Conversations with Georgie #7: 10 Reflections from 2020: A Year Not To Forget For Reasons Neither Right Nor Wrong. 🤔
Plus: PhD News. Romantic Friendships. Trauma. The Power Of And. And More!
Welcome to 2021! I’ve kept this letter short-ish condensing what was quite a year into just the 10 reflections. Enjoy reading my lessons as you sit around in PJs, eating lots, and perhaps smiling because we are no longer in 2020.
👋Hello Friends,
🎄 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! 🎆
I hope you have spent at least a few days over the last week or two getting up later, eating delicious food and watching movies! I was seriously looking forward to putting a pause on the year and taking the time to stare out the window and reflect on the year gone by with my annual Year Compass Year in Review. This took many days and many pages of paper as you can see (most double-sided as well!). This is my 3rd or 4th year - I highly recommend giving it a go.
So, 2021: A Year Not To Forget For Reasons Neither Right Nor Wrong.
From one perspective, I lost a lot. It didn’t go the way I had planned or wanted. And from another, it was actually one of the most important years of my life.
I’m moving away from the idea that things are good or bad. They simply are. Any framing we put on them is an interpretation of what we think is best. ‘Best’ according to how well what is happening fits into the greater narrative we have of what we want our lives to be. A narrative that is, of course, just a story that helps us make sense of things and find meaning.
I don’t claim to not have a narrative about who I am and what will happen in my life. I guess I am just learning to become less attached to it being ‘the’ correct narrative. And more grateful for the ‘obstacles’ that seek to challenge my narrative, when actually they are the way.
The way, it seems, is showing itself and giving me a chance to learn and to grow. So here I am, ready-ish to share 10 ways I learned and grew in 2020.
1. The Body Keeps The Score.🧍
This year, after a decade of ‘chronic’ health issues, I found the path to healing and wellness.
Chronic health issues: something I never wanted to really admit to myself that I had. In part, it felt like I was defeated, unable to be truly healthy, and without the agency to be able to live a really great life. And yet, chronic means long term but it does not mean permanent. Permanence is a story, and an inaccurate one at that, for the only truth is that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. And with that belief, I kept searching, experimenting and challenging all kinds of conventional wisdom about what happens in the body until I found some answers.
And what I discovered is that the human body keeps the score AND that it is also incredibly resilient, able to rewire and heal itself.
I’ve always been a great believer in therapy - creating the space to explore, become self-aware of one’s personal patterns and beliefs rooted in childhood development and to change them. Before 2020 most of what I explored was cognitive (a top-down approach) and whilst valuable, insufficient because it denies the opportunity for the body to share and express its true history, including the memories you can’t access. This year with space created by COVID, and a sincere curiosity to explore experientially the intellectual understanding I had gained from the mind-body connection I leaped into bottom-up more somatic modalities. Namely, EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and more recently, somatic experiencing (SE) which is about accessing the felt sense. Both of these modalities rocked my world in a way I could never have imagined. 10 days of Vipassana Meditation in 2019 opened my eyes to the level of activity in the body by increasing my sensitivity to these moving energies. EMDR and SE gave me the tools to feel this energy fully, express and release it. What is this trapped energy? Trauma.
Trauma, it turns out, doesn’t happen in the brain but it is only registered in the brain and mostly happens in the body. It doesn’t impact the cortical (rational) brain as much as the limbic (emotional) brain and is the hidden root cause of many psychological and physical issues. It causes havoc by deregulating the nervous system which can result in a lengthy list of symptoms from chronic pain, fatigue or illness, hypervigilance, anxiety, addiction, depression, obesity, severe PMS, a lack of intimacy or trust in relationships to major diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and more. These symptoms can be hidden for decades before they appear.
And the question is not whether you have trauma but how much and where it is stored in your body - all humans will suffer, especially growing up as a child. When humans perceive an event to be life-threatening, we create energy to fight or escape. But if we cannot escape - fight or flight - because we are injured or overwhelmed, we freeze, and unlike animals who shake off this trapped energy immediately afterwards, in humans it stays as frozen energy in the body. And unless discharged, the trauma continues to replay itself over and over in the present and the body will keep responding as if it were in pain and helpless. Healing occurs when one allows this biological process of discharging frozen energy.
As I type this, I can feel a pulling and melting experience occurring around my left jaw as tension builds and then is released. This feeling started in 2019 on my Vipassana retreat but since starting SE it’s been a wild, deep and thoroughly eye-opening journey into the nature of the body, mind and reality. In the last month. I’ve been meditating 2-5 hours a day sitting, observing visions and memories arising, noticing the energy in sensations and allowing it to shift and release over time. It has felt in many ways like a series of purges and the gradual release of historical gunk.
The results have been in part physical: layers and layers of tension in my head, jaw, skull base, neck, shoulders and more have dissolved. I feel like I can breathe deeply into all parts of my body. Psychologically, I feel calm, safe, dropping into the here and now much faster, feeling kinder, more powerful, spending less time with anxious feelings and experiencing less resistance or irritation to things around me that I do not like or want. Spiritually, something is shifting too. It is as if the door to compassion, softness and love is opening up. I get the sense that I need to stay on this journey.
2. Meeting Life Milestones with Surprise, Delight and Love Like a Long-Lost Friend. Hello PhD! 📜
I was somewhat nervous but mostly joyous to share that last a few weeks ago, news arrived that I had officially got into a Design Engineering Research PhD programme at Imperial College. As a lover of inter-disciplines, I’ll be focusing on human connection and conversations through the lens of design, psychology, behaviour change, linguistics and more (no surprises here I’m sure!). My research group: https://interactionfoundry.com
When I got the email, 3 things then happened. 1. I didn’t react. (I’ve noticed that I sometimes do this thing where I undermine the value of achievement because a. it doesn’t feel difficult or b. I expect myself to be able to achieve it because I believe I have the experience or ability or c. i’s only one step of many to get there - I still have to find funding to do it. This time, it was all 3.) 2. The universe reminded me that this is what I wanted. 3. I could suddenly see the future.
It always wanted to do a PhD but never knew when or what it would be in. Life has, for the last few years, been a lot about riding the waves of opportunity. And now, after all that exploring, I think I am ready to get back on the bandwagon of structure, make ambitious goals and craft a hearty plan to get me there. That is, when I get funding. The next ‘real’ challenge!
The full post on these points here.
3. Yes, Life is a Set of Great Games. 🎲
This year I came face-to-face with the existential belief that life might be like the Matrix, and simply a set of games we are programmed to play. We choose goals and play the game of achieving them because others around us are playing them, but also because they provide us with big feelings that fulfill our human needs - survival, status, security, belonging, meaning - bringing us pleasure, and taking away pain. Realising this, I tried not to play any games but then discovered even if I know that they are just games, what else is there to do in life? Without choosing, I’ve landed on this ‘island’ by chance with the surprising gift of life, I might as well work out what my body and mind can do, go and explore the planet, and other people (without negatively impacting either), and find joy and fun in the process. And help others do the same.
The full exploration of this idea here.
4. The Romance of Friendship. 🌹
This year many of my close friendships developed beautiful romantic energy. Spontaneous calls, voice notes and emails simply to say I was thinking of them, sharing what we mean to each other, thought-out gifts and cards in the post. Deep moments of vulnerable eye contact or sharing. Excitement and joy in the lead up to meets. Demanding desires to see each other. Childish play. Grief in goodbyes. Friendship can be truly meaningful.
5. Creativity is My Real Soul-Mate.🎨
I have always had a creative soul within me, and yet I denied her for years until 2016 when I completed the Artist’s Way course and woke her up again. This year, after some time of not caring for her, I decided to re-ignite her again in January by building a peer-led community of creatives to complete the Artist’s way again, together (thanks to some of the gang for making it so meaningful!). Those weekly community meets to share and witness, and the consistent creative practices of just playing and creating for pure joy, over purpose, nourished my soul. I learnt that I need to look after and take care of my creativity for it and me to flourish and not ask it to take care of me (e.g. financially). She needs inspiration, daily walks, mindful joyous activities to express my craft, and constant, unwavering appreciation and acknowledgment. Soul mates bring out the best in you. By allowing myself to express her, I feel whole.
6. Empathy Listens For The Why, Not The What. ❓
The ‘what’ is only the mode through which we can transmit our why, and yet it seems we pay great attention to how something is said or done and not the reason behind why we do it in the first place. This year I started asking myself ‘why are they saying/doing this?’ rather than getting frustrated that things aren’t being done the way I would like them to be done. The answer is usually because they have different values to mine, they don’t have the capabilities, resources or the knowledge to do anything else, or because our beliefs are different. Never ‘they are doing this because they set out to annoy me and be difficult’! Seeing the why over the what allows us to be so much more compassionate and empathetic and appreciative of others.
7. The Necessity Of ‘AND’ For An Inclusive Inner And Outer World. ➕
Conflict is created because two or more separate beliefs seem to not be able to co-exist together. This OR that seems to be the only way forward, as if there is some 1 ‘right’ way. I’ve begun to replace OR with AND and discovered a great deal more acceptance for myself and for others in the process. Paradox is everywhere. I can have joy and grief, parts of me can want things to stay the same and others to change. Being inclusive by replacing OR with AND makes for peace. Internal conflict only appears when we believe that some thoughts, voices or parts are not valid. External conflict only appears when we believe that our way, perceptions and beliefs are the high-way over others.
8. Mourning May Be What We’re Missing. 😭
There is a process of saying goodbye to what is lost. Whether it be a way of living, a grandparent who has died, a home, a flatmate, a friendship, work projects or a holiday. As situations change, needs that can’t be met in the same way as they were and grief arises around these. I am learning that you cannot bring back what is lost. But the ritual of naming what has been lost, what needs have not been met and the feelings around this experience can allow the body and mind to accept the change and let go.
9. There Is a Writer In Me.🖊️
This year I finally committed myself to consistent writing by launching this monthly letter ‘Conversations with Georgie’ to ~ 400 friends and family as an experiment in deep connection, collaboration and serendipity. At first, fear was the strongest emotion felt, arising every time I asked someone if they wanted to join, arising as I revealed my innermost thoughts, wondering how they would be seen, judged or valued. With time, this feeling became nourishment and a sense of completion, as taking the time to craft my thoughts helped me unearth and crystalise them. And then I felt surprise, delight and pride, as I started to hear how my thoughts impacted people in the most beautiful way. Thank you to everyone who reads my writing and especially those who acknowledge and celebrate it. You inspire me to keep writing and sharing.
10. Simply, Better Together. 🥰
This year I somewhat subconsciously moved away from the independent, solo working and living lifestyle and embraced the collective. And realised it is so much more richer, more fun, more creative, more accountable and easier to be together. I experienced the joys of living at home with my siblings again for many months and letting everyday living deepen my relationships, rather than destroy them. After wanting to start a podcast for ages, I spent many joyful and creative hours collaborating on a podcast mini-series on conversations with Erica. Peter and I combined our shared experience and knowledge in designing human connection strategy and interventions for UCL School of Management. I completed the Artist's Way creativity course with a community in London. Isla and I designed and facilitated experiential creative challenges. I became co-ambassador for the London Hub of Sandbox, taking joint responsibility for weaving and connecting humans together. I am learning that I do not want or need to be a solo, independent founder or being to succeed in life.
So with simply honest compassion and few regrets, goodbye to 2020.
And to 2021, I have two words for you: Rebirth & Creativity.
I am here.
A creative being in the world.
Ready and forever being reborn.
Wishing you a wonderful 2021!
Sending (Virtual) Hugs, Love & a Warm Smile,
Georgie 🤗❤️