By Lisa Cherry, on February 22nd, 2012%
Every year I try and do something for charity whether it’s a gentle 5k jog or a 2 and ½ mile jump out of a plane. I was pondering what this year’s adventure might be. Should I climb a mountain? Walk through the rain forest only using my knees or maybe a balloon flight across the North Pole. And then I saw it and I knew it would be perfect for a multitude of reasons.
In doing this, I will face an emotional challenge that will have me writing for months! This, coupled with raising awareness of something I feel so passionately about, and the boxes are well and truly ticked.
Some of you know my story, some know bits of my story and some of you probably think my story is very very different to what it actually is because the reality would never have occurred to you. I have only been really open about these experiences for the last couple of years when I realised that it challenged stigmas and helped break down the walls of silence that people carry through feeling shame. Stigmas rage in our society about alcoholism, child abuse, homelessness, depression and there really is no need for people to carry this alone.
So here is a little timeline of a decade from a time in my life that has shaped me in far more ways than are for exploration in this blog post. When I was 13 I went into the care of the local authority for 3 years. I lived in foster homes and children’s homes, an experience which impacted upon me on every level. The very core of my being was affected emotionally, spiritually, financially, mentally, socially and educationally. In every possible way.
As it was the 1980’s and the Children Act 1989, created to protect Looked After Children, had not yet come into play, I then endured two years of homelessness. During this period, I lived in night shelters, the streets, trains, hostels and squats until finally housed in 1988 in London thanks to services available to children and young people who find themselves in this vulnerable abandoned situation. I slowly built my life by crawling into an AA meeting at the age of 20, getting clean and sober and then receiving funding from an amazing charity that enabled me to take A levels and then go on to do a Degree, recovering an education I had lost years before to survival!
The multitude of charities out there that saved my life are saving lives every day, quietly and continuously, while I sip my cappuccino and gaze out of my window with food in my cupboards and the heating on.
The purpose to telling you this is that out of all the things I have lived through, homelessness was the most disturbing of the lot. To be homeless is to be cold, hungry, invisible, ignored, segregated, abandoned, a nothing. To survive that, teaches you about yourself and about society at a depth that is unexplainable to those who have not been through it.
My chosen charity event for 2012 is going to be far harder than jumping out of a plane. I want to do the Sleep Out for The Big Issue. This is a demon that I feel ready to confront….
Will you do it with me? Groups of four can apply for only £100 with each group needing to raise a minimum of £1500. We could have a 40 of us….ten groups of four!
The Big Issue is amazing as it provides a truly entrepreneurial response to one of society’s hidden truths.
Please write to me at lisa.cherry@hotmail.co.uk if you would like to join me on 18th May in London and if it’s not for you, or you just like clicking buttons, then please press the ‘like’ button on this page and make a difference through raising awareness.
Much love to you all x
. . . → Read More: Will you Make A Difference With Me?
By Lisa Cherry, on January 22nd, 2012%
Do you ever find that sometimes the same thing keeps showing up in your life in different forms and situations like it’s in a slightly different colour to everything else so that it will stand out and you take notice? Well, I’ve been seeing lots of amazing projects and meeting with lots of courageous, community and system changing people lately that have brought a number of things to me to ponder upon.
I’ve been reflecting upon what we seek out of our experience of being alive. Personal fulfilment, a feeling of connection, a perception of belonging, happiness and a sense of self-worth all seem vital components to living a happy life (securing a definition of ‘happy’ would take another article so please just see it to mean what it means for you).
I have learnt that there are many simple things that you can do so as to have these in your life, but here are a few to get you started.
- Pay it forward. I am continuously amazed at how the more I give, the more I receive. I seem to live on fresh air at times, yet me and my children have enough to meet our needs and a little more. I’m not sure how it works other than seeing it as an energy that flows around people who engage in this way of operating.
- Get involved in a project in your Community. Find something locally and become a part of a bigger picture to make a difference. In Oxfordshire, there is a new project just launching called The OTCN Oxhop Challenge. There are always things happening in your community and if you can’t find something, create it!
- When you stop to talk to someone, a friend, a colleague, an acquaintance, comment on how well they look, or how the colour they are wearing suits them, or pass on something good to them that you heard someone else say. It’s not hard to say something nice to someone but it can make the biggest difference to the receiver of the compliment and they’ll be left with a lovely feeling. The quote “People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel” springs to mind.
- Being who you are is actually all you’re meant to be….self-love is the cornerstone to everything! Remember that….
What do you do? What brings you the happiness you seek? How do you feel a sense of belonging and purpose? What can you share about what you have learnt on your journey that might help someone else reading this post?
. . . → Read More: Are you feeling happy?
By Lisa Cherry, on December 8th, 2011%
It’s time for a Christmas post. I feel I have to do one and I absolutely know that my regular readers will not be expecting anything other than an alternative post from me compared to most blogging/articles on Christmas right now. Most posts in the Health section seem to focus on at best, managing family relationships, delegating some of the chores, managing the need to be perfect, dealing with guilt….I can’t connect with any of it. So this post is for those of you who sit on the planet I sit on.
The whole world, it seems to me every year, would have us believe that this is a time of year where families sit in one room together happily eating Turkey, playing charades (likes that’s a normal thing to do!) and smiling knowingly at one another. We’re led to thinking that all people are purchasing bits of plastic that no-one even wants, needs or can justify its very existence. That we all have fabulous trees plucked from the ground draped around the house and that we all eat and drink to excess and need an Alka-Seltzer to recover. And yes, some people do indeed live like that during this festive season.
But thinking outside of this, what is Christmas all about for the child in care or the care leaver? It’s a fat slap in the face as to how their life looks nothing like the lives that the media is showing. That knowledge that every person in their lives is paid to be there. It’s a day when the doors of whatever support services are being used are actually closed.
And what is it for the child who lives in fear of their parents? It’s the holidays, which means that both parents are at home, fighting, drinking, frightening.
What is Christmas for the homeless person? It is absolutely nothing other than yet another day of freezing cold Winter weather and possibly some extra food being dished out by the overspill of irrelevant Supermarket food needing displacement prior to close of day on Christmas Eve. I remember one year dishing out food on the strand – freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberries from warmer climates seemed almost offensive but I desperately wanted to be involved in the solution, any solution, even though it seemed a weird way of being able to go about it.
What is Christmas for the parent who has lost a child? I cannot even begin to imagine and I daren’t.
The list could go on… and on and on and well into the rest of the world but I’ll spare us that.
What is Christmas for me? It has been many things over the years, each year bringing something else for me to ponder and each year being slightly less challenging. I spent many Christmases alone as a young person recovering from the effects of being in care and also as a homeless teenager, wandering the streets aimlessly clutching luncheon vouchers dished out from the night shelter. I have had many difficult Christmases but my children have helped me to some degree have some tradition and sentiment about it that I would never have allowed myself to have were they not in my life.
I love putting up the tree with every year of their childhood represented by an ornament made in their primary years. I love filling their stockings and ringing the bells on them on Christmas morning to say Santa has arrived – although last year they told me off as they were still asleep and it was “to early” (teenagers need sleep, even on Christmas Day it seems!).
I like the smell of cinnamon and oranges and I love the sparkly lights on the tree. Last night I sang with the local Singing Group which was lovely and had a Christmassy feel about it that I liked, especially with all the families there and children joining in.
What really cheers me up is when people step outside of their bubble and remember that Christmas is an incredibly difficult time of year for lots of people. But essentially, the world will not be a better place until we spend every day of the year trying to make a difference, thinking about others, understanding our own privileges and not making assumptions about how people live. I use this time to reflect, be grateful and try and make a difference, not only for Christmas time but for every day, all the time. That to me is what Christmas is about….that is how I makes sense if it for me. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas x
. . . → Read More: Is it that time of year again?
By Lisa Cherry, on November 29th, 2011%
I remember being given a sheet of paper, many years ago and long before Google searched your needs out for you. On it were these 10 rules for being human. I cannot remember who gave me this and in what context but I carried it around with me just about everywhere and stuck it to any wall that was close. It felt like the instruction manual that ‘they’ forgot to give me when I arrived here to this thing called life! You may well have seen this before….
- You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
- You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
- There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
- Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
- Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
- “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
- Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
- What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
- Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
- You will forget all this.
. . . → Read More: Ten Rules For Being Human
By Lisa Cherry, on November 21st, 2011%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AktjNNvTbK8″>The
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.
. . . → Read More: Sabotage…do you recognise this?
By Lisa Cherry, on November 21st, 2011%
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?
. . . → Read More: Walk With The Dreamers
By Lisa Cherry, on November 17th, 2011%
What is The Healing Crisis?
Therapists often talk about The Healing Crisis which can occur after treatments, particularly Massage and Reflexology. Not everyone will have this happen as a result of a treatment but if you do, it’s good to understand what is happening to you, that it is OK and that it is a positive thing.
The Physical element of this is whereby the body is attempting to eliminate toxins faster than it can do so and is trying to cope with stored toxins that may have been in the muscles and fascia and that have then been released into the blood stream through being released during the treatment.
The Emotional element of this is where unresolved emotional stresses or traumas are stored in the body through being supressed. The body becomes a ‘cupboard’ for unexpressed, pent up emotion. Once released, the body can clear itself of all the negativity. The body is asking you to let go of the emotion you are holding onto. An emotional release is most likely to surface in any Healing Crisis.
Symptoms
Everybody can react differently but generally, these may include:
- Lethargy
- Headaches
- Extra need to go to the toilet
- Dehydration
- Muscle aching
- Nausea
- Unexplainable/uncontrollable crying
- Feeling ‘low’
- The best ways to deal with this are:
- Drink lots of water
- Be restful
- Listen to your body
Understand that this is a good thing and it probably won’t last more than 48 hours!
If you are seeing a Therapist for Treatments, then you probably already understand that you are taking responsibility for your health and wellbeing and working preventatively to maintain a sense of balance and feeling of ‘wellness’. Everybody will have a different reaction to a treatment depending on your own physical and emotional condition. The Therapist can therefore not take responsibility for the way that your body reacts to a treatment. We can, however, work together to ensure that you have the right treatments for you and that you have treatments at a time where you can go through The Healing Crisis as calmly and as comfortably as possible.
. . . → Read More: The Healing Crisis
By Lisa Cherry, on November 16th, 2011%
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…
. . . → Read More: The Gift Of Life…
By Lisa Cherry, on November 6th, 2011%
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….
- 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.
- 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!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!
- Understand the Story of Creation from Eve’s Perspective. This will help a lot.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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….
. . . → Read More: 10 Top Tips For Surviving ‘The Breakup!’
By Lisa Cherry, on October 28th, 2011%
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.
. . . → Read More: What is Wellness?
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