Connected Coaching

I woke up this morning with sleep in my eyes, and a pain in my chest. Another shit day ahead I thought to myself, well at least I am not coughing my guts up I suppose. I pulled myself together, went to the bathroom and got washed and dressed (routine is everything). I came downstairs and got mine and the dogs breakfast. I opened the curtains and let the day stream into the house, and what a gorgeous day it is. Then I thought…”so my head is spinning, my chest hurts and I feel sick, but look at that sunshine, today is going to be a good day, there is not a huge amount I can do about the symptoms, but I can chose to enjoy the sunshine and make the most of the day.”

As you know I love music, I keep banging on about it on my blog. I also love sharing my music with people. Back in the old days people use to make tapes and share them with each other. I don’t actually remember making a mixtape for my friends, but we use to share our albums with each other and make copies of them. It was always to share those gems you had found, although I think I always got more from these exchanges than my friends did.

In the spirit of sharing music this morning I put together a virtual mixtape for you to enjoy if you wish, in the form of a spotify playlist. If you don’t have spotify and want to play the songs by other means I have listed the songs below (even writing them down makes me smile). I hope you get as much enjoyment from the songs as I do.

• Bamako by Songhoy Blues
• This Love Starved Heart of Mine by The Jaded Hearts Club
• Ulysses by Vialetters
• Island by Speakeasy
• Texas Sun by Khruangbin
• Daft Punk is Playing at My House by LCD Soundsystem
• Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi Trio
• 24 Hour Party People by Happy Monday
• Animal Nitrate by Suede
• Cut Your Hair by Pavement
• Le Freak by Chic
• Intergalactic by Beastie Boys
• Detectorists by Johnny Flynn
• Seven Past Eight by The Froot
• Rosie by Jackson Browne

Please feel free to share music with me. Enjoy, stay home, and stay safe.

I have talked about managing uncertainty a few times before, but as this pandemic continues I think it is important to bring it up again. Uncertainty is the most difficult thing to deal with during this current crisis.

Even though life in whole is uncertain, in normal circumstances we can use our past experiences and our knowledge of our world to project and predict what may happen next. Most of the time this works out, but to be honest if it does not work out how we predict that is fine. It is just that we feel comfortable in a familiar environment in familiar circumstances to be able to project and predict. There is very little at the moment that is familiar, so we have little experience or knowledge to refer to, to come up with predictions, therefore creating uncertainty. Uncertainty makes us feel unsafe and lost.

Coming to terms with uncertainty is incredibly difficult if not impossible. What can help though is to create new structures and patterns in our life. Patterns are where we get our sense of certainty from they give us comfort.

I try to go to bed at the same time as I would normally do if I was at work and try to get up at a similar time. Over the past week I have got dressed as soon as I have woken up and then have my breakfast, then take the dog for a walk. I will then read for a few hours, have my antibiotics and then have lunch, I will then watch a programme on the TV for an hour or so before watching the daily update and preparing tea. I then watch the news, have a wobble and speak to my mum. I will then take the dog for a short walk if I feel up to it, watch some TV and then go to bed. During these uncertain times I have tried to give my day some structure that can more or less remain even if I am not feeling well. This structure gives me comfort, it gives me an anchor to hang on to during the day.

Next week my structure will change slightly as I introduce work and physio rehab into my day, before I return to a more sustained structure in a few weeks, when I return to work full-time.

My life is still full of uncertainty, mainly not knowing how I am going to feel from one day to the next. I have never known an illness quite like this. I have woken up today feeling dreadful, then I have had moments during the day when I have felt fine. I have noticed I have been much more upbeat today, whilst at the same time really struggling with a painful chest and finding it quite difficult to breathe. The pattern of this virus just does not follow anything I have experienced before, therefore I am unable to project and predict how I will feel next week. I am now beginning to accept that level of uncertainty and latch onto the simple structure I have put in place. This is no doubt why I have been feeling upbeat.

Ask yourself what structure does you life have now? How can I build a routine and structure that will help me with my anxiety about the uncertainty? Then build a routine and structure to your day and week.

Have a lovely weekend, stay home, and stay safe.

I am feel better than I did last week but not as well as I was expecting to be, but then again I never thought I would still be recovering 5 weeks after I first started with symptoms. I have waves of feeling really rubbish that last for a couple of hours, I feel OK for a few hours. Once I have finished the course of antibiotics I can start my physio regime. This is taking much longer than I thought, it would. Saying that I am so fortunate that I did not get ill enough to be admitted to hospital. I try not to spend too much time thinking about the what-ifs, but I am reminded every evening on the news when we are told how many people have died and we hear stories about who they were, and then we here the stories of those that have been discharged from Intensive Care. I generally have my wobble about then. I am sure I am not alone.

So the 6pm news is my hippo time. The time I think of the what if, them time when I get scared, the time when I blow things out of proportion. At 6:30 everyday I speak to my mum. Sometimes we might have a bit of a wobble together. Most of the time though we talk about how I am feeling and we talk about how she is. In those moments everyday everything is put into proportion. In those moments I am talking to my Mum and as Mum’s do she makes it better. Not because she does anything in particular other than making me feel safe. My mum makes sure I don’t stay in hippo time, she puts everything in to perspective just by being my Mum.

Well I didn’t expect today’s post to go that way. But I suppose that is what has been sitting in the back of my mind, as it is now doubt in the back of a lot of peoples’ minds. I needed to talk about it, so that is why it came out in my blog. Stuff often does come out in my blogs. Writing it down for me helps me sort out my emotions. We all find a way to manage our emotions, to understand them and articulate them. It is so important during these testing times that you find a way to do that, that suites you. Some people like to talk, I prefer to write it down and work it through in my head. Some people need to be creative, either artistically or more practical ways like cleaning, decorating, gardening. Something that gives you the head space to calm your thoughts and put them in order. If you struggle to do that, there is a lot of help online such as

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-staying-at-home-tips/

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing/

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/for-children-and-young-people/coronavirus/coronavirus-and-your-wellbeing/

Stay home, stay safe, and take care of yourself and each other.

The good news is, that on the whole I am feeling a little better today, than I was over the weekend. This makes sense really if I have had a secondary bacterial infection, as the antibiotics should be starting to work now. I have been coughing quite a lot today, but it feels like there is something there to shift, and after I have finished coughing, I have a nasty taste in my mouth. On the whole though I feel less ill.

I have been able to read for quite some time today and have spent most of the morning reading The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. If you have not heard of this book, it is a leadership book. The premise is that successful businesses, teams and individuals are playing an infinite game, rather than a finite game. The purpose of an infinite game is to stay in the game for as long as possible, so there are no winners or losers, just those that stay in the game and those that do not. Now he wrote the book about business and there is an argument that businesses that play to stay in the game during this pandemic are more likely to still be in the game at the end. Those businesses that play the finite game where the object is to win are less likely to survive. Those businesses that have a cause or purpose and are willing to adapt to continue that purpose and have the trust of their teams are more likely to survive.

Now if I think about my experiences of this pandemic and how myself, my family and the everyone will now and in the future. If we all want to flourish in the future, we are all going to have to play an infinite game. There is no point in trying to play a finite game against an opponent like covid-19. This virus like all other infections and diseases are naturally occurring (granted often made worse by our behaviour) therefore we cannot win against it or any over natural occurrence. What we can do is play the infinite game, we can play to stay in the game.

When this pandemic was just beginning I wrote a blog about being resilient in the face of this awfulness. In many ways this is very similar to playing the infinite game. I outlined 3 criteria to help resilience first described by Diane Couto. I thought I would share them again as we are in the midst of this terrible pandemic and I think it is important to keep our focus on what is really important to us. The criteria are:

• Realism; it is vital to be realistic about what we are facing and it is incredibly important to reduce the transmission of this disease. Covid-19 is incredibly dangerous especially to the elderly and those with underlying conditions. Just as a reminder a third of admissions to ICUs across the UK have died. It is incredibly difficult to stay at home, and has an impact on the economy, but the risk of this getting worse again could be catastrophic.
• Purpose; all our lives have meaning, we all have a purpose, whether that is simply being a parent, a carer, a child, as well as the role you play in society. We do this for a purpose, maybe to protect and provide for our families, or to play a part in society, by being a Nurse, a shop worker, a delivery driver, solicitor, bank manager, accountant. All our jobs and volunteer roles provide a service to society, but are you clear why you do it? What drives you to do it? Keep that clear in your mind. That purpose is going to be needed as much in the future as it is now.
• Creativity; we are all having to adapt to new ways of working, and living. Social media is full of hacks to make life easier, either how to cut your own hair, how to watch and provide entertainment, and how to cook on a shoestring. Being creative is how we will create our new futures.

Simon Sinek suggests businesses that adapt to protect the workforce and maintain their purpose stay in the game longer than those trying to win. Our infinite game must be to survive as a community by adapting to protect all of us especially the vulnerable, that lives up to our values as a community. If we try to win we will surely lose, if we play to stay in the game, we will stay in the game.

When I think about my personal position, I am trying to play the infinite game, I am not where I want to be at the moment, but I know now that if I take my time and keep playing to stay in I will be back at work making a difference soon enough. In hindsight maybe I was trying to beat this virus, something that was not going to happen, if I kept fighting I would most definitely have lost. So from now on I am going to play the infinite game by applying Couto’s criteria of realism, purpose and creativity.

As always stay home, stay safe and I will see you all soon.

Another day of feeling pants. Washed out, aching, tired, and detached from the world.

There have been positives, I was rung by a physio and had a telephone assessment and she sent me my exercise regimes, which I can start once I have finished my antibiotics.

We all had a moment to reflect and remember, healthcare workers, carers, bus drivers, shop workers and other key workers. People who should not die because of the job they do. This is so terrible, I am not sure if it is a scandal or if it is just a terrible tragedy. We can take stock and ask questions later. For now we need to mourn and carry on living and making a better future.

So I started today feeling sorry for myself and a little anxious. Now I am determined to recover, but recover fully so I can make a difference. I also felt it is important to continue to write this blog, to help me and maybe some of you make sense of what is happening to us, not get bogged by what we cannot change and take action over what we can change.

With that in mind I decided to use something other than myself to support my wellbeing. This morning before I got out of bed I could feel my demon returning. For those of you that have read my blogs over the years will know I call my demon Foggy. Foggy is my depression, my black dog. I noticed him for the first time in a while this morning. He is always around but recently he has been irrelevant and rather ridiculous. This morning he was dark and menacing and had a much loader voice. I managed to shrug him off this morning by paying him attention and letting him drift into the background. But I know this could become an issue. I know I need to quieten my mind, and create some perspective on what is real and what is just a perceived worry or regret. Through the NHS we have access to the Headspace app. This is something I used a few years ago with good effect alongside exercise and positive activities. So I downloaded it and started using it. Even just one session helped me calm my thoughts and bring me into the present.

If you have a smart phone the Headspace app is worth searching for in the app store. If you have an NHS email it is free to use and if not then you get 14 days free anyway. There are lots of other mindfulness apps it is always worth checking the apps against mental health websites such as Mind as they will always recommend worthwhile apps.

If you do suffer from mental health problems though it is important that you seek professional support. Support is still out there regardless of COVID-19.

Stay home, stay safe, and look after yourselves.

It has been 5 weeks since my symptoms started, I have had a few false dawns when I thought I had recovered. Last night I had a rubbish night, I woke with a headache again, I have been coughing ever since. I don’t feel as ill as I did yesterday, my appetite is still off.

In spite of this I am feeling positive, I had a phone call from occupational health who have done an amazing job and arranged an assessment and hopefully a rehab programme. I also had a telephone appointment with my GP who is starting me on antibiotics. It feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

When I got up this morning I did not think I was going to write a blog today. I did not think I had anything worth saying. I was getting fed up of saying the same thing over and over again. I was running out positive helpful things to say. Then I had the phone call from the wonderful Maureen from our Occupational Health Dept and she made my day. It is not a quick fix, but it is the start of me taking more control over my recovery.

I am celebrating by watching re-runs of Spooks on the BBC i-Player. Anyway back to MI5, stay home, stay safe.

I woke up about 4ish with a headache, and I just can’t shift it. My head feels like it is full of cotton wool. I thought taking the dog for a walk and getting some fresh air might clear my head. It hasn’t! My chest feels tighter today too. I am hoping as the day wears on I will start to feel brighter and feel like sitting in the garden and doing some reading.

This morning I am going through some old favourites on Spotify to raise my mood. I have been doing this challenge on Facebook to post the covers of 10 albums that influenced your musical taste. This morning I chose Thing Fish by Frank Zappa (if you are easily offended please avoid this album at all costs). This got me thinking about the rest of his back catalogue, and all his albums I loved, so I am currently listening to one of my favourites “The Man From Utopia”, which is a little more (only just) accessible than Thing Fish. I know with a thick head Frank Zappa seems a strange choice as his music is not the easiest to listen to, but songs like “The Dangerous Kitchen” just make me smile. As I have mentioned many times I use music to mirror or lift my spirits when I am struggling. Today is a Frank Zappa kind of day. A day to get lost in the ridiculous and slightly offensive lyrics, and remember being a teenager and hearing them for the first time. I remember when my brother first introduced me to Frank Zappa, I was about 15 so it was about 3 years after Thing Fish was released, he gave me a tape of Thing Fish and Joe’s Garage and said listen to these, you will love them, but don’t let Mum hear them.

Anyway this reminiscing and listening to Zappa has cheered me up, and the sun has come out. Have a good Sunday everybody.

Stay home, stay safe. Speak to you all tomorrow.

It’s 7:30 am on a Saturday morning, I have been up about 30 minutes, after another fitful sleep. The dog was pleased to see me get up, until I fed her and now she has moved on to laying near her treat cupboard in the vain hope that biscuit may suddenly appear. I initially put the TV on for the news headlines, after about 5 minutes of wittering that did not resemble anything remotely news I put BBC Radio 6 Music, in anticipation of the Radcliffe and Maconie show at 8 am (the highlight of my weekend, is reading the paper and listening to Rad Mac). When I put the radio on Dragonball Durag was playing, now if you read yesterday’s blog you will know that, that very song was playing yesterday morning. Baxter Dury is now on the radio being interviewed (Baxter is one of my favourite artists, and the son of the late great Ian Dury)so I am a happy bunny as they finish the interview and play Miami. This is almost a perfect Saturday morning, if it wasn’t for the pain in my chest.

I have done my breathing exercises this morning, as recommended by the Occupational Health Nurse yesterday as part of my rehabilitation programme. They encourage me to breathe more deeply, they as you would expect made me cough. I cough anyway, so I am hoping they will get my lungs moving more effectively and these headaches will go away. Once I am dressed I will take the dog for a walk as part of my regime. I now go for 2 short walks of about 200 metres to start with. When I am writing this I am telling myself that I was doing more than that last week! Then I remember how breathless I constantly felt and how bad those headaches were. All I was doing last week and the week before was trying to carry on regardless. The Nurse yesterday told me to allow myself to be ill. Something that a lot of people have been saying recently, but I didn’t hear them.

Anyway this has taken me 40 minutes to write and Rad Mac has started on the radio, so stay home, stay safe and have a pleasant weekend.

Dragonball Durag by Thundercat is playing on the radio, my head is gently throbbing, as I sit on my sofa in my front room in locked down suburbia. The sun shines in through the partially obscured window. Obscured with the curtain to stop the sun shining in my eyes. The occasional dog walker goes past the window, I imagine I will see a few joggers in a minute, they generally pass every 5 minutes between the hours of 8am and 7pm. Later there will be the family walking parties with children on scooters or bikes. They all still look lost and slightly confused and nervous. We are all still trying to practice these new rules not quite sure whether they will become the new normal or being a passing fade.

 I have noticed on social media and the TV that the social distancing rule (which is not really a rule, but just a suggestion) is being followed less and less. A month in and we are beginning to drift from what was prescribed to old habits. People are starting to go out more, according to The Times yesterday traffic is increasing on the roads and some businesses are beginning to open up. This is what happens when leadership is unclear, when we are not reminded to continue to practice new habits, our old habits creep in. Some people will exercise personal leadership and notice that old habits are creeping back and remind themselves that they have a new habit now. The problem is that if the reason for the new habit is not clear then we are all less inclined to stick to the new habit. Well we all get told the reason for social distancing and avoiding unnecessary travel, and yet we still find it difficult to achieve, or some of us do. What we have a problem with is purpose. The purpose of the restrictions we all completely understand and accept, however for many of us it is at odds with our view of how the world works and ultimately our own purpose. Modern society values, wealth, social status, and social connection. We have been brought up exposed to these values, many of us accept these as our own, some of us don’t, but still accept that these values are important to all of us. The current situation in the short term is at odds with these values. This maybe an explanation for why there is this clamour to return to normal as soon as possible to return the status quo, to stabilise the economies of the world. We all need to earn money, to maintain our physiological and safety needs as Maslow put it, to provide shelter and sustenance. Also maintaining status and having a social network are vital to existence. This is in the short-term, the problem is however, that if we ignore the devastating impact this virus could have on our species, then we put the long term security of our species at risk, just to ensure that we can keep our status and wealth. 

During the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic cities in the US that stayed locked down longer and protected their populations recovered economically much quicker than those that opened up earlier who suffered a far worse second wave of the virus. 

I suppose we have a choice of having a short-term view and risk a devastating prolonged pandemic that kills many millions of people, and may well destroy our much loved modern society or keep disciplined take the substantial short term pain, to maintain as near as possible society to what we have now.

I said yesterday I would not write anything again until I had something positive to say. Well I do have something positive to say…. Thank you!

The messages of support I got yesterday lifted my spirits. I was overwhelmed by the kindness ad generosity of spirit expressed by strangers and friends a like. So thank you all so much.

Today is a better day because you made it better when I read your messages this morning and last night.

I do not feel as ill today, no doubt because I have done sod all. I have watched a couple of rubbish films on the TV, read a bit of my book and had a nap. I am now sat in the garden, listening to the birds chatter, and various people in the area doing DIY (I can hear drills and hammers in the background). I have brought my book out in the hope I might get some reading done, but I am finding it hard to concentrate (this is taking me ages to write).

My cough is not as troubling today and I have not been overly breathless. I am breathing as deeply as normal and my lungs hurt still. I still have a dull ache in my head and I feel so tired. I felt quite dizzy earlier and when I filled the dishwasher earlier I felt nauseated again. So walking more than a few hundred yards or standing for more than 5 minutes is still unpleasant, not impossible just unpleasant.

Ben is up in his room practicing a Vialetters song by playing along to one of their recordings. It is wonderful to hear. It is such a shame that they are not able to play live at the moment (in case you didn’t know my eldest son Ben is the bass player in Vialetters who play a lot in Hull, their music is on Spotify, Apple Music and the likes). In the next bedroom I can hear Jack is just starting to play his guitar. Jack is in a band too called Speak Easy, they had just started playing and booking gigs and then the pandemic happened. During the lock down they have started playing together and creating some music, that they have put on Sound cloud.

I love music and I am so pleased that they have both discovered their love for music, and both create music.

I may feel physically rubbish but my spirits have been lifted today by the kindness of others and the talent of my sons.

Stay in, stay safe and see or speak to you all soon.