Omg
it’s been a long break again. Almost two months I reckon. Two weeks ago on Sunday
I was talking with a dear friend and she was wondering if lack of blog posts is
a good sign or a bad sign and hoping for the first. I laughed and said it’s
kind of both, I am doing well but the thing called work is destroying my plans
to update the blog evening after evening...and for the sake of people around me
(and promises made over new years) I am not ready to steal time by not eating,
sleeping, jogging, meditating or doing yoga. All important parts of my daily
work stress survival strategy. So to disappoint you guys, I have been working
mainly. Frigging adult life. Buu.
Let’s
start with the boring stuff to get it sorted with. Last 9 weeks have been
absolutely crazy. Crazy in terms of workload, moving parts, re-work and
stressed managers who constantly make things bigger as they really are and want
to cover all corners although we are very much on top things. It was very much
expected that from end of January onwards our team would be in the spotlight,
what wasn’t expected was the tools that we need to use to complete our main
deliverables for the period. When you hear a word “tool” within massive global rollouts
you’d think that it is something that makes your life easier...we are using
good old excel sheets that make our lives fairly frustrating. Monster excel
sheets, tens of them, closer to 35 on my table but who counts. Death by excel.
Death by version control. Death by scrolling. Death by dropdowns. Death by
horizontal sorting. Death by vertical sorting. Death by copy paste. Death by
random template changes that don’t get communicated and you need to go through
every single workbook to find out what has changed. Death by twisting neck to
be able to make sense out of it. Death by “refreshes” that destroy all the
formula you have built in. Death by managing excels by excels. Death by
managing the managing-excels with yet another excel. Death by the ultimate
excel that summarizes all the managing of the managing excels. Who is
responsible for inventing excel? Names please.
On
top of this, only after two weeks of madness I got a tennis elbow to the right
hand of all the sorting and needed to start using mouse with my left hand
(which kind of has been the most challenging part of my work lately, excel
templates don’t need much brain effort) which is on the same path towards
uselessness. This is also one reason why I have been sluggish with writing,
during weekends I try to avoid using pc as much as possible for the sake of
proper tennis elbow rehab. So in addition that I am THIS fed up with work (hand
over head) I have a physical damage that might take months to recover, or might
never recover if this goes on too long. Seriously, during the darkest moments I
have thought about starting to make babies to have a break and way out. That
bad. I am not pregnant, no, but the idea has brought me hope. Hope is needed
during dark moments. Maybe one day there is light at the end of the tunnel. I’d
make a good mom. Better mom than excel updater I reckon. My colleagues agree.
In
my project we are also not allowed to have any holidays, which is kind of funny
as people are eligible for their holiday within a year. Everyone is THAT important
ALL the time (with my excels I at least
don’t feel like it). I do wonder what happens if someone gets sick? Oh yes, in
our project people don’t get sick. In diplomatic terms I call this bad project
management, in not so diplomatic term it’s *ucking ridiculous. Yeah. On top of
this we are not allowed to participate to any company internal events to make
sure we aren’t away from our desks. This means I am cannot participate to our
Australia wide once-a-year event where people have a chance to meet colleagues
from other offices. In diplomatic terms this is *ucking ridiculous. And on top
of this we have no official budget for any of our team milestone celebrations. Just
to clarify, we are over 5 months from go-live, our project is well scoped in
terms of resources, we are tracking according to our plans, and I am not
working for a non-profit organisation but for a huge and extremely profitable
company that made record high results in FY11. OMG. Key word, PANIC. I still
don’t understand why.
So
all remaining time I have off work goes to maintaining some level of mental
sanity and doing things that bring me more happiness than work does. I think I
have pretty robust system in place with meditation, yoga, running and opening
up to my nearest and dearest. Meditation came to the picture kind of by good
luck. I spotted a facebook add promoting a Mindfulness meditation study by
University of Helsinki and signed-up immediately. Being part of the study group
I need to meditate 20 minutes daily for 2 months, keep diary on my practise
time and fill out a survey at the end of February and March. This meditation has
nothing spiritual in it. It is very simple exercise of bringing your awareness
to the sensations you are experiencing and deepening the awareness level by
level. At first I was doing the meditation with the recording we received as
part of the study (a deep male voice guiding you through the practise) but the
last month I’ve done my practise without guidance, having just a recoding with timed
signs to move to the next phase. I didn’t have much expectations when I signed
up, just curious to see if it makes a difference, especially during busy times.
I feel the difference, it’s actually amazing how much 20 minutes of conscious
focusing on present does for you state of mind. I feel I am better able to
control the busy mind that is always somewhere else than in the moment. I feel my
level of awareness has deepened and condensed, not only during my practise but
in general. I feel I have more control on things happening around, well it’s
not really control but the awareness that puts things in context and make you
see better which part of the buzz is caused by the busy mind or stress factors
around you and which part of it is actually something you can influence and act
on. I think I am less of a basket case with work because of meditation. I think
my nearest and dearest agree. The 2 months study ended yesterday but I will
continue my daily practise. I am slowly turning to be a bit of a hippy here. Or maybe it is just West End.
Then
there is yoga, the dearest of my free time activities. Don’t remember if I told
you last time, but I found a yoga studio in West End, The Yoga Den that hit
home with my first visit in early January.
My teacher (Dan) is extremely dedicated to his task of assisting people
on their yoga practise and has very nurturing, accepting and heart-opening
style. He’s all about feeling what is right for you and we spend a lot of time
exploring different asana, or more so exploring what is happening with the mind
when you are in a yoga posture. He’s a man of details when it comes to body
awareness, never ever have I paid attention to how my kidneys feel when I am
twisting the spine and it is fascinating. At the age of almost 32 I am aware of
my kidneys :) So far it has been an exciting
journey to myself, realise the difficulty of exploring how something f-e-e-l-s
when with figure skating I have grown to treat my body has the tool to achieve
something very goal oriented with very little respect or attention to listen
how it feels or what it wants to do or needs to be well. I also noticed that at starters I was cheating
myself to think I am “feeling” but in reality experiencing what my ego was
expecting me to experience and feel. With Dan I have realised my body awareness
isn’t really body awareness...I had the ego that is very used to “doing things
right and as much as possible” on driver’s seat, setting a lot of expectations on
my doing. I treated yoga as an exercise to build strength and openness, I was
trying a lot with it. Thanks to Dan he opened up my eyes about trying. Trying a
lot means you are not willing to accept what is. And at his class “what is” is
the most important thing. Same goes to accepting you as you are rather than comparing
yourself to others or someone you used to be or wanted to be. He jokes that “being
as bendy as the person next to you does not bring you closer to enlightenment”.
Fully agree. So I have started from the very basics, firstly by letting go of
the expectations of being something, like bendy, flexible, balanced, right or
strong as possible. I am learning to be open to explore every posture like it
was the first time I am doing that, not expecting it to feel the same as it did
the last time... it is a different week, day, moment after all. And it is once
again great to realise how our brains are built to trust on previous experience
and how easily they kind of turn mute to the moment of now and rather re-play
stuff that has happened or race ahead in future plans. Mind is a funny thing. A
bit twisted really. The joint effort of my yoga and meditation practise is to
break that habit of being all the time somewhere else but never in the now. Being
aware of what is happening around and in me and being fine with it. To fall
down 2 times and get up 3 times. I find myself having a lot of challenge with
balancing postures although throughout my life, I have had fairly good balance.
I have started from scratch in exploring what is good grounding, wondering how
on earth it can be difficult to stand still with two feet on the ground and
have equal balance on the soles of your feet. Tricky for someone who has always
taken balance for granted, never really paying any attention to it, not even
thinking about respecting it! Maybe someday my tree-pose is steady instead of
waving from side to side like in the middle of hurricane or something. There I
admit I have a target with yoga, less windy tree-pose. So slowly but surely
yoga has ceased being just a physical exercise but become kind of a home in the
“spiritual” sense. Respect and acceptance for everything you are and everything
you are not. Respect and acceptance towards other people as they are. And staying
calm and grounded, not matter what life brings on your way. For example a process and SAP roll-out for a mining company ;) Lol, living in the extremes!
But
not all mediation, yoga, carrots and hippy life, I have done also more normal
Ansku things. Like exploring the dining scene of Brissie (nothing big to report). Weekend trips to
Noosa, Mooloolaba, Sunshine coast and Bribie Island (booooring) to enjoy the
sun (in the shade though) and ridiculously warm sea water. West End markets on
Saturday with coffee under the fig tree and fresh fruits and veggies for the
week. Morning sports in addition to yoga to make sure my heart gets to race too
and I can keep up with long work days without losing attention (and to be able
to eat ice cream during weekends and not gain weight, hehe). I bought a huge
mirror to my living room and got it with fairly good deal. Sauna, swimming and
saunamakkara at Kaija’s in addition to regular pizza nights. Went to see Lenny
Kravitz to River Stage last weekend with my colleagues and had an excellent
night out and terrible hangover the next day (it was literally the first big
night out in 2012 as I had kind of forced and extended dry February for having multiple
antibiotics on for a 6 weeks period, nothing serious though). Regular Sunday
Skype sessions with little people, brother, mom and dad. Also, summer has kind
of come to an end and weather is slowly cooling down a little. Today has been
the coldest day so far and I kind of feel ashamed and spoiled for saying this,
but 23 degrees can feel slightly cool. I am not complaining as this eternal
summer feels a bit exhausting and I want to start wearing dresses with long
sleeves and having less damp air to breathe. I want to wear my woollen socks
and curl up to the corner of sofa and drink tea in a candle light, proper
winter stuff.
Today
I have been extremely domestic and focused on housekeeping, flu fighting,
getting this post ready and soon Skyping with a dear friend whose voice I haven’t
heard in 9 months! It is amazing how time flies, from new years to April just
like that...nine months here already. Easter will be spent in Cairns relaxing,
sleeping in and admiring The Great Barrier Reef hopefully under clear sky
although my hairdresser Emma said that it rains in Cairns every Easter. It
feels good to have a bit of a holiday and leave Brissie after hectic 3 months
and see yet another new place in Australia and try my snorkelling skills (and
most likely burn my bum). So next time I’ll report news from Cairns, promise I
won’t take 2 months to get it done.
Pusmoi
dear friends and take care!
//Ansku
