A trip to Kilkenny

A few weeks ago, I spoke at an Irish Law Society Skillnet Event in Kilkenny, with 166 delegates. When the training organiser invited me several months ago I had initially been surprised, until I made the connection that several lawyers related to the case studies in my chapter on movement and resolving chronic pain in the PPDA textbook. To my delight, one of those lawyers greeted me as I arrived in Kilkenny after a fraught drive from Dublin.

Organisers and speakers at the event

Stress and its consequences are a topical concern for professionals under pressure. Like GPs, many solicitors have evolved to run their own practices, which adds pressure to understand how to run a business, alongside keeping up to date with professional developments. Both practices involve interaction with people and complex communication issues, which are potential areas of generating stress. It’s important to recognise there is good stress which can energise us if we lean into it, however, I wanted to give each of the delegates the opportunity to recognise the stress they may be experiencing and a practical tool to address it.

After a general introduction to the methodology of Resolving Chronic Pain and the principles espoused in the Psychophysiologic Disorders (PPD) textbook, I introduced some tools to address stress illness, in terms of anxiety, headaches, overwhelm and shortness of breath.

The rest of the conference was cerebral, so the chance to get up and move was appealing to many of the attendees. We began with a nod to Amy Cuddy and a confident posture, then moved on to ribcage breathing understanding the relationship between deep breathing and the rest and repair attributes of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system. Then we got into pairs and explored the internal strength associated with some exercises. We concluded with a roll down, reminding ourselves of the robust nature of our spines.

I want to thank both the organisers and the delegates, all of whom made me feel so welcome and participated with such enthusiasm, and gave lovely feedback afterwards.

Clara's story

I often think that I have the best job in the world. I have the privilege of meeting wonderful people who for one reason or another have experienced life-limiting chronic pain or anxiety. Once we have agreed that the teaching programme of Resolving Chronic Pain is an appropriate fit, the changes are usually significant. Once the pain has dissipated, the real work begins, as there is an opening for a change in perspective. Clients often talk of how their confidence has increased, they enjoy trusting their bodies again, and want to work on achieving their potential. This might be changing their work situation, developing a creative activity, or deepening connections with people they care about. Sometimes it’s a combination of all three. 

Clara, who has used a wheelchair since a car accident some years ago, wanted to explore the Resolving Chronic Pain process after reading one of John Sarno’s books. She lives with her parents in an apartment in Dublin and needs help to travel around. Clara enjoys her own company and gets on well with her mother, who is her main carer. However, both her parents work, and she is grateful to have the company of her dog, who is a great comfort and often joins our calls.

Clara is extremely creative. She had painted a little in the past before her accident but hadn’t done so since. We discussed the possibility of her painting as a means to distract her brain from the pain signals that had been medically checked and labelled benign. To Clara’s delight, she found her rediscovery of painting to be a tremendous source of joy. She doesn’t experience pain signals when she’s painting.  

“I love painting because it gives me a sense of freedom and joy, the same freedom I was feeling when I was a child,” Clara says.

 "When I paint I am often so absorbed in it that I "forget" about the pain I have. It's truly magical how my mind stops thinking about it. My paintings are usually inspired by ideas or images I get during meditation, so they often have a spiritual feel. I also love to paint intuitively, not having any plans beforehand. Or to paint only to express a feeling I have. Lately Egypt has been a big inspiration, especially its many mysteries, gods and goddesses. It gives me joy that I can put that on canvas.”

 As her confidence increased, Clara decided to engage a peripatetic art teacher who come to her home to teach her once a week. Her art teacher suggested she show some of her work at an exhibition in October and Clara was thrilled by the compliments of those attending the exhibition.

 Many were interested in one particular painting. Clara has now commissioned a limited run of prints of that painting and one other. If you would like to see the painting or purchase a print, you can find Clara on Etsy by clicking here.  

Practise what you preach

As some of you know, I had a brief bout of illness recently – nothing to worry about, a fierce cough and sore throat. Frankly, it was horrible and very boring, and I’m extremely glad to now be feeling much better.

Unfortunately I had to take some time off teaching, which is never a decision I take lightly. I tried to “push through” for as long as I could, despite at times barely being able to speak and needing to rest my voice in between calls. On one such day, my daughter happened to call, and after hearing my croaky voice was horrified to learn that I was still working. She told me very sternly and in no uncertain terms to rest – which made me laugh, as usually it is me giving this sort of advice to her.

I have written before about the importance of taking time off when you are unwell. This can be very difficult if you work for yourself, and your work is very important to you – especially if your absence directly affects other people. However, it seems that in some areas I struggle to practise what I preach, as I certainly wasn’t taking my own advice.

This is true of so many of us – we are happy to advise other people to rest and take care of themselves, but then cannot seem to justify applying the same principles to ourselves. The same applies when we are facing a difficult situation, or feel as though we are not being treated fairly. Sometimes it can be helpful to imagine that a friend was in that situation instead, and to think what you would advise them to do. You may find yourself fiercely standing up for your friend – so why shouldn’t you do the same for yourself?

In the end, I was forced to take my daughter’s advice whether I wanted to or not, as I was no longer able to use my voice. Thankfully, it has now recovered, and I am feeling much better and looking forward to getting back on track.

Shy bairns get no sweets

I have a favourite story about how a young woman made it into her first job. She was doing work experience as a recent graduate at a company she would have loved to work for, and had spent a week trying her best to get to know people and make a good impression. But she felt as though she hadn’t got very far, and on the final day was out of time.

She was eating lunch in the canteen when someone quite senior asked her how she was getting on, and whether she would stay for a full-time job with the company. When she told him there weren’t any current job openings, he asked why she didn’t just speak to the boss directly, and express an interest. “Shy bairns get no sweets”, he told her. At first she didn’t understand his wisdom, delivered with a hearty Scottish accent, but eventually got the gist.

She did email the boss, asking about job openings. There weren’t any, but he told her he would keep her informed, and six months later she was back for an interview. She got the job, and did well. The following year, the senior colleague who had told her to contact the boss directly announced he was leaving. She remembered what he had said to her, and applied for his position, despite the fact that he was at least 20 years more experienced than she was.

She got the job. She was thrilled – especially as it was not something that had ever occurred to her eighteen months previously, when she had been looking for her first foot in the door. I find this story useful when teaching, to encourage others to have confidence to take the leap when needed and put themselves forward for things even when they might feel out of their league. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know.

Making connections

At the end of August, an air traffic control problem in the UK saw over 100 people sleeping overnight at Dublin airport.  

At the time I was supposed to be travelling with a colleague to Italy, to meet up with our research group from The Whole Health Medicine Course, Class of 2014. At first we were invited to go home and rebook. But then we were told that our flight, originally scheduled to leave at 2.40pm, was delayed to 11:30pm. Five gate changes followed as Dublin airport began to heave with stranded people. A few flights did get away avoiding UK airspace, but many were not so fortunate.

 Thankfully I love people watching, and as we joined up with a few others due to be on the same flight, it’s fair to say we had rather a jolly time. As we reassembled for the fourth time at yet another new gate, one of our companions cheerfully suggested we would “be like family by the time the day is out!”

Luckily our flight took off after three and a half hours of shenanigans. We arrived in Naples at 10:30pm and we drove silently through the night to Sorrento, collapsing into our beds at 1:30am. Thankfully our planned research meeting in Sorrento was not disrupted in any way. This was our third in-person meeting, and our small group of five has kept in touch progressing this work in our individual fields since 2014. Each research meeting feels like a reunion.

 A couple of days later, we coincidentally bumped into our new friends from the Dublin airport queue. We excitedly exchanged news and wished each other well, joking that we were indeed like family by that point! 

A calming influence

A few months ago I wrote about our terror of a cat, Freddie. His regular exploits include jumping on kitchen counters, stealing every morsel of food not firmly hidden in a sealed container, and creating modern artwork all over the floor with toilet paper, newspaper, cardboard and anything else he can find and tear to shreds. Needless to say, we love him very dearly. But we did begin to despair when Freddie reached adulthood, as we had desperately hoped he would quieten down as he got older. Not so. His increased confidence, size and weight only meant he could wreak even more havoc.

We explained this to friends we had over for lunch one day, as we apologised profusely for Freddie having stolen their bread rolls, trodden in their soup and knocked over their water glasses. But far from commiserating with us, a friend suggested the unthinkable. “Why don’t you get another cat?” she asked. We hadn’t considered this as the obvious solution. However, it turned out she worked closely with vets, and knew a thing or two about badly behaved cats. A companion may calm Freddie down, she said.

By that stage we were ready to try anything, so off we went to collect a rescue kitten from our local shelter. We weren’t quite expecting the small, shy, cautious creature who returned home with us. We think Oscar had a difficult few months at his first home, and he seemed scared of loud noises and busy activity. We gradually introduced him to boisterous, over-active Freddie, and Oscar was… terrified. We wondered if this had been a good idea. We resolved that if after a few weeks Oscar didn’t get over his terror of Freddie, we would call the shelter for advice.

But then something wonderful happened. The two cats began to spend more time together, and Oscar began to open up. “Hurrah!” we thought. Only a matter of time before Oscar’s shy, cautious personality calms Freddie down.

However, that’s not quite what happened. One cat did influence the other, but it was Oscar who began to gain confidence. Oscar who followed Freddie onto the kitchen counters, who gained a taste for stolen bread, who learned how to shred paper in the most destructive way possible.

“Cream? No, I’ve not seen any cream, wonder what happened to it."

Now, months later, the cats are as thick as thieves. They chase each other – and sometimes us - round the garden, they have learned all of our favourite hiding spots for food, and they have identified each and every window and skylight they can slip through, and arrive with a bump into our laps while we are sleeping, working or in the bath.

Unfortunately, in our effort to give Freddie a companion to calm him down, we provided him with a willing accomplice to his mischief. Our friend has suggested we get a dog to regulate the group and bring peace and serenity to the household – what do you think?

Taking time off

My daughter likes to think she’s independent. She lives away from home in a city, with a mostly healthy, happy life. But whenever she’s unwell with a temporary bug or a bad cold, she calls me.

Of course it’s completely normal to call your mother when you feel ill, looking for some comfort and sympathy. But my daughter also contacts me for another reason: because I can help her phone in sick to work. It’s not that her work has a strict attitude to sick days, or that her boss is particularly terrifying – in fact, every time this has happened so far, she’s been met with nothing but understanding and acceptance from her colleagues.

The problem for her is taking that step to sign off for the day. It’s as though she thinks she doesn’t deserve it, and she can’t bring herself to do it without a push from someone else – usually from me.

Struggling to take days off work sick is far from a unique problem. It’s very common for people to feel guilty about signing off, for a wide range of reasons. Perhaps you’re worried your symptoms aren’t “bad enough”, and your colleagues will think you’re slacking off. Maybe you’re under a lot of pressure and stress and it feels as though you can’t afford not to be at work. For people who work for themselves or will not be paid for the time off, there are a whole host of other considerations.

I’ve had this discussion with many of you, as chronic pain sometimes results in long periods of time off work. In my view, taking a few days off over a stomach bug or a bad cold should be a much simpler consideration. I tend to pull the “wise mother knows best” trick on my daughter. “When you are 80 years old looking back on your life, do you think you’ll wish you spent more time dragging yourself into work while you were sick?” I ask her sternly. “Which do you think your boss would rather have, you off for two days and back at 100% the rest of the week, or you miserable at 30% the whole week?”

While it’s always lovely to get phone calls from my children, I prefer dispensing general sympathy when they are sick - rather than reviewing in minute detail the process for them calling in absent from work, what their boss might say, who else in the office has been ill recently, and whether anyone might think they are slacking off. My next challenge is to get my daughter to speak sternly to herself in these situations, without needing anyone else’s permission.

Blackberry picking

A few weekends ago I went blackberry picking. They were huge, bursting with juice that ran down my fingers and dripped from the colander I was using to put them in. I sneaked a few while picking them – of course you have to run quality control – and they were delicious, sweet and perfectly ripe.

I’ve written before about the joy of picking berries – the methodical, absorbing task which keeps you busy outside on a warm summer evening. I enjoy the picking so much I often create problems for myself, as I end up with a bountiful crop of more fruit than I know what to do with. This time I couldn’t face making any more jam, which while joyful is quite an effortful task. Instead I picked just enough blackberries for a crumble, delicious with an apple added in to add a little extra sweetness.

Many people have suggested that the blackberries ripened earlier this year after warmer weather. It’s true that I found myself collecting them sooner than I usually would have – normally I associate blackberry picking with the back-to-school feeling of September.

Now that back-to-school feeling is here, I’m looking forward to the other benefits of autumn, like stewed apples - on their own or in crumbles and pies. And homemade soups - a friend recently gave me a leek and potato recipe which I couldn’t face trying out while the weather was still warm.

Of course, sometimes you don’t have the time or energy to go fruit picking or cut up apples or make soup. There are other things to look forward to which don’t require as much time or effort, like the crisp air of an autumn morning, or the crunch of leaves underfoot as they begin to fall. I love to watch the trees as they change, spreading a riot of colour across my local woodland, and then opening up the view to the fields beyond as they begin to fall.

Making the best of it

Recently all of my children have been living in different cities. None of them particularly enjoy this - as some of you remember, their childhood home with my Pilates studio was up a hill beside a farm, a world away from the busy and bustling streets of Dublin. One of them recently told me about a realisation she had though, which I thought was a helpful way of looking at things.  

Since she had moved to the city, she had been trying to get outside into green space as much as possible, to make up for the lack of countryside. She had been walking through parks, strolling by the canal, and taking her lunch break on a bench under trees. But none of it was enough. Wherever you go in big city parks you can still feel the presence of buildings surrounding you, still hear the traffic, and you still have to fight your way through crowds of people wherever you’re trying to go. The green spaces in the city were never going to be enough, she realised, and when comparing them to life back home they were always going to come up short.

So she shifted her perspective. Instead of trying to replace what she had lost with a poor substitute, she asked herself what benefits a city could bring that the countryside didn’t have. She made a list of museums, galleries and tourist hotspots to visit – after all, tourists visit cities for a reason. By their nature, every city has a wealth of fun free things to do, and so she started making the most of them.

She still goes for walks in the park, but now instead of thinking about how much worse these are than hill walks back home, she tries to consider them just an addition to the other great things the city has to offer. It seems a bit contrived but it shows how much of an impact consciously changing your perspective can have. Or as her grandmother would have said, sometimes you just have to make the best of it.

Sharing success

I was recently reminded, on the anniversary of her death, of something Maeve Binchy once said. Binchy was an enormously successful author and journalist, and had a reputation for being approachable, generous and kind even after her rise to fame and fortune. 

She was born in Dalkey, in South Dublin, and started her career as a teacher. One summer some parents of her students at a Jewish school in Dublin gave her a trip to Israel as a present, and her own parents were so impressed by her letters home that they submitted them to the Independent. She continued travel writing, and then joined the Irish Times as a journalist. A decade later she published two collections of short stories, and then her first novel, for which she was paid a record sum. Her success continued, and she became well known and loved the world over, selling over 40 million copies of her books during her lifetime.

She was also known for her reflections on life, and her words of advice are widely quoted. One of my favourites is: “Success is not like a cake that needs to be divided. It’s more like a heap of stones – a cairn. If someone is successful, they add a stone to the cairn.”

I love this quote, as it rails against the all-too-common temptation for comparison. It is so easy to allow your own success to be blighted by that of others, whether it’s comparing your career trajectory to those of your schoolmates, or as simple as feeling flat about good feedback at work because a colleague also received praise. There is space for all of us to do well, and success is sweeter when shared and celebrated with others.

Binchy’s reputation for generosity certainly ties in with this approach. After her death, family, friends and colleagues told stories of her having shared her fortune with them, and it was said that she made an effort to respond to everyone who sent her a plea for help.

In another of her most famous quotes, Binchy advised: “Don’t agonise. Don’t regret. Don’t fuss. Never brood. Move on.” In reality it can be much more difficult to follow this advice than Binchy’s no-nonsense delivery suggests, but nonetheless, it is certainly something to aim for!