Trying Easier

Most of the time, we think we really should be trying harder. If only we did a little bit more, things would work out OK. It’s all about achievement, success, doing more and doing it better. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again. It’s drilled into us from an early age.  Study more. Get a promotion. Run faster. Score more goals. Be a better parent. 

But right now, for me, it’s different. After my cycling accident I’ve developed a mild traumatic brain injury. I’m easily tired, my mind often feels foggy. It’s difficult to concentrate for long.  

So the advice I’m getting now is – don’t try harder, try easier.

 

I need to take things easy, give my brain a rest so it has the chance to recover.  

This turns lots of things on their head.

It’s better for me to put things off until tomorrow, even though I could do them today. Procrastination is no longer the thief of time – it’s the essence of healing.

 ‘You snooze, you lose’. Not any more. Quite the opposite. My afternoon siesta is essential to keep me going throughout the day. So for me it’s now ‘You snooze, you win.’

Laziness, slacking, indolence, idleness, sloth: that is supposed to be one of the seven deadly sins, but not any more. Now it’s a cardinal virtue.

I don’t always find it easy to take it easy. Trying harder is so ingrained in me that trying easier doesn’t come naturally.  I have to remind myself, stop myself doing stuff that I really don’t need to do, or not just yet. And it’s surprising – and liberating – how many things that I was convinced were absolutely essential turn out to be a bit less important after all.  The world hasn’t quite ground to a halt because I’m not doing as much as I used to.

It’s about being, not doing.

I’m enjoying my weekly tai chi classes, and I’ve taken up meditation again, with the help of a  website called Headspace. They help me to be aware of how things are, notice my experiences and feelings, without having to worry or do anything about them.    

And I’m building up my physical fitness. I’m back on my bike – off road – and it feels great.

Trying easier is helping me heal. It is refreshing. I can feel the benefits – each week a bit more energy, a bit more headspace.

I gently recommend it!

 

 

 

Reasons to be Cheerful

I had a nasty accident ten days ago.

I was knocked off my bike in town by an unobservant driver, ending up in a dramatic pool of blood in the middle of the road. Broken nose, teardrop fracture to my 7^th cervical vertebra, lots of lacerations and bruises, and a fair bit of post-traumatic stress.....

But also many reasons to be cheerful.

1.     It could all have been so much worse. I’m still here. No brain injury (thank you, crash helmet). No spinal cord damage.

 

2.     The kindness of strangers. I’ve written about this before, and here was living proof of it. Within seconds I was surrounded by passers-by making sure I was alright and got the help I needed. Top of the list of good Samaritans was Tracey Saphier, a nurse on her way home from work, who took charge of the whole scene, making sure I didn’t move, mopping blood out of my eyes, talking to Sue on the phone, checking on ambulance arrival time. Thank you kind people of Liverpool, thank you Tracey. 

3.     Our NHS is great in a crisis. It really is.  Forget the bad press it gets these days.  The ambulance team who got me onto a stretcher and secured my neck; the amazing trauma team in the Royal Liverpool Hospital who checked me out from top to toe in a matter of minutes (while chatting to me about bikes and cycling gear); spinal surgeon Marcus de Matas who took all possible care of my neck fracture; and the staff on Ward 4a who looked after me while I couldn’t move for three days.  I needed their help, and they were there.   

4.      Sue is wonderful in a crisis. She really is. She arrived at the hospital before the ambulance, fed me yoghurt when I couldn’t reach the hospital food, guided me through a psychic meltdown, and now is getting me back on my feet at home. I needed her help, and she was there.  

5.     The love of family and friends. Thank you all for being there, for your kind words and actions, for looking after Sue as well as me.  

6.     My neck brace. My exo-skeleton (non-biologists, google it!) for the next three months. It’s keeping my neck and back safe, and is deeply reassuring.  

7.     Time out. Now I can watch all five seasons of Breaking Bad in one go.  

All of the above (well, maybe not the Breaking Bad bit) are parts of something bigger, something that I haven’t quite worked out but seems profound to me.  For a while there, lying in the road and in hospital, I was in a real mess, completely helpless and utterly dependent on the care of others - something I’m not at all used to. 

And it was OK. In fact more than OK, it was liberating. I didn’t need to try and control my own destiny, it was fine to let go. I could relax.  I felt – no, I knew – that I was in safe hands. 

So, one final reason to be cheerful.

8.     Being alive is wonderful.

 

Feeling Alive

In my last post I was wondering why I enjoy cycling uphill.  Thank you for all your blog and Facebook thoughts about this – including all those kindly people concerned about my sanity! 

I’ve been thinking more about it, not least after a recent ride in the wind and rain, when I ended up with numb feet, drenched right through to the skin – but feeling just great.  It’s not about achievement or performance, I’ve realised. It’s about feeling alive.  Being fully in the moment. In touch with my body and with the world around me. Engaging all my senses.

 It’s about immediate, direct, physical, sensuous reality.  Undoubtable existence. It’s about now.  Whatever happens later doesn’t matter.

 Maybe this is special for me because it is so different from what I do when I’m working. Work in the university, or in the surgery, involves brain stuff - intellect and emotion – but very little in the way of physical stuff.

 It resonates for me with Camus’s Sysiphus (who I posted about last year in Rolling Rocks), pushing his boulder up the mountain: ‘the struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.’

When else do I feel alive, in such an immediate, heart filling  way?

• Hill walking – perhaps not surprising as it’s a similar thing to cycling uphill.  I have vivid and oddly enjoyable memories of climbing Snowdon with my friend Dave and (way back) getting stuck half way up Sca Fell Pike with my father, both in driving rain and howling gales. 
• Wild swimming – for me (but not for Sue!) a delightful, sensuous experience. Skinny dipping before dawn in the Pacific at Zipolite in Mexico; and in a secluded lake in Nigel’s Welsh woodland.  Did you see Alice Roberts’ wonderful documentary about it on BBC recently?
• Dancing to the late evening band at Campus
• Digging over the vegetable patch in our back garden, with a small child in a back carrier snuffling around my left ear.  
• And of course, personal activities known only to Sue and me.

Like our well-being recipes, what makes us feel alive will vary a lot from one person to the next.

 

Mary says being in the middle of her second pregnancy is doing it for her - she feels at one with herself, the baby inside her and the world around her.

 

What about you?  When do you feel fully alive?