Please Mrs Butler...Do I Have To Go Back To Work?

In the latter part of Christmas, this was me...

*

In fact, they were a mixture of small and large plates, 

jugs, pouts and more in my refrigerator.

One of the walking routes I grew particularly fond of is the path from sofa to fridge to sofa to bed to sofa and back to fridge... Ahhh. But through my #12DaysofXmasMH as I mentioned in my reflection blog post, I learned a lot about myself and the importance of checking in with myself about how I feel on a regular basis. I found myself getting the itch to go back to work in fact, in a way best expressed by one of my favourite poems:

Alan Ahlberg, this has been completely relevant
for me through school, university and work.

After adopting the useful check-ins I ended up realising that sofa-to-fridge and back is not the best way to sustain reasonably good mental health. Christmas is challenging for me for many reasons I've already written about in previous posts, but what I hadn't realised was, that while rest is important, activity is also important. I guess I should have been hitting myself over the head with one of those  foam mallet things to remind myself that the word "balance" defines everything that helps my mental health, but clearly I was in some kind of major food coma after consuming at least four packets of those yummy cheese and bacon bites that Marks and Spencer needs to stock UNTIL I DIE because it is key to my Christmas Staple Foods.

Ah yes. Must remember!

You may noticed that there have been a few changes to the blog since you last saw it - and this was part of my activity list. Sort non-work stuff out. And because I can't do jigsaws since I still have to keep the house looking like I don't live in our flat.Conversation with myself: Not only was I telling myself, "You have a campaign to run. Do something about it!", I also noticed that I if I did fill my days with some low-level activities and also kept running or walking, my mood would stabilise. Thank you! And for all the resolutions I made, there was still this persisting thought in the back of my mind.

Yep. Smells the same. Looks the same. Is, in fact, the same.

So in some ways I was dreaming about going back to work and very excited for it. There are loads of projects going on that I'm eager to get involved with about and the Learning Academy is such an exciting place to be right now. When I have time to reflect, headspace if you like, I finally have time to think through everything that goes on when I'm in back to back meetings.

I can think of fewer situations this *doesn't* apply 

to than ones to which it doesn't. Oh dear oh dear.

But there is one aspect of going back to work that I absolutely loathe. It's totally ridiculous, I know, but this is the reason I have a slight sense of dread about the first day back: it's because everyone will ask how it was.

"How was your holiday?"
"It was good, thanks, how about yours?"
"Great thanks, so relaxing, really good."

I'm the person in the middle here. I'm okay for the first few of these - one or two exchanges. After that, with each one my stomach starts to tighten because I feel confused and under pressure to have had a brilliant Christmas.

Every week. Every single week.

I feel incredibly self-conscious about it. I can't help thinking in the back of my head that my answer should be a lot more impressive, and worse, that I should feel absolutely amazing about it, for example: "Thanks, it was the most amazing holiday ever. I won the lottery, we flew to Lapland and met Santa, then we dined on caviar and drank Champagne every day, we went on several holidays abroad and at home, staying in luxury five star resorts where we were waited on hand and foot, oh and by the way here's my resignation note since we won the lottery I shan't be coming back. Have a lovely year." With no mention that in addition to all of the above very much not happening, it's now Broke January, and the immense joy of being paid on 22nd December is now replaced with intense panic that I will run out of money by next week.

I will be more assertive. If that's okay?

At the same time I know I shouldn't worry about it, so based on being more authentic and not feeling like I have to conform to any kind of (completely self-fabricated) notions of what Christmas should be like. I noticed this (thanks Mindfulness and check-ins!) so I changed my answer to be more honest, Everytime I'm more honest I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders. It is such a relief to be myself.

Yes, Jessica. Yes.

I said "Good thanks. We didn't really do much." And it was surprising how many people answer, "Same here", or - alternatively - "Oh God, the total opposite, I've come back to work for a rest!". (Those are the people with young children.) It's another one of those humps that I have to get over.

I was one of the people thinking this at the end of this week.

And some people were probably thinking it over Christmas too.

Reality check: lots of people are feeling the same or have had a Christmas that is normal - i.e. up and down! Stop beating yourself up about the fact that you've had a normal Christmas and nothing dazzling or amazing has happened. Just because Orlando Bloom and George Clooney did not decide to leave their partners in order to beg for your hand in marriage does not mean that I'm a total failure as a human being.

Fair enough George, you're married already, it would be complicated.

Orlando? You've got no excuse!

And then there's the stuff that comes next. I took Monday off because I was hoping this would ease me into the year more gently. What actually happened was that I had to make myself not check emails that day as I saw the number against the mail box growing and growing. The temptation to look was very strong, but I had to gently remind myself with a stern word that I had taken the day OFF so I should be NOWHERE NEAR my emails.

Yes, clearly I should have been ignoring emails and focusing on 

this much more urgent activity!

Now I've been back at work a week and yes - I could do with a breather - no surprise there then. Christmas feels like it was a year ago, my best efforts to start the year with everything organised are just plain unrealistic.

Speaking of which...

*Food break*

On the positive side, I've made some progress and have organised a large number of things to do with my campaign and the year ahead at work, increased my exercise and have limited my meals containing either the word 'burger' or 'pies' to only about one a day rather than a wall-to-wall-pastry-fest. There are good things.

Absolutely. 

Is it working?

I have to keep working at telling myself to check in, see how I am and I have to keep telling myself that I can't possibly achieve everything in a single day, maybe not even in a year. But I can do something. And dealing with 'challenges' (which, by the way is work-speak for "WTF. Seriously?" moments)... there are always the nice email replies.

I actually don't mean this when I say thanks. 

But 'outstanding' is my favourite word to describe a day. That Has Gone. To. The. Dogs.

So, yes, a week back at work and I could do with a holiday. In the meantime there are weekends. (Thank you. THANK YOU, the inventor of the weekend. You are awesome.)

Evening schedule. And weekend schedule.

And possibly schedule at other times too. 

You won't tell anyone, will you?

In the meantime, with at least a few hours of my weekend to go, I might just go back and have a read of some of the other poems I love. Eat a nice meal, go for a walk, Just enjoy the weekend. And on poems, the headteacher of my primary school, Mrs. Evans, taught me to love poetry with her expressive performances of many of the poems she read to us - aged five. Although she was incredibly strict and not terribly nice to the older children, she let herself be seen for the passionate literature lover she clearly was when she worked with the smallest children in the school. My love for her poems (as that is how I remember them, even though other authors had written and published them) remains and is testified by how vividly I remember those readings. Humour and creativity - whether music, writing, reading poetry or prose - make a huge difference to my mood, and a lot of poems are small enough to fit into even a really busy day.

Please Mrs Butler. A Poetry book everyone, 

children and adults should read. It's brilliant!

So that will be what I do before this starts again...

Whatever you're up to, take care and take it one breath at a time. (And for more on that, read this article on mindful breathing at work, I really enjoyed it.) See you soon! x

*A very big, #redefiningresilience thank you to VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) for the tweets I used in this post. Your tweets are often the #smallthings that make a #bigdifference to my #mentalhealth. Thank you.

A Change is No Good Without a Rest: Seeking Balance Through Sleep.

It's been a few weeks since I wrote, I know. I've started two or three posts but haven't been able to follow through and finish one, largely because I've had to prioritise work over everything else because I've been on business in India. More on that in the (finished) future posts.

The fact is, that I had to address serious 'balance' challenges in my life to keep going.

I was supporting the launch of a completely new process, including creating a suite of documents to be used, sessions explaining the process to Indian colleagues so they could deliver it, and making improvements to the materials as they were tried and tested in different ways so that the whole process could be run successfully

And it did run successfully. I should probably add, though, that creating new ways of doing things in big companies is not a small thing.

It's hard for me to explain adequately what my work comprises, because 'management consultant' is a meaningless title unless (and even, sometimes, when) the company you work for has decided to change something and they've asked in consultants to help them with it, whatever it is.

I admit that it's hard to explain what I do, but the easiest way to explain it is that it's about helping people (sometimes a few people, sometimes hundreds of thousands) go through a change that is being made by the organisation that they work for.

For example, imagine if in your company the head of technology decided it was time to upgrade to a newer version of a system. The old one is out of date and has lots of glitches and bugs. It doesn't really allow the business to keep up with the world of 2015. The people you work with, including you, have used it for the last twenty years. You don't particularly want to change because your job is pretty straightforward the way that it is.

Here's where I come in. It's my job to work with others - hopefully a team made up of people from your work and colleagues from mine to help make the change happen. Together we figure out how we need to make everyone understand why the change is happening (in whatever way works best - information sessions, emails, webinars, videos and so on). We also take a look at training requirements and figure out what training is needed to make the new system understandable and a success.

Gradually you move the employees - the people going through this change - through the 'change curve' from not even being aware that something is happening, to the point where everyone has been through the training, has started to use the new system and eventually it's as if nothing ever changed.

Helping people change inspires me with hope that the world can be positive and worthwhile. I hope I use the skills I've learned as a teacher and in business when I speak up about mental health, when I write about it, in my campaign, so that people do change their negative attitudes to mental health. Also, I should note, I hate change. I'm terrible at going through changes myself, and this makes me a sympathetic and empathetic ally when it comes to supporting changes. I 'feel your pain'.

What comes alongside this, though, is that even the decision makers from the business have to reconfigure themselves to accept and adapt to the change. So change affects everyone. Everyone has to understand what the change (whatever it is) really means so that everyone can play their part and explain why it is needed help others 'get it' as well.

Anyway, the upshot of all the above is that I spent the last month trying to make a change happen starting on the inside of a part of my business and then using all the documents in the process in anger.

We did it, working all together in our different roles. However, a success like this comes at a cost: work life balance; anything like it.. I got up at 5 most days to get in two-three hours of work before taking a taxi to the office from the hotel, where after another nine or so hours I'd come home and keep working for at least another couple of hours before or after dinner (or during) and then crashing down for a sleep. I chose it. I wanted to do this. But if Mrs. Robinson taught me anything during Economics GCSE lessons, it was that everything you choose has an 'opportunity cost'. You have to give up something else for every choice you make. I had to give up something.

I don't advocate working like this. I decided to do it because it was a challenge I wanted to see through, and I don't see why I shouldn't accept challenges like these if I want to even if I have depression. However, I have to focus on keeping me healthy outside of work, and nothing else. It's a little bit like training for an athletic event. You put everything into your physical exertion, and you have to make sure that you are eating and sleeping appropriately to be successful.

Work - Eat - Sleep. That's it.

The French say it best

This is the only way that I could operate to have a chance of carrying on. No mental health advocacy, no preparing for the launch of my campaign next week, no blogging, not much reading, no TV or film-watching. Just a few hours out for dinner with my colleagues once in a while.

I couldn't and wouldn't compromise on sleep. At the weekends or any other day when my work schedule permitted, I slept early and long, going to bed at seven or eight and waking at seven. Without nightmares (which are a different challenge) sleep totally rejuvenates me. Decent sleep matters so much. It's sleep I notice going wrong when I'm ill - and I do have to take medication to sleep, because my depression interrupts my sleep (and so do my anti-depressants, ha).

So sleep,

Macbeth knew a thing or two about insomnia.

And murder, but that's another story.

Sleep made it possible for me to get through the time away and its intensity.

It was worth focusing on sleep to see the process through.  I made it through the 15 hour days and at the weekends without flagging too much (although I admit that I had to down a few diet cokes on Friday and Saturday last week to keep going...and now I'm handling some 'interesting' caffeine withdrawal symptoms).

I drank all but one of these. Ouch!

I'm now back and back to normal. Normal working hours again, a nightly long sleep and back to blogging, reading, watching and finally speaking up about mental health. I'm still wearing a little makeup to cover up the tiredness.

I may possibly look like a poor impression of Joan Cusack in Working Girl...in drag...but other than that, I'm fine.

Or maybe, if I'm being honest, I look a little bit more like this...

Yeah. This is definitely me right now. 

Tomorrow is my friend Lucy's funeral so I'll continue to reflect on loss and what life means. What is worth living for. I have one answer: mental health advocacy, so that people have a chance at gaining confidence to be themselves, getting help, finding respect for themselves and requiring it of others. Next week is a big week for me and mental health. Thursday is the launch event for my campaign Redefining Resilience,

I'm also launching the Twelve days of Christmas: a video diary per day which you can look at on the campaign Facebook page if you so wish.

 I find Christmas wonderful and difficult in equal measure, so the video diaries will document the different ways I'm feeling and what I'm doing (or trying to do) to take care during that time.

Music helps, friends help...love and kindness help. Whatever you're doing, I hope you are finding balance somewhere, and I hope that you and your loved ones are taking care. Till soon. x

Burn Out Versus Balance: The (Almost) Eternal Flame

I have had a wonderful week in so many respects, despite having an horrific cold. Seriously, this time I think it was man flu. I genuinely didn't get out of bed last Sunday. It was the real deal. Scary.

Last week was the week after Inclusion Week at work and some wonderful experiences speaking on a Women's Network panel, a Mental Health 101 panel and more. Little surprise then that I would perhaps get sick and need to do more self care than usual. I wrote a long post about taking care (both of ourselves and one another) when we think about our mental health. Not just our mental health, in fact, but our entire health. Every bit of it. But for me I do want to treat myself as being an ordinary person, for whom depression is just one part - one - of who I am. One of the questions I was asked was: "What are some things that you do to take care of yourself?"

I have never been good at this. I've been hopeless at it in fact. If I set myself a goal, I'll want to achieve it, even if it means studying for longer, training for that marathon just a little bit harder, working extra hours, skipping breaks, all to get those goals checked off.

In reality this is not sustainable. To use the same sports metaphor I tell my colleagues - particularly the graduates coming in - life is a marathon not a sprint, whether at work or away from work: we have a long way to go and if we're going to have the best chance of making it to the end we have to take care of ourselves and find that balance between being ambitious and stretching ourselves, and trying to make sure that we don't achieve that (too often named) condition that affects every bit of us: "burn out".

I hate this phrase because it suggests that there's nothing left; a blackened match with no fire power left, completely useless. In some very extreme cases of burn out I imagine that people would need months (years maybe) to recover, depending on the personal circumstances of whatever led you to be there.

I have probably only burned out during a project in the USA where the clients were challenging, the hours punishing and the goals almost unattainable (I say almost because I attained them, but at tremendous personal cost to my health and wellbeing.)

Even in the above circumstance however, it wasn't as if there was nothing left at all: I could still go out for a meal, go for a run, visit a museum, walk in the park. I could even write my blog and carry on working. This is why I am so adamant that even with a mental health condition I can still be 'resilient' and why I'm working to make sure we have those conversations to #RedefineResilience : and not equating the word 'resilient' with bouncing back better and stronger than ever and never ever again having a slight off moment. Ever.

I don't bounce. I think I established that last year when I broke my back.

but I. Come. Back. Eventually.

Now, had I been a lottery winner, I'd be the first to admit that given the choice I would have just left work and booked myself at least a year of recovery time. But unfortunately, knowing that the chances of winning the lottery 1 in 32,441,381,280. 32 Billion - thanks Lotto for adding those extra numbers - I think I'll focus on a little thing I like to call REALITY.

So here's my a view of what balance looks like for me:

1. I eat some fresh juices courtesy of my own recipes and those of +JuiceMaster Jason Vale and @Joethejuicer Joe Cross) because the juices give me the vitamins I so need as well as reducing my anxiety levels and helping me to maintain a healthy weight. I also eat burgers with fries, onion rings and coleslaw. Because. I. Love. Them. And no matter that I will never have the waist of Kate Moss (that ship has sailed so far out I can't even see it. In fact I can't even see the horizon. Because I'm in a town.) I love good tasting food and for me it makes me happy to eat nice food.

   

   Yes, not my usual ingredients for a glass shaped like this. But juices help

   . 

   

   And NOW we are talking.

2. I see friends and go into the office because seeing people and having a chance to be social is good for me. If I'm in a slump it gets me out of the house and if I'm not it's energising. This assumes that I surround myself with people who are nice, mostly positive (or at least realistic!) and who are caring, kind, generally lovely and smart. In these cases my life is made immeasurably better by spending a few hours in their company. If, on the other hand, the people are rude, negative, life-haters, like Stuart the Virgin Trains man on the train from Manchester to London who once gave me a ten minute lecture for asking for the sandwich which (as someone who had a first class ticket) I had already paid for, finishing with "You know you're wrong. You ask your mother if I'm right..." then no, I won't feel better, and I tend to avoid these people like I would the currently rutting stags in the park.

   

   Yep. I'm not keen on these types of people.

   I might not die, but I'll certainly feel worse. On the other hand, I can't have too much contact with people because it is very tiring to be face-to-face all the time, so I have a couple of days at home each week at least, go to bed early and don't socialise too much, and spend a lot of the weekend having 'quiet time': hello Netflix and Kindle.
3. I exercise - for me it's running - a few times a week. I channel my inner Paula Radcliffe (the non-peeing-outside-part-of-Paula-Radcliffe, just to be clear)

   

   Did she or didn't she?

   and take to the streets or park for fresh air and fitness that will provide natural endorphins to boost my medication. I also walk up the escalators on tubes and walk around as much as I can. But I do not do too much. So I'm not currently running every day - more like 4 days a week (although clearly, see above, not with a cold...man flu no less!). And on those rest days I do, really, rest.
   
4. I work and love to work, but I don't work much outside of my 40 hour week.

   

   I also 'don't work'. I.e. I have a life outside of work. And I'm not just talking about writing this blog or talking about mental health. I'm talking real life outside of work stuff - whatever that is. Rest, painting, drawing, talking to people, watching Grand Designs and Bake Off and so on. I might make an exception to this, (the work, not Bake Off)

   

   Do. Not. Mess. With. My. Bake Off.

   but if I do, then I compensate for it. E.g. I recently went to a two day training course which completely shattered me. I therefore (suspecting this would be the case) took the day off the next day and spent it recovering. Eating, meeting my mum, sleeping. Feeling a bit better. I do make myself write a blog post every week because it makes me feel so good to be writing and - especially if I reach just one person and help them know that other people like me are also feeling a bit, frankly, rubbish, and that they deserve help, then that just makes me so happy. (Crying happy, smiley happy. The whole thing.)

Selfie fun with @Dawnoporter and @NimcoAli

For the last one - I should add that fun is in the mix. So with this in mind I went to Stylist Live on Thursday. I practically tackled Nimco Ali to the floor when I saw she was there, I pouted while taking selfies with Nimco and Dawn O'Porter (who I confirmed to that I didn't know who she was - or at least I didn't recognise her by sight!) and I told Stella I didn't know who she was, and then found out that Stella was Stella Creasy. And of course I knew! Surrrlightly embarrassed.

Dannie and Stella Creasy. 

But I did talk to all of them about mental health. I managed somehow to stand up in a room full of people and simultaneously 'come out' about my mental health (again, but this time...) to Caitlin Moran while I asked her what the last taboo was (that we could talk about) and she said she said 'everything' was still taboo - so a lot more work to be done! But the best thing about the day was talking to all of the great people there: Mosama, Zoe, Nancy, Fareeda, Linda, to @ThisWorks sleep and other beauty products) and to @YullShoes,

to Katie at Stylist Magazine and all the other amazing women (it was all women on this occasion) I met and who shared their mental health stories with me. Their brothers with anxiety, their husbands whom they call at lunch to help him get through the day, the antidepressants we've taken, the therapists we've seen, the bereavements we've had...everything. I always feel honoured by every person who shares a story about themselves or someone they know with me - it's like getting a present - and I hope that by talking about it myself I'm making this easier to talk about, and that we will make it easier for others too, and enable people to get help and feel that they deserve it.

This stuff really works by the way. Ahhh, a good night's sleep. 

A real rarity for me now less rate thanks to this!

I'm really tired now so signing off but please take care of yourself, and whatever you've got lined up for the week ahead, maybe consider a little balance. It can help.

Love xxxx Jessica