The Journey Inwards

If last year, 2008, was all about moving back out into the world - more volunteer activities, coordinating an event, running for local council - then, for me, 2009 has surely been the year of turning inwards.

I've come to see it as part of the healing process after my marriage breakdown, as I regained my spirit and focus after feeling lost for so many years. Last year, I needed to be able to do things for people because helping others helped me. Using my skills and passion and drive in service to others without having to justify it to anyone was a freedom I delighted in.

Sounds sad when I put it on the page, and I dare say it is. Anyone who has come from a relationship hedged about with suspicion and justification and fear will know what I mean.

Since I put the Fun Day to bed earlier this year, I have found myself turning further and further inwards. As this is the last year the wee man will be in the preschool/playgroup world, my time on the various committees I have served with is coming to an end. With each AGM rolling around, and new people taking over my positions, I have felt a sense of relief.

I have come to realise that this year has been about drawing back and turning my focus on me, and what I need now and where I am heading in the future. The future that I am creating for myself and the wee man. Examining all that esoteric stuff about who I am, and what my purpose is here on earth, and how I can better align myself with this purpose...

I have spent much time on the Internet this year, yet almost no time blogging or sharing much of my internal life online (apart from an on-going flirtation with Facebook...but, for me, that is an extension of my real-life world.).  What I have been doing is learning...and also, learning about learning.

Yes, I am returning to school. I have finally enrolled to do the university degree I deferred nearly 25 years ago, a dual major in Writing and Media.

I have also been absorbing as much as I can, from the incredible resources available for free on the 'Net, about freelance writing and article marketing and internet marketing and Wordpress and platform building. So much information, in fact, that I have resolved to do 2 things: become more focused in my reading, and take action as I read. I am limping through the set-up of my first online writing portfolio...I say limping because I feel totally inadequate doing it, and am of course absolutely unimpressed with my first efforts...and intend to experiment with some other simpler web-pages in the coming weeks to use as launchpads for various online enterprises.

Doesn't sound very esoteric or deep-and meaningful, does it? What it does sound like is a way to provide for myself and my boy, to give me the freedom to study and apply and hone my skills. A lifelong dream of myself as a published author doesn't seem so far away when I am actually writing and being paid for my writing, even if that is just small change for article mills and magazine fillers. Learning to craft ebooks about topics I can write with clarity and passion, and set up to sell 24/7, seems like the next logical thing to do.

And creating a structure for my writing, making a habit of it, is the best remedy for the procrastination I have struggled with for so many years. I'm starting my uni course as an external student, accessing lectures and tutors and coursework online, so I can't afford to let myself procrastinate.

So does this mean I'm going to be blogging more often again? Have I come out of my little cave, finished with my navel-gazing? Well, it's been rather quiet and peaceful in there....but next time, I might take you with me.

"River Evening...Or The Story Of My Life"

Enter, stage right.

Mugging, waving desperately to those few friends still sitting waiting in the wings patiently for my next grand entrance.

And… cue:


Those who have been kind enough to follow me for a little while will be aware that I’m a self-stifled creative. Once a prolific writer and sketcher, I’ve allowed age, work, love and self-doubt get in the way of the creative expression that used to be second nature to me.

Being a seasoned procrastinator doesn’t help any. I think about things a lot; story ideas, drawings and paintings, craft projects, journal entries. Heavens! even blog entries. I turn them around in my head, refine and polish them, commit to getting them down…and then I don’t.

Even I can notice the irony, that I’ve described my ex-husband as a serial self-sabotager when I so clearly suffer from a version of the same. In the early days of a relationship, we are all attracted not just to another’s sparkling eyes and witty repartee, but also to certain darker, hidden qualities that mirror our own fears and idiosyncrasies.Obviously this is one of those qualities that he mirrored for me, that sub-consciously drew me to him. For I wouldn’t want to consciously choose someone comfortable with allowing themself to be any less than their best…would I?

Without plunging us all into a lengthy self-analysis better suited to the privacy of a therapist’s room, I have unravelled enough of my psyche to realise that the habit of hiding my light under a bush, of resisting opportunities to shine, or even to explore the concept of being “okay but not world-beating”, began young. It had some roots in the need to smooth out my abrasive “differentness” as I enrolled in new school after new school in my primary years as we travelled, and then popped my bright little head up in a still-fairly conservative country high school.

I was different – I was extremely well-read for a child, and well-travelled. I was brought up to believe I was talented and special in an era when many kids were still being told they should be seen and not heard. Anything that I became passionate about, I worked at till I could begin to do it to my satisfaction.

Writing and drawing were my two main loves. I remember looking at some of my drawings when I was about ten, and realising that they weren’t good, didn’t truly represent the thing I was trying to capture, and learned for myself how to see what was there and not what my brain thought was there (the essence of the rightly famous Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain book and course). I truly believed I was capable of anything if I just tried hard enough.

My dreams of the future always had me working for myself in some creative capacity – most probably, the author of a series of best-selling and much-loved books, who perhaps dabbled in a little illustration on the side.

So what happened? What happened to me, and millions of other little shining stars? How did we let the doubts in, see the “reason” in Society’s expectations about how we made our way in the world and how we expressed our truest selves? I can remember quashing my Mum’s dreams about me entering art school, by telling her I could never make a living if I had to work creatively to a deadline, that it would smother my creative spark. Instead, I put it out myself, by not trying at all.

And there’s the rub, kids. What this is all about. Fear. Fear of trying, fear of failing, fear of being different, fear of just not being quite as brilliant as the next person, or fear of being too brilliant and not being able to meet people’s future expectations of our brilliance – it doesn’t matter. By not trying, by not attempting to build on my talents, by denying their very existence, I have created my own self-fulfilling prophecy which can reinforce all the flawed self-judgement that come after it. See, if I was really good enough, I would have done it anyway.

Well, I’m tired of living in fear. I have moved out from one kind of fear, over the last couple of years, but I know that I have plenty more to tackle. For someone who basically comes across as confident, self-assured, forthright, I am a master of self-doubt and self-sabotage. (There – I AM good at something. *hollow ironic laugh* )

Apart from recovering from the frenetic activity of the beginning of the year (staging a children’s event as a volunteer coordinator), I think I’ve been quiet over the last few months as these and other thoughts have been percolating in my brain. I’ve known for some time that I am well and truly ready for a change of direction career-wise. Twenty-some years of retail and customer service were not the future I envisaged for myself in those childhood musings, but they did equip me with some useful skills, not least the ability to recognise where my strengths lie. I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the last few months, both on-line and off-, and I know that I have something to offer, and that it is a move closer to those childhood passions, using some of the talents I was born with.

The saying “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived” has long resonated with me. I know at times I have been living very much a half-life, full of compromise and doubt and a painful awareness that I was here to do so much more. I am a long way from having all the answers or even knowing clearly where I am heading, but I am shaking some of the shadows from my eyes and my heart. I am investing in my own future and the Wee Man’s, by staking my next moves on my own talents and abilities, and I trust that I will be able to rise to the occasion.




(I did this at about age 14. It is called - yes, you guessed it - “River Evening…Or The Story of My Life” - typically teenage melodramatic, but essentially true…my life then WAS about horses, and dreams, and nature, and drawing and myself. I still like it. The baby and the girl are self-portraits, by the way… lucky I got cuter as I got older, eh?)

EFT - Refining my use of this amazing tool

Trust me - this is a valuable use of the next 7 minutes of your time. I've been refining and re-focusing my use of this incredible tool for well-being recently, and when I happened upon this video I felt that I should share it. There is no-one who cannot benefit from this.



EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is something I have dabbled with for a number of years. Funnily enough, for a long time I forgot to use it on myself except in moments of extreme emotional crisis...usually in the middle of the night, when my troubled mind whirled and fought sleep. It has always given me relief.

My greatest success with it has been in using it with children. Firstly, on my stepson when he came to stay with us, and was anxious and homesick at bedtime, and inclined to have nightmares. I taught the routine to him, and his anxiety subsided, and he slept well from then on. He continued to use it after he went home, and would occasionally mention it to me casually over the phone. (I was thrilled and proud that he has continued to explore its uses.) I have only recently started teaching the wee man how to do it, again for night-time anxieties, and he also has taken to it well, though he doesn't always want to "do tappings" when I suggest, so I surrogate tap for him which seems to work too.

Gary Craig's website (www.emofree.com) is a wealth of information and ideas and case histories, as well providing the free PDF manual and the training CDs (not free, but they can be re-distributed by people who have bought them, and a lovely friend of mine is passing copies on to me shortly). Dr Mercola is a big fan of this technique, too, and has been advocating its use on his website for some years

You have nothing to lose. Check it out - I'd love to hear from any of you who have a particular experience with EFT you'd like to share.

Lukewarm

"Lukewarm" is how the wee man described us last night, situated half-way up the eastern coast of Australia, sandwiched between the searing temperatures and horrendous bushfires of the South (Victoria and South Australia) and the torrential downpours and heavy flooding of the North (Far North Queensland).

The irony struck me this morning, reflecting on this conversation, as I remembered that around this time last year I was blogging on the string of natural disasters that had touched our little part of the world (first here, then here), and wondering what was next.

I can live with "lukewarm".

Like all Australians, I'm incredibly sad for the people affected by the terrible bushfires in Victoria, now being described as the worst natural disaster in Australia's history. At least 107 people killed, and many more to be discovered, and countless families left homeless - entire towns razed to the ground. (See here for information and images.)

At the same time, I worry about members of my family, and many others, who are still threatened by rising floodwaters around the Townsville area.

Just as we all wonder how we're going to manage through a financial "crisis", Nature reminds us what being in crisis is really all about.


(PS. You can make a donation to aid the fire victims by direct debit with these details: Victoria Bushfire Relief Fund; BSB: 082-001; Account: 860 046 797. Money is the greatest need right now - many families have nothing more than the clothes they are wearing.)

Weekly Winners Sunday Meme

The last night of the school holidays for us – yay! We’re both looking forward to the start of the new year of preschool (the wee man’s last before moving on to “big school”). I have not used my camera much again – couple of unmissable episodes of “cuteness” are all I have for you. It’s about time I exercised my creativity again, pointed it at something other than cute kids and animals (though I know we all enjoy them anyway).

A stroll across to Lotus at Sarcastic Mom should find you some serious A.R.T. photography – that, or some more cute tushies and fluffy bunnies.

This is a sketch I did one night of the wee man in his ‘jammies that he hasn’t wanted to wipe off – he asked me to take photos of it so he can use his MegaSketcher again…lol.

Cheeky imp

The furry babies like to hang together – Mahlia and Rusty

Yup, it’s that pirate again. Eye eye, Captain!

What can you do with a face like this, except love it?

Weekly Winners Sunday Meme

It's nearly the end of the summer holidays - 5 weeks gone, only one more to go. (Can you tell I'm counting down?) Summer has well and truly arrived, too - this week we've melted through sweltering humid days. All of which contributes to total brain-fade for me, where any coherent thought or act of creativity goes right out the window, as I struggle to maintain my equilibrium and my temper.

I'm hopeless in hot weather, far too inclined to fly off the handle at the smallest thing. Whoever thought that summer was a great time to have your children at home with you all day every day was a raving sadomasochistic #&^$#@@...

All of which is a long-winded and unnecessary explanation for why I have hardly touched my camera all week. One lovely image of Miss Furpants, just to say "hello" and give me an excuse to go dip into all the other wonderful photos featured at the lovely Lotus'(Sarcastic Mom) weekly photo meme. I'll gaze longingly at some exquisite snowscapes from the other side of the world, and remember what it's like to see steam coming out of my nostrils...instead of my ears! LOL!

Honestly...

...you can tell me - I won't be offended...

Is it too beige?

Please pop out of your readers for a minute and let me know. I like it, and yet... :)