Peace in a Pod

To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure if I felt up to writing a piece this week. In recent times I have allowed myself to post fortnightly rather than the usual weekly, as is the case when life gets a bit busy, but almost a whole 2 weeks had passed and I found myself inwardly groaning at the fact I needed to come up with something, anything, for a blog post this week. And funnily enough, that prickly reluctance I felt gnawing away at me to produce something provoked, in itself, a whole load of questions. Questions like, “Who am I doing this for?” “Why can’t I just say no to things?” “Am I burning the candle at both ends?” Now, no-one is holding a gun to my head when it comes to this blog; I want to do it. It fulfils me, as I'm sure your profession and hobbies do you, despite the time and effort they require. Striking this balance can be so hard. I’m sure at least one of those questions mentioned above resonates with you, reader, and your own personal and professional struggles of late...

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...

Judging by the title of this blog post, you may be forgiven for thinking that I have lost all concept of time in this lockdown and that a Halloween-related essay is about to unfold before your eyes. But sadly, readers, the reality is that ghosting is an all-year-round occurrence, and is something that has particularly piqued my interest as I meander down the road of self-discovery. As spooky and unexplainable a phenomenon as the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs? Or just an escape tactic we grasp for when we feel like our backs are to the wall? Let’s explore. A definition of ghosting is as follows: “abruptly cutting off contact with someone without giving that person any warning or explanation for doing so” (Gould, 2020). While the term is associated nowadays with the cessation of online or over-the-phone communication, the actuality of up and disappearing out of a relationship like a fart in the wind has always happened - I refer you to cinematic and real-life stories of husbands or wives wh...

Making a conscious decision to work on yourself and to commit to personal growth is an epiphany. It feels like you’ve been born again. It feels like a veil has been lifted and you can finally see clearly. And, unfortunately, one of the first things you see is just how unevolved and ignorant other people are, and how poorly they are handling life, whether they are aware of it or not. I realise how snobby and callous that sounds, but I mean it purely in a humorous sense and not disparagingly. Those of us who have chosen to be more proactive in how we live are by no means experts, nor are we even necessarily happier. But it is annoying to be a reflective person amid those who live more passively, and at times it can actually be quite disheartening too. I heard an opinion somewhere along the line (can’t remember where) that people go to therapy to deal with people in their lives who won’t go to therapy. Now, whether therapy is part of your self-help journey or not, the principle still stan...

Don’t give me that look. I know the one. When you hear the word ‘meditation’ and straight away images of dreadlocked, baggy-pantsed, incense-burning hippies singing ‘Kumbaya’ come to mind. While the idea of meditation or mindfulness seems very new and trendy (especially to the Irish), it has been around for thousands of years, playing a huge part in Eastern religions. Having said that, you don’t need to be a Buddhist monk on a mountaintop to be able to meditate; cultivating your own mindfulness practice is actually easier and more accessible now than ever before. I would like to preface this post by informing the reader that this here is merely an introduction to meditation ( my understanding of it anyway), and will not address its every facet. I felt I needed to do a series of blog posts around the concept of meditation and mindfulness because to try to condense it all into one would be like trying to put the ocean in a glass. The Cambridge dictionary definition of meditation forms a...

For me, peace is everything. It is the overarching principle after which this whole blog of mine is named, after all. So much so, that I use peace as a yardstick for measuring how my day went: did I have peace in abundance? Or was I missing it? Peace is out there for us all, it is comforting, and it is needed, if we are to make our way successfully on this earth. Before we venture any further down this road, we must agree on a definition of peace. I do not mean it to describe the interim between war, the down-time where all seems calm, on the surface, tension bubbling like stew underneath. My understanding of peace is one of a deep-rooted sense of contentment - a feeling of safety, like an impenetrable bubble. Not bliss per se: bliss is fleeting, and the idea of it, in my mind, is one that does not coexist with life’s troughs, only its peaks, and even the most naive of us knows that that is not how life goes. Where light is shone, shadows are cast. And that’s just simple physics. Peace...