Before and After

I often think back to the time I was working as a full time teacher and I remember what demanding days used to do to me and how often they just stayed with me throughout the evening and into the next day. At the time I didn’t seem to have a good approach to relaxing but I now see that it was not working, because the demands of teaching are not ones that disappear when you leave work. They are a cumulative process that builds over many months and years.

The approach I take to relaxing now is, on the face of it, very similar to the one I took when I was working. I cook, I watch TV, I scroll, although as I discussed yesterday far less than I used to and I use the Calm app before going to sleep. The difference is that I know I have more time to reflect and relax the following day to enable me to come to terms with any lingering stress. When you are working, the stress doesn’t end, it just ebbs and flows, often without you realising, because it is simply the background noise to your life. After I finished full time work it took me two or three months to get rid of the fight or flight mentality. (Actually I always preferred my old biology teacher’s variation on that theme. He, far more accurately, described it as ‘S*** or Sprint’!) I now have a much more relaxed and focused life with fewer distractions. There is part of me which feels guilty about no longer doing something to earn money – the result of upbringing and the good old protestant work ethic! – but the more reflective part acknowledges the value I still create at home. The house is my domain and I am proud of what I do inside the house as I was when I was a full time house husband and as I was as a teacher. Shutting the world out is my way of unwinding but it works so much better now that there is less stress to unwind from!