With the sale of our house in the UK at a critical period, the perfect time spent to put that to the back of our minds was to begin harvesting the olives in our rented space in Portugal.
The other day, as I walked past a local family harvesting their olives, I was astonished at how quickly they cleared their olive trees of olives. It was done with expert precision.
Our efforts today, however, might have seemed a little amateurish compared to our neighbours’ skills. Nevertheless, this was a moment to learn something new and as we discovered, a time to think.
Thinking clearly becomes difficult when there are so many plates to spin. Perhaps you’ve felt the same way at times too? It can feel like you’re taking on one too many plates and the only outcome you can visualise is one where the plates come crashing down.
Standing in a field, then, picking olives from the many trees, seemed like a much needed respite from the spinning plates.
And this is not an activity to be taken lightly in Portugal. Olive cultivation is big business and one of the oldest traditions in the country. It’s fun too.
Some time ago I wrote an article about my ‘happy place’. This was when I was walking along Cleveland Way in Scarborough, UK, and my family and I went berry picking. The kids were happy to explore their natural surroundings, learn about foraging and discovering what they could make with their newly picked berries.
No screens, no rush to be elsewhere, just living in the moment with nature. Today enabled me to feel that again as we harvested the olives. It humbled and grounded me. I think it did with the kids too. Finding them a school in their new home is paramount, but standing in a field learning new cultural standards comes a very close second.
Tomorrow we have many more trees to strip. Along with some textbook homeschooling and more phone calls to get our house sale over the line, I’ll be looking forward to standing in our field again.
Along with my new resistance training which I’m now completing each morning, as a family we are beginning to explore our local area of Palhais in Sertá. And as I don’t have the use of a full time car, walking long distances has been a daily activity.
We happen to be almost in the very centre of Portugal. So much so that in the distance of our accommodation we can see the Centro Geodésico de Portugal, which is a tall white tower signalling the geographical centre of Portugal in Vila de Rei which offers fantastic panoramic views. But this region also has its challenges.
Buses are irregular and, if you do drive, the long and winding road through the mountainous route from Palhais to Cernache do Bonjardim is not for the faint hearted. And for those who are walking from place to place, kerbs aren’t really a thing here.
And that’s what we’re doing for the most part, doing lots of walking.
But luckily, whether we are on foot or in a car, we rarely see many cars on the road which suits my left hand lane driving brain.
In the town of Sertá, there are lots of things to see and do even on a drizzly (yet warmish) November day. Of course, the boys found a football pitch to have a kick about.
And then there’s Trizio, which is a wonderful river beach offering water sports during the summer periods. For now though, we got to see its beauty without any people there. When our youngest, Finlay, managed to stop talking for a second, we could hear just the silence of our surroundings. Bliss.
There are those days where we don’t feel like leaving our accommodation at all. It has a pool, which is freezing, but that didn’t stop Finlay from having a dip!
We know that what is around the corner for us in our lives will be a challenge. But it’s one that we signed up for. Tomorrow we will be looking at another house that has the potential to be our permanent home and business. It won’t be the finished product and we will have to put all of our resources into it, as well as ensuring that the kids’ wellbeing and schooling needs are met. So far, we have been able to explore our surroundings at our leisure. But we await the next chapter and we hope it will be in Palhais.
And we don’t expect a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but we are hoping for a fulfilling, grounding and loving one.
As I was getting the kids ready for school this morning I, as always, ran around like a headless chicken from room to room collecting PE kits, lunch boxes etc but there’s an added load of stress at the moment.
Every room is full of half packed boxes awaiting our house move. Going from one room to another is like an episode of Ninja Warrior as I jump, skip and trip my way to the front door with my two kids under each arm ready to throw into the car.
And I’m sure, as I come back home after school drop off, the boxes at home have been breeding. They’ve multiplied. The task looks even more intimidating by the hour. Indeed, time is of the essence. But…
But I stopped looking.
I stopped looking and I lay on the sofa and closed my eyes. I began to recognise my breathing. Witnessing every intake of breath and appreciating the way my chest and stomach expands as I breath in deeply.
And slowly exhale.
The belly softens. My shoulders drop. My body relaxes.
For the sake of ten minutes, listening to my body, allowing my mind to stop, reflect and contemplate, I enabled myself to reconnect to the day.
The day will wait. I will get stuff done when I’m ready. I’ll finish this text, post it onto my site, put my phone down and get the day done as it was meant to be done.
Early on in my Personal Training career I decided to stop certain weight loss claims to grab a potential client’s attention.
Things like ‘lose a guaranteed 5 pounds a week on my new weight loss plan!’ seemed tacky and tabloid. It’s also misleading.
I also felt that the magic pills and fad diet ads that cluttered my social media feed were damaging to our health and fitness goals. But if they make money from you, they will sell it. They will claim any benefit they can in order for you to buy that product. The regulations on such claims are virtually none existent.
Social media allows us as individuals and the companies that are selling a service, to say whatever we like. Ok. We might be fact checked or receive a three day ban for going against certain guidelines, but how many people are we able to reach before it is flagged as inappropriate or false information?
And giving out falsehoods can be profitable if your face fits. A TOWIE turned influencer can successfully promote the latest diet fad. An extra from Home Alone can encourage an attack on the US Capitol. Heck! Even Katie Hopkins and Billie Piper’s ex can get the British voting public to leave the EU and destroy the economy. All by using buzzwords, soundbites and propaganda.
It has happened long before social media of course. The written press has lied to not only sell questionable products, but fund German fascist regimes ( 1933,The Mail, Lord Rothermere) and criminalise the victims of a football stadium disaster (1988, Rupert Murdoch, The Sun).
And here’s a story that proves the lack of investigative journalism in the UK for the sake of a headline. A story was put out about an England football fan who was so worried about the risk of England failing in the 2006 World Cup that he had paid £100 to insure himself against emotional trauma. The story continued that, if he could provide medical evidence that he had suffered trauma, he would receive a payout of £1 million by a particular online insurance company.
UK tabloids ran with this story, of course, but it didn’t stop there. The Guardian newspaper and the Telegraph too! It even made TV and radio news from no other than ITV, Sky and the BBC. Yes! The BBC! So it must be true, right.
No.
With a quick Google check it was discovered that this guy had been involved in insurance stories before using the same company. One involving insurance on his mortgage and, remarkably, he was the same England football fan who had insured his mental well-being at the previous World Cup in Japan in 2002.
As it turned out, this guy was a marketing director who specialised in promoting web based companies. He had successfully promoted the online insurance company whilst proving that the media, including the UK’s national broadcaster, were lazy in their attempts to bring us factual news.
The health and fitness industry relies heavily on the media running these kinds of remarkable stories in order to get the word out that their product really works!
‘Gemma lost 6 stone by drinking apple cider vinegar!’
‘Bryan gained a six pack by eating fish and chips every day!’
‘Gaynor looks drop dead gorgeous in figure hugging dress after this six week nutrition plan!’
And even I’m a part of that. I appreciate you reading my articles, I really do, but don’t just take my word for it! If there’s something that resonates with you in a health and fitness blog then do a bit of research and find out if it is right for you. Are there any other experts out there that are backing up what I’m saying?
The bottom line is that you have to do your own research when it comes to stuff that you read and hear. You’ll get to know credible sources. You’ll be more confident getting your information from certain people or publications. Ask people that you trust in your own life. Once you have gathered the evidence then you can make more informed choices. And if it is anything to do with your health and wellbeing, then being armed with informed choices is super important to you.
For years (as long as I can remember in fact), I was unable to put the volume of the TV or the car to an odd number. This branched out into oven settings, reading until I reached an even number and other stuff which I had control over. I even set my clients sets of 6,8,10,12 reps. Rarely would I stop a set that I was performing myself at 11, for example.
It’s not through superstition, which is just as well. My eldest was born in 2013 on Friday the 13th. He’s called Jonas. A little shuffle of the words spells Jason! Luckily, Jonas hasn’t asked for a hockey mask yet.
Anyway, back to my odd, odd number thingy. Apparently, this is called imparnumerophobia and it is common.
It has never taken over my life or anything. In fact, it’s something that my wife and I would joke about. She would turn the volume up on a song that she likes in the car and if it went to 9, I would discreetly alter it with the volume on the steering wheel. 10 if I liked it too, 8 if I didn’t.
But, strangely, I’ve been able to control this anxiety recently. My head is in a space that I’ve never known before. Serene. Zen. Of course I am still capable of emotion, feeling fear and sadness. But my journey this year has toughened me up. Every day mine and my family’s future is awaiting further information. So many questions unanswered. When the phone rings this whizz popping in my belly happens. Is it the estate agents? Is it the solicitors? Is it good news or bad?
These butterflies are my adrenal glands. Survival mode kicks in.
But I can point to other periods of my life where I’ve had to develop strength that I didn’t know that I had. Periods where my adrenaline took over.
Starting a new job. Asking my (now) wife to marry me. Opening the doors for the very first time to a new family business. Performing my very first fitness class. Visiting my mum in St Gemma’s. Going to her funeral.
They all required me to say to myself “You’ve got this, Shay, you’re strong.”
And people think I am. Some people might see me as being quite hard, in control, calm. And in truth I try to be the swan. Folk don’t see the feet paddling like f*** below the surface.
A subtle sign, perhaps, would have been the imparnumerophobia. But it’s not something anyone can really detect. It goes unnoticed unless I announce it.
But where’s this little quirk gone? Am I cured? I mean, not that it was an illness, but it did alert me to my anxieties which, in turn, caused more anxiety. Has my skin developed such thickness that I can now laugh in the face of number 7,9,11? Or even 13?!
Maybe not quite so much.
Sure, I can keep the volume on 9 without it really freaking me out, but every day I need to keep saying to myself “You’ve got this Shay.”
So maybe I’m just keeping it all at bay. After all, there won’t be time for cocktails by the pool once I reach Portugal. I’ll need to keep this strength and go again to make the move work.
After a recent conversation with a client I recommended meditation as an option to relieve her of the anxiety that she currently has.
She replied, as so many people do, that she finds it difficult to clear her mind to be able to meditate.
This is just one of the misconceptions about meditation and I feel that more people might be open to trying it if they understood that it isn’t about clearing the mind.
Our mind has often been described as a chimp that won’t stop jumping around, chattering and sometimes being a little mischievous. It won’t stay still. This is your ‘monkey mind’.
Your monkey mind won’t go away, but you can retrain it.
I meditate using lots of different methods but a trusted way of doing this is by using a guide. Lots of guides are available on YouTube, with Jason Stephenson being my particular favourite. Because the guide gives you direction during meditation, they are helping you to retrain your pesky, fidgety chimp, not get rid of it.
And of course, even with a quiet moment to yourself, soothing music or a meditation guide, the chances of thinking about what’s for the kid’s tea is pretty high! That’s totally normal.
Change the word ‘meditation’ to ‘think’. It might help you in your approach to your ‘thinking’ time.
Try thinking about you in 6 months, a year, 5 years and beyond. Think about your family and friends and your aspirations. Think about the dream holiday, house or job. Think about yours and your loved ones health.
Of course, you might still hear the clatter of the monkey in your head distracting your thoughts. It might even take you to events from your past and moments you prefer to forget. The more you try to escape your monkey, the more you become angry at it. Instead, stand tall, smile at it and, over time, even make peace with your monkey. Befriend it.
Meditation doesn’t have to be an over elaborate ritual with candles. It can be just sitting and lying down with a cuppa. Thinking positive thoughts. You’ll never clear your mind, but you can retrain it.
My gym journey, building a new business, being a good husband and father and moving to another country all need a consistent and considered approach.
Whatever the pitfalls each one delivers (and they do) if I live by the rule of consistency then I will eventually find a conclusion that works for me. It might not always be the best or most perfect outcome. I’m a realist. But it will, at least, enable me to move forward and continue my plans to reach that elusive ‘perfection’.
What helps me keep consistent is two main factors. The first is the question ‘Why?’
Why do I do what I do? Why bother with the gym every day? Why put the effort into my relationship with my wife and children? Why start up a new business? Why move to a different country?
The truth is that I would be immensely unhappy if I didn’t.
Some days I really don’t fancy going to the gym, but I enjoy the endorphins and the way it makes me look.
Some days my kids are driving me mad! But if I shout and lose my temper then I am teaching them that being kind and patient does not work.
And some days I really don’t want to deal with solicitors, VISA applications or business plans. But if I don’t do it then the move to Portugal can’t happen and therefore the new business can’t happen. I’ll be back in a commercial gym faster than you can say ‘500 quid a month rent’.
I don’t want the alternative, so I have to be consistent in how I get things done. Having a few days off is not on the table. And this leads me on to factor number 2.
These actions are non-negotiable. I cannot let the consistency slip. Now, I’m not talking about missing the gym for an emergency, bickering with my wife or watching Coranation Street instead of working on my business plan. I’m talking about serious procrastination that begins to turn itself into a lifestyle.
In a year’s time I don’t want to be overweight and miserable. I don’t want to be snappy with my kids and push my wife away. I don’t want to still be in the UK paying double on my mortgage and losing my freedom of movement just to rub salt in the wounds.
Consistently doing these activities gets me to where I want to be, so they are non-negotiable. I have to do them.
So I must address the one major problem I hear from people when they talk about changing their habits or lifestyle and working towards a goal. They tell me that they’re not motivated enough.
The problem with motivation is that it is a fleeting emotion. When it arrives it is fantastic. You’ll book the gym classes, write out a shopping list consisting of lots of fruit and veg, you’ll start to look at other job opportunities. Ones that will make you happy. You’ll call your friend or family member who you’ve been meaning to make contact with again. That’s what motivation can give you.
But what about when it isn’t there? If you haven’t answered your ‘why?’ and created a set of non-negotiables then you won’t get any closer to your happiness. You have to keep waiting for that glimmer of motivation that comes around now and again.
It is those cold, dark mornings when you get to the gym when you really don’t feel like it that edges you closer to a goal. It’s working through an online open university course on an evening when your friends have gone out for a few drinks that gets you out of your mundane work life rut. Motivation, on its own, won’t do that.
Take a moment to write down five things that you would like to achieve in the next 12 months. Next to each one, write the question ‘why?’ Honestly answer it. Dig deep and give your most honest answer, however hard it is to read it.
Then implement one thing that you will do to work towards each goal. It doesn’t have to be life changing, but whatever it is must become your consistent non-negotiable. You must do it when you say that you will.
From now until your 12 month goal you will sometimes find yourself without motivation, even demoralised. But keep your consistent approach.
Motivation is like a wind up toy. It’ll give you one big burst of energy or inspiration but eventually it stops. Consistency, albeit not a term that is as sexy or flashy, is the key to unlocking your future goals.
Shay is a Personal Trainer, CBT therapist, meditation guide and lifestyle blogger.
Some days can be a drag. Perhaps the ups of a festival with lots of live music with thousands of people can leave the next day a bit of a come down. It’s a bank holiday but there’s lots to do. A business plan keeps popping up in my mind but I keep procrastinating. I’ve watched Darwin Nunez’s two goals from yesterday a hundred times and I’ve decided to write this blog. Important, but not as pressing as the business plan.
Or is it?
I’m writing down my thoughts of exactly how I’m feeling in the now. Kinda like a diary. Something that I have encouraged many of my clients to do. So maybe it is quite pressing. Except this diary is put out to the world for everyone to read. Still, if it resonates with just one person then I’m happy for this to be seen.
I had to go into my son’s bedroom today to intervene in a dispute on Fortnight. He was upset. This grumpiness is usually a sign of tiredness. We didn’t leave the festival until 11 last night and he hasn’t learnt the art of sleeping in on a bank holiday yet.
After giving advice about how to move forward regarding his dispute he still argued his point to me. Feeling like a Premiership referee with a footballer contesting his red card, I said,”Nobody’s mood is getting me down today.” With that I left his room.
I knew that I was tired and edgy myself first thing this morning. It’s nothing that a coffee wouldn’t solve, but telling my son, myself and what felt like the whole universe, “nobody’s mood is getting me down today,” helped me in developing today’s mantra. The aggressive driver, the rude person in the supermarket barging into the queue, any phone caller trying to piss on my parade or my own kid throwing a paddy over a computer game were not going to get me down today.
Eventually, I have now got my kids to come off of their screens and play a board game. Old skool playing. The game is called The Game Of Life. A classic 70’s game about trying to ‘win’ at life.
Perhaps defiantly stating to the world that nobody will get me down is a little win at life for myself. At least for today.
Never Give Up PT 