My Unfolding Relationship with Surrender

I used to have a repetitive dream where I would fly out of the window of the bedroom where I slept as a child. My arms would flap like crazy and I’d do this kind of frantic breaststroke movement that would just about lift me off the ground – there was usually something coming after me so it wasn’t a nice dream at all.

In another regular dream, I would be on a trapeze swinging at a great height. I would feel much fear and vertigo, and when I fell off, I would wake up in a cold sweat!

I look back at these dreams that repeated themselves so much during my infancy, adolescence, and part of my adult years, and I realise that they had a lot to do with fear and my attempts to control life so that the worst wouldn’t happen. 

Abuse – Observing or Absorbing?

Someone once said to me “Do not allow abuse … Do not allow abuse in your life.” It took me a while to understand what this truly meant.

I thought abuse all fell under one umbrella. That I could simply stop abuse in one go. That abuse was one big term – Abuse. Yet there was much more to see. There was not just one door to close, but many.

Who are they, Anyway?

Have you ever had a conversation with someone about the historical state of geopolitical issues that have faced humanity and have ended up saying something like ‘They don’t want us to know that they killed John F. Kennedy to stop him from putting an end to the industrial military complex who were later responsible for the war in Vietnam’ or ‘They are counting on the fact that most people will not investigate the inconsistencies of the official explanation of who was responsible for the 911 attacks in New York City.’

No? Just me? Well, I’m sure most people have at least heard of this emphasis on the word they being used to even describe their co-workers in the form of ‘They really messed up this project’ whilst referring to another group or shift’s work production or behaviours. This approach avoids any potential responsibility on their part while it is also demonising their fellow team members instead of looking at how they can support each other to grow and evolve together.

What are we Truly Looking for?

On a cold and wet November evening whilst posting a letter, I was approached by a young man. He smiled and pointed to his ears to show me he had no hearing ability and I observed his movements without any sense of concern despite being a lone female on a dark road. He then handed me a piece of paper to read.

I put my glasses on and read the note as he stood before me and I could feel an urgency he was trying to convey. But as I stood still and read the note, I realised it was at odds with what I felt in him.

My Relationship with my Mother: Walking Out of My Self-made Prison

Looking back over our lives we often search for reasons why we did this or that, and sometimes we come across difficult or challenging experiences…

Occasionally we muster the courage, or the will, or even the self-love to ‘go there’ again. To unpack what we remember, to apply our adult knowledge, experience, perspective and understanding to the child we once were who was hurt by the deeds or words of a loved one, which imprisoned us in the lovelessness of our own doubt, self-judgement and denial of our own senses, locking us away under deep layers of self-imposed protection for fear of being hurt further.

Choices, Responsibility and Beyond…

Making Choices

Have you ever considered what the impact of chronic illness or severe injury might be on your ability to work, earn income, support yourself, and conduct the affairs of day to day life? I know I didn’t think of these things when I was younger. I was strong, fit, full of energy, motivated, level-headed, into life, working full time, volunteering, in relationships, and in community. It never occurred to me how much could be swept away at any time by a serious incident or illness… Elderly people say this to younger ones, but how much of it sinks in?

What it comes down to is being responsible for our choices from the youngest possible age. But it’s never too late to begin.

The Lie of Being Good

I am a fifty-two-year-old woman who has spent most of her life being what the majority of people would consider to be a ‘good’ person. I have spent thirty years working with people with severe intellectual disabilities, a job that without fail draws gasps of admiration and praise from anyone that discovers what I do for a living.

My second job for the last twenty years has been as a yoga teacher and I know that when people hear about my second job they tend to naturally believe that I am helping others to be fit and well, whilst also supporting them to consider the deeper aspects of life. We all assume certain things about others based on our beliefs about what’s good and what’s bad, but what if good and bad don’t really exist? What if good and bad are figments of our imagination, conjured up out of our own connotations about what each word means?

‘Whatever’ – A Movement Towards Giving Up

I’m sure most of us are pretty familiar with the classic stereotype of teenagers who, when called out by their parents for not being responsible in some way, would retort with an emotionally charged reaction of “Whatever, I don’t care!” Even though this may simply seem like an attempt to get out of taking responsibility and doing what is needed in that moment and may be frustrating as a parent to hear, I have found that when I hear other people use the term ‘whatever’ in their expression, there is a deeper reading to access.

When I have really allowed myself to feel the truth of this matter, it hurt to accept the fact that when we use ‘whatever’ in reaction to the stresses and harshness of human life, we are really just saying “I give up!” And to be honest, when I ‘went there’, I started to see all the ways that I have done just that in my current and past lives that have affected how I currently view and live in the world.

A Relationship with Stillness

For a very long time, I was unwilling to stop long enough to have ever discovered stillness.

Stillness is the antithesis of how and what I felt as a child. As babies, we are born with a natural connection to our inner flow and stillness, and it is only through imposition that this can be changed. When our surrounding energy is one of ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’, we will pick up on this and may choose to enjoin the overriding force that comes with doing, where we have lost all sense of connection to God and our innate essence.

Foresight is 20/20

I imagine most people have at some point heard someone say that ‘hindsight is 20/20’ after an event that typically left someone feeling a certain level of guilt, shame, remorse or desire that whatever unfolded would have ended with a different result. The phrase denotes a sense that once we experience the outplay of a life event that may have resulted in something we did not necessarily want to happen (like an accident or mistake), it is easy to look back in time, so to speak, and understand all the factors and decisions that led up to that negative experience occurring, hence the 20/20 perfect vision connotation.

But I have noticed a repetitive pattern, and thus a correlation between the times that I have had these ‘hindsight is 20/20’ moments, where I felt awful about something that happened and that I was responsible for, and my initial negative emotional reactions to someone or a previously unforeseen circumstance that life presented to me. It’s as if these reactions that were based on things like doubt, fear of judgment from others, lack of self-worth or low confidence set off a chain reaction (pun intended) of events that culminated in my having those ‘could have, should have, and would have’ moments as an end result.