A Decade of Reinvention, Change and Challenge

This time, ten years ago I celebrated New Year’s Eve watching the Sydney fireworks from my friend James’s backyard. Fast forward to this year it will be more of a low key affair, in my pyjamas in my family home in Castleblayney.

My trip to Sydney was part of my winter break while teaching English in Japan. After leaving University with a Social Science degree during a recession it seemed like a good option and a chance for an adventure. It definitely was that and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to have spent two years in a culture so alien to my own and to have had the chance to travel through Asia and make some lifelong friends around the world.

However, Japan was only a quick fix for my overwhelming uncertainty and I found myself returning to Ireland at twenty five without many transferable skills and at a complete loss of what to do next. This was a challenging time and it took me a while to get back on my feet.

Deciding Ireland wasn’t where I wanted to be I moved to Edinburgh to train to become a primary school teacher. Although this hadn’t been the career I had dreamed of as a child it gave me stability and a purpose again.

With its charming scenery and culture, Edinburgh quickly felt like home to me. I taught in a number of schools for the next five years. Although I loved the children and the holidays, I found teaching a very hostile environment and experienced many challenges including a case of bullying in the workplace.

Deciding that the perks of the job were unable to outweigh the lows I decided enough was enough and I applied to study a Master in Journalism.

This wasn’t an easy decision, as I had gotten used to a certain level of living so I had to make many cut backs and work harder than I ever had before.

A year on, I have my Masters and have a job as a reporter at a local television station. Although I am on the bottom of the career ladder again with an entry level salary and ton of debt, I’m glad I took this leap of faith.

This decade has been my happiest and saddest. I’ve had opportunities to travel the world, see the bright lights of New York, the foaming Iguazu Falls and the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat, to name a few. I’ve discovered my own self worth, have made countless news friends and have re-invented myself.

I also however lost my older sister to suicide, been disappointed by people and had my own struggles.

I’m starting this new decade in my early thirties, not a home owner yet, not able to drive yet, but at the beginning of a new chapter.

Although the bright lights of Sydney feel more appealing tonight, I will happily opt for the more boring option this year and start the decade with a clearer direction of where I want to go.

Tribe Cycle: Good for the body and soul

Recently I attended a spin class with a difference - one in which fitness meets therapy.

Little did I know ‘soulcycle’ has been a phenomenon for over a decade: in fact it was first launched in New York in 2006 and its fan base includes Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Lady Gaga. The ethos of the class is for members to ‘cycle their way to happiness’.

Tribe Cycle is the first soulcycle style class to come to Edinburgh and has been running for over a year now. Having signed up for a two week Class Pass trial I was lucky enough to be able to attend a few of the upmarket Tribe classes for free so I decided to give Tribe Cycle a go.

I wasn’t sure what to expect and on arrival I realised I was in for a few surprises. The class takes place in a dark room with muted fluorescent lights giving it a nightclub vibe and is taught by an incredibly attractive and physically fit woman wearing a headset. (I thought these fitness teachers only featured in Sex and the City)

I was surrounded by a sea of tanned, blonde women kitted out in their Lululemon gear. I quickly realised I was not part of the typical Tribe Cycle clientele with my frizzy bun, transparent skin and non-rhythmic movements.

The music was set, we were all saddled up, our gears adjusted and ready to get spinning. With the combination of the dance anthem music, the fluorescent lighting and the teacher occasionally shouting out things like ‘It’s Tuesday night here at Tribe Cycle’, I couldn’t help but feel like I was in Ibiza.

This class is definitely for the physically able, your legs literally do not stop moving for the entire 45 minutes and just when you think you’re about to do a cool down, you’re being asked to speed up. The instructions are almost delivered in a rap style with lots of rhythmic patterns to follow. Co-ordination is key!

Then came the positive affirmations. There is something quite powerful about sweating out in a spin class and hearing statements like; ‘You don’t need anyone to validate you’ or ‘You are perfect as you are.’ The combination of the momentum of the pedalling with the positive reinforcement simultaneously builds you up both physically and emotionally.

By the end of the class, my entire body was bright red and covered in sweat. On my walk home my legs were in agony but I was on such an emotional high and felt such a sense of achievement to have made it through the class. I was definitely not the coolest or fittest person there but I definitely bought into the ethos and will be back!

If you’re keen to join I warn you, you WILL sweat and want to die halfway through but it is a trans-formative experience for the body and soul.

Queer Eye and i_Weigh: The Self-Love Influencers

A revolutionary movement has hit the show business world in recent years: the self-acceptance movement.

To me growing up celebrity role models were always unattainable and untouchable characters that were placed on the highest of pedestals. Most of these elements still remain but in this social media age where we can connect more personally with our idols through Instagram and Twitter it is great to see that so many of these public figures have chosen to use this platform to raise awareness of mental health isssues and to promote self-love and acceptance.

Last March, Jameela Jamil kick-started the i_Weigh movement to promote a positive body image mind-set and to reaffirm that we are worth so much more than what we look like. She also opened up about her eating disorder she experienced as a teenager to empower others to do the same.  This campaign on Instagram has had an overwhelming response and the i_Weigh account now has over half a million followers.

I have recently started watching Queer Eye on Netflix and was blown away by the whole concept of this show; a reality tv programme that’s sole mission is to make people feel worthwhile and more confident. It’s so powerful to see the effect that the ‘Fab Five’ have on the lives of so many by just showing some love, understanding and attention to people that really need it.

Low self-esteem is something I have always struggled with. It has held me back in a lot of ways although I have fought hard to prevent this. I think it started from growing up in a small town in Ireland where humility and modesty are the most valued traits. It continued to fester in my teenage years while attending an all-girls boarding school where there were impossible standards of beauty, success and wealth to compete with.(Or possibly this was my perception)  Although I knew I had many talents and qualities I always felt like I wasn’t good enough and this feeling made its way into my adult life.

In short and to avoid going off on a self-pitying tangent I am working hard to change the dialogue in my head and to beat my inner critic. As a fully developed woman, people like Jameela Jamil and Bella Mackie, author of Jog On (a book about how running saved her life) have had a huge impact on me as they helped to normalise some of the feelings I was having. If they have managed to inspire me I can’t imagine the effect they have on developing teenage girls and boys.

Society is changing and it’s a beautiful thing; the stigma of mental health is breaking down and many other issues considered taboo in the past have been normalised. I am very pleased to see how much work is being done on self-love and acceptance and I believe it will continue to grow.

So if it costs nothing to be kind to others surely that’s the same case when we are speaking to ourselves.

Does Direct Provision meet basic human rights?

Immigration continues to be a very topical and complex issue globally. This year Donald Trump’s US border detention centres, the migrant caravan on the US-Mexico border and the mass influx of refugees arriving daily across Europe have dominated headlines. A major contributing factor that led to the Brexit vote was the promise of Britain ‘taking back control of its borders’ and the tightening of immigration policy.

Having spent this year paying attention to provision for migrants on a more international level, I had overlooked the situation in my own home country. Having just finished watching RTE’s drama ‘Taken Down’ which tackles the issue of direct provision in Ireland, I wanted to research more about this issue hence writing this article.

The direct provision system was established in 2000 to house asylum seekers entering the Irish State in search of international protection. It was initially only intended to provide accommodation for a six-month period while people waited an outcome on their application. However in a report issued in December 2017, it stated that residents were spending an average of 23 months in direct provision, while 432 people had been in the system for five years or more. At present it takes an average of 19 months just to be interviewed about refugee status.

In some of these facilities residents can cook their own food while others are provided with free canteen meals and receive an allowance of 21.60 euros per week, adults and children included. School-goers are entitled to free state-school education, but not free third level education yet.

The majority of asylum seekers living in these centres come from Pakistan, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Albania, Malawi, South Africa, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Syria. Figures from December 2017 show there were 5,096 people living in direct provision last year.

Asylum seekers up till recently have not been allowed to work in Ireland. However there have been a few proposals made by the government this year to try to change that. This February there were changes in rules in keeping with The Employment Permits Act which stated that asylum seekers could work but had to secure a job that pays a starting salary of €30,000 per annum and they also had to pay between €500 to €1,000 for a six to 12 month employment permit, which made life extremely difficult for those in the protection system to find work. However in July Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan proposed to abolish the employment permit fees as well as restrictions on professions in which asylum seekers were entitled to seek work.

Currently applicants must be in the State for nine months or more to be entitled to work and to have not had a first decision made on their refugee status.

For the majority of these temporary residents, having fled from unimaginable circumstances in their home countries we must ask are these direct provision measures meeting their basic human needs? To spend up to five years living in crowded, temporary accommodation and with so little money to live on and such a lack of independence it seems impossible to live a peaceful or dignified life.

Like the majority of developed countries across the world, governments are struggling to cope with the influx of refugees and asylum seekers but playing a blame game is not going to solve this issue. While there is this very basic and flawed accommodation system in place in Ireland for those seeking asylum, the service could be made a lot more humane and residents who find themselves in this vulnerable position deserve to be treated in a more dignified manner.

That is why programmes like Taken Down are so important as they reflect issues in our society and give a voice to those who are currently being forgotten.