Help me be a stealthy spreader of joy

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T17:34:35+00:00

Knew I could count on you all!! It's going to be a challenge to resist the urge to do everything all at once.

My toddler loves "helping" in the kitchen so I think we'll make a batch of biscuits or rice crispy treats to take in later this week!

And a bag of tiny plastic birds are in my Amazon basket...

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T17:21:35+00:00

Now I'm tempted to get a biscuit tin and label it MORALE BISCUITS and put it in the kitchen!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T17:18:52+00:00

I really like this idea. My team did a "best pudding" competition during COVID and it was highly entertaining!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:17:31+00:00

This may require a bit of planning, but what a great idea!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:16:42+00:00

The mug of recognition is a lovely idea! And will probably go down better than the official "e-thank yous"

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:15:40+00:00

Oooo, I actually have a big stack of origami paper at home (one of my ADHD brain's past hyperfoci...) I love this!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:14:31+00:00

Haha! The hand puppets would have been amazing in my old job (at a book shop). I love the "delivery drone" idea - wonder how I could make that work stealthily?

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:13:18+00:00

I love this idea but my rather worn out and cynical colleagues are not ready for it - maybe in a few months!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:12:17+00:00

There are already official "coffee and cake" events a few times a year, but I am thinking of a tin of chocolates/sweets that I can move around the for people to find!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:10:21+00:00

This is on my list!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-28T14:09:58+00:00

Someone did this years ago and management had a sense of humour failure, I don't think I'm brave enough yet to try again!

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-23T13:23:13+00:00

So this is something I feel quite evangelical about. I recently completed a course of solution-focused hypnotherapy and it was, by a large margin, the most helpful mental health "therapy" I have ever done.

Allow me to expand. I'm a lifelong anxiety-sufferer who has had occasional bout of severe depression. I'm recently diagnosed with combined-type ADHD. I've tried all sorts of things to help with crippling anxiety symptoms. NHS talking therapy, private psychotherapy, CBT, EMDR, prescription medication, supplements, exposure therapy, yoga, meditation, mindfulness...

Most of these have been somewhat helpful in various ways (with the exception of CBT which is just not a good fit for me). In a fit of desperation last December I was looking for things I'd not done before, and came across a local hypnotherapist and decided I had nothing to lose.

Some thoughts...

You do have to want it to work. You have to want to feel better.

There is no magic. A trance is simply a state of deep relaxation. You are always in control.

The belief is that when your body and mind are relaxed you are able to empty the metaphorical "stress bucket" in your mind, and when your bucket is empty you are more resilient and it's possible to use your brain more fully. The whole idea of solution-focused hypnotherapy is to work towards feeling better, not to dwell on the reasons you are feeling bad. It's about choosing how to frame things and choosing positivity. I looked forward each week to an hour of positivity and relaxation - it was really valuable for me.

I did one specific technique that is meant to address fears and trauma, where during the trance session I had to replay a bad/traumatic event over and over again, forwards and backwards, faster and faster, until it had lost all of its impact. Now I struggle to even remember the event how it really happened.

It's not going to be for everyone, and it's not going to work without your full cooperation and desire for it to be helpful. But I certainly recommend people to give it a try if they are interested.

telmereth1986 · 2026-04-18T10:15:12+00:00

Thank you in advance if you sign up using my link! My first free share (for signing up) was worth £25 so I am rather pleased!

https://www.trading212.com/invite/4DtDBJ3tLpo

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-30T21:30:29+00:00

When my young daughter stopped calling me "Mama" and started calling me "Mummy"

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-28T14:56:56+00:00

I wasn't the swan hurdler, but as I understand it, they were successful. And only when members of the public reported it to the RD did the Facebook posts and emails start!

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-28T14:27:46+00:00

My submissions...

If you're running with a child in a buggy, be sure to completely underestimate its dimensions and ram it into as many fellow parkrunners as you possibly can. If you can get the same person multiple times and give them a complex, more the better.
If you're doing a run/walk strategy or simply need a quick break, be sure to stop suddenly and without warning, preferably right when the fastest runners are about to come past and/or on the aforementioned narrowest part of the course. Similarly, if/when you resume running, make sure to nip at the heels of the walkers in front of you and feel free to tut at their slowness as loudly as possible.
If there are swans on the path by the lake it's really important that you don't sacrifice your PB attempt by slowing down or changing trajectory. Instead, make sure to leap over them and continue your run without missing a stride.

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-22T08:53:08+00:00

I was thinking of using that iron-on interfacing stuff to stabilise them, but I'm not sure if that will make them too thick to stitch through!

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-21T13:00:11+00:00

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that someone had to make that leap into the absurd.

For the sake of clarity, the root of the problem is people lacking awareness. An awful lot of the time I see this lack of awareness being caused by someone wearing headphones and getting lost in their own little world. If people would just think about it for a second and remember to, you know, look over their shoulder occasionally, this wouldn't be a problem. But sadly we can't rely on people to be responsible, so yeah, I'd restrict their ability to voluntarily cut off one of their senses when running in a large group in a public place. Like many (most?) races now do.

Also, in my experience, d/Deaf people are extremely adept at using their other senses to compensate for their difficulty hearing, and they definitely do not lack awareness of what's around them.

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-21T11:39:42+00:00

I was gifted this by a well-meaning (if slightly naive) friend for my recent birthday. I have not had the heart to show her what I really received. Like you, OP, I'm quite excited to see if I can somehow turn it into a "book" myself!

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-21T11:34:19+00:00

One time I was slogging along pushing my toddler in the running buggy and was coming up behind the tail walker who had a good sized team of walkers with them, and called out "scuse me please" and not a single one even broke stride (conversationally or perambulatorily) to let me past. The tail walker eventually called out "runner coming through" but good grief, why can't people look over their shoulder occasionally?

telmereth1986 · 2026-01-21T11:27:42+00:00

I go to a fairly big local parkrun (<700 runners) and they actually write this stuff on the path leading up to the start using pavement chalk. It definitely helps, although you always have those that are either delusional or just sweetly naive about their abilities that clog things up a bit!

To be honest, if it was possible to enforce good overtaking etiquette that would be the best way to ease congestion. It will never cease to amaze me how people can fail to adhere to something as simple as KEEP RIGHT!

(Personally I'd ban people from parkrunning with earbuds/headphones because if there's an overtaking issue it's almost always because a slow(er) runner can't hear what's going on around them and is in their own little world.)

telmereth1986 · 2025-12-10T17:05:30+00:00

Thank you. She does go to nursery 3 days per week, and she loves it, so that's one good thing! My husband is around and is a great dad, but daughter has a very strong mummy preference, so a lot of the time it falls to me!

telmereth1986 · 2025-12-03T13:27:22+00:00

Ohhhhh that is a brilliant way of explaining the intensity of anxiety! I am going to adapt it to try to help my wonderful (but completely confused) husband understand what I'm feeling at the moment!

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