Multipotentialite

Today I learned that I am a multipotentialite. If - like me until an hour ago - you have no idea what this means, I would highly recommend watching Emilie Wapnick's TED Talk on it (here). Suddenly my mind makes so much more sense! Turns out I am not a lone weirdo, there's more of us and we are so awesome!

My whole life I was criticised for my inability to follow through on my hobbies, for being too obsessed with my interests, only to flutter to a new one like a butterfly going from flower to flower. I have always devoted myself to things wholeheartedly, but nothing was forever, and everything was always all or nothing. A quick walk around my house and you'll find the yoga gear I stopped using a few months after I got started, books I bought a decade ago and haven't gotten around to reading and countless crafts projects abandoned halfway. I fully intend to return to all these things, my attention simply got pulled elsewhere. And there's no middle ground with me.

I was told I was fickle, that I didn't truly love anything, because if I did surely I would stick with them. I was shown time and again that to succeed and be happy you needed to devote yourself to your choices, and that constantly changing your mind was irresponsible and immature. You can't build a career this way, you can't pay a mortgage and that you couldn't have this sort of behaviour if you wanted to raise a family. That if you are constantly starting over you will never excel at anything and you will always be average (like that is an insult).

For most of my life people have tried to change my ways, as if it was a matter of choice. As if by trying really hard I could be normal and I could stick to only a handful of interests. Or they tried to have me be less into *insert current obsession*. Because apparently normal people don't wake up one day with a desire to read about the Vietnam war or spend a month memorising the first two acts of La Traviata. And by Jove, I needed to stop talking about Alexander Hamilton!

No one ever asked me about how life is through my brain. Why I am the way I am. (Not sure that last sentence has an answer, but at the very least no one asked me the thinking behind my behaviour.) Here is a few secrets: normalcy is boring. Life is too short to only be one thing. The more you stick to the same things, the smaller your comfort zone becomes and the less you are able to adapt to new challenges. Normative doesn't breed out-of-the-box thinkers. In fact, normalcy kills innovation. You need us to take you to new places. And we need you to be our north star so that we don't stray too far (at least I do). Because left to my own devices I would gladly trade sleep for one more episode or chapter, only to suffer the brutal consequences the next day (because my body is not eighteen anymore).

In true fashion, I am now obsessed about exploring what it means to be a multipotentialite (how meta is that?), so I will probably carry on writing about the challenges and rewards, as well as my ground rules for not let it take over my life completely. Or not. Maybe I'll become obsessed with something else before I ever get to write those posts. Because that's who I am, and it's plain awesome. 

I didn't wake up like this

Over the last few years people sometimes approach me to tell me how they wish they were more like me. That they too could laugh at their misfortunes, that they could be as motivated to get up at stupid am, or as strong to deadlift more than 50kg. That they could be as confident to  not care that they look silly blowing bubbles in the park, or as organised and prepared to bring sunscreen to impromptu work lunches outside. They admire my spontaneity, my quirkiness, my child-like wonder. Though mostly they mention the getting up at stupid am.

Here is the thing: I didn't wake up like this. I am the product of years and years of work. I too was once the complete opposite of what I am in that first paragraph. I too hated myself and would ignore my live passing me as I binge watch stuff on the sofa. While eating crap food. In fact, for the first twenty years of my life, the only fruits and vegetables I ate were banana and lettuce. I couldn't run for a full minute. I firmly believed I had been born with less motivation and strength than everyone else. I was just unlucky. I would never be strong or inspire anyone in anything, except what not to do. I was Sandra Bullock at the beginning of every 90s rom-com, except fatter, weirder and lacking in natural charm. Also no cats. At least that is how I viewed myself.

When I started my journey I never - ever! - could've dreamed I could come this far; that I could ever be this comfortable and proud of myself as I am now. I wasn't in this believing I was going to be this super version of myself; I just wanted to be better than I was.

I am going to spare you the two-minute inspirational montage where our hero (that's me!) trains arduously to achieve their goals to the sound of Eye of the Tiger or something like that. The reason being that my journey isn't really that important to you. It is my journey. You find whatever works for your journey. You just have to catch yourself the next time you say "I wish..." and do something (anything!) about it. Just get started and the rest will come.

Few things make me happier than knowing my life inspires others. If I have motivated you to change anything about your life, please let me know; that just fuels me even more to get better and better. Just make sure you are not comparing your beginning with my middle. The truth is the only differences between whatever it is you admire in me and you is not strength or motivation, but time and action.

You are not going to simply wake up one day and be the person you want to be. You hone yourself into being that person. Day by day. Make the commitment. One day you will wake up where you want to be, but it won't be like this *snaps fingers*. And the fact that it was something hard earned will make that day so much sweeter.

On belonging

Yesterday the boyfriend and I were watching Guardians of the Galaxy vol.2 on the sofa. If you haven't seen it, go watch it, it's awesome! After you do, go check out Lindsay Ellis' review on Youtube (link here). More than a great Marvel film about saving the galaxy, to me it's a story about family. Finding your tribe and also going back to the people you may have overlooked. I could write many, many posts on how I relate to the different characters in this film (again, watch the Youtube review), but for now I will just focus on Rocket.

It's obvious that every single one of these characters have been pretty messed up by life, Rocket being no exception. The thing that struck me is how much of a dick he is to everyone in this film (apart from baby Groot, but then again, who can resist baby Groot?) and how much I related to that behaviour. To the outsider he may simply look pissed off or that he is actively trying to drive people away. To me it's the exact opposite; Rocket behaves like someone who has found a family for the first time, and he is scared of being left again. After being mistreated his whole life, he has found a group of people who accept him and see value in him. An unlikely tribe of people, just as weird, who love him. People he loves back. And he doesn't know what to do with it. So he lashes back. Because a good part of him still expects to be abandoned, so he lashes out to see if people will still stick around. I know. I used to be him.

Maybe I am looking too deeply into this, but in this film I see myself in Rocket a lot. I used to throw my weirdness at people to see if they still stuck around. Throughout my early years I learned that if I showed who I truly was, people would leave me. I was too weird. Too quirky. I tried hiding it, but as friendships grew my quirkiness would start to leach out. And then people would leave and I would be heartbroken. So I learned to skip this step and I would just throw my weirdness at people to see if they left or if they stayed. If they stayed then they were worth investing in, because they had already accepted my weirdness.

Sometimes I am told I take too much pleasure in my quirkiness. That is true, I do enjoy it now, but there is so much more to that statement. In the past I did it to test people, and to prove to myself that I was worthy of their love, because they clearly accepted me despite of my quirkiness. There was a dark pit made of a lack of self-love, acceptance and belonging that I couldn't fill. So this was my attempt. 

Throughout the years I learned many things that changed my view of this. I know I am loved, regardless of how weird I am, and a lot of times I am loved because of that weirdness. I belong. Period. In many hearts, and some families, I belong. My quirkiness inspires others. It is one of my favourite weapons to better the world. I don't need people to prove their love to me anymore. And I am here to prove my love to them. To everyone in my life who is still a Rocket. Who still steal batteries they don't need (go watch the film!).

In my memories of who I was there will always be a Rocket. And he now knows that he is loved.

Don't stop me now*

According to Newton's first law (how my boyfriend explained it to me), an object at rest will want to stay at rest, while an object in motion will want to stay in motion. Apparently that's inertia for you...?

Why am I writing this? Well, because I very much feel the same. The longer I stay in motion, the harder it is to stop. The busier I get, the less I can stop and assess how I am doing and what I need. Busyness fuels itself and before you know it you are doing something completely out of character and you have no idea how you got there. In my heyday I snapped at someone who had nothing to do with whatever issue was plaguing me, I stress ate my way through... lets just say a lot of crap food, I had bursts into an ugly cry over the smallest remark. All of these things came because of something else that went undiagnosed. My problem(s) had started days/weeks before, and I just carried on instead of taking the time to sort myself. I just bulldozed my way through life because I wouldn't stop. I couldn't, I was too busy, there was too much at stake, the deadlines were looming and who needs sleep, anyway?

With age, distance and a lot of practising (and also a lot of failing), I have learnt I am never too busy to stop. In fact if I find myself verbalising that I am too busy for blank, then that it's a trigger for me to stop and have a time out.

Most times busyness will creep up on me. It can start innocuously enough with two weekends in a row when we are doing something social. Those weekends just happen to fall at the end of a very busy week (who could've predicted it?). To relax after work, we slump on the sofa and binge watch fail videos instead of having quality time to replenish. I could make time to rest by skipping my dance and fitness classes, but I'm not a quitter, so I carry on. All this hustle and bussle, the work stress starts to affect my sleep quality, but instead of skipping the gym now and then and having a lie in, I carry on getting up at stupid a.m. (official time), because again I ain't no quitter. All of a sudden I am spinning more plates than my body can cope with and my attention and my mind are stretched too thinly. I am too little butter for too much bread. So something starts to crack. My diet goes out the window, I forget to call my family at the end of the week, or I stop investing in my relationship, living mindlessly from sun up to sun down. This was the old me. Again and again.

It is so easy to fall down the rabbit hole because it's so gradual and everything has an excuse. And here is the grim thing: this will never be done. There will never come a day when you say you've won and you will never again fall down the rabbit hole. It will always be there, lurking in the shadows and waiting to catch you unaware. So how do you cope? How do you fight back?

You learn to create coping mechanisms to keep you aware and away from a life on auto pilot. I used to think meditation was the magical panacea that would fix all my awareness problems. But if I find that if I have a very regular meditation practice I eventually start to zone out. I stop being as present and the whole exercise becomes counter-productive. So I change it up. Some days I meditate, others I make lists of how I'm feeling, and what I need. Some days I will spend five minutes focusing all my attention on a sense (what can I smell, what memories do those smells invoke, how does the smell make me feel) or an object (scented candles are my favourite for this), or I will quickly list a few things I am grateful for. 

My point is this: you will always be vulnerable to the trap of busyness (blame physics and Newton's first law!), but you can learn to cope. Only you can find what works for you. Once you do, arm yourself with a few of those things, because none of them will work 100% of the time, so you'll need to change it up a bit. You will still fail sometimes. We all do. The struggle will never the truly over. But I promise it will always be worth it.

*Queen

Things I keep in my journal # 2

Here's a few more things I record in my journal:

1. Weekly meals. I'm a big fan of taking leftovers to work, both for me and my boyfriend. So I got into a habit of making a list of what each of us is having for lunch and what we are both having for dinner. This helps me make my shopping list in a flash, and means we don't have to get creative at 5pm after a full work day. To make this work, I have also started putting reminder on my phone for when I need to defrost food, and when we have more leftovers than anticipated, to label and freeze them before they spoil.
2. Weekly goals. Same as the monthly goals feed from the Yearly resolutions list, the weekly goal list imports tasks from the monthly goals, plus it adds everything I expect to accomplish that week. This includes the number of times I want to meditate and exercise, and if I expect to finish a book. I also like to add anything nice that happens that week, like going to the cinema, or going to Ikea, or doing a face mask.
3. Daily goals. By now you can guess what happens here. I usually use two pages to cover the whole week. Every day I make a section for that day and list everything I want to accomplish that day. Meetings, important work tasks, remembering to buy bread or pick up clothes, house chores I want to do, people I want to call, meditate, exercise, etc.
4. Sleep log. Because of my irregular bouts of insomnia I like to track my sleep to spot any patterns. There are highly complicated and complex sleep logs you can get online, personally I find less is more, so I only note down what time I went to bed, what time I got up, and how many hours I slept. 
5. Braindumps. This is what I call my "I just had an idea I need to jot down before I forget" pages. It will be anything, from ideas for posts, to recipes to google, to present ideas.

Thankful Thursday # 31

Morning, everyone! Did you miss me? Well, here is a staple of ours:

1. The ability to laugh at yourself. I know, what an abstract way to start! I'm the type of person who has a lot of mishaps. Situations that once made me feel profoundly embarrassed, but that I have since learnt to laugh about. Just today I managed to accidentally flash my backside to a random guy as I was leaving the showers at the gym, and ten minutes later a wind lifted my dress all the way to my waist as I was crossing the street, thus flashing an old guy. So never underestimate the soul-lifting skill of laughing at yourself and not take life too seriously.
2. Disposable income for spontaneous purchases. I'm not throwing money away (and even if I did, it's my money, so no harm there), but I do enjoy being able to do random things like organise an impromptu hot chocolate buffet at work. That's what I did today; got a really nice chocolate mix, some mini marshmallows and other toppings and now I'm off to email my team to come and treat themselves on me.
3. My boyfriend. Nothing beats the joy of having someone in your corner. Someone who makes you laugh, who knows exactly how to make your knees buckle, who lies next to you on his kindle as you read your book in bed. Someone to free spiders back into the garden with whom you can share your life with.
4. Working from home. Every now and then I like to work from home. I can have a lie in (because there's no commute), I can have a scented candle by me, I can belt musical tunes while I go through my emails, I can work in comfy wear. And I can use the coffee breaks to do five minutes of chores. Also, I can get through my normal workload a lot faster.
5. Butternut squash. Yummy, low calorie vegetable that tastes almost of dessert. What more do you need?
6. Duvet weather. I know I say this a lot, but I lo-ve sleeping under a heavy duvet. To sleep in a cocoon of cosy and have that barrier between your yummy slumber and the rest of the world. Thank you, Autumn!

That Autumn charm

So the second day of Autumn has dawned. Here's some of my favourite things about Autumn:

1. The warm colours. The reds, oranges and yellows as we slowly transition from a period of life and activity to one of rest and slumber.
2. The first days when fresh leaves fall. This is before it rains and they turn to mush. When you still feel them crunching under your feet. When a little childhood voice tells you to run and dive into a pile of them, gravity and dirt be damned.
3. Scented candles. Lighting candles in the Summer feels odd and out of place. Tea lights are fine, but those good, properly scented candles with word like "musk", "spice" or "warm" in the name feel way better used in colder weather.
4. Pumpkin and cinnamon flavoured/scented anything. Don't mind me, I'm just sprinkling cinnamon on everything like it's fairy dust. Yum!
5. Warm beverages. I will drink tea and coffee all year round, but the joy of wrapping my hands around a hot mug is exclusive to colder weather. So while I never stop drinking warm beverages, I feel I savour them in Autumn/Winter.
6. Indoor plans. As the weather turns and the temperature drops more and more time is spent inside. Where there's books and films and games.
7. Bonfire night and Hallowe'en. I moved to the UK at the end of August, so Bonfire Night and Hallowe'en were my very first seasonal celebrations and thus they hold a special place in my heart. Watching the fireworks by the light of a bonfire as you eat a hot dog - what's not to love?
8. Long sleeves. Yes! As much as I love warm weather and not wearing a coat outside, I also don't like to have my arms on display. Long sleeves are always a win
9. Soup. Say bye bye to salads and fresh fruit, and hello to warm soup! What better way to get your five a day than with a hearty bowl of carrot cream with a tad of cumin?
10. Watching telly with a blanket. This is what is amiss from Summertime telly; the weight and warmth of a blanket to snuggle under.
11. The first gingerly bite of cold when you go outside. No, I don't like feeling cold. But I like feeling a small chill in anticipation for how cosy it feels to be inside. This is something I learned from my boyfriend; feeling cold at least once a day to help you regulate your own temperature. Though I do it mostly to further expand the joy of being warm in a few minutes.
12. Hand cream. I tend to forget to use hand cream in the Summer, because it's not like my hands get chapped or need special care. So I forget how nice it feels to smell the most luscious scents just from your hands.  This year I am particularly in love with Bodyshop's seasonal vanilla pumpkin hand cream. What a dream!

Save Autumn!

Around this time each year I start getting really excited about Autumn. There are many reasons for this, which I shall voice in a separate post.

I feel sorry for Autumn. It is the underdog of seasons. Nowadays we barely experience Autumn. We extend Summer for as long as possible, and the moment that illusion is no longer possible, we jump on the Christmas bandwagon. I know a good chunk of this is due to capitalism (Hallowe'en is not nearly as profitable as Christmas), but it still surprises me that people fall for it. And this is something that makes me really upset.

The reason I am such a huge advocate for Autumn is not because it is my favourite season (which it isn't), but because it is the underdog of seasons and it seriously needs defending. Save Autumn! It is a valid season with many, many good things.

Most people (my boyfriend included) don't get this. They ask me how could I possible yearn for the cold and the rain, and the lack of light. And true, I don't particularly enjoy any of those things. But that doesn't mean the season is without wonder and beauty.

The way I see it, people go straight from Summer to Christmas, and then straight to wishing it's Spring again, just so it can be Summer soon! We don't enjoy the seasons to their fullest, and then we wonder why times slips through our fingers!

So in an effort to stop this, I am fighting the trend by finding joy in every season. And trust me, it's not a hard task at all.

I love Autumn, when you can wear long sleeves again, cinnamon and pumpkin scented/flavoured stuff everywhere, when you start craving hot drinks and sleep snug under a proper duvet. When you celebrate Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night.

I love Winter, with all the Christmas joy, snow, snuggling under a blanket, having hot apple cider and hearty food. Shepherd's pie with rosemary on top, lamb with mint jelly, crumbles, warm mince pies. And then the New Year, with its clean slate, new year new you stuff.

I love Spring, when everything blossoms to life again, days get longer, you Spring clean and declutter and you get more and more outdoors time. Picnics, walks and fresher food.

I love Summer, with its barbecues, cocktails and long and warm days. I like leaving the house without a coat, having Pimms on a Sunday, going to the beach and swimming in the sea.

And back to Autumn again.

Isn't this nice? Isn't this better?

This year, let's give Autumn a chance!

Thankful Thursday # 30

It is another rainy Thursday. Here we go:

1. My boyfriend. He is currently facing a new challenge and it is so wonderful witnessing him blossom and thrive. I am a lucky gal.
2. My packed lunch. I am very happy that I don't have to leave the office today in search for food, with all the rain falling.
3. Proper rain. I don't like that really light, airborne, gets-everywhere rain that you barely feel falling on you. If it's going to rain, then let it rain. I like unapologetic rain you can hear falling, rain that you feel bouncing off your umbrella, that gets you wet without deceit.
4. Books. Whereas 2017 was a year of films, 2018 has been a year of books. In case the sidebar didn't make that obvious enough!
5. Spotify. More than just having so much music a few swipes away, it brings Portuguese music closer. Before Spotify I would need to wait until my next trip home to buy any new music. Now, I can listen to it whenever I want. Win.
6. Autumn approaching. This is a post in an of itself, but suffice it to say for now that I am excited about the new season.
7. Work friends. In my current role I try to balance having lunches on my own, where I can read and meditate, with lunches with friends. Having lunch out with friends is great, you discover new places, you have a few laughs, you socialise for an hour, you get back to work feeling so refreshed and happy. I am blessed with several people like this to share my breaks with.

The parent and the child

I had a bad night yesterday, full of nightmares and restless sleep. So today I feel very, very small. Add to that a rainy morning and all I want is to curl up in bed and hug a teddy. Because I felt like this a lot when I was a kid, it's making me feel child-like. So today I am doing the opposite. Sort of.

There is a balance to be struck here, which turns out is one of the toughest things to achieve (at least for me). I want to move on, to shake this and go back to the typical adult that I am. However I don't want to ignore this, to bury it deep to fester. Because that's what always happens with unprocessed feelings. They fester. And even if they didn't, I think it's good practice to file them away how we want them, not in their raw, untamed state.

I have feelings that must be acknowledged and cared for. It is okay to feel bad. It's okay to be scared, even if the source of it is all in your head (isn't that the case most times, anyway?). The way I found most helpful to deal with this is to visualise separating myself into the child (the id, the emotional side of me, my irrational feelings and needs) and the parent (the ego, the listener of those feelings and needs). Part of me will speak about how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, what I want and need, and the other part of me will listen, acknowledge and come up with a battle plan.

I got the inspiration for this after watching a TED talk from Mel Robbins. She talked about how  no one tells you that after you turn eighteen it is now your job to parent yourself, to make yourself do the things you don't want to do. So why not take it into other directions, like the parent listening to the distressed child? Because deep down we all keep our own inner child throughout our life, and sometimes they get upset. It's only natural.

This has been the sagest advice I ever followed. You know what happens when I don't? I lash out, sometimes directing my distress towards the wrong person. I self-medicate with chocolate and cakes (note the plural), or I numb myself by binge-watching Netflix or keeping too busy in order to distract my attention from my feelings. Or none of these things happens but the hurt is still there. And it will come out, one time or another. And I won't know to connect it to this initial event. I probably won't even remember this anymore.

So I practice awareness and kindness. This is where my semi-regular meditation practice comes to the rescue. If I can identify when I start to feel distress, then I can tend to it. Listen to the child. And come up with a responsible battle plan. Self-soothe with a bath or a cup of tea instead of crap food. Do something special. Write it down. Meet a friend. And tell myself why it is I am doing it. To mend whatever is cracked. To help the child. To help me get back to the adult I am.