98 audiobooks? How heavy are they?

If I told you that I have 98 audiobooks in my Audible account, you would most likely drop off your seat. If I told you that I nearly weigh as much too, you then, I guess, would uncomfortably displace yourself in your armchair trying to find a suitable position to hold the ground to absorb and digest the news. You then would most likely predict that since Audible compresses its files rather nicely, I do not feel the discomfort around the amount of listening items I accumulated over the years, but I do feel it when it comes to the weight I have gained. Here compression comes slowly and with much more effort, so it seems.

The pressure to talk about weight and obesity in society is huge, especially if you are a person who is suffering from it and no, I do not think it is a sign of great maturity to talk about it without boundaries. In fact, in my opinion, talking about obesity can exacerbate the problem. How can I explain it? It’s a little bit like talking about your ex or a job interview that went wrong or sensitivities that we sense other people possess and that have not been fully absorbed or as Matt Kay from The Centre of Healing in Australia would call them, they could be small traumas or undigested life experiences. Some topics, simply, are no go zones if they are not handled with care by a specialist because they are other people’s psychological fields and in all honesty we should not be going there if we are not invited and/or we are not sure if we could handle the topic aptly.

And I can hear some people saying: ‘But this is all I want to talk to her about?’. Then I would ask: Why? I have just told you that I have 98 audiobooks on my Audible, why don’t you want to talk about that?

A skilled interviewer puts an interviewee in a good light if the aim of the interviewer is to strengthen the interviewee. What if the aim is the opposite? How would you make a person feel less able?

Conversations have intentions.

What’s the one behind the topic of obesity? Intentions vary, in my opinion, and I am not quite happy to be at the receiving end of that variety.

That said, if you want to be a friend, a gentleman or simply be perceived as a cultured person, what would it mean to handle the topic well? I can’t speak for all, but I know what I would be happy with in this situation.

1. Figure out what the person wants to talk about.

2. Talk about that.

3. If a topic of obesity has been triggered, see if it was triggered by you looking at the person’s stomach, double-chin, etc. If it was triggered by your stare, then the person did not want to talk about it. They are trying to escape judgement and will not want to talk to you again.

4. People who are overweight or obese have other interests and a sense of humour. Find out what they are. See a human.

5. Back off. There is enough advice online and many specialists. In fact, it’s probably best to say, that you are not after this type of conversation and you would like to talk about something that interests both of you but you liked, enjoyed reading this or that on that topic. And then move on, don’t linger, do not go into sensitive psychological areas.

6. And no, it is not OK to say: ‘You are not looking after yourself enough.’ This is finger-pointing. This is not care. It is much nicer to say: ‘Friend, when did you have a truly nurturing weekend last time? One that nurtured your body and soul.’ You are more likely to hear then what the real reasons behind the overeating are and no one will feel pushed or blamed. Who knows, it might be even possible that you both discover that a simple car purchase has affected their lifestyle considerably and they haven’t made reasonable adjustments to their diet to account for that change. You may also remind your friend what was it that sustained them in the past. Where did that they find their plenitude and what, if anything, they are missing?

On my Audible, I have these three titles on the topic of health, food and obesity. One in English and one in Polish:

Oprah Winfrey & M.D. Ph.D. Ania M. Jastreboff, Enough. Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like to Be Free.
Dalej Martyna Wojciechowska, Single episodes on the topic.
Jamie Oliver, Reset Your Health

I enjoy them. I can intellectually relate to them and appreciate their point of view and honest intentions:

care

understanding

strong mind and body.

fulfilling life.

So back to the theme on this blog that I want to write about, i.e. focusing on emptying, I am not going to talk about empty calories here. I do not want to talk about my weight at length publicly but if you want to talk about your weight in those terms, how can you do it without making yourself anxious? Perhaps by calling them ‘public vulnerabilities’ if that’s the case. Carrying the whole lot on one’s shoulders is a lot to take on.

Food is essential but it cannot replace everything. It can bring joy and comfort but it’s not everything.

I’ll finish with this poem. Let me know your thoughts on this.

Could we make dinner for two

A soup or warm noodles?

So that steam tickles our nostrils

And chest takes deep breaths of goodness.

Could we make dinner for two?

It won't take long

And it won't be expensive

But the plates will choose to live

A bit fuller.

Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2026

Stress loads and paper

Every morning I drive through a broad road. Now, this is worth noting when you live in England and in my city where many streets are very narrow, traffic quite intense and an average street is heavily parked on both sides. This may not be a natural state of affairs if you live in open spaces where front gardens are not obstructed by tall vans and houses are built on somewhat raised grounds. Here, we primarily see the cars but when I drive to a more affluent part of the town I can actually see the houses and have my own side of the road for myself. It feels airy, calm and informative – in a sense that you can actually see the trees and notice that that the seasons have changed.

Anyhow, back to the topic of a broad road vs the narrow road. I must admit I find it hard to handle the claustrophobic city planning. It makes me unhappy. It is not cosy. It feels like aesthetic deprivation or aesthetic discrimination but in reality it also feels like the actual love we have. It is depressing at times though as much as building houses in one style in the same street is. Lack of variety is dull and I guess that some people think this is unifying but in fact it is drab. I used to like Wales for its uniqueness in building and developing areas, I liked its variety and then recently I went to visit some areas and they all look the same with houses red-bricked, unrendered. I know it has its visual climate, it has its distinctiveness, but shouldn’t the architects be seeking their own roots to self-expression? It feels like some talents are squashed under this sameness and with their talents squashed, ordinary people are too because they become aesthetically deprived and there is a lot of value in beauty – we know that.

Back to the broad street. I am thinking now a lot about such issues as stress load and judgements. How we are prone to judge people for their life choices and to accuse them for having a nicer lifestyle than us or with us when we actually do not understand what is contributing to their daily stress bucket or how we contribute to theirs. I was thinking about the caption that I placed under this blog ‘stress-free blog’ which is tempting. Come with me and your life will be stress-free but in all honesty I do not know what your current stress-load is and if my lifestyle or the examples of lifestyles I share here would contribute to your reduction of stress. It feels dishonest, to some extent. I also am not sure anymore if what I thought in the past or I think now, would make you happier or more efficient or better in any way because we are unique and our life is very context-dependent and what fits one person, tightens the other.

But I know what move I need to make to feel better and to feel healthier and I think it’s called ‘focusing on emptying’.

A friend of mine told me years ago that she has problems with papers and with organising papers around the house. I did not share her problem at the time but I think it was because my tolerance for living with papers was much higher than hers. Plus, my husband says that I pretty much bring to the house everything that has a photo on and a nice font plus I never said no to any international friend who was leaving the UK and had to part with their well-read children’s books. These are also on our shelves. And on the floors and on our windowsills and behind the beds. And paper is what I spend my money on too and I find it so hard to part with it.

By the way, what book has dropped behind your bed recently? I am curious to know. Will you keep it? Sell it?

I have been reading quite a few texts recently online and it seems to me that if we do not talk about money in some way we do not participate in any debates. It makes me sad to a large extent as I did not want to talk about money on the very onset of this blog but then I appear unreal to people if I do not tackle the topic in some way. I read that most frequent question asked by people on Mondays is how to save. This I presume is because they overspend during the weekends or could you think of any other reasons for it? Maybe discovering that something needs to be fixed at home?

I think the unexpected expenses are those that trip us up most. For example, one of our roof tiles was loose and we had a low level of water ingress for a very long time. When my husband was trying to prepare one of our rooms for our daughter before she was born he had to remove a lot of plasterboard and noticed that there was a lot of mould growth happening underneath. We had to have our roof repaired which was a significant additional cost to what we had planned before the birth. When our flight from Poland was cancelled, we had to take seven trains to the UK to get there on time. In the first case, our parents helped us out with the cashflow issues, in the second case we had insurance. Better to have insurance, since parents like to know that we are mature enough to handle our life threats.

So that’s it for now.

I have to focus on emptying. But for how long?

I am curious to learn about your challenging life situations and how you’ve managed to do what has to be done. Did you negotiate the cost?

A friend of mine is very good at that. Was it part of your culture when you were growing up to do so?

By for now.

And a tip for self-aware humans: what for you is worth noting down?

Fragile strengths

I regularly write in response to something; be it a song, a paragraph in a book or any other text.

Last Sunday, a priest from Ukraine sent me his sermon to listen to via WhatsApp. I had an immediate response to his work and I wrote this almost immediately after listening to his words.

I thought it is worth sharing it with you and I would be thrilled if you could write your feedback on this piece both in terms of your emotional response as well as my writing craft.

Were you also inspired by sermons in your childhood? It is a huge step into psychological integration when we absorb the wisdoms of our religions, I think.

Here’s the text:

I assume today that you need to hear that you are capable of mature reflection, that it’s good to long for reason and normality, that it’s good to give yourself a little oxygen.

I assume today that you haven’t sinned.

That you came here today to free yourself for a moment from the burdens of the day.

Welcome then. I’m glad you came, I’m glad to see you.

Don’t lose yourself in guilt. Understand the weight of your decisions, but don’t lose yourself in guilt.

I assume today that you have not sinned.

Let the pain in your limbs fade. You are here. I appreciate you.

Do not lose yourself in guilt.

That’s it. I hope this helps. x