Category: Mindfulness

Exercise, Happiness, Healthy living, Mindfulness, Well-being

The Wheels on my Wagon go Round and Round

Steph TJ

It’s been a month since my last glass of wine, so it goes to follow that its also a month since my last wine induced migraine.

I cannot believe the difference one month has made.  Not so much in how I feel physically, or look, and certainly not how much I weigh, but in terms of mental health the change has been huge.

The old me is making an appearance.  The me that inhabited the world until c.2009.  The me that twirls through life, is distracted by flowers and sparkles, sees hope in the worst of times and whose job it is to smile and make people laugh (mainly at me).

Before moving to Bristol (BB) I was alcohol free.  I exercised.  I wasn’t 100% healthy and struggled at time balancing my health and work but for the main part I was happy. I enjoyed my job and the school I worked at.  I was in a small department with three fabulous men and the office was usually filled with inane boy banter:  football, music, tv, what we had for tea last night.  There was no gossiping, there was no keeping score, just a generally calm, supportive working environment.

After moving to Bristol (AB) my life fell apart pretty quickly and it’s not until I look back that I can appreciate that fact.  I worked with challenging students on a daily basis with little by way of support and it took its toll – on my mental health, my husband’s mental health and our relationship.  It was then that I first started to drink, not, I now realise to deaden the pain or to deal with the stress of the situation, but to try to find the spark, the part of me that I knew was still in there.  The part of me that had gone into hibernation.  It’s hard to function in the world when you know a significant part of yourself is missing. It’s like permanently wading through treacle, trying to present a version of yourself to the world, hoping they can’t see the cracks. More often than I would like to admit, the cracks became chasms and I did struggle with life.

Slowly over the past 12 months I have started to crawl back out of hibernation, to unfurl my wings and take tentative steps back into the world as me.  Not the me that people think I should be, but the me that I used to be – Before Bristol. I like this version of me and feel sad that she has been hidden away from the world for such a long while.  Giving up wine is the final step in this process.

There’s always a flower to be found!

I’ve rediscovered the delight of exercising with good friends and the feelgood feeling that it gives me.  Once again my priority is my health.  Eating healthily feels normal and natural, I’m not on the rollercoaster of ups and downs that comes from drinking, feeling bad, eating sweets to cope, feeling bad, and have stopped making consistently poor choices.  I’m not perfect, but due to lent I am making further progress as I have given up chocolate, biscuits and cakes which is forcing me to pick healthy snacks – which, I’ll confess, are nothing like as tasty but I’m hoping it will be worth it in the long term.

I am starting to love socialising again.  I do love going out. I love the banter and the energy of an evening out.  Bizarrely, I prefer it sober.  I found having to drink quite stressful as I knew that there was always going to be quite a severe consequence, despite drinking a minimal amount and to know that I can go out, have fun, and wake up headache free, filled with energy and ready to take on the day is amazing.  I have re-found my love of life.  I love life, everything about it and I’m starting to enjoy it again, to spot the flowers by the roadside, to hear the birds singing and I no longer feel like I am dragging myself from one day to the next.  It feels like there is a purpose to my days again. I am laughing again.

The wheels are well and truly back on my wagon, they are well oiled and ready to trundle on their merry way, safe and secure.  I might even get around to pimping my wagon!

Healthy living, Mindfulness, reflection, Well-being

What are your non-negotiables?

Steph TJ

I’ve recently finished reading ‘Quit Like a Woman‘ by Holly Whitaker and I can highly recommend reading it.

It’s primarily about quitting alcohol and although I don’t drink a vast amount, I have struggled to knock drinking on the head altogether, there are moments where I still get sucked in.  Beyond that there were several recommendations that I felt would work in my life in general, one of which was to identify my three non-negotiables.  Those 3 things that I will do every day, even the worst of days, no matter what.  

1.  Exercise.  For me this is huge.  Even if all I can manage is a walk.  We were sitting at home recently and I was feeling guilty about leaving husband to do decorating on his own, again.  But he said he’d realised how much difference exercise does make to my overall well-being and so missing out on my Nordic Walking in this instance was non-negotiable.  That had to happen.  Exercise is the one thing that I prioritise in my diary.  No matter what.

2.  No alcohol.  This ties in with #1 and it absolutely has to be a non-negotiable.  If I drink I feel dreadful.  Even the tiniest bit makes me feel dreadful. Just this past weekend I had a couple of classes of wine with dinner.  During the night the crushing headache arrived.  At one point as the headache moved down my face, into my sinuses and my teeth I began to wonder if I was actually having a stroke.  As a consequence, I missed my Monday morning exercise class.  Instead I slept.  Then I  feel even more dreadful.  Which makes me more tempted to drink, or eat sweets.  Which makes me feel a bit more dreadful and so I carry on in this downward spiral.  The exercise goes out of the window and it takes a mammoth effort to get back on track again.  So better all round if I just don’t bother with the alcohol in the first place.

3.  Meditation.  I’ve always been a bit slapdash when it comes to meditation.  I do it for a few days, then not.  I’m making a concerted effort to make meditation a daily commitment and making it a non-negotiable will help with that.  Much like exercise, it makes a big difference to me.  I normally aim for 15 minutes twice a day.  Sometimes I just sit in the quiet, sometimes I use a guided meditation, but I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter too much how I do it!  But it does have a really positive impact on how I feel during the day.

Besides these 3  non-negotiables, the book recommends a toolkit of about 10 things that you can draw upon to help you navigate those tricky moments.  I have:

1.  A cup of tea.  Very British I know, but you can’t beat a good old cup of tea.  I suspect because it simply makes you stop for a while and address what is causing the problem.  Or to sit quietly and just reflect.  Or sit and look out of the window at the world going by for a moment.

2.  My husband.  He is very good in the moment.  I can tell him what is going around in my head.  90% of the time he tells me it’s stupid and 80% of the time he’d be right.  But I know that I can safely say what’s in my head, as bonkers as it may be.  Just being able to say it out loud in a safe place gives me space to realise just how bonkers the thoughts are and it is the first step towards finding a solution.  

3.  My sister.  After husband has mopped up the initial anxiety driven trauma, my sister is superb at providing impartial, practical solutions.  No judgement, no making me feel stupid, just straight forward practical solutions. 

4. Tapping (EFT) This is a relatively new find for me and I’ll admit I thought it was totally out there the first time I tried it or heard about it.  It works with the central nervous system and the meridians. Basically you tap on various points on your face and body whilst repeating certain phrases and the combination of both helps restore your equilibrium.  

5.  Mindful Moments.  I’ve set a series of alarms on my phone for every 2 hours.  When it goes off I stop for a few minutes.  If I’m out and about I tend to do a few minutes heart coherence.  Or if I’ve been sitting studying for a while I use it as the opportunity to walk and stretch a little.  The idea being that it brings to back to the present.  Initially I thought it would be an intrusive nightmare, but it’s really quite pleasant!

6.  Deleting Facebook.  This probably sounds like a bizarre one.  But I cannot tell you the difference it has made to me, not being on Facebook and avoiding that particular rabbit hole.  I don’t know what it is about my brain that means I can’t take part in this particular activity – but I can’t.

7.  Making things.  Anything really!  There is nothing that I lose myself in quite like making something.  It absorbs me totally.  I do want to make a dress that fits and I have a bit of a bizarre obsession with crochet scarves and wraps at the moment. I always have something on the go, so whenever I find myself feeling a bit low, or there is potential for me to get sucked into something that might not be so good for me, then I can pick up whatever it is I am making and sit enjoying the process for a while. I have the world’s longest list of things I want to make so it’s unlikely I’ll ever find myself at a loose end.

8.  Music.  As the song says ‘Through my times of trouble my music sees me through’.  Listening to music, playing an instrument.  I don’t play my clarinet as often as I should, but there is nothing quite like it for bringing me into the present moment.  I’m trying to widen my music repertoire and am listening to different types of music, but I have to say that in the moment you can’t beat a bit of Katy Perry!

9.  Sitting on a bench. This is a topical one!  Ricky Gervais has just placed 15 benches around the UK based on the one he uses in the show Afterlife.  The theory being that you sit there and someone comes to chat to you and might just save your day.  I don’t very often get to sit and talk to anyone, but quite regularly a short walk to a local bench is all I need to settle my mind.  To sit quietly and watch the ocean, or watch people walking by, to hear the birds singing, the children laughing.  You can’t beat a good old bench.

10.  Other people.  This is a bit of a catchall.  I don’t have a ‘crew’ as such and I am still trying to find out what works best for me.  One thing that did resonate with me from the book is that different people will come into your life at different times.  Some stay, some don’t, some you may not ever meet in real-life.  But this is an evolving thing.  There have been many people over the years that have made a difference to me.  In the past year it has definitely been my physio and chiropractor, but I can see how I may move on from them now that physically, I feel so much better.

So there we have it.  My 3 non-negotiables and my toolkit of 10.  These may both evolve over time, but what I have found interesting is that it helps to be prepared.  It helps to be consistent and practice techniques day in and day out.  I appreciate that for many people this is not even necessary.  What I do know is that starting my day with non-negotiable #1, the chances of me even needing to delve into the toolkit of 10 is significantly reduced.  

Mindfulness, Well-being

A month without FaceBook

Steph TJ

Just over one month ago I took the decision to de-activate my Facebook account.  Sadly, I couldn’t totally delete facebook because that means you also lose messenger, and like it or not, it is a great way of keeping in contact with people.  So I did the best I could and de-activated my account.

Why?

Because I’m not really all that sure that it’s all that good for my mental health.  The problem isn’t the pretty pictures of other people who are living fabulous lives that might be more fabulous that mine.  No.  It’s the adverts.  The sneaky adverts.  Especially adverts for things like planners, or based on spirituality, or a quick fix for mental health.  Then I’m off down a rabbit hole, researching, reading, buying another book, trying to work out what this person can do to help me, that the last one couldn’t, when in actual fact none of them can help me because I’m stuck in this rabbit hole and actually just need to come up to the surface and take a breath.  Take a look around.  Take a rest.  Just be myself for a bit.

So.  Facebook went.  And what have I learned?

I learned just how much time I spent on Facebook.  How many times I just reached for my laptop and before you know it a good hour or two had disappeared into oblivion and I had achieved precisely nothing.  There are still some days, especially after lunch when I do still sit and wonder what am I going to do now – how am I actually going to fill this eternity of time that is ahead of me. I no longer have the Facebook drug and I’ve come to realise that I used it in much the same way as you might alcohol, or shopping, or cake, or chocolate. Something that fills the void, something that papers over the cracks. I’m starting to spend more time peering in to the cracks and acknowledging what’s there.

This month has also seen me travel back from Portugal to Bristol for the Christmas holidays.  I wanted to spend them here this year.  So for the first 10 days or so of my Facebook detox I started to take a walk in that post lunch slump. The time when I am most likely to reach for the laptop and peruse Facebook  The weather was still beautiful but cooler and so all activity no longer had to be crammed into the first two hours of the morning. So I walked, not far, but far enough to get out and have a change of scenery. Since we have been back in Bristol, this has taken a bit of a back seat and I do still find myself reaching for my laptop after lunch. Getting out for a daily walk is definitely an activity I need to re-introduce as it keeps me sane and perks me up in the afternoon.

Walking in Albufeira

As ever, I’ve read a book ‘Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It’ by Kamal Ravikant. He recommends using a mantra that you repeat to yourself over and over, during meditation, while you’re out and about, when you’re in a sticky situation. I chose ‘I trust and love myself’. I’m not sold on this, but happy to give it a try! Besides that he recommends:

(a) simplifying everything (and boy do I need to simplify) and stop overcomplicating life.  Life doesn’t need to be anything like as complicated as I can make it.

(b) being consistent (not a strength of mine). Pick one or two things to do each day, but do them, every day, consistently. Stop hopping from one thing to another in the hope that it will magically resolve everything in an instant.

(c) Focusing on the self as a means to heal, I suppose.  Not in a selfish ‘all about me’ way, but from the point of view of if I feel good then I feel well enough to get out there and take on the world, without being dragged down into the rabbit hole of doom. So for me that means getting out for a daily walk, going to Nordic Walking classes, turning up for online HIIT sessions, listening to music, eating as well as I can, not going onto facebook.

(d) Ask yourself in the moment, or before saying ‘yes’ to a request, ‘Is this something I really want to do?’ ‘Is this something that will build me up and make me feel fulfilled?’ ‘If I really do trust and love myself, would I choose to do this?’ If the answer is no – then don’t do it! I am a nightmare for saying yes, then thinking ‘nope, bad idea’. An example of this is I recently applied for a temporary Christmas job at Next. I knew by the end of the first shift that it was a really, really bad idea – but I’d been swept away by the excitement of it all. If I’d just taken time to think things through and really considered ‘if I trust and love myself would I choose to do this?’ then the answer would have been no.

Throughout the month I have found myself in the moment thinking ‘why am I doing this’, whatever this was.  If I really do trust and love myself, would I actually do this?  Would I eat this cake? Would I drink this wine? Is sitting on my laptop achieving nothing for an hour a good use of my time? Facebook would have gone into the no bracket.  So, there have been some things that I have thought, no, not really and others that I’ve thought, actually, yes.

And what were those things?

– I like to listen to or watch something whilst ironing and had taken to listening to podcasts based on fixing myself (still down in the rabbit hole of doom).  Instead I watched Dirty Dancing, Chesapeake Shores, Modern Love.  I have a thing (much to husbands chagrin), whenever we hear ‘that’ song from the end of the Dirty Dancing playing in the bars in Albufeira (and we hear it a lot) I have a bit of a dance up the street!  So I had a bit of a dance whilst I ironed.

– I’ve started to eat a bit of fruit every day.  I’m not a fan of fruit, but do appreciate it is good for me, so I’ve started to make the effort to eat an extra bit everyday.  

– I’ve been doing some crochet.  I’ve actually designed, made and published patterns for two winter cowels, using wool I found in Poundland of all places. If you’d like to try making the patterns they can be found here.

– I’ve read a fiction book.  I can’t tell you the last time I read any fiction.  

– I’ve started listening to music more, and I’ve ordered some sheet music to practice with my clarinet. Music always makes me feel better.

Two cosy cowls

There are elements of Facebook that I do miss.  I miss seeing what certain friends who live a distance a way from me are up to and it does have value in finding out what is going on in and around Albufeira.  It is the way that many ex-pat groups promote themselves and share valuable information.  One aspect of Facebook I thought I would miss is groups that I was a member of.  There were two in particular that I loved being a part of.  But as the month has gone on, I can see how they were also feeding my need to be fixed and were also a part of the obsessive behaviours around health. Only this morning I was wondering again, would it hurt, really? Would it hurt if I just reactivated my account and had a sneaky peak? In that moment, I had to remind myself of the reasons I had deactivated it in the first place and did some crochet instead!

I do think that at the end of this first month I have started to regain some balance in my life.  I’ve had time to focus on things that I do enjoy, without constantly thinking I should be doing more.  I realise just how much I was using Facebook to avoid doing other things and using it as an excuse to explain why I wasn’t doing them. I’ve started to notice a little more those moments where I am slipping down the rabbit hole of doom and been able to understand a little more what’s causing them and how best to resolve them.

I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel and I have two fabulous new cowls to show for the month. It’s a long time since I had something concrete to show for a month of my time.

Mindfulness, Well-being

Angelica Anxiety

Steph TJ

This past week hasn’t been one of the best.  Equally, it hasn’t been one of the worst.  But as the week wore on, it became more and more apparent that the only way things were really ending was with a bit of an anxiety induced meltdown.

In the end it turned out to be a really positive experience, as the wealth of support and knowledge that was directed my way was amazing.  So many friends reached out to offer support and to share their experiences. Which I suppose is why I am so honest about my experiences – it my help someone else along the way to understand that whilst they might feel completely lost and alone, the reality is somewhat different, there are so many people who are willing and able to help.  

I posted about my experience initially on Instagram and Facebook.  Almost immediately I received a message from a friend with a link to the NHS mental health website which offered a range of techniques to help manage anxiety.  Some I’d tried before, some I hadn’t, some just didn’t do it for me.  One I had tried during the week was breathing. Constantly breathing, follow the breath, in out, from the heart, radiate good feelings, find the good feelings, why can’t I find the good feelings, back to the breathing.  At which point the technique designed to combat the anxiety was creating its own form of anxiety.  

There is an 8 minute Yoga Nidra practice on the NHS ‘Every Mind Matters‘ website which I decided to give a whirl.  I’ve tried Yoga Nidra before but only in the yoga studio, so I admit I was a bit sceptical.  I didn’t actually realise the 8 minutes was up, as I was so busy concentrating on relaxing the various parts of my body, so in the end I’d probably been lying on the floor for nearer 20 minutes.  So, I interpreted that as a positive result.  Unfortunately, the Yoga Nidra was followed by the breakdown.  I’m not sure if the relaxation had just released all the pent up emotions, or the kindness of a friend or why it happened then, but the meltdown I had worked so hard to avoid all week eventually came.  By the bucket load.  But I didn’t want the meltdown.  I didn’t want to be anxious, I wanted to fix it without reaching that point.  It turns out that, as ever, the meltdown was required for me to move forward.

Another technique recommended on the NHS website was to keep an anxiety diary.  Sort of ‘What Angelica did today’.  I’m not generally a fan of this as I feel I just end up with a really negative journal, a list of everything that is going wrong.  I can see the rationale behind it, but I don’t think it’s really for me.  Increasingly though, I think it needs to be for me and I need to try to find a way to make it happen.  One of the first books I read about mental health was Ruby Wax’s ‘Frazzled’ and in that she recommends naming the different beasts that invade your brain – hence Angelica Anxiety – but to go further than that and give them a persona.  What do they look like?  How are they dressed?  In my head Anglica has wild curly, untamed hair, with the look of someone caught like a rabbit in the headlights.  That slightly startled, terrified look of someone who doesn’t know which way to run.  The idea is that you start to spot the arrival of this beast, Angelica, and so you can start to smooth her down before things get out of hand.  This is where the diary comes in to play.

I started to think about where this particular bout of anxiety had originated.  In the moment, I blamed the fact I was doing Sober October for MacMillan Cancer and I didn’t have the alcohol to mask the symptoms.  But it dawned on me that this wasn’t really true.  I don’t drink all that much alcohol – so whilst I might occasionally use it as a distraction it’s not that much of an influence.  As I looked back over the past month or so I could see patterns – that if I’d kept a diary I would recognise by now.

We came back to Albufeira in late August and since then it has been pretty full on.  I would say every week people have been visiting the town on their holidays.  Some we knew about, some were pleasant surprises.  We are incredibly fortunate to have a wide variety of friends that we enjoy spending time with and quite frequently they are only visiting Albufeira for a short period of time and so we like to catch up with them as much as we can.  None of them stay with us and appreciate that we live here and so make very few demands on our time.  The problem is that I feel we should do all we can to meet up with them and I do have very bad FOMO! Unfortunately, it reached the point where I was struggling to cope with the number of times each week we were going out with other people and the cracks started to show – but at that time I didn’t realise it – or if I did chose to ignore the signs.

When I was a teacher, I worked in a school with two deputy heads who had two totally different approaches to work / life balance. The first appreciated that on a week to week basis he had very little control over the direction his week would take and so the last thing he wanted was additional commitments outside school.  He wanted to be able to go home and enjoy that time with his family.  The other was determined that school would not get in the way of their out of school activities.  So, she could be found at the swimming pool at 9:30 at night, because she liked to swim every day.  Or would carry on going to a weekly evening class, even though she was shattered, because school was not going to stop her enjoying her beloved past-times.  I tend to fall into this camp.  So, whilst all of our friends have been coming to visit I have done very little to alter my life to make allowances.  I have continued to meet with other ex-pats for lunch, I’ve taken up bowls, I’ve continued to walk a minimum of 10,000 steps a day, I’ve started to do online fitness classes and even dabbled with swimming in the sea – I’ve even tried to set up a Nordic Walking Group, alongside starting another Open University module.  It doesn’t take a genius to work out this was going to end badly.

I know, more than anything, that I need to exercise and eat well to feel good about myself and that it is a major contributor to maintaining my mental health.  So that is non-negotiable.  The exercise is happening.  Thereafter I needed to start to say no.  I needed to start to prioritise my own health and to be more selective about how often I went out and which other activities I carried out.  Had I kept a diary about my anxiety I would have noticed at this point that I was starting to get ‘fraught’ and a little bit panicky about how I was going to fit everything in.  But I brushed it under the carpet.  I don’t want to be that ‘anxious’ person who can’t keep up – but the thing is I am and the best way to handle that is to learn to say no.  To learn to spot the signs of impending meltdown and put my health and the sanity of my husband before other people.  I’m not very good at that – so say yes to everything – then end up bailing on arrangements we’ve made anyway because I am just too exhausted.

In an attempt to tackle the increasing anxiety, I decided to take part in Sober October.  In my head, I decided that this was going to solve the problem.  But it didn’t.  I was still going out just as much as I had been previously, probably 4 to 5 days a week.  The only difference was I wasn’t having a glass or two of wine.  So, I’d actually gained nothing and still wasn’t addressing the primary issue of over committing myself.  I was just doing too much and placing the needs of others before my spiralling anxiety.  By this point Angelica was getting a bit more shambolic in appearance and definitely needed a good hair wash to tame those frazzled curls.

One of the tell-tale signs for me that my anxiety is out of control is playing Candy Crush.  The time I was spending doing activities that are both productive and calming reduced.  The time spent on the games increased.  I know this because husband was asking ‘Are you still on that game?’  I know that once he’s started noticing that I’m on the games the situation has got out of hand.  And I was spending hours at a time on the games – playing them up until bedtime, which then disrupted my sleep, which then meant I was tired and anxious the next day.  Eventually I spotted that I was doing that and deleted them off my tablet.  This is a recurring situation.  The anxiety increases, I download the games, the amount of time I spend on the game increases, I delete the games as a means to control the anxiety that I’d wanted to control in the first place!  

So, as I look back, I can see the triggers were there and I can also see the mechanisms I use to avoid admitting it were there.  Had I kept a diary I might have been able to address the arrival of Angelica sooner, more effectively and avoided the meltdown situation.  If I’d just written down ‘Downloaded Candy Crush’ I might have recognised that the situation was starting to get out of hand and the other techniques recommended on the NHS website might have worked.  Breathing might have worked.  Going for a walk on the beach might have worked.  Talking to husband might have worked.  I’m going to give keeping a journal another try – I just need to find a way to jazz it up a bit and avoid it being too morose. 

Happiness, Mindfulness, reflection

Evidently, I’m angry.

Steph TJ

Over the weekend I had a row with a neighbour over the bins.  Admittedly we had parked in her parking space, which is always annoying, but despite apologising and moving the car straight away she wouldn’t give up with the shouting.  So, in true grown up fashion I shouted back.  About the bins.  About the fact that the people who rent her AirBnb apartments use the wrong bins.  All. The. Time.  But that wasn’t enough.  I kept replaying the conversation in my head, finding ways to prolong the drama.  I knew I was doing it, but I just couldn’t stop myself.  I could see the negative behaviours, and I could feel how it was affecting me.  

So I turned to a friend and asked her, is it enough just to spot the behaviour, or is there a way of working out why?  Why did it happen? Why was I feeling that way? Her response, “Is there a part of you that wants to lash out at something / someone else and you don’t feel safe to do so”?  And there it is.  Hit the nail on the head.

We’d just returned from visiting friends and my parents’ and we’d hired the car.  I don’t like driving but wondered is it the driving that’s the problem or the destination I am driving to.  I fill my time around my parents with visits to friends, anything to avoid staying in the family home for longer than is absolutely necessary.  

My childhood wasn’t completely awful.  I have some good memories.  But there were some aspects that just weren’t that great.  They have never been addressed.  We’ve papered over the cracks and moved on, whilst pretending to the world that we have a loving family.  It’s a home filled with arguments, bitterness, jealousy, blaming others and worst of all boxes.  Mental and physical boxes, that I’m expected to fit in to, because we must maintain the public image at all costs.  That of the loving family that we are.  But we aren’t and I feel the contrast between my family home and that of my friends.  I feel it to my core.  

So yes.  When I came back from the visit I was angry.  So very angry about everything and I needed to lash out.  But I cannot lash out at the people that I want to.

  • I feel guilty about not living nearer to my family home – I used to and believe you me, it was much easier.
  • I feel guilty about not caring about the fact I don’t live closer to my family home.
  • I feel guilty that my parent’s neighbours are doing their shopping and mowing their lawn because I don’t live closer.
  • I feel angry that those lovely people probably have thoughts and opinions about me not being there to do those jobs.
  • I feel angry that my parents are more than likely going along with that and playing on the sympathies of neighbours who only see the image that has been so carefully curated over the years.
  • I feel angry that I still can’t be myself in the family home.  That I’m still expected to fit into boxes.  Appropriate boxes.
  • I feel angry that my parents blame the world and his dog for the fact I rarely visit rather than accept or acknowledge any responsibility.
  • I feel angry that I didn’t get the family experience that I see my friends have with their families
  • I feel angry that the benchmark of success is what you have and not who you are.
  • I feel angry that I feel guilty
  • I feel angry that they can’t see how their behaviours have impacted choices I have made throughout my life.
  • Mostly I feel angry that I can’t tell my parents any of this and that it still impacts my life today.

You can safely say there was something / someone that I wanted to lash out at!

I’m generally very happy now, I have found my contentment with the world, so these flare ups do stand out more so than in the past when I was just plain angry and scared.  The thing I am noticing increasingly is the effect that this tension has on my body. I’ve been in Bristol for the past three months and have cleaned up my act.  I’m exercising daily. Doing exercises to help keep my body moving.  Eating and drinking better.  I have a belter of a physio who is peeling away the onion layers that is my body.  I am pain free.  

During this past week my body started to cease up again.  The soreness returned to my back.  My left-hand ribs are so tight I’d begun to wonder if I had a problem with my bowels.  My diaphragm is tight and needed massaging to release it.  I know myself that when I tense-up I suck in my chest and lift my shoulders. When I don’t deal with these minor things they progressively get worse and I end up in pain.  But at least now I can feel it happening and respond before things go too far.  I’m reading a book called ‘Bliss Brain’ by Dawson Church.  In fact. I’m only one chapter in, but one passage caught my eye,  ‘When your body knows it will be listened to it can speak quietly.  A little rumble here.  A slight pain there.  We hear the message and take care of its needs’ (p27).  

Slowly, I am beginning to hear what my body is saying and to understand how the tension and stress is impacting what it feels.  I can notice the tension building and have some strategies to deal with it, a better understanding of what does and doesn’t work.  I still need to find ways to deal with the anger, to not let it simmer in my body and find ways to release it more effectively than shouting at the neighbours, but finally I feel like I am starting to make progress and to join up the dots.  I don’t know that I will ever resolve some of the issues that are making me angry – but with time I hope that I can lessen their impact and move on.