fridgesays

You can do anything but not everything

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Quote has several origins

This week I was listening to one of my regular podcasts, Kathryn Ryan’s – ‘Telling everybody everything’ and she mentioned this premise in one of her recent episodes. We can often feel guilty for not being the best partner, as we are also being the best mother and at work we are full time committed to being the best employer/employee…it’s a perpetuating circle that often leads to unfulfilled happiness within ourselves, as we can’t be everything to everyone…oh and did I mention, we also need to have wonderful self care regimes, self love, a nutritious diet, regular exercise and quality sleep? It’s a to do list worth aspiring to but one that often is unattainable. Whilst I fully agree with this, I think it’s crucial that we teach our children that they can have it all, just not all at once.

I want to provide my child with all the opportunities to succeed and to become whatever he would like to be. At this point his interests are wide and skill sets are vast, he really could be anything when he decides on a career path. My son is happy, healthy and loved. These are nonnegotiable, but recently I’ve been teaching him how to balance responsibilities and the various elements of life, why? Because you can do everything and be anything but you can’t do it all at the same time.

It’s a skill that isn’t taught in school but one in which I try to role model for his current and future wellbeing. I do this by speaking my thoughts out loud and then explaining how I’m going to complete the tasks; it could be as simple as explaining that I want to go and have a bubble bath, I need a face mask but the washing needs loading, hanging and I need to clean the bathroom. I’ll then explain how I’m going to make the list workable (I’ll wear my face mask whilst cleaning the bathroom or I’ll run the bath and before I step in I’ll pop the washing on… I also think it’s essential to also role model asking for help and also compromise, so I may explain I won’t have time to clean the bathroom and have a bath, but I can have a shower after cleaning the bathroom, or I’ll say if I make time for a bath could he help me by hanging the washing out? So often team work and a sharing of responsibilities is essential so that the family unit can thrive.

This may seem like an obvious post but as a Mumma in 2023 where dreams seem an instant attainable option by clicking a link, I do want my child to dream big, but also want him to be grounded and have strategies to achieving those goals. So, if you are preaching the positive quotes that ‘What my fridge says’ inspires, make sure any little ears also have access to techniques to help them achieve. It’s worth reflecting, as recently my son had a party to attend but also had a homework task due, by the time the evening came around he had done ten extra minutes in the days leading up to the party (without my prompting) to leave him free to go off and enjoy himself, in his own little way ‘he had it all’ and that’s as skillset I can get behind.

Dream big little dude.

Get 1% better everyday

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Quote Anon

As a little lady I’ve always known that ‘small steps’ led to reaching your destination, it may sometimes take a little longer but the victory is all the sweeter for it.

This weekend we took our son to a Rugby festival and small steps made all the difference to the team, they left winning all of their matches…the game play wasn’t superior, there wasn’t any new players but they made a few small changes…they spoke to each other during play, they used each others talents to serve the team and they came home winning every match.

Habits are crucial to reaching your goals, to living the life you truly want to. Small incremental moment of progress will always get you to your target and you often find any set backs are smaller too.

Take a moment to think about what you’d like to achieve. If it helps, write it down. From now until the end of time your job is to make that goal a reality, try not to give yourselves a time frame – having it happen is better than not. Many people think they fail because they lack resilience or loose focus. They usually don’t reach the goal because they don’t build habits to support them and when they do regress or decline, they internally berate themselves. If we feed ourselves negativity, we can’t expect the results to be positive.

So this week, speak kindly to yourself. You truly are your best friend. Look at the goal you wrote down for yourself and be that person a little more tomorrow. If you want to be someone that runs regularly, then create some habits that support that goal; leave your running clothes out for ease, set some nonnegotiable time in your calendar but most importantly be kind to yourself. Let’s be more specific: your goal is to run daily. If you are feeling fragile, exhausted or depleted from life you could still go out for a walk with your trainers on, it may be that the fresh air motivates you and you run the last two minutes home – you still ran that day and even if you didn’t, you’re nearer to your goal if you run ‘more’ days than you do now, so missing one here and there isn’t the end of the line. You don’t have to run more the next day, you don’t have to tell yourself you’ve failed. Kindness and daily habits should be your priority.

Some goals are hard to see how you can make small steps, if this is the case then I recommend you spending some time brainstorming all the things you’ll be able to do ‘one day’ then instead of the huge goal, work towards one of the ‘one days’ – any progress is success, even if you’re 1% closer.

You already have what it takes

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There are many theories and entire podcasts / books and resources on what it takes to be high performance. Entrepreneurs and people who are the best in their field at what they are great at can give you ‘10 tips’ or ‘7 things you can do today’ and as a result I’m going to share a secret with you. They aren’t that special, we all are. Yes that includes you!

Whilst a handful of things are helped with ‘natural ability’ if you want something and you dedicate yourself to it – it’s yours and if you don’t get to your final destination with what you want to achieve, I can promise that with practice you will get better. We all will.

Yesterday at the dinning room table my son asked me what pose I found the hardest in yoga, I said I couldn’t answer that but I could if he’d let me reframe the question. At the moment I’m working on my forward fold, it’s not a complex move but years of high heel wearing mean my hand strings are tight and when I go into a forward fold my head and knees are currently worlds apart, as a result I’m working on my forward fold daily until I master it. He smiled and said ‘that’s a good attitude to have’, since I began my daily yoga practise and booked into classes I can feel my body responding, progressing and heading towards the type of practise that I want to achieve, however the destination for my health and wellbeing are hundreds of hours of practises away. Mean while, I’m content in my daily mat time making millimetre progress and enjoying the journey.

What does it take? Honestly, I don’t think it matters what you want to achieve, I think you just need to decide you’re going to achieve it, then take the necessary steps to move towards that goal. If you miss the goal, at least you lived a full life trying. I know I would reach my goal far quicker if I jumped on a flight to India and did a months intense retreat or teaching practice but missing a month without my son is non negotiable and family life and all the responsibilities that come with it aren’t something I’m prepared to ignore, so my pathway to my yogi future will be slower and with my own limitations and priorities. What I will do is what I can. Again, this sometimes means making sacrifices or removing people / objects that no longer serve you or the direction you wish to go in. All I know if my next destination is a forward fold, what do you want to achieve?

Plant hope and watch it grow

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Anon

For those that are regular readers (thank you) you’ll know I am not a massive fan of humanity. Dogs, they’re awesome. Humans, are far from wonderful. I include myself in that, I’m aware the choices I make aren’t always in the interest of the planet, the words I use are not always the kindest…humanity is a gigantic working progress and as a species, our end of year report would say ‘working under expected levels, needs to improve’

Sometimes we can be hurt by others, whether the harm was intentional or not. It can leave us reflecting on why humans are vile, often we don’t deserve the reaction or behaviour put upon us. However, while negative behaviour is never okay, it often has a logic when you take a step back. *taking a step back is difficult.

Often those that need the most love, are the hardest to love. When I’m working with a traumatised five year old, who is hitting, biting and scratching the INA (individual needs assistant), stepping back you can see the child is in crisis and it doing these things because they don’t know how to communicate safely how they feel yet. When I speak to the INA, they often (in the moment of getting hurt themselves) can’t understand why the child hit them. Questions like ‘he was fine this morning when he came in, I don’t know why he kicked me? I’ve the one that got the Lego out like he wanted’ …sometimes it’s not about the INA (who side note, need paying better and in many cases given knighthoods) it’s about the internal world for that little person.

I don’t personally believe in God, but I do believe in energy and many of the universal laws. For ease of sharing, I’m going to use the word God and prayers in this next section to convey my thoughts, feel free to edit the word God for whatever works for you.

If we imagine that each human on the planet is a vessel. Some more full than others, perhaps when one vessel is in need and asks God for help, God takes from another vessel to answer that prayer. Perhaps if you’re a human who has given something in a relationship and got little back, God was sharing your love and compassion to answer the prayer of someone who has little love in them. As they have such little love they can’t give it back in exchange as you can. Maybe, God uses each of us to answer the prayers of others and at the time, although we are ‘helping’ because we don’t realise it’s an act of God we feel hurt when the relationship doesn’t feel equal.

Again, this doesn’t mean it hurts any less when others ‘abuse’ your good will, but somehow knowing that in that moment they need it, knowing that in that moment I couldn’t give that to them – it’s like planting hope. We all exchange energy all of the time, inhaling and exhaling. We all have the choice to evoke boundaries, or perhaps in this case ‘lids’ when we don’t wish to share our the contents of our vessel any further. I love the idea that we can use our lids to let God know when our own vessels are no longer available to others.

This week, love those who need it a little more, try not to take their reactions personally (after all their reaction belongs to them) and perhaps in the next few months humanity’s report card might return with ‘better than expected’. Also, if in doubt put a lid on it and protect your contents.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together

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Vincent Van Gogh

Friday 7th July I went to see the Van Gogh experience. It was made all the more magical not only by the company of a genuine friend who I adore but towards the end of the visit the last few visitors left and we then found ourselves in a private viewing situation. The amount of privilege I felt and the emotion of the experience in itself was overwhelmingly incredible. Truly an experience I’ll remember forever.

Sunflowers

I studied VG as a pupil, perhaps we’ve all painted a sunflower within our education or a starry night? I was aware that he had suffered from a decline in mental health within his life, he had cut off his ear and spent time in asylums, I wasn’t aware of how beautiful he was with words. I also wasn’t aware that he had committed suicide, the exhibition was truly immersive and left me with more questions than answers to relate to my own experience of life.

I realised that what I took away from the exhibition was how valuable relationships are and how a good friendship elevate each other. I do believe that a positive life is made of small sparkles of joy and not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Within 2023 I have made daily practises non negotiable and I’m now in the sweet spot of seeing the benefits. In the beginning the joy wasn’t necessarily there and the art of doing the behaviour felt like a chore on a to do list. Months of consistency and daily effort has created the melting pot of joy that I now feel and the practises of yoga and meditation are something I look forward to appose to another job.

At school I wasn’t particularly sporty, in fact sport was a chore. Despite not being good at it though I did realise that many of the techniques can be taken off of the court / pitch and brought into life. My netball coach always spoke about pivoting, pausing and then launching the ball towards the net. If we imagine the goal post as the ‘end of the match’ on earth, then making small pivots to our achievements seems like a smart way to to achieve a positive outcome. I truly believe it’s the small pausing in life, the reflective moments and the ‘hindsight’ lesson that allow us to move through the court (or life) with precision, purpose and positivity.

Whether in life you are currently pivoting from one direction to another, whether you are in a moment of pause / reflection, know that it’s the small moments of courage, the small moments of joy, the experiences you did take, the small moments of togetherness that make for a wonderful life. For all Van Gogh’s sad experiences he left us much joy.

Let go or be dragged

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Zen proverb

Have you ever seen in a film the scene set looking down on a busy highway or city at night…red dots following like ants in one direction, white dots in the other. Everything looks so ordered and controlled. Yet inside each vehicle the people have different reasons for being there – returning home from work, vacation, running an errand, going out for food or entertainment.

As humans we are fantastic at creating routines for ourselves, maintaining friendships…much like a hamster wheel we keep turning, not always happy and not always sad. In many aspects of our collective existence we seem to have order, on the surface at least. Cars pause when pedestrians stand near Zebra crossings, people wait in queues for a variety of things from coffees to theme park rides, slowly shuffling forward until it’s our turn to be served. Systems often keep the collective safe and prevent anarchy, like most things there is also the other side (let’s all recollect the 2020 toilet roll saga when grown ups proved they couldn’t share)

Within our daily routines we often feel so safe in the comfort of ‘what we do’ we can often forget to question why we do it. Even at weekends my body clock wakes me at the same time my alarm goes off in the week. Most weeks pass similar to the ones before and that’s completely ok if you’re happy and content with life. I often think holidays are powerful when they throw you out of your routine; time zones confuse the body clocks sleep pattern, a new diet is offered, a new environment is there to be explored or perhaps a sun lounger calls you to be still, unlike your usual hectic working week.

For my own well-being I have several ‘New year’ opportunities each year. Times of year where I take time to reassess what’s serving me, what do I need to prioritise and what do I want to achieve. They often occur during ‘new beginnings’ such as the start of Spring, a new academic year (always celebrated with a new luxurious paper diary) and the classic NYE. Of course, we can decided that today is a new beginning and don’t need to wait on changing seasons to make adjustments. Time to let go of what no longer serves us (too many take aways, not enough exercise, too much work and not enough play) allows us to each fill our cup up so that we can be the best version of ourselves. Sometimes it can be small adjustments; adding a few more greens to our plate, sometimes it can be larger pivots as we seek new careers, move home to a new area or leave relationships that no longer serve us.

What often holds us back is ‘change’ as it’s never comfortable and letting go of what we know, even when we know it no longer serves us is terrifying. However, as I watch older generations I’ve noticed that it’s much scarier to not reach for the stars and to let the night sky pass you by, that relationships that don’t serve you eat you alive. That outside factors that we can let go of become physical disease and illness that we often recognise when it’s too late.

Take a moment, grab a pen and write down a list of things you’d like to achieve. It could be over the next few weeks, months or by the end of the year. There might be a big birthday coming up and you might have a larger challenge up your sleeve, but whatever you do – do something, otherwise if you don’t let go you might just find the physical body is dragged down as a result. Apart from keeping up with daily yoga, my next challenge is to declutter. I’m going to start a room at a time and as small steps work for me, probably a draw or cabinet at a time. What do you need to let go of?

Trauma is about what did not happen

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Quote Anon

Insecurities, broken trust, tragic events, sudden changes in circumstances, life changes and unexpected happenings are all part of life’s darker side of life. Some make us stronger, many leave scars and without us knowing pivot us to pathways anew.

As a behaviour adviser with little people from four years old to sixteen, ACEs (Adverse childhood experiences) are common place across classrooms. They often manifest as difficult or dangerous behaviour. Extroverts scream, punch and kick out for support and a need to be soothed. Whilst introverts often wear masks that don’t reveal how they are feeling, burying emotions deep and silencing needs and desires. Either reaction usually has toxic results.

In child protection meetings, of which I attend too often, the focus is on legislation and protective actions…again, these often result in further trauma for the child or exacerbate the situation before any soothing and healing can occur. Why? The focus is on the trauma. What happened, who failed to protect their child, what professional did or didn’t do, capturing the child’s voice (gathering the child’s thoughts and feelings on the trauma and life), the focus is always on the trauma.

Traumas are hard to define as something that I may find traumatic to experience, you may think was irrelevant. Children in split parent situations can have 2 loving parents and go contently from one family to another, however if the rules at Daddies are completely different to Mummies and we add on school expectations and standards, the child can become insecure, experience attachment issues and generally be confused about how to behave. A sibling of that same child, may find the transitions effortless and enjoy the variety of experiences. Often as parents we may feel that ‘trauma’ is that Mummy and Daddy separated; surprisingly children are often adaptable to these alternations with a little time, the trauma described above isn’t about home being separated or parents splitting…it’s about a consistent approach to parenting.

Through social media, often people feel the need to list or label traumas they have experienced. Whilst that can be a great first step in moving forward, we often need to look at what that traumatic experience taught us; what we lacked or received too much of. A helicopter parent often doesn’t allow a child to independently think – as an adult that person may need to overcome their trauma by making independent choices and growing in confidence with their decision process…

Often this quote is correct, the event felt traumatic because of what didn’t happen. The best way we can overcome future traumas is to listen to what we need now. If you’ve burnt the candle at both ends, make time for rest. If your life style is too static – it’s time to move your body. The hardest part of this process to live a positive life style is to remember to check in on yourself, journaling and a meditation practise can often add pause buttons to daily life.

So what do you need? Serve yourself first, fill your cup up and you’ll have capacity to help those around you. Turn you rainy days into rainbows, it doesn’t stop the rain but it doesn’t improve the view.

Breath. believe. release. receive

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Quote Anon

Gratitude, manifesting, eating well and exercising all come naturally to me. Whilst I don’t do any of them immaculately and I tend to dip in and out, I know what I need to do, it’s usually poor choices that get in my way. Me – it’s always me that gets in the way.

Through the years of my yoga practise I’ve learnt over and over again how important the breath is. Thanks to numerous wellbeing podcasts meditation is also something I know I should have a daily practise with. I don’t. I never have and should I meditate on a Monday, I always feel better but it’s months before I return to the practise. Why as humans are we so poor at making time for things we know are good for us? Yet daily I make time to idly scroll on social media, gossip and allow ‘life’ to side track me.

…I know this is the paragraph where I’m meant to share wisdom and all of the answers to the questions I’ve raised above, but I’m just a little lady working through this crazy world too. However, I have managed to sustain a meditation practice for the last 14 days! I don’t feel like I’m a guru on the topic but I will share how I did it and will continue to do it, in hope that perhaps my new habit can either influence you do follow suit or deal with your own habits that you’d like to improve on.

I’m a mornings person and I’m also blessed to sleep like a goddess, so with this in mind my meditation practise happens before I get out of bed. I wake, twitch my nose, stretch my body in a star fish diva action and then I begin. Personally, I find morning meditation sets me up with a positive mindset for a better start to my day. It’s worth considering when you feel you’d best benefit from your new habit. It helps me to get the task done as soon as possible and then I can carry on with my day, knowing I’ve nailed the hard stuff!

I’m still new to this practise so I need someone to hold my hand, as such a guided meditation is working well for me. I’m using an app and listening with my headphones (this also has the luxury of shutting out the household noise of family life – bliss). The app I’m using is insight timer. *this is not an ad

Now here comes the best bit. My intention is to mediate daily, so at this stage it’s a success if the meditation lasts minutes or hours. As such even on my busiest days, I can always wake five minutes earlier to help me achieve my goal. The app allows you to select from meditations in lengths, so I simply click the five minute option and select one that resonates. Let me enhance the magic of this and whys it’s been so successful…I’m not concerning myself with whether my meditation has been groundbreaking, I’m not evaluating whether I cleared my mind, received divine intervention or am at one with the universe…I’m successful if I meditate full stop.

Most days, in my experience I’ve found that I can often give 20minutes or more. This means that I feel like achieved to a higher level…I’ve not just done a quick meditation – I’ve prioritised and excelled my expectations. That said, on busy mornings I’m equally proud to have made five minutes count.

Let me give you one more example because when it comes to building habits we all need to be kinder to ourselves when we achieve…if I go out and run, I successfully ran…at this stage, it’s unhelpful to track speeds, distances etc. once the habit has become imbed in daily life, then you can let your inner Olympian flourish the details.

Habits can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form, on average that’s 66 days until we can truly call something a daily habit, where our subconscious takes over, so don’t be hard on yourself if you fall off the habit train and need to get back on, failure is a wonderful attribute to improve future efforts.

What habit would you love to have with ease and flow? How do you think you can make it a priority? I will definitely come back at day 66 and let you know if my daily habit of morning meditations has stuck.

Kindness is my go to but fuck off is my wingman

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Quote Anon

In all honesty, gratitude is my go to and kindness is second in line. The wonderful thing about kindness is it often doesn’t financially cost anything, it usually requires a pinch of thought and a dusting of time…but the results often stay with the person you’re kind to forever.

People remember the kind things you did for them, how you made them feel, long after you did them, they often pay them back ten fold and your karma points to joy increase! So why aren’t more humans kind? As I’m not generally a fan of humanity, I think we need to look to dogs to solve this answer. Our dog will snuggle, guard you and clean up your crumbs whenever you’re in need however she is also easily distracted and I think this is the same as humans. We often don’t think to open doors, make gestures of kindness, or even take time to make magical moments happen because we are caught up with our own struggles, time limitations and world.

The quote also refers to boundaries, to saying no and stepping back – for me this is the best side to serve with a heap of kindness. Clear boundaries will allow you to walk away, to not be walked over and to sustain your kindness for another day. People that are kind but lack the words ‘no’ in their vocabulary often feel the burdens of others and an empathetic overload that makes them ill.

January weather in the UK is bleak, grey and often wet…SO I’m launching #kindnessmatters as a hashtag on my instagram stories through the month of January. You can follow along @fridgesays or if you aren’t a social media dweller you can create your own ‘kindness matters’ without…who cares how we show up as long as we do. What do you need to do? BE KIND

Yup that’s is, nothing more and nothing less. Take time each day to do something kind and remember it doesn’t have to cost the earth or be time consuming. This morning as we went out to the car we all ran to one of our neighbours bins that had blown over after collections and wheeled them back to their owners back gates. kindness matters. They don’t necessarily know that we did it but that’s not the essence of kindness, the centre for kindness is in the doing, so let’s make January a little less bleak by showing compassion to others…also don’t forget you can’t pour kindness from an empty cup, so being kind to yourself totally counts.

Comin’ with the bad bitch magic

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Full quote from Queen Herby lyrics are “Comin’ with the bad bitch magic, and they can’t stand it, when I put these hoes in a panic.”

December can often feel suffocating, the final weeks of school term devoured me with all its tinsel and emotional demands. However I have made it and can now see two weeks of work free life upon me, except adult life never stops – the Christmas prep has barely begun and the recent full moon has resulted in a broken kitchen tap, dead car battery and narrowly escaping a stag charging in my direction (a little closer than I’d of liked, side note; it was seriously awesome once I’d survived, placed my heart back inside my chest cavity and processed the event)…that said, our Christmas tree is looking extra glorious this year with a new fairy and seven hundred extra lights, despite our dogs hypocritical and despairing looks of judgement as we bought in a seven foot tree and don’t allow her to bring her sticks in the house…yes tiny phone people: December is a lot!

Therefore and because I refuse to be overwhelmed, I go to my tool kit of magic and joy to help me raise my vibration…I refuse to be taken down by my ever growing to do lists and cold winter evenings that seem to consume time and spit me out into my pjs earlier and earlier. So what’s a ‘bad bitch to do’ …below are some of my sparkliest ideas from my magical toolkit.

Self care matters: Obviously it always matters but if you are missing the warmer days of life then put the Christmas chocolate box down for a minute and listen up! *you can totally return to the chocolate box once you’ve finished reading

Up your vitamins…some of my favs include vitamin D (sun in a bottle), lions mane, echinacea and vitamin C

Listen and move to feel good music, podcasts, movies and pivot when things feel negative…we’ve got no time for a documentary on wars and tragedies right now…this diet of high energy creative vibes will feed your soul

Soup – honestly, it’s the best winter warmer and I think it makes my soul happier, I can’t stop making it?

Pinterest – I know what you’re thinking, this social app from 2009 is vintage BUT collating (for free!) beautiful pin boards of imagery that lights your fire is far more beneficial than watching thirty second clips of adults dancing and cats falling off high cupboards. I’m using the app to set intentions for 2023, to gather recipes (okay, mainly soup), to discover ideas of things I might make and to collate a wardrobe that sparks joy…oh, that reminds me

Wear all the colours of the rainbow – I used my clothes rail like a dressing up box. The lower I feel, the more I need a sparkly tiara, sparkly boots, sparkly cardigans – ALL the SPARKLES! However, you may be less glitter and more practical, whatever your vibe make sure you walk out of the front door feeling fabulous. You will likely inspire others, pick up compliments like acorns on an oak tree and feel beautiful.

Journal – grab a note book and write as if you’re Dickens, don’t worry if what you’re writing down is gibberish, negative or the same day after day, the main thing is you are allowing those thoughts to have there moment of glory, then you’re turning the page and moving on

Gratitude lists – I adore a list full of moments of joy, dig deep and you’ll be surprised at what you have to be grateful for even in the darkest corners of life

What’s in your sparkly tool box of joy, that raises your vibration and helps you through the tougher moments of life? Let me know in the comments below