As 2020 draws to a close, I was reflecting on a piece of news an old colleague of mine had posted about a lovely surprise holiday her husband had booked to a tropical location at the end of next year. Probably like many people, I am unsure whether that kind of travel will be possible again by then, but I started to wonder whether that was even the right question to be asking myself.

In his article 15 Great Quotes on the Importance of Asking the Right Question Mitch Ditkoff states how, as a consultant, he continues to be astounded by how few organisations have any kind of process to press pause, reflect and make sure they are coming up with the right questions. 

Setting aside questions about COVID19 itself for now, I started to think back to those early lockdowns, when much of the world seemed to stand still. It was a time when we as a family got to pause, reflect and take stock.

I can understand people wanting to get back to holidays and social activities, but what did that pause shed light on? There were reports of Venice’s canals running clearer, the clearest they’ve been in sixty years. An article in Science Direct sadly concluded (after research looking at the effects on the environment during the first global lockdowns) “Coronavirus itself is Earth’s vaccine and we humans are the virus”.

Talk of holidays and “getting back to normal” evokes in me a sense of frustration. I’m going to ignore the expression “the new normal” for the moment, because that seems to be more associated with control and fear, and that is not the kind of future I’m envisaging. But this idea of life going back to the way it was before the global pandemic seems ridiculous to me.

It has amplified so many issues about our environment and our social, political, economic, technological and personal challenges that it is a time in history ripe for change.

But having witnessed the relatively quick return to a lack of human connection between commuters in London after terrorist attacks in the early part of the millennium, I know how quickly distraction sets in.

During the lockdown here back in March through May, I revelled in being able to stroll out my front door and walk peacefully through our neighbourhood. But as soon as the restrictions were lessened, road traffic increased and the peaceful walks became crowded with road noise and traffic fumes, so now I have to get in my car to drive elsewhere if I want to take a peaceful walk.

I loved that my car did not get its tank refilled for over two months, it weighs on me that I consume fossil fuels. Yet, like many people around the world, I have commitments that would be extremely difficult to meet without running a vehicle. How can I find ways to change this?

How many governments and major political parties right now are even thinking about the lessons this crisis has taught us and have evolution on their agenda?

That said, I know my most effective voting takes place through the money I spend and the things I give my attention to. So where am I placing my attention? What am I spending money on? Am I using my resources in a way that would encourage the kind of change and transformation that could be for the benefit of not just me or my family, but for all of humankind, the creatures and the living planet on which we all reside?

I learned this year that I have white privilege. What other privileges do I hold? How can I give other people the benefit of my privileges? How can I help dismantle the systems of oppression within myself and for others?

I also learned from The Social Dilemma documentary that social media is six times more effective at spreading false news. Since conspiracy theories have abounded in 2020, I’ve watched friends and family become polarized on important topics to a degree that neither side seems able to hear the other.

I’ve had to ask myself, am I using social media as a tool? Or am I letting it demand my attention and manipulate my thinking? And where is my own resistance to hearing others’ opinions?
 
I learned that, in a time when our country faced a health risk, our government cut off the supply to my chosen form of healthcare and made only pharmaceuticals available. What can I do to ensure I maintain a freedom of choice in my healthcare even in times of crisis?

I learned that I was absolutely spot-on in my self assessment that I am not cut out to home school my children. Yet being able to give them and their schoolwork such individual attention led me to asking the right questions that uncovered their neurodiversity, and still more questions to find the right support and training so they can flourish. I wonder how I can support all children in their uniqueness to flourish?

I learned the importance of self sustainability. With panic buying, a lack of groceries and no access to garden supplies, keeping emergency supplies and a variety of fresh things to eat growing in our garden became more important. It highlighted all the problems I had known about with mono-farming and the way we currently source goods and services from around the world. What more can I do with our budget to encourage local and organic businesses?

I learned that reconnecting with my partner and children was simultaneously challenging and liberating. It brought about a huge amount of personal change in terms of consciously shaking off old beliefs and behavioural patterns that weren’t serving us. Where to next on that I wondered?

And then I got one of Claire Zammit’s emails that asked seven power questions:

• Where in your life have you most felt like yourself this past year?
• What have been the greatest challenges you’ve overcome?
• What can you acknowledge about yourself and your strengths?
• What is it time to let go of in your life?
• What is it time for forgive yourself for?
• What is it time to forgive others for?
• What are the old patterns that it’s time to release?

It reminded me that, while I have learned a lot about myself this year, the road ahead lies wide open for me to keep learning.  

2020 is a year that I think of as catalysing. It has led me to ask more questions than it has produced in terms of answers. I’m always impatient for change, and I know as I look back change will probably seem quicker than it feels right now.

Am I asking the right questions I wonder? So long as I keep taking time to pause and reflect on the bigger picture of my own life, I’m confident the right questions will arise.

The question is, with holiday season almost upon us at the end of this landmark year, what are the right questions for you to ask yourself right now?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Change the World One Day at a Time, Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In, What Value Are You Adding to the Currencies in Your Life?, How You Are Complicit in the Oppression of Others, You See What Happens When Leaders Are Not Grown Up on the Inside and The Internal Shift You Need to Help Solve the Social Dilemma. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

As I write this, three years have passed to the day since my mother died. I’d like to tell you this article is about her, but it’s not, grief is about the ones left behind. Being the anniversary of her death, I have relived it many times.

It truly was the worst of times. After months of waking up to hear the latest progress and prognosis from the other side of the world, my waking hours filled with thoughts of what I could offer that would help inspire or sooth, I’d finally flown over to say goodbye the month before she died. It was the first time she was ready to admit she might not make it to December when I would arrive with my partner and our kids.

So I left my two young children in the hands of their other grandmother and their father, and flew there and back in five days, it was all I felt I could allow myself away from the children. In those five days, between the jetlag and the intensity of the reason for the trip, I think I only slept a handful of hours.

But I had my time with mum, who by then was a shadow of her former self; skeletal. Her muscles were so wasted away that her last efforts to walk were more a feat of will, balancing the top half of her body on her hip bones while she put one foot in front of the other.

And I watched with morbid fascination every time she spoke. Her face no longer had any proper muscular substance, her jaw would move in a strange motion, more like a skull clattering open and closed, which totally changed the way she formed and spoke words.

After saying our goodbyes, I arrived back in the same country a month later, this time with my partner and children. She died in the early hours the night after her grandchildren all met for the first time, something she had longed to see, yet she was bed-bound hundreds of miles away, having only had brief lucid moments in those last weeks as her body was in the final throws of shutting down completely.

The next day my brother and I drove those hundreds of miles and back again to spend a few hours with my father. And later in the week I drove those miles again with my kids and partner so we could spend a few weeks near my dad and help where possible.

It was a trip to the other side of the world with young children and, while they were upset and overwhelmed, there was also the practical side of needing to fill our days somehow. So we took trips to many of the places of my childhood and then we would head back to dad’s so we could all eat together and I could help pack away mum’s personal belongings and ponder the awfulness of the situation, as life carried on cruelly without her.

Frankly, it was an out-of-body experience. I was there, but my tank was running on empty. The emotional and physical horror of it all took its toll, and I’m sure it was no coincidence my first kidney stone occurred within a few weeks of arriving back home.

Needless to say the three years since have been challenging. That is no surprise I guess when the person who birthed me into this world, and who loved me and shaped me in so many ways, has died. The challenges have not so much been around accepting her death, with a degenerative illness much of that acceptance slowly occurred before her actual passing, it’s more been about facing many of my own shadows.

My mum was, beyond doubt, the single biggest influence of who I became in this world. She played her part beautifully, because I had little idea of who I truly was, what I really believed and wanted and needed beyond what I’d been taught. I don’t mean that facetiously.

Sure, I would be lying if I said there weren’t times in my life I resented my mother, but I never doubted her love nor her intentions. She did her best and was – like all of us –a product of her own life circumstances, parenting in a way that was good in its intention and (as is common) ignorant of the unhelpful beliefs and patterns that shaped who she was and how she shaped me.

When my own kids were born, I had a burning desire to allow them to become who they are, to treat them as a flower that needs nourished and watch in wonder as it grows and emerges, rather than a piece of clay in need of moulding.

Despite my own good intentions, I’m also aware my own kids will have their own issues. This isn’t about me becoming the perfect mum; it’s about me becoming who I intended to be in this life. My mum did not deter me from that; in fact she was the perfect one to help me.

Without feeling an acute lack of not knowing myself, I’d never have felt such a strong desire to get to know me. And in learning how to come home to myself, I now have a wealth of experience, knowledge and a service to fulfill, to help others who are searching for the same. 

In those first years of my children’s lives, the last of my mother’s, I became acutely aware that I had choices to make about who I was being - particularly when my mother was around, which was the real litmus test. Each year my parents would make the trip across the world to see us, and – being such a distance – would stay with us for a prolonged period.

There were certainly battles. As I’ve said before, while I learned early on to hyper attune to others’ needs, there was also a strong voice within me, and so I’d live in this state of speaking my truth in defiance but feeling like a twisted car wreck inside. I spoke my truth at the cost of high anxiety, often in anger, and then frequently compromised out of guilt.

I let go of judging my mum, she was a survivor and I loved her very much. I am grateful that those intense visits brought opportunities for me to finally look her in the eyes and say “I’m doing it my way” and “I love you”.

Before she died a lot of my journey was about discovering the true nature of life and who I am, something on which we did not see eye to eye. Through my experiences, I have come to have very different beliefs from my parents, but I had no doubt they still loved me as I said in Coming Out – Psychically Speaking. That said, I was still looking for their endorsement.

I realised if I wasn’t happy with my life then I had no one to blame but myself. I have spent far longer as an adult making my own decisions than I did as a dependent child. So when I’d get triggered about things in my life I would – and still do – take a good look at what is going on beneath the surface.

There were a lot of beliefs lurking there that really weren’t serving me; this is shadow work (but is called many other things).

As I look back, I really wonder why it took me so long to begin. There was so much time and energy wasted blaming and resenting. However, like grief itself, I also trust it was part of a process. If I’d acted more quickly many of those patterns might not have been as obvious, over time they played out in all the arenas of my life, triggering the same feelings of anger, disappointment, anxiety, rejection etc over and over again.

So many unhelpful beliefs lurked: “I’m selfish”, “I’m a disappointment”, “I don’t belong”, “I’m a burden”, “I’m crazy”, “they are idiots”,” I’m different” and many many more. All of these are rooted in the shame or guilt I felt as a child, and while those were valid fears as a dependent child, they no longer serve me, they are all the opposite of my truth.

Claire Zammit tackles this topic beautifully. She says “When you believe:

• “I’m alone” or “Other people don’t give me what I need” or “Life is sad and lonely”, the underlying lesson is actually “I came to love and be loved and I have the power to create meaningful connections to others.”
• “I’m bad” or “Others are always angry at me” the underlying lesson is actually “I am here to contribute to the evolution and advancement of humankind and I create openings for the flow of life to emerge in new and powerful ways for all.”
•  “I’m not enough” or “Others don’t value me” the underlying lesson is actually “My very existence in and of itself provides extraordinary value.”
• “I’m powerless” or “Other people are incapable and incompetent” or “When others hold power there is less for me” the underlying lesson is actually “I am a powerful leader, here to serve the empowerment of all”.

And so forth.”

But as Belinda Alexander wrote her main character as saying in Mystery Woman “I’ve been afraid for so long I don’t know who I would be without that fear. How could I change that now?”

There are many ways to change the way we look at things and feel about them, and I found different ways worked with different issues. But it has all been a process of unburdening, getting lighter, letting go.

If you are grieving someone who is no longer in your life, whether they have died or not, is it time to figure out who you are in a world with them no longer in it?  For even in grief, maybe especially in grief, there are lessons to be learned.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Rejoicing in Who You Are, Start From Where You Are, Now Go and Be Great, You Are Not as Important to Your Parents as You (or They) Think and You Don’t Need to Be Perfect to Make a Breakthrough. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

A wise lady recently told me something I’ve heard many times, that the first law of the universe is to put myself first. “Though” she acknowledged, “your children are not quite at the age yet where you can”.

This cleared up a question that had been sitting with me for quite some time.

Over the years I’ve heard and read a lot in the personal growth field about putting myself first. On the whole, I really get it, in order to take care of anyone else I have to take care of my own needs first so I’m in better shape to help others.

Being someone who had very poor personal boundaries, I’ve often dwelled on the irony of coming to know myself and my boundaries (my wants, needs and desires; the things that define the edges of where I end and others begin) at precisely the time in my life where I have children to raise.

It’s been an interesting journey trying to figure out how to reclaim the sovereignty of my soul while simultaneously helping each of my children on their journeys.

It is fair to say that, when I first had kids, a huge part of me relished handing them over to someone else for most of the day while I dashed off to live the piece of my life that I felt most productive in. That said, I had become increasingly frustrated (over the latter years of my corporate career) that what I was doing lacked meaning for me, still, it was more tangible than my newfound role as a mother.

Sitting for endless hours while a fledgling suckled at my breast, trying to figure out why this tiny fragile person seemed so restless and discontent. I always imagined a baby would feed, need winded, perhaps relieve itself and need a nappy change, and then would nap; and this cycle would repeat maybe half a dozen times in a day. But no, it was more like a half dozen times in a hour.

There never seemed to be time to take care of even the most basic things, like going to the loo, preparing and eating my own food, taking a shower and getting dressed, or cleaning and tidying the house. Far less anything more productive that would require use of the well honed skills and experience I had come to be prized for outside the home.

So, yes, there was a large part of me that was very glad we couldn’t afford for me not go back to work at the time.

Fast forward three years, with another addition to our family in the picture, trying to work full time in a role that carried a lot of responsibility, expectation and reward, yet missed the mark entirely in terms of filling my heart, things looked a little different.

My children were on the move and able to express themselves so much more clearly. I mean, it wasn’t like they were able to say “hey, we need more attention from you, and we would really like to be in our own home each day”, but it was pretty clear they were deeply in need of these things despite the wonderful care they received outside their home.

As I would walk in the door, the kids would melt down, all their pent up emotion spouting forth like a cap popping off a shaken up bottle of soda. This would go on for hours and when, at last, their little bodies would give in to exhaustion and fall asleep, it was short lived, with both awakening multiple times through the night wanting the mummy time they missed during the day.

Suffice to say, things had to change and they did. Making changes in our location and lifestyle, I took on the role I dreaded, being home more with the children. I really felt I had no choice, I simply could no longer cope physically or emotionally trying to keep a foot in both worlds, both of which I was resisting in some way.

The thing I quickly realised was the world I had left behind no longer held any appeal. After a short spell consulting, I knew without a doubt that I was not going to find what I was looking for in the same kind of roles I had been doing. It didn’t take a genius to understand that corporations were never going to transform and change unless the people leading them changed.

And I knew I needed to change too, to go inward and start to live my life from the inside out, more attuned to who I authentically am.

I also started to see more clearly the effects on my kids of my not being there early on, the degree  of attunement and attachment they wanted and needed in those first moments of life had led to anxiety and anger, it took a few years to disentangle much of that.

Each step of this journey has been a challenge. I started as an adult who had really developed a complex, multi-layered persona in reaction to the way I had been parented and brought up, much like most people I guess. But life in our home forced me to look at all that with entirely new eyes, I started to view it as a mirror showing me where my learned behaviours were at battle with my true nature.

In being there to allow for more attachment and attunement to my kids, it’s allowed me to attune to myself and create a more healthy attachment style. I started to realise that, while the domestic duties that go with having family are not my thing, it was exploring the emotional aspects of child rearing that really helped me to find my way back to my own authenticity.

And while I have embraced that, I have also continued in many ways to resist my role, seeing it as something that is keeping me bound uncomfortably. Inside me is a desire, an insatiable wanderlust for exploration to worlds unseen (inside and out). While, at this point in my life, my main focus has to be on the children, it plays an endless tug of war with my desire to let my attention wander as it begs to be. 

As we approach the end of the school year here which, with lockdown measures, was already somewhat shorter than most years, my kids have been at home not feeling great. This was the last full week where I – in theory – would have had several hours in a day that my attention would not be split across three people.

In the past, the need to be fully present at home and waylay my own plans would have twisted me inwardly, like a self torture chamber. Wanting to there as opposed to here creates too much inner tension and resistance, too much stress, and my life is far easier in the moments when I surrender to just being here; even if it means I can’t do the thing I seem to be wired for. That is precisely the tactic I took this week.

I am a phosphorus constitution, my homeopath reminded me. Like my elemental namesake, if left to my own devices, I would consume all the oxygen quickly and – though my light would burn brightly – it would burn out quickly. What a gift to be brought back down to Earth, to be present with the children then, it keeps me from obsessively pursuing my explorations and burning out.

I’ve realised, amid the feeling of being in a tug of war for my attention - a cocoon that has bound me tightly to its child rearing purpose - a metamorphosis has occurred. My change and transformation skills have been applied inwardly, and I’ve shared those lessons in my articles as they have been learned. I now have a vast understanding and awareness of many techniques and resources centred on how to come home to ourselves.

For all its perceived bonds, it has in other ways been a beautifully unencumbered journey. Having been a child of a society that wants scientific proof before anything can be believed, and having followed the traditional path through higher education, it has been so freeing to follow nothing but my own intuition.

I do not require a piece of paper to qualify me to become myself.

Wading into the waters of the metaphysical and the mystical along with the latest scientific understanding has been liberating. What I’ve discovered along the route using these many woven strands has been enlightening. The convergences are many and often, we are truly evolving to a place where science is beginning to understand the nature of consciousness and many other things long ago deemed sorcery.

Despite the perceived limitations of the cocoon, my explorations have been wide and deep. My current intrigue lies with a deeper dive into work on trauma using somatic therapy, but this is one strand among many.

While I have been bound to this life I thought of as highly dissatisfying in many ways, I’ve simultaneously learned so much about the art and science of personal transformation, of becoming the fullest expression of who I intended to be; reawakening.

Forced to kneel at the doorway of my heart, or continue to suffer, this year I’ve stepped across the threshold and now stand in the entranceway and hear myself yell “hello, the house”... I’ve come home to myself at last.

Are you resisting the thing that binds you? What about its bonds could be pointing you straight in the direction of your true freedom?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, Start From Where You Are, Now Go and Be Great, Life Really Does Support Your Deepest Desires and You Don’t Need to Be Perfect to Make a Breakthrough. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Planning who to invite along to an afternoon tea on her birthday, my daughter felt rather crushed when one of her close friends insisted another particular person be invited or she wasn’t going to come. At first my daughter asked me whether we could invite this other person so, as I dug deeper and uncovered the reason, we had a little chat.

I explained that unless she took the risk that her friend might not come, she was going to feel worse on an ongoing basis that she had not spoken her truth and honoured herself. Her truth is that, while she likes this other person, she doesn’t want invite them into her close friendship circle.

Without another word, she picked up the phone, called her friend and told her that she would love to have her come along, but she would not be inviting the other person, it is her birthday and she gets to make that decision. Of course, her friend said she would come along after all.

This is one lesson I wish I had learned myself many decades ago. The fact was not lost on me that it was precisely those early social relationships where I would have started to embed my own way of relating to people outside that immediate family circle.

Instead I was largely codependent in my relationships and had poor personal boundaries, because I was hyper attuned to others’ feelings. I’d learned from the cradle that my best strategy was to anticipate how the people (who were responsible for me) were feeling and adjust my behaviour in order to avoid getting into trouble.

That meant often swallowing my disappointment that how I was feeling had not been considered and then I’d change who I was being in order to fit in. Nowhere was this more obvious than in my personal relationships.

I shared with my daughter how I’d fallen in love when I was younger (in the olden times), and was in a relationship with someone who had ultimately left and broken my heart. I used to idolize him; he was so completely unlike anyone I’d met before.

But, while I enjoyed many aspects of being with him, and was upset for many years after we parted, in truth there were ways in which I didn’t feel honoured. For example, I used to get ready to go out on a Saturday night and be waiting from around 7pm, then he wouldn’t show up until 9pm, and he never used to acknowledge how late it was or apologise for keeping me waiting for hours.

On the other hand, I never used to call him out on it. I remember once his sisters mentioned how awful it was of him to do that, they had noticed it, which made me feel somewhat seen, but I never challenged him on it. More fool me, as my mother would say.

Looking back now, I can see that I was so afraid of losing him, or being seen as less than cool, I never gave him the chance to see and love the true me. That is not to say that he would have, but in the end it didn’t matter anyway.

When we split up, I was devastated and wondered what it was about me I needed to change. I berated myself for being too needy. And I was, I thought I needed him to love and accept me to make me whole, when really I needed to know and love who I am.

Dealing with the things that are unsaid has been my Achilles heel in life. I’m a straight up kind of a person and, because I anticipate others’ feelings, I am usually on the front foot apologizing or explaining. So when I’m caught up in a situation where someone denies, deflects or disowns their behaviour it takes me more than a moment to change gear.

It took me a long time to recognise that pattern with my partner. If something would come up that triggered me, I’d criticize and he would deflect with another criticism and we would go down this rabbit hole of blame that became so out of proportion to the original trigger, we were caught in a spiral of old unhelpful belief patterns.

Thus my adult relationships of every kind have been this intricate and cumbersome tango that have incorporated my own emotional baggage along with that of my friends or partners. There was me simultaneously trying to figure out who I should be in order to be loved and accepted, and at the same time also balking at my own lack of integrity with myself.

Most people may either resonate with my experiences or the opposite extreme; of disconnecting and retreating into a bubble, where all that is real and all that matters is the individual experience. The degree of attunement in infanthood is reason for this, as I talked about in Want to Make the World a Better Place? Tune In .

But as I result, I don’t like to cause damage in my relationships; it feels very unsafe to me. And how to navigate things that trigger me has been one of the hardest patterns to break, moving away from the blame game and into more of an observation mode.

I should confess I am no wallflower. At every step of the way the part of me inside that recognised I was getting trampled upon and carrying too much baggage would protest and I’d lash out in some version of criticism and/or (mostly) restrained anger; with a lot of internal anger and resentment towards myself.

So it is with some relief I’m now at a point in my life that the advice I’ve given to my daughter is the advice I’ve been taking myself in recent years.

After figuring out who I am - what Shona Keachie actually likes and dislikes, needs and desires, and being in loving acceptance of that - the other challenge has been to risk my relationships with others in order to keep integrity with who I am. It has meant some relationships have fallen away, others have deepened, and new ones have appeared.

But the common thread is that I can present myself in relationships without having to wear a mask of some sort, shape shifting to suit the people around me. There is freedom in that, and so much less encumbering than wondering what is wrong with me and why I am not like these other people around me.

Do you know who you truly are? Do you love and accept yourself? Are you willing to risk your relationships more in order to be fully loved for who you are?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy My Needs versus Yours, Start From Where You Are, Now Go and Be Great, Do You Really Know the Different Parts of You? and You Don’t Need to Be Perfect to Make a Breakthrough. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.