#MyStory - Day 37

Day 37 (Saturday 6th January 2018)

37% of London commuters say that their rail service has deteriorated in the past
year (and 8% say that it has improved). Rail fares have gone up by an average
of 3.4% this month, making the daily commute even more painful. Today is
the end of the line for Christmas (as officially the 12 Days of Christmas end
today with it being Epiphany, the day when the Three Wise Men arrive).
However, the Post-Advent blogs have a few more days to run.

It is my late grandmother's birthday today. I hope I can find a few snowdrops in the garden as a posy to commemorate her (although her favourite flowers were Lilies of the valley that flower a little later in the year). It's the first weekend of January - I hope you find some time for peace and contemplation after the chaos of the past few weeks. Today's excellent post deserves reflection - as you will understand once you have read it. Some of the most engaging and inspirational people that I have had the pleasure of working with are similar to today's author. I count myself as privileged for being able to spend time with them and we achieved some amazing things (and I learned a lot).

Today's post is a brave and guileless piece by Sara Duxbury; she wants to share her story in the hope that it will help others. She has also decided not to be anonymous. Sara is a business psychologist and highly capable coach, working for Carter Corson based in Wilmslow. I first got to know Sara via Twitter (her handle is @SaraJDux). She has a fabulous sense of humour and is highly intelligent and perspicacious - fiercely passionate, honest and commercial. She is genuinely a joy to spend time with and she will make you think. She describes herself as a "northern southerner". She commenced her career in retail and continues to demonstrate edge and flair with a genuine understanding of the importance of customer service.

Sara selected her own illustrations for her piece.

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What if there is only darkness and dawn? #mystory

When I saw this year’s Advent blog theme was darkness and dawn, and reading the other blogs so far talking about journeying between the two, it struck a chord with me. I am bipolar. So for me there is only darkness and dawn, black and white. I don’t understand what the grey middle looks like. I have no idea, because my brain literally doesn’t work like that.

I have actually never said it out loud before. I think it’s because I don’t want to be labelled as being bipolar, and really I think I didn’t want to label myself. But I think it’s time I came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cArz_HxTYDw

I was always an emotional child. I remember one time after my cousin came to visit for the weekend, I told my mum I’d rather the whole weekend had never happened at all, than deal with the despair at seeing her go home. Any time I got really excited, a low and a stinking headache would follow. My teenage years were spent either being ecstatically happy in my friendships and relationships, or sitting alone in my bedroom, obsessing and crying to sad songs. Getting older I remember my bipolar really coming into its own after my boyfriend committed suicide when I was 20 years old, dealing with everything that came with that only cemented my view of the world as ‘black and white’. My ups and downs became more pronounced. Fast-forward and I remember my husband dreading coming home from work if I’d had a day off on my own, he wouldn’t know if the Sara he left in the morning would be on cloud-9, or in a raging depression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCBS5EtszYI

The medical definition of bipolar as according to the NHS is “Bipolar is a condition that affects your moods, which can swing from one extreme to another. People with bipolar disorder have periods or episodes of depression, feeling very low and lethargic, and mania, feeling very high and overactive.

For me, it plays out like this:

I am the life and soul. Drop me cold into a room of strangers and I will make friends for life. I will make you feel at ease, I will make you laugh and I will drag you up onto the dance floor first.

My enthusiasm and passion is infectious, I will inspire you to believe in me and what I do. You will admire my drive and my ability to make a difference, you will want me as a leader in your business.

I am hard to be friends with. I am intense. I will expect a lot from you, but then I’ll shut you out. You might even think that sometimes I love you. I’m sorry, it’s just how I am with people.

I will trust you, from the first time I meet you. I will tell you anything and everything about me, believing that you will never use it against me. And I am always surprised if you do.

I’m impulsive. I always look for the adventure, and if there are consequences I won’t consider them, even if It might hurt you.

I have been in debt my entire adult life. I have no concept of money, it’s embarrassing. If I want it, I buy it. Even if I don’t know why I’m buying it.

I have woken up in the morning and wondered how the hell I will leave the house. I try, sometimes it’s ok, sometimes I have considered driving my car into the central reservation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-ybpYfSDXg

So would I rather I was in the middle? No. I would rather be me than you (no offence). My dawns and darknesses make me, me, and I think I am a pretty awesome person. I love my life and my work and I might even change the world one day. Even though my brain fights me daily, I know that I bring joy to people who meet and know me, I know I make them smile, and I know I make a difference by what I do. If that means I have to battle forever in the darkness too, then I’ll take it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_TL02vGQaM

My biggest fear is that by sharing my story, you will judge my behaviour by that bipolar label. If you don’t like something I do, you can just blame the bipolar. You can put me in that tidy box. Well, you won’t have heard me do that in 33 years, so I am hoping you don’t start.

My biggest hope is that by sharing my story, you who are sitting there battling on both sides, or you managing someone with mental health struggles. Look at me and see you CAN be the best version of you, be DAMN good at what you do, and be a bit bat-shit crazy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOksZ8VogRw

And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After, Which Was Fine - Day 54

Day 54 (January 23rd 2015)

54 is the number of independent countries in Africa, created during colonial times.
Before colonial rule Africa comprised up to 10,000 different 
states and autonomous groups with distinct languages and customs.
Africa has approximately 30% of the earth’s remaining mineral resources.
Africa is the second most populous continent with about 1.1 billion people 
or 16% of the world’s population. 
Over 50% of Africans are under the age of 25

The 2014 CIPD Annual Conference was an excellent event, with some exceptional speakers. However, for me, Paul Taylor was the highlight. His passion, wit, knowledge and authenticity are infectious. Paul is an Assistant Director, responsible for Organisational Development, at NHS Employers. He is active on social media (follow him on Twitter via @NHSE_PaulT) and always keen to connect and share. Paul is naturally creative and comfortable challenging the status quo, to ensure a better outcome for all. Paul's energy and drive can be seen outside as well as in the workplace - he is a multiple marathon runner and fund raiser for great causes. Paul is a man with vision and compassion - a rare combination and I am honoured to know him.

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Isn’t childhood weird? I mean, not childhood itself but some of the things that happen early on. We are raised on stories of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. 

Stories themselves become part of our daily lives and night time routines. I wonder how many times we hear ‘once upon a time’ and ‘happily ever after’ as kids? They’re powerful promises of a beautiful start and perfect ending. The ideal path is set out for us to follow.  As grown ups we are still asked to buy into the ideas of dream holidays, and fairy tale weddings. Happy ever after is a goal to be pursued.

But the thing about happiness is it’s impermanence. Being happy is a finite state that comes and goes, ebbs and flows. Yet our narrative about happiness frames it as something that can be solidified, permanent and attainable in perpetuity. We use phrases like “life is a roller coaster - full of ups and downs” as if the downs are to be avoided and despised, when actually those are the best bits of the ride. 

We’re led to believe that a steady state of happiness is the only way to live; that it’s a straight path from birth to death and the aim is to achieve optimum happiness at all times. What’s the point of riding a flat roller coaster?

It’s not surprising though, for what are the alternatives? There’s things that are supposed to be avoided at all costs. Embarrassment, awkwardness, rejection, humiliation, pain, sadness. Who’d want to live in a state of constant cringing and crying. But often those feelings give us the richest experiences to learn from. They give us moments of despair that transform over time and take us to deeper places of understanding when the sting wears off. They make us search our hearts and ask ourselves questions. They turn the sky dark and our thoughts red hot. They make our heart pump and our blood boil. They help us to change and to move on. They remind us what it feels like to be really alive. If it was possible to achieve a state where you could be happy all the time, who would ever change? And isn’t change ultimately the point of life?

And this, dear reader, is where I’m going to pause the blog, break the fourth wall and look you straight in the eye to say “Hello”.  I wrote that first part of the blog a few weeks ago and I just couldn’t work out how to finish it. I ran dry. I thought the ending would be something like…. “Why not accept that life is both beautiful and horrifying at the same time, and that’s ok. Happiness is one emotion in an unlimited range of responses that may not be so pleasant but will all teach us so much more than the blissful-eyes-shut face of happiness. Nobody lives happily ever after, and that’s fine.” But it just didn’t happen.

Then two days ago my cat died.
  

Robbie was 16 years, 3 months and 8 days old. For his first fifteen years of life he was a handsome, confident, cheeky presence in our lives. He was the captain of his own ship and like a miniature pirate in a black fur coat he stole our hearts and gave us many adventures.

Illustration from The Ship's Cat,a narrative poem by Richard Adams
illustrated by Alan Aldridge, 1977

Just after his fifteenth birthday he was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism which more recently led to renal failure, hypertension and blindness. This week we acknowledged that the time had finally come to say adieu to mon capitaine. 

I didn’t think it was possible to cry so much.  I thought the vet might need to hook me up to a saline drip in case I just dehydrated and crumbled into powder on the floor. Robbie lay in our arms as we stroked him, kissed him, squeezed his paws and told him how much he was loved. As he fell into his last sleep I felt my heart break.

Our flat is now so still and quiet, apart from the random and unexpected guttural sobbing that breaks out when one of us thinks we’ve seen him behind a curtain, or when we look at the place his food bowl sat. I heard someone laughing outside yesterday and I thought, how dare they find anything funny.

I am in the middle of what feels like one of those massive metal hamster balls that you see on american tv stunt shows, the ones filled with blokes on motorbikes criss-crossing each other and narrowly avoiding impact. It’s like I’m sitting on the floor at the bottom of the ball while they spin around me. Thoughts, memories, feelings, ideas, questions...zooming by in a blur.  How am I supposed to make sense of anything? How should I feel? What do I do now? What happened to my happiness?

Well, it actually helped to go back to the beginning of this blog and think about what I was trying to say in the first place. Life is amazing and frightening and delicious and dangerous and exhilarating and exasperating and every single thing you can possibly imagine. Isn’t that what makes it so vivid? Just a week ago, when I felt like I was sitting on the top of Happy Mountain, I couldn’t find words to finish this blog. As I recently read, “Happiness writes in white ink on a white page”.

We set out on our life path hoping that we’ll be happy ever after.  It’s good to be happy. I truly believe that. I also believe that the journey we take on our life should not just be signposted ‘Destination Happiness’. Despite the alternatives being, at times, much more raw and rough, I’d rather be walking along an unexpectedly bumpy path with occasional stones that trip me up.

Life is a bumpy path

Sitting on the ground feeling like the wind has been knocked out of you gives you the time to stop, breathe, look up, think about what you’re doing and then shakily stand up, dust yourself off and keep walking. Nobody lives happily ever after, and that’s fine. Just keep walking along the path. Just keep walking.

Harry Lauder singing 

"Keep Right On till The End of the Road" in 1926

Robbie

What Matters - Day 50

Day 50 (19th January 2015)

50 - is a denomination found either as a coin or note in every currency around the world
Illustration - Trinidad & Tobago 50 Dollar polymer note 1st issued in December 2014
The American slang "50 Bucks" meaning $50 supposedly originates from the early
days when settlers traded or bartered with native Americans for animal skins

Today's post arrived just before Christmas and is from Rachel Burnham. Rachel is a respected Learning and Development (L&D) specialist, who is passionate about the impact learning and development can have on people from all walks of life. She runs Burnham L&D based in Manchester. She writes an excellent L&D focused blog - L & D Matters and is active on social media (you can follow her on Twitter via @BurnhamLandD). She hates heights but loves her family, jazz and gardening (as well as seeing people grow).

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I love the way the seasons slowly unfurl and gradually, at times almost imperceptibly, change from one to another.  Lots of things mark those changes: the plants that stand out in the garden each having their brief moment of glory; the quality of the light; the religious festivals; the food that is in season – in our house you can always tell the time of year by the type of vegetable soup made on a Saturday – currently French onion & spicy parsnip are regular favourites, but we’ll soon move on to roast swede, vegetables with dumplings, then it will be leek & potato, asparagus, pea, carrot & orange, then the abundance of the allotment harvest, cucumber, carrot & courgette, yet more courgettes, butternut squash, celery and back to parsnips.

UK seasonal fruit and vegetables

Years are perhaps harder to distinguish one from another – looking back brief moments, one off events, stand out rather than each year being clear and distinct.  There are of course, exceptions, the year my son was born stands out sharply and memorably.  He was born at 28 weeks, a tiny thing of 1lb 13 oz less than a bag of flour, about 3 months prematurely and he spent those months in the hospital.  He was so connected up to various pieces of equipment that changing his nappy was at first more akin to wiring a stereo system.

That was a year of both joy and darker emotions.  When he was finally released from hospital we were told not to mix with anybody who came into contact with children for fear of infection and spent a very lonely first 6 months.   He’s now 19, taller than me.

This year has been another memorable year. Not perhaps as immediately momentous, but a stand-out year nonetheless. A year of doing differently. After many years in various roles that have involved training and L&D, I think I had got a little stale.  My view of the world and of my work had got a bit sepia and faded. I had lost my sense of smell.  I had lost my path, well mislaid it.

But the zest is back, the colours are fresh & vibrant again and the sounds are full on. I think what changed for me this year was that I got connected and not just with social media, though that certainly played a part.   

I got connected again to learning new things, to experimenting in my work, to meeting new people, to discussing ideas, to writing about what I was interested in.  I got enthused with the possibilities of L&D again & infuriated with slide-led talks masquerading as learning all over again! 

It wasn’t all work - I spent time visiting art galleries again, went back to the theatre after a very long gap, spent an amazing week at the Manchester Jazz Festival, gardened, made new friends – all the things that matter to me. Evaluated, took stock.  I started drawing again and found ways to use this in my work.  I took on new challenges, did some different things and turned a few things, old familiars, down.

It wasn’t all excitement and fun, there have been moments of:

‘I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to be doing’ confusion;

a few waking up at 3.25 in the morning panics ‘Oh, my goodness, I don’t have enough work booked in my diary after the next few weeks’  - usually followed a few weeks later with waking up at 5.25 am panics ‘Oh, my goodness, I have too much work booked in – how am I ever going to get it all done?’

and some days of real of pain & sadness.

Life Has Its Ups and Downs, by Canadian artist Ruth Palmer

But the main thing is that I’ve reconnected with why I do what I do.

People matter, we spend such a lot of our lives at work, that how that time is spent matters,

and so how people are managed matters.  

Of course people management is important, not because it’s what we do, but because of its impact.

I have been thinking about those people cared for in their own home, whose carers don’t get allocated sufficient time between calls for travel, so that they are always running late, under pressure and have little time to talk.  

I have been thinking about workers in garment factories and factories making gadgets who are poorly paid & working long, long hours and the ‘ethical’ policies of the companies that they supply for.
 

Garment factory, Bangladesh

I have been thinking about environmental disasters caused by too much concern for targets & the bottom line and too little for health & safety passed onto contractors.  

Crab crawling through an oil spill

I have been thinking about customers badly advised on any number of financial products by staff perhaps focused on earning their bonus rather than what is the right for them. 

I have been thinking about individuals suffering from stress caused by the way their performance is managed at work and a bullying management style. 

People searching for jobs, not hearing back from countless job applications.  

An economy faltering, in part, due to low productivity, a lack of investment in people and people management.

What we do matters.

I don’t know how I forgot this, because it is why I came into HR in the first place.  But I had. And now I’ve reconnected.

A path rediscovered - On the Road Again

performed by Gugun Blues Shelter at Mostly Jazz, Jakarta, 2012  

Rachel Burnham

22/12/14