Blue skies ahead

“I am not sure what I shall do. Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected.”
“Most things don’t. But sometimes, what happens instead is the good stuff”
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

About a year ago, after much soul-searching, I was emotionally in a place where I wanted to move on. I wanted to begin a course. I wanted to try something different. I wanted to move away. I wanted to begin my new life.

I couldn’t. I still had to finish off the marital settlement and run the business.
I became stationed in this horrible place of being here and wanting to be there.
Everything was overwhelming me and I was in deep pain.

At the time many friends, family and supporters assumed I was still suffering the end of my marriage, the leaving of me by my husband, its emotional effects, and my shattered self-esteem. Whilst those issues added to my pain, they were no longer the main problem. What I was experiencing was not something that I had to ‘get over’. It was something that I had to ‘get through’. The problem, and hence my misery, was all the legal and practical things that still had to be done surrounding the marital settlement. There was still all that mud to trudge through, before I could begin my life as I wanted it.

I yearned for a better life yet to ‘get through’ to that better life, I had to put that better life aside. I had to put aside my dreams. I had to stop writing poetry. I had to stop planning my future. I had to stop indulging in soul-searching. I had to face what needed to be done and devote my time to getting done what I had to get done.

Nevertheless I had been instilled, with a vision of a better life.

In some ways, the vision made things much more painful. Up until that point, I had clung onto the remnants of my old life. The relative uncomfortableness surrounding my marriage end had become tolerable. I had become used to feeling under-par rather than happy. I had become used to scattered grey clouds over my head. I would smile and carry on.

However…

Once the vision of a better life had been planted in my head, that world I was in became a scary deep hole. There were no clouds to see. There was total darkness. It was the vision of a better place that made the world that I was in so painful and intolerable.

And yet …

It was the vision of me striding towards that better place that kept me going forward, that kept me trudging onwards through the mud, until I was through it on the other side.

which is where I am now –

• flitting from activity to activity unable to focus and not bothered that I can’t
• spending a lot of time faffing
• sorting out my own personal budget and knowing that it is all mine
• planning
• not planning
• watching drippy movies and not caring that I am wasting time
• feeling anxious (‘what on earth am I going to do with the rest of my life?’)
• feeling euphoric (‘I can choose to do whatever I want!’)
• back to my dreams of a wonderful future
• in a world of hope and happiness
• understanding there is still practical stuff to get done  – and knowing it will be
• knowing, as in the quote above, I am heading towards ‘the good stuff’

 

___________________________________________________________________________

Image courtesy[digitalart]/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Song: Jimmy Cliff version of the Johnny Nash hit ‘I can See Clearly Now’.

 

 

 

 

 

Feelings

It has been a roller-coaster of emotions for me these past eight weeks. On many days I have coped by blocking my emotions out. I have either acted by automatic pilot, and / or kept myself very busy, doing anything except taking the time to stop and simply feel my emotions. At other times, my emotions have poured out of me like a torrent of water from a broken tap that would not stop, and I felt things deeply.

My writing stopped for several weeks.

Then when I started writing my journal again, I wrote in a staccato, factual fashion, with no depth of feeling. That was because I was finding it very difficult to process five or six different emotions all at once. It became easier to describe what was happening, rather than how I was feeling. How could I describe all that I have been feeling? All the time my mind has been blank, yet racing at a thousand miles a second. How could I describe that?

Earlier this year I had been working through my transformation to the new me; beginning with my foundations of comfort, then moving on to my foundations of freedom, and the freedom to discover myself. As part of that process I had reached a point where I began to feel my own feelings. Like a light coming on, I realized that I had a right to those feelings, and a right to express those feelings. To some people, that may seem like a strange discovery. Not for me. To me, this was a revolution happening. It was a huge change.

For many years I had been suppressing how I really felt, I had been suppressing the true me inside myself. I was the product of growing up as the introverted sister with two extroverted siblings. I became the product of the introverted wife married to the ultra-extroverted husband. I learned to play the part of second fiddle. I learned to fix and support but never shine. I learned to think that I did not matter, that my feelings did not count, that my opinions were not that important, that what I did was not significant.

Earlier this year I found my own significance and my own feelings began to surface. When I began to feel my feelings and recognize them as my own feelings, I wrote down as the first part of my life purpose “to find my voice and speak my truth“. In other words, I had resolved, to not only act true to myself, but to also begin to speak out about being true to myself. I resolved to begin telling my whole story, to voice out loud how I really felt inside my heart and to express what I really thought, rather than what I thought other people would expect of me.

Then life got in the way.

Before I had a chance to write my story (the story that had been), more of life began happening. Life unfolded in an expected and sudden way and I was swept along by a stream of emotions: joy and sadness, hope and desperation, elation and disappointment, aloneness and togetherness, comfort and distress, brokenness and harmony, confusion and clarity, quandary and resolution, closed and open, indecisiveness and decisiveness, anger and calmness.

At first I could not process them, to feel them. Then I did. I began to feel them. Some of them hurt, yet I allowed myself to feel their intensity.  The numbness that had been blocking out my emotions lifted. It had been so foreign to me to allow myself to feel any emotions. It was even more foreign to express those emotions.

Yet, to feel them is to live more fully, to express them is to become true to myself.

To write about them is now, for me, a necessity.

____________________________________________________________________

Images:Courtesy[Africa]FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Love under a rainbow

 

 

My second son was married two weeks ago. It was a glorious affair over six days on the Cook Islands.  It was the coming together of our family and my new daughter-in-law’s family and all of the couple’s friends. It was the coming together of my family and my ex-husband’s family for the first time since our separation. It was the first major milestone that we had faced since that separation.

It was not without an undercurrent of fear (on my part) in meeting up with my ex-husband in these circumstances and wondering how to react with him. However, it was time to put all that aside and make it a happy occasion for my son and his wife to be.

Prior to the wedding, we had managed to arrange a family get together with the happy couple in Sydney for my mother and my two nephews and families who could not make it to the wedding. We were able to bring together for the first time my mother’s six little great-grand-daughters, including my two grand-daughters, all under five. They looked so cute together. It was a happy day. Due to some wonderful friends, we were also able to arrange care for my mother for a few days so that my sister could also attend the wedding, albeit she would only attend for two nights.

Once on the island, I was able to relax and I had a wonderful time. I shared a villa with two of my children, my sister (on the two nights she came), my brother-in-law, and my niece. My brother and his family were in the villa next to us. We were able to have some close family gatherings and chats long into the night. It was a wonderful time of togetherness.

I even did some kayaking and had a pedicure 🙂

The wedding ceremony itself on the fifth day was beautiful and many tears of joy and happiness were shed, along with some nostalgic tears, and some sad tears that my son would now reside in Canada – so far away.

Then it came to the reception and speeches.

When I turned sixty earlier this year, I gave a little speech about my life being like a tree. I described the roots of the tree as my ancestral and extended family; the trunk of the tree as representing my friends, acquaintances, education, talents and experiences; and the branches of the trees my children and grand-children. I had described how my tree was spreading the seeds of the values inherited from my family, and those I had formed myself.

When it came to my turn for giving a speech, I had thought I would use the same imagery of the tree. However, I could not see where my son and new daughter-in-law would fit. Would she become part of my tree? Would my son become part of her tree? Would they start growing their own tree?

Then, instead of a tree, I thought of the imagery of a rainbow.

A rainbow represents harmony. To me, having the wedding in such a setting with all of us coming together to help celebrate, was like a rainbow. It was the promise of new beginnings, after the storm. The arches of the rainbow represented the joining together of my son’s family and my new daughter-in-law’s family. Each colour of each arch of the rainbow represented each parent and grandparent and their families, and we were joined together in harmony by the union of my son and his new wife. This was the promise to them of the rainbow and its message of hope. Within that rainbow, there were the gifts that had been given to them by all the generations that went before them.

Red for passion and excitement.
Orange for vitality and good health.
Yellow for the promise of new beginnings.
Green for compassion and kindness, and for this great earth.
Blue for the courage to speak up for their beliefs.
Indigo for love and companionship.
Violet for peace, temperance and wisdom..
The full rainbow for embracing love in harmony.

That was my message to them for their wedding.

And this (by sheer coincidence) was their wedding song.

 

________________________________________________________________

Image courtesy[Tao55]/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

Protected: mother

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Foundations of Freedom – find my voice and speak my truth

” I was going to die sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you… Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest its personal. And the world will not end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will fall in love with your own vision, which you may never have realised you had… And at last you’ll know with surprising certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.” Audre Lorde

Here is part of what I wrote in my last post:

“We now have the freedom to vote, choose, express opinion, work and earn money, associate or assemble with those of our choosing, become educated, or be elected into positions of power… We are now free to pursue whatever we desire in terms of our dress, our leisure activities and our relationships with each other – in both the coming together or the breaking apart.”

I do not believe all that is true. It appears to be true. In reality it is not all true. I believe all members of our society do not have all those freedoms (of speech, expression, opinion, assembly, education etc). I believe every person in inter-personal relationships or in social groups do not have the same freedoms or power to speak as others. I believe they should have. One of my goals is to find my voice and to express my opinion and my beliefs on that. This is something that is burning within my soul. My desire to speak those truths.

That has become part of my purpose:

My purpose is to find my voice and to speak my truth.

 

 

_____________________________________________________

Images:Courtesy[stoonn]FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Healing from the pain of betrayal

“You’ve got to accentuate the positive.
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative.
Don’t mess with mister in between.”
Johnny Mercer

 

 

Intimate betrayal is when someone very close has hurt you by abuse, aggression or constant criticism; or failed to take care of your well-being by deceit, infidelity or abandonment. The betrayal cuts deep because of the broken trust and an expectation of continual love and care. The resultant pain is intense and long-lasting. It is accompanied by the raging symptoms of anxiety, dread, deep sadness, guilt, shame and resentment.

Since my husband left me, many a day I have cried out, ‘please just stop the pain!’

Consider this situation.

Children are playing outside and kick a ball against a window. The window breaks and shatters. Inside, a shard of glass flings out and plunges into your arm creating a deep cut with profuse bleeding and deep pain. What do you do? You may run outside, work out who kicked the ball, then berate that child for his bad behaviour. You could look at the window, consider why it shattered and postulate why the glass cut so deep. You could grab a towel and mop up the bleeding. Alternatively, you may give painkillers to numb the pain.

Meanwhile you bleed to death.

The cure for a deep cut is attending to the cut, not numbing the pain, mopping up the bleeding  or working out who to blame. I know that. Yet when I was confronted with the pain of betrayal and abandonment I spent some time analyzing my ex-husband’s behaviour, my behaviour; and our marriage with its strengths and weaknesses. I wanted to know, why, why, why? Then I spent some time relieving the gushing symptoms of anger, sadness, anxiety, loneliness and resentment. When that didn’t completely work, I spent a lot of time numbing out the pain by living in the joys of today, engaging in pleasurable and / or distracting activities; or keeping busy. More recently I have wondered why the pain had not completely stopped and I had not fully healed.

I had not addressed the pain. The pain went so deep that I had tried to ignore it, cover it up, numb it out or avoid it rather than face it.

Pain is a signal, a call to action.
If you put your hand on a hotplate, it is a signal to remove your hand or it will burn.
If you present to your doctor with a headache, it must firstly be ascertained whether there is underlying stress, migraine, lack of sleep, or brain tumour; before planning a course of action.

Emotional pain is also a signal, a call to action.
It is not a signal to heal the past, it is a signal to heal the present. It is a protective signal that there is something in your current life that you need to change.

While the obvious symptoms pouring out from the cut of betrayal, abandonment and its aftermath were anger, humiliation, resentment, sadness, anxiety and guilt; I gradually learned these were stemming from the emotional pain underneath of feeling disregarded, unlovable and devalued;  losing something valuable (my 37 year marriage); having a sense of dread for the future; and feeling that my own values had in some way been violated.

These signals of emotional pain are a call to action for me. In order to heal from this pain, I need to focus on raising my self-regard; becoming more loveable; increasing my competence; building on my relationships with family, friends and other connections; facing and planning for my future; and abiding by my conviction to live by my values.

This is my action plan: each time I experience any form of emotional pain, I will pause and recognise this as a call to action. I will eliminate any reactive ‘fright, flight or fight’ thoughts. I will remember my core values of courage, kindness and fairness. I will then plan an action response in one of the following areas:

• Protection
• Connection
• Contribution
• Creation
• Celebration

These will become my Foundations of Comfort as I rebuild my life.

(Note: I think the last sentence in the quote helps a lot too 🙂 )

_______________________________________________________________________

You may want to read Living and Loving after Betrayal. Steven Stosny

A Little Ray Of Sunshine

Hello all, I have been busy becoming a grand-mother again 🙂

This is MY Life!!

I HAVE HAD AN EPIPHANY!

A light has come on.

When my husband abandoned our marriage, he went overseas. I was left with the business to run. I felt that I could not walk away from it. At the time, I was in the midst of all the personal angst surrounding the separation and I had not had time to process what had happened. I had not had time to fathom out what I needed or what I wanted to do with my life. Now I have. The business carries a risk. I am no longer comfortable to carry that on my own. So, at the stroke of midnight, I have pulled away from our draft settlement and it is back to the table for further discussions.

If you have never had an epiphany, it is a strange experience. For me it occurred when visiting my mother. Full of angst about the signing of our marital agreement and what I was taking on, I looked up at the sky. Light was breaking through from behind storm clouds and a strong yet simple realisation dawned on me. I still had a choice. This was my epiphany.

While I had not yet fully worked out what I do want to do with my life, I had worked out what I do not want to do and be.

I am not Mrs Fix-it anymore.

I need to begin to think of me and what is right for me going forward.

This Is My Life
as performed by Shirley Bassey

Funny, how a lonely day
Can make a person say
What good is my life

Funny, how a breaking heart
Can make me start to say
What good is my life

Funny, how I often seem To think
I’ll find another dream
In my life

Till I look around and see
This great big world is part of me
And my life

This is my life, today, tomorrow
Love will come and find me
But that’s the way that I was born to be
This is me,
this is me

This is my life
and I don’t Give a damn for lost emotions
I’ve such a lot of love,
I’ve got to give
Let me live,
let me live

Sometime when I feel afraid
I think of what a mess I’ve made
Of my life

Crying over my mistakes
Forgetting all the breaks
I’ve had In my life

I was put on earth to be
A part of this great world is me
And my life

Guess I’ll just add up the score
And count the things I’m grateful for
In my life

This is my life, today, tomorrow
Love will come and find me
But that’s the way that I was born to be
This is me,
this is me

This is my life
and I don’t Give a damn for lost emotions
I’ve such a lot of love,
I’ve got to give
Let me live,
let me live

This is my life
This is my life
This is my life

Coming Home to Calm

I thought it was timely to reflect at how far I had come along my self-professed journey of ‘Transforming My Life From We to We’ as today marks eighteen months since my husband left me.

The first part of my journey was the emotional ending of ‘we’; which encompassed emotional upheaval, organising the physical chaos, learning to live alone, mourning what had been lost; then finally letting go and accepting myself as a complete individual, rather than half of a couple. In tandem with that – and not yet over – has been the traumatic legal ending of ‘we’ by divorce, a drawn-out process that has kept me in a constant limbo-land of neither being ‘we’ nor ‘me’ and unable to completely move on. I am pleased to write that this week documents have been sent for us to sign off on our property settlement. One more cloud lifted.

During my journey of ending ‘we’, I have stopped at times to savour the special moments of the day, to reflect on all I have to be grateful for, and for what I have learned.

The next part of my journey has been a rediscovery of my self. This began as a quiet reflection of who and what I am that I cannot change (being a woman, the age I am, and having my own personality); and then beginning thoughts on those things about myself that I could change if I wanted to. I deliberately took some time to reflect on those inner parts of me that I would strive to keep, change or let go of. The starting point of that reflection has been a close examination and affirmation of my inner core of values, beliefs and attitudes. As I reaffirmed these, I determined that I would never lose that part of myself, my inner core that makes me who I am.

As I progressed along my journey there was the gradual realisation that I could not necessarily let go of some parts of me that I wanted to let go of, even if I wanted to. Some thoughts and feelings that keep resurfacing. Some weaknesses that remain. I thought to move forward after an adversity, you had to keep strong and you had to stop thinking negative thoughts. What I have learned is that you can move on despite those thoughts and feelings. I have learned that  there will always be two parts of me. One part of me will remain sad about the past, anxious and fearful for the future, with little confidence in my ability to cope or create a path forward. That side of me keeps saying ‘you can’t do this!’. The other part of me is hopeful, optimistic, confident; and will sit, plan and prioritise. That voice keeps saying ‘yes you can’.

As I begin planning my way from my inner self into the outer world, readying myself to stride forward, today I know there will always be those two parts of my inner core. I now accept my two inner parts.

Today, the strong defiant one, so determined to succeed, is taking the weaker softer one by the hand, and saying – ‘Come with me, we can do this together. Together we can move forward, together we can go home. And at home there will be peace and there will be calm’.

Artist: Phillip Phillips

“Home”

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m gonna make this place your home
Settle down, it’ll all be clear
Don’t pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home
Ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. oo-oo-oo-oo [x2]
Aaa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa. aa-aa-aa-aaaaaa [x2]
.

My attitudes # 8. Tenacity. Climb Every Mountain

Never give in. Never, never, never, never, never
Winston Churchill

I do not really think I can really add much to what I have found to be one of the most encouraging quotes, one of the most inspirational poems, and one of my favourite songs of all times; that sum up the striving within me to keep onwards and upwards, heading towards my goals and dreams.

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

– Author unknown