Holistic Health & Emotional Healing – Page 13

Quick Fixes are leading us down a Heartbreaking Path

There’s a theme going on, a thread that runs through all the issues that are behind the funk we human’s are sitting in right now. And it is the ‘Quick Fix’.

It doesn’t matter what subject I explore, whether it’s parenting, health, education, community, work-life et al, the energetic blocks to these systems are solutions that have no longevity.

Starting with an aspect of parenting, which is the foundation stone of where our future generations lead us, I always like to consider what an uncluttered and uninterfered tribal principle would be to any of the issues or choices that arise. (Inspired by Jean Liedloff, The Continuum Concept). As a simple overview, one block that we’ve hit is that our children are not ‘sleeping through the night’ and we are left exhausted. Quick Fix – Sleep Training. What happens in nature? Co-sleeping, full time parenting, on-demand breastfeeding. The studies show us that high levels of stress in babies and infants cause permanent emotional & developmental issues in the brain. Sleep training is a damaging solution, so instead let’s look wider, how can we recreate community support? How can we re-educate families on the basic needs of our babies? Do we need to be reminded that it is our job, whether a stay at home mum or career high flier, it is still our RESPONSIBILITY to nurture and support our babies to adulthood.

‘if you don’t get up for your children when they are young, you will get up for them when you are old’ Jewish Proverb

Healthcare – let’s look at the expanding pockets of chronic sickness in the world and no, they are not in 3rd world countries. Or course we can continue to help our global neighbours to good water and good nutrition, but let’s not pretend we’ve got this healthcare thing sorted. Our cancer and autoimmune disorder rates are soaring. Iatrogenic deaths, those caused by the medical system, are in the top 5, sometimes even top place, in the western world. Infant mortality and postnatal deaths are on the increase in the USA and UK. We are trying to FIX our health with toxic drugs, unresearched vaccines and short-sighted vision. Health is holistic, it’s not a ‘hippy’ phrase, we are more than the sum of bones, muscles & flesh. We are complex individuals where our emotions play a huge part in our health. We had a flashbulb moment of realising how important good sanitation, nutrition and familial support are to our daily health, but we are quickly forgetting these simple saviours, in favour of pumping ourselves full of toxins.

Education – we have broken down education to the need to be able to read and write and are forcing it down the throats of our children before they are intellectually ready. Children desire to learn, it is innate and natural. If we foster their natural abilities, they will fly with passion, enthusiasm, wisdom and knowledge. Instead they are blinded by stats and assessments, literacy levels and competition and we are creating children who feel exhausted by life before they have entered adulthood.

Throw me a ‘that’s what’s wrong with our society’ issue and I’ll show you how we are treating it with cheap sticking plaster rather than encouraging forward thinking, peaceful resolution, inspiration, healing and health.

Everyone of these issues deserves and needs some real exploration time and I am almost in danger of being too ‘quick’ in this blog with my own explanation. But I want to ring some bells, make some noise, shout out loud. We have to get off this path of the quick fix, take a deep breath and go back to some serious basics. Get back to nutritious, home cooked and home grown foods. Get back to nurturing our young to be the best that they can be. Get back to finding space and time to breathe and think. What is the danger if we stop for a moment? What is the risk?

PAUSE.

BREATHE.

REDISCOVER.

Life is for living, not dying…

I am who I am

I realised this morning how much I have strived not to be me.

I received a litany of messages whilst growing up and continuing to this day about who I was and about who I wasn’t. Just a few weeks ago I was told by someone who disagreed with my life choices, how it was not just her, many other people had ‘observed’ me and come to the same conclusion. What that conclusion was is still a mystery, but, by implication, is was not good.

And this morning I was in the shower, watching my little boy bash his way around the bathroom, thinking about the bio-energetic healing session I had yesterday. I felt great, the practitioner had been awesome and had really cleared some blocks for me, my body felt clear and expectant, yet there was still a niggle, a feeling of being unsettled, incomplete.

And there is was, the epiphany moment, the realisation that I had been trying to appease these life long message. I have done workshops and therapies and healing and meditations and they have all held such gifts and gold for me but I was waiting for them all to release this person that I was supposed to be. They were meant to unlock that ‘unselfish, noble, kind, gentle, agreeable, presentable’ me and all the ‘shocking, difficult, challenging, questioning, explorative, imaginative’ me would be left behind on a consultation room floor. Disgarded, no longer required. Yet no matter what work I had done on myself, this had never happened, I was still ‘me’.

I am who I am.

Because I AM all of those things and many more; sometimes I sail with golden light and sometimes I stagger with confusion and angst; I respond with wisdom and kindess and also with thoughtlessness and jealousy; I love fiercely and I withdraw it angrily. I am the beautiful complexity of human nature and I am me.

Those messages I have received are around us all, through family, through media, through fear. They were passed to me like a baton from one generation to the next, not one person to blame, we are all accountable for the place we are at now. But let’s stop the relay race. Let’s remember our indivdual uniqueness and raise our children to discover who they are without needing to be only ‘good and kind’ but instead allow all of those feelings that make us swoop and soar.

I am who I am and I am good enough.

With enormous gratitude to:

Emma Jenkins http://www.theapexhealingnetwork.com/#/home/4540514555

Juliette Clancy (http://www.julietteclancycounselling.com/) & Paula Alter – both of Transitions Europe http://www.transitionseurope.com/home.aspx

Goodbye Daddy

He died this morning, my father, at 4.35am.

I am numb.

From the moment I woke, snuggled in with my babies, to this moment now as I write, I have been busy with them. Busy with my children, busy with our lives, too busy to let myself think and acknowledge that he has gone.

My 3 year old asked me today ‘why are people sad when people die?’

She has a very pragmatic view of death, which we have gently fostered, encouraging her to notice that life and death cycles are everywhere, in nature, in life. Not to fear death. And when her great granny died, I described how we could always see her when we wanted by closing our eyes and remembering her hugs & kisses. So her question today made so much sense to me, if death happens as a part of life, why does it make us sad? I answered simply, saying that there are many reasons but sometimes it’s because we miss the person and sometimes it might be because there is still something that we want to say but we weren’t able to. She replied, ‘but if you still have something you want to say, you can just close your eyes and tell them…’

Yes, yes, yes…. and that is what I shall do right now.

Daddy

Our journey together has not been easy, it has been rocked with sadness, mistrust and catastrophic communication failures. But my heartbreak has always been wondering why you couldn’t really be a ‘daddy’ to me. Why you weren’t there, physically, emotionally, spiritually, tenderly, lovingly, you just weren’t there. In your own world, with your own dreams, that included your children or not, as you saw fit.

I wanted to be seen by you, I wanted to be loved by you and I wanted to be cherished for being me. And yes, I had expectations, I had hopes about how that would look, I would compare myself to my peers, compare their fathers who talked to them about their dreams and aspirations, who listened. Fathers who joked, fathers who danced, attended, visited, cared. I know you loved, but in this extraordinary, funny sort of way that was unique to you, that the rest of us couldn’t really understand. I know that you did the very best you could, but that I failed to recognise that translation from your best to my hopes. I know you would not have known how to do it differently, but it left me bereft. Do I grieve your loss today, or have I already spent half a lifetime grieving at the hole where you were supposed to be?

I do not feel like I have had a father. I have struggled to allow my husband to be a father at times, in the way he chooses to be, because I have no concept of what that role really looks like. I have to tear down those fantasies that I replaced you with and let him be human, fallible and most of all, thank goodness, deeply loving. But those fantasies have kept me hoping, kept me alive, imagining a knight in shining armour ride up and announce that he is my daddy, that he will rescue me and make everything all right. What happens to those now you are gone? Do they die too?

I have accepted you, I have rejected you. Mostly, I have kept my distance. I am grateful now that I no longer have to hold you at arms length, for my muscles are weary. I can carry your spirit beside me and allow the spirit love to be.

And I am grateful that just a few short weeks ago, my brother recalled a memory that I had never heard before. How when very young, he had created paper flames to stick up on his wall and telephoned you just down the road to proudly announce that his room was ‘on fire’. He remembers how you ran, how he put down the phone and within a breath you were there. Ready to save him. I love this story, I love that I heard this just before you died. That I could let you go, knowing that you were a daddy after all.

I love you Daddy, just as you are. Rest now, be at peace.

‘eh, the lies folk tell’

One of my favourite children’s stories is ‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett, even now I listen to the audio version to help me sleep at times. For those unfamiliar with the story, I will precis just a small thread that is relevant to me at the moment.

There is a boy called Colin, whose father is a hunchback. Since he was born everyone was fearful that he would become a hunchback too, so much so that he believed it and stayed in bed, fretful and fearful. He is discovered by his cousin, Mary, who draws him out into the Secret Garden, where he is inspired to test his strength, learn to walk and become strong and vital ‘just like any other boy’. The gardener, Ben Weatherstaff, finds them one day and sees how alive and vibrant he is, without even the tiniest of bumps on his back, with tears in his eyes he blesses him and murmurs ‘eh, the lies folk tell’…

This line (in a wonderful broad yorkshire accent) sings around my head as I unfurl and uncover some of my wounded self and bring to light my vibrancy, my truth, myself.

I cannot place in strong context the events that have occurred recently, without hurting those that perhaps have been unconscious in their parts. I am not writing to expose or defame others, but just to speak my own story. So I will write a little mystically to explain these lies.

I have realised that there is a part of me that has learned to judge, subtly and cleverly, sometimes even sympathetically, but very clearly I judge. Until recently, I saw myself as a little bit of a gossip, mainly focused on celebrity news, but always keen to hear news of other family members, old school friends and the like and, whilst not revelling in any mishaps, I could often have an opinion of their choices in clothes/parenting/jobs/houses etc etc. What I didn’t register was that there was anything wrong in that.

Through the course of my spiritual journey so far, I have embraced the tenets that I have met – total honesty, forgiveness (still working on that one!), love, transparency, self-love. But one that jarred me was ‘not gossiping’. Why did I have to give up my addiction to the National Enquirer? It was light reading, light entertainment and relaxing. In fact, I did give it up, but only because I wasn’t comfortable with my young daughter seeing the inappropriate images of celebrity women. I still didn’t get why gossip was so bad until I realised how much it had affected my life, my dynamics and my perceptions of myself to quite such a devastating degree.

I received an email from someone within one of my circles that detailed their very poor opinion of me and sainted their opinion of another member of the circle with whom I was currently trying to resolve a conflict. That she had taken sides was irrelevant, it was the information she believed she had that was shocking. The dynamic was such, that there was only one way that she could have held these thoughts and beliefs, by being fed them.

And my world exploded… An epiphany shone around me whilst I simultaneously wept with indignation and the loss of myself and my childhood. I realised that in one of my significant circles, information, opinions, thoughts, judgements…..gossip…. had been relayed over and over, year upon year. I recognised it, I mirrored it. I knew that the perpetrators had not done this consciously or maliciously but through their lack of awareness, their lack of remembering that there are always two sides to every tale; they had painted a picture of me that had been believed and reflected back. I had never understood why I have felt so displaced in this circle, that no matter what I thought I said, or did, it was received in strange, twisted versions of my truth. Until now.

Now, I see. Now I see that I was somewhat peripheral in the circle, through age, generation, hierarchy, and it was those with influence that had struggled with me and had shared their struggles. Not necessarily with any spite, in fact, most often for support, but they had shared only their side, their opinion, their beliefs peppered with their own wounded self. And when I faced the circle unknowingly, I received this distorted reflection back. I often left reeling, hurting, shameful and cowed. Those feelings, those reflections have shaped me indelibly.

I understand that without knowing me, my actions can be viewed through a variety of portals, some with empathy, some with distate. And that is gossip, judgement in an ‘excusable’ form. That is taking someone’s actions and creating a story of who they are and painting it as truth. That is why stepping away from gossip is such an integral part of my spiritual path. If we are mirrors to each other, let me reflect the best of ourselves by holding the mirror unblemished from preconceptions and half told tales.

Beyond what I have learned and continue to learn, there is now a wealth of myself that I must unlearn, that I am not defined by someone else’s story of myself, I am not a hunchback, I am not to be hidden. I am vibrant, vital, vulnerable, fallible and, most importantly, Me.

As this new perspective enters my life, I recognise everyday, small ways in which I judge, so often to validate my own choices. My work is not to release judgement, but to accept and be at peace with myself and all of my choices, so that I have no impetus, no craving to counter someone else’s path. Theirs is theirs; Mine is Mine; all of ours unique and necessary.

Be Reasonable

Today I went ‘postal’.

My eldest daughter hurt my youngest, in the endless tyranny of sibling development & relationship. It wasn’t big, it wasn’t dramatic, it was small and understated in fact, but I took it to a whole new level. The minutiae of the event is unnecessary to regurgitate but in reflection, in these moments where I wonder, will I ever learn to do this right? I look at what feelings trigger me to feel so mad.

And the words that form in my mind, over and over again, are ‘why can’t they just be reasonable’.

And I realise that so much of my anger, so much of making people Wrong (for that is what anger is) is my belief that they are being Unreasonable.

The absolute blessing and privilege of my children is that I know that they are of pure heart, so when I judge them, in this case, to be unreasonable, I know clearly, without murkiness, that it’s ‘my stuff’. In relationships with other adults, I can really justify why they aren’t reasonable. I can justify why my mother’s needs to express her thoughts are not reasonable; why my friend’s need to bring up her child differently to me are not reasonable; why my husband is so endlessly unreasonable….. But my children, I cannot hide from them, when I make them unreasonable, then I know it is I who needs to look within.

So I am tossing this word around my head – reasonable, reasonable, reasonable. And I am wondering why I am so fixated with it and, mostly, how have I managed to create myself and the judge and jury of what is reasonable? Why is my way the best way, in fact, the only way? Where did my standard of ‘reason’ come from? Part of the confusion around this lies with my belief that on so many occasions I offer the ‘voice of reason’, laying out a plethora of options to account for all manner of tastes and requirements, so having stretched myself wide, when someone dare suggest that their needs are even further out of that range…. PING….Snap… Postal…..

I am still mulling all these thoughts over and have yet to uncover and bring to light the tight and suffocating need to contain reason. All I do know is that my stretch for myself as I process this pathway is to allow myself and others to be unreasonable – in the very best possible way.

Climbing my mountain.

In recognising, owning and announcing the presence of my anger, I took my first step.

As I like to do, knowing that each problem we encounter has many roots and branches, I am taking a multi-pronged healing approach. My homeopath is supporting my energies and calm; whilst I am even more conscious of my nutrition and sleep (not easy with two little ones); but I knew that I needed more and dived into a book ‘The surprising purpose of anger’ which led me to the Centre for NonViolent Communication (www.cnvc.org).

From there I traced a path, supported by internet strangers full of compassion and grace, to an NVC counsellor here in the UK who was able to come to my home and talk. Talk….

I have done some deep, powerful, shifting processes in my time that reached to my core wounds and brought them to light. This time, I just talked and cried. I shared with someone that I felt so surprisingly safe with because he understood, it was his expertise, he would not accept but nor would he judge. That was a key for me, I did not want anyone to excuse my anger, offer me reasons or justifications but, in the same breath, I wanted so desperately to be understood.

What I exposed, was the absolute terror I have of repeating the representation of anger I grew up with, the out of control, frightening and paralysing expressions of rage and ultimately the withdrawal of love. Yet the fear was manifesting. From the first time I had allowed my anger to be ‘out of control’, to shout without bounds, to slam doors with an energy that buzzed every nerve, I feared I had entered The Underworld, with no hope of return. The fear that I was not the person I wanted to be, the mother I hoped I could be, was creating the monster that I was becoming.

And I brought it to light….

And it stopped….

No, I am not without my anger, nor am I really close to the summit of my mountain as yet. But in recognising how much that fear was creating my reality, I regained my own ability to choose. I have seen that I am this person because how could I not be? That is simply the way I learned to express my own rage. Rather than denying it and pushing it down only to explode through my shame, I am owning it. And by owning it, I can sense it’s arrival without hiding and that gives me just those few extra seconds, those brief moments to choose to do it differently.

I have a lot of relearning to do, I huge amount of self awareness to create and a long path before my little girl truly feels safe with me again, but I am climbing.. up and up and up….

(A debt of gratitude to Daren DeWitt www.nvc-resolutions.co.uk)

Delete…..

There have been countless times on my journey where I’ve entered into relationship with individuals or groups (family, friends, work, community) that have been challenging and provocative. More often that not the relationship has deepened to a level of attachment before I’ve recognised any unhealthy or difficult dynamics. But what happens at this point? What am I supposed to do at this point?

When my world started to stretch into a more esoteric and spiritual places, I began to shed friends who were ‘holding me back’. Many from my teens, which had been tumultuous and dramatic, I wanted to be what I was striving towards and not reminded of who I once was. I handled many of these ‘break-ups’ badly, highlighted by their, still palpable, anger towards me many years later.

Here I am now, facing some similar questions about my current relationships and wondering if ‘DELETE’ is the healthy option or am I simply hiding from the mirrors that are being shown to me?

At this point in my questioning, I am flummoxed. I know there are times in our lives where the healthy choice is leaving behind those things that are unhealthy and when those are physical, like alcohol, it can be quite black and white. But when they are people that we have shared parts of our lives with, that maybe an integral strut within our community or sphere, what is the answer?

I think if I had reached a deeper place of spiritual harmony, then others’ behaviour would be less affecting, less impacting and I could allow the free flow of persons without too much drama. I am not there yet, I am still learning, I am still hurt, wounded, fearful of energies that I find oppressive, negative or draining. I want to protect myself, to protect my children and allow them a light, carefree beginning in this world, but I don’t want to run away either, because that is not a good example to them and neither does it benefit me. If I don’t find resolution in myself, then the issues will continue in different guises.

Where is that line that I draw in the sand? Is it a question of learning to hold my boundaries with greater strength and integrity? Perhaps I am fearful of their influences, a power display, perhaps I don’t value my own ability to ‘hold my own’ enough. Is the answer that simple? Maybe it is. Standing firm, knowing myself. In writing those words, the fear of being dogmatic, rigid, unbending, rise up inside me like a volcano. Being that wall of strength also feels like the creation of a wall of close-mindedness, yet allowing the free-flow of everybody’s view and opinions on my choices is suffocating me.

I am struggling to find peace with this place.

I Choose To Cry – fighting a legacy

I’m quite ‘good’ at being angry… in the sense that I don’t really ‘lose’ the plot. Even when shaking with rage, I have a certain element of control and don’t say things I don’t mean just to be spiteful. I learned a long time ago that those type of words can rarely be expunged. But most of all I learned to walk away… if the fire got too hot, to find a place for me to get some space, some thinking time, gather myself, analyse myself and come back with efforts to heal and resolve.

That doesn’t work with a toddler. If I walk away, not only is she frightened by my anger, she is abandoned by my leaving. For almost the first 3 years of parenting, I never had to visit my ‘angry’ place with my beautiful child. Then my gorgeous son arrived and brought with him a change in dynamic that has shocked me to my very core. I have visited darkness in myself that I hoped had healed and I have not been the mother I choose and wish to be.

My anger has flared when my eldest accidentally hurts my baby – a mother’s raw instinct kicking in? Yes, sometimes that is true. But it has also risen from the depths when my energies are low and both need me. I want to give them my time and my love and sometimes one of them has to wait. It hurts me to put their needs on hold, but my reaction hurts them the most. I have looked myself in the mirror and failed to recognise myself, but what I did see was my legacy…

I have realised and recognised this vein of anger as a thread running through my ancestral family, a coping mechanism, a ‘validated’ output. It is not acceptable to me but it is a habit hard learned and well worn into my psyche. It is going to take time, effort and pain to start to explore different ways to express when nerves are tight and jangling. Momentous waves of patience and compassion are required, not least for myself in order that I may have enough to pass onto my children.

What I acknowledge instantly is that, more often than not, if I can take a breath, pause and explore what is pressing that ‘button’, I really just want to cry. Cry because I’m tired, because my toddler is frustrated and I can’t find a way to help her, cry because it’s been a hard day. Crying was not OK for me growing up, crying was ‘manipulative’ and ‘weak’. My father sometimes cried and that was him being ‘manipulative’, so I believed, maybe it wasn’t…. My mother, I don’t remember seeing her cry but I do remember her being angry and I do think of her as ‘strong’. My grandmother, my grandfather… yes both angry but not ‘sad’. What has happened to sadness? It exists, it is natural, it is human, somehow it has been ‘wronged’.

Would my toddler be upset to see my cry? Yes, probably. But given a choice between Mama crying and explaining I’m tired (just as she does), Mama showing tears because she has tears too, Mama sitting down for a moment with a tissue and a sigh OR Mama cross, unaccepting of her feelings, pushing her away through the energy of my anger. I know which I choose and I know which is better for her in the long term.

Anger has a valid place in our lives, anger can save us from danger and can inspire us to fight injustice, but it is not valid for day-to-day parenting. I own that it is present in my life and in my house right now, but I am making a choice. I am choosing to cry and I am fighting that legacy that has hindered and inhibited my ancestors.

Send me blessings please, ooof, I can feel this mountain is going to be one hell of a climb.