By the side of the aga, as I was cooking his tea, I caught up with my little man and his day.  He told me all about Joseph and his technicoloured dream coat and the story of his 11 brothers and the 11 stars.  He was passionate and excited to share his day with me.  As he wrapped up the story, I concluded with him that he had had a really good day.

 

“No Mummy, Monday’s are my worst days ever.”

 

It reminded me that Monday’s and Tuesday’s used to be my worst days ever at school.  They were the longest, back to back lessons and games and no down time, no time for fun or play.

 

Monday’s at work were always tough, a reminder of the long commutes away from home or the tube in London.  Picking up the remnants of the week before or any issues arisen from the weekend.  Tuesday, more of the same and the weekend still so far away.  It was a time, living for a weekend.

 

My Mondays and Tuesdays are now my busiest days.  Clearing up after the weekend, resetting the house for the week, restocking the fridge and my clients are now filling my schedule.

 

For the first time in a long time, I feel fulfilled in what I do.  Even if I am bone tired, a client call can have me lifted.  I surprise myself at how much I know from what I have read, what I have put in to practice.  My tools, my techniques, my tips… even my ‘cosmic ordering’ are being paid forward to help others.  The little voice inside my head that used to say ‘you know nothing and what you know is nothing, it won’t serve anyone’ is being drowned out by the reality that I do, it is something and it does serve and help others.

 

Mondays and Tuesdays and all the other days of the week are turning out to all be my favourites!  That’s just such a great place to be!  And I still pinch myself to remind myself of the reality of where I am now and where I was last year.  My tools for healing, recovery and growth are still in the belt around my waist, but I am loving loaning them to others, giving them a chance to try them out so they can create their own unique tool belts for life.

 

 

I remember many, many years ago diving in the Turks and Caicos..  As my friend and I slid backwards in to the water, and the bubbles disappeared, I saw the shadow of a shark swiftly flicking back in to the darker waters, out of sight.  As we enjoyed the beauty of the deep blue, I could feel the prickle of something or someone watching us;  and every now and then, my peripheral vision would pick up on a flash of a sultry silhouette.  No obvious threat, but just the lingering feeling of a darker presence.  I knew it was there.  It knew I was there.  One eye on me, my eye on it, trying to ignore it in order to enjoy the fascinating new world I found myself swimming in.

 

That’s how I would describe the memories of my past.

 

I know it’s there.  My conscious mind and my subconscious mind, swimming around in my head, circling.

 

That’s why my IBS flared up. My nausea and stomach cramps telling me to look at the shark.  Acknowledge it.  Stare it out and let it swim back in to the murky, dusky depths.

 

I don’t like looking at it.  It scares me.  It angers me.  It upsets me.  But God, it feels good, when it disappears again.

 

I can relax.  My shoulders can drop.  My stomach stops churning.  My head stops pounding.  And I can marvel at how wonderful my surrounds are again, with my family eating pizza and watching ‘The grand tour’, the cat purring, the fire blazing;  all content after an afternoon with the best of friends, laughing and lounging.

 

I think there must be something on my mind.  My subconscious mind.  And try as I might, I cannot tap in to it. While my brain brain is whirring, trying to sort something out, my second brain is letting me know there is something going on and it is not happy about it..

 

My second brain is my gut.  While my brain works overtime, my gut lets me know I am anxious.  My IBS flares up.  Pain. Nausea. And my energy levels dip, sapped by the constant cogs turning in my brain and my digestion poor, absorption meaning I am not getting the right levels of nutrients.

 

And as I sat there this morning, frustrated with my 2 brains, wanting to use at least one of them for a better purpose, my phone pinged with a message.

 

“I saw this and thought of you.”  And the words helped me relax.  Maybe I have been trying too hard recently?  Too hard to ignore things that have stirred up painful memories.  Too hard on work opportunities, study and ideas in my head.  Too hard to make my original plans go to plan and then too hard to let the plans go.

 

Anyway, the words made me emotional and pretty choked.  I have done the hard work.

 

I just need to chill the f*ck out.  I am a super hero.  And I have 2 brains!

 

I am tired. That is all.

Tired from feeling nauseous.

Tired from the battles at bed time.

Tired.

I wish I didn’t feel so tired as I had a really good day… leading to so many exciting opportunities and avenues.

I wish I didn’t feel so tired.

My little suitcase looks sad and lonely at the bottom of the staircase.

 

And I guess I would have been too, if I hadn’t opened my mind and taken on board the messages yesterday to the possibility of flexibility.  I have been fluid like the seaweed in the strong currents and been bendy like the bamboo.

 

So rather than have supper with sister, I cooked a spicy chicken for my family.  And that was lovely too.  My stomach still nauseous, I wouldn’t have been able to have our usual Cosmopolitans, so our day in May gives me plenty of time to recover.. #theuniversehadmyback!!!

 

While I was looking forward to time on the train to focus on some work, with no distractions, I have ignored the piles of washing and sat in front of the fire, written a proposal, made the necessary tweaks to my basic website, caught up on lectures.

 

And tomorrow, rather than take a tour of Windsor Castle like we had planned and have supper with my Dad, I will get on top of our bathroom designs with a tour of the bathrooms showrooms and be a Mum and dish out pizza and popcorn for family movie night.

 

My suitcase.  Unpacked.  It may be empty, but I am not.  I remain full, happy, relaxed and ready for the next twist, turn or redirection.

 

The cat is purring loudly, the fire is roaring once again with Emma roaring outside the shuttered windows.  I am sat with a lovely box of chocolates and a set of drawings, visuals and plans for our bathrooms, dressing room and bedroom.

 

Now that is indulgence!

 

But I can’t concentrate on them.  As I pop a chocolate in my mouth, my mind is not on the plans, but thinking about some of the things I heard today, that resonated with me, that helped more cogs clunk into place. Emotional agility… flexibility… humility.

 

As I drove back from a snowy school run, I listened to radio 2 and a pause for thought that was explaining how humility can and should walk hand in hand with loving yourself.  She answered a riddle I hadn’t been able to. Humility, isn’t not about loving yourself, because that is allowed and should be embraced in order to look after yourself, so that you are at your best and brightest to be in service to others, to help others with your skills.  Click! And Clunk!

 

When I arrived back home, in amongst the stripping of beds, the preparations for 2 nights away, I flipped over one of my cards.  The topic was flexibility, how the rigid branch will break under a strong wind while flexible seaweed will survive a powerful ocean swell.  “Be so flexible so that no storm can uproot you.”  It was a reminder that I can stay strong to my values, myself and passions, but be open to new ideas, new compromises, new paths.  The storms and swells push you in directions you would never have dreamed of, but find you end up on the most beautiful of shores.  Click! And Clunk!

 

And to close the day, as I drove back to school, I started a new book on emotional agility.   I didn’t get much time to listen to very much of the first chapter, but what I did hear, helped me respond in the right way to conversations later on, earlier this evening.  Our emotions are human lighthouses, guiding us away from danger or towards safety:  fear to warn us away from harm, joy to bring us towards the light.  Check.  Got it.  Un-numbed my emotions are back in force.  Listen to my emotions, my gut feel, my intuition.  But then there is the mix of my emotions, that are clouding my judgements, based on past and painful memories.  My emotions have blinkered me from reality, but then have also made me see more than is really there.  Her answer to emotional agility, the ability to respond, rather than react is to process your feelings, experience your feelings, understand the intricacies of them and how you can use them to move forward…. Her answer to emotional agility, is journaling.

 

So in a conversation, hanging on to the bars of the aga, when we talk, as we do openly and with flagrant honesty, we discuss if we would have made the same choices 16 months ago.  Would I have continued to journal so publicly?  Faced with the consequences we both face because of both our actions, the ripples of all the many decisions, actions and words all intertwined, would I?

 

My answer, always, still the same. Yes.  Without journaling, I would be in a mental institution, wracked by the emotions that would have had me crashing on the rocks.  Without being totally and openly vulnerable, exposing myself, I wouldn’t have felt the support I have, given the strength I needed.  Without sharing, I would never have known that I am not alone, that others survived, that we are all strong in our own storms, our own swells and hurricanes.

 

And anyway, I am over playing the ‘what if’ game.  You can’t change the past.  You can only accept it.  Admire the ripples.  Ripples are beautiful, calming, perfect, eternal.  And when your ripples bounce off the ripples of others, they intertwine, making them even more awesome, mesmerising and stronger together.

 

 

The Beast from the East has been creating a whirlwind of crazy outside, while there has been a whirlwind of crazy inside.

 

Today, I have been car less, hot water less and heating less and therefore shower less.

 

Through my front door today, I have had a decorator, an emergency plumber, a couple of interior designers, a MacMillan sub-committee, a car delivery man, 2 small boys and the parent who kindly brought them home.

 

Add to that I have worn my many ‘joy’ hats;  breakfast maker, missing glove and coat finder, Mum and parent in a school meeting, health coach, coffee and tea maker, charity volunteer, IT geek, home owner / developer / designer, washer woman, student, Mrs Mop, pot washer, chef, friend on the end of a phone and supper time confidante.

 

All day, I wore my running kit, but never go to go out, thanks to ‘Emma’ blowing hot and cold, sunny and blizzarding.

 

And now I sit here, with my car safely back to battle the snow piles tomorrow, clean and washed from a hot water shower, with a full belly and a fire blazing and thinking how lucky I am at having had such a wonderful, full day doing all the things I love!

 

I have been loving listening to Shonda Rhimes’ book, ‘A Year of Yes’.  It is the story of her journey from being asleep to become alive, and beautiful and knowing that she is fully on her path to fulfilment.  Her version of fulfilment.  How she has shrugged off others’ opinion of wholeness and fairy tales and created her own.

 

Her year of saying ‘yes’ to things she once said ‘no’ transformed her life.

 

I am approaching the end of the book and she is dancing it out in a photo shoot on top of an apple box mountain where she says she can feel the sun on her face, the sun that she created.

 

Her year.

 

My year.

 

I have been ‘dancing it out’ a lot recently.   On the top of my mountain, that happens to be in my kitchen.  A year ago, I bought 3 flags from a market in Cape Town and hung them in places I would see them frequently.  One of them said ‘My Kitchen is for Dancing’ and it is now hung in our new kitchen.  And this is where I dance it out.  This is where I feel the sun of the world that I have created on my face.

 

It has been my year of following the words of the other 2 flags, ‘Follow your heart’ and believing that ‘amazing things are going to happen’.  I said yes to the flags.  Anything that didn’t fit the flags, didn’t fit in my life.  Anything or anyone that didn’t make me feel like dancing, that I wasn’t following my heart or wasn’t going to lead to anything amazing I said ‘no’ to.

 

My year of ‘no’ transformed my life so that I now say ‘yes’ to life again.  And i am dancing on my mountain top, with my face to the sun.

 

Alcohol is not my friend.

Alcohol is my arch enemy, my nemesis.

I do not need much, in fact very little needs to pass my lips and I feel the effects almost immediately.

And I do not need much, only a few glasses and the consequences are colossal. My day ruined. My body Ruined. My health ruined.

Since mid January, i have been focussed on putting everything I am learning from my health coaching into practice. My body a temple. A healthy balance of 80/20 or perhaps even 90/10, feeling guilt free, learning to love my body and my body image. Thanks to Mel Wells I am treating my body and soul like the goddess it is, revering it and treating it well.

So a complete overload of toxins, my 10-20% all in the space of an intense 8 hours and very little sleep, and my temple had something to say! Most of it screamed down the big white telephone….

But hey. A waste of a day. But sometimes i need a big blow out to remind myself why I treat my body like a goddess, a temple.

Tomorrow is another day, first steps to recovery, first steps to health – water to flush away the toxins and restful sleep. Then self care mentally and nurturing externally … until then I will embrace the mess!

Oh my god. It’s too late.

It’s just too late.

And I am here. Understanding I am not alone. But that I Am the only one speaking out.and while some fine comfort and inspiration. Others want to shut me up.

Interesting. Always interesting.

It’s too late. I should have spoken out sooner.