Tag: anxiety

How anxiety can be both a blessing and a curse …
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"... be kind to yourself and others 
listen to your voice
and know that
others' expectations of you
will never surpass your own 
no one else can fill 
the space you fill
anxiety has been 
and remains part of you
but so too joy ..."
```
This is not an easy poem to share or reflect on, but came at a time when I was feeling particularly anxious. These times fluctuate and, like most people, I can go for days, weeks, months, when everything appears to be going well, and I feel confident and capable. Most people I worked with would be surprised to hear me say that I often felt anxious about work: mostly about my workload and my ability to juggle it. But I also had doubts about my ability to meet expectations, to be good enough, and to make a positive difference.

People talk about imposter syndrome, which in the old days, was akin to having an inferiority complex. It doesn’t matter what you call it, I think a lot of people feel it at some time or another, and it often follows them, like a shadow, most of their lives. I know I’ve suffered from it most of my life, but that’s only one source of anxiety and there are many others.

I don’t come across as an anxious person. Most people would say that I present as confident, authoritative even. I’m one of those people that looks, on the surface, to be calm like a swan, but below the surface, I’m pedalling like crazy (which swans also do, I believe!). I’ll overthink things and take it all terribly seriously. I need to lighten up and I do try, honestly I do. I know full well that almost all the stuff I worry about never happens, and if the worse does happen, it invariably works out; all that worry was wasted effort.

People joke about therapy and how the counsellor will inevitably take you back to your childhood. It all stems from there right? I didn’t have a miserable childhood by any stretch of the imagination but it wasn’t idyllic either. Was anyone’s? My parents divorced in the 1970’s, which was unusual then. I spent years insisting that it didn’t affect me but, of course, it did.

So much of our personality is set in those early years, and they can significantly shape how life turns out. But it isn’t the whole story. I’m a massive believer in the fact that each of us can shape and shift our lives to fit better with who and what we want to be. I genuinely believe that. It takes work, but it’s a worthwhile investment because who wants to spend their lives blaming their childhood for everything that goes wrong? Not me, that’s for sure.

I haven’t eliminated anxiety from my life, far from it. I tell people that if I didn’t have something to worry about, then I’d invent something. I’m part joking, but there is an element of hard truth in every joke isn’t there? I have a tendency to worry about things I can’t control and/or predict, especially at night. Being conscious of it is half the battle; acknowledging that, yes, childhood hang ups do loiter, but I have effective strategies to combat them.

All our lives are a balancing act, don’t you think? Feeling anxious can sometimes be debilitating, but in other ways it makes me appreciate the joy I experience in my life. Learning to recognise and overcome anxieties can also be incredibly rewarding and I can look back on many a triumph with quiet pride. Balance is all important and, if you experience anxiety, then I sincerely hope you also know joy in your life.

notes to my younger self Download
03/12/2025
How to live with who you are not who you want to be …
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"... both nature and nurture 
shaped me 
to be just so
if I can’t let go 
perhaps I can 
accommodate ..."
```
If you follow this blog you’ll know that I’ve been on an extended trip this year to the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Now I’m finally home, I’m thinking about the next chapter of my life. I retired earlier in the summer and, in many ways, this overseas trip has acted as something of a circuit breaker. My old life in full time work truly feels like a world away.

But what the trip has reminded me of, is that despite all the variables impacting on my life, at the core, I reflect the same values, outlook and, yes, hang ups I always have. I do think that autumn is a good time to re-evaluate where you are in life and consider any changes you want to make. I was in an online meeting with a group of other women last month who were invited to share what in their lives they wanted to retain and what to release. I really struggled with the exercise, but finally wrote that I wanted to rid myself of anxiety. Now, that’s a tall order.

In the days that followed, I thought more about the gap between what we may want to be and what we actually are. Watching the waves crashing against the rocks one afternoon, it dawned on me that so much of what happens in life is beyond our control. This doesn’t just impact on us as humans, but on every living thing on the planet.

Even the ocean, that appears incredibly powerful and a law unto itself, is not in control. It’s the weather that mostly determines how the oceans meet the shore; it’s the moon that dictates the tides.

As for me, a combination of nature and nurture shaped who I’ve become. It’s the way I was parented and schooled, the friends I made, and the place where I grew up. I cannot help but be who I am, but that’s not the whole story. Nurture takes you so far but you always have nature to fall back on, and that’s what inspired me when wave-watching. The oceans have so much to contend with: the moon is pulling them one way, and the wind another, yet they just keep moving. They are powerful enough to move mountains, quite literally. They continue to re-shape our shorelines, cutting through rock, leaving us gasping with awe at caves and sea arches the world over.

Anxiety is part of who I am and I’m naive to think I can ditch it. But accepting that anxiety is part of me, doesn’t mean I have to necessarily give into it. I can rage against it if I choose, I can ignore it, negotiate with it, even welcome it. It doesn’t define me. It’s part of me, but it’s not the whole of me.

Learning to love and accept the parts of ourselves we might not like can be a struggle, but it’s worth the effort to try. It makes life a whole lot easier, that’s for sure. I feel much happier accepting that anxiety is a part of me that I must learn to accommodate, rather than constantly punishing myself for feeling anxious.

This week, I invite you to reflect those parts of yourself you’d like to ditch but then acknowledge, that without them, you wouldn’t be who you are.

nature and nurture Download
19/11/2025
Why we all need beacons by which to steer our course …
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"... there’s comfort to be found 
in familiarity 
tempting to stay 
closer than you should 
to what you’ve always known 
rather than venture 
beyond ..."
```
At the beginning of our long trip to the Faroe Islands and Iceland, I mentioned to a fellow camper from the UK, that we would be away for 3 months. Her immediate reaction was, “Oh, you’re brave!”. I brushed off her comment as somewhat risk adverse, standing a little taller as I replied that it would be an “adventure”.

My husband and I had discussed the duration of the trip in some detail, opting to go for the maximum period allowed (3 months). This was, in part, to give us time to truly explore without rushing. But, I’ll be honest, it was also to justify to expense of the ferry fare. May as well make the most of it, we thought, as we are highly unlikely to do it again.

I’ve thought often about that fellow camper during our trip: she was onto something! I underestimated just how challenging the trip would be in countless ways. I’ve never travelled for such an extended period before, in a country that feels very different to my own. I’ve found it harder than expected but, equally, the challenges I’ve faced have made me stronger.

In my head I can still see a poster on a wall in my classroom at school, showing a picture of a ship in harbour. The words read, “A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships were built for”. It inspired me then and still does. If you think about all the things that might go wrong in life, you’d never do anything would you? It’s important to have dreams and to be brave enough to take the first step into the unknown. It can be scary but also exciting. You need to plan to some degree, but be prepared for the unexpected, because things won’t always go your way.

It helps, I think, to have tools at your disposal when things don’t work out as you’d hoped. I’m a big believer in gut instinct. I can’t explain it, but I just know that whenever I’ve failed to listen to my instinct, that’s when things have gone horribly wrong. Instinct, however, can also let you down. I love the lighthouse analogy; we’ve seen a lot of lighthouses in Iceland, enough to stretch my imagination still further. Your instinct might be telling you, this is the way, but then there’s a warning light foretelling danger. What would you do? I’d be risk adverse and navigate away from danger, of course I would.

It’s all about balance at the end of the day. The irony of a lighthouse, is that the beam of light may bring comfort when you feel anxious, but it’s main job is to warn of danger. It’s not always easy to distinguish between the two is it? There’ve been times in my life when I’ve struggled to differentiate between what’s right for me and what isn’t. I’ve felt all at sea, which is the title of this week’s poem.

Some of the challenges we’ve faced in Iceland led us to seriously consider cutting the trip short, but we didn’t. True, I would most likely have felt more secure on familiar ground, but I’m certain I would’ve regretted any decision to give up. This blog will go out on our last full day in Iceland. We’ll be catching the ferry heading back to Denmark, as originally planned, the next day. We stayed the course!

Going back to that schoolroom poster, I wasn’t made to play it safe but to live my life to the full, and that’s what I’m going to do. I want to live brave.

all at sea Download
05/11/2025