anger – Soul Reflection

The Real Privilege

My husband beings home the money so that we can raise our children with one parent as their solid continuum. Except he hasn’t been able to bring home the money for four months now.

The government has ‘supported’ us during this time of COVID-19 with less than a quarter of our monthly expenses (and I mean expenses not frivolity; food, bills, mortgage). We have taken a six month mortgage holiday. And we have had to swallow our pride and ask for money from family. Yet I still know how privileged we are, the fact that we have family to ask, that they are able to give. We are the lucky ones.

Not so a vast swathe of, not only the British population, but in fact the global population. Many of whom will now be facing dire poverty, starvation, homelessness and all the mental and physical health issues that come with those. It sickens me to my core to imagine how people who work hard, strive hard to support their families and loved ones have had this purpose snatched away from them with so little consideration for their plight.

It sickens me to hear people advocate for further limiting restrictions to protect their fears of illness and death. Even if we didn’t know at the beginning, we know now. This virus is over 99.5% survivable. This has been a lockdown of privilege beyond all proportion. It is for those that can comfortably exist without monthly income or can work from their laptops at home. It is for the celebrities hiding out in their estates and telling us to be good and kind people by following their orders.

The people who will come out of this farce and injustice unscathed are the most privileged people on the planet and they seemingly couldn’t give two hoots about the rest of the world. I don’t think I could bear to hear another ‘leader’ of our world pretend to care about the masses when it is so obvious that they only care about their own reputations and well being.

We have been discussing white privilege in society for some time now, but it is the same people that make a show of fighting for this cause that are now silent for those lives decimated by lockdown and the suppression of our liberties. Token gestures.

I am angry.

How have we come to this place where we can so comfortably destroy infinitesimally more lives than we have saved and still be convincing the general public to turn on each other in the name of common decency?

I spoke to six strangers at the farmers market today who were not aware of their rights around the ‘mandated’ rules and regulations. They were all in fear of fines and reprisals despite not approving of or believing in the ‘laws’.

I am fortunate enough to be tapped into a world where we remind each other of the ‘other’ truths, the other possibilities and options rather than that of the mainstream media. An industry that is dictated to by just five or six billionaires, so divorced from real life, it means nothing to them. We have become their pawns, to manipulate at will.

It’s time for the rebellion, for the resistance.

It’s time to explore your rights and hold on bloody tight to them without relinquishing them to the privileged powers that be.

Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!

The Voice of Reason

In a recent discussion with a therapist it was suggested that I was, at times, too reasonable(!). Not only that, but by being too reasonable I was actually hurting myself.

My husband raised his eyebrows when I told him this, clearly he did not agree!

But I have been sitting with it; churning it over in my mind and of course as a result I have had the most unreasonable couple of weeks I could ever have imagined.

Everyone and everything has felt desperately unreasonable.

One days notice from a teacher at school that the cake ingredients rules have changed as I prepare for my child’s birthday. Unreasonable.

Car insurers wanting me to provide information that they know better than me. Unreasonable.

My child wetting the bed twice in one night. Unreasonable.

My babysitter cancelling a two month standing booking less than a week before. Unreasonable.

The resident permit zone being arbitrarily changed so that our property is no longer granted a permit. Un-bloody-reasonable.

And then there’s the bigger stuff…

the school mum throwing her unmet needs in my face
my husband having a ‘moment’ and wondering if I’m really the right one (yes that happened!)
my mother refusing to take any accountability for her behaviour

These are the bigger life hurdles when someone else’s choices can feel so utterly and desperately unreasonable and yet I am very good at making them reasonable. I am very good at looking behind the gauze and finding the reasons, the pain, the whys and the because; and understanding why everyone’s behaviour or choices are the way they are.

A good skill? Compassionate? Able to hold the bigger picture?

I need to segue a moment… when my friend Kim was dying, we talked about the emotional trauma that may have contributed to her illness. Kim was utterly reasonable. She always found a way to walk on a higher plain, she didn’t want to stoop to the level of those who had wounded her so deeply. And that is so honourable and so ‘right’, right? Except that all that justifiable anger and pain stayed inside and perhaps it is what killed her…

So I have sat with my flair of fire, this rage of witnessing the unreasonable and I have held it in conflict with my desire to be so thoughtful and measured and kind.

And then I exploded.

My husband lit the touch paper and I vomited out my rage at all the holding I do for everyone else’s ‘unreasonable’ choices.

And he held me there.

He held me there when I poured out my anger, my grief and my own unreasonable demands.

And he listened, and he heard me. And for the very first time, I felt safe.

It is the hardest thing in the world to hold someone in their pain, just hold them, not fix them, not wrong them, not right them or join them. But just to listen and be with that flow of emotions. And I love him more than ever for being courageous enough to do so.

Because sometimes the emotionally healthy thing to be is utterly unreasonable.

I needed that exorcism as part of my own healing and now I am calm again and able to bear the weight of all of life’s reasons….

Radiant Glory

I am struggling with the continued dialogue around the toxic masculine predator. Whilst I agree that consent needs to be clear (though hopefully without killing every last vestige of romance and spontaneity), I believe there is a place for female accountability too.

I have stood as a disempowered woman who has said ‘No’, provided the body language of discomfort and rigidity and not been heard or respected. I have had a man’s hand at my throat for not fulfilling his needs; I have said ‘no more’ to the boyfriend I was leaving but he still took more; I have walked away from too many situations feeling unclean, unhappy and abused. And I have had a part to play in that dynamic occurring.

Yes there are the rare but horrifying psychopaths whose terror we would have no control over, but so many of the ‘me too’ stories are women asking for men to define the scenario, to be respectful, healthy, wholesome no matter what they are confronted with. We are again giving away our power by asking them to be solely responsible for holding women safely.

We are asking for men to be brought up to respect women, to do things differently, but why aren’t we asking for women to make this change too? In every relationship dynamic, we can never expect our opposite to make the change, we have to create the change for ourselves and perhaps they might follow our shining example!

Why have we been meeting film directors in their hotel rooms, instead of insisting on a space we are comfortable with? Why do we choose to drink away our inhibitions at frat parties? Why did I stay in the room when I ended a relationship, after I had said ‘no’ to one more time? Why did I not get up at leave, why did I not set my boundaries clearly, why did I not honour and respect myself enough to do what I needed to keep me safe?

We are asking men to respect us, but do we respect ourselves? When do we say ‘No’ with clarity, strength and follow through. I’m not talking about the ‘life in danger’ scenarios, I’m talking about the every day abuses that I hear women happy to rage about but refuse to take accountability for. Yes men have their work to do, but so do women. Should a man take advantage of a inebriated woman, absolutely not. Should a women be inebriated in a circle of people she is not safe with? Are we treating ourselves with respect as we stumble and slur? Are we treating ourselves with respect when we stay with a misogynist boss for the sake of our career? I can hear the thousands of excuses being hurled at me as I write this, the shunning of blame straight back to the men, the justifications for staying when your body was screaming to leave, the fears. I hear them all, I acknowledge them all, I honour them all AND still there is space to take back our power for ourselves, not from men but from the ether where we left it. We don’t need to lord over the masculine, we simply need to claim back the feminine in all its powerful and radiant glory.

Robert Moore lectured to the effect that the uninitiated man becomes an unwise aggressor and the uninitiated woman a victim.

Initiation (the supported process of shifting the psyche from child to adult) helped me find my strength, my clarity, my respect and my ‘No’. Not since my initiation have I encountered these myriad dynamics of abuse that I previously encountered daily, because my energy and perspective has shifted so significantly. It is in my power to deign to let myself become victim or instead to hold compassion for those who act out their wounds and place my boundaries firmly between us.

I will endeavour to raise my son to be a man of self respect and my daughter to be a woman of self respect. I know that if I achieve these aims, they will mirror that respect out into the world through their actions, words and deeds. That is also the choice I make for myself.

I stand in my power and say and act ‘No’ when I need. That is enough.

Our Natural State

My husband and I are in the very midst of ironing out some of the bumps and grooves that appear in any long term relationship. To add to the fun, we are both in our early forties and hitting that developmental stage (yes, adults have them too!) aka ‘ the midlife crisis’ where all of our childhood wounds pop up with varying stages of intensity, to be faced and dealt with. To top it off, we are just through the very very early years of parenting, which is just one big fog, and now that the kids are at school there is space to face the shit.

It sucks. It’s hard. And mostly it is bloody painful. I think I have cried more in the last 3 weeks than I have in the last 10 years. And with this ironing, unpicking, rebuilding and connecting there have been some sweet and tender times, a second honeymoon of sensitivity and kindness. But mostly it hurts, just like any wounds do. We are digging out the detritus that has been left in over the years, the bits causing sores and infections, cleaning them out and suturing them up.

So whilst I have swung between grief, rage, love, hope, fear and happiness like some sort of rollercoaster on hyper drive, my grounding has been the understanding that our natural state is love.

This is the state we come into the world, pure love.

So when my own or someone else’s behaviour, actions or words appear unloving or hurtful, my faith in humanity and our core state, helps me to understand that these come from a wounding that needs to heal. That our natural state of love is our instinctive place to wish to return to and our intentions are drawn from there. It is so easy to hear and be the worst of things, to use anger and coldness as a crutch for survival, but true connection, true living can only come from love; no matter how much it might hurt to get there.

Trigger Me Tantrum

I have been musing over children’s tantrums and how so often the initiating triggers can be unnoticed; the act of distress being so all consuming and energetically confronting that the source becomes lost in the moment. Sadly, when the catalysts are missed the opportunity for empathy, resolution, connection and growth are usually missed too.

My reflections have led me to narrow down what I believe to be the 3 key triggers that lead to emotional meltdown: diet, sleep and anxiety/fear.

Guaranteed that my children will flip out if over tired, filled with refined sugar or too much wheat and guaranteed, if they are unable to control events that cause them concern or are faced with an emotionally threatening situation, they will act out of character and generally become obstructive, unreasonable and sometimes hysterical. But, if I spot that initiator and manage to support them through it, they feel understood, heard and loved. And they grow to understand themselves better because of the complete process.

As I considered these flashpoints, I realised that they naturally apply to adults too. Maybe we don’t tantrum quite in the style of kids (maybe we do sometimes too!) but those places where we act out, where we are less patient, less tolerant, less kind, also predominantly derive from these 3 core triggers.

Sleep and Diet, whilst often in disorder, are more simply managed and controlled. By recognising the importance of their part in our mental wellbeing they can be adjusted to the appropriate priority.

Anxiety and Fear are trickier; far less control; the numerous possibilities of spontaneous and unexpected catalysts; and generally some of life’s more challenging obstacles that can be hurled in our direction at any given moment.

But knowledge is still power and in this case often retrospectively. At those time when I find myself presenting the less pleasant side of my nature, it is so helpful for me to investigate these 3 triggers and see how I can adjust or support them. If it is anxiety or fear that has reared up, I can take steps to learn to manage that better, to implement change in my life that can reduce that possibility, or even overcome them completely.

Empathy, resolution, connection and growth are created for me, for my children and for others when I take a breath to explore the source of the behaviour. No one tantrums because they think it’s cool or healthy, it’s a hard place to go and it deserves every effort to understand it.

WTF

So last week I had one of those ‘what the f*** just happened’ moments. The sort when I think everyone’s on the same page and getting on happily and then I get smacked in the face by someone’s reaction and am sent reeling into next month.

And, in typical style, I have been reflecting on it….

So as a very quick précis, my child and their best friend had a minor falling out, nothing out of the ordinary for their age and stage. My child was feeling vulnerable and upset about the situation so I asked the other mum if we could meet before school to resolve it all before facing the day ahead. No biggie. Or so I thought….

My child started to speak to the friend but was so overcome by upset they burst into tears and asked for my help. I checked in with the friend to see if they knew what it was all about and before either of us could speak another word the mother interrupted, shooed her child away and angrily stated ‘she wasn’t having this’!

SMACK!

What the f*** just happened? Weren’t we all just gently and kindly trying to help the kids work things out?

The mother went on to state that she didn’t want her child ‘put on the spot’; that they could ‘figure it all out at school’; that I ‘shouldn’t be involved’ (facepalm!); and it went on. I goldfished for a few moments before fury hit me, my child was by this point sobbing with distress that peace hadn’t been made before school started. Honestly, whatever the perception and judgement on my way of doing things versus theirs, what left me speechless was the total lack of compassion towards another small human being. I simply cannot imagine seeing a little one (mine or anyone else’s) in such distress and refusing to help. What has happened to compassion?

So that is what I’ve been reflecting on. I am still feeling totally rageful towards the other parent but that is my journey to process and release over the coming days and weeks. And for me to find compassion for her – oh the irony!

But actually I think there is a deeper and bigger issue at stake. I believe, in general, the population are feeling pretty disempowered, taking charge of their own lives seems to be becoming a foreign concept. This feels deeply frightening and ultimately dangerous.

What I saw in this dynamic and in other recent moments has been a lack of personal responsibility, not out of malaise, but, more insidiously, out of habit. This is how our recent generations have and are being trained throughout their childhood, to pass the buck of responsibility. This litigation culture means that it’s always someone else’s fault and there is inevitably someone who can resolve the issue for them, be it teachers, parents, police, the lawyers, the government. And by always passing the buck, there is never an opportunity to learn how to handle and resolve conflict before it becomes overkill. When I brought my child to that conversation it was not only a space for them to express their fears and worries on the friendship but also perhaps to hear some hard words in return; maybe the friend was annoyed, maybe my child had done something to upset them, but there is no shame in facing our shadows and deciding how to integrate that into our psyche.

The constant avoidance of these moments not only creates this desperate place of disempowerment, where our own strength to face discomfort and challenge is never experienced and therefore not integrated fully into our beings, but with that comes this lack of compassion that I witnessed. The fear of conflict overrode natural human kindness and actually created a greater and uglier conflict than was necessary. That’s what fear is like, powerful, pervasive and ultimately distressing. In this scenario it was so strong that the other mother believed I had no right to be involved in the situation, a reflection perhaps of her feelings, if she hasn’t the power to face conflict calmly, why should I be allowed to carry it? Disempowerment demanding further disempowerment to justify their own.

Urgh, it feels like a big ugly tangle of disallowed feelings and suppressed strength. In venting conversation with my friends, I questioned ‘what happened to just having a conversation about it?’ Have we really reached a point in our society where the gloss veneer is all that is permitted?

Dark and difficult conversations are so vital to understanding the complexities of existence and humanity. Please let’s keep exploring them, it is only fear that makes them truly unpleasant.

The Phoenix Decade

It has started. The Phoenix Decade.

Our 40’s are a time typified by the clichéd ‘midlife crisis’: fast cars, affairs, career change, divorce and unexpected death.

Sadly, our society seems to sneer and judge a lot of these changes rather than embrace this as a natural life transition and of course that judgement comes from the fear of ‘us’ and ‘them’, separating the shadow and placing it in someone else’s court. But the truth is, our 40’s are the time for our spiritual renaissance.

Biologically, most of us will be coming to the end of the early years of parenting, the dance of mating and conception taking up so much of our 20’s and 30’s. And with those elements ‘in the bag’, there opens up a space in our lives to observe ourselves in greater depth. Our children and loved ones will be offering mirrors to the darkest parts of our souls through their triggers and button pushing and it is here that we have the greatest opportunity to dig out the roots of our deepest wounds and raise them up into the light.

This is the decade of philosophical thinking, of reflecting back on our own upbringing, how we might do things similarly or differently; exploring the aggrievements that have entrenched reactions and personality traits that may no longer serve us into true maturity and adulthood. It is the golden ticket for change and transformation, to allow your past to die and your renewed and invigorated self to rise from the ashes.

As I look around my peers, I am seeing sickness that is shaking souls to their very cores – cancers, strokes, depression; I am seeing relationships flounder and stumble with what appear to be unbridgeable chasms of disconnect; I am seeing denial where materialistic choices are covering the voids of love and connection. For me these are all symbolic gifts to face the Phoenix.

For myself I know I was close to great sickness. The levels of stress and discordance that I was carrying in relation to my mother were putting a burden upon my system that was unsustainable. Despite my healthy lifestyle, organic nutrition and conscious living, I could still feel the poison of unhappiness in my body. I had early warning signs singing through my nervous system, twinges, aches, pains, exhaustion. That was why it was so necessary for me to face that relationship head on and take the space I needed from it. I could have sat in the dynamic continuing our mutual unspoken discomfort and pain, I could have pretended it didn’t really exist, it wasn’t surely that important, but I didn’t want to die. And that was what that choice felt to me, that my body could no longer carry such a consistently high level of stress, something would eventually crumble.

So I am walking into this decade of the Phoenix with my eyes wide open. I want to face the shadows that will twist and turn out of the ashes; I want to address what needs to be explored. My husband and I will look into the fragile places of our love and relationship and dig out the dirt and attempt to replace it with light. I will stare into the mirror of my children and try my best to listen to their messages of reflection, to own what is mine and to return what is theirs. I don’t imagine that this decade is going to be my easiest, moreover because I am also having to witness my dear friends as they uncover their own phoenixes and the joy and suffering that that can bring. But I am also full of the excitement and possibility that this decade of renewal offers. I am excited to release the shackles of my past and to step fully present (with the best of my intention) into the second half of my life.

I will rise out of the ashes and I will soar.

Mini Me’s

When my daughter, my first born, arrived in the world, I was immediately struck with an intense solar plexus knowing that she was her own person. I knew that she had been gifted to us, to guide and raise, but her soul was already formed and strong; she did not belong to me.

I was so grateful for this knowing, realising that she had her own purpose in being here and that my job was not to create a perfect version of humanity through her but simply to support her unfolding into her own true self.

Accepting and following that understanding was so easy in the first couple of years but as she and her brother grow and express all facets of their personalities in a variety of social and antisocial scenarios, it has sometimes been hard to hang on to.

Surprisingly one of the hardest aspects has been my determination for them NOT to be a ‘mini me’. Not only was I conscious of them being their own soulful being, but I have recently realised that I was also attempting to make sure they didn’t become like me; the flawed, wounded, often angry and impatient me that I judge so harshly. I wanted something different for them. But of course, even though our babes have come with their own journey to explore, part of that journey is to be our imitators and our mirrors; to hold up our reflection and see how we react to it.

My children do this well and perfectly for me. They express their impatience and their fiery tempers and their annoyances (in amongst all their generosity and kindness and love) and I have come down hard, trying to force it to be different. Trying to educate them, trying to change myself to model better; trying, pushing, resisting.

And then I realised that as much as they are their very own soul, with all the beautiful unique qualities they bring to the world, they are also ‘mini me’s’. They are reflecting back to me not what I have to force myself to change but what I need to accept.

I listened to my son’s kindergarten teacher speak a few nights ago about the boisterous and energetic behaviour of the elder kids and I really heard how she described the Steiner philosophy on how to work with their energy.

‘If something is being expressed then it needs to come out, suppressing it doesn’t help. By allowing its expression there comes the possibility of transforming it into something else.’

From this I visualise the smoke that comes out of me when I feel angry or annoyed or impatient, I see it swirl into the air and transform into dragons and magic and stars and sparkles.

So let me be the container for my children, let me hold the space for them to express all these parts of themselves, that I have rejected in myself, and let us together allow these intrinsic parts of ourselves voice. By doing so let us witness them transform and flow on, from rigidness to free form, with safety and love circling them all.

My children are their own spirits but the parts of me they have chosen to mirror are intrinsic aspects of them too. By allowing these I can offer them one of life’s most precious gifts: self acceptance and with that the freedom that walks alongside.

Holding On

I believe fiercely in the importance and value of attachment; that our healthy independence comes from our trust in the solidity of a secure foundation. This is a core tenet of my parenting philosophy and why I am happy to surrender these years to care for my children.

But there is more….. my youngest child is five and happily ensconced in kindergarten and I have been envisioning increasing hours of rediscovering myself again. And I still will to a degree….

…. but I have just finished the extraordinary book ‘Hold On to Your kids’ (by Neufeld and Mate) and am thankfully awakened to the realisation that ‘attachment’ reaches way past the early years and through to early adulthood.

I have not come across Gordon Neufeld’s work before but I have long been struck by the wisdom, depth and sensitivity of Gabor Mate. I was first introduced to him by my late cousin who included interviews of Mate for his short films on addiction and the roots of it from early childhood. Powerful and compelling.

I have read a gazillion parenting books (most I have loved and drawn huge inspiration from) but two have stood out to me as carrying core concepts to feed my philosophy. Neither have been comfortable or easy reads, both have shown me the mistakes I have already made, but equally they have fed and stoked the fires of truth and passion for being the very best parent that I can. Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn and Holding On to Your Kids are these essential reads.

Right now I am full of the later, having turned the last page just a few hours ago. I am inspired by the tools and opportunities and I have already seen the benefits in the last week as I start to implement the ideas.

I did attachment very well in the early years. My babes were in arms, co slept, full-term breastfed and stayed with me until 4 or 5 before heading to Kindy. But I have made a critical error by thinking my foundation has been laid and stepping a little too far back.

What I have witnessed is my eldest getting a little lost, expressing hurt and discontent, and I was flummoxed as to why. And this book explains it all. It details how our society, in less than a hundred years has moved, from a place of secure attachment to our parental lines, to insecure attachment to our peers. We have forgotten to hold our children close enough to be able to seek their wisdom from their elders rather than scrabbling for answers with friends who are scrabbling too. The effects have been devastating. Mental health issues in children and teens are sky rocketing and suicide is through the roof. Our children are floundering and in desperate need of our help.

Just like a tomato plant growing from seed, which requires a tall and
solid stake from which to anchor itself, my children need me to be their base-point to hold on to. Once they have flowered and born their first fruit, they can sow their seeds and decide where next to plant themselves but for that they need maturity and experience and I intend to stand by their side until then.

This book opened me up. It showed me why my daughter was hurting, it enabled me to reflect on my own childhood and the desperate years I spent seeking attachment in my peers. It is a statement for our society, frightening in its implications and simple in its healing.

Hold On and they will let go when ripe and ready, blooming with vitality and with faith in the world and that hardy, weather worn stake.

I believe…

I watched my daughter fly into a fury the other day and, from that simple but emotional outburst, I have witnessed my own, deeply held & damaging, belief unravel.

She came to me with a problem between herself and a playmate; she shared her story to which her playmate immediately denied and refuted (standard), but what happened next was that the playmate’s parent spoke quickly and clearly stating that their child was not a liar. I believe they were just trying to be positive to their own child, showing support for their own upset, and I do understand that, but from my daughter’s perspective she heard ‘the playmate is not a liar and therefore you must be, as your stories are different’ and she raged and screamed. In observing that clearly, I realised that had happened a few times to her in different guises, that a comment, innocent or otherwise, had left her to feel that she was not believed.

In this understanding of her, this rage coming from lack of validation externally but more importantly, internally, not being able to hold her truth without fear of it being stripped away, I saw myself.

Those moments in films where flashback pictures litter the screen, running through countless memories to create the story that is now; that was me. My life rewound as I watched myself try and validate my values, thoughts and ideas via external sources; sharing books, memes, research, videos, anything and anyone else’s perspective to show another that my own thought might have value. And I do all of that because my belief in myself, in my own voice and opinion has not been strong enough. How different it would feel if I could speak my truth and leave it on the table of discussion, just leave it there, to be exactly what it is, my own; to no longer feel the need to explain it away or tie myself in knots to convince someone else to listen and validate me. To know that my worth is enough to stand alone, to be taken, received or rejected and still be OK.

And as I wonder how best to help my daughter, who has absorbed that sensitivity from me, I know that the only way forward is for me to have the courage to leave my opinions on the table and walk away, to take a deep breath, trust in my own wisdom and no longer seek the validation from outside.

It is time to step up and into My Self and hold my own truth securely within my soul, so that my daughter can also hold hers.