The Therapy Edit - On a simple way to feel happier

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

On this episode of The Therapy Edit Anna considers the wonder of boredom and how we can find more joy in the mundane moments in life.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, Psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi everyone. Welcome to today's solo episode of The Therapy Edit. And today I am going to talk. I have not got any notes. Often what I do is I write some notes so that I've got some bullet points to talk through. but this time it's more about kind of sharing a thought and a story of mine. So you might remember if you listen regularly to this podcast that a few weeks ago I shared one on boredom in motherhood because it can feel like quite a taboo to admit that certain aspects of motherhood are boring when they are.

And I gave some tips on how we might address that sense of boredom to relieve it. And, yeah, just to bring a little bit more colour into those grey boring moments and those mundane times. But anyway, off the back of that, I've been thinking recently about boredom. So I'd like to share another thought that completely reframes it for me and actually has me, yeah, seeing it in a completely different way and experiencing it in a completely different way. And my thought is to recognise the absolutely. privilege of boredom because i think when we feel bored when we are going through the motions when we are in the thick of that day to day that boredom it's a lack of many things isn't it's a lack of excitement but also it is a lack of pain it can be a lack of drama a lack of

panic, a lack of anxiety, and I remembered back to a few different moments in my life where I just craved to be bored again. I craved to do those things that feel so fruitless and so mundane. One of those moments was after my sister, many of you will know that she had a brain tumor when she was about two and a half, which is really strange for me to think now when I look at my children, I look at my three-year-old, and I think of the difference in life experience that they are having to what was going on in my family at that time. And I remember so she had a brain chemo, and she was about two and a half. And then we were told that she would have maybe six months to live. She had brain surgery. So we're going back a good number of

years ago where they, you know, they had a lot of incredible knowledge and skill, but different the prognosis, this would have been different to how, different now to how it was then. And she had this brain surgery and we were told that she'd have about six months of life. And she went on to live for a further two and a half years. And the memories that we packed into that time were amazing. Anyway, her cancer returned. And I remember waiting in the hospital as she had gone through the scanner. And we were waiting to speak to the consultant.

and some of her symptoms had started returning and we were scared and as I sat in that in that hospital and I must have been about nine nine only a couple of years older than my oldest child and I just remember thinking I want the boring I want the Sunday afternoon with a dipy eggs and you know there wasn't much television options back then I think it was normally songs of praise on a Sunday afternoon and dippy eggs in the living room on the floor and that would be a real treat on a Sunday afternoon not to eat at the table and we'd have some music playing my dad was a big fan of you know the soundtrack to my childhood one of them would have been Simon and Garfunkel still love listening to them now mostly because the memories and I just remember having that music in my mind

and that that vision of us sitting on the floor in the living room and thinking I want that I want that I want that, I want it back, I'd do anything, I would do anything to have that back again. And I think there are other moments in my parenting where, you know, those phone calls that come and those curveballs that hit and I remember losing one of my kids in a water park on holiday, not for long at all, and he was safe and found. But in that moment, I thought, I want anything, I'd do anything for the whiny car journeys, I'd do anything to know that I could have that back. And I remember another moment where one of my kids when they were four months old had had to have some emergency bowel surgery.

And I remember being in the hospital desperately thinking, I just want those boring days of being on the sofa with a teething child looking at a box set. And it's in the moments where things feel, we feel vulnerable, where life looks like it might change, that we crave the mundane. It's not those mountaintop experiences. It's not those defining memories or those wonderful celebrations that we have. What we crave is the boring. So yesterday, as I was just looking after the three kids after school, I think one's run down. She was crying a lot. The boys were fighting. And the kitchen was an absolute tip.

I shared it on Instagram to share one of those moments that I always just find so reassuring when I see it on other people's social media feeds. And it was, you know, I surveyed that scene. I stood there and I thought, oh, my gosh, this is so, oh, it's such a slog sometimes. And I looked around at the, you know, the food on the floor and the school shoes kind of just dotted around and things hadn't been tidied and everything was a toast. metal. I'd half prepared dinner. Their dinner hadn't been cleared up. And I looked at it and I thought, these are the moments. This border is beautiful. This mundane is a privilege. This is everything I want to

absorb. This is everything that there will be moments in life and this is the hard thing, isn't it? It's the truth of it. There are hard times ahead. There are wonderful life affirming times ahead. But there are hard times ahead too. So I want to to not in order to devalue my feelings of sometimes this is overwhelming, sometimes it is challenging, sometimes it is boring. And those are true and they are feelings that are there and they can totally sit aside this recognition and this gratitude in the acknowledgement of the privilege in those boring Monday moments in those groundhog days. So I encourage you and this is something I'm trying to do more often myself is to every now and again when things feel like

when you're in the drudgery when you're in the day to day just stop for a second and look and tell yourself man this this mundane is beautiful this boring is a privilege this is everything I need this is everything one day I may find myself wanting and I find it really helpful I I find it really anchoring. I find that it brings a wave of gratitude over me that can sit beside that boredom or that overwhelm or that exhaustion and just bring a little bit of balance into it. So I wish you many beautiful moments of boredom. I wish that you will find yourself marvelling at the beauty of that mundane. Thank you so much. much for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share,

subscribe and review. It really makes a massive difference as to how many people this podcast can help. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my books called My Dave and Mother and Know Your Worth and my brand new book called The Little Book of Calm for New Mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book. read it from front to back. You just dip in according to what emotion you're feeling, where you'll find a mantra, a short passage and a tip to help give you some comfort and guidance in that emotion. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way. This is a platform packed with guides, resources and videos with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental health

and emotional well-being. Have a good week. Thank you.