love – Page 4 – Soul Reflection

I’ll Always Worry

Twice this week, I have had comments laid at my feet that somehow my expression of mother concern is ‘too much’.

Now I agree that helicopter / smothering mummy is not a good look, nor indeed a healthy option, but judging a mama for being a mama…. now that’s just insanity.

I am always going to worry if my kids have got the right clothes when the weather changes and I’m not there. I am always going to worry that these fragile dynamics of friendships, as they twist and turn into their own unique beings, are upsetting or hurting them. I am always going to worry whether they are getting the right balance of nutrition as I insist on chicken broth and treat them with ice cream. I am always going to worry about those times when I said ugly words or shouted too loud, that perhaps broke them a little. I am always going to worry if I’m doing the best for my children, holding strong boundaries and gifting freedom of spirit.

It’s my job.

I’m a mama.

So please don’t tell me to relax, or step back or any of those casual utterances that seem to belittle my role. Because more than anything, you don’t see how much I hold my tongue when they tell me about the kid at school who slaps or whispers; how I look at their naked limbs in the icy wind and remind myself that it’s their body; or how much guilt I feel for not knowing what I know now!

You do not see how much I let them go when I ache to hold them tight; that I find ways to help them explore risk and adventure when my heart is beating hard in my throat.

And when I spew my anxieties out it’s in order to clear them from my energy so that I can return to them with calm, thoughtfulness and courage.

I have worried myself into some awesome choices and discoveries as a mother. My worries have pushed me to find the hidden solution, the alternative avenue and the unique path that is creating my family.

But more than anything, these crazy, wonderful beings grew in my tummy (and even if they hadn’t), blew my world and my mind wide open to the glorious intensity of mother love and I am proud to worry about them; excited to have the responsibility of their blossoming souls; and utterly & blissfully surrendered to the knowledge that they will be front and foremost in my mind and heart for the very rest of my days.

I’ll always worry and I make no apologies for that. I have been blessed with this extraordinary job of mother and worrying is just one small and important part of a truly magnificent whole.

Seeing Love

I advocate passionately & reverently for the resurrection of our ancient wisdom supported by modern research of neurological development; together these detail how responding to the animalistic, biological and psychological needs of our children is integral, not only to their own solid emotional, spiritual & physical health, but also to forming the foundations of a healthy society.

Everything I write about, read about, talk about, dream about draws back to this core. The requirements that reach beyond basic survival and into the depths of humanity and soul.

So I am hyper aware of the impact of my own behaviours and ancestral baggage on myself as a parent, friend, wife and therapist. I could read nuances into each word or facial reaction; I could demand that the circle around my family be restricted to only those conscious of their own wounds; I could attempt to micromanage each and every influence that enters my domain. This would all be very understandable when my heart understands the subtle ramifications that can come from the slightest tremor.

Of course this would also likely lead me to the edge of insanity, trying to control the world and environment to a place of perfection; on top of which it is hardly a good model for my children, friends or clients to ape resilience, compassion, growth, personal choice, understanding and a gazillion other amazing qualities that come from meeting conflicting ideas or ideology.

But what really hit home to me today, was that most of all I would miss seeing love in all its forms. It’s so easy to believe love comes in the form that I feel and express it in, but love is offered in a myriad of weird and wonderful ways that can only be found by opening our heart to the intention with which things are brought.

When I read articles detailing how one is supposed to be a ‘true friend’ or a ‘modern partner’, for example: don’t offer advice unless it is asked for; respect my boundaries at all times; don’t use emotionally sensitive language without first checking for permission; don’t use physical touch without explicit approval….

This…. this drives me batty. If I took all this on board I would be have to be the worst ever friend. Except I’m not. I’m a good friend and I frequently offer advice without first checking because that is one of my primary ways to show and express my love (Acts of Service). I am able, mostly, to perceive if my advice is unwanted and shut up, but not everyone is and yet they might still be offering the very depths of their love. Other people might smother people with hugs and kisses when actually space is wanted; perhaps there are friends that come and tidy up your house leaving you feeling a bit slovenly in their company; others can be effusive with their words, showering you with compliments and affirmations that to you feel hollow and meaningless; another might buy you a gift when all you really wanted was them not to cancel the plans.

It is so so so easy to see the worst in people rather than the best. It is so easy to miss love.

Do I want my world to be a microcosm of connected, joyful and loving intention? Absolutely. Is that going to be reflected if I limit that to just those that follow my form? Boundaries are important, safety is important but should they come at the expensive of seeing the true depths of someone’s heart and intention? Isn’t this world crying out for more love not less?

Today I offered my love to someone and it was utterly rejected, it wasn’t in the right form for them and they reacted to it negatively rather than positively, and I thought of all those people in the world that are getting shouted down, shut down or ignored for showing love in the ‘wrong way’. Awareness, consciousness and growth are beautiful potentials that bloom more powerfully when wrapped in compassion, forgiveness and understanding.

Yesterday, I told off my eldest for yabbering to my youngest when he had so clearly asked for space and quiet, today I see how she was just offering love….

Today I am seeing love.

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….

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 .

In the absence of

I wrote a meme on Instagram recently reminding the world that boys are beautiful too. This came after my son had told me that he must be ugly because everyone told his sister how beautiful she was but no one ever said it to him.

No one had ever told him he was ugly, but in the absence of compliments that he witnessed his sister receiving, this was the conclusion he had arrived at. It was heartbreaking to hear, something to counter as best as we can at home, and also enlightening to realise what absence can create.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I sat in circle with women to train and learn about holding space for the mother-daughter connection as our daughters move into puberty and early womanhood. One of the aspects we explored was how our menses was presented to us as we reached that stage, what messages had we been given through this process. Many of us had received very pragmatic, seemingly healthy, non threatening, non shaming, black and white details about our 5 day bleed; but what we realised in this discussion is that there had been an absence. An absence of honouring, welcoming and ritualising this transitional passage. How differently we could have felt about our years of bleeding, about birthing our children and about the final rites of menopause if there had been a deep acknowledgement of the magical nature of our wombs.

And then there has been the research into why the African American community have higher dysfunction statistics, particularly for their young boys. A strong correlating theme is that so often there are absent fathers. Absence again.

I can see how easy it is to think we can ignore a vacuum, replace it with other, or simply paper over the empty space; but what is becoming clear to me is that absence brings its own complications and is just as important to consider, in order to create balance and happiness, as presence.

The loss of our rituals and spiritual practices as community, the absence of connection in the busy-ness of modern life. These are creating impactful dynamics that are having significant and long lasting effects.

A friend has recently become aware of the absence in his life; missing music, creativity for its own beauty rather than purpose or monetary intent. By consciously bringing back these elements the pendulum of his life shifts and the pressure and negatively that spirals into depression is weighed up more evenly, more gently.

I remember that well from my own educational experience; a solid private education with all the benefits that academia ‘should’ offer for a successful life. And yet in my 20’s I craved the exploration of creativity that had been deemed so frivolous and unnecessary for our modern world.

Until the lack is restored, there will always be a hole that needs filling, an ache, a feeling, a passion, a rite, a love. Absence is a piece missing; a part of the jigsaw of whole.

Know Thyself

I have just finished the first series of ‘The Sinner’ staring Jessica Biel and I was utterly triggered, re-traumatised and mesmerised by the storyline and intense portrayal by Biel. Her portrait of a young woman, innocent to the manipulations of darkness and yet cognizant of the power of her sexuality, resonated deeply with me and, with it, compassion, shame and sadness for my own young woman.

The story is multi layered with the explorations of characters swinging across the pendulum of shadow life, but to me there was one powerful theme that struck home hard.

Know Thyself.

Side stepping for a moment, there is a phrase I use with my kids frequently when they are struggling with hearing another persons perspective on their own story. I remind them to ‘know your own truth’. In their terms this often relates to incidents where their friends have colourful versions of events perhaps placing blame in unfair quarters, this is the phrase I whisper to them as they struggle with their righteous anger when their characters are being maligned.

It has felt important to me to equip them with this knowledge; that we cannot control another person’s opinion or perception but can only remind ourselves of what is true to us and our own soul and values.

Watching ‘The Sinner’ I saw with perfect clarity how Biel’s character became entangled in a deeply toxic relationship from that simple place of unknowing. She did not know who she was, or even who she wanted to be, she was wide open to another’s interpretation of her and followed blindly down a path of self destruction based on the power of someone else’s opinion.

I remember that vulnerability so clearly. Flashbacks of short lived love affairs and countless first dates. As a most innocent example, I recall being obsessed with one man when I was 17 who finally finally finally asked me out and then I had absolutely nothing to offer him in conversation because I had no value in my own story. It is an excruciating memory and a salutary lesson.

The more painful picture was that I was easily able to capture a partner by primal sexual fever but I could not sustain a relationship because I offered only a veneer of personality entirely created by what I thought they wanted. There was no part of me that believed my true self had anything to offer and worse than that I didn’t even know what my true self was. Was I witty, sassy, smart, ditzy, fierce, gentle, interesting, boring? A bit of everything?

Julia Robert’s in Runaway Bride was a more lighthearted versions of Biel’s trauma; but she too evolved through her partners rather than herself, at the end making eggs numerous different ways to see what was her true favourite, previously being whatever her partner’s was.

At the darkest edge of this all is the possibility of where one might be led. I was taken to places by family, friends and lovers that deeply hurt my soul and spirit, that have left scars and also golden lessons, but that I don’t wish for anyone else to experience. I have believed the truth of myself that has come from other’s mouths and I have thought myself to be the worst type of human, the most unworthy and the most unlovable. It has taken decades to unravel my truth from theirs.

I am writing this from the female perspective but, in this time of gender dysphoria, this is truly an issue that is gender neutral. It is of critical importance for every human to be in deep and loving connection with their own soul.

If we don’t know our own truth then we leave the door wide open for someone to create that ‘truth’ for us and whether that comes from an energy of love or darkness, the end is nearly inevitably despair.

Whether we are gifted it from a healthy childhood or have to spend the rest of our life exploring it, knowing ourselves is the key to our personal treasure box of happiness and a vital piece of our healing.

Like for Like

When I was a teenager, my mother and I would get into vitriolic arguments, on a not infrequent basis, and I remember very clearly reaching a place where I said to myself ‘I will not let her see how much she hurts me’. I quickly learned how to respond to pain with a cold, hard exterior.

She was no longer able to see the effects of her words and actions on my soul, as much as they still wounded me internally. I felt more protected, safe and in control when my shutters came down and I could bat away the slights.

I needed to do that then, I didn’t have any other tools and it was a question of emotional survival. But during the recent weeks of upheaval in my relationship, I have realised how ingrained that technique is in my psyche and how disconnecting and triggering it has been to my partner.

As my awareness on this grows, I’ve noticed how many people hold similar traits, how natural our defensive hard stances are in response to perceived attack. I observe how the current representation of feminism seems to echo this too. Our societal responses are cold, hard and super boundaried.

And I get it, I haven’t been cold and hard to my partner because he’s an innocent bystander, we have created a dynamic between us that ping-pongs back and forth between our defence mechanisms. It is understandable that we have wanted to protect ourselves, sometimes from real threat, more often from projected theories, but it has not helped us to grow, to learn and discover our heartfelt truths.

In these past weeks when I’ve been unable to even pretend to protect my raw feelings, when my heart has been cracked open, I have also been seen and witnessed with restorative love and gentleness. As my defences fell, so it allowed the whole structure of defences between us to crumble and for total vulnerability, total truth, to be revealed and explored.

The mirror of our souls is a tenant of my belief, that like reflects like, but that is easily forgotten when it feels so natural to create protection from harm. If my walls are up, I may be safe but I am also disconnected, so it becomes a choice to risk the pain, risk the vulnerability, in order to have the chance for a more magnificent life than one that is simply safe.

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.

Values

I was recently challenged to ‘contribute’ more to my family through the means of bringing in income. It was directed at me with the implication that all I do is live off my husband and swan about.

Naturally, I felt hurt and insulted.

I work hard. Most days the only time I get to sit down between 6.30am and 8pm is in the car to and from the school run and at supper; my mind is constantly flitting from one ‘to do’ item to the next and wondering how many I can multitask simultaneously. Oh and yes about once a week I will meet a friend for a coffee or a catch up, my rest time, because my job is all-day-and-all-night-every-single-day, so a coffee break every now and then is just basic essential care.

Many articles have crossed checked the monetary value of a SAHM (Stay at Home Mum) and have discovered that to replicate their input into the household would require a vast outlay of money on separate personnel. But I don’t want to compare my job to gold coins, I want to shift the perspective to our core values, money is certainly a necessary commodity but it is not the ultimate need.

In relationships we discuss whether or not we have similar values, rarely does this simply mean how much finance each partner will contribute. More often than not these values include honesty, respect, communication, parenting choices and family relationships. Do the values marry? If so, these are signs of potentially strong and life-long relationships.

For me, wholesome values are not just in partnered relationships but across the board in friendships, work peers, community connections and of course within our parent/child dynamics.

So when my ‘value’ as a SAHM was narrowed into the crude description as to whether or not I brought home gold coins, I felt a deep grief for all that I provide to my family, for all the non-material value that is unacknowledged and underappreciated across our societal norms. I felt that grief ripple out to all those individuals who offer their voluntary acts of service to our community to care for the young, old, infirm, environment and animals, who are whitewashed into the background because they don’t bring gold bullion back home. How distorted have our societal values become when my job, to shape, nurture and guide our future generations, is dismissed as luxurious and frivolous?

For me, I hugely value the consistency and security my children receive to help their confidence flourish out into the world; to enable them to stretch their bungee ropes to distant discoveries and bounce right back again when they need. I know that my choice to stay at home is solely built on nurturing their human potential.

That potential is not about shaping them into the best lawyers or doctors, but to help them know their own happiness now and in their future, to help them have the courage to stand up for truth and honour, love and respect. And all that is a multi-levelled task; it covers presence, diet, response time, emotional well being, sleep, health & friendships.

My daughter recently described her future to me, when she would leave school, what her career would be, how many children she would have, the usual musings of the young and fearless! But what I heard in amongst her description what that she would take a career break to have children; she has chosen a career that she can step out of and return to when she wishes because she values what me being at home means to her and she wants to offer that back to her children too. It has been important to her, it has been of value.

There is a wonderful analogy in Heidi’s Children where the grandfather is on his deathbed and asks little Marta to go to the high pastures and pick him fresh strawberries. She does as he bids but, with the encouragement of her friends, instead of returning straight home, she sells them in the town and brings home money which she is told will bring her grandfather greater happiness. The grandfather is furious, for he had been looking forward to the succulent, refreshing strawberries all day, and he demands Marta bite the coin to see if it brings the same satisfaction.

This…

This is where our values are mistaken at times, there is no monetary replacement for nourishment, kindness and love and the most glorious thing about these is that they are absolutely free.

So next time someone challenges me to bring greater value to my family, I might just remind them that I gift strawberries not gold.