Healing the Whole ...

I have been thinking a lot about this recently. How hard the first step is for those around me to take. Is it because, like Martin Luther King predicted, we want to see the whole staircase? I take a lot of first steps. I seem to be good at doing it. And then I grow frustrated when the climb starts to look tough and I turn around and no one else is there. No one else seems to have been brave enough to make the leap with me. In their defence, I may not see the whole staircase but I certainly see the top. I see what it could be like if I make it there. Where I fail is I don't see all the hard work in between. I have a real thing for men that are physically fit and strong. I used to think it was an evolutionary thing. And while I still think that is partly true, whilst talking about this recently with a girlfriend over a glass or two of gin, I realised something else is also at play. You have to have tenacity and drive to maintain strength and fitness. And I admire that immensel...

I have already confessed my anxiety to this blog. I suffer from what has recently been described as high-performing or high-functioning anxiety. The more I feel I am losing control of the world around me, the more anxious I am, the more desperately I struggle to regain control. Often I can't and so it can quickly become a spiral of helplessness dragging me down into a pit of despair. I used to spend days in this pit of despair. Often in bed unable to face the world. I wonder writing this how many meetings I have cancelled by email too petrified to lift the phone. I wonder how many people suspected the real reason behind my last minute change of plans. My business mind starts to calculate the money lost. The productivity hours wasted while I lay in bed mentally paralysed. I am managing it far better now. Five years of hard work on every aspect of my personal development. Physical. Mental. Emotional. I can't neglect any part of my whole else I will end up back in the pit. It...

What a day today has been! It started with my last relationship contacting me via text message. He has been trying to get back in touch and I have been ignoring him. I thought it was the right thing to do as he was angry and saying cruel things I knew he didn't mean. Today his anger reached boiling point. He would use the texts and photos I sent him during our relationship to 'ruin me'. Now he's being dramatic because nothing I have sent him has the power to do that. Shock people maybe. Ruin me - no. But I saw how bad his anger was. This man is not vindictive. Clearly I needed to manage this break-up better. Then I saw my ex-husband. We are in the middle of our divorce. Finalising the finances is hard. He believes we have it all settled. He expects me to follow the plan in his head. I don't want to. My priority is financial sustainability for my daughter and I for the future. It is not to keep him happy. Yet he needs to be managed too else this will spiral out o...

I like to feel in charge of a situation. I like to be in control. Except in the bedroom by the way, but that's a different story! I have spent years in personal development mode. Reading, writing, searching, explaining. The more I discover, the more I realise there is to learn. I began to feel more out of control than ever. I wished I could return to blissful ignorance once more. Today I met the man I am in love with for coffee. A business yet friendly meeting which left me feeling as I always do when I leave his company - yearning for more. Two kisses on the cheek for goodbye. A gentle touch on the back for hello. It will never be enough. But as I get ready for my first date with a new man found through a dating site I realise that it is time to take charge of my life. The Man I Love is not meant for me. If he were, he would be in love with me too. And he is not. I truly believe what is for you will not go by you. My forever is still out there waiting. And my part to play ...

I always talk about the magpie. To me it's a sign of the person I want to be and the relationship I want. The magpie is both black and white. A beautiful juxtaposition of two worlds. Two polar opposites. Male and female. Heart and mind. And when you get two magpies together, two people who are able to inhabit both those opposite worlds, they mate for life. I want to find a magpie. Yet all I seem to meet are blackbirds! I try to be a magpie but inevitably sometimes I will be too black or too white and misjudge the situation and my response. Other people also find my duality difficult to deal with. I don't give the responses expected. I don't occupy the world they have me placed in. I spoke about my male friend recently who asked me for support with his ex-wife. He didn't like the response I gave him which was to love his ex-wife and put her needs first. To empathise with her pain. He accused me of not seeing his pain. But I felt I did. I wanted to help him because ...

Recently I was approached by a friend for advice about his ex wife. He asked for my help and yet when I told him what I thought he fought it. Telling me that what I was telling him to do wasn't fair. My heart was firm. Love her. Care for her. Do what is best for her. She needs you to put her first. "I won't get it back", he says, "it's always me that has to flex." Yes. And it will be over and over and over again. Because that's what love is. It keeps no record of wrongs. He messaged me later to tell me what I had said felt like an attack. As if I was saying his relationship with his ex-wife and his children was transactional. I wanted to say that was because in parts it was. If his focus is the well-being of his children then loving their mother is just as much his responsibility as financially providing for them. The mental well-being of children is so dependent on the mental well-being of their parents. I speak from painful painful experience w...

If someone were to ask me which of my skills I use most often I would say my ability to translate communication. And I don't mean from Japanese to English. I mean from operational to visionary. From technical to creative. Often from male to female. Always from mind to heart. I am on the Board of a regional organisation that controls a substantial devolved budget from Central Government. Those meetings are a constant process of translation for me and at first I wondered why I left them so exhausted. I have to translate the language of other Board Members back into my own, work out how I want to respond, and then translate my native tongue back into their language before I speak. All the while ensuring I keep listening and translating to others so I don't miss anything. As well as the fact the majority of the Board Members are male, it is also a translation from corporation to entrepreneur. From practical to creative. I am everything the rest of the Board is not. And that is bo...