letting go

How would you like your peas & pear?

~ Stephanie Powell Wellbeing ~ 2 Comments

Late last year I was diagnosed with the early symptoms of Rheumatoid Arthritis … for anyone this is a major blow. For me it felt greater. My whole belief system and work orientation is the mind / body connection and how mental and emotional responses affect the physical state and therefore disease. Rheumatoid is considered an ‘autoimmune’ condition – medically, your own immune system attacks your own body … self-rejection came to mind and this I could not or would not accept.

hammock lady

So I asked the heavens … actually I screamed “If this is real and I am attacking my own body then fine, I’ve got some issues to deal with. BUT, if it’s not real and there’s a different theory TELL ME … SHOW ME so I can go and figure it out!!”

The next day I was shopping for a book for a friend’s birthday. I walked out of the shop without her birthday pressie and instead with a book called the ‘Medical Medium’. I’d walked in, picked it up and bought it within a minute … usually I’m a slow motion book browser!

Reading this book showed me that the context of the condition wasn’t necessarily as I’d thought or how the Medical establishment currently assume it to be – rightly or wrongly. I won’t go into the details of the book because basically if you have a chronic condition then you really should read it. This book is however beginning to change many people’s lives. There’s some revelationary info on the underlying causes of some of the most common diseases and a reinforced message on how to completely overhaul your immune system. It gave me hope that there wasn’t a line written underneath this condition which labelled a life of pain, limitation and frustration.

My Mum has suffered with a variation of this disease since she was in her early 40’s – my age. It took a long time to diagnose and I’ve seen that her once, very active life shrink around her with pain, suffering and fear. Her life became a series of medicinal concoctions with adverse side effects and a slowly fading belief that she could overcome it – she believed she would be THE medical marvel that defied this disease. She has made significant progress due to diet and lifestyle changes but sadly this disease has defined her for many years. So if she wasn’t going to be a medical marvel then I’ve decided I will!

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Me, the dog and a bacon sarnie!

~ Stephanie Powell Wellbeing ~ Leave a comment

Otto & I

I’m sitting in the garden on the most glorious of winter mornings. The sun is warming my face from a clear blue sky. A thick hoarfrost is slowly creeping away from the fence line as the sun’s rays meet the ground. A transpirational mist is ascending across the lawn.

I have the dog at my feet, coffee in hand and bacon s’wich by my side. As I raise my face up to the sun and close my eyes, all is well in my world and I am happy!

The dog then tries to pinch my bacon, the coffee cup’s a gonna and all hell breaks loose; in that fleeting moment my peace is shattered and my acquisition of happiness gone … ! We’d already had words earlier about my need for a little personal space, he is however ever loving and ever faithful but ever PRESENT around my legs and my food!

His happiness comes from sticks, bones, food and being with his humans. I see him most happy when we’ve been separated for more than 30 mins! In my conversation with him earlier I’d explained my need for him to stop following me, go away and perhaps lie down or go outside, his face fell. Those big puppy dog eyes drooped, his tail dropped and head hung low – my guilt gave him a big hug and he was happy again.

Is he a happy dog? Most definitely! Is he happy all the time, certainly not, but he can ping back into happiness at the drop of a hat. He’s a smiler, big time and it’s lovely to see him greeting anyone and everyone with that big toothy grin. Are all dogs like this? No they are not.

So, is happiness nature or nurture and what exactly does ‘HAPPY’ mean anyway??

Seriously I’m asking you … ‘What does happiness mean … to you?’

For some it’s a long term aspiration – ‘I just want to be happy’ an easily achievable goal and not too much to ask yet often quietly elusive. For others their happiness lies in the ‘moment’, that mindful appreciation of a bacon sarnie in the sun WITHOUT a dog by your side!

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I used to be scared of the dark.

~ Stephanie Powell Wellbeing ~ Leave a comment

ME 4

I used to be scared of the dark, in fact I used to be scared of many things … fear ruled my life.

I wasn’t fearful of daredevil stuff like sky diving … I still am, but that wasn’t it. I was fearful of facing ‘my fears’ or fearful of accepting my fears.

I had a strong sense of inadequacy until I turned thirty. It wasn’t my capabilities that were inadequate but me, as a person. I considered myself a shy, sensitive child until I hit my mid teens, then I got tough – but only on the outside!

I wasn’t going to let anyone see that vulnerability; that sensitivity that had got me pushed around, had lost me friends and didn’t know how to say NO.

Little things became big issues as I got older … going into the sea, driving distances on my own, sleeping in the dark … showing the real me, and hiding my vulnerability. I was fearful of life but I was also fearful of my fears and I hated me for feeling so debilitated by my limitations. My life became defined by my fears yet I pushed myself too far in other areas in order to over compensate for these inadequacies and ‘prove’ myself. This meant that no one could see or say that I was weak or fearful or that I lacked confidence. In doing this I was crippling myself.

I’ve wondered about the nature v nurture of these fears and whether my sensitivity made the little things seem so incredibly large? My life story doesn’t matter, my childhood irrelevant, I see the ‘story’ as a way to justify the behaviour and that’s unnecessary. I see my story as my script for life where I now choose to write the ending however I please.
The self-protection I placed around myself to hide my vulnerability means that no one saw the real me. They saw my select, modified version of what I wanted them to see, how I wanted to be perceived.

I thought I could stop myself from being hurt – it didn’t work. Now that I’ve reached my 40’s and looked into the deep recesses of my soul, I can see how much time I’ve spent working to un-do all the self-protection I’d put in place. I now see how hard it’s been to realise, understand and accept this about myself and how hard it’s been to let people see me vulnerable and needy.

I’d told myself that to be vulnerable is to be weak. When I was vulnerable people preyed on it; I know now that it’s because I’d allowed it. I’d accepted myself as nothing less than weak, needy and vulnerable and that’s the message I put out to the world. I didn’t help myself in the process, I was still all those things inside it’s just that I wouldn’t let people see it in me – until I decided to change it.

This façade of strength and capability created my self protection. It also meant I couldn’t be a true expression of Me. I was a lie; a lie I didn’t know how to get out of. How do you say to someone ‘the person you think I am, actually isn’t me at all. It’s a modified version which I’ve engineered to become untouchable’. I became tired of being the person people thought they knew instead of the person I knew myself to be. There were expectations of mental and emotional strength beyond my capacity. People became too dependent on my capabilities and that resulted in too much internal pressure … basically I tried to do it all, be it all and for everyone and the person suffering the most was me.

Life then threw me some BIG challenges and I became angry, at EVERYTHING … life, family, the Universe … GOD. I didn’t see the source of it, I thought it was everyone else, their limitations, their lack of capability and support for me – how could they ALL be so unsupportive and inconsiderate? Maybe in some ways they were but I had both allowed and encouraged it!

This actually was just a deflection again of my vulnerability, a way of not looking inwards or having to be needy … I was needy! I needed help, I needed support, WHY couldn’t those around me see it? Because I wouldn’t allow it, hadn’t ever allowed it in my adult years. I had kept myself closed, self-protected (supposedly) and completely self-reliant. Instead, I ‘Self’ combusted into a rage against the machine of life!

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