UNDEAD AT WORK

Since coming back to work from the Christmas holidays (and having a nasty cold) I have been a walking corpse in the office, a horrific shadow of my former self. That's right, I've been a zombie worker drone scaring my colleagues with my vacant stare and sporadic moaning.

I have been groaning the word "b-r-a-i-n-s" as I wander haplessly through the office. This is not because I want to eat one, but rather because I am calling out for my own brain, lamenting the absence of that lovely clump of gray matter that used to inhabit my skull and that once provided me with hours of entertainment.

The first symptom was my tendency to wander somewhere and forget mid stride were I was going. My lack of brains really became apparent during one of those cringe worthy moments where I temporarily forgot the name of someone I have worked with for ages, and when I was called out on it I couldn't come up with one of my usual clever recoveries.... aaaargh b-r-a-i-n-s!

Being the walking brainless dead at the office has it's upswing of course, as everyone has low expectations of you . Also, I suspect many of my colleagues are in a somewhat undead state as well, experiencing their own post-holiday state of zombification.

After mustering up some reserve brain power this morning in order to complete some paper work, my remaining grey matter finally collapsed and I was left with no other choice but to retire for the day back to my zombie den. Also, children tend to be scared of zombies, and an undead social worker is even more frightening, so I had no choice but to leave for the day. Hopefully someone will develop a serum to reverse my condition.

Any zombie moments for you at work this week?

DON'T FORGET TO BREATHE

"Just Breathe"

A form of advice that is so seemingly obvious and vital, and yet so often overlooked. It is also one of my essential resolutions for 2010 (and beyond).

I started thinking about it a few months ago after listening to a podcast of the CBC show "Spark" where researcher Linda Stone was exploring the concept of "email apnea" (the tendency to breathe shallowly, hyperventilate, or not breathe at all while checking email, using using an iPhone, or interacting with similar forms of technology).

In addition to my own form of email apnea I began to notice this pattern for myself in other circumstances as well, especially when I am stuck in traffic and stressed out about getting somewhere. I have a tendency to take shallow and short breaths during the exact moments where my poor oxygen deprived brain needs to be as alert as possible.

I would encourage everyone to take stock of this, especially in the context of our technologically saturated lives where we are often held breathless and captive by the engaging content or some all consuming task that is before us. Next time you are really enraptured by something on your computer try to take notice of how you are breathing and you might be alarmed by what you find.

Part of my mantra at work lately with my social work colleagues is to remind them at times to take big breaths before running off towards another of many stressful circumstances in their day. One of the benefits of taking stock of my own patterns of breathing is to notice when others are in need of this useful reminder as well (used sparingly of course).

So there you have it, one of my hopes for this new year is to allow my diaphragm to expand and extract with great gusto and vitality. I want huge, deep and vital breaths on a regular basis. On average we take 18,000 to 26,000 breaths every 24 hours, and I want a good percentage of those to be pretty damn meaningful this year!

So remember, "just breathe".....

SO THIS IS THE NEW YEAR...

Like many of my fellow human beings, I possess this irrational tendency to project a tempered sense of hope in response to the emergence of a new year. I often awake the first morning of the year with a brief experience of tabula rasa, of starting fresh and thinking the whole world should follow suit as well.

It doesn't take long of course before I catch the next evening news cast and experience the deflating "same shit, different year" perspective in response to some atrocity or another. I often try to avoid the news for a few days following a new year, as such ignorance is indeed bliss, at least for a while.

Of course to think that we can somehow start fresh, disconnected from our own personal nature or human history because of some arbitrary form of time measurement is completely strange and nonsensical on many levels.

I know that on a collective and individual basis, we remain who we are, rooted in the mire of the human condition, which is of course rife with suffering and a stunning lack of imagination at times. The turning of one day, month, year, or decade can't divorce us from this reality.

However misplaced it might be, there is something defiantly beautiful in the act of waking up and thinking for a moment that something, however small, could be different in the coming year. Perhaps it is like some gambler's fallacy deeply rooted in our psyche, allowing us to believe that the odds will eventually work in our favour. Regardless, it is a powerful and necessary force.

In many ways, an unfilled calendar page is a sacred symbol, one that propels us forward with great hope. There is something magical in that brief pause at the start of a new year, before the pages are filled or the script is fully written. We finally untether our imagination and allow it to take flight for a while. The possibilities are intoxicating.

A good way to start any day, really.

(flickr link for photo here)