One year later…

It’s been a year since I officially stopped working in a career spanning my entire adult life. If you’re new here, I came to a point in my life where I felt I needed a break, as I was feeling exhausted, emotional, confused and a bit lost. The last year has given me the chance to identify what I was struggling with, to make some changes and realign myself with what’s important. It’s been a privileged opportunity, to take the time out, I do know this, and of course it’s not available to everyone. My heart goes out to anyone who feels stuck and has no means to take time off or time out. I’d urge you though, that if you are feeling this pull, that you try to find even the tiniest bit of wiggle room. It might mean having less but if you can adjust to your means then your health is worth everything. Talk to your employer and see if there is any wiggle room. Some companies offer sabbaticals, a year out, or consider reduced hours even if it’s just an afternoon or so, to reorient towards what matters. Not all businesses support this but it would make such a difference to employees’ stress levels and at Perimenopause for women, if they could consider ways to achieve healthier work life balance and I’m sure would prevent burnout, long term sickness and help staff retention. What each person needs in order to achieve this will be unique to them so being proactive and person centred will achieve best results. A year on for me and it’s a good opportunity to reflect back before moving forward. There have been things I have learned about myself and a few interesting observations along the way that might prove useful to others. In terms of occupation and what I “do”, I’ve learned that I need to be outside – a lot. I need to have fun and I love music, nature and greenness and yearn for a simple, quiet life mostly, interspersed with some silliness and adventure. I’ve discovered that I’m still not great at art and crafts although I do enjoy it, but I love the creativity of writing and words. I’m more comfortable in small groups and like to have deep and meaningful conversations – sometimes. I also like to laugh – I mean full on bellyaching laughs. My physical health has become more important to me as I realise the changes happening in my body and I’m loving the gym (who’d have thought?). I like to feel useful and helpful hence the blog. These are a few of the life enhancing things I’ve (re) discovered alongside understanding my personality better. What we do is not who we are though and the journey over the last few years has been as much about understanding myself better. I was fully aware of all the anxieties and struggles – too aware possibly. These haven’t disappeared but my life feels more evenly peppered with both – that is a healthy mix of the joys and the struggles.

Not that you’ve asked but you’re getting it….

1. If you’re considering a life change or career change, getting a different job is not easy (I thought it would be). Don’t take for granted that if you have a decent education you’ll get any job- er nope. I was looking for a few hours, anything, preferably different entirely to what I was doing before. Ideally manual work or vaguely customer service . It’s very difficult to prove that you have transferrable skills once you’ve developed expertise in one area and what you did 20 years ago is no longer relevant. At first I had grand ideas of things I thought sounded interesting but as reality dawned I resigned myself to the fact I just need to doing anything – admin, cleaning, whatever, anything to earn a quid or two. No offence to those in cleaning or admin- I’ve done both and both make an honest living. It’s also difficult to prove anything to anyone if you don’t actually see a human being for the first few stages of selection. You are a slave to the computer based application process. Oh joy. Scenario city. What would you do if after a long hot day without drinks, your boss asked you to stay on a few more hours to help finish off? Wellbeing is certainly not considered and you’re supposed to say “Yes I’d love to dehydrate and try to prove my worth by ignoring my own physical health needs”, sorry no, I answered truthfully as a weary 46 year old – I have family and I’ll not be tying my nose to anymore grind stones thanks. You have not been successful on this occasion. Quelle surprise. Yes I think I was being too fussy in some respects, I wanted part time hours, local, ideally wfh, preferably not evenings or weekends. Okay so that does take out quite a lot but I honestly didn’t think it would be so difficult. I’ve had the opportunity to retrain, study if I’d wanted to, but I did a lot of that at the beginning and I don’t want to do it again. Like I say I just want a quiet life. Ideally I’d like to have a bit of land in the country, be self sufficient, maybe have a few chickens, and a small business centred round that, but life is not fixed that way just now. Maybe later. If you’re curious I’m going to be doing some admin work part time moving forward, with time to focus on the joys and needs I’ve identified over the last year and, number one, my family. Having the emotional energy to be as available as I can be for them is paramount.
2. Another discovery is that not working is not valued by society and by society I mean women too! Voluntary work and low wage work or staying at home to be just be Mum, are somewhat looked down on as something you only do if you have to. I’m here to tell you that you can get so much from unpaid work, giving back, being involved in something bigger than yourself- it can be a great way to test things out that you might be interested in plus feel like you’re contributing. Especially if you have had a period of time away from work for whatever reason, it can help to ease back into a routine and being around other people. To all the stay at home mums ❤️ – so much love. This is a tough job. If you’re the one at home, you do it ALL- whereas when you work part time it is shared out at least a little more. Stay at home mums are to be celebrated not looked down on and if that’s not right for how you live your life, that’s okay. We just do what’s right for ourselves. As for lower wage jobs well this can mean lower stress levels. Switch off, go home, bish bash bosh. You’re done for the day. The work ethic of manual workers and labourers is admirable- you’re properly tired at the end of the day. Stress also comes from being in financial difficulty too, of course, so it’s about getting the balance right. Obviously some have no choice where illness, different abilities, trauma, crime, poverty, lack of encouragement and support in disadvantaged areas of society means there is no choice what type of work to do and we have a duty to pour in resources and support here. No wonder we see such high levels of distress where there is lack of control or choice. I’m not saying don’t aim high, sack off all the studying of course not- we need people in all areas of life and employment but it would work so much better if there was mutual respect all round. Sadly there’s still this perceived hierarchy of importance when it comes to how you spend your day. I know this is partly my perception but there was some evidence of it this year when I talked about doing gardening, cleaning and being at home more.
3. Being super busy and working long hours is strangely over valued by society. In the UK from a young age we over schedule our kids, book them into this class, that extra curricular, plague them with homework from age 5 and they work long hours at school. It almost becomes ingrained into our being that we should not take time out to rest and just be. Taking time out to slow down or living at a slower pace is perceived in a negative way. If you have a gap in your CV employers presume you’ve got issues. Taking time out means you are weak, you can’t hack it. We need to change this narrative. If people are proactive and identify their own stresses and stress response and can see a way to alleviate this, preventing things spiralling, surely this should be encouraged and promoted. I naively perhaps tried to be honest on application forms and I think did myself a disservice. The idea that you would choose to take time out or lose a wage because you realise that this hamster wheel called life is not in line with your personal values is not thought about. I’m not talking about the value of work in itself- that’s not realistic, I mean working your ass off trying to do it all – but feeling like you can’t do any of it justice because you feel pulled in a million directions. I’m not saying I want to go off grid into the jungle (although I do admire those who say enough is enough), but there’s got to be a happy medium- hasn’t there?
4. A similar observation is that people always ask what you “do” don’t they? They then don’t know what to say when you say you stopped working a year ago. You see their mind rushing with panic – “Oh has she been unwell, did something bad happen, I shouldn’t pry I’ll just smile and say Oh and nod politely”, so I end up blabbing to fill the void briefly before swiftly returning the convo back to them as that’s more comfortable territory for me. I even find myself talking about what I used to “do” if they say “Oh?” with a question mark or are brave enough to ask. “So I used to be a clinical psychologist”, eyebrows go up, phew something we can talk about. Like it defines me in some way. Otherwise people glaze over or seem uncomfortable if you try to give an authentic answer, “Actually I chose to stop working last year because I was feeling that I needed a change, and I was a bit burnout and exhausted. I just knew I needed a rest and a reset.” I’ve found my way with this now, and if it makes people uncomfortable that’s okay.
5. A bit more controversial this one. Because you’re not doing any paid work, you’re thought to have no good reason to still sometimes get stressed or unhappy, because work after all, is the main reason for stress and unhappiness. Certainly the level of stress is not thought to warrant as much sympathy as those with “real” stress. So I’m cautious to not whinge to some as it feels like they’re judging me. Compassion at its deepest level however, was shared by a good friend who has been through so much, who said no, I really want to know how you are. Often we compare our suffering to that of others don’t we and this invalidates what we’re experiencing and triggers guilt, making us feel worse. “Well I’m not coping with this or that terrible situation” “They have it so much worse than me”. If we remove judgement, comparison and cynicism we can access compassion for each other and ourselves. This compassion is the fuel that ignites healing and enables us to cope with whatever our circumstances.

I’ve learnt some new lessons and reaffirmed others. These might seem twee but they’re true…

Don’t judge a book by its occupation…. That cleaner might just be a Phd graduate in disguise. Just because they are working in a manual job doesn’t mean they are not clever.

Even if they’re not a Phd graduate they are worthy, have feelings, and these feelings and opinions are as valid as the next person’s. You might learn a lot from that there cleaner.

Stay at home mums have chosen to focus all of their energy on their children, and this is an honourable sacrificial “choice” – inverted commas because not all woman choose this but the buck stops with us. We’re all agreed on that one. Being a stay at home mum can be extremely stressful – so don’t think that just because you’re in an office or in the city, that you have more stress than them and please please don’t look down on them. There’s nothing more stressful than trying to have a shower with a screaming baby and inquisitive toddler in the bathroom while worrying about your teenager who didn’t go to school.

People are fighting battles you don’t know about so always be kind.

Live and let live

Love and be loved I say

It’s not a competition- who’s the most tired or most stressed, who achieved the most or who had the most productive day today, but sometimes it feels like this in certain conversations. We’re focussing on the wrong things here people. Do we want our children to develop the core belief that I must work my ass off to be valued in this world. Please no. Yield. It doesn’t have to be like this. Underneath all of the showy stuff, the degree, the house, the car, the holidays, the clothes, that’s the real you. The authentic you. That’s who I’m interested in.

Focus on your values. Affirm them. Remind yourself of them. Take five minutes to write down a short paragraph reminding yourself of the most important motivations in your life. This way you’ll remember who you are. Research has shown that the effects of doing this can be long lasting and help buffer against stress and create meaningful change. I lost myself somewhere along the way. One of the major perks of this life stage for me has been the opportunity to make changes- I kind of had to. And it’s been liberating, uplifting and centring . Another perk and I’m not sure where this has come from, having previously leaned towards people pleasing, is discovering that I care less about what other people think. In fact it’s slightly amusing to me as I remind myself- they don’t really know me. I know this shows massive growth for me to feel more certain of who I am, my likes, dislikes, what’s important and what’s not. Those who do know me, I have connected with on a much deeper level. Thank you for staying with me. Those who don’t like the changes can dwindle off. That’s a polite way of saying you know what. Ha!

I want to give you hope. If life is throwing lots of curveballs and unsettling changes it might just be the making of you. I don’t mean to belittle pain and suffering as some of you are going through the darkest of days – I know, I see you and I’m sorry. I’ve heard some truly devastating stories of trauma and hurt in my previous role and have friends and family members living every day with unfair adversity. Change can be so destabilising and tests us to our core. Have you heard the phrase test your mettle? You might have thought it’s metal understandably. Mettle actually means the courage to carry on. It’s the stuff you’re made of, the determination and strength to keep going. I hope you find this within yourself whatever life throws at you. Perimenopause is just one of the life blips that tests our mettle, to dig deep and keep moving forward and when we do, there’s so much to gain. With change comes growth and flourishing, allowing us to reconnect with our authentic self. She’s in there….when you find her embrace her and hold onto her!

Image by Fuu J thank you

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