News From the Hill

Posts Tagged ‘Healthy stuff’

I had a “time off” crisis this week. We had worked three weekends in a row and have been very busy for the last two months. We work together and often work from home so getting time off or even time alone can be difficult.

When I was single I spend quite a lot of time alone and really enjoyed it. I would read, cycle, walk, go for drives and camp alone. I also had more time for thinking and connecting with myself, I have had a journalling habit for some time now and find it very useful for keeping in touch with how I feel about what is happening around me and in me.

It might seem strange to some but I find that it is very easy to lose touch with what is really going on with myself. It’s not that I wander around completely out of touch with myself, I do try to live in the moment as much as I can, however life has a way of distracting me from connecting at a deep level with myself.

I do find it a struggle to maintain a healthy connection with my own feelings. It seems easy for me to let my habit of writing in my journal slip and then a few weeks or even months down the line I find myself badly in need of time alone in order to catch up with myself.

This time around I had trouble trying to find a way to spend a few days by myself, the weather was too cold to go camping (yeah- what a wimp, only hard frost, it’s not as though it’s snowing yet!), I was reluctant to go stay with friends because that would not be “alone” time. I did consider staying in a hotel but I could not bring myself to spend €100 just for a night away, even in a nice cosy hotel, I kept thinking about what else that money could buy – like food!

So we organised a heater in the little garden shed which is down in the lower fields and I camped out there for the day and wrote in my journal, shed a few tears, napped and caught up with myself. I also really enjoyed looking at our land, at our trees changing colour and the views downhill from a different perspective.

It turns out that I didn’t need as much time as I thought I would and I had the added benefit of cuddling up to himself that night – much better than a night by myself in a hotel, cosy or not.

I wonder how often people need this sort of “time off” and don’t get to take it? I am blessed to be able to look after myself this way, even more fortunate that I can recognise when I need to take time by myself and I have learnt to never ignore the signals – it’s never worth it!

This is in response to a blog entry in Nurtured By Love…

It’s difficult for many people to be around anger I think. Is it easy for anyone I wonder? I know that even some people who are used to expressing their own anger can be frightened by the anger being expressed by others, while others are desensitized to it.

It takes a long time to unlearn bad or unhealthy habits and of course we can only do something about our own anger, we are not responsible for the anger of others, even when it is directed towards us. Each of us chooses how to react, even when we react so instinctively that it doesn’t seem like a choice, it still is a choice, we get to decide what our reactions are. I am not saying that it is easy but I do believe it (uncomfortably) to be true.

I say uncomfortably because it makes us responsible for feelings that we may be more comfortable blaming on others – she made me angry, upset, sad etc. rather than I am feeling angry, upset, sad etc. It is not always pleasant or comfortable to take full responsibility for our own feelings and many of us have to learn to do it as adults because we did not learn these things whilst growing up.

Often we may need help learning these new habits, it is especially good to chose your companions from emotionally healthy people, those who are really working on positive living, who are really trying to learn or practise integrity and self-awareness.

I notice that many tv “reality” shows and soap operas seem to work very much with a theme of anger running through so that those who watch regularly (phew I am glad I don’t) are subjected to anger on a regular basis and would therefore view it as quite normal. I think that the danger here is that anger can cover so many other feelings which may never be acknowledged, causing many other problems. Why do the media pepper their “popular” shows with anger? Please let me know if you any thought on this.

I know that it is the main reason that I watch so little tv. I don’t need my entertainment to foster feelings of impotent anger in me. I want my tv entertainment to charm me, educate me, surprise me. I like to watch shows with some human values of honesty, warmth, healthy emotions being healthily expressed and dealt with, compassion. Perhaps that’s why I mostly watch reruns of old shows and movies and stay away from the current rash of so-called reality tv.

Having said all that I think it is important to recognise that anger can be a positive force for change, for improvement, it should not be viewed as a negative or unhealthy emotion.

Anger is not an unhealthy emotion, it is just an emotion.

It all depends on how we behave when we are angry, how we use the anger we are feeling, whether we recognise where it is coming from, whether it is hiding any other emotions that we should be aware of and learning how to act appropriately.