Small revelations and strong foundations

Life is filling up (and I am so pleased about this), but oddly I seem to be slowing myself down too. This is cool and not usual for me, but I’m making efforts to do this intentionally. I met someone this week who got me thinking about a few things. I also went walking today and being up in mountains pretty much never fails to have some kind of therapeutic value in giving space for thinking, feeling, and small shifts in being.

So, this conversation I had. A while back I got an email from someone in the area who is also a therapist who has a private practice. Her clinic was full, so she had referred a couple of her new enquiries to me. I had just set myself up in my own practice after a year out of practice and deciding it was time to return. I thought it was nice she contacted me (there’s lots of therapists nearby, and it was cool she had seen I was new in the area in practice). Anyway, email conversation turned into a coffee meeting. It was great. It turns out she also teaches, is interested in trauma therapy and eco-therapy, and has some exciting things on the go. After talking a while she asked about how I came to be here and why the move to Stirling since things sounded like they had been set up quite well where I was before in Northampton. I explained that long story short, my PhD supervisor moved and I decided to move too because I didn’t want to do a PhD long distance. I explained it meant a whole lot of change. This is a little how the conversation went after that:

Her: Oh wow that sounds like it was tough. What a radical move, to move up here too. 
Me: Yeah, I guess it was a little radical – it definitely wasn’t part of the ‘plan’
Her: Yes! And to do all of that on your own and settle in, as well as start a private practice yourself alongside your work and PhD – that’s impressive.
Me: I guess so, yeah. I think academia kind of thickens your skin. A lot. So you do these things and somehow you survive and you still keep going and doing more. It thickens your skin. It sucks that it has to thicken your skin so much, and it sucks that you bear the scars of that too. But at the same time, it does mean I can be radical at times, and I know it’ll probably be OK.

It's funny because I don’t feel so radical. There are for sure a lot of things people do that are more radical than the decisions I have made in my life so far. But I have definitely taken some risks. Academia does thicken your skin, at least it does for me. In small subtle ways that I don’t really notice at the time, but then when I stop to reflect (like when I am up on mountains), I notice these small subtle ways that I have changed. Like actually being out hiking on a weekend and not working. The thick skin, too. It’s not really real but it’s definitely real enough to feel that it is real at times, and to notice the ways that I’ve become a bit hardened to the system, especially this year. The things that used to bother me (being left off an email list, being ignored, having to pick up things that others don’t do, the hierarchy power wars) – they don’t seem to have the same impact. That’s hardened skin I think. But of course there are things that get me and that get under my skin and into my being. I don’t know that I want that to be different entirely. I don’t want to toughen my skin so much that I can’t feel. You know... we do need to feel in order to live.

When I was out hiking, I had some small revelations. Getting out like this is absolutely sustaining and keeps me going. Yes, I struggle with over exercise and I get flare ups of pain in several parts of my body which means that sometimes it’s hard to work out whether moving helps or makes that worse. But most of the time moving and getting out is therapy and it is healing. It’s a way of coming back to myself. When I was doing my counselling and psychotherapy training we were trained in an integrative humanistic framework. We were taught that whilst we have several theories within our theoretical framework, we always come back to a backbone – a foundation that everything else rests on. For me, that is the therapeutic relationship – as a vehicle for change and as a site of exploration and curiosity (i.e. Sometimes what goes on in the therapeutic relationship can say something about what happens ‘out there’ for clients – and therefore exploring that, bringing that into awareness, and maybe doing things differently in the therapeutic relationship, having a different, maybe more healing experience, can be useful). Also, kindness and compassion are things that I don’t think you can do meaningful therapy without. So, in a similar way, getting out, walking or climbing mountains always has a way of helping me re-connect to my backbone – my own foundations, through small revelations that I make. It is a small way of building on these foundations and coming back to them.

This move was hard work but I appreciate the things that I’m getting from it. To be honest, when you live so close to all of this (photos below), gratitude is not hard. Moving was a bit radical, but filling life up might be the more radical thing. It is radical to follow your instincts about things, to trust yourself that you can make decisions, to take risks, and trust that things will be OK. But more to the point, women, alone, can do radical things and that is OK and pretty cool. We can climb mountains entirely alone and relocate alone. We can do things and take up space in this world whilst we’re at it. It is not easy. And I'm not talking about myself here, but this is more a reflection on women doing radical things and trusting themselves in a world that is set up to make us small - in spaces that would rather we shrink, than grow. But following my small revelations, I’m committing to not rushing, not losing kindness as I thicken up my skin, and definitely making time for the things that help to keep building foundations.

One about travel

I have had a few conversations lately where people comment on how often I am away. They are right – I do choose jobs that enable me to travel or work flexibly, and I do have a thing for spontaneously booking flights. I’m not afraid of solo travel and adventure. Truth be told, I really love it. I love knowing I’m good with my own company and I love knowing I can navigate new places by myself (and yes I could do this before we had google maps on our phones). I have firm memories of being handed paper maps of Osaka and Tokyo and being told where my castings were and not having a clue how to navigate cities where signs are in Japanese but somehow getting from A to B to C anyway. I have similar memories of being in Istanbul figuring out my bearings, and being given paper maps of Barcelona with the key studios and our apartment circled on it. I still have this map because that was the greatest city to work in. They did not care about measurements and there was zero pressure to be a certain size. I am glad I could spend time there. Anyway these are different stories. This blog is more about more recent trips.

This year I’ve been travelling to parts of Scotland I’ve never been to – mostly for work, sometimes for fun. And I have also made several trips around different places in the UK for conferences and seeing friends and family – some trips for birthdays and one for a funeral. Because I’m not driving so much anymore, I have been in airports and train stations more this year than I have in any other year, and I have been on several trips to European countries – mostly because I have a pretty generous family who know me very well and they know that the best 30th birthday gift to me is to go somewhere with me and for us to spend time together. Also, because my sister turned 21 and we did the same for her. I know these opportunities come from a place of privilege and I’m really fortunate to have a family who now can do these things together. We definitely haven’t always been able to. I didn't leave the country properly until I was 16. I am also grateful for a job that means I get to combine things I enjoy with work. So I know these opportunities come from a place of privilege.

However, travelling is also something that I tend to do in a very enthusiastic way and I have been thinking a little about this. I’m definitely not alone in this. One of the greatest ways I mask stress and keep discomfort at a distance is to keep busy. I don’t think I wear ‘busy’ as a badge of pride but I do keep moving and keep busy and this is a very culturally valuable way to deal with stuff. In other words, you still get stuff done. You still get stuff done on time and organise things well. You look like you are always on the go and manage to somehow tick all the boxes. Exercise. Done. Work. Done. PhD. On track. Family. Done. Friends. Done. Social life (OK, not so done – I’m an introvert mostly and my socialising is mainly small one to one things that are lovely but not what I’d describe as a booming social life). But my point is that busy looks good. But I think it also costs.

On Monday I came back from Portugal. This was my last week of annual leave and I was exhausted but it was a trip that’s been planned for a while and another good friend and I had decided to spend some time there beforehand. This was mostly a good trip. We did lots of walking, eating smoothie bowls, talking about therapy and PhDs (friend is also a therapist), and reflecting on life and intentions for the future. Came back on Monday after a bit of a chaotic weekend and a near break-in to one of the air bnbs. And launched myself into work. I discovered that old habits rear their head when life seems a bit up in arms. There are a few big-ish work things coming up, including two more trips out of the country. And whilst part of me is looking forward to them, I have also reached a point where I know I have over-estimated the energy I have. So instead of preparing myself calmly, I’ve been keeping busy. Running, swimming, yoga-ing. Running TO the pool to swim and back from the pool in the dark. Today I’ve found the spot in my flat where the sun shines through the window and been living in that space for most of the day because the warmth is a thing that helps the aches and home is the place where I would like to be. Again, I am lucky I can work from home and get things done still. But this is a thing. Whilst travel is good, it’s exhausting. PhD life and work in addition to the work of self-care is something I’m still working out. Busy looks not bad – getting work done, getting to yoga and the pool and out for runs, but it is not so good when you do *all* those things all the time. No text books to tell you the answers for this quest for balance. Just a body that’s pretty good at giving you cues if you can listen to it for a moment or two. 

Here’s to the sunny spot in the flat where the sunlight shines through that’s great for basking and easing pain. And to the yoga where you find centre and strength. And the neighbour who texts you to say if you need a distraction then a coffee with her is probably better than running to the pool at 9pm in the dark and rain. And the osteopath who will be flexible and make time for you because busy is sometimes not helpful for your body too. And here’s to super wise bodies that really could be trusted a little more. Oh, and good planning ahead. Maybe next year I will learn from this… (I did say this to myself last year too!)

Finding light switches in the dark

I last wrote something in this blog in November 2018. Beginning to think that an 8 month silence says something. I won’t write about all that’s happened, but I did want to write a short something to get this up and running again. The best way to pick it back up is to go back to where I left it, I think - on PhD and Scotland!

In November I wrote that I should learn next time I have a stressful PhD thing, to pace myself and not think that I can do All The Things right after moving and starting a new job. That was good advice to my future self. I was writing about my APR (Annual Progress Review) stress, without actually writing about what happened.

I also wrote that people who were well-meaning would ask how I was finding living in Scotland, and I genuinely didn’t know how to answer. Moving up here was not the same as my last move when I went to Northampton a few years ago and I felt very much a stranger here. How do you know when you start to feel settled? When you don’t feel like a stranger at home? When you don’t have to use google maps to find your local *whatever shop/place you need to find*? When you stop feeling your way around your own house when you get up in the night and need to find the light switch but can’t feel your way to the switch on the wall because it’s not yet etched into your memory?

Finally someone asked me this week how I was finding Scotland, and I surprised myself by saying that I like it. Most of the time, I am glad I moved. Yes, I know where the light switches are in my flat. No, I don’t need google maps for some places but I do still need it for other places. And no, I really don’t feel like a stranger at home. I know my neighbours and their cats. We even sit in the garden sometimes together and one of them is a joiner and has helped with stuff (and yup this surprises me given how introverted I tend to be). Also, I have found some yoga folk who are lovely. Super lovely actually. They are people who notice when you are away for a week, and who ask how you are and remember when things happen in your life. Having your presence (and absence) noticed is one of those small things that is not a small thing at all. Lastly, there are some people I consider friends and that definitely changes how you feel in a place.

Back to the PhD. Which is the other thing people ask about after they ask how Scotland is.  I submitted my work for the APR (the review you do every year, to determine whether you can officially progress). Did what I thought would be OK, but was asked to make a lot of revisions to my work in order to pass. I re-wrote my literature review, wrote two new methods chapters, changed the theory that underpins my work, and ended up submitting three chapters 8 months later. It passed in the end, but I couldn’t even tell you how many revisions of chapters went through supervisions. My work is much more developed now. And I am absolutely OK with where I’m going with it. But this all makes me reflect.

So when people ask how it's going, I tend to say ‘ah yeah. It’s slow.’ Or ‘it’s getting there’. Or ‘Yeah, it’s moving… slowly’. Which is all true. Huge emphasis on the slow progress. Slow tends to be my code-word for 'I am super tired and I can't believe I've been doing this for three years...' That is not to say that I don't care about my work. I deeply care about my work and my topic. Understanding about domestic abuse - doing feminist domestic abuse research - is important. I think it's important to contribute to knowledge in meaningful ways and do work that might one day contribute to things being different. That women, children and survivors are taken seriously. But there's a PhD process too. I see so much on Twitter and hear others saying that it’s a journey and everybody has a different experience, you have to roll with the unexpected and not compare your process to other people’s. But really, it is true, and I think that’s one of the reasons it is hard. You’re a lone wolf playing a big game yet you haven’t toughened up your skin yet, so each hit feels raw and painful. Of course, you heal, you grow, you toughen up and move on. At least, hopefully with enough support, encouragement and kindness, you can do those things. I am very fortunate I have friends around the country, and supervisors who hold you up and don't knock you down. I am immensely grateful for that. But still, this year has been the hardest PhD-wise. I am accepting it as part of one of the many PhD stories I’ll have to tell at the end.

No one can really prepare you for moving universities, changing half your supervision team, changing disciplines and new jobs. Doing that whilst trying to pull yourself out of an eating disorder relapse, is not something I’d do again. In hindsight I’m not entirely sure how I did that, but we do what we do, and we live to tell the story. This year was the PhD year where I learnt a whole lot about not giving my ‘success’ with work the power to determine who I am. I also have started re-evaluating my relationship with what failure means and how fearing getting things wrong and messing up can be powerful in shaping how you live your life. In and outside of academia. All things considered, this was not the worst thing to happen. Still here, and PhD is still moving, slowly. But moving…

Seven/Not knowing things

The title of this blog post is pretty unimaginative. I’m writing about not knowing. And it’s the seventh blog post that I’ve written this year here. I have no idea how we’ve reached November. Clocks have gone back. It’s colder. It’s darker (much darker), and I’m spending more time under blankets instead of under the sun. And I am definitely a sun person, so this is something that’s taking some adjusting.

I have tended to write some lengthy posts this year. This one definitely isn’t long, but I wanted to write about a thing that’s been on my mind for a couple of months. I just haven’t yet made the time to write. I have been making time for other things in fact. For moving, for settling, for new job and Scotland life. For recovering from things and letting some of the new things in. How well I’ve been doing these things is another issue! But I’ve been pretty much going by and somehow it is November and things are different.

What I have been thinking about, is what happens when you move and you have to kind of build things up from scratch. Not just build ‘things’, but build relationships – and I guess in many ways, re-build yourself too. Maybe it is because a couple of years ago I was in a similar boat: new place, new job, new people. I've ended up comparing the experience quite often. Quite a few things about me changed when I moved that time. This move has been interesting. The things that have got me are the things that didn’t get me last time. This time I’ve taken my time with at least parts of it. Admittedly not all of it. Definitely should not have launched fully into a PhD annual review when I had barely unpacked boxes in my house and had acquired a chest infection because I don’t know how to stop. The things you learn and re-learn when you really need to be getting at least something right! Definitely lessons for next time or at least next time I have a thing that might be stressful.

When people ask how it’s going or how I am settling, I literally say ‘I don’t know yet’ or ‘it’s early days’ – and I guess it is early days and also I don’t know. These things are true. But it’s quite novel to me, to move with not knowing. And I’ve been thinking at what point do new people become people who are no longer new? At what point in my last place did the new people become people who I hugged, just because I missed them or wanted to show them that I cared? At what point did we get to know small bits about each other that actually are not small things at all? How does that happen? There’s not really a line or a moment when things change. Just they do. But for now, I'm sticking with not knowing. I think I’m alright with that for now.

Thoughts on healing: everyone has their own style of healing

I am writing again from my sofa. The last time I wrote in this blog it was the end of June and I had written something along the lines of: ‘I love living here on evenings like this’… ‘it kind of feels Mediterranean in my flat because it’s built to keep the heat’ and ‘this is my favourite place out of all the places I’ve lived’. There’s a lot to say about home.

Home currently is in the process of what looks like a spring clean. Apart from it’s not spring, it’s summer. And I am only clearing out because I need to start packing up. I do still love living in my flat. I am also leaving my flat in ten days and moving to Scotland. My new job is there, and this past year has seen quite a chunk of my life begin to transition there too (PhDs aren’t simple – I got a warning before I did my counselling & psychotherapy training that it would change things. But nobody really gave me that warning before starting my PhD). Anyway. I have moved so much that I am quite immune to the practicalities of packing and moving now. But I am not immune to the other parts of moving. The parts where you embrace change and face change and navigate this weird thing of working out how you do endings.

In many ways I am fortunate that I can do this move – that I have had options, that I have the resources I need, that I have people who have supported me and gone way above and beyond what they have needed to do to help make this happen and to help me make decisions. I am fortunate that I have found a house to move to that I like, and that I have experienced most of the process of moving universities as very welcoming so far. I am so aware I am fortunate in all these ways. Academia is a weird thing to move through though – deciding to leave a secure lectureship in one institution for a fairly insecure research post in another, is quite a thing. This has been a lesson in trusting myself to make decisions that feel right. I know and feel it quite profoundly - I’m not immune to the individualising and neoliberal culture that seems to prioritise this relentless way of working and measuring individual success. Ways of working that don’t make it comfortable to take risks, *especially* when you are younger, early career, don’t even have your PhD yet and don’t have an extensive system of external support to fall back on, if you need to. You sort of feel you *have* to keep hold of security if you have it – because change means a lot of newness and who knows if it will settle and who knows if it will be OK?

As I’ve been sharing my plans with friends and others in academia it’s been quite hard to gauge responses – generally I think it is not common to do what I have decided to do. Yet when I tell others outside of academia they are so excited. Particularly my friends who are creatives or my friends who work for themselves (thinking to a photoshoot I did earlier this week). I kind of forget that so many people – so many women – take risks. They work for themselves even – build small empires themselves, set things up their own way, occupy spaces in wonderful ways, and they are more than OK! Maybe this institutionalised way of thinking and working in academia is quite powerful – I am reminded of that when I occupy spaces outside of it. I get it – I totally get it, academia is like a work-home for me. I don’t have to really worry that people won’t get how I work because usually we’re quite a similar bunch. A tendency to over-work, tendency to doubt yourself, doubt your capacity to know things, tendency to want to do things to the point of perfection but knowing that’s a deadly trap because it doesn’t exist. But if you find the good souls, you also find a solidarity about carving out spaces of resistance and care and love. Spaces that are not infiltrated by pressure and measures and targets. Spaces that prioritise relationships - that are not permeated by never celebrating your achievements because that submission or acceptance or conference paper was just another thing ticked off the long to-do list that never ends so you automatically move onto the next thing without stopping and thinking. The thing you did becomes smoothened out - part of the fabric of the rest of the messiness of this very fast-moving wheel and you just keep going. Without reflecting. A lot is lost. I do not want to lose this.

This whole change thing - I’ve spent the past few months working on a few things and working out a few things. Well, in fact I think this probably is a life-long project. Anyway, I have been working on things. Making decisions and listening to your instinct generally has a way of getting you to address things and consider things in ways you don’t need to consider quite as directly when life looks consistent and predictable. It’s probably a useful thing. Occupying the spaces that are new and uncertain and staying curious about that is hard work, but apparently that’s where growth happens. And they do say growth is a thing that’s important. One of the things I decided to do yesterday was get a tattoo (yup – and I really like it!). This has actually prompted me to write this blog. There are lots of reasons for the tattoo, but the reason I’m writing is to write about the unexpected thing I’m taking from the tattoo.  

The healing process is something that has taken me by surprise and something that has got me thinking. I hadn’t even considered that this tattoo might take time, patience and care to heal. In fact, I hadn’t considered the healing process any more than ‘hmm I am going on holiday in a few weeks and I’m pretty sure it will be fine by then’, and ‘I’m moving soon, but I’m sure a few boxes, long drive and some heavy lifting won’t harm me’. This speaks volumes about how I tend to live my life! I have A Thing happen – in this case, The Thing is cuts to the skin that need time to heal, and I assume I can go on as normal and that I won’t have to adapt, never-mind actually pay attention to the part that is healing. Look at where it is broken, look at where it needs help to heal, and consider what those parts might need. When I left the tattoo studio, I left with literally *minimal* instructions about after-care. This isn’t a critique of the people at the studio – they were genuinely lovely and took really good care of me. I mean we had a brief chat about after-care and I took away with me six lines on a small card (pretty clear instructions). However, I do have a couple of friends who I consider to be much more experienced with tattoo after-care than I am (I am a total novice afterall). I sent them a quick message – then a later more panicked message (when I realised washing a fresh tattoo makes me feel like passing out). Their advice was basically to do what works for you. (cue the small panic **argh I have no idea what works for me**. Then cue the *ahhh no, yes you do. You’ve got this*).

I’ve been thinking about this. That everyone has their own style of healing. And – perhaps this is the more important bit – that it’s quite a thing to learn to trust yourself and your body to tell you what it needs. OK, perhaps the other important bit is acting on that once you know. But I guess half the battle is won once you know you know. I thought I was doing this as an act of showing myself that I can do the things that scare me, and I can trust myself about what is right. I didn’t think these things would extend post the actual half an hour of sitting in the chair and having the tattoo done. Lessons in time and healing are so important to me this month/this year – probably I will always move through this. But I kind of love that this tattoo is becoming that lesson for me.

Simple is under-rated and it is complicated

I’m writing this from my sofa. It’s evenings like this that I truly love living here and love living in my flat. It’s super light and I can keep the windows open and it’s still warm. Living in an old converted shoe factory (it’s nicer than it sounds!) means I have super high ceilings and a building that really keeps the heat so it’s actually feeling quite Mediterranean at the moment. That summer evening kind of feeling I guess. I like it. I have a small glass of rose gin and generally things *should* be feeling good. Depending on when I’m asked, and who asks, things actually are OK. They are OK and they are not. I’m probably losing this glorious little first floor flat that I have grown to love (landlord is selling my small slice of home), and I’m back to work tomorrow after a truly lovely, challenging, busy yet sort of peaceful few weeks of research leave, where I feel like for the first time in 20 months (yes a year and 8 months…..) I feel like I am actually *doing* a PhD. I’ve known I’m doing it, of course. But it has been a weird process of muddling through something that has felt way beyond me, and that has felt quite like a permanent part of my life (the kind of thing that doesn’t end). I think I see that it will end now and that I have done things. In fact, I have been *doing* all the things, just not feeling the things or connecting to it. I know progress is not a prescribed thing and I know it looks different for every person and for every PhD, but I had no idea it would be like this. And I had no idea PhDs take you on this journey of their own. And also no idea that actually stopping and simplifying things opens up spaces. Anyway, that’s for another post another time. Point being = simplifying things is good. Well, simplifying is never really simple, and that's more the point!

I actually wanted to write about what I’ve been doing over the past few weeks. I don’t know if it’s that the academic year is quite full on when you have a loaded teaching schedule across different programmes. I don’t know if it’s that it’s full on when you also work as a therapist and keep a client load going throughout that time too. I don’t know if it’s that winter is actually quite cold and dark and that can make you feel quite cold and dark too. I don’t know if it’s having your PhD move to Scotland and having a big part of you want to move there too. I don’t know if it’s just everything (probably it is everything – it’s never just one thing). But I needed to do something to pull back a bit of time and space. So, I did. I booked all my research and annual leave and I even remembered that travelling is good for me, so I booked some trips. I really don’t overlook the fact that I’m in a fortunate position where I can do this. I’ve never been in a position where I (a) can take leave and not worry that I won’t be paid, and (b) go on a trip that isn’t for work and know that it doesn’t have a massive financial impact on me. I know I have travelled a fair bit over the past 10 years – but 90% of the time it has been work. I really don’t take this kind of freedom for granted. This year I’ve been generally travelling quite a lot but usually this is to Scotland, to see family in Yorkshire, or to conferences. I decided to go on a solo trip to Budapest a couple of weeks ago and I reminded myself of a few things that I wanted to write about. They are not massive things – really they are quite simple, but I wanted to write about them.

1. Give me a good square, bench, coffee shop, park or café and a good book, and I will be happily there for hours. Even more of a bonus if outside and it’s warm and sunny. Better if I remember sunscreen. 

2. The sun truly is great – I know it isn’t for everyone. I know some people really struggle with the warmth and exposure, but for me, it can really transform how I feel. 

3. Losing track of time is good. I had a funny moment of realising I had indeed lost track of time. I woke up on a Friday morning in the AirBnB. I decided that whilst I was away I would still be ‘on emails’ per se – not for all the things, but I would be intentional about it. I would be ‘on’ for my masters dissertation supervisees. If I were them I wouldn’t want my supervisor leaving for that long, and I felt it was important to be there. Probably says more about what I need, rather than them. But hey. I generally try (most people will confirm that I rubbish at this though) to not respond to most emails over the weekend. I’d told myself especially not whilst I was on research leave. So I woke up on the Friday and thought that it was Saturday and questioned why I was replying to emails – then realised it was, in fact, Friday. Not that it actually made a profound difference, but I realised that losing track of time is possible and it is good.

4. To carry on from that, disabling email from the phone was good, for a week. A whole week and I didn’t have my work email on my phone. OK, I checked it fairly regularly using the web browser instead but it’s not the same as having that constant ping from your mobile phone. I think I’ll continue to do this when I’m actually away and out of the country and have some protected time.

5. I love two things: sunsets and the water. The Danube in Budapest is pretty lovely, especially when the sun is setting. It’s quite obvious if you see the stream of pictures that I take on my phone, but I love these two things. I will walk for miles to find a lovely view and just stay there. I’m pretty sure that I actually live in one of the most central places in England (i.e. the furthest away from the coast…. Makes me quite sad really because I miss the sea) 

6. Bodies are pretty wise and they communicate things very well. It’s important to listen. I walked whilst I was away. In fact, I didn’t use public transport apart from to get to and from the airport. I easily topped 15 miles per day. If you look at me, I think I look like I can do this. I run a fair bit, so I’m not unfit. But I generally don’t walk so much. So I temporarily did some pretty painful damage to parts of my legs and hips that I didn’t realise would take such a hit. It turns out when you need to rest, your body tells you loud and clear. It also turns out that not planning ahead actually enables the flexibility needed to listen to that. Bodies are useful if we listen to them.

7. To take that point and build on it – it is OK to break routine. I’m not really a routine-type of person. But with some things, I really am and it can be quite unhelpful. Being in a new place with different things can be quite challenging but it can also be OK

8. I have good people in my life. It is important to remember this.

9. I don’t speak a single word of Hungarian – usually I try when I go to a new country. I surprise myself especially with my weird English-Spanish combo when I am in Barcelona. I think it’s quite cliché but kindness transcends boundaries of spoken language and I really realised this. 

10. The world doesn’t crumble if you put the breaks on for a few days.

OK I reminded myself of quite a few things. Mainly about space, time and connection. Also that simple is actually OK and it is really under-rated but it is also complicated. Deciding to book some leave was quite simple. Deciding to go away was simple. Making decisions about my PhD is simple. Deciding to simplify the practical things has actually enabled the space needed to *not* over-simplify what would otherwise be seen as simple. But all those things are also complicated – not everything is simple. Even simple isn’t actually simple. It’s complicated and messy but only because life can be complicated and messy. Maybe that’s OK.

On being and doing

Today, we (Charlotte and I) have been at a conference where we presented some of our work on diversity in the psychology curriculum. Like all projects, I never really realise how I’m connected to them until somewhere after the point of starting it! I’m going to try to reflect a bit on that here. The conference today was one which aimed to explore inclusion and barriers to inclusion in Higher Education. Of course HE is an institution built on privilege (multiple layers of privilege) and therefore, oppression and multiple disadvantages. I won’t mention the subtle comments about VC salaries throughout the day. These kinds of power structures and struggles at play, means that ‘doing’ diversity work in this context is really interesting, difficult, problematic, wonderful, hopeful and, hopeless, at times. For context, I’m writing this from what feels like a privileged space. I have the time, space and access to what I need to write and think. Not always - really, not always. But today, I do. I'm sat outside the university restaurant in the sun. Campus feels quite empty – students are either taking exams, or somewhere revising for their exams, or maybe doing other things – I’m not sure, but they are not here in the way they usually are during term time. It’s quiet. It’s pretty peaceful. It’s also really warm and sunny and I’m pretty sure I should be wearing sunscreen. Anyway, the perils (and joys) of being a redhead in the sunshine whilst also being a sun-lover, is not for this post. I wanted to spend a bit of time writing about, and reflecting on what we mean when we say ‘diversity’, especially in the context of institutional power structures which are inescapable, and in the context of relationships that are sometimes wonderful, sometimes messy, and mostly, everywhere inbetween (*note: it’s now gone 11pm and definitely not 4pm when I was sat outside the restaurant in the sun. Ironically, as I was writing about how quite campus was, one of my third year students walked by and sat down with me. We sat for quite a while and chatted in the sun. It was really lovely – and I guess the ‘doing’ of these kinds of relationships, and the space in which they are created, is a bit of what I’m writing about here).

Today has been all about inclusion and barriers. This kind of language is really geographical and spatial, which has got me thinking. It’s got me thinking about the space I take up myself and the multiple spaces I occupy with students (and clients and research participants and friends, family, etc). It’s got me thinking about how I occupy spaces, and how spaces are occupied by others, and shared with others. How relationships are made and lived in/through in spaces. How I used the space today – how I moved in and out (I mean, I was able to choose when I was there and when I was not. When I sat out in the sun, which sessions I attended, who I sat with, and so on). Some of the discussions I’ve been part of today (and really over the past few weeks especially) have made me reflect back on myself. Perhaps it’s also because I’m on research leave and I’m trying to stop a little and take stock. But my discussions today have included reflecting with Charlie on our work and our research and teaching. This kind of thinking, especially at a conference like today’s, has led me back to thinking of Sara Ahmed’s leaky pipes analogy. She talks, and writes, about letting the pipes leak until they leak everywhere and no amount of plumbing can fix them, despite the several efforts to do so. Because that’s what people do – they fix the broken things. They fix the pipes when they leak with stuff that doesn’t fit/stuff that disrupts the norm. So you can think of the pipes as the structures, and the leaks as the stuff that disrupts the structures that we bump up against. The structures that leave us a little uncomfortable or bruised. But the stuff that leaks is important – it is necessary. I probably mean that in more ways than only institutional structures. The personal *and* institutional – the two aren’t as separate as we think. It’s as important to let the personal leak as well as the rest. Taking up space is important. But it's not all on one person to do that. The space needs to be built to accommodate.


I’m also thinking of Sara Ahmed’s rolling eyes feminist pedagogy; the feminist killjoy. How when the white man speaks out and says race is not a thing, that he *is* part of the problem (cue eyerolls). I’m also thinking about myself in relation to all of this. My teaching over the past couple of years has largely been about ‘diverse’ subjects (mental health, children's development, non-normative development, different experiences of childhoods, etc). OK, Psychology as a discipline, from a mainstream lens, is about as non-diverse as you can get. It aims to study human minds and behaviour but usually mainly from white, masculine, adult perspectives.  You don’t need to do rocket science and to have ten degrees to see that there are fundamental problems with that. This kind of knowledge is built based on a narrow (and privileged) position. I’ve been trying to work to challenge some of this through my research – mainly by working on research that’s involved children’s participation, and in some senses going against the grain. I guess trying to let pipes leak. And now, after two years teaching (yes, I am still learning and feel like a newbie), I’m coming to a place where I’m positioning myself in that too. I’ve spent the day having some really interesting discussions about *how* we do diversity work in teaching contexts. How we let the pipes leak and let the messy challenging stuff take up space. How we disrupt norms and do things differently. How we put it into what we already do. How it fits. But I think it’s not so much a question of making it fit… it doesn’t actually fit, because the structures we live/work within aren’t built for difference. I think it’s more a point of doing things differently – reframing what doing ‘diversity’ is – letting the pipes leak and letting spaces take new shapes.

We ran a session of our own, and we took part in some sessions this afternoon, exploring some ‘different’ teaching practices. One of the sessions involved some creative work with soft systems methodology. I’d never done this before – I think it’s based on a business model but I think it is quite applicable to other disciplines too. I don’t want to criticise this model at all – I actually really liked it. But I do want to unpack what ‘doing’ it was like. Those of us at the session did an activity around food poverty. We explored what it meant to each of us, and then we collectively discussed what we’d produced. Following discussion, we went back to our drawings and developed them to produce a more nuanced picture, in response to sharing our thoughts and the meanings we applied to food poverty. I think the overall finished piece would be something which represented multi-layered systems and the complexity of food poverty experiences. Aside from the fact that this was actually really enjoyable, the first thing I noticed was that although food poverty is an important social issue, we were sat around a round table, mostly consisting of academics, with crackers, cheese and grapes (after a free lunch), discussing issues of social justice – usually from quite a distance (i.e. able to position the self as not the ‘other’). Whilst we all have experiences of ‘stuff’, we were still sat on comfy chairs, able to access a space, with an abundance of food freely available, discussing what food poverty means, using a methodology which would be used as part of a social justice movement to taking action and facilitating change. Whilst that’s great, and I don’t think our positions are avoidable, what is also useful, is stepping back and looking at how we do what we do. Looking at the ‘I’. I think the values that inform the ‘doing’, are just as important as the aim of what we do.

Charlotte and I also held a session about how we’ve been working with students on the ‘I’ position – i.e. positioning themselves, and ourselves (first person writing, but also first person thinking). And it’s got me thinking some more about how I position myself, and how I am positioned. It’s got me thinking that quite often I’ll say ‘oh but it’s not about what you *do*, it’s about how you feel’. But I actually I think that whilst this kind of work is about relationality, feeling and connecting, it is also about doing (and not doing!) – it is as much about action, as it is about everything else. What we do speaks sometimes in ways that words can’t. What we do, matters. I guess I’m working on being, but also on doing. Some of this feels quite intuitive, but it also requires intentionality. For example, we’ve been talking today about how we ‘do’ diversity work. How it’s not a thing on the side, or an add-on – it’s a way of being but it’s also done by doing. You can’t do a week’s awareness week and tick the box. That sort of defeats the point. That doesn’t let the pipes leak in the way they need to. The stuff doesn’t leak and settle. It leaks for a week and gets mopped up, and the pipe is fixed. You also can’t shift responsibility and let others do the doing – but I think it’s also OK to step back and LET others do the doing if you need to. Being, and doing, is work, especially when it’s intentional. Guess that’s the self-care stuff, or collective self-care at least.

Here’s to intentional being and doing. And letting pipes leak.