Ok, so I have a Peloton and I promise I will talk about it at length one of these days (btw, if you want a Peloton, I have a referral code). But one of the best things about the Peloton is the fact that it’s super easy to get an arm workout in. I usually ignore my arms because well, as far as I am concerned they are a lost cause. And Girl agrees, because she loves my Cold arm. And if you know about cold arms, you know cold arms is code for fat arms. In fact, Girl frequently pinches my cheeks and tells me how chubby they are. Chump laughs his head off and tells me do some Push ups. Chump. Anyway, so I’ve been adding some arm workouts to my rotation, because why not. The weights are at the back of the bike and it’s only 10 minutes. It’s kind of a no brainer. Anyway, I’ve been doing this for about 4 weeks solid. So yesterday, I asked Chump if he noticed a difference in my arms and he said no. At which point, I got really mad and screamed “you have noticed a difference in my arms. Dickhead” and then proceeded to run down the stairs and blast “Red Red Wine” by UB40 for the rest of the day and anytime someone asked me a question, I responded with “the line’s broke and the monkey gets choked”. See I can be a dickhead too.
So I’ve been absent for a while. And here’s the reason. I’ve been bone achingly tired. Like the kind of tired that insinuates itself into your very insides and prevents you from even thinking. I’ve had so many half thoughts that I just haven’t been able to articulate into words. Normally when I get this tired, I push myself because I’m both OCD, have a massive Ego and a type A personality. But I’ve read a few articles and blog posts about how other women are coping during this crazy pandemic and the majority of things I’ve read have all said that we all feel unproductive and tired and that it’s ok because we live in a completely unprecedented situation and we are all just trying to survive. So, I’ve taken this to my heart and I’ve allowed myself the luxury of being tired and just wallowing in my exhaustion and in my head – laziness.
I’m just going to take a leetle nap ok?
My to do list is growing each day, my ambition is withering away and my words are drying up inside me. But it’s ok, because I’m healing myself. And if you really need to know, I’ve been put on the clinically extremely vulnerable list and I’m finally allowing myself to believe it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not limiting myself or allowing myself to stagnate, but what I am doing is listening to my mind and body. I never allow myself to do this, because in my head it’s laziness. So I run around like a mad demon and I push and I push until I can’t push anymore and then I crash and then it takes me months to recover and then I have to start all over again. Stupid right? So enough of that nonsense. I don’t want to keep crashing and burning. I just want to exist in a world where if I exert myself, it doesn’t end with an inevitable decline. I don’t know how to do that yet. I’m still learning. So while I learn how to take care of myself properly, my to do list will have to wait, my words will have to stay half baked and I will just have to learn to develop some patience.
Listen, I actually started today in a really good mood. The sun was shining for a change, it’s nearly half term, which means no more bloody zoom and lessons etc, I worked out, I ate well. You know all the stuff that makes you feel good in a day. But then I came upstairs after an intense session on the Peloton (I will write more about my Peloton in a different post) and wanted to spend a few minutes meditating before I hopped in the shower. But Chump told me I was pongy (well what do you expect after a spin session you ducking Chump), so I went for a shower asap. Now, Chump works from home due to lockdown. Great. I love having him home. He is my best friend and I get lonely without him. But I did not sign up to also being married to his colleagues. His “office” is adjacent to my bedroom. Every time I want to pee, I have to shut the door because his colleagues can hear. Now you are probably thinking I should do that anyway right? Wrong. We have been married for more than 10 years. We often have our most interesting conversations while one of us is peeing. Also I just remember random stuff while I’m peeing and if I don’t tell him ASAP, I will forget it. And don’t forget, I am the mother to relatively small children who do not understand the concept of privacy and personal space. As far as they are concerned, if I am not dead, I am available to pester and touch. Sometimes my daughter will come and sit on my lap. I mean really? Why? And I don’t feel that comfortable locking the bathroom door, because as soon as I do that, inevitably, something will break or someone will get hurt, or I will come out of the bathroom and find fish sauce has been sprinkled all over the carpet or something like that. Sorry if it’s TMI, but this is the intimacy that family life brings.
Oh god man just leave me alone.
And it’s all the more magnified under lockdown. We are all home. All the time. I never get a moment’s peace. You all know I am an introvert right? You all know how much I hate noise. So this is genuinely torturing me. But you want to know the real reason I feel tortured? I am sharing my home with strangers. Colleagues, the kids’ classmates and their teachers. Everyone gets a peak in. Not only that, I just can’t do what I want to do without being asked a million questions.
Let’s go back to meditating. We all know meditation is cool right? It’s got benefits. We should all be meditating daily. This is not some hippy thing. This is real. Go and meditate everyday. Well, every time I sit down to meditate, someone will want something. I should wake up at 4am to meditate. My alarm goes off every day at 4am and I think I need to wake up. But Girl is right next to me because she loves my Cold arm. If I even think of moving, she wakes up. So there goes that idea. I also like to meditate quite loudly. Some meditation is supposed to be quiet, but some is very vocal. I do a bit of both. I don’t feel that comfortable doing a loud meditation when Chump and the kids are in the house and the people they might be on a call with with can hear me. I really don’t need my kids’ teachers enquiring about what Mummy was chanting so loudly.
“Gravity is not your friend.” “Shut up Newton.”
Another thing, when I came out of the shower today, I got rid of the scaffolding that every woman knows as a bra. Yeah that’s right. Whatever. They suck. And seeing as I sadly had a Zoom call at 12pm, Chump told me to put the scaffolding back on, because as he put it so kindly, gravity ain’t your friend. Duck off Chump. Duck off Zoom. Just for the record, I am also not a total moron. I tend to pitch up to Zoom calls looking like a respectable human, not some bedraggled monster.
Sorry this post was quite ranty. I didn’t know I had it in me, but I think you all know I did.
By the way, do you like how I now linked to posts and websites using words rather than posting the link? My fully grown adult niece (yes I am old enough to have one of those. I am Forty after all) told me to do that. So thanks for schooling me Ashi! You’re getting me one step closer to being cool.
Lastly, to my subscribers. I don’t know what to say. I give up. I’m actually looking to hire somebody else to figure this subscriber drama out, so I continue to thank you for your patience.
So alot of you have been checking in with whether my good mood continued after my birthday (Forty and Fabulous???) or whether I soon after reverted into being a basket case (Guilt, anxiety and other such pleasantries). Well the answer is kind of both. The day after my birthday, I was knackered. I mean I had never been more social in my life. Between all the calls, the sugar rush, the social media stuff, I was done for. Of course, we stayed home, we protected the NHS and we saved lives. One more time, all together now, stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives. Ah Bojo would be proud.
Don’t talk to me. I’m tired.
I needed some major naps, of which I took many. I mean, I am 40 after all. Napping now comes with the territory. But, the kids weren’t ok. There was nothing patently wrong thank god, but they were just funky, as is almost every child in this country (https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2021-02-05/homeschooling-what-effect-is-it-having-on-childrens-mental-health). I mean look, there are a plethora of articles you can google on children’s mental health, domestic abuse, hungry kids, children who are self harming etc. It’s all a bit much to take in and is very upsetting, but anyway, if you don’t believe me, go and do the research. Now of course, nobody is questioning the necessity of lockdowns to save lives, but let’s be frank, kids are suffering. So, as with any other child forced to be home and away from their friends and teachers, away from the structure and routine of their lives, my kids are down. And the saddest thing for me is that my kids don’t quite have the tools to articulate this sadness, this anxiety. They don’t know what’s going on. They understand Covid and how scary it is. God knows it’s all they hear about. And they love their grandparents and their older family members, so they are hyper aware of how Covid can be devastating for us. Anyway, my point is is that if you are a parent and your kid is even only a little bit down, you as the parent, cannot be happy. You cannot have even have a hint of happiness or ease. Because you love your kids and you worry about them and all you want is for them to be happy. You will literally do everything in your worldly powers to make them smile. Now again, it has to go without saying, that we want our kids to be resilient and I am in no way suggesting that we should be taking away our children’s ability to feel things or to self regulate their emotions etc etc. I ain’t no Smother (Urban Dictionary: Smother Mother), but I don’t think I’m unusual in being upset because my kids aren’t 100%.
I literally can’t deal with your puppy dog eyes kid.
You all know I struggle with own sense of productivity (The Struggle Is Real) and I am the biggest procrastinator in the world. I always say I need to write everyday and I have a to do list as long as my arms, but for some reason, I just can’t seem to get through that list. Ok, I hate admin (Errand Paralysis) and I don’t believe I am capable of anything (You Phoney Impostor), but still, I have some basic ambitions and god knows my ego friend won’t let me have a minute of rest if I don’t keep pretending to do stuff (Ego). And I realised today the reason I can’t get stuff done is because as a mother, I harbour a very real sense of guilt towards my kids. Like if I do anything for myself, or spend any time doing things I need to do that don’t (doesn’t? I literally don’t know) involve their wellbeing somehow, I am failing as a mother. Parenthood is tough anyway (Parenting), but when you add in that extra layer of guilt, it becomes unbearable. So I never let myself do what I want or need to do and I end up resenting myself and berate myself for being a fat lazy cow. I mean seriously. What a stupid way to live.
I’m skinnier than you
So yesterday I was scrolling through FB, because you know I am addicted (Addiction) and I came across an ad for some positive parenting stuff (Online Parenting Course for Parents of Toddlers to Teens ⎸ Positive Parenting Solutions) and I realized that I need to fill my kids emotional buckets and once I do that, I can chill and start filling my own stupid buckets. So today, we took the kids out in the morning, then spent the rest of the morning colouring together and now we are all writing at the same time. Boy is writing a journal about his feelings and Girl is writing a story book about her feelings. I did not tell them to do this. They decided to write about their feelings by themselves. Maybe this is the way they will be able to articulate their anxieties to us. The point is, I now feel a bit better about taking some time for myself because my kids are alright. Who knows if this is sustainable or whether I will be too lazy to carry this on, but at least for today, I feel a bit of inner calm.
Yes! I am forty. Today is the blessed day of my birth and I turn forty. Now you would think that lockdown would mean that my birthday sucked. But it’s actually been brilliant so far. I know it’s only 10am, but so far so good. I am an introvert (Alone time for an introvert). I like being alone. So this birthday has been a dream. I haven’t had to make small talk with a bunch of weirdos I barely like. I haven’t had to dress up. I’m in my gym kit. You all know my feelings on elasticated waists (Mom jeans), so I’m actually winning. Usually, Chump and I will go for a nice meal out somewhere and while that is blissful, this weekend, I have just eaten Doritos and chocolate digestives. I have refused to eat any real food of any sort and like a child, developed a tummy ache and then went to bed without my dinner. You see even though I’m now 40, I still act like an 8 year old.
No more Doritos ever.
Chump got my favourite chocolate cake ( https://konditor.co.uk/curly-whirly-cake.html) delivered from my favourite bakery and I think he got enough cake to feed 100 people. So if you live in my burb, expect a cake delivery at some point today from yours truly. But this is why it’s good. Because it means I get to see people I actually want to see, rather than being forced into a party and having to talk to people I don’t even like, let alone know. Of course, I miss the people I can’t see, who don’t live close to me, but you know whatsapp and other techie things take care of that, so it’s all good. But the most striking thing about this birthday is that even though we are all under metaphorical house arrest and Covid is scaring the living sh*t out of us, we live in perpetual darkness and I am constantly praying at the altar of my SAD lamp (Winter), I am actually pretty happy. Good things happen on my birthday. I got engaged 12 years ago on my birthday (God I am f*cking old). I started a new job on my birthday 7 years ago and this year, I am starting a new role in a different department on my birthday. So some pretty epic things have happened in my life.
Thanks Chump. Where is my present you Mofo? p.s. I don’t know how to rotate this photo. I am 40. Not 20. I don’t know how to use my computer.
But I want to take you back to my 30th birthday, ten long years ago. If you knew me back then, you know I was a hot shit corporate lawyer, working at a hot shit law firm. I was probably on the partnership track (or at least I think I was). I was young, I was filthy rich, I had a hot husband. But I was miserable. I had no time, I don’t think I had any friends. I never saw my family. I never saw Chump. I lived at the office. On my 30th birthday, I remember, sitting in a meeting room with my clients and the other side at 11pm, working on a massive transaction, staring out the window at the South Bank, thinking that this was going to be my life forever. I would never see the world, and I would only ever see this view. I looked over at the partner sitting next to me and I thought I didn’t want this to be my life when I was 50. I felt trapped. Even though I was free. When I quit 5 months later, nobody could believe it. But I couldn’t face another year of being trapped in my own gilded prison. And now, ironically, we are genuinely trapped and I’ve never felt freer. I know there is a lot of bad shit going on in the world, but today is February 1. The sun is shining for 2 more minutes than it did yesterday. We are a month and a half away from spring. Even though I’ve turned 40, I feel good. I feel happy. And if you know me, this is rare. I’m usually a basket case (Guilt, anxiety and other such pleasantries). Don’t worry too much. Tomorrow, I will go back to being a basket case. But for today, I’m going to eat enough cake for 100 people and tonight I will do tae kwon do with my classmates on Zoom and get one step closer to my black belt (My week).
I have no problem with doing laundry. I love doing laundry. It’s fun and it’s easy. You just chuck the clothes into the washing machine and two hours later you come back. And they smell good. What a win. What a feeling. Except for when you have to put those f*ckers away. My gosh, is there anything worse than putting clean laundry away. I don’t think so. It’s the pile of dread. There was one day when I was feeling so inadequate as a person and you know the reason why? Because of that clean laundry pile. So I conquered my hatred of that pile and I sat there and matched millions of pairs of socks together, folded all the underwear that was ever manufactured and actually folded a fitted sheet. Winning! I felt so good. So accomplished. And then I remembered I had two degrees. And proceeded to feel like a failure again. Then I wrote that blog post about my struggles to feel productive (The Struggle Is Real). That post was triggered by laundry. There. Now you know the ugly truth.
Piles and Piles of Motherf*cking laundry
Anyway, my lovely SIL Z wrote to me that day commiserating because she feels the same way. And then so did my friend S. And we all talked about laundry. And how we all hate that dreaded clean pile. But my amazing friend D takes the cake. D is a mum to 2 kids. And she works full time. She is a superstar. One time her mum came and folded all the clean laundry and put it on her sofa. So all D had to do was put the laundry away. Her mum literally did all the hard work of sorting through it. Did D put the laundry away? No. She just left it on the sofa. And the family sat around the clean laundry. And when they needed clean clothes, they just found it from the sofa. The next week, the pile was still there, but D had added new clean clothes to the pile. Unfolded. Unsorted. I couldn’t stop laughing. Then she sent me a picture of her clean laundry clothes pile and it made my day. Brilliant. This morning, I could not find Boy’s clean trousers that he wanted to wear. True enough, it was in the clean laundry pile from hell.
What’s annoying about my clean laundry pile from hell is that I have to walk down 4 flights of stairs to go find a pair of socks that my daughter loves and can’t live without. At 7:57am. Literally 3 minutes before we need to log into Zoom call 1. Or my only clean jumper because now I refuse to do laundry because of the black hole that is the clean laundry pile. I’m telling you. The struggle for laundry is real.
Ok listen, I have been working non stop to fix the whole subscriber issue and I heard the dreaded words from my developer – it’s a coding problem. That’s when I stopped listening and started staring into the black hole of misery. I don’t know how to fix it. Someone much smarter than me is looking into so please be patient with me. I’m sorry. I hate coding.
You guys. My body is falling apart. I’m getting old (I’m getting old). You knew that though. But I refused to believe it. Last week, I was carrying some groceries for my parents. Nothing major. Just some carrots and milk. And I felt a crick in my neck. Nothing major I thought. And I just carried on. When I got home, I suddenly found I couldn’t really move. Nothing major I thought. I applied ridiculous amounts of Voltarol (I should really buy shares in this stuff), put a microwave bag of that rice thing around my neck, told Chump I wasn’t feeling great and binge watched Bridgerton (https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80232398). Thoughts on Bridgerton? Highly average. Entertaining enough, but Daphne looked like a teenager, Eloise looked like a grown lady. It was cast all wrong. But still, binge it I did. And I enjoyed it too.
I’ve now been watching Bridgerton for 8 hours straight and my neck still hurts.
Anyway, back to my neck, by Monday, it was still a bit painful. I did no exercise at all this whole week, kind of loafed around watching reruns of Mrs Maisel (best show ever by the way) (https://www.themarvelousmrsmaisel.com/) and worked in my pajamas. This is unusual for me. Normally, I am a fully functional human by 7:45am. I workout, I get my shit done. But this week, I couldn’t move. It was not fun. I did not appreciate my body giving up on me this week. And so I did what any reasonable human would do under these circumstances. I bought a fanny pack. Even just the name of a fanny pack is ridiculous. Fanny pack. In my country (Canada), fanny means bum. Yet in this country, fanny means something entirely different. I was shocked when Chump told me what fanny meant. And he begged me never to use the words Fanny pack again. Ok so what am I supposed to call this thing I bought? Apparently it’s called a cross body bag. It looks like a fanny pack to me. I feel like a tourist. Like one of those ridiculous tourists who wears a baseball cap, Mom jeans (Mom jeans) and ridiculous white trainers. Oh wait, that is what I wear. But my fanny pack is cool. It ain’t no loser fanny pack. It ain’t no tourist fanny pack. It’s a beauty. It’s this piece of work (Palermo Ultra Lightweight Cross-Body – Black / Gunmetal Hardware | KNOMO). It fits everything I need in it and it’s kind on my decrepit neck and shoulders. I am writing this post, while I am wearing my fanny pack, with that microwaveable rice pack slung across my shoulders. Instead of mom jeans, I am wearing pink snake skin jeans, red socks and green trainers. I really do look like a ridiculous tourist. I should actually be on the boardwalk on the Jersey Shore selling funnel cakes or something. If you ran into me, you would be embarrassed and I would be embarrassed. And now I am going to get a cup of tea, some raisin bread and watch Mrs Maisel. Bye.
what did you say about my fanny pack?
By the way, there is some form of tech issue with subscribers being notified of blog posts. I’m so sorry. I am working on it. For now, please bear with me. I am trying to get it fixed asap.
But if you do like what you read, remember to subscribe and share. Otherwise, I’m buying you all fanny packs for Christmas. Sorry, cross body bags.
I’m getting old. I can feel it in my bones. I can feel it in my head. I can feel it in my eyes. But you know how I know for sure I’m getting old. Because I now like fruit cake and marmalade. Yeah that’s right. You heard me. If you know me personally, you know the one thing I have consistently hated over the years is raisins. Oh god, raisins. I can’t stand them. I have called them the devil’s food for as long as I can remember. Raisins are disgusting. They ruin perfectly good food. Why put raisins into cereal? Why put raisins into cookies? Why put raisins into carrot cake and apple pie? Why? Why put raisins into cous cous? Why put raisins into bread. I just don’t understand. Scones with raisins? I will never eat them. I would rather eat a whole head of raw broccoli (Covid, Brexit, Panic and and and) than I would even eat one measly raisin. Christmas was always the worst because suddenly raisins were everywhere. Minced pies, Christmas cake. Everywhere I turned, there they were. Like demonic little shriveled grapes.
I made these raisins for you. I hope you like them.
But then something happened, around October of last year. The blessed year of 2019. When we were happy in our lives. Before the dawn of Covid. I bought these cinnamon and raisin bagels for Girl. Because she likes raisins. It defies all logic that she likes raisins, but since I am a good mum, I buy her raisins. Anyway, she ate like 3 of these bagels with strawberry jam and life was good. But then she didn’t want to eat the bagels anymore and I thought to myself “oh shit” who is going to eat these stupid bagels. Boy hates raisins as much as I do (because he is a good boy) and well Chump, being Chump refused to eat the bagels. I hate food waste and so I took one for the team and decided I would eat the bagels. I toasted one and slathered it with butter. And to my surprise, I didn’t keel over and die instantly. I wasn’t transported to hell. Actually the bagel was ok. It was surprisingly nice. I didn’t want to rush into anything though, because it may have just been a one off. But I found myself eating more and more things with raisin type things in there. Gails does a nice loaf with sour cherries and currants in it. Reader, I don’t discriminate against dried fruits. If I hate one dried fruit, I hate them all. I hate currants, I hate apricots. I hate dates. I hate dried fruits. And I refuse to eat them. But one day, Chump, during the middle of Lockdown 1.0, went to to Gails and bought their sour cherry loaf (https://old.gailsbread.co.uk/our-food/bread/sour-cherry-currant-sourdough/). I was f*cking livid. I mean here we were ordered to stay in our home and this Chump bought a f*cking loaf of bread with a glorified raisin in it? What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to go and buy another loaf of bread and risk getting the corona. So I suck it up and I ate it. Slathered in butter. Dunked in tea. It was good. I enjoyed it. Then around October 2020, I started really craving marmalade. Craving Christmas cake. As soon as I was able to buy a Christmas cake, I bought one. I made a cup of tea and had a slice of Christmas cake and then I bought a whole pack of minced pies and ate one every night. It was shocking. Chump was shocked. On Christmas day, we ate a Christmas pudding, covered in extra thick double cream. The only way I can explain it is that I am getting old. I have now turned into an old lady who enjoys typically old lady things, like Christmas pudding, minced pies and marmalade. With my glasses chain and now grey roots (thanks Lockdown 94.0) (Maintenance), I look like someone who enjoys Christmas cake and marmalade.
I get you Paddington. Marmalade is fracking delicious.
But listen, don’t worry too much. I’m still a martial artist. A bad one, but I can still kick most people in the head if I really wanted to (My week; Push ups and the Chump). Old people can’t be martial artists. Can they? And, I binged the whole of Season 3 of Cobra Kai in about 4 hours (Cobra Kai (TV Series 2018– ) – IMDb). Which means, I am actually a 13 year old boy at heart. Remember strike first, strike hard, no mercy.
Cobra Kai never dies.
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Gosh where do I even start with the shit show that is Covid. What a disaster. Here we all were thinking that 2021 was going to be patently better than 2020 and we find ourselves back to home learning, back to lockdown, back to fear, back to basically surviving. But it’s all good right? Because we have the vaccine (https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1381461/Moderna-Covid-vaccine-approved-UK-coronavirus-latest-news-update-cases)! Yes! What a feat for science. What a feat for logic. What a feat for humanity. I am anxiously waiting for my parents and in-laws to get the vaccine and then the kids are basically moving in with their grandparents, while I move into a spa. Sounds good right? I can picture it now. Me, chilling pool side, sipping on what can only be described as pond water, with cucumbers on my eyes and living that good life.
I don’t care what the kids are doing Mom. I’m chilling at the spa. Later suckas.
Except….it’s not that simple is it? Somehow we find ourselves with all those pesky mutations of Covid. That just won’t leave us alone. The Kent variant, the South African variant. Who knows whether the vaccines will be effective against these variants (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55534727). And what other new variants will crop up. Covid is not going anywhere fast. It just refuses to leave us alone.
Yes, but can you just f*ck off already Covid? I am so tired of you.
I haven’t been to a supermarket in god knows how long so I have no idea what the broccoli situation is (Covid, Brexit, Panic and and and). Can we get broccoli? More importantly, can we get toilet paper? In other news, I bought a leather skirt yesterday (Shopping). It is just sitting there languishing. Waiting to be worn. Maybe I will wear it when I go and buy toiler paper next. If you see a crazy lady wearing a leather skirt over a pair of elasticated leggings, you know you’ve found me. Come and say hi. I will probably also have a tell tale bag of Doritos to keep me company (Big Fat Rain; Lockdown Stupid Weight Gain) As long as we can still get Doritos, then I don’t care what is happening in the world. Just kidding. I care very deeply. But only about Doritos.
I have a lot of things to say about my ego. My ego is my best friend in the whole wide world. It always has my back. Which is why it’s a little bit insulting to call my ego an “it”. My ego has an identity and a name. And my ego is called Egan. Yes I know, not so creative, but still. Egan is nice and simple and easy to remember. So let’s talk about Egan shall we? There are so many ways in which Egan is helpful and also so many ways that Egan just hurts me and holds me back. I guess I have a complicated, almost toxic relationship with Egan. When I have the words, I will fully discuss the complications of loving Egan, but for now, I want to focus on how Egan is hurting today.
“I love you Egan. Do you love me? ” “Sometimes. But sometimes you’re just needy.”
I took a proper hiatus from social media for about a year and a half. It was great. I just focussed on myself, read and did other things. I recently got back into social media. I don’t know what prompted this, but anyway, I found myself back on FB, Insta and Linkedin.
Linkedin is actually the worst one for me, because it continually shows me what a bloody failure I am. Linkedin shows me what all my peers are doing with their professional lives. And reader, I am not ashamed to admit that when I see what they are doing and how far they have progressed in their professional lives, I feel bad. Like really bad. Today for example, I was perusing Linkedin and checked out the profile of someone I kind of know. Super nice person, probably smart as hell. But in reality, no smarter than me. No nicer than me. A little bit younger than me. And what do you know, this person is partner in a law firm. I cried. Internally of course. But I cried nonetheless. Egan was furious. Egan could not handle the fact that I was not partner in a law firm. Reader, I have not worked in a law firm for 10 years now. I have moved on from law firms (for now, but never say never right?) and I am happy in my career (Working Mothers). I have a family (Parenting; Managing Or Not). I have hobbies (You Phoney Impostor; My week). I have lots of things I didn’t have when I was working in a law firm. But seeing my peers become partners and therefore making mad amounts of coin hurt Egan. Made Egan feel bad. Made Egan feel inadequate and unaccomplished. And like a total stupid failure. And when Egan feels bad, I feel bad. When Egan feels like a failure, I feel like a failure. See where this is all going. So how to make Egan feel better, so that I can feel better? Well, I have recently discovered Kundalini yoga. Don’t ask me to explain it to you, because I can’t, but you can check this out for any further info (https://www.joy.yoga/kundalini-yoga). And I also discovered Russell Brand. Do you know Russell Brand? He is legit awesome. He is a guru. I know what you’re thinking – Russell Brand? The guy who used to go out with Katy Perry and was a drug addict? Yeah that Russell Brand. He took all his adversities and became a legit wise man. Check out his youtube channel (https://www.russellbrand.com/) .
Anyway, I was watching one of his videos, I can’t remember which one now. And he was talking about how we don’t need to identify with our thoughts. Nothing new there right? We all know this (for a really excellent article on this subject, check this out https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/06/silence-your-inner-critic-a-guide-to-self-compassion-in-the-toughest-times). We’ve all had enough of mindfulness and so on and so forth. But the way he explained it was really nice. When he has a bad thought, he simply says “Oh Russell is thinking x.” and he separates himself from his thought. So I’ve started doing the same. When I feel like a failure, I say “Yasmin is feeling like a failure”. When I feel bad about something I say, “Oh Yasmin is feeling bad about x”. Is it helping? Kind of. I kind of just wish that Yasmin would just chill the F out and then I could say “oh Yasmin is chilling the f out”. But for now, me and Egan will work on this battle together. Egan has a lot of chilling to do too.
