Tap The Pain Away – EMDR and Prince Harry

There has been much deriding of Prince Harry’s exploration of EMDR therapy, particularly from the older generation and a certain section of the media who feel we should keep emotional dirty laundry in our own backyards.

I’m undertaking EMDR therapy right now, and I’m evangelical about its benefits, so I’d like to discuss what it’s done for me, in case it could help anyone else.

We’ve done the stiff upper lip thing and it doesn’t work for many of us. Those weary men returning from wars broken and damaged – you didn’t see them doing tapping therapies – but why should we laud that? If they didn’t suffer from depression, commit acts of rage, or succumb to addictions, then sure as hell their children probably did. And when suicide is the biggest cause of death in young men, we can see we have a crisis on our hands.

It is not weak to admit you suffer from trauma. It should not be a source of shame. If we can discuss our IBS and our gluten intolerance, we can admit that we have an unregulated response to certain life events that others may deal with fine. This lack of regulation is normally your primal reptilian brain controlling you (your fight or flight response to perceived harm). You aren’t in your rational, logical prefrontal cortex, you are behaving from a scared, traumatised place. It feels disproportionate but you might not know why.

If you’d like an example mine was this – a low mood I couldn’t explain, an inability to appreciate my life as fully as I should, an overwhelming anxiety when faced with small inconveniences like being late or getting lost, a lack of motivation to take care of myself, a frustration that my needs weren’t being met (and an inability to recognise what those needs were) and a darkness and self-destruction that scared me at times.

I have a gorgeous supportive husband and children and I didn’t want to pass this onto them, particularly because it was behaviour I’d seen in my own parents. So, I’m currently undertaking EMDR therapy and my goodness it is ground-breaking and exciting. It has changed my life.

I’ve found my safe place, where my mind can go to regulate my brain in times of stress, I’ve retraced my own childhood trauma and cried long overdue tears that came from a little girl scared and sad about what was happening in her life. I’ve sat with my parents and grandparents, retracing the steps of their own lives and traumas, crying real tears for them all, some of whom I’ve never even met. I’ve come to understand why they behaved like they did and that what they did was probably done to them, and to their parents before them. It is hard work, emotionally draining, but the relief is palpable.

Not everyone needs EMDR therapy, but I suspect most people have some form of trauma in their lives. For some, it would be too painful to do what is an emotionally difficult form of therapy and relive traumatic events. For others, they may prefer to brush it under the carpet – and good luck to them, but it didn’t work for me. But one thing is clear – anyone who seeks help for mental health issues is not weak or vulnerable, it is an act of heroic strength, attempting to break a never-ending cycle of generational trauma.
I’m continuing the EMDR therapy as long as I need to. We’ve not even started on my adult trauma – the break ups and addictions, the miscarriages and the birth trauma, the deep-seated shame.

Think what you like of Prince Harry but don’t shame people for choosing to address their mental health issues in a positive way. I applaud him for being brave enough to talk about it publicly, and I hope we see a day when we can reduce destructive patterns of behaviour that cause untold damage to families. We owe it to those men and women who endured terrible hardship in silence and shame, who were never allowed to heal the deep wounds inflicted upon them, and who found themselves inflicting further wounds themselves, often without knowing what they were doing.

I’ve included some photos of my happy place here. I wonder – what is yours?

How To Be Happy In A Global Pandemic

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

It is normal if you don’t feel right. It is normal if you feel angry, frustrated, out of control, teary and anxious. We are in the midst of a global pandemic which has turned our world upside down. We, the generation who haven’t lived through war, are in the middle of a mass trauma event of our own. And while “blitz spirit” and the band playing on as the Titanic sank are romantic notions, it is also normal to go fucking bonkers from time to time. 

Let’s break this down a little. Politically, we have never seen such turbulent times. A populist nationalism that claims black is white, to be isolated is patriotic, and that anyone who doesn’t agree is the enemy. We are addicted to social media, sucking up our time with mindless scrolling and a clickbait culture that fuels envy of curated lives, and promotes extremist opinions. And then Covid hit. Daily death tolls, images of anonymous lifeless bodies on their stomachs, our freedoms curtailed and our livelihoods thrown into doubt.

Do not underestimate how traumatic this is for all of us. To face the possibility of your loved ones dying because of an invisible enemy is terrifying. Mass unemployment is terrifying. And quite frankly homeschooling an unwilling child is more than most of us could reasonably take. 

So what is the effect of this on us all? I don’t think we’ll know for years to come, but if you look around you can see the beginnings of it bubbling up. Fear has turned into anger – against the system, against facts and science, and against that neighbour at number 32 who definitely had more than 6 people at her garden party. 

In an attempt to meet this growing mental health crisis, more money has been pumped into mental health services, and there is a growing online wellbeing industry on social media offering content to help soothe your mind and soul. I’ve certainly benefitted from the latter. I’ve been following a growing army of wellbeing experts and have dipped my toe into their suggested toolkits, including daily journaling, meditation and physical trauma release. 

But I worry that sometimes the amount of wellbeing information coming our way can also be overwhelming, and before we’ve fully mastered one solution, we’re bombarded with another. 

So I have found, as I always have, that going back to the Happiness Project Rules is really helpful. They are simple, easy to remember, and almost every wellbeing tool that I’ve come across recently fits into its remit. But I would say that it’s a good idea to only introduce one new rule at a time. Work on it, master it, take it slowly, before moving on to the next. And sometimes you will wobble and go back to the start again, and that’s OK. Slow and steady is what it’s all about. 

Here they are then – the HPL rules for happiness, adapted for a post-Covid world:  

1. BE ACTIVE 

Everyone agrees on the importance of this. Listen to your body and follow what it wants to do – sometimes it needs a slow walk or a restorative yoga class, sometimes your cortisol wants a run or some ashtanga yoga. Your phone needs to be OFF although the NHS Couch to 5K app is miraculous, and I found it helped to listen to a podcast or book while running. I’m also enjoying the back-to-nature wellbeing movement on social media and their references to animals shaking off trauma, literally. Dancing round the kitchen seems to help. 

2. CONNECT

Thank god the days of the Zoom quiz now appear to be over, and while video calls did allow connection to some extent, it’s not the same as a proper human connection. During the first lockdown I missed most of all the simple banter of a shop transaction or the school gate. Now, I try to have a long phone call with a good friend or with family every couple of weeks, and talk incessantly to the postman. 

3. GIVE 

All this self-help stuff can make you self-centred sometimes and that’s why this rule is here. To make you look outward – to see what other people are going through and try to help. It puts your own worries in perspective and empathy is good for the soul. Lockdown seems to have promoted this in communities – foodbank donations and dropping round groceries to your neighbour for example. There are myriad local Facebook groups offering volunteering and donation options, or just ask your neighbours if you need anything. Even if you’re at your lowest it will make you feel better.

4. NURTURE 

The obvious way to do this – and one that has been much trumpeted during lockdown –is gardening. And I can whole-heartedly confirm having built a veggie patch during lockdown that getting your fingers in the soil and growing something you can eat from seed is wonderfully calming and satisfying. Or another great thing to do is buy a few bird feeders and some bird seed and watch as birds crowd round them for their winter feeds. However, given we’re in a global pandemic and we should take as much pressure off ourselves and achievements right now, how about we nurture ourselves, oxygen mask on first style. Meditation, baths, negronis. Whatever you need right now, nurture yourself.

5. LEARN

Are you one of the ones who made your own sourdough bread? If so, hats off to you. I learned how to make a great G&T. Learning doesn’t have to have an achievement at the end or an instagrammable conclusion. On our theme of being kind to ourselves, how about this – learn to listen to your body, learn about your cycle, learn what your body, your energy, your soul really needs. Sometimes it’s as simple as a good cry or a hug.  

6. BE CURIOUS 

There is a similarity to learning here, but this is different. Being curious is something I think we’ve got better at during lockdown, if only by the number of sunsets posted on my IG feed. With only one allocated walk a day we do seem to appreciate nature more. And that’s it for this rule, its simple. Look up, look around, and be grateful. Sunset pics optional. 

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UPDATE: I feel slightly phoney writing for The Happiness Project London because in August 2019 we left London for the East Devon/West Dorset border where we are setting up a cookery school, feast venue and glamping site. In January 2021, I am beginning a two year course in psychotherapy and counselling to qualify as a BACP registered counsellor. My plan is to host wellbeing talks and retreats, as well as having my own patients and therapy business in due course. I will update you with the website and social media details when I’m ready. In the meantime I’m so incredibly grateful to the HPL, and everyone who has commented and followed it since 2007 for starting me on this incredible journey which has brought me to this point 13 years later. 

BURNOUT

I posted this on my other blog The Happy Baby Project but am re-posting it here as it gives a useful update on me and link to what I’m doing next!

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So this morning, I’m in bed. reading Country Life, with the cat. Because we have moved to the country. But more on that later.

But this isn’t a smug post, it’s an honest one. I’m in bed, because I hit a wall in a massive way recently. Burn out. It wasn’t nice. But more on that later too.

For now, let me catch you up with where I am as it’s been a while. My last post was in 2017 and in November 2018, after 2 more miscarriages, I had my third child, who we’ll call The Baby. It was another dreadful birth. You may remember my first child got stuck (shoulder dystocia), my second child arrived prematurely after a massive haemorrage and after 4 painful miscarriages, but my third child was a planned c-section. Oh this will be so much more relaxed! We laughed.

On 13 November 2018, after The Baby was lifted out of my tummy, I lost 4 litres of blood in a massive obstetric haemorrage. Given you only have 5-6 litres of blood in your body, it was pretty terrifying and I thought that I would die. Of course I didn’t die, and there were amazing doctors there to pump 4 units of blood straight back into me, but at one point both me and my poor husband who had been dragged with The Baby to another room as I screamed I couldn’t breathe, thought I was going to die. I make this point because it’s important to remember that this is trauma, for your body and your brain. We were told shortly after this (when I’d been handed a premature baby to hold and to feed, as I tried to piece my broken body back into life again) that we should never have children again. No chance, we thought. So the trauma – all those losses, all that pain, all those awful births – is over.

The Baby is almost 1 and life is pretty great. We left London to buy a large house in East Devon near the beach, and we plan to build a cookery school and glamping centre here. We have three healthy children, a cat, and we just bought a puppy. As we walk along the beach, looking at the kids running in the waves it all feels great.

But then there’s this thing. It’s inside me and it feels heavy. When I’m alone or when I’m exhausted, I think about what happened to me and my body, and a feeling rises up in my chest and its so heavy and overwhelming, and it makes me cry until I push it back down again. I push it down again because I have to get on with life and life is busy and I have three kids. But it’s there and it feels like I’m holding back a dam sometimes and if I let it go it would burst with such force it would wash us all away.

And recently with the stress of looking after the kids and the puppy and moving to a new house and doing up the house and starting work again after maternity leave and trying to lose a bit of weight, I hit burn out. So how does that feel? A body completely devoid of energy and a mind empty of motivation. An inability to do anything – I mean literally unable to stack a dishwashwer or get up off the sofa. A desire just to curl up and sleep, all day long. A feeling of being empty, of crying with helplessness and exhaustion. A feeling of hitting rock bottom.

Trauma 

It is, I now believe, partly down to this unresolved trauma. I  believe most of us carry some form of trauma and most of our parents carry it too – trauma from childhood, trauma from infertility or terrible births or miscarriages, trauma from health problems or parental loss.

It is possible to carry this trauma around – I have. And you can cover it for a while – denial, getting on with things, or in other less healthy ways – alcohol or striving for validation through over-achieving, over-work and people pleasing. But it has to come out at some point or it will eat you alive. Literally – insomnia and auto-immune conditions and stress-related disease.

So how do you resolve this trauma? Well, there is CBT counselling, where you re-live the experience in the present tense (I’m lying on the bed and I can’t breathe and I think I’m going to die) but you add in the things you know now – that you didn’t die, that you were safe. And I can definitely see the benefits in that, but it involves time and investment and you would have to go to a very vulnerable place for a while.

So I guess the other way you resolve it is through talking about it, writing about it, releasing that dam little by little so it doesn’t feel so heavy. Realising what your triggers are and being conscious of when you feel waves of emotion that you didn’t really understand before. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

A stressful life 

Which leads me to other stress factors as a parent generally. I seem to be having more conversations, almost daily, with mums who are at their peak stress levels and wondering why its so hard and feeling like they are failing. And sometimes we question why it’s so hard for us because didn’t our parents do all this and not complain? But I think it IS harder for us, and here’s why.

First, we put massive pressure on ourselves as parents. I’m pretty sure my folks never read a single parenting book, but that’s probably because the parenting style at the time was a lot easier – to parent based on a certain level of detachment, fear and control. Children should be seen and not heard. Eat properly at the table. Kids should entertain themselves and be bored (ever spend days on end throwing a tennis ball up and down for entertainment?). We could run fairly wild then – I remember spending hours running round parks and back gardens with my neighbours’ kids from a fairly young age. Smack them if they are naughty (I wasn’t actually ever smacked. Well, once, for drawing on a newly-decorated nursery wall).

But now we’re all about perfect parenting. We have to cook healthy organic food, read about conscious parenting styles, be constantly empathetic and patient, spend time doing educational but fun games, and make sure they are doing extra curricular activities like swimming and scuba diving and frickin nuclear fusion club, and that’s after you’ve spent time reading every night and doing extensive homework. Sometimes it’s just too much pressure.

Secondly, we’ve lost our communities. If it once took a village to raise a child, it is now us, alone, in a crappy soft play centre in Brentford wondering what went wrong. We live far from our families, and our sisters, neighbours and friends don’t involve themselves with raising our kids anymore. It’s not their fault, we’re all just too busy. But we weren’t meant to do this alone.

Next, society adds others pressures on ourselves that we never used to, partly driven by social media. The pressure to be professionally successful and earn well, to “have it all” (ask me who the most stressed in our society is, and I will show you the part-time working mother). To entertain and have a full social life and great holidays. To have beautifully styled houses and gorgeous interiors. To look hot and slim and wrinkle-free with fabulous clothes and hair. If you are a perfectionist like me, it is impossible to keep up with it all and something has to give.

So what can you do about this? Well, this is what I’m working on and this is why I’ve written this starting blog post (which I’m writing in bed).

Ultimately, I need to lower my standards and work out what is actually important to me – so for example, I don’t need to look hot but I would like to be healthy and strong and fit for my kids. I don’t need to entertain my kids all the time, but I’d like to have special 1 on 1 time for at least 5 minutes with each of them every day.

I need to have more me-time and reconnect to who I was before I had kids – so I’m adding time each day for doing something just for me. Listening to a podcast with headphones on while the kids play or buying something frivolous and just for me like a wet suit. I’m planning days out with close girlfriends. And finding time in each month to pursue a hobby I already love – like yoga – and starting hobbies I’ve always wanted to do but never found the time – like painting and (don’t laugh) wild swimming.

Most of all, I’m realising sometimes I can’t keep face and say I can do things when I know it would lead to burn out if I pushed myself too far. And the most important thing is allowing myself to be vulnerable without being ashamed, and saying I can’t do it, and I need help.

Today is Day 1. 

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As I said earlier, we have moved to East Devon and are planning to set up a cookery school/feast venue, but also one with a wellness side, hosting wellbeing events, talks and yoga. I will post details of this soon. I’m also planning (once I get my head above water!) to re-train in psychotherapy or life coaching. I’ll be documenting my journey in a separate blog and instagram page, which I will set up and also send details soon. Watch this space! 

A post for mental health awareness week

There’s a wonderful spotlight being shone on mental health right now thanks to Bryony Gordon and the royals’ Heads Together charity. Having lived through the grief of losing a parent and multiple miscarriages, as well as having suffered with rampant insecurities and anxieties since I was little, here are some things I’ve learned about mental health.

Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, if not more so. If left untreated, it can lead to stress, anxiety, depression and anger; and physical ramifications like headaches and heart attacks, back problems and thyroid issues. You pay monthly to go to the gym so why don’t you also pay to talk to someone?

It is not weak to be vulnerable. It is not pathetic to say you’re struggling or anxious or insecure.  You don’t have to express your mental health issues in a way that makes you feel like a failure – in fact, humour and cynicism and swearing like a sailor are fantastic tools for expressing the fact that you’re having a shit time. If you think about it, the people that open up enough to admit their vulnerabilities are often the most courageous.

You are not lessened by having mental health issues. It is easy to think the confident person next door is simply better than you, because that’s just how you’re wired to think. But being old enough to have accepted myself now, I realise that being insecure or a bit angry or unable to shake off that feeling that you’re not quite good enough, does not make you worse than other people. My friends are made up of these people, most historical heroes too. Show me someone with vices like this, I’ll show you someone fascinating, who is built up of layers of intricately woven issues and ideas, who can surprise and entertain and amaze you. To love someone like this can be frustrating at times, but it can also be unbelievably rewarding, deeply passionate and interesting.

Allowing yourself to ask for help and to show your vulnerabilities is the key to being able to cope. Allow yourself to be loved.

Going through any sort of trauma allows you to empathise with others going through heartache. Your friend who went through that divorce or that cancer scare or that miscarriage will, in time, be the best most understanding listener there is. Damaged people often make the best friends.

Motherhood is not the #blessed picture many make it out to be on social media. Much of the time it’s anxiety-inducing, insecurity-building, lonely and depressing, as well as being fucking boring. It’s easy to find an Instagram-friendly photo of family life to show the world, but wouldn’t it be more interesting if we could be honest about it?

In 2013, the leading cause of death for both men and women in ages 20-34 was suicide. For men, that’s the leading cause of death in 35-49 year olds too. Doesn’t this show the importance of dealing with the disappointments and anxieties that life throws at us. If this means meeting up with someone once a month to drink a bottle of wine and talk about feelings, if only for a little bit, then it’s worth it. Crying is good. Being vulnerable is good. We are only human after all.

 

Escape To The Country?

In my twenties and early thirties, London was the love of my life.

I would think nothing of schlepping from a Neil Diamond night in a pub in Bethnal Green to a Korean restaurant in Soho followed by after-beers at the Dogstar in Brixton. I’d visit art exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery and watch German arthouse films at the BFI. I went to the latest pop-up restaurants in Clerkenwell and supper clubs in Hackney. I tried Michelin-starred restaurants on my London salary, and drank champagne on rooftop bars in the City.

I shared cheap flats in Clapham and Brixton, having house parties for our closest 50 friends. I spent balmy Sunday afternoons at The Landor and The Falcon; Saturday nights trying out cocktail bars and clubs in Shoreditch, or feet sticking to the carpet at Infernos.

This blog was wonderful in making me visit parks and museums, theatres and bars. I thought nothing of journeying across London, laughing on the tube with friends all the way. The journey itself was half the fun. I had the time of my life. London filled me with energy, it nourished my soul.

But then something happened. And that something is inexpertly peeing on my carpet in an attempt to potty train right now.

Yes, London with kids is another beast entirely.

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Your horizons in London with small children narrow dramatically. Your world becomes a small quadrant between your house and a 20 minute radius; between naps and nappy changes and feeds and drop offs and pick ups.

You try to avoid the tube and the bus with their crowds and heat and the complexities of moving and folding a buggy with a sleeping child or worse, a screaming one. Queues for anything – refreshments, tickets, seats – can be a nightmare with a fidgety child. Suddenly you spy dangers in places you never saw it before – dogs off leads and drunks on benches and pollution on Putney high street.

Even your social life, once so buzzing and fun, seems hectic, and you no longer want to drag yourself across London to visit friends or places. You have little time to spend at home to chill and even if you did your home suddenly feels too small to hang around too long. The commute sucks the energy from you so all you can do when you get home is switch on the telly.

Your cosy London house suddenly seems small. With piles of plastic crap everywhere, and a garden the size of a postage stamp, you long for space – high ceilings and a spare bedroom and a utility room and a downstairs loo. You wish your child didn’t think plastic grass was the norm.

London suddenly seems the playground of the rich. You can’t afford a decent sized family house even though your parents did. With endless trips to coffee shops and park cafes, you find you haermorrage cash and are constantly broke. All your friends talk about how broke they are, even though they have great jobs and earn pots of cash. And yet because you are surrounded by money, it is easy to be jealous – of the large houses, private schools and long haul holidays, the Farrow & Ball lifestyles that the precious few can afford.

You try to make the most of London but a trip to the South Bank on a bank holiday drives you to despair with crowded trains and groups of tourists tripping over your buggy. You can’t find a table spare at any of the chain restaurants so you jump on the train home with a hungry child crying. You drive to Richmond Park on a sunny day and marvel at the deer, but then lose it when you spend 25 minutes trying to find a parking space. You queue 15 minutes for hot food at Kew Gardens which is cold by the time you get to the counter to pay for it. You queue so long for the dinosaur exhibition at the Natural History Museum that you have 5 minutes to enjoy it before lunchtime. You try to go to Soho for date night but end up spending 2 hours commuting there and back with works out as an extra £80 in cabs and babysitters.

Suddenly London doesn’t fill you with energy, it sucks it away, leaving you exhausted on the sofa.

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You find yourself imagining a different life.

You could sell your tiny terraced house which is pushing a million quid and buy a bloody great estate in Cornwall, or Berkshire, or Bath. You could have a stream running through it. You could have 5 bedrooms, a larder and a boot room. You could live a simple life without the weight of materialism dragging you down. You could buy chickens! Or raise rare breed goats. You could spend your days pottering in your house, or planting vegetables in your garden. You could give up your stressful job and run a book shop or re-train as a life coach.

Your children could run around the house and garden, finding endless things to do – treehouses to build, streams to dam and nooks and crannies to play hide and seek. They would grow up less sophisticated and cynical; like children should be, perhaps.

After school you could go to the beach, or watch the sun go down across the fields.Where once your soul was lifted by the party you lived, now it is lifted by the quiet and the peace and the space.

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It’s a no brainer isnt it?

And yet.

I would miss you, London.

I would miss the Friday nights with girlfriends having sun downers by the Thames. I would miss playdates with mummy friends at walking distance round the corner, having cups of tea and moaning about house prices and the price of living, discussing Farrow & Ball colours and extensions. I would miss impromptu BBQs in gardens so small you have to sit inside. I would miss the opportunity to have botox, laser hair removal, a blow dry and a mani/pedi within a 5 minute walk. I would miss dressing up to head to “town”. I would miss hearing every language under the sun. I would miss that feeling when you walk into a bar or restaurant and think damn this is so cool. I would miss being able to wear anything I liked, however mad or trendy. I would miss the West end theatre, the world class restaurants and museums, even though I rarely go.

I would miss the buzz and the stress and the fun. I may have fallen out of love with London but I’m just not sure I’m ready to walk away just yet.

 

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A New Year Happiness Project

Note from Sasha: I have so so many posts in the pipeline, but I haven’t seemed to find any time to write them, for which I apologise profusely. If you wonder what on earth I’ve been doing, you can check out my other blog to find out, (beware, its not very happy…)

In the meantime and while I compose my own posts, I’d like to share the Happiness Project of a dear friend of mine, and past HPL contributor, who we shall call Betty Sue. She has recently suffered what I can summarise as some Really Shitty Stuff, and has impressed me by her optimism since. I believe that happiness is something that must be proactively worked at, that must be methodically planned and acted upon, most importantly in the face of great sadness and trauma; and her strength and clarity in not sinking into the depths of despair but instead choosing to be positive is truly inspirational. Here’s to you Betty Sue.

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We are heading towards a new year. A rebirth, a new beginning. Thank God (or whatever/whoever it is you believe in).

This is my New Year Happiness Project.

I don’t live in London anymore and this has been the most unhappy, shittiest year I have ever experienced. So what’s the connection?

This year I have learnt that some people are mean. I know, I should have realised a long time ago (about thirty something years to be inexact). I myself have been really mean in the past, but I still didn’t get it. And it is as a consequence of this discovery that I found myself at a very low point.

But from that low point, something happened. I did some research, some soul-searching and asked myself some questions. How am I going to get happy this year, today, at some point? How can I stay happy? Despite this year being astronomically awful, literally an annus horribilis, it has also given me some major insights into my very less than perfect life.

The New Year is here, and I am starting over. Here how:

Step One: Learn stuff about yourself and human beings (even slowly). People are odd, we all have our quirks – read about them, explore them, embrace them. Like when I realised that my life is up to me. Obvious to the initiated, but you get the picture. I am a very slow learner.

Step Two: You can’t change other people (I know, I know, slow) but you really can’t. They are what they are and if that works for you, then good, but if not, don’t have them in your life. You cant fix them, wish they did a b and c. Just stop it. It won’t help either of you.

Step Three: Go get some exercise. Yes, do. Find something, anything, that involves moving and go and do it. This could be walking. Minimal effort is fine. I discovered I love yoga. I still have a gym phobia. A friend discovered her thing was roller derby. Be brave.

Step Four: Find your friends. If you don’t have any/many, make a plan to find some. If you do, go spend time with them. If you’ve lost contact, look them up. Friends are very, very important for our emotional well being. As we are to theirs.

Step Five: Don’t get obsessed about the future. I know how easy that is, “when I get (insert current obsession) I will be happy“. Rude to say it, but no you won’t. You won’t, because you have wasted the time you could have been happy worrying about not getting the thing you wanted. You might want to stop doing that.

Step Six: Be happy today. If you’re struggling, how about using the theory of ‘fake it til you make it’. Try it.

Step Seven: (possibly the most important one): Think about yourself. Do you like what you see? If you do, love yourself, if you don’t, love yourself more. You are in sole charge of one person, you. If you don’t love yourself then who the hell else will?

Step Eight: Stop being mean to yourself. There are enough mean people out there already. “I am not good enough at (insert current negative statement)” is not going to help you. You are quite likely good at lots of things. Look at those things, remind yourself of those things. Love those things.

Step Nine: Do nice things for other people. It will make you feel good, it will make them feel good. Win win.

Step Ten: Look after your body. Everything we put in them is a chemical. Choose your chemicals carefully.

Step Eleven: Accept who you are. I love romance and fairytales (so living in denial/fantasy land has worked very well for me). Deal with who you are, be honest with yourself, do it kindly.

Step Twelve: You are worth it (queue image of shampoo advert), we are all worth it (apart from those meanies, but that’s a whole blog post which doesn’t belong here). We can do good stuff everyday for other people and ourselves. We just need to remember that it is our choice.

We are not responsible for other people’s choices, as they are not for ours. Choose wisely, your happiness depends upon it.

In praise of London’s libraries

The beautiful Brixton central library

How many of you are members of your local library?

I know some of you will be of course. I know some of you were very vocal about the recent cuts to library budgets. I know some of you go there for your kids, to borrow books and go to play groups. But the vast, vast majority of my friends, I am pretty certain, haven’t passed the door of a library since they were at school.

And I was exactly the same until YESTERDAY, when I joined Richmond libraries. And I am both amazed and impressed at how brilliant they are, and ashamed that I didn’t join sooner.

I have rose-tinted memories of libraries as a child – going along every week with my mum to take out books on penguins and snails; and then on my own slightly older to explore, crimson-cheeked, books by Judy Bloom, marveling at the high-tech way you could scroll through old newspapers on their machines.

But then libraries were about boring dusty books at Uni, revising and avoidance, and I never really went again.

Until now. Now I have a son, I want him to read a lot like I did, to explore books – their smells and the imagination within them, to discover authors and adventures. And I also want to start reading more myself – and having a house that is weighed down with books already, I don’t particularly need to own any more.

So I went along yesterday, egged on in all honesty by the fact that both my son and I are bored of all his books and I wanted to get him some more, and discovered that libraries now have so much more than they used to. They have free internet access. They let you borrow audio books, both kids and adults. They let you borrow MUSIC and boxsets (“The Wire? Yeah we let you keep that for 3 weeks”). They have every type of book imaginable and allow you to explore new authors and old friends alike. And they are all new-fangled with online renewals and inventories and a nifty computer thingie which you simply swipe your books to your account (yes I realise this is linked to the cuts – more on that below).

And the best thing? I am ashamed that I just didn’t know this – I simply assumed in this world where there is no such a thing as a free lunch that you would have to pay something, a few quid perhaps for each set of books you wanted (yes, I know, The Chef already laughed at me ) – that all of this is FREE. That is, up to 20 books for 3 weeks for just the price of paying your taxes. And in a London where you can barely walk out your front door without shelling a tenner here and there, that is a great thing.

The other great thing about the library? It is a community – your community. It was filled with dads looking at crime novels, grandfathers trying out this new-fangled interweb thingie, kids playing and reading about frogs, mums reading to toddlers, your neighbours all. They have baby singing classes and reading groups, fairs and talks.

It reminded me of my childhood, where life was about simplicity, and community, and where money didn’t matter so much, or certainly it wasn’t so apparent to me as it is now.

So I’m going to support the library in any way I can. Although my first challenge is to see if I can read my first bloody book in 3 weeks! Shantaram took me a YEAR…

Finally, I couldn’t talk about London’s libraries without talking about the cuts. I had read about them, of course, without really understanding how they affected me. So last night I looked at this website  which told me what’s actually happening all over the country. From a quick look, it looks like smaller areas have had their libraries closed, other libraries have had to take up the slack and open longer hours, thousands of qualified staff have been laid off, and mobile centres seem to have disappeared almost entirely. Which makes me worried about those communities, those immobile people, who are denied the thing that I have just discovered.

Where I used to live in Lambeth, Upper Norwood library is now funded outside the council, at least 6 mobile centres seem to have been lost, large branches have had their hours increased, smaller branches their hours cut, Waterloo and Streatham libraries may have to move and Streatham’s qualified staff all dismissed, other libraries at risk are Durning, Waterloo, South Lambeth, Minet and Carnegie (5 out of 11), West Norwood’s library is still closed, librarians jobs have been cut, £1.5 million has been cut from a budget of £6 million.

In Richmond where I now live, Ham, Hampton Wick and Kew libraries are all under threat with other libraries having to open longer hours, self-service is in all libraries, and £351k has been cut from the budget.

Do what you can to support London’s libraries – having discovered them I would be sad to see this bastion of community disappear. Check the website above for campaign groups such as Save Lambeth Libraries, or check out this page on what you can do to support libraries across the country.

For the love of food – Al Boccon Di Vino, Richmond

So, as you know, I now have a small person occupying my time so I haven’t blogged for a while, but this place is just so damn good I wanted to tell you all about it.

It’s called Al Boccon Di Vino and it’s a tiny little restaurant in Richmond owned by this impossibly cool man who managed to make me giggle like a schoolgirl simply by winking at me:

And run by this fabulous lady who The Chef actually fell in love with, and who walked round all night filling up our wine glasses and offering out limoncello, with words of love and laughter.

Now, I didn’t think London could possibly produce a better fun Italian restaurant than Giuseppes in Borough – I mean, when it comes to atmosphere, Giuseppes always has me up dancing by the end of the night – arms round a group of people I only just met, warbling out old love songs on the microphone and listening to Frank Sinatra while sipping limoncello.

But Al Boccon Di Vino has atmosphere in spades and is the most incredible authentic Italian feast.

First, it has to be said it’s great for Richmond, which I’ve always found disappointing food-wise. Richmond is sooo beautiful – overlooked by the deer of Richmond Park as the sun sets over the Thames that runs through it. It should be filled with fabulous eateries and river-side pubs. And yet it seems more to be filled with Zizzis and Stradas and such like, and a mixture of hooray henrys and wobbling young tykes bound for Be At One.

But this place is an institution. It doesn’t care about money, and as such there is no menu, but you squash in next to your neighbor (who you are likely to get very well acquainted with) and are served a veritable banquet of food, like an Italian wedding feast.

We were there for almost 5 hours!!! And were solidly eating for most of it, although there is a well-timed pause before the mains and after the antipasti. We spent quite a lot of time chatting with our neighbours about this incredible feast which gave the place a real community feel. This is what we ate (or what we remember we ate at least):

Antipasti of lightly tempura’d vegetables

Aubergine with the most delicious mozzarella and parmesan mousse

Fried Mozzarella

A plate of prosciutto

2 Types of Scallops

Langoustines

Beef Carpaccio

Pasta with wild boar

Mozzarella and tomato ravioli (which The Chef declared to be the best pasta he’d ever tasted, before declaring his undying love for Simona, and ordering a second bottle of wine)

A whole roast suckling pig that was shown to the diners to a great mass of applause, served simply with roast potatoes

Strawberries and pannaccotta

Some other desserts perhaps (neither of us can remember)

Complementary coffee, grappa and limoncello

Hic

The meal was fabulous. Fabulous! A real event, a showpiece meal served with a feeling of joy and community. The cooking was fantastic in the most part brilliant. All I would say is that the scallops were perhaps a bit overdone, but the rest of the meal was incredible, and generous in it’s cooking and presentation.

The cost for all this? £40 a head, which is quite ridiculous when you think of the amount of food and the quality of the ingredients. But as they say, they don’t do it for the money.

We went for the house wine (2 bottles given how long we were there and, well, because we don’t get out much) and this was fantastic, particularly the white, and it comes in at £25 per bottle.

I can’t recommend this place enough, although suggest you don’t go as a surprise as you’ll need to set aside tons of time and don’t eat for say a fortnight or so beforehand. Prepare to be full, happy and a little sozzled by the end. It would be a GREAT place for a group for a birthday or similar.

To Parents Of Even Smaller Children

So, I’ve had a couple of miserable days recently. And then it all gets better again and I forget how bad it was. Only I write a blog so I wanted to write about the miserable stuff too, before I forget. To share, you see. To make you feel better perhaps. Hell, to make me feel better.

First, there was the day I was cooking a fish pie, with my son bouncing in his jumperoo, nursery rhymes playing; feeling warm and cosy and thinking what domestic bliss! I am a domestic goddess earth mother type person! My baby boy had even fallen asleep on the jumperoo he was so relaxed and I popped him easily in his cot for a snooze.

Only, an hour later, I woke him up by mistake trying to get some of his dirty laundry to wash, and he screamed the house down. Nothing I could do could get him back to sleep so by the time I’d bundled him into the pram, the fish pie was burnt, the Le Creuset pie dish was smashed in my rush to tidy the kitchen, and I had to leave my cosy warm house to walk out into the rain to calm a sleeping baby back to sleep before I even had the chance to grab any lunch. Suddenly I was tired, and hungry, and cold, pounding the streets endlessly until he fell asleep. And of course then the chaos had a knock-on effect on the rest of the day, making us miss a baby class and cancel a coffee with a friend.

A few days later and unplanned Armageddon hit again. Having had an amazing week with Mr Schmoo (for that is what he is now called), where he was happy and sweet and fell asleep easily for long naps, suddenly my baby boy was changed. He was whingy and whining and kicking and arching his back, and refusing to go down for naps even though I could tell he was exhausted. But why, I cried to the heavens?! It could have been many things – teething, constipation from eating solid food, a “Wonder Week” leap of development that had sent him bananas.

All I knew was my perfect routine was now shattered. But on this morning, I also woke up shattered. I had a cold, a sniffy, achey, knackered cold which meant all I wanted to do was curl up on the sofa, put the fire on, and watch Ray Donovan on repeat. Add to this it was cold and pouring outside and I envisaged a lazy day of playing and snoozing.

Sadly Schmoo had other ideas. He was up at 5am and didn’t fancy going back to sleep again. Then he ate a bit too much acidic fruit for breakfast and spent the entire day straining in a constipated fug that might almost have been funny if it hadn’t looked so painful. Add to this crazy teething that made him bite anything in sight (including my face). Any attempts to make him nap when he looked exhausted ended up with him SCREAMING blue bloody murder, arching his back and kicking around, so all I could do was rock him and walk and eventually reach for the Calpol. He didn’t nap AT ALL. And so, I ended up, of course, pounding the streets again with the wee man in the pram. With pouring rain soaking me, a passing car chucking a puddle onto me for good measure. Not one walk but THREE walks. All lasting exactly the length of time that he slept, round in circles sometimes, perhaps stopping for a coffee and maybe a sit down…..NO he’s woken up, up you get and keep walking…

Hungry, cold, tired, ill. But luckily The Chef did bedtime and got him to bed, only the wee man was so tired he didn’t drink enough milk, so we was up at 3am, and again at 4am….

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Several of my mummy friends on Facebook posted this article by Steve Wiens in the Huffington Post – To Parents Of Small Children – which talks about how exhausting and relentless caring for little ones can be, and how, although wonderful at times, kids can make you frustrated and so bone-tired, you almost can’t imagine making it til bedtime.

When I first read it, I’d had a lovely day with Schmoo and couldn’t really empathise. But now I think about it all the time.

When I’m walking in the rain pushing a crying baby I also think – how on earth will I make it to bedtime?

I think of the relentlessness of it all, the fact that I never really stop being responsible, never really get more than a few snatched hours as a break.

And that even if I could have longer I don’t actually want to or feel I should, and I need to go through the arduous process of finding a good childminder and then paying them money I should be saving.

I think of the “breaks” that I do have that are filled with pureeing, and sterilizing, and washing, and cleaning, and doing admin, and replying to emails. And never seem to be filled with nice things like doing my nails or having a bath or reading a book.

I think of my friend who didn’t even have time to change her Tampax when her baby was screaming, until she finally ended up screaming herself.

I think of my friend who is now up every two hours at night, after months of sleeping through.

I think of my friend who’s son pulls out great tufts of her hair every day.

(It’s not the same friend, by the way, that would be really shit).

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But then the next day, today, Schmoo is back on great form. And one big, gummy smile, and I’m delirious again. And I’m tickling his tummy listening to him laugh, and in awe of him rolling not once but twice. I’m bouncing him on my knee singing Grand Old Duke Of York, and giving him huge cuddles and kisses. I’m pushing him in his pram, this time singing, and I’m laughing and smiling at him, thinking how wonderful and amazing he is and how much I love him.

And it’s OK now, it’s really OK.

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So what have I learned from the shit days?

• The Wonder Weeks app is a fairly good indicator of whether you will be living with a saint or a monster
• A night out with friends can restore your sanity – and all it costs is the price of a bottle or wine, and a hangover
• A few hours’ break courtesy of a partner or friend can make a huge difference. Go shopping! Have a bath! Sit in your pants and look at Facebook!
• Babies have rubbish memories so they won’t remember the crying and the screaming, once they feel better they won’t recall any of the bad stuff
• But WE do remember and it does affect us – it’s OK to walk away sometimes and let someone else take over
• They only last a few days, weeks at most…

….Everyone goes through it and it will pass.

It does pass, really.

On happiness & motherhood

And then there were three….

You will have to excuse my lack of blogging of late. But on 27 March 2013, I gave birth to my son and my life changed out of all recognition. And recently, 7 weeks on, I’ve realised some things about happiness that make the HPL rules more important than ever to stick to and I wanted to share them here.

It is only now, as my body releases the hormones I’ve had circulating in my system over the last 10 or so months, which kept my baby inside me and allowed him to grow, that I am able to reflect on how I’ve changed.

Firstly, I realise I had a tough pregnancy. I have a new-found affinity for Kim Kardashian in that I too grew to the size of a small bus while carrying my baby boy, to the extent that many people (including medical practitioners) told me I must be having a huge baby. I feel for her because while you can put vanity on the back burner as much as you can, hating photos of yourself, catching yourself sideways in a mirror and gasping at your sheer bulk, isn’t the best thing for your self-confidence or esteem.

And then there’s how the hormones affect you. For me, my body was allergic to the hormones, and while my body gave everything it could to make my son the beautiful and chilled out boy he is, it took something from me – my skin became red and sore and swollen and itchy, I didn’t look like me, I would look in the mirror and cry in pain and in sadness at the loss of something. Only now, when he is 7 weeks, and my skin has begun to look normal again (thanks, in part, to Waitrose Baby Bottom Cream, who knew?), I feel that I have regained “me” again, only a fatter me with droopier boobs.

Then there’s the moods, the loss of confidence at work because of baby brain and guilt about maternity leave and your career path, the overwhelming love and fear for your baby and your family, and the separation from old friends whose lives are now on a different track.

Then there’s the birth. Well mine was pretty bloody awful. It was brutal and traumatic and you can read about it on my baby blog here if you want to. It gave something to me, of course – it gave me a power and a confidence, especially as I did it without an epidural and mostly on gallons of gas and air, but it also made me cynical and angry at mother nature and at life, and its something I realise I need to recover from mentally and emotionally, as does The Chef who saw things I can’t even imagine.

And finally motherhood. The highs, those incredible highs – of picking up a sleepy warm baby in the morning, of the first smile, the picking his clothes and laughing when he does something funny, the watching him asleep, the cuddles and the love – that overwhelming love again – and the worry about anything that might happen to him. I feel such pride in my family, in him, this chilled out wee fella that The Chef and I made, who seems better than us, who seems so perfect, who I can’t wait to watch grow, who develops every single day.

But, at 7 weeks, as the hormones that made him slip away, I feel something new. A sense of change, of wondering who I am now, what I do from here.

I’m not working, my life is my baby and cups of coffee, endless coffees, with other mums. We talk about our babies and about our boobs and our stitches. I am fascinated with recording every feed, every poo, every minute of sleep.

I found myself telling a (male) friend of mine, in great detail, about how my son hadn’t pooed for 2 days and how it was great that he had finally done a poo that morning, explaining in detail how he went red and I felt bad for him but was also happy as he’d been constipated… and halfway through I thought – what on EARTH am I doing! I’m talking about my son’s shits in great detail! To a bloke! I’ve become one of those mothers….And I post photos of him on Facebook all the time. And when The Chef brings up something in the news I feel ashamed – I didn’t watch the news today, in fact my world is here, so small now, between the bedroom and the nursery and the kitchen. And between the coffees, I am here – in the nursery mostly – with him, loving him and cuddling him, but alone, lonely at times. Working us both up to the next coffee, the next GP visit, the walk to the park, that is the day’s activity.

My god I’m not complaining. I love being a mum – I’m good at it I think. I love him and I love our life together and I love my family. But I realise my identity, my happiness, my confidence, has taken a knock with all this, left me moody and on the verge of rage or tears fairly easily, left me not quite knowing who I am now, how I’ve changed, whether I will ever be the old “me” again. And so now, I realise how important it is that I work on my happiness, and in doing so, work out where I go from here.

And so to the rules again:

1. Be Active – important given I can only live in elasticated waistbands for so long. I’m doing a mother & baby yoga class to ease my creaky bones, and I’ve dug out my gym kit with thoughts of swimming and running.

2. Connect – vitally important for me right now. I miss my friends after 7 weeks of wanting to be holed up with my baby boy. I want to organise a girls’ night out and drink wine – wine! – and a night eating good food with The Chef. I want to drink a martini. I want to go to the cinema. I want to see old friends, and friends without kids, and phone people when I feel isolated with a baby stuck to my breast.

3. Give – my current bugbear, after awe-inspiring treatment by NHS midwives at Kingston hospital, is the proposed plans for the NHS – the fact that it is effectively being privatised from under our noses to an American-style insurance-based system with healthcare for the richest, from private companies, while the poorest will suffer. I need to see what I can do to get involved. As a mum I’m also filled with an empathy I don’t think I had before – so I want to make sure I give clothes and toiletries to charities that help women and children.

4. Nurture – easy. I do it every day until around 7pm when I put him down to sleep. But there are other projects too to get excited about – transforming my garden, planting new colourful flowers, transforming the house in which I spend so much time in nowadays. Projects, and economical maternity-leave budgeting ones at that, will keep me busy over the next few months.

5. Learn – I’m going to learn to cook. As The Chef knows, I can barely boil an egg, but I’d love to get better of it, to become a bit more domesticated, to feed my lovely family. I’m starting this week with doing a few simple meals. God help us all.

6. Be Curious – Since the hormonal fug of pregnancy has started to lift, the baby is able to sleep in his pram, and I’m mastering public transport, I want to go exploring London again. So many places I want to go – Eel Pie island (open house 22/23 June), the Polka Theatre, the Electric Cinema, some of the new restaurants whose openings I’ve totally missed.

Happiness, like confidence, is a transient thing, and one you need to keep working at. Getting married, having a baby, can be the happiest time of your life, but the changes they bring and emotions they evoke can be overwhelming at times. I’m glad I have the HPL rules to ground me, and I love a project to work on. I’ll let you know how I get on.