Holistic Health & Emotional Healing – Page 11

Hazel’nuts’ – Touching The Humour

Yesterday my 3 year old dropped an entire pot of organic, personally activated & dehydrated (!), hazelnuts on the floor. They went far and wide, as little balls do, and my hands went to my head in horror.

I bent down and started to collect them and my son stayed silent, sitting up on the counter munching on his other hazelnuts, as he watched. Now previously I would have huffed and puffed whilst picking them up and most likely wound myself up into a sense of, at least, annoyance if not actual rage. This time I calmed myself with each nut, I talked to myself about how worried my son is currently feeling about me being angry; about the fact that they, after all, are just nuts; about trusting the Divine and knowing that this is how today is meant to unfold; and about taking this opportunity to heal. And by the time I had collected half a kilo of nuts from the floor (and boy I am keeping them all!) I could almost touch the humour.

I turned to my precious boy, who was posturing his own shrugs of defiance (or rather defence) and said ‘are you feeling worried that mummy will be cross?’ To which he just threw his arms around me, so relieved that I wasn’t.

Now, whilst I know I’m not a tyrant, I also sadly realise how just a few cross moments a week can create a sense of dread, fear and anticipation in my children, in most children. Theoretically I know this, theoretically I’ve tried so hard to measure and adjust this. My hazelnut reaction is how I want to be, but is certainly not how I am, I also know that I managed it this time because I’ve been unravelling me, peeling the layers of my anger and rebuilding my understanding. These articles and theories of how to respectfully parent our children are so valid and wise, but also totally unattainable if our emotional pain levels are bouncing; and we can be bouncing for so many reasons – arguments with loved ones, work crises, friendship misunderstanding, tiredness, lack of support etc. It is no wonder mothers are angrily posting articles pitted against each and every opinion & theory, when some of us are having days of just coping and being advised to bring more to our parenting. The truth is, only when we self care and self love can we possibly start to parent the way we wish to.

What does that look like?

This evening I watched a horse whisperer guide a boy with Aspergers to approach a horse – it consistently moved away. She asked him to think of something he liked about himself, which he decided was his hair. Next, he had to approach the pony again whilst inner dialoguing about his lovely hair. The horse stayed still. Just a moment of self love translated and received energetically by another.

So next time the nuts go for an outing, instead of trying to measure my reaction and ‘hold it together’, I’m going to mantra some loving words to myself, remember the Divine order of action and get myself closer to that goal of humour – I can almost touch it.

Grief

Over the years I have had my astrology charted, my numerology configured, tarots read and all sorts of other magical and mystical directions. Some good, some bad, some exciting, some unnerving…. but there has been a theme, a message that has been consistent throughout; I was going to hit my mid 30’s and experience cataclysmic grief.

By the time I was approaching my 35th birthday, I had managed to convince myself that it would be my husband, he works in a risky environment and I had somehow rationalised that the scale of grief I was destined to encounter fitted for him. I braced myself. I spent a year waiting for ‘that’ call; it never came. I am now 38 and still, thankfully, wedded to and loved by my husband.

And yet, in the last two years I have been having energy healing and the appraisal that I have received again and again is that my heart is full of grief. And it is.

I had presumed that grief belonged to the rites of the dead but in fact it is simply for death, not just of life but of relationships too. When I was 35 one of my closest familial relationships began to die, where before it had been wounded and healed, wounded and healed, we had begun a deeper disconnect than ever before. Who knows where life will take us and what resurrection may occur in the future, but for now the reality is that I have had to say goodbye to something I never thought I would.

It has been and continues to be a deeply painful process. Acknowledging it and finally recognising it as grieving, brings light to the darkness. Knowing that I am saying goodbye to an attachment in its current form is allowing me to release the raging anger that I have held, it gives me permission to feel the sorrow and confusion and to reclaim the joy and lightness that I have lost.

I think, as a western society, we are poorly equipped for grief, in all of its forms, and firstly we must remove the assumption that it belongs only to those moments of physical death. I think many of us are grieving and so much of our global anger comes from grief; from loss, from rejection, from abandonment, from painful goodbyes.

My homeopath is helping me to release the layers that have caged me in this unnamed pain and I can feel my spirit fill with love again, raising me up to the surface. After my very first remedy I gasped for air; I had spent the last few years forgetting how to breathe.

So here I am now, facing this cataclysmic grief that has always been my destiny, I have named it and recognised it and now I can heal.

With grateful thanks to Anne Do Espírito Santo http://www.annehomeopath.com

When Choice Is Bad

Over the last year I have been rethinking feminism (Why Feminism Must Die, Where Have All Our Mother’s Gone?) Apart from my own blogs, I have had conversations and debates on Facebook and, as is typical when a subject strikes a chord, I have been drawn to reading and exploring this further. I am heading far down the rabbit hole of challenging the current stance on feminism, how I feel it is depicted and actioned today.

Before I continue, I would like to reiterate firmly that I am deeply grateful for the passion, commitment and sacrifices that my societal sisters and brothers have made to create the changes for women over the last century or so. What I am exploring now is not in anyway to devalue those actions but instead a look at what our next steps could be to support a healthy, balanced and productive society.

The main thrust of antagonism towards my investigations seems to be the belief that feminism fundamentally stands for equality and choice and why would I want to deny those key and vital opportunities to anyone? In truth I wouldn’t.

But I think they are too simplistic and create loop holes in our world that allow people to make decisions without informed choice and without responsible choice. And that’s when choice can be bad….

In no way would I want to strip anyone of their right to choose, but I certainly would like to fire up our energy to make sure that the choices we are making are healthy and vibrant. And isn’t that subjective? Aren’t some people’s healthy choices going to be unhealthy for others?

Actually I wonder, I really wonder if we look at our deep, innate, human selves. Would our choices be that different? Working from our primal senses, are our base lines not all quite similar? Safety… community… love? How we perceive and realise those elements are hugely influenced by the media and our peers, why one person thinks a hospital birth is safer than a home birth; why another wants to stick rigidly to a contained circle of friends and yet others to explore the world; and how some can judge various types of love to be wrong – sexual, gender, parental etc.

Whilst recently reading the work of Michael Gurian, an advocate of ‘womanism’ as our next step, I appreciated his use of neuroscience to support his theories. Science, as with anything, has its own limitations and is not, in my mind, the be all and the end all of an argument. However, what I valued in this case was how it validated what I am sensing in myself. How the science of our bodies is giving us a message about all these ‘choices’ we are making today; the science is the play out of our hormones and how they create these baseline drives and emotions that we share as a human race.

Neuroscience also looks at the biological differences between men and women. The reality is that we can never be equal, because, quite frankly, we are too different. We can be respectful, honouring, trusting, supportive and open with our opposite gender but demanding equality when we instinctively react and process differently is too hard to define. What we need is an understanding of those differences, not just the will to ignore them. That is what will move us forward; for women to understand why men respond and work in certain ways and for men to understand women equally. There is where our equality will lie.

And, it is not just understanding our opposite gender that is important, but also our own. Imagine if all women realised their base line nature for nurture and mothering? If we grasped quite how integral that is to our spirit. That is not to demand that all women stay at home and mother but instead for women to honour that part of themselves and fulfil it in a way that suits them. This is when choice starts to become informed, when we comprehend quite how deeply our reactions and needs are defined by nature and that denying them serves no one. Honouring them brings us all forward together.

So do I think there are issues with our current stance on feminism? Most definitely, do I wish to take us back to feeling suppressed, unheard and disrespected? Of course not. I would love, instead, that we spend some time exploring what being a man and a woman really means…..

I think that could change the world.

Oblivion

Once upon a time I was a party girl. For all the reasons anyone ever is, lots of fun and a whole lot of numbness. I even remember one long summer in my teens being absolutely determined to go out every single night, accepting dates I would have otherwise have rejected, just to be out.

With the parties came alcohol and drugs, a sure fire way to numbness and oblivion until the morning at least. I can’t say it was a particularly happy time but it certainly enabled me to get by without having to face any of the darkness that I held, any of those feelings that are just too strong, too hard, too scary.

Years have passed and so have some truly special healing moments, releases and understandings that have forged me into a saner individual, one that can function emotionally and settle into the normality of society (just about!).

And yet I find myself here, mother of two, wife, writer, home maker and cook; I find myself remembering fondly those moments of oblivion. I find myself feeling nostalgic about crazy amounts of alcohol and surreal nights with strangers, with people who don’t know me at all. I find myself thinking, that would be nice right now, that would be a little bit easier than this.

Because parenting, relationships, even just being a good friend, can feel so damn difficult at times. All these mirrors to me, all these dynamics that open up my awareness to the unhealed, to my shadows, to the parts of me that I would like to ignore, are standing firm with solid reflection.

And I don’t want to look.

I don’t want to see that I’ve been a grumpy mummy for a whole week and actually it’s nothing to do with my kids; I don’t want to see that I can feel so jealous of my friends’ other friendships that I twist with discomfort; I don’t want to see the broken relationship with my mother; or the moments with my husband where I lack the most basic elements of compassion. I don’t want to face any of that. Oblivion sounds so much easier.

But I do remember that it isn’t. That is has its own empty, heartbreaking breath, jagged and lonely. I do remember that I was always teetering on the edge of life, wondering what lay beyond, yearning for a little flash of contented happiness.

So in these moments of nostalgia, I sit and remember the wild giggles and raucous skirmishes and know that I still choose ‘now’ because I finally do have a hold on my own reality, a tie to each day that draws me back and settles me into those minutes of blissful content in between the ache for oblivion.

100 days

Last weekend was one hundred days since my daughter started coughing. Whilst others in our community also had varying degrees of whooping cough this summer (vaccinated and unvaccinated), my little family definitely signed up for the full version, classic style!

My kids are better, they are finally off the high vitamin c (an amazing therapy but exhausting in its own right, keeping the levels high and cajoling the kids to take it for nigh on 100 days! Oof!), there is no more vomiting and although there is still the occasional spasm, when over exerted or at night, they are 99% better.

I have found the duration wearing. The 7 weeks of confinement at home were filled with a gracious swirl of gifts (see my previous blog ‘Cancel Everything‘) to balance out the intensity, but with my kids energy back up and champing at the bit to be out in the world again, trying to measure their energy levels, monitor their exertions and still be without proper evenings to myself, as between them the occasional spasms intrude, I have been hard pushed not to feel a little ‘over it’!

I remember a friend sharing that even years later, whenever she heard her kids cough she would shudder and feel drawn back into the emotional maelstrom of that time.

I am never going to deny that it’s hard but, despite the hopes of some thinking it would change my mind on vaccines, it has only confirmed and upheld my beliefs and research on our health choices.

I have understood childhood illnesses to be an indicator, precursor and factor in developmental shifts and growth spurts; I am aware natural endurance promotes lengthy immunity; and I trust a healthy body’s ability to process an illness and use it as a tool to detox physically and emotionally. All of these I see to be truths in my experience.

This experience has not made me question our decision not to vaccinate our children, it has totally affirmed it. And whilst I sit out these last days of tickles and spasms, I find this validation to be yet another of the many blessings on this journey.

Expansion

I wish I could draw or paint the vision I held this morning. I will try to depict it with words, but they will not be enough.

Back in 2000 and something, I spent some evenings at The College of Psychic Studies, there is some irony in the fact that I cannot exactly remember what I was studying, but I went diligently and, from recollection, eagerly, every week for a term. One thing I did take away with me was Pete.

Pete is my spirit guide (and here I enter into a whole new paradigm, an area that can connect and also alienate, but I hope that even the die-hard sceptics can read the message rather than the messenger). I’m not going to describe him in great detail except to say that he really makes me laugh, more than anyone I know. I used to chat with him fairly regularly in my meditations and then parenting happened and I lost my grounding a little.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been meditating again and have reconnected with Pete, who is as charming and witty as ever. This morning, as I floated in the bath, with the kids playing around me, Pete showed me Expansion.

He showed me the middle of a space where all around me as far as the eye could see were these swirls of blues, every hue and tone. Like swimming in the most exotic of seas and yet instead of water, more like luxurious silks and threads. It was beautiful, peaceful and so clear. I knew that every emotion that I placed here became diluted and softened as it spread throughout the space. That I could hold my hardest and most challenging feelings and set them free here, to be energetically dispersed. There was an understanding that nothing was right or wrong but simply that anything that felt too strong could be spread out and lightened and it was called Expansion.

It is a glorious, glorious place and one that I wanted to share….

Playstation Level 1

On reflection I can laugh, but just a few short years ago I really believed I had it mostly sussed out. I had spent my teens in turmoil, my early twenties in self destruct and the rest of my twenties in some sort of therapy/workshop/intense process. By 30 I was offering my new wisdom as an alternative therapist and was feeling pretty peaceful with the world.

Then I got married and had my two glorious children and I realised that, as if locked inside some epic computer game, I had only just passed level 1.

To continue that analogy, there was a great film way back when (1997) called ‘The Game’ where Michael Douglas is given the ultimate rich man’s gift. He unknowingly becomes part of an interactive theatre where a series of stressful, frightening and tense moments play out in his life culminating in a fall from a tall building into his surprise birthday party (sorry for ruining the ending!). I remembering loving the film and it’s lingered with me for all these years, that peace-giving realisation that all of those horrifying moments where just directed theatre, make believe. I had that feeling this week when I stood in my garden and thought I am so overwhelmed by all the emotional stretches in my life, I must wake up in moment and see it’s been an orchestrated lesson. Which on a true spiritual plain it is.

And as with most spiritual journeys, it can be hard to see the wood for trees whilst trekking the path. I did garner some small insight today remembering that my greatest understanding through all my years of self work is that how I honour myself creates my emotional stability and roots. When I was single, I practised self love by writing morning pages, reading my angel cards, slipping off to the cinema mid-afternoon; meeting friends for coffee and sometimes a glass of wine or two. I had the world open to me to explore a variety of ways to honour my mood, my space, my needs. Trying to give that to myself whilst nurturing my family, catering to the needs of two small ones and my husband, I frequently get lost and find myself in this ‘game’ scenario, looking around bewildered at the on goings.

But the truth stays the same. The only way to traverse this landscape is to remember who I am in amongst it all. To remember that when I act out my ancestral rage towards my family that I am also searching for peace; that when anxiety fills my throat, I can also trust the unfolding; that when I can no longer bear my unconscious reactions infiltrating my days, that I can also practice self forgiveness. That all of these parts of myself coexist, if I deny one, it will force itself to my reckoning with discontent, if I allow it space in can calmly walk through my field with barely a breeze. It is giving myself permission to experience every part of myself and every part of the game of life.

Level 1 smashed it!
Level 2 needs more practice……

Let Sleeping Consciouness Lie

There is one thing that my husband does that bugs me. Imagine, we are sitting on a beach at sunset, feeling the heat of the dying sun and spending a quiet moment together. I am absorbing it all, the smells, the sounds, the feeling of my breath in the silence and my husband pipes up ‘Isn’t this beautiful? Look at the colours of the rays as they hit the sea? Can you imagine anything more glorious? We’ll have to come back here some day, what do you think? Isn’t this the most perfect place on earth?’ Then he’ll do it with the kids too, ‘aren’t they fabulous’; ‘don’t you think H has great vocabulary’; ‘it’s so sweet the way G says slugs’…..

Sometimes I murmur in response and sometimes, if pushed, I’ll shrug and say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’. And it bugs me, I’m happy in my own little quiet world soaking it all in and I don’t want to talk about it; words aren’t good enough, expressive enough, important enough. Occasionally this ends in one of those typical junctures of marital disharmony and we conclude fractiously that we are just two individuals expressing ourselves in different ways.

That is, until just now. I have started reading ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ by Bruno Bettelheim. I thought it was going to be some dry tome on the importance of fairytales and retaining them in our children’s lives and I judged that I’d better read it as I’m never quite sure where my editing of fairytales should begin or end or not at all. So past the first few pages, which are quite parched, and I’ve been thrown into the rich depths of my children’s unconscious and how little I have understood it thus far. It is absolutely fascinating and shows just how much we, as a society, over expose our child’s consciousness to anxious-making adult reality. And I totally get it, because it’s exactly like how I feel when my husband wants me to verbalise my thoughts. I feel put out, I feel pushed into a mental direction that feels uncomfortable and unclear and I do not want to ‘talk about it’, I just want to be in the feelings of my world rather than the thoughts of them.

Yet, this is what I have done to my children so far, I have talked a lot. I have verbalised feelings and tried to draw empathetic comparisons when I now see that instead they need subtle redirection and stories full of their complex, deep, confusing emotions revealed in a tale that is far from the reality of their everyday home life, which speak to their subconscious and gives their feelings permission.

I wrote just a few weeks ago about my daughter’s burgeoning anger (Curiouser & Curiouser) and with this new understanding, I am clear now how she had no outlet for those confusing feelings that arose in her. Those moments when she really hated a playmate, her brother or me, was it ok to hold these strong feelings? Already, in a short space of time, having quit all editing, all nice-making in our stories, I can hear her imaginative play is full of the outlet from these prose. She can now talk about killing in the context of removing the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty or the big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, rather than a girl she met camping. She can express her violence in a safe context of reliving and replaying the tales rather than test the frightening feelings in our safe home environment. Her preconscious can be displayed without the need for it to become truly conscious and she learns and begins, through her subconscious, to explore the gamut of her emotions.

Bruno Bettelheim explains so poetically how these ancient and pertinent tales are a crucial part of our personal development and how we can use these messages to move through the stages of our emotional growth without the need for excessive discussion or conscious process. The conscious can rest, can sleep and our subconscious can do the work as it absorbs the understandings. Raising our consciousness too early can lead to anxiety and displacement, feelings I know all too well and what I hope to ease for my children. So with thanks to Mr Bettelheim, and a swift addition to the Christmas List of the Grimm Brother’s Fairy Tales, I aim to learn to let sleeping consciousness lie…

Cancel Everything

A little over five weeks ago, my daughter developed a cough. Nothing out of the ordinary, except it just didn’t shift, didn’t progress, and was violent in its dry, hollow call. We kept her at home, with a growing suspicion that it could be whooping cough and sure enough, 10 days in, the whoop appeared.

It is not called the ‘100 day cough’ for nothing and we are still in the midst of it, though the very worst is behind both of my children now. (Poetically interrupted by a dash upstairs to sit with my youngest during a coughing episode.)

I have been itching to write about the journey so far, and have finally found a moment, because it really has been extraordinary. Gratefully, I have known three families who have been through the experience, so was armed with the knowledge that accepting the lengthy duration of confinement is absolutely key.

So I cancelled everything. All the summer swimming classes, the playdates, the daytrips. Stopped. Life outside of our house has stopped. And there is a part of that which is blissful.

Please don’t misinterpret that last sentence. Whooping cough is epic and exhausting and violent and distressing for everyone AND it brings with it a spiritual unfolding, a forcing of presence and of letting go. There have been so many silver linings to this journey so far that I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Beyond the pragmatic joy that both my children will have a healthy long immunity and come out the other side of this in fighting form; my youngest decided it was time to try out the potty and without any additional stresses of carrying around potties or panicking about little early day accidents, it was a casual, easy process; my eldest informed me that when she wasn’t sick I could be grumpy but that whilst she was ill I was not grumpy – clarity, from the mouths of babes, I need to get a handle on my grumps; with everything cancelled and no pressures to be anywhere at any time, my grumpiness reduced by 75% and highlighted to me how much I ‘stress react’, projected pressure becomes grumpy mummy, time for some serious lifestyle shifts; with lots of gentle hours factored in I suddenly found that I did have time to read a few pages here and there and in the last five weeks have read three books, which must be a record since the beginning of the ‘mummy years’.

The list can go on, we have spent hours in our garden looking for worms and slugs and casually weeding as we go; we have drawn, painted, weaved, glued, beaded, cooked, danced, sung, hugged, stopped. We have noticed how an episode can be triggered by the slightest upset, the beginning of a cry, the shock of a shout, and are learning through this the importance of calm, learning to calm ourselves with breath, learning to choose our upsets.

I know as the next few weeks pass and we begin to emerge out into the world again this path will twist and turn and reveal more secrets to me. I have loved the time with my children, just connecting, seeing and being with them. Despite the media hysteria that builds over this illness, I have witnessed it to be an offering of intense and unswappable spiritual dimensions, a rite of passage. Whilst I don’t wish this illness onto others, I do wish everyone the chance to Stop for a significant stretch, it makes for a beautiful segue.

Addendum: Practical Tips for Whooping Cough

We have followed the High Vitamin C Protocol which has significantly reduced my children’s coughing episodes. Here is the information from Suzanne Humphries, MD.

We have been supported through this by our homeopath who has stayed on call to be front line with changing remedies as the pictures have changed.

We have practiced breathing exercises to stay calm and also noticing that holding the breath in the midst of the episode can reduce the violence and regain control.

We have used every muslin, towel and tea-towel in the house for catching vomit and mucous. Be prepared for the requirement and extra laundry.

We have cancelled everything…

Ego V. Soul

There is nothing like parenting to introduce us to the spiritual journey of facing our Ego – full frontal, no holds barred.

From the moment we conceive we have opportunities to make choices that perhaps go against what we perceive we ‘want’. So we may not eat sugar during pregnancy despite craving some chunky slices of chocolate cake; we want to sleep more than anything once they’ve arrived in the world, but we can choose to wake with them and support them during those early years; we may wish for a tidy and serene house and yet allow toddler chaos to reach the four corners of each room. There are manifold moments where we surrender to offering our children the ‘best’ of ourselves against the desires we may (previously) have.

And then there is also the tightrope of listening to our soul. Surrendering our ego is an empowering and spiritual journey that can take us to deeper places of understanding, compassion and love AND offering up too much of our soul and spirit does the opposite.

Where is that line? And how do we traverse it?

I noticed it in myself, just in the smallest moment, yesterday. I was breastfeeding my son and he, being a strident toddler, likes to pinch and pull at my breasts whilst feeding. I saw my boundary very clearly, I saw that I was so happy to give him my breast for as long as he needs and I was not happy to be prodded and poked alongside it, that felt invasive and exhausting. So I set my boundary. Done. Simple.

Many choices in parenting are not so simple. Many times each and every day we can reach an apex where we have go inside and ascertain whether our ego is calling to which we can surrender it, or whether our soul is speaking to which we need to listen.

I will never forget the moment, many moons ago when I read the Neale Donald Walsch series Conversations With God, where he so clearly outlined that each and every choice in life is made either with Love (Soul) or Fear (Ego). I recognised it as ‘truth’ then and also how hard it can be to always see the love path, it is no different in parenting; our choices can seem to be out of love (protection / kindness) but are hidden places of fear (over protection / beliefs on manners).

Listening to my soul is my spiritual mission, to help me offer myself as a more compassionate and loving mother, friend, wife, daughter and every other role I stand in. My ego is strong and has protected me for many years from pain and anxiety and it is also time to surrender. Alongside that challenge is the yang, the balance, remembering that there are moments where honouring my needs are as important, that in doing so I will be more gracious in surrender when that time comes too.