Focus on the end result

I briefly joined Nick Breau’s The Collective and as a combination of asking my guides and working through a “belief tree” I’ve had my own private epiphany. As Abraham Hicks says, reading and learning doesn’t teach, only experience teaches. You need to physically experience or witness something for the teaching to really sink in which is why we all need to our own little epiphanies, or stumble across someone else’s that resonates with us… Which essentially means this might be useless for you unless you experience it with me, but I’ll share it anyway.

I am afraid of disappointment, and who amongst us is not? But in working through my belief tree I realised that if something is meant to be, I do believe it will work out. That disappointment isn’t always a bad thing – how many times have you realised in retrospect that something you wanted that you didn’t get, or didn’t happened, turned out to be the right thing for you? Haven’t you ever realised with a creeping horror that getting that job you so coveted would have been disastrous? That sometimes what we think we want isn’t really what we want at all. Should that make us afraid of wanting? No, not at all, but it takes us back to the basics of law of attraction. Everything we want is because we believe that we will feel better in the having of it. As humans in a physical world we get hung up on the things we think will make us happy instead of focusing on the feelings of being happy. So to avoid getting the wrong thing, we should focus on how we want to FEEL and let the Universe sort out what things or circumstances will get us there.

And if you’ve read anything about LOA you’ll know that’s what it’s all about, “well that’s not really a revelation, Kate, now is it?” “Worthy of a blog post?” I hear you mutter. Well I think so. If you really break it all down. It’s like all the cheesy quotes you thought were great (stop and smell the roses) but they didn’t really mean anything until one day suddenly they really mean everything to you. That clarity. That “ohh” moment. Frank Skinner calls it the Idiotic Eureka Moment, when you suddenly realise that everyone else in the world knows that Banofee is banana and toffee when you think you’ve just stumbled on something clever and unknown. Stay with me for a minute. Imagine, just for a minute that all this law of attraction really works. Imagine therefore that you want to be rich. What do you really want? Do you want to be physically surrounded by piles of money? No, well, maybe for the Instagram shot, but beyond that, what is it you really want? Freedom? Freedom to give up work, or, freedom to choose your work? Freedom to travel? Freedom to buy whatever house you want, wherever you want? Freedom to buy whatever car you want, and as many of them as you want? So you don’t really want money, what you really want is the choices that you believe that having money will give you.

If you focus on wanting money, without cultivating the feeling of what having the money will achieve, i.e. the feeling of FREEDOM, you won’t get what you want. You may get money, but if you haven’t attracted that feeling of freedom, the money can’t set you free.

As Nick Breau says, if you want something, without resistance, nothing can hold you from it, certainly not the money. However if you focus on the money and not what you hope to achieve through having money, you could get money and be no better off.

In our last cottage, which we both loved so dearly, we were devastated when our neighbours built two enormous modern houses between us and the view. Their garages had a bigger footprint than our 200 year cottage. We used to joke that if we won the lottery, the first things we’d do is buy the two houses and raze them to the ground and we became obsessed with how much money would we need to win to make this a reality. What naturally followed was the discussions about what else we would do with the money. Gary wanted to travel. Private jet. Whilst I like the idea of it, the reality was, I didn’t want to leave Twiggy (before you think I’d happily give up the chickens I need to mention we hadn’t got them yet!). Would I give up my cat for a jet-set lifestyle? No. Could we take her with us? Probably, but whilst I think she’d tolerate being on a ship, I didn’t think flying would impress her much. She was a ferocious hunter and I would never deny her the outdoors. We could rehome her, but that suffocated me just to think of, and Gary didn’t want that either, he was as much, if not more, in love with Twiggy as I was. We could have people live at home with her, but that didn’t see fair either, I felt we’d have to rehome her properly to allow her to bond with another family. At this point, my best friend, eyed me up and mentioned casually that this cat was more maintenance than having 3 children
.

Being a simple man Gary was happy to dream his dream without concerning himself with the practicalities, but this kept me awake at night. Losing sleep over a lottery win that hadn’t happened: you can see why I struggle with LOA! Having a jet-set life would cost me my cat. No amount of money could fix that. The bottom line is, money can’t buy you everything. You think it can, but it can’t.

You have to focus on the end result, and money cannot, will not, according to the Law of Attraction, be a factor in preventing it happening. And that is true of all things you think you want. You have to focus on the FEELING you are trying to achieve, and not the physical things or circumstances that you think will achieve the feeling. I can feel my mentor Annie rolling her eyes upwards at this. FOCUS ON THE END RESULT, isn’t that what she’s been saying all along? Well yes, but sometimes it has to smack you in the face, and even though it has, I’m not sure that makes it any easier! I’m still trying to fathom the practicalities of how to get my chickens to my desert island when I win the lottery


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Expectation is the Mother of Creation

I had a little paper snippet I carried around in my Franklin Covey paper planner (showing my age) that I’d cut out of Reader’s Digest a million years ago. Placed under an embroidery cat from a card my sister had given me I carried it for over 17 years in my diary. It was possibly a bit “straight” for me, (condescending, conservative, slightly pompous) but still I liked the sentiment of it, phrases such as “the person you choose to marry is as deserving of the courtesies and kindnesses you bestow upon your friends”. The one that struck deep with me was number 4 “believe in the best rather than the worst. People have a way of living up or down to your opinion of them”. If that isn’t code for Law of Attraction, I don’t know what is, though I had no idea for all those years. What I had read about, which also affected me profoundly (also in the Reader Digest I suspect) is what I have since discovered is called the Pygmalion effect proved by the Rosenthal-Jacobson study in 1968. All I knew was that a bunch of teachers had been told that their classes had been tested with some new IQ test that could determine who would do better that year, in comparison to their peers. The results were staged and 20% of each class was randomly assigned the designation of “intellectual bloomer”. Without fail, and regardless of ability, every child that had been classified as an intellectual bloomer, improved. Through expectation alone. Expectation of the teachers alone was enough to boost the children’s performance. The research that prompted this study was done in 1911, this stuff isn’t new.

When certifying for the Emotion Code, I spent a lot of time with case studies, people and pets I didn’t know, as well as with friends. At some point along the way I had considered expectation with animals and I remember mentioning it, casually, to a friend about her large, noisy German Shepherd who barked constantly at the hedge when people went past. After I’d worked on him to release his frantic desire to protect them from what he saw as a threat (strangers approaching the house), I told her to just accept that he was now perfectly behaved and not to allow her mind to “expect” his bad behaviour. The results were incredible. I like to think the healing helped some but I suspect, far more potent was her confidence in my healing, allowing her to expect his better behaviour, thereby getting it. Unfortunately it didn’t last forever, but was that him changing or her expectation lapsing? Sadly not many of us are very good at expecting good results, especially where we’ve failed or been let down before, never mind expecting them to last, we’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for it all to go Pete Tong. We never got around to doing it again for various reasons, but I’m sure if we repeated it a few times, and reinforced her positive expectation of him, his barking would have ceased long term.

Obviously I can’t go much further in any writing now without referring to my new found love of “Kate’s TV”, which, whilst I was bewitched by RuPaul, “Kate’s TV” was actually born by the Great Pottery Throw Down. In the current series the first one I watched was mesmerising and because I couldn’t wait a week for the next in the current series I watched all the old ones. Thank goodness for TV on demand. In the first episode that I saw, I watched the potters make a 3D building out of clay and I was absolutely smitten with it. They did a lighthouse, a fantasy house, an engine house
.It stirred up a creative force in me that literally filled my veins with a desire to create. To give it all up and buy a potter’s wheel and live happily in a shed at the bottom of the garden. Not that you needed a wheel for this challenge, but you may as well have one if you’re going to live in a shed. I was completely besotted with the detail, the passion, the talent, everything, and that triggered me to continue watching a series I had previously shown no interest in. So this was the first time I’d watched any sort of competition like this, I may have flicked through Bake Off, but I’m not really impressed by cooking – decorating cakes, yes, certainly, but I’ve never watched a program where you watch a dozen people doing challenges and competition doesn’t really fire me up at all, and I hate the imposition of “pressure” that seems to be essential viewing in everything now. Remember when Ice Road Truckers was just the right amount of scary because you didn’t want them to fall through the ice? But you could manage it because you sort of assumed these guys knew what they were doing and they weren’t about to take stupid risks despite the voiceover implying it was certain death. Well you can’t watch it now without being constantly terrorised by the spectre not of instant death, but of dismissal, or failure because they are a minute behind schedule, endless drama because BillyBob’s speeding towards financial ruin, and missing this arbitrary, artificially imposed timescale spells the end not only for BillyBob but the whole company and community. It’s just too stressful to watch now.

Back to the Throw Down. If you want a reason to watch it, Keith Brymer Jones is reason enough, Gruff, hairy judge, he literally wells up at anything he finds beautiful, and shamelessly cries on TV. I love him for that, I love that he chokes on his words when he praises someone’s work, and I love that almost inevitably, the person he’s judging, and/or, one of the other judges, also wells up just at the sight of him crying. It’s fabulous. And I cry right along with him. But you can’t help but end up loving all of these people, the contestants, watching them, as you do, week after week, conquer their inner demons, discover their strengths and talents, and apparently, forming genuine, strong and meaningful relationships with their fellow contestants. It’s really happy viewing. But having watched all the series I could get my hands on (if anyone knows how to get the BBC2 episodes, please let me know I’ll give you a free reading!) and then RuPaul’s Drag Race, what I reflected on most was this constant referring to “personal growth”. The apparently incredible improvement these people achieved just by taking part. Potters and Drag Queens alike. How? Learning from each other? Certainly there would be a bit of that, but it’s a competition, not a teaching opportunity, I can see that you’d get inspired by your fellow contestants, but what actually makes you suddenly improve? “Grow”? I personally don’t think that being put under pressure necessarily “improves” one, and I’m finally learning the more space I give myself, the more surprising, unexpected creativity sneaks in. What I will concede is that by stretching yourself a little bit more, and by achieving it, you become a little bit more confident, and your expectation grows. And I think this is the key. This situation forces people out of their comfort zone. And as they survive each step, they begin to realise that the judges and their fellow competitors, expect them to be able to do it. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Is that what all this growth is about? Not just stepping out of your comfort zone, but by realising that just by being there you have the support and expectation of the judges, the program makers, the audience, and to some extent, rivalry aside, the other competitors, to succeed?

Meanwhile, I’ve just completed Live Streaming Pro’s 30 day challenge to get confident on camera and my biggest epiphany was simply that. I would not be here, being pushed out of my comfort zone, unless I was meant to be here. I would not be calling myself an animal communicator and an energy healer, despite all my misgivings and crises of confidence, if I wasn’t good enough. I would simply have fallen by the wayside at the hundreds of potentially confidence crippling events along the way.

But I didn’t fall. I am here. I am meant to be here, doing this.

Expectation is everything.

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The Circle: a lesson in perspective

I absolutely love The Circle, and if there was ever a program made for lockdown, surely this was it. I was delighted that we had another series and I watched my recording avidly every morning, busy messaging Debs without any spoilers. Once she’d caught up we’d bemoan the outcome or revel in delight. The Circle, if you haven’t seen it, is a virtual popularity contest between a bunch of individuals who live in total isolation (from everything, not just each other), communicating with each other only via messaging. That’s text only, no video calling. The players seem to be on a catfish hunt primarily, rather than trying to win a popularity contest, but that’s a conversation for another day. Personally I wouldn’t care if someone was a catfish if they were entertaining, I mean it’s not like I’m going to marry them. Oh sorry, Manrika, you were, weren’t you
. [this year’s series featured a blossoming romantic relationship between the beautiful exotic princess Manrika, playing as herself, and Felix, the army dude, played by Natalya, equally beautiful in a Russian Ice Princess kind of way, military policewoman.]

One of my first spiritual teachers was Gary van Warmerdam (pathwaytohappiness.com) and his self-mastery series helped me understand in practical terms, how to become the observer of my emotions. Note that none of these concepts are unique to Gary, they are pretty standard on the self-awareness journey, however he was the man who held my hand along this path and I would highly recommend his work.

He starts with simple exercises about our viewpoint and perspective and how it shapes our lives. As you learn about this stuff, much of it, piece by piece, is obvious, yet the realisation of how it affects your experience of life, is astonishing. His podcasts took me session by session learning to notice first where my attention was focussed, especially when not consciously directing it on to something. Did I think about problems (always), or things you appreciate (err, no not really)? Did I marvel at the beauty of the world (rarely), or reflect on the past (not much)? Did I judge myself on everything I hadn’t done today (bingo, that’s my favourite). I say “did”, as I can confidently say that I do a lot less of this; it’s only taken me 4 years, and when I do, I’m aware of it.

Next came the concept of agreements. Nearly all interactions with people are pulling you to side either with them or against them (i.e. drawing you into agreement, or disagreement) – a harmless enough activity (“lovely day, isn’t it?”, asking for your agreement) until you realise how these subtle agreements are an investment of faith, and before you know it, you’ve agreed to a whole pile of subsequent things you weren’t really conscious of. The exercise has you detaching from agreements. This is actually an amazing exercise, and I’m going to go back to it, as it’s a real eye-opener, subject for a future blog post.

He then goes into perspectives. Again, it’s not rocket science when it’s spelled out to you, but this can change your life. When you’re sitting in traffic, are you cursing the stupid bastard who blocked the box junction, and hyperventilating because you’re going to be late, or are you delighted to have a few extra minutes to listen to your comedy podcast? Obviously there is context here: are you late for an interview or out for a Sunday drive, however being aware of your viewpoint can help you change it. The idea that if you want to be happy, your happiness can not be predicated on your circumstances, is huge! This was a life-changer for me, becoming aware of how angry I was about everything, and how simply changing my perspective could change it. Not always, but often enough to make a huge difference. And as that constant anger starts to loosen, it gets easier to let things go, to change your perspective, even if the circumstances feel suffocating.

So what does this have to do with the Circle? Not a lot of spirituality lessons there I hear you say. Well you’d be wrong. One thing I love about this program is the ability to watch people’s reactions, based ENTIRELY on the written word. That means everyone is faced with exactly the same information. They are obviously prepped to read aloud the messages they received, so their tone alone tells you how they’re receiving the information. So when you have several people reading the same message, you have a real live experiment that shows you how people’s interpretation of information is entirely shaped by their own experience, and NOTHING to do with the person offering the information. Of course, the speaker’s previous engagement with each player has some bearing on how each interpret the words but how different people get such different messages from the same words is fascinating. Take Manrika and Tally, both previously disgruntled by “Gemma”, on receiving a slightly vulnerable message from Gemma. Both outspoken and hot-headed, both appear to have the same opinion of Gemma (dull, game-playing, tedious, souk*), they are on a group chat together. On the one hand Gemma’s message infuriates Manrika, reinforcing how much Manrika despises and dislikes Gemma, really forcing the mistrust to whole new level of contempt. On the other, Tally is taken aback, throws her hands over her mouth and says “awwww. That’s really quite sweet. That makes me feel quite differently about her”. I paraphrase as I didn’t record it, mesmerised as I was. From that moment, Tally starts to see the best in Gemma and forms a bond, Manrika spirals into out-and-out disgust for Gemma. This critical point actually sets in motion the decline of Manrika and Tally’s friendship with each other. One conversation. One message. Two different view-points. Gemma’s relationship with them both in the Circle, up till this point, has, for all that we see, affected them both similarly, nothing much to distinguish. So what changed?

Something in Gemma’s message triggered a difference response in Manrika than in Tally. This is almost certainly something in each of their pasts, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with Gemma. These identical words triggered a compassionate response in Tally, and something akin to rage in Manrika. So what we’re seeing, in all its glory, is how different perspectives shape how that “truth” (as in the words as they were written) is received by Manrika and Tally.

Our beliefs, our experiences, our past relationships, all shape our reality. Taking responsibility for our reaction to circumstances is the first step towards self-awareness. When things affect you negatively, it really is worth a second look, calmly, first to see if you can identify your perspective (victim, villain, judge) and then to see if there is any alternative interpretation that would make you feel better. It doesn’t really matter what’s “true” or not, because my truth, Manrika’s truth, Tally’s truth and even Gemma’s truth, are all entirely different, and all irrelevant to your truth. What matters is how you feel, so if you can reframe something to make you feel better, you’re a step closer to happiness. And if you struggle to understand why the “truth” is irrelevant, consider Gemma’s truth: she wasn’t an NHS nurse but a 6’3” British gym buff James Crossley, best known for playing Hunter in the 90s TV series Gladiators.

 


* souk
SCOTTISH v., n., interj 
6. Fig., to wheedle, to coax, to fawn. Phr. to souk the laverocks oot o’ the lift, to be extremely persuasive. With in, to curry favour, to ingratiate oneself.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race UK: the Performance of a Lifetime

“You need to write something uplifting”, Gary announced after reading my last blog, after the usual complaints about my Gary bashing.

Uplifting? Gary? I actually went back to him before I started writing to make sure I had remembered that right. It such an unlikely comment from Gary. Obviously my last few blogs have been too miserable even for Gary, and that’s quite an achievement.

Since then my world has simply exploded with enticing, vibrant, exciting, shimmering snippets of life that are being shown to me by the Universe to appease Gary and I’ve been literally fizzing to get started on this. Of course I’ve put it off and put it off, it’s so deeply engrained in my psyche to finish all the chores that could ever be imagined before I do something I enjoy, but today I say ENOUGH! Follow your highest excitement is the guidelines for an amazing life, so here I go.

I know those of you who have worked with me won’t believe that I’m only just learning to have a voice: it’s not that I couldn’t speak up – it’s more that I didn’t even know I wanted to. I didn’t know that what I wanted to say was, “actually, naw” when Gary assumed I’d join him to see the “Star Wars the Force Awakens”. He often says, with the startled-rabbit-in-the-headlights-look when I want to talk about feelings, or clothes, “don’t you have any girlfriends for this?” Yet he was nonplussed and genuinely surprised when I said “don’t you have any male friends for this?” about Star Wars.

I am learning to say no. Not just about big things, but the little things too, like just not going along with things I can’t be bothered with. I’ve always thought being a good sport was so important, but when you realise how one-sided it is, and how deeply rooted it is in wanted to keep everyone happy at the expense of your own happiness, it’s easier to say, fuck that, I don’t have time for Star Wars. And saying no to what I don’t want opens up room for finding things that I do want.

Since my sister-in-law (Gary’s sister) Debs and I realised that we both absolutely LOVED The Circle (“TV for the lowest common denominator”), Debs now delights in recommending programs that Gary will hold in utter contempt. If her son hates it, there’s a good chance Gary will too, and we bond, secretly sniggering over the disapproval of these strange men in our lives.

Debs recommended RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. I really didn’t think it was my kind of thing, but she assured me Gary would absolutely HATE it (not that that wasn’t obvious from the title alone): “TV for the hard of thinking”. Well. I. Am. Blown. Away. It is absolutely riveting!

Of course I don’t ask Gary to watch these programs with me, but it’s taken a lot of courage to even watch these programs in the house and endure the inevitable scathing disapproval about all the shrieking and how stupid all these people are, and how brainless those who watch it are, if he happens to come in the room.

I was at boarding school in Kenya, well not quite boarding school, we lived in a “hostel” on a coffee plantation and rode the rickety bus to our school in the adjacent Del Monte pineapple plantation. One of the girls in my dorm had an older cousin, and I absolutely loved her visits to the dorm with her entourage. These were brash, beautiful and bold black women. I guess I was pretty sheltered, I didn’t have TV and I certainly didn’t get out much and I was absolutely mesmerised by the colourful, sassy women, who said what they thought and laughed in the face of men, and openly flouted their sexuality and femininity. I had never seen anything like it but I knew that I loved it! I loved these women! I was entranced and fascinated by their loud, clever, humour. I don’t know if it was a cultural thing, I didn’t have anything to compare it to, I did know that the white women I knew didn’t act like that. These were girls nobody would mess with, girlfriend, but they were the most entertaining company one could ever wish for. Later in life I would almost certainly be a fag hag if I actually knew any gay men any more: I would dissolve in hysterical delight at the camp banter my first husband’s brother engaged in.  As I’ve got older and since I started mixing with people on retreats and in the artistic community, I realise more and more how I love to be around weird people. Marginalised people. Eccentric people. Opinionated people. Unapologetic people. Funny people. I long to be in the company of drama queens of any gender that shock and entertain. And by drama queen I mean entertainment, not energy vampire drama of people who love a crisis.

One of the books we read in book club recently was Ainslie Macleod’s “The Instruction” in which I discovered that I’m a level 6 soul (unity, social justice, drama, self-questioning) and that (one of) my soul types is a performer type. I loved the idea of this and it sat right, but I couldn’t quite see it. Now it’s suddenly become very apparent and I realise now that is exactly what I am, I just haven’t let myself get into it. When I first started trying to identify what I wanted out of life, my mentor Annie would ask how I would see myself in my ideal future, and I would think of these women from boarding school, and eccentric colourful older women and say I wanted to be one of those cool, confident, loud, funny, exotic women whom I am drawn to. These practical, strong, but dramatic and emotional women who fought for their independence and refused to be intimidated by men or convention.

RuPaul’s Drag Race excited me in so many ways, but mostly just how much fun it is to be around people who perform. I absolutely love the dramatisation of everything for comic effect, the rolling eyes, the every pause for dramatic effect and perfect comic timing. There is SO much more to this program than just the drama queenery: they are incredibly talented ladies (as they call themselves) who create their own fantastical costumes as well as perform all manner of entertainment, and I was bewitched by it. Even more poignant was the admission that most of these self-described queens were bullied as children, and teenagers, by family as well as classmates, and that many of them hide an excruciatingly insecure personality behind their flamboyant brash drag personas. This program has everything, but for me, it lit a fire under me. Having come full circle into the realisation that I love a drama queen, I am a performer, I’m hoping this will nudge me closer to finding out who I want to be. Ru ends every episode with “if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else” and I thank this beautiful cast of brave, talented, passionate drag queens for inspiring me to step boldly into who I want to be. I’m still not sure who that is, but I am a performer, and I sure as hell know that I can be anyone I want!

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The Painful Journey: let’s talk about pain

Today I cried.

Unexpectedly and in front of people who also weren’t expecting it. I cried because I felt weak and exhausted, and trying to get dressed after swimming proved almost impossible. I have a window of about 10 mins after winter swimming (water is about 5 degrees above freezing) and if I can’t get my socks on in that time, I’m basically stuffed. I have Reynaud’s disease and I will lose all function in my hands. I may as well lie down with my arms crossed over my chest and wait for hypothermia. It hasn’t happened yet but I did get frightened. I couldn’t get my socks on because I couldn’t bend my back. I couldn’t lift my legs. Not because of the cold, but because my long term pain which has improved so much I sometimes forget it, has steadily increased over the last few days. Maybe it’s because it was a dawn swim in March and I just hadn’t warmed up, but the pain not only suffocated me, it terrified me. I did manage, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this, but I got straight in the car and sat in my blessed, beautiful, amazing heated seats with all the fans blasting, which I never do, for 15 mins whilst my hands shook so hard I could barely pour my coffee. I got out of the car then for a little social banter. “Oh there’s Kate” someone said, “we wondered what had happened to you”, and before I knew it I was crying.

Nothing more alarming than someone who cries without any provocation so of course I had to explain. How to explain? How to explain.

When you meet someone who talks about their healing journey, there is inevitably a physical manifestation of that. It’s easier for people to understand the quest for “healing” when they think the pain is physical, but many of us who are healing don’t mention the physical aspect because it’s so ingrained in our everyday survival we overlook it.

One of the very early lessons of chronic pain is to stop talking about it. It’s also one of the hardest lessons. There is a huge egotistical need to talk about pain. Initially for comfort, for reassurance (which you’ll never get) then, as time goes on, if you’re not obviously disabled, there is a need to constantly explain yourself in case people don’t know. A need to explain or justify why you can’t do something, why you feel shit, why you lose your temper, a constant justification of why you are performing below par. And for me I realised a couple of years ago, a desperate attempt for some sort of sympathy. Married to a dour Scotsman, I don’t get any of that, and I’ve learned that complaining doesn’t help. Whether or not Gary knows I’m in pain, he’ll never refer to it. Eventually I followed the advice and stopped talking about it. Yesterday, and today in fact, I felt so shit I did mention it (noting to myself that this was not advisable, and it was just because I was feeling sorry for myself, and turning my attention away from this would be the sensible thing to do instead of indulging it). He barely acknowledged it, I don’t even know if he heard it. I’m sure if I confront him he’ll either not have heard it or look at me squarely and say “what do you want me to do?” And what do I want him to do? Make it go away? Sooth me somehow? He’s not going to do that ever, and nor should I expect that from him. That’s just not what he does. I know that he will never give me what I want in this scenario, so why do I repeatedly replay a situation expecting a different result?

(Gary just read this and said if you want to join the “Gary’s a Bastard” petition, just click here. I asked him what I should write instead – i.e. why doesn’t he say anything, and he admitted, what do you expect me to do?)

I know now that my pain is a result of years of suppressed emotional energy. There is nothing medically “wrong” with me, and anyone with any long term pain or disability knows that unless your leg is hanging off, or you’ve got an axe in your head, mysterious pain may as well be made up for all the help you’ll get from the medical profession. Why don’t you see a doctor? Someone once asked me. Honestly? I dunno, I can’t remember. But actually I did see a doctor (at least 20 years ago), probably after a few years of backache. They referred me to a physio clinic that was set up in some makeshift cubicles in a school hall in a somewhat rough area in Edinburgh. All I remember is it looked like a scene after some massive tragedy like an earthquake or a bombing when everyone is piled into the town hall for emergency treatment. A nurse ran her fingers none to gently up and down my spine, established that I could lift my arms and told me there was nothing wrong with me. I didn’t rush back to the doctor after that. Eventually I must’ve mentioned it to the doctor a few years later and learning that I had private medical insurance, sent me to a private physio. This physio was much more attentive, but essentially blamed my posture and skilfully laid another layer of guilt and unworthiness on my disability, now making me feel that it was entirely my own fault that I was in pain. A few years on and I was working in New York and Gary came out to meet me. It was deep winter and I had borrowed a gorgeous coat from my sister. All I remember was that the coat, a beautiful, black, faux sheepskin coat, was too heavy. It was too heavy for me to wear. My legs were too weak to carry the coat and I spent the weekend in the hotel racked with pain.

That started a new chapter of pain. I couldn’t walk upstairs without my thighs burning like I’d run a marathon. The backache got worse, my joints ached; I started getting severe and debilitating menstrual cramps. I did an ergonomic assessment at work for my backache and they sent for a posture specialist who gave me a new chair. At that point everything got worse. Whether it was the drawing of attention toward my pain, the involvement of others and having to explain it, examine it, test it, but it all got suddenly worse. I didn’t want to go on holiday with Gary anymore, because walking was too hard, I was OK for about an hour and then I’d get tired, I’d get crabbit, I’d want to stop. Gary would always want to push on a bit further, and (now I realise) I didn’t have the voice to say “no, I can’t do this”, so he wouldn’t know I was in pain until I had passed the discomfort and fallen into sullen, suppressed rage. And all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel and die.

I saw a nutritionist about the cramps and muscle fatigue. She told me to stop drinking alcohol and gave me a million, expensive, supplements. I had already given up tobacco, I then gave up alcohol, I ate only unprocessed food, I took supplements, I exercised through the pain. There was really nothing else I could do for my health. And there was nothing else I could do to make my life more miserable. Nothing made any difference. But in retrospect I never did talk to a “normal” doctor. I can’t really explain why other than it never seemed like a something they could help with.

I don’t even know if anyone else knew what was going on. I didn’t really tell anyone and I still made myself run a few miles several times a week, and just kept carrying on. I didn’t see myself as damaged or ill, I just kept going. Other than my pain and IBS, I’m about as robust as can be. I never get sick. I never get colds. I never get flu. I hadn’t taken more than 3 days off sick in 20 years I realised when I finally had my breakdown.

I read so many books, I tried so many methods of coping with back pain, I saw so many physiotherapists, that I completely lost faith in all of them but I still tried. But I mostly tried to fix it myself and eventually, after suffering a major, complete and utter psychological burnout, I realised that it was all about my emotional pain. Emotional trauma that I didn’t even recognise I had until I was 50.

However recognising that also means that I can make myself well. I believe that if I can overcome my negative beliefs and turn away from my suffering and live in joy and appreciation that I can live in wellbeing. I believe that I can live in abundance, and all I have to do to achieve all this is to raise my vibration. And over the last few years my pain has improved dramatically. So much so that writing this makes me cry again, because I have come so far that I’ve forgotten how bad it was. But I still have pain and stiffness in the mornings. So back to this morning


I recently joined a group online of Law of Attraction folk, people who work hard to raise and keep their vibration high. There is something wonderful about being part of a community of real people who are actually making this happen. People who post daily about wonderful things that happen in their lives, who openly declare love and appreciation for themselves, for their pets, their lives, their families, for rainbows, and insects and clouds, and each other. It’s amazing, I can’t think of a better way to use social media. There is no judgment on these forums, it’s a completely safe space where people nurture each other, encourage each other, love each other, support each other. It’s not all rainbows, there are people who lay open their pain and their suffering and ask for advice, and the advice is kind, consistent, loving. These are people who are actually, in real time, attracting more abundance, who have healed themselves through holding steady alignment.

These are real, ordinary, mortal people who are actually doing it and that’s the encouragement I need. However, the problem is that these are real, ordinary, mortal, people who are actually doing it.

And I’m not.

And my pain has got worse.

My Law of Attraction teachings tell me this is because I am holding myself even further apart from my “Vortex” – all the things I have asked for in this life on earth. This newfound enthusiasm and expectation of healing has created an even greater distance between where I want to be, and my observation of where I am. My constant evaluation of how much I NOT healing is holding me back. This new group of happy, vibrant, successful people is another, bigger stick to beat myself up with as they achieve things I cannot. Another bigger stick to beat myself up for not doing enough, not trying hard enough, not working hard enough instead of holding myself in compassion, and loving myself as I am, where I am, in my healing journey.

So when someone asks you what is wrong, how do you explain all that to people who probably don’t believe in all this woo woo stuff, or even know that you do? How do you explain the irony that in trying to raise your vibration to make yourself more happy and well, you have unwittingly made yourself more unhappy and more unwell?

Sometime, it’s just easier to cry.

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The tedious journey of self-healing

I used to work in a pub with Richard. I loved working with Richard: when he was on form he was the funniest, most wickedly sharp companion you could ever wish for. He was friendly and full of banter for the punters, and quick and witty with the staff. I could never understand why he didn’t have a girl-friend: he was good looking, cool, intelligent, and did I mention that he was funny? However when the lights were down and the performance was over, after a few drinks at the end of a shift Richard would turn into a maudlin moan. His last girl-friend had dumped him and he was torn apart by this, devastated by not understanding what had gone wrong, and tortured with thoughts of how he could win her back. In the early days I listened intently to his tragic story, flattered that he would share this personal drama with me, but it didn’t take long to learn that not only would he tell anyone at any opportunity, but it had also happened several years ago. The way he spoke about it was as raw as if she’d stepped out of his bed that morning in her crumpled negligee, packed her bags silently and left, as he’d wailed and wrung his hands helplessly.

It doesn’t take long for people to tire of our tragedies. Really, not long at all. Some tragedies are given more grace than others, but we are remarkably intolerant of people who, in our opinion, suffer a little too long. And so sharing the journey of “inner healing” can only be trusted to those who are either going through something similar, or deeply trusted friends. Certainly husbands of friends are best avoided, even if they do just happen to be in the room making a cup of tea. I winced internally when one such husband asked none too gently at what point I would stop blaming my mother. Whilst I don’t think it was meant to be nasty it was more the exasperation I heard in his voice that shocked me. I don’t remember telling him more than once before about my recovery, how quickly had he tired of it? Perhaps his wife had talked of it endlessly to him, but I somehow doubt that. That is however, an easy stance to take, as I did with Richard quite quickly though I probably kept it to myself: when you wonder WHY someone can’t just get over it. It’s so obvious to all and sundry that wallowing in your pain isn’t helping anyone (and is mightily irritating for those around you) so why can’t you just get on with it, suck it up etc. Such is the usual advice for depression also, along with “pull yourself together” and “you need to get out more”. As if by just wanting to get over something you can. As Allan Carr says of smoking, that smokers are in full knowledge of the health issues but that alone can’t stop them smoking, because, as he says very aptly, “you don’t smoke tobacco for the reasons you shouldn’t”. You don’t suffer because you want to be unhappy (well, in some cases you do but we’ll bookmark that for another day’s rambling). And of course we’ve all been there or known someone else who’s been somewhere darker and survived it, and if I or they got over it, why can’t you
?

I don’t share much of my pain with Gary as he is even less understanding than my friend’s husband. It’s not that he doesn’t care, he just doesn’t really get it. He looked at me once as I struggled to articulate how helpless I felt that even after a few years of self-examination and spiritual work, and despite vast improvements in my joy of life, I still felt there was something huge inside me, unwilling to yield to my effort to fix myself. (And to all the fellow journeyers out there, I’m aware that that sentence in itself describes the problem). “Maybe this is as good as it gets?” he said helpfully, a fully paid up member of the life is shit brigade. And at that moment I was more sure than ever that there IS more ground to be gained. That I honestly, deeply and viscerally know that I have the capacity for more joy, more ease and more love, and more abundance and that I will NEVER give up on the potential to be quietly, blissfully, happy. Although it doesn’t always feel like it, I have come a long, long way. It matters to me how I feel. It matters to me that every day I learn something new about what I have repressed in myself, about who I really am, and that I am worthy of love, abundance and joy. And most significantly, that my value is not what financial and practical offerings I bring to the party. I know now, without reservation, that the Universe and everything in it, is geared up to help me succeed, if only I can just get over myself and let it all in. And hence the desire to heal myself, so I can let it all in. There really is a payoff and it really will be mine.

I’d like to think my healing story is a bit different from Richard’s in that I’m not intentionally complaining or trying to get sympathy, but then I doubt that’s what he thought he was doing either. I’d like to think that I’m trying to share my discoveries to help me get some clarity. I’m also trying to help myself rather than just moaning: this is after all, what it’s all about. And what’s really worth remembering is that in my healing I am benefiting the whole world. Everyone around me, and everyone else too. As each soul shines their light the world gets a little brighter. The healing of every single hurt benefits society as a whole. That’s what this life is all about, finding our own joy and in doing so, bringing joy to others too, effortlessly, unintentionally, simply by being happier. Isn’t that marvellous? So next time you lose patience with a wounded friend, just remember they are healing for you too.

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Good, better, best: in search of perfection

Ever since our (business) coach suggested we create a newsletter I’ve had the sound of my own voice in my head, rambling about what “interesting” things I could share. I think my biggest problem will be trimming down what I write, what is it about the size of my ego that I hate to delete anything I’ve written? So now let’s get to it, money, mouth etc.

Amongst the other topics clattering around in my head recently is the concept about being a “good” person. I honestly didn’t think that this was something that concerned me, not believing that society’s definition of “good” necessarily resonated with me. I’ve never believed going to church makes you a good person, and from a very young age have been aware that good deeds were often of great value to the do-gooder, and that there was a personal reward in knowing that you had “done good”. Do-gooding frequently involves a judgement around what is “best” for people. I have, essentially, held the conventional “do-gooder” in distain.

Since becoming more aware I have known that my predominant negative belief is “not good enough” in its various forms but hadn’t realised it applied so blatantly, bluntly, unabashedly, obviously and literally to me until recently when it occurred to me that my whole life has been a continuous battle to prove my worth, my “goodness”. From writing food lists to make sure we always had “healthy” food, to making sure we never ran out of toilet paper. Not being a particularly proud housewife in the conventional way, I would hold myself accountable on a gazillion other scales, from checking we always had the best mortgage rate, bulk buying to save costs, to raw feeding the cat for her health. And that was just at home. At work I felt responsible for everything, the perfect employee who can’t walk past an issue without taking ownership of it.

But back to home, who to? Who have I been proving this to? I have long known that I could never impress my mother, and my husband is largely unaware of anything I did to this end, until I don’t do it, and certainly is not concerned about this sort of domestic trivia. It was purely and simply self-flagellation. There is, and always has been, a huge streak of righteousness through me. As I gradually came to the realisation that I had lived my entire life as a stooge to a narcissistic, and witnessing the same relationship in other loved ones, I found myself thrown into a frenzy of doubt and confusion about GOOD, BAD, and forgiveness; about whether or not I could even condemn people who couldn’t help the way they were.  If they couldn’t help it, was it still “wrong”? Were they BAD people? If I exercise self-control to NOT hurt people, and actively sacrifice myself to do GOOD, can I not compare myself to them or are they experiencing something different? Was I a GOOD person, because I didn’t behave like them? Was I even allowed to be angry with them? Of course, the answer to all that is that it’s irrelevant, but it took me a long, long journey through in the muddy reeds to realise that. And suddenly I stand gobsmacked in the stark realisation that despite being a rebel on the surface, being GOOD is exactly what my whole life has been about.

I pondered this as I lay in bed, falling asleep with my face in Sally the cat’s rump as she pushed her furry backside into my pillow that night. Feeling the softness of her fur and her gently vibrating body as she purred, I thought about Sally’s life. Her gentle but persistent quest for pleasure. Food, sunlight, warmth. Company when she wants it, solitude when she doesn’t. When Sally wants something she would tramp right over my face to get it. It’s not personal. She would never hurt me but she also doesn’t really give me much consideration at all and she is literally a bully at feeding time, fixing me with a death stare and intercepting, literally, my every step away from the kitchen. I don’t love her any less for it. It occurred to me that all spiritual teachings are essentially telling us that the best person we can be is a happy person. A happy person is one who doesn’t sacrifice what they want to please others. A happy person is one who will stand up for what they want and not worry what others think of them.

Good, better, best. For the benefit of ourselves, and everyone around us, indeed the whole universe, being happy and accepting of ourselves is the superlative of good. To do what we want, and care less about what other people expect, want or need from us. And if being a good person actually means being a happy person suddenly it’s a worthy cause!

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Vulcan 607: the antithesis of self-improvement

One thing I love about Gary is his predictability, especially in the joke department. Whenever I mention book-club to Gary he rushes off and gets his book “Vulcan 607” and shoves it in my face, and demands that I suggest it for the next book. Every time. As a group of animal communicators and soul psychics reading hefty books about spiritual advancement, it’s not really what we go for but that only makes him think it’s even funnier. Every time. Every two weeks on a Monday evening.

I only ever read novels on holiday (gosh those were the days) and in a 2 week period and can work my way through 12-15 books, mostly trashy novels, and most of which will make cry. When he catches me crying because of something I’ve read, he looks at me solemnly and says, “do you want to read a book about helicopters?” Every time. Several times a day. For 2 weeks.

From Gary’s perspective, he cannot understand my need to dissect my emotions or read any form of teaching, do any form of self-improvement (and unfortunately that’s not because he thinks I’m perfect), and certainly doesn’t understand why I would read a book that makes me cry. From my perspective, watching Aircrash Investigation, Mighty Ships, or some disaster being dissected on TV, is beyond tedious and Vulcan 607, (a tale of British ingenuity and derring-do according to Gary), is recycling material.

So clearly we have different perspectives on entertainment and to be honest what Gary watches is usually educational, but he watches it for entertainment. He will not watch what he calls “TV for the lowest common denominator”, whilst, left to my own devices, I would be delighted to. But the point here is not that we enjoy different things, but that he does things in his spare time for his pleasure, and I do them to “grow”. Vulcan 607 represents to Gary every bit of suffering I go through in my “journey” and raises the question that came up for me few months ago i.e. is it all worth it or am I in a deluded, self-serving, self-improving, self-punishing cycle with no end?

I was listening to Jess C Lively talking to the nonphysical entity known as the Collective (channelled through Annie Francoeur) saying how she (Jess) had been sitting on a train going through all sorts of emotional awareness (read emotional agony) and observed a gentleman across the carriage drinking his coffee in peace, oblivious to her internal pain, and apparently oblivious to his own, and she wondered whether all this self-examination and soul searching was actually making her any happier. Here was this guy, completely content in his world right where he was (OK, massive assumptions on all parts that this guy was not doing deep spiritualist practises every day, or deeply self-flagellating internally – but we’ll overlook that). So is it worth it? Is all this self-examination, self-improvement, self-educating worth it? Will we ever be at peace? Why is it such hard work?

The Collective (and I’m paraphrasing, as it was a while ago) used the analogy of a baby waking up. A baby deep in sleep is restful. Peaceful. A baby about to wake up becomes restless and struggles and fidgets. I’ve never watched a baby sleeping or waking up, but it seems plausible. Abraham Hicks says the more we put in our Vortex (every desire we’ve ever wanted) and the less aligned we are with the Vortex (i.e. the more resistance we have to allowing our desires), the stronger the call of the Vortex and the more uncomfortable we will become. That our discomfort is the distance between what we know we want and what we allow ourselves to feel.

So the emotional discomfort is real, and it’s an indication that we’re going through a process, and hopefully the end result is a better place. The stronger the discomfort or pain you’re in, the further you are away from your Vortex but also the bigger and grander and more wonderful your Vortex is! Sort of comforting? Well yes, but only if you actually move towards the Vortex. And if you can’t you might reach for Vulcan 607 to put yourself to sleep.

Note that Gary’s sense of humour did not stretch to me posting the picture of his book in his pants drawer. Apparently that is NOT funny.

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