Last Friday, I spent the day with my sister on a Garden Photography Workshop run by Emma Davies at Uppark House. I booked our tickets weeks ago with no idea that I’d be on a journey into mindfulness by the time the workshop finally rolled around.

I began thinking about mindfulness after a frustrating photography session, so being able to go on a photography workshop so soon after starting to practice mindfulness was perfect. And it was perfect.

My sister and I were the only two people on the course, and Emma was lovely. She quickly assessed how much we knew about both the technical and artistic aspects of photography, gave us some appropriate tips and exercises and then let us get on with it. Together, we wandered around the gardens, meadow and outhouses, and, although we checked in and chatted a bit here and there, we gave each other the space and time to really look at our surroundings and capture what we were seeing on camera.

It was absolute bliss being able to take the time to see what was there, to frame an image, to think about the subject and its surroundings and to think about what it was I really wanted to photograph. As much as I love my kids, it’s virtually impossible to take that kind of time when they’re around which is why I usually just take pictures on my iPhone when we’re out and about together. It did take me a while to get into a mindful frame of mind though. It felt like changing down a gear, but eventually I managed to go from ‘busy mum’ to ‘mindful photographer’. I let my thoughts scud in and out of my mind without judging them and simply looked at what was in front of my lens … not for the whole four hours though, just when I wanted to.

I’ve only been practicing mindfulness for a short time, but already it’s had a positive effect. I feel that my senses of smell and hearing have been heightened – I’ve been stopped in my tracks by the scent of a flower, and (although I have to be careful not to tune into my tinnitus) I hear and attend to all sorts of sounds that would hitherto have gone unnoticed. I feel calmer and less stressed even though life hasn’t become any less stressful, and I’m not jumping at unexpected sounds.

The greatest benefit though is that, on Friday, I felt as if I were actually there, in each moment, walking around a beautiful garden, looking at the flowers, listening to the birds, feeling the breeze and the warm sunshine on my skin and learning, laughing, living.

I love food. I love the way it tastes. I love the way it smells. I love the way it looks. I love the way it makes me feel inside. I love eating food alone. I love eating food with friends and family. I love food. Food is good.

But I don’t always use it for good …

Ever since I hit puberty, I’ve used food as a crutch. Because it makes me feel full inside, I’ve used it to fill the holes in my life. I’ve used it to medicate my stress, my anger, my irrationality, my grief etc, etc, etc. I became aware of this years ago and have had some success in overcoming it to the extent that for long-ish periods (months, even years) I do eat healthily – and by that I mean I eat to satisfy my physical hunger and to celebrate life! Right now, I’m mostly in that zone. I’m mostly eating healthily, but on occasion I still find myself responding to stress by mindlessly stuffing my face with high-sugar, high-calorie foods.

I think this is an area of my life that would benefit from some mindfulness, so I’m going to eat mindfully. I first came across the concept via Beyond Chocolate. It’s been a while since I read the book, but, if I remember rightly, the gist is to focus on what you’re eating – the taste, the smell, the look, the feel – and to focus on your body’s response, to listen to your body, to eat slowly and attentively so you can feel when you are not just full, but when you are actually satisfied. Also, it’s about stopping before reaching for food and asking your body if it is actually hungry or if you are eating for some other reason. Am I Hungry? defines eating mindfully as:

• Eating with the intention of caring for yourself
• Eating with the attention necessary for noticing and enjoying your food and its effects on your body

They believe ‘that mindful eating encompasses the entire process of eating:

• Awareness of your physical and emotional cues
• Recognition of your non-hunger triggers for eating
• Learning to meet your other needs in more effective ways than eating
• Choosing food for both enjoyment and nourishment
• Eating for optimal satisfaction and satiety
• Using the fuel you’ve consumed to live the vibrant life you crave.’

Sounds good.

Since starting this journey into mindfulness, a little phrase has popped into my head over and over again: one thing at a time. I believe I need to reduce the amount of time I spend multitasking and parallel processing and concentrate on one thing at a time, so for the next week, I’m going to focus on eating mindfully. I know this is not a quick fix. One week is not going to fix forty years of eating mindlessly, but it’s a start, and my first task will be to find a notebook to use as a food and mood diary …

And so, my quest for a more mindful life has begun. I’ve read two books, numerous blog posts and am at the beginning of a 40-day study guide.

Mindfulness, it seems, is both simple and difficult.

It is simple in that it is nothing more (from a psychological point of view) than intentionally paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgemental way. Our thoughts are not who we are. They might be an expression of who we are, but they are also just habitual patterns of the mind. When we are being mindful, we not only notice the present moment through what we are sensing, we notice too the thoughts that pop into our minds, but instead of critiquing them, or criticising ourselves for thinking them, we just let them go by bringing our attention back to the present moment – what we are seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling. We let our thoughts be clouds that are scudding across our mind’s sky.

It is difficult in that this is easier said than done. I’ve done a few exercises now (from Sane New World by Ruby Wax) and am finding it hard to stay in the present moment. My mind is so used to analysing, processing, ruminating and rehearsing. But … I’m doing it. Slowly, but surely I am noticing those distracting thoughts and letting them go, and I’m focusing on being in the here and now, not exploring the past or future.

When I’m walking back from dropping Little S off at school, I’m taking five seconds here and there to focus on what it feels like to walk. I’m noticing the crows flying across the sky, the starlings yelling at me from the ridge tiles of the houses I pass. I’m feeling the wind burn my cheeks, tug at my hands and whip my trousers around my legs. When I’m out in the garden, I’m feeling the warmth of the sun on my back and seeing the pollen on the anthers of the fuchsias that I hadn’t previously noticed poking over the fence from next door.

This is going to take perseverance. It’s something I know I’ll get better at with practice. What I want from this type of mindfulness is to learn how to live my life in the present.

Which brings me on to the other type of minfulness I’ve been reading about: mindFullness. In his book, A Book of Sparks: A Study in Christian MindFullness, Shaun Lambert explains how being mindful (or watchful) is a universal human capacity, something that God wants for all His people and something the followers of Jesus should take seriously. Here are a few snippets:

The central insight of mindfulness – and Buddhists, Christians and psychologists all agree on this – is that we are bigger than our thoughts and feelings. (Loc 374)

In Romans 12:2, Paul tells us, ‘Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ Our thoughts and feelings are often shaped by our culture into narcissistic, competitive, fearful or consumerist patterns. This verse enables us to witness our thoughts and enables us to decenter from them … Paul follows this us in 2 Corinthians 10:5, where he says, ‘take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’ (Loc 381)

Christian mindFullness is awareness of the presence of God at work within our own God-given capacities for attention and awareness. (Loc 489)

There is so much wisdom in this book that I could happily quote the whole thing, but I won’t as that would be an infringement of copyright! Instead, I’ll leave you with one last pearl:

The way we take our thoughts captive is to disarm them. That’s Christ’s method, as with disarming the powers and authorities (Colossians 2:15) … We make our thoughts obedient to Christ by treating them much as Jesus treated people … We notice them with compassion and love, accept them for what they are, and then let them go, send them on their way saying, ‘Go and sin no more.’ (Loc 629)

As well as general mindfulness practice, Shaun Lambert advocates the mindful reading of Scripture à la lectio divina. Now, I’ve been a Christian for most of my life (I turned 40 last year!) and didn’t have a clue what that meant, so that’s something I’ll be exploring and reporting back on.

There’s so much more I want to write about today – I want to talk about eating mindfully, about teaching my kids to be critical of adverts that ‘tell us we are empty unless we fill ourselves with their product’, about offering our bodies as living sacrifices, about using mindfulness to help Little S with her anxieties, about replacing icons of grace with idols to fill the space within us that God is supposed to fill, about writing mindfully, about using what I’ve mindfully noticed in my writing – but I’ve gone on long enough and my tummy’s rumbling again. It’s time for lunch.

It’s funny how things come together.

A couple of weeks ago, I organised an HBC Photographers trip to Froxfield. One of our members has an aunt who lives in half an acre of woodland there, and she kindly invited us to visit so that we could take photos of the bluebells growing in the wood. She’s moving home soon, so this was our last chance to go. How could we say no?

It’s a beautiful place. Magical even. As well as bluebells, there are shacks and sheds and sculptures scattered throughout the woods. The cottage is thatched and surrounded by vegetable and fruit gardens. There’s a pond, a pagoda, and a bridge stretching over a patch of marshy land. It’s not hard to imagine the famous five having an amazing adventure there.

Unfortunately, we were up against the clock a bit, and as we walked through the woods snapping away, we chatted away to one another too. I left with a few nice pictures but also with a feeling that I’d just been skimming the surface of what was there.

Despite the rain and grey skies, I would have loved to have spent all day in Froxfield, wandering around with my camera, crouching amongst the foliage, taking pictures, and looking … really looking at what was around me. I’d loved to have had the time to smell the leaf mould, feel the drizzle on my skin, listen to the birds and the squelch of soggy soil under foot.

Don’t get me wrong. I had a lovely time with my friends, but I almost ache to go back there on my own, to just spend time there, to just be there.

This experience got me thinking. For a while now, I’ve had this feeling that I’ve just been skimming the surface of life, bobbing along fairly happily, but not really taking the time to stop and appreciate things.

I don’t lead a particularly busy life; I’ve slowed down a lot in recent years, but I have a butterfly mind and often have so much going on in my head that I don’t pay attention to what’s right in front of me, or what’s going on inside of me. I’m better at this that I used to be though. By paying attention to my moods, I’ve learned to spot depression’s advance and can usually head it off at the pass.

But I’d like to slow my mind down even more, to stop thinking about so many different things at the same time, to stop flitting from thought to thought, to stop and smell the roses more than once in a while.

Which brings me onto mindfulness and how it’s funny how things come together. Last week, I saw a tweet about a course in mindfulness for writers and was reminded that mindfulness actually existed! I think I’d read something about it a while ago, but hadn’t looked into it any deeper.

This reminder came just at the right time, just after the trip to Froxfield and that skimming-the-surface frustration I’d felt there. So, I looked into this course and had one of those light bulb moments. It sounded right up my street, although it wasn’t. It was in Brighton which is over an hour and a half away. I tweeted the instructor to ask if they ever ran courses near me, but they didn’t.

Oh well, I thought, I’ll just have to read about it then. So, after a couple of days being distracted by life, I downloaded a copy of ‘Sane New World’ by Ruby Wax onto my Kindle. Why this book? Because I’d heard of the author and know Ruby is the ‘poster girl’ for mental health.

 

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I found the book inspiring. I really like the idea of mindfulness (a way of paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental way, a way of mastering your mind instead of being a slave to it). I loved all the science that explained how the brain works – it took me right back to my university days and my degree in Biochemistry.

And I could relate to much of Ruby’s own struggles with depression. There are lots of exercises to try too, and I’ve already given some of them a go. The first thing I noticed is how judgmental I am about my own thoughts and how much time I spend rehearsing conversations that I might have in the future and ruminating over things I’ve said and done in the past. So much of the present is passing me by because I’m focusing elsewhere.

So, what next? Well, I’ve already downloaded my next ebook on mindfulness: A Book of Sparks: A Study in Christian Mindfullness by Shaun Lambert, a Baptist Minister from NW London. It’s a 40 day (We Christians do love our 40 day programmes!) journey into Christian Mindfulness based on Mark’s Gospel (which I’m currently studying using NT Wright’s Mark for Everyone – another funny-how-things-come-together moment) so I’m going to work through it, one day at a time.

Expect more posts on mindfulness in the near future!

(You can see more of my Froxfield visit photos over at Flickr.)

The weight loss programme my doctor referred me to last year, involved several sessions with a Motivation and Change Therapist, and during one of those sessions, we talked about how I often find social situations difficult.

I said to her, ‘The thing is, you can put me on a stage in front of hundreds of people, and I will happily sing or speak. You can stand me at the front of a classroom or church, and I will happily teach. But if you were to put me in a room with a handful of people I don’t know and ask me to talk to them, I’d just want to run for the hills. I find that kind of thing really, really, really hard work.’

And her response was, ‘You sound like a confident introvert.’

‘Ooh,’ I thought. ‘A confident introvert? That sounds interesting. I must find out more.’

So I did, and one of the things I found out is that being an introvert is not the same as being shy. Whereas introverts enjoy time alone, people who are shy don’t actually want to be alone; they just choose to be alone because they’re afraid of interaction. Whilst therapy might help a shy person become less shy, it isn’t going to fix introversion because introversion isn’t something that needs fixing. It’s a way of being. Introverts are not antisocial, and they’re not friendless loners who lack social skills. They simply have a different set of needs and preferences to extroverts. For example, introverts:

• prefer fewer, closer friendships to having lots and lots of friends,
• need loads of personal space,
• need time to recharge their batteries after social interaction,
• prefer to be on the sidelines at parties and events,
• prefer individual activities, such as reading and writing
• like to hang back and familiarise themselves with something before joining in,
• often have two distinct persona: a public one and a private one,
• avoid talking about their achievements and underplay their gifts and talents,
• dislike smalltalk and prefer ‘meaningful’ discussions,
• hate interruption,
• need lots of thinking and reflecting time,
• prefer to express themselves through writing rather than speech,
• pause a lot and can have word-finding problems when speaking,
• become irritable if they have to spend lots of time with lots of people,
• feel drained even when they’ve enjoyed social interaction, and
• can find it difficult to share their feelings.

But while introversion may look like shyness (or even weakness) on the outside, it certainly has its strengths. Introverts:

• are excellent listeners,
• are deep thinkers and reflectors,
• are creative,
• are focused and good at concentrating for long periods of time,
• like to explore subjects deeply and thoroughly,
• are very aware of their inner worlds – their thoughts, ideas, beliefs and feelings, and
• can be very observant.

This is me to a T. But what does it all mean? It means that some of my ‘weaknesses’ are actually strengths. It means I don’t need to feel that daydreaming is a waste of time. It means I don’t need to feel that I’m being rude because I would rather work on my own than in a group, or feel stupid because I can’t rustle up an instantaneous opinion during a discussion, or feel selfish because I need to leave a social situation because I’m craving personal space. It means that feeling irritable is a natural response to interruption and over-stimulation. It means it’s okay for me to say no to something when it feels like doing it would be too much. It means it’s okay for me to take time out in order to recharge my batteries. It means I don’t need fixing. I’m okay as I am.

And if all this still sounds like weakness, then have a watch of this: The Power of Introverts, a TEDtalk by Susan Cain.

I’m retiring from the AtoZChallenge. This is a decision based upon the fact that I’ve just looked at the topics I intended to cover in my remaining posts and realised that I’ve already covered them. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do here. I’ve talked about me and my mental health – the good times, the bad times, the things that help, the things that hinder. To post any more now would be pointless repetition.

More importantly, this decision is also based upon my desire to beat the all-or-nothing attitude that has plagued me over the last few years. I’ve lost count of the number of wagons I’ve watched disappear over the horizon because I’ve fallen off and not had the strength to chase after them and jump back on. This all-or-nothing attitude was part of the reason I put on so much weight after I had depression; I’d start a diet, lose a stone, fall off the plan, give up and then put on more weight than I’d lost. In those days, I hadn’t recovered the wherewithal to be able to let go and move on.

Leaving things unfinished like this makes me itch, but finishing something just for the sake of it, finishing something that is no longer of benefit, is not a good use of my time or energy. I need to be comfortable with putting down the unfinished. I need be comfortable with leaving things incomplete and imperfect. I need to be able to take a day off an eating plan and start afresh the next without feeling like I’ve ruined all my previous efforts. I need to be able to miss a day in my ‘photo a day’ journal without having to go back and fake a picture just so there aren’t any gaps in the calendar. I need to be able to leave an AtoZChallenge at R without having to delete the whole series because it’s incomplete.

Leaving things here is not a failure. It is a victory.

Right, now that’s out of the way, I’m off to have a good scratch …

Linkidinks:

• Time to Change
• Mind, the Mental Health Charity
• Stress, Anxiety and Depression, NHS Choices
• YoungMinds, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing

An explanation of my AtoZChallenge theme can be found at Me and My Mental Health – It’s Time to Talk.

It is never quiet where I am.

Tinnitus is any sound a person can hear that’s generated inside the body rather than outside. In other words, my ears and my brain hear noises that aren’t really there. I first noticed it in my late teens as a fax-machine-like beeping in my left ear. I’d only hear it late at night, when I was falling asleep, and it didn’t really bother me. Looking back it was probably caused by too many hours spent listening to loud music on my personal stereo and standing too near the speakers at gigs.

A few years ago, though, it got worse. I’d had a nasty cold which left me all bunged up, and I couldn’t hear properly out of either ear. I thought my hearing would improve after the cold got better, but it didn’t. For weeks, I felt as if I were under water. I had to really concentrate on conversations, and busy places made my head spin. Eventually, I went to the doctor complaining of headaches, hearing loss and an increase in the volume of my tinnitus. It sounded as if I were sitting next to a rushing river and surrounded by people blowing whistles and ringing bells. My doctor, bless him, told me it could be caused by one of two things: a virus or a brain tumor. Yes! Those were his exact words. Anyway, he referred me to the ENT department at our local hospital who saw me fairly promptly and who happily told me, after tickling my face with cotton wool and testing my hearing in an anechoic chamber, that they were satisfied it was a virus and that my hearing should return in time.

Well, time proved them right about it not being a brain tumor! And my hearing did come back after a few months. But, my tinnitus remains the same. It’s still there, rushing, whistling and ringing. All. The. Time. But I’ve learned to live with it.

I saw a tinnitus therapist for a while. She was brilliant. She gave me a tinnitus mask which is a little devise you stick in your ear. It plays white noise to you and trains your brain to ignore the sound and others similar to it. I also had to avoid being anywhere silent. I had to have sound around me at all times – running water, passing cars, a whirring fan, a running washing machine, a radio on low in the background – to give my brain something else to focus on, so it could learn to ignore the noises in my head. Which it did. Most of the time, I don’t notice it. It’s as if my brain has switched to a different channel, but I can switch back if I want to, and if I do, it’s there.

The only time it’s a problem is if I have a cold and my head gets bunged up. Then the tinnitus makes itself known. Loudly! Sometimes this stops me sleeping, which, as I’ve said before, can trigger my anxiety. My brain won’t switch channel, and it won’t switch off. If this happens, I have to distract my mind with stories and employ my other anti-insomnia tricks. I’ve also got a set of pillow-speakers and a play list of white noise and nature sounds on iTunes that I can listen to to help re-tune my brain. As well as that, I consume decongestants by the tonne!

Linkidinks:

• Time to Change
• Mind, the Mental Health Charity
• Black Dog Tribe
• Stress, Anxiety and Depression, NHS Choices
• YoungMinds, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Tinnitus, NHS Choices

An explanation of my AtoZChallenge theme can be found at Me and My Mental Health – It’s Time to Talk.

I caught the photography bug from my dad. One of my earliest memories is of playing with a light meter and being mesmerized by lumpy-bumpy light-detecting bit. I’ve always had a camera, first a cheapie 110, then a couple of cheapie 35mm’s, then a digital compact and now a DSLR and an iPhone. Until I took a course in photography a few years ago, I wasn’t actually very good at it, but now that I’ve learned about the art of composition and the importance of lighting and point of view etc, I can turn out a half-decent picture.

Photography isn’t just about the end product, though, the final picture. For me, photography is about the moment, about stopping and looking – really looking – and then capturing something more than an image; it’s about capturing a memory.

My memory is rubbish. I only have a few childhood memories and those are fading. I’ve forgotten so much, but photography helps me to remember. For the last year, I’ve been taking a photo every day and publishing it on blipfoto. It’s been a way to record the good things that happen, not just for me, for my children as well. One of our favourite things to do is snuggle up in bed and look through our photo albums. The kids love seeing themselves as babies and hearing about all the silly things they did, the cute little words they made up. Sophie’s early years are a blur to me – the years I had depression – but sitting there with her and laughing at the pictures in her album reminds me that it wasn’t all bad; there were some wonderful moments too.

Linkidinks:

• Time to Change
• Mind, the Mental Health Charity
• Black Dog Tribe
• Stress, Anxiety and Depression, NHS Choices
• YoungMinds, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing

An explanation of my AtoZChallenge theme can be found at Me and My Mental Health – It’s Time to Talk.

Opinions.

I have them.

For a long time though I didn’t. Or rather, I did have them, but I couldn’t trust them. Depression, anxiety and losing confidence often go hand in hand. They did for me. I’d always been confident, but once depression hit, my self-esteem hit rock bottom. I found it hard to make decisions, to hold conversations, to stand up for myself, to put across my point of view. I doubted myself all the time with regard to pretty much everything. It’s taken a long while to recover from having my judgement corroded. Even now, I sometimes find myself wondering if I’m just being irrational. Its been hard to trust my thoughts and feelings again, but there have been a few things that have helped (and still help) me in this regard:

• Journaling – Putting my thoughts, feelings down on paper, helps me keep them in perspective. For me, journaling is a form of prayer. It’s a way to hand things over to God, to share them, to ask for help and then move on. Once written down, my thoughts are no longer swirling around my head, getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
• Honesty – I have a codeword that I use when I’m feeling irrational or down. All I have to do is say it to Matt and he knows that I need a little extra support, a little extra space, a little extra leeway. (Somber Scribbler wrote an excellent post about loving someone with depression. It’s well worth a read.)
• Reminders – It’s easy to forget the things I’ve got right, the things I’ve done well, so having reminders around me is really useful: photographs I’ve taken, stories I’ve written, scrapbooks of adventures, letters of encouragement, thank you cards, two beautiful children …
• Refocusing – It’s easier to focus on the bad stuff than on the good stuff, but I’ve learned to push away negative thoughts and turn to positive ones instead. I actually have a mental broom with which I sweep negative thoughts and memories from my mind.
• Getting out and about – When my self-esteem is low, the last thing I want to do is mingle, but leaving the house and being with people actually helps. Volunteering at school and church makes me feel useful and helps me see what I’m good at.
• Friendship – I have some lovely friends, and the fact that they seem to like me makes me feel better about myself.
• Studying – Learning new things shows me that I’m still capable and not a washed up waste of space!

Linkidinks:

• Time to Change
• Mind, the Mental Health Charity
• Black Dog Tribe
• Stress, Anxiety and Depression, NHS Choices
• YoungMinds, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing

An explanation of my AtoZChallenge theme can be found at Me and My Mental Health – It’s Time to Talk.

I’ve suffered from depression. I’ve suffered from anxiety. And the shadows they have cast have been long and cold. But, I am more than my mental health problems. This is easy to forget when the black dog is bounding around the house, so I’ve decided to use today’s post as a record of all the other things … the good things … that I am.

I am Natalie.

And, in no particular order …

I am also the wife of the son of a preacher man, the mother of two amazing children, my parents’ daughter*, a daughter-in-law, a sister, a sister-in-law, an auntie, a niece, a graduate, a lapsed Biochemist, a post-postgraduate, an ex-science teacher, a published writer, an editor and publisher, a happily-amateur photographer, a youth and children’s worker, a toddler group leader, a singer, a ukulele player, a follower of Jesus, a speaker, a walker, a listener, a friend, a volunteer, an introvert, a storyteller, a tutor, a mentor, a perpetual student, a parent helper, the best cook in the world (according to my kids), an excellent driver (most of the time), a teenager at heart, a creative, a reader, a thinker, a dreamer, a story scavenger, a survivor.

The photo I’ve picked for today’s post is of me and my daughter. It was taken about 8 years ago, just before I started my descent into depression. Once upon a time, I found it hard to look at because it reminded me of all the time and experiences my family and I missed out on while I was ill, and it reminded me of the woman I had once been – strong, confident, capable, happy. But now, when I look at it, I only feel the tiniest twinge of sadness. Now, she doesn’t seem so different from the woman I am today.

(*I am my father’s daughter. I inherited my analytical mind and my keen sense of justice from him. I am also my mother’s daughter. I inherited my love of words and my capacity for volunteer work from her.)

Linkidinks:

• Time to Change
• Mind, the Mental Health Charity
• Black Dog Tribe
• Stress, Anxiety and Depression, NHS Choices
• YoungMinds, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing

An explanation of my AtoZChallenge theme can be found at Me and My Mental Health – It’s Time to Talk.