connection – Soul Reflection

Coronation Conflicts

I grew up a staunch royalist. What wasn’t there to love about the royal family? Even with the obvious drama, it just showed how human they were. And of course there was Diana…. the ultimate real life princess. Fairy tales do come true even the bad bits.

As my eyes have opened to the power dynamics controlling the world, the media, the messaging, I have longed for the royal family to be immune to it all. But I can’t face the truth about everything else and stick my head in the sand about the devastating corruption and dis-ease that permeates it all. They are part of the uber rich, part of the intricate connections that believe they can make the rest of us mere mortals dance under their puppet strings.

So what does this weekend of coronation extravaganza mean to me. I cannot lie, my royalist heart adores the pomp, the glitter, the dream of being that goddamn rich! And faced with the darkness, how do I respond to it all? And here I am torn. It’s just not so clearly black and white. This weekend creates connection, community, national pride, all of which I think hold huge value. I love feeling a common connection with our entire country over one weekend, isn’t the spiritual ideal achieving the understanding of oneness?

And I can hear the excuses in my head too, truly if everything I have heard about the royals is true, surely I cannot condone a single thing done in their name? But I think that’s the nub of it for me, I’m just not completely convinced; do I think Kate is part of some dark underworld? Or do I think she’s doing her work with the best of intentions which may also have links to a dark underworld? A bit like the doctors during Covid, most of them working with the best of intention despite the harm they were causing. But I didn’t clap for them….

I guess these are the complexities of human nature and I have to accept my own hypocrisy within it all. As always it gives me greater compassion for those that I judge to be hypocritical. I’m not pledging allegiance to the King but I did wear red, white and blue and attend a local event and truth be told I still shop from Amazon too!

First published on social media on 7th May 2023

Reclaiming My Body

I have been listening to the searingly honest, heart opening & breaking podcast (on Psilocybin) by Honestly Elizabeth and much of her experience resonates for me on so many planes.

One of the things it really crystallised was how much the sexual abuse by my father disassociated me from my body. When I reflect back on later abuses and relationships, I can see clearly how I would so often reach a point of coercion; when someone wanted more from me than I really wanted to give, in both consensual and non consensual situations, I could observe my spirit step back and allow my body to be taken. The subtlety of this is hard to describe and I think in many, if not most, of these scenarios, the man could be forgiven for believing that I had given permission rather than simply acquiescing, which would be more accurate.

My body was a trade, I gave it, it appeased. I think this is why the ‘me too’ movement is so complex. I believe many many women surrender to appease rather than truly give permission but how can someone know that? I cannot blame all the men, certainly there were some at fault, pushy, domineering, scary even, but there were other who were sweet and thoughtful, who simply triggered my neuro-programming to submit, as my father had taught me.

Part of my healing today is to fully reclaim my body as mine, to integrate it as an essential part of my whole. And, as is so often the case when trying to restore balance, a counter weight is required. Now, I need absolute trust, safety and respect before I can consider offering my sacred self. And I also teach my children that sharing their bodies with anyone, when they reach that age and stage of life, is a sharing of spirit and how important it is to be in loving and trusting energy with that person.

Our society devalues sexual intimacy at great cost to our souls and it perpetuates this separation of body and spirit. The current vogue of early sexualisation of children, through media, fashion, wokism et al, is truly horrifying and when measured as a splintering of soul connection can only be classed as abuse.

I only hope that a much needed and aching return to family values blossoms and this part of our lives, as a society, will also be restored to a healthier, happier connection before much more damage is perpetrated against our innocents.

And as I reconnect my splintered parts, may that be mirrored into the world and draw together those elements that need healing and connecting for all of humanity.

First published on social media on 6th February 2023

It’s beginning to look a lot like Teen-mas

Six months in and I cannot deny the teen era is upon me. I’m actually finding it, mostly, delightful; watching my child expand into the world, explore, grow, stretch and return.

I was the archetypal ‘terrible teen’, lots of deception, no strong parental attachment, peer focused, crashing into adulthood with despair and desperate hope. So there is a part of me that thinks I’ve got this covered, I know what NOT to do. But I don’t want to be naive either, society is influencing powerfully and my children do not have the same impacting factors that I had. So when I saw this book, ‘Untangled’ by Lisa Damour, I thought it would be good for me to have a read.

It is a perfect example of how context is everything. If my values centred around fulfilling the perception of modern society, that high grades, top university and money-pumping careers are the be all and end all of life, then this would be the book to guide my teens through. It shockingly includes a suggestion of bribing your teen to achieve their grades.

There are some solid foundation notes, like having family meals together, knowing who the friends are etc but these are not rocket science and says much about our society when having a family meal together is something to implement for the teens under the assumption that it’s not been happening before. Am I living in an alternate universe?

Are families so disconnected that they need just the basics to bring back some form of connection and communication? Are our children so undervalued that they are being left to flounder through the initiation into adulthood without parental and mentor guidance?

This book made me achingly sad for all of those it is aimed at, parents and teens alike. To be existing together without feeling loved and held and cherished and to be thinking that this is just how life goes, how painful! Damour is doing her best in the context of this world but I wanted something much deeper, richer, more intense. I wanted a call for heart connection, for initiation, for handing down wisdom, learning from the vibrant young, healing ancestral blockages.

The teens is a transition, there is no doubt about that, but in that is the most beautiful opportunity, offered over and over again for years and years. Forget the grades and the careers. Find the passion and the joy and the spirit and the love and the conversation and the connection.

This is the moment your child moves into the blessing of a companion adult. Not too quickly, not until they’re ready. They still need their boundaries and circling, but that is the goal to hold onto. Staying in connection, understanding and love.

First published on social media on 18th December 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

Our Traumatised World

I have just finished reading this marvel, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, and I have hit new depths to my understanding of trauma, not just for the world but so importantly for me too. To say I was triggered would be an understatement, so much rose up in me that felt painful and raw and therefore so necessary to face. More work to be done and more avenues to follow with the wisdom of this work by my side.

It is sensitively and compassionately written, with stories that wrench and illustrate in turn, leading through the vast array of trauma our society is generating and holding and offering a myriad of techniques and therapies that can calm, smooth, release and integrate the disregulation and pain that exists.

There is really too much to say and yet so little without simply repeating, verbatim, the written words but there are certain highlights, important themes (see photos) that are lingering in my consciousness.

I think some of my big takeaways are: how it validated so much of where I see our trauma being played out in society, from the simple, defensive, ready to be offended, response that has become the norm of reactions rather than the warning sign that needs attention; to the research that shows how much more impactful a mother’s depression is compared to a father, because biology matters, innate instinct and early years attachment cannot be overruled by a societal yen; it confirms the knowledge that abusers come from trauma, how it is by facing and healing and supporting that we shift our society not by shaming or judging or blaming.

All of these powerful confirmations actually bring me hope rather than despair, that there are healers out there in this field that really ‘get’ it. Over medicating is running its course and I so hope that means we can move onto this real ability to connect, support and understand.

After all, as Bessel says ‘Communicating fully is the opposite of being traumatised.’

First published on social media 11th November 2021

The Subtle Art of Parenting

It’s easy to claim the titles of mother/father or mum/dad, they’re a biological thing or even a role demarcation. You are, or you are not, a mum or dad.

Being a parent, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. You can be a mother or father without ever actually being a parent. To be a parent requires a person to actively parent – to guide, nurture, hold, love, support, cherish, discipline, nourish and be present to a child. Not all at once and not all of the time, but certainly a significant portion of it.

This is not about making the child the centre of your focus, as that too can be detrimental to their own perception of their place in the world, but that the parent’s focus contains the child.

One of the biggest inhibitors of this is our own ego. The part of ourselves that tries to define us; we are ‘such & such’ a person because we have these status symbols or because we behave in this manner. We are seen by the world, and we see the world, with the protection and filter of our ego. It has its place but it can also be frequently a barrier to genuine connection and understanding.

When our, perhaps imbalanced, ego is involved in the parenting mix, it often causes more harm than good. The ego may tell us how our children should behave or be or look or act, as a representative of us. It forgets that children are their own spirits and personalities. Our imbalanced ego prevents us from seeing our children for who they really are, in the place they’re really at, just now, here, in the moment.

By working on the principle of stepping beyond our own ego – by recognising when their behaviour or attitude triggers the delicacy of our own status or place in the world – who am I when my child argues with me? Who am I when my child lies? Who am I when my child hits or hurts us or another? Who am I when my child rejects my food?

By staying with the understanding that it is our ego that wants to control and stop these challenges to our sensitives selves and by reframing the thoughts to – who are my children when they do these things? What are their struggles? Where are their needs being met or not?

When we can offer this alternative, then we can offer our presence, our attention, our attunement and, most of all, our love.

From my own place as a mother and as a daughter, when I consider the art of parenting, I know that the practicalities fall in and around these principles. If I parent from this place of seeing my children for who they are, not how I want them to be; if I pay attention to the subtleties of their days and interactions, I will learn to understand them as they shift and grow. I will be able to offer simple heart connecting wisdom rather than controlling direction and I will meet my children where there are at. Just this.

Indeed, as they age and form their own depths of personalities and experiences, the more important this becomes, and often the harder. Society forgives a tantruming toddler, but less so an emotionally spirited teen. So can we transcend the ego expectations of our societies and embody the role of parent instead?

Not always…. to err is human, but certainly it is a baseline of understanding to return to, to ground ourselves from and to turn around and try again.

So pay attention to what has happened today, what went on in their worlds this week, this month, this year… how has that formed them, influenced them, shifted them? What do they need from us now? Distraction, attention, conversation, silence, hugs, space, food, sleep, healing, laughter, fun, company, connection…?

To navigate the subtle art of parenting is an onerous task, but also, quite simply, the most rewarding, soul stretching, inspiring and important creation of art there ever was, or ever will be.

Our Opposing Hearts

As a bystander to the US elections with many friends on both sides of the political divide, I repeatedly observe this strange dissonance.

I hear the ‘liberal’ Democrats eschew racism, gender discrimination and all other discriminations and naturally feel aligned to that in many ways (though not all). However, I hear them speak of their politically opposing humans with nothing but discrimination, so ready to write off 67 million humans as evil/racist/awful and I get thrown into that collective too, when I raise another perspective or side to the story than theirs.

These aren’t ‘far’ anything people, these are everyday peers, middle class, reasonably successful and intelligent people. Now I’m aware of the irony of me making a collective of the democrats now but I’m not writing them off as bad humans in the same way, I see their light. I just can’t get my head around this ability to label anyone who votes for Trump, or even those who acknowledge some of the positives that have occurred during his term, as automatically bad.

As soon as I question the democrat’s narrative or their own choices of leaders, I have been automatically presumed to be a trump follower and instantly insulted in one way or another.

Surely the whole essence of removing discrimination from our society is by the fact that we accept and embrace difference?

I know from my own work and my studies that the only real way through opposition is via connection. Finding that common thread that brings compassion and understanding when suddenly everything falls into place; suddenly someone’s behaviour makes sense; their views are understandable given their story; their lives as honourable as our own.

I don’t like certain styles of behaviour or attitude, they don’t suit my values perhaps, but I still know with a hundred percent truth that all of our hearts are filled with the same deep desire for love, connection, safety, warmth and trust.

I would love that to be what we concentrate on, instead of which leader we obsess over and who we emotionally destroy in order to cling on to some ideological beliefs.

Our opposing hearts are really just a reflection of each other, rooted in the same needs and desires.

#opposition #politics #usa2020 #biden #trump #connection #hearts #compassion #dissonance #love #democrat #republican

First Written on Social Media 7th November 2020

Christmas – An Act of Rebellion

How strange that Christmas should come to represent such a moment of defiance. How sad to have witnessed so many families go against their instinct for connection, joy and love to spend time apart, even, for far too many, completely alone.

I refuse to conform to the rules that are based on lies, distorted statistics and fear propaganda. Apparently, I should not be allowed an opinion because I’m not an ‘expert’; I should follow the rules because other people know better than me; I should not socialise in order to save people from dying a horrible, early death; I should accept data from media and governmental sources without second opinion from independent voices.

‘Shoulds’…. one thing I’ve learned well over the years is always to question a ‘should’.

Does it matter that in the 10 months of ‘pandemic’ I have not once been sick, neither worn a mask or kept my distance? Does it matter that this isn’t just pure luck but conscious, considered health choices that keep my immune system strong? Does it matter that, yesterday, whilst rebelling, we had nine for Christmas lunch, two of whom are doctors, also standing up against the lies and misrepresentation of truth and data? Does it matter that I have studied vaccines in greater depth than the majority of doctors, who usually attend one lecture on the subject in med school? Does it matter that, despite not having a university education, I was schooled in scientific thought and critical thinking? Does it matter that I look at the root of the statistics rather than the narrative they create?

Actually I believe it does. Democracy is an ideal of being governed to follow moral and community rules for the success and happiness of our country. But if that governance is based on lies and deception, it then becomes our duty to stand against it, to not follow, to redefine and create a new.

I have said from the beginning, indeed for the last decade, as I speak out about the criminal behaviour of the trillion dollar corporations dictating our lives, that the only way through this is radical personal responsibility; for our actions, choices, education and moral compass.

If connection, human touch, emotional attunement are some of the most important factors in maintaining a strong immune system, why have you just been asked to destroy those?

Disobey. Reclaim your personal responsibility, make the wise, moral, kind, loving choices that hold the very essence and fabric of our communities. You know. YOU know…..

Happy 100th Birthday Daddy

Today would have been my father’s 100th birthday. He died over seven years ago (Goodbye Daddy) and during those years since, my relationship with him has changed and evolved so much as to be nearly unrecognisable.

He wasn’t a wonderful father on the human plane; he was a colourful, fascinating, eccentric and clever man but not one to pay real attention to his children’s needs on any level. He stopped contributing financially to my upbringing when I was around 10 (and my brother 12) leaving my mother to carry that load of food, clothes and education. I didn’t have conversations with him about my hopes and dream and feelings and that breathtaking song by Luther Vandross ‘Dance with my Father’ makes me yearn achingly, with every listen, for a father that never existed.

I could go on about his faults and failings but I have forgiven them all. For now, in spirit, he has his hand on my back with each and every step. I feel his presence so keenly in all the moments that I need him. I hear his evolved wisdom and his humble and unconditional love. He protects my children and guides our paths with all the passion of one who knows and owns how much he didn’t do during human life.

Many might struggle to hear these words, to think I have projected a wish fulfilment on an empty entity. And they could be absolutely right. But it’s not what I believe, and feel and hear and see.

I see the transformation of a spirit, who held such deep and painful wounds, become the light that they were born with. I see all the very best of his personality merge with the grace of divinity and, with that, offering to make amends with his energy and connection.

I have known a lot of death and each spirit holds their own way of being in the next plane. Some are close, some distant, some have learned all they need to, others will return for further lessons. Some are restful, some restless and some visit, whilst others have moved on and past.

My father is resolutely here and I am deeply grateful for that. So today I honour his 100th birthday with so much love, so much joy and so much peace.

Happy Birthday Daddy. 💗

The Empathy Trap

It is always hard to write a blog where I have to reflect on my mistakes as a parent. My ego screams to keep it silent but my spirit yearns to share and offer it of service to others. A mighty battle within.

My parenting philosophy is deeply embedded with the principle of empathy; of feeling and understanding my children’s perspective, in order that I can help guide them and support them through their journey.

I still think this is deeply important.

Yet I have discovered a trap in this idealised path… something that harms rather than helps my children on their journeys. It has been particularly highlighted by one child whom has a fight reaction tendency when misunderstood. When they have lashed out I have nearly always seen and understood the route to that explosion. I have watched and witnessed the unfolding of communication crashes and mix ups. And so I have helped explain that to others. I have spoken their feelings and shown how and why they have reached melt down. I did this to model to them how to verbalise their frustrations and recognise their own triggers.

And it has worked. They can verbalise and can recognise but they can also excuse themselves. ‘I hit because they annoyed me.’

And I have explained that excuses are not ok, there is no justification for violence unless in defence of life and soul. But they keep coming. These excuses. By fully empathising I have taught that there is some implicit permission in their reaction, I have fed this attitude of vindication.

So I have reflected. I have looked out into the world at the excuses and demands for empathy being thrown out constantly in society; I have looked within at the balance of compassion and discipline triggers from my past and I realise that on this honourable path of affinity I have let resilience slide.

Because resilience is a key tool for life. Resilience is the ability to carry on in the face of all adversity, including that of being misunderstood.

When I look out into the world and see the screams and cries of so many begging to be understood, to be re-labelled, re-defined and then crumbling and collapsing when others don’t want to, don’t have to, don’t like to; there I see a dearth of resilience. It is not for us to demand someone’s understanding, it is for us to know that we are still enough without it.

So now I have some work to do. My children are thankfully young and resilient enough to flow with my mistakes; we learn together. I hope the rest of the world can too.