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Tag: self compassion

WHEN HOPE FEELS DEAD

Navigating a lifetime of depression is like being an avid bushwalker and mountain climber. For years on end the scenery is stunning, the flora and fauna breathtaking and the hard yards well rewarded. For short periods of time steep, rocky, unnavigable mountains appear that seem interminable and impossible to navigate. Clambering over invisible rocks always happens in the dark and every inch of your body screams, No! I can’t do it any more! There are people at the summit cheering, saying, Come on – not far now! You know there are people below struggling on the same mountain, or back in the safety of the pretty woods. But on that dark mountain, you’re alone, lost in that sense of hopelessness – completely reliant on voices from afar – and the squabble between the angels on your shoulders.

TOO MUCH

One way or another, we all feel different but some differences are too much while others are celebrated. What is curious, is that sensitivity is rarely considered a positive trait in twenty-first century living. Being sensitive is being different. It’s inconvenient for others. Yet if more of the populace was highly attuned to the feelings of others, we’d live in a kinder world.

COMING HOME

Iā€™ve known a lot of homes. An endless cascade of houses where I lay my head and unpacked my bags. A dozen educational institutions where a seat was mine and mine alone, and I found a place to feel belonging and purpose. Friends where no amount of time and distance have separated us, and despite the years in between, a phone call picks up where the last conversation left off. And Iā€™ve found home in my husband and children, when all my world crumbled, grief stumbled in, joy and excitement were too big to contain, theyā€™ve been the place to sit and share and hold me.

THE EMOTIONAL TRUTH

The universal human need to be needed. The basic human rights of love, care and acceptance. The intimacy of belonging to community. These are the emotional truths I wish to explore. How my needs, rights and sense of belonging have, and have not, been met. The consequences to me, and to everyone I connect with, from my lack of self-love.

ROLL ON 2019

For me – I feel good about 2019. I choose to believe the worst of my grief and issues are behind me and my journey forward is now much closer to everyone else – ie I’m sure I won’t get everything right but I’ll try not to make a royal fuck up every time a little snag comes my way. I’m calling resolutions ‘goals’ this year.

LITTLE THINGS

Over the past three years my mental state has varied in its’ health. After completely breaking apart, I have just been slowly – ever so slowly – getting better. It’s not a straight line – sometimes I went backwards – but if I look back at the overall trajectory, I can see I am a long way from where I was three years ago.

NOT BROKEN. STUCK

I’ve started a course in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy and while I’m very early in the process (halfway through week one šŸ˜€ ) I have already found a lovely little snippet that really resonated with me. And I mean REALLY resonated!

I’m not broken. I’m stuck.

FREEDOM

I live in a house, surrounded by nature. I sit in bed of a morning, watching native birdsĀ singĀ in the tree outside my bedroom window. I can see the water. I can hear the waves. I can watch the sunrise. These things are always here. They always have been. I’ve lived in this house for 16 years.