I decided towards the end of last year that 2011 had to include some fundamental new moves in my game – pretty much all for my own benefit.
Firstly, I decided that I had to set myself the challenge of getting fitter and stronger physically and mentally in order to enjoy life more and get the most out of still being reasonably young. On the 1st Jan I started the obligatory new years resolution of losing weight, but this time, adding a little more spice by signing up for a 10 mile hike along Hadrian’s Wall in Northumbria, the Great North Run in Sept for the mental health charity Mind and then was able to take an opportunity to prepare to play at St James’s Park, home of my football team Newcastle United on 25th May. The diet has gone well so far. I’ve lost a stone in the first month and a half and I’m now on to the second stone – again, hopefully by the end of April.
This is a revelation for me – I’m lighter now than I’ve been for 3 years and with it has come a generally good sense of wellbeing with a few minor bumps along the way. Much of the motivation for this came from reading a passage in a book called The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt in which he discusses the relationship between the neurones in the gut and those in the brain. It fostered in me a deep sense that my body and mind were true collaborators for the first time – until now, preferring to think of mind and body as being distinctly different and denying that my body was a reflection of my mind and vice versa. Retraining the elephant ‘one peanut at a time’ has slowly shown benefits in so many ways but this slightly ridiculous ‘penny drop’ moment has influenced my way of being as greatly as anything else I’ve yet experienced. And this leads on to the second decision….
Having spent 3 years having psychotherapy to rewire myself into a more rounded individual [insert fat bloke jokes to suit], the long-standing intrigue I’ve had since I was in my teens around psychology and the things that make people tick are now ripe for the picking. Now is the time to take on some academic study in psychology to build on my social science qualification from a few years ago. Having hoped to start in the Autumn of 2010, circumstances didn’t stack up favourably and I decided to enrol on the MSc Psychology course for May 2011 with the Open University.
This decision isn’t purely on a whim. In fact, having studied with the OU before and also having undertaking psychotherapy for such a prolonged period of time, I can also see the huge benefits to my career in having a better understanding and qualification in psychology to aid my marketing, public relations and management activities professionally. How people work and why they are they way they are is the bedrock of my interests in life and I think that at some point in my latter career I should like to practice in psychotherapy in order to help others to find their sense of inner vision and contemplate the options they have available in shaping a new world view free from the complexities of inherited thought and feeling.
And finally, committing to myself to grow my enjoyment in working to match the satisfaction I get elsewhere seems like the only sensible option not yet taken since reflecting on my life so openly. I’ve always thrived on holding responsibility, especially when I get to try to benefit others with the gifts I’ve been given in life. 2011 does genuinely seem more hopeful and changes are already afoot professionally that seem to be part of a return to form for me.
‘Life goes on, within you, without you’ as George Harrison once told us. 2010 was a year to grieve the loss of my father, travel far away to regain perspective in US and Canada and revitalise my sense of independence in thought, enjoyment and ambition. Now, with a little less weight under my belt, less fog in my mind and regaining my abilities to shape things professionally to a high standard, it feels like all these things I have committed to, at great personal cost and anxiety, are finally baring fruit. The third decade of my life feels like it’s just winding up for something and I hope I recognise what it is when it arrives……
