With a more normal morning filled with birdsong my eldest son takes off for the T in the Park festival and I start holding my breath. Breath will return once he is home safely. One child in festival mode and another on the isle of Eigg - not sure they could be further apart.
I don't write lists anymore. I use to write lists all the time and I lived by my lists. Occasionally I would lose my list and the world fell in on me until it was found. I don't write lists anymore and I don't wear a watch. I took my watch off the day we moved to Arran and it has never gone back on. The question then becomes 'Am I less organised than I was?' The answer to that would be no. I live by the attitude that things will get done as they need to be done and that seems to sort out the priorities and I am not afraid to forget to do things either. I have a very different relationship with time now and the only time I need to pay closer attention is when I have a ferry to catch. I often step out of time and daydream for a while before re-engaging and carrying on with my day. I wake early in the summer and late in the winter. With the shorter winter days I set the fire by 4pm and take my work to the chair nearest it and carry on. In the longer summer days I can often be found watering plants in the tunnel in my PJs. I rely on Mother nature to let me know the time as I need to.
I do know how fortunate I am with my relationship with time. This kind of relationship is not always possible. Many of you are probably driven by time from the moment you wake until the time you sit back on the bed to set your alarm at night. I would hope, though, that we could all take 'time holidays' when we do not need to be driven by the clock and we can just let the day unfold. I am not a fan of eating at set times. I eat when I am hungry and that works for me. In your time holiday you can eat when you are hungry and you can let whole hours slip by without stressing about it.
It is my observation that we behave differently when we are on time holidays. The release of pressure is noticeable as we let the day come to us in a gentle and calm way. Our relationships with people around us change as well as we make more time for that conversation without constantly thinking 'I must get on.' If we are not careful we will rush our lives away.
When we are a slave to the clock we have shortened conversations or eliminate them entirely. We drive on our accelerator and brake and shout at 'the idiots in the other cars'. We eat our food too quickly and we start wishing that whole days were suddenly over. If we are delayed at an airport or station this is seen as dead time or, worse, wasted time.
I have given up on all of that. I refuse to live my life as a slave to a little thing that goes tick tock. My loyalty lies firmly with the natural order of the day and night and, in that, I found much greater inner peace. I have a good friend who likes to fish. He likes the very early morning sitting looking across the lake while the kettle boils and, in that space, I think he finds peace. Perhaps we can all think of things we like to do where time is not so important and we can tap into our own inner peace?
I am struck by this reflection on time today because of two aspects of my day that have collided. The first is a strong temptation to make a list! I know, step away from the list Fiona. I have just emerged from a lovely time with Angie where we are planning for two major events that we are joining forces on. With three weeks to go neither of us have any stock. Joy! But I will not be making a list. I will just make what I can and know that it will be fine. I will also be phoning my mother......
A few years back I would have multiple lists emerging from such a meeting and would even use different colour pens. I would be super organised but I would also be sterile. Angie and I spent more time talking about what we were going to wear behind the stall and than talking about what was going to be actually on the stall. I think we have the right balance.
Let me just say that I have far too many people in my life suffering from stress. Almost everywhere I turn someone is struggling with stress and the health implications are plain to see. I want to help and I hope I am helping one or two in particular. I don't want to preach and I don't want to pretend I can make it all go away either. Instead I want to offer advice with practical solutions and hope that some of those solutions might be useful. Let me tell you when you read about the impact of stress on the body it is very scary reading and quite shocking. A lot of my friends are approaching 50 or just tipped over so it is, perhaps, a good time to assess our stress levels and do what we can to lower them. I don't subscribe to a view that you can eradicate stress because life has a way of throwing it at you when you least expect it. It is what we do to combat stress that interests me.
I put a request out on facebook this morning asking people what they do and the answers have been very revealing. A very strong recurrent theme is getting outside for some gentle exercise. Another recurrent theme is connecting with nature somehow. The final recurrent theme is connecting with a friend who is a good listener. In all the themes though I am aware that we seem to know how to create 'bliss moments'. In these moments we are able to truly relax and find some peace and calm. The problem, I suspect, is that we don't create bliss moments enough and we are thus out of balance.
I have also spent the last couple of days chatting on email with most of the students taking my meditation through writing course and I am delighted with the feedback. Students feel they can work through the exercises at their own pace and make their own decisions. They are also experiencing new ideas for writing and gaining in confidence in their writer's voice. But perhaps the most pleasing piece of feedback came from a student who said - 'I am absolutely loving it'. I am guessing she is experiencing some excellent bliss moments while studying the course and I am, of course, thrilled.
So, today as all these things have presented themselves to me I am about to wage a war on stress. I will become its mortal enemy as I try and put together a body of work that I can share with whoever feels they need it. It can be accessed online so distance will not be a barrier and I am calling the course 'Towards wellbeing.' This has to be our goal. I would chose wellbeing over stress every time and I guessing most of you will feel the same.
As always I am interested in your views and, in particular, what you do to deal with the stress that has become part of our lives. Do email me if you would like to share and I promise to resist the temptation to organise them in a list. I will then take all this and add it to my research and personal experience and produce a stress busting manifesto that puts 'bliss moments' at the centre of all that we do. I hope the outcome of all this might be of some use to some of you.
Until tomorrow. xx
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