Healing the Whole ...

As a teenager in the 90s I instantly think of Haddaway's dance track when I write that phrase! He's not a great example but artists throughout the ages have tried to explore and understand love. I am no different. Love is generally thought of as a positive emotion but I would have to disagree. Firstly I think love is a transaction and not an emotion. Secondly, love has a dark side. It can bring you the greatest joy and the deepest pain. If I live a life led only by my heart I will struggle just as much as living a life only of the mind. Because my heart sees the good in everyone, the potential; and then falls crushed when reality hits. Love, like life, needs to be a balance of heart, body, and mind. It needs to satisfy the desires of all three. I need to ensure none is neglected and all of me is at peace with the love I have chosen. In 2016 a very good male friend suggested I 'go have some fun'. He told me I had got too used to pain. That I used it like a security b...

I am about to publish my book. It is called The Superhero I was Born to Be and it is a raw account of my self-development journey with a publisher's polish. It has taken a lot of courage to get to this point. I am frightened what the world will think of me when they read about my darker side. I am worried that once I let the mask of my professional self slip, I will lose it forever. So why publish it at all? Because it communicates important messages to a wider audience. It is full of things I have learnt and will tell people who ask or with whom the conversation steers that way. And I am told my messages have helped them. And so I want to spread them wider. To touch as many people as I can. I have just read an interesting article on Facebook from a Buddhist priest who says love is understanding. To me the path to understanding is communication. How can you understand if you don't communicate? I am an English Literature graduate and now, it seems, a writer, so I love words....

I have a recurring dream. It's a nightmare really. I am always in the same house. It is a house I know but unlike any I have ever actually lived in. The house is huge and navigation between rooms is difficult. Staircases have been positioned haphazardly and there is no central corridor so many of the rooms can only be accessed through other rooms. In the dream I know it is my house and my responsibility to maintain it properly. In the dream there is always an issue. I need to get something urgently from one of the rooms or something is leaking and I need to gain access quickly to stop it. The problem is I also know the house is haunted. And guarding the room or rooms I want urgent access to is the ghost. Don't think white sheet, think terrifying banshee. I know she is female. And she is out for my blood. Sometimes she has a weapon. Sometimes her claw like nails and razor sharp teeth are threatening enough. Her features are twisted. She represents darkness itself. Think Charlo...

I feel like a turmoil of emotions inside this week and I'm struggling to understand where they are all coming from and how to process them. Some are easier to recognise than others. After three weeks of blissful summer holiday fun, my daughter is with her Dad for 9 days. We have literally been inseparable even sharing the same bed on our two holidays so her absence from my life this week has been a gut-wrenching loss. She's having a wonderful time and she's been very affectionate on our Face Time calls which is unusual while she is not with me. On previous shorter trips away she would be reluctant to even speak to me. Her Dad told me those calls would make her upset. Now she tells me she is missing me in the same breath as sharing all her exciting news from the day. I am so proud of her. She is getting used to her new life as must I. I also signed my divorce papers this week. My petition has been accepted by the court and my husband and now we move on to the penultimate s...

I have recently rediscovered the Tears for Fears song of the same name. Spandau Ballet sing about a Man in Chains and I have always listened to that song thinking about the man I was in love with. Well for the last two years anyway! But hearing the hauntingly beautiful words of Woman in Chains made me realise I have been so busy worrying about freeing someone else that I forgot I need freeing too. "Deep in your heart there are wounds time can't heal." God isn't that so true. Because if time could, they would be healed by now. I lay in a strange bed last night with my daughter following a stressful day where I drank too much coffee and ate too little food and I was consumed by anxiety. Every noise was someone trying to break in and murder us in our beds. Every flash of light something equally sinister. My body was in a state of high alert and panic. And for no good reason. My mind knew I was crazy and kept saying things to reassure myself. It did little good. ...