Woody Wonders

Tomorrow sees the start of 'Mental Health Awareness Week' (9-15 May) with this year's theme being loneliness. Throughout my blog, I'm going to use the terms 'mind health' , 'mindfulness' and such words.  Personally, I don't like the term 'mental health' .  When my grandad was alive, he went through a period of depression and back in those days, 'mental health' had very negative connotations around it.  Of course, we have come a very long way since then but it's still a term I'm not fully comfortable with. I'm not going going to talk about loneliness per se but I am going to touch on how important it is to feel part of something. In my role as a PA, you belong everywhere yet nowhere, you feel on the periphery yet central, you're part of everything yet nothing.  When you have a very different role to everyone else, it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you are not part of the team.  You couldn't be m...

It’s taken some time to reach this point but we’re finally starting to realise that our bodies and minds don’t function as two separate entities, they are very much one.   It’s a well known fact that exercise produces endorphins which lift our mood, but  I still don’t think enough is being done to promote the connection between body and mind.   If you’re really lucky and have a good doctor, they might make a token effort to ask you about exercise but has your doctor ever asked ‘and how does that affect your mood’ , ‘what kind of exercise makes you feel good’ ?    We need a more holistic approach to health. We’re making huge strides in both physical and mental wellbeing but we need to bring the two together.   Instead of reaching for the usual crutches of food, alcohol and other kinds of self-abuse when we’re feeling low, we should normalise it so that we’re turning to meditation, yoga and and other kinds of exercise that makes us feel good.  Who cares ...

Have you noticed that when you do something for someone else, it gives you a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling inside. How often do you do that for yourself?  Do something to brighten up YOUR own day?  I'm guessing not as many times as you do something for someone else right?  We're often that busy taking care of the needs of others, whether it's colleagues, partners, friends, parents, children, pets, that we often forget to do something to brighten up our own days. Well, this week I'm going to be doing just that, brightening up my own life with a little ME time.  I have a whole week off work - woo hoo, first break since Xmas so I'm in desperate need!!  Yes, there'll be times when I need to do things for others but on the whole I'm planning some ' be kind to me' time. No time like the present so I brightened up this morning with a run through some very colourful fields! So, what else am I planning this week? More running! Catching up on my reading Going fo...

  ... it's a fine line! I don't know about anyone else but I feel like I have even less time than ever before.  I can't make my mind up whether it's simply the working from home situation and not being able to walk to someone's desk to ask a simple question (now it involves several emails or Teams messages), whether there's too much to do and not enough time, or whether I'm being disorganised at times.  To be honest, I think it's a mixture of all three. So what can we do to make us more effective and feel more organised: Don't be a slob - sounds simple but for goodness sake, tidy up your workspace!   You're not going to work effectively if your workspace is a mess and there's things buried under piles of paper, you can never find a pen and you've got notes scribbled on any old scrap of paper.  Don't underestimate the power of a clean desk, your mind will thank you for it. Keep your stationery to a bare minimum - I'm not going to l...

Do we ever really fail at anything?   No, I’m not sure we do.   Things may not go to plan, you may be disappointed that you haven’t achieved what you set out to do, but we always learn from our so called ‘failures’ so where does this idea of 'failure' being a ‘bad’ thing come from? In a workout situation you train to ‘failure’ but that never feels like you’ve ‘failed’ does it?   No!   In fact, it makes you feel damn proud that you’ve pushed your body and mind to your absolute limit.   It’s a good thing, you’re growing stronger every time you train to ‘failure’ .  When I run in races, and especially marathons, I take something from each race so I'm stronger and better the next time.  I don't feel like I've failed if things haven't quite gone to plan.  So why do we treat 'failure' so differently in other situations? Two of my most memorable so-called failures were just after I left school and these two events quite literally shaped my whole workin...

"The problem is not the problem;  the problem is your attitude towards the problem' I absolutely love this quote which I heard recently.  It was a timely reminder of how we use any excuse other than ourselves when things don't quite go to plan.  It's also very relevant at this moment in time as we seem to be caught up in a blame culture - we blame the government, governments in other countries, the economy, economies in other countries, our own companies, even our own colleagues, family and friends.  In fact, anyone or anything in our firing line, rather than taking control and being accountable for ourselves. When we feel we are not in control of a situation, we tend to lash out at others.  It's perfectly normal; it's a self-protection mechanism within us all.  When we don't feel in control, it's often because we're scared and feel vulnerable.  So what can we do to change our attitude and take control of something we don't feel in control of? I...

Keeping the focus going forwards Good afternoon folks, how are you all getting on with 'not normal November'?  I hope it's treating you and your uniqueness very well. Things have not been normal in the Woodward-Newall household for quite a few months now.  I don't want to speak on his behalf but let's just say that Mr Bob's work situation changed back in July, you know, the 'R' word.  Ever since then we've been adapting, finding new ways to do things, figuring out what we want from the future and generally having a good old think about things.  The prime motive at the top of our list has been to 'think outside the box' and to 'not be normal'.  First of all, I'm so proud of how Mr Bob has dealt with everything whilst maintaining an air of professionalism and dignity and I'm also proud of how we've dealt with things as a couple.  We've discussed new ideas and remained positive at every step of the way.  For an...