You talk about the facts, discuss the events, the circumstances. You thought that meant you were dealing with it, moving on, addressing it all in your mind. You know you have to let go of the past. You’ve read the self help books, talked it out with friends, been to therapy. You thought you had it all under control.
But then someone challenges your lack of emotion, they query why you are not angry or upset. So unruffled, with no bitterness. “But remember how it made you feel, remember the feelings” they say. You sit and remember and without warning, unexpectedly, the tears fall. Then every time you try and recall the worst times, the pain, the guilt, the anxiety, you break down.
Maybe you don’t have it so together, maybe you’ve buried it deep, so you can live your life. Maybe you’ve made a decision, subconsciously that box won’t be opened until this is over and it’s not. You’re still in it. So you keep the box closed, tightly.
When it’s all finally over and you are able to take a breath, you will tentatively open that box and you know it will unravel a tsunami of feelings. That closed box in your mind, keeps you able to function, when it’s opened and the contents examined you need to be safe, with people you love and when you are able to be kind to yourself. Again the tears fall. Not now, when it’s over.
You’re not healed, you’re still healing. It’s a work in progress.
Something big is coming, a breakthrough. Not in circumstances although that may be a by-product of this journey. A change within. Its feels hugely significant to me. It brings honest authenticity with it, a chance to finally remember myself.
Others may not even know on the outside, it’s happening. I still look the same, but if you scratch the surface, you will notice. The subtle difference in my self belief, what Is important to me and how I choose to live. This version of me has let go of the hurt, forgives them and myself and knows that it all happened for a reason. The pain brought me to where I should be…. it’s not a coincidence.
It feels exciting and I’m so ready but scared too. I wont let that stop me diving in though. I crave this shift, that I’ve been working towards. To finally feel a certainty that I’m healing is liberating. I’m aware that I don’t know how this will affect my relationships, but I know that the people who are meant to be with me on this path, will celebrate my growth.
I can feel the emotion within me. A wave that’s coming because I’m learning to release so much, open up and heal my body, my soul. My perspective is shifting. Awakening myself, breaking open from all the negative binds. the expectations, guilt, anxiety, disapproval, all from others but even more so from myself.
The universe brings everything together at the right time, to create the perfect moments for your growth, for the people you need to support you and the circumstances to bring you to the awareness you need.
I listened to a podcast today. It was an interview by Steven Bartlett with the Hungarian-Canadian physician and author, Dr Gabor Mate. He has a background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development, trauma and it’s potential lifelong impacts. I tuned in whilst out on a run instead of putting on my usual running playlist and zoning out to the beat. Today I had been feeling emotional on and off all day, small things would bring me to tears and randomly through the day I could feel emotion bubbling under the surface. It was almost like I needed a release, something needed dealing with but I didn’t know what.
I chose a podcast that I felt would keep me engaged and I ran, I absorbed the conversation and very quickly I was, for at least the 4th time today, crying and releasing this pent up emotion that was bottled up inside me.
Gabor talks a lot about childhood trauma, which does not need to be such a huge lifechanging distressing experience that we may associate with trauma but for a child it could be something such as not receiving affection from their care giver that can be enough over the years to give them a set of behaviours that if not addressed will cause issues in their relationships with themselves and others as they become and live as an adult, such as people pleasing and feeling responsible for keeping the peace and for everyone’s happiness around them.
What he said in the podcast which seemed to trigger me was that for some children a trauma can be when “they are not seen” by their caregivers that causes them to become people pleasers and keep the peace in order to be “good enough” for someone to love them. Cue the tears and understanding from myself.
He went on to talk about how people pleasing, being unable to say “no” or have boundaries and suppressing anger to keep the peace are the biggest reason that so many women have auto immune disorders because that unexpressed emotion creates illness. Wow! It seems that 80% of auto immune disorders diagnosed are in women and bears the question, why is that the case?
Suppressed emotion and learning it’s our job to “keep the peace” as a child can also mean there is no longer an ability to “trust our gut” that we are born with. We no longer listen to what our body tells us as we are so tuned into others and what’s going on around us. We are now looking for answers within our heads and no longer feeling it in our gut.
I have and do struggle with all of these behaviours and I have lived my life until now feeling like I have to care for others, it is my identity, it is who I am. “I would be selfish and people would not like me if I decided to really put myself first” is an ingrained thought process for me. The first time I ever really had the courage to do what was right for myself was when I ended my marriage at age 46 and filed for divorce and I was told repeatedly that this action was selfish.
I am still plagued by guilt but slowly processing my feelings and where they come from to become closer to peace and acceptance within myself. I have no doubt that I will find a way to fully accept this path I’ve been walking and who I was born to be.
In doing that I am realising that I no longer want to care for others as I have in the past, which is a difficult realisation but that’s ok. Caring and putting others before myself was almost a form of self harm, a way to make others “like” me and find value in myself.
I will always be there for my loved ones but I don’t need to prove my worth through a job caring for others or by trying to make myself responsible for everyone’s happiness around me. I can be there to support but also find my own authentic path and happiness which will lead to the peace I crave so much right now.
I am stripping away the expectations, the opinions, the behaviours, that society, my caregivers and I have placed upon myself and in doing so, remembering the girl I was born to be. Finding that true essence of myself is a slow journey but so rewarding.
I think I got my confidence from you. I’m guessing, ‘cos it doesn’t run through mum’s side of the family. Women on mum’s side are shy, anxious, still strong but worry about the world and what will happen when they’re gone. I have that less, so I guess that may come from you, at least I hope. It comforts me to think I can recognise some of your traits in me.
I’m told you were confident, you could strongly voice your point of view. You weren’t scared to speak up in a crowd and enjoyed a debate or two. Ok, so I can’t quite say that’s me, but what I will say is true, I have a strength and desire to break through this shyness and speak my truth. Maybe I wouldn’t have had that with out you as my dad. Maybe I would just have accepted that this was who I am and sat back.
I like to think It’s from you that inner determination runs through me and I hope now I’m wiser and more confident, you can see that too. I know you loved books, loved to read, poems too. I can definitely say I love the written word too.
I try and remember you from when I was young but the memories are foggy, untrustworthy. Is it a memory or a story I’ve been told about you? I’m unsure. I want them all to be memories but there are only a few of which I’m really sure.
The scent of your roll up tobacco from a Golden Virginia tin box, that you would sit and roll out with, your legs crossed. Dressed in old work jeans but with a shirt that never really seemed to match. Then I remember your smile, when a glimpse of me you’d catch.
I wish my kids got to meet you, damn I wish I had more time with you myself, but my kids would have just flourished with your guiding hand or advice instead. Maybe I would have had more strength to make changes with you by my side but I’ve learnt to harness my own courage and sometimes I just know you are there as my guide.
Almost like you are standing right behind me with a hand on my shoulder, nudging me to be brave, do the hard thing, that’s when I feel you. When I have a choice that is difficult, just willing and whispering in my ear to chose the tough road because that leads to growth and change too.
Telling me to stand strong.
Don’t give up.
Shoulders back, head up and you won’t go wrong.
I’m thankful for the parts of me that are from you. It helps me to feel you are close. Through these rough times I would have loved to have you here with me, to know you were beside me taking care of me but you are within me.
I am your daughter and that is enough ‘cos that means I’m tough!
The older I’ve become, the more I wonder if we all feel this way in some respect during those difficult teenage years. Does anyone actually feel totally accepted and comfortable in their own skin and social group throughout their teenage years?
For me, my home life seemed “different” to others. My dad had died when I was 8 years old and my mum was deaf. Both of those things made me self conscious at parents evenings. Mum couldn’t communicate like the other parents, dad wasn’t there. Two things that were enough to make me feel I stood out like a sore thumb. In reality, I didn’t. No one really took any notice or cared enough about my situation at home. Everyone has something that makes them feel like they “stand out” or don’t quite “fit in”
On top of what felt to me like huge flashing beacons of difference, I was also incredibly shy and quiet. This again, created for me a huge insecurity that no one wanted to be around me. I was too quiet, awkward, no fun to be around. Of course none of which was true but that narrative took residence in my mind for a very long time. My shyness often led to situations where if I felt uncomfortable or was put in a situation where I was forced to speak up in front of many others I would go bright red in the face. This would exacerbate the more anxious and self conscious I became. I would feel like I wanted the ground to swallow me up so I could just disappear from the embarrassment of my obvious anxiety and discomfort that everyone could now physically see.
Over the years, I learnt to control this red ripening face reaction to my discomfort. I began to realise that it wasn’t as noticeable as I felt it was to others and those who did notice really didn’t care that much. This took away a lot of my anxiety and fear around this happening and allowed me to take control over how I reacted.
What I took away from High School wasn’t really a great education, I underperformed and under achieved. It wasn’t a supportive friendship group as I had a better group of friends outside of school, than inside its gates. It wasn’t a sense of belonging or safety.
For me school was just a somewhere I felt unable to find my place in, I wasn’t really a neat piece of the schools tapestry. I didn’t belong with the cool kids, because I just wasn’t cool enough. I didn’t belong with the nerdy kids, because I just wasn’t nerdy enough. I didn’t belong with the sporty kids, because I was rubbish at sport. I didn’t fit in any box reliably enough, so I existed between them all. Never really making good friends in any but being around for lots of them.
So school really only taught me to feel I didn’t “fit in”.
The biggest sacrifice I made, that I was unaware of doing until later in life, was of myself. Losing myself in the responsibility of being a mother and wife. Getting lost along my journey. Allowing myself to become a version of a woman that forgot about her passions, her true nature and the things she loved.
This wasn’t something I really even knew I was doing because I had such a strong need to be seen as a “great mum” and to “support and care for everyone” that I made that come first and foremost but the biggest lesson I have finally learnt in my 47 years is to always love and cherish myself first. A fear of others criticising me as a parent, especially as such a young mum was definitely a part of what drove me to always be so focused on everyone else rather than myself.
The catch phrase “love yourself first” which often has very little substance to it, is something that is spread around on social media very liberally, but the last few years have made these three words much more important to me.
No one tells you how to be a mum or a wife. There is no guide book or mentor. If you are lucky you have a great role model in your own parents and their relationships with you and each other. That was not the case in my family as my father passed away when I was young and my mum never knew either of her parents so was “winging” it herself.
Being a mum is amazing but I never had the strength, confidence or wisdom to know how important it was to keep my own identity as a person. That unique person that you are, with all the passions, interests, and ideas. The style you love, your core beliefs, the dreams you carry, they are what make you different to everyone else and that is important because you are not just someone’s mum, wife or partner. That kind of authenticity may not seem that important in your 20’s but as more of it is chipped away by the time you hit your 40’s it can feel like you have completely forgotten who the hell you really are!
The kids are growing up and don’t need you as much, your partner may be so used to this person you have become, who looks after everyone else, but has forgotten what is important to that girl they used to date so many years ago. They may actually decide you’re being “selfish” when you want to reignite those joys that you have forgotten about. Or maybe your partner likes the version of you that you have moulded yourself into more. Perhaps you have both grown apart in the process of focusing on everyone else and coming back to yourselves again means your relationship needs to adjust and pivot, which is not easy.
For me that loss of myself feels like the biggest sacrifice I have made and whilst I would never change my life with my kids and my marriage, I will now encourage my daughter to keep her passions, values and dreams alive always. I would hope she will find a partner who supports that and knows that she is not just there to make sure everyone else is living their best life but that they are both individual people who need the space to nurture their own passions and evolve into who they are meant to be whilst still being committed to each other.
I’ve learnt that whoever you are, your happiness counts and it’s ok to put your own needs at the fore front of your life. You don’t need to feel guilty for that. You are the only person in this life that will do that. No one else can or should be relied upon to make you happy. Don’t give anyone that kind of power over your life. When you have kids of course their happiness and safety is paramount but in order for those children to be happy, they need their parents to be happy first.
The giggle of my children, the belly laughs. The involuntary laughter of my daughter, when she just cannot stop. She can’t sneak a look at her brothers because she will cry, laugh and snort all at once and is crossing her legs tightly without realising, just in case because of us all, she holds the award for the most uncontrollable giggler! I dare you to be around that and not begin to smile and giggle yourself, impossible. It’s infectious!
An empty beach, the sound of the waves, crashing against the shore, seagulls cawing overhead. A place of peace, quiet and happiness all at once. Takes my thoughts to me sitting on a blanket by the sea, with a book, just enjoying the surroundings with a flask of hot coffee beside me and maybe someone special sharing the moment too.
Wrapped up in the arms of the one you love so tightly and safe. So close you are listening to the sound of their heartbeat as your head rests on their chest. Totally content, present and secure in the knowledge that you have each other.
When that uplifting tune comes on just at the right time! You are driving along in your car, minding your own business, maybe feeling a little melancholy and #Boom the song that you need to hear comes on to raise your vibe. The hairs stand up on your arms and you turn up that volume knob so the next few cars can hear what your playing too! You no longer care what the other cars in the queue are thinking, its time to karaoke sing along and probably dance and move your body with it too…. pure joy! #dancelikenooneswatching
On an early morning dog walk at 5am. You are the only person out and the only sound is that of the birds chirping in the trees starting their day, saying good morning. Forgetting the worries of yesterday, a feeling of a new beginning and you feel secure in the knowledge that the birds are chirping just for you, whilst everyone else is sleeping.
Your fur baby is enjoying strokes on your lap, snoring away or purring loudly and dribbling. So content. Your are both loving the snuggles. They are chilled and happy alongside you because that is always their favourite place to be. You always find unconditional love and snuggles with them when you need it. Mutual love and contentment. Perfect.
When they are young, you are busy and life never stops. Life is fast paced, little time to read that book, drink the hot coffee, soak in the bath. Their chubby little hands are always pulling at your clothes, asking you, “Why?” “What if?” “How come?” “When will we get there?” “Can we do this?” “But whyyyyyyyy?”
In those moments it feels, exhausting, restricting, overwhelming to be this little persons protector and teacher, the adult that they turn to for everything, that keeps them safe and supports their growth. You adore everything about these little beings and still you wish you had some time to just chill, read the book, chat with friends without wiping snotty noses or lay in for just a little longer than 5am at the weekend.
Now I look back and realise how fleeting that time was in our lives. How precious those moments are. Now I have the time to sit and read a book at the weekend but I know I’ll never be pulling my daughter up on my lap again when she’s fallen over and needs a hug or have the privilege of being the person to answer my sons first questions again and guide them into adulthood safely.
The early years are precious and hard, its easy to forget to savour them but we also need to be kind to ourselves and know it’s ok, to ask for some help to take a break because our kids need
caregivers who are present and patient and not stressed and reactive. Every parent feels guilty or like they have failed at some point but its the lessons we take from those moments that are important.
Now though I look at my kids of which two are adults and although I’m sad to never have the precious early years again, this season is different but just as special. They are amazing humans!! They take me places, we go out together as grown ups to the theatre, cinema, walks, gigs and I get to discuss our favourite things, learn about what they value and their points of view which are changing and forming. I get to admire the way they conduct themselves, the relationships they are forming and the lives they are creating, knowing that I played a part in moulding these kind, respectful, intelligent, motivated, positive men into who they are.
That is the most amazing part of being a parent. When they grow and you are proud of who they are and can look back and remember those sleepless nights and tantrums and realise it was SO worth it! The changing relationship from carer to friend, built on a respect for each other and who you are as people is priceless. I’ve a way to go with my daughter yet as she is only 13 years old and a mother and daughter relationship is different but equally as special. We are navigating our path and our relationship and I know she is still looking to me for guidance in these tricky teenage years.
It makes me reflect on the changing relationship with my own mum who is now 80 years old. She has been my confidante throughout adulthood. She supported me in an emotional and practical sense and as very often happens with many of us, those roles are now changing. I am now supporting her more in many ways and we are working our way through this change in the landscape along with my sister. I know how hard these transitions can be, our changing roles as a parent, we have to make dramatic shifts to let go of being the care giver to a friend to maybe the cared for one day. Life is always changing and teaching us and for me, I will just keep adapting and trying to be mindful of how hard these changes can be on our loved ones.
Who knows, I maybe looking at the next stage of my life holding the chubby small hands of grandchildren in the future, if that happens, I will be blessed x
Stop waiting. Stop putting it off until the time is right. Stop expecting to know when the stars align, when the timing is perfect to make a change. That is never gonna happen. There is always gonna be a reason to wait.
Your mind is going to talk you out of taking that leap of faith because it’s trying to protect you. It will reason, question and analyse. It will come up with every excuse in the book to stick within your comfort zone where it knows you are safe. It’s hardwired that way.
The thing is taking that leap of faith needs to be practised to make it less scary. The more you do it, the less you worry about what might happen because even if it doesn’t turn out as you hoped, you know you will be ok. Others might say you have failed but have you really? You’ve tried, it hasn’t worked out, you’ve learnt how to do it better next time and can now say you gave it your best shot and live without regret.
Isn’t that better than what ifs? Always wondering if you could have done it? Would it have worked? Yes, you could be setting yourself up for some pain and hurt when you jump into something but what if that could be the best thing that ever happened to you and you walked away from it? Are you willing to risk that? What if they could have changed your life for the better? No one wants to feel hurt and pain but you know you would get through it and the potential for happiness is worth the risk, no? Jump into it, if it feels right, with gusto and enthusiasm, if you are going to do it, do it with all your being. No half ass attempts, give it your all!
Say what you want to say, don’t hold it in, don’t leave room for doubt, be honest. Spend time with the people you admire, who are positive, who are living their dreams. Do the things you want to do, seek them out, the more you look, the more opportunities you will find.
Don’t allow life to carry you along with it and never take a chance. You will go through your whole existence never really achieving or experiencing the things that light your soul up. When opportunities arise grab them, when people arrive in your life that you feel connected to embrace them, the universe brings the right opportunities, experiences and people to you at the right time for you to experience, learn and grow. Trust the process….
There is no “right” or “wrong” path to take, only what makes you happy and gives you the experiences you desire. So take them and make this life worth living. The ups, downs and plot twists along the way are the stories you can tell your grandchildren about, that you lived to the full and loved with all your heart. Show them that life is short and age, creeps up on us quickly.
Mostly, make memories because when you are gone, there’s nothing else left but what others remember. Their time with you, your essence, how you made them feel and how you lived your life.
Unravelling My Own Bulls#*t! 