Why taking time to breathe has been good for my soul.
Taking a career break is the best thing I’ve ever done.
Now, I’m fully aware that leaving a job, or stepping out of a role, for some time off isn’t something that everyone can do, for a whole host of reasons. I know I’ve been SO lucky to have this opportunity. But I tell you something, it been good for my soul. 🌈
Importantly, I’m achieving my primary goal of spending more time being Mama – and admitting that it’s harder to be a full time parent than it is doing marketing. 😊
I’ve learnt a lot over the last two months, and with another two months before I start a new role (exciting), I thought I’d share some of my reflections from my time out:
🌟 I know my stuff – over the last year I definitely doubted myself for various reasons – not knowing if I’d lost ‘my touch’. But having interviewed for a few roles and met some really great people, I remembered what I love! I was asked to go along and talk to teams (thanks again Verity Gregson) and asked for advice from people I respect (Caroline Rhys Jones). I even got asked to do some consultancy work via a contact of my Dad’s, which totally warmed my heart. Marketing really is my great love, and I’m excited to do more, with great new people.
🌟 Being brave is cool – leaving a role that I loved at a firm that I’d been at for over a decade, was brave. At the time I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, but now I know it was simply the next chapter. I also left a role before this last one, after nearly a decade, and survived! It takes courage to see that the place you’re in isn’t part of the next chapter, and then make change. I hold so many wonderful memories from that time, as I do from a career spanning over 25 years! No regrets, just gratitude, but time for something new.
🌟 I am really lucky – having time out has allowed me to focus on my family, my friendships (old and new) and me! To think I have already had a few months off is mind blowing. But I have packed in so much. I got a new job! I’ve had lovely lunches with friends. I’ve spent time with my family. Had a holiday. And importantly, Sammy has stopped asking me if I am going to London. There’s also the flip side – people I thought would stay in touch, or reach out, haven’t and that has been hard. But equally I’ve heard from so many people I didn’t expect to, and I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported during this time.
🌟 Being his Mama is the best job – this time has been so restorative, not just for me (I’m walking, exercising – sort of – and being kinder to myself generally), but also for Sammy. I am present. When he wakes, When he gets home. And I get to do more bedtimes. You cannot put a price on that. I know that when I go back to work in a few months, to a new role, I will need to balance things again, but this time will have set me up to find the balance we need as a family.
So as I head into spring (I’m hopeful that is is finally here) and wrap up the Easter holiday with a few more days out, I feel grateful, rested and happy! If you’d have told me six months ago that’s how I’d be feeling now, I don’t think I’d have believed you, so I guess I can’t ask for more that.
Why menopause should be a topic of conversation for everyone!
I haven’t written anything on here for a year – which I am disappointed about. Not least because it genuinely is a cathartic thing to do. Today I felt like I wanted to capture some thoughts on a topic that I – now – feel like I want to talk about, and champion. The menopause.
A bit of a taboo subject I know and I debated whether to share this here so publicly, but when you feel that the dialogue needs to be louder on a topic that many will shy away from, I figured it might help.
It’s something I now feel hugely passionate about and I hope that sharing my recent experience will help others, especially in the workplace. A post shared here on LinkedInby one of my marketing crew, is so important to so many, and not just women. Employers, men, friends, partners all need to be aware of the impact that menopause can have on women. After all, it happens to half of the population. Many of you will know that I work at PwC and our work at PwC on this topic has been brilliant in its recognition of what this means for men and women in the workplace.
I mean who wants to talk about periods?
I get that for some people this topic is a little taboo, I mean who wants to openly talk about periods right? But this is so much more than a hot flush or two and the time of the month. The reason this is important to me is because without the work that my colleagues and team mates at PwC have done to talk about this topic, I would never have known I was smack bang in the middle of menopause. It sounds strange to say that out loud and of course I debated sharing this so publicly, but I genuinely feel grateful for the answers I now have in what was an extremely unnerving time for me – and has to be said, for my husband too.
What do I mean by unnerving? If I’m honest I hadn’t been feeling ‘myself’ for around three years. Maybe longer. But I put what I was experiencing down to having had a child at 40 years old, (I’m nearly 46 now). Baby brain. Tired from trying to have a career, a young son, a marriage, a home. All the things that women tell themselves. But it was when I started to google ‘early dementia signs’ on a regular basis that I knew something was off.
Am I losing my mind?
I often joked with my husband that I would lose things before I’d even had a chance to. That I couldn’t remember a simple list of groceries. That I would feel worried or anxious about something very simple. And now he and I both look back and realise this was something that I coped with, or on some occasions didn’t cope with, for a long time, but hid well. It was also something that we now realise could have resulted in the breakdown of our marriage too, but thankfully didn’t. So you see, this is more than just a hot flush!
What triggered my trip to the GP was some pain I’d been having in my shoulder, neck and chest and some heart palpitations that were getting pretty regular and debilitating. I hadn’t shared this with anyone really, not even Stu. I also hadn’t really considered menopause despite a whole host of other symptoms that I’d kind of laughed off if I’m honest. Even when I was off work and I confided in a few people, their first reaction was “is work too much, do you feel stressed” and I guess I was there too. But it’s so easy to blame work and dive right into “it must be stress”. I love what I do, and yes I take my leadership and team responsibilities seriously, and it’s a place I thrive – but when the thing I loved also became tough because I couldn’t remember what I’d agreed, or names of people, or even how to do what I do best, I knew something else must be going on.
You’re not just stressed
A wonderfully considerate GP, a bunch of tests and a few weeks off work to see what was going on, found that while there were things to rectify, my blood tests showed I was in menopause. And very much so. To quote my doctor and the menopause specialist I have spoken to since “it’s no wonder you’ve felt like you couldn’t function”. My memory loss was really worrying me. Even just recently telling one of my team that my husband worked for a Bank that he hadn’t worked at in over ten years – and in the background Stu looking at me with a really puzzled face! The weight gain came very quickly. The achey joints. Itchy skin. Low concentration. The thinning hair. Anxiety in scenarios that never used to phase me. Insomnia. Worrying I would drop the ball at work. At times – and I know I can be dramatic – I honestly felt like I was losing my mind. But I ploughed on just thinking this was life and I’m sure so many other women do the same.
Did you know that there could be more than a million women with menopausal symptoms that feel like they can’t continue in their work because of the lack of support they are getting, both from their employer and their GP. A million women? “A poll of 2,000 women currently experiencing menopause or premenopausal symptoms across the UK, commissioned by Koru Kids, found 18 per cent were looking to leave their jobs because of their symptoms. Koru Kids estimates there are at least 5.87 million women of menopausal or premenopausal age currently working in the UK – extrapolated from data from the Office for National Statistics – meaning that at least 1,057,000 woman could be looking to quit because of their symptoms”.People Management January 2022
Isn’t that astounding? But I can see how this can happen. I am very fortunate to work for an employer that takes these issues seriously. I had a few weeks off to assess what might be going on health wise and came away discovering something entirely different. And I admit, when the doctor told me that my FSH levels were off the scale, I cried. Not because I was worried but because I was so relieved. I genuinely felt like I was slowly going crazy and my doctor told me she hears so many women say the same thing. I’d finally discovered what was going on. Yet to think that initially when I saw a private male GP, he told me to go onto antidepressants despite me not articulating symptoms related to clinical depression – this is a very common occurrence. Antidepressants help with clinical depression of course, but they are not the answer to menopause.
There are brilliant resources that can help
I have since found such a brilliant list of resources that have helped me understand the menopause, the power of HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) in giving women their lives back (albeit I appreciate not everyone can take HRT) and how many women fly under the radar for fear of the stigma attached to this topic. If you haven’t heard of Dr Louise Newson,she is “paving the way for evidence-based care, treatment for women during peri-menopause and menopause”. The balance app has been invaluable for me and I encourage others who haven’t discovered this yet to give it a try. More importantly, HRT can be a live saver and I don’t say that lightly.
If you think about being diagnosed with a disease like diabetes or having thyroid problems, both hormone related, you are given medication to address the hormone deficiency or hormones lost. HRT should be afforded the same importance. Yet many GPs will not give it to women experiencing symptoms. I know it won’t be the answer for everyone or indeed the answer as a standalone, but for so many women it will help them feel like they can get back what they’ve lost. Because it can feel like you have lost part of who you were – and maybe then we won’t see this impact women in the workplace either.
I’m very early on in this journey and I’m sure there will be a lot that I learn as I go. I hope that by sharing my experience, and one I hid for a while for fear of what people might say, it can go some way towards ending the stigma surrounding menopause. All I know is that for the first time in a long time I feel a huge sense of hope, not just for me personally (I’m praying HRT works just so I can remember where my husband actually works), but also for other women who have been suffering in silence for way too long.
Let’s continually remind people that this topic matters and people need to know that menopause is more than just a hot flush!
Hi there, it’s been a while hasn’t it? September was the last time I posted on here and that was a huge milestone for us as Sammy started school. Since then, so much has happened – lockdowns, more lockdowns, a cancelled Christmas, vaccinations, elections (am so thankful Trump has gone), the list goes on. I genuinely didn’t expect us to be here nearly a year on. The storm has certainly raged over that time.
I heard a phrase early on in the first lockdown in March last year which has stuck with me. So many people said that we were all in the ‘same boat’ – but actually we’re not. In the same storm yes absolutely, but not everyone has the same boat. Some have luxury yachts, while others are struggling to keep a dinghy afloat. And that is the reality. The storm too can rage for people in different ways, some pass through it, taking each day as it comes. Others really find the monotony of life tough to handle.
“Being lucky doesn’t mean that it can’t feel tough too”
I felt really hopeful last autumn that this thing that has held us to ransom for the last year, might start to leave us alone. But now as we head into February half term (yep, I’m now that person that talks in school terms), I have a 4 year old at home, again, and the juggle is absolutely real. I am clinging onto the fact that he might be able to go back to school in March, so at least work life can feel more tolerable. There is some light relief somewhere in all of this though. If I tell you that just this last week Sammy joined me on a virtual call with one of my teammates Claire, so that he could show her his herbivore and carnivore dinosaur roars, it wouldn’t be a joke. Now, it certainly gave Claire and I a much needed giggle, but there are also days when I just want to shout. Loudly. I don’t have a reason, I’m lucky and I realise I’m lucky. But being lucky doesn’t mean that it can’t feel tough too.
It felt tough last week, I hit a wall. Full pelt. Head on. I remember thinking that I couldn’t remember what my old life felt like. I questioned my marriage, my work, myself. I have since chatted to friends, work colleagues and Stu and the world already feels very different. The power of talking and teaming are very important for me. But for that moment, that week, it felt bloody hard. I know that this wall presented itself as a result of a very full on and emotional few weeks that preceded. You see, as a marketing team, we were grieving. I was grieving.
“The days and weeks after were heavy”
We’d lost our friend and teammate Jack in January in very tragic circumstances. It floored us all. Our sadness and heartache extended to Liz, also in our team and Jack’s partner. Hands down one of the toughest phone calls I have had to take. The days and weeks after that, including the day he was laid to rest this week, were heavy. There is no manual for this type of thing and so you just operate on gut instinct – well, that’s what I did I guess. Your priority is getting arms around the team, but in a way that doesn’t feel like a corporate boilerplate. For me, I simply had to be me. Show them that I too felt their pain. I hope that they knew very early on from the tears they saw me openly shed, that we are all human.
There was a fleeting moment where I questioned the tears. Is this what ‘the boss’ should be doing in front of her team – our crew as I love to call us. There is a stigma that too often surrounds this concept of leadership and a stiff upper lip. Leadership for me is not about a corporate manual or org charts. It’s about a dialogue between one person and another. It is human and real. I knew very early on when I took this role, that I was going to be me. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am passionate. And above all else, I care. Being anything other than me would have felt dishonest to me and to the team. You will never please everyone, I understand that, but being authentic will see you a long way.
“Just be yourself and do your best”
People will always have a view of what you should or shouldn’t do, and when faced with that quandary I will always remember a great bit of advice I once heard from that wise man, my Dad – “Don’t worry Bella, just be yourself and do your best” and whenever there is a day when even being yourself and doing your best feels too hard, just remember it’s ok not to feel ok.
I started to write this piece a week or so ago. I edited it. Deleted it. Started again. It goes against all blog rules in terms of word count that’s for sure, but I felt like this was a subject that could go on and on. It’s a funny subject to write about because grief is such a personal thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes. People don’t like to talk about it. They can shy away from it. It doesn’t need to be about death, but it definitely involves the feeling of loss.
I decided to write this a week or so ago because this weekend sees us dive into Father’s Day in the UK. A day when my brother and I used to take the old man down to a local pub and have fish and chips and a pint (him not me). That was a tradition we had and something that Chris and I (Chris is my brother, for those of you who don’t know), along with my Mum, Stu and now Sammy have tried to do since – fish and chips down the pub. I say since, because my Dad is no longer here. He died in 2011. Milestones and dates always crop up in the year when you are reminded of the loss. Reminded of the fact that you no longer need to buy that ‘Dad’ card anymore. Simple things, yet the things I have personally found very hard.
“I used to take the old man down to the local for fish and chips and a pint!”
So, what about this irony I mention. The irony that the person you want to talk to about how you’re feeling, what you did that day, that piece of advice you might need. That person you want to talk to about the loss you feel, the grief, is the person that is no longer here. I have said many times “if only there were phones in heaven”. Just to have one more call. One last chat, or in our case debate about some topic or other. For me that comes from the sudden nature of what happened to him, to us. I don’t think that differs if you lose a loved one after a lengthy illness either. Despite having time perhaps to say all the things you want, that feeling of wanting to say more never goes away, for me anyway.
My Dad was the person who was practical, opinionated – and those of you reading this who knew him, know exactly what I mean – he had a solution for everything. Yes, he was stubborn, but he did always have an answer, even if it wasn’t the one you wanted to hear. So many times, since his death I have wanted one more chat. On the big life choices. That void for me is still so huge, especially when it comes to my career and work. He was good at that stuff. Yes I miss so much about him and feel angry that he never got to meet Stu or his grandson, but as a daughter I just wish I could have one more chat.
One of the biggest decisions I ever made when he was alive was when I decided to move to Singapore for work. I remember the calls to my Mum and Dad so clearly. My Mum said “why do you want to move so many miles away. It’s so far, you can’t just ‘pop’ home”, she wasn’t so sure about her baby girl moving to the other side of the world. She relented of course, and was very proud of me, but at first, she wasn’t entirely ok with it. The call with my Dad on the other hand, “Brilliant Bella (my Dad’s nickname for me), you must do it, why on earth would you even be second guessing, pack your bags and go and I will visit you” – all said in his Croatian way. That was the other side of the coin. And I did go, and he did visit. What transpired on the second leg of that work trip, when I moved on to Australia, was that I was in Sydney when I got that call from my Mum to say he had gone. My first thought? I am so many miles away from home. And let me tell you, those words from my Mum rang in my ears on that god-awful flight home.
“Brilliant Bella! Pack your bags and go”
This week I caught up with a work friend who recently lost her husband. We chatted with two other work friends. It was lovely. And all of us on that call, whilst there to find out how she was doing, realised that we had all suffered loss. Different types of loss of course, but we all knew grief. Painful, heart aching, stomach churning grief. And yet we were all surviving. This made me remember a quote I saw many years ago which reads “little by little we let go of loss, but never of love”. That’s why despite always feeling like a little piece of my heart has gone forever and there are days when I miss him immensely, or get choked at realising I haven’t looked at his picture in a while and I’ve forgotten what he looked like, the love remains. What I will add here before we get too tear jerky, is my Dad wasn’t a saint, we argued, a lot, but, as an adult I found that he was the one who gave me the other side to the coin, and without question he loved us. So, the love does outweigh the loss. Always. And it is that love that keeps the loss under control, for me.
“Little by little we let go of loss, but never of love”
More poignantly, and heartbreakingly, this piece has even more meaning for me, because today one of my closest friends lost her beautiful Mum. I have cried for her. Knowing that she too now is at the hands of grief and loss. A different kind, because it is unique to us all, but nevertheless, a heart wrenching feeling. My greatest hope is that the immense love they had will help carry her through. In the last six months, two of my other friends lost their Dads. Loss and grief are all around for so many, every day. But if we hold onto the love, then that is where we can hold onto hope.
Of course, given it is Father’s Day this weekend, I am now lucky that I get to celebrate another wonderful father in my Stu. Sammy gets to buy him another mug (what else do you buy them?!) and whilst this ‘new world’ we live in means we can’t go to a pub tomorrow; we might keep the tradition alive and have fish and chips! The irony there though, is that I’d love to call my old man to tell him that.
In memory of all those we have lost who are dear to us . My candle is alight.
Life on Marz 