opinion

How to feel better

| Sheree

It’s been a few days (weeks?) since I’ve been here. And I do hate it when I don’t turn up here because I’m missing out on opportunities for connection, with self and you, at the same time as the longer it goes in between posts the harder it is to get back here.

But I’m back and it was something I wrote on my journal last month that spurred me on to turn up. And I wanted to share it with you as it inspired me to feel better.

And these aren’t my usual activities which I go to to feel better but looking over the list this morning, I can honestly say I’ve been leaning into them the last few weeks without knowing it’s been so. I love when we get the chance to take a step back and reflect and see our journey. I’m so grateful for that.

So what has been making me feel better:

1. Cleaning my space. Be that handbag, bedroom, side table or whole house. I’ve been reaping the rewards of moving my body in cleaning/tidying up and then having the satisfaction of sitting down in a decluttered clear space. It helps the mind to gain clarifying also.

2. Eating something healthy. I’ve been deep in essay writing mode and have been living on toast and crisps and wine! But when I take the time, a break from the grind, to make a salad, or stir-fry and sit and eat mindfully, my body is not only fuelled with the good stuff but I’m resting in a space of joy. I enjoy my food and have the double whammy of knowing I’ve just given myself health.

3. Playing some good music. I’m known to have the tunes blasting in the car, especially as I’m using a friend’s mini convertible. Roof down, tunes high and I’m singing along. But I forget I can do the same within my home. Okay maybe not as loud as when outside. But putting on the mini speaker linked to my Tidal music account, I can move throughout my house listening to the music I love. Music that inspires. Music that I can’t help moving my body to. Music that brings back good memories. And bad. But still manages to get a smile out of me.

4. Lighting a candle. This is a simple act. One I’ve been doing more and more recently as I have candles in every room of my house. I’ve been having them on repeat as I attempt to create a welcoming ambience for anyone viewing the flat. Yes the landlord is selling the flat we’re renting so we have to move. So more people are flowing through the space and having candles glowing is my way of keeping the air clean and scented. It reminds me to take deep breaths and trust that everything is going to turn out for the best. Vanilla, cherry, cinnamon and lavender are my favourites at the moment.

5. Drinking water. Oh my. Now this one is a game changer but I admit I forget it. Daily. Water. I love water inside and out but when I get buried under tasks and emotions, I forget to drink water. That feeling of cold liquid journeying down my throat through my chest to my gut is refreshing, revitalising and a blessing. It only take a moment but still obstacles get in my way. I’m carrying a gallon sized bottle around with me as a means of getting more and enough water. It’s a practice and I’m leaning into it.

6. Sleep a little ( or more). Maybe it’s my age. Menopause. Or the time of year, or my body and mind and soul is just racked with anxious vibes but sleep has been evading me of late. But I’m not going to make it an issue. I’ll take sleep when it comes. And if I can help it, I’ll nap when I feel tired and stay in bed that extra hour if my body calls for it. I rest in other ways too. Be that zoning out in front of the TV, reading or an evening walk. All are a rest from ruminations and allow me to switch off.

7. And finally BREATHE. Yes yes yes. We breathe all the time as it keeps us alive. But how deeply are we breathing? It wasn’t until I picked my meditation practice up again did I realised how long I’m been breathing in the shallows not having the utilising the full capacity of my lungs. Living in the shallows means I’ve been panicking, being on edge, anxious, living on scraps of air when I could have been taking and enjoying big juicy expansive breaths that calm and recalibrate my whole body. I’m breathing deeply. I’m stopping what I’m doing/ being at times to take a few deep breathes. They reoxygenate my body and give me pause for gratitude. Gratitude for being alive in this moment.

I hope you find some inspiration in these practices and try a few. They make me feel better and sometimes we all can do with a reminder of what does make us feel better so we can lean into them more often and more deeply.

No More Monday Morning Blues

| Sheree

When I was teaching, I used to experience ‘Monday Morning Blues’. That dreaded feeling of going back to the grind after the weekend off. Going back to the bells and the timetables and the disruptive kids. One of the many reasons to leave the profession without a safety net in place, without anything lined up, was that I knew if I didn’t go then, I’d never get out. I was getting too comfortable, too used to the regular pay check at the end of each month, justifying the slog, the staying put within an environment that was slowly eating away at my soul.

I used to see cows outside my classroom window and I vowed not to become one of them; a cow put out to pasture, giving up on life and life giving up on them. I knew there was more to life that the 9-5 job, or as it was when teaching 7-7 job. I put my whole life, heart and soul into that job to the point of probably neglecting my child at the time. But I was after perfectionism, acceptance and recognition. I was defining my whole self -worth by how good or bad I was at teaching. And teaching shite I may add. Shite filled up with the words and opinions of mostly white dead men who probably didn’t think much of me being a Black woman.

I was duped into the belief that work was meant to be hard and difficult and long and mostly unrewarding. It was what we were put on the earth to do, to be. To work for most of of our lives for others, propping up the system and if we worked hard enough, we’d get time off at the end with a pension that would be taxed again. This is what I bought into and what was fed to me through family, education and society. To step out of this construction to pursue creativity, to do my own things and be my own boss was seen as weird, a risk, stupidity and misguided to say the least.

I knew how I felt. And I know how I feel. And even then I put a lot of store by how I felt. How I was uncomfortable in my own skin. How I felt a fraud. How I felt unbelonging and always striving for something that would never be mine. Acceptance. Whiteness. The Norm.

Now I don’t have ‘Monday Morning Blues’, because I don’t put that kind of pressure on my days, on my weekends, on my time. I pick and choose when to work or not. I try to have a 3 day week. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday being the work days and the Monday and Friday flow into a long weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not idle. I’ll always be practicing my creativity ( I prefer using practice to work). I don’t think I’ll ever retire because being creative is who I am. And when I reserve certain days of the week for outside commitments, ‘work’ the other days are mine to create, to rest, to dream, to plot, to {BE}. And I’m grateful for the circumstance to be able to {BE} this way. I’m also grateful to my younger self who wasn’t afraid to jump and believe and trust that a net would appear to catch her fall. Again and again.

I’m quote proud to say I’m being useless to capitalism today. And the next day and the next.

Going it alone

| Sheree
Lensa AI

Getting into the Christmas spirit, I’ve been meeting up with friends for eats and drinks these past couple of weeks. I’ve been enjoying my time going out, catching up and dancing my little heart out.

Each time though is marred a bit by the line of questioning that always seems to follow while out and while the drinks are flowing.

So have you got yourself a new man yet? So what are you doing to meet someone? What are we going to do to get you fixed up?

I haven’t really spoken much about my separation from my husband. Probably because it still fresh and also because there were two of us in that relationship and talking about it publicly is disrespectful I feel. For now.

However, as we move into 2023, moving further and further apart and having less and less interest in each other’s lives, thoughts and feelings, friends and family think it’s about time for me to get with someone else.

But I have to ask where is it written that for an individual to be ‘fixed up’ that they need to have a significant other to be so? It’s beginning to fuck me off more and more each time I’m asked these questions, so where’s your new man etc.

Their justification is that they think I’m awesome, a wonderful person therefore why am I alone or should be alone? Why not share your awesomeness with someone else. This is their reasoning no mine.

And I repeat this fucks me off that they think I should be sharing my awesomeness with someone else. That it’s a waste not to. That there must be something wrong with the world if I’m such an awesome person and have no one to share it with. That I’m awesome and alone. So there must be some on thing wrong with me!

And this is the part that fucks me off the must. I’m so awesome but not awesome enough to keep all this awesomeness for myself, to myself. That I do not deserve to direct all this awesomeness towards myself. That’s I’m not enough to be awesome alone. Take all my time, energy, attention and love and keep it for myself, because I’m worth it.

Where is it written that my only value or awesomeness is truly recognised when I’m hooked up with someone else who probably doesn’t deserve it, would take it for granted and steal it for themselves?

Where is it written that to be alone is frowned upon, is seen as something wrong and that it must be because I haven’t found anyone or no one else finds me attractive rather than an active choice?

I choose to be alone and focus on myself because I deserve to follow my dreams and hopes and not hang them on someone else’s or on someone else being around and loving me.

I choose to not direct my time and energy seeking ‘the one’ because I believe my time and energy is better used focusing on me and fine tuning the energy I’m putting out into the world. If this kind of energy attracts someone else so be it, but I’m not going to put my life on hold or stop shining ‘this little light of mine’ because I do not have a man in my life to be with and love.

I’m not going to go around thinking I’m less than because I’m not in a relationship, because no one is loving on me at the moment. Because I don’t need anyone else to. I can do that all for/ by myself.

And this isn’t me just settling. It’s not me realising that the world doesn’t live Black women and I may’s well give up on trying to find love with someone else. I know this to be true by the way. But this is not influencing my choice, my decision.

I’m choosing me because I can. I chose me when I walked out on my last relationship. And that hasn’t changed it’s just become more of my mantra now as I navigate singleton status. I’m not pining for anyone else. I’m not searching anyone else. I’m not measuring my worth by being with someone else

I’m choosing me, every time. And that feels good for me. So do me a favour and stop asking me when or how I’m working to get a new man in my life and just rejoice in my choice to {BE} alone.

An Alternative Narrative

| Sheree

As mentioned in my last post, we have the Black Nature In Residence Showcase coming up on the evening of 28 October.

This is the first event in a series that identity on tyne through their Earth Sea Love project are collaborating with Northumberland National Park to host.

Other events offered as an alternative to the Future Landscape Programme that will run at the same tine at COP26 in Glasgow, will provide diverse voices to the environmental and conservation movement and makes those all important links between the local and global in terms of the climate crisis.

Starting on 11 November, 7.30-8.30pm – Decolonising the Environmental Movement

I’ll be hosting a conversation with Sarah Hussain and Serayna Solanki

Through their projects and research, both Sarah Hussain and Serayna
Solanki are providing spaces for marginalised communities and people of
colour to engage with nature as a means of changing the narrative around
who has a say in the Climate Change Movement. They are working within
education and research, community and organisational partnerships, to create
and highlight dialogue around climate justice through personal and community
storytelling.

Then 18 November, 7-8pm, Nature Writing Reading

Join me , as host again, with Jo Clement and Zakiya McKenzie for a reading and discussion of literature which explores place, environment, belonging and identity as both writers read from and talk about their recent collections.

Then on 22 November, 7-8pm – A keynote lecture with Grace Hull, Holistic Sustainability

What is holistic sustainability?

Grace Hull created Green Grace Soul to share her journey to living sustainably in a holistic way. Grace attempts to balance the food she eats, the products she uses and the things she buys with the most beneficial outcomes for her health, the health of the planet, and the others living on it.

Sustainable living and Climate Change activism have many faces, and by centring holistic sustainability Grace engages with intersectionality and the social and historical context of climate change through the reflections of her journey that she shares on her website, podcast and DIY projects.

This will be a keynote lecture followed by a Q and A.

A Gratitude List

| Sheree

“My blessings always overflow.” Abiola Abrams

  1. I’m grateful for time away alone in a VW Camper. A dream come true.
  2. I’m grateful for the Autumn light on the mountains in the distance.
  3. I’m grateful for the sound of the sea shhhing me to stillness.
  4. I’m grateful for my babies being well and happy.
  5. I’m grateful for the people who come and go in my life.
  6. I’m grateful for protected boundaries.
  7. I’m grateful for money in the bank.
  8. I’m grateful for projects coming to an end, successfully.
  9. I’m grateful for the hot sweet potato and pumpkin soup.
  10. I’m grateful for the grey heron who’s hunting for fish just in my sightline.

Autumn Walk

| Sheree

This is my season.

I love this time of year. Autumn is my birth season and it’s when I shine. There’s that ‘back-to-school’ feeling accompanied by the change in energy and light. There’s a bubbling of anticipation as the landscape is on the turn. Transformation is possible.

I lean into the season by getting outside into nature as much as possible. Usually when the schools go back , we can enjoy a few weeks of sunshine, a late summer roll out of heat before the temperatures drop.


September is also a good month also to enjoy sea swimming as this is as warm as it’s going to get, The North Sea, after storing some of the summer’s warmth. The water can be so clear sometimes, calm and still.

This transitional season is beautiful because where there is life there is also decay and death. The late blooming flowers still have some joy to give. At the same time as the berries are bursting out of brambles and bushes. Leaves begin to turn colour, to collect in brown bundles. A time to harvest those seeds we planted in spring. A time to count our blessings and give thanks.

Happy Autumn x