Posts Tagged 'blog'

Walking towards joy

Published 05/01/2019 Counsciousness , Death , Growth , Life , Philosophy , teaching , Uncategorized , writing 1 Comment
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2018 I am glad to see you go.

You nearly got the better of me. You tried hard to break me, along with 2017, 2016 and 2015. All of you went on rampages of preposterous proportions to see if you could be the one to wear me down and make me admit defeat. You nearly did. Each of you in your own way did your best. Throwing at me whatever you could muster. Digging deep to maintain the deluge.

I’ll admit you brought me to my knees a few times…. more than a few….but I am made of more than the sum of all of your excruciating pain and heartache. I am made of stardust and little bits of warrior woman. I have fueled myself with love and hope and I have rebuilt myself on a foundation of strength and softness. I stood up to your storms and swayed in your wind. I am still here. I am still rooted. You did not win.

These years came with heartache, immense loss, death and betrayal on a scale I hope none of you ever come remotely close to experiencing. I have mourned and cried. I have shuddered under the weight of worry and surrendered to the storms. I have extended grace where I could and wrapped those I love in all the light I can find.

I am still doing the work. I am still fixing and healing and soothing my soul. There is always work to be done.

Listen carefully 2019. I have set an intention. My intention is simply to move towards joy. I seek joy. I seek light and love and laughter. Work with me universe. Work with me. It is a simple and unassuming request. I do not ask that you provide it, for I can find it for myself. I only ask that you do not stand in my way.

Do not block the light I seek so desperately. Do not stand in front of love.

2019 I ask that you hold my hand and walk with me towards joy.

Tree stumps and emotional concussion

Published 11/11/2018 Counsciousness , learning , Life , Philosophy , teaching , Uncategorized , writing , Yoga Leave a Comment
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Here I am doing some sort of crazy balance on a tree stump. Why? Because I can and because I’m damn strong and it’s a whole lot of fun.

That stump – well it feels like it resembles my old life. The one I used to have before the universe decided that I needed some fucking big challenges and some real time growth.

Thanks universe.

It came along, pushed me out of the tree and chopped the whole bloody thing down, right down to the stump. Off went all the branches of my life. Left me with a sorry seeping stump and no place to call home. So, after a bit of confusion, (I like to call it emotional concussion), I found a new tree. Took me a while but I found a new tree and that emotional concussion is wearing off.

But this story is not about a tree or a stump. It’s about this thing that happened right about the time I fell out of the tree.

I had a friend. A best friend. We met in 1999 and for 17 years we were partners in crime. She was my person. I didn’t make a decision without speaking to her. She knew my moods, my thoughts, my troubles and my joys. This friendship saw us through some tough times and we shared all the stories that ran deeply through our intertwined lives. She was the family I didn’t have. The sister I always wanted. She was my home from home and my first port of call. I would always hold space for her no matter what load I might be carrying. If she called I put down my shit and listened. She had a big place in my heart and I would step up in an instant if she needed me.

Then I fell out of my tree. Actually I didn’t fall out of my tree I was pushed but that’s for another day. Where do you go when you are bruised and broken? You go home. Ahh yes, but I had just fallen from there so I went to my second home. To the home of my best friend.

I had a life to rebuild, a new home to find and an urgent need to find a way to support myself. I was drowning in a shit storm so I wept for a while then I started to put myself back together. The logistics of which can not be underestimated. This was a herculean task. Whenever I could catch my breath, and as I had always done, I would knock at her door to connect and hear her stories. To hold space for each other as we had done for seventeen years……but she stopped answering.

She stopped answering my calls.

She stopped replying to my messages.

Then one day I saw that she had unfriended me on Facebook. Good god I did not see that coming.

I never even got to tell her why I fell from the tree.

The wounds from that fall run deep and will take a lifetime of healing, and my person……she doesn’t even know why.

On travelling solo.

Published 11/05/2017 Growth , learning , Life , Philosophy , Travel , Uncategorized , writing 1 Comment
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No one can say that my life has not been interesting.  From the very beginning it appears I was destined to live a life full of challenges interspersed with an occasional adventure.

It all began in Singapore where my mother, just twenty-one, fell pregnant with her second child.  She had married my father, a slim and charming Irish airforce man at nineteen and their first posting had been to Singapore.  A couple of years later we returned to England and within a year or so we were off to Germany where I began my schooling. I distinctly remember being dragged to school through the snow… not eager to leave the warmth of our top floor flat and the sweet stories of ‘Listen to mother’ on the radio.  Three years later I had to leave my first best friend Gillian and return to England.  I cried for a week and experienced my first broken heart.

Back in England it felt like we moved incessantly.  House after house and school after school.  I became a bookworm.  The corner of the school library and a soft cushion became my friend. The books I read being familiar faces no matter where I found myself.  It was during these years that I discovered the value of knowing how to be alone and I remember my mother telling me how important it is to know how to do this.  To being easy in your own company.  To savour the very sweetness that is solitude.

Finally in my teenage years when my father left the airforce and started his own company we started to settle and yet life began to fall apart.  My father, a typical irishman was a drinker and the more money he made the more he drank.  During his airforce years he had never really been home and I was probably to young to be aware of his addiction.  Now it was glaringly obvious and his indifference to me became a thorn in my side but, at the same time, I developed a deep friendship with my mother that lasted until the day she died.

A week after my seventeenth birthday, having been dumped unkindly by my first boyfriend, I hopped on a plane and went stateside to escape yet another broken broken heart and my father.  I stood at Atlanta airport feeling tiny, afraid and incredibly vulnerable.  All I could think was ‘how am I going to survive this’….but I did.  I ended up in South Carolina and spent a year exploring life, making friendships that are still alive today, learning to stand on my own two feet and the art of ‘conversation with a stranger’.

A year or so later I returned to England and instantly regretted the decision.  Driving through the grey, damp streets on a foggy November morning I longed for the sunny skies of the carolinas, the friends I had made there and once again to be far away from my father and the shit storm that surrounded him.  Just eighteen I sat in my parents little house in England and felt lost, alone and once again incredibly vulnerable.  No plan and no idea where to start. My parents marriage a mere pile of rubble and his love affair with the bottle all the stronger.

Now so many years later I am so grateful for those early adventures.  I am eternally grateful for those early life lessons of savouring solitude and travelling solo.  Of learning to talk to strangers and of reading anything and everything.  Of knowing that broken hearts do mend and that there is power in vulnerability.  Of knowing that you don’t have to tolerate other people’s stuff no mater who they are.

Today I savour my solitude and that little armchair at the back of the bookstore is still my friend.  I have more books than clothes and still love ‘conversations with strangers’.  To hear snippets of their stories and exchange friendly smiles.   I am alone, a little lost and once again feeling incredible vulnerable…..but it feels like home.

It doesn’t have to be this way…

Published 07/02/2017 Counsciousness , Death , Growth , Life , Philosophy , teaching , Uncategorized , writing Leave a Comment
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In my little world right now I have people close to me who are suffering the unimaginable – stuff we can’t even dream up.  Worlds being turned so upside down that the simple act of breathing becomes impossible.  Heartbreaking, excruciating stuff.  The life is not fair kind of stuff.  The cry for three days and still not catch your breath kind of stuff.

They are not doing this to themselves.  It is forced upon them by the universe for whatever lesson it is they have come to learn in this lifetime.  It is out of their control but it is also out of everyone’s control.  It is just the way it is.  The universe’s plan.  It’s unbearable, but it is the universe’s plan so we catch our breath and move forward as best we can.  It is not in anyones’ control so we breathe and move.  Step by step. Day by day.  Knowing we are doing our best.  All of us doing our best in every moment.

Also in my little world I have other people close to me who are suffering due to the choices of those around them. I have been in that place.  I know how it feels.  I know every single desperate inch of how it feels.  It’s equally heartbreaking….but it’s different.  It’s different because it doesn’t have to be.  It’s the ‘choice’ of the other person.  It can be fixed.  It may take courage but it can be fixed.

Do something once and it is an accident.  Do it again and it’s a choice.  Didn’t have to happen.  Didn’t have to go down that road.  Didn’t have to hurt the people around you.  Didn’t have to do that.

Do it again and it becomes selfish.  It becomes weak.  It lacks integrity and soul.  It becomes pathetic. It becomes deliberate.  The deliberate cause of suffering to others.

Addictions are a disease they say.  Perhaps.

Choice is not a disease.

Addictions are selfish and destructive.  They are harmful and hurtful.  They cause pain wherever they go….and they go everywhere.  They are everywhere.  They are all around me causing immense suffering to people that I love dearly and so many people I don’t even know.  People I have yet to meet.  Addictions are selfish and they are a choice!  I am astonished at the prevalence of them.  I am astonished at the quiet whispering voices as they tell me their stories.  Their stories of breaking hearts and loss of hope.  Stories of broken families and suffering children.  Stories.  So many stories.  I am over whelmed by them.

I do not understand despite a lifetime of being in this place.  I do not understand someone making that choice.  I do not understand the destructive selfishness of it all.

I watched my father destroy his family unit. Destroy his job, his friendships and eventually destroy himself.  Done and dusted and pushing up the daisies by the time he was my age.  He knew what he was doing.  As a child I knew he had chosen his addiction over me.  His selfish destruction of everything around him was more important than I was.

And then I watched it again….

It was a choice.  It was not a disease it was a choice.

It simply didn’t have to be that way.

It never does.

 

 

I’m so out of my comfort zone I can’t breath.

Published 10/10/2016 Death , Life , teaching , Uncategorized , writing 5 Comments
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That quote, you know the one that goes like this…..  ‘Life begins at the end of your comfort zone’.  Well does it? Does the magic really happen when you are pushed to your edge? Does life really begin when the proverbial rug is pulled out from beneath you?  Does it really begin when you have to start again.  When you have to do it all over but you are tired and afraid.

I’m waiting life.  I am waiting for you to show me.

It seems I have spent the last two years being terrified.  Two years of grappling to find comfort in the unfamiliar. Searching for the path back to comfort.  Back to that comfort zone where life felt safe and I had a plan.

I continue to have my daily conversations with my mother, as I have done for the last fifty one years.  She no longer answers.  There is no comforting reply.  No sound advice from the email address that was once hers.  No Sunday Skype and reassuring smile.  No ‘I can come if you need me’.  I need you.

I tell her that nothing is the same.  I tell her that I wander around this ‘edge’ in search of home but I have yet to find it.  I tell her that a blind man does not use his cane to see where he can go but rather where he can’t.  I tell her that I have lost my cane.  That I don’t know where it’s safe to tread and I have no one to tell me.  I tell her that I can’t see the road ahead.  That it is all blurry and misty where I am.  That there are no white lines or cats eyes showing me where to go.   I tell her of opportunities that come my way but that I don’t know if I should.  That I need her  to tell me that I should.   I tell her that I have no place to call home anymore.  Either here or there.  That I have lost my secret place where I could hide from my fears and from the world when it all got too much.  I tell her I do not know how I will survive this.

I tell her that I am having to do things differently and I’m not sure that I am doing it right.  That there were people I believed in, totally believed in that let me down.  That there were new people I thought were honest and kind but they were not.  That I told them my stories and now I realised I should not have.

I tell her too of all the beautiful friends I do have that listen endlessly to my why’s, what if’s and how’s.  I tell her that all the little gifts she gave me over the years are my new familiar.  That I can see her everywhere because of those things.  I tell her that it is from her that I learnt the real meaning of unconditional love.  That her exceptional friendship is what I hope to emulate with my own girls.  I tell her I’m trying.

I tell her of the days that are magical and happy and of the dark days when I can’t even remember how to breathe.

I tell her that it is all down to me now.

I tell her I am scared that I am doing it all wrong.

I tell her I am alone but never lonely.  That she taught me that art of being alone.  I am eternally grateful for that.

I tell her I am so out of my comfort zone I can’t breathe.

Does life really begin in the unfamiliar?  Does it begin with a new front door of a home that is not mine? Does it begin with the loss of friends there were supposed to be there for a lifetime ? Does it begin in the space of starting again.  Does it begin in the not knowing of how this is supposed to work?

I do not know. I think by now I am supposed to know but I do not.

Grief does not know of time.

Published 20/07/2016 Death , Growth , learning , Life , Uncategorized 3 Comments
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Grief is an disobedient entity.  It does not know of boundaries or timelines.  It does not care for working days or weekends.  It does not arrive at the prescribed time, waiting its few mandatory days after shock and despair to enter stealthily through the door.  It does not wrap you in its dark cape for the allotted or subscribed time you might have read about and so think ‘oh yes so now you are here and in x number of days you will be gone and I can move on’.  It does not come when you are expecting it.  It does not always come with death. We have many reasons to grieve and most of them we ignore.

Grief.  It comes in the middle of the most perfect day.  You have just taken a deep breath of pleasure, the sun is out and you can hear the delightful laughter of small children.  What ever it was that was the cause of your grief was months, even years ago.  Long forgotten.  Dealt with, you thought, in the most efficient of ways.  Packed down tightly, taped up and placed in a long forgotten corner of a cupboard never opened.  Then there you are standing in line at the grocery store perched somewhere between the pretty little packets of nuts and the magazines depicting perfect homes and deliciously robust bodies and suddenly you hear a voice, or smell a scent and it hits you like a freight train.  Right there, out of the blue it hits you.  It was there all along.  A tiny ember barely alight somewhere deep within you glowing so quietly you could not even hear it’s whisper.  Then a memory, a sight or sound opens the door just enough to provide oxygen to that tiny cinder.  You feel the heat rise up within you.  Rushing and enveloping you.  Overwhelming you. You are in the middle of the line at the supermarket and all of a sudden you feel your world fall apart.

It comes in a dream and when you wake the day does not caress you with it’s normal sweet and charming hello.  You open your eyes to crashing waves of every unwanted and unwelcome emotion.  Immediate thoughts of ‘I cannot do this day’ engulf your both your mind and every pore from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.  We are who we are though and we get up and tape down that box and carry on.  We shut the door and hope the cinder dies down.  No oxygen, no fire.

Then there you are in line at the supermarket and the heat rises and your eyes fill with tears.   You cry at the checkout and you wipe your eyes at the parking exit.  You stop your car in a random spot in some side street and are engulfed in great heaving sobs that tear you apart.  Once it comes its unstoppable and the pain it seems is unbearable.  That fire will burn and the only thing to eventually put it out will be your own tears.  You can’t can keep closing that door and trying to put out the flames, it will never work.  It will come again and again at all those unexpected times until you finally deal with it.

Thats grief.  It’s unexplainable and although it is not always related to the death of a person it usually involves loss of some kind.  There are many reasons to grieve.  It can be the loss of a place.  The breakdown of a friendship.  The deep hurt from betrayal.  The pain of something that never was when you so desperately wanted it to be.  The bottomless despair that comes with the realisation that things are not how you thought they would be.  The loss of a future you thought you would have.

When it comes it might be because of all these things.  There is nothing to do but go with it.  Pull over at the side of that road and cry those tears.  Stay in bed and refuse to do the day. Open the door and let out that whole lifetime of piled up emotion. Maybe, just maybe then you can start to heal.

Happiness is……a secret

Published 05/04/2016 Body , Life , Uncategorized , writing 4 Comments
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I made a promise to myself a year or so ago when my life fell apart and all that I knew was no longer.  I promised myself that I would be open to possibilities.  That what landed in my lap was perhaps meant for me, despite my own curious dubiousness, and that I would explore what ever came my way.  That I would let life unfold just as it wanted. That I would release my resistance to outcomes and live in the moment. That I would enjoy those moments and treasure each and every one of them however heavy or light they felt.

I am proud to say that I have done just that.  I have braved weddings on my own, seen more movies than ever before, flown around the country visiting friends and agreed to work that I never, ever, imagined myself doing.  The rewards have been great and I am thankful for each and every opportunity to explore both the external world and my own inner self.

So when a week or so ago a dear friend messaged and asked me if I would like to go to Secret Sunrise I agreed, without even a moments hesitation and without even being fully aware of what it was.  I then moved on with my days and having marked the event in my calendar let it rest far in the back of my mind. I had just returned from a long weekend away in the far off provence of Limpopo when she messaged to remind me that out outing was imminent.  I have to admit I did emit a rather large sigh.  Despite my efforts to move out of all my self imposed comfort zones I am still a lover of routine and am deeply attached to my own personal space and alone time. I had just spent five days away with people and had a deep desire to sink back into the coziness of my world.

With a certain amount of weariness my alarm was set for four thirty in the morning and rise I did on an extremely hot and humid morning at the end of March.  We arrived at the city centre location only divulged the day before (hence the name Secret Sunrise) and were each presented with a set of headphones and guided to some stairs leading to the roof of the building.  There on that roof was a veritable wonderland of vegetables and flowers.  A rooftop garden so sweet it would take your breath away.  Recycled items turned into glorious flower containers, a giant chess board, a bus stop and fruit tress abundant with their offerings.  A fairy tale world in the most unexpected of places.

Headphones on we were guided though an hour of dance, meditation and unbridled joy.  To begin with I found myself hesitant. Unsure and self conscious. After all here I am on a rooftop at six o clock in the morning, dancing to music no one else can hear, waiting for the sun to make it’s easy way into the day.  Then I remembered my promise to myself.  To just let life unfold and enjoy all the moments that came my way.  I looked around me and saw nothing but sweet smiles.  The energy and joy was infections and it took only one or two breaths before I too found myself floating around the garden in a state of pure happiness.

I was breathless.  Something that started out with a sigh of regret at my eagerness to say yes turned out to be one of the happiest hours of my life.  The sheer pleasure of moving my body without a care in the world was exhilarating.  Catching my breath as the sun showed it’s sweet face over the roof tops I was deeply grateful to be there in that moment.

So this is how the story goes.  Be open to everything. Release your resistance to the outcome.  Let life unfold.  This was a true lesson from the universe and a very sweet reminder that pure joy comes in the most unexpected ways.

Traits of conscious living

Published 07/03/2016 Counsciousness , learning , Life , teaching , Uncategorized , writing Leave a Comment
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I recently saw an article in which were words written by the actor Keanu Reeves. Keanu had written about how he did not like living in a world where people did not seem to value either themselves or each other. I agree.  The fact that millions are obsessed with the inane daily existence of a family that seem to pride themselves on the size of their butts rather than the depth in their hearts breaks my own into a million pieces.   Where is our deep commitment to the human race, our planet and everything that resides in our environment?  Why the desire to hurt and why the ludicrous obsession with things that have no meaning or depth.

His article reminded me of notes I had written in the back of an old journal and so I rummaged around until I located those tired scribbles. There in my tatty moleskin I found the list I had made some time ago on what I believe are the traits of people who live a conscious life.

They are dedicated to personal growth. 

By this I mean that they put effort into being a better person that they were yesterday.  The seek to expand their minds and are open to constant learning.  They understand that there is always room for improvement and are willing to work on the space between who they are and who they want to be.

They understand that they are more than a physical body.

Our physical body is home for our soul.  Perhaps we will never understand just what our soul is but we do get that it is vital to who we are.  Both our body and our soul are energy.  Our body vibrating atoms of energy and soul the deep conscious energy that makes us who we are.  They understand this about themselves and equally of others.  They are prepared to meet others on both levels and are respectful of another’s journey here on our planet.

They take care of themselves

Living a conscious life means taking care of the home their soul resides in. Attending to all the physical needs of the body.  Making time for exercise, drinking lots of water, eating quality food and avoiding the perils of sugar, alcohol and drugs. It means taking care of your own emotional needs and stepping out into the world knowing that if you take good care of yourself you have more to offer others.

Embracing their beauty

This really boils down to being comfortable in their own skin.   Taking the time to love themselves, who they are and what they offer to the world.  This is no mean feat. Even liking ourselves seems impossibly difficult in a world that tells us we are not enough.  Conscious people tune out from the media perception of beauty, physical or otherwise and embrace all that they are.

Care for others

Conscious people understand that we are all connected.  That we are all part of this universe and that we are all made up of the same energy at a deep cellular level. This understanding guides them to treat others as they would treat themselves.

Care for the earth

It is pretty obvious isn’t it that if you have conscience at all you are driven to treat this plant with the utmost care.  Reducing your consumption and lowering your carbon footprint are just the tip of the iceberg.  Care for the earth means caring for our environment and everything in it.

Emotionally mature

This doesn’t come easy to some but it starts out by engaging in personal growth.  All the work done there provides the basis for emotional stability and maturity.  This has nothing to do with physical age.  I know young people who’s emotional maturity knocks the socks of people twice their age.

Lives with integrity and doesn’t settle

A conscious person approaches all that they do with grace.  They are true to their word and uphold their own code ethics and morals.  They know their boundaries and expect others to treat them with the same honour as they themselves treat others.

Opens even when it hurts

It is not easy to stay soft and open in a society that wants to beat you with it’s own brand of harshness but this one is essential.  Staying open means not closing down ones heart.  It means understand that the energy of love really is what gives meaning to our lives. It means being tender even in the moments when it is hardest to do so.

Receives elegantly

I struggle with this.  I find myself very uncomfortable with the process of receiving gifts but to not receive with grace denies the other person all the joy of giving.  Of course it is not always a gift from another person.  Receiving also means accepting and loving your talents and anything else that makes you special.  It is understanding that you are deserving of this and being brave enough to go out into the world with that knowledge.

Is brave and courageous.

In the words of Gandhi ‘Be truthful, gentle and fearless’.  Being brave and courages does not denote being hard.  It means be courageous enough to be gentle and be brave enough to stay open.  Stand sweetly in your own power and respect that others do the same.  Move fearlessly out of your comfort zone when required and help others in their quest for growth.  There is a beautiful sanskrit word ‘Shraddha’.  It means learning to rest in complete uncertainty without moving into fear.  For me that just sums up beautiful the ability to be brave and courageous.

I truly believe that we all have the ability to be highly conscious people.  That every single person on this planet has the depth and character to do the work required, and just imagine if they all did.  What a wonderful world it would be.

My friend Jungle Jim

Published 02/12/2015 Art , creativity , Life , photography , Uncategorized , writing 1 Comment
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I find it amazing how the universe finds a way to bring people together even if they are either sides of the world.  How your vibration matches up with that of another even when you are on different continents.  The universe just decides you need to be in each others lives and it makes a plan.

I have such a friend.  We studied photography together from opposite sides of the world.  He was incredibly supportive of my work and we would compare notes and essays and eventually finished the course together delighting in our equally good results.  I loved his engaging open manner and we developed a sweet friendship that moved from just fellow students to encompass our whole lives.  It seems we had far more in common that just photography.

One day he emailed me the first few chapters of his book and one day I bravely emailed him the first few chapters of mine.  He would write each day will travelling his wet and rainy commute into London and I would write from coffee shops on warm sunny african days. Worlds apart and yet the same.  He of course is ten steps ahead of me and was near to completing his book.

Then on one of those exquisite sunny days a parcel arrived.  His book in all its glory.  I held it in my hands and ran my fingers over the cover.  In the pages between those covers I could feel every tiny atom of energy he had poured into those words.  I could feel his pride and excitement.  This was a big moment.

That weekend I was going away with a friend and as if the universe knew how to play this game the skies darkened and the rains came.  I lay in my bed listening to the drops fall heavily onto the roof above and the sounds of the lion call far away.  I took that precious book in my hands and as I turned the pages I was transported into the world of Jungle Jim.  To his adventures deep in the jungle with the rain coming in equal measure there in those pages.  I devoured it.  I was there.  I was her.  I was young and full of adventure.  How sweet that the universe made sure my world matched those on the pages.

I don’ want to give away the story.  That is for you to enjoy and I promise you will not be disappointed.  Jungle Jim is an adventure that captured my heart and imagination. Every one of those pages is filled with James King’s adventurous spirit and massively soft heart.

I am so proud of you my friend.  I loved this book.  I loved it’s energy and excitement.  I loved that it captured me so and I loved that it is so much a part of you.

James you have inspired and encouraged me.  You have listened when I needed a friend and you have entertained me with your adventures.  This book is only the beginning and I am eternally grateful to the universe for bringing you into my life.

James King’s Jungle Jim is available from http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=3512, Amazon and Kindle.

 

 

On life and loss…..

Published 18/11/2015 Death , learning , Life , Uncategorized 5 Comments
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This year has been hard.  Unbelievably hard.  Excruciatingly hard.  I have lost so much of what I once held dear and found myself feeling more vulnerable than I ever thought possible.

My year began with divorce. Divorce from a marriage of twenty seven years.  A painful separation with all that I had known for my whole adult life. Nothing can prepare you for the loss.  With divorce there is always loss.  Huge, huge amounts of seemingly unbearable loss.  Loss of what you thought would be.  Loss of a future you once imagined.  Loss of friends and on occasion, loss of hope. For me the greatest of those losses, apart from the obvious, was my beloved ramshackle house in the bush. This was the place I called home.  Where my heart and soul felt the most peace. Where I took all my deep breaths and made all my big decisions.  The place I went when life became overwhelming.  So in the most overwhelming time in my life I could not go to that place that I knew.  I could no longer sit in that place where I normally sat.  In essence, even my decision making process had to change.

Life was, in fact, to became more overwhelming than I could possibly imagine. Nothing it seemed, bar my name, could stay the same.  I moved house, changed my car, changed my bank accounts, changed phone accounts and wifi providers, became a yoga instructor and took on photography work I had previously shied away from. It was hard. Seriously hard and I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.  I had to claw and fight my way back to creating a life that was sustainable, even if it was temporary.

Then just when I thought I could catch my breath the universe dealt another massive blow.  It took from me my mother in a bizarre set of circumstances.  Nothing could possibly prepare me for the month that was to follow.

Last week I sat in her little home in the cold autumn of England and tried once again to catch my breath.  I could not seem to find it.  It was not amongst the all letters she had saved.  Letters that I had written to her when I was still a teenager and living in America.  It was not amongst the clothes that she wore, nor was it in the cupboards of china that she loved so much.  I could not find it in the garden she had tended so carefully or in the boxes of photographs I rummaged through.  It was not in the cards that arrived nor the quiet ticking of the clock in the night hours where I lay awake in a bed that had once been hers.  Surely I would find it somewhere.

I have yet to find that breath but in amongst all this terrible loss here is what I have found.  I have found open hearts and incredible compassion.  In my vulnerable moments I have seen people step forward to comfort me.  People I did not know well. People who were merely on the fringes of my friend zone.  They have opened their hands and hearts to me.  They offered kind words that I have re-read again and again in those dark hours listening to that ticking clock. They gave me heartwarming hugs.  Hugs that gave me strength when I felt depleted.  They have taken me into their circles and protected me.  They have listened when I needed an ear.  I have made new friends.  New friends that have bought me meals and found ways to make me laugh and smile on the darkest and wettest days….you know who you all are.

I have found strength.  I have found that I am made of more than I thought.  I have found that I have strength to cope with a whole lot more than I ever imagined.

I have found calmness.  Yes, in amongst the whirlwind of trauma I have gone deep into myself to find a place of calm.  Now that I know where it is I know that I can go there whenever I need to.  Perhaps it was not there in the bush, perhaps it was just inside of me all the time.  I just didn’t know how to find it.

We are all just journeying from one end of life to the other.  Life is just about experience.  Big experiences and small.  Sometimes those big experiences are spaced out with long gaps in-between.  Sometimes they come all at once.

I have had a year of big experiences and big loss.  Big discoveries and monumental growth.  I hope the universe thinks that I have done enough growing for a while.  I hope it gives me time to catch my breath.

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