Light at end of the tunnel - Day 17

Day 17 (Sunday 17th December 2017)

17th century law, passed in England by Oliver Cromwell, made it

illegal to eat mince pies (a small, crumbly pastry cup filled with spiced currants and fruit and, 

in those days some minced meat) on Christmas day; he also banned Christmas pudding and

anything that could be considered "gluttony". The law has never been rescinded 

so, technically, most of us break the law on Christmas Day.

It is traditional to meet up with family and friends at this time of year and tonight I will be having dinner with my father and his wife. I don't get to see him as often as I would like to, but he has just sold his home in Wales and is moving closer to where we live, so perhaps 2018 might be the year for closer family links. I do hope so. He is a huge part of who and why I am.

Today's piece is written by another influential and caring man, Michael Moran, the Chief Exec and founder of 10Eighty. Michael exudes positive energy but is simultaneously pragmatic and commercial. Michael's career commenced in HR (in the NHS and Financial Services), but for the past two decades he has run business consultancies specialising in career management. He has co-written a good book,“The Guide to Everlasting Employability”, which helps individuals understand their skills and the need for personal responsibility to achieve success.  When not steering the business or helping people, Michael relaxes via sport (more a spectator now than a player) or by socialising. He is also active on social media (his Twitter handle is @mdmoran10Eighty).

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Due to recent cutbacks the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off! 

Mail Rail tunnel, London (now disused - ran from Whitechapel to Paddington)

I can track this aphorism back ten years, or so, and we’ve all felt that way sometimes. Problems caused by the difficult economic and political situation, job insecurity, and the rising cost of living can make it hard to see the bright side, particularly in the depths of winter.

It’s time to think about goals for the coming year and that’s an ideal opportunity to recharge your optimism and positivity. We all need clearly articulated targets and goals in both our personal and professional life in order to find fulfilment. Well defined, meaningful goals lead to higher levels of performance than vague or easily realised goals.

The benefit of setting goals:

• Increased motivation when goals are realistic and attainable.
• Provides a performance focus.
• Bolsters the work ethic and fosters perseverance with a goal in sight.
• Facilitates feedback and benchmarking.

Set targets and measure your progress, if you have a clear view of where you want to be it is easier to evaluate forward momentum and, by setting and taking action toward your goals, you will bolster your self-confidence. If you need to make changes, then bite the bullet and take control - a healthier work-life balance will result in greater productivity and motivation.

Delineate your goals with your real desires and ambitions in mind, then the possibilities that working toward your goal will bring will inspire will give real traction to the efforts you make. Design a clear plan of action, chunk big goals into milestones needed to achieve your overall goal.

Plan smaller objectives into your daily to-do list and create momentum with regular work towards your goal. Each small change paves the way for bigger changes, so every day ask yourself, what can I do today that helps me reach my goal? For every objective accomplished and goal achieved be sure to reward yourself, a pat on the back at the least, and then set on towards the next objective.

Learn as you go

Everything is described as a journey these days, Strictly contestants make constant reference to their journey. "A defined course of traveling; one's path in life," from Old French journee "day's work or travel" is a little too rigid for my liking, we need to be flexible and versatile in dealing with a complex and volatile world.

Key to achieving your goals and attaining whatever you define as success are resilience and the ability to learn along the way. Resilience helps us to adapt when faced with barriers, challenges and setbacks, as we find ways and means to address, overcome or bypass obstacles and deal with uncertainty or unexpected outcomes.

Learning agility helps us find new ways to tackle setbacks and challenges. When it is no longer a question of doing better what you did before – when running harder and faster doesn’t help - what is required are new behaviours and innovative solutions. When dealing with uncertainty and volatility the ability to reframe your reference points in order to develop radical and creative responses is crucial.

Tips for setting effective goals:

• Express goals positively, focus on what you want to achieve
• Be specific in terms of timeline and track progress to goals
• Prioritise as to which goals to focus attention on first
• Write goals down so they can be reviewed regularly
• Chunk down goals to small, achievable tasks – this allows frequent      opportunities to accomplish a goal
• Set realistic goals that are achievable and within your own control

Go, get what you want in 2018!

“A modern Nativity the old fashioned way” (aka “Ostentatious Over-Sharings of a Smug Git”)

Day 17 (Saturday 17th December 2016)

17 thousand solar cells on the wings of Solar Impulse 2

enabled it to achieve its record making fossil-fuel-free flight

around the globe. It has a wider wingspan than a Boeing 747.

The journey started on 9th March 2015 and was completed on

26th July 2016 when it arrived back in Abu Dhabi.

We have reached the weekend and, even though I suspect that you have a busy day ahead of you, I hope you find time to read today's post and perhaps catch up on ones that you have missed or merit a re-read. I am sure you will agree with me that the blogs so far have been extraordinary; today's is no exception. Jo Mortimer, one of the UK's leading recruitment experts, specialising in administrative and office roles is a Divisional Leader at the highly regarded Angela Mortimer Group. Jo can be found on Twitter, her handle is @J0Mortimer. Jo has a 1st class degree in Psychology from Cambridge and has retained an interest in questioning the world and the people around her. She is well-travelled and engaging company. A Buddhist, she practices Taoist Tai Chi. She has an excellent voice (singing folk and as part of a capella group). Jo is a feminist, as you will be able to tell from her post.

Jo has written a very personal post influenced by a significant high during her past 12 months: the birth of her daughter. She also, deliberately, raises a number of topics that are not often discussed or even are considered taboo in our western society.

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“A modern Nativity the old fashioned way”

(aka “Ostentatious Over-Sharings of a Smug Git”)

Around this time last year, an eagerly anticipated event came upon us – the birth of our daughter.

It was beautiful, though not in conventional Hollywood terms. Like all newborns, her grey skin was more “Shaun of the Dead” than “Casa Blanca”. I’ll spare you the analysis of bodily fluids in the birthing pool.

Image: Shaun of the Dead, Dir: Edgar Wright, 2004

But the process of giving birth really was beautiful – one of the greatest highs of my life. Not just the “phew it’s all over and we have a baby” bit, the whole experience. And that’s an unusual thing for a woman to say.

Why?

At this point, I get on my feminist high horse.

In modern history, patriarchal society has, I contend, embraced an image of the weak and helpless woman, feeling faint in a corset and heels (this is not a bygone era – remember Nicola Thorp, the receptionist sent home from PwC earlier this year for not wearing heels?). Such delicate and lovely creatures cannot be expected to do, well, hard labour.

Image sourced from www.marriedtothesea.com

Enter the men in white coats with their trusty sidekick, technology.

“Lie on your back my dear while we strap you to this recording device, give you pain relief rendering you immobile and then inevitably have to cut you in some way to wrench the poor grey specimen out of you.”

This is the prevailing model of first world childbirth, talked about by new mothers ad nauseam. The competition for top horror story makes “Rosemary’s Baby” look like “Toy Story 2”.

Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski, 1968

And women with a positive birth story can hardly speak up at these coffee meets. Rule number 1 of the playground: when you’re making new friends, try not to be the smug git. So women with positive birth stories remain the silent. This does all women a disservice.

It takes courage to step outside the prevailing paradigm. I came under pressure from the well-meaning family to have a hospital birth. This was motivated by loving concern for our welfare, and in the context of the modern norm is understandable.

But taking control of your choices is key to ensuring that you feel relaxed and comfortable, and that you have the best chance of a gentle, natural birth. Our mammalian cousin, the household cat, is renowned for shunning birthing baskets meticulously prepared by owners, favouring instead the solitude of the garden hedge.

Image source: Dailymail.co.uk

The “hypnobirthing” movement, championed by Marie Mongan amongst others, sounds whacky but has at its heart a simple physiological fact: as with all mammals, if the mother is relaxed, the muscles of the womb will contract easily. If the mother is tense and fearful, the muscles of the womb will not want to contract. They will fight to remain closed to delay the birth until the mother feels safe and secure – ‘out of the lion’s den’. This is likely to result in an extended and painful labour.

I decided to create a ‘birthing nest’ in the front room of our house. My husband surpassed himself with birth pool logistics (getting an inflatable Jacuzzi filled with water that remains at a stable 37 degrees isn’t as easy as it sounds), a perfect playlist (Max Richter’s “Sleep” amongst others) and a veritable shrine of candles. Oxytocin, the hormone associated with love and relaxation, was flowing and the birthing goddess was ready to emerge!

And she’d been training.

Realising the importance of a relaxed mind, I repeatedly listened to a man (Phil Parker) telling me in deliciously rhythmic tones that I was going to be “amazed by the easy…simple…and natural process of giving birth”.

Image source: www.prenatalyoga.com

I also tried pre-natal yoga, which gave my pregnant body some vocabulary to move with. For some years, I’ve ‘played’ Taoist Tai ChiÔ (www.taoist.org), a powerful tool for improving physical and psychological health. Tai Chi teaches how to ‘let go’ in body as well as mind. The Chinese have the concept of ‘yin’ force (the opposite of the ‘yang’ force), associated with the empty, yielding, the ‘hollow’. It is the essence of feminine strength, the heart of natural birth.

The second stage of labour (commonly referred to as the ‘pushing’ phase) was long, because hypnobirthing teaches not to ‘push’. In breathing through contractions (and don’t get me wrong, this was not a quiet experience - there were many noises coming out of my mouth that choir girls have no use for), the baby gently moves down. If the modern hospital birth scenario is akin to relieving yourself at work as quickly as possible to avoid breaking wind in a board meeting, this was akin to a relaxed Sunday morning experience with plenty of time to read the weekend supplements.

Image source: http://www.123rf.com/

Our baby was born gently into the water, did not cry and was calm and alert during her first moments outside the womb. I also got off very lightly from the experience (apart from several months of urinary incontinence, which virtually all new mothers suffer from (why does nobody talk about this?)). There was no inflammation to the lower spine, and the wonderful post-natal massage therapist @beccyhands said she wished she could show my lower back to a room of medics to demonstrate the benefits of a gentle birth without intervention.

In her brilliant book, “Birthing From Within”, Pam England explains how in some cultures childbirth for women is held in the same regard as going to war is for men: it is an intense and high risk experience from which you hope to emerge bloody and victorious, shrouded in honour.

The nature of war is that you don’t always emerge victorious. Giving birth is challenging.  It’s bloody.  It’s perhaps our closest shave with death. Many have a tougher experience than I; and if I give birth again, I may not have such good fortune.

If things do go wrong, thank goodness for the amazing staff of the NHS. The Juniper Community Midwives were outstanding in the home care they provided and I felt in very safe hands. Had things gone wrong, we were lucky enough to have King’s College Hospital a short ride away.

Image source: http://www.healthwatchlincolnshire.co.uk

As it was, we did not need a hospital bed, and the baby did not need to be exposed to the increased infection risk from being outside the home. Many of us in our jobs feel we need to be ‘busy’ and ‘doing’ as much as we can in order to be effective. The community midwives understood that the less they intervened, the more effectively they were supporting us.

So as with any battle, the reality of giving birth is likely to surprise. But let this not stop us from training for the big day, eagerly anticipating it and visualising a positive experience. And whilst I’m not advocating medals, for the sake of future mothers, let’s not shy away from talking about our beautiful victorious experiences. I dare say our men folk would!