Mousecapades

Patience is something I find difficult to apply to myself. I have a lot of ideas and things I want to do and if I'm unable to manage them all in the generally unreasonable time I plan for them, I can get very frustrated. So I look to practice patience when the opportunity arrises so I may improve my ability for it and my ability to be kind to myself.

Everyone has the capacity of unconditional love. It would be fabulous to have it for ourselves but generally the sense of unconditional love is applied to other people in our lives. The most common example of this would be the love a parent has for their child. In my case I have three gorgeous, delightful and wonderful fur-children. I adore all three of the kitties in my life and my love for them is unwavering regardless of the things they may do. 

It is in their nature to hunt and as a result I am often faced with a live creature in the house. Sometimes I am able to intercede and save the morsel from it's doomed fate. There were a multitude of these incidents last year but three in particular which come to mind when on the topic of patience. One involved a mouse, one a small bird that was still without feathers and one was a frog. All three occurred between the hours of about 3:00am and 5:00am.

I love the teaching: 'Start where you are' because it's about knowing you already have everything you need at your disposal to start changing your life. Every experience is an opportunity for growth or to enhance a skill and figuring out which ones work and which ones don't is all apart of just going with the flow.

I know very well the challenge of insomnia. I have struggled with anxiety for years and the result is that I have very strict sleeping habits to ensure that I am able to fall asleep. When deprived of my sleep due to the disregard of a fellow human being I fly into an absolute rage. Sleep is sacred and my patience, as with most people, is worn thin when I'm tired.

But when my adorable, delightful cats wake me up at 4:00am I am able to remain quite calm. The first time it happened I was a bit miffed but with each experience my capacity to tolerate and even accept the interruption increases.

It's been some months since such an incident has taken place but over a recent weekend my patience was tested once more. I was half dreaming but aware of a crunching sound. At first I ignored it. My brain wasn't entirely engaged and I was able to attribute the noise to the cats eating their dry food. But then it occurred to me that the crunching was in my room whilst their food bowls are downstairs. At this point I woke entirely, grabbed my phone and shone it onto the floor. All three cats were present but it was my own little fur-baby from Canada who was clearly engaged in the crunching.

It turned out to be half a mouse. Half a mouse at anytime of the day is an unpleasant discovery. Half a mouse at 4:00am on a Sunday morning when you had been in the middle of a rather pleasant dream is just the sort of thing that used to make me cry with fatigue. But not this time.

I chased the cats away, got a tissue and chucked the remains out the cat flap. I returned to bed and tossed and turned for a bit. I was undoubtedly awake. I didn't imagine I'd fall asleep very quickly and normally this would be about the time when I'd feel very frustrated, upset and annoyed. Instead I remained entirely calm. My anxiety didn't flare and I realised that I was able to take the situation as it had come. I hadn't impatiently grumped at the cats, nor had I felt the need to cry or get upset. It was what it was and that was that.

Almost immediately I began running a dialogue about it in my head. I jotted down my thoughts and they have in turn become this very blog entry.

By just being right where I was, sitting with my experience and practicing patience with those I love so dearly, I didn't just refrain from getting into my old habitual behaviour; I didn't feel the need or tug at all. I just accepted what was and went with it.

It might seem a small thing but I think it's an important example. It's very easy to be too hard on ourselves and expect miracles. We can head out to practice having patience with strangers and find ourselves ignoring our impatience, rather than actually remaining calm. There's no point in beating ourselves up over it as that just shows a lack of patience for our own capacity to grow. Change takes time and when we start right where we are, when we start with what we're ready for, we can take slow and steady steps forward in our own time.

www.CreativeLifeCoachLondon.com

The Multitasking Myth

I remember there being a time when I would put 'multitasking' as a skill on my resume, include it as a valuable asset in interviews or whip it out as a talent. To be able to multitask is often seen as an incredible ability to accomplish many thing at the same time. This is, as far as I'm concerned, completely untrue.

For anyone who has been an ultimate taskmaster, checking emails while chatting on the phone and jotting down notes for a meeting later in the day, you probably know how overwhelming it can get. In an attempt to finish as much as possible in as little time as possible we will stretch our brains by forcing them to comprehend and complete a multitude of different tasks on the same timeline.

This isn't very effective, nor is it healthy. I speak as a true plate spinner. I'm the sort of person who wants to see things done, To Do lists ticked off and tasks completed. Sometimes this overwhelming desire to get stuff done means that I neglect my basic needs and how my body and brain function.

Our brains function much better when they have a single task to focus on. Within one task there may be a multitude of smaller activities which can be done in conjunction with one another, but if it's all related our brains are far better equipped to focus and do it well.

The problem with multitasking is that you may be able to finish many unrelated tasks at the same time but the odds of them being done well decreases with the number of plates you are spinning. It's also a great way to burn yourself out. If you have more tasks to do than is reasonable or possible in the time you have been given, it's up to you to say 'No'.

When you can focus on one task at a time you can accomplish it with skill and care, which means it will be more successful in the long run. How many times have you been working on a few different things at the same time and you find that something you thought was finished actually wasn't because you were distracted - so you had to go back and do it again or work on it some more when you'd already signed it off as complete?

But when you focus and work on one thing at a time you are not forcing your brain to switch gears rapidly. This is beneficial in so many ways. When you're focused you can complete one thing with greater ease, accuracy and skill. It also focuses your body. Your heart rate will remain calm. Your breathing will remain comfortable, instead of becoming shallow, which will give your brain more oxygen and help it to accomplish the task at hand.

Ultimately, you will be able to complete one thing well rather than a multitude of things not so well.

So next time you're feeling overwhelmed or panicky about needing to finish a multitude of tasks, stop for a moment. Consider if you are trying to do too much at once. Remember that your brain works far better when it can focus on a single thing and you are more productive when your body and mind are in a calm and relaxed state.

www.CreativeLifeCoachLondon.com 

Sheffield

My computer woes are at an end! Thanks to a very dear friend (I certainly seem to write about dear friends a lot. I feel very lucky to have so many.) I have procured a used Mac. My girlfriend has a lovely new Mac Book Pro which she's named Lowly, after the worm from Richard Scarry books. Naming the computer was my suggestion as I have this thing about naming inanimate objects.

(My phone is Queenie and my iPod is Boon.)

No way was my new computer going to miss out on this personification and so Sheffield it is! It just seems the obvious choice, really. I won't go into that here though.

I will go into the set-up of Sheffield, however. Thing is, I haven't yet. I'm still bumbling around with my (unnamed) pink PC which has caused me grand frustration and angst over the last four months. The reason for this postponement is simple. I haven't had the time I'd like to set-up Sheffield properly. I'm a patient person and I believe that rushing something can lead to more upset than it's worth. When I first got my now loathed pink computer I set about transferring all the files from my old desktop with the help of a data stick. It was a slow-going business and one I conducted whilst trying to watch a program on television. As a result I managed to completely delete a large chunk of very important files which have never been recovered. It was a valuable lesson and not one I wish to repeat, which I guess means I learned something.

So I wait until the right time to sit down with Sheffield, an external hard drive, and the pink monstrosity. I will transfer all those photos of my art, all my manuscripts and all my music. I will savour the moment when it's finished and I make the first blog entry on a keyboard where all the keys work.

Lovely!