My daughter has been having relationship problems recently culminating in a painful breakup which isn’t quite a breakup. “I think he’s afraid of getting hurt somewhere down the line, so he’s trying to minimise it by breaking up now” she says. I’ve heard many similar excuses for bewildering behaviour in the name of progress but […]
How To Deal With Pain
My daughter is sharing with me her reading list for university and bemoaning the cost of the textbooks in the way that one would if one were actually having to pay for them. I tell her about how I remember my own study books being astronomically expensive but how I really loved buying them all […]
How To Be Distracted
I need to write a presentation but I am finding it hard to craft the beginning. To avoid the discomfort of sitting and staring at an empty screen I go and make coffee but, as the minute’s tick by, I start to feel bad about myself, about not using my time efficiently. To avoid the […]
How Emotional Muscle Memory Gets In Your Way
Listening to “Only Artists” on R4 this week Howard Goodall is describing the importance of breaking free from the “muscle memory” created through composing on the piano. Once your hands know where to go they tend to gravitate back there every time. It made so much sense when I thought about my own songwriting. Why […]
How To Make Life Easier
When the children were small they liked to paint, and the simplest way to minimise the mess was to buy a large roll of paper and cover the entire dining table with it. Wherever paint was daubed it didn’t matter. They could dip and brush with gusto creating enormous brightly coloured murals until the discipline […]
