Tag: Choice

Four years ago I developed a program to assist with the culture where I worked. It was to help the staff to work on feeling and becoming happier in their lives.

Each weekly class consisted of 3 things:
• Some data, research, facts and statistics
• A story
• An exercise to work on for the next 21 days.

This was long before we knew COVID was going to come and change our lives forever. And it helped many of us during those years (can you believe it was years?).

Then I added a blog to it – because everyone’s blogging, right? But I haven’t blogged for a year.

Creating and adding to something that brought me so much pleasure has been pushed to the side whilst I’ve been trying to manoeuvre through a tough and busy work year.

I piled in other projects to try to pull myself out of the stress and anxiety, and whilst they, of themselves, were worthwhile and amazing learning experiences that will shape the rest of my life, they also added a level of additional stress that brought me close to burnout.

Sometimes it’s just that the timing is both right and wrong. You have to decide whether it is right or wrong for you at the time. But it may be both.

In May 2023, I got to visit the wonderful Victorian countryside to do a 3-day ‘Dare to Lead‘ women’s retreat with the amazing Kemi Nekvapil.

It was life-changing. Not just the course content, but also meeting 15 other women who were prepared to step up, get curious, share their stories, support each other, and face the world with empathy, connection, and courage.

Dare to Lead is the work of Brené Brown, and Kemi is a transformational coach and a truly beautiful person. The timing wasn’t great, but I knew it was the kickstart I needed.

Then on the 27th of that same month, whilst still working full-time, I embarked on a 16-week, 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training course with the amazing Merrymaker sisters. I’ve done Yoga and Pilates with MerryBody for 2 years.

It was the inaugural teacher training, and I just knew that I had to be in that cohort. I’ve also had 3 trips away in that time, so keeping up with the learning, practice, and assessments was tricky.

This week is the final week and whilst all 30 of us on the course can’t believe it has gone so fast, we have developed relationships that will continue.

Timing.

A month ago I resigned from my job of 10 years. It was just all too much and I knew the time had come. Last week there were flowers, tears, lunches, and gifts. My connections with my work colleagues will also continue.

But it was time to let go. Time to do something different. Time to get back to the joy and optimism that I was put on this earth to share. Today it is time for change.

Have you ever wondered if something or someone in your life was past their expiration date?

Holding off on changing or doing different things because it does not seem like the time is right might mean you miss all kinds of incredible opportunities.

Honestly, the time will never be right, but it may never be wrong. You have to decide. Grab your life with both hands and embrace it.

Today it is my time for change – it may just be yours too.

Photo credit: Julia Luyten

Waiting to cross the road yesterday I heard one 50’s-something woman saying to another … “I just feel so sad about her death – I mean, it’s all that they’re talking about, and showing pictures of, on the TV all day, and then all night.  It’s just making me so sad”.

As I crossed the road, the wicked in me wanted to turn around and shout to her “you can turn the TV off you know!”.  But I didn’t.  I couldn’t.  She would know that, right?  It must have occurred to her.  And as I walked I was thinking about how we consume media and how it can have an effect on our thoughts, our feelings and our well-being.  Yes – I was one of those people who stayed up all night on September 11.  But that was 2001!  The way we consume news now is very different 21 years later.

I’ve been away this week and learned about the death of the Queen when I got out of the shower on Friday morning in our hotel room. Paul had read it scrolling the news on his iPad, waiting for the shower. We didn’t turn on the TV in the hotel room because we haven’t consumed free-to-air TV for the past 10 years.  Sure, we subscribe to streaming services and watch ABC’s iView and SBS On Demand.  We choose what to watch for entertainment, and pull what news we want from the internet.  I choose who to follow, like everyone else, on Instagram and YouTube.  It’s a consumer market, and I consume, and sometimes I reject/unsubscribe.

We were travelling home that day – the one that Australians will remember as the day they woke up to find that our Queen had died.  I was at the airport for 2 hours and on a plane for an hour, plenty of time to catch up on social media that I’d missed in a busy week.  I quickly realised that scrolling through the news, Instagram and Facebook only pointed to one piece of news.  There were only photos of one person, couple or family – the royal family.  It was too much.  So I closed myself off to socials, choosing instead to read a book.  It was a choice.  The same choice as the woman on my walk.  The same choice as all the republicans who would do away with our links to the royal family, and the monarchists who have been so distressed and saddened by the news.  You can turn it off.

We all have the choice to consume what is fed to us or to reject it.  Sure, I can end up down a rabbit hole of information on the internet – clicking links and finding myself, an hour later, not able to remember where I started from.  But it is for enjoyment – never to bring me sadness.  On the other hand, I have read amazing books and watched movies, plays and ballets that will elicit a huge range of emotions.  Writers have the ability to take us to the highs and the lows, but the difference is that these feed our souls and our imaginations.  Art adds to our experience of life.

So next time you find yourself being bombarded with bad news, bad TV, bad writing, bad content, and it is affecting you, just turn it off.  Life is too short for the world to dictate to you what you should consume because you have the right to choose.