Month: June 2023

Vanishing Libido

The libido has done a vanishing act and I’m finding it an absent friend. I have made many changes over the past months and it feels these changes have collided this week and I have struggled to reconcile the person that I was, and the person that is emerging from the wreckage of the ‘ill’ years. I am still tentative in saying that healing is happening and yet evidence is proving that it is. I set sail in March and the journey is ever onwards. There was some rough ‘sea days’ and yet I have been weathering these and still I am moving forwards. Even if, for a while, I thought I was back at destination 0. I caught myself saying to my friend ‘Well that’s how it used to be’ in relationship to the stomach spewing of the past and if felt good to say it all in the past tense. There feels some certainty starting to creep in, that this is now past and I rejoice in this. I have made many changes, and they have been good ones.

I’m still up at 4 am in the morning, finding the Sleep Fairy struggling with her magic sleep potion, which isn’t working at present. I will send her blessings today and hope she returns with her sleep wand and fairy sleep dust this coming evening.

It is very light here as I contemplate the meanderings of this mind right now. I have felt a little ‘foggy’ this week; getting an appointment wrong and missing deadlines to send things. I have put it down to my equilibrium being out of balance and all the adjustments this body is having to weather. Whether I like it or not, the landscape is changing and the change – yes its beneficial indeed. It will likely be a journey of newness, with some fog and some inclement weather along the way. I was stuck for so long in an inflamed land, and so this gentl healing is a very different landscape. And it is hard to process that both physically and emotionally. The body craves rest, I crave rest, and rest is what I shall prescribe myself more of, over the next month. Rest and digest. Resting when I need to and digesting the goodness of my life. And I will have faith that with this prescription, the libido has an opportunity to return once again.

Heart-Felt Living

I have been researching knitting support and have been ‘trying’ different teachers to see what might be a good fit for me. It has felt like I am Goldilocks with the three knitting teachers. The first teacher was okay and yet I didn’t feel it quite fitted, the second teacher was too busy to fit me in. And the third teacher feels a wonderful fit for me. One of my friends said ‘why does it matter so much? Can’t you just go to the teacher who is local?’ and I said ‘I could, and I choose not to’. I spent a good few years ‘making do’ in my life and I refuse to do that now. I want to feel happy and excited about my knitting, and along with that goes the support that I am paying for. And the personality of the person teaching me needs to ‘feel’ right to me.

I have begun to make decisions based on what my heart feels, rather than what my logical mind tells me. To ‘live’ and love from the heart is a completely different way of approaching my life and I’m curious to know where that might lead me. It’s led me to a wonderful new knitting teacher and a new sewing teacher. It is leading me to this continuing ‘healing’ journey and the sifting and sorting of the people in my life. What people do I want to keep and those I want to discard. And its helping me to make decisions that I have not wanted to look at or contemplate. Heartfelt living is such a beautiful concept and I’m ready to live my life with these sentiments now. Oh where will I end up – that’s a fun contemplation to consider!

Birthday Expectations

I have recently felt into a ‘nervous’ sensation that took root in the solar plexus. It was an uncomfortable feeling and words like overwhelm and dread have permeated my landscape. There is a part of me that just wants to shut the world out and retreat within. To be with the ‘within’ leads me back to myself where it feels quiet and safe. Perhaps there has been a sense of ‘too much’ and the ‘self’ that is me, has required deep solitude to recalibrate. I hadn’t experienced this level of anxiety for a long while and I’m wondering if it has been fuelled by the good and healthy days that this body has managed. To be well, has been my goal for so long, that when I reach it, I don’t quite know where I am. And maybe somewhere it feels too much and somehow I unconsciously sabotage that experience? I do not know. What I do know is that I have been attempting to push away this nervous feeling as something I do not want. And I start using my logical mind to question and berate, rather than ‘be’ with the experiences that are being felt.

Today there is a level of acceptance of where I am in this, and peace is coming back in. I am okay in the not okay-ness of the landscape. My birthday did not have to be a me feeling spectacular. I can decide to stay in bed if I like and that will be okay. I can decide that I am okay whatever happens, because I am me and that is okay. Birthdays come and birthdays go, and I am not limited by this birthday with me putting pressure on myself to be well.

The belief ‘I must be well on my birthday’ is being torn up and rewritten and I feel a softening within. This begins to dissolve away the knots that got tangled in the stomach. It is okay to be ‘this me’ and I embrace her. She is where I am at and for now that is enough. And this birthday will be what it is and I will be okay however that manifests for me, right now. And with that sentiment I will rest.

And as a footnote I had a lovely birthday, with a special birthday dinner with my husband and my son. And special days with all my lovely friends. Thank you darlings. xx

On Birthday’s

It was my birthday quite recently and my friends kept asking me what plans I had. I used to plan my birthdays with such happy certainty, knowing that the only thing likely to scupper it, was the weather. These days that is the only certainty I have. The weather never matters to me, it is the state of this body that determines whether I celebrate with ease, or would be lying in a darkened room with storm clouds gathering.

My life has been such that I have been subject to the tides of this body. And it has not been an easy ride. My sister said to me ‘so the plan is working and you feel better?’ and a friend said ‘so you are feeling better now?’. And these questions are hard to answer, as this ‘healing’ journey is not a linear thing. Today I would say I have had three good days, and for me that is a miracle. And yet for the others in my life, there is only a linear moving forward. My journey is not like that and I cannot judge it like that, which others don’t understand and sometimes even I do not. To say ‘I have had three good days’ is an achievement in itself. It tells me that healing is possible, even if it then disappears again.

This body appears to fluctuate and it feels like anything can come in and destabilise it. I know that is a belief not serving me, and I have uncovered it just now, and so now it is visible and I can reflect and uncover the hidden things that emotionally undermine and destabilise the healing that is here right now. It’s like I hold the healing belief for a short time, and then the disbelief creeps back in and the thoughts slide back and the ground becomes destabilised and begins to crumble and erode. And every new supplement, becomes, in my head, the next road block that will likely see me falter and crumble to the floor again. I have lived ‘this’ for so long now that it is very difficult to feel optimistic about ‘this’ new thing being helpful. It feels the body goes into melt down (much like a small child) and stamps her foot and says ‘no!’. I wonder what a more gentle ‘yes’ would actually feel like? To say ‘actually this is going to help you feel so much better’ much like a Mum would say lovingly to her child. I wonder whether I can trust ‘this’ me to accept, and be okay with this. I am not sure whether she is ready to do that or not.

On being ‘Good Enough’

I loved the insight my son gave me a week or so ago. He said ‘With you Mum, it is never enough!’. We were discussing the clothes that he has been buying. A major step forward for the boy who likes everything to stay the same and has had the same shoes for years and years. I was contemplating that the next purchase could surely be a new hoodie, and he groaned with exasperation, rolled his eyes and said the statement above.

My husband said the same statement to me a few days later and I am now beginning to see where ‘never enough’ has fitted into my thoughts and into my life. I want to say to my son that the statement is actually a reflection of what I feel about myself rather than about him. I have lived ‘never enough’ to distraction and it led to my current health situation, to mental exhaustion and the need to rest. ‘Never enough’ helped me to get a first class honours degree in Psychotherapy and a successful counselling practice that I am proud of. ‘Never enough’ pushed my creativity to new heights, and left me resentful at my later inadequacies. It is the double edged sword that has given me both joy and suffering. To be ‘good enough’ has always felt mediocre and confining. ‘Good enough’ spells not good enough, and that feels, or has felt, am impossibility for me to latch on to. Good enough is a concept I am beginning to lean into and my creativity has given me the opportunity to play with this concept.

Sometimes ‘good enough’ is okay and that is what I want my son to hear. That I have acknowledged his very honest reflections about me, and I am willing to grapple and change. This is a good discovery and one I am hopeful I am observe and soften in the coming days. And as the birds begin their dawn chorus, this owl is going back to bed!

The Yearnings of a Heart

It is the ‘dark hours’ of the night and I am awake, again! I had a window of a few days where I slept more easily, and more deeply than I have for along time and it seems to have been broken… again! I say this with some wistful hope that the Sleep Fairy will come again and spread her wings over me and my bed and be fruitful of a sleep-full night. I almost see this as magic and magic is what I want right now. I have considered my options and this is what I want.

I was speaking with a friend today and were were discussing the downfalls of these ‘wise years’ that I am now in. There is a view that everything is declining and that this body is beginning that journey now. We all said that it feels we’ve been dealt a dodgy hand of cards with winners and losers aplenty. I feel I am playing Russian roulette at present and one ‘bad’ decision will bring all the cards down. And yet there is a different view of the ‘wise’ years that my good ‘friend’ Christiane Northrup speaks about in her book ‘The Wisdom of the Menopause’ which has been both uplifting and helpful to me. And I will consult her opinion, in the book tomorrow. Perhaps there are some answers there and I will look for them and listen to what my ‘heart’ tells me.

I am reminded that when I lead with my heart, I find my own ‘right’ and loving answers. My heart led me to Mark, who is helping me recover and my heart led me back to knitting, which has been my solace during the ‘hell years’. And my heart has led me to many beautiful friends that have supported me over the difficult years. And to a 26 year marriage, to my beloved and my best friend.

I have, up to recently, valued logic before heart and I am now willing to embrace my heart and her yearnings. I yearn for a tidier living space (yep my friends are howling with laughter at that statement – made very often). I yearn for the sea lapping on the shore and I yearn for laughter and joy. I yearn for a kind and considerate knitting teacher, and the space to grow my creativity. I yearn for the tress in the wood and time to just potter. And I yearn for the skills to be a better sewer.

Maybe these are my ‘goals’ for this year, and I will yearn them into being. It feels good to be able to lean into these ideas and follow my heart towards their discovery. These are my unique heart centred ideas for the next few months and I will embrace them with joy, as they have come from my heart, rather than my logic. Woo Hoo! I love that.

Untying Knots

I recently had to cancel my going out day with my Bestie, and I resented it. This body is not playing fair, and I am weary by it. I spoke to Mark, the functional med guy. I told him I feel such a failure as I don’t feel anything has changed. And yet Mark reminded me that the healing process takes time and it is not an easy fix. He said that if he could wave a magic wand, then he would and he cannot. I wish I could wave that wand and heal it all. I was feeling sick of being patient and I was sick of the word acceptance. Acceptance be dammed. I don’t accept this sentence I have been given. I want my health back and I’m going all out to get it. I feel this is a fight I shall not win, and yet that belief serves me not. To soften that belief is a challenge and one I am going to have to get in the mud and the mire to undo. It feels like a tapestry of many stitches and at the middle is a tangled mess of unhelpful beliefs that feel impossible to shift. What would it be like to sit within the tangle of stitches and review this?

Tonight I unravelled a ball of wool onto a fancy device called a ‘Nostre Pinne’. It keeps the ball stable whilst you re-ravel it. The goal is a tangle free ball of yarn. This feels like a good metaphor for what I have embarked upon this year. Each knot needs detangling and my present situation represents a knot in the yarn. With patience (oh how I dislike that word!) and inner reflection, and then some action, the knot becomes looser and the ball becomes easier to manage. I will hold the image of the knot unravelling and I will attempt to feel into that image. An image to help the unwinding that which feels impossible. My secret weapons are my determination and diligence. I wanted to say patience, and yet I scored that word out with disgust. And I can use these tools in my current health situation. I wanted to say ‘crisis’ and yet again that is a belief that isn’t serving my recovery. So I shall say I am utilising my assets to aid my recovery from this. And I will hold the image of the unravelled ball of yarn and the knots being upended, as my evidence that I am doing this now. And that is enough and I am grateful.

The Inner Critic

A few night’s ago, I had a feeling of being unsettled, and I could not quite ‘place’ the feeling in a concrete place. I had been thinking about my expectations for this year and I wanted to write the word ‘goals’ and I then scrubbed the word out. These past few years it has felt impossible to make many plans. Circumstances have circumvented a lot of what I have wanted to do. When I make a plan, it is often paved with potential stress. Whether ‘I think’ it into being, I don’t know. What I do know is that going out in the world can, at times, feel very challenging. How long is the journey? Where are the toilets? Am I physically okay to travel? I have lived this version of life for so many years now and it is hard to believe that it can change. One of my friends said ‘Oh its just a mind set!’ and yet when the body is in pain and begins to spew, it becomes more than ‘I can think myself out of this’. In these moments I cannot think beyond what is physically happening. How I am far from a bathroom and stuff is running down my legs. Or I’m in the car and I get that ‘urge’ and a toilet is two or three junctions away.

So this is where I have been and it has been hard. I had to give up my psychotherapy practice because of this, and I have had to dream ‘small’ because the big dreams have felt impossible. And so I have held a lot of anger and rage in this mind and body and it is hard to release it. I have held on to these things for so long and I don’t know how to forgive or accept what has happened. I say ‘I want to be well’ and yet I cannot remember what that feels like. So it appears a really hard concept to allow in. I know I will move forward when I can accept everything that has happened – and that takes faith and trust – things I find difficult to buy into right now.

There are physical reasons that have led me to this condition, and mental and emotional thoughts that haven’t been my friend either. It is difficult to look myself square in the eye and say ‘I love you and I am here for you’ because I have spent a lifetime not loving myself very much. And I have gone to war with myself every time something is not liked by me. I have spent years berating myself for things I did or didn’t do, and seeing myself as wrong. And I am accepting these statements, with a true desire to love myself more, even if it’s just a little.

I said to a friend last night ‘and would you say that to your best friend?’ and they said ‘Of course I wouldn’t!’. So maybe that is my starting point. Any time I’m berating myself, I can stop and say ‘Susie, would you say that to your Bestie?’ and maybe some compassion will begin to develop. I’ve been so good at saying to myself ‘Well you should have done this, or done that’ and I’ve bought into these criticisms for so long. And yet when I stop and evaluate, I usually have a reason. Today, I did stop mid berating, and said ‘why do you need to do this today?’ and I found a point of softening, a breath of freedom coming in and some peace was found. The inner critic was challenged and I am rather pleased with that!

On Lockdowns and lost knitting stitches

A theme this year has been loss. I have felt at times both angry and sad and recently it has tumbled out into my day to day life. I have felt such grief this first half of the year and I am still attempting to weather the losses that I have personally suffered. I lost three years of knitting, due to lockdowns and lost confidence. I have begun the process of reclaiming the lost confidence in knitting and it has been hard. The knitting has represented the wider landscape of the locked down years, which we as a society don’t appear to want to talk about anymore. And yet I feel it is a conversation that hasn’t really been resolved and probably has affected people more than anyone would admit. I know for me it has been lost confidence in a craft that I loved, and yet for others it can be so much more than that. I talk in metaphors and yet the metaphors relate to the wider picture of a world that was closed off for so long. My knitting teacher has retired, and I have been lost. The lace pattern of my knitting goes wrong and I flounder around, losing stitches and feeling frustrated. What was once a pleasure, is now a feeling of stress and being unsupported. I felt like this during the forced lockdowns, and it has taken me along time to reach a more balanced state again. I felt stressed and suffocated and confined, much like a bottle of pop with the lid about to explode. I thrive with support, and during lockdown I felt lost and abandoned. My normal routines were gone and I was not in a good place. Have we talked about this as a society? The impact that the legacy of isolation has had on a country, on a world? I think not.

I realised that support is very important to me. Structure is very important to me, community is very important to me. And during those lockdown days it felt like structure crumbled, communities were torn apart. And in the aftermath, how are we all faring? To me, it feels like the last three years are methodically being swept under a carpet, and to me that does not respect the hardships that I have suffered and others suffered. To be able to discuss the hardships and the losses is a cathartic recovery and it is one that I encourage myself to reflect on. Yes, loss and sadness and anger have been present these past few years and yet I am still here and I am still thriving. And I honour the me that is willing to talk about those ‘years of loss’.

On a Coronation Weekend

In May, I lived through a weekend of our country celebrating the coronation of a new King. ‘Watch history being made’ cried the TV…. and I didn’t watch. It’s interesting to sit and observe my own emotions whilst watching something that I didn’t want to see, played out in my background that weekend. I attempted to shut the whole thing out, and yet it still intruded. On the peripheral, I watched the bunting being prepared at a craft group I was attending. Then bunting was going up on the main road from our house and the flags were adorning shop windows with ‘his’ face on it. And I attempted to stay calm and allow it all to pass and yet the outside uncomfortably sat with me and I found it difficult to stay neutral. I have many thoughts about the royals and they have been conflicted over the past few years to a point where I don’t really know how I feel. I suppose there is a feeling of ‘how can one person be proclaimed this elite individual with a crown put on his head?’. Can I trust that he will serve me well? Can I trust that he will be the voice of reason to a Government that hasn’t reassured me over the past few years? This king, who was a prince, has held many opinions in the past and some I have not agreed with. He has made choices that I never understood and made statements that have felt uncomfortable to listen to. And yet he is now King, and his head will be put on coins and bank notes, and on tea towels that will likely end up in the charity shop. And I am not sure that I can trust him to serve his people well. A dear family member once said that a person who cheats is not someone that you can ever trust again and yet here he is with a crown atop his head. I wonder whether he has really earned that right and will he serve his country well? Or will he sell us out to the power hungry beings that I feel have led us to the crisis we now are all in. I guess time and history will be my answer, and I shall wait and see what this King’s legacy will be.

In the process of attempting to shut it all out, I did bear witness to people coming together and a hint of celebration and laughter was permeating the air. So long awaited, after such dark and shut down days we have had over the past three years. My son observed on our walk, that it gave people an opportunity to eat and drink and be merry and likely that was one of the reasons they were out celebrating. I saw one little girl bedecked in a union jack dress and a video of a King Charles Spaniel looking all regal with a crown a top his head. And the laughter of my son and I at the sand being shoved down the pot holes on the road to Westminster Abbey. Oh to being British, bunting, tea towels and all!