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Musings 22/07/2020Pacing oneselfWord of the WeekFisselig (German) – being flustered to the point of incompetence, it conveys a temporary state of inexactitude and sloppiness that is elicited by another person’s nagging.I often get myself in a muddle. I have never been very good at setting boundaries, limits, or a healthy balance (this applies to work, food, drink, relationships, boxset binges, knitting, reading, writing, gardening, collecting chairs...pretty much anything I get involved in.) I’m an all or nothing kinda gal. I am told my first word was ‘more’ and, in many ways, this seems to have been my M.O. for life. While this can be beneficial (I powered through knitting toys and clothes for my son while pregnant, I really got stuck in to revision for exams, and I get easily enthused by projects which grab my attention) it can also cause me to put unnecessary pressure on myself and make my life far more messy and stressful, and less enjoyable, than it needs to be. I open emails as soon as they arrive (whether it’s first thing in the morning or last thing at night) and then find it hard not to follow the rabbit down its hole and get caught up with the contents. I get stuck in unhealthy food patterns, either over or under eating. I can’t leave things unfinished and have been known to try to thoroughly spring clean the whole house in a morning (which then stretched into the afternoon and beyond), at the expense of time with my family, or other more important things. I get sucked into scrolling through news articles, anxiety and distress at whatever is going on in the world mounting by the minute, yet feel powerless to disengage because I feel I should know and understand what’s happening around me. I once worked at a Times crossword, while teaching myself how to solve them, for hours every day for six weeks, the six weeks leading up to my end of year exams. (I did finish it, and passed the exams, but it was a very stressful time, and all semi self-imposed.) This is an issue both with pacing myself, not trying to eat the whole elephant in one go (there’s an old joke that goes, ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!’) and of being clear in my priorities (and sometimes, maybe, even asking for help.) I chose the word fisselig for this musing not because I feel nagged by anyone else, but because my own head sometimes nags me into a state of incompetence. I get so flustered by all the things I should be doing, that I succeed either at making a complete hash of things, or throwing my hands up and declaring the whole thing a bust. Neither are productive.Depression and anxiety are very linked up with these patterns for me. When I’m feeling depressed I find it hard to find the energy to do anything and everything seems too much. The (unnecessary) guilt I feel about not being up to it feeds this feeling and, if I’m not careful, things can spiral out of control. When anxiety is what I’m struggling with, I am often too restless to settle, find concentration hard, or get obsessive about what I’m doing and am unable to let it go, persisting at it with angry, anxiety-fuelled intensity and ignoring other things I need (like food, or sleep, or love, or down time.)Once I’ve got into a muddle everything feels like it’s nagging me. The socks on the bedroom floor, the untidy worktops, the thank you letters, the phone calls to friends, the roses that need deadheading, the unsorted laundry, the dust, the unread book, the smeary windows... Sometimes I can even find the small, usually enjoyable things, like a hug for my husband or joining in a conversation, too much of a demand. Whatever I feel I should be doing suddenly becomes a huge burden, an unclimbable mountain. When in this state I can also assume more than is my sole responsibility, spurred by that nagging guilt of not doing enough. I then become resentful and weary of the responsibilities, and I let things mount up. And once they’ve mounted up it takes a gargantuan effort to start work on them again. I struggle to push my mental machinery back into action but, once I’ve gained momentum, I start hurtling back up to top gear in a rush to get things done. It’s exhausting. A more sustainable solution is needed, and that is where the concept of pacing comes in.Setting your own paceFirst say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.?- EpictetusThe first thing to remember is that you are in control. It might feel like your life is governed by your email notifications, or your children’s demands, or the mountain of dishes, but it is you, and only you, who decides how you’re going to tackle them. It might be that you need to set a time for emails during your daily routine and then turn notifications off for the rest of the day. You might need to set up some activity for your children which will (hopefully) give you a bit of time to yourself, or you might need to be flexible about their screen time so you get to sit and have a hot cup of coffee for once. You might need to wash the forks now, then tackle each bit of cutlery over the rest of the day, and save the cups for tomorrow morning, the plates for the afternoon, and the rest for the day after – you don’t have to do it all at once. If you’re having a hard time with your mental or physical health, it is perfectly OK to take things slowly.The next thing is to have goals, looking at both what you need and what you need to get done. I’ve kind of touched on that in the first point – do you need to focus on your day, but the bleeps from notifications are getting in the way? (I do a lot of my writing on my phone and just seeing the notification icon distracts me, so I sometimes turn them off altogether. You can usually do this in the app’s ‘settings’ menu.) Do you need time without being climbed on by your toddler, or just ten minutes to have a hot drink instead of discovering your cup of cold, scummy-looking coffee three hours later and downing it anyway because you haven’t stopped since 6am? Do you need to go super gently with yourself because you’re very low on energy and need to give yourself some compassion? Do you simply need to get up and out of bed, because that is all you can face today? These goals are yours, they are personal. What one person will want, or can, do will be very different for each of us.Now sort out your spoons. I don’t mean go back to the dishes, I’m talking about spoon theory. This way of rationing your energy allows you to get through the things you need to do, and allocate yourself sufficient time for recharging too (spoon theory originated from the way those with chronic illness, or disability, need to carefully monitor their energy, and I find it helps a lot when I look at how depression and anxiety can affect my energy levels and concentration.) The idea is that you only have so many spoons at your disposal, and each spoon contains a certain amount of energy, which is used up when doing a task, and can only be refilled via sufficient recharging time. When you look at your day, you need to decide how many spoons each task takes and how much time is needed to recharge your spoons. A spoon is your personal measurement, so you will need to have a good think about how you quantify it for yourself. You might also need to consider the barriers, or 'forks', you have in your way.Remember the elephant! Breaking tasks down into their component parts can help with goal-setting, spoon management and feeling in control. Try sitting down and writing out the process for doing a simple task. When you really break it down there are often many stages that you automatically do, and which get overlooked, but take up time and energy nonetheless. Doing this allows you to factor in pauses for recharge and reflection. By acknowledging each stage of each task, you can be more realistic about time and energy management, and also savour the moments that you’re living through.With that last idea in mind, try to realise that you don’t need to everything as fast as possible. The Slow Movement is a rebellion against the notion that fast is best. It began with a protest, in 1986, against the opening of a McDonald’s restaurant in Rome, which led to the birth of the slow food movement (food that takes the time it takes to cook in order to best bring out the textures and flavours, and cannot be mass produced on demand in five minutes.) Since then many different disciplines have joined in to create a whole variety of slow culture. Carl Honoré explains in his 2004 book In Praise of Slow that "It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a?snail's pace. It's about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savouring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting." There’s more on this topic here. Finally, it’s ok to say no. In a world where busyness and productivity are valued so highly, it can be hard to pace yourself. It can be hard to say no to your boss, or your housemates, or your children, or your partner, or your parents. It can be especially hard to say no to yourself. And it can be even harder if you’re living with a mental health condition. When things start piling up and the pace seems to pick up almost of its own accord, it can be really useful to press pause. Say no to that extra shift, say no to another assignment (or ask for extra time to complete it), say no to a night out, say no to the dusting or vacuuming, say no to answering that email before bed, say no to cooking tonight – have beans on toast. If you find this hard (I do) try to remember that productivity is not just about the hours you put in, but the ability to do your best during those hours. Remind others of this if necessary! Time for self-care and taking a break is not selfish or lazy – it’s essential. By saying no occasionally, you are giving yourself the chance to be at your best when you say yes.Here are a few more links to articles about spoons, forks, and the difference (or similarity) between them.amp/s/what-is-the-spoon-theory/amp/ invisible-illness/spoon-theory-and-fork-theory-fce7b5602f1a#:~:text=Basically%2C%20it%20says%20that%20every,to%20get%20out%20of%20bed. single-post/2019/04/20/Spoon-Theory-What-Silverware-Has-to-Do-with-Chronic-IllnessSlow craftIn their blog, Psychcentral discuss the slow craft movement. The idea with this is to view a craft more as a process than as a result. The example they give is of traditional basket weaving where each part of the process, from planting the seeds for the reeds, through tending them, to harvesting them and processing them for use, is part of the same craft, and that by the time work begins on weaving the basket much of the work is done. Other crafts that lend themselves to the slow approach are knitting and crochet, where the yarns can be hand dyed and spun, or wood turning, where the wood can be grown, selected, and carefully dried before use. It is possible to take a slow approach to many crafts, even if you don’t get fully immersed into gathering wool, spinning or coppicing. Producing a sampler is a nice example of this. Samplers are traditional ways of learning new stitches for embroidery, historically an important skill. They can be as simple or as complex as you like. The different stitches are often used to create alphabets and pictures with texture and detail. Examples and history of this craft can be found here. Researching the history of the craft could form part of your adoption of it as a slow discipline. Another way of slowing this down could be to use it to create a family tree, and put your research energies into tracing your family history. Here is a simple example of a Victorian family tree I found on an auction site. (You can also buy kits to create these, although having a ready-made template is not exactly in the slow philosophy.) Whether you make the process slow by making your own materials or exploring the best ones to use, carefully researching the stitches, learning the history of the craft, or through designing your sampler (maps, family trees, traditional patterns or local flora and fauna are all possibilities), the key is to not hurry towards a finished product. It’s about the journey as much as it is about the destination, and surely that’s the same with life.107251512890500Picture from vam.ac.uk/articles/embroidery-a-history-of-needlework-samplers as above.PoemPrayers are often incorporated into traditional samplers, but a poem would work just as well. This one seems suited to the slow philosophy.Leisure by William Henry DaviesWhat is the life, so full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughsAnd stare as long as sheep and cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.No time to see, in broad daylight,Streams full of stars, like skies at night.No time to turn at Beauty's glance,And watch her feet, how they can dance.No time to wait till her mouth canEnrich that smile her eyes began.A poor life this if, so full of care,We have no time to stand and stare. ................
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