Ships 

We finished last week’s Tuesday Tips with thoughts on how not to drown in online learning content. It feels abundantly appropriate to start this week talking about ships, boats and sailors.

Ships

Friend-ships. In this time of being distanced from each other, our friendships become increasingly important and precious. Understanding each other has never been more important. Finding ways to stay in touch, and then using them not once but regularly may just be the difference that someone else needs to get through.

Boats

On a call last week, someone commented to me that “we are all in the same boat”. It got me thinking, Really thinking.

I would say we are all in different boats.

For some, social distance and time alone is a wonderful opportunity for reflection, self-growth; a time to wander around in a lazy hazy world of creativity and peace.

For others it is a time of great loneliness, of facing fears, sometimes facing them well, sometimes curling up under our duvets in tears.

For some, money is no issue and relief comes in online purchases, for others it means searching pockets of old coats for lost fivers now the cupboards are bare, scrambling to pay bills still coming into clinic, or relying on the generosity of others to find food and a bed for the night.    

Some are stuck at home, desperate to help, desperate to get out; others are out working, desperate to get back to their loved ones. Some are living with those they wish to escape.

Sailors

I love a good quote. This, from Leonardo da Vinci, says so much to me: “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.”

Not everyone is able to spend time studying or building new business plans through this. But for those who are, enjoy the time. It is a gift. We all know how to study, so I am not adding to this, but I would like to add my thoughts on how to choose what to study – perhaps how to select your rudder and compass.

• What do I already know – what should I be revising. Dust off those textbooks, review the online learning, read and update old notes.
• What learning am I missing? Be honest, what are the gaps? What have I been afraid of and need a little more time to get to grips with?
• What could I research and practice that is outside my normal learning? Something inspirational or relaxing? A new skill? A new language? Yoga? Meditation?
• It would be wrong not to add – sign up to the AestheticSource webinar programme…. 

Then, while we each navigate our unique route, let’s support each other, develop existing friendships and even make new ones; all with empathy, gentleness, grace and responsibility, in the knowledge that each of us is facing a different sea and doing so in a different boat.

"The boat is safer anchored at the port; but that's not the aim of boats." - Paulo Coelho