hello again

I haven't posted on here for a long time.  But today I thought I would.  It is possible to recover from most setbacks.  Recovery takes effort.  It takes time.  I takes a willingness to admit your problem.  You need to give yourself permission to let go of all the stuff that does not serve you well.  For me I learned to express my feelings.  I learned to observe my environment.  I learned that the things that contributed to my depression and anxiety also helped me get well.  So If you have stumbled across this blog and wonder if it is possible to get well it is.  Take all the help you are offered.  Find a good doctor.  Find a good counseller.  and take advise from people with expertise.  you are not in a position to make rational choices or even remotely sane one when you are in an episode.  So set yourself up for an excellent recovery and listen to your body and those who care about you.  There is no such thins as a hopeless case just a case without hope. 

the joy of boredom

I wondered for a long time how I would know I was better.  I thought it would be when I felt happy , but no.  I thought it would be when I felt relaxed, but no.  I finally realised I was better when I was bored.  I did not recognise the sensation of boredom for a while and then I realised God I am so bored.  I think that moment , that flash of insight, was up there with the best moments of my life.  I was bored and it felt so good.  I of course enjoyed my boredom only briefly as the guinea pig squeaked and called for his dinner, and I of course obliged. Ah the joys of motherhood.  

Remember to take the time to do absolutely nothing not in an avoiding way but in the spirit of the ideler.  Even if you are a busy ant try being a grasshopper for just a moment and luxuriate in the pleasure of being truly bored and really idel. 

Happy Wednesday 

A proper goodbye to Cherry Blossom

Decided that now that I am no longer depressed I would start a new blog on the next stage of my journey.  Maintaining my sanity ;-).  not sure how that will go hmmmmmmmmm .   Was told today that I will not have a relapse if I stick with my recovery plan, feck it will have to go back to work soon so and just as I was starting to enjoy my insanity.  So even though I am to go back to work I hope to carry on blogging.  Thinking in ink is so fun and such a joy to be able to express all those thoughts finally and not just in images.

The music that inspired my recovery, my favourite as a child.

The art that inspired my recovery, my favourite artist as a teenager.   Loooove the wrapped landscape.

The film of the making of the gates is beyond inspirational.  I hope to participate in the over the river project if I can afford to travel there. Lets hope it gets approval.  I was inspired by this as so many aspects of my job are similar to the officials Jean Claude and Christo encountered and I could feel the angst of the poor officials who had to find ways of facilitating or not facilitating their project.


The Tv show that aided it

Powerful female professional role model.  Albeit fictional lol

The books are on my embarrassing book collection page.  I may perhaps return to cherry blossom for advise for time to time.  And thanks to the joys of modern medicine.

Remember to treat your mental health like your dental health ( I have beautiful straight white teeth)

Be kind to yourself and the others you meet on your way.
Take time out of your busy day to blow bubbles and spin on the spinner in the park.
 Stop to identify the flowers, moths and butterflies.
My love of bubbles comes form this song, sung to me by me Great Aunt Janey.  So here I am finally all joined up and ready to move on.

So I am off to start all over again at
paradisealmostfound.blogspot.com

A fully integreated me

I thought that I was a tough strong person.  Many things are tough and strong in tension but not in compression.  This is the basis of all structural design.  The fundamental properties of materials cannot be changed but they can be mixed with other things to create new materials and give the new one some of the properties of the old.  I have started re-reading some of my text books from when I was working in structures many many years ago, mostly to see if my memory and intellect were working again but also because I find it interesting.  I got to thinking on the application of the practicalities of engineering and how it applies to mental health.  I hate that term and really really don't like to use it.  It is the stigmatisation of  the disharmony of the mind (mental health) kept me from going to the doctor and getting medical help for my condition, referred to many as my episode.  Seechange is a wonderful organisation trying to change that.  If it was less of a stigma then people like me and many others would get the medical help they needed before they got to crisis stages.  but enough of that .  I looked at the way the concept of stress is explained in JE Gordons wonderful book Structures or why things don't fall down.

 Stress/strain =E (youngs modulus) for a particular material. This is a measure of a materials rigidity.   The key to understanding how a material behaves is by knowing its properties and that is the same for a person.  Resilience is a measure of a persons ability to bounce back and is similar to the principal of elasticity but not exactly.  I make a significant improvement in my progress when I came across the concept of neuro plasticity , which considered the plastic nature of the brain.  Although it was a very long buried memory I recalled lectures on plasticity and particularly the plasticity of clays, from my college days.  Plasticity I could understand, medical mumbo jumbo about neurons I could not.  So I worked from there and read the lovely book the Brain that changes itself.  It is to mental health what gordons book is to engineering( well maybe not) but it was so simple for me to understand.   The resilience of the human spirit mind and soul is more akin to ductility than elasticity.  I had the metaphor all wrong.  I could never get better if I could not understand the problem and the causes of it.  I just needed my motto, my metaphor to work with and then I could understand.  I think in pictures alot and got so bad mentally that I could not read so I had to think entirely in images for a little while.  I suppose that was very interesting in some ways as it opened up a world without writing for me.

When my youngest got ill first I read many medical papers on it.  All very confusing at first, it was like trying to learn a new language, but by persevering I learned.  I learned all about the different treatments tried and the chances of their success.  Some of the junior doctors patiently explained things to me and answered my questions.  Now although I could not reason very well by the middle of the episode, when I was able to get out of bed, get dressed and believe in my future wellness, I knew that I had to find some way of regaining my previous mental capacity.  When I discovered the concept of neuroplasticity I knew I could get better.   There were so many stories of brains evolving to compensate for losses within them.  I might not get back all my functioning I thought but I would give it one hell of a try.  So I started, meditation, colour therapy, visualisation, exercise, eating particular foods, brain training, art,( a minor addiction to sky arts followed that bit) crochet, all sorts of things to stimulate my brain.  Music really really helped as I understand music memory is stored in a different part of your brain than other memories.  I gave brain training a go despite my misgiving as I thought it was a load of old s**te before my episode.  When I found I could no longer multiply my friend advised me to re-learn my times tables and after 5 times tables it all came back.  I found it hard to estimate quantities so baking and measuring helped that.  Sometimes you just need one little thing, one small key to unlock the doors of thought.  So plasticity was it.  However I found that neuro plasticity was not exactly like engineering plasticity and that was enough to set me on the road to regaining my mental agility.  

So now I am once again fascinated by things that fascinated me in the past.  I have reconnected with many things.  My counsellor's constant refrain about connecting hit home, I am more than the sum of my parts.  I think it may be time to bit the bullet and actually try out some of the designs I have been working on.  Most recently I have been sketching dog clothes, yes  seriously I have, am sketching designs for wind powered bubble machine, not a big leap from kinetic art to bubble producing kinetic art.  Today I saw a yeast powered co2 bubble maker in action in a fish tank a thing of beauty , one perfect bubble a second and a half.  so I will be taking a break from blogging for a while to make some things.  I hope that taking simple designs and turning them into real things will be the final piece in the puzzle of reconnecting myself.  I feel the creative urge returning and hopefully this time I can move on from expressing myself through my baking and crochet to more things.  So bye for now all you lovely people out there in blogger land.  I am taking a break from blogging as therapy.  I will return when my house is clean, I have made Luas pirate outfit for the pirate party next week and I have at least one section of the wind catching element of the bubble machine in operation.  

So I am off to view more houses,hopefully woodworm free ones, to make that fez, to build a windcatcher, and to get some more miracle berry fruit.  Truly a weird and wonderful experience.  Something that will alter your view of the perception of reality so much: lemons that taste sweet as rock candy.  Bye for a little while.  Go get yourself some miracle berries, lemons, really really bitter apples crunch away and enjoy, possible best done in the presence of friends to add to the fun.  Good night all. 

whirling dervishment interupted

My poor brain in a tizzie.  I had a plan for my return to work, move closer to work thereby cutting down on my travel time and have access to more interesting things as I would be living in a city.  Then I was sitting on the beach wrapped in a blanket reading while my daughter swam and bodyboarding.  A man stopped to remark on the weather and we got chatting.  (I have a thing for the weather, comparing it to previous years, looking at predictions to see if they are even vaguely accurate.)  He shared his favourite weather prediction website with me and I invited him to sit and chat.  It was one of those chilly summer evenings, warm enough if you were in the water but breezy on the sand.  The sun was going down.  I recently started to listen to the advice and life stories of others, since I found out I did not have all the answers.  He had recently moved to the town, after making a decision to significantly change his life.  I was surprised and a little shocked as he told me his story, he seemed to be of an age where it was time for the pipe and slippers and grandchildren.  I had been telling him of my day looking at houses and planning my move and how nice it was to take time out.   It was his turn to be shocked, he wondered how I could leave such a beautiful place.  He only spoke aloud what I had been thinking.  I loved the area, the flowers, the beach , the sea, the cafes, but I had not seen that for years while I had been descending to the abyss of despair.  I am so scared of the future as I have not planned it.  For my whole life I planned my future, what I would be doing, how things would turn out, I set career goals and worked thought them.  Then life had the cheek to thwart my goals and plans.  I had not planned my first child, she was a gift from god, a happy accident who has brought me much joy and the inevitable pain, I planned my second child but I did not plan for her illness, I worked hard to help her get over it but I did not plan for it to come back, I worked hard to get promoted but I did not plan to be assigned to a job 30 miles away.  I made plans and life decided to keep interfering.  

Now I am making plans again.  I am scared, in fact I am petrified.  I thought about this and wondered how I have lived my whole life being so scared and anxious and yet pushed myself to keep going.  I remembered chatting to a chap I ended up working for about that.  About 5 years previously he interviewed me for my  first job in Ireland, I came first out of 80 others and always wondered why, I was so surprised as my work experience was so different to the job I was interviewed for.  I ended up taking a job closer to home.  Anyway to the point of all this.  On my first day at that new job he shot into my office and introduced himself.  He said "I was wondering if you really were the girl in the skip", I was taken aback , Himself and the other guy used to occasionally chat about the week they spent interviewing us all; all shiny and hopeful, they had been very impressed by me, not because of my work experience but because of my ability to work through my fear.  At interviews they always asked about your previous jobs and I had worked on piling.  Part of my job was to get into a skip/tube, and descend 35 meters into the soil of London to check the bearing capacity of the base of the pile under-ream.  It was quite a hazardous thing to do and there were many safety precautions.  I am also claustrophobic, which complicated things.  

They listened to the description, the safety precautions, the properties of London clay, the use of the hand penetromoter, and then he asked me was I sacred.  I had forgotten my answer , he reminded me :Scared, I said, I WAS PETRIFIED, they were so amused by me and my ability to just get on with it I was hired.  Single minded determination is what they looked for in the northwest, not a place for the faint hearted.  Knowledge could be thought but that level of determination is born and bred into you.    The ability to just do it is what kept me going for so long.  Driving 90 mile per hour in first gear just because I thought I had to.  He was the best boss I ever had as he knew I was pretty much permanently petrified but willing to work through it.  He knew how to handle with care.   I was spoiled rotten by him and hopelessly indulged, my ideas were listened to and I felt that I contributed.  I suppose the main reason I found this current job so difficult as I had nobody there who knew that I was pretty much permanently petrified and when I told them how overwhelming the difficult things were and how i needed a little help they just thought I was shirking.  Previously if I wanted to built a castle in the air they would have helped me design the correct foundations and found an expert on air castles , we would have found the money and built the best castle in the air ever, and then gone on lecture tours on how to do it.  :-) I might be  projecting but somehow I think not.  So now I am thinking about going back.  I have worked through the other 3.5 things that caused me the crippling stress that led to my collapse.  I have put measures in place to reduce those stresses and now I need to work on that which makes me permanently petrified.  The awful anxiety that crawls into my soul, sucks the life out of me and paralysis me.  I am scared I wonder if second time around it will all be the same.  I contemplated the second time around of many things.  Going out with my xhusband the second time around (ended in divorce) not a good ideas, going back to the same place twice on holidays, not as good as the first time, numerous second dates, some were good some bad, the second helping of cake, yes that is sometimes as good as the first but mostly even better, my second child, again good.  My daughters second time around with her illness.  That was a second time around that I thought I could not cope with at all, but in the end it was no where near as bad as I thought it would be.  That second time and what it might hold buzzed around in my brain like a whirling dervish on speed, dancing with the other thought; another whirling dervish on E , the thought of how would I be able to do all the travel and get the time off my present job as they did not want to make the concessions I thought would be so necessary.  In the end my brain gave up, my daughter was ok , trips to be every three months not every two weeks, but I was not ok.  I worried myself into collapse.  

So what will this bring, second time around.  I have grown so much over the last 6 months I am so scared that I will slip back into the despair and try to drive 90  miles per hour in first gear again.  So today I was given the day off.  One daughter is staying with her friend.  The younger got up herself for the first time ever and took herself off to school.  She planned it so that I could have a rest.  I have been on the go for weeks now sorting stuff for the girls and dealing with the outfall from the assault on the eldest.  I needed a rest and told everyone that I did. They listened and so here I am today listening to lyric fm and turning down offers of visits from my most recent x.  Pat on the back to me.  I am still a scardey cat but I am surrounded by other scardey cats too I think.  I used to pretend that I was a tiger and many people believed that, lol, now I have taken off the tiger suit and shown myself for the scared kitten I really am.   

I dont want to live in fear anymore, and mostly I dont.  I need to go back to the basics that got me to let go of the fear of some any other things and get over the fear that going back to work will be too overwhelming for me.  My mind is better, I can think again.  My memory is good but not excellent, my nerves are good, but what more do I need to be ok with the return.  I suppose I need to let go of a few things, and consider it was not my abilities that my favourite bosses liked but perhaps my exuberance, positivity and energy.   Perhaps it was the loss of that which caused the work collapse.  The prospect of being stuck listening to people complain about potholes forever.  I suppose I did not see all the other wonderful things I was doing, and all the things I could do in the future.  

As my optimism returns and my exuberance does too I am reminded that some people stay young at heart forever. My midlife crisis is finally coming to an end.  So no more toyboys and dreams of yellow sports cars.  I have reconnected with the things that lead me to this career in the first place.  The desire to make things, the desire to have an impact on the environment.  My love of land art has rekindled my desire to do large scale land art projects.  A bit mad perhaps but we all need mad dreams to keep us sane.  I started by drawing labyrinths on the beach, a project foiled by my daughters youthful exhuberance and desire to wipe out the paths as I was digging them , evil thing that she is.  I am the quintessential, look at the stars and say why not kind of person.  If someone said how will we get to the moon I would set about trying to find/build a rocket.  I discovered my family motto the other day To rise again, optimism was bred into me as a child. I would always wonder why people did not help themselves more in life.  If you just applied yourself you could solve it, if you failed you could try a new way. I suppose in essence you could rise again. High notions like the goats in Kerry, as Grandma said.  

When I start out each post I wonder where it will lead me.  I had a thought which I want to develop and I find writing helps me.  A technique called think in ink. I am told.  I have always kept some  sort of a journal and written stuff down, my parents kept daily diaries.  Short and hilarious entries like, Mary had a girl, weather fine, ( the day I was born) , hilarious to me only perhaps.  On returning to the beginning of the post:  that man had walked down the whole beach and probably seen me all serene and cosy reading and waving to my daughter(projecting on both our parts).  He is still on the high of moving to such a beautiful environment, where you can walk to a blue flag beach from a town with some of the best resaturates in Ireland, where our native language is still spoken and where the weather is some of the best in the country.  He was not with me when I brought my 14 year old daughter to A&E when she was beaten up by my neighbour's grandchild who was off her head on drugs and drink.  He does not see the turmoil of my life, the commute, the stress of juggling the kids, work, relationships.  He saw me in the distance, seemly happy content and at peace, in my tiger suit.  I was all those things because I had made my mind up to make positive changes in my life.  It was his fear that I was feeling.  It is the fear of the unknown that I am feeling now not any regrets of leaving such a beautiful place.  It is only a half hour from the city, I love the beach more than anything else here and I can always buy a mobile home in the local caravan park or even get a tent and camp there at weekends.  It is not such a huge step.  I need to move on.  So I am off to ring the woodworm man and get a quote on how much it would cost to treat the house.  So someone else is interested in buying it, when did I ever let others influence me. Hmmm yeah for about four years now, lol.  When I was well I had self belief.  I really really believed in myself.  It was shaken all this years ago and never recovered.  It is time to let go of that.  My self belief is back but this time it is real.   I believe in myself and not just because of what can I achieve but because I am.  I will be careful in making my decision.  I will not leap into any major change without careful consideration. I am trained in cost benifit analysis from a road design point of view.  Can I apply the internal rate of return to my life? I think I can.  I just need to develop the correct values to plug into the formulas.  So I am off to tidy the house and continue with the packing and sorting.  I have been cleaning out all the crap from my life and my house for a while now.  I blamed the assault for my recent setback but it could have been anything, the wrong pants, a bad date, the local shop running out of lucosade, (my current  addiction).  It was just the thing that was there at the time to facilitate a test of my new found resilience   

I am a closet Daniel fan , he is such a truly lovely person, not contrived just lovely .  So this is for all  of us who need to take it one day at a time.

I have finally worked out how to make my decision.  I will take it one day at a time and work to making life easier for us all.  I will take it one day at a time.  I will trust my own intuition and now it is telling me be patient, let go of the feelings that came up last week and give yourself time to decide for yourself.  I have a very developed sixth sense and right now it is saying be cautious and be aware of any changes you make, wait until you are at equilibrium and then decide.  

I am off to balance my chackras, in peace and quite without the kids going oh god Mammy shut up about your chakras.  

so balance your chakras, find your equilibrium and if you feel the need to whirl do so like those happy dervishes but remember they are trained how to do that are you?

Happy Wednesday

an autobiography in 5 parts

I

I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost ... I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place. But, it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in ... it's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

Portia nelson's lovely poem and somthing I focused on so much for the last few years.  Now I am looking for a new street.  Hope I dont start falling down new holes too.  

stress , more than a concept, a measurable entity

I am an engineer.  I like to quantify things,  but engineering is more than calculating things, for me it is about understanding the property of things and how they behave.  Part of my disconnection from myself was my disconnection from my abilities and skills also.  I have always considered natural materials as having desires, especially water, for example you always need to ask the question is that what the river wants to do , when you are trying to divert it.  you need to make it happy in its new position for it to want to stay there.  This of course I blame on the herbie movies and too much family influence on the desire of machines to be well.  In order to fix something you need to understand how it wants to be in its natural state, very zen.  My favourite author's mechanic character. Mr. JLK matakone is written very much in the style of someone what has a feeling for cars.  Unfortunately they do not teach us how materials feel in college instead it is all about formulas and suchlike.  the people who developed the formulas are the ones who want to know how to quantify the personality ie the property of the material.  I was fortunate in my early career to work with a slightly odd, but brilliant engineer, who had a great feeling for how soils want to behave.  He was amused by my interest and got me to do lots of the labrourous calculations on his favourite subject, back analysis of soils slips.  He was trying to understand future behavior based on existing failures and trying to find a formula that would allow engineers to cut slopes into materials and built embankments at their optimum angle , potentially saving money and slope failure.  Sometime I will get to the point here.  I attended an  occupational health doctor last week and he was very impressed by my GPs diagnosis of my episode, adjustment reaction.  He explained that most doctors put down stress but that as stress is a concept you cannot suffer from a concept.  I have analysed how I ended up in this state and concluded that I can only deal with 4.5 very stressful occurrences at any one time.  Stress is a measurable thing and rather than go into a very long argunemtn with the man who was hopefully going to declare me fit for my job again I gave him my OK I will not argue with you look of confusion.  He then said of course you would think like that you are an engineer.  It was not an insult but rather a comment on how my mind works.  I have always been annoyed by peoples labelling of me as I am more than the sum of my parts.  I have many skills and interest and am  not just one thing, engineer is what I do not what I am .  Getting back to the point in hand stress is so much more than a concept in engineering.  It is essential that we know how things behave under stress so that structure  will not fail.  Today I started to read one of my favourite books, Structures, or Why things don't fall down .  I decided to look for a link between structural engineering and my limited knowledge of how the brain works.  Since my encounters with surgeons through my daughters illness i have long thought how similar engineering and surgery are, surgeons work on liging structure while engineers work on inanimate structures, both need to understand the material and organism they are working so that they can make it work properly.  So I am off to reconnect with my interest in my career, not the boring oul shite that drove me crazy, but the essence of why things are how they are, the fundamental philosophy of material, structures and machines.  I am off to look at how engineering concepts can be applied to mental health issues so that I can finally fully integrate my new life.  

bubbles bubbles everywhere

Today I had a very odd day.  The day I have been dreading for around three weeks finally arrived.  I had to go to be assessed to see if I was fit to go back to work.  I visualized what might happen, checked out the doctor involved, a pet by all accounts, and collected a list of possible questions and answers from various people.  But it did not turn out at all like I imagined it would.  I have been taking public transport on long journeys alot recently as I found driving difficult.  I decided to drive today.  The doctors place was a few streets away from one of the colleges i attended and it was like going back in time, me driving my little fiesta, windows down in the heat of summer, music blaring, zooming down a newly built section of motorway.  My first driving experiences on newly built motorway was when the first of the motorway was opened at the strat of the boom.  Mow the boom is over and the road network is almost complete.  It was so weird being around trinity and browsing in bookshops.  The city has changed so much.  It was my first time on my own in Dublin since 1995 and I had forgotten how much I liked it there, I felt 25 again.  The visit to the doctor was a little surreal as he was not at all like I expected and I opened up much more that I expected, I even cried as /i was overwhelmed by the memory of just how bad I felt and how far I have come since I stood on the cliff and contemplated if I would die or just get injured if I climbed over the edge and just let go.  Clearly he has some kind of magic formula for getting information out of people.  I spoke aloud about the how my episode began to a total stranger and it was very difficult and emotional for me.  He read the referral letter to me and it generated a whole series of emotions in me.  It made me realise that I have another whole stage in my return to wellness; how people will react to me when I return to work.  I am now living a different life than I was 6 months ago and I like it.  I love the woman that has emerged from the abyss of darkness.  I am so happy that my poor sad and scared inner child is healing and I can name the emotions I feel.  I am coming to accept my limitations and realiseing that I will have new challenges to overcome when I return to work.  I will have to deal with all sorts of reactions from people.  Many people will be kind and accepting of my flaws and others will just be their mean old selves.  I need to work on my projections and remember the lessons learned.  I need to work on  my wellness every day.  For me it may never become automatic.  I lived for so long anxious and scared it became a way of life.  Sometimes I wondered how I left the house at all.  I was so scared of so many things; dogs that I did not know personally, heights, crossing bridges, enclosed spaces, male authority figures, priests, confession boxes, speaking in public, singing in public, blushing, letters, bills, all things I did not need to be scared of.  I felt shame so much , inexplicable shame of the catholic guilt original sin variety.  

I realise today that I can still feel the awful waves of panic and the awful heat of shame.  

Is it time to panic yet??????

It is OK to fail it does not mean that I am a failure.  I have failed at so many things.  I have judged my failure harshly.  But my harsh judgement of myself is unnecessary.  It is OK not to have all the answer, it is OK to fail, it is OK to ask for help.  I do not have to change myself to meet other peoples expectation of me of my projection of their expectations.  I have worked hard to regain my wellness.  I have grown so much emotionally.  I am ina quandary about how to go forward from here.  Today raised all sorts of questions for me.  

do I really want to move to here, I cant see the horizon anymore??????

I again wandered down streets of my past today, to remembered the expectations I had in those self same places.  It was the first time I thought about the decision I made to move in with my boyfriend and change all the plans I had 17 years ago.  What if I had gone to California like I planned, a sunny place instead of the wild north west.  What if I had not had kids and had continued on to do a phd like I had planned.  What if, what if , what if...........

Today raised more questions than gave answers.  I had made my decision to move and now I am not so sure.  

Where are you hiding fisheys?????????????

I spent a while trying to photograph the goldfish tonight.  I find writing and taking photos help me to make sens of my world.  I don't want to be walking down abbeyside strand in 17 years time wondering what if i hadn't move to Waterford, what if I hadn't gone back to work, what if I hadn't packed in my job.....
I wonder how I will know if I made the right decision.


Today while I was walking down Grafton street I was suddenly surrounded by bubbles.  Given my bubble obsession I was a little taken aback.  I carried Dr Claire weeks book , Self help for the nerves, around with me for around 3 months.  I focused on her advise, get out of bed, face things and float.  I needed an image to work with to help my float and I settled on the bubble.  They float effortlessly.  Today's encounter with the real world of work made me question if I was really any further forward and if returning to work would set me back again.  But the bubbles reminded me to float, so its back to basics again.  Retracing the steps that lead me to get well.  Getting out of bed early, eating breakfast containing protein, resting when I felt weak, floating, facing up to things, eft, self expression, exercising even when I did not want to , taking care of my  appearance, my home and my family, having fun and recognising my feeling.  I learned to express myself and that I mattered.  I am scared again now, scared that going back to work will cause me to slide backwards.  I feel the need to dig that hole to crawl into and hide from all the pain.  I do not want my brain to only recognicse the bad in everything.

Today made me question the certainty of the decisions I have made recently.  Perhaps I need to dream a new dream entirely.  I am standing at the fork in the road  but which one to take???????????????????
The doctor told me today that I am ready to strat planning a return to work but that I am still psychologically fragile.  Well maybe I need to do what you do with all fragile things ;handle with care.

So Im off to bed to.  Treat the fragile things in your life with care.  Perhaps that is todays lesson.

Happy Saturday and be sure to handle the fragile things with care.

tarot healing spread

I use the tarot cards to help me identify emotional blocks and help me find ways of answering my own questions.  I allow the imagery to open up new ideas to me and aid meditation.  I love the healing spread best of all.

Healing spread

1: 5 of swords, The emotional block : An interesting facet of this card is revealed by symbolism in the Rider-Waite scene. It shows a man with two swords lying at his feet - the spoils of his victory. But he already had three swords, and his trophies really represent nothing more than a hollow victory. It is plausible that the two "defeated" men were really not defeated at all; they simply laid down their arms and walked away. They either knew they would lose, or they knew winning would be a pointless exercise. And by choosing not to fight, they are really the winners here, because he who knows when to fight, and when not to fight, will be victorious.  http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/

I dont use the waite rider cards as I learned on these and they represent my interest in fortune telling.  I use the mythic tarot now as I think it is better for subconscious insights.  the cards are very beautiful and dont contain some of the scary imagery of the occult ones. 

Summary I must face my own limits and not engage in battles just for the sake of winning them. emotional block is therefore not being able to accept my limits and not heading the advice of others when to back down or when to walk away from a conflict. 

2:  8 of cups, Wow this past relationships card is so pointent, the woman walks down the steps past the cups with her eyes downcast.  She is leaving behind her love.  I am leaving behind mine and my foolish dreams. I always had unrealistic expectations of my relationships.  I wanted them to help me be happy but now I dont need that anymore.  I can heal myself and be happy on my own.  

3: Present relationships, 3 of cups.  I love this card , for me it means that there is an abundance of love in my life and I can see it.  so often I get the 4 which usually means that I am not aware of or open to the love around me. 

4: Revelation , Temperance, lol moderation in all things as my dad would say.  here  iris is poursin water between two cups with a rainbow int eh background .  I must lean r to have a balanced heart.  Balancing myself , my life and family is what has been reveled to me and I think I need to look at a new image.  for years I saw myself as juggling now I am balancing, a see-saw, a plate spinner, scales, balance. 

5: guidance, king of cups, father figure hmmmm not sure instinctively what that is.  this card is about emotional growth , this is the one to contemplate I think as I cannot immediately see the point of it.  I can interpert most cards quickly and fit them into the story but in this casr I cannot .. Is it a person, is it me, I am needing guidance on a life changing decision and was thinking about the last time I bought a house I asked for my dads advice.  I suppose I wanted him to say no in someways.  I wanted honest feedback.  but he wanted me to be happy and said go ahead.  Later he told me that he had reservation but saw that I really wanted it and gave me the advise against his better judgement.  I suppose this is saying to me Be cautious from whom you take advise and balance it all up.  

6: spiritual lesson: 3 of wands, Never let failure set you back, learn from all of your mistakes and snatch victory from the jaws of every defeat.http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/

in this card in the mythic tarot he is getting the spoils of battle but he has a long road ahead.  wands is pure energy that has yet to find its outlet.  

In summary I am in a good place but must be mindful from whom I take advise and how i proceed.  Learn from past lessons and enjoy the abundance of the love that surrounds me.  I have completed one phase of my life and I have to work hard to succeed at my goals. 

I think it is time to take a realistic look at my goals and take some timeout to contemplate what it is I really want. 

BAlance in all things.

Balance in all things and all things in balance.

canine couture and wellness

I decided to buy a house.  I have decided the time is right for me to settle down, at 44, I feel all grown up at last.  for years I felt like a second class citizen, I did not buy into the property mania.  I stuck to my core values, people thought I was weird and crazy not to buy a house.  You will be too old to get a mortgage, you cant rent forever, why cant you just take out a loan, everyone is doing it. I just could not .  As my dad said they are all out of step except you. 

 and they were.  I wondered why people were borrowing huge amounts of money and how they could afford it.  I could barely afford my lifestyle and yet the cars were getting bigger and bigger as were the houses, the beauty treatments, the holidays, the presents.  How could I compete, and what was wrong with me. So I just paddled my own canoe as always , generally upstream against the flow.  But I ran out of paddle power and went a drift.  Last summer I spent a very beautiful day with a friend walking the riverbank looking at nature.  It was the first time either of us had stopped to just idle away an afternoon with nothing else to do except enjoy the sun and each others company.  We discovered our common love of medowsweet and told each other stories of our childhood memories of the country side.  I watched two boys on a raft float with the river downstream.  they were really enjoying themselves.  they saw us and shouted over what a lovely day it was.  It was remarkably lovely , a day I will remember as one of those fond memories I will look back on when I am an old lady.  

I am still crocheting my st Bridget's blanket with the left over wool from my mother and granny and it is bringing back happy childhood , and some unhappy, memories , memories of what eh wool was made into.  I have bought a few balls of wool just to mix through it to add texture and colour to some of the school jumper greys and daddy's sock browns.  The blanket is turning out well and I am just the first section already to cover my feet at night.  

It is important to have an integrated life, to have balance to enjoy things and not try to fit into other peoples view of the world.  I stuck to my values of only buying what you can afford( not fully) but of not over borrowing I suppose , I did not buy a house just to have a house.  I have always wanted my own home and i was not ready to make a home as I did not know how.  A home is made of love, It is made of memories, good and bad.  A home is where you know you are safe, safe and secure.  I finally realised I am ready for my own home again.  Because my childhood memories were shadowed by a discovery at 21 I negated all the happy memories I had.  I felt ashamed that I had been happy in the home that house a lie and a secret.  but the secret was not mine and I did not lie.  My memories are real as was my shock and my sadness.  My shame was not mine and I have given it back to where it belongs.  I have forgiven them, it was not their fault that I felt like that and I did not even know I did until recently.  I no longer trusted myself and looked to others for guidance.  I did not choose the right guides either.  Now I have healed.  I am fully aware of my pain and hurts.  I am entitled to my opinions and if other people disagree I can ask them to support their argument with evidence.  I am facing up to my limits and I can no longer work beyond them because my body has said stop.  Now I am happily floating down the river of life, going with the flow.  What about the canine couture of the title.  I am minding a dog , the cutest little pappion.  As part of my reconnection with the past, and the happy memories, I am sewing and designing clothes again.  I made clothes for my dolls and progressed to clothes for myself.   I was inspired to make some clothes for him and am off to get out my sewing machine and start on the happy afternoon of canine couture.  A fez and a waist coat I think.  I bought some silk ties in the local charity shops and should be able to make some lovely outfits from that.  His owner is indulging me and I am planning on making a few more outfits for other peoples dogs.  If you told me 6 months ago I would be having breakfast in the garden on a picnic rug planning a full scale picnic for the family and designing clothes for dogs I would have told you you are crazy.  but that day by the riverbank opened up my life to me again.  I went and bought the picnic rug later that week so that me and my friend could enjoy other days out like that.  But life conspired against me and we never did.      I wonder what life would have been like if we had.  I probably would never have had this life altering episode.  I would never have reconnected with myself.  I might even have lost my relationship with my children entirely.  but that awakening, although painful , lead me to here and to happiness.  

Happiness is a warm dog in a fez, chocolate Brownies and raspberry jam on a picnic rug in the garden.  It is all about realising that you are enough as you are. 

You are enough as you are and so am I.

Indulge yourslf and your need to make canine millinary or what ever else you think is a bit eccentirc.  I love this Dali clip. 

Happy Sunday 

walking barefoot and watching gannets

Love is.....................................

                                peace                                                                                                       friends
  
     contentment               o  ptimism                                                                family                                friends      
                                                                        hope                             knowledge 
  
        friends                                                                      luck                                                                          history


     connectedness                                                                                                                                                roots


                 wings                                                                                                                                                  pets


                    lovers                                                                                                                                        flowers


                        meaning to my existence                                                                                       music and dance


                              art                                                                                                                           colour
 
                                     fun                                                                                                          games
 
                                                   meeting of minds                                                              comfort


                                                joy                                                                        singing
  
                                                      pleasure                                               organisation


                                                                  spirituality                forgiveness


                                                                     creativity           contentment


                                                                                      hugs

and walking barefoot on the sand watching gannets . 

Today I realised my episode was drawing to a conclusion.  I am due for an assessment by the occupational health next week to see how best my employer can facilitate my return to work and when I am likely to return.  When I got the letter first I thought that they were going to say that I would never be allowed back to work.  then I thought well they will send me back immediately.  Both are extremes in some ways.  Since I am no longer depressed and I finally feel happy I don't want to go back to the old life I had.  I am still living with the visits of Tina but I am making peace with my anxiety and learning ways of lessening it.  Mostly by expressing my fears and having someone reality test them for me.  I have used that technique to deal with many issues, I explain that I am not able to cope very well with the task in hand that is making me nervous or anxious and I ask for their patience and help.  It is generally always forthcoming and if it is not them I know that its not my stuff but theirs.  Today I reached the full circle in many ways.  I felt like a barefoot walk on the sand in the midst of a fine blustery day with the dark purple clouds whooshing overhead , coming from the Atlantic at great speed.  It is a day I would love to be a bird flashing though the air, being blown up and tumbled around.  I imagine it would be great fun.  So when I dropped my youngest to school I got a mad notion to go to the beach and walk barefoot on the sand.  I would have just enough time to get back home and tidy myself up before I had to go to the doctor.  ( I was concerned that I was getting hyper and not just experiencing an increase in energy, (am just feeling more energetic , yippee)) I had a bracing walk along the beach and decided to sit on my favourite rock and watch the tops of the waves being blown into spray by the wind. I started to watch the birds, curlews all happy in a flock, a few terns dabbling at the shoreline, big fat crows tumbling through the air having great fun.  Then I aw the gulls behaving like gannets.  I kept watching and realised that they were gannets.  I never aw them here before.  Watching gannets dive for fish is a real Joy in life.  Their strong beautiful wings, vivid white and black tips, they glowed in the sun against a backdrop of grey and purple, green and more green more September than may but exhilarating.  I remembered some of the odd things I had been doing over the last year and my trips to the beach to find solitude and contentment.  Last October I could not relax, I could not feel anything except Waves and waves of panic.  I didn't know what to do with myself and could not see any way out of my horrible horrible life.  Today I sat there and wanted to go back in time to tell myself that in 6 months I would be back here on another stormy day, walking barefoot on the sand again.  this time being able to feel a range of emotion, being able to feel the winds and sea spray, the warmth of the sun and the cool of the breeze.  I would see the gannets and crows living their lives and I would be living again.  It is time to move on to the next chapter in life.  Today might be the day to launch the kites my children got as a present from china.

Happy Thursday
Sometimes we need to get lost to find yourself, so im off to make a kite ,
go off and indulge in your favourite childhood activity and think of what happiness means to you .

a very merry unbirthday

Each day there are things to celebrate.  Each day we are given gifts;gifts of friendship, of love, of sunshine and rain, tradegy, happiness and hope.  Embrace every one of your unbirthdays.  Enjoy your birthday and your giving birthdays.  Think happy thoughts and be strong.

Happy unbirthday to you.

childhood fields of dreams

I accidentally ended up somewhere I have not been in nearly 9 years, down the hill from the graveyard where my granny is buried.  I was invited to go for a drive with a friend and we strangely ended up there.  It is odd that the area was so unchanged in many ways.  My granny lived a very simple life in many ways.  I have very happy memories of the area.  I spent many happy hours in the field and bog looking for four leaved clovers, catching butterflies and grasshoppers, and trying to identify the names of many plants.  I looked forward to the annual events of nature, the frog spawn, the bog orchids, the honeysuckle , the blackberries and crab apples, the very very very rare snow and the crisp days of autumn.  My happiest memory is lying on my bed reading Anne of Green Gables listening to the pigeons cooing and the wind rustling through the trees.  It was a perfect irish summers day.  I was secure and happy.  My granny had a very set routine and had set days for visiting the neighbours, going to the shop. A set time for going to the well to draw water and then of course a set time to sit down and relax.  My favourite thing was debatable, going to the well was exciting, what new creature would I see, would I see a frog, would there be waterboatmen balancing on the waters surface.  She went to the well almost daily.  It was a spring she tended in the bog down the road.  It gave some of the best water I ever drank and w always followed the path to the well as bogs are dangerous places if you stray off the path.  The path had solidified over the years.  Many people got the mains water put in but she she not until she was around 80.  I loved the peace and tranquility of my childhood field of dreams.  I often thought that I imagined the absolute tranquility of the area.  The sense of calm and quite, until yesterday.  I was around 4 miles west of her house as the crow flies and I experience the same sense of calm and tranquility there.  The area was once the hinterland of one of the earliest cities in the county and has many fairy forts and a history of settlement going back many centuries.  I started to wonder what drew the early settlers to the area.  Why there, who had cleared the land to create my field of dreams and were we related.  Had my ancestors walked where I was walking.  I had a sense of belonging there.  I felt connected.  When I left home first I move around many times.  I loved the excitement of discovering new places.  And now 23 years after I left home I finally understood that the solid grounding I experienced as a child and the routine and repetition of the family stories gave me a sense of connectedness.  As my friend drove me back down memory lane I finally felt connected to the world again.  We drove down roads I had designed, set out and helped build.  We drove along a road that I had helped build which was created through bogs and fields where my father and grandfather hunted with their dogs.  As I recounted the history of my connections with the area and pointed out the hidden feature, the spot where the skeleton of the giant Irish red deer was found, the location of the river passing under the road hidden in one of the most beautifully shaped culverts I had ever seen, the spot where I stood after I got the heart breaking news of my friends brothers tragic death, the place where my granny escaped from the savage dog who nearly killed her, the church my great grand father built, the bog that  is just off the road that had the most magical pond, the  house where my mothers best friend created the most beautiful rose garden I ever visited, I realised that I had a place in the world.  That there was a meaning to my existence and that many of my happy memories were buried under the weight of my anxiety and my attempts to be strong.  My existential crisis began on Patrick street as I tried to get to visit my father grave on his 10th anniversary.  I was under time pressure to get back to collect my children and I was exhausted as I had been overdoing things.  I began to sweat and panic so I decided to go back to pick up the children and abandon my desire to visit the grave for the first time since I saw him being put into the ground.  Next day I had the swine flu and two weeks later I the existential crisis began, caused primarily I think by the awful exhaustion of the flu and the shocking realisation that I was not immortal.  I thought that I would die in the middle of the flu I had been so sick.  (bit of an exaggeration as I just had the flu and a high temperature)  I could not get out of bed properly for around two weeks and I think I started to contemplate my existence as I lay there too weak to do anything much.  My mother blamed my failure to take adequate time to recuperate after the flu for my recent episode and perhaps she is right.  the train of thought begun as I lay there was destructive and now I realise that a few weeks of proper rest would have allowed me to put the existential crisis in context rather than dragging myself back to work out of a sense of misplaced responsibility.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  Finally I can see why I have not been allowed or encouraged to return to work yet.  I am now needing many ounces of prevention.  Existential crisis over methinks.  I think I will plan a journey to visit the graves of my ancestors.  I know where many of them are buried back as far as the famine.  Recently my x discoverd that one of our favourite places we visited before we were married An Grianan overlooked the island his grandfather grew up on.  His grandfather ran away from home at the age of 11 and ended up living in a different country where he married a local woman.  Like many other I emigrted too and met my xh abroad, we eventally ened up living together in donegal and spent many sunday afternoon gazing at Inch Island from the top of the local hill.  We has been gazing at his grandfather childhood field of dreams.  Since I have become open to how interconnected we are I have begun to wonder if there is some kind of ancestoral memory embedded in us or are we just genetically drawn to the same places and things our ancestors are.  Or is it something more mysterious??

If anyone is ever reading this apologies to teh lack of spelling correctiona and editing, but today I am just not ready to corect myself ;-) I am giving myself permission to go to bed before I do my corrections. 

Happy Monday