Week Minded

Highdown Hill, West Sussex - Photo NJG

It's Friday, one of my non-work days. With some time to myself, I've been reflecting on how it's gone.

What's been happening? How did I show up? Did I learn anything? Did I apply any of that learning? 

Well, yes and no.

Being present in social media channels means that one gets exposed to a lot of noise. Sometimes I contribute to that noise; sometimes, I hope, helpfully.

The week started off really well, with my weekly walk and talk with my Counsellor followed by my continuing to walk further, exploring local pathways not previously walked, but trusting my sense of direction and following the waymarks. In total, some 10k in uncharteristically glorious weather, the benefits of which for my mental and physical wellbeing lasted well into Tuesday. Joyous.

This week also saw two "[insert cause/subject here] Week" campaigns which are both areas of personal interest to me - "Learning at Work Week" (#LAWW21) and "Dementia Action Week" (#DAWW21). 

One of my professional bodies (for whom I work part-time) is an active sponsor of LAWW and we have discussed and acted on this both internally as a team and in our support for the HR, L&D and OD profession externally.

This blog is my activity recognising that, enabling me to reflect on and share what I've learned this week.

It's also Dementia Action Week, a cause close to my heart, for family reasons. I'm a research volunteer for the Join Dementia Research (@BeatDementia) programme, and have been contributing to their online studies since 2014. A few weeks ago, they asked their volunteer community of study participants if they would be prepared to be interviewed to share their story of how and why they got involved. I was selected, interviewed and my story was published this week, as part of their DAW campaign, here: "Making a difference through online research studies".

My hope is that people reading it may be prompted to get involved themselves and thereby add to the data which will hopefully speed understanding about and prevention or cure of this cruel disease.

Then on Wednesday morning, I learned from a friend on facebook that another friend from my college days back in 73-76 had died suddenly of an aneurism. A year younger than me, a wife, grandmother, photographer, generous sharer and all-round lovely person, her death hit me quite hard. 

I've spent a lot of time in the last few months discussing and sorting out my and Mandy's end-of-life admin - Lasting Powers of Attorney, Wills, Funeral Plans - and, having survived heart surgery myself six years ago, death has been much on my mind. Sheila's death and her family's loss really brought this to the fore.

Wednesday was probably the low point of my week. Thursday, however, was satisfyingly clear-minded, focussed and productive.

And here we are, it's Friday already, and today I chose not to join in the weekly 08:00 am #LDinsight tweetchat with my #PLN (Personal Learning Network), and had a long lie and leisurely breakfast instead.

So, what, if anything, did I learn this week?

It's good to to talk | Sometimes you don't need to have a clear destination in mind and you can just enjoy the journey for itself and for whatever physical and mental nourishment it provides | It's OK to have a down day; don't beat yourself up about it | You don't always have to show up; the world will keep turning.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Heart and Soul

jordan mcqueen under CC0 1.0

Last Friday was a milestone in the ongoing story of my coronary bypass recovery, as it was exactly three months since my surgery - three months of steady, if slow, progress, rebuilding my strength and stamina. My scars are healing nicely, my walking distance is increasing and I am now starting to look towards returning to work. 

And I am also beginning to properly reflect on what the impacts have been and will be - on my family, on my friends and colleagues and on my future self. My own sense of self has been fundamentally challenged. I am not immortal! Despite years of good health and fitness, I have been ambushed by my own body and by the rapidity with which I was overtaken by angina symptoms, investigation, surgery and recovery.  In many respects, I feel as though I have been a passenger in all this, with the only 'control' or decision-making I had being no control at all - why would I say 'no' to surgery when it was made evident to me by the experts that I had serious, life-threatening heart disease and multiple coronary artery failures?

So now I find myself pondering such issues as Who am I? Where do I fit? What is my 'new normal' going to be? What's my role, function and purpose now and for the next 25 years, in relation to myself, my family, friends, acquaintances and colleagues? How do I go on from here - living and operating in my family, social, work and virtual lives? What does work look like now? What do I want? How selfish can/should I be? I'm now in the process of finding a talking therapy counsellor so I can start to explore some of this stuff - and whatever else may come up - with someone who is not involved in any of the above.

Coincidentally, all of this has got me pondering on the language we use - and mis-use - in thinking and talking about this sort of thing. I now firmly believe that my body, and more specifically, my heart, was talking to me long before I began to experience angina symptoms in April. I just wasn't actively listening to it. At various times in the last year, I knew that 'my heart wasn't in it', that I was 'heartily sick' of things (like moving house and commuting), that my 'heart's desire' was for some change to the routine and that it was becoming increasingly stressful to be at 'the heart of the action' at work, at home and in the virtual, social and professional arenas within which I was active. And my conclusion is that, in not paying proper attention to those emotional and physical voices, in continuing to push through ('cos that's what I do), I literally 'broke my heart'.

But now I'm fixed, now I've dodged the bullet, I shan't be so deaf to what my body, my gut, my heart's telling me. I shall wear my heart on my sleeve and look after myself better. I owe it to myself and to those who love and who have supported me through the last four months. Obviously, there are more conversations to be had, but there will be no more lip service to 'work/life balance'.  Onwards...!

PS: Are you listening to your body? Is your heart still in what you're doing and how you're doing it? Or does your heart ache? My advice would be to tune in before you tune out!