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After A While…

Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development

I came across this piece of writing, writen by the then 19 year old Veronica A. Shoffstall and was taken by it’s beauty, observation and eloquence, particularly for one so young. I hope it resonates with you too….

“After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn’t mean leaning
and company doesn’t always mean security.
And you begin to learn
that kisses aren’t contracts
and presents aren’t promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child
and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow’s ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.
After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn…”

© 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall

Sabotage…do you recognise this?

Love, Mental Health, Personal Development, Recovery, Relationships

Inspired by a repeated pattern of behaviour that I have observed of myself all of my adult life, I feel compelled to write about ‘sabotage’. Those of you who have done some work on yourself will be familiar with this terminology in relation to self-destructive behaviour, but for those of you who may be yet to explore it, allow me to offer my understanding of this.

Sabotage is born out of fear and operates so as to prevent having to deal with questions such as ‘I’m not enough’, ‘I won’t be loved’, I don’t deserve it’ or ‘what’s the point – I’ll be rejected/abandoned/fired sooner or later’.

In recovery terms, recovery from drug addiction or alcoholism, it might be that a person sabotages their recovery by continuing to go to places where they are at risk of using and then blaming the places, people or things that ‘made’ them use, rather than facing their role in that outcome.

Sabotage is not about taking responsibility. It seeks to blame other people for an outcome. For example, pushing someone away continually until they have no choice other than to actually go away and then they can be blamed as the person who was the abandoner…. In a kind of ‘see, I told you they would leave/reject me/abandon me’.

As a person who is aware of sabotaging, in particular, potential intimate relationships, I am knowledgeable and aware of this behaviour, a behaviour that I was made aware of a very long time ago. But what happens when it becomes more subtle? When knowledge does not equal power? Or worse, when you can actually see yourself in the behaviour but feel powerless to stop it?

We:

  • Forgive ourselves…first and foremost
  • With that comes compassion
  • We then take responsibility
  • With that comes repairing any damage
  • And when all is said and done, sit safely and quietly in the knowledge that we have just learned a little more about ourselves that will then make the lesson next time shorter until it has been learnt and does not come again!

Self-awareness is an amazing, frustrating, liberating state of mind, body and spirit. The lessons may take longer than we would like and they may get harder and more difficult to manage than we would like. But essentially what choice do we have if we are to become the best that we can be? The personal goal in life has to be that we can become the very best that we can possibly be, so learn, grow and love yourself in the process, as you are and as you can be.

Walk With The Dreamers

Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Recovery

I came across this fantastic poster which I periodically paste up all over the place and I love it, primarily because it forces us to think outside our little boxes, moves us to the edge of our comfort zones and reminds us that life is to be lived, felt, experienced and filled with longing….

 

 

I don’t want to leave my time on this planet having not pushed myself to my limits, having not explored every possible part of who I am or who I could be. Within that process, the aim for me has to be trying to leave the world a better place than when I arrived here….making a difference is what makes a difference to how I feel about everything I do. Will you walk with me too?

The Gift Of Life…

Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Recovery

Why oh why does the whole world, the part of the world that does not have to be consumed each moment with searching out the basic needs of food and shelter of course,  not understand that Life is a gift? A gift given for just a short time for us to fully appreciate and enjoy all that is on offer?

Soap Operas and hateful jobs and meaningless relationships are not what we are meant to be doing. What would be the point in that? Sometimes I feel like I want to run up to people and say Wow! You have life! Now what will you do with it?

I have lived a life and I shall continue to live my life exploring all that I can be, because a life worth living is a life that has been lived, and I have lived…thank goodness, and I continue to expand every aspect of my being.

So go and look into the eyes of life and fall in love because my friends, life is very short. It is very short indeed…

And Life Is….

Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Relationships, Spiritual Health

It seems to me that there is a distinct flaw in the human condition that somehow allows us to forget the point. The point of our relationships, the point of the work we have chosen to do, the point of our friendships that we have chosen to have, indeed the point of life.

We all do it. We all get bogged down in the minutiae of life’s noise on what she said, or he said, or that person or that place or that thing said or did or didn’t do, all of which we can’t quite deal with. We’re upset. We’re hurt. We feel alone in our pain.

It is in these moments particularly, that we must remember that we can change the way we respond to life, we can change the way we understand life and most of all we change the view of life that doesn’t acknowledge that life is a gift. We are a ‘we’ in this context. We have all been given the gift of life…

All the Philosophical and Spiritual teachers have sought to teach us as to what the purpose of it all is. From these teachings, I take it that the purpose of being here is to make a difference. I also take it to believe that the purpose of life of to be happy.

I found a lovely little Video being shared across cyberspace called Life is Coffee, which as a coffee lover (read coffee snob), I thought was a perfect analogy for me so I hope you like it and that you will share this message.

In line with my Just For Today Vlog from this week, I would like to add a little thought for the day, for my day, one that we can all use in our lives in whatever way works for us. For me, Just For Today I have everything I need and I am loved….

10 Top Tips For Surviving ‘The Breakup!’

Being in your 40's, Emotional Health, Love, Recovery, Relationships

After spending an evening this week with yet another friend who is recovering from the awful experience of being in a ‘happy’ marriage that ends within half hour, always commencing with “It’s not you, it’s me” (The Mid Life Crisis) or “I think this is really it, she’s the ‘one’ for me”  (The Affair and The Mid-Life Crisis) or “I never meant to hurt you but I need some space” (The Affair), I decided that a survival plan, laced with a little humour, was probably called for! For the male readers, this blog is entirely from a woman’s perspective, but please feel free to add your own recovery pointers onto the comments section….

  1. Get yourself a good Multi Vitamin. Oh yes….my all-time favourite from my very sturdy and practical friend, in or out of emotional pain! She is right of course, as your immune system will be low and your food intake will be bizarre so this will keep you vaguely balanced on a nutritional front.
  2. Read a self-help book, a good self-help book and preferably a funny one. My absolute favourite while sobbing all over the house during my own ‘the breakup’ was perfectly titled “It’s Called a Breakup Not A Breakdown.”  In other words, you’ll get over it!
  3. Learn everything you can about who you are. Know who you are and what you like and don’t like, because you will be a different person from the person you were before you were together and different from the person that you became in the marriage/relationship. This is a great part of the journey, so try and enjoy it.
  4. You will either eat yourself stupid or you won’t be able to eat at all. In any circumstance, you’ll need ice cream, good quality expensive ice cream, that contains chocolate, cookie dough, nuts, etc. Essential for vague nutrition and comfort.
  5. Get your toe nails painted. One of my ‘favourite’ memories of the darkest days was sitting in the conservatory, eating chocolate and sobbing, while a friend painted my nails for me. Recovery, girlie stylie!
  6. I’ve heard it said that the best ways for a woman to get over a man is to get underneath another one. It isn’t. Really. It isn’t. Go back to number 4 and get the ice cream out of the freezer again!
  7. Understand the Story of Creation from Eve’s Perspective. This will help a lot.
  8. Don’t be on his Facebook page for a moment longer. You don’t want to know. Trust me on this one. You really don’t want to know.
  9. Go and buy lots of good quality wooden hangers and reorganise your clothing through the whole double wardrobe to replicate Jigsaw. You will now have space in between your clothes as they hang like ‘pieces’ from the rail as opposed to squashed together as if his clothes and yours were having their own private row as they fought for space in a wardrobe that just wasn’t big enough!
  10. On a more serious note, the pain will stop and if you allow yourself the much needed recovery time, you will learn to love your life as a single woman safe in the knowledge that one day, you will be annoyed again by the toilet seat being left up! So this time is your time. Now is the time to enjoy….

What is Wellness?

Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Physical Health, Recovery, Relationships, Spiritual Health

In a recent blog, I explored Holistic Health and what I mean when I use that term; the way I understand it and the way I believe it is understood. A natural progression on from that seemed to me to be an exploration of what wellness is and how we understand it.

What I do know is that we all have the power within us to have a feeling of wellness. A feeling of happiness, of enthusiasm for life and a sense of energy is something that we can all work towards and experience. How?

  • Understand yourself holistically as a whole person with many areas of your life that need to be balanced.  You are not ‘stress’ or ‘lethargy’ or ‘a bad back’, you are a person operating in society in a relationships at work and at home. You have your spiritual, physical, emotional and mental aspects of yourself to keep in check. See where the imbalance may be and that will give you a lot of information to help you work through whatever is presenting as the problem.
  • Self-esteem and self-love is everything or as Louise Hay taught me, the cornerstone to everything. Without it, there is nothing because there is no connection with yourself. If this aspect of yourself is poor, work on it and work on it hard. The use of daily affirmations, positive loving relationships, eating wholesome food and allowing yourself some time to reflect in solitude so as to improve your relationship with yourself and connect spiritually, are all a good start.
  • Take personal responsibility. When you are wrong, say sorry, learn and move on. Don’t say yes when you mean no.  Don’t relive scenarios over and over again punishing yourself for the past and concerning yourself with the future. Keep your side of the street clean so that you can look at yourself in the mirror every day. Forgive yourself….often. Perfectionism is just another form of self-loathing.
  • Live consciously! Value the food you eat, the trees you pass, the people you smile at. Photography is a great way of living in the moment and seeing something from a different angle. It’s a conscious activity. Care for your environment. Care for the people around you. Turn off the TV and sing or dance or bake a cake. Come alive and stop getting lost in the misery of soap operas…..created I believe to quieten the masses.
  • Enjoy yourself. Enjoy your sense of connectedness to yourself, the Universe and all people. Have fun. We are here for such a short time. Make your goal that of making a difference to the world, to the people around you.

Your wellness is your responsibility. No-one is going to bring it to you, fix what’s broken, give you a magic pill to ‘make it all better’. The power to do that is within you and no-one else. You can choose this right now. You can choose to take a continuing series of short steps one day at a time and give yourself the life you deserve, being the very best that you can be.

My Recovery…

Emotional Health, Love, Mental Health, Personal Development, Recovery, Spiritual Health

I have recently found myself in the position whereby I felt the need to evaluate and crystallise what it means for me to say that I am Recovering Alcoholic. It can be a pretty emotive statement for some and I sometimes find a defensiveness about it as people almost run to look at their own behaviour and go about the business of either defending it or shirking away from talking about it for fear of ‘catching’ this god awful dis-ease. Usually there is a lack of understanding about what it means and there is definitely confusion around what is in fact a heavy drinker as opposed to an alcoholic.

If you read my blog regularly, you’ll know that I walked into my first AA meeting at the grand old age of 20 after an incredibly distressing seven year period. It was at 10pm in the basement of a hall on a road just off the Kings Road in Chelsea and I still stank of the booze from the night before. It was 1990 and there was a very lively pub on the corner that had to be negotiated before the meeting was reached. I felt grey, I felt alone, I felt misunderstood and I felt like I didn’t deserve the gift of life. A 10pm AA meeting is a pretty hard core meeting, even for a one in Chelsea. It was not for the fainthearted but, one day at a time, I haven’t had a drink since that first meeting and I will be grateful beyond measure for that, for every minute of every day.

I lived in meetings for about 2 years, sometimes three a day, substituting drinking with tobacco and coffee until I learnt that it didn’t actually matter what your substance of choice is, at some point you’re going to have to feel the pain. You’re going to have to confront what is left. You’re going to have to stare long and hard at yourself and get real, and there is nothing real about being in an AA meeting three times a day, in coffee shops with other meeting goers, drinking coffee until 1am in the morning, smoking endlessly!

When I talk about ‘recovery’, it is this process of being real, every 24 hour period, that I mean. It’s the daily process of reflection, self-comprehension and a self-honesty that most people would avoid at any cost. It is taking responsibility for my actions and being true to myself. It is a daily acknowledgment of what I have in my wonderful life – self-pity and gratitude cannot live side by side. It is impossible.

There is a saying in AA that goes, if you keeping going to the Barbers shop, you’re going to get a haircut. If I hang around dis-ease, heavy drinking, endless smoking and a disconnect from all that is beautiful, I am at risk of having a haircut. I don’t metaphorically go to the barbers very much at all, as these are not the circles I hang around in, but a difficult situation has presented itself to me and I have swiftly removed myself.

For me, my recovery is everything, because it is my life, literally. I am not here to judge other people and the choices that they make. I only know, with all my heart, however uncomfortable that might make you feel, that I cannot put myself at risk because I am worth sobriety. I am worth being well. I am worthy and that is why self-love and my spiritual connection, will always, always be, the cornerstone to absolutely everything.

Seasonal Emotions….

Emotional Health, Love, Massage in Witney, News, Personal Development, Recovery

As I become more mindful through actively seeking to do so and the passing of the years bringing a more conscious connection with myself and my environment, I have become deeply aware of the Emotions of The Seasons. I’m sure we all feel this in different ways as we reflect on the moment and I find each season brings with it a whole heap of emotional baggage, hope, and excitement in equal measure.

In Spring, I love the newness, the flowers bursting open, life almost tentatively creeping out from behind the trees craving to have some time in the light. I love that feeling of gaining an extra day in every day as the evenings become filled with activity in the light again when the clocks change. If this season had a soundtrack, it would be Jimmy Cliff singing I Can See Clearly Now….

Summer’s soundtrack would be Long Hot Summer by The Style Council with it’s sense of being free and young and warm and barefoot and kissing a boy called Graham in Battersea Park.  Memories and anticipation of fun and happiness and beaches and BBQs and flowers and trees in abundance all gently swirl around my presence.

Intrinsically linked to the commencing of the school year, Autumn’s September has a sense of knuckling down, crisp new books, reading lists and focus. I loved being a student and I loved getting a new reading list as the new year began, believing with every bone in my body that I would in fact go and get all of the books, reading each one crisp page by crisp page. It was such a feeling of utter engagement that would barely make it to the first half term. I almost yearn for the gorgeous colours of the leaves in Autumn, singing and dancing their way off the trees in a cool breeze making the statement that they make every single year providing comfort in the predictability of a yearly ritual. My favourite memory of this time is the sun low, piercing it’s way through the windscreen, with my music playing and the heating on driving to work in the morning (even though I have long since finished commuting into a workplace). The soundtrack of Autumn goes to Van Morrison, Moondance.

But Winter….If all the seasons bring memories of different points in my life, Winter seems to have the saddest emotional memories than any other season.

Watching people scraping ice off the car this morning I remember that sound from childhood. I remember the first time my ex-husband did it for me and I was dismayed that anyone would stand in the cold and clear my car for me. A lovely memory tinged with the sadness of what followed. Christmas looming and that feeling of being squeezed of everything , the TV placing images of life that I cannot connect with. The elderly being cold, my Gran dying and being broke in January all spring to mind. I think of break ups and make-ups and dishing out food to the freezing homeless on The Strand thrown out by supermarkets on Xmas Eve. Working as a social worker with young people who have left care knowing that they spent Christmas Day staring at the TV alone, almost banging down our door on the first working day back looking for money for food and desperately needing human contact and reassurance that this living hell would soon be over, the first sale advert being a Xmas gift unashamedly stating, it’s over. Normality will be resumed shortly.

For me, this is not a time of year to think of yourself aside from a short burst of reflection from time to time against the backdrop of a cosy night in. This is a time to think about being useful and helpful. I think more and more people will suffer the Winter harshly this year with the current economic situation and there are so many people for whom this is the season to ‘get through’ somehow.

My biggest tool this season is knowledge. I have learnt that self-pity and gratitude cannot sit side by side each other. It’s just impossible. I know that by focusing on what I can do for other people stops the self-absorption that this season brings and all of the dis-ease that comes with it. My soundtrack for Winter is Queen, A Winter’s Tale.

While writing, I thought I could have A Little Competition. Do you struggle with Winter? How do you get through this time? In the spirit of the season, I will offer a FREE one hour treatment here in Witney, to the best suggestion/top tip/story ….please comment below. x

The Invitation

Emotional Health, Love, Mental Health, Personal Development, Recovery, Relationships, Spiritual Health

This has to be one of my very favourite poems….it is such a gift.

The Invitation
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Canadian Teacher and Author

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.