A ramble about rambling?

If only it was as simple as holding a crystal ball, to see into your future and read the journey you had decided to depart upon. Like little thought bubbles they would float into your awareness and prepare you for what lay ahead. Maybe then perhaps the changes that we come across could be manoeuvred through without so much angst and pain. But I know that’s not what life is about. It is about I believe feeling and experiencing everything that we have signed up for.

In retrospect however, I did actually find a crystal ball, in which to peer into its depth’s, there was no foretelling in my crystal ball however, that would be totally magical, but what I did find peeking back at me was comforting. It was where my story began for my gap year and it was what I needed to find to instigate the journey. I found my crystal ball when I began to emerge from the depths of grief and great change. Amongst my journal entries were the beginnings of my exploration into automatic writing. Automatic journaling is where you just allow, without judgement or the need to control each word, comma and correct grammar, the words to ‘plonk’ down on the page. I’ve used this now so much in my life and reading back over them, I read into my crystal ball, a crystal ball of words.

Later I read into the crystallise of my future and how to, as a human being on this earth going about my daily bits and pieces, birth myself into a new life. Sometimes words flowed like rivers through my pen and divined me to write and natter. Other times I would begin by asking multiple questions and a short meditation. But mainly at extreme moments of despair, when I would be vomitus from all the emotions, as they swirled in my gut, just like being on the graviton at show time, and the constant swirl and spin wreaking havoc, especially after consuming a pluto pup moments before and not to mention the copious amounts of fairy floss, which would seek out my vomitus gut, and a purge that was fierce, directed at poor unsuspecting or suspecting people opposite but unable to move, type of feeling. Sorry, that just happened and getting off track there in nostalgia, but an interesting analogy, and that is how it happens, the story just needed to be told, fantastical or not, it all had meaning for me.

Automatic writing became a wonderful friend to me, helping me gain clarity, when clarity just wasn’t clear. Rivers of thought from the sub-conscious or from the higher self, spirit beings, ancestors, wherever the words come from, they just appeared as welcome words on my page and they did give me clarity. A sense of peace and calmness would permeate my body and soul, giving me something to concentrate on; encouragement; and they would get me through the night and sometimes helped me sleep. My breathing would slow, deepen and at a slow pace and the tears would flow, as each and every word revealed to me a need that was so deep inside, a need to be found and freed, after being smothered from years and years of suppression and walls built up to protect from judgements, walls of behaviours adopted and instilled from ancestral times perhaps, from my past, my childhood and the here and now. My voice spoke to me in a language and way that was comforting. The words didn’t predict nor did they describe exactly what I was feeling at the moment, but they gave me more what I needed to connect with myself again, so I could move forward.

Words by themselves cannot describe the feeling when you lay in bed night after night, crying from loneliness, anger, frustration, traumatised by words or lack of words and how they were or were not spoken. I trawled the internet to find someone who could describe for me something that was indescribable by me. The words alone were not wrapped up in the dirt, the grime, the blood, the guts, the relentless tears, that would mingle with the sweat, the sound of the grinding gritted teeth encouraged from the endless anxiety, the snorting nostrils the glare of fear in the eyes, the screams, the sobs, the sigh that would come after exhaustion would put you into a deep, deep slumber for a few hours at least. But words together created a story for me, glimmer of light comfort and I could look into my pages and see the pain I was in, and see a better way to process those feelings. What automatic writing did, was to channel my anger, frustration and fear into something that I could grow from. This was the best medicine for me at this time of my life.

As I grappled with emotions of jealousy, anger, frustration, shutting them down and excusing them away as being something not to trust and wrong, berating and blaming myself, because I was unable to control or change the emotions into forgiveness and something nicer and sweeter or congenial to the other party and hating that I felt this way. I at the time couldn’t work out their intrinsic meaning and secretly didn’t want to face that meaning either. The reality of them, took my breath away as the punch of that realisation winded my body. Slowly though as I poured out my heart, to my pages, listening to the whispers of words in my head, reading them and digesting them, the revelations became glaringly and sadly so obvious. What my writings gave me was the foresight to move from the victim child acting out, thrashing about to later react with more awareness, more understanding, which would eventually help me and moved me closer to what would be my gap year.

I came to understand that all the sensations, senses, feelings, thoughts, existed within as a friend, to help me avoid life in survival mode, but to live and I soon left the angry victim child, and the guilt and shame that was a result of languishing there well beyond a healthy amount of time, and took time for me, this is the beginnings of a deeper understanding of me, from my perspective and the catalyst for my declaration of I need time out, I’m going on a gap year.

I really did ignore the gut instinct telling me that change was weaving itself into my life, and that I should gather my strength and allow the feminine within to support my journey forward into the world to discover what it is that I need to truly live my best life. Because I didn’t want to face it, but I left a trail of thought for me to decipher when I was ready, to see and learn from the darkest nights, which only led into my darkest days. What I could take from these writings in particular was a path, which directed me to develop self-love and to trust and find solace in my super power of the divine feminine. Eventually I would gather my strength and go spread my joy.

[Journal entry November 2019 – A snippet…

Sketch with words from my heart. Why does this keep coming up for me? Why does this keep waking me? What is this feeling of distrust and feeling of not being me? of not being good enough, of not being loved, this jealousy? why is the world round? I know so many questions, why can’t I be heard, self-judgement, self-sabotage and loathing and yes ‘Winter’ is upon you. A time and space that clouds you, and takes you further within, a time and place of reflections of who? Who? Is it that resides and loves you from within? This is your focus for now, stop concerning yourself with what is happening on the outside out of your control and focus on the love from within. This new practise of the Yoni egg is going to connect you with yourself in a way you didn’t expect. A going within to make you feel love and receive love not from others, but from yourself. You are divine and you must stop seeing yourself from any other angle or anything less. Stop projecting your imaginings onto others of your judgement of self. You have magic and that magic you must see is your positiveness and fun, your joy and lightness. Let it rest in your winter, but know it is there to share, share it with others, but also share it with yourself. Balance the feminine, your sensuality is needed to be revived, you are not just sex, but a sensual loving being. Embrace again your womb space and speak her name. Loud and proud, with her cycles her pleasure her heartache and pain. You need to work at it with meditation and access your ancestors, find your feminine sensual voice and heal yourself, let go and release the need to control. This will happen with your healing with your ancestors, it is always going to be a small step, so please don’t judge yourself so harshly, and be kind, you are on the right path. You are such a romantic and so sensitive, it’s in your bloodline, find out why you have chosen this, with this you can heal and realise, not to rid yourself of these feelings but to feel and release. Let go of the need to have what you had in the past, because it is that, learn from it and let go. Hi Nan, how are you? are you here? can you see all of this unfolding. What are your thoughts? I can’t just let live and let be, I worry about being myself, I always strive to be someone else for others and fear then that I am not enough of that and the ‘I shouldn’t’ keeps abounding with force into my world, into my dreams. Rejection plays a huge part and disconnection of body, you can’t see to love your beautiful self you are disconnected and watch from afar your life, fearing involvement so that you don’t feel, as you will or fear the hurt and pain that comes from living, as a natural cycle. You talk about the cycles, but long only for the strong, the happy cycle. You don’t really want to feel the sad, the angry the frustration and you keep wanting to rid yourself of these feelings and that is why they keep arising you don’t feel them. You become a victim and ashamed. You need to embrace them, they are you. You analyse them, but have not really felt them and loved them. Don’t shut them down anymore, find that outlet away from speech, find it and let yourself feel them. In meditation you can connect more with your emotional body and find solace in all your wonder and beauty and find me. I am here, I am always here and near; I love you. Please heal and feel. Healing is feeling.]

I needed to re-draw myself, and the pen that writes is an extension of my heart, the ink is the blood of my heart. So strong for me now. Writing my story from my heart. To no longer feel ashamed of everything I am, but embrace everything I am, as huge as they are and use them to fuel something more for me. So, no more blaming them, or me, or seeking to blame any part of it on anyone either. What I have learnt from this period in my life, is that to heal is to accept everything that makes us, like everything, the tears, the anger, the frustration, the jealousy, the happiness, the joy, the humour, everything. Everything we don’t like to think we are and can be capable of. I found when I was in grief and fear had taken hold, I was capable of lashing out and losing control. Once I realised what my emotions were saying, and why they were there, and focused more on why they would reveal themselves at this point in time, actually staring at them and getting to know them, I began to slowly understand the conversation. My emotions were no longer seen as good nor bad, but necessary to make the changes that needed to be made. Necessary for realisations and necessary to create the wedge that would enable the ultimate decision. I was no longer fighting against them. As soon as I surrendered to them and their voice, I was able to accept and move on.

We have been told that it’s not ok to cry, to scream, to get angry but when you think about it an emotion is a reaction to something that needs to be addressed in some way and then when that realisation hits it’s like bam, that’s it, it’s talking, my emotions are talking and they are telling me that somethings so wrong, or something is so right and I need to have a little think about them and then act upon them. It’s the way we react and use these emotions. At this point in my life, before I realised the importance of my all, they didn’t abate, every emotional, anxiety ridden part of me, just kept poking me in the heart, my sides, my feet, my eyes, my ears, my back, my head, all over my body was pain, jab, jab, jab, it didn’t abate, until I finally got it. In this case the pain needed to be severe, because I just couldn’t trust in this conversation at the time nor did I think enough of myself to remove myself from the place I loved. It’s hard, and that is really such an understatement. In this space where I am now, it’s easy to come to such a conclusion, but at the time, it’s just hard, confusing, consuming and tiresome. There is a brain fog, that never seemed to clear. Not just fog either, lightening, thunder, and rain pouring from my eyes. Sometimes the rain would wash that fog away, but most times the storm clouds would only produce more fog. The most valuable lessons in life are the hardest. That’s how I feel now at this point in time. It’s just a personal opinion. Sometimes the easy path is not the most memorable. For me, I wouldn’t have listened, if it wasn’t so hard. It’s because of this harshness that I now see the value of my all, for myself, and it’s only now because of journaling I have seen the value of going over these emotional dumps of words, and what, once I decipher the tangle of script, they teach me. It is my first act of ‘self-love’ in my entirety.

I have realised that when I was in my relationship, I relied heavily on love from someone else and slowly I allowed my confidence to wither. This was not due to an abusive relationship, or a controlling partner, but more giving away a part of me to that need within, to be loved. That part of me that loved to be in love minimised my love for self and my authenticity. I was happy and I wanted to remain in this state and sort the compromises without conflict. I didn’t even consider that the only conflict was to the self. Perhaps these were learnt behaviours from my past, intrinsically ingrained in love. I lacked the self-love, that I needed to call it quits. So, my anger, frustration and sadness had to yell at me, ferociously yell before I heard. The energy had shifted in the relationship, what I was feeling, was what I was feeling, it was true for me, it was real and authentic for me in that moment of time.

Arriving at these teachings has been truly a ride that has changed from the graviton and metamorphosed into the giggle bubble. Here I am, all of me. I am bouncing of the walls of life and enjoying all that life can throw at me, because I see now, there’s a lesson for me to learn. I am discovering my authentic self, as I rediscover my dreams, desires, passions and reconnect to my feminine self, as she emerges from deep within. Not so much as a beautiful flower, but as a rose with thorns. I now love, just as much, the thorns. Once I disliked their prickly nature., (possibly because as a child I fell into my aunt’s rose garden and spent the most part of Christmas night in a bath tub while my mum and aunty plucked the stinging little thorns from my body), but I see them now, I don’t see the thorns as prickles anymore. I appreciated them in their entirety. They appear fierce, holding on high, beauty and grace in the form of petals, for all to see, while below, it struggles for respect and love. My prickly bits alone were the foundation of my essence and the force within that was so detrimentally ignored and would explode into an uncomprehended angst-ridden sobbing, shaking mess. Once as I looked and studied the gnarled thorns, and realising that beauty and grace was nothing without them, was I able to no longer be afraid of who I was and the fierceness that was also inside, but to allow it to work its magic in a way that could result in beauty and grace. Finding a true authentic love of self and my feminine voice from an event in my life that was so full of gut retching grief, has made the process worthwhile. Now at times where I am swirling and getting lost in my wound of loss, I can breathe and find that strength within my heart, that flower amongst the thorns, the thorns amongst the flower. That is the foundation laid by my wound, revealing the shadow self which holds out its hand and walks alongside the newly emerged authentic feminine self.

It’s a mammoth incomprehensible chore to start that path of ‘self-love’ when someone has fallen out of love with you, it is so hard to turn that woolly beast into something that is huggable. But at this point in time, I must say the tusks don’t poke so hard and I can now leave little love hearts in the shower for myself, and on my chest, written in lavender for a peaceful sleep and I can also post blogs such as this, because I am gathering at each moment now in my life a new ‘love’ for all that I am, and all that I am capable of.

The lack of love from one has certainly opened the way for me, to more than I could ever have imagined. Questioning and investigating everything that I have taken for granted. Every day I connect more and more with the powerful wisdom from within that I was born with. The powerful connection to the feminine and the natural way of being, as an authentic woman in this world. These are important issues for me. To keep creating a space that nurtures self-love, that enlivens the feminine and to live authentically in the natural world and all its critters and beings.

The process of journaling has also helped give meaning to my grief and the whole experience of love lost and loss. The story that emerges from years of journaling makes it easy to identify the truths, and non-truths that have made up my life and, in that way, I am able to process the experience and give it meaning. That is important to me as a way forward, and to keep rewriting, exploring and unpeeling the magnitude of the experience of being human.

‘Now, every time I witness a strong person, I want to know; What darkness did you conquer in your story? Mountains do not rise without earthquakes” Katherine MacKenett