I wish I could find it, but I can’t.  The original blog post I did about the ‘joy list’ which I wrote after reading or hearing a quote that has always stayed with me –  ‘do what brings you joy, so you can bring joy to others.’

 

I look at that quote daily along with my joy list.  And I have done since the day I stuck them on the mirror of our old house, and every day since moving to our new home.  I look back now and realise that it is no coincidence that I have redesigned my life so that each day I do a collection, if not all of the items on my list.

 

My current favourite is ‘cooking for fun’. I am loving experimenting in the kitchen and sharing those experiences with whoever is looking, watching or stumbling across them.  I am loving how my experiment to eat meat free once a week is incredibly rewarding and surprisingly tasty and filling.  Even for the ‘I love meat’ Big Man.  And I have even converted him to enjoy fish after more than 30 years of not eating it due to a bad recollection of getting a bone stuck in his throat in childhood.

 

My aim is to find quick, simple, tasty, healthy food for all the family to eat.  My aim is to ensure we all love the food that is fuelling our body and not feeling we miss out on foods that had us addicted due to their sugar and salt content.  My aim is to ensure that we love food, guilt free whatever it is – no bad or good labels.

 

I read back to where I was a year ago, finishing my 10 day sugar detox, painfully thin, emotionally and physically exhausted, confused as to the future.  And here I am today, happy and healthy and ready for Valentine’s day tomorrow to spread joy and love to everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

I am sat, overthinking what I want to write.  When all I really want to say, is that I had a really lovely day. And given the upset of the last few days, I am so pleased and so happy and so grateful for that.

 

This bounce back, from the darkest of days I have had in a long time, I put down to hard work.  Hard work in putting myself first and understanding my value, my future and how I want it all to play out.  And that isn’t to say I haven’t honoured my other responsibilities along the way.  I just made time for me, understanding me, myself and I.

 

So was the Universe just giving me a little test to see how strong I have become?

 

Maybe.

 

I have created a life of my own designing.  Metaphorically, my handbag was turned upside down, given a shake and everything fell out.  I have only put back in what was worthy of being put back in, adding to it new items that fit the bill.

 

I loved my day working, feeling fulfilled, spending time with my boys, feeling relaxed and guilt free when doing either, not feeling like I should be doing the other.  And now, after a debrief, a download over tasty noodles, I am curled up on a broken old sofa, watching crap tv, feeling loved and appreciated with my Big Man.

 

There have been so many lovely things about today.  Now that my mind is clear again, free from torment having stalled the free-fall…

As I sit savouring salted caramel ice cream with raspberries in front of the roaring fire, I am no longer in the ocean, or even at basecamp.  But back up there, on the top.  That was one hell of a dive down.  And after catching my breathe, with the help of my sis dragging me out, holding me up, I could sprint back up that mountain to my boys.

Our future awaits, but dips back in to the past can be enlightening and useful.

Just as we have done this evening.  Armed with rediscovered original plans and maps of the house and diaries of previous owners, we can see someone else’s dreams of a beautiful house on wafer thin parchment and wrapped in protective cloth.  Fascinating to see an additional front door, different corridors and how the cellar was used for corn and cows!  Floor plans of scullery, parlour and privy and the designs of the beautiful, noteworthy and listed overhanging roof.

The past teaches us so much.  Of what we want to do in the future .. and what we don’t want to repeat.  What worked and what didn’t.  What is flexible, what is current and what no longer has a use.

And just like we frame the photos of happy times, I will be framing these too.

It has been an interesting few days.  Thrown off the top of my mountain and flung back to the bottom of the ocean. All the same feelings.  All the same sleepless nights.  The anxiety ball in my stomach, the pressure of thought tornadoes in my head.

Taking risks, baring my soul, putting myself out there, I invite judgement.  I expect critique, strong opinions.

But it has been the praise and the cheerleading of the majority of the ‘audience’ who have helped me, willed me and carried me up to the top of the mountain.

Fortunately, my ‘super power’ is resilience.  And now that I know I can climb an impossible climb, and feel the wonderful feelings and see the beautiful views, I am not going to be down here for long.

I quote others only in order to better express myself…

Today, someone held up a mirror to me, the person I am today, the one I am proud of and the person I have worked so hard to become, to like, to feel is enough.

I did not like the person they showed me.  The me who is pushy, needy, controlling, boastful, superficial, unthinking, unkind, pretty horrible and I would even go as far as reading that I am pure evil. They showed me the person I believed I was and the reason why everything that happened, did happen.

Perceptions, words out of context, clouded by personal circumstances, distorted by pain and grief.  I know how that can happen.

Whose mirror is the true reflection?  The question has haunted me all day.

Who do I want to be?  The one who can do better.  Who can take the learnings from this and move forward.

I return to Marianne’s words – shift from fear to love.

I need to shift from the fear that everyone thinks that I am the person in the mirror, all the many virtual friends (apparently) who have unfriended me, blocked me and are sick of me.  I need to return to see the reflection that I see, that many of my true physical and local friends know and see me as and that is the kind and loving person that I know I am.

But that isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

Today I bought the present and ate the cake. Today I shed a tear and gave her a few moments of my thoughts.

Today I went about my day, breathing, laughing, hugging, kissing, coaching, listening, empowering, meditating, learning and living.

And that is life after loss. Living. Living true.

It would have been Mum’s birthday tomorrow.  77.  That’s what’s on my mind this evening.

 

Strange that her birthday doesn’t bother me as much as the anniversary of her death did.  Her birthday, I just remember happy times. And I will go and buy her a little present and keep it for me.  Last year, I bought her a mug with ‘best mum’ on it… and I drink from it and think of her.  And I will go to my favourite coffee shop and eat cake.  And think of her and all my favourite moments.

 

On the anniversary of her death, all I could think of was her in that moment and her red toes being zipped in to the coroner’s bag, her skeletal, toothless face disappearing too.  And alI I could think of, was that I was the only one thinking of her.  And that too made me sad.

 

That, and the fact that when she died, I selfishly felt so much loss, not just the feeling of loving someone, but because I lost someone who loved me. I look back and realise all the undertones, the start of my IBS, my anxiety, the feeling I never felt enough for anyone, that nothing was right, that my paradigm was all an illusion…and even running away didn’t help! I realise that was the start of me feeling unloved.  Or maybe it was the end.

 

I am a little too tired this evening to try and conclude the thought process I am following.

 

But I think I used to think grief and grieving was all about missing someone because I loved them.  And today, perhaps it dawned on me more than ever, that I am grieving the love I felt and the love I miss.

 

There are always themes running through my day… and today’s theme kept coming back to the topic of self love.

This has played such a huge part of my healing and growth over the last 2 years. It was shortly after my Mumbo died that I decided to put myself first, work out who I was as a forty year old ex professional, mum and wife and who did I want to become.

So ‘project me’ kicked off.

I look back through my blog which has documented this journey and I am proud of myself. 2 years on, I find I am sharing my home made techniques as well as the inspiration I found from books and other teachers. I am doing exactly what I said I would do, learn from my experiences and then teach others, be the person I wish I had had by my side.

I have picked back up Marianne Williamson’s Return to Love. That’s where it all started – a re-found love for myself. In doing so, I realised that I did have for myself and my worth. And the clearer I became on who I was and who I was going to be, my self esteem grew little by little.

In her book, she talks about the spiritual practice of the course in miracles. Spirituality, in her paraphrased words is just a way of connecting with your authentic self… and a miracle is just a change in perception of fear to love. We often fail to be and live the values of our authentic self as we fear that others may no longer like or love us. But if we shift that fear to love and Love ourselves enough, we no long need fear the loss of love of others, because we no longer need it.

I used to think that self love was arrogance. 2 years on, with research and practice and habit, I now know that self love is inner peace. And inner peace, is the new success.

I know I am a jumble of emotions.  I know I always have been.

Writing helps control the rumble and untangles some of the tightest knots in the jumble.  Meditation and mindfulness helps the tumble slow and reminds me feel, watch and see the emotions for what they are.

All of it, makes me, me.

And then I can relax.