following on from yesterdays post

The weather here is really changeable and I take the opportunity to get out and walk the dog in any sunshine we get.  As I walked along the beach the wind was blowing a fresh breeze my hair was blowing in the wind I could feel the breeze on my arms and felt glad to be alive.  Yesterdays song brought loads upon loads of memories back for me about my childhood and I remembered how happy I was for the large part.  A few things happened in our family to make it a less than happy one, my great aunt became ill and needed around the clock care and I forgot all those lovely happy memories.  I have to admit I am still crying at the realisation.  I just want to go back and give that little girl a hug for being so brave.  What I needed then was someone to explain to me in words I could understand that it was her time to go.  After that things were so different I never grieved and when the next bad thing happended I had no resilience.  It was not until years later that I found out about some of the bad stuff that had been happening to one of my siblings.  It coloured my view of my happy childhood.  Survivor guilt is something often  I often hear about and I wish I had understood more about that and learned to forgive myself sooner.    


Now i am realiseing the impact my divorce had on the kids, how my illness must have impacted on them.  How it is so hard to make sense of the world as an adult and probably even more so as a child.  It is my job to help my children learn about life and the world and walk beside them metaphorically holding their hands until they can fly off to build their own , self actualised , lives.  Roots and wings are the key to a childs happiness and mine were clipped too young.  

As I rounded the corner by the cove and watched the seagulls, egrets, and sparrows all soaring on the updraft I look a quick look around and when I was sure no one was watching I put out my arms and imagined what it would be like to soar.  It was awesome.




So today spread you wings a learn how to take that leap of faith that things will always improve, and you know what they just might.


Happy Friday to you all.  I will be taking many more leaps of faith and trusting that there will be a bed of feathers out there to catch me as I land.

be happy: live your life for yourself

When I used to feel at my lowest one of the many things I used to think about was what a disappointment it would be for my younger self to see me like this.  As a child I had great expectations and during my thirties I lost them.  Thankfully I am back to being myself and now I would be very proud to have a visit from my young self.  

The lesson I have learned this week is that the only obstacle to my happiness is me and my failure to give myself permission.  I have made some amazing steps forward in the last three weeks.  In order for this not to be a one off event I need to learn from what I did to create this success.  

I think the main thing is to be open about my limitations and express my feeling of hurt and anger in an assertive when when they did occur. In the past I would have clammed up and been upset for days if someone said boo to me but now I realise that what someone says can be mis-intererated so easily and often I do not understand what they really mean.  

I now notice others who are struggling with self expression in the same way I did and those that lack the self awareness of their behavior.  If I have improved so much in the last year I can only wonder where my life will go now.  I am giving myself the freedom to be me exactly as I am.  I am a wonderful person with many great qualities and I am glad to be me.  Self praise is no praise is a limiting belief that I now reject.  I have every reason to be proud of my achievements and I congratulate myself on the work I have done to recover my memory, my abilities, and my sanity.  At the end of the day we all create our own lives and we are the ones responsible for how our life turns out.  I have been on a real roller coaster of emotions as the world is swinging back towards an environmental where morals are returning and honesty is again being valued.  I am enjoying my life for the first time in many years and I am glad to be me.  

So today go off and congratulate yourself on all your achievements big and small.  Endorse the effort and not the outcome as they say in Recovery.  You are a wonderful human being and you deserve to be happy :-)

Happy Thursday 

demented mammy seeks escape route

When I  am feeling a bit stuck I look at Glassers needs.  If I cannot name one of them then thats the one I am not meeting at that time.  Power, fun, and  love I remembered but I had to give in a google it today after trying to recall the other one.  Freedom is the fourth , after our basic needs for survival are met it is those 4 that we need.

I often refer to escaping from my job or my children.  I like to go off for a few days and just get away from it all.  This weekend I did that. I had a whole day off.  A full 24 hours where I only had to please myself.  It was very liberating.  I was free for a little while.  I think my episode was my escape route to freedom.  At the start I always felt like I was at the bottom of a well and all I could see was grey and black;black walls grey sky gradually as I climbed out I could see green grass and blue skies.  I think I need to work on way of dealing with my responsibilities and not feeling the need to dig an escape route.  Maybe I could realise that I am not trapped I am free to do as I please at any  stage it is only me that is standing in my own way.  Maybe instead of digging that tunnel I could just open the door and walk out.

So today think about how you trap yourself and fail to give yourself permission to just be free.  

beware the hippos of discontent

Sometimes I have really shitty days.  The days when people are unkind, the days when my teenage daughter makes me responsible for her feelings, the days when the dog just wont stop barking.  Those are the days when I just want to run away.   The days when I get home from work and just want someone else to take the responsibility.  Sometimes it gets wearing for me to have to shoulder all the burden of child rearing. 

So now I just need to remind myself to put down the burden and ask myself why I took it up again.  I am forgetting to enjoy life and focusing on the bad not the good.  Well done me for remembering not to carry that bag of other peoples expectations and issues.  I am off out today to enjoy my life and if other people want to wallow in their misery let them.  I just need to remember to run away before they grab me and drag me down to their level of misery.  

So today stay away from those hippos and remember even if they wallow you dont have to .

 

lions and tigers and bears

Outside my comfort zone I thought that it would be a scary place.  Today I went so far outside it and found that it was not.  There were no lions and tigers and bears.  I am a great believer in trying everything you can to overcome a problem and researched motivation quite a bit to see why I lacked it.  Fear is one of the many obstacles  to success.  I read a book which likened it to the scene in the wizard of oz where they go through the forest singing lions and tiers and bears oh my.

We create the fear in our own minds and stay in our comfort zone just to feel safe.  Feeling safe does not mean we are safe and it also means that we can stay stuck and unhappy.  I organised an event to promote happiness and today it was held.  I must admit that it was so far outside my comfort zone that it scared me to do it.  Being nervous while doing something is quite a lot different to being scared of the imaginary things that we create in our heads.  How many times have you dreaded something or imagined the outcome only to find out it simply did not turn out the way you imagined. I read a wonderful saying recently:

Dont believe everything you think. 

and it is so true.  We can convince ourselves that our fears are really justified and this keeps us from acting and doing the things that will make us happier and more fulfilled.  I know I did that for a long time.  I looked at other people with envy and thought well its ok for them they are clever or they are more confident or even thats just not for the likes of me.  As always my limiting beliefs held me back.  I realised  that the difference between me and people who do things is simply that ; they do things.  I can have fun too if I allow myself to.  I can have money too if I allow myself to, I can be happy too if I allow myself to.  I keep forgetting to give myself the permission to do all the things I want to.  I almost fell back to my bad old ways again during the last few weeks of stress.  I am so glad I took the action for happiness pledge last year 

I will try to create more happiness and less unhappiness in the world around me.  

It is simple, almost simplistic but it is one of the myriad of things that put me back in touch with the pleasure of being alive.

So today remember that 50% of your happiness is genetic, 10% of your happiness is down to your circumstances and you create the remaining 40% yourself.  What are you going to do for yourself today to give yourself that whole 40% ????? Me I am going to make friends with my lions and tigers and bears, maybe they are not as sacry as I thought.  

Happy Tuesday 

life long learning

I forgot to put some of things I learned into practice for the last few weeks.  EFT frees me of the cloudy feeling, walking de-stresses me, resting revives me, eating the right food makes me feel better.  Having fun refreshes me.  Making plans inspires me and doing positive things motivates me.  Honest communication frees me of guilt and pent up rage.  Expressing my feeling allows me to be myself.  Being myself helps me feel free.  Freedom makes me happy.

Its nice to be back to myself again after the last few stressful weeks. Everything passes with time.  As the old saying goes, if you are going through hell just keep going.

So today do something nice for yourself, something that might take effort but will benefit you in the long run.

Happy Tuesday!

regression not depression

Over the last few days I have been feeling those familiar feelings of wanting to burrow into the ground and hide there until the bad stuff is over.  Today I did just that.  I was at home looking from work today as one of my children was sick.  I had a bad experience a few years ago which was one of the triggers of my episode.  My eldest daughter was very sick and I missed alot of work because of it.  I was exhausted trying to juggle work and home life and I could not satisfy either my family or my boss.  He shouted at me one day when i rang in to say that I could not go to work and I sat down and cried, organised a baby sitter , left my very upset child and went to work for the allegedly essential meeting.  It was one of the stupidest things I ever did.  The meeting was fairly pointless, it was not essential that I was there as I could not contribute to it at all.  When I arrived to the meeting he barked a series of questions at me and I started to cry.  that was the beginning of the end.  When I realise on Sunday morning that I would have to ring in to say I would be missing work again the feelings and memories of those few day resurfaced.  I remember the jumble of confusion that overtook me, the wondering of how would I cope, what would happen if I lost my job. I tried to put it out of my mind that my daughters illness was back.  but as it became apparent that it was my mind started to unravel.  Two thoughts kept running around in my head, how will I be able to work and mind her at the same time, where would the money come from.  I became exhausted and depressed.  

So the day has dawned again, I had to take quite a bit of time off over the last few months.  the difference is that now I understand that my boss has a responsibility to manage the work flow and if I cannot work then it is for him to organise the consequences.  If I have to give up work then I will manage.  I am having an average response to a stressful situation.  Today I did burrow into my lovely warm bed and cuddly blanket but I got up and face the day.  I rely on the wonderful tool of recovery to bring me out of the safety of my bed and back to the real world to face up to the things that need to be done.  I thought that I would share them here.  They might seem like cliches but they work for me.  

Sample Recovery International Tools

• Treat mental health as a business and not as a game.
• Humor is our best friend, temper is our worst enemy.
• If you can't change a situation, you can change your attitude towards it.
• Be self-led, not symptom-led.
• Nervous symptoms and sensations are distressing but not dangerous.
• Temper is, among other things, blindness to the other side of the story.
• Comfort is a want, not a need.
• There is no right or wrong in the trivialities of every day life.
• Calm begets calm, temper begets temper.
• Don't take our own dear selves too seriously.
• Feelings should be expressed and temper suppressed.
• Helplessness is not hopelessness.
• Some people have a passion for self-distrust.
• Temper maintains and intensifies symptoms.
• Do things in part acts.
• Endorse yourself for the effort, not only for the performance.
• Have the courage to make a mistake.
• Feelings are not facts.
• Do the things you fear and hate to do.
• Fear is a belief—beliefs can be changed.
• Every act of self-control leads to a sense of self-respect.

My favourite one is :command the muscles, it is exactly that.  sometimes we need to take control of our bodies and move.  I had to command my legs to get out of bed earlier, my hands to fold the washing.  I bore the discomfort of getting up and getting my daughter ready for her exams when all I wanted to do was to stay in bed frozen in fear.  

I might have regressed a little today but in doing so I realised how far I had come in a year.  I might get shouted at again, but this time at least I am pleasing at least one person in my choices; me.  

So today remember the most important person in your life is you and you are the person whose responsibility it is to keep yourself happy, to look after yourself and live your life in a way that keeps you well.  I nearly forgot that today.