Published in GALWAYnow and LIMERICKnow in March 09
Mindfulness…Jo Lavelle investigates the new buzzword that’s set to infringe on us from all sides this year.
Everyone’s talking about it – Paul McKenna’s using it to make droves of Americans lose weight on Living TV, The New York Times Bestseller, Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ is flying off bookshelves. People are now, more than ever, looking for ways to derive enjoyment from their daily lives as the world becomes a more complex, more driven place than ever before…and apparently being mindful is the way to do it.
Generally, living in the now can be quite a challenge – at breakfast, you’re thinking about what you’ll have for lunch, or you’re trying to gauge just how bad the traffic will be, or you’re looking forward to getting back into bed again that night. How difficult, or undesirable is it to live in the moment when you’re snowed under with work and deadlines are looming? Better to set your mind on the evening ahead, on that city break you have planned. But for those who live fast lives, who are always on the go, with little time for contemplation, life literally just flies by. One minute you’re 25, living it up, feeling like a lifetime is a long time, next thing you’re going on 40, you can barely remember the last three years of your kids’ lives, never mind your own and there’s no end to the madness in sight. Ever look at a beautiful sunset only to think, if I wasn’t so busy, have so much on my mind, I’d really enjoy that sunset’?
According to the teachings of Buddhism, the only way to true happiness and contentment is through being present in the moment, and being mindful of everything you do – that includes eating, drinking, talking, doing, and working, basically living.
My first encounter with the term mindfulness, or the fact that it was missing from my life came about at a ‘Mindfulness’ meditation weekend some years ago. Work had been manic, my social life was hectic, and I fancied getting away from all the madness for a weekend. So I arrived on my retreat and set about spending a weekend of sitting and walking meditation…in silence. By the time the lunch bell would ring, my legs couldn’t carry me fast enough to get to the kitchen. Once there, I’d proceed to gobble down everything in sight - and it wasn’t through hunger. There were two other people on the retreat – a man and a woman. The man, like me, seemed on a similar mission to eat himself into oblivion. The woman sat calmly chewing all her food and eating slowly…this, our retreat leader (a buddist nun), told us later was ‘mindfulness’. It’s doing everything purposefully. Apparently this happened quite regularly on the retreat with people who weren’t used to being in ‘the now’. With all that meditation and being with yourself for hours upon hours, when the chance came to lose yourself, most people went ahead and did that in the only form available on the retreat – food.
Eating is probably one of the most things we do without thinking, without truly enjoying. This is now being blamed for weight problems across the board…and it really makes sense. This year is set to be the anti-diet year; instead, experts are turning to the mind and appealing to the natural order of the human brain to help people lose weight. It all sounds very much like common sense, but when you’re reminded to tune into your body, after so many years of tuning out, amazing results can be seen.
Health and aesthetic issues aside, with the current economic situation, society seems to be taking after it and after several manic years of people working and partying themselves to the bone, are slowing down. After too much time of taking things to the limits, people are feeling the need to go back to basics – and what better time to take stock and start living life a bit more mindfully.
Published in GALWAYnow and CORKnow Magazines February 2007
Ireland is the most hostile country to victims of rape in the whole of Europe when it comes to support from the legal system with Ireland having the highest attrition rate in Europe, writes Jo Lavelle.
According to Kate Mulkerrins, Legal Coordinator with the Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI), while attitudes in Ireland have come along in leaps and bounds from the repressed Ireland of old, the hostile legal climate, in addition to the nature of sexual violence, means that rapists are getting off scot-free. For every hundred cases reported in Ireland, you have a fall-off of 95 cases until only five cases result in a conviction - this is the attrition rate.
“What is obvious immediately is that there are various points of attrition. The highest point of attrition is between those cases reported and those cases detected and very worrying in the Irish context, is that the number of cases detected is plummeting. So that’s a huge cause of attrition,” says Kate Mulkerrins, adding that only 20 per cent of RCNI’s clients even report to the Gardai. “Most sexual offences, if not all, occur in private with no other witnesses and with little corroborative evidence and particularly if people don’t report quickly, any forensic evidence that could support their claim is lost. Police call the hours immediately after any crime ‘the golden hours’ - the hours immediately after a crime that you’re likely to gain the best evidence. The difficulty with sexual crimes is that all the factors that would ordinarily encourage people to report crime quickly don’t happen when it’s a sexual crime because unlike any other crime, people go to this psychological place of withdrawal, of disbelief, of minimising, of shame.
“One of the ways we psychologically cope with profound difficulty is if we can’t make ourselves big enough to cope with it, then we make the thing we’re trying to cope with smaller to fit within our capacity to deal with it. Or people will say, ‘Was that really rape?’ Somebody will give you an account of what happened and as an objective observer, you will be able to identify clearly that this person was raped, without any ambiguity. But they will analyse that same data they gave you as: ‘Maybe as a result of me doing this, as a result of me being here, of saying this, of wearing this, of drinking that, maybe I sent the message of consent’.”
Kate suggests that historically, Irish society was one of the most repressed modern 20th century societies, which wasn’t a safe venue in which you could safely say that someone in a position of power or authority over you had done this. However, she believes that as a society, we have made “enormous” progress since. “That would be for me one of the most significant changes that has been evidenced in the last 15 years and that is as a result of the scale of sexual offending in our communities becoming evident to people. Because nobody is out there not believing, as a result of the Ferns inquiry for instance. The investigations into clerical abuse were certainly one of the windows that opened a societal picture into what was occurring.” She believes that what needs to be looked at within the legal system is to implement practice change, policy change and legislative change. The other area in which change needs to happen is in our education programmes. “At the end of the day, our sexual relationships are those that we negotiate, other than those that are forced upon us. The healthiness of our sexual relations determines to a greater extent acceptable or unacceptable norms of behaviour and there’s a great deal we can do, particularly with young people in how we give them a comprehension of what free and informed consent looks like. You’re not born with that knowledge. We give people a great deal of assistance about how to negotiate the world of mathematics and yet not how to recognise when you’re in a healthy and non-abusive relationship. How do you see the early signs that you’re in danger of being in an abusive relationship? How do you know that you have free and informed consent? What does that look like? So we have a great deal we can do in education.”
Kate also cites an increase in public awareness as essential to taking action towards amore informed and safe society. “Because it is you who can sit on juries and if you have been fed a diet of misinformation, all these myths and stereotypes we talk about, you bring those beliefs with you. So, unless somebody has put out into the public realm that trauma doesn’t make you present in a way that would make you a recognisable victim, it can be the reverse. You could look unusually calm. Also, unless we’re modelling healthy relationships for our children, in the home setting as well as everywhere else, then how are we expecting them to grow up to be able to negotiate healthier relationships?” Kate continues that by keeping in the dark
our difficulties, by making it shameful to come forward and say that things are not
going so well in our family and we need a bit of help, it is only reinforcing the problem. “We had a society that made that virtually impossible. We had the lace curtain society that above all else looked for the preservation of decorum and standards and privacy. So you do undoubtedly need resources available to
people to reach out in a way that allows them to do so and retain a sense of pride and dignity,” she says.
Tanja Alanko-O’Malley, Coordinator at the Galway Rape Crisis Centre, also believes that much work needs to be done on attitudes in our society. She is also adamant that instead of expecting women to change their behaviour in order to prevent them from being the victim of a sexual crime, the onus is on society to ensure that these crimes do not occur, or are, at least, minimised through education. “A lot of our myths are based very much on the values and beliefs of a patriarchal society. Take for instance girls wearing short skirts; it is still often perceived that they are somehow responsible if someone attacks them just because they are wearing a short skirt. So what we are doing is putting the blame back on a woman, even though she is the victim of a crime. If you’re robbed or mugged, our first instinct is to protect the victim but if a person is raped, our first instinct is to say, ‘What did you do? Why were you there? Why were you in that alleyway? Why were you drinking? Why didn’t you protect yourself?’”
Tanja believes that this attitude is due to the fact that not only is the crime a horrendous one, but it is also a crime that has a lot of shame attached to it. “It is a crime about sexuality. Sexuality is still very much a taboo subject in society, with double standard messages prevailing.”
“Women are expected to adjust their behaviour, for example by curtailing their movement, their behaviour, their mode of dress. There needs to be a complete reassessment of societal values and attitudes, rather than allow the victim of a sexual crime to take on the blame.” While Tanja believes that the fundamental roles of men and women will never be changed, she does believe that much can be done from a safety aspect and that this can only be achieved through education. “In schools, at homes, educate professionals working in fields like the Gardai, teachers, social workers and educate them about the reality of sexual crime, about gender issues. Fifteen to 20 years ago, if you were a woman and a government worker and you got married, you were expected to leave work. Now, not only is it ok for a female to work, but society couldn’t cope if women didn’t work. So it’s possible to change mindsets. We should be going into the schools and teaching our young people about sexuality, about relationships and respect. And taking that stigma out of being a victim of a sexual crime.” Such education can be particularly complex, as there is such a large number of grey areas relating to human relationships, which are by nature, very complex. Just when does sex become rape? Is there a line that somebody crosses where consensual and loving sex turns to rape? Tanja says that yes, there is. “It’s the responsibility of a person that when you are about to enter into an intimate encounter, to make sure that your partner is at or over the age of consent, for example, 17 years old, not under the influence of a substance and has a clear understanding of what they are consenting to.”
“Irish society has undoubtedly come a long way in terms of attitudes and openness. But with just one per cent of reported rape cases ending in a conviction, our legal system has a long, long way to go to protect the men and women of its country.”
Published in GALWAYnow LIMERICKnow and CORKnow Magazines February 2007
by Jo Lavelle.
Organic has become somewhat of a buzz word in recent years and while the experts agree, somewhat reluctantly, that it’s de rigueur right now, they are keen to emphasise the importance of organics in a healthy lifestyle and not as a fashion statement.
Organic production is basically a method of producing food that is as pure as possible. Generally, that means growing produce without using pesticides and herbicides and without any chemical inputs. So organics is basically growing food as naturally as possible to produce as good a quality produce as possible.
Editor of Organic Matters, Cait Curran, has been an organic grower for the past 16 years. She grows half an acre of an entire range of crops outdoors and also has six poly tunnels. Cait has been selling her produce at the Galway Market for the past 16 years and also sells directly to restaurants and shops.
Cait says that since she started out producing organically, she has seen a fairly steady growth every year in demand for produce but still has a lot of the customers she started out with. She says the idea that buying organic food has become something of a social status among some circles, which she says does no favours for the industry in general, as she says that healthy eating is not a fad, it’s for life.
In general, Cait feels that people are very much unaware of how their food is treated and what they’re eating. “The difficulty at the moment is that you’re not seeing fresh produce much in supermarkets. We’re very much going towards the packaged ready meals and those sort of things are the worst possible things we could be eating. I mean, if you look at the ingredients on those things, it’s pretty frightening. We’re consuming things like hydrogenated vegetable oil and artificial sweeteners which are proven to be bad for our health. As well as that, when people buy vegetables in a shop, they are looking at very nicely presented produce that looks perfect and there’s no way of knowing what it’s been treated with. What concerns people mostly is the health aspect. A lot of my customers would be mothers with children who are very concerned about what their children are eating.”
While organic food has become a lot more widely available, many people are still unaware of where to get the best, freshest and most reasonably priced produce. Cait’s advice? Go straight to the source.
“Because of the rising demand, most places stock organic produce now but your best chance of getting good quality fresh produce is in the market because you get local producers who will be harvesting their produce the day before bringing it into the market and selling it. I find myself that people want Irish produce as opposed to imported food and they will ask specifically for Irish grown produce, so people are becoming much more aware of that. So if you want to get really good quality fresh stuff, the market is your best bet. You could go to the supermarkets, but again what you’re looking at is 99 per cent imported produce in all of the major multiples.”
However, the difficulty that the organic industry is facing at the moment, which is also having a knock-on effect for organic consumers is that the local producers are pretty much inundated and are at their capacity and meanwhile, there are very few new people coming into the business.
For many people, the cost issue associated with organic produce may act as a deterrent, but Cait says that if you buy from a reputable producer, the mark-up should be relatively low.
“Obviously there is a cost element built into it. There is a perception that isn’t necessarily true that organic produce is much more expensive than conventional produce and I think that has been fuelled by supermarkets who have put a very big mark-up on organic produce. As well as that there are probably some very unscrupulous people out there who are selling stuff at a very high mark-up. But generally speaking, you should be paying somewhere in the region of 20 per cent premium for organic produce. For a few products which are very labour intensive, it might be more because obviously, there is a lot more work involved in producing stuff organically. For example, you’re not allowed to use chemicals or weed control, which is a fairly big issue for organic producers.”
Jim McNamara is Educational Director for the country’s only dedicated organic collegethe An tIonad Glas Organic College in Dromcollogher Co Limerick.
Established 15 years ago, the further education college offers courses in organic food production, growing, sustainable development and farming courses.
Surprisingly, while an interest in organics is growing at a very fast pace, the interest in learning about producing is not. Jim puts this down to the fact that unlike more profitable careers, a career in organics isn’t as rewarding financially as it is personally.
“There is an increase in organics generally around the world. But doesn’t mean you get huge interest in production because the margins are very tight with regard to growing and food, so it’s not like the IT industry where profits go way up every year. Our numbers grow a little bit every years. In Ireland, there’s suddenly a bit of money around and people are now more mature to value things like food and the environment and animal welfare.
Jim believes that it is not only health-wise that people can benefit from producing organically
“It’s probably the single most important thing that you could do for your own body, to watch the food that you produce. Even if you’re involved only on a small scale in producing it organically, you are getting the benefits of contact with the earth, of life balance and being sure of what you’re eating. It’s a lifestyle, it’s not just about the food,” he says.
Jim says that he does not believe that the growing interest in organics can be dubbed as a fashion.
“Fashion can come and go but the point worldwide is that as people get a little bit more money and become aware of health, they want to do things that enhance their health and that’s not fashion, that’s logically-based. It’s not magic - you can actually grow stuff with a small bit of discipline and a little bit of knowledge, so it’s all very doable, even if you only have a very small patch.”
Another large area in which organic produce is getting great press is in that of the idea of treating illnesses with good nutrition.
“Price isn’t an issue because they suddenly realise that you can pay massive money to people in the health world and it can be something as simple as that the medicine is in the food and the food is the medicine.”
Organics, unfortunately, are lagging behind in the food industry, and this is down to the fact that inadequate funds are being put towards research and development, says Jimn
“The amount of research going on in organics is tiny because its not being funded by people who want to sell it. We’re at the very early stages of devoting serious money and research capacity to looking at alternative ways to grow food and to produce animals with minimal chemicals,” he says.
Published CORKnow, LIMERICKnow and GALWAYnow June 2007
by Jo Lavelle
The ‘job for life’ has all but disappeared in Ireland and with more and more people now actively seeking out fulfilling and meaningful careers, we look at the pros and cons of switching careers mid career and give you tips on how to make the transition as smooth as possible.
Traditionally in Ireland, a job for life was more or less a sure thing - a life of security and much of the time along with it, monotony. Once you were in the door, it usually closed firmly behind you, opening only for your exit at retirement.
Today, however, the average person spends only three years in each job position. Competition is the main reason for this shift in the marketplace. Employees are now far better educated than previously and there are far more companies searching for the ideal candidate. So, in essence, a workforce that is constantly on the move has been created.
The bad news? There’s very little security in today’s work environment. The good news? The options are endless, the world’s your oyster and according to the professionals, there’s nothing stopping you changing your career as many times as you wish and at whatever stage of your life you’re at.
Robert Quirke is Business Development Manager with Monster ie, one of the world’s leading online recruitment companies. He says that the market is veering in favour of the employee at the moment and so, the only real hurdle to get over is making that big decision and making your career choice work for you.
“There’s no such thing as a job for life anymore, in the business world anyway. I know guys who have walked out of a job on Friday and started a new job on Monday. You’re looking at an average of three years in a position until people move on and that’s across the board, even in a senior position. The main factor why somebody wants to change their career is that they’re just not happy about where they are, they want to be more challenged or they might be passionate about a particular topic or subject.
“Or maybe throughout their life they realized they’re more interested in a topic and they want to go and work in that field and there’s more opportunities for people to learn about things now with distance learning or Open University. So if they want to get a skill or a qualification in a certain area, they can do that more easily now by learning on the internet or learning from home,” says Robert.
“There are so many candidates at the moment and so many jobs that candidates can really pick and choose the type of vacancy they want once they have a little bit of experience. So candidates will always look for the best working environment, conditions and the best salary. But, in terms of industry, you will see a lot of IT and finance people looking for various positions because the finance sector is very strong at the moment.”
Robert says that the majority of roles that are currently available are middle management roles with attractive remuneration and it is those between the ages of 25 to 35 who are most interested in these positions. “This is a key time in people’s lives where they’re buying houses or deciding on a career change or taking a step up from their first or second jobs, so money is very important in their lives.
“Of the job seekers coming to the site and registering their CV on our database, we see a lot of people changing their careers. For example, you could have a guy working in sales for ten years and it might take him that long to decide that he doesn’t like it or he just wants to do something else. So you might see him make the change to journalism, for example, or into a another position where he can still use those basic social skills that he would have as a sales person.
“I think most career changes are wrapped around a person’s personality. You don’t tend to see an accountant going off to become an adventure centre instructor. It’s usually based around the person’s personality and that usually leads them to want a career change. If you can imagine that you have someone who is very outgoing and very lively and they are stuck in a role that’s very monotonous, for the first few years they’re stuck there because they’re either trying to buy a house or they’re trying to save money or they have kids on the way. Then they get the opportunity to change and they do so - there is a lot of evidence of that in Ireland.”
Robert agrees that people are undoubtedly finding it easier to change careers today than they did ten years ago, mainly due to the fact that there are simply more jobs. “Employers are crying out for people. A lot of employers come to me and say they have been searching for the right person for the past nine months and they can’t find the right candidate. In a situation like that, the employer will broaden the requirements for the role, so instead of taking somebody with ten year’s experience in that sector, they might take on somebody who’s willing just to learn about the sector or take on a more junior position. So it’s getting easier now for people to change their career.”
Robert’s advice to anyone considering taking the plunge is simple - make sure the career that you are considering is something that you are sure you want to do.
“It’s all very well deciding that you want a career change, but then you might realise a year later that you want another career change. My advice would be to try to gain some industry knowledge or industry experience of whichever type of industry you’re stepping into. Learn about the market place. For example, if you want to become a journalist, learn about how journalism works or who the big employers are in journalism and just learn about what it’s like to be in that particular role that you’re trying to get.
“Then try to get a qualification somehow, if it’s a diploma, a night course or some kind of a certificate, because that will definitely help. If you’re going for an interview to change your career, you more than likely have no experience in that sector and you’ll be up against people who have five or ten year’s experience. However, if you can demonstrate that you have a qualification and demonstrate some knowledge of that industry or sector, you have a much better chance of getting the job.
“Also if you’re changing your career, it’s best to keep your expectations low in terms of the role you’re going to get. Even if you have 15 year’s working experience behind you, you don’t have any experience in the sector that you’re trying to get into. So you might get a lower position than you were originally hoping to get, but once you get in there, you can build from there.”
Senior Careers Advisor at the Career’s Service Office at NUI Galway, John Hannon, says that the number of career options out there today is ‘phenomenal’.
“It’s gone from career clarity, where you were a doctor or a nurse or worked in the county council to where there is career fog with lots of different job types, labels and levels. People on average change career three to four times and jobs ten times - however this doesn’t necessarily mean that people suddenly change career path in a dramatic fashion but there are so many options. And of course if you have a lot of options, then you have to make choices.
“There’s an increasing need for career advice and career coaching because it puts structure on it. People are individuals and should make the choices that fit their own circumstances - that might change in a year or two and it makes sense to set at least medium goals and short-term activities which will lead to these goals. There is also the challenge of procrastination however, where people never make a decision and actually go for it. There are certain basics in assessing yourself, particularly personality that is quite consistent in our lives and can be measured. We have psychometric tests here at the Careers Service for example where you can give feedback back to the students on their underlying preferences. We are not born with skills however, they are learned and can be developed. Values also change from time to time - gaining extra money or status may not be seen as important in our teens but things can change after talking to the bank manager about a mortgage! So it’s important that people look at their skills and values and what motivates them at this time and focus on what their abilities are now, as well as where they can develop.”
Weighing up the pros and cons and being realistic about what you can actually do are of utmost importance when considering a career change such a home life, finances, etc, believes John.
“There’s often a wish and even a need, but to be able to take the opportunity can be challenging because there are so many areas in people’s lives which they will need to balance. That’s where support needs to be available and the strongest and most successful people are those who seek support, not those who just barge ahead on their own. Choices may still come down to gut instinct - but even better if accompanied by sound research on yourself and the options available. They need to sit down, give this some time, maybe do a psychometric test, get a clearer sense around career interests and personality type and then take time with a professional, friends and family to see how they can marry this with all aspects of their lives.”
John suggests that before you act on your desire to change jobs or careers, the first thing you should do is to look at your life and circumstances.
“Sit down with somebody and look at a series of very simple questions like, ‘What have you been doing? How do other people see you? What are your strengths? Is it the right time?’ A lot of us want to do it, but it’s when you actually sit back and reflect about it, write it down and if possible maybe talk to a professional, that we can see a true picture of what is possible. So ask yourself, ‘Where do my interests lie? and personality-wise, Where am I going towards?’ and then merge those together and see what opportunities are out there.”
Do’s
- Assess your interests, values and skills.
- Brainstorm ideas for career alternatives.
- Make a plan.
- Be prepared to put a lot of time and effort into making the transition into a new career.
- Ensure that your career choice suits your personality and passions.
- Research fully the area you are interested in.
- Gain experience in your new chosen career. Why not volunteer or job shadow?
- Make as many contacts as possible in that area.
- Brush up on interview and job-hunting skills.
- Be flexible. When starting out, you may have to settle for less salary and a lower position than you hoped. It just takes time.
Don’ts
- Don’t rush in before thinking things through adequately.
- Don’t choose an alternative career simply because you are unhappy in your current position - find something you are passionate about.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help and guidance - accept the support of friends and family or seek the help of a professional to guide you in the right direction.
- Don’t become disillusioned, persevere when the going gets tough. Nobody said it would be easy.
