paradise squares; paradise found, fond memories

This morning I went out to buy some croissants, chocolate ones to be precise, and when I got to the shop they were sold out, sold out of most nice things due to the fact that it was first communion day in our parish.  So I did not want to arrive where I was going empty handed and I ventured a little further to the lower shelves and discovered paradise squares, a totally new type of cake/bun/nice thing.  Even better they were pink and had cherries, yummy.  I also bought my favourite Saturday paper and later in the day I decided to read it while lounging on the sofa drinking tea, very decadent really when the house looked like it had been burgled and my daughter was having a friend over to stay.  I came across an ad for a hotel, it was titled paradise found.  It brought me back to when I was my daughters age aprox and I spent a wonderful week  staying in a hostel near that particluar luxury hotel and it was the closest thing to paradise I had experienced them.  My friends parents were alot older than mine, better educated and more adventurous.  They were lovely gentle people and never raised their voices.  The really loved their children who were both  adopted and it used to make me wish I was adopted as they would tell their children how they chose them and were so lucky to have got such lovely daughters after loosing so many babies of their own.  It was one of the best summers of the decade.  One of those perfect Irish summers, sun gentle breezes, an abundance of honeysuckle and fushia and sun,sun sun a rare thing in Ireland in the summer.
I spent the summer perfecting my tan and eating fruit.  It was a blissful time: Paradise.  As I wandered through my day today I wondered why  I lost the feeling of paradise or just abandoned it .  All my memories of being happy involve me being very attuned to nature, to being outdoors with the plants and birds, noticing the passing of the seasons, waiting for each new plant to blossom, the leaves to fall the storms to pass.  Mindfulness is achieved through noticing your surroundings, being present at that moment.  On my walk down the track today I was noticing the flowers in bloom and the ones which are about to come into bloom when I thought what will there be to look at when the flowers die off.  then I noticed it a single pale really white almost translucent mushroom in the midst of a fluff of bright yellow trefoil.  Ah ha then there will be the mushrooms of autumn, the falling conkers, the beauty of the autumn leaves, in the winter there will be the frost and the puddles and that amazing blueness of the winter morning sky.  There is always something there to notice.  So I realised it was not because I was stopping to look at the flowers that I was happy, it was because my mind was open enough to notice my surroundings that I was happy.  Happiness is a peaceful mind.  Paradise is a peaceful mind on a May day in Abbeyside down the causeway looking at the flowers.  Recently I have been thinking of moving as my daughter is so unhappy here and I thought how much I would miss my favourite walk.  I got to thinking that it will always be there, well for a long time anyway, and I can go back anytime to walk there.  So often when I have moved in the past I never maintained the links with my previous friends and areas.  I suppose it is all part of my tendency to compatmentalise.  It is my fervent wish that I stay whole and all joined up.  I like myself now and am ok to show my vulnerability.  People do laugh at me when I do not understand things but it is kind laughter.  I have a tendency not to fully understand what peoples real motives are but lately I have noticed that other people are looking out for me.  Because I am open to showing that I am not perfect people tend to pick up the slack for me now, before they just assumed I could do everything.   Perhaps before I assumed I could do everything and had to do everything myself so those that could help me were ignored so much they gave up offering me help, or maybe I just never accepted it before.  I am now the anti-little red hen.  So much so I think I will write a sequel  to the little red hen; Little red hen recovers from burnout or maybe little red hen learns to accept help, or even Little red hen gets by with a little help from her friends.

So when someone offers help, accept it even if you think you dont need it just so that you know how to take it when you do. 

Happy Sunday 

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 ;-)

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.

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.

the day it glittered

We all remember days when the world seemed perfect, the perfect man, the perfect cup of tea, the perfect temperature of the sea when you go swimming.  The day started very cold.  I was successful in getting out of bed that day.  I had stopped the endless crying associated with the awful episode.  I felt my spirits lifting.  The weather was beautiful.  As I still had no real depth perception I was still too scared to drive so we walked.  That was the start of the road to recovery, one of many small steps.  That day was the only time in my life I saw the kind of frost we all are programmed to envisage as the crisp frost of Christmas.  The night before a rapid frost had coated all the trees.  As the sun rose it started to glitter.  Slivery specks of glitter started to fall from the sky. Oh dear I thought those damn hallucinations have finally moved out of the house.  (As an aside, perhaps the language was a little more colourful and my vision was a bit shaky at the start of the episode.  I would sometimes think I could see black dots moving on the floor, they were of course just the marks on the floor boards shaking because of my very very jittery nerves.) Anyway to make a short story long it really was glittering.  As the air heated up the lumps of frost were falling from the trees.  It looked like someone was shaking silver glitter from the trees like in a glitter globe.  the angel of the sun was so low that it made each speck of frost shimmer all silvery and pink. I was not hallucinating I was seeing the beauty of the world.  There are so many beautiful things to see.  That day I took out my camera and walked to the beach and wondered at the beauty of the world.  Had I been well and able to drive I would never have experienced the day it glittered.  How many other things do we all miss.  

Be still and notice the beauty of the world.

Happy Saturday.