an autobiography in 5 parts

I

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

II

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

III

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

IV

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

V

I walk down another street.

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

tears of the giraffe

Tears of the giraffe is one of the wonderful books written by my favourite author Alexander Mcall Smith.  the title is explained in the following passage:

It was a traditional Botswana basket, with a design worked into the weaving.

"These little marks here are tears," she said. "The giraffe gives its tears to the women and they weave them into the basket."..."You are very kind, Mma", she said. "But why did the giraffe give its tears?"

Mma Ramotswe shrugged; she had never thought about it. "I suppose that it means that we can all give something," she said. A giraffe has nothing else to give--only tears." (p.226)

This morning  I started to cry; not the insane weeping for unknown reasons that precipitated this episode, but big fat tears rolling down my face in silence. Tears can be for all sorts of reasons.  Yesterday as I waited in the waiting room with other anxious mothers one of the mothers started to cry.  How I envied her.  I wanted to cry too but could not.  I just wanted to let out all the pain and sadness but I began to think that the anti depressants that helped me to stop that insane crying blocked my feelings too.  I could not react and cry properly anymore.  Over the last few weeks I have cried ocassionally but not tears of sadness, I have mostly cried out of frustration.  I saw in that woman's face the loss and pain and sadness and possible the need to just let it all out.  All the mothers in the room understood why she cried or at least knew that they too might be sitting in that chair crying.  This morning I got up feeling good but as sat down to hem my daughters new school pants I started to cry, big fat wet tears rolled down my face, I cried for the men I loved and lost, I cried for my children, I cried for all the sadness I ever felt and could not explain, I cried from relief, from all the judgements I had lumped on myself and others , I cried for my mother, I cried for my daughters' teachers , I cried for my friends, I cried for my lost friendships , I cried for the feeliong I wil not allow myslf to share with someone for whom I care deeply but does not care for me in the same way, I cried for the weight I put on in the last few months, I cried for the life I did not have, I cried for all the confusion and things I could not name, I cried for my dead pets, I cried for my lost toy duck, I cried for the friendships that I lost because I could not tell my friends that the things they did hurt me so much I could not speak, I cried for all the younger versions of myself that did not understand why they were crying, I cried for myself, the me that I am now.  It has taken me 43 years to be able to name the things I am crying for.  Perhaps like the giraffe sometimes we can only give tears but in the tears there is healing.  I cried healing tears for the first time in my life.  I did not end up in the hiccouping drained bereft grief stricken state that tears had lead me too before.  I wiped away my tears on the sleeve of the lovely new pink derssing gown I bought myself last week. I represents a fresh start for me.  I wandered around so long in my dressing gown that my grief and confusion seems to have been absorbed into it.  I no longer feel good when I wear it.  So while shopping last week I bought myself new night ware , just for me, with no man in mind or no ocassion, such as hospital or visiting relatives, or the winter, just a pretty dressing gown that keeps me warm and cosy in the cool spring mornings.  So I wiped my eyes in the frilly pink sleeve of my new dressing gown.  Took up my needle and thread and did the right thing, I sewed the hem and grieved for the part of me that answered to the beck and call of others , who sought to find her way by being lead by others, who needed others to tell her what to do, how to think, how to be, and could feel the feelings of others so strongly that she lost the ability to feel her own feelings and know her own mind.  Perhaps I dont know my own mind yet, but I know my own feelings now, they might be a bit of a mishmash but they are all valid.  When the anxiety starts to take hold I can understand that it is a feeling and can release it or help it pass.  When I am ready I can deal with the thing that is making me anxious and not push myself to do so while I am in the middle of a visit from the anxiety fairy. I can cry now and know why.  I also know that there will be times when I cry and dont know why but I have the tools to explore and release the feeling.  Feelings are not facts and well how real are many alleged facts anyway ? So much is distorted by opinion now that it is difficult to tell some facts from fiction.    

For me reality at the moment is a very untidy house in need of a clean.  That is my fact for the day.  So I am off to put my house in order and act like the adult that I am.  Doing the right thing is not easy in the short term but repeatedly doing the right thing leads to the formation of good habits and gives us strength.  Doing the wrong thing can have an instant and gratifying payoff but in the long term it damages us.  Today I said goodbye to just that.  Right now it is painful but eventually I will see the benefits .  I love myself too much now to be second best anymore. 

Happy Wednesday.

So next time you cry feel the wetness of the tears, the speed of your breathing, the saltyness, the heat and the relief.  Cry mindfully and be enlightened.

ohf what a d

Oh holy F**k what a day. Thank god I have finally got my stuff together as all my strength was called on today.  It is surprising how well I coped, or is it? I have spent 4 months having a weekly counselling session, once I could read I read all sorts of things, then I also devoured loads of information form the Internet, listened to the advice of many people.  Today I acted as if I was a well adjusted woman, and I surprised myself when I realised I was.  The peace of mind I have craved for so long may not be with me every minute of every day but today I did what I needed to decompress and not carry all my anger and frustration into tomorrow.  when I came home today from a day that challenged me to my limits I was greeted by x having a hissey fit over bin bags, then I remembered why he was x, how many times had I arrived home in the past in need of a comforting hug and a cup of tea.  In need of a bit of TLC and a foot rub, just 5 minutes of peace and quite as I adjusted to home life after a draining day at work only to be greeted by rage and anger.  It sucked my soul away.  Today I just did not want his anger, yes he was pulling his weight with the childcare but I deserve more.  I did not deserve all the anger that was thrown at me today.  I did give some out too but it was out of frustration.  so tonight after a very very very draining day I decided to leave him with his anger and I walked it off.  I put on my favourite jacket and walked my favourite walk.  It was so much better than lying in bed crying like I wanted to do.  I thought of how other people are greeted when they return home and decided to practice my welcome and my return home to make it as happy for everyone as possible.  We all need to be greeted in a caring way.  I know I am so soft hearted that I am easily taken advantage of but I think ?I am learning.  Today I held tough , I was not angry but when I needed to revive I did so and made no apologies about it.  my teen daughter had a bit of a rant at me today and in the midst of it asked me why I felt it was OK for me to express my feelings about a particular issue, she said she could not, I replied because I am OK with expressing my feelings and she asked, well shouted why is that then, and i realised because I am OK with who I am.  I am OK with who I am.  I can listen to criticism about me and it does not mean that I have to accept it of even agree with it,.  Someone Else's opinion of me and what I am doing does not matter to me as I know I am doing what is right for me. some of my ideas are a little unconventional, many people disagree with them but I think it is important to treat people with love.  X asked me today what I was getting back from giving so much to my daughter and getting nothing in return and ?I realised that I was giving unconditional love, something that he had never been given.  I have been unable to recognise that I can give unconditionally.  I am  doing all this for her because I love her.  I suppose I am treading a fine line between mollycoddling her and loving her in his eyes but once I loved him too, thankfully it was not unconditionally and i escaped from the anger and rage.  If I had been able to communicate then as well as I can now perhaps we would have stayed married but I am a mother to my children and never wanted to be one to my husband.  I love my children unconditionally but not blindly.  I am seeking help to be certain that I am not fooled by them. i am  so gullible that it is so easy to fool me but I am no push over any more.  I am the Himalayas strong and immovable but providing a safe place to set down roots and plenty of cliffs from which to stretch your wings.  I brought in X so that I would not be fooled by mychildren during this very trying time as the responsible parent I need to recognise when he is no longer able to cope with the strain and I must now shoulder the burden again until he has recharged.  It is not my intention to be piggy in the middle anymore but when we co parent it is that co -parenting not him going off and deciding things without me and expecting me to agree.  We need a strategy to move forward.  I love my daughter unconditionally but that does not mean that there are no rules, or boundaries.  I have boundarieshe strength to get through this and heal too. 
Physiological healing is the restoration of damaged living tissue to normal function. Emotional healing is the restoration and repair of a damaged spirit. Can we heal if we do not realise we are damaged perhaps ;we can but will the healing be complete?


Happy Tuesday 
So today when you go home or when visitors arrive or even if it is just a nuisance caller greet them with warmth and appreciate how nice it is to be given a warm welcome, just like a loyal dog would , no judgement, no anger just pleased to see tehm and happy that they have called. :-)

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.

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. 

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.

power exchange-conditioning or natural response

The concept of power exchange is well know in the certain circles.  There you are defined or labeled by you power preference.  If you are aware of your preference you can find people who are compatible and great fun is had by all, or so I am told.  But what creates our preferences, is it our true nature or is it our conditioning.  I have long believed that it was our true nature but a startling realisation of another of my beliefs changed that.  I had found that my private submissive preferences were at odds with my public persona.  But as I sank deep into the dark place I realised that I had separated out all the different parts of me.  When they started to compete for space in my soul and my mind my brain froze and I could no longer carry on being the person I was, doing all the things I thought that I was juggling so easily.  I dropped all those chainsaws I had been juggling.  They all fell from the air and cut me totally into the different parts of me that wanted to be free of the conflict they had with each other.  My recovery has been largely about the joining up those parts of me.

What seemed to be at the core of all this was a power struggle.  I was so lost and all that was left of me was a breathing corpse.  The deepest layer of power that caused me to struggle with all others, was my deeply buried, and up until now unconscious, belief that it was the role of a woman to serve a man.  I thought I was open minded, I thought I was a feminist, I thought that I thought I was equal.  But buried under all the layers of other stuff was the core belief that I am there to serve men.  While I was fully aware of it on a sexual level, I have now identified it in so many other areas of my life.  Now that I recognise, it I can find it.  Have I been conditioned by my childhood experiences of what a womans role was, or is it my natural state?  I need to examine my responses, to recognise when I am doing the "I am your maid how may I serve you thing".  How many other complex power-exchanges are there for me to encounter.  Is all life about the struggle for power? And how do I recognise and hold onto my own power.  How do I know if it is nurture or nature? Well I shall meditate on this and when I have answered these questions that seem to be at the core of the human existence forever I shall write a book and make loads of money. :-)  

Sometimes it is just enough to know the questions because you need to have a question to find an answer. 

Believe in yourself.
Happy Thursday