Category Archives: Shades of Grey

A purple shade of grey

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Creativity, Freedom, Shades of Grey, Stress

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In a hectic and stressful world where things always seem black and white, we have to work so hard to find a balance and become more “grey”.
It seems that we are surrounded by right vs wrong, love vs hate, success vs failure and abled vs disabled arguments all of the time.
Obviously, we can either take sides or find our own balance in the equilibrium.
So we become one of the millions (yes millions, not 50!) shades of grey – trying to live the best life that we can without rocking the boat too much.

But let me tell you something (and this is tough from somebody who loves the colour grey) – grey is boring.  Yes, there are millions of shades of it but it is basically a mix of two non-colours anyway.
A lot of your stress comes from trying to keep the balance, from trying to please people and keep everyone around you happy, trying to make sure that all of your dependants have what they need, trying to meet your manager’s deadlines and targets, trying to live up to your parent’s expectations.
Basically, trying to be superb at everything yet never really being content or satisfied with your life.
Grey is stressful, black and white is more stressful.
So what happens if you are more of a purple shade of grey? (And I like purple even more than grey) Or a sparkly pink? Or a vivid red?
What happens if you start doing things differently?
The great entrepreneurs of this world are doing exactly that.
What makes them so successful? The fact that they fit in?  Not at all – it is the fact that they do things differently!
The happiest people are those that live their life with no need to fit into the idea of “normal”.

Purple shade of grey

One of the greatest entrepreneurs Steve Jobs said this:
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

So next time somebody calls you crazy, say “thank you very much!”

You are “you-nique”

22 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Life journey, Self growth, Shades of Grey

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I think that we spend a fortune of our time trying to please people and trying to fit in.
Trying to fit into what?
An imaginary guide line for how you should behave in order for people to accept you or like you or appreciate you. All just in order to gain people’s respect.
What you don’t realise is that often when you work so hard to fit into other’s expectations of you, they don’t respect you. They are more likely to use you or abuse you and then move onto the next sucker.
Yes sucker!  You may as well have a tattoo on your forehead telling people that it is easy to use you.
Because the more you give, the more people will take.
So now I’m sure that I’ve just insulted a whole lot of people who believe that giving is more important than receiving.
Yes giving is important, but at what stage do you start giving to yourself? At what stage do you realise that you have to value yourself first?
When you burnout and have nothing left to give?
It is a fine balance – how much should we be giving to ourselves, and how much should we be giving to others?

Let me use a story to illustrate my point. A totally made up story because the day I go hiking… Enough about that. Anyway, let’s pretend that we are going hiking and I am your leader (yeah right!). Off we go hitting the bush trail and suddenly somebody comes to up me and tells me that they left their water at home and could they please have some of mine. Well, I’m a nice person and I don’t want to upset them so I say yes, help yourself and I feel really great when they heap praise on me about how kind and caring I am. We carry on walking and a little while later, somebody else comes up to me and they are thirsty too so I give them some of my water and so it goes. Until I am thirsty and I reach into my bag to get my water bottle and surprise, surprise, it is empty! And if I can be really dramatic (as I love to be) I collapse with dehydration and exhaustion and we are all stuck in the bush!
Do you get the point?
You can give so much that you put yourself in a position of exhaustion and then you are not going to help anyone and you are certainly not going to help yourself.

And on the point of giving. We mistakenly think that it is only worth giving if we can give something big. We want to be like Oprah and say things like “you get a car and you get a car, and you get a car!”  Don’t forget the value of simplicity – just giving a smile, just lending a helping hand to a stranger, and most importantly giving a skill that can empower somebody rather than make them dependent on you.

Learn to look after yourself, learn to respect yourself, learn to see your self as important.
And definitely learn to be unique and embrace your individuality.

You are so special, you have so much to offer and you are so, so worth it.
Believe it!

Sometimes you have to go backwards in order to move forwards

15 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by in Life journey, Self growth, Shades of Grey

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Back to my Shades of Grey and the eighth one is realising that:

Sometimes you have to go backwards in order to move forwards.

 It sounds confusing and downright topsy turvy and here’s the problem:

People who have “black and white type personalities” feel that if they’re going forwards, then they are doing great and being successful;  and if they’re going backwards, then they are failing.

But what about the miles and miles of grey road between backwards and forwards?

Because we like control (sometimes even freakishly), we have a plan for what our goals should be and what we want to achieve.

And then we insist on getting to the end point, always moving forward, always having control, as fast as possible.

What if your forward is actually the wrong way?

What if backwards is the right way?

The thing is that you just don’t see it at the time.  So when you find yourself suddenly going in the “wrong direction” you start panicking because it is not part of the plan.

The plan may be for you to go backwards, it may be for you to try something new or learn a new skill through experiences that you would never have otherwise had if you were always moving “forward”.

Be open to the journey that life takes you on.

It is not always going to be enjoyable (ask me, I know) and it is not always going to be easy.  There are times when you will feel like giving up and times when you want to go back.

Be prepared to enjoy the ride because when you get to the end (no, I am not talking about death here), you will be able to see why you needed to be on that journey.

Your journey will be amazing if you just let it be!

On building walls…

08 Thursday Nov 2012

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Let me tell you a story that is a little embarrassing (because of course all of our kids are little angels and you shouldn’t admit that yours isn’t) but I’ll tell it to you anyway.
My younger son is adventurous (read: naughty) and fancies himself as a bit of a Parkour master.  So we had these neighbours who had an old broken wall that was not very high and made an ideal challenge for a young boy. He would jump over their wall all of the time. And as an ultimate sign of strength, the boys in the neighbourhood would prove their manliness by giving the wall a kick and watching in joy as they managed to cause some bricks to fall.  Hulk has nothing on him.
And what did the wall’s owner do? Every now and then he would just straighten the wall by giving it a bit of a knock and put one or two bricks back up.
And a few days later, the whole process would start all over again.  The boys would knock some bricks down, and the wall would be put back together again.
After a while, the house was sold and we watched in fascination (as nosy neighbours tend to do) to see what the new owners would do with that wall.
What they did do? They knocked that useless wall down and dug new foundations and built a huge new, solid wall that my son could not climb in his wildest dreams (well maybe in his dreams where he can climb walls like Sebastien Foucan).

The point of me telling you this story is that we all face walls every day of our lives.  Everytime a problem comes up, you try to fix only that problem and the circumstances around the problem rather than getting to the root cause, the foundation of the problem.
So if you have a communication problem in your relationship, you would rather spend ages arguing about whose chance it is to take out the garbage rather than looking at  the core issue which is that you have
communication issues!
The main reason we don’t want to deal with the foundation is that it is too scary. We fear change more than we fear being in an unhappy situation.
One of the blessings that stress and depression gives you (yes, seriously) is that it knocks you down to that foundation level.
And you have to start again from that very beginning that everyone else fears. Once you start from the beginning, you can rebuild up your life just like that big strong wall.
Don’t be afraid to do it, you are far, far stronger than you can even imagine!

Surround yourself with positive, motivating people

25 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Positivity, Shades of Grey

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You know that feeling when you spend time with somebody or you are talking to them on the phone, or even reading their Facebook status and afterwards, you just feel exhausted and drained?
Negative people have the ability to drain you.
It is like they literally suck your energy away from you.

For those of you who have watched (or even better) read Harry Potter will be very familiar with the dementor. If you are not sure what a dementor is, here is a quote from Harry Potter:
“Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them… Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soulless and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.”
—Remus Lupin to Harry Potter

So, of course we know that this is just a story and there are no such things as dementors… Or are there?
Sometimes it seems that the very people that we spend time with, our family, our friends, our work colleagues, could be just like dementors. Their negativity and constant abuse or neglect or destructive behaviour leaves you feeling exhausted, like the good is sucked out of you.
It’s quite a scary thought but one that we deal with often enough for it to become a major stressor in our lives.
Let’s turn it around and imagine the power of spending time with people who are positive, motivating and uplifting. They would be the opposite of dementors because they will leave you feeling good and energised.

So what are you doing with dementors in your life?
Let them go! Choose not to let them affect you!
They are negative because of their own issues so don’t allow them to make those issues into your problem.
You are worth so much more than that and you deserve to be loved and respected.
Demand that for yourself!

Meditation vs Analysis

18 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Creativity, Mindfulness, Relaxation, Shades of Grey

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Meditation is said to be really good for you for a number of reasons. One being that it can increase your ability to focus on mindfulness (focusing on the present rather than worry about the past or the future). Another good reason to meditate is that has been proven to improve physical as well as mental health including reducing blood pressure, calming you and improving your immune system.
Well that is quite a lovely thing. Only one problem (actually probably a lot more than one, but I’ll deal with the one that I encounter the most often). Type A personalities typically battle to meditate because they have problems with allowing their minds to slow down.They are also very analytical people and deal with problems by analysing them rather than just letting them be. They will even analyse why they can’t relax.

Now for the good news: research has shown that when someone is doing something creative, from drawing, painting and pottery to poetry, knitting and baking, their brain waves are the same as somebody’s who is meditating.In other words being creative has the same physical and emotional benefits as meditating does. Well that is brilliant news for someone like me who would rather be doodling than “om-ing”.The more analytical you are, the more you worry, the more you feel stressed.Today, choose to do something creative rather than analytical. This may mean that you have to step a bit (or a lot) out of your comfort zone.

Today I did a group session where we created journals and used collage technique to make the covers. For some people, it was difficult to get started. They got overwhelmed by the task and some people were just scared to even try because of fear of failure. They told me things like “I’m not creative” or “The last time I did this was in junior school). But once they started, they didn’t want to stop. And the journals that they created were beautiful which surprised some of them!

Try it yourself. Get out of your head for a little while and just let your hands work for you.Even if you are not sure what you’re doing.

Just try it! You may just be surprised at how relaxed you become!

Stop to smell the roses

15 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by in Mindfulness, Shades of Grey

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We are constantly being bombarded with questions like “what are your goals?” “where do you see yourself in two years time?”
“where are you going?” “what are your plans?” and something that I learned from my husband “what are your deliverables?”
Truthfully, I don’t even know what deliverables are, and it’s probably a good thing that I don’t work  in the corporate world!
Does anyone ever ask you if you’re happy now, or for that matter, do you ever ask yourself if you are happy now.
Because we are so focused on the future and where we might be going, and how potentially scary that future is that we forget to stop and focus on where we are now.
We forget to pause and just be, just to enjoy the moment that we’re in.
There are absolutely no guarantees for the future.  So why are we waiting for the future in order to be happy?
We are waiting to be richer or older or wiser.
Who says that we can’t be rich or wise now (I’m not really interested in the older part). We are rich in love, or family, in passion or in spirit.  We are wise because we have experienced so many more things than a lot of people have in our lifetimes.
And every single moment, for every single step that you take (whether it is backward or forward, but we’ll deal with that in a later post)  we are learning and growing.
Don’t forget to stop and enjoy that moment because it is all about you and the person that you are becoming.
And you are amazing!

Make time for relaxation

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Relaxation, Shades of Grey

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I am sitting at a restaurant with my kids having a (partly) leisurely lunch with my kids on a Thursday afternoon. Why? Because I can!
After a very stressful morning at work, the last thing I feel like doing is working. And even though I have deadlines looming closer, I know that forcing myself to work when I am already stressed and overworked is not going to be productive.
So that leads me to part 4 of finding the grey – making time for relaxation.
In our busy, stressful lives we forget that relaxation is not only important but is actually a necessity for our sanity.
You are not going to achieve anything if you burn out because you don’t think that relaxation is part of working. And the brilliant companies out there realise this. They value creating time and space for their employees to relax because they understand that a happy, relaxed employee is going to be more productive, take less sick leave and be more loyal to the company.
Yes, I can sense most of you rolling your eyes because the only reason you are reading this blog is because your job is so stressful and your company is so uncaring.
So that leaves the responsibility of relaxation time up to you! Sorry, but it does.
Find time in your day for relaxation – in the beginning it may seem impossible but if you get into the habit of making time to relax, it gets easier.
Try deep breathing exercises at your desk; start a yoga or stretching group at lunch time;  take a 10 minute walk during your tea break;  meet somebody for a chat about non-work related issues; eat energising food for lunch; take a 5 minute relaxation session away from your desk.
Unchain those invisible chains that bind you to your desk or your computer or those piles of paperwork.  Not taking a break is not going to get it done, it is going to take you longer to get it done!
Think about your plan for relaxation over the weekend and then on Monday – start getting your relaxation time sorted and watch how things improve.
You deserve a break – take it!

Be kind to yourself

10 Wednesday Oct 2012

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We live in such a competitive world that I think that, unfortunately, compliments are rare.
Everyone is so self absorbed or so selfish that they are quite unlikely to stop and tell you how well you are doing, or thank you for something that you did for them.
Stop waiting for somebody else to do something for you, or to notice you.
Notice yourself, compliment yourself.
You are so worthy of praise, so don’t wait around for someone else to give to you.
You may be waiting for too long.
Being kind to yourself doesn’t necessarily give you permission to go on an expensive shopping spree (OK, maybe it does). Being kind to yourself means recognising the amazing things that you are achieving everyday. Even if it is in tiny little baby steps forward. It is still stepping forwards, in the right direction, and nobody else might recognise this except for you.
If you are going through a rough time, give yourself time and space to heal. You don’t need to be in a good space everyday. There are times when life is not going to feel like it is treating you well. So it’s not treating you well, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t treat you well.
There is no reward for pushing yourself too hard.
When you learn to give yourself space, reward yourself, compliment yourself, you will feel so much better about you!
Yay you! Just keep moving forward, you are doing great.

Don’t see success as something material

05 Friday Oct 2012

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We live in a very material and very media orientated world.
This teaches us to think that success is only about fame, fortune and financial gain.
And if we look at the world like that all the time, and we are not rich and famous and nobody knows who we are, and we don’t have thousands of friends on Facebook, we don’t wear branded clothing, we don’t drive the newest model of flashy car or use the latest cellphone to chat to those thousands of friends then obviously, we fail!
But by thinking that way, you don’t give yourself the opportunity to look at how successful you really are.
Everyday that you get out of bed and smile, you’re successful. Everyday that you turn up at work when your instinct is to run away, you are successful. Every time you  choose not to lose your temper, or to keep quiet when you want to scream, you are successful.
You can be so successful if you work at being you.
There are always going to be people who seem more successful, happier and richer. Instead of hating them or being jealous of them or spending energy wishing it was you, or even worse, spending time resenting that person, look inwards and work on you. Be true to you. Be genuine. Smile. Enjoy and celebrate the small things.
You are already a success, just keep moving forward and you will shine!