self care – Clementine Fraser

Emotions are tricksy beasts. Especially the negative ones. They build up until they’re a roiling mess of sobs and anger and UGH lying just under a thin film of ice. At any moment the control can snap, the ice shatter, and everything just cascades out.

Negative emotions are not inherently bad. Sadness can have its place, as can concern and worry. It’s when they layer one on top of each other so you can’t breathe, or when they appear hand in hand with negative self-talk, that the problem starts.

Suggested ways to deal with emotional tsunamis

These are ideas that work for me, or at least can help a little.

One: Write it Out

Maybe because I’m naturally happy writing, but I’ve always written out my emotions. In letters that I don’t send (and some that I do), in diaries, in endless lists and mind maps and jotted notes in planners and bits of refill.

Research shows that writing out your problems and emotions can be just as, if not often more, effective than talking it out. This article explains it well, and this one gives some advice on how to do it. Writing your feelings helps you to structure your thoughts – we naturally think in paragraphs or bullet points when writing. We edit ideas and words and definitions. This earlier post of mine shows the process I often go through. Writing can help me parse my thoughts and reframe my catastrophising.

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happiness, inspiration, life, motivation, Personal, self care

Of watering gardens and happiness

January 9, 2019January 9, 2019 Clementine Fraser

I am not a very good gardener. Often, in the past (okay including the last few months), plants have died from neglect or they’ve struggled for survival in a cocoon of weeds. I don’t mean to kill them, I just forget.

A little while ago my parents bought me a lot of beautiful flowers for my garden. Okay, I did manage to kill two of the plants before they went into the garden BUT, my point is – I was very touched by their gift not only of the plants but of their time and encouragement. Together, along with my kids, we got the garden looking pretty for the first time in a long time.

Since then, I haven’t killed anything.

I get so much pure pleasure from these flowers. Roses, daisies, begonias, geraniums, and some others I’m not yet great on remembering the names of. They greet me when I come home every day and give me so much happiness.

I’ve been really making an effort during these hot summer days to remember to water the garden and make sure the boys weed it.

Tonight, as I stood watering the garden and letting my mind drift (because there’s not a lot else to do) I realised that taking care of my garden is a handy metaphor for taking care of my mental wellbeing full stop.

And you know I love a good metaphor!

Neglecting our happiness, our mental well-being, is pretty easy to do. We forget to weed out the negative and unhelpful thoughts. We think everything is fine and we can just look after it next weekend, when we have more time.

When it gets a bit untidy and overgrown, or things start wilting, we get embarrassed when people come round, or look at it. We feel bad about asking for help because we feel like it’s got that way through our own neglect so we should have to deal with cleaning it up ourselves.

But sometimes it’s really hard to do by yourself.

Sometimes, when the weeds are everywhere, and the flowers are brittle sticks, you don’t even know where to start. It all feels so very overwhelming. And you’re a rubbish gardener anyway. Why bother?

But then maybe you see a little flower blooming through the weeds, pushing its way valiantly to the light. You stop and marvel at it, admire its resilience.

Maybe you ask for help, and people want to help, and you finally manage to clear it all out and replenish it and it brings you happiness again.

As I stood there watering I realised that the only way for me to ensure that not only do my poor little plants survive but that the joy I get from them is ongoing, is by investing time and effort into maintaining it.

It doesn’t take that long either – a bit over half an hour maybe to water my flowers. A little bit of time weeding. A bit of effort to remember to spray the roses and check for aphids.

And it’s the same with my happiness. Now that I have come through an incredibly difficult year of depression and stress and ill-health, I need to make sure I am putting effort into myself – my health, my wellbeing. I need to make sure I am keeping the weeds away regularly. Part of self-care is practicing positive self talk. I need to water the things that bring me joy – spending time with friends and family, writing, reading, exploring – even when perhaps I feel it’s too hard.

The focus on effort is not an accident. Being positive takes a lot of energy and sometimes hard work. Keeping demons at bay requires consistency.

It’s worth it for my garden, and it’s worth it for my well-being and my happiness.

How will you water your happiness in 2019?

Personal, self care

A vulnerable moment and how I tried to change it.

March 1, 2018March 1, 2018 Clementine Fraser

In previous posts I’ve talked about vulnerability and I’ve talked about mindfulness. I’ve suggested ways to increase resilience. Well, over the last few days I’ve been battling the clouds in my head and so I followed my own advice and I tried to work it all out. This is a vulnerable post – I’m sharing my thought processes with you to show you in a very real way how I try to kick out the demons. I didn’t mean to share two slightly gloomy posts in a row so I apologise to those who followed me for the upbeat motivation or the stories. But I believe that by sharing our vulnerable side we help ourselves, and we help others.

Below is word for word what I wrote. I started out just trying to purge in a catharsis of sorts but you will see where my brain kicked in and stopped me, rerouted the avalanche of words. This is, incidentally, why writing is so good for getting your emotions in order – the structure you impose when you write, the selection you make in the words and where you put them, helps you sort through your feelings more effectively perhaps than other ways of dealing with it. At the end of it I find I am not ragingly happy but my mind is no longer clogged with the clutter and debris of negativity. I have managed to impose some sense.

I hope by sharing my thought process with you, it might help you do the same if you ever need to.

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It’s hard when you feel so negative but you can’t do anything about it. The emotions just roil around, tumbling in your head and your chest, batting away the good thoughts and spreading out, making themselves at home.

Bad mum

Bad teacher

Crap writer

Shitty friend

No Time.

Not putting in the time

Forgetting things

Not making effort in the right way.

Not sticking to routine

Eating too much of the wrong things

Hating how you look, hating how unfit you are

Struggling to change

Okay, stop – focus on that last word – struggling.

Struggling is not a negative thing.

It is a human thing.

We all struggle.

We don’t always see other people’s struggles, but they have them.

Struggle doesn’t mean that you are rubbish or a loser, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t trying. Struggle means that you are trying and not succeeding. It implies effort. It implies desire.

Existence is a struggle.

A struggle to overcome.

A struggle to change

A struggle to improve.

These things are hard, they don’t happen without effort, and even with effort they don’t always fall into place easily.

Sometimes the only obstacle is you – your motivation or your distraction or your lack of self belief.

I think this is the hardest obstacle to overcome. The most difficult to struggle past.

So. Change the mindset.

First step.

Counter the stupid list.

You know these things to be true –

Good mum

Good teacher

Good writer

Good friend

Good person

You know these things you can fix –

Time but lots of things to fit into that time – have to be more organised.

Some things you do need to put more time into – figure them out and then do it.

Write some lists so you don’t forget

Enlist kids to help you enforce routines

You know these things you have to just do, even though they’re hard –

Eat better. This is tough but is one you just have to decide to do.

Stop hating on yourself. You know you actually like yourself really. Appearance is only one aspect of a person and you know that. You tell other people that all the time. Live by it.

Exercise. Then you won’t be unfit.

And yes, you feel lonely. Not all the time but sometimes. Remember that it is just waves and they will come and go and you will remain on the shore. Ride it out.

Let yourself struggle because struggle is ultimately progress. And any progress is good progress.

inspiration, life, motivation, self care

First Apply Oxygen to Yourself – why we need to look after ourselves first.

December 16, 2017January 29, 2018 Clementine Fraser

A couple of years ago I was walking around school when I bumped into a colleague who also happened to have been my old English teacher. He asked how I was, and I replied by telling him all about my concerns over one of my students and what I was doing to try and help him on the right path, and how hard it was for him. He nodded and smiled and then said, “But I asked how are you. How are you doing?”. I thought for a moment and then answered pretty honestly about my stress levels and tried to smile through my list of wider school commitments. He smiled and said the following, proving to be just as wise now as when he taught me at 15:

You can’t do it all. Put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others.

It hit me hard. Because here’s the thing: I don’t believe you can last as a teacher in the current system if you don’t care deeply about students, but I also don’t think you can last as a teacher if you care at the expense of your own sanity.

The same rules apply for our relationships with everyone. Continue reading “First Apply Oxygen to Yourself – why we need to look after ourselves first.” →