Grrrr

The angel decided that doggy needed a nappy too... Doggy is perhaps not so pleased with such an undignified arrangements!

Let go let it flow

I have just finished reading the eat pray love book. The movie had a profound affect on me because I strongly related to her sense of drowning in her world, and of feeling utterly empty. I too need a journey to rediscover my passion, my joy, my spirituality and my capacity to love.

One of the main things that has stayed with me from the book was about learning to stop fighting hard to control the world around me and my life. I find it so hard to let go of the need to control everything to make it ok... Yet because I usually have no idea of how to make things ok, or even what ok is... I just end up both messing things up further, and exhausted from the fruitless battle. After meditating in India, Elizabeth finally learns to stop searching and fighting to find meaning in the spinning universe, and to instead let go, seek a calm peaceful place inside, and let things flow from there.

So now, in a time of confusion and sadness, and as I approach the end of one year and the start of the new one, this is what I am going to try to do.

Trust, let things flow as they will, let go of the need to control everything, find what makes me feel peaceful inside and stay with that...with honouring self respect.

"When you are not honoring the present moment by allowing it to be, you are creating drama."

Eckhart tolle

Sent from my iPhone

thoughts of the day

So today I read two things that made me think...
The first was a rather trippy article about weight loss and numbness... it delved way too far into hippy vibrations stuff for my taste...but prior to tottling off with the fairies it raised some ideas that really hit a nerve for me. 

The writer talks about how often women, in response to some kind of emotional trauma, become numb...in order to avoid the bad feelings we simply stop feeling anything much at all.  She says "you can’t remain numb and move forward. The two don’t work together. In order to heal, you need to feel. You need to be emotionally involved in your own life. Most people are emotionally involved in other people’s lives and an “extra” in their own life."  This last line really struck a cord for me.  This is very much how I feel that I go about life.   I come alive in relation to the things that the people I love are going through - challenges and excitments - but I am numb when it comes to my own.  I find it increasingly difficult to summon up a spark for anything about my life at the moment, and I have been searching for the reason.  Mostly I have been focussed on trying to find something to feel excited about - but at the same time I have been saying that I feel "empty", "lacking in passion", unable to see beyond the immediate future, and that I simply don't care enough about any one goal to feel terribly motivated about it.  In other words - I am numb.
And the writer of the article talks, amid the scented candle crystal healing bits, about how carrying extra weight is part of the numbing process.  It is a reciprocal cycle in that the putting on weight makes you feel more numb, and the more numb you feel the more weight you put on....
The only answer is to start feeling.  The writer offers some basic CBT tips about false self beliefs... but I think that, after 13 years as a therapist, I will need a little more than that. 
But identifying the numbness is one big step on the journey of learning to feel again.  I start to wonder if I should do this as my goal before I start the goal of losing weight.  Perhaps this is one of the keys to unravelling the broken link between goal and action?
I guess the theory would be Step 1 : Identify the numbness.  Step 2 : Unravel the reason/s for the numbness (what are the bad feelings that triggered it?)  Step 3 : Find a way to heal the bad feelings so that I don't need to retreat into numbness to manage them.  Step 4 :  Spend time rediscovering feelings, things I am passionate about, how I really feel about things, people, experiences .  Step 5 : rediscover my goals, what I really want in life, and the passion that will drive me towards those goals (as well as the belief in myself required, and the sense of being deserving of happiness).

The second thing I read today was another in the recently mentioned series of forwarded blogs from my friend.  In this I picked up two tips I thought were useful... not new ideas but good reminders. 
1. If you want to achieve a goal, have a practical daily plan of what you will need to do each day to get there.
"How much additional time will you need in an average week to pull off that resolution? Where will that time come from? Figure out now where you’ll get that time from so that you’re not stuck having to make hard choices later on which can easily drive you off the rails of your resolution".
2. Keep a diary in which you record what happened each day in the journey towards your goal.  I thought it would be useful to have a diary for A) Exercise  B) Diet   C) What helped me move towards my goal today?  D) What hindered me in moving towards my goal today?
I thought that this would be good for helping me to recognise the patterns in what gets in the way (eg sickness, weather, indi not sleeping properly so both of us being tired, other people distracting me etc)  and then I can find ways of addressing the most common ones.

a reminder...

I blogged about this at this time last year....

“Courage does not always roar — sometimes it is a quiet voice that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”

for my mirror

So perhaps one day I can replace my inner critical manipulative voice with one that says this :

Nothing feels better than losing weight.

Nothing tastes better than losing weight.

Nothing rewards more than meeting this goal.

You can do it.

In the meantime I shall write it on my bathroom mirror and remind myself daily. 

I find it fascinating that I have so much self discipline when it comes to not eating foods which contain gluten.  I can sit at a table with people eating cake which is made on flour, and there is no hesitation, no inner debate, no temptation... no matter how good it looks.  I simply don't eat it.  Its not a question... I just don't.  Yet if the cake was gluten free I would find it almost impossible to resist. 
I don't die from eating gluten.  I would feel slightly unwell... but really, I would be ok.  Yet I have total self discipline in this goal -the goal of avoiding feeling unwell from eating gluten.  This is the will-power, the self discipline, the commitment that I need to harness towards avoiding feeling fat from eating unhealthily.   I could get away with little bits of cheating with gluten, but I don't try.  And so I need to simply flick another switch in my head - like the one that is set to "no gluten" - and set myself to "no fattening foods" and "no sugar".  I did it while I had gestational diabetes... I complained about it but I did it.  And I achieved my goal - I got my insulin levels under control and had a healthy baby.   It ties in with the people pleasing aspect of me I think... in that I will inconvenience others and I will stand up to not pleasing my desires if there is an external reason which is beyond my choice - like gluten intollerance or diabetes... but I won't do it just because its my own goal.  Sounds like a self respect issue, doesn't it?.... and so I plow on... searching through the mirky depths of my own mind to unravel the self limiting beliefs and self sabotaging patterns.

So its the new year soon

So we approach the new year again.  This one seems to have come around almost a breath after the last one.  I am ashamed to admit that I have not even come close to achieving my new years resolution for last year.  It frankly terrifies me to remember how clearly committed I was to my pledge, and yet nothing at all came of it.  This time last year I pledged to myself, to my child and to my future to lose 12 kg over the year.  I now weigh exactly the same as I did at this time last year.
Where did I go wrong?  I clearly visualised the goal.  I desperately wanted it.  I created a SMART goal breakdown to ensure it was specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed.  I set small monthly targets and then each month, I failed to meet them.  Each month I vowed again to do better and didn't.  I can only conclude that the goal was not, in fact, achievable and realistic because it lacked something... the connection between what I wanted to achieve, and what I did on a daily basis was missing.  It was certainly not because I pigged out and lived in indulgent denial.  I ate fairly well but not brilliantly, exercised in bursts but not consistently, and over-all did a luke warm job of it that meant that while I didn't put on any more weight, nor did I lose any.
This year I need to decide how to make things different.  Simply focusing on really wanting it does not inspire me, because I did that last year and its obviously not enough.  So I ponder... what can I do differently this year?  What is it that will make things different.  I really really really need to achieve this goal.  How can I go about making it last as an abiding and successfully dominant theme for my year?
My friend has been sending me inspirational blog excerpts, bless her... and two points from these jump out at me now.  Firstly - if you want to achieve a goal you need to commit resources to it.  And this I have not done.  I have spent money and time on other things... on friends, excessive grocery shopping, generous spoiling of my child etc...but I have not sacrificed anything to prioritise my health goal.  I didn't cut back on spending in other areas in order to be able to afford a personal trainer or a gym membership.  I didn't cut back time for socialising or relaxing in order to make time to exercise.  I didn't choose my goal over anything else, I expected to be able to have it all.  I expected to simply lay my goal on top of everything else in my life and not change other things... This is one thing I could do differently.
And the second point is about limiting how many goals you try to achieve at the same time.  I have had a list of different areas of my life that are not working for me... and I have been trying to work on all of them at once.  The consequences are that I have achieved a little in a lot of areas, but nothing much in any one area.  I have improved my work situation slightly (from terrible to tolerable at the moment); I have been a reasonably good parent, although I have avoided toilet training til now and this needs to start in the new year; I have been slightly more organised with my finances, though there are a lot more budget sheets than there are outcomes; I have had months of reduced grocery bills by restricting myself to $10 a week to eat down my cupboards, but nothing has radically changed, I am still over-buying and over-stocked; I have developed some of my friendships in some ways, although I still don't spend enough time with people and feel a constant wish to see them more; I have navigated a relationship that was wonderful and challenging, but which ended partly because of protestations that I didn't invest enough of my resources into it; and many more of my themes have moved slightly...but not significantly.
So this is another area I could change.  I could simply divert almost all of my attention into one goal until it is achieved... allowing everything else to simply tick over as it has been unless there is a disaster or emergency...and then move on to the next goal.  I am impatient.  This seems frustratingly slow - and yet I need only look at the amount of achievement my previous strategies have brought to bear... and indeed - the process of achieving any outcomes while juggling too many balls can only be described as SLOOOOW whilst at the same time I feel overly busy and exhausted.
To let go of trying to achieve change in lots of areas of my life at once will not be an easy thing.  The biggest hurdle I come up against immediately, in even considering it, is my own inner judgement and fear of the judgement of others.  If I am "working on improving" an area of my life then I am in some ways excused, I believe, from the assessments of inadequacy that I constantly feel about so many areas of my life.  If I chose one goal and only focus on that one, then I have to live with the inner critical voice which tells me loud and clear that all of the other areas are simply not good enough and questions how I can continue to live like that??   But I suppose that I simply need to face that voice and let it know that each area will have their turn and go back to the one area that is my current target.  So if I am to focus on losing weight then I will no longer pressure myself to budget my finances better, keep my house tidier, spend more time with friends, be a better girlfriend, do more creative things, be a better mum, improve my career, do more in the garden, reduce my grocery spending etc etc   I bet, ironically, if I was to do this then I might find that the other areas improved all on their own.
The second hurdle will be overcoming my people pleasing tendencies.  I tend to not want to rock the boat, and to put my own goals and needs as secondary to keeping the peace with others.  Just now my mum came in to talk about what to have for dinner tonight.  She is thinking of prawn pasta.  My head tells me that pasta for dinner would not be good for me - too many carbs late in the day.  But the urge to not be difficult or cause discomfort wins and I smile and nod "that would be fine"... and this is what I do regularly.  I say "Yes" to friends, to family, to other priorities - and in the process say "No" to my own goals.
So am I really willing to take this on?  Am I really willing to make losing weight my primary priority - allowing all other areas of my life to tick along with the basics?  Am I ready to try again given the weight of all of my past failed attempts?
I am going to sit with this question until I can honestly say yes.

love... whats it all about really

I've been reflecting on love.
In all it seems an unfathomable thing.  Does it truly defy logic?  Or am I just paradoxical in love even more so than in anything else in my skwichy-which-way life?  I have loved deeply and with great faith and conviction twice in my life.  Since then, I have tried... but its never been quite the same.  Is this a natural developmental process - that one never quite loves again in the way one once loved when one was young and full of the blind optimism of  naivety?   I am asking myself several searching questions at once...
Have I been burnt too often and am I therefore too jaded to really embrace loving without reservation?
Have I changed fundamentally with having a child and therefore am unable to throw myself with abandon into relationships because its all so much more serious now?
Am I getting old and realising that with so little time left and so much still to do, its gotta be "the right choice" (if that exists)?
Am I simply ignorning a wise but subtle inner instinct that tells me that this one is not the one for me?
I would love to love, freely, wildly, joyfully...
Why then don't I just do that?
Recently a friend called me a romantic - which surprised me greatly as my faithful blog readers may recall me coming out firmly in favour of love being a thing which is created by willing logical hard work - not a rare jewel that is miraculously found.  Yet this friend's observation of me was that I am romantically waiting for Ms Perfect.  This idea galls me no end!  I want to believe that love is created not found.  Yet perhaps this is where I have been going wrong with the recent patterns of heart ache since my first two loves.  Another dear friend tells me that I am simply not discerning enough... and it has been said to me several times before that I seem to have the capacity to love anyone if I put my mind to it... my dear friend tells me it is time for me to hold out for something that feels really unequivocably right, rather than trying to squish bumpy shapes into round heart holes (not in exactly those words! But that is how it feels to me).
Perhaps I don't trust that it will ever happen that way?
Perhaps I have already found it and been too scared, jaded, scarred, issue-laden, self-protective and all that jazz to be able to appreciate it?
Perhaps its all just part of my journey and I need to stop thinking and start breathing and letting things flow and be as they will.

christmas spread at the small but happy home

This year was a quiet xmas for the angel and her wee family.  As an only child of an only child of an only child... the angel has little hope of a large rambunctious family xmas unless she marries into one. (metaphorically speaking... if I can't marry why should she?)  But it was a happy little family of four who gathered for some tasty treats on the wet but merry day. 
The day started bright and early.  The night before I had made a slight tactical error.  In the excitment of wanting to introduce her to the wonderful anticipation of christmas eve... just before bed I sat with the little angel in front of the tree and optimistically explained that under the tree were lots of presents for her, and tomorrow was christmas and she would be able to open them in the morning and see what was inside.  Predictably delayed gratification was a slightly advanced expectation for a 20 month old... and we had to have some firm words about around the theme of "NOT NOW"...
In the morning I had scaled back my expectations and had thought she would have forgotten the previous night's conversation.  At 5.30am I staggered out to make a cup of tea... her little sleepy self trailing behind me... and I was just reaching for the kettle when her footsteps rounded the corner into the living area and I was assailed by a very merry "PREEEESEEEENNNNTTSS!!!!".
And that was that really... it was all on.  Before ga ga and pa pa could emerge blinking into the light of the day she was already very happily choo choo choo-ing her new train set. 

So big!

My little angel... All tuckered out from the present excitement... And sooo big! I have to pinch myself...

Beep beep!

Guess what the angel got for Xmas?

dancing and forgetting

I went out dancing... I stayed out til the wee hours.  I forgot that I was a mummy, I forgot that I am sensible, I forgot that I have just lost a dear relationship... I smiled and I danced.  It was fun!  And then 2.30am passed, the champagne started to wear off... and I remembered.  I remembered my lost relationship and I was sad.  I remembered that I am sensible and out way too late for someone who has to be up early.  I remembered that I am a mummy...first and before all else, I'm a mummy.  So I attempted to find a taxi, in vain, got a lift, slept from 3.30am to 5.30... crawled out of bed and slipped back into my skin.  Back to being sensible mummy, still sad, very tired, but home doing what I do.

Sleepy haze

Look at this picture.... Hard to imagine that this is the child who has decided, at 20 months, to call her mother to come and play at hourly intervals through the night... Although perhaps it is fitting, since she clearly needs her day sleep!
And now I have that oh so familiar mothers dilemma. I have 2 hours of freedom. This is my rich opportunity to get stuff done... Or should I forget productivity and just have a much needed nap?
In the spirit of my new focus on being healthy first and allowing that to enhance my productivity over time... I shall nap.

Lightening the load

I am on a learning curve at the moment. After one and a half years of just getting by and focussing on the adjustment of becoming a mummy... I have become increasingly frustrated by a sense of not going anywhere or achieving anything beyond the day to day tasks of life. I admit it's only a few months since I finished my last degree study... And yes, it's been a busy and challenging period of time as I have attempted to negotiate a new relationship and simultaneously address life long family issues...oh and be a single working mum... But my expectations are higher than that, and it's time to make some changes. Recently I took a look on the mirror and noticed that my hair, habitually worn pulled scruffily back, has become a huge waist long weight on my shoulders. By simply not cutting it I have allowed it to become a heavy and cumbersome presence. This seemed rather symbolic - so in the spirit of my new focus... It was time to do something about it.
Phew... My head feels kilos lighter!

Bitten baby bits!

When you grow a little person in your tummy your dna gets reprogrammed... Suddenly your over-riding and under-pinning purpose in life is to see that little bitsy smile, and to protect them from all and any exposure to pain. Its an unconscious conditioned response like pmt chocolate cravings or not wearing stripes and plaid together. There is nothing quite like the gut dropping nausea of seeing your little precious bundle hurt... And tonight I managed to wound my angel in none other than her "special place"!! Owie! You can imagine the belly flops that were my reaction to unwrapping her towel, while wondering why she was complaining so much about being carried out of the bathroom, and finding this vicious hair torture implement attached to her delicates! Oooh my eyes water just thinking about it! Thank you evolution for the resilient short memories of babies...