Heartaches, hopes and high fives - Day 18

Tuesday 18th December 2018

18 - the number of chapters into which James Joyce's modernist novel, Ulysses,
is divided. It was initially published in installments in an American journal, but was then
released as a complete work on the author's 40th birthday. The novel's stream-of-consciousness
technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, and
allusions—as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour, have led it to be regarded
as one of the greatest literary works in history

The Christmas silly season has arrived - lunch in Cambridge yesterday followed by supper at the RAC. I will need to pace myself. (I say that to myself every year and I seldom manage, but I am exhausted - this year has been more demanding than any I can remember). But enough about me, onto the blog...

In many ways, today's post is a perfect follow-on from Niall's of yesterday and Nick's from the day before - it considers our world, how small we are within it and has hope for our future. It has been written by David Head. David is a highly respected executive coach and mentor; he specialises in supporting people through periods of change and career transition. Just over five years ago David decided to move down a slightly different branch in his own career, away from senior search within the IT sector and qualified as a coach. Since 2013 he has worked for the award winning, London-based business performance and leadership consultancy, Accelerating Experience, as an executive coach and mentor. David for many years has been a keen sportsman (tennis and golf) and is also well read and an erudite writer - you would probably enjoy his articles posted on LinkedIn. You can follow him on Twitter - his handle is @DavidAHead2. It is a pleasure to have him back in the series this year. 

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This image of the Northumberland coast (you can just see Bamburgh Castle in the background), recently won an amateur photography award and was taken by a friend, John Chappell.  I chose this image because the sea is significant to most of us on these small damp islands. It is somewhere we go to have fun, reflect and take stock. Significantly, it ‘delivers something the soul loves too’.

I love gazing out to sea, particularly at this most moody, evocative time of year. 

Looking at this image you can sense the eddies, currents and flows going on under the surface, rather like our own thoughts, feelings and emotions. The sunset in the background represents a sense of hope to me, or is it the fading of the light?

It is this sense of ambiguity which draws our wandering minds and souls in, like mariners navigating the unseen flow of our unconscious.

‘We are tied to the ocean..and when we go back to the sea, we are going back to whence we came’John F Kennedy

From dry land the sea becomes restorative and nurturing, soothing our deepest heartaches and fears. Stand silent, gaze out and sense the darker and unknowable, yet instinctively known forces of life, and death.

The sea is the most primal force of nature, unpredictable, wild, ragged and untamed. It reminds us that whilst we can damage nature, we can neither tame it or destroy it. We are insignificant, small, vulnerable and therefore ‘at sea’. Shakespeare reminds us of that;

‘We to the gods are as flies to wanton gods, they kill us for their sport’

To look at this seascape reminds me of the turmoil of our times and of the sea’s transcendence. It also reminds me of our own relative insignificance, for better and worse.

Like a goldfish bowl our own world is often too small for us, and we are drawn to the sea.

‘The world is too much with us late and soon…Getting and spending we lay waste our powers’

From the same poem Wordsworth reflects;

 ‘ ..I’d rather be a peasant suckled in a creed outworn; so that might I standing on this pleasant lea. Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; or hear old triton blow his wreathed horn.’

The sea, through Wordsworth, or Wordsworth through the sea reminds us of deeper wisdom...

This is a time of year for reflection and If gazing out to sea is a reflective exercise, then ‘taking it on’ and entering the waters’ domain requires great courage and resilience. It may also be equally cathartic. I am reminded of the Yachtswoman Susie Goodall who was recently rescued from sea after capsizing. I don’t doubt that she will go to sea again. Not just for the high fives but like the mountain, because it is there.

I am struck by how many leaders and adventurers are passionate about sailing, sometimes to the exclusion of all else. When I asked a friend why, she replied that it was ‘the spirit of adventure..not knowing what the next day would bring’ that draws her in. Compare this to Susie Goodall’s text when her 12 meter boat was taking a pounding in the middle of the Southern Ocean;

‘Wondering what on earth I’m doing out here’

And yet still we come, and still she goes...

If we can overcome our fears and risk all at sea, what more might we achieve? What would we do or take on if we knew that we could not fail? In this sense the sea challenges us, drawing out our deepest hopes and fears, whispering its siren call to set sail..

‘Time in the sea eats its tail’Ted Hughes

Enabling wisdom to show through - Day 36

Day 36 (Friday 5th January 2018)

36 years ago, on the 5th January 1982, South Korea lifted its nationwide
curfew. It was originally imposed by American occupation troops 36 years
previously at the end of World War II. The midnight-to-4am. curfew was
ended on the orders of President Chun Doo Hwan. He stated that the South Koreans
were "mature' enough to do without the curfew. I suspect that the White House
staff would like to impose a curfew on Trump's tweeting. The word "curfew"
comes from the French phrase "couvre-feu", which means "fire cover". It was later
adopted into Middle English as "curfeu", which later became the modern
"curfew". Its original meaning refers to a law made by William The Conqueror
that all lights and fires should be covered at the ringing of an eight o'clock
bell in winter (or 9.00pm in summer) to prevent the spread of destructive
fire within communities in timber buildings. Watchmen would patrol to ensure compliance.

The end of the first working week of January 2018 has arrived. I am proving slower at acclimatising to being back than I would wish, but that may be because we are still celebrating in our household. We have 3 birthday as well before the end of the month.

Today's post is by Maggie Marriott - a wonderful lady based in Gloucester in England. Those of you who read her post last year will know that she is a devoted mother. In addition, Maggie runs her own business, an organisational change consultancy ENKI. She is also as highly effective coach - she has been the coach of choice for members of the civil service supporting the UK Government, helping effect transformation, especially in the areas of cyber security and assurance and also for the National Crime Agency. Since last year she has also been a coach for Ambition School Leadership, providing support to the leaders of the future within Education.

Maggie is a qualified Gestalt practitioner (she won the British Gestalt Journal Essay Prize for 2015) and she believes in enabling humane change via the approaches she devises. Being highly analytical and systematic, Maggie commenced her career as an IT programmer and worked for many years in the Public sector moving from a technical team leader to a business change specialist. As you will tell from her below post, she is very capable of embracing change and believes in authenticity. Maggie is a warm and active voice on social media and she takes excellent photos - you can connect with her on Twitter, her handle is @maggiermarriott.

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Living in the UK means the visible cycle of darkness and dawn is a daily occurrence but in life, the cycle isn’t always so obvious outside our own minds and bodies. I could write about never feeling good enough, about always worrying I’ve done things wrong, about losing my fabulous Mother in law who showed me how to be a mother but instead I’m going to write about a very visible change from darkness to the light of dawn. During 2017 I transformed from the darkness of dyed brunette hair to the new dawn of white hair and so I begin 2018 with just the tips of my hair showing a reminder of the colour from 2017.

Why did I make this choice?  Because my 18 year old daughter lost all her hair to alopecia at the end of 2016 just as she was about to leave home for University which brought darkness just as a new dawn was breaking for her. And I’m a coach and I encourage people to bring their full selves to work and to be vulnerable. How could I possibly say trite phrases such as ‘your hair doesn’t define you’ and it’s the ‘person inside that matters’ when I was busily dying my hair to hide my true self.  Well obviously I couldn’t, so the hair dying had to stop!

The transformation has taken 12 long months and has been very public. And I’ve been amazed at how many age and gender biases it has exposed in those around me. The most common reaction has been of shock and disbelief.  Some asked why would I possibly want to do that? Some were concerned that I would become one of the invisible older women and treated differently once my hair was white. And others own identities were shaken as they tried to imagine having a friend with white hair. Wow, what was that about your hair doesn’t define you? It seemed at times that my hair didn’t only define me it also defined others.

Well, I spent the first 3 months covering up my emerging white stripe with a root covering spray so that was a gentle start. Then in month 4 the white stripe became too wide to hide so my hairdresser bleached some of the brunette colour out so I looked less like a black and white badger and more like a ginger fox. From then on I spent the rest of 2017 patiently watching this new white haired version of me emerge and watching people’s eyes slide up to look at my weird two-tone hair.

So now I am a white haired lady.

And I’m still surprised when I catch my reflection in shop windows.

And I’m not recognised by people who haven’t seen me since I was a brunette.

And now my hair matches the rest of me and I like it.

Reflecting on the dawning of a new year and the new white haired me I feel free. I recognise that for most of my career working in the male dominated world of technology I chose to stay small and tight in my chrysalis. I conformed to the norms of the office. I tried to bend my femininity out of shape to fit in, for my gender to not be an issue. I have too many #metoo stories to mention! But now the emergence of my white hair signals my emergence from the self-imposed darkness of my chrysalis into a new dawn of freedom and lightness where I am me and that’s ok.

And this means the beginning of other changes in 2018. I will be stepping away from working with my long-standing clients and beginning new work with clients involved in projects closer to nature where the focus is eco-centric rather than ego-centric.

And my daughter is thriving at University and has made amazing friends who appreciate her just as she is.

I know the cycle of darkness and dawn will continue and I will probably never get rid of feeling never good enough in my work and that’s part of me too just as much as my white hair. So now when people mention my white hair I just smile and say I’m letting my wisdom show through.

All Dark Matters Have a Bad Reputation (But They Shouldn’t) - Day 34

Day 34 (Wednesday 3rd January 2018)

34% uplift in premium spirits sales occurs over the festive period compared to
other times of the year. A study by cloud-based software provider Epos Now,
studied sales data between 11.30pm on New Year's Eve 2017 and 12.30am on New Year's
Day and, according to a poll of 800 pubs around the UK, during this hour prosecco accounted
for 18% of total wet sales while Champagne contributed to 17% - these two drinks
accounted for 35% of the pubs' total revenue during this time. In England hospital
admissions due to alcohol-abuse peak around the end-of-year holiday season.
Normally about 15% of ER admissions are alcohol-related, according to the NHS,
but at weekends and holiday times, that figure can shoot up to 70%.

One of the things I love about the Advent Blogs series is that is is a global phenomenon and today's post proves just that. The 34th blog is by Maya Drøschler. Maya is based in Copenhagen in Denmark. She joined the Advent Blog series as a writer in 2016 and wrote a poem last year, to describe the highs and lows of her first year in business - she had decided to follow her dreams and become an entrepreneur. I am pleased to report that her business seems to be going from strength to strength. She specialises in what she calls "The Point of HR" - that intersection between HR and communications and can advise on HR, systems and process design. She is also a respected public speaker and blogger. She writes a good and informative blog - in Danish - HR forretning (which translates as HR Business) as well as posting articles on LinkedIn. She has a background in HR (and has worked in Retail, Engineering and Medical Technical Equipment and Analysis). You can find her on Twitter (her handle is @MayaDroeschler).

I have huge admiration for Maya, not least because English is not her first language and yet she insists on writing in English for the Advent Blogs series because that is best for the majority of readers.

All of the pictures used in the post have been provided by Maya herself.

We are still within the 12 Days of Christmas and hence her sentiments and wishes expressed at the end of the piece are sound.

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To a large extent, language is built upon semantic opposites, but the relationship between two opposing terms like, say, black and white, is rarely neutral. Rather, the two terms are subtly ranked, because the relationship is characterized and determined by the act of human value attribution.

We prefer The One to The Other; we prefer Humans to Non-humans; we prefer Civilization to Barbarism; and we prefer Growth to Stagnation. 

The word dawn is often associated with a new beginning, transparency and a clear mind, whereas the word darkness is associated with a weathered mind and all things hidden and forbidden.

Darkness and dawn are not rigorous opposites, though, but rather two different phases in a repetitive cycle:

But even though darkness and dawn are not opposites in themselves each of them belong to a pair, which are:

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad wrote the novel Heart of Darkness more than a century ago. In the novel, the sailor and narrator Marlow goes on a trip to find a guy named Kurtz, who is a successful ivory dealer in the colonized African country, Congo. When Marlow finally arrives at Kurtz’ camp deep inside the Congolese jungle, Marlow quickly realizes that the man, who is supposed to represent Western civilization and enlightenment, is quite the opposite; Kurtz is a disturbed person who has established his own brutal regime inside the jungle, where he acts as a demigod and exploits the natives.  
     

Later, it turns out that Kurtz suffers from jungle fever (today we call it malaria), and the last words Kurtz says before he dies are the famous: The Horror. The Horror. As readers, we don’t know if Kurtz is hallucinating, meeting his own personal angel of death or reflecting on his former misdeeds, but we do know that he, who should be the glorious exponent of dawn, is in fact much closer to darkness.

Everything is not always what it seems, like darkness turns into dawn and dawn turns into day, day turns into dusk. What counts as evolution, enlightenment and progress might in fact be an expression of human regression.

But no one seems to notice, before it is too late. 

Darkness Has a Bad Reputation

Darkness has a bad reputation, but this is a misconception, because darkness is not frightening, depressing and uncivilized at all times.

On the contrary, darkness can be comforting, it can hide your flaws and it can protect you from expectations, demands, obligations and responsibilities, when you need it the most.

Likewise, dawn is not necessarily positive; dawn is not always a new beginning, life starting all over again, the sun rising above the horizon to spread its light and warmth, but can be the very moment when you stand naked, exposed and visible to the decisions you must make and the hard work you must do, before the sun sets again. 

Repetition and Rest

Darkness and dawn are both part of a repetitive cycle. For thousands of years, dawn has meant the beginning of a new work day and darkness has meant the end of the work day, the moment when you could finally rest.

The children are a sleep, the soil is at rest, and everything is quiet.
The world has turned quiet. 

Modern work life has a lot of dawn and very little darkness, modern work life is one big, bright, busy endeavor, where everything is illuminated and everything is at stake.

You cannot hide, you cannot rest. Your brain is in constant overload mode and everything is up to you.

The Cycle

Although all natural ecosystems are built upon repetition and incremental improvement, humans of today tend to idealise radical innovation. It’s much cooler to be disruptive than it is to be repetitive, and you are undoubtedly a more fascinating and smart person if you are an inventor rather than a maintainer.

Lately, humans have invented algorithms and Artificial Intelligence, and those innovations promise us that we can get rid of all the tedious, boring stuff we had to do in the past, like weeding the soil.

In fact, we can get rid of repetition itself and only do new, exciting, creative things every day for the rest of our lives.

But this is a fantasy, because we need darkness as much as we need dawn, we need the repetitiousness of the cycle.

Too Much Daylight

I live in Denmark and this time of year we only experience seven hours of daylight each day.

When farming was the main industry, people slept on average two hours more each night than people do today, and even up to fifty years ago eight to nine hours of sleep a night was the norm. It’s not that we don’t need to sleep anymore, it’s just that we don’t have time to sleep.

Because dawn is always near.  

In a knowledge economy, it doesn’t matter what time of year or what time of day it is. We have liberated ourselves from the limitations of the cycle, we have liberated ourselves into the borderless work life.

We have established a regime of extreme enlightenment and civilization, where everything is transparent, elucidated and always fresh and new, and that’s great, but sometimes I wonder, if Kurtz and people like him are the true architects of modern work life. As I observe people giving up on their health, their families and their personal values to serve an endless series of dawns, I can almost hear Kurtz whisper:

The horror. The horror.

Christmas

These days, a lot of people experience heavy workloads, tight deadlines, unhealthy work environments, bad leadership practices, irrational decisions processes, even more irrational chains of command, unsuccessful projects, strategies badly executed and barriers to cooperation at work.
           

To me, these conditions are all symptoms of too much dawn and too little darkness, of too little time to absorb, reflect and make plans that extend to more than the next hour, next dawn.

I hope that you spend the Christmas holidays cherishing the darkness (if you live in the North), and I hope that you will allow yourself to experience the sensation of not being bombarded with sensory impressions and dubious assignments around the clock.

If you have time to rest, to think and to contemplate, you may realize that every idealized term, like dawn and busy and transparency, carry their opposites by their chest.

Dawn? I’m not ready for it, let me go back to sleep, please.
Busy? Always, but I really can’t say what I am busy with.
Transparency? This is a secret, but I don’t want to know everything about everyone.

Only Christmas has no opposite term, Christmas is always Christmas.     

Merry Christmas.

(and a Happy New Year!)

Keep your Eyes Open - Day 3

Day 3 (Sunday 3rd December 2017)

Three spirits visit Scrooge in Charles Dickens's Christmas Carol - Past, Present and Yet to Come.
Charles Dickens did not invent the tradition of telling ghost stories during the dark
winter nights, and almost all cultures have a tradition of telling deep and frightening stories 
on dark evenings. In pagan times and indeed in certain parts of the world even today
there is a belief in the power and importance of the appearance of spirits, with a number
described on only being seen at certain times of the year, such as Christmas Eve.

I hope you are enjoying the first weekend of Advent. 

Today's post is written by Jo Wainwright, who has been a previous contributor to the Advent Blogs series, as you will see when you click on the link in the below post. (You might recognise her as Jo Stephenson, her former name). She is active on social media, her Twitter handle is @Jo_coaches and is a supportive and charming contact. She is an advocate of being kind. Born and raised in Derbyshire, she enjoys the outside spaces (and walks with her dog).

You can see from both pieces that Jo's personal sanctuary is yoga, but much of the time she is connecting with and helping others to rebalance and help themselves; she works as a coach and L&D Manager at the charity Addaction and for nearly a decade she has been devising and delivering initiatives to help young people with personal addiction issues, and those who care for them, to build a better future. Jo is mindful and sensitive, I greatly enjoy her blog, Growing in the Komorebi, although, like me, she is a sporadic rather than regular writer. She describes herself as a Humanist Psychologist and her coaching is focused on building resilience, emotional intelligence and behavioural change.

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My last contribution to the advent blog was 2 years ago in Dec 2015, when shared my fear of the dark (read it here). This time last year was very dark with zero capacity to blog. This year I got contact lenses. And my eyes are so sharp, that I no longer hallucinate in the dark. My fear has faded.

Enhanced vision - human vs. cat vision of the same scene

If you read that bit again, there isn’t much more to say. My blog can end there.

This morning I woke up before birds – delighted to say that I still live surrounded by trees – and walked in the dark to make a 6am train. Maybe it’s the knowing that it’s getting lighter. That no matter how dark is feels, the dawn will arrive. That change, that cycle, I can be sure of.

A Figure Walking along a Waterway in Winter, Louis Apol

Last year I thought I would never run. Having never been a runner I didn’t sense a loss. However, not running to catch the train, with my dog... No running AT ALL. This year I ran 10k.

I’ve recently found a new yoga teacher. A remarkable and wonderful new yoga teacher. After years of practice she has re-taught me discipline and personal practice via Mysore: she teaches individually so each person in class is doing personal practice. The group matters because it doesn’t matter. The space and conditions we generate collectively, matter.

I learnt that when I’m practicing yoga and it get’s hard, I close my eyes and go somewhere else. This is ok in Hatha. It’s not ok in Ashtanga Vinyasa. She observes my practice and adjusts my postures and pushes me the right amount, constantly listening: “Keep your eyes open, Jo”.

At the end, when eyes closed for Shavasana and the release was – incredible. I need(ed) that. I need(ed) a teacher like her.

That’s my one thing to share with you this advent: keep your eyes open