Tag: happiness

The comfort of a good moan

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I love a good moan. Moaning is comfortable, its comfortable because it is easy. All you have to do is sit in judgement with no responsibility, and ultimately don’t take action.

We all love it, but we really do need to limit its use to being the precursor to problem solving, to move away from the thing that irritates us. After all that is the function of moaning.

I am not saying that we should spend all our time action planning and trying to solve all the ills of our world (unless you really like doing it of course). However we do need (myself included) to examine how many times we moan about a certain subject.

If you find yourself repeating a moan about the same subject, try asking yourself the following questions:

How much discomfort or inconvenience does this irritation cause?

Would my life improve if the irritation was no longer there?

Do I have the ability to change the thing that annoys me?

If the answer is yes, do I have the will to change?

If the answer is no, what can I do to adjust my feelings towards it?

Can I adjust my view of the world to make me more tolerant of this irritant?

If you cannot be bothered to ask these questions of yourself, then at least consider the impact you are having on others when you moan about this subject. Are you becoming the topic of someone else’s moan.

When we moan, it generally is at the expense of someone else, therefore it gets in the way of connecting with each other. We end up concentrating on what makes us different and not what connects us. We may momentarily connect with someone who shares our moan, however this is a relationship based on being unkind, and judgemental. When you walk away from that person they may wonder what you say about them when you are with other friends. That in my book is not the basis of a positive relationship.

If you want to keep your moaning to one-off occurences, so you don’t have to ask yourself a series of questions examining how much of a moaning Minnie you are then may be adopt my favourite Brene Brown checklist BRAVING (you didn’t really think I could go a whole blog without mentioning my favourite researcher). BRAVING will help you view your world and those who inhabit it differently and reduce the frequency of your moaning. It is important to be irritated by things and people, however it really isn’t okay to moan without doing something about it. That is just unkind. BRAVING will help you confront those irritations and solve the issues that cause them.

Boundaries: Be comfortable with letting people know where your boundaries are. What you are happy to accept and what is not acceptable to you. If people don’t know where your boundaries are, how do they know how far to go? If other people’s boundaries are not clear, then ask them.

Reliability: Make sure it is the same you that turns up every time. When you set your boundaries, stick with them. If you say you are going to do something, do it. If people don’t know which version of you they are getting, are you just setting them up to irritate you.

Vault: People need to know that if they share something privately you that you will keep their confidence. They also need to know that you are not going to share others secrets that are not yours to share, including moaning about others actions or behaviour along with potential reasons. This erodes trust and encourages a gossiping, moaning culture, which in turn drives more disconnection.

Integrity: Choose what is right over what is comfortable or convenient. Have a conversation with the person that you want to moan about. Get to know them, maybe learn why they did the thing they did. Talk to them about how you feel. Telling each other stories about yourselves creates trust, creates a space for empathy to live. Lean in to the discomfort.

Non-Judgement: Be prepared to offer help without judgement, rather than criticise or moan about them. Will to accept help without judging myself.

Generosity: Have the most generous view of the people around you as possible. Have a generous view of their intentions. We cannot read people’s minds but when we start a conversation with someone to make a connection it is important that we view them in a positive light, rather than the source of our problem. Our starting point needs to be positive. We then give them an opportunity to live up to our view than live down to our negative view. After all we are talking to create a connection. If they do not live up to it, that is fine, we can decide not to connect. If we don’t connect it is important to accept that we don’t connect and not to dwell on it. We cannot get on with everybody, and that is fine. We should not fill our lives with that person, just to give us someone to moan about. Remember positive relationships is vital to good mental health.

If you want to explore this further and get yourself out of your cycle of moaning drop me a line.

matt@mattycoach71.com

 

Do you belong or are you just fitting in?

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Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about turning the connected living program I have written into a book. So last Saturday I dared greatly and started putting together an overview. So far I have the titles of the chapters and the beginnings of the first chapter. As soon as I started writing it, I felt nervous and unworthy. I became vulnerable, I could feel my shield coming up. Telling myself that it would only stay on the computer, no one would read it anyway, so why bother. You know the usual, no doubt all the things that we all say to ourselves that keep us in our box. All the words that perpetuate the pontificating, the voices that stifle our creativity. I started writing it anyway, telling myself, if no one would ever read it then what is the harm, after all I am half way through my memoir that no doubt is never going to see the light of day. So I started it and got quite far in a few hours.

As if by fate this week a friend of mine shared with me that they had written a short story and then had sent it to a competition. They asked if I would like to read it. It was wonderful. They expressed the same fears as I had, they were surprised that I liked it, as I am surprised when people say they like my blog. My friend though had taken the plunge though, they had made themselves vulnerable, they sent it to a competition which creates that risk of rejection. They put themselves out there, and since my feedback they have sent me another short story, again another engaging story a tough read as the subject is dark but well written. This has inspired me and hindered me at the same time. I tell myself it’s scary to risk ridicule and rejection, your friend has done it, and they are still the same person they were the day before. But their stories are good, is my content good enough. I know the answer I speak the answer to others. Is it good enough for you? Does it express what I want to get across? Am I able to get that message I want to share out of my head and on a computer screen? Well duh, I do that every week on here, and I share this with the world(I know my most popular blog has only been read by around 100 people).

I have just realised that I am writing this blog to give myself the courage to write more of the first chapter. So please excuse this self-indulgence.

By worrying about what people will think about me writing a book and what is in it, am I trying to fit in rather than belonging?

Am I trying to adjust who I am, and what I do, because I have not connected and feel comfortable with who I am?

Belonging, truly belonging as Brene Brown would describe it, is first connecting with yourself. I think of it as looking in a super high-definition mirror that is able to reflect your soul, as well as your physical appearance, and when you see your whole self reflected back you love what you see. Not like, but love, and I mean all of you even the ugly unpleasant bits. That is not easy to do, in fact for a long time I thought it was impossible. Not anymore I see it is possible, I am yet to perfect it completely but I love a large part of me, however there are some parts that I can now tolerate, and I still worry about whether people like me and what I do or not.

So how do you get connected with and love yourself? In my blog entitled connected living I have described the process I put together to help people connect with themselves in order to make connections with others.

Once you practice connecting with yourself, you can start belonging, you can start to feel comfortable with your own view of the world and therefore be comfortable with alternative viewpoints held by other people. You will start to feel confident enough to brave what Brene calls the wilderness, to belong to yourself first, even when what you believe to be right is unpopular or wildly different from the people around you. For instance writing a blog like this is not what my family would do, very few of my friends write blogs, or share their thoughts and vulnerabilities like I do. I stand out, I don’t fit in, but I do belong I belong to me first and to the rest of you if you want me.

I really want to belong to the world around me, and when I don’t feel I do the desire to fit in gets really strong, and I have compromised by beliefs and values to try to fit in, as no doubt you have, and it is normally when we lack confidence in ourselves and what we believe. It never works out though, and no matter how much we try we still feel on the outside and never belong. When you truly belong there is no us and them there are just people who have a different map of the world. I can disagree with them and still feel connected with them. My mum’s political views are often opposite to mine, I don’t hate her or think she is stupid. I love her with all my heart, there is so much more that connects us than disconnects us. All of us are connected, we are all connected by biology after all.

Gosh that was philosophical.

I will leave you with a quote by Brene Brown and then another from my favourite lady in world ever Maya Angelou

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

Brene Brown

“You are only free when you realise you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

Maya Angelou

I have resolved that I will carry on writing my book, I will dare greatly and brave the wilderness if I need to. I will approach it like I approach my blog. I write it first for me, then for anyone who wants to read it. I belong to me and anyone else that wants me.

 

 

PERMA and That Hour of Happiness

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The past week has been a little turbulent. It has been a week of feeling vulnerable, after sharing my feelings on here and sharing a little of myself in the support of others. In fact sharing in support of others Is suppose has triggered this blog.

I had no plans to write a blog today. I thought I was spent after sharing my parenting pains yesterday. However when I was out on a run this morning I started thinking about what I had said to a group of new registrants and the end of their first year as Registered Nurses. I was talking to them about the daily stress they encounter in their everyday job as part of a talk I do to Nurses about compassionate reflective practice. The premise of the talk is that to be truly compassionate to others, you have to show compassion to yourself. Part of that compassion is looking after and maintaining your capacity for stress.  Our lives are stressful, that is normal, life has always been stressful and always will be. If didn’t have stress and discomfort we would not have great innovation and creativity. Learning and development come from a place of discomfort. However if not checked and managed that discomfort can turn into distress. Innovation and creativity die in a place of distress. So at this point in the talk (if you ever attend this talk or the day I do on human factors and error management, look interested and intrigued as if you have never heard it before) I drew a bucket and invited them to imagine that the bucket was their capacity for stress. Now every time you experience stress it sits in your bucket. If you don’t pay attention to your bucket it can overflow and that is when you become distressed. I suggested to them that the way to manage their bucket is to attach a tap to the bottom of it, and they can do this by setting aside an hour everyday that is dedicated to their happiness, something that is just for them, or something that just makes them smile or feel good inside. I suggested to them that they may already be taking part in some of these activities but do not label them as part of their hour of happiness. This is quite a powerful proposition and is a way of appreciated, yourself, people around you and your environment.

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This got me thinking about Martin Seligman’s PERMA. In his book Flourish (if you are a Psychologist or a student of Psychology please forgive my clumsiness) and no doubt in earlier publications he suggests that people who mentally healthy have the following characteristics.

Positive Emotion

Engagement

Relationships (supportive/positive)

Meaning

Accomplishment

I suppose that hour of happiness in many ways is doing an inventory and just checking in with your PERMA on a daily basis.

So I invite you to pay attention to your stress bucket, by allocating an hour of happiness in your life. It can be anything that pays attention to your PERMA.

So far today I have gone for a run for 30 minutes, that has given me sense of accomplishment, which in turn has given me a positive emotion at the end of it. I have been writing this blog for about 40 minutes now which has been engaging and will give me a sense of accomplishment, it will also create connections with some of you readers, some of whom I know, so therefore builds our relationship further. Already I am over my hour, however I am not finished with my happiness today (it is Sunday I suppose). I have had 2 short 5 minute conversations with my sons one on the state of modern drama and it’s over reliance on the crime drama, with him stating that nothing useful or original has been said in that genre for the past decade. That made me smile and made me love him that little bit more. I then had a conversation with my youngest and his girlfriend about the programme they were watching, which was a comedy by all accounts, although there appeared to be no laughter in the room. The usual banter occurred as always does ending me gently making fun of his stubble and him telling me I need to grow up. This again made me smile and even laugh out loud and I loved him that little bit more. Thinking about those conversations also makes me feel proud of the young men they have become, so I suppose to 3 minute conversations have shown to me that my PERMA is safely intact and it is not even lunch time.

Even just taking stock of what makes you happy during the day can turn that tap on at the bottom of your bucket. We cannot escape from the stress of our lives, and nor should we. Stress and discomfort are vital for a successful life if managed, and only become a problem if we neglect ourselves and don’t pay attention to how we feel.

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My invitation to you is find and embrace your hour of happiness everyday, you well-being and resilience depends on it.

This forms the first part of my connected living program, if you would like to know more about managing your stress how you can better connect with yourself and others get in touch.

matt@mattycoach71.com

 

The Shame of Being a Parent

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I don’t know about you, but in our house for the past 18 years we have had almost daily discussions on our parenting skills. We would often fall in to the trap of comparison, especially when our children were younger. Everyone seems to be doing it better than us. “Tabitha and Timothy at soft play are always polite and quiet, never ask for sweets, and are always eating carrot sticks and drinking kale and beetroot smoothies.” My wife would exclaim, whilst our 2 would either by clinging to our legs, nattering for sweets, or kicking the shit out of each other. When we did relent and by them a fizzy drink and some sweets, it would be like buying a football hooligan 10 pints of Stella Artois right before a crunch match. When I say we relented I really mean I relented, and would then have to brave the judgemental looks and eye rolling from all the mums around me, whilst trying to manage a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old completely losing their collective shit (I miss though those days). My theory was and is that Tabitha and Timothy were so lacking in sugars that they just didn’t have the energy to misbehave.

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When you are in it, doing battle trying to acquire some control and bring your kids up with a sense of right and wrong but have fun on the way your fail to notice that your kids are normal and everyone else’s kids are just as demonic as yours. All you feel is shame when your child does an impression of a screaming ironing board down the cereal aisle in Asda. You feel shame because society says that children should be seen and not heard, good well brought up children do not have tantrums in public. This is backed up by the looks of disgust and judgement you get from people.

I remember collecting one of my children from nursery. As we did everyday we went home on the bus. On this occasion he was tired and grumpy, and no doubt just wanted to go home and sleep. But he was 2 and was unable to quantify these feels and articulate his expectations to me. So he did what 2 year old’s do. He screamed at the top of his voice whilst trying to  loosen my grip on him. The more I tried to calm him down the worse he got. By this point the whole bus was staring at me. I could hear people passing judgement on my negotiating skills, I could feel there stares burning into the back of my head. In the end the shame got too much and I got off the bus about half a mile away from my house. That was a long and painful half mile. Saying that he did fall asleep in my arms, carrying a sleeping 2 your old for half a mile is not easy though.child-3089972__340

Now my boys are young people, I now see that really they are no different from any other children really. Supermarkets, buses, trains, town centres are full of kids losing it and parents experiencing that shame. If you are a parent of a young person and have survived that shame and you see a fellow parent going through this pain, give them a little smile. You know that smile that says I feel your pain, you are not alone, you are not a bad parent. We picked up our shame from our parents, we don’t have to pass that shame onto our children.

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If you strive to be the best parent you can be, there is a very simple question to ask yourself. Are you the type of adult you want your children to become? If your answer is no, or ooh, erm, maybe, then perhaps you may need to address some of your behaviours so you start living up to that person. It is worth look at the gap between what your family values are and our behaviours. If you tell your children to be tolerant and not to lash out when someone upsets you, and then they see you berate the dickhead that cut you up at the junction, then they see that you don’t live up to your values so why should they. Now don’t get me wrong you don’t have to become overnight angels, but you maybe do need to be open and honest about proportionate responses and consequences. If you swear at the news don’t be surprised when they do.

Maybe be a good parent is being the person you want them to be.

I have a coaching program that helps you raise your self-awareness and connect with who you are, which then helps you be the best parent you can be. I also have a 2 hour talk on connected living that invites you to connect with yourself before connecting effectively with others.

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If you are struggling in the mire of parenting and cannot see the wood for the trees, get in touch.

matt@mattycoach71.com

 

Connected Living

Connected Living

Over the past month I have been working on a new program of coaching. Looking at all the research about effectiveness (both personal and team) it seems that trust, connection and empathy appear to be vital.  Therefore I started to put together a program that brought together these ideas from, drawing on the work of Brene Brown, Martin Seligman, Steve Peters, Stephen Covey, Myles Downey, and John Whitmore.

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Connected Self

The first part of the program explores how you connect with yourself. This looks at what drives our wellbeing and provides a quick wellbeing health check using Martin Seligman’s PERMA framework. We then look at what makes you feel vulnerable and what drives that. Next we will explore your beliefs, and values and you will be invited to start to work on your personal mission statement, based on your values and what you what to impact you want to make on yours and others lives. Now you have explored your beliefs and values we can then return to your vulnerabilities and understand what triggers these vulnerabilities and drives you to think more emotionally than rationally, allowing you recognise when you are thinking with your emotions. We will then discuss your behaviour preferences, so where you get your energy from and whether you prefer to think things through using data, or whether you prefer to react on what feels right for you and others, or whether you can switch dependant on the context of what is going on. Once you start to understand how and why you do things, or not do things, you will then start to appreciate and understand your whole self. When you are self-aware you are much more likely to be able to connect more effectively with others.

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Connected to Others

Once  you have started to connect with yourself you can then start to explore how you connect with others. Firstly we will look at how you manage your current relationships by asking questions based on Brene Brown’s BRAVING framework. This can provide you data for setting your goals and action planning. We will then explore how much of a coaching approach do use when communicating with people around you, do you like to explore what they want and help them find the way to do achieve it that suites them best or are you someone who prefers to tell them how to do it, based on your experience so they can avoid all the mistakes that you made on the way. Based on your beliefs and values we will discuss what you value in the groups and teams you populate and what causes you discomfort. Now you have collected your data we can now explore and set your goals for improving your connections or creating new ones. I will then support you through action planning and reviewing progression.

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Loss and New Beginnings

Once you are connecting more effectively you will be in a much better position to manage change within your personal or work life. Drawing on some of the work of William Bridges we can explore how you manage your transition from the old way of doing things towards your new beginnings. We will look at the feelings that emerge during this transition and the effect that has on you and your connections. Again we will set goals for you to achieve to realise your new beginnings

If you are interested in connected with yourself and others email me matt@mattycoach71.com

 

Further Reading

Brene Brown: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead. London Penguin Life 2012

Stephen R. Covey: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. London, Simon & Schuster 1999

Prof Steve Peters: The Chimp Paradox; The Mind Management Programme for Confidence, Success and Happiness. London, Vermilion 2012

Myles Downey: Effective Coaching. London, Texere 2002

William Bridges; Managing Transitions; Making the Most of Change. London, Nicolas Brealey 2008

Martin Seligman: Flourish. London, Nicholas Brealey 2012

 

 

Being a Parent

Being a parent is a privilege, on the whole it is wonderfully rewarding experience, watching your child grow, and develop.

However it is also exhausting, stressful, and sometimes terrifying. We are after all hard wired to protect and nurture our children, we can’t help it we just do it.

When our children are young we develop eyes in the back of our heads, and survive on a few hours sleep (mums especially). This behaviour can be confused as neurosis. We all remember that look on the GP’s face when they see you in the surgery for the tenth time in a month with baby David’s rash, cough, funny eye, etc, etc…

Then before you know it they are starting school and you turn into a blubbering wreck. This doesn’t last and soon you start to relish school, some of you live the time to get back to work others relish the support network that develops at the school gate. You start to connect with you fellow neurotics. It is they say good to share your pain.

This network can be a double edged sword, with stress and anxiety creep in when you realise that Tabitha and Sebastian are on a higher reading book than Dave, and Sebastian is tipped to be the next David Beckham playing for the local under 7s. You start taking David to football, horse riding (good for balance), chess club ( intellect), and Guitar lessons (he could be the next Ed Sheeran). Your exhausted, Dave is exhausted and to be fair he is shit at all of them.

Within a blink of an eye your child is leaving Primary School and heading of to High School. And you thought starting Primary School was stressful!

The first 2 years at High School are fairly benign. Then puberty hits! This coincides with GCSES. You might call it a perfect storm. Hell on earth is more like it. If you have boys (I have boys so it might be the same with girls, I don’t know) the first thing you notice is the smell. They start to sweat a lot! Then they stop talking at length and barricade themselves in their room, making the smell worse. Every now and again they will come down, so you ask them how school is going, how is revision going, what subjects might they want to study in 6th Form. You know show an interest in their lives. Big mistake you get accused of interfering in their lives and interrogating them. So you answer back and before you know it you are in the midst of a full blown row, started by asking how they were!

Then they go and do something that stops you in your tracks, that might be something kind and thoughtful, or pass their exams, or produce something amazing. Your heart swells and you remember how proud you are and how much you love them.

As they get older you spend less time in contact with them, but the same amount of time worrying about them. There comes a time when you realise that they are not children anymore, and your role as parent is going to change, and pretty soon it will be more of a distant role. I am at the start of this stage and let me tell you emotionally it is draining. I am having to come to terms with a change in the way I support them, and it is hard.

Each of us is going to experience parenthood differently, and parenting one child is different from parenting the next. So everyday as a parent is a pioneering day. We are always on virgin territory, we are never going to be experts in parenting. Just when you think you can apply what you have learned from experience, you child bowls you a googly.

So give yourself a break, stop comparing yourself to your friends and family. Every family is unique. Also remember your child is new at this too.

If your are stressed and tired, but feel so proud that you could burst then you are on the right lines.

Enjoy your journey, you only travel this way once.

Music on my commute to and from work

It’s been a while since I shared a playlist.

I am not sure if anyone listens to them, but I really enjoy putting them together.

With it being Mental Health Awareness week it is important to remind ourselves to give some attention to our mental health. One suggestion is to do something everyday that you enjoy, if you can it is best to spend an hour doing something that makes you happy. Now putting together this playlist took slightly less than an hour. So I have another 45 minutes left to fill today. Now that is fairly easy on a sunny Saturday. However during the week that can be a little more challenging. Trying to fit a an hour in our busy days can feel a little indulgent. Trust me, it isn’t, it is vital, vital for your health and well-being.

So if it is we have to be a little more imaginative about how we fit that time in. Firstly though we all need to examine our days, and think about those activities we do in a day where we derive enjoyment, that could be spending time with our children, taking the dog for a walk or cooking. Create an inventory of enjoyable activities, once you start you will realise how happy you can be simply by appreciating the things you already do. When you add them up you may be halfway there. Now cherish those activities, and if you need to move them up your importance order.

Once you have created your inventory, then look at those redundant parts of the day, such as your commute to work. My commute is about an hour a day, 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back. To fill that time I know put my music library on my phone on shuffle and sit back and listen. Now I have a couple of playlists that automatically update with new music that is downloaded onto my phone, so when engage the shuffle option I can listen to a song for the first time. Therefore that anticipation of not knowing whether I am going to listen next, it could be an old favourite or a new classic is so exciting.

My boring 30 minute commute is transformed and flies by. So why not in the car, on the bus or train put your music on shuffle sit back and see what happens. For me I have nailed in hour of happiness.

Because I like to share here is a playlist made of a shuffle I did this morning, not on a commute but sat on my sofa. Have a listen if you like, if you don’t that’s ok too, I have had my fun.

My commute shuffle