Tag: self love

self care · Self Development · self development

Downward negative spiral…

The real KazLeave a comment

What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

How often does your mind begin a slow descent into thoughts, which once they build momentum, very quickly build into a complete avalanche of negativity? One day you are motivated, ready to make things happen and full of enthusiasm and a seemingly insignificant event or comment from someone can begin to fester and your rumination over what was said, how you reacted, what they think of you, why you reacted like that, becomes a complete crisis of yourself and your life?

If you can’t relate to this, you are doing awesome and if you can, you are absolutely smashing life too! Training my mind to not catastrophize, analyse every shortcoming of myself, every conversation and action I take, is something that I have literally had to teach myself. I haven’t always reacted so negatively, at least not to the extent that it started to make me feel miserable but life events I think, just made me scared to feel big intense emotions and I worried about my own ability to cope, so my brain would try to protect me by picking up on every threat and trying to avoid it or change my behaviour to diffuse it.

I am learning that feelings need to be felt for them to then leave us, they need to be worked and moved through. Avoiding them kept me stuck and anxious and eventually low. To help me actually feel these emotions safely, I have over time created a toolbox of ways to help me counteract the spiralling thoughts. I can use them in situations where I am overthinking, starting to fall into negative thinking and anxiety. I’ll share the ones I use most often that seem incredibly simple but sometimes require real willpower to utilise.

Firstly I stop the distractions. I get off my phone, turn off the tv, turn off my podcasts, stop being busy and sit in quiet. Busyness is for me a way to avoid facing things. The distractions were subconsciously my way of avoiding the feelings. Doom scrolling is a classic way to avoid life. Often I will feel my body and mind craving silence and I know it’s time to switch off.

When I find some quiet with just me and my thoughts, then I have space to find a way to dig into the emotions I’m avoiding. For this often I will journal or write, whatever I want to put down on paper. I just express it all. There’s no right or wrong, no real purpose to it, I’m just getting my thoughts out of my head and onto paper. They maybe random or jumbled but often will bring up things that make sense about why I am feeling and reacting as I am, what has triggered this negative reaction to life events and what part of me feels wounded and hurt.

Breath work is another tool, which always gives me an intense emotional release. It literally helps me to express emotions that I can feel sat in my chest and throat like a tight ball. I have learnt to just “let go” as the tears, the ugly crying, the sobbing is exactly what is needed. Crying is always my therapy in happiness, anger and anxiety, tears will usually arrive.

A more physical and practical tool is running. Very often running is something which helps me work through anger and frustration more than anything else. Getting outside in nature and my own thoughts, processing events of the day and releasing emotion through music, my thoughts and pushing myself hard can do wonders for any pent up anger. Anger is something I don’t often feel, or I never thought I did growing up but these last few years, anger has become an emotion that I’m learning to embrace and not stifle down. Anger is a normal response to feeling hurt or disrespected and when it’s not suppressed or ignored it won’t overwhelm us. In my younger years, I didn’t feel I was “allowed” to express anger as a girl. It wasn’t what young ladies did, honestly. So it almost feels a bit alien and “wrong” to express anger ,mostly when I’m angry I cry but I’m learning to tap into it more and use it in a positive way.

I believe all emotion is there to be observed and felt. That doesn’t mean we should sit in it for a long time and make it our identity but we move through it and acknowledge it. Life is cyclical and when you are sad, you are likely to feel happiness in the future and the opposite is true. The only constant is change and that for me is a comfort.

career · Inspiration · self care · self development · self love

Positive Change

The real KazLeave a comment

The one biggest positive change I’ve made in my life in the last few years is to start to take full responsibility for my life and my decisions. Previous to that I would always want someone to give me their approval when I was doing things. I’d ask for my family view on something I’d like to do, or friends, or even colleagues who barely knew me and if I met with even the slightest disapproval, I would accept it probably isn’t really for me. Even when I felt disappointed by their opinion and felt they didn’t understand my dreams, It would make me doubt that this was the right path for me and I would allow it to be slowly pushed to the side. I never trusted myself, my intuition, my gut to know what was right for me and I think that as women we need to begin to trust ourselves more.

Society has a way of dissolving this inner guidance system. It leaves us doubting ourselves and feeling guilty for doing what is best for ourselves until eventually we just follow “the rules” of how we live and what we are supposed to do with our lives. Lets face it women who challenge these societal expectations can often be seen as “difficult” and “challenging” but are they? Aren’t they just testing the status quo and pushing the boundaries to allow those following behind them less restrictions and limitations in their lives?

Accepting others views as more important than our own gives all of our power away and leaves us living a life that everyone expects of us or that benefits others but not ourselves. I think many girls and women fall into the trap of living their life this way through society’s conditioning that we are here to look after others, we shouldn’t be challenging or argumentative, we should be there to support and nurture and look good but our opinions, hopes and dreams are to be put on the back burner whilst we assist out partners and children to achieve their goals. If we deviate from these expectations we are seen as irrational, bossy, hormonal, unhinged, eccentric, selfish and so much more for not following the traditional pathway of career, partner, marriage, kids, homemaker, nurturer etc…

I have learnt at 48 that we should trust ourselves more. Go inward and stop looking for approval outwardly. Follow your passions, whether it takes you down a traditional path or not, teach the next generation, earlier on than we may have learnt, that it’s ok to be selfish, to live your life as you wish, to become a woman in a male dominated career, to decide not to have children, to never marry, to build your own business, to take risks, be loud, take up space, be unique, wild and crazy without it being a negative.

Women may not be able to be everything to everyone but they can be exactly what they want to be for themselves. Lets show young women this through example and support.

For everyone, life is short. Be true to your passions and trust your gut to lead the way. Your gut knows. Start to hone your intuition, listen to it and how situations make you feel and let it be your guiding system to navigate decisions and situations you are unsure about as well as jump into opportunities that feel amazing to you! Lets cheer on the women in our lives, support our sisters in their life choices and make it the norm, for us to all follow different paths that celebrate our differences without guilt and shame.

Inspiration · relationships · self care · self development · self love

Still healing…..

The real KazLeave a comment

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.

Inspiration · relationships · self care · self development · self love

The Shift

The real Kaz2 Comments

I can feel it, inside.

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.

Absolute synchronicity in motion.

Inspiration · relationships · self care · self development · self love

Making myself whole again….

The real Kaz2 Comments

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.

Inspiration · self care · self development · self love

What do you enjoy most about writing?

The real Kaz2 Comments

My enjoyment of writing comes from putting my thoughts down and onto paper, or a screen, however it’s done. Wherever they are released, it feels cathartic. An unloading of the random, unravelling of events, emotions, stories that maybe real, or maybe a result of my mind creating scenarios that could, may, or won’t happen.

When your brain is so full, most of the time. An intricate, intertwined ball of thoughts that benefit from being extracted, pulled apart and left on the page, to make space. Make room for the never ending supply of new worries, thoughts, ideas, stories.

Because they never stop, it doesn’t cease.

So I write to off load and for a while it helps. For a moment, It brings peace. A restful mind.

There are times I wish I could take my thoughts out. Put them in a box, pack them up, leave them on the side and allow myself a few hours to switch off, completely. That is when I write because it is almost like opening that box on the side, putting my thoughts inside, and closing it up for a short while. Finding some moments for peace, before the tsunami of thoughts starts again.

Writing helps me to find peace and refuge from an overthinking mind and the process of writing down my thoughts, gives me release. A cathartic release.

Story Of My Life – One Direction

Inspiration · self care · self development · self love

A Different Kind Of Therapy

The real KazLeave a comment

When you are feeling emotion bubbling inside, there’s nowhere to hide from it. No way to ignore it. When there’s a ball in your chest so tight, that doesn’t allow you to breathe, that keeps you aware of the anxiety that is consuming you. When you hold back, tightly to the tears in your eyes. Frightened to let go, show weakness, allow them to see any chink in your armour because you know, if they do, they will attack, bring you down, as best they can. No let up, no reprieve, they want to see you on your knees.

At those times, you retreat, into your sanctuary, your personal space and allow those feelings to escape into words. Words that never seem quite enough to express those extremes, the highs, lows, the intensity of anger, despondency, futility, never ending, ongoing, unending, barrage of obstacles and setbacks.

So you write, let it all spill out, into sentences that flow, into paragraphs which make sense to you, in your head but to others would probably seem confusing, because… they do not know the story that brought you here. They do not know what season this is in your life, they just read of the deep, ferocious, all consuming chords you are striking with your text.

They feel your pain and many can relate to points in their life that left them wading through similar fears and torment. They don’t care what the circumstance, they still empathise with you, understand the emotion, whatever the cause.

You don’t write for them though. You write for yourself. To offload, in a safe space, without burdening, without oversharing to those close to you, without giving too much to them that shows how difficult these moments are. Without being too vulnerable, because that kind of softness and openness leaves room for more heartache and sorrow.

If there’s even a small crack in your outer defence, it will be taken advantage of. You have learnt, its not worth it. So you write, for strangers who do not know why you feel this pain, but they relate and you feel supported from afar without allowing anyone a chance to open your wound and expose it.

Keep writing, laying your feelings bare for people who don’t know. It isn’t an eloquent prose or a masterpiece of the written word, no. But that doesn’t matter, it just falls out in a dialogue to yourself, an acceptance of what is, a knowing “this too will pass” and an allowing of the process, the journey of allowing it to slowly dissolve into nothing as you bring it to life, in the form of words. The process of unburdening yourself and detoxing from the misery so you will once again regain your composure and go on another day as you have before.

No one will know, only the strangers who devoured those words, in your moment and secretly, quietly, cheered you on, both you and them knowing tomorrow you will feel different but for now you need to write, through the hurt.

self care · Self Development · self development · self love

Be patient

The real KazLeave a comment

There’s no rush….

You have given so much for so long, that it would be so easy for you to slip into something familiar where you are putting in all the work again.

And that’s ok, if it is given back. Reciprocated. Both players in this game trying their best for success.

But someone who is the right “fit”, will mean you don’t have to work that hard anymore girl. Not like you have been. Carrying a team of two, refusing to let it fail, even when it’s obvious there is no coming back from the defeats.

If you find someone who is willing to move mountains, because they want to be with you and that is a priority in their lives, then they will make it happen, you will both make it happen and it wont feel like a chore, it won’t feel like you’re carrying the load . Someone who is as excited to get to know you, as you are them, who wants to hear all about you. Everything.

This kinda guy wants to know why you are the person you are today, he’s interested in the past that brought you here but is so much more concerned about you now, in the present. This guy wants to see you smile, your eyes light up, he wants to plan time with you, see you excited to do things, together, experience life, together.

He’s out there.

Be patient.

It’s ok to give it all to this kinda guy but stop hoping to transform a guy who isn’t there yet, has wounds to heal and isn’t ready for that journey. It ain’t happening. He’s not ready. You can’t mould them into someone who “fits”. Stop trying so hard to make it happen. You don’t wanna live your life trying to “fix” someone, do you?

This guy isn’t afraid to apologise and admit when he’s wrong, he talks to you about things that are worrying him, figures out problems alongside you when something doesn’t feel right. This guy talks, works on and figures things out with you. A partnership. He lessens the load, he doesn’t add to it.

You deserve to feel completely loved. You deserve to be fought for and not to have to spend your life fighting for them. You deserve to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that your person will put in 100% to a relationship and you’ll be able to relax and enjoy each other.

Finally, when this kinda guy arrives, take a deep breath and surrender to this kinda love. Exhale….

It’s time for you to relax into something. To no longer need to try so hard for two people but be one half of a couple, working with each other, towards their goals . It’s time for you to know what peace feels like. It’s time you found a protector, supporter, cheerleader and team player.

Lets be honest you don’t know what that feels like, do you? You’ve never really had it. You have always put in way more of yourself than was healthy and you are not sure what “safe” is?. You will know when it arrives. You will know when you no longer have to start bringing up the hard stuff and he starts those conversations, when you no longer have to guess what’s going on because he communicates openly.

You will know, for the first time how it was supposed to feel all along.

Be patient.

And soon you will be able to exhale.

bereavement · friendship · grief · Inspiration · parenthood · relationships · self care · self development · self love

A little like you…

The real Kaz4 Comments

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!