Based on this one comment I wonder whether you found a way to get round the uncomfortable public speaking thing. Whatever the case, your writing is refreshing, and interesting to read!
Your detailed recall of the stages of thought, feelings and actions you observed in yourself is clearly recounted here. It seems that you were able to soothe yourself through focusing on being in the moment. The ability to detach from /notice what's going on around you and to choose 'red car, red car...' reminds me of my own attempts to focus on a basic meditation 'rising' and 'falling' of breaths, which is so challenging! It sounds like even recognising changes, for example to your visual acuity, you're still able to exist in the present moment - that relates, I think, to a meditative state, which engenders calm. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Any monetisation could add to the funds of an agreed /a couple of agreed just causes. This, as opposed to individual acquisition of Good Heart Tokens, seems Goodest to me:)
Thanks for reminding me of my small concern: time-wasting, specifically doom-scrolling on Twitter. I will listen to the book!
Kindness is my favourite attribute. This is good to read!
A great read, some wise and compassionate stuff: reaching such insights will have taken time. Comments will, no doubt, be interesting too! Thanks.
The Google sheet CDP is really interesting: particularly keen to see the development of the sleep tab - sleep records/routines for the whole family could be fascinating over time.
This sounds well thought out, useful teaching for your children. Most importantly, through observing your daughter's behaviour and attention, you could gauge how able Lily was to attend to/focus on traffic from both directions. The learner teaches you what's going on; teaching is mutual learning. This post also brings the retrospective horror of walking to school (as a primary aged child 6/7yrs) when the walk, three miles each way, involved crossing a main road. I did not know, (up until I reached twenty years old) that most people saw differently to me. Buses, cars, blackboards, TVs all were very blurry, I figured it was 'normal.' Turns out I was always extremely myopic (-10 currently) So, hopefully all children have great eye testing and great eyesight once they're able to understand the elements of street crossing!
Sure it is essential to differentiate between those who have been tested for COVID and that self-reporting which, in the absence of a test, is another information source. To repeat my experience of becoming ill in the time of COVID 19: I couldn't get a test in July 2020; I don't know whether it was COVID-19 that hit me like a speeding train. I still have cognitive difficulties, severe fatigue, continuous headaches, lack of taste and smell, and other new things which have gone wrong physically. I'm waiting for the latest results of brain/spine MRI; I'm without a diagnosis. My reading suggests M.E., encephalitis, Long COVID and possibly lots of things - continued testing thus far provides no answer. I've also learned about FND and can see how these symptoms could, in the absence of an actual biomarker, be put under that umbrella. To have one's symptoms acknowledged matters. Losing one's fundamental abilities to function is so devastating; reading that such symptom clusters are deemed psychosomatic seems, to the afflicted, unhelpful.
Beautifully expressed. It is always reassuring to read stuff which agrees with one's understanding! My thoughts frequently veer between, 'I need to say something or watch while they fall deeper into that particular abyss,' and 'Say nothing. Trust. They will work this stuff out.' This post allows for pause, and for me to focus more on what humility looks like.