Making Time for Me

When life gets overwhelming..i enjoy being outside in nature or making friends with my feelings in a notebook..

Time spent just investing in me, brings great returns to everyone else in my life when i return refreshed and energised to once again be the best i can be.

Dealing with Pain

The more i live, the more i see that none of us have it easy and yet..none of us need to have it hard on ourselves either. It's all about finding the right mix/balance of self-love to give and receive. And the best we can all do is to affirm each other. I don't think in 'right or wrong', 'black or white' anymore..not after so much has hit me and so many people did more damage than good trying to judge before they supported. We all walk in different shoes, but a blister is a blister. They don't hurt differently just because they were caused by different shoes. So i don't ask anymore what shoe it was or why they wore the shoe..i just get the salve and band aids. They have enough pain dealing with the blister without me helping them focus on it even more.

Loving acceptance is going beyond judging, and coming from a place of compassion that acknowledges that pain is pain. There is no pain greater or lesser than another's. Is a 5 year old crying over spilt paint over her artistic creation in less pain than a man who has lost his job? Or are the consequences of a lost job just harder to deal with and so we grade it as a higher pain? Both need affirmation, both need understanding. Each person's pain is relative to their own capacity of dealing with it. To offer comfort and healing, is to offer love that does not 'grade' one person's pain over another's. We all hurt and bleed, and bleeding one pint or bleeding five pints is no less painful. Perhaps it is each person's threshold of pain that we actually judge..and if this is so, then perhaps it is the amount and administration of affirmation that differs. But in all instances, there is need for affirmation. And if this so, then perhaps it is easier to do away with judging altogether for what purpose does it really play in offering the support required? If it is to help me decide how much of my own time and effort to contribute, then isn't it far better for me to evaluate myself rather than the person receiving my care?

When i am in a place of self love and my own love tank is full, i can affirm and support others better. So in that sense, affirming others isn't about how much they 'deserve' it, but more about how i feel about myself and how much i have to give. All the more reason to love myself well. It truly is what makes me love others better. And for that matter, perhaps it is why i have learnt to embrace pain better..for when i learn to heal myself as an act of self love, it empowers me to affirm others through their inevitable pains too.

The Child in Me

I know what it is like to struggle with depression, for although on the surface it seemed that my life was enviable, i had so many buried griefs. In the last two years alone i have had to juggle the overwhelming emotional responses brought on (simulatenously) by the death of a key person in my life, the irreversible mental health diagnosis of another, as well as the responsibility of caring for a new life alongside the ongoing need to care for other little lives dependant on me. Without a clue on how to reach out for the emotional support i badly needed, and at a time when my self-esteem was at its lowest - i finally collapsed.

But what a blessing..the emotional wounds forced me to sink or swim. I had three small children so i HAD to swim and that’s how i found inner child healing. It turned out that i had much grief accumulated from childhood, and by going back and affirming the child that i once was, still in pain inside of me, i was able to start healing emotionally. It involved many tears, many painful episodes of anger and loneliness - the dark night of the soul - as i allowed many of the hurts to surface and be acknowledged. But being honest with myself was the most loving thing i did for myself and for the people i loved (although they could not always see it as so much negativity was pouring out from me). But eventually..after all the hurt was allowed, good memories of my past suddenly started appearing and becoming clearer as if they had actually been trapped beneath all the layers of pain above them. I started feeling genuinely good about life and believing in the inherent good in people again.

So now, i continue to love my inner child and be honest with my feelings by allowing them space to be acknowledged. Just like my children need to both grieve and receive comfort when they get hurt or sad by their own choices or by others, i have learnt to accept that i too have that same need in dealing with my own hurts and griefs, both self-imposed and those caused by the choices of others. It isn't easy, given the years of conditioning i've had to be critical and 'tough' on myself both as a child and even more as an adult, but i'm learning well, spurred on by how good it feels to be able to breathe freely again.

In all of us there is a child, and that child never goes away. Loving that child is the key to so much healing and a greater horizon of happiness ~