I have just started a new book.  Having loved her previous books, yesterday, I started the Judgement Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein.  Initially, I wondered whether it was the right book for the current time.  Did I really need spiritual guidance right now?  Wasn’t I looking for more upbeat, badassery inspiration?

 

But as it turned out, it was bang on time.

 

I should have realised that after my emotional and energy highs, I always have a low.  As I stitch up the last wounds, feel stronger, the blood pumping back through my heart again without draining away, something always triggers the wound to burst and the carefully, sewn stitches to fly off.

 

This time it was a comment.

 

And my judgement was fierce. Whether it was justified or not, isn’t worth the energy to answer.

 

After great loss, there is pain and depending on the type of pain, it will unleash a multitude of different feelings.  But the same loss and grief creates a shadow in your soul.  In your heart.  In your mind.  And even around you.

 

And that shadow, will remain with you always.  But I believe, that over time, and as I have been feeling lately, the light within me is growing and the shadow is shrinking, or I am stepping outside of it, refusing to let it overpower me.  I know it is there.  Somehow comforting.  A reminder of the strength and bravery I have shown.

 

The shadow and the stitches, they are still there.  They are my war wounds.  They are part of me now.  And I acknowledge them.  I am beginning to be proud of them, rather than ashamed or embarrassed.

 

And yet, the passage of time, the great healer that turns wounds in to scars and monstrous shadows into delicate ghosts, sometimes cannot account for the rawness of the scar or the speed of the shadow to rise.

 

And that is what happened this morning.  And along with it, came judgement.

 

So, the words of Gabi this morning, “become aware of the dark shadows of your mind” made me continue to listen.

 

The antidote to the guilt I was feeling towards my judgemental response, is compassion.  Towards myself.  Towards the subject of my judgement.  To witness my words and feelings and recognise that all I did was forget to love, and in it’s place fear crept in.  The words and tone that triggered my fear, ripped open the scars and my light was overshadowed.

 

I recognise that.  I witness it.  And I can appreciate why I was fearful and my attitude turned to one of judgement.

 

And with that witnessing, my shadow slipped away, my scars stopped throbbing and my light returned to guide me back to my future and away from my past.

 

Always grateful to the teachers that arrive just in time to help me learn a life lesson.

 

This evening, I am still riding on the crest of the wave of yesterday… only adding to the momentum and excitement with good music, a good workout, a really interesting conversation, some good business planning and some storm cooking up in the kitchen.

I can literally feel the grief from loss of the last 2 years slipping away.  The cloak of sadness being lifted from my shoulders.

It has been a long time coming.  The start of the new year, was a huge turning point for me.  I could no longer stand being sad, worried, fearful, distrustful, negative and seeing and feeling the worst.  I could no longer bear being around myself.  I was sick and tired of me.

Being sick and tired can sometimes be a good thing.  For it drives change.

I set out my intentions clearly this January and have spent more time dreaming about and focussing on the future and how wonderful it is going to be, rather than dwelling on the past and what has been lost.  As I realised that, I stumbled across a quote from Brene Brown which spoke to the same idea.

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on.  But that’s not what it means at all.  It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.”

 

I would be naïve to think that there won’t be dark moments, dark days, but the moments are more about trivial mishaps (like forgetting the granola in the aga).  The dark days so few and far between now that I can usually dig myself out with the strength that I have found that I am capable of.

My best friend sent me a quote today.

“It’s okay to fall down and lose your spark.   Just make sure that when you get back up , you rise as the whole damn fire.” Colette Werden

The overwhelming emotions that used to quash my enthusiasm for anything in life due to their pain, that dampened my spark, are becoming less too.  And I find any overwhelming emotions are now related to excitement borne from new ideas and frustration that I don’t have the time or bandwidth to do them all immediately.

My BFF is right, I am rising as the whole damn fire… but as I found out today, trying to do too much all at once only ends up with burnt granola.

And that just leaves a bitter taste!

That bath I have been dreaming of for weeks, perhaps months now?  Me, the girl, who isn’t really into baths… or thought she wasn’t.  I just had one.  For 5 long, glorious minutes, before I overheated and started to shrivel…

And that was just after the best massage I have ever had.  In my entire life.  All my worries and lists melted in to the warm air around me and floated away.   To be greeted on awakening, with a delightfully, delicious Seedlip, lime and elderflower and smoked salmon mouthful on soda bread.

And that was just after I had been playing chase around the marble kitchen island, with my goddaughter; she on a little red ladybug and me on a little pink rabbit with my knees around my ears and her hair floating behind her dancing on her peals of laughter and shouts of my name…

And that was just after the most time forgotten day, being creative with design, feathers, furs and ribbons… irons, pins and glue guns… drinking honeyed fennel tea and eating biscuits and cake.  The chaotic hour of cooking a meal to be left and ensuring all spare items of school clothing and gym kit were left in the obvious and rightful places, all a distant memory as we stitched and created our masterpieces.

Today, was a day I will remember for a very long time, going down in my own personal history bank of good days, the best of days (outside of Super Sundays and precious family moments), spending real quality time, connecting with my closest northern girlfriends… and also myself.

So my trainers came off their hanging peg today.  It was too pretty not too.  I had been hung up on going on my usual circuit, which was either an ice skating rink or an ankle breaking threatening frozen lumpy stretch.

Inspired by the Big Man, as he came in through the front door as I sloped down the stairs in my duvet, I changed tack.

And like the beautiful stream I stumbled across, meandering through a frosty woodland, it reminded me to go with the flow… twist and turn, change direction, bubble and bounce over obstacles in your path with a gurgle.  Eventually I found my way home, having turned this way and that, finding a brilliant new route;  interesting and a little longer than usual.

A run to stretch myself and remind me to get out of my own comfort zone, get out of my own way, go for the adventure and realise that it was worth getting over any fear, any dread, and just enjoy.  Go and find those moments of wonder that Arianna Huffington has as a pillar for wellbeing.  And live in those moments.   String those moments together to have a beautiful life worth living.

In January, I hibernate.  I do the self-care thing and the rest thing.

 

The gym is spilling over with over-enthusiastic Christmas over-indulgers, so I steer clear.  They will have all given up by February.  And the snow has had my trainers hanging up by their laces for most of the month.  Historically, I would have been totally stressed out. But I am weirdly not so much.

 

I haven’t really felt the need for a drink since getting poorly on holiday.  In a month when I have typically gone tee-total, I find myself enjoying a simple glass of red, if I fancy it.  But that is enough. And I don’t feel bad.  At all.  No regret.  No guilt.

 

The same goes for chocolate.

 

I have changed.

 

I have learnt to let go.

 

Perhaps, I have even learnt the art of not giving a f*ck.  (at least I still have that book!)

Perhaps, I am more comfortable in my own skin than I have been in a long time.

 

As I sit here feeling pretty smug that I have filled in my tax return, it did nothing to help my melancholy at losing my friends.

Both kinds.  My books.  And the human flesh kind.

Misplaced or displaced in the move.

As I reviewed and retraced my steps of the tax year end FY17, I saw how many books I bought and authors, who became my closest advisors, my confidants and somewhere I could lose myself.

And I also saw how many local friends I had to pop in or pop round to for a quick coffee; coffee dates littering my diary.

But books are books.  And while I may have lost my scribbles and turned corners of my favourite pages, maybe it is a sign I need to re-read them, this time with my refreshed eyes.

And good friends are still good friends, no matter how far.  And a move has brought forth many new people, who are becoming good friends.

As we set off before the crack of dawn this morning, we were witness to the most incredible red sun, rising into the pale blue dawn sky, over the white wintry fields.  Nature has the most wondrous way of showing that as a pale sun goes down on one day, one chapter, one story, it can be reborn with glory and fire on the next.

So I nearly brought the house down.  As I was quite happily embracing a very rare hot shower, I did kind of hear some banging… but just thought it was the boys ragging around.

But now… as I was basking in the steam with gratitude, I had a visitor.  Visibly shaken ..

Apparently, when I had tweaked the gas heating to off and put a boost on the hot water, I hadn’t taken into that the old grumbling battle axe of boiler was also on.  I don’t fully understand the plumbing (still and perhaps never will) but we were moments away from a hot water fountain in the basement.  A hairs breadth away from where the boys were sitting.

So for the second time, I am grateful… only this time for the lack of steam and hot water!

In other news, we woke up to a Winter Wonderland and our beautiful home made magical by 3 inches of snow.  But no school bus and a warning that the tiny little, hilly, un-salted roads around school were treacherous.  And that the motorway junction was blocked by jack-knifed lorries.  So it was a snow day for us all.

The boys built snowmen and fought outside, while the Big Man worked in one room and I wrote and juiced and cooked my way through my day in the beautiful light of the kitchen.

I have been embracing the return to routine and I had had lots planned today, with a clear calendar and a 10 point list to fulfil myself with.    Initially, I was rather distracted by how that would get done… but it was blow the list, reduce it to top 3 must do’s and have a snowball fight.

But clearly the boys had other ideas….nothing sacred anymore, not even my lists.  I could only laugh.

I have lost all my books.  My favourite books.  The ones that have been my guides over the last 3 years; are worn and soft from being referred to and held to give me strength.  They are like old friends to me, holding my hand, ensuring I never felt alone.

 

And I hope like old friends, they will reappear when I am least expecting it.

 

I could have done with one of them today.  Ariana Huffington.  One of the friends who took me by the hand to help me to ‘thrive’ after deciding consulting was no longer for me.  Also a time I became more interested in wellbeing and self-care, for myself but also others.  In her book, she shared her ‘wake up call’ experience when she had been driven by money and power, working all hours to achieve success.

 

She explains that she now recognises hard times or difficult periods differently and that she prefers to  ‘live life as if life was rigged in her favour.”  From experience, she can look back, connect the dots, see the wake up calls, and appreciate the triggers were all guiding  and steering her to become who she is today.

 

In my own life, I can look back and can connect many dots and also see the hardships, the painful life situations as ‘redirectors’, moving me to change, to grow, to challenge me to become more.  But I can also see the times when I didn’t see or perhaps chose not to see some of those wake up calls to instil or force a difference, whether it be path or habit, in to my life.

 

I am not sure where I am going on this train of thought.  Perhaps back to unhappiness?  If you don’t pick up on the signs… where does that lead you? It certainly led me to the bottom of the sea in stunned unhappiness and grief.

 

I wrote down in big bold letters, the one thing I am going to continue take forward and also one thing that she so eloquently explained and something that I have been writing about for so long now…

 

HAPPINESS DOESN’T MEAN LESS SETBACKS.  IT IS FACING THOSE SETBACKS WITH GRACE AND MORE UNDERSANDING AND MORE ACCEPTANCE.

 

I would still be my naïve self, if I believed that the ‘setbacks’ I have lived through in the last 4 years were all the setbacks that life was and is going to throw me.  I am sure there will be more.  In fact I am confident.  But from experience, I know that as each future setback arrives at my door, I will be gracious to welcome it forward, to learn from it, to grow from it and use gratitude as a way of understanding and accepting as life giving me a wake up call and a chance to change direction.

 

 

 

I had a couple of really interesting conversations today; both with remarkable and inspirational women. They both shared thoughts that have remained with me and floated in my subconscious mind.

“Love is a feeling but it is also a choice.”

I have always thought it was just a feeling; something instinctual and overwhelming about someone or something that meant you couldn’t live without it, emanating from somewhere inside my body, my gut or chest usually.  My romantic, naivety strikes again!

But after this last 16 months, on digesting it and thinking about it more, I tend to agree with her.  Love can also be a choice.  You can choose to love someone or something by looking for what there is to love about it.  You can find love if you look for it hard enough.  Even when you think it is impossible. Even the smallest, tiniest fragment can be enough to hold on to.  By focusing and choosing to see that, rather than everything else surrounding it, you can magnify the feeling so that it then overwhelms all other feelings.  And it started with a choice.  It started with the brain, not the gut, not the heart.

Interesting.

Her view was that many people don’t fight when it gets tough anymore. They don’t fight when exercise is hard or making healthy food choices are hard. When business is failing… And the same goes for marriage too.

As I come out of this latest rollercoaster, an emotional one, a really tough one that tested my resilience to stay buckled in, I can now look back and say that the downs were terrifying, that the highs were exhilarating…but both necessary to appreciate the other.  And the slow climb out of the biggest dips taught me lessons to enable me to grow and the strength I needed to climb out and up to the top of the next high.

The other conversation, a completely separate, unrelated conversation following a quote I shared with her:

“I loved my pain –

Not the feeling of it,

But the way it molded

Me to be stronger.”

Her questioning response was entitled, having encountered her own rollercoaster …

“Embracing pain is different from suffering.

We need to learn that pain is just different from joy. Not more or less important…..  there’s joy in loss and grief.”

Her words echoing my thoughts on the roller coaster.  The need for balance, the downs needed to prepare for the up; light needing dark so that it can be seen. The joy and happiness I feel now, so much sweeter, more genuine because of the pain and suffering from loss and grief.

And perhaps that’s why life is a rollercoaster, because, as she says, pain is different from suffering.  Pain is momentary.  Suffering is choosing to focus on the pain for extended periods of time.

And there we have it, we are back to the beginning, because it is by choosing to see love during times of despair, that we end the cycle of suffering and can pull ourselves up and out.

It’s been a long day.  Exciting on many levels, intense in others.

 

Right now, my belly is full, my heart lighter than yesterday and my head exhausted from being worked more than I have in a long while.  Progress is being made in all of my highlighted intentions – my new site is up and running and drafted, and a good, gritty, honest discussion to clear the air around the intention that caused a day of tension yesterday completed.

 

It is time to be grateful for a good day, and say good night.