Category: Holistic Health & Emotional Healing

Story Time

We can all make up stories about other people: why they declined our invitation, why they smiled strangely last week, why they stopped a conversation just as we approached. 

But how often are they true? Knowing when they are and when they are simply a projection of our own insecurities is a subtle art of intuition, experience and wisdom. Certainly I know if I’m annoyed with someone my stories will, more likely be a manifestation of those feelings I’m trying to deny rather than a clear interpretation of events. However when I am in observation mode, more detached from an engaged emotion, I can often see someone’s true actions as easily as if they had described them to me themselves. Knowing the difference is a skill to master. 

This past week I realised someone had been holding a lot of stories about me and spiralling into a bigger and bigger picture, one story feeding the next. Reflecting on that, I was looking back at various scenarios: family, work, landlords, friends and realising how often this happens. One made up projection beginning the cycle of feeding the next until a whole personality perspective has been created that perhaps is light years from the true spirit of the person. And I am as guilty of this as the next person but perhaps at least aware of it. 

It also crossed my mind and I wondered, are some people more susceptible than others to become the focus of stories? Do some people attract the projections of others? Or are they pretty evenly spread across the population. Do we all do it to each other, at varying levels, all of the time? 

My husband certainly thinks I attract more than my fair share and I’m certainly aware of many that come my way but is that a natural consequence of my personality or something a little broken that needs exploration and perhaps healing or boundaries? 

Is there something in my energy that inspires a person to imagine a negative motivation for my actions? Could it be as simple as a RBF (Resting Bitch Face)? I have a neighbour with one of those and I have to confess I imagine that she is pretty miserable and jealous, none of which I know to be true. Or is it deeper? My tendency to err on the side of blunt, curious and straightforward rather than cautionary or diplomatic, does culturally that make me an easy target. British vagueness fail. Am I too transparent with my non verbal reactions that cause others to see my subtle judgments or feelings that perhaps I’m not even conscious of? 

Or is it absolutely nothing to do with me and entirely a tendency within the projector? Am I just able to recognise them quite easily and so notice how often they fly past my orbit? 

A combination of all perhaps. Certainly I will reflect further on my contribution to these experiences, how much I can limit them or energetically boundary them but also allow each person their own journey, their own stories and know that even if I am the protagonist within their tales, it’s got very little to do with me. I am just a mirror for them to see their own reflection, except when it jars and I recognise myself in the glass too. 

First published on social media on 29th November 2022

I Am Difficult

The topics that I write about can vary from parenting, to society, to truth speaking, to relationships, to introspection. How do I decide what theme to address? By whatever is haunting my soul. 

My writing is an exorcism, when a thought or experience is lingering within, sounding and repeating around my heat and heart; when it wakes me at three in the morning to ponder and dissect. Sometimes the only way to help myself is to write it down. 

So here I am at 4.30am, fretful and agitated, looking at a repeat pattern in my life. If it’s on repeat, I cannot ignore my need to face it head on and acknowledge what is mine. 

When I spoke to my mother during a therapy session, a number of years ago, I expressed the feeling that I felt ‘tolerated rather than loved’ and I received a nod and the line, ‘that’s because you’re so difficult’. In a reconciliatory conversation, it arose again, ‘even when you were 8 you were already difficult’. And even more recently, ‘well you just make people uncomfortable’.

This is the message I have taken into my system and that then plays out in various forms within my social dynamics, as all of our programmed patterns do. 

This past week has been a perfect example. Two friendships, two conversations, two opposing results, but all that lingers is that message.

For both, I felt something was ‘off’, the vibe wasn’t clean and, with a nod to my inculcation, I presumed I had done something to upset. To both I leave messages offering my willingness to chat and find resolution if there is something I have inadvertently erred on. 

From one I receive a beautiful, heartfelt response. They are overwhelmed, struggling, distracted. It wasn’t me, just life. She cries, I cry for her. We hug. All is well. And I am grateful that I took the courage to check – clarity, resolution and reconnection. This is when being ‘difficult’ can work – pushing me to make things right. Except when it doesn’t. 

The other friend did not respond to my overtures of reconnection and resolution and here I become fretful – was my message triggering instead of healing? Am I being difficult l? Have I made them uncomfortable? I make my husband listen to it, was there anything I did wrong? Nothing, he says, you’ve said nothing wrong, but you believe that you must have done something wrong. Yes! Because I’m difficult. 

What if this other friend is also struggling doesn’t want to share? What if I have pissed them off but they don’t want healing? Where does that leave me? In this repeat pattern, this intrinsic messaging – I don’t know what I’ve done that is so terrible to deserve this disconnect, I only know that it is because I am difficult. 

It is bland and generic and all encompassing. Without specifics it is all of me and maybe none of me. My self-protection is to prostrate myself energetically, open my chest and heart and beg to be told. I would prefer to hear the worst of their thoughts than this infernal and eternal not knowing – why am I so difficult? 

The power of our patterns, the messages received by parents, teachers, loved-ones that niggle and jiggle and play out over and over again until we stare them in the face and ask – are they true? Am I so difficult? Or perhaps, is it okay to sometimes be difficult? Can I still be loveable and difficult?  Because they have seemed so very mutually exclusive until now. 

I don’t know that I am ever going to stop reaching out towards reconciliation and connection because when I have those moments, like I did with the first friend this week, it makes the sick and scared feeling all worth while. But I have a lot of work to do on those that don’t want to meet me there, for all their very own acceptable and personal reasons and patterns too. I cannot force others to reassure me that I am not really so difficult; that must come from within. 

Goodness, it is a pattern I want to break; and boy, that messaging is super hard-wired. I can be pottering happily along having a lovely day only to hit someone’s energy wall and wonder – did I do that? Bam! Trigger! Messaging! Pattern! Repeat!

So now I will exorcise this pattern and speak it (write it) out loud. Remove the silent shame and shout: ‘I might be difficult and I am still loveable.’

And I’m going to put that on repeat instead.

First published on social media on 2nd October 2022

Tendrils of Abuse

When I was a little girl, before my parents separation and my father leaving home, I would have a repetitive dream. There was a witch living under my bed who had a hole that she would pull me through and force me to be her slave. I would have to cook and clean for her and she would punish me at every opportunity, sometimes that punishment would be sexual. The dream was shameful to me and I never spoke about it but it lived in my being as this disturbing secret. 

When I uncovered the memories of my father’s molestation of me, in my mid-twenties, the dream came back to me and suddenly made sense; how my young psyche had been processing what was happening  to me in reality, in my dream world. 

Having uncovered these events, I emailed my father saying that I had some memories that had been revealed to me and I would like to talk to him about them. I didn’t imply what they would be about and having, in the process of discovering them, also been able to reach forgiveness, my energy was quite clean and open. He didn’t reply but, unbeknownst to me, rang around many members of my family saying I was accusing him of sexual abuse and how crazy I was. None of my family mentioned that to me, it came out months later due to the suicide of my half sister. It was an interesting reaction. 

Eventually we spoke and he gave me an implicit confession ‘My mother played with my balls and there’s nothing wrong with that!’ Tendrils of abuse…. From her to him to me….

That was 17 years ago and nearly ten years since he died. And still my family have never spoken to me about it. I know they would prefer to think I am the crazy one, that it didn’t really happen and even if it did, best forgotten. 

But as I lay in bed last night, I became observant of my natural sleep position and suddenly realised that I sleep in a formation of protection. Tendrils of abuse. And I came to thinking about all the impacts that experience has made across so many lives. 

I know now that some of the childhood fantasy play I created with my friends was a result of this abuse, more ways for my little being to try and make it normal. I know that it hyper sexualised me so that, unconsciously, I attracted wounded male attention, far too young and inappropriately, not least from more of my mother’s partners. I know that it has affected the way I view intimacy with my husband. I know it has made me extra protective of my children. I know that it has made me wiser and more compassionate. I know that the tendrils reach out and affect people in all sorts of ways. 

Which is why, after all these years, I feel the need to name it. Secrets like this only hurt. They hurt those who have to hold them; those who’ve been affected by them; those who need to hear their stories aren’t the only ones. 

My father was a deeply wounded man, arising from a deeply wounded upbringing and I want to be part of healing those wounds by not holding them shamefully in me. I completely forgive him and my grandmother and whoever came before because they were the traumatised child that couldn’t find their way home. But I also won’t carry their secrets any more. 

My experience becomes my strength to carry forward, as I shed the layers and weight of abuse; I am finding my way home. 

First published on social media on 27th September 2022

Toxin Overload

You may have been led to believe that an autoimmune issue in your body is just bad luck, bad genetics or, at the very least, beyond your control. 

That’s the oft pumped medical belief. 

Except auto immune issues are intrinsically very healable. There are, of course, many layers to healing, which is why it’s so easy to say ‘such and such doesn’t work for me’. But a multifaceted and intentional approach is sure to deliver results. 

Firstly, and most simply, there is without a doubt an overload of physical toxins, be that heavy metals, refined sugars, non-organic & pasteurised dairy, processed foods, EMF radiation and sadly plenty of others. Bringing these toxin levels down to what you can control is enough to give space for transformative healing. 

So if your issues have recently flared, can you imagine what might have triggered them? I have noticed a lot of peers have had terrible flare ups in the past year or so, in alignment with a heavily pushed, recent and experimental medicine. Toxin overload. 

Secondly, there are the emotional toxins of repressed, suppressed or denied feelings. Trauma stays in our bodies unless consciously released. This is often the common stumbling block to complete healing. As a society we have developed a pattern of ignoring or camouflaging the difficult and uncomfortable, but emotional healing can take as little as speaking or writing your pain out into the ether. By just acknowledging even the most heinous of acts the portals open to release emotional poison. 

A simple look at a complex picture but if you’ve had a recent flare, it’s a place to begin. 

First published on social media on 1st September 2022

The Zahir

Paulo Coehlo is probably the most significant inspiration for the creation of my writing passion. I adore reading across genre but Coehlo’s work has always spoken directly to me, not always comfortably but necessarily, and how he imparts wisdom and induces questioning is what I aspire to in my own work. 

The Zahir is no exception. It has come to me twice, desperate to be read, waiting patiently to rise to the top of my pile. And here I am, with the spiritual space (bar the near constant requests from the kids!) on our first overseas holiday, after two years of guarding and protecting our freedoms, where I can breathe those anxieties away and reflect on what needs shifting within. 

Coehlo’s characters manage to exemplify those portals into my being which I simultaneously yearn and reject. This book looks at how we carry love through our lives, how we let it stagnate, dwindle or die in ourselves and our relationships, and it pulled me up sharp on numerous occasions. 

I have, by choice, let go of so much of what sparked my soul whilst the dive into parenting set me alive in different ways. But I recognise now that the time has come to rejuvenate those embers, remember who I am outside of meals and school runs and hugs and awe. I want my children to see me alive in ALL ways, I want to model that for them but most of all I need to do that for myself. 

In my mid twenties, pre marriage, pre kids, I can remember so clearly those moments of absolute connection to divine love; holding wide the doors of new opportunities & adventures and recognising the signs and messages from God. 

That has never fully left me, but so many layers of extra have piled on top, most wonderful but plenty unnecessary and stifling too. The Zahir has reminded me of everything important and everything unimportant wrapped up in disguise. 

Love is everything. Letting it flow through me unhampered, just as a baby without a lifetime of stories hindering the energy, that is my focus. Not an overnight transformation but a post-it on my forehead for the rest of my days. 

First published on social media on 23rd August 2022

Sleep and Sleeplessness

One of the things I love about reading books from my father’s collection is how I reach back in time to thoughts and wisdom often now supplanted by modern theory. One of the elements that I find lacking in current scientific discourse is the spiritual and unknown aspects of life, whereas work from the early 1900’s so often has a greater holistic and curious perspective which feels much more aligned to reality to me.

This delightful book is chock full of wonderful nuggets of wisdom, particularly as both my daughter and I have a tendency for sleep disturbance and insomnia. (Though I might have to investigate further the theory that cucumbers are a potential cause of nightmares before I can concur on that one!)

It was also full of fascinating tales of premonitions or subconscious wisdom being imparted through dreams, from lost treasures found, to deaths felt before news had arrived. The sort of stories that utterly entrance me and are far too numerous and detailed to be able to be dismissed as mere coincidence.

And in conclusion, after much practical analysis, the author also highlights how important faith and prayer is for the peace of mind required for a good and restful night’s sleep. Now that is the kind of scientific ponderings that I can really relate to.

First published on social media on 14th August 2022

Toxic Silence

‘Send them to Coventry’ is a phrase that found gravitas within military circles but swiftly moved into the echelons of military families and typically boarding school’s bizarre peer on peer punishment regime. 

Just reading any old Enid Blyton reflects how, not only accepted, but rated and applauded such exiles were. Someone does something you judge to be wrong and you stop speaking to them for a period of time (days, weeks or even months) and be sure to actively ignore them too if they try to approach you. This is a celebrated technique with certain sections of society and it was only the other day that I connected the dots between my family’s boarding school history and this form of punishment that is so frequently and unkindly used. 

I have lost count of the number of times I have been exiled. I now no longer attempt repatriation in the way I used to. I know someday there will be contact and no mention of the exile, or the reasons for it, will take place. This is the acceptance I have had to reach if I want both to stay sane and also to remain at least distantly connected to certain family members. 

It is no wonder that I ‘over talk’, I wish to resolve things even if that is uncomfortable and messy and sometimes difficult. I will stay up all night with you or have the conversation on repeat for endless days or, even if it is too hard, I will at least tell you that I need space or time or a break until we broach the issue again. What I won’t do is ignore you and when we finally speak again pretend it’s never happened. I have ghosted people in the past, habits were trained into me, but fundamentally if I love you, I will fight for us. 

Silence of this kind is toxic. 

When my father died nearly a decade ago, my kids were both under five. They heard me say I was going to view my father’s body and asked to come too. I didn’t know the best thing to do, would this be healthy or traumatic? So I phone the undertaker and asked their advice. They told me that as the children had asked, the should come. They sagely said, children will make up far worse things in their head, if they are told they can’t, than the actual reality. 

Such great wisdom that I have carried across many life moments with my kids and is so pertinent here too. The silences I have endured from childhood on, have meant that I have imagined the worst of feelings being thought about me. The reality of a tough confrontation always ends with a deeper understanding of each other, often more compassion and a broader perspective. Toxic silence just leaves a chasm of darkness and imaginings that linger and swirl. 

I think the patterns are too hard to break in my family but I’m grateful to recognise their origins and my reactions. I am sensitive to even brief withdrawals of friendship and affection, easily triggered from this conditioning, but awareness is everything and now I can talk myself through it more sanely. 

And as with all of these dynamic challenges

I am grateful for the gifts they bring, everything I have suffered through brings me greater soul wisdom and deeper expansion of my understanding and compassion for other’s stories. I am a better human because if it all. 

First published on social media on 9th August 2022

Brutal

Ageing is brutal. I am determined to age gracefully, I look at the effects of cosmetic procedures later down the line and I know I don’t want that aesthetically, even if I could consider stuffing all those poisons into my body, which I can’t. 

But these middle-ground years, before all those procedures take their hideous effects, my social peers are looking decidedly smoother and perter and younger than me. 

Twinned with the bloom of my soon to be teen daughter, flawless, lithe and utterly divine, I am super conscious of my need for good lighting and flattering angles to find a picture that resembles who I remember myself to be.  

Because I was pretty, not head turning beautiful, but enough to walk confidently through a bar and feel appreciated. I also used it, it was a tool, a manipulation, sometimes even a weapon. Before I discovered my greater passions of motherhood, health and truth, my looks were my validity in the world. 

And so ageing is brutal. 

Even though I don’t value my beauty through the same lens, it was still part of my history and my arsenal and to see it shift and change with Father Time, to catch that glance in the mirror and double take, because in my head I’m still twenty something, it’s hard. 

I’m not going to lie. I struggle with it. Especially in the context of our society with the anti-ageing terrifying cosmetics that are marketed so intensely. I don’t subscribe to the philosophy of them, but it’s hard to hold the faith and trust when all around are justifying the distortion of our features as empowering. 

I know this is false, in fact it makes me cringe and laugh to hear these ‘feminists’ claim they are spending their money, time and body because they’re the ultimate version of empowerment. It’s all backwards and messed up. I know this. 

And I used to be pretty, young and fresh. Even without this insane pressure, I think I would struggle to lose what was once my superpower. Superficial? Yes. But part of my trauma survival, part of the fabric that got me to today, yes. I can’t deny it, remove it, change it. 

I can only keep learning to love each wrinkle, each saggy bit, each pigment change. I want my children to know that ageing is so much more than visual, that is brings experience and wisdom and compassion too. And I want to represent all of that in the lines on my face, the sadness, the laughter, the life well lived and loved. Because, honestly, when I see an elderly person with all of that, they are nothing short of beautiful. 

In the meantime I have to ride out the transition. And I’m finding it a little brutal.  

First published on social media on 3rd June 2022

Bechamp or Pasteur

‘It has indeed become the fashion for humanity to consider itself wiser than – choose which name you will – Nature or Providence.’

Ethel D Hume, Bechamp or Pasteur

There are moments, such as these, when I am grateful for the biology and chemistry A-levels that I studied for, nearly 30 years ago. Dredged from the depths of my memories, they were helpful in staying on track with the exploration of the work of these two scientists, Bechamp and Pasteur. 

Pasteur is widely credited as a founder of modern science and medicine (despite not being a medical doctor himself) both with the concept of the Germ theory and with the launch of our vaccine passion. 

Unfortunately, it turns out he was a bit of a charlatan. The Bill Gates of his day, clever at manipulating information, plagiarising ideas and shaking hands with the right people, aka Napoleon. He knew how to sell a concept, no matter if he was contradicting himself, had little evidence or was even causing deaths. 

Ethel Hume carefully lays out all the evidence, the comparative work of these two men, who said it first, and who held the greater integrity. But beyond the politics, lies the real truths about how and why we really get sick – via germs or due to the terrain of our environment and bodies. 

Experientially I know the answer to this but sadly there is so much investment, on so many levels, based on the germ theory of illness that our individual examples fall short of their power. This book places the facts in a line but I wonder how many dare to open their hearts and minds to another paradigm and are willing to read and absorb this data?

I would hope many, I fear far too few. Not least it concludes by highlighting the propaganda used around the anthrax and  rabies vaxx, where a death within 15 days of the shot was not counted as a death from the shot. Remind you of anything? 150 years ago and still going strong. Isn’t it time to awaken to the true science rather than the popular one?  

First published on social media on 12th May 2022