The Death Temptation

I am writing this from a basis of my truth, something that is deeply true to my beliefs and understanding of the world and also knowing that this is not a place or a belief for many people. (It maybe wiser for some to stop reading now…) 

I believe that sickness nearly always has a deep emotional cause. To be clear this is not karma or punishment, it is not that we have done anything to ‘deserve’ our sickness, but that events or situations that have created trauma in our system are the roots of dis-ease. 

Therefore as part of healing it is important to treat not only the easing of physical symptoms but also an awareness of the energetic emotional block that is part of the whole story. 

In this vein, I recently stepped into a curious space of feeling myself manifesting dis-ease within myself. 

I had stepped into the Death Temptation.

Despite my classic moments of crass insensitivity, I do also empathetically resonate to others’ pain; tears well easily to stories of heartbreak and I feel others’ fears of loss and sadness deep within my system.  So it should be no surprise to me that at times I carry the energy of my friends’ and loved-ones’ dis-eases too.

I am nearing mid life and as such, conspiring with the heavy toxicity of our western lifestyle, there is cancer and illness at too many doors right now. One in two the statistics say. I have been holding the fears and news of many and it has been hard not to hear the ‘what if’… knocking at my own door. 

But the death temptation is not just about carrying the fear of physical death it is, thematically, a more deep rooted emotional block. It is a reaction to disappointment, heartbreak or loss; a battle against life itself. Death in this form is a, conscious or subconscious, power struggle towards self destruction.  The message is that death is perhaps the only thing that could end the pain and exhaustion. 

And this is where holistic medicine works so brilliantly for me. In the last few years I have experienced two enormous heart breaks, I have heard myself speak the words out loud ‘my heart is broken’.

Twice.

And for two very different reasons. I remember the ‘heartbreak’ of my teens and twenties, all boy related of course (!), and they were real but oh so very gentle compared to this grief that has consumed my body and soul. 

And I thought I had processed them well, and I had, but not enough. I have reasoned my way through these processes and not allowed myself to acknowledge the true depth of pain they have caused within me. So when my body started showing me signs of physical discomfort that resonated with all this fear and reality of dis-ease around me, I took myself to my extraordinary and wonderful homeopath who treats the soul and heart alongside the body. 

And she enlightened me to the Death Temptation, this space of choosing death over life because the pain has been to much to bear. 

And she showed me another way. 

ReBirth. 

It is time for me to rise through the pain of loss, to claim my rightful place in the world; to live, to learn, to teach, to love.  

I have faced the temptation of death and I choose transformation instead. 

 

As always with endless gratitude to Anne .

Goodbye My Friend

In the early hours of the morning, my beautiful friend Kim left for spirit. She has left behind, not only her amazing little family, but also her legacy of kindness and wisdom. 

Kim and I met in our early 20’s, both hostesses in a restaurant on the eternally cool Kings Road, Chelsea. She was just a couple of years older than me but had already travelled and explored so much that she carried this worldly aura. I was frippish and naive to her calm and sense. It would have been easy for her to be disdainful of me but instead she embraced the best of me, she’s always done that. 

We whiled away the hours with humour and candour; our friendship honest and simple. And then she left to travel some more and our paths diverged. 

Some 10 years ago, through the gifts of social media, we reconnected across the world; Melbourne to London. We watched each other’s lives as we dived into love & parenthood and the crazy all consuming discoveries that flow with that; we engaged in light comments and philosophical discussions here and there. 

And then she got sick, she was told she had very little time, and we plunged right back into that friendship we had left behind at our hostess stand 20 years ago. 

She has given every ounce of herself to be around for her family for as long as possible, she has walked this illness through three and half years and I have walked alongside behind the written word of our messages as we have shared our loves, our fears, our histories and our hopes. There is nothing like the shadow of death to focus our hearts to truth. 

As she did so many moons ago, she saw the best in me through every conversation, she offered wisdom won through pain and joy and I know she offered that to everyone. One of her fears as she neared the end was that her children might think she had not ‘fought’ hard enough to stay alive and it breaks my heart that she could even consider that of herself when she loved them so passionately and absolutely. She raised herself up and away from her own childhood of pain to offer them the very best of herself because that is the strength of woman she was. 

And now I have had to say goodbye to one of my closest and dearest friends despite not having as much as hugged her for two decades. That is love, that is friendship and that is heartache.