The cold, folded steel of your handles fit precisely into my palm where they belong
Thumb finds familiar catch that slips silently to one side releasing the spring opening your blades for action
You are my weapon of choice as together we cut and thrust our way to the possibility of new growth
Season after season we have fought fibrous flesh of one kind or another but today I use you for a different reason
With a delicate snip and trim and dip down each cutting goes into the dark holes I have prepared for them ready to take root if they choose
I don’t want to lose them or you, as I sometimes do in places that escape me
Then, as your dull grey surface greets me once again I know we will go on you with your blades and me with my hands to create many pots of cuttings and piles of thorns amongst the blossoms.
With no Qigong this afternoon, it’s the woodland walk for Lydia and me this morning, then yoga. Lydia often partakes in this remotely, being particularly good at ‘downward facing dog’!
The yoga teacher introduced a new exercise aid to the class: conkers. They formed a focus for our meditation and visualisation and I must say I enjoyed the experience of familiarisation with the seed of the chestnut tree. It was somehow comforting and inspiring at the same time.
As I now complete this latest 28-day cycle of writing, I reflect on how far I’ve come, not just since I started writing this blog in 28-day cycles a few months ago, but since I started my overall journey of recovery over fifty years ago, when I was still very young.
I didn’t know it at the time, but it essentially started in my teens, when I decided that I needed more than physical food in my life.
That may sound ungrateful as I know there are many people in the world who have less food than they need to survive. But my needs for nourishment were psychological, emotional and spiritual. They were very real for me and presented in the forms of social anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. That’s a lot for any teen to have to deal with and I hope that in writing about my experiences, it may help others to not have to go through the same.
It’s taken me a long time to work out what I needed to work out, to find pieces that I didn’t have reference points for. How could I know what I’d lost when I had no memory of having it in the first place?
For whatever reason – probably survival – my emotional brain closed down, and it’s taken me a lifetime to find ways of opening it up again. I’m still working on it, with Lydia’s help and a lot of help and support from a lot of other people along the way.
The most significant latest step for me is on the path presented by the Buddhist faith. It helps me to make sense of a lot of things, accept what I can’t change, and do my best to make the most of each day as it comes, recognising the value of what I have when for so long I was focused on what I didn’t have. Grief doesn’t go away, but we can grow to encompass a wider experience of life around it. That’s what I’ve been doing my best to do.
As I now take a couple of weeks break from writing a new daily blog, I’ll continue with republishing previous posts, looking back a bit before again moving on.
The paperback versions of my two latest books – ‘Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Recipe, Random: Glad About Life’ and ‘A Woman, a Dog and a Blog: Writing into Life’ will shortly be available on Amazon, along with the Kindle and Kindle Unlimited editions:
‘Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Random: Glad About Life’ brings together over 60 blog posts, from March 2020 through to September 2024.
It offers personal insights into the mental health recovery journey, recognising that there are no easy answers or quick fix solutions to complex problems but demonstrating that growth is possible through whatever difficulties life presents.
‘A Woman, a Dog & a Blog: Writing into Life’ presents a summary of my own backstory and that of my dog, Lydia. We had both experienced trauma before we met and, though I effectively rescued and adopted her, in many ways she has also rescued and adopted me.
We continue our journey together, day by day, step by step. Volume I of this book presents the first cycle of me writing a post a day for 28 days, at a time when the depression I had experienced most of my adult life had started to lift, only to reveal an underlying and extreme – at the time – sense of anxiety. Having lost everything that I’d worked for in the past, due to a severe breakdown in my thirties, I was absolutely petrified that history was going to repeat itself and that I would lose everything again, including Lydia. I was determined that wouldn’t happen and I drew on every aspect of resourcefulness and resilience I’d built up, and all the support mechanisms I could muster, to make sure that it didn’t. And it hasn’t.
Volume II presents the next 28 days of continuing to work with – and write about – positives in whatever way that I can. Affirmations, exercises, working with clay, working with words, walking, reflecting, resting, meditating – they’re all in there as I find my own way through and I hope it may help others find their way too.
The sun came out again today, so Lydia enjoyed a bit of outside time in the yard, as well as our morning walk.
My meditation before the walk felt deeper, somehow. I can’t find any other words to describe it at the moment, but will just acknowledge that there was a change, and continue with the practice.
Other than that, it’s just been a domestic day, stocking up on shopping, putting it away, giving Lydia a raw lamb rib as a special treat.
Trev returns; Lydia’s tail wags. We order a Chinese and watch a bit of telly. It’s good just to relax into a Sunday evening.
When I wake, my thoughts again go round to different people in my life.
Then a message from a friend invites me round for a curry at her house later. It’s a welcome invitation which I gladly accept. I’ve started being able to say ‘yes’ to things again. While I still want and need lots of time to do little or nothing, it will be good to spend a few hours with my friend.
Lydia, I think, is missing the warm weather as it’s raining again today. We had our morning walk without getting too wet and I’ve now turned the heating on in the house.
Trev has the ‘Nest’ app on his phone so I adjusted the thermostat controls manually. He would have done it remotely if I’d asked but he may well be in the middle of a museum visit, or driving. There’s an app for pretty much everything these days but it’s good to not be totally dependent on them either.
Having finished the last episode of the latest series of ‘Married at First Sight: Australia’ last night, I decide to start watching the latest series of MAFS: New Zealand. I haven’t done this much binge-watching since Covid but it’s good at the moment just to switch off and watch.
Later …
Before setting off to visit my friend, I meditate for about 20 minutes. After curry combined with kind conversation, I feel a small but still perceptible change in mood; something shifting and lifting. The lift, like the invitation, is very welcome.
Lydia had a good run around the dog field this morning, chasing trucks and tractors that passed by on the other side of the fence.
It could be argued that I shouldn’t encourage her to use her ‘hunt’ capacity as it goes against the training that I do with her on other days, but on balance I’ve decided that the benefits of cardiovascular exercise she gets outweigh the drawbacks. She just needs to run free sometimes and do what she wants to do, within the safe confines of the dog field.
While she’s doing her thing I do mine, with exercises for my knees and repeats of the Qigong[1] ‘healing form’.
‘Back at the ranch’ I rest for a while, then locate my trusty carpet cleaner to go over the central area of the lounge. I did the whole room a while back but it just needs a freshen up in the middle which gets most of the traffic from paws and feet. I also give the stair carpet a clean and that’s my ‘domestic duties’ done for the day.
Back to binge-watching some more episodes of MAFSAU, not feeling under any pressure to do much else. Resting up and prioritising the way I have been is beginning to influence my burnt-out brain in positive ways, so I’m continuing with slow and steady.
It’ll be a takeaway pizza and a bottle of red wine for me tonight. Red wine was always a favourite of mine on a Friday night when I was working and it still is. Just because you’re retired doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate the end of the ‘working week’. On most days during the week I do something constructive one way or another, and I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend.
I have absolutely nothing planned and don’t feel I need to have either.
Waking this morning with a feeling of anxiety, my thoughts turn to the teaching and discussions at last night’s Buddhist meeting.
After I mentioned that the teachings and practices have been helping to lift me out of depression, another member of the group mentioned that she experiences anxiety rather than depression. The two often go together. In my case, I didn’t start to get any real sense of anxiety until after the depression started to lift. It hit me like a brick at the time: a traumatising blast of raw fear. Since then, I have been working on the fear and that too is usually in abeyance these days. This morning the anxiety is more in my body than my mind and I turn my thoughts to other things, other people: friends and people I know; close and not so close.
After showering, I do a quick clean of the bathroom; just enough to tide it over while I’m still in rest and recharge mode. A bit at a time stops it from building up and then seeming like it’s too much to tackle.
I’m doing the same with my emotional and psychological journey: a bit at a time now, after feeling so overwhelmed in the now distant past that I didn’t know where to start. Except that I did start – somewhere – and I kept going, am keeping going.
It’s pottery for me this afternoon. Trev is going to visit Lyme Regis, via a scenic route. Lydia is outside barking. She’ll be on her own for a few hours while I’m out so she may as well get a bit of fresh air and let off a bit of steam before I go.
I’ll probably have beans on toast for tea. I like beans on toast. I may well also go for a large gin and tonic. I like gin and tonic too. Alcohol, of course, isn’t the answer, but it is a solution and one that can be very enjoyable if not over-indulged. I recognise that it is only a temporary source of ‘happiness’ but it is a pleasure I can partake in for now, and tonight I probably will.
When I wake this morning I hear the sound of rain, and my thoughts go to the reminder that has come through the Buddhist teachings: welcome wholeheartedly whatever. I also think of RARE: recognise, address, reduce and eliminate delusional thoughts.
I’ve always liked the sound and feel of rain and generally been an all-weather girl, providing I’ve been wrapped up to face the elements or under cover to relish being cosy and dry. I have loved this long summer though, with the warm and sunny weather that we’ve had and thought I would miss it more than I am doing.
After a cup of tea, a recitation of the meditation prayers to myself (I don’t feel up to chanting them out loud at the moment, not when I’m on my own, anyway), and a meditation followed by the Liberating Prayer*, Lydia and I get ready to go out.
It’s a later start than usual, still damp outside and as we start our walk there is some very fine rain. Not enough to make me wish I’d worn a hood or anywhere near enough to persuade Lydia to wear her raincoat. She really doesn’t like to wear a raincoat and I only persist in getting her to wear one if it is particularly cold and icy. Today it is still warm and the rain holds off as we walk.
It’s quiet, with only a dog walker who I regularly see passing by in her van. I wave, Lydia starts to lunge, I ask her to sit, and she does. What a clever girl. She is doing so well.
Back home, after putting her bag of ‘poopie’ in the bin, I wash my hands and give Lydia her breakfast in her food ball. Before I have my breakfast, I put some dry washing away and put some more in the machine. It’s good to keep on top of housework and doing a bit at a time works for me. I’m not a domestic goddess but I do like a clean house, even if it’s not clean all over all the time. I do it on a sort of rota basis as I concentrate on other priorities. There’s a part of me that wishes I could be motivated to go round the house with a duster every day but I’m not.
Lydia tries to get me to give her some more food but I resist. I do, however, take a bag of cooked chicken pieces out of the freezer, to give her as a surprise treat later when they’re defrosted. For now, she’s lying just a couple of yards away, watching me type and looking very relaxed.
It’s just the two of us at the moment as Trev’s away visiting places in the UK that I don’t want to visit. It’s Corfe Castle for him today. For me it’s the Buddhist class tonight.
Quite where I would be if I hadn’t had access to these teachings, I don’t know, except that I think I do, and it wouldn’t be a good place. Thankfully, I am in a good place and I’ll keep working at it to keep it that way.
My thoughts turn to a friend who introduced me to Buddhism many years ago. He’s not in a good place at the moment so I hold him in my thoughts for a while and hope that he soon is.
After a morning walk with Lydia and an afternoon visit to see a friend, I settle down to a relaxing evening.
Nothing much to do; nothing to prove.
I don’t know what the future holds, and have a lot of fear associated with this, but I can’t do any more, for now.
All I can do is what I’ve been doing, take each day at a time and be as positive as I can be within it; also accept that some days are better than others and sometimes it’s good just to do very little.
This morning, I said some prayers for meditation that are provided in the book, Universal Compassion, by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche. I’m familiar with these prayers as I’ve recited them several times at different ceremonies I’ve taken part in at Buddhist Centres over a number of years. It felt good, to refamiliarize myself with the words, that are so soothing and somehow reassuring. I don’t even feel I need to fully understand them, just say them, meditate and take it on faith that they will help me through; they are helping me through.
The woodland walk this morning was wild and windy for Lydia and me. Winter seems to have suddenly arrived and missed out Autumn. Hopefully it will revert back again, at least for a while.
It was good to have yoga and Qigong to go to this afternoon.
I’m also keeping up with my meditation practice, on a morning before taking Lydia out for her walk. I still have dips into negative thought patterns, but am learning to recognise them for what they are.
Body work, breath work, mind work. I do feel I’m continuing to make progress with my mental health, sticking with the things that work for me and repeating them in cycles that also work for me.
Lydia and I seem to have had a bit of a breakthrough in terms of how we manage encounters with dogs and moving vehicles while out walking.
While I’ve been using positive reinforcement with her for over three and a half years, I’ve most recently been practising this with a “sit” and “wait” command combination. I’ve also been asking her to “sit” and “wait” before we go out of the back door and again before we go out of the back gate. She’s been getting really used to this and will now often do an impromptu sit before we go through the door.
Using the same “sit” and “wait” combination is now starting to work with her when we see a dog – from a distance – and also when we’re on a road and have cars passing by. I hold her on a short lead, reward her immediately for the “sit” and reward the “wait” providing she doesn’t bark or lunge. I also add a lot of reassurance and extra treats and praise afterwards, as I know her fears are still triggered by these experiences, but it does feel like a big step forward. We’re both doing our best to learn and I hope that we can continue to build on this.
I’ve had to do a lot of learning in my life, including a lot of hard life lessons. Learning can be a good way of avoiding being taught (self-management rule no. 35).
It was also good to see a field of still-flowering sunflowers when we were out today. It may be September, but there are still signs of summer.
Glad About 
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