PT

I've just got back from a session with my personal trainer (PT) and rigor mortis is setting in.  I call him 'my indulgence' but really the workouts he gives me have become a necessary part of my routine.  I work at the hospital four days a week and on Tuesdays (my day off) I make sure that my mental and physical health takes priority.  That doesn't mean I necessarily look forward to the gym, it just means that it is what I do to make myself feel better.  There is never a session when I come out and think, "I wish I hadn't done that!" - it's always a positive thing, even if I didn't run very far or manage to lift the weights that I could last week, that's irrelevant. The main thing is I was moving and concentrating on moving and therefore not thinking about other stuff.  

It also helps that I get on really well with my PT - we talk about everything and anything and have a laugh and also it can be a bit of a therapy session - hopefully for him as well as me.  It's good to have someone you trust who you can talk to and who is a friend but in a professional way.  Of course, looking and being fitter will ultimately help me to feel better about myself, so that is one less thing to weigh on my mind and worry about.  I've been seeing Dan for 2 years this year and would definitely recommend a few sessions with a PT to anyone who is lacking a bit of physical confidence.  I have gone from barely being able to step at 60 steps per minute on the elliptical cross trainer (after my surgery) and too nervous and unable to try the treadmill, to lifting heavy weights and doing planks and anything else he throws at me - sometimes literally!  I'm easily able to run (not fast!) for 45 mins on the treadmill.  The progress has been slow but steady and definitely worth it.  Of course, personal training does not come cheap, but I cut back in other areas and make it a priority and it is money well spent if you see it as an investment in health.  

Seeing the Rainbow

Sometimes it's good to not analyse or try to control everything.  Just sit back and enjoy something for what it is.  It's all the more precious because it's impermanent. Flowers, pets, cake, rainbows, rainbow cake! friends, life.

Reaching out for for happiness doesn't seem to work.  Happiness, or contentment, is a by-product of doing what you feel is important to you.  I believe it's a feeling that life is full, you are comfortable, you are happy with what you have - you have no longing for "things". This leaves you free to be creative and feel a sense of accomplishment.  In "The Antidote" by Oliver Burkeman, he describes the "negative path": the idea that the more we strive for happiness and other feelings like security and confidence, the less we achieve them. So, paradoxically, it is by thinking more about the downers in life, such as the inevitability of death, the inescapability of suffering or the impossibility of security, that we achieve something like happiness. He concludes that although extreme insecurity is a bad thing, it provides one huge benefit: you cannot be worried about losing your security if you don't have any to lose in the first place.  This is quite a freeing way of thinking, and is certainly how I've felt since my cancer diagnosis.

That's why cancer makes you look at things differently.  The security you thought you had is taken away.  You are forced to face up to impermanence and embrace impermanent things.

I enjoyed making an ephemeral piece of art today. I was inspired to create some environmental art in the style of Andy Goldsworthy.  In the past, I don't think I would have understood the thinking behind this at all.  Spending a long time making something and knowing that it will just deteriorate?  But I was really absorbed in the work for a good couple of hours and enjoyed other people coming up to ask about it.  It was a very pure mindful activity, making something for the sake of it and creating something beautiful but non-lasting.  I made it in Bramford Community Garden and plan to do a similar activity for some Girl Guides we are working with tomorrow evening.  

What do you think?

Flourish is a word commonly used these days instead of happiness, When we flourish, we often feel happy, but that's simply an effect of the real goal, which is to live in accordance with our natures, doing the things we do best to the best of our abilities. Rather than seeing this as the indirect route to happiness, we should see it as the direct route to what it actually is. Happiness is neither the journey nor the destination, it's simply something we encounter on the path when we travel the right way.