Eve Parmiter - Therapy & Coaching

🏗 How to structure your choice of resolution 🛠

We’ve seen:
🤗 you can do things for the sensation of doing it rather than for ‘progress’;
🏋️‍♀️ you can focus on fundamentals to capacitate yourself for a wide range of actions;
🤦‍♂️ you can choose not to f*** things up;
😊 you can make sure you’re doing *it* for YOU.

Now let’s talk about deciding what ✨*it*✨ might be.

Over the next 7 days we’re going to look at 7 elements that can help narrow it down.

🌍 Whichever resolution you choose you’ll be doing it *somewhere*. Different environments affect us in different ways and bring out different aspects of who we are.

🤔 So, what would you like your **environment** to be?

e.g. If you’ve been stuck inside for the best part of 2 years, you might want to be outside. Great. The ensuing convo with yourself could look like this:

💭 Do I want to be inside or outside?
🌳 Outside.
💭 Super. Somewhere hot or cold?
☀️ Hot
💭 Great. Sea or mountains?
🌊 Sea
💭 Lovely. With or without equipment? (e.g. searching rock pools, surfing, sailing a yacht?)
🤸🏻‍♀️ No equipment
💭 Marvelous. …

💡 You get the idea. It seems simple perhaps but there’s little point saying you’re going to get a gym membership to help achieve your fitness goals if you can’t stand the smell/attitude/lighting etc

👉 As well as “inside or outside?”, also ask: familiar or unfamiliar? day or night? hot or cold? wet or dry? solo or with other/s? easy or hard? (Of course there are degrees to each and other options are available).

❌ Don’t choose to do something that requires an inaccessible or unbearable environment, unless part of your goal is to overcome such obstacles.

🔑 Asking ‘where do I want to be?’ can help you decide on ‘what do I want to do?’.

🚦 Take it as a starting point and see where it takes you.

(Picture by Jaime Reimer via Pexels)

#2022 ?

🧐 Erm, whose resolutions are these?

Next in the series of different approaches to resolutions, following the decision to NOT do things that’ll f*** things up:

💎 Make sure those goals are YOUR goals.

🤩 That they matter to YOU.

🤦🏼‍♀️ Regardless of the un-requested ‘careers advisors’ in your life.

😇 Even if they are well meaning, they’re not living your life, they don’t have to do the work or deal with the consequences of doing or not doing the thing.

🔑 know thyself innit.

🎩 Hat-tip to Chimp’s doing pretty well here, I reckon.

#2022

🧰 Fundamentals. Next in this series about different approaches to resolutions, if you’re partaking:

🧱 Whether you’ve decided on resolutions or not yet, a good place to start is to get the fundamentals in place.

🤔 Ask yourself “regardless of the specifics of a goal, what foundational things will help me with everything?”

✅ Good quality and quantity of sleep? Yup.

✅ Good quality and quantity of nutrition? Yes.

✅ Ditto sunlight? Correct.

✅ Ditto movement? Oh yes.

🎯 In sports there’re the concepts of GPP and SPP - general physical preparedness and specific physical preparedness. So if you don’t know the specifics yet, go for the generals so you’re well placed to do the specifics when they become available.

🥋 E.g. regardless of the sport you play it’d probably be good to improve strength, cardio, coordination, timing, mobility.…, For example, martial artists may run, cycle, row even though they won’t use those specific movement patterns in their sport.

Another way to find your fundamentals:

😱 Ask yourself "if I really wanted to f*ck this up for myself, what would I do?" And then… don’t do that.

❌ We can make the mistake of dismissing the fundamentals as basic, take them lightly, underestimate their importance, and not do them. But we’re unlikely to outgrow the fundamentals.

🔑 Capacitate yourself ⬆️

#2022

Ahh, all the posts of the 2021 reflections and 2022 resolutions are quite something, aren't they?

Hello lovely people 😊 How're you doing? It's been a while, huh? Well, it feels like time for more chats and sharings of ideas and tools and (not so) occasional soapbox-ings 😏

Now, about these 2022 resolutions, I'd like to offer some different perspectives over the next few days, beginning with this:

💭 If the thought of tomorrow / Monday / NY is giving you that feeling of dread, perhaps because you don't know *what* to do or *how* to do it, or you've been so preoccupied with Just Getting Through the days you have no idea what you'd *like* to do even if there was capacity to do it because you feel so far away from yourself... this is for you:

🤓 The things we do are behaviours before they're skills.

wtf does that mean.

🕺🏻 Well, you can *do* dancing without having trained your technical skills in it, and without having the identity of a dancer.

😋 And you can do it for the process, *your* experience of doing the thing in the moment, rather than the outcome of others' judgements about your performance afterwards.

So if you think "I'd like to do x in 2022 but I'm not a [dancer/artist/athlete/naturally talented person at xyz etc], I'm not the kind of person who does / can / should do that..." please remind yourself that 👉 *you're a human who does things as an expression and exploration of your own humanness.* 👈 And that has nothing to do with external standards or norms or expectations.

🔑 Action expresses before it is a skill that impresses.

🤸 So, if you're going to set goals, let one of them (at least!) be to do something you enjoy ✨

📝 As per rubyetc's words "And I hope even more that if any of this makes you want to pick up a pen and draw that you go and do it quickly before you can tell yourself that it might look s**t. I promise you it doesn't matter. The page is, as ever, all yours."

#2022

(images from the book Silly Me by Ruby Elliot via The Pound Project)

Challenge accepted 😏

Thanks @/ sierrachas (Twitter) via @/ ckyourprivilege (Insta)

If you hit someone it's probably because you decided to. If you've done it more than once then that _is_ a decision. Even if you feel bad about it.

It's a decision not to address the reasons that lead you to do it. Deciding you're not going to address why you drink in that way, why your thoughts and feelings get overwhelming like that, why there's that thought telling you it's justifiable under the circumstances.

This includes the thoughts that might say:

"I was hit by my parent when they were upset or angry, and I turned out OK."

"I saw my dad/mum hit my dad/mum, that's just what it’s like."

If that's all you've known, it can be uncomfortable to believe it doesn't have to be like that.

But.

You do have choices. Other options are available.

Better options.

So, if you know things might get out of hand, and you might be at risk of hurting someone, even accidentally, even if you'll try not to this time, then, before the game, have a chat with

CALM
thecalmzone.net/
0800 58 58 58

Make a plan to keep things safe. It's free, confidential, anonymous, open from 5pm til midnight everyday.

Or talk with Samaritans 116 123. Or if you're in immediate danger of hurting someone, call 999.

And if you think you're at risk of someone hurting you:

make a plan in advance with a friend you trust so you can get out of the situation

999 in an emergency (if you're being hurt, it is an emergency, even if you're used to it)

Refuge
nationaldahelpline.org.uk/
0808 2000 247

The Pathway Project
pathway-project.co.uk/
01543 676800



116 123

NCDV
ncdv.org.uk/information/
0800 970 2070


For further reading, my colleague Susie Kahlich considers the causes of the 26% increase of domestic violence when England play, and 38% increase when they lose: is it about heightened emotions? Alcohol? Misogyny?

susiekahlich.medium.com

Thanks to for the first image, for the second

Therapist: [starts writing quickly]

You: ... no, it was just a... I wasn’t being seri... I mean... 🤦

📝 IYKYK

If you’re thinking that something seems missing from the recent focus on resilience, you’d be right. And if you’d like better terms & tools to improve your conversations and responses, both personally and professionally, this is for you. Here’s a short talk I shared recently on why resilience isn’t - and shouldn’t be - enough.

Why We Need To Look Beyond Resilience Right now we’re hearing a lot of talk about resilience. I even have a role entitled ‘Head of Resilience’. However, something’s missing…

💛 "I'm proud of you". Gosh, hearing that said sincerely can really matter, can't it?

🧐 Yet we can be a bit rubbish at giving ourselves honest credit where it's due.

And if we do *let* ourselves feel it, it's usually only after the event.

🥇 More likely after we've 'won'

🏁 Perhaps after we've crossed the finish line

🚦 Rarely for getting *to* the starting line

🧱 And barely do we give ourselves credit for doing what we need to do to be *in the game at all*. All the big and the little, alllmmooossst unnoticeable, nothing-to-brag-about, steps that build up, layer by layer, that make ✨this moment now ✨ possible.

💭 A few years ago, the day *before* a significant event I'd been working hard for for years, a trainer messaged me to tell me they were proud of me. I teared up immediately (and that was back in the days before I did *feelings*. Apparently.). I thought: 'but I haven't even done it yet!?' (Yes. I had indeed missed the point). And I wasn't quite sure what to do with that... 😳 ... but it *mattered*.

So, be good to yourself: notice → acknowledge → appreciate.

Those are things we can give ourselves. If you can feel proud, wonderful; if you can celebrate, great; and if you can share that with others, even better.

And, I wonder, is there someone you feel proud of? Someone who'd appreciate hearing this from you? Maybe even now, today... even before they've 'won'? 💛

If you're feeling more over-whelmed than over-joyed at things opening up (as is happening here in the UK for some of us) then this is for you:

🏃 Imagine you’ve just run a marathon. You've crossed over the finish line. Are you immediately ready for the next one? No. You're going to need to have a little rest first, right? (You triathletes can sit out this whole metaphor please... 🙄)

We tend to focus on the hard task to get it done and then feel our feelings more fully afterwards.

When the difficult thing is over, then we rec/over.

Recovery means creating the conditions we need to rest, restore, rebuild, and get ready - willing wanting able - to go do the next thing.

That takes time.

That takes trusting people, places, and things that we’ve spent the last year not trusting.

That takes risking imagining and investing in an uncertain future when we’ve been focused on getting through, OK-enough-for-now, emotionally, financially, physically.

So for all that it takes, wherever you can, give yourself what you need to recover first, and give yourself (and everyone else) the grace to go at your own pace. By leaps and bounds when you want to, and little by little when you prefer and need to.

🌹No gardener ever grew a rose.

The gardener can choose a place - open enough to the sun, closed enough to the winds.

Can water, and feed, and prune.

Stakes are placed.

Time is paced.

And yet.

🌱 It's the plant that grows the rose. Not the gardener.

The gardener only ever plays a helping hand, creating supporting conditions: necessary, and insufficient.

🎲 We can change the odds of things happening. We can make what we want more likely. And. We can do all the right things, in all the good ways, and still not get the outcome we want. Moreover, we can know that even if we do, the rose won't last forever.

🧐 So, what to do with this uncertainty of attainment and certainty of loss?

I think we practice.

❤️ Practice loving, what and how and how much we can.

❤️ Practice being curious about what the process might be like; what might we uncover or create of our selves, of the world, and with each other that's unexpected, that's perhaps even better than the intended outcome?

❤️ Practice being in the process, and drawing our nourishment from that.

Keep going. Step by step. Do a next, right, good thing.

✨We're human beings creating the conditions for human becomings✨