shapeshifting

 

What is it about this time of year that makes us so keen to detox our bodies, our homes, our lives? Even as I attempt to avoid new year fever, I'm feeling that pull, the urge to just wipe clean the old slate and start over.

I'm not talking about a figurative lick of paint either. I mean, scraping my mental landscape clean of all the stories and assumptions and 'facts' around and with which I navigate life. What would self-inflicted, middle-term amnesia look like? Feel like?

Imagine, for example, you were a person who completely believed in astrology. You religiously read the forecasts, descriptions and advice for Sagittarius and then, decades on, you discover that the date you think you'd been born...? Wrong. You're a Virgo. (As a parent who adopted from China, I don't take the topic of inaccurate birth dates lightly, I'm just using it as a simple metaphor.)

Anyway, it looks appealing to me. If a tad impractical.

I just made the mistake (?) of looking back through my blog archives to see if I really do always sound bleak and miserable at this time of year. Along the way I started dipping into random posts and I think I'd prefer the bleak and miserable. So many posts saying,"Hey I've had an AWEsome idea...this is totally it...I found The Thing...I have A Great Plan."

Ahem.

New year can appear to hand us a clean slate but it's not easy. Those past hopes, wishes and visions can stick to us with guilt and shame and fear of failure. Unless we forgive ourselves for not seeing them through - or maybe just realise that it doesn't really matter and not getting your Etsy store off the ground three years running does not make you a bad person - we will become more and more stuck in our own emotional swamp, while our belief in our ability to get out of it slowly fades.

Depressing? Sure. Truthful? For me it is and I know it is for many of you, but given that we're not about to get our memories wiped, what do we do?

• Gratitude, appreciation for what we already have in our lives, that's good.
• Appreciating the things you have achieved (I bet there are loads), that's also good.
• Quietly taking a teeny step forwards and feeling a sense of achievement for that. Good.
• Releasing the pressure we put on ourselves to measure up to people we admire. Niiiiiice.
• Asking a trusted friend or loved one what it is that they think you're good at. And accepting their answer as a truth.

I think five things to do is enough to think about for me today. Can you think of any more?

 

After confessing my new year overwhelm I felt like a bit of a loser. I know, the point was not to feel that way but still, I did. And it was a good thing. It made me step back and see that I've really been sliding into the gloom since the snow melted and I lost the big buzz I was undoubtedly getting from the bouncing light.

I have a serotonin issue. I know this and should be prepared. Migraine, PMS, seasonal depression..all serotonin stuff. I take a daily dose of an SSRI to help with that but at this time of year I need to either up my dose (and I don't want to do that) or take other action. So I decided, I may not be able to plan for a year but I can certainly come up with some ideas for the next month.

• Step one was to procure a lightbox. I didn't plan ahead and get one in October but that doesn't mean that the next two months have to be utter misery. Lightbox rental is an awesome option and hopefully mine will arrive tomorrow. Not as pretty or as natural as snow, but hey, way more practical.
• Step two is already underway and I'm doing daily Reiki meditations and self-treatment.
• Step three involves a hoop and finding somewhere to practice indoors because it's bloody cold outside. In our cottage the rooms are v. tiny and the ceilings v. low but I think I can do some basic hooping in the kitchen.
• Step four is making use of guided meditations. I have this book by Steven Farmer and really like the first two on the CD. For Reiki people, the Reiki Evolution meditations are very good.
• Step five is to cut back on the coffee. I'm going to try to limit my intake to two a day and the rest of the time I'll stick to redbush or - an old favourite from years back - white tea.

So nothing earth-shaking but strong, positive things that will help me move forward. I also really need to get this back on track because a barrel of personal issues and, dur, the lack of light in which to run around here in the Winter (we don't do streetlights out here) either before or after work, meant I completely missed my target. I was so very grateful for the donations made towards my fundraising for BCDH and I'm ready to gently get back to meeting my challenge.

I think that will do for now. I have something quite exciting lined up for March but I know anything could happen between then and now so I'll keep it under my woolly hat.

x

I said on Twitter yesterday that I felt adrift. And I did. It had been a weird few days what with all the rushing around and the twinniness and then the non-twinniness and the plans being changed around us. On top of that, there was the whole Sick For Three Weeks thing and the starting school and the rumblings at work. And as usual I was perched on the edge, about to fly with new plans and I fell flat on my face.

When I got up I had no idea where I was. Figuratively speaking. I still don't. I feel as if I'm standing to one side of myself watching something happen. This morning I gained some insight.

I see that I'm drawn to different things. Suddenly I want to redo my Google Reader, lose myself in new topics, find new books. When I say new, I mean different to the things I've been focused on these last few months but oh so familiar to the me of autumn last year, and the autumn before that.

I remembered last week, Susannah laughing (in the nicest possible way) at me and my constant blog changes and saying that Shapeshifting is the perfect description of me.

The last few weeks have felt like shapeshifting. As if my bones have stretched and creaked back into other forms and my mind has fallen back into old, familiar pathways. So this morning I found myself thinking that as the seasons change, so do I. But really. Not in a bi-polar, MPD way but in a strange and profound way I seem to have two quite distinct ways of being; both authentically me, but...different. It's the prefect explanation for the craziness I go through at this time and in the early Spring. It also explains the panic I feel build at the end of the summer and winter because on some level I know that if I want to achieve something I need to get it to done. NOW. Before this me disappears for six months.

Or maybe, it occurs to me as I write, I'm just picking up on Evie and Eva's energy. Heh. That would be so typical. And I'm so unskilled at recognising and dealing with that tendency to lose my own boundaries.

Grounding is what I need and I'm building a collection of resources to help me with that. Reiki grounding meditation is a good one. 30 Days of Yoga is another. Dogs, chickens, nature. Loud music that makes my heart sing and my body dance - that works. Time to dust off the hoop. And there's a big old sketch pad that's calling my name.

October is not going to be typical for us but I think I need to find a little time here and there to settle into the me of the darker months and work out how to create some continuity. Ebb and flow.

 

 

I keep writing long posts in my head. Then not writing them here.

I write short posts in my head. And don't write them here.

The fact is that I'm deep in the grip of SAD. At least I think that's what it is. Maybe it's the end of the winter, maybe it's the clocks changing that tips me over but in March I tend to either spin around the stratosphere thinking I can take over the world, or I crash.

I crashed. Head long, full speed. Brick wall.

If it is SAD then I'll get through it and feel well by my birthday at the end of April. That's been my experience in the past. It may be other things: a new contraceptive pill which felt like a miracle for a month or so - no migraine, no PMS - but may not be so good for me after all. Or the fact that thanks to that first month of feeling great, I resolved to come off my anti-depressants and on my doctor's advice knocked my dose down by 30% as a first step.

Maybe it's all three things.

But I feel like my skin is on inside out and I just want to hide. I've built a shell. So now I am simultaneously feeling nothing but feeling EVERYthing. There is no balance.

I know I am in a healing place. I am in my best place, geographically. But at the moment I can't let it too close. It hurts. Even the beauty cuts me. The people and things that make me happiest are the ones I have to avoid the most because...because...I don't know why. They just are. Maybe I'm scared they'll break through the shell. Crack a hole in the dam. And I'm not strong enough for the power surge that could result.

At 6AM this morning I opened my front door to find a magpie on its back, screaming at my feet; a mess of torn feathers, broken wings and a huge, gaping wound in its chest. In terror it struggled to its feet and staggered up our garden path trying to fly while I collapsed in sobs. It crawled under our garden gate and was leapt on by a waiting sparrowhawk - who had presumably been mid-kill when I opened my door, then left waiting until I was far away enough for it to return.

Magpies wipe out entire nests of songbird eggs. This is nature. This is life/death. This is balance. And maybe I should be thankful for the catalyst because I have not cried in a long, long time.

It was a beautiful day out here today. I did a lovely walk with my dogs, then swapped them for Charlie and Evie and we did another walk and then I swapped them for my running shoes and went off on my own for a short while.

It does a woman good. All of the above.

The cycles of nature are my downfall. Spring and Autumn bring physical, mental and emotional changes that can make some weeks tough or frantic or exhausting in a more extreme way than just my normal life. Not unmanageable, but yes, difficult.

But...

it's the cycles of nature that heal me. The visual beauty of the changing seasons, the sounds, scents and textures of life; the predictability, the rhythm, the familiarity and the anticipation of something old but new...I need them like I need oxygen. They make me strong.

What brings me down, lifts me up. I am woven into the rhythms of our seasons and I am so thankful for that. In that rhythm I find strength and patience. In the animals and plants that follow the same dance, I find connection. In the sunshine of a November day I feel held safe in the arms of Mother Nature.