Peace in a Pod

Please, please - don’t X out of this after reading the title, I swear this has absolutely nothing to do with Covid, lockdowns and all those other sweat-inducing trigger words. But the hack I want to speak to today is a really valuable one I’ve been practicing in the last few months, and it involves liberal use of the word ‘zoom’, so consider yourselves warned. Don’t worry - there isn’t a quiz at the end. Tapestries are huge works of art that stretch across walls, and when you put all the pieces together, they tell a story. An overall narrative. Consider the tapestry as a metaphor for life. Oftentimes we are so guilty of fixating on one tiny chunk of that tapestry, like maybe a 10x10 inch piece out of the top corner, and magnifying it and wrapping ourselves up in it so much until it’s all we can see. Nothing else has come before this vignette and nothing else shall come after. This A3-sized nugget IS my whole life. This cognitive glitch is what I have begun to refer to as zooming in . ...

I know I said from the outset with this blog that I never intend to present myself as an all-knowing, all-seeing, omnipotent being who has all the answers to life’s problems (disclaimer: no such person exists). But this is really and truly the first piece I have written where I am acknowledging from the get-go that I grapple hugely with the issue I’m about to discuss, and I don't just mean a 'general' struggle - I'm talking about the actual present. Today’s topic is: having awkward conversations. The minute you read that, I guarantee a chill went down your spine. And why wouldn’t it? Humans HATE having awkward discussions. Our palms go sweaty at the mere thought of it. Our hearts race, our mouths go dry, our breathing becomes shallow. Some of us (ahem, me) are almost on the verge of tears before we’ve even begun. Why is this? I am currently reading ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brené Brown, gifted to me at Christmas by a good friend. Brown is a shame- and vulnerability-researche...