I took a day off

What happens when you allow yourself the space to do nothing but write aimlessly? 

A short and sweet post from me at the start of this week as I have a deadline for an article I’m writing.

Ironically then, it’s about what happens when we don’t have a deadline. What happens is that my playfulness emerges in the form of rhyming couplets.

So here is the poem that wanted to play in response to Nelly Bryce’s prompt on ‘self love’ over at the wonderful community of writers she hosts on Poetry Pals. Check it out if you’d like some gentle support and passionate cheerleading for your writing efforts, however big or small.

A PARTIAL ECLIPSE

I took a day off

To be a poet

To write and rhyme

Then get to show it

I had a bath

I read a book

More importantly 

I didn’t cook

I didn’t clean

I didn’t tidy

No one knew

Quite where to find me

I didn’t shop

I didn’t Hoover

I didn’t reboot

The computer

I didn’t answer 

‘Where is…?’ questions

And ‘have you got…?’

Was never mentioned 

I didn’t check 

Mum’s medication 

I didn’t do 

My meditation

I didn’t rush 

To get back home

I didn’t check

Or scroll my phone

I didn’t bow

I didn’t scrape

I didn’t wear 

My hero’s cape

I didn’t text

I didn’t call

Didn’t strive to

Give my all

There was no drive

To do it better

All go was gone

From this go getter

It was just a day off

But as I’m here to write a poem

Let’s say it was a partial eclipse

That will impress them 

But then the words

Simply don’t scan

And trying hard

Upsets my plan 

I took a day off

To be a poet

To write and rhyme

Then get to show it

— Ali Pember

How about you? Do you ever gift yourself the opportunity to do nothing ‘productive’? What happens?

I can say that my urge to ‘tidy up’ and ‘get on’ is lingering below a paper-thin surface. But my childlike curiosity to put some creative marks on that surface wins out sometimes. How might you be more playful today?

Have you got the time?

I don’t mean stop and look at your watch (not that anyone has watches these days). I mean have you got the time to do what you need to do? To be who you want to be?

That question of ‘have you got the time?’ can land in different ways depending on your stage of life. You may find yourself in the trenches of early motherhood, where the nights stretch like elastic and the days blur into a monotony of feeding and changing. Simultaneously wanting aspects of your existence to hurry up, and wanting to press pause to soak that tiny person in a little longer. Or maybe your kids are long since grown and flown, and time opens up into a different dimension. I find myself, an older mother (to whom the hideous phrase elderly primigravida applied when I was pregnant), post menopausal at a time when my daughter is on the wild trip of puberty, and with elderly parents to care for. So my time takes on a poignant quality.

I don’t know where this note will find you. You may not have a school aged child. You may not have children at all. But I hope you may relate to a sense of incredible optimism about all the things you might possibly achieve, if only you had the time.

If only…

‘If only I had the time’ I find myself thinking. Except this kind of thinking isn’t really thinking. My rational brain has checked out as soon as I utter these words. It isn’t thinking, it is complete longing. If only… If only…

I somehow intuit that I could be a much better person, living a more fulfilled life, if only I had the time.

"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,The bark of the tree was as soft as the skies.The wolf sits below, hungry and lonely.He cries to the moon,"If only, if only."

— Louis Sachar

Just like the woodpecker wanting a tree with soft bark, my longing for more time is really a sigh for something that doesn’t exist. No amount of productivity hacks or time management tools are going to offer up more hours in the day.

I have to be okay with the time I’ve been given. There it is, just ticking along, not trying to piss me off. It’s only when I try to squeeze every last drop of meaningful or productive juice out of the fruit of a new day that I feel so parched.

Perhaps I’m stretching the metaphor, but my days can feel like satsumas you’ve kept too long at the back of the fridge. They look plump and shiny and inviting. But when you peel them, the segments inside are slightly dry and full of pith. The problem isn’t the fruit. The problem is my expectation.

Holiday amnesia

School holidays induce a peculiar kind of amnesia in me. I forget what it’s like. The lack of routine. The late bedtimes. The need for constant snacks. The random playdates and endless trips to the park. The driving to National Trust properties to take part in supposedly educational activities along with 350,000,000 other families. The giving in to being pestered for a McDonalds. The bedroom hopscotch that takes place on sleepovers. The impossible conundrum of trying to find somewhere that isn’t too deathly dull for an 11 year old, but with wide accessible pavements and plenty of places to sit for my mum, who finds it difficult to walk. The assembling of a stunt kite in the boot of the car. Only to find that the wind brings heavy rain clouds that force us back into the car, where we sit with windows steaming up at the scenic viewpoint.

In this peculiar kind of amnesia, I think that I will have more time. I will have more time, even though I am still working and I have no childcare. Because time suddenly assumes expansive proportions when viewed through the lens of the holidays. I think that I will finish the umpteen books I have started. I am optimistic about the possibility of organising the cupboard where all the towels and bedding have been chucked haphazardly for the past 6 months. I intend to cook wholesome meals from scratch, including a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe with 15 different ingredients that are not readily available in my local supermarket. I imagine that I will write insightful and erudite articles for you, dear readers. I even dreamt that I wrote a whole piece last night then woke to find it didn’t exist.

So instead, you get this. My half baked ramblings that veer from tragi-comic to somewhat profound. For goodness’ sake - time - the topic is vast, how can I ever do it justice in a Substack post? Stick with me…

Productivity trap

Much of the source of my ‘if only’ thinking is that I feel under pressure to make every minute count. In the Western world we are constantly exhorted to live our best lives. To work hard, be present for our families, and have an active social life. All while being self contained, not needing help, nor social support. The ‘perfect mother myth’ thrives in this kind of culture. There’s always a nagging sense that we could be doing more, should be doing more. It keeps us busy and overwhelmed. Not enjoying the time we have. Individuals sacrificing themselves for the greater good. Worker bees without the hive.

This is a topic I will return to in future, as it deserves a much longer post, and right now… well, right now, I don’t have the time!

Savouring time

So back to the topic in hand, which is really just a musing on my relationship to time. On the one hand, I can feel a rich full belly of time when I truly slow down and savour the moment. There is no hurry. Everything is unfolding exactly as it should. On the other hand, I can feel such a ridiculous sense of pressure to be in the moment that I simply can’t.

The idea of ‘making the most’ of the time we are given seems to me to be the issue. That’s where the pressure lies for me, at least. But what if we simply need to get comfortable with ‘expecting the least’ of the time we are given? Not having expectations opens a space to savouring what is actually here.

Many of the moments in my day are pretty mundane. In a moment I will get up from writing this to let the dog out because she is scratching at the door. I will get distracted by checking whether the washing is dry or not. I will make a mental note to get the prescriptions ready to drop in to the pharmacy tomorrow. I will rummage through the fridge to find what’s there for lunch and probably find those old satsumas.

Mary Oliver writes about this sense of interrupting yourself mid flow, and the ordinariness of time. Have a look at the quote below. If you read the full piece, she is arguing for the need to honour your creative power and give it space free of distractions. However, the thing I love the most about her insight here is that the magic of creativity exists alongside the need to “eat, speak, sleep, cross a street, wash a dish!”

The clock!  That twelve-figured moon skull, that white spider belly!  How serenely the hands move with their filigree pointers, and how steadily!  Twelve hours, and twelve hours, and begin again!  Eat, speak, sleep, cross a street, wash a dish!  The clock is still ticking.  All its vistas are just so broad—are regular.  (Notice that word.)  Every day, twelve little bins in which to order disorderly life, and even more disorderly thought.  The town’s clock cries out, and the face on every wrist hums or shines; the world keeps pace with itself.  Another day is passing, a regular and ordinary day.  (Notice that word also.)”

From ‘Of Power and Time’ by Mary Oliver

Yes, sometimes we need to put down the dishes to attend to something more beautiful and profound. But most often I think my creative power as a mother exists in the very ordinary life I am building to make a regular rhythm and presence for my daughter. There are clean clothes. Snacks will be replenished. Bedtime cuddles are always available. This is no less valuable than the ‘memory making’ days out or time spent communing with nature.

I started by asking ‘have you got the time’ to do what you need to do, or be who you want to be? Time is motoring along, and you are most likely busy doing all the things. Perhaps that frustrates you. Perhaps you would love (as I will admit I would) more time to yourself. Perhaps that’s the nub of it, really.

But I want to acknowledge that there is still being in the doing. Being doesn’t require you to sit on a cushion for hours in meditation. Being just requires you to notice. It’s okay to be making yet another packed lunch. The crusts cut off the bread. Exactly the right variety of processed cheese. The apple because you want to include at least one of their 5 a day. The hidden Creme Egg because you like there to be an element of surprise. The juice carton. Making a packed lunch is a moving meditation. This is love in action. This is enough for now.

Special time

When my daughter was little, I used to quench her insatiable need for me by offering ‘special time’ each day. I would set an egg timer for 15 minutes and sit down and be immersed in completely child-led play. I would do a voice over for all the teddies and dolls at the tea party. I would dance to the tinny tunes and random beats selected by her as DJ on a battery powered keyboard. I would overcome my resistance to mess and reach for the glue sticks and glitter shakers.

Those 15 minutes sometimes felt intolerable. I had so much to do. I was touched out and in need of space. I was incapable of much enthusiasm for another tea party scenario. At other times, that short burst of focussed attention opened up a sense of being in the moment that was as freeing for me and it was nourishing for her. It made the rest of the day flow somehow. She was more content. I was more available.

This makes me wonder. I wonder if a simple practice might be to gift myself some special time. Just 15 minutes to do whatever I want to do each day, guilt free. It’s a micro equivalent of the artist date recommended by Julia Cameron in her classic book ‘The Artist’s Way’. In it, she says:

“An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you pre-plan and defend against all interlopers. You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child. That means no lovers, friends, spouses, children - no taggers-on of any stripe.”

So this will be my experiment to Tether & Tend for the rest of the school holiday. To ring-fence a daily sliver of time and see what happens. To gift myself some minutes with no expectation. No multi-tasking. No tidying up. No responding to messages. No distractions. And what a gift that will be. A glistening, truly juicy, orange segment ready to be picked and eaten. Even savoured.

If you want to join me in cultivating some simple practices to help you to

* become more aware of your thoughts

* find a sense of grounding and safety in your body

* soothe your nervous system

then watch this space, because I’m launching a mini course soon.

It is called Growing Present and it will be available for paid subscribers from the week beginning 22 April onwards.

Each week will include a short video to explain the practice, a one page reminder, and a guided audio.

Questions for exploration

(either in your journal, or here below if you feel called to comment or reply to this email - I’d love to hear from you!)

* What is your relationship to time?

* Do you feel a pressure to ‘make the most’ of every second?

* When does time take on a softer or more generous feel in your life?

* Would you feel able to gift yourself 15 minutes each day? Or does even that seem a remote possibility?

As always, just a reminder that this Substack isn’t therapy or coaching. If this brings up stuff that is triggering for you or that you need to process further, please seek the support of qualified professional.

I offer 1:1 sessions in my Therapeutic Coaching practice, which you can find out more about here. I specialise in working with mothers, so my website references this, but I do also see a wide range of clients with different issues.

For anyone feeling socially awkward and physically inept (in life, or on a bicycle).

I had another post planned for today, but instead I find myself with something to say about cycle-breaking. Of a literal and metaphorical kind.

As I begin to write this, my daughter is on her second day of ‘Bikeability’ with her Year 6 class. She will be out there somewhere, wobbling.

This is by way of a little prayer for her to have a better day than yesterday.

And, in voicing this, I am also saying a prayer for those of us who:

* have felt deeply hurt but never shown it;

* mask the effort it takes to hold all those raw edges together;

* hate rough and tumble;

* stumble on inept into sporting and social arenas;

* sense they are on the outside looking in;

* are left sitting on the bench.

In my world, prayer means calling on something bigger than myself, not necessarily God for anyone who feels excluded by this language. Prayer can mean what you want it to mean. A sincere asking. A heartfelt wish. A healing thought. An unspoken vulnerability. A private chat. A tiny offering. For me, it’s an acknowledgement that I can’t control everything. I can’t make it all alright. I can’t short circuit pain for my child. Instead, I look at the sky and say:

“Please let her be ok.

Please let her not wobble too much.

Please let the other kids be kind.” 

Where it all began

‘Bikeability’ is the modernised version of Cycling Proficiency that most folk in the UK will recall from their own school days. I remember the unforgiving surface of a grey concrete playground set up to mimic a road. Having to zigzag around orange plastic bollards. Not wanting to let go, but instructed to stick my arm out to indicate. Trying and failing to do an emergency stop. Losing my balance. Crashing into the bollards. Hot flush of embarrassment and the sting of suppressed tears as the other kids laughed. Oh how they laughed.

It was perhaps over optimistic to attend Cycling Proficiency because I had only recently learned to ride a bike. My mum and dad were not outdoorsy cycling sort of people. But I pestered them for a bike because I wanted to be part of the gang. I wanted to follow my friend Kerry as she freewheeled down the streets where we lived. She looked so confident, so cool, so free. It wasn’t so much the bike that I wanted. It was the swagger, the sass, the independence. Everything my own two wheels represented. The ability to get further away from my parents. The ability to fit in.

Mum clipped out an advert from the back of the Sunday supplement. A cheap enough bike. Made in Czechoslovakia. When Czechoslovakia still existed. I don’t know if she realised that it would come in bits that would need to be bolted together. The box arrived and dad disappeared into the garage for what seemed like the whole weekend. There was a lot of muffled swearing. He emerged with a fully functional bicycle. But, and there is a large but, they had omitted to tell me that it was a fold up shopper bicycle. The kind beloved by old ladies with a blue rinse, people wearing sandals over white socks, and anyone valuing practicality over performance. It was not cool.

I was desperate for performance over practicality. Yet there I was, trapped in sensible shoes, cardigans buttoned up to keep out the cold, and easy care polyester trousers with an elasticated waistband. In a fatal design flaw for something made in the early 1980s, the flare of my polyester trouser kept catching on the handle that was meant to collapse the bike. So my deeply uncool Czechoslovakian folder up shopper bike had a disconcerting habit of folding up as I was riding it. The whole spectacle was excruciating.

My cycling dreams of freedom came to an end one afternoon. I had failed Cycling Proficiency so I could only ride on the pavement. There was a cul-de-sac just behind my house where some new houses had been built on the allotments. It was a steep drop down into the circle of driveways. Kerry sped off down the slope at high speed, executed a perfect sharp turn at the bottom, grinning. She beckoned for me to follow. It wasn’t sabotage. She must have thought it would be OK for me, her clumsy friend, as there was no through traffic. I was scared, but willing.

I started my descent. For one brief moment of suspended animation - the wind rushing through my hair, the dizzying speed, the sheer exhilaration - I felt elated. I was the Eddie the Eagle of the fold up shopper cyclist’s world, sticking two fingers up to the kids who had laughed at my ineptitude. Until I came a cropper. I was unable to apply the brakes gently but firmly enough and turn the handlebars to bring the bike around into a safe arc. I must have hit them too hard, or perhaps it was just that the bike wasn’t made for speed. I went flying over the top, and landed smack on the ground, skidding down the road in a starfish formation of chin, nose, elbows and knees. I put my hand up to my face. There was a lot of gravel and blood.

In my quest to be cool, I had managed to crack both my two front teeth, with one half broken off. This meant I had to have an NHS standard issue crown fitted. It had a metal pin that was painfully visible. It was made of a semi porous material that was a magnet for food stains. I was doomed to spend my teenage years doing a funny smile so it wouldn’t show. The accident put paid to my cycling ambitions too. The bicycle was put back into the box in bits, and taken to the dump.

As a parent myself, I understand why my mum wanted to protect me from literal hurt. But there was no encouragement to dust myself off and try it again at any point. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I got back on a bicycle, and there’s another, longer cycle-breaking story to be told about that. All I know is that it was never mentioned, and the indelible imprint of my physical (and emotional) awkwardness has persisted long into adulthood. It was more than being unable to ride a bike. It underscored my sense of being unable to fit in. To my mind, I was always going to wear unfashionable clothes and have dodgy teeth.

How it’s going

Back to the present day and ‘Bikeability’ for my daughter. The name may have changed, but unfortunately the cruel taunts of other kids haven’t.

I could tell before she even spoke that it had not been a good experience. Eyes brimful with tears that only spilled in the privacy of home. Red faced, not wanting sympathy or attention, but not knowing quite what to do with these big feelings. Oh goodness, the recognition. I have been there so many times.

The desperate hurt plunged deep into your whole being by comments like:

“You haven’t learnt to ride a bike then”

“Don’t get stuck behind her, she’ll crash into you”

“Your bike looks stupid”

“You are as bad as your mum’s driving” (Apparently I was spotted running over a plastic bollard outside the school gate. A recurring motif in my life.)

And all the while, smiling, keeping it in, joking along with each fresh insult.

In situations like this, all I can do is be a big safe container for whatever needs to tumble out. I work to keep myself steady whilst simultaneously wanting to lash out at the kids concerned. I offer to intervene. She declines. I say that she doesn’t have to stick with it if she doesn’t want to. She does.

We have a quiet evening. We watch TV. No homework. Lots of cuddles.

How it turned out

Several pep talks later, and despite her tummy ache in the morning, my daughter decided to go in for day 2 of ‘Bikeability’.

The good news is that it wasn’t so bad. They went out on the road in a trail of fluorescent yellow tabards. I caught sight of them as I drove back from the town. I waved encouragingly at my daughter. She was at the back, but at least seemed to sport a genuine smile. The girl who had teased her yesterday was more concerned about not going into potholes than name calling. One of the outwardly confident boys teetered on the brink of falling off as he indicated to turn. My daughter found that the previous day’s practice had helped her to feel more confident with the bike, if not the social situation. She came home, glad it was over, but not distraught.

It’s not a perfect end to the story. Cycle-breaking is not a direct and easy process. To be honest, I don’t even like the language, although it makes for a neat play on words. I think we just create new cycles with a hope that they will spin in a more productive way. The skeletons of the old cycles remain, rusting, with odd sharp jagged edges that can catch you out sometimes.

There’s more to be done to support her confidence in this new skill, and in her ability to field unkind comments. There’s work I still need to do on that narrative that I will never possess physical grace and am hopelessly clumsy. Or worse, that I have to sit on the bench of life for fear of being caught out. But I do feel that my little prayer was answered. So here it is again, made universal for anyone struggling to fit in:

“Please let us be ok.

Please let us not wobble too much.

Please let people be kind.” 

That’s all we can ask for really. That, and good teeth.

I’m thinking of us all gliding along gentle woodland paths, riding pretty pink bicycles through dappled shade, in my fantasy of future summer holidays.

Questions for exploration

(either in your journal, or here below if you feel called to comment - I’d love to hear from you!)

* Have you felt parallels between what’s going on for your child and what went on for you as a child?

* Does that make it harder or easier to handle?

* How do you support yourself in moments like this?

* Are there narratives about yourself persisting from childhood that you’d like to change?

As always, just a reminder that this Substack isn’t therapy or coaching. If this brings up stuff that is triggering for you or that you need to process further, please seek the support of qualified professional.

I’ve written another similar post you can access here with 3 suggestions on how to support your sensitive child (and your sensitive self) through playground dramas. So I won’t repeat the points here, but do take a look if this resonates and you want to explore further.

In the great genetic and environmental casserole of stardust called being alive, do you ever wonder where certain ingredients came from? Where, in that huge pot of randomness that swirled together the day you were conceived, the slight fleck of brown in your otherwise green irises came from? How your propensity for the absurd took hold? Why the bizarre evolutionary code determined that you love brussels sprouts but hate parsnips? Or how, in my case, despite many reasons to be cheerful, I am nearly always worried?

Sometimes it’s obvious. The recipe notes are in the margin.

We knew that my daughter’s nose would be a variant of my partner’s the minute we saw the abrupt little peak on the ultrasound picture. It was nothing like mine. My nose is a wide fleshy plasticine affair that protrudes in a way I never realised.

Until the day that my class did silhouette pictures by tracing round the shadow of each others’ profile using an overhead projector (this was 1982). The results were strung up in a frieze around the top of the classroom walls. It became obvious that my nose was the largest nose there. Kids can be cruel. None so cruel as the kid in your own head telling you that you should save up for a nose job (closely followed by a boob job) all through your 20s.

But I digress. I wanted to say something of the unbroken daisy chain that is my great grandma - grandma - mum - me - my daughter. The way in which we each grow out of what has come before, and yet emerge as unique as individual flowers.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower. Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees. Is my destroyer.

Dylan Thomas

So I’d like to say I come from a long line of warrior women. But actually, that’s a typo, and I come from a long line of worriers.

Worry is the green fuse that runs through us all like a fault line.

Worry is what keeps us alive into old age, fretting.

A long line of worriers

My great grandma had reason to be worried. Scraping enough money to get by. Feeding and clothing 6 children by taking in washing. Her husband, my great grandfather, a feckless, but at least not violent, drunk. A woman struck mute after she was dug out from under the kitchen table when the house was bombed in World War II. My mum remembers her as a sweet old lady. But silent, anxious.

My grandma also had reason to be worried. The eldest child, rapped on the knuckles for being left handed. Leaving school at 14 to go into service to support the family. A life of hard work. So hard that she always wore a button up polyester overall on her days off. Converting to Catholicism for her fiancé. A string of rosary beads was all that was left when he ran off with all the money they had saved for the wedding. When I started going out with boys, gran already had senile dementia, but in a moment of absolute clarity, she said “you be careful” because there was clearly reason to be cautious.

My mum had less reason to be worried, but she still was. A bright grammar school girl. She had the grades, but no funds or ambition for further study. Nonetheless shifting from working class to middle class. Meeting my dad in London right at the height of 1960s. Yet the freedom of that decade somehow passed them by. Money coming in, but a lingering sense that this didn’t come easy. That the glass that was filling could become half empty at any moment.

Me, with even less reason to be worried, but I still am. I even worry about my worry. I sat in weekly therapy for 2 years talking about the indestructible force of worry that drives down like a tap root into my maternal line. And now I am a mother myself, I am worried that I am passing it on.

And what of my daughter? Well, no matter how much of a ‘secure base’ I aim to be, she worries. 10 years on from that ultrasound picture with its cute promise of a profile and a personality, the button nose is there on her face, and the worries are there in her head.

They showed up from the start in a myriad tiny ways. A fussy baby who would not settle in the baby massage class. Who wriggled and writhed away from my oily hands in seeming discomfort. When all around little puddings of babies, plump and flush with soothing touch slept peacefully on blankets where they had been placed. A careful toddler who didn’t need reins because she clung to my legs in the supermarket. A shy 3 year old who recoiled from the other children turning to look at her when she walked into preschool at lunch times. A cautious 5 year old who found playground rough and tumble completely overwhelming and chose instead to go to book club. A sensitive tween who thinks about all the different possible motives another girl might have for sending an ambiguous message on the group chat. 

So I worry. I worry that the worry truly is a fault line that cannot be repaired. 

Worry as an ugly thing

I refuse to walk carefully through life only to arrive safely at death.

Paulo Coelho

I felt very stirred by this quote when I first saw it on the wall at a conference organised by my corporate employer. Oblivious to the fact that my time in financial services was exactly that - a kind of safe living death.

Back then, I thought that ‘being careful’ was a self limiting belief and I wanted to expunge it from my existence. I tried lots of positive affirmations and cognitive behavioural techniques. I lapped up the classic self help book by Susan Jeffers called ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’.

It all helped, up to a point, but the worry had a way of worming its way back in. The worry seemed to say ‘you can work through me, sidestep me, ride roughshod over me, numb yourself to me, replace me, but I’m not going anywhere - I will keep you safe’.

It is true, at its worst, worry is a corrosive and unnecessary force that stops us from enjoying life. It stops us from being in the here and now. It takes us out of our bodies into the endless loop of rumination in our heads. Or it takes over our whole being with physical manifestations - stomach aches, migraines, furrowed brows, knotted shoulders.

In the therapy room, my ancestor’s worry might now be labelled as Generalised Anxiety Disorder. My grandma would say it was her nerves. My mum would say it is her sense of realism. I have tried on various labels for size, from just plain anxious, to highly sensitive, to deeply feeling. At heart, most of these are worried states of being.

It was at some point in my 30s that I realised all my attempts to stop worrying were futile. It wasn’t because of some kind of spiritual awakening or cataclysmic event. It was because of the painstakingly slow and steady work of being more aware of my own thoughts and receiving them kindly. It’s a thread that has persisted in my life and work ever since, and it forms a large part of what I aim to share with you here.

I was able to turn towards my worry with tenderness, because I realised she was only there whispering in my ear because she cared.

Worry as a beautiful thing

Worry - or anxiety, or fear, or unease, or simply a niggling sense of things not being quite right - is usually something we want to get rid of. It’s seen as weak or shameful or silly. We are taught to ‘tackle fears’, ‘push on through’, ‘fake it until you make it’, ‘cheer up love’, and ‘stop being so pathetic’.

But once you have an inkling that worry might actually be trying to tell you something, it stops being something you want to get rid of.

These days, I know when the uneasy feelings show up in my body and the fretful thoughts start to loop in my mind, it’s wisest to slow down and listen. Because the irony is that when I listen to worried Ali, who I spent years trying to silence or ignore, she quietens down of her own accord.

My daughter has been a huge part of this alchemy for me.

In making space for her childhood worries, I have started to soften towards my own. And I’ve started to loosen the soil around that deep tap root of anxiety in my family.

I have also started to appreciate my maternal lineage of deeply feeling women. The bright, beautiful, blossoming daisy chain of great grandma - grandma - mum - me - my daughter. It is not a fault line after all. The roots of our worry are also the roots of our empathy and care for others.

Completing the chain

When I’m feeling overwhelmed, these are my little mantras about worry:

* Worry is the tinge of doubt that makes me sensitive to another person’s feelings.

* Worry is my ability to read the underlying emotion of unease in an outwardly bright and cheery smile.

* Worry is not always helpful, but it is always trying to be helpful.

* Worry is what keeps me checking back against my values.

* Worry is an internal voice trying to keep me safe in uncertain times.

* Worry is what lingers in my body long before and after that internal voice arises.

* Worry is not all good, but it is not all bad either.

* Worry doesn’t want to be stuffed down or bottled up.

* Worry just wants to be acknowledged and soothed.

I hope that hearing some of my story might help you in the process of coming into a more friendly relationship with your worries.

If you want to develop some foundational practices to help you to

* become more aware of your thoughts

* find a sense of grounding and safety in your body

* soothe your nervous system

then watch this space, because I’m launching a mini course soon.

It is called Growing Present and it will be available for paid subscribers from the week beginning 18 March onwards. I will share more about it in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, I wanted to leave you with the ever wise words of Mary Oliver. The only twist I would weave into her otherwise perfect ending is that you might want to sing alongside your worries rather than leaving them behind…

I Worried

by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shallI correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,lockjaw, dementia?

Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

I let her ride on my back

Faded photographs of sore knees and hurt feelings come back in vivid colour when my daughter feels them too. How to support your sensitive child (and your sensitive self) through playground dramas.

I don’t know what happened to Sandra but I do know that she left me with a very formative memory of what it's like to quite literally take too much on my shoulders.

It was several summers after the scorcher of 1976. The grassy banks that sloped steeply away from the playing field at my school were crunchy and tinder dry. Tracks had worn through the repeated trampling of feet. Some bold kids still rolled down the hill on their sides like mad sausages on a barbeque. It wasn’t soft and inviting. There was no pillowy landing, and instead you risked crashing onto the concrete playground below.

I wasn’t one of the bold kids. I was physically timid, cautious, and shy. Much more inclined to watch their antics from the sidelines. Half thrilled, half petrified that I might have to join in.

So my mum knew something had happened the day I came home from school with scraped and bloodied knees. Bits of dirt were still under the skin. My socks were grubby and grass stained. The stitching on my skirt had torn a little. My wrists were scratched and sore. I didn’t really want to say anything, to be a tell tale, but this time there was too much to cover up.

Mum asked me what had happened.

“Sandra wanted to ride on my back.”

And, little by little, mum eased it out of me. All while cleaning up my sore knees and gently washing away the dirt. 

You see, Sandra wanted to roll down the hill, but she wanted transport up to the top first. She chose me to be the pack horse. A piggy back wouldn’t do. It had to be down on my knees in the parched mud.

Mum was incredulous “Oh, Ali, you let her do that?”

Yes, indeed I did. And I have let countless Sandras ride on my back since. Although over 40 years later, I do at least know what I’m doing now and why. I sometimes even tell those Sandras where to get off.

Sandra would these days be what my daughter calls a frenemy.

noun: fren·​e·​my ˈfre-nə-mē plural frenemies

a person who is or pretends to be a friend but who is also in some ways an enemy or rival

She had been working on me for weeks, if not months. Sometimes showing me a flash of genuine feeling - sticking up for me - complimenting my new stack heel shoes (this was the 1970s) - giving me one of her new pencils.

And then at other times casting me a sharp glance - commenting on my deeply unfashionable quilted anorak - knocking my marble out of the way on the marble run - cosying up to my friend Nicole.

It was confusing. I was as gullible then as I still am now. Open, receptive, thinking the best, desperate to be friends with a cool kid, not wanting be left out. 

Sandra wanted to see how far she could go with this.

When you are a sensitive soul the problem is that you can almost see this stuff happening in slow motion, and yet you get sucked in. You go back to the same sites of your wounding, thinking it will be different this time. You get hurt over and over again.

And when you are a sensitive parent, the stakes are even higher, because it’s not just you being hurt in the playground anymore. It’s your child going through the self same struggles.

Fast forward to 2024 and it’s much less about scraped knees for my 11 year old daughter. It’s more about a snarky message in an online group chat. But I still feel a surge of recognition when she bottles up all her upsets and lets them out. Spilling tears and secrets into my lap on the short drive home from school. Even waiting until we are out of sight until she shares anything.

“They can’t hear you,” I say

“Just drive” she replies, wanting to get away from any possibility that vulnerability might be seen and seized upon somehow. 

To be clear, this is not bullying we are talking about. It’s not in the same league as the Sandra situation. But it is subtle and insidious and potentially just as damaging for a sensitive soul.

When your child feels deeply, things linger. They carry those tiny comments, glances, and scrapes around with them in a little drawstring bag marked 'hurts'. And you, as ill equipped as you feel, have to hold the little bag and open it tenderly.

My heart breaks for my daughter in these moments. I want to scoop her up and wrap a huge protective cloak around us both. It plunges me straight back into the playground circa 1979.

My mum was as loving and supportive as she could be, but she didn't really understand the depth or nuance of my reactions. She was of the 'you need to toughen up' school of parenting. I didn’t have a model for being with my hurt and my child’s hurt at the same time. I’ve had to figure this out on my own.

Tether & Tend PRACTICE

Like anything I share here, please take what lands, and reject what doesn’t. I am not the expert in you or your child. I am just fumbling forward with this stuff as I go.

You may well be wondering how to best support your child and avoid getting sucked in or triggered by those playground dramas. Here are some thoughts about how to Tether & Tend in a similar situation:

1) Be in the here and now

As difficult as it is to detach your 7 year old self from your 37 year old self (or whatever age or stage you currently relate to), be in the here and now with your child and their hurts.

Tether yourself with FOFBOC - Feet on Floor, Bottom on Chair. This is what I use to help people feel grounded at the start of a guided meditation, but it’s useful for life. Feel the points of contact your body is making with the surfaces beneath you. Pause. Breathe. Give your child your full attention.

If full attention simply isn’t possible because you are wrangling with the baby’s dirty nappy, or driving to play group, or trying to keep from the edge of your own tears and exhaustion, do what you can to listen, but make a little note. A voice memo or written down. Come back to it later. Repair is always possible. Calm presence isn’t always possible.

2) Redirect the urge to rescue

The hardest thing to do when your child is suffering is to let them.

I have strong mama bear urges to stomp in and save my daughter from all possible hurt. I know this won’t help, not least because she has reached the age where it would not be cool.

Those urges emerge from a natural desire to protect my offspring. But those urges also emerge from a part of me that is not helpful. A part that wants to save her from the embarrassment and shame I felt about being a deeply feeling child myself.

I have to work hard to redirect my urge to rescue into what would be helpful for her. This sounds like:

* validating her feelings - “ugh, it sounds frustrating when so-and-so says that to you…”

* being a co-regulating presence - “would you like a hug…?”

* sharing my vulnerabilities - “I still get upset when someone says mean things…”

* helping her figure out what to do (if anything) - “how do you wish the play date might have been different…?”

3) Tend to the hurt part in yourself

I’m reminded of the quote that I saw shared as a meme a while back:

“Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”― Catherine M. Wallace

The little stuff is always big stuff, and the same holds for you too. This practice of being with your child’s big feelings will only get easier if you find time to listen and honour the little things in your own experience.

Think back to an example of when your feelings were trampled on, or you took too much on yourself.

Now offer yourself a tiny bit of the compassion I expect you readily give to others. Look at the list of ideas I shared above, and apply to yourself:

* validate your feelings

* find a co-regulating presence (if there is no safe friend, a pet, a plant, or even a warm soft blanket can bring comfort)

* share your vulnerabilities (with a safe friend, a therapist, or by coming along to the gatherings I want to begin hosting here)

If this feels impossible, don’t fret, we have time. This is a practice. It’s something I will keep sharing little by little.

Introducing the Seed Bed

When my partner said that ‘Tether & Tend’ sounded like a newsletter about gardening, he inadvertently (no pun intended) sowed the seed of an idea for how I want this space to grow and evolve.

I want everyone reading to feel nurtured here, which is why I’ve chosen to put complete posts above any paywall, rather than chopping them off part way through.

But I know some folk will want to dig down beyond the surface.

I am beginning to lay down some additional tools and resources that I want to share as part of space for deeper nourishment.

It’s a membership space for paid subscribers called the Seed Bed.

If you’d like to plant yourself right there from the start, I’d be so honoured and encouraged. Or come when the season shifts and it feels like time to blossom.

What’s sprouting in the Seed Bed?

I’m building up a rich loam (I love an analogy - let me know when I’ve gone too far!) of practical things that help me as a deeply feeling person and parent.

First up, I will be sharing a series called Growing Mindful. Think of this like a correspondence course or private podcast with really short doses of helpful theory and practice.

My aim is to help you take small steps to cultivate that calm and grounded presence that feels so elusive when you are in the survival season of parenting.

Next, when enough seedling souls have gathered, I will start to host live workshops and circles.

Your help

In the very real sense of evolution and co-creation, I’d love to know what landed most with you from this post.

And let me know what you’d like to see in the Seed Bed. Because it’s time for me to start planting.

With much love

Ali xx

I’ve always been a reflective sort of person. Ponderous and frustratingly slow for some. Quietly proceeding through life, not rushing on in, taking my time, absorbing intense feelings, observing everything, trying to figure stuff out. Thorough, diligent, detailed. Interested in the edges, the corners, the shadows. Looking down the cracks between the pavement slabs. Desperate for a glimpse behind the masks, facades, and shape shifting I observe in others. The different ways we all try to meld with families and friends and society at large. Then squeezing myself in to badly fitting occupations, relationships, identities. I’m fascinated by the unsaid and the unseen. I can read emotional temperatures like a thermometer. I take far too much of the warmth or cool on myself. Maybe it was something I said?

But I never associated my sensitivity with confidence and strength. I was always told I needed to toughen up. So I assumed this way of being was a weakness. That the way to be resilient was to stuff down my emotions.

“To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead.”

― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

My daughter taught me about being ‘too emotional’ from day one.

She arrived in the world loudly proclaiming her sensitivity to external stimuli. She cried a lot. She did not sleep.

Her ability to inhabit her feelings was total. Her pain and pleasure expressed in vivid extremes and wildly uninhibited.

All at once I recognised myself, and realised what I must have been doing all these years to pretend otherwise. New to this harsh planet, she screamed out that she was a deeply feeling person. She made no apology for it.

The world and his wife told me I should get tough. Cry it out. Early weaning. Separate rooms. Naughty steps. Time outs.

For once I did not listen. This time the stakes were too high. It wasn’t just about me any more.

And although I have doubted myself EVERY single step of the way (because society is just not set up to validate a gentle responsive approach to anything) I have by and large felt comfortable with my choices. They may not suit everyone, but they suit us.

Let me tell you a story from a few years back …

Clem and I went to a birthday party. One of those bouncy castle in a leisure centre affairs, full of echoing noise, boisterous happy kids, and socially awkward parents sitting round the edge.

We have been to those sort of parties before and I have bent over backwards to try and get C to engage with it all.

I’d be the only adult on the bouncy castle with her and peeing myself in the process (and not with laughter). I’d help set up a mini fort in the soft play equipment. I’d do all the craft activities on offer. I’d play hide and seek.

And, before you think I’m some sort of terrible helicopter parent, this was all the while trying to encourage her to play independently, or to hang out with the other kids, saying ‘I’m just over here if you need me’. It was simply exhausting!

This time I was too tired to make the superhuman effort. So we both just sat at the edge, observing. It was fine, I didn’t stress, I didn’t try to make her more sociable than she wanted to be.

It worked out. Other children came over and said hello. We seemed to offer a little sanctuary to some who really didn’t want to be on the bouncy castle either. We noticed everything going on. We giggled with the girl who made rabbit ears out of balloons. We said ‘no thank you’ when the nice man asked us if we wanted to blow bubbles. It was a complete revelation to me.

I remember so clearly going one of our first group play dates and feeling both resentful of my little cling on and also like I had completely failed as a mother for not producing a child who wants to barrel on in brightly to any social situation.

Even at the tender age of a year or so it was obvious she was different, she hung back, she watched, she was slow to warm up to things.

Then people make comments like ‘well it’s because she's an only child’, all the while I’m watching two of her closest friends who are also only children. One whose party it was wanted the whole class there and was right in the thick of all the action. And the other who happily goes to every after school activity going, volunteers to be on the school council and is a real social butterfly.

So no, it is not necessarily an only child thing. But even though I know that I am highly sensitive and shouldn't be surprised that my daughter is too, I still felt a lot of self judgement. that I had somehow not equipped her with more outwardly visible confidence.

And yet it was a very confident Clem who very clearly said ‘no I do not want to go to the school disco’ a few years further on from that bouncy castle party.

So back to the party, and it was a more confident me who sat with her watching everyone else for a good hour and half, realising she was actually enjoying it, pointing out the funny things, and not feeling bad for her or myself.

From the toddler years right through to being a sassy tween, every time my daughter…

* sat on my lap at a play dates and watched instead of joining in with all the games

* refused to blow out candles on her birthday cake because of a) the fire risk and b) the fact that everyone would look at her

* needed my (or my partner’s) help falling and staying asleep

* did not want to catch the netball because it hurts

* preferred not to wear the scratchy gloves

* could not watch Disney films because they are just too emotionally intense and downright scary

* refused to turn the camera on or say anything in Google Classroom meetings

... she was asserting the independence and confidence that other people think she needs.

Every time you choose a more gentle responsive approach to parenting, to relationships, to yourself, to life itself, you are showing GREAT STRENGTH in the face of a society that is constantly telling you to toughen up and to hurry up.

Don’t toughen up or hurry up.

The world needs sensitive people more than ever.

Hello, and thank you for landing here. I’m Ali, and I share about life and parenting as a deeply feeling human in an often unfeeling world. I’m a therapist and coach specialising in matrescence. I’m discovering my voice here away from the noise of social media. If what I say is meaningful to you, please subscribe to Tether & Tend - I do a little happy dance when each and every person decides they would like to be a part of this community.

A date stamp tells me that I started this Substack almost exactly a year ago. And then didn't share anything, which is a very concrete definition of writer's block. So without fanfare or great announcement, I’ve decided to begin again. 

I’m doing this as a small act of hope in what seems like a gloomy start to the year:

* The unremitting rain which fills the fields around where I live - to levels where they threaten flood (see photo - stunning but not always convenient!)

* The rising tide of rodents (certainly mice and possibly rats) who sought higher ground in our kitchen.  They chewed through the hot and cold water pipes to get here.

* The work that is living with a chronic health condition that nobody else can see.

* The other unseen acts of caring that so many of us shoulder. I’m sandwiched between the needs of my 11 year old daughter and elderly parents right now.

* The continued genocide and mass human suffering in Gaza. 

* The ways in which humans are hurting, and hurting each other.

So against this backdrop I also want to acknowledge some small acts of hope.

Because I find that I can 

do more 

connect more 

be more present for others 

when I’m not in a permanent low level state of anxiety about what is and what could be going wrong.

What do I want this space to be?

I want this space to be where we can explore what it is like to be deeply feeling humans (and parents) in an often unfeeling world.

I’ll be honest with you. For a long while I have felt completely paralysed by the fear of saying anything hopeful from my old white woman’s middle class perspective. I have been hiding in case I say anything triggering or offensive. I have been hiding in case I don’t mention something or someone that should be included. I have been hiding in case no one listens. I have been hiding in case my imposter syndrome reveals itself to be true. 

It’s a scary time to be alive. And I know, it is nowhere near as scary to be alive from a place of privilege. But I am still scared a lot of the time, and I expect you might be too.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do know a few things that help me (and my clients) to inch towards feeling safe and whole.

The perspective I bring is always from where I’m sitting in my own skin. So that means my content is often about caregiving (of the old and young!), although I didn’t want to limit myself to this. I want this to be a space where I can speak to the complexities and ambiguities of life. A reminder to myself (and to you) that we are more than just a collection of responsibilities.

These are the things I can share. Incomplete, messy, biased, but hopefully helpful. Let’s begin.

So, where can we begin?

One place to start is to practice - and it is always work in practice - to practice being present and kind to what's already here.

Tether - to notice something that anchors me to this moment, to my body, to my observer’s mind, to my current lived experience.

Tend - to take care of whatever comes up, perhaps nothing, perhaps pain, perhaps pleasure.

It’s an experiment where I’m also going to consciously try and shift my mood state towards hope and equanimity. 

Not out of toxic positivity, or a failure to recognise what hurts, but more out of the sense that it takes effort to rewire a negativity bias. 

A bias which runs especially deep in my maternal lineage. I grew up surrounded by women who said they were being ‘realistic’ when in fact they were being pessimistic to the extreme.

My reason for sharing is part out of curiosity as to where this discipline will take me, but also to plant a seed of curiosity for you. 

Where might a similar practice of 

* noticing, grounding, and rooting in the present (Tether) 

* kindly turning towards whatever is there (Tend) 

take you in your mind and body this year?

Today’s experiment

Tether

I cup my face with both hands and immediately notice how cold they are. I tune in to the sense of the transfer of warmth from my cheeks to my fingers. I wait, knowing that the back of my hand will be even colder. I wait, I wait, I wait. I breathe. I turn my hands over and feel the electric shock of fresh cold skin. 

Tend

There’s a simple deliciousness of the sensations of hot and cold, soft skin warming and cooling. The gentle act of cupping my own face which is always soothing to me. I notice my mind wanders into critical territory where my hands wander towards scalp psoriasis.  It has become inflamed recently. I notice my urge to want to scratch and pick away (literally and metaphorically) at the bad areas. The scrappy self loathing parts of me under the surface. I come back to the parts that are not sore. I notice with surprise (although that seems ridiculous to admit) that most of the skin on my face and neck is smooth. It’s just the damaged bits that pull for my attention. It’s OK. It’s all there, the ugly and the beautiful. I am not a bad person. 

I’ll keep practising this.

A small act of hope.