In Sophie Green’s novel The Bellbird River Country Choir, Debbie loses custody of her children while serving time for embezzlement. Upon release, she watches their stepmother, Julia, with them and reflects:

“Debbie had wondered how Julia could be this generous, and so helpful, then she remembered that Julia actually gets to be the kids' mum for real and Debbie is still a visitor in their lives. Granted, Julia gets the drudgery of school lunches and homework and fights over TV shows. But she also gets the funny little highlights that come with each day. A sentence here, a gesture there; the ways your children fill up your life with memories.”

Though Debbie's situation is unique, I relate to her longing for time with her children. Whether through split living, children leaving home, or other circumstances, a cycle of grief often accompanies their absence. Personally, I experience this every time my kids leave and return from their other home.

It's difficult to reconcile not raising my children full-time, but there is a silver lining in having more time to explore my own path. Still, balancing this freedom with the ever-present responsibilities of parenthood can be tricky. Even when they’re away, I remain in "parent mode."

Maintaining strong boundaries—both with my children and in co-parenting—has become increasingly important. Healthy boundaries are essential not just for my emotional well-being but for theirs as well. It’s about recognizing my emotional limits and taking steps to protect my peace. I now see boundaries not as walls, but as acts of self-compassion and clarity in my relationships. When I’m clearer about my needs and communicate those limits, it helps reduce potential emotional turmoil and misunderstandings.

A piece of advice that soothed my heart was this:

“It's natural to grieve the time you lose with your children, especially when you've been their constant support. The deep connection from raising them is irreplaceable. Reframing these emotions can help, but it doesn't erase the pain of missing moments. Instead, acknowledge the fullness of what you've given them—the unique foundation you've built will always shape who they become, even when they spend time elsewhere.”

As I continue navigating a split-living situation, this perspective reminds me that, while time apart can feel like a loss, the bond remains intact, woven through every interaction.

Reflecting on these emotions, I often find that books I read offer new ways to process what I’m going through. This week, I finally finished The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight by James Redfield, a year after I first picked it up. Building on The Celestine Prophecy, it offers practical ways to develop emotional well-being, self-compassion, and bodily awareness—particularly through the concept of "prayer extensions."

A prayer extension involves focusing our thoughts and feelings to create positive intentions for ourselves and others. By visualising what we want, practicing gratitude and compassion, and grounding ourselves through body awareness, we align our energy with our desires. This not only supports our well-being but also helps us show up more fully for those around us.

While prayer extensions bear some resemblance to ideas like the Law of Attraction—both focus on harnessing positive energy to shape reality—James Redfield places more emphasis on collective intention and spiritual evolution, which is right up my alley. In Shambhala, he presents a holistic approach where thought, feeling, heart, and body work together, expanding on the separate insights introduced in The Celestine Prophecy. This integrated approach feels like a deeper, more connected way of living and engaging with the world.

Here’s how I can incorporate prayer extensions into daily life:

1. Thought Extension – Shifting Focus to What I Truly Desire
   Instead of focusing on what feels lacking, I can redirect my thoughts toward what I truly desire—whether it’s peace, fulfillment, or clarity. Each day, after the kids are asleep, I can take a moment to visualize a life where I feel grounded and content. I imagine details like a peaceful home, fulfilling work, and harmonious time with my children, allowing these images to shift my focus toward what’s possible.
2. Feeling Extension – Cultivating Gratitude and Joy
   My feelings shape how I engage with life. When I feel overwhelmed or dissatisfied, I can place my hands on my heart, breathe deeply, and consciously think of something that brought me joy today—whether it’s a shared laugh with the kids or a quiet cup of tea. These small moments of gratitude help shift my emotional energy toward more joy and peace.
3. Heart Extension – Connecting with Self-Compassion
   I’ve often been in the mode of caring for others, but I can remind myself to turn compassion inward. In a quiet moment, I can bring my awareness to my heart, imagining a warm, glowing light filling me with kindness. This simple act helps soften the "I’ll be happy when…" mindset and allows me to embrace that I am enough, right here and now.
4. Body Extension – Grounding in the Present
   When I feel overwhelmed, I can focus on grounding myself by tuning into my physical sensations. Whether it’s slowing my breath, relaxing my muscles, or taking a mindful walk, these practices bring me back to the present moment, shifting my energy to a state of calm presence.

While the four prayer extensions focus on cultivating peace, clarity, and compassion, I’ve come to realise that maintaining healthy boundaries is essential to truly embodying these states. Boundaries don’t contradict the peace I seek—they are a vital part of it. Setting clear emotional limits protects my well-being, allowing me to show up with more presence and compassion for myself and others.

For example, the Thought Extension encourages me to focus on what I truly desire, which includes the emotional space I need to thrive. The Feeling Extension reminds me that gratitude and joy are best nurtured when I feel emotionally safe, which strong boundaries help create. The Heart Extension centers on self-compassion, and part of that compassion is knowing when to protect my energy. Finally, the Body Extension teaches me to ground myself in the present moment, and boundaries help me stay rooted in peace rather than caught up in emotional turbulence.

By integrating boundaries with these practices, I create a more balanced and peaceful foundation in my relationships—especially when co-parenting or navigating my time with the children

Navigating life’s emotional complexities can feel like a delicate balancing act, especially when grappling with the challenge of finding peace while feeling torn between different areas of life. Whether it’s through split living, changing family dynamics, or other transitions, many of us face moments that challenge our sense of peace and connection.

In these times, pausing to reflect on the tools we have at our disposal can be incredibly helpful. For me, exploring concepts like the prayer extensions from James Redfield’s work has provided a pathway to reconnecting with my inner self. By focusing on my desires, cultivating gratitude, and practicing self-compassion, I feel better equipped to navigate emotional turbulence.

However, everyone’s journey is unique. As you reflect on your own experiences, consider how you can appreciate the small joys in life, recognising that each moment allows us to be fully present, no matter where we are. How might you reconnect with the present to find balance amid the pull of conflicting responsibilities?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy A Step Too Far: Finding Balance in a Busy Life, Your Childhood Is Not Your Fault but It Will Be Your Limitation, The Art of Learning to Have and Hold Boundaries Healthily When Healing From Trauma Responses and Do We Need to Better Understand the Pivotal Role of Parenting to Evolve? To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog. 

When confronted with death, it always brings life into sharper focus I find. This time of year for me is traditionally one where memories of life and death meet together in great contrast. It’s the time when both my children were born, and the memories and circumstances of their births are always recalled in detail. But it’s also the time when my mum was in the final weeks of her life and the reliving of that time coexists alongside the happier memories.

I was listening to a podcast with one of the most celebrated and influential spoken word poets of our time, Andrea Gibson, on facing mortality. When Andrea was diagnosed with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer, all that was truly important in their life became all that was important, they stopped dwelling on the ifs, buts and maybes.

Their journey has been profound and transformative. Facing a fierce cancer diagnosis (that they had lived in fear of all their life due to family history), they describe a radical shift in perspective post investigative surgery. Andrea had spent her life in fear of dying and it has taken staring death in the face to really live.

Their worst fear had become real but, instead of fear, they felt a sudden acceptance and peace. The experience altered their perception of life and relationships, and fostered a deep appreciation and love for those around them. This newfound outlook led them to believe that every life event, even cancer or death, was part of their spiritual evolution. They found peace in surrendering to life's challenges, discovering that saying "yes" to difficulty could open doors to immense joy.

They learned to relax, give, focus on the present, and approach relationships with a sense of mystery, allowing the people closest to them to show up anew without past expectations. Additionally, they embraced things that had previously terrified them as a way to confront and overcome fear. Despite the possibility of imminent death, they express profound peace, happiness, clarity, and gratitude for life itself.

I also appreciated her saying “Sometimes people can navigate an illness like this with a lot of rage, for example. I don’t think that my way is necessarily better than that, because I’ve had plenty of rage in my life. Maybe that other person didn’t ever express anger or feel rage, and that could be the waking up for another individual.”

A good friend of mine also lost a close friend this week, it was (in some ways) beautiful to bear witness to as my friend described standing by her friend’s bedside to say their final goodbyes. There was a knowing that their friend’s consciousness was no longer fully inhabiting their body, and that there was a peaceful unfolding into the love beyond.

Grief, though, isn’t always about people dying, this time of year is also the wind down of the calendar year, and my solar year, it’s a season in which I traditionally find myself reflecting on whatever aspects of life are playing out within that and the things that have changed or need to change.

There is a lot that has altered, and more is upon me, with life circumstances changing as my kids grow and we move to a new part of town. But there’s also the inner journey and the unhealthy patterns that emerge under duress, the ongoing learning and growth that occurs as part of life’s opportunities to grow more into my potential.

Among all of that grief is a natural part of the cycle of change. I read a quote by Jamie Anderson the other day:

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathered up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

When I read this I was not sure I wholly agreed with that sentiment. Although part of me agreed it’s true at least some of the time, I think another part of grief is the regrets that are expressed. That said, regrets are about not loving ourselves or others in ways we could have and, since we can’t change the past, perhaps that too could be seen as love with no place to go.

And as I type, my grand-aunt’s family has gathered around her but she is not yet in a state of surrender. I certainly have regrets about not having made it over to Canada for a visit before this moment. When my grand-aunt and her family emigrated by ship back in the 1960s, there was no thought of regular visits. But thankfully airplanes made a relationship possible that I would never otherwise have known.

It always seemed very exciting to me when our Canadian relatives visited, I remember my grand-uncle’s baseball caps as a thing that represented a whole different world as no one in Scotland wore them back then. As I later emigrated to a different part of the world, I think it was in part inspired by those earlier relatives who had made new lives abroad.

But I would have loved to visit. My grandparents took a trip over there many decades ago before they died, and my parents followed suit some years later. Despite the distance, made smaller by today’s technology, our family’s ties and relationship has deepened – and that is in no small part due to the lady I like to think of as a strong matriarch. Energetically there is a part of me now with my grand-aunt by her bedside, and another part in the subliminal space in-between where I envisage her sitting atop a meadow looking over a lake contemplating her life.

There is wealth of mixed feelings inside me right now, sitting alongside grief and what feels like an almost perpetual state of tiredness, stress and overwhelm. While I’m disappointed and embarrassed in not having made it over there all these years, I’m also in awe of the fortitude and generosity my grand-aunt demonstrated both because of and in spite of her own childhood hardships, the journey they made to start a new life, and the connection she maintained with and through the family despite the distance.

I will also feel relief for her when that final surrender comes, and I feel richer for the knowledge and love she imparted over the years. Having lost my own grandparents nearly forty years ago, her stories have helped me understand them and myself more, and I have also developed relationships within her family too that add another level of love and belonging to my life.

What I notice is that no feeling is an island, and grief is a good example of that. Whether it’s bad news or regrets of my own, or someone close to me passing, it’s always a mixture of blessings, some feel good and some feel bad. The point is to feel them all, I think, and to learn from what we can - for that is how we best honour ourselves, the things and the people we grieve.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Reconnect With Loved Ones to Gain Some Perspective on Life, Even in Grief There Are lessons to Be Learned, Celebrate Often the Ways in Which You Are More Than Good Enough, Pain as a Powerful Catalyst for Self Awareness and Growth and Sit With Your Sorrow, Wait as It Reveals the Lessons It Offers. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

“What’s for you won’t go by you” is an old Scots’ phrase that my gran used to repeat often. It always resonated for me, and so I know not to ever regret decisions I’ve made in life because, one way or another, what is meant to be will be.

As I headed back to my adopted land with my children from a busy, month long trip to reconnect with family and friends in the land of my birth, I was thinking that - first and foremost - I must come home to myself. In reconnecting with others I found aspects of me there, and felt sated where I found them.

But it also feels like parts of me are still missing, I cannot say what they are, but I will only find them when alone. I need to reconnect with me, and my life in New Zealand allows for that, in many ways it is a simpler life and closer to nature.

Meanwhile there is the familiar grief, encompassing the usual feelings of returning from a long awaited vacation, but also more than that. There is a nagging thought “Why did I move quite so far from all that I knew and those that I loved all those years ago?”

It’s not that I regret moving from the place I was born, and it’s that not that I don’t love the place I’ve moved to, just that those worlds are quite so far from each other. As Helen Keller said “What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us”.

In perfect timing – and by coincidence as I was reading text from an unrelated email - I saw the words “It is too late to alter this circumstance, you must move on. Worrying is useless since you can't alter anything”. There was the truth I needed to hear, the one that put the ache in my heart into context.

Of course it won’t be true forever, but right now it is, and I trust that that this means it also serves a purpose beyond providing stability for the children. There will be ways, likely many ways, in which being where I am right now serves me. What that helped me do though was face “what is” instead of resisting it, and wishing I could change something I can’t.

But I am not going to bypass my feelings, I feel sorrow, of that there is no doubt. And I feel gratitude for the grieving process because that means there is something wonderful I miss, and that means there was – and still is – a lot of love for the people and land of my birth.

Henry David Thoreau said “Never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it ‘til it comes to have a separate and integral interest”. So I shall sit with my feelings as if I’m sitting with someone of great interest, and I shall open up to what they might actually be pointing to beyond that which may seem obvious.

What I’m searching for is a new perspective they might have to offer, or a seed of some new thought that will help me in my journey ahead. As if to affirm my process I received an email about spiritual bypassing this morning and Danielle LaPorte said:

“Spiritual bypassing is when you put a spiritual spin on a negative to avoid uncomfortable feelings. Before you find the gift in the pain, you have to face the pain in the gift”.

What that will reveal I have yet to discover. I will intentionally journal about it, and set aside time to ponder and process it, until I feel it is done and I have integrated the decision I made with the fabric of me.

In the not-too-distant past I did this with a bad relationship and, by not just diving on into another relationship, I learned the joy and benefits of being on my own for a while. I leaned about the unhealthy thought and behaviour patterns I’d been playing out time and again in attracting unhealthy relationships. I sat with my pain, I honoured it and I learned about boundaries, secure attachment, self love and authentic communication.

Instead of looking for people, things, circumstances outside of myself to take away my pain, I looked upon it as a teacher and learned the lessons it had to share. As a result, my life and particularly my primary relationship, is so much richer and healthier for having done so. 

Where is there sorrow in your life that you haven’t really dealt with? In what ways might that be affecting you? Is it time to get curious, sit down with the pain and see what lessons it has to offer, and the ways it might enhance the quality of your life in doing so?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Mankind’s Great Summons: Turn Your Pain Into Medicine and Heal the World, Reconnect With Loved Ones to Gain Some Perspective on Life, The Inevitable Pain of Returning to Love After Years of Abandoning Yourself and Pain as a Powerful Catalyst for Self Awareness and Growth.  To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I know that might seems obvious, but the more personal work and development I do the more I realise just how often parts of my younger self take the reins by default.

There was a point this week in which I just felt utterly stuck and powerless. It was in relation to a reaction I’d had which, on the face of it, was an overreaction. It was in fact the perfect storm, an accumulation of slights and poor behaviour towards me which I had reaching breaking point on.

The reason I felt stuck and powerless in that moment wasn’t because there were no choices available to me, it was because I couldn’t see them clearly. I was in flight or fight mode, my prefrontal cortex (the thinking part of my brain) was closed for business, my nervous system was dysregulated.

And it wasn’t even that in itself that had made me feel so powerless. It was the knowledge that this was a pattern, a PTSD response to an ongoing toxic situation that is requiring a huge amount of time and persistence to extricate myself from, in tandem with the dearth in understanding among professionals and people generally about narcissistic abuse, which can leave me feeling very frustrated and isolated.

That is a topic for another day perhaps. This week’s lesson was more around the realisation that there is no quick fix in this situation. That making the shift within my nervous system and neurobiology will continue to require focus and practice.

The sympathetic nervous system controls “fight-or-flight” responses. In other words, this system prepares the body for strenuous physical activity. However, while this works well if I’m running from a tiger, it doesn’t help when the threat is more psychological or emotional in nature.

Whether it’s responding to something as chronic as the situation I’ve described, or it is some other threat (perceived or real), the real key is to get the parasympathetic nervous system back online. That is the part of my nervous system which regulates “rest and digest” functions and – more importantly – allows access to more the rational and creative thinking that can allow me to move forward more positively.

There are many ways to do this in the moment ranging from tapping to tension and trauma release exercises and everything in between. Guess what though? With the prefrontal cortex shut down it’s actually near impossible to remember what they are or even feel inspired to try them because every cell in my body is by then responding to what it believes is the equivalent of an immediate and urgent threat. Especially when caught up in the harried details of day to day life.

I was listening to a talk with Jodi Sternoff Cohen, founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, who describes smell as a great way to send a fast message to our brain to calm anxiety in the moment. Having lost her son in a car crash a few years ago, Jodi knows the value of having something that can help navigate life in the moment when our body or brain would otherwise be shutting down.

When she feels herself starting to spiral – or more accurately – become dysreguated, she sniffs an aromatherapy blend of clove and lime to help send a calming signal to her brain.

Of course that is not to say I am (or she is) advocating that I ignore what wants and needs to be processed, it’s simply recognizing that it’s not always possible or appropriate to do that in the moment. With so many mental and emotional pressures, the “threat” isn’t always as immediate or urgent as the body believes so it’s about how to take control and give myself the best opportunity of navigating these situations for the best outcomes.

Working with a client this week, I used a NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) technique that I described in What Resentment, Frustration and Pain Have to Do With Your Boundaries for making changes at a fundamental level. The pattern we were working with was one that many of us face when under stress, when we start becoming more withdrawn and less available not just to those around us, but also to opportunities and choices we just don’t see when we are closed off.

The exercise takes a look at what is showing up in the environment that isn’t wanted. I suspect many can relate to there being a constant tension between too much/not enough work when self employed and feeling a bit stuck. So we started to peel back the layers and look at what sort of behaviours and habits surface in this environment, what beliefs drive those, what are the values driving those beliefs, and therefore what part of the psyche is that person identified with.

Often in stressful situations it’s the survivor in us that takes the driving seat. But going through this process helped us to see exactly what part of their identity was taking the lead, and an opportunity to switch it out to something more positive, like the part of them that thrives on challenges.

With the thriver in the driving seat we then start to look at what the thriver values, what those beliefs look like and therefore what sorts of habits and behaviours show up – and what results - when that part of the psyche drives the outcomes instead.

I find it’s a good tool for creating a shift in both my thinking and energy and taking more control of my experiences rather than being a slave to them.

When I apply this logic to my own situation, and the accumulation of slights and poor behaviour towards me, I can see it sends me into rumination, defence, anger and grief. I become dysregulated and enraged, I believe that I have to respond now, and if I don’t stick up for myself who will? I believe no one understands and I can’t focus on anything else except getting this immediate threat sorted.

This is the reaction of my child-self, a warrior spirit that values justice, reasonable behaviour, rational argument, standing up for myself and quelling the threat. But the threat is – more often than not – not immediate.

Instead if I put my more mature feminine self in the driver’s seat, that part of me that values inner peace, flow and self integrity, things start to look and feel quite different. That part of me believes that what others think of me is their business, only the VIPs in my life get explanations. That part of me truly believes that – with my focus on positive outcomes – I can trust something much greater than myself to figure out the how, I take only inspired action.

And of course that shows up through more supportive habits and behaviours. I meditate, practice gratitude, actively regulate my nervous system, set positive intentions and focus my energy and attention on inner peace. It’s no surprise then that, when this part of me takes the driving seat, things go with more ease.

It’s an active practice, and I can justify both those parts of me being in the driving seat, but I know which one feels better, and which creates the kind of shifts I’m looking for in my life.

If there is an issue you’re stuck with in your life, what part of you is in the driving seat? And what is an alternative that would create an immediate shift and drive better outcomes?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, What Makes You So Afraid of Conflict?, How to Break Free of Addictive Relationship Patterns, What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances and Be Virtuous – Be Victorious. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay

A friend of mine sent me a link to a Luke Chlebowicz video to cheer me up one day. Luke is a life coach and posts all sorts of empowering material, but this one was of him dancing around his lounge with a huge smile on his face, which made me laugh. To make my friend smile, I decided to reciprocate with a video of some “no cares” dancing around my own lounge. It was such fun.

It reminded me of another post I’d seen on Happiness Chemicals – And How to Hack Them. This appears to be a common image in various guises online, though it’s unclear who the original schematic should be attributed to. But it lays out the four main happiness chemicals:

• Dopamine – the reward chemical
• Oxytocin – the love hormone
• Serotonin – the mood stabilizer
• Endorphin – the painkiller

And gives examples of things people can do naturally to boost their mood. According to the British Science Association, dance has been scientifically proven to reduce levels of cortisol caused by chronic stress. It also causes the brain to release dopamine and endorphins. So although it might seem counter intuitive this kind of activity can help with relaxation as well as being a great mood booster.

It certainly works for me; I’ve been dancing around my lounge since I was a teen watching playbacks of Flashdance over and over. But if dancing isn’t your thing, any exercise or just listening to feel good music, or watching rousing movies can really help.

Even catching up on clips from the Jubilee Concert in the UK last weekend was fun. Adam Lambert opened with Queen, taking me back to seeing them play live back in 2013 and how the atmosphere of a crowd like that is nothing short of pure elation.

I’ve certainly been more mindful of taking care of myself as I have navigated some tough times over the last year. Amid a constant barrage of unreasonable demands, false accusations and gaslighting it can be easy to lose sight of the good things in life. Being more intentional about all the things that keep me sane and stable has been a must for me: regularly meditating, taking beach walks, swimming and making time for friends.

It would be easy to look to others to fill the gaps inside, but that is a temporary fix, and has often led to me giving away too much of my own power and settling for less than I deserve. At this point in my life it is my priority to feel like I’m standing on solid ground.

Another way of releasing frustration can be to scream my lungs out when driving along rural highways. To be fair, the scream can be let loose anywhere, but if I did that at home at least four or five neighbours would investigate so it’s much more liberating when no one can hear. Rae Oliver writes a good article on Scream Therapy but I can attest to the benefits of discharging my nervous system in this cathartic way.

In fact I encourage my kids to do the same, not in reaction to one another in the moment, which can be addictive and unhelpful, but in a more of a controlled release as we are driving.

There is another component that has come into life lately though, that old saying about “dance as if no one is watching and sing as though no one is listening” hits the nail on the head. I had a friend from the UK who video called one morning. I was sitting in my dressing gown, hadn’t yet had a showered and declined the call sending him a text “Can’t possibly answer a video call right now, I’m sitting in bed with greasy hair etc”.

Then I thought “Mm, what does it matter?” and so I called him back and we had a good old catch up and laughed about my hair. Being authentic is important to me, having bent my shape to fit others for a lot of my life and reaped the (painful) consequences of abandoning myself, so extending it to my appearance is a bold step, backed by an inner self confidence.

The journey to me has been an inside out job, it has involved identifying what’s triggering me in the moment, and going back to the roots of a trigger when I have spotted unhealthy patterns. It has involved cutting ties and learning new habits, and healthier, more self caring ways of being authentic. And it’s not a journey at its end, but it’s a journey that has put me on a path that feels more akin to one I intended for this life.

Inevitably though there are moments when life seems heavy, and it’s down to me to lift myself up.  When life is getting you down, what are the ways in which you lift yourself up?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success, Want Better Health? Be Shrewd About Stress, I Am a Recovering Approval Seeker and Control Freak, Whose Energy Is This Anyway? Stop Taking on Board How Others Are Feeling and Loneliness – Meet the Most Important Person in Your Life. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Many decades after the war had ended, holocaust survivor Dr Edith Eger finally began to do the inner work necessary to thrive in her life. She said “At Auschwitz, at Mauthausen, and on The Death March, I survived by drawing on my inner world. I found hope and faith in my life within me, even when I was surrounded by starvation and torture and death.”

However, of her life after the war, she said “My inner world was no longer sustaining, it became the source of my pain, unstoppable memories, loss and fear… I tried to banish the memories of the past, I thought it was a matter of survival.”

Then she reflects “Only after many years did I come to understand that running away doesn’t heal pain… (In America) I was further geographically than I had ever been from my former prison, but here I became psychologically imprisoned… running from my past, from my fear.”

Dr Egar, now a renowned psychologist, also observes “There is no hierarchy of suffering. Nothing makes my pain worse of better than yours”.

She has worked with many patients, both those with overt trauma like her own, and those suffering from more covert chronic trauma of childhood development in a world where parenting has centered on controlling behaviour and ignoring feelings for far too long.

Dr Gabor Mate, another child of the holocaust, agrees and says “Trauma creates coping mechanisms.  One way is soothing that leads to addictions, but another way is, if you get the message that you’re not good enough, then you might spend the rest of your life trying to prove that you are, compensating by taking on too much”.

I recognise all these dynamics at play in my own life. I realise I was compensating my whole childhood for my mother’s poor relationship with her father: an abusive, alcoholic liar who died of lung cancer when she was only seven years old. It understandably shaped her whole way of being in the world, as does everyone’s childhood.

My mother was always afraid of anyone getting the better of her, or of us, of being duped, and – as such – had strong unshakeable opinions about the way things should be and a very controlling nature. As children, her reaction to our behaviour (my brother and I) dictated the landscape, and I was never sure whether she would be angry or calm, but she was angry a lot.

To compensate I became hyper attuned to everyone else’s feelings in order to anticipate danger, a perfectionist to ward it off and highly anxious in my relational attachment style.

Like Dr Egar, mum banished the memories of the past and talked about them very rarely, and she certainly made no concession that she had been shaped by her own childhood experience in a way that did not allow her to be the fullest expression of herself.

Now a mother myself, I have been forced to confront the unhealthy behaviour patterns I myself adopted as a child many times over. When I read Dr Egar’s words about her return to Auschwitz decades later, I recognised the truth of them straight away:

“Arbeit Macht Frei, seeing those words made me realise they do spark with a certain truth. Work has set me free I realise. Not the work the Nazis meant – the hard labour of sacrifice and hunger, of exhaustion and enslavement. It was the inner work. Of learning to survive and thrive, of learning to forgive myself, of helping others do the same. And when I do this work I am no longer the hostage or prisoner of anything.”

When I was listening to an interview with Sarah Durham Wilson this week, author of Maiden to Mother: Unlocking Our Archetypal Journey into the Mature Feminine, she really spoke to this sense of many of us being stuck in our child selves.

She talks about the journey of meeting with the maiden (or master) the little girl or boy inside who has been waiting to be mothered for a very long time, about journeying to the underworld (the hurts experienced and the compensations we made) where you start to forgive and release, to alchemise the pain into mothering wisdom. The pain becomes medicine.

This is what makes Dr Edith Egar and Dr Gabor Mate so good at their jobs and able now to speak on world stages about their experiences and lessons, not just from their own lives, but that of the many thousands of people they have helped. They have taken their pain and alchemised it to medicine.

And so this is the task that Sarah Durham Wilson points to. The journey from the patriarchialised mother, where it’s all about keeping you small as a (so called) act of protection, to the great Mother consciousness, which is the opposite and says “you are perfect as you are and cherished always”.

My own healing journey has attracted many more opportunities through other relationships over the years to see all the unhealthy patterns and behaviours I adopted. My work right now is to break the pattern of fighting to have my opinion heard, of my chemical addition to chasing closeness from those unable to give it (the emotionally unavailable), and to ease the pervading sense of anxiety over constant rejection and abandonment.

To break the patterns of codependency, enmeshment trauma, and an anxious attachment style, I’m learning to have and hold healthy boundaries, to have reasonable expectations within relationships and communicate my needs directly without blame or criticism, to take responsibility for feeling my pain and discomfort rather than trying to avoid it by jumping into my head, or trying to fix others’ problems, and to take responsibility for regulating my nervous system.

I vowed to my closest friends that I will keep heading into the underworld to alchemise my pain until it becomes medicine, to keep going in and meeting the cherishing mother until it becomes how I talk to myself and others, and to bring that energy out into the world just as those before me have done.

What unacknowledged pain is there within you? What hurts did you compensate for as a child, what coping mechanisms did you develop, that may now be creating limitations in your life? Are you ready to head into the underworld and do your personal work? Is it time to heal ourselves and to bring back the cherishing mother energy that has been absent for a long time?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Attract the Blissful Relationships You Actually Deserve, Great Relationships Happen When You Put You First, The Almighty Growth Opportunity in Dealing With Emotionally Unavailable People, Get Emotionally Healthy - Is It Time to Break the Chain of Pain?  and Risk Losing People to Make Room for Those Who Can Honour and Cherish You. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

I have a friend who is contending with a lot right now, and feeling that the ground beneath her feet has become rather shaky with COVID19 restrictions intensifying. Amid all of life’s uncertainties, she took a positive step and her face beamed as she told me about it.

The step she took had nothing to do with the circumstances that have been derailing her, it was unrelated, but the point is she had done something positive for herself and it was a massive boost to her morale.

Taking a leaf from her book, I decided it was time for me too to take positive steps towards my own future and started to crystallise my thoughts about how I want my life to look moving forward. I don’t mean what it will look like in two years or five years or ten, I’m good at that sort of vision, but what I want to happen next has been less defined.

My life has been in a state of limbo for too long, and I’ve been allowing it to be determined by others and circumstances so it is time for me to take hold of what tomorrow looks like.

It brings to mind the beautiful lyrics from The Next Right Thing sung by Kristen Bell when she sings “Take a step, step again, it is all that I can do...the next right thing” and “when you are lost, hope is gone, but you must go on...and do the next right thing”.

Life has many uncertainties, from my home life to the life that now consists of numerous COVID19 restrictions, and many things in between. Taking a positive step – any positive step – feels good. Like when I booked myself on a course I’ve been contemplating for a while, or when I decided to get some help to understand my rights.

And richest of all, is taking steps to heal emotionally.

As Teal Swan says “Don’t chase happiness, chase relief”. She explains:

“When you are feeling stuck in a negative emotion, you do not have access to purely positive states like happiness. That seems so far away and unreachable, and only serves to remind you how unhappy you are.

Yet no matter where you are emotionally, you always have access to relief. For example, when you are feeling disempowered, thinking about something that causes you to express anger will cause you to release your attachment to disempowerment and thus you will feel a sensation of release in the body.”

Not that I am aiming for anger, but the grief process tends to go back and forth between different emotional states that all the while slowly start to move to a more neutral point. And I go much faster through these states when I deliberately take steps to see, feel and heal them.

For much of my life I buried pain and anger, soldiering on when I was hurt. But now I have learned that – while I have kids to look after and responsibilities I must meet - I have a responsibility to myself first. So, as positive a step as it is to book myself on a course, it’s a richer step to sit with my pain and see it, and try to understand it, and help it heal.

There are lots of ways to emotionally heal, but they all seem to involve allowing myself to first fully feel the pain instead of pushing it away. I can pretend that it’s okay I didn’t get to take my kids to go visit my dad last year in the UK because of lockdown, for example, but it’s not okay, we are still no closer to getting to visit now. In fact we are further from it as I no longer have the finances to jump on a plane if I could.

Sure, I’m pragmatic about it, there’s nothing I can do about it, and I’m not wallowing in self pity, but I am feeling the pain of it. So I have to turn towards that pain and acknowledge it instead of pretending it doesn’t exist. I have to take myself – or have someone else guide me – through a process to help me name that pain.

Does it make me feel utterly disempowered? Am I feeling anxious about it? Am I furious? Or am I just feeling disappointed? To be fair, how I feel can change, but by always turning towards the feeling rather than turning my back on it, I have a chance of shifting it towards something that feels better; preferably something more neutral.

All of these things are positive steps when life is uncertain.

What are the circumstances in your life that feel uncertain? How do you feel about them? What positive steps can you take today to help you feel better?

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Heal Your Past Hurts To Help You Fulfill Your Potential, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Take Your Broken Pieces and Make a Beautiful Life, How Living Your Passions Fully Combats Feeling Lonely  and How to Heal the Past so You Can Live Your Best Present. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Space to me feels like opening, expansiveness, finding my centre. But it can also be terrifying when the cosy world of my making seems suddenly blown apart and I find myself freefalling through the vast darkness of an unwelcome space.

My friend asked me to name the three biggest moments in my life when things felt out of control, she recognised my trauma and distress. It was hard to prioritise just three if I’m honest. 

There were the days, weeks, months and years that followed when the person I loved with all my heart told me our relationship was over; the same when I had my first experience of death and both my paternal grandparents died within a couple of months of each other. And there was the day I started at university, alone, and had to navigate my way to a lecture theatre holding three hundred students I didn’t know to study a subject I hadn’t a clue about (computer science), to name just a few.

Then there was, of course, the childhood memory of the day I accompanied my dad to the hospital when my brother was born, all excited, to be left on the stairwell alone while dad went to visit mum and new baby. Children were not allowed in the wards, so I waited unaccompanied, age three, and recall hearing every set of footsteps, watching the door open in hope, anxiously awaiting my dad’s return.

I remember thinking “What if he doesn’t return?”

Circumstances beyond my control that shake the foundations of the reality upon which I’m standing are not new to me. The feeling of being in freefall is not new to me. The fear of the huge space that opens up uninvited can be overwhelming, but I’ve been through this enough to know that the space which appears can also be my growth and expansion if I will befriend it.

As Sarah Blondin says “We walk invisibly cocooned with all the things we wish to control, we think that by keeping these things close that we will be able to manage them. If we keep our worries in plain sight we will have less of a chance of them coming true”.

I have always believed that, once children were involved in a relationship there is no backing out. Of course, that is my belief and a relationship consists of two people. Having had the experience of being jilted before, I was well aware that I actually have no control over whether the other person will stay in relationship with me.

So, since having children, it is fair to say that I have always harboured a fear about this. No more so than since leaving my career, and my financial independence, to be at home with my kids.

In Learning to Surrender, Sarah says “The more we constrict, the more worry and burden we pick up along the way. The denser we become, the more we sink like rocks to the bottom of our river. We then ground ourselves in the turbulent waters rather than allowing ourselves to be carried to the cool, calm waters”.

When I listen to Sarah’s captivating voice her words come from a place far beyond her lips and far beyond the reaches of my mind, the words carry truths that only my heart instantly recognises:

There will be moments in my life where all will seem in chaos and disharmony, and in those moments I must remember the universe is reordering my life to match more of what I am calling forth. Fear is useless in these times; trust – however - is paramount.

This is what I know above all else, I have known this with certainty for a long time.

So while I rage and feel helpless against this dramatic change in my circumstances, it is a dance of the mind versus the heart. My body, knowing this sense of abandonment, begins its trauma response.The mind, in trying to keep me safe, plays out all the “what if” scenarios and, meanwhile, my friend asks me to remember because – in remembering – I also remember the vital part: this too shall pass.

At some point I will stop freefalling through the empty black space and start to construct a different reality. In fact, I can see the glimmers of it now, the many positives that could exist on the other side of the many changes afoot for me and for our kids.

Some words Teal Swan wrote this week in relation to self love caught my interest. She said “The tension you experience is a sign you are giving away your power. It is calling your attention to the areas of your life where your free will is needed as a necessary agent for progress.”

Tension was the word that reeled me in, having chronic tense headaches, shoulders and neck. It will be no accident that in Learning to Surrender, Sarah Blondin also says “These places of tension are where you are holding a secret fear that you are not supported, you’ve been forgotten, that life does not love you, and that you are failing. Imagine cutting the ties to these tense places and allow yourself to be carried into the mysterious and rushing waters raging around you”.

She explains that this does not mean I stop trying to create my best life. It does not mean I give up in the face of stress or adversity. It simply means I let go of the hold it has on my physical body.

I can do this, I know I can, I just need constant reminders right now. And they come in many guises and forms, through the friends who love me, and the wise sharing of people like Teal and Sarah, whose work I love.

It occurs to me that the space that feels like freefalling through the vast darkness and the space that feels like opening, expansiveness and finding my centre, are one in the same. It’s all about perspective.

I hear Sarah’s words “You are being asked to surrender to the beauty trying to unfold, the beauty of that far off land of dreams you have been looking outside yourself for. Understand that it has been trying to take you there all along. Now get out of your own way and allow it to.”

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Even in Grief There Are lessons to Be Learned, What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, In What Unseen Ways Are You Abandoning Your Own Free Will?, The Soul’s Yearning – How to Recognise Your Inner Work, and Make the Invisible Visible - Celebrate the Gold in Your Emotional Reactions. 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.

“I spent too long wanting what was taken from me and not what I was given.” King Caspian, The Dawn Treader

As I watched this movie with my daughters, after we had read C.S.Lewis’s infamous Narnia Chronicles, I knew these were not words spoken in the original book, and yet they were so perfectly on point.

This week I’ve been staring straight into the eyes of resentment, which Teal Swan describes as “a soup of different emotions all associated with being treated unfairly; it is one of the strongest hooks that anchors a person to the past”.

As I listened to my own internal dialogue about the way I had just spoken to someone, I realised that what I was hearing was a defence. If I had been putting my point across to a judge or jury, I’m pretty sure they would have sympathy for me, perhaps even granted me a pardon.

However, I thought to myself, I am not in front of an objective judge or jury; I am having a subjective experience. Both I and the other person were communicating from a perspective that was so wrapped in our own entire life stories that – try as we each might – it would be hard for either to understand without a long, drawn out autopsy.

It was a familiar realisation that I’m no longer playing the survival game I played as a child, when I was forced to explain my actions and learned to use words to rationalise out everything in my experience. This is a silent begging for recognition of the right to my own views, wrapped up in the angry indignation and resentment at being treated as I was a child.

This game no longer serves me, it gives my power away (the power of my own discernment, my own decision making) to the person I’m speaking to. In fact, I realise, this is not a game I can ever win, even if it was an old survival strategy that was relevant, is surviving winning at life?

And the fact is, I’m holding onto old resentments, wanting the respect that was taken from me rather than respecting who I have become in spite of it all.  

Resentment is a complex and deep rooted emotion, and I knew that while I certainly harboured resentments in my life, I also needed to explore the ancestral ties to some of those feelings too. For, perhaps like you, I had inherited certain philosophies and beliefs about life and people that already carried the stench of resentment right from the outset.

So I was excited to be in a Family Constellation session facilitated by a good friend of mine this week. I’m always blown away by how quickly I can switch my focus to the wider quantum field of energy in these sessions; it’s a powerful way to connect with those (usually hurt) parts of me that need to be seen as well broader sense of who I am unencumbered by my experiences in this physical body.

This session did not disappoint. The question I brought to the field was one seeking clarity on why I turn my emotions in on myself.  With a chronic shoulder pain, which signals holding back emotions, a recent kidney stone and a also a fibroid growing in my womb (both growths signalling the suppression of anger and resentment to the extent the body creates a physical demonstration of the feelings), it felt important for me to get a broader perspective than just the thoughts in my head, I also needed to consider the emotional stories I’d inherited.

So with proxies chosen for Control and Emotion, we were underway. It was a fascinating exchange: Emotion was happily waving about like a tree in the wind and wanted to hug Control (when Control was frozen and very closed to an interaction). As Control softened, Emotion wanted to create distance, it was an interesting dance.

As I entered the field, not knowing what I was a proxy for, I wanted to keep both at a safe distance and could feel myself like a sentry on guard. This was particularly true when Control hid behind Emotion; I was extremely uncomfortable and paid Emotion zero attention because I was on high alert for Control. Once I had Control back in my sights I then felt more curiosity about Emotion. And when Emotion moved away, I felt a grief for not having gotten closer.

At this point I discovered that I was a proxy for my reproductive system. I could sense though that this wasn’t just about my reproductive system, in fact, there was way more trauma coming through from previous generations. As Control and Emotion worked together more it allowed the Reproductive System to disengage, to retire.

Not only has it done the amazing job of producing two children, it has been much wiser than me and processed my suppressed feelings on my behalf for as long as I can remember.  All be it, this has manifested in many things that – on the face of it – I would not have asked for. But my body has been trying to get my attention in the only way it knew how to.

This highlights my womb has always been in a state of alert and actually does better when the stressors are known, if all seems calm I actually go into a state of hyper vigilance on the look out for control, to the point of completely ignoring my emotions.

Then came this feeling of utter shock, as it hit me that I (Reproductive System) was no longer required and I felt lost, not knowing what I was to do. The others in the field described me as if I were suffering from PTSD at this point. That is precisely how I felt, as if I were staring across a fallen battlefield; I was numb.

Wrapping me in a warm cloak, I was aware that my facilitator friend was asking me to sit down, and lean against Control and Emotion for support. I have no idea how long I stayed there, it felt like a long time.

But then I had the most sublime experience. It was as if, on the floor before me, a pool of light opened up, it was in the shape of a heart. It was a nurturing, healing light, full of love and warmth and compassion. Within that light came the answer I was looking for, that my womb – now free of its reproductive duties and being honoured and unshackled from its role as guardian of my resentment, overwhelm and other emotions – was now the portal to this light, taking its rightful place as the seat of creative power within my being.

Without all that distraction and burden, it is freed up energy available to support my creative expression and growth. As I continued to watch this pool of light I saw within it a DNA strand unwind and reconfigure, this represented not only a different possible future for me, but for my children, and theirs.

Next I saw a Phoenix rising and, as I continued to watch, the Phoenix became a She Wolf. As I watched the She Wolf standing proudly in this light, the facilitator friend (who knew nothing of the vision I was having) came along and serendipitously put a proxy directly on the pool of light. This was a proxy for me; my reproductive self watched on in delight.

The feeling of that experience is one I have shared with a few people already, and it is still with me. If you have ever experienced moments of grace like this you will know what I mean. But if you have not I can only wish the same for you, for they are sublime beyond anything you can simply see with your eyes, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue, touch with your hands or hear with your ears. This pure essence can only be felt in your heart.

It certainly has provided a wonderful experience to help me switch over from focusing on what was taken away from me and, instead, focus on what I have been given instead, a whole new lease of life. What is it you feel has or is being taken from you? And what possibilities, gifts or opportunities have arisen as a result?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Kneel at the Doorway of Your Heart to Usher the Dawn of a New Era, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, Do You Really Know the Different Parts of You? and Get in Touch With What You Want for Your Future – Recognise Your Brain Is Dwelling in the Past. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

Feeling Trapped? Know this: Circumstances change; this is not forever. You have to trust that, in time, solutions will present themselves. Read here for the full article on Tiny Buddha

“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” Mother Teresa

I will never forget the feeling of loneliness, though it is something I now rarely feel, but those memories are still etched on my heart.

There is no one memory, more a series of them, as people in my life came and went. Yet I was brought up in a loving family, by parents who were very much together in their game of life. I was surrounded by a large extended family who were also in long running relationships, it seemed like the thing to do was find that person to partner with.

Happy ever after is what was fed to me through the very fabric of the society I was brought up in, and people leaving my life was something I felt acutely – and took personally.

Being a sensitive soul, I like to go deep with people, so I’ve always tended towards a small group of close friends rather than a large social circle. Having moved around and moved through different relationships though, I will acknowledge that small group has changed and grown over the years, but with each chapter there can only be a spotlight on a few.

So those few who hold my heart and attention in the present moment are always the ones most acutely felt when they exit my life. What I feel now when this happens (something I am largely at peace with) is massively different compared to my earlier years. I will try to describe what has made the difference.

First though, a few of those earlier memories.

I remember bumping into an old friend at university one day, a day when my usual circle of friends were not there and I was feeling like a spare part hanging around between lectures. It had been hard adjusting to university, it was so completely overwhelming in its size and culture compared to anything I’d experienced before and there was real no sense of belonging.

My old friend had been one of my closest in our early teenage years, and we often stayed at each other’s houses. But I had let that friendship slip as my focus was drawn into a relationship at the age of sixteen. So bumping into her at university made my heart lift, but as we stood and talked it became obvious how much she had moved on, and she had someplace to be; there was no welcome to join her.

My heart sank as I watched her walk away. There was no malice in her actions, but I felt terrible none the less. I became acutely aware of how she must have felt when I had left her to pursue other interests. That is the hardest part of friendships and relationships, letting go when I’ve outgrown them.

Yet I have always let go, the calling inside me to move on stronger than any regret about staying. Sometimes, though, the call to move on has not been mine.

I can vividly remember sitting in my room at my parents’ house one Saturday night, looking up through the street beyond, and watching a neighbor head out for a night on the town with his friends.

I’d been in a relationship with a guy I met at university and, in that summer I graduated, he had left me. He’d had the whole of my heart for almost a couple of years by then, and I just felt so totally rejected and worthless.

On that Saturday night as I watched my neighbor, I felt utterly alone and sad and wondered how to get past what had happened. Having been so involved in that relationship and, having just left university, I really had no circle of friends that I could even ring up and go for a drink with. Even my younger brother was out having fun with his friends.

Slowly, starting with a girlfriend of my ex’s friend that we used to socialize with, I built another circle of friends and life moved on.

In later years I can then recall – in another relationship – my partner going off out with his mates one Sunday evening. I had moved cities and pretty much had our relationship and my work, that was enough to keep my attention fully occupied, so I hadn’t really cultivated a group of friends to socialize with and didn’t much feel like doing that anyway.

It was a strange thing to be faced with an empty space, scary even. But there I was, his Sunday night out became a regular thing. At first I felt lonely, then I started to fill my time with things that interested me and quickly began to look forward to ‘my’ time.

That might sound so obvious, but living in constant company had gotten me used to compromise. There was freedom in watching the kinds of TV shows that only I wanted to watch, listening to – and dancing to – music only I liked, reading books and having time to reflect and contemplate.

But being on my own with my thoughts was not always an attractive concept in days gone past because I was completely identified with the thoughts rather than simply observing them. Talking to a friend the other day about this same topic, I was sharing a memory of being in a motel with the kids and waking up one night about 4am, hearing a loud bang in the neighbourhood.

Wherever my thoughts had started, they quickly spiraled to a bad place in that half awake state. I was soon imagining a mad gunman on the loose and had carefully planned an escape route in my head that included waking the kids up and getting them well away from danger without alerting the gunman. Thankfully I caught those thoughts, observing how they were making me feel and reasoning the unlikely nature of them.   

While I had learned the ability to ‘talk myself down’ from a highly anxious state many years before, it was actually during the time my partner’s social life had left me free each Sunday evening that I began to take more regular notice of my thoughts and how they were making me feel more generally.

I read a book by Brandon Bays called The Journey, recommended by a friend. The Journey was Brandon’s account of self healing, fully recovering from a large tumor with no medical intervention.  

It was the beginning of the journey to me, the journey to my inner world that included no one else.  You see, up until that point, it had always taken another person to explore the depths. But this was all me, figuring out who I am, life and all that I and we are capable of.

That was about 15 years ago and it has, by no means, been an easy journey. There have still been moments of the good, the bad, the downright ugly and the amazing. But loneliness? Not so much. Every since Brandon took me on a guided meditation and showed me how to find the peace within myself, and how connected to everything else we are, loneliness is no longer there to be felt.

The single biggest shift in that conscious awareness of my thoughts, and of the much larger part of myself behind those thoughts, has come through regularly meditating. My whole concept of how who I am, how the world operates and how to get the best out of it all has completely changed for the better. I feel more in control, happier and – most definitely – not lonely.

So have you met the most important person in your life – you – in this way? If you’ve had glimpses of it, I’d encourage you to regularly practice observing what you’re thinking and feeling, the connection between the two and your power to change it. A more balanced and contented you leads to a more balanced and contented world; a world in which loneliness will be a thing of the past.

Other related articles of Shona’s you might enjoy:

Who Am I Now?
Great Relationships Happen When You Put You First
Saying Goodbye
Meditation – You’re Cornerstone to Success
Keep Growing: Don’t Look Back - Don’t Look Down

If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.
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