huggies cure everything

Last night I had a sleep over for 4 10 year olds.  I have concluded that all we need are hugs to make the world right.  When we grow from being a child to teenager to adult we forget many of the things that make us feel better hugs are one of them.  They fought like 4 10 year old girls and then they came for hugs afterwards to feel better, do they upset themselves just to have a hug, maybe I need to hug them before they feel bad, preemptive hugging may be the way to go.

Go and hug people today because they can cure anything. :-)

Imperfectionista-being average and just right

As I reread my page on the little red hen revisited I spotted a typo. Imperfectionistas, It looks like fasionista, so ?i thought about the concept of being an imperfectionista, does such a word exist.  You might be not too surprised that it does. I found this blog with imperfectionista . There are so many people struggling with perfectionism.  Mine stops me from doing many things.  I have spotted my daughters 10 year old friend in the early stages of it.  It is like someone holding a mirror up to me.  From now on I am going to be the perfect supreme imperfectionista, yes I am joking, my other motto of this year is" be average".  It comes form the recovery inc people.  Being average is a wonderful aim, not too high not too low but just right.(but not perfect, there is a difference)  Like my absolutely favourite story of the three bears, just right is not the same as perfect.

So I am now off to make pizza that is not perfect, crafted with love it will be just right.  I am off to live in my imperfect world, with my imperfect family, imperfect friends, imperfect body, but totally perfect shoes.  I love my shoes.  When I go to heaven I will only wear pedro mirales shoes.  That will be perfection.

Happy Saturday, so put on your perfect shoes and think about how wonderful life will be when you are truly the supreme imperfectionista. 

you are looking well, you look very refreshed after your break

You are looking well, you look very refreshed after your break.  Oh god why do I just cringe when I hear that.  Yes I do look well , its a pity you cant see into my soul, is how I would like to respond, or sometimes I just want to say thank you but how did you expect me to look.  Or even F**k off you hypocrite, what you would like to say is Jane I thought you would look like a bag lady but you look normal, I bet there is nothing wrong with you, you have been faking it all this time , really you have been secretly off on holidays for 6 months.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Some people cross the street when they see me, either they dont want to speak to me because they are afraid I will unburden myself on them, they dont want to acknowledge the fact that if i can crumble then they can too, they are wrapped up in their lives and I am no longer a part of it.

There are those of course who give me their email address or number or invite me for coffee or lunch , those who unexpectedly show up with flowers and presents, those who show they care by comming up to me and hugging me.

There are those who come up to me and share their story of hurt, abuse or despair because they think I will understand it now.

I was always the same person, but I might not have understood.  I have been all of those people I describe above.

Today I have to deal with some very difficult stuff and I have devised a note to hand people when I cannot speak or understand because I am so overwhelmed.  It says;
I am anxious; when I get anxious I panic.  When I panic I do not understand what you are saying to me.  Can you please write down the most important part of what you are saying and what you need me to understand so that I can refer to it later when I am calm.  Thank you for being patient with me.  I might look fine but really I am too anxious to hear what you are saying to me properly right now.  I wrote this note to help me cope in moments of utter panic, When I am too overwhelmed to speak. Thank you for treating me with kindness and compassion.

I think it is worth a shot.  I look OK. I look like myself , the woman who can do what ever she puts her mind to .  I sound OK , I sound like the profession well educated woman that I am, but oh god how i feel is far from OK.  Do I need to be a crying jibbering idiot, with bad hygiene, weird hair speaking in tongues for people to understand that I am not able to function as well as I look and sound.  I have been struck dumb by the intensity of the confusion I feel some days.  When I can finally articulate what I was feeling many people tell me that is normal and they accept it as part of their life.  for me it is not what I think of as normal.  I had excellent recall, I could juggle chainsaws(metaphor) I could reason and understand.  I did not see the signs that how I saw myself was not really how I felt and I compartmentalised my life so that I could present the well adjusted image of myself to some people and hide the absolute terror I felt.  Joining myself up is proving to me more complex and demanding that I anticipated.  I thought take a few tablets, get some counseling and everything would be as I want it to be.  Be I am not God, I am not the man who runs the world. I am not perfect  I am me, a flawed human being a woman trying to make sense of her world.  I may not be able to ask for help yet but I can hand someone my note and perhaps some of the people I encounter today might be able to understand that under the veneer of calm and control there is a very confused person who is struggling to find her way in a rapidly changing world.  who is struggling to understand what is happening and why.  Who is not superwoman but just Jane an imperfect woman doing the best she knows how, trying to find her way in a very confusing world. 

the little red hen revisited

When I was a child we had a black and white tv, there was not such thing as dvds, computers were what they used to send the men to the moon and records were what I loved to listen to.  My favourite was the story of the little red hen.  I'll do it myself was a real motto for me.  (I suppose as a child hens were an important part of life, my granny had a hen house and hens, her cousin had the most beautiful bantams you could imagine, so exotic looking.)  Anyway we were discussing a problem the other day, my ex, my teenager and me.  I was explaining how the problem could be dealt with and x was saying that it was impossible.  Teenager piped up if anyone can do it mam can.  I listened to this and asked her to expand.  She said she saw other people try to do things and fail and then when I tried I succeeded.  My dad used to say just tell her she cant do it and she will get it done in no time.  I love to undertake challenges of doing things other people would not bother with, I love to challenge myself, but I think that the fun I got from problem solving was nothing compared to the fun of not problem solving.  I have learned how to be the anti-little-red-hen.  Perhaps if I show her that even superwoman  can crash and burn, she will feel that her efforts are hers and that she does not have to live up to the ideal of being a perfect superwoman.  I did not know any children's stories about the joys of being an imperfectionistas a child, the joys of being average, or even the joys of being different but the one I love most that I used to read to my children is Giraffes cant dance.  I thought I could not dance, again not a metaphor, but when I was around 27 I went to two different types of dance  classes, traditional and modern and I found that I was a very passable dancer, I could follow steps but not freestyle.  

My children grew up with the idea that I was superwoman, mother and father to them for a while, so much so that she called me her unbearded father.  I am not superwoman.  I am not the little red hen.  I now have evidence to the contrary of that.  I can finally receive help and just as I am rewriting my life, I can rewrite the story and message of the little red hen.  I am not alone, I can ask for help, there is always someone out there that can help and is willing to do so.  Why was it so hard for so long to ask please can you help me.  the first time I truly understood that phrase was when my polish neighbour, who has not so much English, had no  water at Christmas.  His English was not very good but he was able to say please can you help me perfectly.  It must be one of the most important phrases we can learn in any language.  I can ask where are the toilets in 5 languages as this is the most important phrase I need when travelling and also, where is the train station, but why did I never think of that most important phrase Please can you help me.  
So for all of you out there that dont know how to ask for help here is a selection of the phrase in different languages:
An feider leat caibhru liom le do thoil?
Parsome galite man padeti?
Proze mozesz mi pomoc?
Sil vous plait pouvez-vous me aider?
os gwelwch yn dda allwch chi fy helpu?
Bitte können Sie mir helfen?




Today practice asking for help even when you dont need it just so that you can ask when you do.


Happy Thursday and go off and have yourself a bit of a dance. 

how our senses help us

Many people say that we have five senses, sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.  There are also those who say we have six, funnily they call it our sixth sense, I consider it to be intuition. That gut feeling you get about somethings.  Why do we ignore i?.  Animals are in touch with it.  They often leave before impending disasters.  Our hairy sister (the dog) has it in abundance.  Her father is a dog used to help with autistic children to keep them safe from danger.  Over the last two weeks my life became very odd and chaotic.  I thought I was fully better and started to make plans to return to work.  I was not officially declared fit for work but I thought that I could cope well again with most things.  I was not wrong but I was not right either.  The dog was christened our hairy sister by one of the kids as she does not live with us here. She is my ex husbands dog but is considered to be a big part of the family.  She was been cuddling up to us all during the past weeks as she has sensed something was wrong.  She trapped me on the sofa in the porch one day over the weekend.  She knew I needed a rest and some non-judgmental company.  All our senses are important, some are better developed than others.  When I first had to stay off work because I was ill I could not read, or listen to music, listen to the radio, all I could do was lie on the sofa and cry.  As the medication took effect my senses gradually returned.  I started to clean as I needed something to do and I found some of my aromatherapy oils I had forgotten about.  Geranium is good for soothing the nerves.  When I got up in the morning I put it into the oil burner and gradually my mood lifted.  I then invested in some fabulous neroli oil.  I changed my perfume to a citrus based one as it was more energising than the floral one I usually use.  The next sense I started to work with was sight.  Colour in particular.  I studies many images and colour therapy on the internet.  I have tried out about 15 different matchpots on my living room walls.  I finally chose a pale sandy peach but have not painted it yet.  Colour is important as It can stimulate moods.  I have used colour in my meditations also.  sound was explored through meditation and music.  Touch through swimming and long warm baths, walking barefoot on the damp grass, and on the sand.  Taste of course got out of hand through the many and varied cookie varieties I tried.  These may sound like self evident and simple things, but to a person who no longer wants to exist these are important ways of reconnecting with themselves and their body.  Anxious and depressed people spent so much time in the the mind that getting in touch with the body is an essential part of getting well.  When I started to meditate it quietened the mind, by relaxing the body you relax the mind, by working the body you balance the mind.  

Balance.  My motto of 2011.

All things in life in balance.
So go off and get some juggling balls and learn to juggle the hand eye coordination needed unlocks that part of the mind that wants the world to be the way it should not how it is.

Happy Tuesday.

binoculars, wool and crocheting together my life, pat on the back to me

I went to visit my mother for Easter Sunday, my ex-husband (long story) and my two daughters went too, my older brother was there.  It was a very weird day, I must stop saying that , I suppose it was a weird day because I had forgotten what it was to enjoy myself and I was only weird because it was enjoyable.  I found that I could not leave the house in the morning.  I finally had a night alone at home and there was no-one to hunt out the door except myself.  I found I could not muster the energy to leave so I went back to basics.  I went looking for the trail of bread crumbs I had left myself for such events.  I have been taking pictures, buying books, looking up stuff on the Internet, getting advise for many people, professionals, friend and random strangers.  All of those things are there at my disposal I just need to look for the right one for the situation I am in.  Remember to command the muscles, start by wriggling the toes, by commanding the muscles I get out of bed;pat on the back to me.

What is next, manage the blood sugar levels, perhaps it is not anxiety maybe it is low blood sugar, the cure, protein filled breakfast and sugary tea.  That worked; pat on the back to me.  Next the feeling that I am living in a bowl of jelly , that had to go so that I could drive, I bookmarked a load of sites on the Internet surely I thought there is one there that can help me leave the house.  And yes, you guessed it there  was EFT, emotional freedom technique.  I needed to release the bad feeling that had built up during the very stressful fortnight I had experienced, I needed to accept myself so that I was OK to be me.  So I followed the exercise., and again you guessed right , it worked.  Gradually by forming and remembering the habits that helped me get well again, I was able to cope with a potentially very stressful event, an hour long drive with my teenage daughter who was likely to use the hour of captivity(mine as well as hers) to vent her anger, try to part me from my money, get my approval to do all the unhealthy things I was trying to steer her away from.  the day was weird for me because it was perhaps my first day being truly myself with my family.  I enjoyed it.   I came away with the realisation that my life is good.

Transgenerational periwinkles

My childhood was not all bad, although I had recently connected with the parts of it that had confused my inner child.  Yesterday I connected with the many parts that had been good.  As my mother and I sorted through old patterns, oh  god that seems like a metaphor but it is not, we sorted through old dressmaking patterns, wool and fabrics, so that I could do some more crochet and dressmaking.  Currently I am crocheting a blanket for myself for the winter, more a comforter/rug than a blanket.  It is from scraps of wool I had and got gifted to me.  I am now embarking on the crocheting together the left over wool that my mother had kept from all the jumpers and socks and cardigans she knitted over the years.  It was a real exercise in memory to think of all the different fabrics we used to make the clothes.  My mother taught me to sew before I could even write and the skill was passed to her by her mother.  Now it is time to pass it on to my children, even if they do not learn by doing they might learn by watching.  I am crocheting what my teenager called the St Bridget's cloak.  Each day I work on it it grows alarmingly, by combining together wool of different textures and coulors I can blend a blanket of memories and warmth.  I may be a little childlike in my innocence at present but that too will pass and I will grow.

I also left with my dads binoculars.

I have such wonderful memories of looking at ships in the distance through them, jellyfish ahoy!, of sunny days in the summer gazing at beetles in the grass , when I was trusted not to break the binoculars.  My father cared for all his tools and possessions.  He always said to put things back in their right place when you had finished with them and look after all your tools properly by maintaining them and putting them away in their protective cases.  This is again not a metaphor, he was a maintenance fitter and his work was all about maintaining the pumps and fitting of the local waterworks.  His father before him also had the same job.  I suppose the lesson here is; I have the tools.  If I care for them, put them away in the right way when I dont need them, those tools will always be with me and I can pass them down to my children and grandchildren.  Beliefs are transgenarational, so are patterns of behavior but I have been passed on good as well as bad ones.  I was taught how to sew, knit crochet, tend a well, care for tools, cook, garden; all the tools to create a home.  So here I am woman, child, mother, lover, engineer, homemaker, artist, and part time philosopher, talker of psychobabble, writer of depression recovery blogs and haiku.

Happy Easter Monday
So go and find the tools you need to reconnect up all the parts of your life, good and bad.  You will be all the better and richer for it. Today's blog was written while listening to lyric fm , right now they are playing the Easter Parade.  We are all individuals.  So be yourself and have a :-)  Happy happy Easter. 

how I learned to stop worrying and love the chores

I came home tonight to the sight of a really messy home.  Oh god dog hairs everywhere, no clean dishes, almost no clean clothes, and even my bedroom was untidy.  I have made a point of tidying my bedroom everyday so that I have at least one place in the house to relax and chill.  I make my bed every day after I have aired it.  I remember as a child helping my mother to make the beds, it was  lovely time just after breakfast.  Smoothing out the sheets and blankets, fluffing up the pillows and smoothing out the candlewick bed spreads.  Yes I was in fact born in the 1960s and soon I might even admit my real age publicly,  I have been 37 for quite a while now.  I made a list, some time ago, of the basic things I needed in relation to housework that was the minimum I needed not to feel stressed when I came in home.

1) welcoming and calm porch

2)  bike put away

3)clean and well stocked kitchen

4) almost empty laundry basket

5)almost full wardrobes and drawers

6) clear hall stairs and landing

7)some completed some uncompleted projects

8)cosy front room

9)creative space room /dining room

10) bedroom lovely and welcoming

When I arrived home today the porch was like a bomb had hit it, the bike abandoned by the front door, chaos in the kitchen and almost no food except for the ingredients to make cookies, two overflowing laundry hampers,  clean cloths in baskets and almost empty wardrobes, and generally a home in need of care.  For the last two weeks things have been a little chaotic, lots of events and a huge wake up call for me in terms of my children's behavior.  A clean home is important but I forgot the motto of balance, I forgot to do the things that have helped me to get well, Routine, caring for myself , my family and my home, aiming for average, not too high and not too low, avoidance of extremes.  Oh god I thought as I came in the door am I back at square one again.  Here I am overdoing things and neglecting the cleaning again.  I wondered if the neglect was a sign of me reaching the top of the abyss again.  But I have come so far from that abyss I can almost no longer remember it.  I have learned the lessons of asking for help, I have learned to use the times of good energy levels to prepare for the times of depletion.  I am now almost at a point financially that things will be tight but while I discussed this with my brother I recalled that I put a contingency plan in place a few weeks ago in the even that I would not be ready to return to work.  I prepared a file on all the cut backs necessary and a list of who to contact on what.  I can ask someone to help me implement that.  I have also been able to ask people to help me clean the house.  I do not feel embarrassed to say my energy levels are low today, I am drained I need to replenish myself can you please help me to tidy up.

http://whenpigsfly-returns.blogspot.com/2010/10/wonder-womantv-show.html

I have come to realise that I am not wonder-woman but I can when the need arises put on my giant blue knickers, pick up my lasso of truth and tap into her spirit.  She was in fact created to inspire girls.  I loved that programme as a child and it is so different from some of the less than positive messages children receive today.   Today they are overly sexualized at a young age and I will leave the rant about this to another time and another blog when I am fully recovered.
One of the lessons that I learned is to let time pass.  Time is a great healer and trying to rush a return to health is a mistake.  Hurry up and get better is not something many health care professionals will say , generally it is take your time and you will get better.  So I am almost better now.  I have been at 99.999% better for so long.  I have tried to force the .001% but it has proved to be elusive.  It is hiding for me until I can apply the recovery lessons to all aspects of my life and I become a fully integrated person.  Compatmentaliseing my life was the way I coped for so long, probably because I was not fully comfortable to me this me to everyone.  Yes I am a bit innocent and gullible, yes I have slightly unusual ideas, yes I do not follow the traditional role for women, yes I am a poor money manager, yes I take too much on, yes I only see the good in others, yes I am very rigid in my views sometimes, yes I have some strange hobbies but that all goes up to make me the person I am.  I am totally crap at housework but I am good at home-caring.  If we change our vocabulary we free ourselves from the old beliefs and old patterns.  I dont do housework I home care, I dont go to work I go to share my skills and get paid for that, I dont look after the kids I mother them, I dont cook I provide a tasty source of nourishment for people, the list is endless.  All those things that were burdens and chore can be sources of joy and pleasure and things that create happiness for ourselves and others if we just change the way we think about them.  We all have to power to change our thinking.  My poor frozen brain has indeed thawed I am carefully channeling the melt waters to create fertile fields with the help of some good people and  professional.  The melt-waters need not wash away the environment I have created for myself in which I can be well.  I can look at this part of my journey as learning to channel this new-found awakening of my self.

So off I go to care for my home with love, and of course flash febreeze cotton fresh .  A bit late in the evening to do all this perhaps but I rested for an hour and could not get to sleep thinking about how bad I would feel in the morning getting up to a totally uncared for home.  I love my home, I love myself and I love my family.  I can care for all of these.  The next step on my journey is to learn to love that job I once love but came to  hated.  I want to  share my skills and be rewarded in cash for that and so that I can go off on that fabulous journey I have been planning while I was too scared to leave the house.  the internet is a wonderful thing for people like me I have been to the fairy mountains in turkey, to the top of the andes, to so many museums and art galleries and all in the comfort of my own home.  I look forward to the day when I can go there for real, when I have the money, the time and the energy to do that.  For now I will be content to get out as far as white strand and watch the egrets, look at the tide ebb and flow and be grateful that I can enjoy that again.

Happy middle of the night.  Todays blog was brought to you courtesy of Vivaldi, Chopin and of course the ever lovely Bach.  The brandenburg concerto is perhaps the loveliest piece of music I ever heard and of course the perfect accompaniment to home caring.
So go off and turn those chores into pleasures, Huck Finn had the right idea make then fight for the right to paint the fence.

mothering the mother revisited, mothering the world

Today was a weird day again, I recently had my first night out with my colleagues since I have been off work and I realised that going back to work will not be the insurmountable Himalayas of my imagination. They were all so nice and caring and invited me to share in the celebration of the birthday of someone who has been one of my signposts on the road to recovery, nudging me back onto the road to recovery when I start to stray, rather like a sponsor from AA he has coaxed me along the road to recovery.

the joys of a blue sky and birch trees

I was lying in bed contemplating what I would do after my now regular bubble bath.  I was acclimatising to the day while looking out at the sunshine thinking was it warm enough for a waterfight as last night it was warm enough for dinner in the garden.  Yesterday the swallows arrived, only four so far , and the day before the bluebells finally appeared.

The first bluebells in Newtown Woods

These are facts, not metaphors, for a change. lol, any way to make a long story short there was a competition on the radio about where was the best place in Ireland to enjoy the sunshine and I texted in that my garden was and I won a wonderful a very fun day out for me and one of the children, so it is official my garden is the best place in Ireland to be on a sunny day:-).   As I spoke to the host I thought about the need for mothering and I realised that I am finally able to be a mother again.  I have been searching for help in parenting my teenager as I see her going off the rails.  I realised that the mothering is within me and just as I need it and so does eveyone else.  We all need to be nurtured and loved, we all need to be cared for and have a safe place to call home, we need a sanctuary and place to gain respite from the confusion of the world, from all the messages from the media, advertising, our peers, our family.  We need a place where we can retreat and just be ourselves.  The years of the celtic tiger did not value mothering, we were seen as a means to an economic end.  We all need to heal from the awfulness of the  messages we received from that tiger's roar.  We need to be not celtic tigers, but celtic mammies.  The Irish mammy is a legendary figure.  The need for a more inclusive society which values the female side of life, that value the nurturing side of people is so obvious to many people.  We no longer want to run this country like a business. I want to live in a society not a business, I want the nation to be mothered not used as slaves to the machine.  It is time for mothering us all, so I am off to mother my mother tomorrow.  She of course would disagree that she needs mothering but we all need mothering and not just by our mothers.

I am off to hook up my bubble sprinkler, slash in the paddling pool and enjoy the day fueled by cadburies roses and 7 up. My inner child will enjoy the pleasures of chocolate and 7up during lent and my adult will enjoy the guilt free day.


Todays blog was written to the sound of happy children and dogs, also to the sound of south american tango music.
So go off today and mother yourself, create a coocoon of blankets, make a tent out of sheets in the kitchen, do the things that you did as a child with your mother and find that inner child who can help show you the mothering you need.  Alternatively just go and lie in the sun , in a park, in the garden, on the beach or just get out and be happy to be alive.

Garrus beach at sunset

Happy Saturday 

what causes disease

what causes disease
Extracted from an aritcle by CLAIRE O'CONNELL

Probably every biological process has a microRNA or set of microRNAs behind it, but when we began our work about three or four years ago nothing much was known about them in the immune system at all,” he says.

“Then we began to find them in the immune system. We began to find they were very strongly regulated by Tolls , and Toll Four was inducing loads of them.”

In particular, their research pointed to microRNAs having roles in keeping inflammation under control.

“We have found that microRNA is very important for dampening down the inflammatory process – through a negative feedback effect they fine tune the system,” says O’Neill. “We have stumbled into a set of molecules that are probably important for the resolution phase of inflammation, so microRNAs are very important for returning the body to normality after an infection.”

This summer, O’Neill’s team will start another research project on microRNAs in the immune system, teasing out a potential tug of war between microRNA 155 and microRNA 21 during inflammation. So far this work, which was funded by Science Foundation Ireland, has looked at how the microRNAs affect cells. But with a grant from the European Research Council, O’Neill can now progress the research to more complex preclinical models to get a more complete picture.

“We are very much on a frontier here,” says O’Neill. “We are really fishing now in the world of microRNAs, to see are they relevant and can they affect disease outcome.”

And knowing more about the mechanics of the volume control will help inform the use of microRNAs in diagnosing and treating disease, he adds.

I found that article facinating.  Connectivity is the buzz word of modern society.  We are all connected.  this over connection can disturb those of us who need quietness and space to process the world.  Part of the healing process is  processing  what has happened in our lives to bring about the disease.  This is not always practised in a holistic way by conventional medicine, and the physical process which bring about disease is not always fully integrated by alternative medicine.  We are at a point in the evolution of science and the understanding of the mind body link where both communities are beinning to see the other side of their so called rivals.  I had a wonderful experience when my daughter was in hospital last week.  My second daughter has been treated for a medical complaint which went away and recently came back.  The first time I went to every quack in the locality, and here I use the word quack in an affectionate way, as quack is a sound made by a bird and is the best way we can describe another creature, that is a duck, trying to communicate with us.  We do not know what he is saying but we know he is communicating, anyway back to the point.  I have discussed the alternative therapies with him in the past and this time decidied to go down the conventional treatment method only and have as yet not tried to quack.  But amazingly he considered the question my daughter asked him about the connection between a new vaccine and her disease the last time she was in hospital.  This time he told me that he had investigated it and said that it is worth a try and although there is no scientific basis for it working there have been trials and cases where it seems to work.  This is such a huge growth in his attitude to non scientific treatment, just because we don't know why it works and we cannot prove that it works does not mean that it does not work.

I found the above article this morning and I believe that the mind body connection, the wholeness of being, the fact that disturbances of brain function , which has hitherto been called mental illness in in fact a full body illness and cannot be treated in isolation.  We need to heal the whole person in all cases.  We dont not know how our thoughts create the physical disturbances as yet but research is getting closer with the advances in neuroscience.  Philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, logic, medicine, alternative therapy, religion, art, music , all of the world and our experiences go up to make us who we are.  We often go through the world blind to the guides there to help us on our path, we forget that all our lives are joined.  We are each the centre of the universe because the universe is infinite but infinity connects us.

To quote my late father :"they are all out of step except you".  They a were all marching to a different drum and I did not know that there was more than one drum beat in the world.  We are all connected, all the drumbeats go to make up a cacophony of noise and wonder, sometimes it is in harmony and at other times in disharmony.  Our search for connectivity and wholeness is a search for our tribe that beats the same drum beat as us.  But when we want only one beat, the one the we know the sound of, the one that we have heard all our lives we close our ears to the possibility of learning a whole new song and to all the other musical instruments in the world.  I value openness, I value honesty, I value knowledge and now I have found a new value one that is completely new to me , I value the difference in others , I do not need to live in a world with only one drum beat I live in a world full of all sorts of sounds.  Time for a new therapy for me , music and sound , it unlocks so much of our minds and unlocking the mind is the key to unlocking the soul.

Today I will not look at what is the evidence for that truth that I thought about.  Today I will be open to everything, I will listen to all sounds, and not just one, I will take off my glasses and marvel at the uniqueness of all sounds; the beautiful birdsong, the clicking of the keyboard as I type, the weird sounds the dog and child are making, the accidental music of the electric guitar as she learns to play, the squeak of the sliding of the fingers down the string, the buzz of the electrical equipment, the hum of the fridge, and that lovely singing of the thrush outside my window.  We are all connected but we can only experience that connectivity if our senses are attuned to the world.

Perhaps the scientists that discovered the micro RNA were so open to working out how things worked that they did not dismiss anything they encountered in their search for knowledge.  I think that it is a lesson to us all , and to me in particular.  Open up to the world around you be situational aware, there is some much out there to enjoy.   I was thinking about the many people who have shown we the way on my road to recovery and think of them as signposts, because road signage is very much part of my work, and I need visual metaphors to understand the world.  I have long mulled over the poem Autobiography in 5 parts which I have read and reread since I first discovered it many years ago.  When we are looking for a new street we can find it with the help of our signposts.  Be open to them and stop and carefully read them when they appear as they have been sent by your subconscious to show you the right path for you.

Loose the rigidity that keeps you in your rut and follow the signposts that the world is offering you to new an fantastic places.
Happy Thursday. 

why am I so gullible

My gullibility has been tested too its limits. I counteracted my naivety and credulity with cynicism and anger  for so long that I failed to see the actual antidote to my gullibility.  My brother said to me that I see only the good in people and that is why I needed to balance my life with a partner who only sees that bad, for years he said to me you are not just soft hearted but soft headed.  I took it as an insult and did not hear the message, yesterday he said to me you are a soft hearted person and you only see the good in people.


For many years I could not tell if people were lying to me, I pretty much believed everything people said to me.  Now I have finally understood that the antidote to my simpledomness, yes it is a word as I have now created it, The answer to my simpledomness is infact a rigorous scientific analysis of the facts.  For example my not so gullible teenager gave me a version of the events which lead her to a and e the other night.  I believed her initially until I decided to act on the advise of my less gullible friends and family and examine the evidence.  She did not take account of the love of gossip in the town, and the easy access I have to the internet.  My spies were not long gathering evidence and when I put it all together the final version of events does differ from her version.  I know that each of us sees reality in different ways but her secrete bebo account is not so secret, the evidence is all there if only you search for it.  The approach of those less gullible than me is to expect everyone to prove themselves, to see if people match the talk with visible evidence.  I think I need a lesson in surveillance.  When I started to look for help on her recent escapades I found that there are so many people there to help, random strangers, friend with skills I never thought of using, people who know me better than I know myself , who can help me piece my life together in a way that makes sense.  The hurt ends here is a phrase that has been used alot today.  An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.  We all have so many wonderful people there to help us.  We need to trust our instincts but what if your instincts are broken or have been brainwashed? Well fellow simpletons, remember to be gullible is not something you have to accept, nor do you neeed to counteract it with cynicism, you can learn to be less of a simpledom and ask yourself what evidence is there to support that.  So I am setting myself a task for teh next day I shall check the evidence I have for everything.  I wonder who I shall become when I have healed myself from this simpledomness, what will life be life without it.  It no longer matters to me why I have allowed myself the luxuary of being innocent.  I can take my place amoung the able-gulls of the world at last.

the antidote to gullibility; examination of evidence, the antidote to credulity, skepticism, the antidote to innocence experience.  I am an analytical, logical, experienced woman.  I am well educated,  intelligent, thoughtful, and observant. I no longer need to confine these qualities to my studies and my work.  It is time to be an adult in all my life and allow myself to become a complete person.  I do not need to take refuge in my innocence and pretend that I do not understand the bad stuff and the bad people I encountered as a child.  that little child is still within me but I the adult can step forward and heal her.

So I am off to see what my life is now like since I have given myself permission to grow up and be an adult.

innocence

I have viewed myself as tough for a long time.  I now realise that I was hardened to the grimness of the reality I had created for myself.  Fundamentally I am a naive and soft hearted person.  I see the best in everyone, often to my detriment.  I am constantly surprised by other peoples bad behavior and often wonder why I am such a simpleton.  I have most unfortunately retained a very childlike view of the world.  Is this a good thing or am I in fact too innocent and credulous for my own good.  I am that girl who believed that the word gullible was in fact removed from the dictionary.  But why am I so, why do I seek the good in everyone, why am I so credulous, do I in fact see the good in everyone or do I project goodness onto them? most recently I have been asleep to the wrong doing going on in my own family. I have blindly accepted the lies that have been presented to me my my teenager.  I have see only the best in her and fallen into the trap of "oh my daughter is not like that ".  Why am I so blind to the badness in others , am I blinded by love or do I simply keep my eyes shut out of fear?

Is it simply wishful thinking and the desire to remain in that blissful state of early childhood where the world was a fragrant and beautiful place, and I was loved.  Why has it taken 37 years for me to wake up to the realisation that the world is neither good nor bad it simply is.  Today I was advised to assume that she was guilty and should have to prove her innocence.  It is so hard to accept that I am so ready to accept that which I want to hear.  I am finally learning what it is to be an adult and take responsibility for myself but to also seek the advise and support of others when making a decision.  It time to let go of the I'll do it myself said the little red hen attitude I have so long cherished, Its time for this little red hen to take off those rose tinted glasses, and be aware of the world as it is not as I have seen it for so long.  I am looking forward to living in a state closer to the real world as I slow down become mindful and open my eyes to the world around me.

lessons of the amazon guriella breastfeeding women

i was a member of La leche league after my first child was born until my younger child was around 3 and fully weaned.  I learned the art of mothering from many of the beautiful and wise women I met through that great organisation.  when I depressed I lost alot of my memory and while I was stressing before I depressed I ignored many of the things I learned since I became a mother.  When I found out I was pregnant with my first child I thought I would rather have been told I was dying.  I never wanted children and my relationship with my daughters father was not one that I thought was suitable to bring a child into, apologies for grammar there. I decided to have an abortion as this is what all sensible girls do , and I was a sensible girl.  but my hormones and my body decided that this was not something to be sensible about.  Through a series of encounters I ended up at the hospital to see if I was still pregnant and while waiting for my scan I met a woman who changed my life.  She had just had a miscarriage and I thought that I had had one, no point in paying for an abortion if it was not needed, to make a short story long, as we say here, she extolled the joys of motherhood, the pleasure of bringing children into the world, the joys of nurturing than and was championing the case of home births in rural Ireland.  When I had my scan I saw the little life was still there, the doctor was overjoyed as he usually only got to see empty wombs at that clinic.  He pointed out the little prawn like creature that was my lovely daughter , she looked like a prawn, a big giant eye like thing and a tail, he told me that the blinking eye thing was her heart and she was alive.  It was magical.  I was no longer afflicted by a shameful and life ending tragedy but instead I had a life growing inside me, maybe he would be a scientist and cure cancer( I thought I would be having a boy) maybe he would be a great sportsman.

All I knew was I loved that little creature and I would always love him.  He was christened prawney at 7 weeks and 3 days old foetus age.  That day I learned more about what it was to be a mother than any other day in my life until yesterday when my lovely daughter cried like a baby and released all the pain and hurt she had been turning inward.  Being a mother is a wonderful experience but it does not stop when they are old enough to take care of themselves.  It is a gift of a lifetime from the minute they are conceived.  I met the lovely lady who had the miscarriage again when my lovely baby was 6 days old.  I was despairing of being able to feed my baby and was thinking I would have to resort to a bottle.  My partner decided that no child of his would be bottle fed and found the local la leche league .  I could not walk very well or even get dressed properly.  but the minute I went to my first meeting I met geraldine again, she glowed with the glow of pregnancy, as she had conceived twins, I was welcomed by that wonderful group of women as a sister, daughter and mother.  They showed me that we all need mothering, the phrase mothering the mother was one I heard often, mothers give birth , they give life, they nurture and care for others, but who cares for them.  We all need to remember the importance of mothering ourselves because if we fail to do that we have nothing left to give others.  My partner, now my ex husband, christened the group the amazon guerrilla breastfeeding women, he said that I could picture them going into battle, children on hips , breasts bared and the enemy running away screaming.  I had forgotten the lessons I learned there.  Besides mothering the mother my favourite was a chapter in the Womanly art of Breastfeeding , called Weaning gradually with love.  I always ask my children to make me tea with love as food always tastes better when it has been prepared with love.  Now I understand why I asked for that I was looking for nurturing too.  How wonderful would the world be if we did everything with love.  I can finally say I love myself unconditionally and am ready to live life with love.

So learn what you need to do to mother yourself, nurture yourself, remember the lessons of the past and live your life with love.  When you do have a habit you need to get change or something you need to move on from , do it in the manner of an amazon guerrilla breastfeeding woman; gradually and with love. The world is a small place full of the random encounter that prove to be major turning points in our lives, we are lucky if we can take the opportunities that the world is offering us and be open to and fearless of the possibility of change.

Happy Friday. 

weird wonderful and wolly

today was about as strange a day as I have had in a while.  The day began with the usual attempt to send my teenager to school.  I gave up the fight and she went on condition she came home early.  Then I watched the dali lama speak live from UL on his trip here.  It was really uplifting , I felt magically wonderful.  no sooner than he had finished a former best friend and erstwhile bully of my daughter arrived seeking refuge from her bully.  I headed the words of his holiness and acted with kindness and compassion, instead of showing my displeasure of how she treated my daughter I forgave her and gave her the refuge she sought , but i still had a bit of a give out.  Today I sought to react to all situations with compassion.  I have long felt that being kind often ends with being taken advantage of.  A belief I inherited from my father.  why he believed that I found out not long before he died.  His father died suddenly and my dad who worked with his father went and did many of the jobs has father had planned to do.  When their boss found my father was not doing his work he castigated him not realising that my father was doing two jobs not no job.  my father decided never to act on his own initiative again and stopped helping people.  He told my this story when I was around 35 as he thought that I might repeat his foolishness.  I asked him if he regretted his actions and he said he did not, actually those were not his exact words , they were more like, f**k him, why should i do anything for that f***er.  He understood that he was cutting off his nose to spite his face but on an emotional level believed it was the best thing to do for him.  I am not sure how that reminds me of the dali lama and the various emotional weirdness that went on today I think it is perhaps that I finally learned the lesson i needed about kindness and compassion.  We all get opportunities to influence the lives of others for the better.  It seems to me that I have a far kinder and gentler nature than I realised. I have not really valued kindness and compassion for so long as I did not have the assertiveness and self worth needed to allow myself to be kind and compassionate and not allow others to take advantage of me.  Kindness is not weakness, compassion is not foolishness.  Showing both is not being a push over.  I love myself, I love my family.  Today was weird because of all the emotional discoveries I made and many people around me made, It was wonderful because I was inspired by the dali lama  that piece of mind is the most important thing we can teach our children , and wooly because I crocheted a significant amount of my winter comforter blanket for my future out of doors naps in the crisp winters days of the future.  It is amazing the lovely combinations you get when you combine the different colours, textures and yarns.  Many bits of wool that were weak on their own helped to make beautiful textures and colour when blended with sturdier but more boring wool.  A bit like life really.  I shall remember so much of today as I wove my feelings into the comforter.
 If in doubt crochet.
Happy middle of the night. 

rest and recharge

Why do I find it so hard to rest.  For a long time I had nowhere nice to rest.  My house was in chaos and mess.  Stuff everywhere, not at all restful.  Then I decided to create an oasis of calm by redoing my bedroom. It was hard as I had no real idea of how to lay out a room, or what went with what.  Then I hit upon the idea to get rid of furniture I had accumulated and stuff I no longer liked of was useful; all the advise you get about de-cluttering.  It was great.  I now have a lovely bedroom, so as my energy level increased I ventured further.  The junk room is now almost a dining room but it is mostly a craft and computer room.  The front room, although unpainted, other than by about 12 different matchpots, is passable.  I am learning to love my home.  Because I was renting it I felt it was wrong to invest the effort as that is what everyone told me, but I live here ,it is my home.  So I set about creating a cosy and comfortable home.  I now have a choice of 3 sofas to rest and recharge on, or to crochet on , or to read on, there is also my bed, my bedroom armchair, the dining room arm chairs, my lovely pink sunlounger and of course the bath, place of all inspiration and calmmess.  I have more cushions than a cushion shop.  I love my home.  Soon I will be ready to share it with pets.  Tomorrow I will be having my family over for dinner for the first time ever.  Wow it will be nice to cook for them for a change.  I enjoy caring for my home, just as I now enjoy caring for myself and my family.  I dont know why it was so difficult to create a home but it was.  Why did I think I did not deserve a nice home.  It has inspired me to put down root and buy my own house.  A really good reason to take care of myself and get well so that I can afford to buy a lovely house.  I saw the one.  It is a happy one.  It looks loved.  The windows face the rising sun so the garden will face the setting sun.  I will be looking at it next week.  Already I am crocheting a blanket for the sofa that I am going to put in the porch I am going to built in the front of the house.  Crochet helps me to recharge.  the rhythmic movement and the texture of the wool and the memory of the lovely lady who thought me to crochet.  Happy childhood memories.
I give myself permission to rest and recharge.

So turn off your inner critical parent who says that you must have all your chores done before you can rest, lie on your favorite sofa, with your favourite cushions, cocooned in a nest of soft and cuddly blankets and have a nice cup of tea in your favourite cup from your favourite teapot , and think happy thoughts, me I will be thinking about new designs for my pebble pets.
Happy Saturday.

todays blog was written to the accompinment of simon and garfunkle.  

bubble therapy, the joys of bat watching and bubbles

I bought a bright pink sun lounger a few weeks ago in anticipation of the predicted good weather.  Today the fine weather arrived but I was too down to appreciate it.  I was in a tizzy trying to get to an appointment on time and had to stop for petrol.  Over the petrol pump there was a sign; large bubbles.  Given my bubble obsession I thought I was hallucinating, but no, the petrol station was selling large bubble wands.  I bought a few, went to my appointment and on the way back stopped at one of my favourite views of the coastline and cliffs with the intention of using my lovely bubble wands.  Most unfortunately a few other people had a similar ideas,(not the bubble bit, the looking at the view bit) so although I am enjoying a sabbatical from reality, I do not wish to draw too much attention to my bubble mania and just sat and admired the view.

I went home and wrapped myself up in my lovely bright yellow fleece blanket and had endless cups of tea while watching the crescent moon rise lying on my bright pink sun lounger.  The smell of the citronella candles, the freshly cut grass and all the birds flying home to nest brought me back to summer nights out camping.  I stayed out long enough to see the bats on their evening hunt and hope to photograph them tomorrow night.  I love bats, they are such beautiful creatures.  If you ever get to hold and admire their beautiful ear structure please do.  They are like cute little hamsters with wings, a sort of a cross between a hamster and a blackbird.  Anyway eventually I had to go do the mammy taxi thing and as I unpacked the car I decided to indulge my desire to blow bubbles with my lovely little organic bubble machine(my daughter, one of many organic bubble machines).  So here are some of the beautiful bubbles.

land of the evening bubbles

The best bit is tonight I learned how to bounce and spin bubbles, such fun.  Hours of fun for €1.79.
Happy Thursday.

motto therapy; the day of the froggy socks

I love mottos and metaphors, they combine beautifully in many family crests.  I employ mottos to remind myself of priorities of an attitude I need to develop.  I employ metaphors to help me to understand a situation.

Ready, Steady, Go. 

My fathers motto was moderation in all things.  I was not fully aware of it until I heard a first cousin say it one day.  I realised that it was a family motto, probably to counteract the alleged excess of one member of the family many years before.  Poor chap got the blame for the family business going bust but with the wisdom of age it was probably the depression of the 30s that caused that and his excess was to counteract the despair of the loss.  Anyway, God do I feel confined by that motto.  Who wants to experience moderation. Do people say oh yes I had such a moderate day yesterday, the party was so moderate, the weather is so moderate.  I think I need a new motto, moderation in moderation.  I have developed a bit of an all or nothing reaction to my fathers motto of moderation in all things. I have instead a preference for excess and all or nothing.  If I cant have the best I will have the worst.

Since I came to the realisation that I was being crippled by my perfectionism I adopted the motto: BE AVERAGE.  I strive no longer for perfection instead my aim is to be average.  I think I shall change the family motto to Moderation in moderation.   I need a new family motto one that encourages joy, kindness, happiness and colour, not the greyness of moderation.  Perhaps I need to change my attitude to what moderation means , perhaps moderation is not the absence of excess but to have enough of everything.

One of my many mottos is : change your socks change your life.  This is all to do with colour therapy, balancing chakras, and creative visualisation and grounding yourself.  It started with my love of coloured underware.  For years I wore boring old white, then  I discovered the joys of cut price shopping at tk maxx.  Designer lingerie for €6 instead of €60, the yummiest colours and textures.  So I gave up the granny knickers and started to buy ones that were enough to make a pro blush.  Happy days.  But my socks were all still either grey or black.  One day I put on my daughters socks.    Red and orange stripes with frogs.  I felt happy.  I was working on feeling more grounded at the time.  I could not visualise the energy flowing out of my body into the ground.  I tried to do it while watching avatar, hoping that seeing them ground themselves would work.  Nothing, still all that energy whirling around over my head, in very beautiful silver spirals.  It was supposed to go back down my body and earth into the ground.  Try as I might I could not get it to earth.  On the day of the froggy socks I finally achieved it.  I could visualise the energy flowing into the ground, I visualised myself rooting into the ground.  I could feel it balancing.  Those spirals above my head finally had somewhere to go..  So hence the motto: change your socks change your life.  Every time I had visualised the energy flow out into the ground all I visualised was my black socks.  So its time to donate the black socks to the recycling.  Black socks did seem necessary for work but no more.  Why did I feel that black was the only couldou for my socks.  I am now the proud owner of many pairs of pink socks and white socks, some nice orange ones and.  I am searching for as many pairs of as many colours as possible.  Moderation in all things, I think not: moderation in all things except for socks.  There are so many ways to feel  good.  Art therapy, aroma therapy, music therapy, good nutrition, reiki, touch, getting a pet, lying on the grass, play therapy, my favourite and possibly my own invention;bubble therapy.  In order to find one that suits you, it might be necessary to try many new things.  Moderation is not doing nothing it is doing something, just not too much of everything, but enough of everything.  Moderation is enough.  Moderation in all things , ha, I think not, certainly not in colours.  On a more serious note, moderation does not mean denying yourself things.  It means giving yourself permission to enjoy life.  For me moderation turned into denial, denial of fun joy and happiness.  Giving yourself permission to enjoy life is not permission to do endless harmful but pleasurable things.  It is about achieving balance.  I finally have my new family motto.  Balance in all things.

Balance in all things

So put on your froggy socks, ground yourself and enjoy a healthy dose of balance.

Even larger elephants can balance too, just proving you are never too old to learn how to balance.

Todays blog was brought to you curtosy of the Proclaimers, Sunshine on leith.
In summary todays therapy is sock therapy, go out and search for a pair of socks that makes you feel good, go home, bake your favourite cookies, put Sunshine on Leith on your ipod, and enjoy your cookies and coffee while lounging in your favourite place in the house, or outside the house, why not have a picnic, if the weather is good, but remember to wear your happy socks.

Happy Tuesday

the darkness and dread and dancing naked in the kitchen

why do I get stuck, What brings back the thoughts of dread and despair.  This morning it happened again.  For weeks I did not dread the mornings anymore but today it happened.  I could not get out of bed I just lay there going through many scenarios which worry me.  On a rational level I know and understand what I am doing but something triggers it off, so what was it this time??????????? Did I overdo it again, is it because I am not eating properly, or not shopping so that I eat well, why has the resentment returned, or maybe it is the insidious perfectionism.  I must get better? I must feel well? Or is it the return of the problems of last year that sent me to hide in the dark cave.  that place was not nice but it is familiar.  Why am I tempted back there? Do I want to go back and live in that cave?????? How did I get out of it in the first place?????
1) I got put of bed and stayed out, yesterday I thought that a day in bed would be nice.  Oh I felt so awful after it.  The house was covered in wood-chips from the guinea pig and my teenager smelled of drink when I went to pick her up.  Not a good thing.
2) I took walks, I have not been for a morning walk in about two weeks. So time to go out.
3) I cooked and took pleasure in creating nice food for me and the family.  Chips from the takeaway are not good for anything.
4) I watched my weight. I have put on at least 10 pounds all on my thighs and tummy so I feel fat.  I am annoyed with myself for that.  All my hard work at weight watchers loosing two stone and look at me now.  Time to change that I think.
5) I forgave myself for my inadequacies.  Ah this is the one that resonates with me most.  I need to forgive myself for putting on weight and not eating properly.  Its ok.  Remember the aim is average not perfect. We all slip back.   We all have slips but we dont need to stay in the gutter.
6) I forgot to sing, I made a play list for these moments , secular songs of joy.  Right now lean on me is playing now as I write.  Time for me to get out of the cave of despair, stop wallowing in the mud and have a bit of a dance around to the sound of cheerful music.

So now I am off to dance to happy music naked in my kitchen and admire my rediscovered very wobbly thighs and belly, in the hope that loving them will ease their pain.  The exercise will do them good anyway.  Perhaps belly dancing would be a nice new healthy hobby.  Maybe I will dress up like a belly dancer instead much more fun.

Oh god blogging is good for the soul and less complicated than my previous unhealthy hobbies. Wow working out where I went wrong is better than orgasms , well maybe not. ; -}

Happy Monday

missing presumed having fun : mark knofler and the joys of jelly fishing

I rediscovered my love of music and while browsing on grooveshark for things I might like to listen to I found that I had a great love of bluegrass.  Doc Watson inparticular.  His blues stay away from me was so lovely.  One day I came across a different version, by the notting hillbillies.  I loved the sound and decided to see what else they did.  Even better; a whole album of lovely things.  Obviously I had to know more.  It transpired that : Following the incredible success of the Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms album and tour, Mark Knopfler was looking for a change of pace. Mark formed the country outfit The Notting Hillbillies with old friends Steve Phillips, Brendan Croker and Guy Fletcher. Rounding out the line-up were Ed Bicknell on drums, Marcus Cliffe on bass and Paul Franklin on steel guitar. The Notting Hillbillies decided on that moniker, since they recorded their songs at a studio in the London neighbourhood of Notting Hill. 

Wow I was so inspired, clearly he loved his music but wanted it to be fun.  the title of the album is so humorous missing presumed having fun.  So I changed the way I thought about my sabbatical from reality.  I might be missing from work but why not look at it as a need for a change of pace, something to refresh me and sooth my poor frozen brain, a hibernation of sorts.  Missing presumed having fun was my new mental motto for this.  I might be depressed but I did not have to be ashamed of it.  Everyone needs to have a change of pace to recharge I did not give myself this and spent years ignoring the needs of my soul.  I pondered this perhaps I have taken life way too seriously for too long.  Why ?  who knows, possibly my brain was trained to it but mow it is time to let it run free and enjoy the benefits of jellyfishing.   My inspiration of how to have fun is spongebob.  my favourite episode is the jellyfishing one where squdward looks after gary.  So many lessons in it.  

So watch spongebob and  

put on missing presumed having fun lie back and 

think about all the fun you can have. 

Happy mothers day