Swimming Upstream: How to Overcome Adversity
Does anyone else feel like they’re a salmon valiantly trying to swim upstream right now?
I do, in more ways than one.
Firstly, my business, on paper, is doing great. As the financial year draws to a close, I know this year has been my most profitable ever. I’ve now confidently moved beyond the terror of the pandemic years where, I’m not ashamed to say, universal credit made all the difference in keeping this household afloat.
I should be cock-a-hoop, right? My meagre pension should be getting some overdue attention, my house should be looking spick and span and I should have a couple of holidays booked in for the year ahead.
So many "shoulds"!
We could unpick those more deeply to explore all sorts of things around my own success criteria, but just taking it all at face value, the issue is that as soon as I earn a little more, prices rise faster and I feel I’m in pretty much the same position as before, maybe just a little bit further upstream than I was, but the effort required to swim that bit feels massively disproportionate to the minute progress made.
Concurrently, (pun intended), I’m also struggling in the water with the blooming peri-menopause. For some, this season of life creeps up on them and subtly symptom by symptom, it builds. Not for me. No, I needed to be utterly dramatic with it all and at the slightest hint of hormonal imbalance all my hair fell out. That was 3 years ago now, and since then there has been a rollercoaster of autoimmune chaos and delightful peri-meno-connected joys such as gluten intolerance and most recently heart palpitations. FFS!
I’ve made huge shifts in the last 6 years around looking after myself: what I eat; how I move my body; how I sleep; and self care. However the impact of these keeps me where I am, instead of moving me forward, which can feel really exhausting.
Now this might sound like an almighty moan-fest and it certainly feels good to get it off my chest a bit, but actually it is just setting the scene for how I absolutely goddamn refuse to let all this volatility defeat me. I will stare down the barrel of adversity, shout a stream of delicious expletives from the mountain top and crack on with enjoying life despite the effort I have to expend to do so.
One of the ways I do this is to celebrate my Baldiversary.
Over Christmas 2022, I realised that I’d reached the point of no (immediate) return and that alopecia had claimed most of the hair on my head. It was time to brave the shave. In true best-foot-forward spirit I organised a party at the end of January, inviting a few friends, my fabulous kids and my hairdresser so we could all witness and raise a glass as I had my final haircut.
It was, for me, exactly the right thing to do. It turned what could have felt like an utterly devastating experience into one of empowerment, support and love. I am so grateful for those wonderful people who supported me that day and continue to do so now.
And so, as each end of Jan rolls around, I celebrate the Baldiversary. A small gathering of lovely folk, giving me an excellent excuse to bake lots of delicious things, clink the fizz flutes and brush off those January blues in good company. My kids love it too with the 17yo running a cocktail bar this year dressed as a nun, with two pals: a priest and a choir boy. It was a french maid last year. I'm all for the utter randomness of it!
I also challenge myself to create something spectacular to wear on my beautiful bald bonce. This year I’m very proud of my pom pom mohawk with woven-in fairylights (see pic above). Each pom pom was lovingly wrapped, cut and trimmed by me, stitched together quite haphazardly but resulting in a crowning glory which feels like a fabulous F You to all the sh*te and a big hurrah for having a kitchen disco regardless.
Several people have complimented me on my attitude around finding myself with a visible difference in midlife, inferring that I’m unique or in some way special in my ability to see the bright side. I refute this. I wasn’t born practicing positive psychology, although I admit I do have a natural tendency to lean into it. However, it is a process that anyone can practice, with a bit of grit and determination, to gain a more positive outlook.
I talk a lot about the different aspects of positive psychology in this blog. You can read about it here and here, but as a short cut, here are three main techniques I employ:
Acceptance - I fully accept that I really do feel like I’m swimming upstream at the moment. I accept that some reasons for that, current global economic instability, for example, are outwith my control. I also accept that although the positive health choices I’m taking aren’t seemingly making a huge difference, if I stopped them things would be a whole lot worse.
Leaning into uncertainty - we’re living in a VUCA world at the moment. This stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Finding ways to challenge our own negativity bias and rewriting stories I’m telling about myself and the world are key to being able to ride the tide of chaos with confidence. I’m actually in a book about this called The Uncertainty Toolkit (you’ll find me on page 187 π)
Radical generosity - The more I give the more I seem to get in return. This is especially true in my business as I have gained far more clients and people on my courses through initially sharing my free gifts than I would have without. It goes beyond a financial transaction of course, in that being kind to others neurologically improves your mood.
And you don’t have to go it alone. Whether you want to throw a party wearing a fabulous homemade mohican or something a little less flamboyant, finding ways to invite friends, collaborators, mentors and supporters into your life will make a difference. As a coach I call myself a challenging cheerleader - having one or two of those kicking about can make all the difference.
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