Sucked Into A Frenzied Black Pit

I love the colour black. If you look in my wardrobe, you’ll see a disproportionately high number of black items. Growing up in 80s London, surrounded by Goth culture, it was hard not to at least fall in love with black jeans and black eyeliner. And going to architecture school only cemented my love affair with black clothes.

I also love Fridays. I arrived into this world on one, and it’s always been my favourite day of the week. I enjoy how it holds the promise of the weekend stretching out ahead, as yet untouched and pristine. And, as its precursor, there’s a softness to it; the weekday I’m most likely to take time out to meet a friend for coffee, or see an exhibition.

But when I experience the words Black + Friday together, they bring to mind an image of a black frenzied pit full of voices, each one shouting louder than the next. I have nothing against a good sale – my beloved Apple Mac, on which I’m writing this letter to you, was courtesy of a Black Friday bargain at John Lewis, and I’m very grateful for the couple of hundred pounds they knocked off the price. But something about this particular term doesn’t land well with me.

Interestingly, it was coined in early 1960s Philadelphia, by police officers, to describe the resulting chaos when, on the public holiday after Thanksgiving, large numbers of tourists streamed into the city to begin their holiday shopping. These crowds were a headache for the police, who had to work longer shifts that usual, to deal with the resultant traffic jams, accidents and shoplifting.

This week, my inbox (yours too, I imagine) has been bombarded with the phrase Black Friday. Seeing it again and again, and noticing the images and feelings that arise when I do, has got me reflecting on the power words have. How they leave an imprint on us.

Close your eyes for a moment and repeat to yourself silently (I find this is more effective than out loud) an expression such as I am useless, and notice how it lands in your body. Then do the same with a phrase that’s its antithesis – such as I am powerful. Do you notice a difference in how you feel?

I’m aware there are certain phrases I roll out all too easily, out of habit. One is, I’m tired. It’s true I often don’t get quite as much sleep as I’d like. But am I really bone-crushingly exhausted most days? Thankfully not. Usually, it’s only when a (rare) late night collides with a (not so rare!) 5am wakeup by my 3-year-old.

On such days, saying, I’m tired, can be helpful, as it probably is the most dominant flavour of my day. Acknowledging it can help me make better choices, like ensuring I get a super-early night, or - if it’s a weekend - asking my husband to look after our son so I can have a nap.

Other times, when I’m not really that tired, stating I am doesn’t do me any favours. Tiredness might just be one of the many flavours infusing my day, yet by amplifying its importance, I start to buy into its energy. Instead, I could say I’m curious or I’m inspired and tap into that energy instead; an energy that’s more likely to have me experimenting with a new recipe for dinner, rather than making pasta yet again, or pitching an idea for an article, rather than thinking I’m too tired to bother.

What words do you tend to say about yourself? Are they true? And are they helpful? I’m trying to be more aware of my own. Too often, they’re not rooted in truth. Our words have power. Let’s use them wisely.

After The Holiday, The Laundry

Frieze Art Fair, Regent’s Park (a snapshot from my mini holiday in London)

‘I’m not sure I see the point of going on holiday,’ my mum has been known to say. ‘You get home and before you know it, it feels like you never went away in the first place.’

She has a point. Like most of us, I’m not a huge fan of the first day or two back; the unpacking, all that laundry, and generally readjusting back to day-to-day life after the dreamy bubble of a holiday. But while the holiday itself might be over, its memories remain.

Stored inside us, like a hidden treasure trove, we can choose to plug back into them at any moment. Sometimes mine come to me unbidden, such as the other day, walking through a London park, where the particular way sunlight fell through a cluster of trees transported me back to a walking holiday in the Alps, many years ago. For a few moments, I was right back in that mountain landscape, with its crisp air and earthy scent of pines. And earlier this week, sipping some chai tea I'd made, I was taken back to the balmy heat of late afternoon in Goa, January 2007, sitting on a wooden bench at the hotel my friends and I were staying at, and drinking chai and eating cake. When these memories bubble up, they bring me joy.

Of course, we can also remember things in a mournful If only I were still drinking sunset cocktails by the beach rather than stuck at my desk in the autumn rain way. Which we've all probably done. But instead of using memories to remind ourselves of what we no longer have, we can consciously use them as a doorway back into the felt sense of delight or wonder that a particular experience gave us.

They don’t, of course, need to come from a holiday in the conventional sense of the word, where we pack our suitcase and go away for a number of days or weeks. It’s worth remembering that the word holiday originates from holy day. Prior to the fifteenth century, it referred to days taken off work to celebrate a religious festival. I like to think of a holiday as anything where we step away from our day-to-day routines and responsibilities - perhaps just for a few hours or even minutes - and into what we consider the sacred. Not in the religious sense, but in the what feels uplifting and meaningful to us sense. Whether it’s seeing art or going to the movies or out dancing. Or perhaps it’s spending time with a much-loved friend, or just sitting alone on a park bench for a few minutes and watching the sky. Or one of my own (almost daily) favourites: an afternoon cup of tea & some chocolate, with no distractions, so I can fully savour them.

Whenever we make space for these experiences, we’re also adding to our bank of memories, which we can then tap into at other times:

Take a moment to close your eyes and bring to mind the memory of a delightful experience. As you hold it in your awareness, recreate the particular scene as vividly as you can, engaging as many of your senses as possible, including sounds, smells and even the sensations you experienced in your body. Notice how you feel. Then let go of the memory itself, and just stay with its felt sense, breathing into it. You might choose to practice this more formally, setting aside a few minutes to sit with a tall spine in a meditation posture (on the floor or in a chair), or to lie down. But it’s also something we can slide into for a few moments while in the midst of something else, such as sitting at our desk in the autumn rain, or cooking dinner.

We tend to think a wonderful experience is what makes us feel good. But what if we turn this thought on its head and consider that, perhaps, the feeling of wellbeing brought about by doing something lovely is actually a feeling that lives innately within us. And the experience itself is an entry point to the delight and wonder that live in somewhere inside each one of us.

Glistening On The Surface Of The River

Life is a cabaret, old chum, sang Sally Bowles towards the end of a performance that had me gripped from start to finish. When she belted out, Start by admitting from cradle to tomb, it isn't that long a stay, her words were like an electrical current right into my cells. After the show, my friend and I walked from the theatre to Buckingham Place. It was two days since the Queen had died. Thousands of bouquets had been left outside the palace, in tribute to her.

I value the moments where I’m reminded life doesn’t last forever. Mini wake-up calls, they invite me to pause and reflect on how I’m living out my time here. Ninety-six, the age to which the Queen lived, is an impressively long innings. Yet I can still foresee all those years passing by fast. My own parents, now in their nineties, always tell me how busy they are, how their days race byAs I get older, time does feel like it’s speeding up. Those spacious days of childhood, when I didn’t even know what a to-do list was, are a distant dream. Earlier this week, my three-year-old, a winter solstice baby, longingly asked, ‘Is it my birthday tomorrow?’ I explained he’d have to wait another hundred or so days for it; a stretch of time too vast for him to fathom. Yet one that will, for me, no doubt flow away all too fast.

The days passing quickly is certainly preferable to boredom; to the slow drip of minutes and a longing for the hands on the clock to speed up and the day to be over. Luckily this happens to me only rarely. Last time was a year ago, during the ten days I was trapped at home with a mild case of Covid and a toddler, watching the final days of summer from my window.

Even though speed is preferable to boredom, it unsettles me when the weeks and months start to blur into one, and I’m left thinking, where on earth did all that time go? Of course, it went into many things, including working, running a home, a family, a life. And of course, having structure and routine in our lives is, in many ways, both grounding and comforting. Plus, should we choose to place our presence fully into whatever it is we’re doing (how often I forget…), even in the mundanity of the washing up, we have the opportunity to connect with the magic embedded in even the most everyday of acts.

One way of slowing down time is to make space for the things that stand out from our day-to-day routine and that enliven us: those things it’s all too easy to persuade ourselves are too time-consuming, too expensive, not worth the bother, and that we’re perfectly fine without them.

Yet they are what almost invariably give me a massive injection of joy, and are what I’ll remember in the months and even years to come. (Rather than what I ate for dinner last night.) This year’s ones include, along with that electrifying performance of Cabaret, the August day I spent at a writing workshop in a beautiful thirteenth-century church in Kent, eating delicious homemade cakes and meeting a wonderful group of strangers, as well as the two days in spring when I escaped London to study with my yoga teacher and reconnect with friends I’d not seen since before the pandemic. All these experiences were so rich, I didn’t want to miss a single moment of them (even to go to the loo!). They are the gems from my year, glistening like the sparkle of refracted light on the surface of a fast-flowing river.

As we head into the final one hundred days of 2022, is there something you’re longing to make space for? Perhaps it’s something you’ve been meaning to do for a while? As always, I love to know what’s going on in your world.

Swimming Against The Tide

For the past three years, I’ve spent July and August in London. During this time, the majority of my friends have, at some point, been on holiday. I scroll past their Instagram photos of glittering Turkish beaches or tranquil Austrian mountains and a pang of longing to be elsewhere flashes through me. For much as I love London in summer, I’d still choose beach or mountains over city.

These homebound summers got me reflecting on other times in my life when I felt like I was swimming in a different direction to most of my friends. For much of my thirties, I was one of the few who was still single. And in my early forties, when I’d finally got together with someone, I was pretty much the only one without a child. My longings for a partner and, later, a child were deep-seated, and not fuelled by society’s expectations, or wanting to ‘keep up with the Joneses.’ But despite the lack of what I longed for, I could hardly say I had a poor quality of life.

Far from it. I had wonderful friends and family, lived in a flat I adored, enjoyed my freelance career as an architect and yoga teacher, and the work-life balance it gave me. I filled myself up with yoga, writing, reading, cooking, plus holidays to far-flung place such as India and Thailand.

When I look back on those years, I also see how much energy I invested on what I didn’t have and wanted, and in worrying about whether I’d ever have them. A sense of absence often settled in, like a film of dust over a beautiful mirror, which meant I didn’t always see my life in its full glory. With hindsight, I also realise that the emptiness I’d sometimes feel was less about my actual day-to-day reality and more about my fear of what my future might not have. Of course, there were occasions I felt the genuine ache of loneliness in my heart, such as when a girlfriend cancelled, last minute, a Saturday night dinner I’d been looking forward to all week, as her child was sick. But when I ditched the ruminating and was able to focus on what was right in front of me, I was mostly fine.

I wish I’d lived those years unaccompanied by the hum of all that fretting. I can never reclaim them from my ‘one wild and precious life’. There are (perhaps inevitably!) things I now miss about them, such as the luxury of a spacious Saturday spent ambling around, agendaless, or all those yoga workshops and classes I could just go to at the drop of a hat.

And it’s not as if worrying helped me create my future, either. What did help was taking proactive steps, such as signing up for online dating in my mid-thirties, by which time the steady stream of weekend parties full of single people, readily available a decade earlier, had dried up, and friends instead collapsed onto sofas on Saturday nights, exhausted by the demands of young children.

Not getting away over the summer is, of course, rather a small-scale concern. But it’s reminded me of the power of turning towards what we do have with joy, rather than focusing on what we don’t have. For the most part, I’ve placed my attention on the blissful quiet of an emptied-out London, and on times spent with friends and family, be it drinking Prosecco and eating bruschetta at a Marylebone pavement table, while getting to know a new friend, or watching the sun set over the city while picnicking on Primrose Hill with one of my dearest friends. In those moments, I wasn’t dreaming of swimming in a Mediterranean sea or an Alpine lake. I was simply there.

Our minds have the opportunity to take up residence in a million places. Where are you choosing to place yours?

Never Want To Let You Go

A while ago, I was at a friend’s sixtieth birthday party. During her speech, she said it’d hit home that she probably only had another twenty or so summers left. Although I’m younger than her - so might be able to swing a few more! (not that any of us know how long we’ve got) - her words struck me. For thirty, or even forty, still felt like way too few.

Summer is my favourite season, crazy heatwave days aside. Each year, it goes by too fast. I want to wrap my arms around it and never let it go; to gather up its light, warmth and the fragrances of rose, clover and honeysuckle that steep the air.

I used to think that if I saturated myself with summer, I’d reach its end and be ready to say goodbye. That if I went for enough picnics and lay in enough parks, breathing in their heavenly summer scents, and drank enough glasses of chilled rosé in English gardens, and ate enough juicy cherries and succulent greengages, I’d feel sated. But even though autumn has its own beauty, every year, when summer fades, I’m left longing for more.

It’s the same with everything. However many times I gather my three-year-old in my arms, I know that when the day comes and he doesn’t want to be cuddled by his mother anymore, it won’t have been enough times. And however many cups of tea and chats I have with my elderly parents, there will never have been enough.

I don’t think we’ll ever have our fill of what we truly love. And yet, inevitably, the day will come when we have to say goodbye.

Remembering the impermanence of everything is valuable because it helps us recognise how precious what we love is, and how important it is to enjoy it while it’s still with us. But the shadow side to this recognition can be that we’re already fast-forwarding to the eventual loss of something, while it’s still there to be savoured. And the dread, fear, or sadness that might arise can prevent us from enjoying the experience fully.

It’s a fine line between acknowledging impermanence and using it to enhance our experiences, by not taking them for granted, versus becoming overly invested in it, and letting it mar our pleasure. A bit like cooking, where not enough salt renders a dish flavourless, and too much kills it.

I’m trying to learn to hold all I love with a lighter touch, so I can be as fully present to it as possible. When I grasp too tightly, with hands of fear, I risk squeezing out the delight. When I notice myself thinking, Oh no, we’re already over half-way through summer, and it’ll be autumn before I know it, the challenge is to drop the narrative and come back to this moment: the feel of the grass against my back, the sun on my arms, the scents of the Regent’s Park roses.

Keep Your Eyes Close To The Ground

In the distance we could see the ruined castle, on the brow of the hill. It was midday and the sun glared down on my husband and I. The hottest May in 20 years, our waiter at dinner the previous night had told us. We’d already been walking almost two hours, and I was tired, sweating. Could I really be bothered to climb up to this tenth-century Castello?

I shifted my gaze away from the peak, and placed it on the ground, dotted with stones and wildflowers. I took another step. And another. I kept walking, only occasionally glancing up at the grey stone form of the fortress, perched on top of the hill. Before too long, we were there, wandering alone among its ruins and viewing, through arrowslits, framed snapshots of the Abruzzo mountains, their far-off peaks still snowy white. After, we descended to the village clinging to its base and sat in the shade, enjoying ice-cold water and homemade gnocchi.

Keep your eyes close to the ground and focus on just the next step is one of the most useful pieces of advice I’ve ever gathered. It’s helped me countless times, be it hiking up a mountain, writing a book or trying to kick up into a handstand. Whenever the end point feels too daunting, and I feel defeated by the prospect of ever getting there, it’s what I have to remind myself to do.

If writing an entire book felt insurmountable, crafting one paragraph, or even just one sentence, was doable. If, as a beginner yoga student, kicking up into a handstand seemed impossible, going into a downward dog and then raising one leg was manageable.

Often, before we know it, we’ve arrived. By accruing small steps and focusing on those, while holding our destination with a light, soft gaze.

Each time I’ve arrived somewhere, it’s been immensely satisfying. Whether it’s standing atop a mountain, stunning views stretching out all around me, or the power and energy I felt from finally being in that handstand. But the satisfaction comes not only from the glory of the arrival, and also from engaging with the process of getting there. Of staying as present as possible during the thousands of steps it might take us, so the texture of the journey – wildflowers and all - becomes a part of the richness of the experience.

The Gold Is In The Grit

A few nights ago, I attended a friend’s film screening; it’s a raw and beautiful short about her experience of post-partum depression. During the Q&A, she described how creating it was cathartic, as well as an opportunity to be honest about a subject that’s still, too often, shrouded in secrecy and shame.

Having shared some of the darker stories from my own life too, this resonated. As it happened, that very day, I’d finished a piece for a magazine on something I’ve yet to speak about publicly.

Writing the piece brought up discomfort, on several levels: there was the intensity of reliving the experience itself as I put it into words, along with the question of how exposed will I feel when, in time, I see those words in print? There was also the struggle to find the right words: did I have the capability to craft all the thoughts and images swirling round my head into a story of sufficient eloquence?

There were moments I told myself, this is too hard, I’m too tired, I don’t have enough time. Perhaps I should just pull out.

I didn’t, of course. Partly, because experience has taught me discomfort isn’t necessarily a bad sign. In fact, it’s often a compass showing us we’re going in the right direction: the direction of growth, learning and developing new facets of ourselves. And, along with the discomfort, writing the piece was enlivening and interesting. Exciting, even, to see what unfolded from my efforts.

There’ve been so many occasions I’ve felt uncomfortable and anxious about stepping into something new. Be it teaching my first public yoga classes, where each time, just before class began, I longed to run away. Yet, terrifying as the teaching was, it was also exhilarating. Or when I met my now husband, the excitement of finding him online was matched by a terror that if I dared go all in with this gorgeous stranger, I’d end up heartbroken. But it was through showing up to teach, that I learnt to become a yoga teacher, and through showing up with my boyfriend that I learnt how to be in a long-term relationship.

I always remind myself that it’s under high pressure and temperatures that the molecular structure of black carbon is turned into a diamond. And that fear is a natural and perfectly healthy companion when we’re challenging ourselves to explore new things. One that says, ‘This really matters to you, doesn’t it.’

What about you? Is there something that really matters to you right now? Something that’s asking you to sit with the grittiness of the experience, and trust that’s exactly from where you might unearth the gold.

Can't Take My Eyes Off You

We inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the colour blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

David Whyte

Last Sunday, I walked through some beautiful public gardens in London’s Marylebone. It was a perfect spring morning and on almost every bench sat a person with their eyes fixated on a small rectangular device they held in their hands. I could easily have been one of them. Often, I am, utilising ‘spare’ minutes to catch up on emails, or see what I’ve missed on Instagram.

A few weeks ago, though, I took myself on something called an Artist’s Date. This is a term coined by the writer Julia Cameron, whose book, The Artist’s Way (a great one for reclaiming one’s creativity) you may have come across. Artist’s Dates are one of the foundation stones of her method, and involve taking yourself off somewhere alone (ideally once a week), to do something you find enjoyable and inspiring.

I went to the movies, and then for tea and cake at a café in Soho. Obviously, I didn’t sit in the cinema with my eyes glued to my smartphone! But as soon as I arrived at the café, I pulled it out of my bag thinking I’d ‘catch up’ while I waited for my tea to arrive. Unusually though, I put it away again immediately. Having been so submerged in the exquisite world of the movie, I wanted to hold onto its magic a bit longer and realised staring at my phone wouldn’t support that.

Instead I sat at my window table and drank in the world around me: conversations taking place, passersby ambling along Greek Street. On the bus home, my phone remained in my bag, and I sat on the top deck watching my city slide past me, and noticing things for the first time, such as the beautiful decorations on the 100-year-old façade of Heal’s, the furniture shop on Tottenham Court Road.

Since then, I’ve been trying to carve out more pockets of unfilled space, rather than habitually reaching for my phone in a quiet moment, in the erroneous belief this is a good thing, as I’m being productive and getting stuff done. I am, but it’s at a cost:

The cost of missing out on engaging with a rich and living world that’s unfolding right in front of me; a world that can soak into all five of my senses, and remind me that I too am part of its flow. Plus, I’m giving my mind much-needed breathing space; space in which I’m not doing or producing, but simply receiving the world, without any agenda. This feels like a spa for my brain. And unsurprisingly, crafting this space feeds our creativity. It’s when ideas can drip into our subconscious without us even realising, or solutions to existing problems can bubble up of their own accord.

I Feared She Might Never Bounce Back

Two years ago today, I walked down a deserted Marylebone High Street. Instead of the usual mid-week bustle, many places had already shut shop, and there was almost no-one around. I’d never seen London like this.

I was terrified. Would this strange virus destroy us all? Would London ever return to the vibrancy I’d, until now, taken for granted?

For a long time, it seemed like she might not. Six months after that Marylebone morning, my husband and I ventured into Soho for our first night out since the pandemic began. The centre of town was still eerily quiet.

It no longer is. In fact, it’s heaving. The other day there was a half hour queue at one of my favourite Soho cafes. The once silent, empty city felt like a distant memory.

Seeing this transformation reminds me how it is possible bounce back from challenging circumstances, even when we fear we might not be able to. That said, of course I also appreciate that recovery is not always a given. And that hidden behind the surface of this once again vibrant city, there are also many stories of loss, in its myriad of forms.

I do find it important to remember our potential to rise back up, though. Not least because I know that when I’ve been massively knocked down, my own tendency is to think, that’s it: I’ll never get over this; I’ll never flourish again.

Which was my initial response when, at barely thirty, I had my first big shock, in the form of a cancer diagnosis. Luckily, I did recover. Not just physically, but I was also able to rebuild my life in the wake of all the illness swept away from it.

Rather than recreating a painstaking replica of what we left behind, rebuilding often means crafting a new construction that responds appropriately to our new circumstances. While our losses might impose some restrictions – for example, breast cancer meant I couldn’t breastfeed my son – our reconstructed lives might well include aspects that are beyond what we could have previously imagined: if it wasn’t for cancer, I’d probably still be commuting across town to work a crazy 60 hour week as an architect.

I’ve had other shocks since that first one. Each time, my initial reaction has been sheer terror. Yet behind that fear, sits a knowing, deep in my cells, that rising back up again is possible. And while I wouldn’t wish hardship on any of us, I’ve come to believe that the experience of surviving past ones, is one of the tools that can help us find our way through future ones, and provides us with the hope that one day the light can indeed return.

It's OK To Go Slow

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.

Rumi

How was your January? Mine was pretty stagnant, to be honest. Hardly the all guns blazing entry into the new year we traditionally revere.

At times, I berated myself for this lackluster start. Questioned whether inspiration and energy would ever return.

At other moments, feeling a touch wiser, I questioned the madness of putting pressure on ourselves to show up with fire in our bellies during what is, for many of us, the trickiest month of the year. With the pre-Christmas sparkle and the quiet, peaceful days of late December gone, and spring still a distant dream, January, for me, has always had a hollow dreariness.

Interestingly, the tradition of new year’s resolutions, started by the Babylonians around 2000BC, originally took place at the spring equinox, when the new year was celebrated. It was only some 2000 years later, when we shifted to the Julian calendar, that January 1st marked the start of the new year and the setting of resolutions.

Yet in many places in the northern hemisphere, the world is at its coldest and darkest in January. Nature is still in hibernation. It feels less an apt time for new beginnings, and more one to go slow, take enough rest and replenish ourselves.

Over the last weekend of January, I got a chance to do just that. My husband took our son to visit family in Derbyshire, and I stayed in London. In the past, I’ve cherished these rare solo weekends as an opportunity to immerse myself in city life, cramming in as many of the things I love as possible: afternoon tea, a visit to a spa, wandering round Soho’s backstreets, and so on. This time, my instinct was to retreat from the blustery January city. I spent most of my time alone at home, reading, watching movies, journalling, and eating delicious food (see below for some of my recommendations). It was bliss, and just what I needed to recharge.

Hot on the heels of that weekend, came Imbolc, the Celtic festival, celebrated on February 1st and 2nd, which marks the first whispers of spring. I noticed how the days were now that bit longer, how the snowdrops were starting to burst through the winter soil. And I sensed how my own energy and enthusiasm had started to return.

Whenever I’m caught in one of life’s less flourishing cycles, it’s all too easy to convince myself that I’ll stay stuck there. But if there’s one lesson life seems to throw at me again and again, it’s that this is the way it is, and it’s meant to be: fallow times and fertile times; ones that feel empty, and ones that feel full and juicy. None of which last forever. And the thing is to learn to lean into and to trust this ebb and flow, as both are necessary, one balancing out and creating a pathway to the other.

Suspended Time

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard

One of the things I’ve always loved about those quiet days between Christmas and New Year is how life slows down. Now I have a toddler, spacious afternoons watching movies or reading books are gone. But this year, I still enjoyed the general absence of rush, putting aside my to-do list, and afternoons eating cake with family and friends.

Two weeks ago, when the final day of the holidays came round, I felt an edginess land in my body: a tightness in my jaw and my stomach, in anticipation of life’s routines and commitments once again encroaching.

The question I found myself asking was, how could I sustain that easeful, floating feeling I’d experienced, and carry it with me into the new year?

Carry it with me as I juggle the multiple balls of looking after all the various people in my life (not least the 3-year-old!), working, plus dealing with life’s eternal reams of admin. As well as looking after myself, by carving out some space for what nourishes me, such as moving my body or connecting with my friends.

To be honest, I don’t always find it easy. Often, I’ll feel harried, and will tell myself aren’t enough hours in the day. Which I know isn’t helpful. And also kind of ridiculous, given life is short and precious. When I’m on my deathbed, I’m certain I won’t be regretting the emails I forgot to answer and the fact that the door handle my son trashed never got fixed.

And yet, this thought that time is always running away is a pretty ingrained one. An insidious one that I know I’m not alone in experiencing: a by-product of a culture that has taught us every minute ought to be used productively, and the more you do, the more valuable you are.

There are a few practices that help me mitigate this tendency:

One is to bring my full attention to whatever it is I’m doing, including when it’s something as exciting as scrubbing potatoes or folding the laundry. I’ll try and engage with it as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, rather than mentally fast-forwarding to the next thing on my list.

I’m also trying to be less ambitious with what I aim to do on any one day: putting five things on the list, instead of fifteen. And taking uninterrupted pauses between bouts of activity, such a few minutes to drink a cup of tea, or read an interesting article, which helps create the sense that time is bountiful rather than in short supply.

Something I’ve also added in this year, is a phrase to anchor me. I asked myself what quality I wanted to bring into my life in 2022. What came up was JOYFUL EXPLORATION: to experience life through a more curious and exploratory lens, rather than being overly focused on getting things done and ticking off goals, be they big or small ones.

Because deep-down I know that how I feel each day is far more important than how much stuff I get done.

When I get strung-out, I’m trying to remember to silently repeat the phrase JOYFUL EXPLORATION a few times. Words are powerful, and on hearing these, I immediately sense something in me settle and soften.

Of course, like anything this a practice: one of getting caught up again and again in the busyness, and the feeling of lack around time. Then realizing, and unhooking. And like any practice, the more we do it, the more it seeds itself inside us, and helps rewire our default patterning and create a different reality.

If you have any tips of your own for creating a better relationship to time, I would love to hear them! And do you too have a word or a phrase that’s helping you to navigate 2022?

Why Gratitude Isn't Everything

We hear a lot about the value of making gratitude lists. I’m a fan myself. Most nights, just before I go to sleep, I write down three things I’m grateful for that day. They might be small – the delicious buttered sourdough toast I ate for lunch – or bigger, such as the walk I took with one of my closest friends in an autumnal Regent’s Park. My only rule is they’re things that have genuinely lifted my spirits, rather than ones my head tells me I ‘ought’ to be thankful for.

Doing this helps remind me how, even on a rather humdrum day, there’s always magic there too. Which can be all too easy to forget, not least because of the brain’s negativity bias. In earlier times, this was useful as it kept us alert for danger and therefore helped us survive. We don’t need it as much now, yet it’s stuck around.

I’ve found this practice especially helpful when life is at its most challenging. Which is exactly when it can be tempting not to bother. Sometimes I’ve had to dig deep to find three things. Yet I’ve never not managed. Perhaps it’s the kindness of a friend who drops everything to be with me, or the book I’m reading that helps me feel less alone. At such times, I then realise that however dark it is, there are always flickers of light there too.

But gratitude isn’t everything. If we only focus on what’s good in our lives, there’s a danger we end up stifling the stuff that feels sticky and heartbreaking, wallpapering it over with a veneer of false positivity. Which can end up making us feel worse. Especially if we tell ourselves ‘I have so much to be grateful for, who am I to complain. So many people are far worse off.’ But as Edith Eger, the therapist and Auschwitz survivor, writes, ‘There is no hierarchy of suffering.’

We all experience things that make our hearts ache, in large or small ways. I find it more helpful to let myself be with the uncomfortable feelings these bring up, rather than push them away, tempting as it can be.

To hold in one hand all that brings me joy, and in the other that which makes me sad. To bring both into the light, recognising that they are part of the natural order of this world, which is both beautiful and painful. When I do this, somehow it enables the good stuff to be amplified, and the tricky stuff to pass through me more easily.

What are you grateful for today? And is there anything that’s bringing up difficult emotions? If so, what would it be like to give both your fullest attention?

Starting From Scratch

We shall not cease from exploration.

And the end of all our exploring.

Will be to arrive where we started.

And know the place for the first time.

T. S. ELIOT

When I started teaching yoga, over a decade ago, it was a hard graft. Aside from running round London covering any class I could, I also had a couple of my own. To begin with, I’d regularly have just one student per class. Sometimes, no-one showed up.

Slowly but surely, I got more clients. Fast forward a few years, and I started teaching at the yoga studio Triyoga. Some nights there were now close to fifty people in my class. I breathed a sigh of relief. It felt good to no longer worry about whether I was even going earn enough to cover the cost of a flat white, once I’d paid the room rent, or my transport. And of course being in a room with all these lovely people who’d chosen to take my class, gave me a buzz.

Then 2020 rocked up.

Luckily, yoga studios in in UK have reopened. But rebuilding, in the wake of the pandemic, feels in many ways like starting from scratch. Often I’m taken back to the those early years where, on a good day, five people might show up, four of whom I’d never met and who - as is inevitable - might not resonate with me and how I teach.

I’m not going to pretend this new normal has felt entirely comfortable. Yet from the grit of it, two pearls have emerged:

The first is the reminder (yet again!) that the essence of life is change, and nothing lasts forever. This can be all too easily forgotten, especially when we’re cruising along nicely. We might believe that because we’ve climbed the mountain, we’re never going to end up at its base again. The truth is, there are always going to be peaks and troughs.

The second pearl is that I’ve had to ask myself whether teaching yoga actually still matters to me? When things are ticking along, it can be too easy to accept the status quo and not pause to question it.

The answer is, yes. Practicing yoga still brings me great joy, as does sharing it with others. Which was the spark that led me to pursue teaching in the first place.

In that yes, I have to remind myself to let go of the part of me that has demands and expectations about how my life as a yoga teacher should look, as well as of the part of me that misses what teaching was like pre-pandemic. And to reconnect with that spark of joy that brought me to it all those years ago.

Perhaps you also have somewhere in your life where you feel things are no longer what they once were? If so, it might be worth asking, does this still matter to my heart? And if the answer’s yes, to remember the spark from which it grew – whether it’s the love you have for someone, or the passion for something you do.

Our relationships, our careers, and indeed everything, will inevitably go through various cycles, some more ‘up’, some more ‘down’. It can be tempting, when we hit the lower ones, to think we need to sweep out that person or that career. Sometimes that’s absolutely the right choice. At other times, such as when we hear that inner yes, can we instead learn to be with whatever it is, in its re-formed state, and in the remembrance that this too is part of the great dance of life. It too, in time, will give way to some new and as yet unknown form.

Clearing The Clutter

create

a clearing

in the dense forest

of your life

Martha Postlethwaite

Over the past few months, I’ve been clearing out my flat. I’ve now emptied it of everything that was sitting around unloved or unused. If I’m honest, I really let the clutter build up over the two years since my son was born, preferring to use my limited free time to do other stuff, such as write. I’m actually a bit embarrassed to share this, given I’m an architect who cares deeply about spaces, and knows what a profound impact they can have on us.

The good news is I’m writing this from a home that feels very different to six months ago. One that contains only things I love or are useful to me (which also makes them loveable), and whose energy longer feels stagnant and heavy, but light and full of possibility. I can now see my treasured possessions clearly, whereas before they were lost amidst all that stuff I didn’t care so much about.

It’s also made me reflect on how easy it is to accumulate thoughts we don’t need, and how they too can shroud us from the good stuff. And while once a physical object is gone, it’s gone, thoughts have a wily way of showing up again and again, even when we know they’re not in our best interests. Such as the ones that tell us we’re not good enough, or we’re unheard, incapable.

But as with the stuff that gathers in our homes, we do have a choice as to which thoughts we carry around with us. Some might be pretty persistent visitors, but they’re not immoveable ones. And when I’m able to let go of the mental clutter, even if just briefly, I feel so much better.

What helps shift it? I find it useful to first ask myself, is this thought actually true? Often, it’s not. Then to ask myself, is it helpful? Usually, that’s a no, too.

I’ll also bring my attention to something else, such as the rise and fall of my breath in my body, or the feeling of the ground that holds me. Something that’s ‘bigger’ than my preoccupations. It reminds me that while they can feel all-consuming, there’s a whole other world out there, waiting to be embraced. A world that’s spacious and magical, and which invites us to participate in the good stuff, such as fun, creativity and the courage to take risks and try new things.

The Power Of The Not Now

In this bright future, you can’t forget your past.

Bob Marley

We talk a lot about the present moment. Especially in the worlds of yoga, meditation and mindfulness. Which means the past and the future can get a bit of a bad rap.

There’s good reason to revere the present. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, ‘Life is available only in the present moment.’ And by being present we are, among other things, likely to feel calmer and more grateful.

Often, we’ll relate to the past by ruminating over our regrets, or be full of longing for what no longer is. We’ll relate to the future by fantasizing about what we wish we had, and yearning to press the fast forward button to get there as swiftly as possible. Both of which can create an uneasy relationship to the present.

But we can forge a connection to our known past and our imagined future in ways that actually enhance our experience of the here and now.

Can we think of the past as offering a foundation stone of support when we feel ourselves faltering? It can remind us, when we’re challenged, that yes, you can do this. You’ve done it before and there’s no reason you can’t do it again. I actually keep a file of ‘love-notes’ from people containing nice words about my teaching and my writing, and when I feel my confidence waver, I’ll pull it out and read through them. They help me remind myself that yes, you can, when the voice of no, you can’t threatens to topple me over.

If the past is like the ground beneath us, our imagined future is like the bright sky above us. The future offers us the powerful balm of hope, and is where we can place a clear vision of what we desire. But rather than just allow that vision to drift around the ether, we can use it actively, to create the paths that will help bring that vision into being. By doing so, and by finding joy as we walk those paths (as opposed to seeing them as just a means to an end), we can also amplify our experience of the present.

So we return to the moment, placing ourselves there with a beautiful attentiveness, while feeling held by the ground of the past and inspired by the sky of the future. As we draw those energies into the body of the now, they can truly nourish it.

Make A Feast Out Of Joy

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

Don’t hesitate. Give in to it.

Mary Oliver

I was chatting to a friend a couple of weeks ago and she admitted she’d mostly enjoyed the quieter rhythm of the last twelve months. She was uncomfortable about this, because the pandemic has of course been so harsh for so many. I reminded her of the incredibly challenging time she went through a while back and suggested she let go of any guilt and instead enjoy this ease.

Over the past year, I’ve heard it said many times how we’re all in this together. In a sense we are – I don’t know a single person whose life hasn’t been radically affected. But beyond that broad brushstroke, our individual experiences have been hugely varied, and for some of us it’s been far less difficult than for others.

We are all interconnected, and are typically affected by the larger scale happenings, be they a beautiful spring day, which is more likely to offer a sense of lightness and possibility than a pouring, brutally-cold winter one. And yet, for example, it was on a perfect spring morning that I learnt I had cancer. A day where the trees in Regent’s Park so ripe with May blossom felt totally out of synch with the news I’d just received.

Our lives are indeed part of the collective ocean, yet within that ocean, we also ride our individual waves, as our unique story plays itself out. While we’re riding our waves of joy, others might be riding theirs of sorrow. This will always be the way.

It can be easy to feel like we ought to mute or suppress joy, especially when it’s someone close to us who’s suffering, or the world at large is suffering. Or indeed, if we’ve experienced a loss of our own, yet still find that at times we’re happy, this might bring up guilt.

But what I’ve learnt over the years is that joy and sadness can co-exist; the presence of one doesn’t need to negate the other. Our hearts are vast enough to hold both. We might be having the most wonderful time, yet can offer deep compassion (the root of this word is from the Latin, compati, meaning to suffer with) to a loved one who’s having a hard time, or the part of ourselves that’s struggling.

Joy, like sadness, comes and goes. When it graces us, can we create a lavish feast, and savour every morsel. And just as we would with a beautiful meal, can we allow it to fade away, with the trust that it will come our way again.

Are Your Feet Dragging Across The Ground?

Do you have the patience to wait

Until your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remain unmoving?

Until the right action arises by itself?

Lao Tzu

I’m writing this while listening to one of my favourite Rolling Stones tracks, Winter. As Mick Jagger sings, It sure been a hard, hard winter, My feet been draggin' 'cross the ground. I don’t know about you, but I certainly feel like I’ve been dragging mine across the muddy parklands of London!

For me, the start of 2021 is proving less a time for initiating new projects (as a new year often can be); rather, it’s one of clearing and contemplation.

I spent much of the past two years immersed in new motherhood, as well as completing and publishing a book. Along the way, my flat became a cluttered mess, thanks in no small part to the surprising amount of paraphernalia that accompanies a tiny person.

I’m finally knee-deep in a huge clear-out. Sifting through years of accumulated stuff is slow and laborious work. With each object, I’m asking myself, does this really belong to the life I lead today, or carry a profound enough resonance to justify keeping?

I try on a pair of vertiginous designer heels and realise I’ll never be that young woman heading out to a Saturday night party and longing to find love. I pick up a book on fertility and recognise I’m no longer that woman yearning to conceive.

While I’m looking forward to eventually living in a more orderly home again, I have a sense that clearing out what’s extraneous will also help make space for new energy to come into my life.

For as the intensity of early motherhood softens, and my book is out there in the world, I’m asking myself, what’s next, what projects are waiting to be born (alongside, of course, my yoga classes)? Again, this involves sifting through the various ideas that bubble up – some, mere whispers, others, a little louder and more insistent – and sitting with them, to gauge whether they might be a good fit, or are best left as flights of fancy.

I don’t yet have answers. And living in a culture that values action, productivity and moving ahead, at times this feels unsettling. A waste of precious time, even.

I have to then remind myself that it’s ok to not have answers. That marinating in the not-knowing is in itself a valuable and interesting process, and is what will ultimately create clarity. When I do act, I’ll be doing so from an intentional place, rather than rushing into something simply for the sake of doing.

As nature reminds us, fallow periods are as necessary a part of the cycle as the ones of full bloom. And that even when the winter soil is bare, beneath the surface spring is being prepared for. It will burst forth when the time is right.

A Winter Solstice Love Letter

For everything there is a season.

Ecclesiastes

I usually love the week leading up to Christmas with its rituals such as the candlelit carol service at the church in which I was married, or the night out with my husband, a tradition originating from the years we always spent Christmas apart. In 2018, our son arrived on December 21st, giving this week even more significance.

Last Monday, when I learnt London was about to be placed in Tier 3, my heart sank. Of course it isn’t the end of the world, and of course the priority must be to save lives. But still, it’s been a long and relentless year, and a cocktail in a hotel bar with my husband, or a birthday brunch out with our son (who shows signs of being as much as a foodie as his mother!) were delightful sparkles to look forward to.

Tier 3 was swiftly replaced by Tier 4, and even more was washed away. Will this ever end, I asked myself as I stood on the rain-sodden ground in my local park, the sky overcast, the leaves now turned to mulch.

Today is the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. It is also described as the day on which the light returns. From now, the minutes of daylight incrementally start to build again until they reach their peak at the summer solstice. This is such a beautiful teaching: the light will always return, and sometimes it has to get very dark before it does.

Nature’s rhythms may be more structured than our own human ones. But the principle is the same: everything exists in cycles, nothing lasts forever. Dark will invariably yield to light, winter to spring, just as throughout our lives, we will roll through cycles of joy and grief, creativity and fallowness. And while each cycle may have its predominant flavour, it also holds other flavours within it, including its opposite, just as the winter solstice holds light as well as darkness.

I remind myself of this when I feel trapped, or steeped in exhaustion. None of us know when we’ll cease to live in a pandemic-stricken world. But we will, and I trust there will come a day when it’ll have faded to a distant memory, when we’ll dance again with strangers in a crowded space, or whatever it is we long to do.

While there are times to reflect upon the richness and gifts of darkness and all it can teach us, right now what’s helping me most is to anchor my attention both forwards towards the shifts that will inevitably come, and also to the present, which while challenging holds so much to be grateful for. The more closely I attune to it, the more riches I discover, be it in the stark beauty of a winter tree or the delicious warmth of a latte; sparks of light that are ever-present even in the darkness.

What Really Matters?

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Late Fragment, by RAYMOND CARVER

A question I’ve been asking myself recently is, what really matters to me? It’s all too easy, I find, to be seduced into allowing certain things to assume an inflated level of importance. But what is it that brings a deep-seated sense of fulfilment, as opposed to a shallow hit?

Having recently published a book, I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to publicise it. This has involved pitching to various media, and sending out lots of emails. I realised I’d started obsessively checking my inbox for responses, sometimes as often as every few minutes, living in anticipation of the high of a yes, or the sinking sensation of a no. I’d become a slave to my screen, constantly engaging with its hollow energy, via a nervous system always on alert for praise or rejection.

It didn’t feel great, and I recognised I needed to shift my attention. For away from my screen, there was a whole world unfolding; a world full of richness and texture. A world that, when I poured myself into it, kept showing me that this is enough. Witnessed in my walk home through the autumn park at dusk, with its smoky air and golden leaves, the sounds of joggers’ feet pounding its paths and overheard snippets of conversation: Mary needs to quarantine as she came from Canada…Only half the road is open...

The closer I can be to this world - including in the mundanity of peeling potatoes or making the bed - the more it reminds me that it is, in itself, enough. My body responds by feeling more grounded and content, less edgy. It is, of course, a practice. One I need to come back to again and again and again, in order to become less aligned with the stories floating round my mind, which can easily deceive me into thinking that what really matters is an acceptance or a rejection from someone who’s never even met me.

I also decided to limit checking email to a maximum of four times a day, and never before 8am, or after 8pm. I don’t always manage, but when I do I feel the difference. When the itch to check more often arises, instead of just reacting to it, I try to drop into the discomfort of that urge and sit with the sensations until they pass. Undoing the conditioning that tells me my value is determined by how much I achieve is a life-long practice. To instead learn in my cells that being here, as part of this life, this earth, this human heart is enough.

One of the yeses I did receive was from Red magazine. You can read my piece in the November 2020 issue here.

When Life Changes In An Instant

You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

This spring, life changed dramatically for all of us. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined my beloved London plunging into lockdown.

Eighteen springs ago, my own life took an unforeseen twist when I woke up in hospital on a beautiful May afternoon, to be told the seemingly benign lump I’d just had removed from my left breast was, in fact, cancer.

My busy life as a young, single London architect crashed to a halt, as I entered several months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Cancer was a harsh place to land in, but also a strangely interesting one, so far removed from my day-to-day reality of site meetings, construction drawings, rushed trips to the gym, and Saturday night parties. Which is why I started writing about it. The result is my memoir, Hidden: Young, Single, Cancer.

Hidden is out now. You can buy it HERE!