Nourishing our minds

Welcome to (L)egoland, where cruel and pompous men are strutting their stuff and playing with countries as if they were little plastic bricks. In this global playpen for billionaires, the President of the United States, having played a leisurely round of golf, feels he can in all seriousness quote Napoleon:

‘celui qui sauve sa patrie ne viole aucune loi’, (he who saves his country violates no law).

So, for this president, laws don’t apply, people are fired from their jobs, lying has become the norm, women scarcely feature, and war ravaged countries are eyed up as potential holiday resorts. 

Is switching off the answer?

Elsewhere in the world…well….where to start? Misery, violence, racism, misogyny, poverty, abuse? Levels of awfulness so great that for some of us the only answer is to switch off completely. How many people have you heard saying ‘I can’t watch the news anymore, it’s too upsetting, I can’t face it’. 

But if we don’t face it, what then? Ignore it because we can’t do anything about it? Turn our backs and watch back-to-back quiz shows on the telly? Indulge ourselves as being too fragile and sensitive, while families are wiped out, and unspeakable violence is visited upon large parts of the world.  Is it really possible to ignore everything that may upset you? And perhaps more importantly, is it wise?

Of course, as we’ve often explored in these blogs, many of us stumble along a middle way, navigating the horror without being overwhelmed by it. But what does that look like on a day to day basis? How do people who are well versed in the nastiness of daily events manage to stay sane? What do they do, exactly? How is it possible to find solace in an increasingly wicked world and grasp those opportunities where we can nourish our minds and build resilience. 

There are always the big, general answers – love of nature, strong religious convictions, music, art, family and friends. And they go part of the way to finding moments of peace, of concentrating wholly on something else, of ‘zoning out’. There are also, of course, the rather less healthy options of drugs and alcohol, which, let’s face it, have been alternative routes for centuries.

What on earth is 'lemonading'?

This question of searching for joy and pleasure has recently found its way into the media where the  buzzword of the moment is ‘lemonading’ i.e.turning the lemons that life throws at you into something nicer. The word appeared earlier this month in a research paper which considers the importance of of play in building resilience. The authors suggest that playfulness functions as a kind of spotlight. By ‘lemonading’ we are:

…..creatively imagining and pursuing positive possibilities to cultivate adaptive, enjoyable experiences while maintaining a clear-eyed realism about challenges

The writer AL Kennedy says a similar thing, but with more elegance and force:

‘When we feel beaten, we can take a breath and love: a word, a view, a dog, a dream, a person, a hope. We can act and work and hope like citizens of a better country, a better time’

What is to be done?

Turn away from the madness for a moment. Ask yourself, and others how we can find inner strength in the midst of horrors. How do we take that breath and become resilient?

When a few of us started talking about this, the words tumbled out – so many ideas, so many ways to find those moments of calm which in turn can strengthen our resolve. Here are a few random nuggets from recent informal chats.

Fresh air

Being outside, walking, swimming, cycling, sitting on a bench or just stepping into a back yard can help us to see, hear and experience things very differently. 

Solace in meeting up

Being with others - dancing, belonging to a choir or a class, standing in solidarity, laughing together, becoming part of a joyful activity.

The richness of self

Being alone and finding satisfaction in reading, art, sewing, music, thinking, listening to an inspirational speaker,  completing a puzzle, writing, weeding the garden……

Individual experiences

Tobogganing down a snowy mountain in the dark

Reading Moby Dick and being surprised by its humour

Listening to the Electoral Dysfunction podcasts

Five days at a spa retreat

Seeing a heron every night, immobile but alert, looking out into the darkness.

Knitting baby clothes

Looking closely at trees and their bark

Watching black and white movies 

Wednesday afternoons (Tai Chi) and Thursday evenings (singing)

We've run out of space!

The intention was for this blog to continue with descriptions of  women past and present, whose names are not well known, but who have demonstrated resilience in difficult times. Women like Evelyn Dunbar, for example.

But sorry, we’ve run out of space and will have to wait a while for that. But do, please, continue the conversations – they are therapeutic in themselves.

JANUARY UPDATE ON THE MK FAWCETT CAMPAIGN FOR A SAFER, HEALTHIER, FAIRER MILTON KEYNES

• We have circulated background papers with baseline evidence of the need for making MK Safer, Healthier and Fairer
• Following preliminary meetings with all three MPs for Milton Keynes (Emily Darlington, Callum Anderson and Chris Curtis) we are now preparing for our next meetings with them. Provisional dates are now planned for March.
• We participated in a meeting with the Milton Keynes Youth Cabinet in November 2024 and have discussed our work with them
• We are organising meetings with MKCC party leaders, the first of which took place in mid-January 2025, with two further meetings scheduled for February.
• We are keeping records of our meetings and plan to report back as widely as possible
• We are monitoring and collecting further evidence to support our campaign

We will continue to promote the manifesto campaign and encourage people to become more involved with the political process.

We will include an update in every blog. Thank you for supporting us in our campaigns for gender equality and women’s rights.

To see the papers we have produced, or if you have any queries, please contact us at miltonkeynesfawcettgroup@gmail.com