Forget All Future Plans: Episode 1

John has volunteered to help out on the staff support helpline, fielding calls from worried members of staff about their symptoms or symptoms of family members. The employee services staff field the calls first then pass them onto John and his colleague Jane, if they are a little more complex or if they feel the staff member needs reassurance. Both John and Jane are experienced nurses, although John no longer works as a Nurse in the trust, his work as a coach is considered really useful. It was agreed by John’s boss that he would help set up the service and man the phones until they could create a dedicated team made up redeployed staff who were considered at risk if working in a front line setting.

John was initially really happy to support in the first instance, he was now finding it really difficult. listening to vulnerable, scared staff one minute and then having to deal with chancers looking to take some time off work, and calming down angry managers was beginning to take it’s toll.

On top of this since John and Helen had come back from holiday visiting his brother Mark in Australia, Tobey his son had moved in permanently after having a big row with Chris his stepdad after he accused Tobey of stealing whisky from him to take to a party and throwing up over the front door when staggering in from said party at 2 in the morning. John found this quite amusing, however it was beginning to be a massive inconvenience having a moping teenager hanging around the house all the time when he is still trying to conduct a passionate love life with his current girlfriend Helen. Helen didn’t seem to mind, but having to consider a teenager every time he made plans was seriously pissing John off, he just was not used to being an adult at home as well as at work.

This Thursday was a particularly difficult day. It was Johns last shift of the week (he did 3×12 hour shifts a week). 2 calls had particularly got under his skin. There was one young nurse who was living in a shared house with friends, who had locked herself in her room to protect her housemates. She sounded so poorly and scared. She was 21 and not long qualified. She was hundreds of miles away from home and feeling really ill, and frightened about whether she might die. John had spent longer than normal on that call just to reassure her and make sure she had all the support she needed. Straight after that call he spoke to a young man who was a Staff Nurse about to come onto a night shift on a medical elderly ward. He didn’t want to come in. He wasn’t ill, he was terrified, terrified about getting it, and didn’t think he could cope with looking after patients that were so ill and dying. He had lost a patient last night, and he knew there were more patients on his ward that were sick. His friends and family kept on calling him a hero. He said he didn’t feel much like a hero. John manage to talk him around and then had another call from a HCA on the Nurse Bank who had an elderly relative, and had been allocated a night shift on a ward that a lot of COVID patients. She was terrified that she would catch it and pass it on to her relative and kill them. John spent ages talking to this lady about how she could manage the risks she faced by wearing PPE, not travelling to work in her uniform and putting her uniforms straight in the wash when she got home and having a shower as soon as she got in.

John new he had done the right thing, but persuading nurses to go into uncertainty and potentially put themselves and relatives at risk was morally challenging. He kept thinking what if. What if that young nurse gets much worse and is admitted and dies before seeing her parents again. What if that staff nurse goes on his nightshift and has a terrible shift, such a terrible shift that he leaves nursing all together. What if that HCA, catches COVID, takes it home passes it onto her relative who then dies. These thoughts were running through his head as he was driving home. He noticed that he had missed calls on his phone, from Angie, his ex wife, Helen and Tobey. He also had several text messages. “Not know” he said to himself… “My head is full”. He put on his favourite Macabees album and drove home trying to block out all of those intrusive thoughts.

When he got home he walked into a shit storm. Tobey was waiting for him. He was beside himself. Schools had closed today (John had not seen the news) the only exception was the children of key workers. Angie had told Tobey he had to go to school as both his parents were key-workers and because of his past behaviour he could not be trusted to be left to his own devices. John listened to Tobey rant on about being 15 and this was so unfair making him go to school when all his mates didn’t have to and he would be with all the little kids and retards. He agreed to speak to Angie to come up with a mutually agreeable solution. He hated speaking to Angie, she was always judgemental and made him feel like a terrible father, ex-husband, son and human being. She always managed to bring up his shortcomings, and during most encounters she could find a few more. The conversation did not start well. She was in a foul mood. “Why don’t you answer your fucking phone?!!” John tried to keep calm and ignore the outburst on the line. “I am fine thank you Angie. Had a tough long day at work, but OK now. How are you?” He knew that would wind her up, but he didn’t care. “You are such a wanker John! He is not hanging about your house unsupervised, smoking whatever illegal substances you have in the house, and playing on the X-Box all day John! I need you to back me up here, I need you to step up and be a father for once!” John could feel his temper rising, but he couldn’t lose it, if he lost his shit, then she has won, but he needed to respond to this insult, he could not let it go, he had, had a really shitty day and he didn’t need this. “Hey! That’s a bit uncalled for. Who does he live with? I don’t have anything illegal in the house, who do you think I am?” That was probably not going to diffuse the situation, but he could not think of the right words, he really wanted to give her both barrels, but that would just prolong the argument and he really did not have the energy. “He chooses to live with you John, because you let him get away with murder and he cannot live with the rules Chris and I impose on him.” He cannot live with you because Chris is a complete bell end, full of his own self importance, John wanted to say but didn’t. “Anyway Angie, I think I may have a solution that will suite everybody. As of Monday I am going back to the OD team and will be spending most of my time working from home, doing welfare calls and running staff support events. I will be going in maybe once or twice a week but not for the whole day. So he can stay at home with me he can work in the dining room and I will work in my office/spare bedroom. I am fully at home next week so we can do a trial period. If it doesn’t work he can go into school. He will get more done at home. Trust me if he has to go in he will just muck about, and no doubt bunk off. What do you think?” “You better be supervising him John and not disappearing off visiting one your women.” John sighed “I don’t have women Angie, I am with Helen. Is that a yes then?” “For a trial period John, don’t let him waste his life John, he has got his GCSE’s next year. Try and be a good role model John.” “Oh come on Angie, I have always worked hard. I am just and old romantic. I cannot guarantee that he wont have relationship issues, but I will make sure he understands the importance of studying. Have a good evening, and say hello to Chris.” He needed to end the call he was knackered and starving. “Ok John, keep me informed, don’t make any decisions without me. Give him a hug from me.” “Will do, speak soon, bye.” John put the phone down and shouted upstairs to Tobey. “Sorted Tobey, you can stay at home…you don’t have to go to school. Chinese?”

John was sunbathing on the beach, sipping a cool beer and watching the sun glisten on the calm sea. He wondered where Helen was. Something was starting to make him feel uncomfortable. He could feel something vibrating, it was getting louder and louder, it sounded like a phone… He woke up bleary eyed, a little confused he looked for the source of the buzzing. It was his phone, he picked it up and squinted at the screen. Helen’s name came into focus. “Fuck!” Helen (his girlfriend) had rung yesterday, along with everyone else, and he had not got back to her, what with everything that was going on he had just plain forgotten. “Morning my love, how is my little ray of sunshine on this glorious morning.” John gave her, his stock morning greeting. “So you are alive then!” He sensed anger in her voice. “I really needed you yesterday, and you let me down John, why didn’t you respond?” “I am so sorry Hels, yesterday was just awful. I was going to ring you when I got in, then world war 3 had broken out between Tobey and Angie about school and the imminent lack of it. So I had to play peacemaker and sort that out, and then I completely forgot…I am so sorry!” “You forgot!!! You bastard John. I thought you loved me!” “Oh, please don’t be like that. Yesterday was just a string of distressed people at work followed by family drama at home and having to have a conversation with my ex-wife. I love you more than anything other than Tobey of course. What happened? I am here for you now.” “I have been redeployed John. I have got to go back to ICU.” She was crying, John felt so helpless over the phone. “I don’t want to go John, I am scared.” “Are you at work today?” John asked. “Yes I am telling my patients today, then next week I am wrapping up the service, some of my team will be staying behind as they are vulnerable, so they will look after the service until the rest of us comeback.” “Well come round straight after work, I will get a bottle of wine and make you a nice tea we can talk through it all. Bring your weekend bag and stay the weekend. Tobey is around but he will keep out of our way, he owes me big style. Now put that famous Helen smile on your face, be that wonderful Nurse you are for your patients today. You can be frightened and vulnerable Helen with me this evening. I love you so much it hurts.” “You are so lovely John, I love you too, thank you and I will see you tonight.” “See you tonight Hels.”

John had cooked her favourite Moussaka, with a salad and got a couple of bottles of her favourite Malbec. He wasn’t much of a wine drinker but he always had some Italian lager in the fridge, he just had to keep a close eye on it, so Tobey did not drink it all. He had ordered Tobey a Dominos and gave him a few beers and free range on his X-Box for the night to keep him out of the way. He was in Tobey’s good books anyway for allowing him to stay at home instead of going to school next week.

Helen had her own key, as he did for her place. She let herself in a called into the kitchen. “Hi John, I’m here, I bought some dessert.” Tobey came out of the living room to great her. “Hi Helen, how are you?” Helen smiled, she knew why he had come to meet her. “New York cheesecake Tobe, but don’t worry I got you some Ben and Jerry’s.” “Aw thanks Helen, you’re the best. Dad is in the kitchen. Just follow the sound of him murdering the Libertines.” He was right, John has banging out the words to Don’t Look Back Into the Sun, as it blasted out of his Alexa.  She went into put the cheesecake in the fridge ,and the icecream in the freezer without him noticing. The music was so loud he was oblivious to what was going on around him. With that their favourite song came on just as she put her arms around him Toothpaste Kisses by The Macabees came on, she kissed him on the cheek. He smiled, put the knife down he was using to chop some tomatoes and turned round to give her a big kiss and a hug. Tears started to well up in her eyes, she was so relieved to be with him, to be in his arms, he felt so warm, so gentle, and so safe. “Hello my little ray of sunshine, what a lovely sight you are on such a day.” He whispered gently into her ear as their cheeks touched. “Oh you are a sight for sore eyes, after the past couple of days.” She replied as she clamped her lips on his. The stood in their embrace all the way through the next song (Alrighty Aphrodite by Peach Pit). He then relaxed his embrace, and commanded Alexa to stop so he could fully concentrate on her. “Aww don’t turn the music off, I love your taste in music.” He instructed the playlist to restart at a lower volume, he wanted hear about what was happening. “So tell me, what has been happening?” Helen went through how she had been told, how she felt. It was less about working in ICU and more about the unknown and the risk it would pose to those who she loved. There was a rumour that she might not be going to ICU as they needed some experienced respiratory nurses on the COVID wards to prevent admissions to ICU. She thought she would be quite happy with this, she knew a lot of the nurses on the wards and felt quite maternalistic towards them. He told her that, she had heard that Angie had been redeployed to ICU too. That might explain why she was on the ceiling yesterday. She wouldn’t tell him because she never shared anything about herself with him anymore.

They had their moussaka with some salad, and cuddled up in front of Netflix for the rest of the evening, transporting themselves to another world, they were finally getting round to watching Breaking Bad.

Over the weekend Tobey went out with his friends, and spent Saturday night sleeping over at Josh’s (his best friend) house. John and Helen spent most of Saturday in bed. They had planned to go to the pub on Saturday night, but as they were now closed, they went to the Supermarket to get some more drinks in, and order a takeaway, and settled down to watch more episodes of Breaking Bad. Sunday was Mother’s day, so much to his disgust Tobey was scheduled to spend the day at his Mums. Tobey got back to John’s house at 10am. John then dropped him off at Angie’s house with a bunch of flowers and a card. Helen had asked John if Tobey had got Angie anything at the supermarket on Saturday. John had starred blankly at her, so she went off found a nice bunch of flowers and a Happy Mother’s Day card and put them in the trolley. “You’re paying for them! Dickhead!” John just laughed. The drop off went without a hitch, mainly because he stayed in the car and drove off before Tobey got to the front door. He promised Tobey he would pick him up at 7pm. “Just think of it as an 8 hour shift, you are contractually obliged to complete.” John had suggested to a downcast Tobey as they pulled into Angie and Chris’ street.

John and Helen went off to visit John’s Dad on Sunday afternoon. A ritual John performed every Sunday since he had reconciled with his dad late last year after learning that he had lung cancer and was receiving palliative care. John had fallen out with his dad when he was a teenager. They had, had a big row about studying, and not living up to Patrick’s expectations of becoming an engineer like himself and Mark (John’s older brother). That big row turned physical when John had pushed Patrick and Patrick had lashed out and caught John on the chin with a right hook. John stormed out and never went back, in fact he did not speak to him until August last year. He hadn’t invited him to his graduation, wedding or informed him of the birth of Tobey. The only time he had seen his Dad was at his Mum’s funeral in 2017. His mum and dad had been divorced since 1989. John’s Mum, Jane had remarried to David a Police Officer. John and David never saw eye to eye and he had refused to live with them after a big row a few months after they had got married in 1992. Jane died in 2017 in a car crash, Dave had not been in the car with (mores the pity in John’s opinion, he is still an arsehole). After falling out with his step-dad and dad, John ended up living with his big Sister for 2 years until he went to university to train as a Children’s Nurse.

John went to pick up his Dad whilst Helen started cooking a Sunday roast of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Helen really liked Patrick, he was kind and funny, and such a storyteller. She wished she had known him when he was well, according to everyone that knows him and John, they are like peas in a pod, not just their looks but their outlook on life, they are both hopeless romantics.

John had a key for his Dad’s house. He lived in a 3 bedroomed semi in an affluent part of the city. It was the house he bought when he got divorced with the romantic notion that his children would come to stay with him, which didn’t exactly work out. Although John did live with him for a few years, Rachel and Mark were nearly adults and had moved to University. They used to come for weekends between terms, it never really turned into the family home he had dreamt of. John parked his car on the road outside the house. He walked past his Dad’s car a big old Audi he had, had for 20 years, and shook his head. He let himself in, whilst knocking at the same time. “Hi Dad…It’s John, are you ready?” No answer. “Dad! Where are you!” Always the bloody same, John exclaimed in his head. He knows what time I come on a Sunday. It’s always on his terms! John shouts up the stairs. “Are you there Dad?” No answer. He pops his head in the front room on the way to the kitchen. He thinks he knows where he will be, where he always is, if he is feeling stressed. In his garage/workshop tinkering on his pet project, the same one he has had for the past 20 years an old Norton motorbike, that he manages to get working periodically. John opened the back door and shouted across the open workshop door. “Dad, are you ready!” “Oh shit…is that the time?” Patrick appears at the garage door in his overalls, wiping his oily hands. “I am so sorry Son, I completely lost track of time.” John sighed under his breath a couple of years ago he would of lost his shit with him. Well in fact a couple of years ago he wouldn’t have been here at all. “Not to worry Dad. Are you ok?” Patrick looked grey and tired. “I am fine son, I felt quite bright today so I thought I would get cracking on the old bike before I run out of puff. This is the first day in ages I have this way, so you have to grab them when you can.” “You look shattered Dad.” “I am a bit tired now son to be honest, but I have had a smashing time tinkering, so it was worth it.” John could feel tears welling up in his eyes. He pushed them back down, and gave his Dad a gentle smile. “Are you going to be ok coming for dinner, or do you want me to bring a plate here?” Patrick shook his head. “And miss seeing Tobey, and the lovely Helen, no chance, plus warmed up Yorkshires are shit. Give me a couple of minutes to get out of these overalls, and have a wash and we can get going.” “Ok Dad, but please let me know when you have had enough, and I will bring you straight home.”

After about 20 minutes Patrick and John were finally in the car on the way back to John’s house. “Why don’t you get rid of that car Dad?” Patrick looked shocked. “What the Audi? Why on earth would I do that? It is my lifeline, how will I get to the shops?” “That’s what I wanted to discuss actually Dad. What with everything that is going on with COVID, I really don’t think you should be going shopping, you could end up catching it.” Patrick stared at his son. “What do you mean you don’t want me to go shopping? Don’t be ridiculous, I have got cancer, I am not an invalid yet, and whilst I can still be active I will be, some stupid little overhyped virus is not going to take that my independence away from me.” John tried not to roll his eyes. “It is not overhyped Dad, it really is killing people, all of us in the hospital are really worried about it. I think Boris is going to close everything down very soon anyway.” Patrick shook his head. “Well, no one is going to tell me where I can go and what I can do. Boris and his cronies can fuck off. Anyway how is the lovely Helen? Is she the one you think? I certainly hope so!” Patrick didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole any further. A much better subject in his opinion was the delightful Helen. He wished he had met someone like Helen, kind, funny, pretty and most importantly a wonderful cook. John smiled. “She is looking forward to seeing you. Work is difficult at the moment so she really enjoys our Sunday afternoons. A lot of her team are being moved to work on Intensive Care, and there is a possibility she might have to move there too. Angie has already moved.” Deftly ignoring the news of ICU, Patrick focused on is second favourite subject where John is concerned, his ex-wife. “How is the interfering Witch, still passing judgement on everyone else’s shortcomings?” John ignored him. “Tobey is looking forward to seeing you too. School has closed now so me and Angie have agreed that he can stay at home with me and do his work. I will be working from home 3 days a week from now on anyway.”

Helen was waiting for them in the hall when they opened the door. “Well there’s a sight for sore eyes, come here and make an old man happy.” Patrick opened his arms in anticipation for a hug from Helen. “You are such a charmer.” Helen gave him one of her trademark bear hugs and a kiss on the cheek. “How is the motorbike coming along?” Helen enquired as she guided him into the living room. “Let me get you a drink and you can tell me all about it, John can finish dinner.” Helen gave John a little smile. “Of course my dear, in fact sit down, I will get you and Dad a drink. Merlot alright Dad?”

Tobey joined them for dinner, they had a relaxed afternoon and early evening laughing and joking. John thought to himself that he wished he hadn’t been so stubborn for all those years. Then remembered Dad hadn’t always been this attentive, and it was only since his diagnosis that he had mellowed and realized the importance of family. That was also true of John, he had been shaken to his core by his Dad’s news and vowed not to waste anymore time on petty squabbles, and get closer to his family. It also made him realise that his relationship with Tobey was precious and mustn’t be squandered. He knew he was a selfish romantic, just like his Dad if he didn’t check his behaviour. He didn’t want his relationship with Tobey to go the same way as the relationship he had with his Dad. He knew he was too blame for the breakdown in his marriage. He realised now that he could harness his romantic view of life and did not always have to live up to the reputation he had, which he had inherited from his Dad. That Sunday afternoon was a special one, little did they all realise that it would be last one they would all spend together. If they had maybe they would have said more and would have held each other longer.

Background and Timeline for Forget All Future Plans

This is the introduction into the world of Forget All Future plans, which is the project that came out of COVID and turned into a personal project about grief and loss. It is not a finished project and will unfold on here as I write more content over the coming months. Some of you will have read this and episode one via my Substack page. I have decided to do this important piece of writing where I feel more comfortable so I have come home. I apologise for repeating this content, in the next few weeks new content will appear. Anyway here is John and his world. Hopefully this will help you make sense of the story as it unfolds.

John works for the NHS in a non-clinical role. He is 40 years old when the story starts. He has had a string of relationships since getting divorced 6 years ago. His ex (Angela) is a Nurse who works at the same hospital, she has remarried. They got married when they were both 23. They have a 15 year old son (Toby). Toby lives with Angela and her new husband (Simon) and their 2 year old daughter (Jessica). John trained as a Nurse at the same time as Angela, he did his children’s nurse training, and Angela did her adult nursing.

Timeline

  • Born 12/11/1979
  • John’s mum and dad get divorced in March 1989
  • John’s Mum (Jane Cummings) remarries to a retired Policeman David Cummings April 1992
  • John moves in with his Dad (Patrick Colbourn) after not getting on with his step dad September 1992
  • John moves in with his older sister (Rachael Pollard) when he falls out with his dad March 1996
  • John’s older brother (Mark) emigrates to Australia to work as an engineer. (1996)
  • John loses his virginity to the manager of the shop where he worked at weekends and evenings (Carole she was 10 years older than him) on his 18th birthday 12/11/1997
  • Left school 1998
  • Started Uni Autumn of 1998
  • Started a relationship with Angela in March 1999
  • Graduated 2001
  • Started work as a Staff Nurse on a Children’s General Medical Ward in September 2001
  • Bought a house with Angela November 2001
  • Got engaged to Angela in February 2002 (on her 22nd Birthday 14th Feb)
  • Married Angela on 14th June 2003
  • Honeymooned in Bodrum, Turkey
  • Started MSc in Advanced Nursing Sept 2003
  • Angela tells John she is pregnant in May 2004
  • Completed MSc in August 2004
  • Promoted to Band 6 Junior Charge Nurse in October 2004
  • Toby is born on 20th February 2005
  • Started cert ed in Jan 2006
  • Completed cert ed Dec 2006
  • Took a nurse lecturers job at the uni in Jan 2009
  • Angela started job as Nurse specialist in Cystic Fibrosis service in September 2010
  • Starts affair with Sally Johnson fellow nurse lecturer in March 2011
  • Best Man for Steve Grant (CEO of Charity) best friend August 2011 married to Emma (Midwifery Sister)
  • Affair with Sally ends in December 2011 when her husband starts to suspect
  • Angela finds out about affair in Jan 2012 (they try to make it work)
  • John sleeps with Isobel Morris a staff nurse from his old ward in Sept 2012 and starts an affair.
  • Angela catches John on the phone with Isobel October 2012
  • John and Angela separate in November 2012
  • John starts renting a flat in the centre of the city December 2012 after sofa surfing for a month
  • Angela and John are divorced Jan 2014
  • John buys a house on new estate on outskirts of City
  • John starts work back at Hospital as Clinical Nurse Educator in April 2014
  • John starts Masters Degree in Coaching Jan 2015
  • Angela gets married to Chris Jones (a partner in a Law firm) August 2016
  • John starts work as Organisational Development Business Partner in the Trust Jan 2017
  • John completes his Masters degree in coaching Feb 2017
  • John starts a relationship with Naomi Bryant (a project manager) March 2017
  • John’s mum dies in May 2017 (suddenly in a car accident aged 67)
  • Naomi moves in with John Sept 2017
  • Naomi and John split up Naomi moves out. Feb 2018
  • Angela and Chris have a baby (Jessica) March 2018
  • John starts relationship with Helen Goyal a Specialist Nurse Sept 2018
  • John’s Dad is diagnosed with lung cancer August 2019
  • John rekindles his relationship with his dad who he has not spoken to for nearly 20 years and only briefly saw at his mum’s funeral. August 2019
  • John increases the amount of time he spends with Tobey as he is struggling living at his Mum’s house Sept 2019.
  • John spends Christmas with his sister, her family (her husband Sam, and daughter Victoria 22 and her partner Anna) and Dad, Tobey comes on Boxing Day after spending Christmas Day with his mum, Chris and Jessica. Dec 2019
  • John goes on holiday with Helen to Australia and meets up with his brother and his family. Jan 2020 (wife, Saskia, daughter Mia (18) and son Adam (20))

Angela Jones: John’s ex wife. 40 years old Specialist Nurse in the Cystic Fibrosis team. She divorced John because of his repeated infidelity. However she had been having an affair with Chris her now husband. John never found out probably because he was so busy having his own affair. She has 2 children, Tobey who is 15 and is John’s son and Jessica who is 2 and Chris’ daughter. Her parents very actively support her with childcare. They are both in their late 60s and her Dad recently had a heart attack and has type 2 diabetes. Her mum use to be a nurse. Mum is called Susan Shakesby and her dad is called Terry. She has known John since she was 18. She is constantly irritated by him although she knows his heart is in the right place, he has just never grown up.

Chris Jones: Angela’s husband, partner in a law firm. 42 years old. Met Angela at a Christmas party when she was still married to John. She looked sad, she was convinced that her husband was playing around. They had a young son and she was feeling vulnerable. They got talking and got on really well. It went from there and their friendship became physical. He was amazed John never found out. He specializes in Conveyancing. He adores Angela and his daughter Jessica who is the light of his life. He went to public school and a red brick university. They live in a leafy suburb in a 4 bedroom detached house. He loves Tobey although their relationship has been strained since Jess was born. He thinks John is a nice guy but not very reliable as a parent.

Steve Grant: John’s best friend. Known each other from school. He studied business and law at university. Worked in private and voluntary sector. Worked for various national charities, until being offered a CEO role in 2018 for a local community charity. He is married to Emma a Midwife and they have one child Benjamin born in 2015. They live in a leafy suburb of the city.

Emma Grant: Steve’s wife. Works as a midwifery sister on the Post Natal ward. Met Steve on when she was a student nurse (she trained the same year as John and Angela). They were friends for a while before starting a relationship in 2010, and then got married in 2011. She is still good friends with both John and Angela. Although she thinks John is a fool and a hopeless romantic. Benjamin is 5 now and has started school. In 2019 she got promoted to the Sisters role on the Post Natal ward. Steve’s Mum and Dad provide the vast majority of the childcare as her Mum and Dad live in Spain.

Patrick Coulborn: John’s Dad. Aged 71. Divorced from John’s Mum in 1989. Never got remarried, however he is always in a relationship that are generally shortlived. Like his son people often describe him as a hopeless romantic. He has two other children both with John’s Mum. Mark eldest born in 1970 and Rachael born in 1972. Retired engineer working in the Aerospace industry. He is really proud that Mark has followed in his footsteps and become an engineer. He really misses him now he lives in Australia and is so pleased he has managed to visit him on 2 occasions, the last time being Christmas 2018. Before his cancer diagnosis. Rachael is the apple of his eye, his princess. When Victoria was young he would help with childcare whilst she was studying to be a Nurse. He loves John, it is just that John is wont grow up. He reminds him of himself when he was younger. The love he has is never good enough, he is always looking for the next love of his life. He is disappointed with his choice of career. They had a big row when John was a teenager and living with him. He had moved in with him, because his mother and step father could not cope with his behaviour and unwillingness to live by their rules. Pat thought he could keep him on the straight and narrow by pointing out the pitfalls that he had encountered in his wild youth and continued to make mistakes into adulthood. But to be fair Pat wasn’t cut out to be a responsible parent and ended up spending more and more time out on the town looking for female companions. John was left to his own devices and was not working hard enough to get the exam results needed to be an engineer. This caused arguments as Pat could not understand why he was not disciplined enough to study for a dream profession. Pat dismissed John’s idea of being a Nurse, and would ridicule him about it, calling him a sissy. This culminated in them having a blazing row that resulted in punches being thrown. John stormed out of the house and refused to have anything to do with Pat until 2019. This broke Pat’s heart but he would not apologise, and not back down. Nursing was no job for a man, and John needs to grow a pair if he gets so upset over a fight. Well, that was the story he tells himself. Really he would have loved to apologise but his pride would not let him, not until he got his diagnosis and he and John both broke the ice and reconciled in a very emotional afternoon in Rachael’s front room. He just wishes Mark was with them right now, but he knows he is coming to visit in the spring so that will be wonderful.

Rachael Pollard: John’s big sister. 48 years old. Works as a Health Visitor manager. Married to Sam since 1997. They have one child Victoria who is 22 and has just qualified a OT. Loves John dearly, but he does exasperate her with how he lives his life and seems to be following in his fathers footsteps despite vowing never to live his life like his dad. She is really proud of Victoria. She was inspired to do her nurse training by her brother. She started her training in 2000, when Victoria was only 2. Sam and her father were very supportive and between the 3 of them they were able to manage child care without Victoria having to go to strangers.

Sam Pollard: Rachael’s husband. 50 years old. Works as a marketing manager for a packaging firm. Rachael is the love of his life they have known each other for 25 years and have been married for 23 years. When they met it was love at first sight. He really gets on with John. Victoria is his princess.

Helen Goyal: John’s current partner. 42 Years old. Specialist Nurse (Diabetes). Divorced. Was married to Consultant Intensivist Naresh Goyal. She moved from London after the divorce in 2016. She had seen John around the hospital and thought him interesting. They met when he was facilitating a team development session which she was involved in. They got on during the day and then John emailed her inviting her out for a drink. They have been seeing each other regularly. They are an item but she will not move in with him. She wants to keep her own place so they meet up regularly. They spend most of their time at John’s now Tobey has moved in with him. They do have at least 2 nights a week apart.

Mark Coulborn: John’s older brother. 50 years old. Engineering Consultant. Emigrated to Australia at the age of 26. Married Saskia in 2000, Mia their daughter was born in 2002. Live in Brisbane. Mark works for consultancy firm, consulting on big construction projects. Has a good relationship with his dad. Has had a strained relationship with John. He gets frustrated with John’s laxed attitude towards his life. Mark hates chaos. That is why he left the UK to get away from his chaotic family. Privately he is heartbroken about his mothers death still, and is finding it really hard to acknowledge his Dad’s diagnosis. He was glad John came to Australia recently with Helen. He likes Helen, she seems very sensible and he hopes she will have a positive impact on him. Mia has just started university reading medicine. He is incredibly proud of her. His life is in Australia, he can never see himself living back in the UK. Saskia is from Australia, she is a successful Orthopaedic Surgeon.

Sally Johnson: John’s ex lover. Aged 45. She used to work with John at the university. She now works in the same trust as John as a Matron specializing in quality and continuous improvement. She has recently got married, after getting divorced from her first husband. She has a love hate relationship with John. Professionally she has a lot of time for him, but personally she thinks he is superficial and really could do with facing his demons, and taking responsibility of his life.

Victoria Pollard: Aged 22. John’s niece. OT. Works in another city. Really enjoying being an OT. Loves her uncle John (he is so much fun). She lives with her partner Anna Smith who has just finished college and is qualified as an embalmer and works for a national funeral care provider. She was really worried about coming out as gay in her late teens. Uncle John was a really big support. He spent many evenings talking to her and was there for her when she told her mum and dad. There were both fine, there was lots of tears but it was just as Uncle John had said.

A blog about how I am going to learn how to grieve for my Dad 24 years too late…

I have a confession to make, lately have been neglecting this blog. I have been struggling to write for a few years now. I have made up lots of reasons, like not having much to say or trying out new formats. In fact I have just given substack a go for the second time, seduced by the thought of becoming a millionaire and a successful writer. I quickly realised there were plenty of people on that platform trying the same thing, who had a lot more idea of how that it worked than me. Consequently no one saw what I was writing other than a few of you dedicated kindly souls that find my writing via Facebook. Substack made me feel more self-conscious, so I have knocked it on the head and come back to my wordpress blog where I feel comfortable. This is where I started after all.

I am however still feeling self-conscious about writing. I think like most people I worry what people will think about me. It doesn’t matter how much I remind myself that of all the things I say to everyone else I like everyone else find the hurdle sometimes too difficult to get over. I know that some people will think I am a knob no matter what I do, that there will be people that think I am great and the rest that can take or leave me. I know all of that but I cannot help but think about the people that have a low opinion of me and those that are indifferent and wonder how I am going to win them all over. I realise that is a fools errand but…

Anyway I am here and I am writing. I don’t know why I decided to pick up the laptop today, I just started to feel guilty that I have not used my brain creatively on my days off for ages, and I am feeling pretty fed up at the moment and I am sick of feeling that way so again it is time to do something about it. The thing is the physical act of free writing like this I find incredibly therapeutic. I had an idea of what i was going to write about when I opened the laptop and so far I have not managed to weave it in as other thoughts and ramblings have entered my head. I try to create a structure mentally before I start writing, sometimes I manage it, but most of the time I do not. Too be honest my structured writing gets a bit preachy (you may have noticed if you read my blogs regularly) and the rambling unstructured thoughts feel more authentic for me and from the heart so resonate more with me than most.

I did write something on substack the other week about my running and training for the Great Manchester Run and why I am doing it, which in turn came onto my thoughts and feelings about loss and bereavement. I did think about digging it out and publishing it here, but now I am thinking I am might write something new here for you all to read. That is why I have decided to come back to wordpress where most people access my writing through facebook, because loss, grief bereavement for most of my friends on facebook feels like an ever present at the moment as we get older and we lose our parents and sadly our friends. Learning to live with loss is an essential life skill that I for one neglected for too long, this is much more evident in modern society and the generations that are living through this now than probably at any other time. I appreciate that this is my view from a white middle class male living a comfortable life in the UK (lets be honest most of the people that read this blog share most of those demographics), but it is something we all notice acutely. I have noticed in the nearly 40 years (fucking hell how did that happen) I have worked in health care our attitude towards death in this country has shifted. We are much more averse to it than we were in the 1980s and early 90s, and we were pretty squeamish about it then. More people probably die in hospitals now than they did in the 1980s, and that is mostly down to the fact most people died before they got to hospital. Modern healthcare methods are science fiction compared to what they were like 40 years ago, including emergency care by the roadside and in your own home. Our awareness of illness and how to treat it is higher than ever. Death is not witnessed first hand by most people, therefore it is not considered as normal as it once was. I wondered if the pandemic would have a lasting impact, but it doesn’t seem to have done. Death is seen as something that is terrible and should be avoided. This is something we excel at in the UK, avoidance that is. If it causes discomfort or pain then we try to push it away in a vain attempt to prevent feeling it. We do the same thing with death. I certainly have for the past 24 years, more so with the loss of my Dad than my Mum where I have learned to live with the hole she left behind. The space my mum filled in my heart was defined and vast and the love I can articulate when I think of her can nearly fill that space she left behind. When I think about her I feel happy and sad, I am so sad I will never hold her hand again, and so happy and grateful that something so simple as holding my mums hand can make me feel so loved and cared for. I am blessed to have experienced that love. Grieving for Mum is easy and is nourishing.

Now the loss of my Dad 24 years ago is less straightforward, my emotions when I think of him are complex. I find it hard to remember feeling loved by him. There are memories I have that do create that feeling but they are not the dominant ones. On the whole the biggest emotion I feel is disappointment. Most of my memories involve waiting for him and him not following through on promises. Then I feel anger and frustration. These are all childhood feelings, because I never really formed a relationship with him as an adult. I was 30 when he died but by that point our relationship was superficial, and I could not get over the feeling of being neglected by him. I wanted to have a Dad that showed me how proud he was of me, who would talk to me sober and give me his attention, something he rarely did. When I would meet him as an adult it would normally be in the pub and be very surface. I didn’t understand him and he didn’t understand me. When he was dying I was so angry with him. He had let me down again, I wanted my children (we had Ben then and Jack was on the way) to have a Grandad that part of their lives, but his alcoholism robbed that of us. Now he had robbed me of a father that I could hero worship and my children of a grandad. At that moment I hated him, I hated him because he mad me feel like child, I still hate him because he makes me feel like a little boy every time I think of him. Then that makes me feel guilty, because he is my Dad and I love him. It has been 24 years since he died and I have not been able to learn to live with his loss. Because it hurts too much and I avoid it, and because I feel guilty about the strength of feeling I have for him. It is easy to talk openly about living with the loss of Mum because the loving memories outweigh the less helpful memories. That is why I have decided to write about it. Instead of just writing about my relationship with him, which I find nearly impossible (for a number of reasons) I have started writing a fictional story. This story initially cam from interviews I did with people during COVID about their experiences (some of them read this blog, I bet you thought I had forgotten about it). I interviewed 24 people and I have 24 hours of transcripts and recordings about their experiences during COVID. About 3 years ago I decided to write a fictional story based on these experiences. I realised recently there were aspects of the story where it was clear I was talking about my relationship with my Dad with the interactions between John (the main character) and his father who is dying from cancer. So that is the direction I have decided to take it in. The story is about John an ex Nurse who works in a Hospital during COVID, and how he navigates his work and home life, along with the people he knows and loves. It is not autobiographical in the content, however I have used the lived experiences of myself, people I know and those I interviewed to create the stories. John is far more troubled and leads a far more reckless life than myself or anyone else I interviewed, he is also much younger and much better looking than me (I did have one eye on who could play him if it ever got turned into a film lol). I have written about 50 pages so far. My plan was to stick on substack and make my fortune, but I have realised what I want to do it write it alongside people I now and love so I am going to serialise it on wordpress I think with you lovely lot. I will put up the first instalment later today and then see how I go. It is therapy for me so it might be a bit sporadic, and if you like that is great but also I don’t care if you think it is shit, I am just trying to come to terms with and learn how to healthily grieve my Dad.

Do one thing

My writing over recent months has been sporadic at best, and I now start my blogs with some kind of apology about why it has been so long between blogs. No apology today, I have had nothing to say for a bit. I could bang on about how much I weigh this week, which I might, as it is connected to the title of todays blog.

I normally write blogs when something good has happened or when I am going through stuff and need to make sense of it. Well todays blog is a bit of both really. From a work perspective the past year has been a rocky ride, and I have felt very uncertain for a lot of reasons. Some of that uncertainty is generally due to the state of the NHS mixed in with the internal wranglings of a big organisation. This creates a heady mix of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, and instead of this just being what is going on around me, it is directly impacting on my work and life, and it has up skittled me if I am honest, or more accurately had, I think I am getting myself on more stable ground in recent months.

What did I start to do differently to create more stability? I might have mentioned in my previous blog about my weight loss journey, that during the summer I was started to feel quite overwhelmed by everything that was going on. This was affecting my physical and mental health. Then someone who worked in our Organisation, just a few years older than me died suddenly. That stopped me in my tracks, at first I did not take any action, I just got more anxious, and felt more helpless, and guilty for not taking care of myself, I could feel myself circling the drain. Then we went on holiday to Morocco with the boys, it was a lovely holiday spent with the family, but all the way through I felt anxious and had to fight off panic attacks on a daily basis. On the flight back I felt so unwell and was terrified I was having a heart attack, I was having a silent panic attack. When I got back I decided to start to take some action. This could not go on. You will remember that one of my unhelpful coping mechanisms is eating. This was the thing I was going to tackle, overeating has been an issue for me for as long as I can remember. I have made plenty of attempts in the past and always failed. This time I needed it to work. I started to control my calorie intake. Progress was slow, my emotions were still all over the place, I was trying to not eat without addressing the underlying reason for my overeating. It still felt like I was denying myself something good rather than choosing a more desirable alternative. I was struggling I needed to go back to the drawing board. I needed to simplify things and feel in control. For me that was deciding to go on Mounjaro to take positive action on my weight, to allow me to feel physically better. Since then I have been able to take control of my relationship with food. I could not do both at the same time, and when I tried I just felt helpless and a failure, which added to my anxiety and sense of self worth.

I am just about to start my last pen of Mounjaro, so just 4 weeks to go. I started it in September and I have now lost just shy of 3 stone. I am feeling healthy and able to tackle one thing at a time and feel comfortable with that. By taking action I have recognised that I do not need to change my relationship with food. The work I have been doing on myself is changing my relationship with my emotions. I have been writing about this stuff for years, recently I have realised that understanding and accepting your emotions is not just a single action, it is something that happens continuously and requires regular attention. After each life event our emotions can sneak up on us and knock us to the floor, we will then always reach for what comforts us. Food has always been one of those things, and in fact it had become a habit and I will use food to keep me happy to fend off negative emotions. What I am doing now is going back to Dr Susan David’s emotional agility and understanding where my emotions are coming from accepting the the reason for the emotion and sitting with it, identifying what need the emotion is highlighting and tackling that, rather than covering that emotion in sugar and carbs. Like I said this is fine for a while then something will sneak up on me again. So whilst I am doing this work I am changing my eating habits, and enjoying flavours that I would not have paid much attention to in the past so now my comfort food choices are more varied and are not just biscuits, crisps and chocolate.

When you are feeling overwhelmed and out of control, it might be time to do a quick inventory of your life. I like to use the acronym PERMA. If you are a regular reader you will recognise the work of Martin Seligman. From his research he identified these 5 conditions as essential to a fulfilling life. Go through each condition and give yourself a score out of 10, any scores of 5 or below require attention, if you have more than one pick the most important one for you and decide what you can do to improve that score.

Positive Emotion: Do you experience positive emotion on a daily basis? Laughing at something that is funny. Experiencing happiness or joy in something or someone.

Engagement: Do you do something just for the joy of it that engages you, it might be a hobby, exercise, or meeting with friends and family? How often in a week do you feel engaged?

Relationships: Do you have contact with someone? That does not always have to be physical it could be via phone or computer. Someone that gives you positive emotion.

Meaning: Do you have a sense of purpose? It might be your job, your hobby or it might be your role in your family or friendship group.

Accomplishment: Have you achieved something recently, it can be as simple as baking a cake, running 5k or losing 3 stone (:-)?

Decide which one you need to attend to first and do that one thing, when you have done that, reassess and do the next thing, and notice the difference in how you feel.

As ever I am happy to talk you though it just message me through whichever platform you are reading this blog through.

Another Blog About Weight Loss

After writing my blog last week I was amazed how many people read and responded to it. I normally get 5 or 6 people reading my blogs. But I suppose it resonated for people.

Why am I writing another blog so soon about my weight loss journey? Not much could have changed in just a week. A couple of pounds I suppose, and t-shirt that showed every ripple of fat a few months ago now fits me, and even hangs quite loose.

The reason I wanted to write this blog was to talk more about how I have approached losing weight this time.

This week, along with some wonderful colleagues from across our Group I have been learning about Restorative Practice and co-creating a training programme to help embed this approach. We have been tracing by the amazing Tom and Anna from Restorative Labs. You might be wondering what this has got to do with losing weight. Well one of the first things we explored was the onion theory. As you know onions have layers (I can tell you are way ahead of me here), and yes we have layers too. This theory starts with the outer layer of the onion, as this is what is most visible, our behaviours if you like, what we do what the world can see. Our behaviours have an impact on us and on the our environment, which you could suggest is the strong smell and stinging eyes you get when you cut into the onion. Underneath the surface layer of our behaviours lays our thoughts and feelings and the world we are in. Our thoughts and feelings are informed by our values and beliefs. Our thoughts and feelings influence how we behave. Underneath the layers of thoughts and feelings, and values and beliefs lay our needs. Whether our needs are met or not influences what we are thinking and feeling, based on our map of our world which is created in part by our values and beliefs, this has a direct influence on how we behave. The premise of restorative practice is that if we always just tackle the behaviour we witness we are unlikely to address the cause of the behaviour and therefore we are unlikely to instigate lasting change, whatever that behaviour might be.

This got me reflecting on my weight loss and help me articulate what I want to achieve. I think I was starting to use this theory of the onion without really naming the processes. For me it makes perfect sense and feels natural. It is very similar to Dr Susan Davids’ Emotional Agility and Paul McGee’s Stop Understand and Move On. It resonates more as chop onions most days and see those layers and live through the impact of cutting a juicy onion. Let me talk you through it. The challenge I have always faced with my weight is my behaviour towards food. I use food as an emotional crutch. Any negative or hard thoughts we create an urge to eat, any boredom would result in reaching for a packet of crisps or a biscuit. I am also a lazy thinker, this means I can easily fall into a routine of choosing the same thing to eat everyday, and if it gave me a dopamine hit it would become my go to. So crisps, pies, chocolate and fizzy drinks were my staple lunch. At a weekend I would drink 4 or 5 cans of lager with 3 or 4 packets of crisps or a big bag of peanuts. If i felt sad I would go to the shop and buy a packet of biscuits (normally hobnobs) and scoff the lot. I would never choose fruit and rarely drank water. This has been a pattern for all of my adult life. On and off I would go on a diet and lose some weight, the problem was I would always fall back into my old habits. I would always just try and solve my problem by changing my behaviour without ever addressing what lays in the layers below. I was not addressing the unmet needs that was causing the unhelpful eating habits.

This time is different, I have decided to start looking at my thoughts and feelings and I am beginning to understand what those unmet needs are. In a nutshell the prevailing need is to feel safe, to feel cared for. Which seems quite simple. The issue is that my belief structure needs some examination and adjusting. Throughout my childhood, my Mother reinforced the belief that personal happiness was the absence of sadness and pain. This clearly was impossible to achieve, however you could momentarily fend off sadness and pain by having something fatty or sweet. As my childhood progressed and my parents relationship fell apart, sadness and emotional pain became more frequent so this behaviour became more and more entrenched.

Therefore the first thing I have to do is to re-write my beliefs on happiness. If you have been reading my blogs for a while you pick up a theme that I have been working on doing this for a number of years. I am not quite there yet. This is a belief I have had for most of my life, and it is reinforced by the culture we live in. Starting this weight loss programme and learning more about restorative approaches has helped massively, I now feel I am on the home stretch. Being truly happy is accepting that it comes with the cost of feeling sad and experiencing emotional pain. Feeling safe is not dependent on not feeling sad.

A blog about weight loss.

Today I thought I would write about me and my weight. During the summer I decided to start a diet so I downloaded a calorie counting app and started counting my calories all was going well, I was starting to lose weight, but what I found was the progress was slow and my motivation was waining, the desire to eat chocolate and crisps and drink beer was strong. Most weekends I would be less disciplined and weight would go back on, the same thing happened when I went on holiday. I know that is normal and that is all part of the journey. I knew my reason for losing weight was strong. I wanted to improve my health. I knew I was running the risk of having a heart attack and was probably already pre-diabetic. If anything this was making me struggle with motivation as I could feel the spectre of my negative self talk creeping in and telling me I was a failure. I did not have the self discipline to lose weight. I carried on regardless, I continued to count my calories, and feel disheartened when my weight went back up and then encouraged when my wight started to go down. Progress was slow, and I was still feeling unhealthy and worried.

At the end of August I started to think about using a weight loss drug to help me lose weight faster. I had started to hear from people that I knew using Mounjaro or Ozempic and having good results. Initially I dismissed it, as it did not fit with the image I have of myself. I kept telling myself I needed to do this myself to get a long lasting result. The problem was that this felt almost impossible. I know I need to change my mindset and I also know I need to lose weight before my health is permanently affected. Then I heard about someone else who had just started it and that night I laid awake thinking about my situation. Why can’t I do both? Why can’t I use the drug to reduce my intake of food and at the same time continue to work on my mindset when it comes to my relationship with eating. Since June I have been challenging my relationship with eating certain food (crisps, chocolate, and other high fat foods). I have been giving myself choices about what is helpful for me, is it having a mars bar and obliterating my calorie intake for the day, or choose some thing else that has more nutritionally beneficial or have nothing at all. This seems simple enough, but when you have a habit of reaching for the tasty high fat and sugar food when feeling sad, or under pressure that has been nurtured all your life, then it is not that straightforward. That is why I made the decision to start on Mounjaro to have alongside doing the work to shift my mindset.

That was the end of August and I started Mounjaro on 31st August. I weighed 17st 13lb on that day which was progress as when I started calorie counting I was 18st 7lb. The picture below is of me in August.

I have been on Mounjaro ever since. I have not followed the plan that most people do, and no doubt some people will think I am doing it wrong. I am now on my third syringe and I have kept the dose the same at 2.5mg. All the advice is that you should increase the dose to maintain the same effect. That is not for me, what I want to do is to use the Mounjaro with my mental work to shift my mindset. I have noticed the effects of the drug do not last the full week now, but that is ok for me as my mindset continues to shift and I am making better choices. My view is that I only want to use Mounjaro for the short term to take most of my weight off and then to continue my weight loss journey without it. Today I am 16st 3lb, I think I have started to look different, but make up your own mind with the picture below. I have quite a way to go as I want to settle between 12 and 13 stone. I plan on staying on Mounjaro until December and then go under my own steam.

I now do not see losing 4 stone as impossible, it is really challenging especially changing the way I think about food and eating. That is the key for me to remain at a lower healthier weight, and there is no other way of doing it other than working on myself and how I view myself. I can now exercise more which is helping me lose weight at a good pace.

Back in May I watched the Great Manchester Run and felt distraught that I wasn’t there racing money for MacMillan and honouring the memory of my mum. The main reason was because I was too fat and my knees could not cope with a 10k run. I plan on doing it next May so look out for updates.

Do we all need to take a moment to reflect

I have been contemplating writing a blog for a few weeks now. Normally the idea to write again comes to me just as I am going to sleep. I have some brilliant ideas to write about, then I fall asleep and lose them all.

There are quite a few things I would like to talk about. Being middle aged, leadership, connections and disconnection. They probably all fit together I suppose.

Most importantly I suppose is the rhetoric that seems to being driven and fuelled by the media at the moment. The rhetoric of division and disconnection. Every time I turn on the news or read something on the internet there are people talking about all the problems we face in the world and blaming them on each other. It is human nature I suppose to look for someone or something to blame when things go wrong. We all do it, often thoughtlessly and in the moment. When I lose something at home or stub my toe (normally when I am tired) I will quietly curse Lisa under my breath. Accusing her of tidying away the item I wanted to use, to make my life hard, or leaving something out for me to trip over. These accusations clearly never stand up to scrutiny. But in the moment I do not want to own up to the part I played in my own discomfort. In the cold light of day, it often very clear I played a very active role. Admit it, you all do it. We all have an view of ourselves that does not always depict who we exactly are, and when we are confronted with this uncomfortable truth, whether that is being absent minded, not suitable for the jobs you would like to do, or suffering from poor mental health that results in you bing unable to get a job, it can be very hard to accept and can result in us looking around for people to blame. Add to that someone telling you that you might well be right and there is someone to blame for this, whether that is an immigrant or a billionaire it is all to easy to fall into the trap of believing that story rather than the uncomfortable truth, that you may have paid a part in your own downfall, along with other factors.

The problems we face in today’s society are complex and have many contributing factors, including ourselves so to over simplify these and reach for someone to blame is wrong and dangerous.

If you then add in our amazing capacity for empathy you then have what we are experiencing across the world, the divisive us and them dynamic. Empathy can bring people to together, it can also drive groups of people apart. We find it easy to empathy that share similar experiences to ourselves. We identify with people who share similar, values, who look like us, talk like us, like the same things as us. If someone we identify with is attacked we feel similar emotions to the person who is attacked, and have a strong sense of justice and protection. This strong sense of empathy if unchallenged leads to disconnection and division and ultimately violence.

We do need to pause and check our thoughts and feelings before we act on this empathy and critically look at our thoughts and feelings about what we have seen, and understand where this emotion comes from. This is a time to slow our thinking and engage our frontal lobe before rushing in with our emotional brain. We all behave and act the way we because of what we are thinking and feeling about the event we have witnessed. With that in mind, it is some important to be curious about others and our own behaviours rather than being angry. If we are going to hold people to account for their actions we have to understand what caused that behaviour, rather than simply reacting in kind and driving division further.

If we all spend more time pausing and reflecting rather than reacting to events that make us angry, whether that is, shouting abuse, writing or liking an abusive social media post, or walking past abusive behaviour without intervening. If only we could all practice being more thoughtful and considered we could then spend more time connecting rather than disconnecting.

Being an imperfect leader is inevitable

Whenever I scroll through LinkedIn always see those posts about being a leader, you know the ones 7 ways to be a more emotionally intelligent leaders, 5 things to do to create psychological safety. You get the gist. To be fair I have written a couple of blogs along the same lines. But these posts got me reflecting on recent conversations I have been having with colleagues about leadership in the NHS and the relentless challenges operational leaders face.

These leadership advice lists often oversimplify what it takes to be a compassionate effective leader in a face passed, uncertain, and emotive environment that is healthcare. They never really take into account the human element that is constantly in play. The most crucial human element in all leadership encounters is the leader themselves. These lists instead of empowering leaders can make them feel inadequate or completely disengaged with the concept of compassionate inclusive leadership. Achieving what is suggested can often feel almost impossible.

Being a compassionate and inclusive leader in healthcare is vital to the delivery of high quality healthcare, current research suggests this, but that is not the whole story, we have to recognise the human factors that are at play everyday that will effect a leaders performance, and acknowledge that the performance of every member of a team, including the leader is variable.

My advice to leaders is to take this lists on how to become a better leader with a pinch of salt. If you want to improve and develop your leadership then it is essential to enrol on a leadership development programme, that starts with raising your self-awareness, helps you identify your potential strengths and weaknesses, how you currently work when you are at your best and how you might show up when you are not. Then moves on to leadership and team development theories before challenging you to make changes to your leadership and measure the results of those changes.

Real leadership development is about recognising that you are imperfect as a leader, and you will get things wrong. When you increase you self-awareness as a leader you can start to recognise what situations and conditions that may increase your risk of being less effective as a leader. It will not always prevent miss-steps but it will help you recognise what is happening sooner, therefore giving you the opportunity to course correct. A leadership development programme should also give you an opportunity to try out new approaches in your actual working environment. Leading in healthcare can be so unpredictable and often frustrating that it is vital to understand what will work in your workplace and what needs adapting, allowing you to create your own situational leadership style that works for you and your team.

I would also suggest that if you are serious about developing your leadership is to seek out a critical companion/mentor/coach. Someone you trust to provide you the support and challenge you need. This relationship could be a 1:1 or as part of a peer group. Leadership is a continuous process and you will always be challenged by it, therefore having someone or a group that can provide you with a sounding board, advice, support and challenge is essential to being the best leader you can be.

A blog about love

If you know me you no how soppy I can be, and I will often talk about love in a work setting. If you don’t know me you are probably wandering what the hell I am going on about. Am I encouraging workplace romances? No I am not, that is another blog entirely.

Before I start, lets make a distinction between romantic love and relational love. Now this is my view of love you may have a slightly different view, I but I am certain most of us would agree with the distinction between the two. It is quite obvious really, the difference between the two is sex. Love is a an essential emotional to maintain the existence of our species. It is all about creating strong bonds between people to either create more people or keep people safe. Simply put that is it, it clearly has more nuances than that but it is essentially there to support the survival of the species. Even romantic love once the initial lust and passion normalises requires relational love to sustain our relationship.

Relational love requires you to have a strong regard for the welfare of the other person. You want them to succeed and flourish. And this is the key the desire for the other person to succeed, as their success feels like a success for you. We feel this for close family members (our loved ones) we can also feel this for people that work in our team. We want each other to succeed, we route for each other, we combine our successes to create a collective success. So when we fall we are there for each other, to pick each other up, dust ourselves down and carry on. Love in a team allows us to pull each other up and hold each other to account when we fall short. Difficult conversations become essential conversations we find it easier to maintain standards and always look to improve what we do.

A loving team culture is not a cosey team culture, far from it. A loving team culture, requires trust, a comfort in discourse, a shared vision, a willingness to be accountable for your actions, and to be focussed on outcomes. Many of you will recognise those conditions from Patrick Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, with the absence of these creates a dysfunctional team. If you have them in abundance you have a highly effective team that pulls together. A loving team is diverse and inclusive, where everyone belongs and everyone contributes to the teams success, regardless of their role and background. A loving team is not just inwardly focused however, a loving team embraces interdependence, and is open to giving and receiving support from other teams and stakeholders.

Creating and maintaining a loving team takes work, it does not come easy. It starts with building and maintaining trust. We trust people more when we know them about them, allowing time in the working week for social interaction is vital to create a loving team. Brene Brown (you know I had to mention her) has developed a great acronym to help to build and maintain trust, based on her own research on trust. You may have seen it before but here it is again for those of you unfamiliar, the acronym is BRAVING

  • Boundaries: Make sure you are clear what your boundaries are and make people aware of what you will and wont accept and what the consequences are if your boundaries are crossed.
  • Reliability: Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it. Turn up when you say you will, every time.
  • Accountability: We are human so we do fall short from time to time. When you do acknowledge it, apologise and make amends. Accept the accountability of others
  • Vault: Keep peoples confidences, avoid gossiping about people in and out of your team.
  • Integrity: Do the right thing, even when it is easier not to, or when no one is looking.
  • Non-Judgement: Offer your help and support to people without judgement. Ask for help from others without judging yourself
  • Generosity: Be generous in spirit, accept that everyone is doing their best with what they have in front of them. Even if their best is not good enough, ask yourself how can I help them make it better

Applying this personally and within a team will help your team build trust with each other. When we trust each other we feel comfortable disagreeing with each other, without taking it personally, which allows us to come to the right conclusion.

It is important once you have trust in you team that you are all clear what your shared vision is. It is vital to be clear what direction you are all going in and what it is that you want to achieve. Make time every week to discuss what your vision is to ensure that you are not drifting as a team and you are connecting with each other. If you have a big team that work in shifts (like clinical teams) encourage regular conversations, make briefing and debriefing commonplace to encourage discussions about what you want to achieve and how things are going. Make sure your team can articulate what your team goals are, so everyone is working towards achieving it.

Having a loving team is showing care and attention to each other, but as it is in a loving family it is far more than that. It takes commitment, hard work and time but pays dividends in the end. Don’t be afraid of creating a loving team, embrace it and keep working at it.

Leading a values based life (connecting with the present)

Slowing our thinking

As I mentioned in the previously the neocortex is never going to act faster than the reptilian and mammalian brains. They are designed to react to keep us safe. The problem is they are rather blunt and indiscriminate. Professor Steve Peters bundled them together into the Chimp to describe how they both work to protect us from physical threats and threats to our position in the group. That is a convenient way to describe them, as they are very good at detecting potential threats but no good with the social niceties and context. That is what the neocortex is for.

When we react it is always based on emotion, and that emotion comes from our memories, which are initially interpreted by our Chimp (a combination of the reptilian and mammalian brain) from our memories. Therefore a potential threat is detected by the chimp who refers to the memory bank, there is often something in the memory bank that fits the bill or is similar enough, and then the chimp will detect an emotion attached to that memory, and make a decision to act or not. No reasoning is applied by the chimp. It will either act or not based on the emotion that memory creates. We cannot get around this, this will always happen.

If we want to practice responding rather than reacting, then what we do after we react is crucial.

What is important is that we challenge the memories we hold and the emotions we have attached to them. We often leave our emotions and memories unchecked, as we do not believe we can alter them. This is of course not true. We alter our memories all of the time to fit our narrative, our view of the world. We know we can shift our view of the world, and therefore our narrative about what is going on, so it is inevitable that we will view some of our emotions differently. If we view our emotions differently, how we react or respond to new events will be different.

When I was working as a Charge Nurse (Ward Manager) and for some of the time working as a Nurse Educator, I would dread going into work, I would feel anxious about the day ahead, I lived in fear everyday of being criticised and talked about. That feeling of anxiety for a long time would stay with me all day. It still comes and goes now, especially in the morning just before I go to work.

What I needed to do was to make sense of the emotions I was feeling, and as Steve Peters suggests, replace those Gremlins I had about work with Autopilots. Now I started doing this after I had left my role as a Charge Nurse and was working as a Nurse Educator, so I was now removed from the events that caused me the most pain, but I was still feeling the after effects. I was still seeing the people and working in the same environment, and was therefore still worried that I would experience them again.

What I started to do was to write down what was happening to me when I started to feel anxious. I would write it all down in what Brene Brown called my “first shitty draft”. I would get it all out then look at it after I had written it all down. I could then start making sense of what I had written.

To start making sense of what I have written I ask myself the following questions:

  • What assumptions am I making about the situation? Start by looking for facts in what you have written. Underline them all, then go back through them, and just ask yourself is that really a fact or are you just assuming it is a fact? Our assumptions come from our memory banks. As I said previously both our reptilian and mammalian minds use our memory banks to help them assess the threat level of what is being presented to us. They will look for anything that is remotely similar then our minds will if unchecked make an assumption based on previous evidence. The issue is with our memory bank is firstly what I mentioned before, our memory makes stuff up, and secondly it chooses similar situations like Spotify chooses what you should listen to next. Sometimes it is spot on and other times it is very wide of the mark. So always check your assumptions as often your emotional response is based on faulty out of date information.
  • The next question I will ask myself is how accountable am I for the situation I am in. In other words what part did I play in this mess? We will often if unchecked looked for people or situations to blame for what has gone wrong. It is after all easier than facing up to the part we have played. Populist Governments and right wing racist movements have been making an art form of blaming groups of people and races for the ills of society. We see it every day in the press and on social media, like stories of immigrant’s taking jobs, and scrounging off the state in the UK and USA to name only 2. The UK has Brexit and the USA has the wall. Being bombarded with that kind of rhetoric makes it much easier to look for external influences when things happen in our lives, rather than looking closer to home.
  • I would then ask is what part did other people play in what is happening? Was the part they played helpful or unhelpful. Were they active or passive participants? What do I not know about the part they played? Remember those assumptions. Our minds are masters in projecting and attributing behaviours to people that are possibly less than accurate. What facts do you have about the part they played? Again ask yourself are those facts really facts or are you just making assumptions?
  • The last question I ask myself is, is this situation with my control (can I change it)? If I can what do I need to do to change my emotions about this situation? Some times that will just be a mind-set shift, and sometimes I need to take action. If action is needed, it is vital to turn those thoughts into action. This leads to some supplementary questions.
    • What specifically am I going to do?
    • When will I do it?
    • How will I know I have achieved what I wanted to do?

Now all of this might feel a bit stilted at first but that is the reason for starting off writing those “first shitty drafts” at first to practice these responses. You can then start training your mind to pause when a response is required, and not jump in with an emotional reaction. This will take time and there will be many times that you will jump to an emotional reaction when a more reasoned response would be more appropriate. Don’t beat yourself up over that, it is after all how your mind has been operating for most of your life. What is important is that you recognise when you have reacted when a response may have been more appropriate and use the process above. The act of practicing converts those gremlins to autopilots, by putting the notion of an alternative view in the memory bank, allowing your reptilian mind to concentrate on real threats to your life and limb, and managing the reactions instigated by your mammalian mind to be more limited and less widespread.

What we don’t want to do is to kill of those gut feelings we have. Those feelings that let us know when either something is wrong or something is right. It is what we do with this visceral sensation that is so vital, do we go with the instant reaction stemming from our reptilian and mammalian minds or do we quieten them down to allow our neocortex to give a more reasoned and considered response.

It is important to remember that we will not always respond as we think we should, this practice allows us to spend less time reacting emotionally, and more times considering our responses, this has a knock on effect with our relationships as well as our personal well-being.