Running a Marathon in FlipFlops

17/10/2023

Sometimes I think I should have called him Rod the Dog, not Bob 🤣🤣🤣🤣

29/09/2023

Stained glass at the old TB hospital at The Grange

14/09/2023

Then and now.

09/09/2023

05/09/2023

An amazing charity doing amazing work. And providing visuals like this can only benefit patients as we see so many scared out of their wits on day one as they have no idea what radiotherapy is.

05/09/2023

Contrasts ... New shower room in, and my goth bog next door 😁

08/08/2023

I'm not sure that these next thoughts embrace Stoicism totally on the topic of forgiveness.
The question is 'what would forgiveness feel like?' And to me it will be to feel free. Specifically free from my mother.
The child of a narcissistic mother has a weird relationship - a mix of bonded love, hate, indifference, resentment and grudging love. And although forgiveness does set you free I will not forgive her but I have managed indifference. I don't forgive because to forgive would open up my relationship with her and that would bring me more pain as she refuses to be accountable for anything and is the perpetual adult-child.
I'll be completely free when she is gone, I may have grief, I may be conflicted and I am prepared for that. But not wishing anyone ill, I look forward to the day when I am finally free.

23/07/2023

Sweating the small stuff - part 2
A journal extract from when I was deep in depression.

"I did lots of small things today instead of a huge big nothing. I decided to refocus and list what needed to be done. This broke it down into manageable chunks of things to do which I could tick off one-by-one instead of one mammoth task. And it doesn't matter that I don't do all of the stuff on the list, I can always do them tomorrow instead.
This has got me away from my 'all or nothing' mentality and instead take smaller steps. And by doing so, I achieve so much more and subsequently feel so much better about myself - and less depressed."

23/07/2023

Sweating the small stuff
A primary principle of Stoicism is that the only thing you truly control are your thoughts. One your realise this, realise that essentially not matter what you do, you can't stop what is coming so worrying about it is just going to stress you out.
Now this does not give you the right to absolve yourself of all responsibility, on the contrary, the Stoics maintain that you should prepare yourself as much as possible for future events so if the worst does happen you're prepared. And subsequently suffer less stress than you otherwise would.
So what small stuff do I sweat?
Keeping a daily routine - essential for mental health as doing nothing is one of my fastest slides down into depression.
Curbing my knee-jerk spending as buying stuff does not make me happy, just the opposite. Once that gleeful feeling at point of purchase has passed I feel guilty, because whatever it is is not needed. And then I feel stressed because we're not rolling in money so I've just added to our financial burdens - again.
Ignoring the inner voice that makes me scared to do stuff that I know will benefit me, eg going out for a walk. Or more significantly, talked me out of going to university for years because it would be too hard for me (thank you mother!).
Sweating the small things makes life worthwhile, makes me feel worthwhile, and eventually led me to feel content for the first time in my life because I became happy with me.

20/07/2023

Though of the day - from my journals

I found that my thoughts and judgements were causing me anguish as my low self-esteem meant that I was subservient to everyone in a desperate need to be liked. I would desperately try to please everyone despite me not really liking some people, and then would feel hurt when they bi***ed about me behind my back, because I was a subservient suck-up!

I've learnt to let this go and recognised that the only thing I do control is my thoughts - about myself in particular - and that how people think about me is out of my control and that is THEIR problem, not mine.

I've continued to be me, some would say naively expecting good from everyone as I am a believer - again some would say naively - treat others how you would want to be treated yourself. It doesn't always work out but I've learnt to not take it personally.

And that is a HUGE part of overcoming low self-esteem!

15/07/2023

When I first began looking at Stoic philosophy in earnest I thought 'Aye, Right!'. I'd spent a life time programmed to believe that I was an unworthy, unlovable, useless, stupid piece of s**te and though I'd overcome a lot and put myself through university as a mature student, had a massive case of imposter syndrome and thoroughly believed I was s**t at my job and would be sacked any minute.

But, and it took a hell of a long time to believe it, it is true. When you control your thoughts and emotions you DO control everything. I slowly came to realise that the thoughts I had were what I had been programmed (for want of a better term) to believe about myself and that it wasn't true. The first step was actually noticing the thought patterns and realising that I had severely negative commentary running through my head about 95% of the time.

Then it was overcoming the depression-related agreement thoughts and challenging the commentary. And slowly, by challenging the commentary while reflecting on the events that produced the thoughts, I began to change my internal narrative.

I'm still very much a work in progress, but I'm the happiest and most content I've ever been. And I believe in myself!

15/05/2023

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONIUS
At the beginning of his 'Meditations' Marcus Aurelius refers to the Stoic skills learnt from the people around him in his younger years. He reflects on how these teachers helped his world view and not be influenced by things that are unimportant, "to not busy myself with trifling things, and not to give credit to what was said by miracle workers .... nor to give myself up passionately to such things."
He learnt the importance of philosophy, and how even the best and kindest characters needed the constant discipline of reflection and improvement to avoid being "led astray to sophistic emulation ...nor showing myself off as a man who practices such discipline."

Because even if we are philosophical, reflect and learn from our actions and thoughts, strive to do better, be better, if we then flaunt these things to others, we are not being Stoic, we are not helping with kindness and experience, we are at the beginning of the slippery slope of 'look at me, look how good, wonderful blah blah I am'. We begin to feed the ego and begin to bed led astray from the core values of Stoicism.
For a more 'modern' take on this, look at the lyrics of 'Jesus he knows me' by Genesis, an excellent musical satire about money-making TV evangelists :)