Happiness – Life According to TJ

Nothing New at New Year

January 1, 2023 Steph TJ

So, here we are. New Year’s Day 2023.

As ever, it’s a period to reflection and for many, a time to make new plans for a new year.

And as ever I’ve been bombarded with messages and adverts for things to commit to in the new year. Things that will make me thinner, happier. Things that will fix everything that is apparently broken within me.

However, the main realisation of 2022 is that there is nothing about me that needs fixing. There never was. It was just a belief in everything I see around me telling me that there is something about me that isn’t quite good enough and in actual fact that is all they are, beliefs and stories. Stories that are generally based in some money-making opportunity.

It’s been quite refreshing to be able to ignore all of the guff that has come my way. Some have made me smile. Some have made me chuckle. Others I have found quite terrifying in the way they blatantly target the insecurities of people. There have been several sharp intakes of breath when I see how much people charge.

Although, one email that I received did get me thinking. It was twelve different themes throughout the year. The idea was that by investigating a different theme each month you would emerge from 2023 fixed. Whilst I didn’t buy into the idea of investigating several aspects of my personality that required fixing, I did quite like the idea of doing something different every month – just for the challenge.

However, I know from many years of experience that it won’t happen. I will plan the year and come up with all kinds of exciting things to do each month and by the middle of January it will all have gone right out of the window as something else catches my eye, something pink, or extra sparkly. But there are a few things I would like to try in 2023. Not resolutions as such, but things I would just like to try.

I am going to do Dry January. At the end of the day any excuse not to have to drink for a month and I’m there, tea cup in hand!

I’ve also embraced a challenge by @shadowbooker on Instagram to read 12 books recommended by 12 friends. I quite like the idea of reading more fiction, but I am in a bit of a rut and don’t really know what to read anymore.

I’d like to do a month long yoga challenge. I have signed up to Yoga with Adriene’s January challenge – but expect I will end up picking and choosing from a variety of yoga styles throughout the month. The penny has finally dropped that I don’t have to be perfect in all of my poses, it’s the turning up that counts and if I spend the whole 30 minutes in corpse pose then that’s just fine.

I have also set myself the challenge of walking 12,500 steps per day. I know that the whole 10,000 steps thing has been proven to be an arbitrary amount that’s not based in any scientific evidence, however, walking 12,500 steps versus sitting down for the same length of time has got to be good for me in the long run!

I’m going to try Women’s Walking Football. It’s something I’ve wanted to try for a while but struggled to find anywhere to do it. Now I have and I’m very excited. I’m also hoping it will be a good way to meet new people.

Other than that most of the other things I’d like to do are creative.

I’d like to make some brooches.

I’d like to finish many of the projects that I’ve already started and publish the patterns I have already written.

I’d like to try embroidery. Properly try embroidery, so that I can add embellishments to my clothes and the aforementioned brooches.

I’d really love to make something using Irish Crochet. It fascinates me. Very time consuming, but I’d love to try to make something properly.

I’d like to become more skilled at creating new things from old things. People regularly come into the charity shop where I volunteer and buy lots of clothes which they are going to alter to become completely different items of clothing. I would love to be able to do that.

I’d like to become a Three Principles Practitioner. I have benefitted so much from understanding the Three Principles that I’d like to be able to share that understanding with others.

I’d like to have a go at making a podcast. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear the tip top witterings of a middle aged woman from Stoke-on-Trent!

I’d like to take my camera out with me more and create a visual record of the year

I’d also like to try to find a way of setting up some kind of community space for people to meet up together in Albufeira. Like the equivalent of the church hall in the UK. A place where the WI might meet, where mother and baby groups meet, knit and natter. The usual stuff!

None of these things really count as resolutions, nor do they fit conveniently into monthly challenges. And from experience I know that if I try to pigeon hole them into month long challenges chances are I won’t do them. One thing I have most learned this year is if things are meant to be, they will happen. If they aren’t they won’t! I think I always knew this, I just got caught up in the beliefs that there had to be more to life than going with what turned up in the moment. Just embracing each day as it arrives has been very refreshing. I’ve learned so much about those things I do enjoy and those that I don’t. I’ve also learned that forcing things because you want them to be a certain way really isn’t the best way forward and if at all possible, it is much easier all round if you let things evolve in their own time and in their own way.

Sadly, being incredibly impatient, I find this very frustrating at times.

There have been some things that I started in 2022 that I’d like to continue.

I’ve started to make some inroads into living in a more environmentally friendly way:

I’ve switched to soap instead of shower gel
I’ve started using an Eco Egg for clothes washing rather than detergent. I admit, I was sceptical, but they do work.
Husband has started using refillable coffee pods. I am thrilled.
I’ve switched to more eco friendly dishwasher tablets
Not buying new clothes. I did buy the odd new thing, but the majority of what I bought was from charity shops. I quite enjoyed not buying new things and is the main factor in prompting me to want to try embellishing my own clothes. There are a few things I nearly threw out then rescued with the idea of changing them a bit, or adding new details to bring them back to life.

Far too late in the summer season I had the idea of lending out beach equipment to people coming on their holidays. I’d really like to try to get that off the ground this year if I can.

I’ve continued to enjoy exercising and love the difference that it makes to how I feel on a daily basis. Towards the end of the year I have definitely had more energy with a reduction in pain. I really hope that this continues throughout the next year.

The key thing I’d like to continue into the year is living in this moment and trying not to worry too much about what might happen if. I do still find it very easy to catastrophise about the future and can quickly move from minor event to certain death. Slowly, I am starting to recognise it as a thought that is unlikely to come true.

So there we have it. A new year with, largely, nothing new happening. And I have to say, I quite like it.

Happiness, Healthy living, Well-being

What happens when you stop?

December 27, 2022 Steph TJ

What happens when you stop? When you take time to slow down?

For a long time I’ve been too scared to stop. When I finished work 6 years ago I filled the time with stuff. Rather than stop. I tried everything to fill the time and to give my life some sense of purpose. Because I felt it was the right thing to do. But largely because I was too scared to just stop.

A friend of mine has recently retired and I’ve watched her going through the same process. Many people have said that once you retire you shouldn’t rush into things, you should take time to decide what it is exactly that you want to spend these years of your life doing. I didn’t take that time. I couldn’t possibly take that time, because I was terrified of what I would find there in that quiet. I was terrified of the void, of the unknown and so I filled it with stuff. Stuff that I imagined was leading me to finding purpose in my life – because what purpose could a middle aged childless woman possibly have in this world and so I started to create something. Anything. But it increasingly made me tired and anxious. Worst of all, it stopped me enjoying the time I had to spend with my husband.

I think I knew I really needed to stop when I went on yoga retreat earlier this year. I knew then that I was pretty much at the end of my tether – but the yoga retreat was something else that I believed would help. And I think, in a way, it did, because I recognised at that point that something had to change. I couldn’t carry on the way that I was.

Although I did. Until a couple of months ago. When I finally stopped, or should I say, was forced to stop. I’ve been studying for another degree with the Open University because I do just love learning. I’d signed up for an English Language course based on grammar and how we use it in the world. I really was not enjoying it. I thought I was good at grammar – but it seems that I am not. I was struggling with the way the course was structured, I was struggling to keep up. Largely because I didn’t really want to keep up, because I didn’t really want to be doing the course. In the other modules I’ve done I’ve really enjoyed the assessments throughout the module. I hated this one and decided that I needed to withdraw before I got too far along with it. And so I did.

This happened to coincide with various other things. I’d planned and hosted a party for my parents 60^th Wedding Anniversary. I’d set up and opened a pop-up Christmas Card Shop in Bristol. Nothing particularly major, but a flurry of things all happening and finishing at the same time – including the deadline for my first assessment.

When I withdrew from the course I had nothing. Nothing at all. There is not one thing in my diary for 2023. Normally by this point there are several things in our diary that help us to structure our year, but there is nothing. Normally I would be utterly horrified by the prospect of there being nothing, but something inside me realised that it is finally time to stop. Just stop. Stop trying to fill my time with meaningless stuff that I imagine I need to do to give my life meaning. Just stop. Take time to chat to husband, to friends, to write to people, to go for walks.

Just a few weeks in I have discovered:

There is a really annoying voice in my head that keeps telling me I should be doing things. I now recognise this voice and appreciate that it is just an urge, it is just a voice and actually I don’t have to listen to it. I don’t have to sign up for a course that will fix me, or will help me structure my life. Not acting on what it is telling me to do is really difficult and really uncomfortable, but eventually the voice quietens down a bit.

I do really enjoy walking. If I’m having a moment, going outside for a walk really does help and there are some beautiful places to walk not very far away from where I live. I especially love Nordic walking because that gives me a combination of walking, being outside and having a good old chin wag along the way.

That my faith is more important to me than I had appreciated. I’m not going to go all happy clappy any time soon, but I realise that the quiet faith of my grandparents is actually quite strong and quite important to me. Helped in part by the Christmas Card Shop which was hosted in a beautiful Baptist Church, which wraps it’s arms around you in a wonderful warm bear hug. It’s a place where I feel safe, normal and truly accepted and there’s not too many of those in the world.

I love being with people. I love volunteering in the local St Peter’s Hospice shop. I love chatting to the volunteers at the Christmas card shop. Generally, people have lived such fascinating lives and it is so interesting to find out more about them.

Out of all the things I enjoy doing, making things is probably top of the list. Since I’ve stopped, I’ve been churning pom pom hats like they are going out of fashion. Knitted hats, crochet hats. I’ve sewn some Christmas pyjamas for myself and husband. I’m making things at a rate that I have never managed. Largely because all I am thinking about is what I am making, not thinking about what is happening next, or where I should be next, or how I should be. I’m just focussing on what I am making and actually completing things! I have a very long list of things I’ve wanted to make but have been putting off.

I’ve started to read fiction books again. Partly to help me decide which OU module to study next year, but at least it’s prompted me to read fiction again. That creative part of me that has been put to sleep for far too long is coming back to the fore. Instead of seeing a void in the time ahead of me I see opportunity to make things and there is also a little voice in my head that things I might want to try painting sometime soon – or at least embroidery!

I’m also finally beginning to understand what is going on in my body. I do yoga when it feels right, I sit when it feels right. I walk when it feels right and I am sleeping better than I have for a very long time. I’m finally feeling like I am in a place when I can tackle my diet, making healthy choices, being interested in food rather than just eating what is put in front of me. I’ve even been in coffee shops and declined cake. What is the world coming too!

It’s proving to be very difficult, but I am also trying to stop second guessing where I am headed, or wanting answers, or wanting to know now what I should be doing and why, or worrying about what might happen tomorrow, or the next day. It’s hard. I’m not really a go with the flow kind of person, not in the least, but I am beginning to understand the benefits of moving through life more slowing. Of appreciating what is here and now.

For the first time in a very long time, I just feel content. And that’s a great place to be.

Happiness, reflection, Well-being

What if there is no plan?

May 24, 2022May 24, 2022 Steph TJ

I’ve never had a plan.

I do understand that you need some element of planning on a day to day level, to make sure that you are fed and clothed and the house gets cleaned. I do understand planning at that level. But not long term planning. I’ve never really understood that kind of plan, and I’ve never had one. Nor has husband

Not a five year plan, nor a 10 year plan. Nor a life plan. No lady plan.

Whenever I get asked that question, an interview classic, ‘Where do you see yourself in 5 years time’? I don’t know. I have never known.

There have been no plans. In fact, the only plan I can ever recall following was a half-marathon running plan and even that was loose. I never planned to run a half-marathon, a friend suggested it and I thought ‘why not’? By the finish line I had a clearer understanding of why not!

I have also never really had goals. Apparently you need a plan, in order to successfully achieve goals. Beyond getting up and seeing where the day takes me. Generally, that has been my approach to life – see where it takes you. What adventures might come my way?

I have dreams. Lots of dreams. Some of which came true. Some of which didn’t.

I dreamed of being an astronaut, which was an epic fail.

I dreamed of having a 3 bed semi-detached house. Which sort of came true, as it turns out all I wanted really was a home that was safe and welcoming.

I dreamed of going to Iceland to see the Northern Lights and it was the best experience, far exceeding anything I’d imagined.

I still have many dreams:

I dream of going on a yoga retreat, of going on a paddle board on the ocean.

I’d like to watch a grand prix in Abu Dhabi.

I wonder about being some kind of speaker.

Or of writing some poetry and seeing where that takes me.

Of bringing cheer to people’s days and making the world a brighter place.

Everywhere I turn there seems to be apps, diaries, journals all aimed at how to plan. How to be more productive, how to achieve more in a week Year long planning journals. 90 day planning journals. Each one with a guarantee that their planning method is better than the next one. How to plan your social media feed so that it’s more effective at generating income, generating followers. How to plan your time so that you achieve more, waste less, fit more into a day. How to identify your 3 key targets for the day. How to measure them against your goals. How to manifest everything that you want. How to plan your life in accordance with the moon. What success looks like, what it doesn’t look like. If I plan I will be more successful than I can possibly imagine

I used to think that my lack of a plan was some kind of failing.

Or that it was some kind of self defence mechanism. If I didn’t have a plan I couldn’t fail and I would never be disappointed. But I wonder if it really is a bit more straightforward than that.

Without a plan I was able to take advantages of opportunities that presented themselves to me as I went along. If I was glued to a plan I might have missed some of those things.

I might have missed the opportunity to go into teaching when I was made redundant for the umpteenth time.

I might have missed the chance to live in America as an Au Pair after finishing university.

I might not even have gone to university in the first place.

I didn’t plan to be childless but even that opened up a whole raft of opportunities I might never have experienced otherwise.

I wouldn’t have moved house twice in the space of 4 years.

I definitely wouldn’t have retired at the age of 44.

I doubt I’d be living in an apartment near the beach in Portugal.

I’d have played the oboe instead of the clarinet.

I never imagined I’d have this beach on my doorstep

Recently, I’ve become embroiled in the idea that I should have a plan. I should have goals. I need to be successful. I need to have achieved measurable success. But I don’t think my kind of success can be measured. I don’t know that you can plan to be happy, it’s just what it is. It’s taken a bit of work to get to this point, none of it planned. How can it be? My version of happy is different to everyone else’s so how can I follow someone else’s plan to achieve that.

I can’t really imagine how having a plan would make life all that much better for me.

I now realise that my unhappiest moments have been when I’ve been planning, when I had goals. When I had plans foisted upon me. Any teacher will tell you that lessons that haven’t been planned all that well often go better than those that are planned to within an inch of their life. There’s something freeing about just going along with what may be.

What if there were no plans. No goals. What if the only goal of each day were to be happy. Content. Happy and content with what you have, here and now. What might that be like? What if, you don’t need a plan?

The advantage of having no plans is that you can’t really fail. The disadvantage of having no plan, is that you are made to feel like a bit of a failure. Which is both sad, and terrifying in equal measure.

All I do know is that an unplanned life has worked for me. There may well be opportunities I have missed. But there may well be opportunities I’ve enjoyed and might have missed because they weren’t part of any plan. I’m currently considering which modules to do next for my Open University degree. I’m torn between Creative Writing and Latin. There is no plan. There is no pros or cons list. But I’m sure it will work out just fine, and if not, then no harm done. It will all come out in the wash.

I will admit that sometimes things just don’t get done. I’ve wanted to make a dress and a couple of brooches for a while now, but they never seem to quite get completed. I’m not the least bit consistent with posting blogs. Largely because other things come up – like writing, or reading, or exercising, or crochet, or staring in to space. I can see where an element of planning could be useful and do wonder if it might be a good idea after all. But I also like to think that it something is important enough or is meant to be, it will happen, with or without a plan.

So. For now, I think I’m going to carry on living a life with no plans. It has served me well, to date. Who knows where it might just take me? I do understand that for some people this approach really would not work, but for me it means that everyday is an adventure; it allows for something a little bit more extraordinary and unexpected to come along.

Exercise, Happiness, Healthy living, Mindfulness, Well-being

The Wheels on my Wagon go Round and Round

March 15, 2022March 15, 2022 Steph TJ

It’s been a month since my last glass of wine, so it goes to follow that its also a month since my last wine induced migraine.

I cannot believe the difference one month has made. Not so much in how I feel physically, or look, and certainly not how much I weigh, but in terms of mental health the change has been huge.

The old me is making an appearance. The me that inhabited the world until c.2009. The me that twirls through life, is distracted by flowers and sparkles, sees hope in the worst of times and whose job it is to smile and make people laugh (mainly at me).

Before moving to Bristol (BB) I was alcohol free. I exercised. I wasn’t 100% healthy and struggled at time balancing my health and work but for the main part I was happy. I enjoyed my job and the school I worked at. I was in a small department with three fabulous men and the office was usually filled with inane boy banter: football, music, tv, what we had for tea last night. There was no gossiping, there was no keeping score, just a generally calm, supportive working environment.

After moving to Bristol (AB) my life fell apart pretty quickly and it’s not until I look back that I can appreciate that fact. I worked with challenging students on a daily basis with little by way of support and it took its toll – on my mental health, my husband’s mental health and our relationship. It was then that I first started to drink, not, I now realise to deaden the pain or to deal with the stress of the situation, but to try to find the spark, the part of me that I knew was still in there. The part of me that had gone into hibernation. It’s hard to function in the world when you know a significant part of yourself is missing. It’s like permanently wading through treacle, trying to present a version of yourself to the world, hoping they can’t see the cracks. More often than I would like to admit, the cracks became chasms and I did struggle with life.

Slowly over the past 12 months I have started to crawl back out of hibernation, to unfurl my wings and take tentative steps back into the world as me. Not the me that people think I should be, but the me that I used to be – Before Bristol. I like this version of me and feel sad that she has been hidden away from the world for such a long while. Giving up wine is the final step in this process.

I’ve rediscovered the delight of exercising with good friends and the feelgood feeling that it gives me. Once again my priority is my health. Eating healthily feels normal and natural, I’m not on the rollercoaster of ups and downs that comes from drinking, feeling bad, eating sweets to cope, feeling bad, and have stopped making consistently poor choices. I’m not perfect, but due to lent I am making further progress as I have given up chocolate, biscuits and cakes which is forcing me to pick healthy snacks – which, I’ll confess, are nothing like as tasty but I’m hoping it will be worth it in the long term.

I am starting to love socialising again. I do love going out. I love the banter and the energy of an evening out. Bizarrely, I prefer it sober. I found having to drink quite stressful as I knew that there was always going to be quite a severe consequence, despite drinking a minimal amount and to know that I can go out, have fun, and wake up headache free, filled with energy and ready to take on the day is amazing. I have re-found my love of life. I love life, everything about it and I’m starting to enjoy it again, to spot the flowers by the roadside, to hear the birds singing and I no longer feel like I am dragging myself from one day to the next. It feels like there is a purpose to my days again. I am laughing again.

The wheels are well and truly back on my wagon, they are well oiled and ready to trundle on their merry way, safe and secure. I might even get around to pimping my wagon!

Happiness, reflection, Walking, Well-being

February 2022

March 1, 2022 Steph TJ

February has been and gone. Here in Albufeira, there are signs of spring and of the holiday season beginning. Most bars and restaurants will be open by the end of March and there is spring cleaning going on all around us. I anticipate that this year will be busier than it has been for many years. Whilst on the one hand I have enjoyed having the town to ourselves, the Algarve needs the money from tourism. The businesses desperately want the British tourists to come and spend their money, and I know the British are equally desperate to go on holiday, so it is nice to see people arriving for their holidays and short breaks. You can spot a British tourist a mile off. They are the ones in shorts and flip flops whilst the rest of us are still in jeans and sweatshirts!

Anyway, back to February. I really didn’t make that much progress on my list of 22 things for 2022 during the month. Primarily to a raging headache, initially caused by two glasses of wine at dinner. I spent one week getting rid of the headache, and a second week getting rid of the headache caused by the painkillers I’d taken for the first headache. So it was the sort of month where I just laid low, did what needed to be done and accepted that was the way it was going to be. This is a new departure for me. In the past I would have battled on regardless, but it is a sign of progress that I actually did just stop and spend time tackling the headaches and their root cause. This has also led to my actively avoiding alcohol and I am currently at 16 days without a drink.

There are signs of spring across Albufeira

The only area where I really did make progress was towards my target of walking 1000 miles in the year. I am now up to 322 miles. My current aim is to divide the year into quarterly chunks and increase the target for each quarter by a smidgette! What I love about walking is even on the lowest of days I can still manage something, even if it’s only a gentle walk to the end of the road to look across the beach. I am still having to remind myself to walk rather than sit at home, particularly when we are in Portugal. When we are in Bristol I have a Nordic Walking Group that I go along to and that enables me to maintain my distances – that tends to go by the wayside a little in Portugal as I definitely need an incentive to get up and out. This is really quite frustrating as I do feel so much better for exercising. During the past week or so I have been very lazy and can feel my body start to seize up – it definitely wants to begin moving more frequently again.

For one of the list of 22 – listen to a new album each month – I changed the remit slightly. In her book ‘Quit Like a Woman’ which I read in January, Holly Whitaker recommends creating a playlist of music that calms the mind. So whilst I didn’t listen to a specific album I did spend the month listening to Spa Music, which is a definite departure from my usual choices. My theory was if it’s good enough to have a massage to, then it must be calming and relaxing to have on in the background. And I have to say that I have really enjoyed it. When I’m studying, when I’m showering I have the music playing in the background and it is genuinely calming. Even husband has commented on how much he enjoys having it playing in the background. I’m going to go back to listening to a specific album during March, but will definitely keep playing the spa music at certain times of the day. The album for March is ‘Aladdin Sane’ by David Bowie. I’ve never really listened to much of Bowie’s music, and know very little about his earlier albums, but when I asked a group of friends for album recommendations they all agreed that this one was a must.

Even a short walk lifts the spirits when the sky is this blue!

I also didn’t make any progress on reading fiction. I’m not entirely sure I read one complete book in the month. The first fiction book I opened my kindle at the beginning of the month was ‘The Imposter’ by Damon Galgut. I think it was an Amazon recommendation that I got for next to nothing. It’s not really my cup of tea and I probably should have abandoned it and started something else instead. But I am at the 80% point now, so I really don’t have any excuses not to complete it within the next few days. I am going to set aside a few minutes each day to sit and read and get it finished. For part of my Creative Writing module for my latest degree they recommended reading a range of genres and authors to widen my repertoire. I have done that with this book and won’t be rushing back to read another one! I’m hopeful that March will see a return to enjoyable reading!

March also coincides with lent and so I am going to embrace the opportunity! When I completed Sober October, I found a ready made excuse does make giving something up far more easy. Nobody questions your motives. So, I am giving up cakes and chocolate for lent. As much as anything, I’d quite like to see what difference it does make to my weight and general sense of well-being. A few years ago I was listening to ‘Thought for the Day’ on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show and the guest speaker was saying that lent isn’t just about giving up and doing without. It’s about making a commitment to something – so that could be a daily walk, reading for 30 minutes a day, anything really. So as well as giving up sweet treats I am going to commit to the daily writing practice I set for a target at the beginning of the year and see if I can maintain that commitment for the period of lent.

So there we have it. Another month completed and I look forward to making more progress towards my 22 for 2022 throughout March.