Sorry younger generation, we stuffed up!

Sorry everyone, we stuffed up.

We the baby boomers.

Our parents came out of surviving the depression and World War 2 determined to make the world a better place, and determined that their children (us) would know a safer era than them. And they did (make the world a better place). And we did (enjoy a safer better childhood than they ever knew). They focussed on home, community, and inclusiveness and we all grew up feeling safe and secure. We inherited a much better world in our twenties than they did … because of them.

In turn, our generation fought for women’s liberation, pacifism, civil rights for all, and sustainability. We did make some progress there.

However, it seems the world is now turning against law, order, the ‘establishment’, democracy, tolerance and common sense. Europe and America are catastrophically divided down the middle. Australia now has ‘border control’ rather than ‘immigration’. WHAT is happening?

Our parents crawled out of the pits of the depression and World War 2 and tried to make things better in the 1950s and 1960s. But rather than carry on the legacy of our parents, and indeed the things we as a generation fought for in our twenties, we baby boomers took to thinking that it was all about us and economic prosperity and we have blown that safe secure world of our childhood, that our parents and grandparents left for us.

Now suddenly it is all going backwards to the dark ages. And unfortunately it has been OUR generation in leadership that has overseen this worrying trend.

Sorry younger generation, we stuffed up.

So there is the temptation to HIDE, try and normalize the abnormal, and hope that the younger generation will one day fix up all this mess …

I can’t.

I have three grand-children. I cannot have them look me in the eye and ask me in twenty years time … “how could you have let this happen?”. In my own little patch, I just have to keep fighting for what I believe is right.

I must carry on. I cannot let what is happening in the world of politics stop me doing my own little bit to try and make the world a better place. As an individual, all that I think is right and good (inclusiveness in society, caring for people less fortunate, saving the planet, and pacifism) is STILL right and is STILL good. I must carry-on believing in all that and spreading that word far and wide, so that will be the world my grand-children will know.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men – and women – (my addition) do nothing” Edmund Burke

There is much truth in that.

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climbing out of black holes

“If someone comes along and shoots an arrow into your heart, its fruitless to stand there and yell at the person. It would be much better to turn your attention to the fact that there’s an arrow in your heart.” Pema Chodron

When my marriage collapsed, and especially because of the way it collapsed, I felt stunned, vulnerable and scared. I felt like a knife had been pushed into my heart. I felt I had been wronged.

After the initial shock I began reading as much as I could, books, articles, blogs. Many of those sources tended to focus on the ex-spouse. In that regard, there is much space in the ‘divorce’ genre devoted to the diagnosis (usually by unqualified people) of personality defects (such as narcissist or sociopath) or them going through a mid-life crisis or similar that may have led the ex-spouse to do what they did. Because at the time I felt so bad about myself, then reading about that did provide some comfort that there may have been something wrong with “him”, rather than something wrong with “me” and I was simply a victim of my ex-husband’s action. As for my own writing, I didn’t focus so much on negative things about him but I did focus on the event of the marriage collapse itself, the suddenness of it, how painful it was and what a bad thing to have happened to me. In that regard, I was still a victim, of a bad event.

If bad things happen, I do think that one does have to work through negative feelings associated with the event. However, at some point, and this started very early for me and then grew, I decided to focus on myself and improving myself rather than focus on what had happened and why. Later on when I became overwhelmed by the amount that had to be done in the divorce process and financial settlement, I began to re-frame that process as a step towards my new life. In other words, I focussed on getting out of the hole, rather than being in the hole. I did not realise how far I had come until recently I read a post by someone I follow who – years later – is still focussed on a past event and being in a hole. I felt sad for that person that that meant they were still in the hole.

I still apply two vital techniques that I learned to get through the difficult days of climbing out of my hole, in getting through any difficulty in my current days.

(a) If something happens that I was not expecting that conjures up negative feelings –

After an initial anxiety period thinking about that ‘bad’ event, I instead turn my attention to improvement in one or more areas of my life:

• protection
• connection
• contribution
• creation
• celebration

I focus on healing or protecting myself or family members; fostering better connections with my children, grandchildren and others in my life; or I focus on making a greater contribution to society, or becoming creative, or looking forward to and planning a celebratory event. In other words I try and focus on the positive in my life OR on making improvements in my life or in the life of someone else. If I do focus on positive things or on improvement, then it is impossible to feel sad or bad and the negative feelings about what has happened begin to fade away.

(b) If there is something horrible that I need to get done –

Instead of focusing on how awful it is, I try and focus on the better place that task will take me to. That can be a simple matter of getting mundane horrible tasks done (such as bills paid, or tax returns done, or tidying and cleaning finished) so that my mind is then clear to enjoy my days. For major necessary practical things that can sometimes literally overwhelm me, I focus on the better place that the tasks will take me to.

I applied these techniques to many of the steps of the marital settlement and I am now applying these to the practical steps of moving house.

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Flying high

 

Just a short post to keep in touch …

I have been away for two months, visiting my son in Canada, daughter-in-law and my brand new gorgeous baby grand-daughter. I spent two weeks in Vancouver, three weeks travelling (Alberta, San Francisco, Whistler) two weeks back in Vancouver, then some time in Sydney with my siblings before heading back to Tasmania.

After a fairly intensive seven year period, this was a wonderful time for me. For eight weeks I was able to leave my ‘must-be-done’ things behind. I was finally spreading my wings. Even though I have travelled here and there over the past five years, mostly that has been going to or from people at one or the other end. This time, as I could not stay with my son as they only have a tiny place, I spent quite a lot of time on my own; seeing new places; navigating buses, trains, planes, accommodation, tourist events, shops, restaurants, food swamps, taxis, walking trails, and hospitals; and had many new experiences – all on my own.

• I met some wonderful people including bloggers Ian, Diana, (she posted a picture of me)  and Louise.
• I attended a stimulating conference in Santa Rosa and met many like-minded people.
• I had an accident on a bus one day and ended up in Vancouver Accident and Emergency for several hours (but I survived!)
• I navigated various restaurants and food swamps and – despite my very tricky diet balancing food sensitivities with a determination to have healthy food – I did manage to find foods to eat wherever I went. I came home the exact same weight as when I left.

Now back in Tasmania, my feelings about what I call ‘home’ are mixed.

I am soon to be moving on as I have purchased a house near two of my children in the Hobart environs. I will be relocating there in the new year. Hopefully with faster internet connection, when I move there I can return to more frequent blogging again.

I do miss you all.

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So much to do!!

When my marriage collapsed I was thrown into an emotional roller-coaster. At the same time I became overwhelmed with the practical, legal financial things that needed to be done due to the separation. In order to cope I went through a long laborious process of prioritizing everything I had to do, putting aside things I could leave until later and dropping out of my life anything non-essential. This was all so that I could focus on getting the marital settlement completed, which took nearly four years.

Some of those things put aside were very big things such as selling the business and selling the business premises, which then had to be prioritized once the marital settlement was done. For a long time there was simply no let-up!

More recently with the business sold (December 2014), the marital settlement completed (May 2015), administrative functions associated with its closure completed (October 2015), over 700 archive boxes of records sorted or disposed (March 2016), and finally business premises sold (July 2016), it is finally the end of the last joint financial tie with my ex-husband. It has been as if this huge ten ton weight has finally lifted from my shoulders and a black veil lifted from my eyes.

Over the past few months, even though I have had more energy and enthusiasm, I have also been able to see other things … normal things … I now been able to see all these other things needing doing and I have been busy getting them all done.

Getting my own health and well-being in order.
Sorting through my mother’s affairs.
Sorting out family photos.
Visiting my siblings.
Visiting friends.
Going to visit my daughter six times in a year.
Baby-sitting my grand-children.
Changing things into my name that used to be joint names.
Sorting through my clothes.
Buying some new clothes.
Tidying out my cupboards.
Sorting out the shed.
Having my hair done.
Burning stuff off.
More baby-sitting of grand-children.
Helping my daughter move.
Storing stuff in a storage shed.
More baby-sitting of grand-children.
Helping my daughter set up a new flat.
Attending my daughter’s graduation for her Master’s degree.
(With my siblings) giving a talk to a local historical society about my parents.
Keeping busy.
Relaxing.

I have been SO busy!!!

In that period, sometimes when the phone rang or I heard the ping of an email coming through I would have a mini PTSD reaction and think to myself … ‘what now’. But then when it ended up to be some trivial thing or someone contacting me about normal things, I have gradually realized that life isn’t always one crisis after another. I remind myself that those distressing days are finally over and there is no need to be fearful anymore.

So that is what I have been doing the past six months.
Keeping very busy, in a happy sort of way.

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My need for people – to receive and give back

In the early months after the collapse of my marriage, I felt disconnected from all those people I had previously known.

Then I read about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Some parts of his theory made a lot of sense, that our needs develop one step at a time, beginning with basics (food, warmth, shelter); then stability (safety, routine); before moving to higher needs … connections with people, self-esteem, and self-actualization. I am not an expert in psychology but I do know that after a crisis working ‘up the scale’ had always been a powerful tool of recovery for me, (with an understanding that after divorce the “crisis” may last several years with no end-point to the requirement for stability and a feeling of protection!) …

HOWEVER …

What I didn’t and don’t understand about this theory is how “connections” appear in the middle layer, something to move up to. Whenever I have faced a crisis of any kind, I have always felt that I have needed people as much as, if not even more than, when feeling ‘normal’. This has been especially true after a separation such as a death or my divorce because it was the loss of that connection (due to the loss of that person who has died or left, or loss of associations with that person) that was at the very root of the crisis in the first place.

After and during my divorce process, there were losses of many connections or sense of connection for me.

• My partner, companion and confidante.
• My nuclear family.
• My extended husband’s extended family.
• The circle of friends that had been ‘ours’.
• The community groups that we had jointly belonged to.
• The loss of sharing management of the business.
• In selling the business, the loss of belonging to my work ‘tribe’.
• In selling the business, there was also a sense of loss of me contributing to society. Many people going through retirement experience this same sense of loss.
• Feeling disconnected from others, who have not faced the same financial pressures
• On retirement, feeling disconnected from friends and family of the same age who can now move into their next phase of life together.

Some of these ‘disconnections’ happened immediately, while others dissolved further on in the separation process. In some the connection remained but with a need to redevelop that connection in new ways, such as redefining the concept of ‘family’. So a year ago at the ending of the marital settlement, four years after separation, everyone said ‘now it is all over for you’, whereas in reality the changes to my life had only just begun. For the first time in my life I was truly alone –  practically, financially, legally, emotionally, and socially.

Yet, throughout all this separation process, I have moved up and on. I believe this was what was happening to me. While I did move up a hierarchy of needs after my crisis, concurrently with that, I also moved up a hierarchy of a need for people. This moved from needing comfort from them, to standing alone, meeting them as equals, to giving back.

This is my hierarchy of needs for people –

1. Protection. In the beginning I needed people to comfort me, protect me, advise me.
2. Aloneness. I then had to reconnect with myself. This was important, to stand alone.
3. Partnerships. I formed deep connections with close friends and family, one on one. They were initially replacement confidantes and support – for that lost marital ‘partnership’. In time, those people began to lean on me for my support of them. I became strong for them in their own hours of need.
4. Herds. I have formed like-minded groups of small numbers of people. I re-formed my connections with my nuclear family, my siblings, work colleagues and small groups of close friends. These groups have become mutually beneficial to us all. I have both received and contributed as friend, sister, mother, daughter, grandmother.
5. Tribe. I have reconnected with my large extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews. I have formed connections in my blogging world. I belong.

Three levels of hierarchy that I previously had that are still lost and yet remain as a burning need within me. These are a contribution to –

1. Community.
2. Society.
3. Global needs

This has become my new sense of purpose and goals – to use my voice on speaking out for a world of peace, a safe environment for future generations and universal health for all.

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I am back (again)!

Hello all.

I have returned from a road trip to NSW visiting many friends and relatives, as well as my main project of sorting through my mother’s unit. I have been away nearly three months and, while I had visions of writing a lot while away, I became so busy the blog posts just didn’t happen. I became engrossed in living life and as such … there simply wasn’t time.

I stayed at Mum’s unit most of the time and re-connected with those in her neighbourhood and community, as well as getting myself into a fairly healthy routine of a morning walk of about an hour and another half hour walk each afternoon.

I had a nostalgic transportation back in time. All aspects of my life became intermingled as I sorted through Mum’s things, and I explored my old neighbourhood. I rediscovered my grandparents through their letters and photos. I lived in a bygone era as I read my mother’s diaries of the war and depression – a time that I had never lived in and my mother had kept alive – an era that had died with her death which became alive again as I sorted through her things. I relived my childhood and my teenage years each day walking the length and breadth of my old childhood town. I spent valuable time with my siblings, some cousins and close friends.

Most importantly, however, I had a break from the “restructuring” of my life, that has been ongoing for the past four and a half years. I spent 10 weeks staying still, living for the day, and drinking in those small moments of contentment each and every day. For 10 weeks I put aside the practicalities of my own life changes ahead and simply was … me.

I had a fantastic time.

I hope to catch up with you all over the coming weeks.

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My H.E.A.L.T.H. plan – H is for Habits

In my H.E.A.L.T.H.plan, H = Health Habits encompass all the other targets of keeping myself Headstrong (mindful), Eating right, remaining Active, adapting my Lifestyle, and keeping myself on Track. It became easier when all these became Habits. This is the hardest step in the whole process as it meant forming healthy rituals, sometimes against a prevailing wind of less-healthy rituals that only serve to drag me down.

The Foundations

Many of my winning habits have involved getting the food issues correct. I have done this from a very early age by giving up confectionery and chocolate at the age of twelve, switching from frying foods to grilling foods after my father had a heart attack when I was 15, cutting out deep fried foods and high fat foods in my early twenties, and cutting out most added fats and refined foods in my thirties.

The Crumbling Walls

In the busy years of caring for young children, working almost full-time, maintaining the house and managing the business, everything took priority over me and my health. The flimsy walls laid on top of what could be regarded as strong foundations began to crumble. This happened ever-so-slowly resulting in a gradual weight gain of about 1 kilogram (two pounds) every three years. That is not very much and indeed almost unnoticeable but over forty years it added up.

On reaching that point, of being unhappy with my weight, I began blaming myself and thinking there must be some food I was eating that was ‘bad’ (there wasn’t) and should be avoided. I will make a point here that I do feel excess fats, sugars and refined foods can contribute to weight gain. However, in my case, I wasn’t eating many of those because of the strong foundations I had laid. That wasn’t the problem. Nevertheless, because of all those diet-scare books and blogs proclaiming on one hand that all poultry, eggs and fish should be avoided (vegan diets) or all potatoes, pasta and bread should be avoided (low-carb diets), I found myself in this culture of a sacrificial approach to weight control. Any attempt by ‘dieting’ made me miserable (giving up foods I enjoy), guilty (if I broke the diet) or stupid (if I regained weight) which simply fueled me feeling bad about myself.

Rebuilding

Like an epiphany in January 2015, instead of focussing on avoidance I began thinking about what I was doing right (the strong foundations) and what had led me to sometimes eat more than I should or eat in an unhealthful way or not move as much as I could.

It comes down to four basic reasons –

• comfort (using food when I was feeling distressed, depressed or anxious)
• convenience (grabbing something quickly rather than taking my time to prepare a balanced healthy meal)
• celebrations (being sucked into the cultural shift of a need to celebrate four times a week, 52 weeks a year)
• culinary delights (dining in style – with all the trimmings – four times a day).

It took much self-therapy to get over the distress of my marital break-up before I stopped turning to food as a comfort and taking the time to get back into the routine of having healthy foods and regular exercise. These are not to be understated as important contributory factors of taking me back to the road of good health. It is, however, the last two reasons that are for me the deal-breaker. Celebrations and culinary delights.

Traditions have slipped into our culture that I incorporated in my own lifestyle that did not serve me well – daily cafe lattes, regular meals out (where the meals tended to be higher in fat, sugar and alcohol), any excuse to celebrate, and indulging in culinary delights every day of the year. Some foods and meal-types I had been having regularly over the past two decades were in my younger days special treats for me indulged only about four times a year. It wasn’t that any of these foods or meals or celebrations were “bad” or needed to be avoided … it was just that they had become too frequent.

Nevertheless, wanting to remain healthy and see my grand-children grow up has been a major driving force for me to form new habits to counteract this societal pressure to celebrate four times a day 365 days a year. It has not been easy (yet thoroughly worthwhile) to develop the habit of a hierarchy of indulgences. There is much merit in same-old basic foods every day, saving some special foods to have with my social contacts twice weekly (for me, cafe lattes and / or alcohol), and reserve meals with “all the trimmings” only for tribal celebrations once or twice a month. 

I believe this has been the main reason for success of my H.E.A.L.T.H.plan that I am winning and yet incorporating my social encounters into my plan and thoroughly enjoying those times.

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Does grief really have stages and if you work through them are you over it?

When my marriage collapsed and dark emotions ran rampant, it was a comfort to me to learn that I was in a state of shock and grieving, similar to what one goes through after someone has died. The intense feelings I had were a normal part of grief with its supposed stages of shock, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. It helped me to know that I would pass through those stages. In fact, I made an aim to accelerate through quickly. I felt that if I got to the last stage – that of ‘acceptance’ – then the pain would go away.

How wrong I was.

I wrote a lot about those stages. I felt that I did progress through them but I never did reach a state of ‘acceptance’, where I felt that what happened had to happen. I did eventually ‘acknowledge’ that it had happened which was a turning point of sorts, understanding that my marriage belonged to a past world. In reaching that point however, of acknowledging my past life was gone, the pain did not simply go away. In many ways I had simply reached a beginning point, of learning to make my way in my changed world, with a new today, and a different future. The intense grief I had experienced was just the beginning of more pain for me.

Apart from my marriage there were other losses I mourned in the grief process such as the loss of my intact family and the loss of my financial security. Even now – over four years later and well over that grieving process – it is the here and now that is difficult, being a single mother and grandmother, and trying to make it financially with a bruised asset base. It is the practicalities of keeping on going another day, in another way.

In my case the stage theory seemed to work because I kept pushing myself to get through the stages. However, I can see now that it could have been a draw-back if I had thought any ‘stage’ (sadness for example) would magically pass and I would simply move onto the next stage. It didn’t happen like that for me. In fact I was so scared that I could become ‘stuck’ in a stage if I did not work to get through it, that I continually took steps to deal with the feelings I experienced, and learned to acknowledge my changed world of today. I do not know whether it really helped me doing that … or whether I would have simply passed through those stages regardless … or even whether I could have got through less painfully if I had simply let them happen, rather than trying to wish them away.

Another draw-back of the stage theory is that the stages can return again and again (although often with less intensity each time). By that I mean that I would seemingly get over an intense feeling such as anger or sadness and then that feeling would return. This is quite normal and yet when it first happened to me I thought there was something wrong with me. Once that happened it led me into a downward spiral of low moods and a new intense pain – the pain of feeling bad about myself, that I was not doing very well. It was only the voice of a dear friend who one day said to me ‘this is normal’ (what I was feeling) and ‘you are normal’ (how I was behaving) that brought me out of that deep dark chasm.

So here I am enjoying my new world of today (and I truly am) and looking forward to my exciting future (honestly I am) … but sometimes there is still that lump in my throat, that pain in my chest, that catch in my breath, and that intense feeling of loss.

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I am back!

 

I’m back!

I have terrible internet connection over the past six months. I tried to keep up with everyone as best as I could but over the last month it became too frustratingly slow, so I had a little break from blogging.

In the meantime, I have been working through that check-list … that one that will see me moving from my house.

With better internet now, I will fill you all in on that over the next few weeks and on everything else that has been happening. And I will catch up with all of you and say hello to you on your own websites.

See you soon 🙂

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Transitioning to my Transition!!

 

No I am not moving (yet).

Later today I will be moving those business documents (that need to be retained for five years) into an official storage facility. They will finally be out of my head-space.

Yay!

With my old life packed away, I will be able to transition to my transition – that world where I will be on my way to my new life.

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