Is your glass half full or half empty?

It's been a question I've asked at a few conferences this year where I've been lucky enough to have been asked to speak. Also at a graduation day, at a couple of webinars and lectures.

It's from my talk which is called The Joy of Homeopathy - which clearly jumps right off the book title. However it's really more a talk about joy, than about the book and includes a few things we might do when that joy seems a little less tangible. I may call it The Joy of Life and keep it going for audiences other than homeopaths. I've a good friend or two who thinks it should be shared wider.

So back to the question - and maybe I give you a minute to ponder. Is your glass half full or half empty? Or as I ask the homeopathy students, how full is your homeopathy mug? ;)

It's really a rhetorical question. I don't think our glass needs to be percieved as half full or half empty. Or at least not for us to identify with that all the time. Afterall, if we have the same amount of something in a glass for too long it's going to be pretty disgusting - I know, I did plenty of half full tea mug 'experiments' in my room as a teenager, and I see simlar from my teenager these days.

I recognise my glass is refillable, and as dynamic, changing, emptying, filling at different times, perhaps with different activities or even times of the day. Some days it may be half empty, others 3/4 full, others overflowing, and other times there may be nothing left in it. The idea of a static assessment of ourselves doesn't work for me anymore. Driving many miles perhaps empties my glass a bit (even though I love driving), hanging out with inspiring people at the end of my long drive - fills it up again.

What I've also come to recognise is it's important we learn what tops it up and what doesn't. I use the analogy of going to a bar and asking for a drink. It's not likely to get us very far. We need to know what we want to put in the glass.

In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: "When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence?

Gabrielle Roth

I'm having conversations in clinic with just about every age group who are often telling me their worry about the state of the world. Totally valid concerns I believe. And yet at the same tme often there's not so much we can do about them. Often we can end up paralysed by the inability to effect enough change, to solve world crises or end other challenging scenarios. And there are plenty of challenging scenarios.

One thing that has struck me for many years, being a lover of neuropsychology, is that our brains aren't equipped for the amount of information we are exposed to every day. Most of us have a pretty strong relationship going with a smartphone these days, which, whilst I am firmly in that camp, I'm aware that it may not be the smartest relationship to nurture. Information at the tip of our fingers, from the other side of the world... is perhaps not what we're always ready to encounter, especially not on first waking! Our system can go into fight or flight, and our adrenals get ready to respond to this instant emergency - thousands of miles away.

Of course I'm not saying don't be aware, but be aware that we may not need to be aware of everything. All the time.

In 2016, at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis, I remember sitting in my kitchen sobbing at the state of the world. At how we as humans can do things they do to each other. At how I felt to be drowning in plastic. At how useless I felt to do anything about it. And a small, 9 year old voice over the next few days piped up...

Why don't we start a petition about the plastic in the shops, mum?

Out of the mouths of babes. There's me feeling bleak, disheartened and despairing and my wise 9 year old suggesting that we take some action. So we did. We clearly solved it all. Not. The loss of our organic fruit and veg shop in town has driven me back to the supermarket but back then, filled with hope, we took action. And over 19,000 peope signed our petition. At one point Change.org phoned me to see what my plan was - I hadn't got as far as a plan, one step at a time... and by the time I spoke to them we had a family health situation going on so there was less energy for taking on the supermarkets - single parenting, working and helping family meant the focus had had to go elsewhere.

Other petitions, Greenpeace for example, have over 2.5 million signatures on their petition to halve supermarket plastic packaging - and this one on 38 degrees has 86,000+. Change is taking place and whilst I'm pretty sure ours didn't have an enormous impact, I'm very proud my 9 year old's little voice in the darkness reached so many folk. This morning I found this article:

Supermarkets face ban on fruit and veg plastic packaging

Maybe we contributed a drop in the ocean. Or maybe not. I guess it's that thing about planting seeds. We don't need to check on them all the time to see if they're growing. Plant the seeds where we can and let them take if they're going to. We don't always need to know the outcome.

When we can't see the wood for the trees, taking action feels important. One little step. It doesn't take much to set up a petition, but it can have an impact. Back in 2016, I didn't feel that I could head out to refugee camps in Calais (refer to single parenting above and being begged by my daughter not to leave) but I could make up packs of remedies and post them to those who were going. Taking action, however small, can have a huge ripple effect, or none - either is totally fine. Sitting with despair was a part of the process, it felt so important to feel and acknowledge it; whilst longer term, taking action felt a more dynamic way for me.

Can you flip it?

I really like the flip it concept, and the first time I did it without realising was when my parents had had a sh1tty note from a neighbour about parking in their space. I do ask in my talks about who else has parking wars where they live... it seems many of us do :) My rationale was that a note was one thing, a rude note uncessary.. however obviously not for him at that time I guess.

Flipping it involves some kind of alchemy I believe. We take the not so fun experience and decide we're actively going to do something kind - for ourselves or for others. That time I decided to invite neighbours round for tea and cake which was lovely. Another incident inspired me to buy flowers and put them in a bucket near a walkway with a note that 'it seemed like a day for a random act of kindness... please to help yourself if you'd like some'. That was a particularly favourite one - one negative experience turned into several bright bunches of flowers. No magicians hat in sight.

We may be in a dark time in our human history - we may be struggling with many enormous challenges globally... reading through history shows me there have been plenty of dark times before.  And my study of homeopathy encourages me that there is never dark without light. Polarities, or opposites, are everywhere and one can't exist without the other.

Our Kindness Book Club started out reading Rutger Bregman's Humankind. A fantastic read to remind us of the good of humanity - something the 'news' frequently forgets to mention. I've mentioned it before in the blog, well worth a second mention here.

We have an awareness that opposites exist together - and yet sometimes forget this I think. The yin and yang, the dark and the light, day and night. Many novels have the same battles - The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, even the Narnia series - the battle of evil over good. Perhaps we always need both sides. Perhaps our cup can be both half full and half empty. It's not necessarily one or the other. How are we filling it up feels more important to me. Taking action can be a part of that.

Remembering to rest is another relevant action - many of us are exhausted, burn out, overwhelmed - and still slogging onwards. I believe resting is an act of rebellion in our fast paced world. Stepping out of that stream for a while feels key to our mental and physical health.

Finding the support we need feels relevant to mention - whether that's a homeopath, other therapeutic approach, a night out with friends, a walk somewhere beautiful or inspiring. Just as important as figuring what could go in our glass, what can support us right now. Many of us are supporting others and I think it's time to remember to be self-ish... especially women, seem to keep doing for others - it's time to remember us too.

Making a joy list is worth doing - perhaps a blog for another day, but it's fairly obvious... however remembering the joys that we can weave through everyday life feels really important to note. We haven't all got time or the budget to head away on holiday, the ability to go to that uplifting motivational speaker, the transport to get to the sea, but there are usually simple things we can weave into our day. Joy weaving feels an important area to me at the moment. Where can we say thank you for simple things, where we can create rituals of gratitude - all can help wire our brain to see the light around us instead of just the dark.

I love to hear what's on other's joy lists - we have time for sharing in the talks I give... feel free to share here if you like, and if you haven't got a list of things you can weave into your day, perhaps you might like to create one.

Here's a few of mine for starters...

• Dancing in the kitchen is high on my list, alone or with my boyfriend or daughter.
  
• Walking barefoot outside.
• Looking at the stars.
• Sitting with a book - preferably outside but curled up with candles inside is great too.
• A good Netflix binge worthy series.
• My feet touching the rug I've known since I was a baby when I get out of bed, and last thing at night and saying 'thank you' each time.
• Laughter - hearing others laugh or laughing myself.
• Remembering to cleanse and moisturise my face - it takes a few moments and is so lovely to remember to do - twice a day if I can.
  

With love - and joy,

Em xx