Category: Personal Moments

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……

Sticks Out Like A Sore Thumb

We are painting our house. Externally. We live on a street of terraced red-brick houses and we thought we would go all ‘coastal’ and whimsical with a faint pink exterior and castle gray door. Very Farrow & Ball; very Cornish; very Scottish Isles etc.

What has surprised me about this personal and rather uninteresting bit of information is how much it has engendered reactions from neighbours and locals. Mixed reactions to be fair, as much love as dislike, but a common expression from both sides is that the house ‘sticks out like a sore thumb’.

I have been struck with two parts to this, the first wondering why does anyone really care that much. If my neighbour painted their house fluorescent yellow or had gigantic purple dragons in their front garden, I can’t say it would bother me. If it affected the sunshine, sure. If it actually affected me somehow, maybe. But how would it? It’s just their choice, a little bit of their self expression.

The second is closely linked to that, in that it represents a departure from the ‘norm’. It sticks out. This seems to be a bad thing, even from the mouths of those that like the transformation. Why is sticking out a negative?

Yet perhaps it is simply a microcosm of our society, where ‘sticking out’, being different in anyway has become quite frowned upon. Even the celebrated who were once the epitome of difference and uniqueness are now formulaic in their white teeth, stylists and PR lines.

Have we forgotten that it is those that dare to be different that have made such extraordinary changes in this world? Those that think beyond the neighbours and the party line have transformed lives from the smallest to the largest scale.

I’m not trying to imply that my husband and I are undiscovered visionaries but simply that we like to remember that we are still individuals who have a choice. Our little bit of coastal whimsy is all it is and it is nothing to be scared of…..

 

Burned Out Mama

My Little One is awaiting his last four molars and as they take their tricky little time he is reacting with lots of breastfeeding and a whole heap of emotion. First time around my Eldest was just glued to the boob, exhausting but manageable, now I have her to consider whilst my youngest is flailing & wailing around the floor for 10 minutes because he put his shoes on the opposite feet!

I am stretched. Really, really stretched. I have this little voice in my head saying ‘I’d just like a night off please, just one’. In all these last 5 years I haven’t really heard that voice but listening to it now, I know it means I’m close to burn out.

I know why, I know that nature didn’t envision us parenting this minimalist, cut off way, without our huge extended family carrying us through parts of it all. I know this is not the tribal way and I also know that it is what it is, right now and that is all.

So how do parents support and raise their children without burn out? How can we help ourselves, and each other, to hold our values and parent and rest….?

When I look at discussion forums on these issues, I often see similar suggestions: weekends away; putting them in childcare; taking a physical break from the kids etc. These are emotionally viable choices for some and not for me. So what can I do? What can others do who wish to hold that attachment and not bring on that deep sickness that can come from true burn out?

Part of my own problem is that I’m good at carrying the load, I almost don’t notice how near the edge I am until I am about to topple over. So for me, the best beginning point is to try and implement gentle changes into my daily routine rather than fire-fighting tactics at the moment of melt-down.

I started by introducing baths…. I’ve always been a bath rather than shower type, but since my first born I had designated bath time to the long distant future, showers were the speediest way to get myself ready and back into the fray. Then a friend told me about a Steiner teacher & mother who had created a time in her day where she would take 20 minutes just to sit and read a book and the children soon learned that this would happen every day and adjusted to it accordingly. I haven’t started on that yet, but I did swap my showers for baths. Initially they both wanted to get in with me every morning, which seemed like such hard work, not very relaxing for me and a more elaborate dressing time for them, but they did adjust, now they just moan about my bath whilst quietly playing on the bathroom floor…. but one things I’m clear about it that my bath happens. No negotiation (except when they’re sick!).

Next meditation. I want to meditate; I know it’s going to bring me a whole lot of clarity, mental rest and restorative energy, but how to do this with two kids demanding my attention? I’m going to teach them to meditate, I’m ordering a children’s meditation CD (yet to be determined) and I’m going to create a space in our day to meditate, I’m already smiling at how this might look for a while, but just like my bath time, it’s going to happen.

And that part of me that is making it happen is my spirit, my self-love and my self-nurture and that will carry me through and beyond the burned out mama….

 

 

 

 

My Father’s Daughter

This week I visited my father’s last house, the one where he died, but probably the one I also knew least. My brother is clearing it out and I went to see if there were any books I wished to claim out of his vast (maybe 10,000 strong) collection.

Despite him dying in April, this was really the first moment when I felt the hard thump of grief and loss hit my heart. When I looked up at the row upon row of books, I remembered how like him I am. For my father’s other children and inheritors of his collection, the books are more of a bind and a headache, for me I wish I could keep every single one.

I love books. They are my ultimate escape hatches, opening their pages and disappearing within; they quench my thirst for knowledge, momentarily but refreshingly; they offer support when paths I might choose are challenging or solitary; and they guide me, from one stepping stone to the next.

So I walked in and felt the tears rise, overwhelmed with the task of choosing just enough to remember him by but not too many that will overcrowd our already bulging shelves at home. I ran my fingers along the spines asking for guidance to lead me to just the right ones and my eyes flickered back and forth between the titles. Freud, Bertrand Russell, Havelock Ellis, Jung…. too many volumes from all of these masters. Books on every aspect of mind exploration – child psychology, suicide, love, marriage, homosexuality, work ethics, statistics; onto the biographies, histories, games and maths. Barely touching the fiction.

And it hit me square on.

I am my father’s daughter.

I look so like my mother, but we are worlds apart in our thinking. And whilst I cannot claim to be simpatico with my father’s thoughts, we did ‘get’ each other, just about. His emails to me in the year before he died were of love and forgiveness, not in an easy and wholesome way, nothing fairytale or Hollywood about them, but enough, for him and for me.

And now he has gone, the maverick, the explorer, the risk taker and adventurer. He passed me the baton at birth and I have hesitated, run with it, thrown it away in disgust and picked it up again guiltily. But I am my father’s daughter and I will carry the baton by my side as courage and support for the paths that I dare to choose.

Perfect Imperfect

In some dark recess of my memory, I recall ‘perfect imperfect’ being some non-sensical rule to English Grammar. It was not my forte, despite my vocational yearn towards writing. However, today it means something very different to me.

This week I was cutting an onion and in the very centre was a tough node, a little bit of skin hidden deep within the flesh. Imperfect. I went to pull it out and discard it, so as not to mire the dish I was creating and it flashed through my head how centuries of cooks, mothers, nurturers would barely have registered this imperfection, that it would all have gone into the pot with gratitude and so it did mine.

And my thoughts unravelled from there as I realised how much of our daily lives are defined by thoughts of perfectionism and I’m not even talking about the extremities of beauty, art, body & form; I’m talking about the tiny little details that start to create a sense of unease.

The tough little node of an onion; droplets of water spilt from a cup; gravel stones on the lawn; scratches on paintwork; a missed pleasantry; a misspelt word; too much garlic; a late arrival… endless moments of imperfection.

And it came to me, ‘perfect imperfect’, because it all is and it is meant to be, in complete perfection, just as it is.

With deep gratitude for that perfectly imperfect onion.

I am not here.

This week my beautiful four year old became a teenager, she started throwing things with intent and frustration to grab my attention, she was shouty and demanding. Normal? Not for her… it is because I am not here.

I am not here because last week my cousin died, he left this world and moved on. I am not here because just last week he came for lunch and spent hours here, talking and being and connecting with us. That night he died. I am not here because my head is full of it, full of his energy that still sits in our home, full of his dreams and aspirations that he had been sharing with us, full of our spirit connection, our understanding, now gone.

I am not here because I am grieving the loss of a great friend and a man who knew and shared my passions in life for enquiry, discovery and healing. I am grieving for this man who was courage, who was integrity and who was truth; a soulful human being who inspired me and supported me as I did him.

I miss him.

I see my children need me, they have shown me well and I have brought myself back to them, but as I sit in the darkness at my computer I know I am still not here.

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

 

A Tribute to My Father

Alick

Alick Elithorn    

16th December 1920 – 16th April 2013

Alick was an extraordinary mind and a complex individual. His long life and extended battle towards the end pays its own tribute to his strength and determination, not forgetting his stubbornness.  His relationships, both professional and personal, were detailed stories in and of themselves, with each holding their own unique and different memories of his character.

Through facing some challenging family situations as a small boy, it is not hard to see why he chose a career of passion in studying the mind and no matter how complicated his personal life became, it is clear that he excelled in his field.

His peers describe him as a ‘genius’,’ ahead of his time’ and a ‘pioneer’ and his CV reveals the depths of his knowledge and experience. From fellowships to department heads, lecturer to researcher, his vision was sought after and in some cases exploited.  His cerebral intelligence was highlighted in his ability to create computer programmes for conducting psychological and neuropsychological assessment and as his colleague Gary Kay expressed, ‘he remained one of the most creative minds in the area of cognitive assessment’. Certainly, as his offspring, we were also his guinea pigs for endless rounds of Maze and C-tests in front of the computer.

But it didn’t stop there. Beyond the endless research and new projects that were constantly evolving, he would also stretch his interest to other areas. Founding ‘Families Need Fathers’ and running Game Advice; inventing his own board game and an infatuation with website names; there was always a new scheme, a new idea bubbling away.  How he had much time for a personal life is remarkable achievement in itself, but he certainly made enough time to live through two marriages, four children, 5 grandchildren and a few more significant and important unions.

And so we come to Alick, the father. It is no secret that he struggled at times in connecting with us, his children, yet when sharing our memories, we all have these nuggets of gold that he gave us. Whether for Justin, such practical gifts; deeply ingrained memories of learning how to light a fire or change the wheel on a car; memories that are stimulated regularly in daily life.  For Cavendish, it’s the habit of intellectual curiosity, Alick would always challenge him to think and discover for himself; whether it was returning questions about the world, disassembling an old phone or finding his way round computers. For myself, freedom, a knowledge that ploughing your own path is not only acceptable but also exciting and stimulating. And for Clare, we can only speculate, she has taken her gifts with her as she rests in peace, but considering her vocation as a radiologist, she definitely claimed his desire to heal.

His role as a father was probably the hardest challenge for him, as children mirror their parent’s fears and shadows, we certainly pressed his buttons.  But aside from the practicalities of parenting, which left him fairly bemused, he always had a scheme or project that he wanted to include us in and that has to stand on its own as a testament to his desire to have us involved in his life.

Above all he was a passionate eccentric. A man who looked in his diary only to discover that he had missed an entire evening held in his honour; a man who drove us around Eastbourne for hours looking for the hotel for his conference, sure he had good reason to have remembered the hotel’s name but at a loss as to what it was – he had, it was The Cavendish.  A man that had a ditty to sing on every occasion; who bought morris minors as if they were going out of fashion; who had bizarre concoctions of food bubbling on his stove; and who brought a homeless man into his house to live with him as a personal project. . He was difficult, charismatic, charming, challenging, harsh, funny, unique and ultimately one-of-a-kind. He will never be forgotten, he made sure of that.

We say goodbye to him with a melting pot of feelings swirling through us, but what I see in myself and in my brothers is an unexpected tenderness towards this unfathomable man and I am happy that we can send him off with that.

§§§§§§§§§

The Beauty Of Death – (Part Two – The Ascending)

by Kahlil Gibran

 

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the firmament of complete and unbound freedom;

I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are hiding the hills from my eyes.

The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;

The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter that looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight and red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the humans of the streams are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;

And I can hear naught but the music of eternity in exact harmony with the spirit’s desires.

I am cloaked in full whiteness;

I am in comfort;

I am in peace.

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.

An Open Letter to the Family

Dear Family

Over the years I have received a number of unsolicited communications from various members of the family, be it verbally, by letter or, more latterly, email. The framework has been consistent, usually detailing my latest ‘failings’ in the eyes of the beholder, often followed by quite a sturdy character assassination and invariably signed off ‘with love’.

Today, on Easter Sunday, I received another two and, as usual, the strength and belief that the words carry against my character shattered my inner peace. What brings tears to my eyes is remembering what a beautiful day I was having with my two children, how I was really being present and enjoying their very beings and then I read these messages.

I had to haul my spirit back from a place of pain, indignation and anger to be with my children again – present I was not.

This letter is not to be a retaliation, a defence or a justification for who I am or the choices that I make, it is a plea. A plea to let me be the woman that I am, the mother that I am learning to be, the wife, the friend, the cousin, the niece, the daughter, the sister and any other part of me. Let me be.

Whether you believe I was simply born ‘this way’… or whether perhaps you can see that my path, my journey, has shaped me. I am a peaceful woman, I do not want the conflict, I do not wish to respond, to argue a lost cause. We hold different values and different beliefs. So be it; it does not make me cold, or compassion-less, or weird, or angry or difficult. It just makes me different to you, whilst I also share your genes – is that too hard a paradox?

Let me be.

I am not a child but a woman nearing her 40s, a mother, a member of the community and someone respected in my chosen world. If I do not seek your advice it is because it does not serve my path, it doesn’t make it wrong, but it is not for me. Should I need it, I will ask. I am not afraid to do that.

My thoughts will not create tremors in your world, there is space in the universe for everyone. My voice can shine and so can yours. Let me speak without apology for there is no reason to be sorry.

And above all, I would like to be amongst you, I would like to spend time listening to your stories, hearing your own history & dreams, but I cannot whilst you tell me I am wrong. I would like to hear your wisdom and know that I can take or leave it without offence, cherry pick from the bump & grazes we all have healed, learn from you, sit with you.

So I beg of you, no more emails, no more comments. You have your pathway and I have mine, but may the branches that inextricably link us be decorated with the blossom of peace.

Yours with love & hope….