projections; the man in the pink jumper

Well today is the first day of Stage 2 as I have chosen to think of it.  Finally I have come to terms with my episode.  Now I want to learn how to maintain positive mental health.  I used the metaphor and visualisation of the growth of a butterfly from egg to butterfly to help me understand that this is a process.  I thought of the stages, the eggs, the eggs hatching, the caterpillar, the cocoon, the newly hatched butterfly drying her wings, the finished butterfly.  I did not give one single thought to the life of the butterfly; my aim was to be a butterfly.  Well that is just the beginning.  Being OK again is not the goal.  Living a meaningful, happy, contented, full life that I enjoy, is now my aim.  I need a new metaphor or maybe I dont.  When I was unwell I could not formulate words and numbers very well, I could not speak coherently or verbalise my emotional state or thoughts, I could write a little but the spelling was poor, I could not multiply or conceptualise quantities, I could not judge distance, but I could create images both on paper and in my mind, I could explain things in metaphors.  I now entered the real worked again where I have no need for metaphors.  In some ways it is a little sad to leave silly crazy Jane behind and be a grown up but I can carry the simplicity and joy of my awakening with me.  I can remember the first day I noticed the birds in the garden, the first day I enjoyed something, the absolute esctacy that I could feel pleasure again over something as simple as a painting, or a piece of music, the first day I reconnected with myself and with other people.  Stage 2 will have its own challenges.  Today I encountered the first challenge, not to project what I think people are thinking onto people.  I felt someone watching me as I walked through the shopping center today.  When I looked around to see who it was I saw a colleague of mine look away from me.  I jumped to the conclusion that he did not like me and did not want to talk to me, my initial pleasure that I spotted someone I knew from work and how nice it would be to catch up was replaced by that all too familiar feeling of shame.  OMG I thought that I had left that go.  So why did I react like that.  I suppose I am carrying around a subconcious belief that what happened was shameful, why could I not cope, what kind of mess did I leave after me, who had to clear it up, what did they say about me, how will they treat me when I do go back to work.  but I need to remind myself that this is a normal reaction for someone who was visited by the black dog.  I have sent the black dog away as he did not serve me well.  Now I am hearing his pitiful howls and i am feeling sorry for him and am thinking of bringing him back into my home to care for him.  A visit from the black dog of depression is unpleasant.  If I hear his howls I must find a way of making peace with myself and not react how I used to.  Ok so someone saw me then looked away.  He could have been thinking about his dinner, or the affair he was planning, or just how fantastic I was looking, or what he would be having for dinner, or he could be thinking what I thought he was thinking.  Either way I am projecting and this is an unhealthy thing to do.  I can only deal in the facts.  What have I learned to do to free myself from that. Well I could do the eft tapping, I could go for a walk, I could do something creative, I could meditate, I could ring him up and ask him (perhaps not) I could form a strategy for how I will react if this happens again.  I can remind myself of the colleagues that have been so kind to me during my episode, I can look at the pictures of the dinner I attended with them as an ice breaker to my return, I can call into the office and meet people face to face a few times so that they can get used to me being around.  I will have to expect a certain amount of that type of reaction , people carry around their own stuff and its theirs, I can only dealt with my stuff and help my children deal with theirs every one else, well they will just have to find their own path.  My path is my life.  I think that this next stage is learning how to be around others, appropriateness, communication, image, evidence of my wellness and my ability to live my life after my episode is what this is all about for me.  I think that perhaps I need to do a repeat of the earlier metamorphosis by concentrating on the basics, healthy body, nutritious food, clean house, bills paid on time, adequate budgeting, time for myself, time for my family, time for my friends and yes the motto of 2011,

Balance in all things.  

The aim to be good enough .  As my 10 year old pointed out this morning "you are not invincible" as i was singing Helen Reddy's song out on the top of my voice this morning.  I am not invincible but I am strong, I can face what I need to face.  I need to prepare for the possible challenges of my return to work in a new way.  Last night I was thinking about what lead me to open the door to the black dog.  I think it was that I tried so had to avoid things.  I had to eliminate all the obstacles I could think of before I could do anything. OMG I have a very good imagination, I could come up with so many things that could go wrong.  I valued my single mindedness so much and now, well now things are different.  I am not invincible, I am not superwoman, I am Jane.  This time I don't need to try harder, why would you try hard when you could try easy.  I will try easier, I will look at all the things that are needed to be done to make things go right.  I used to think like that, I would just do what was needed to get things done.  I don't know when I started to freeze up but I have thawed.  Today I will try everything easier.  I will wash up easier, I will live easier, soon easy will be the norm.  My life is not hard, I don't want for anything.  I can call in the expertise of others when I need it.  I was born to have an easy life, so why did I complicated it.  I have realised so much and let go but there will always be new stuff to let go.  My initial goal to get better was a good one.  Now my goal is to stay well.  So thank you to the man in the pink jumper for today's insight.  I would hug you but I project that you would think I was crazy.  :-)  wow blogging is good for the soul. 

Happy Saturday 

So go and try easier don't try harder.  Today go easy on yourself and others and enjoy the ease of your life, and dont forget to do it gradually and with love.   

So go out in the garden or park or balcony or just the sofa, take your ease and think of all the easyness ahead of you.  Getting up with ease, working with ease, cooking with ease, living with ease, loveing with ease, forgineing with ease.letting go with ease.

Easey peasy lemon squeezy.

life without rage, anger and resentment

I have become very aware of other peoples anger, resentment and rage.  I hear their frustrations on why the world is so harsh to them, why other people should behave in a better way, why others should change, why the world should bend to their ways.  I started this blog around two months ago to try to express some of my feelings and as a way of tracking my progress.  I have not returned to work yet and I missed thinking about things and doing things.  I realised I enjoyed quite a lot of my job and was seeking a way to get my brain back in the right gear to work again.  I had that startling realisation of what it was to let go and ever since that day I have tried to let go of all my stuff that I have been carrying around for so long.  At my counselling session last week I was lead through an exercise to help me join up two opposing parts of me.  It was one of the best moments of my life as my creative side and my procedural sides merged and grew together and finally came to rest together.  I did obviously resist the joining up by the splitting of the blog but I caught myself up and I am alert to the signs that I sabotaging myself.  I have noticed many people who are not joined up this week, I have noticed many people reacting with rage, resentment and anger.  Right now I am working on living a life free of that and I welcome calmness, acceptance, and inner peace.  I no longer wish to be driven by out word approval but by myself awareness, self acceptance and self love.  What will a life free of these things bring me? What will a life truly loved for myself be like?????  I have been reconnecting with all the parts of myself and putting an adult perspective on the many parts of my inner child that was scared and hurt.  I am now a grown up.  It is such a lovely thing to be at the age of 43.  I wonder what a world of people all at ease with themselves would be like.  A world where its ok for everyone to be themselves, free from greed, exploitation, judgement, guilt, shame, anger, fear, rage, unbridled materialism, competitiveness, bullying, blame and the myriad of other negative emotions.  Am I turning into Pollyanna or am I just looking for the impossible.  Last summer a friend told me his parents gave him the great gift of peace of mind.  He brought me to a place where I experienced that too, but it was fleeting, but it was beautiful.  What would the world be like if we all had peace of mind.  Oh mam give all that hippy shit a rest is the answer my daughter would give, but recently she has been listen to john Lennon's imagine, X would say that will never happen because ..... and give me some answer he beliefs to be an absolute truth rather than an opinion probably based on his belief that most people will exploit most other people.  My inner child would say yippee will there be bubbles and ice cream there? my inner parent would say, in fact my actual only living parent would say;peace of mind is all very well but have you got the school uniform s ready for tomorrow???? Well have you????  I now recognise when I project myself onto others and it is fun to imagine what they would say but I do not know what they are thinking and never will unless I ask and they tell me.  What if they said that would be wonderful a world full of people at peace with themselves, I am glad that you have found peace, I hope that I will too.  

I attended a wellness seminar yesterday and my counselling session today.  Yesterday I learned about mindfulness minutes.  To give ourselves 5 one minute mindfulness minutes throughout the day.  I also learned  that you need to work at wellness all the time.  I have finished the first stage of my journey now.   I am well again.  Stage 2 is to learn how to stay well.  That will be such an exciting journey.  A wonderful life.  I will meet such nice friendly, open, caring, peaceful and joyful people on it, I will also meet the opposite and all the spectrum in between.  I think I might pause here a little catch my breath and enjoy a few moments of calm say farewell to the past and take the brave step into the future like the fool into the unknown and start on the next stage in my cycle of life.

Wherever you are and whatever stage of life you are at remember that the only certainty is change.  If we stay stuck in our rut we will never venture off the road and see the flowers, birds and other possible paths and parts of our lives.  I no longer regret all the blinkered years of single-mindedness.  I did what I had to do to keep going, but now that I am complete and all joined up I go forward with an open mind , open to all the wonderful opportunities and possibilities out there, the ones that will help me have a wonderful life.  I matter because I am Jane, because I exist, because my life and my being enriches the lives of others and without me the world would not be the same place.  I value my uniqueness.  Today I realised that my children needed me more now than when they were babies.  I am glad that I am a grown up and can help them to grow up too , but not too soon and not before their time.  My one wish for them is that they learn how to be mindful and self accepting at a far younger age than I did and in so doing break the transgenerational cycle of shame and guilt.  

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an' pretend
'cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna keep me down again

CHORUS
Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
'cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
'cause you've deepened the conviction in my soul

CHORUS

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin' arms across the land
But I'm still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes I am wise
But it's wisdom born of pain
Yes, I've paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong

FADE
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

I am woman. 

 An this is a ne one for me but I learned to upload youtube video today and who can resist kareoke. 

Would you belive this was originally recoreded by a man only to become such a female anthem.

I just want to dance around the kitchen to this.

True beauty and power.

Who could not fail to love that.

The last one is for the little child in us all who still has the imagination to believe in magic wands.


Happy Friday
I am strong I am invincible, I am woman
So go off and get in touch with your womanliness, yes you can do it even if you are male ;-)

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. 

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. 

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.

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

what i saw on the road to recovery

The first snow of winter

More winter snow , a rare sight here.

The most amazing carbonara sauce cooked by a 10 year old

Bubbles created by several organic bubble machines.

young love and an origami elephant

Something very strange at the Viceral exhibition

A swing

 Is it just me of does that look like eyes?

Eyes and a mouth?

wierd monster face or tree?

Adam and eve are in there somewhere, Why did he blame eve????