reclaiming loud

The opening pages - the altar, if you will - of my current journal, where my ritual is to make a collage before I start writing in its pages. I don't think it was an accident that those words somehow found each other.

“It’s not a woman’s job to get smaller and smaller and take up less and less space until she disappears so the world can be more comfortable.”

— Glennon Doyle, Love Warrior

Sas Petherick wrote recently about reclaiming the word 'bossy' for herself - a word that had negative connotations for her since childhood,  which subsequently affected how she saw herself and how she interacted with the world from a place of fear rather than worthiness. How she went through life doing everything she could to avoid being called 'bossy' because it made her feel so small.

Sas says:

Usually, there is a word.
Some phrase or sentence that when uttered, has the power to leave us feeling small and powerless. Diminished. Childlike.
I wonder what is it for you?

I’ve been trying to reclaim the word loud.

When I was younger, being called ‘loud’ - too loud, more often than not - left me feeling diminished and cut down. It felt like a rejection of my most essential self - an excitable, enthusiastic, outgoing little girl who was the first to put her hand up in class if she knew the answer; who loved to talk to people, tell stories and share things with others; who loved making up games, performing and making people laugh; who was fascinated by the world and the people in it. 

When people told me I was 'loud', that sent me the message that I needed to shut up. That I was too much. That what I had to say wasn't important, no one was interested. That making too much noise - taking up too much space - was not a good thing and I would be more acceptable, and more likeable, if I were quieter. Funnily enough, I don't recall the boys I knew being told they were too loud (but that's another story).

As I wasn't one of the 'pretty' or 'popular' girls either, the label of 'loud' made me even more self-conscious of my failings and flaws. As I became a teenager I found myself retreating inwards - I was only loud with people I felt I could be myself around (mostly my three sisters). Yet I still loved performing and acting, often winning the lead roles in school plays, so 'withdrawn' was probably not a word people would have used to describe me! And I noticed that people tended to like me more, or didn't mind how 'loud' I was, when I was entertaining them.

But what people didn’t realise - and nor did I, until I went to therapy as an adult - was that acting was a place of safety for me. All that gregariousness, enthusiasm and fun that I felt I couldn't express as myself went into playing parts, pretending to be someone else, instead. This eventually seeped through to the rest of my life and as a result, I no longer knew who I really was. 

About 12 years ago, in my mid-twenties, I tried to reclaim that word 'loud'. I became that confident young girl again - who liked who she was and let the world know it. Who put her hand up. Who enjoyed sharing her stories and experiences with people, and sharing in theirs too.  Who was vivacious, full of energy and, for the first time in her life, dropped her people-pleasing tendencies and put her own needs first. She was also a bit broken, and very naive, but was determined to rediscover her true self and purpose, and proud of how far she'd come in the process.

But then came the familiar cries of ‘too loud’ and it all unravelled. 

What hurts the most when I think about that time is not that I was betrayed and torn down by people I thought were friends, because they were insecure, unhappy people and what they did wasn't about me at all (sidenote: when people bully you, it's never about you). What hurts the most is that I betrayed myself, my true self. I didn't fight back or confront them about how much they had hurt me. I didn't use the voice I thought I had found to stand up to them.

Instead, I just did what I thought I had to do, and what I had always done, when I showed people the real me and they didn't like it - I pressed the mute button and shut down. And when you are complicit in your own betrayal, that is a wound that takes years, perhaps a lifetime, to recover from.

It took me ten years (and writing a book!) to really understand what that time was about, what the lessons were. The confidence I'd worked so hard for had slipped away so easily, which made me realise I still had work to do.  It has taken until now to feel brave enough to try being that excited, enthusiastic, loud person again.  

But this time, I feel less afraid of the smackdown, because it's probably about time I accepted that I will always be too much for some people. Choosing to live my life with the volume dial turned right up will likely trigger someone else's insecurities at some point, but I'm finally in a place where I know that isn't my problem. 

Because now I get to choose what 'loud' means.

Loud doesn’t mean annoying or full of yourself. It is not code for 'shut up, go away, no one is interested'. Loud is not a demand for attention. 

Loud is just a desire to be heard, and to be seen, for who I really am. 

Loud means using my voice, however I want to use it. I owe that not only to myself, but to the women who came before me and didn’t have a voice. And to all the women in the world who still don’t have one. 

Loud means being brave enough to speak the truth in my heart, trusting that it is safe for me to do that, and not waiting to be invited on to the stage. 

Loud means standing up for myself, and for others. 

Loud means knowing what is important to say and then saying it, backing myself all the way. Thinking before I speak, of course, but breaking out of this pattern I've been in for the last few years where I overthink everything so much that I lose my nerve, the moment passes and I end up saying nothing. 

Loud, ironically, means listening to that small voice inside me that just wants to be free. That just wants to show up in the world without fear, without agenda, just with love and the desire to be useful and joyful.

Loud is a strength, not a flaw.

Loud is bubbly, bright, alive and grateful.

Loud is me.

Maybe loud is you too.

It’s OK to be loud.

what I've learned from meditating for 250 days in a row

"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." - Fredrich Buechner

Apart from brushing my teeth, drinking coffee and telling Tom I love him, I don't think I've ever done anything every day for such a sustained period of time.

But on Saturday, Insight Timer* told me I had just meditated for 250 days in a row.

How does that feel, you might ask?

It's hard to explain, but I guess a rambling blog post is a good place to try. I don't know if I feel calmer - and calm was definitely something I wanted to feel more of this time last year, when my old friend anxiety had moved back in. After 250 consecutive days of meditation, if anything I think I feel my emotions more.

But perhaps the difference is knowing I *can* sit with them, and they will pass. I no longer feel afraid of anger, sadness or loneliness. All things I used to avoid feeling if I possibly could.

I don't feel at one with the Universe. There have been no giant revelations or moments of enlightenment. But there has been a clearing, of sorts. I do feel like I know my mind better. 

I have become more conscious of things in my life - and within myself - that I'd like (and need) to change. 

When you force yourself to get still at least once a day, you slowly learn how to switch your mind off, even if it's only for a few seconds at a time.

Those moments - those fleeting, precious seconds when I am actually not thinking and am just there, all breath, in my body and all I can hear are cars on the street, or the rattle and creak of the floorboards, or the wind or birds outside, or the oven warming up, or my neighbour leaving for the day, and my mind is empty and quiet, and I can feel the quietness of it - are bliss.

I meditate for an average of 10 minutes at a time. Occasionally I do 20 minutes, like I did this morning. I'd like to build up to more. That feeling - where everything drops away and I witness my mind emptying and getting still - has only ever lasted for a few seconds, so far. I've never been able to maintain it for very long but those few seconds are always worth it. They make me think "ah, this is the point of it all."

Meditation has helped me find ways to relax, to check in, to be in the present throughout the day, not just when I've got the app timer running. When you force yourself to stop and just be where you are right now, you start to realise how much of our mind's energy is spent fretting over the past and the future. 

Stress has not vanished from my life because I've been meditating every day. If anything, I'm more aware of how stress feels in my body. But when that happens, I employ a breathing technique which clears the mind and helps me relax. 

Meditation has helped me to be (slightly) more patient with and forgiving of myself, which I hope will translate into my interactions with others. 

It's become a wonderful way to start the day. I meditate before I do anything - no checking my phone first, and ideally immediately afterward I write in my journal or do Morning Pages (but that doesn't always happen). Once I've meditated, I go into the kitchen and find Tom has made a coffee for me (and unloaded the dishwasher!) and sit there, taking in the taste of the coffee, feeling reset for the day, my senses heightened.

Meditation has helped me feel more peaceful and content in my heart. Every time I hear the closing bell, I feel reassured that I'm a good person doing my best, trying to be kind, improve and move forward.

And that's worth making time for each day.

So what if instead of fearing the power of dark thoughts, we used our minds’ power to create safe havens within ourselves to explore them. Maybe literally envisioning cocoons inside our hearts where we can sit before cozy fires, hot drinks in hand, and ask of our fear and laziness and depression and shame and lust and rage and whatever other thing we might otherwise try to ignore: What is it you’d like to say to me? What indispensable nourishment do you have for the Life of trust I want to live? – Kristen Noelle (via Leonie Wise)

* Insight Timer is a free app and is the one I use based on recommendations from friends and well-wishers. I absolutely love it and am not being paid to mention it in any way! I just wanted to share because it has genuinely improved my life. 

adventures in meditation, part one

Every year, I've made a resolution to learn to meditate and start a meditation practice.

I've been making that resolution for about nine years, maybe longer.

The reason I kept trying? Because every interview with or profile of anyone I admire - whether they're a writer, a public figure, an entrepreneur, or just a generally enlightened and content person - usually mentions meditation in some way. That it is key to their creative practice, to balance, to keeping calm, to staying sane. That it opens the door between the person they are, or have to be in the world, and the person they want to be.

At the start of this year, a friend gifted me Danielle LaPorte's The Desire Map, a much-spoken of phenomena in the online world that gets a lot of traction around New Year, and with good reason - it's a pretty effective system for driving down into what you really want for your life.  One of the activities is 'Core Desired Feelings' and after much excavation and brainstorming, two of my four were 'calm' and 'wise'.

Much of the work in programmes like this centres very much around action and sovereignty when it comes to what you want to happen in your life. In other words, what do you have to do to feel the way you want to feel? What is something you can do, that is within your control, right now to get you closer to where you want to be?

The answer for those two particular desires I had identified in myself was.....meditate.

So, around the same time I did the Desire Map work, I began experimenting with meditation with the help of a wonderful (and free!) app I highly recommend called Insight Timer. This is the moment to tell you this is not a sponsored post, in any way, I just love this app! I think Laura might have recommended it to me too.

The app was great. But instantly I was reminded of why I had abandoned all previous attempts - because my mind was so manic, it wouldn't focus. I could barely get through 60 seconds.

"Just focus on your breath" - sounds easy, am I right? Wrong.  

After many months now, the trick that has helped me the most in learning to meditate has been thinking of my mind as a puppy in training. What do you say to a puppy when you're trying to teach it? 

"Stay."

So every time I notice my mind wandering in meditation, as it always does, I call it to heel like I would an adorable puppy. Hearing the word "stay" does jolt my mind back to the task at hand. A few breaths and it will stay, like a good mind. Then it wanders off again, and I gently grab it by the collar and lead it back. 

It's a nice metaphor, when it works! But my mind isn't always a cute puppy that comes back obediently when it's called. Sometimes meditation for me is like finding the puppy has destroyed the couch, chewed your favourite books and done its business everywhere. Moments like those, I set the timer for 2 minutes and that has to be enough. Miraculously, those 2 minutes do the trick. 

The benefits of meditation are seeping into other aspects of my life too. I find I'm calmer in general, able to let things go a lot faster than I used to. I get pissed off, of course but I allow myself to feel it, for five or ten minutes and then, frankly, I get bored and move on! I've also found I'm sleeping better thanks to meditation, even when I'm anxious. Even when I wake up for no reason and can't get back to sleep - the anger and panic at only being 5 hours away from the alarm going off, and then 4, and so on, has dissipated dramatically. I find that I can rest in those moments, even if I don't go back to sleep straight away. 

I meditated for 53 days straight over March and April, usually in the evenings, after work, before bed. It seemed to be working. I had gone from barely being able to do 5 minutes to doing guided meditations for half an hour or more. I was on a roll!

But then I lost my winning streak thanks to just one stressful and busy day at the end of April, where making time to meditate merely slipped my mind. Hardly a major crime. But over the next few days, I had one day on, one day off, and it just didn't work. Perhaps the practice hadn't been so carefully carved out as I thought. I found myself feeling really out of sorts and realised that meditation had come to be an essential part of my routine, like perfume, caffeine and morning pages. I didn't feel myself without it. Much like running. 

It didn't matter that I'd fallen off the wagon. In fact, there was no wagon. It's a practice. I just had to start again. 

Meditation has become part of my daily routine. My rule is "meditation before social media", which means I meditate as soon as I wake up, happily filling the space between being conscious and the coffee being ready.

I didn't expect it to change my life, but it really has. 

"Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end." – Jiddu Krishnamurti

More on this subject to come, as I feel it will be quite an adventure, as the post title hints! 

Do you meditate regularly? How do you find it?

i ain't afraid of no ghost

Photo: Columbia Pictures

I have to confess, I came to the whole Ghostbusters franchise quite late in life – once I met my film buff husband, for whom both Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989) are the equivalent of childhood comfort food. He watches them and he is instantly a little boy again. While I grew up in the same era, I had three younger sisters and so most of the films I was exposed to as a child had to be suitable for all of us. I was also quite a sensitive kid and ghosts were considered too scary! So it was Muppet Babies, Care Bears and My Little Ponies for us, which I don’t think was a deliberate thing on my parents’ part – this was just what was assumed little girls wanted to watch. And we did enjoy them.

Nearly 30 years since the last Ghostbusters film, Paul Feig (director of Bridesmaids and Spy) has revamped the franchise. It is not a remake of the original story, nor merely a continuation of it, but takes the premise of the original, reimagines it and brings it into the modern world. It’s very funny and very clever.

Oh, and the Ghostbusters are all women this time! Something that has a few people up in arms, but I’ll go into that in a minute.

If you don’t know the story of the film, here’s a very brief recap – with many ghostly appearances and happenings in New York City, three physics/parapsychology professors (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon), linked by the past and by circumstance, find themselves out of their cushy research jobs, joining forces and setting up a ghost removal service. After being called to the Manhattan subway to investigate and attempt to capture a “Class 4 apparition”, metro worker Patty (Leslie Jones) is inspired to join them. The government are distressed and want the Ghostbusters to keep quiet. Meanwhile, Rowan (Neil Casey), a hotel worker with a grudge, is scheming to open the gateway to another dimension which will release untold evil upon the city. So, who you gonna call?

A unique update with high quality performances

Ghostbusters is a fabulous update of a much-loved story and manages to be quite unique at the same time. There are many respectful nods to the original but Feig and the new Ghostbusters manage to make this their own. I particularly enjoyed the fact that, with Manhattan rental prices being famously out of reach of most people, the women can’t afford to set up shop in a funky fire station and end up in dilapidated rooms above a Chinese restaurant that fails, to the chagrin of Melissa McCarthy’s character, to produce a decent wonton soup.

Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann. Photo: Hopper Stone/Columbia Pictures

All four of the Ghostbusters give high quality performances – being Saturday Night Live alumni, their comic timing is never off and they work really well as an ensemble. The one who stood out the most for me, who stole every scene she was in, was Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann, a character in the same mould as Harold Ramis’s iconic character Egon Spengler in the original. McKinnon brings great depth, and also an element of great joy,  to the mad scientist stereotype by portraying Jillian as a woman with bags of personality, full of quirks, strength and real feelings. 

Another enjoyable aspect of the film is that all of the original Ghostbusters, plus other actors from the 1984 and 1989 films, make cameo appearances at some point. There’s even a sweet nod to the late Harold Ramis (see if you can spot it).

A political/feminist statement?

It’s a shame that this film has been criticised for being “feminist” and “political” – but the very fact that the revamp of a franchise where the lead characters are female instead of male is labelled as a political act rather than one of storytelling says so much about why a film like this is so important.

If you want to read the new Ghostbusters as a political/feminist statement, there is plenty here for you to chew on. The film does, bravely, address the inherent sexism that is still, despite the advances made since Suffragette times, at large and hangs around both in Hollywood and in our culture like chocolate stains on a white blouse. I found it interesting that in the original Ghostbusters, the four men are discredited, shunned and accused of being frauds at every turn – exactly the same thing happens in this version, but of course it feels more loaded, purely because they’re women. I suppose women being confident in themselves and their abilities, and who are competent in a traditionally male dominated field, are still considered radical things in some quarters - I’ve found that to be true in my own life, that’s for sure!

It’s also incredibly refreshing to go and see a Hollywood blockbuster where the focus is not on the attractiveness of the female leads. The Ghostbusters are intelligent and passionate women who are conflicted, quirky and downright loopy. Apart from a few mentions of Patty’s garish jewellery, the women’s physical appearance is secondary, quite rightly so for a film where they all get covered in the ghosts’ ecto-vomit at some point!

But what about the men?

Another common criticism of the film is that the men in it are one-dimensional and typecast, with cries of double standards that one couldn’t get away with portraying women in such a manner these days. Personally, I think it’s a nod to the fact that women have been and in some cases still are portrayed that way but also the fact that men find themselves on the receiving end of sexism too. The movie’s token stud-muffin, receptionist Kevin (played by Chris Hemsworth who, to my delight, keeps his Australian accent), is not immune to being objectified for his looks. Kristen Wiig’s character makes a beeline for him and insists on the Ghostbusters hiring him even though he is the most useless receptionist in the history of the world. Later on (spoiler alert!), Kevin has been possessed by the ghost of the film’s truly creepy villain Rowan and goes back to the hotel where he was a mocked and undervalued janitor to exact his revenge. Two security guards notice him, with his blond hair and muscular physique, and make a wise-crack about how they hadn’t ordered a stripper. Kevin is also the only character to be ‘rescued’ in the film – in the original, of course, it is Dana (played by Sigourney Weaver, who also shows up in this version!), the love interest, who needs rescuing. This time, it’s the other way around. Read into that what you will.

Because, despite what I’ve described above, the film, to its great credit, doesn’t spell any of this out. There are no attacks (apart from ghostly ones). It’s all just implied, in my opinion. Like most things in life, we tend to get what we focus on and if you pick hard enough at the locks of the basement door, a ghost will come out eventually!

Speaking of the ghosts in this film, they are quite creepy – as is the ecto-vomit that comes out of them! 

If your main objective in going to the cinema is to be entertained then you won’t be disappointed by Ghostbusters.  Is it a perfect film? No. But it's fun and there is much to enjoy about it. All the uproar from critics and trolls spewing forth that this film has “ruined” their childhoods and “women aren’t funny” rings truly hollow if you actually bother to see the film. The laughable thing is that it is exactly the ridiculous, misguided criticism of the film, not to mention the despicable attacks Leslie Jones was subjected to on Twitter, that proves how much this film was needed. And we need more of them.

So, if you care about equal representation in Hollywood, if you want to see more blockbusters and action comedies with real women front and centre, if you want your sons and daughters to grow up in a more equal world, or if you just want to forget about life for two hours, pretend you’re nine years old again and have no idea how much sugar is in a Choc-Top ice-cream, go and see this film. It’s sassy, smart and fun.

Ghostbusters is currently showing in cinemas in the UK, the US and Australia, release details for other countries are here.

the week that was

Well, this has been quite a week. A strange week, filled with sadness and thrills in equal portions. The older I get, the more I realise that happy and sad times can’t be neatly sectioned off from each other in life, they often coincide, or crash together in the same car. 

On Friday, January 8, Tom and I wound down from the working week with David Bowie’s latest album, Blackstar, which I had pre-ordered so we would get it on the day it was released. We sat with red wine, listening to it and discussing it, our minds blown by its vision and poetry and darkness. 

Only a few days later, early on Monday morning as we sipped our coffee and checked if the trains were running on time, the news broke that David Bowie had died. Both of us felt numb and shocked as we made our way to work. I put Radio 6 on my headphones as I worked and felt more and more emotional as the tracks were played and suddenly ‘Changes’, ‘Life on Mars’ and ’Space Oddity’ sounded different, and now meant something else.

My husband's 'desert island' Bowie collection.

I loved hearing other listeners song requests, their memories of Bowie’s music and what it meant in their lives, and was moved to email my own song request and story into the station. It was thanks to my then boyfriend now husband that I got introduced to Bowie beyond 'China Girl' and the Labyrinth’s Goblin King. His music has been the backdrop for my life in London - there has been a song for every moment, happy and not so much. 

To my surprise, a producer emailed back and asked if I’d be on the show on Wednesday to share the story, and the original mixtape Tom made me when we first met, which was my first proper introduction to Bowie. Here’s the story and here’s the show itself if you’d like to listen (I come in around 40:48). Lauren Laverne even asked me about my book! Bit of Bowie magic happening there, for sure. What a thrill it was. It made the sadness a little more bearable. But then of course we got the sad news about Alan Rickman....it wasn't the best week to be a British man aged 69. We've spent a lot of the past few days watching our favourite movies that had Bowie and Rickman in them, feeling bereft at the idea of a world without them in it.

Also, in the week that was:

• Femail.com.au have posted an interview with me about writing The Latte Years, check it out here

• SHAPE Magazine Australia describe The Latte Years as ‘a page turner’! Whoop!

• I also have a piece in this month’s ELLE Australia - reflecting on the art of making new year's resolutions and why I don't think you need to wait for January 1 to change your life.

There’s a few more articles I’ve written that will be coming up in the Australian media soon that I’m rather excited to share once they’re published, so stay tuned! 

Winter has wrapped itself around London now, and we woke up to a light snowfall this morning. It seems a little bizarre that in a few days we’ll emerge from a plane, dazed and confused, and it will be summer.

This is my backyard:

And this is where my book is! 

Hope you’re keeping warm or cool, wherever you are, my friends.