I still have my nose pierced and my tattoo (although unless we met at the swimming pool you wouldn’t see it), but no longer the purple/red hair, my hair is a chin length annoying bob, so not short and funky, nor long and able to do lots with it. ***edited to add, since I wrote this post last week I have cut off all my hair into the short, funky and spikey style I love *** I no longer hang out in cool places in London.

That is my choice, I don’t live in London any more and aside from going to the theatre and occasionally meeting friends for dinner I don’t want to go out like I used. It was exhausting! None the less, change is there.

But I think that our spirituality, like the rest of us, should change and develop as we change and develop, otherwise it becomes stagnant. Now, I am not saying that everyone needs to change what they consider their religion to be, but put it under close examination? Yes, our faith, our beliefs, everything. Even if they stay the same, our labels should be examined. Maybe they now need to tie on an old fashioned parcel label, maybe purple glitter, and maybe living without the label for a little while to see where we go.

Spiritual Crisis

The main reason I have been so reticent about blogging over the last long while is I have had a spiritual crisis, to say the least.

I have struggled over my spirituality a great deal – I don’t even think I can call myself Pagan any more, as a lot of my practice doesn’t fall into that, I don’t do magic, or really celebrate the festivals a lot. That has been a big issue, I was very nearly a Pagan chaplain, I had applied and got accepted (though a very lengthy process, but one which I feel is worth while), I had even got my security clearance, a REALLY long process, as they want to know everything about you. But by the time that had come through I just didn’t feel in a position to spiritually lead anyone, as I was in the grips of a tumultuous thought process about it.

So, what I want to focus on here, for the most part, is spirituality which is broad, not tied to any labels, but it is still an important part of my life, even though for the most part I feel like I do not have the words to express that.

What do you think?

cutting down

Wow, it seems like I hit a lot of you with my comments about how perfect blogland is, with all of its perfect people and their perfect lives!

I really had cut down the blogs that I read, but I am still getting a lot of positive, improve your life type ones (Zen Habits, Nerd Fitness and Marie Forleo) come through into my inbox. I am going to do something rather radical, and cut all of those out of my inbox too. I know, shocking. But I realised that I am not giving myself  a break here. None of these words are new, no one is saying anything I didn’t know, and more often than not they are trying to sell me something too – their latest coaching programme. Is it me, or is everyone selling coaching programmes now a days?

Not that there is anything wrong with that, hell I am trying to figure out how to make it part of my business, but none the less, I don’t need to be told how rubbish I am on a daily basis, complete with how to spend my money to make myself better.

If I really miss them I can add them back in.

My business (arts management) is doing really well and I have only been doing it full time for six months, since I handed in my MA.  I have been working for all of that time and I am getting to the point that people are recommending me for work, which is fantastic as far as I am concerned! And it is a real pat on the back that I am doing the right thing. I really enjoy what I am doing right now, I feel like I am making full use of my business skills and know-how, while actually helping young people to get involved in the arts.

But when the latest Marie Forleo video landed in my inbox, with a chance to win a scholarship to her B-School, I thought YEAH! I should do that – create a video and submit it. And I was all ready – I had written  out what I wanted to say, rehearsed it a few times and then I made the stupid mistake of watching other people’s videos and comparing myself to them. How awesome they all were and how boring I am in comparison. They were all sorted making their cool, funky videos with fade outs, fancy editing etc. Then I was thinking I am so rubbish, I have got to get onto that programme, ok it costs $1999, and I don’t have that sort of money, but I need to be on it. How can I find the money?

I really don’t have that sort of money sitting around at the moment, and if I did it would go to getting a new boiler as ours is on its last legs and we have had no heating for the last two weeks, until someone came around and managed to breathe enough life into for it to keep going a bit longer.

But I felt I had to, as I just didn’t compare. Luckily I have my wonderfully sensible and supportive husband who talked to me and explained that I have only being doing my business for 6 months and I haven’t celebrated where I am with it, I am just looking to make it Bigger, Better, Now!

Oh yeah! Also I am quite a reserved English person and not an all out there American, like most of these people were.

So, I might still make the video, as it would be great to be on her course, but only if I get a scholarship and I am going to do it my way and not look at anyone else’s videos!

But I think I will cut out all those self help emails from my inbox and continue to read those blogs which are personal stories which resonate with me, and gently inspire without making me feel like I have to upgrade myself to the new version of me, Jen 2.0, THIS MINUTE!

Barefaced Truth

I read a lot of blogs, many of them, I have gone on a big cull recently and seriously cut down. Why? Well, partly because of time and because it doesn’t help me to get things done, but also for the most part they make me feel inferior.

My house isn’t as nice as theirs – it does’t help that the majority of people I read live in the USA and their houses are SO MUCH BIGGER than English houses. Compared to the English it seems to me that the average American lives in a house roughly ten times bigger.

I’m not as creative, not as healthy, not as spiritual, not as green, not as frugal..

I don’t try to keep up with the Jones financially, but I do try to keep up with the Bloggses. Which is ridiculous, how can any of us compare ourselves to each other. We didn’t start in the same place, travel down the same road, or have the same circumstances now

On top of this I think that many people just post about the great things in their life, which is completely understandable – who wants to air their dirty laundry in public? But, it does make it harder, this seems to be especially true on Facebook.

So, I try not to big up my life. Don’t get me wrong I am not going to be writing about every rubbish day that I have, because who wants to read that? But at the same time I can write about some difficulties, the craft projects that are a complete mess, the spiritual difficulties and things which relate to me personally. In other words be truthful.

What about you? How do you find blogland? Difficult to face sometimes?

Update

Well, it has been a very long time since I wrote, and I have to admit that I almost wrote a closing post saying that I was ending this blog. I kept putting it off as it just didn’t feel right at all, and now a couple of months after that I have decided to keep writing again. Mainly as I don’t have an outlet for sharing my creative work or my rambling thoughts.

I won’t do a long catchup post, as that would take far too long, but essentially, setting up my own business has been great, I have been really busy with it which is fantastic.

I seem to have learned a couple of important lessons recently. Firstly if you are ill, take a couple of days off of work straight away and then a couple of days of taking it easy and then it goes, instead of illness dragging on for months like it does normally for me. This sounds really obvious, but how many of us actually do this? The cold and flu adverts tell us that if we just take this pill everything will be ok and we can keep on going. But that is not actually true. As great as my work is, it is not so important that the world will come to an end if I spend a couple of days on the sofa, spending half an hour here and there fending off emails.

So, I have been ill but not for as long as normal and that is to be celebrated!

I also have really relaxed over this holiday period (today is my first day back at work since the 21st of December) and I have to admit that was forced on me. I fell whilst running and hurt my knees quite badly and so I had to spend a couple of days on the sofa hardly moving and then taking it easy for over a week. Actually I think I needed it. I had a massive long to do list for the holidays and I decided that resting my knees properly was more important as I need to be training for my first ever marathon in April and I needed them to be back as soon as possible. I still got lots on my list done, but rather than working at something (eg sorting out the wardrobe) for hours I would just say, right I am just going to do this shelf. And leave it at that.

This meant that I still got things done, but without pushing myself to do everything NOW! Which is how I normally do things.

So, two valuable lessons about rest and relaxation, neither of which I have traditionally been very good at. I plan on taking these things through to the New Year!

Mindfulness is spreading

I was really pleased to see this article in the FT it means that mindfulness and meditation is becoming a little more mainstream and not considered so weird.

I have written about mindfulness and meditation here, here, and here  to name but a few places, so hopefully you know how important it is to me.

I have found that meditation is one of my key three legs on my stool of balance. (I may have made that up). For me these are meditation, exercise and healthy eating. Generally speaking if I keep these balanced I am well. That’s not always true, sometimes depression sneaks up and gently pushes the stool over until it topples over, a gradual process, until you are on the floor. But generally, the three legs of my life keep me balanced.

One of the main people featured in the article went on a retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn. I am so jealous – I love his work – I have recommended his book The Mindful Way Through Depression to so many people.

The article is very positive of meditation, yoga and mindfulness as a whole, maybe this will encourage more companies to introduce this to their employees.