When I went through a major breakdown in my late thirties, one of the many things I struggled to come to terms with, as I fought my way back to functionality, was the sense of all the ‘wasted time’ that had gone into building a life that at that stage had come to ‘nothing’.
Roll on more than a quarter of a century, and I’ve had a significant shift in mindset. As each day unfolds, I feel a strong sense of being gifted with it; of having all the time in the world. ‘Making the most of it’ can mean anything I want it to mean, whether that be resting, walking, making something out of clay, washing up, doing housework, doing nothing.
So, how did I get from where I was to where I am now?
I’m not sure, because it’s all a bit of a blur, but I know I’ve done a lot of meditating, a lot of searching, a lot of turning myself inside out, of fighting the thoughts that threatened to pull me into despair, a lot of reaching out, falling, getting up again and trying something else.
Sometimes the last push is the hardest and coming to terms with things that I couldn’t change took some doing. At around the same time that I had a counsellor who was determined to avoid the key issues that I needed to address, I came across a Buddhist teaching that helped me enormously: https://madhyamaka.org/how-to-accept-what-cant-be-changed/.
The lingering sadness associated with not having been able to form a family of my own has taken a different turn recently, in the form of a furry friend. She’s not a baby; she’s an adult dog. However, she’s done something to my heart that’s filled a gap I never thought could be filled. Time isn’t about what’s past or ‘lost’, it’s about being here and now, with my partner, and our dog.
Tonight’s Buddhist class completes the five-week course on ‘Embracing Change’.
Change can happen in so many ways, on so many levels.
In my experience, I have not always known why I have not been able to ‘let go’ and move on at times. I think, now, I have more insight into why, and it’s because of the deep inner healing that I needed to do. It’s understandable to want to do that in a safe way, at a safe time, so that when the wound is exposed, it won’t be subject to any more damage.
Sometimes, however, circumstances force us to push through pain on a survival basis. How amazing then, to be in those circumstances and somehow find that you have got access to the support that you need to heal, from sources that in the past you could not have even imagined existed, yet somehow, they do. That’s where I’m at now.
And, for now, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing; different things on different days. Today it was painting, white emulsion on walls; tomorrow I’ll go to pottery in the afternoon. Walking Lydia, of course, in the mornings, is such a good thing, I’m pretty sure for both of us. Meditating, practising yoga and Qigong, listening to the teachings of Buddha passed on through the Kadampa lineage. Meeting up with friends, chatting with neighbours. More painting of walls until that job is done, then I’ll move on to do something else. I know this is all leading to further change, and I am becoming more able to embrace the uncertainty of what lies ahead.
The theme for tonight’s Buddhist meeting – as it will be for the next few meetings – is ‘embracing change’.
I’ve been doing my best to ‘change my mind’ for a long time. It’s a slow process, for me, but one that I’m committed to. I listen, I meditate, I reflect and, one way or another, I change.
I hope – pray – that the process of change is also bringing about healing. I think it is.
Our usual teacher is away, so the teaching is given by a nun from the Centre.
We meditate on death and impermanence, which may sound morbid, but acknowledging and facing the inevitability of death does make sense to me, and I listen intently.
I don’t feel I have to fully understand and remember everything that I hear, and I certainly don’t. My powers of recall are not that good, and it is a process of gradual assimilation anyway.
There was a lot of emphasis on being able to let go of attachments that we acquire and accumulate in this life. I’ve not necessarily been that good at acquiring and attaching but then I’ve historically not been very good at letting go either.
After greeting me when I got home, Lydia has now settled down to sleep, on her favourite rug. She looks totally adorable and relaxed.
I’ll just sit for a while before I too settle down for the night.
I don’t need to set an alarm for tomorrow morning – we can just sleep as long as we want to and get up when we’re ready. Luxury!
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.
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.
Today I woke feel rested at a very deep level; I could feel another shift, slowly but surely in a positive direction. It doesn’t matter how slow; a small shift is a shift nonetheless.
Yesterday, after a short meditation combined with a cup of tea, I had a lovely walk with Lydia, a long lunch with a friend, did a bit – just a bit – of domestic activity in the afternoon, went to the Buddhist class in the evening and then, back at home, watched a couple of episodes of ‘Married at First Sight: Australia’. I also enjoyed, while watching the telly, a glass of red wine and some of the delicious houmous that Trev had made earlier. A bag of cheese puffs rounded off the day nicely.
The themes of MAFSAU and the Buddhist class were the same: happiness. It’s what we all seek, and we look for it in different ways in different places.
The Buddhist teachings tell me that happiness naturally arises from a calm and peaceful mind. I now take this on faith and continue to do my best to put the teachings – including the meditation techniques – into practice. This doesn’t mean that I have to deny myself all worldly pleasures, just recognise that they have their limits and are not a lasting source of happiness. This is what I now believe.
Though a slow process, my ongoing programme of wellbeing activities does seem to be working.
Although I could readily have gone back to bed this morning, after a walk with Lydia through the woods, I felt energised enough to start writing this blog, to check in with Trev, to confirm that I’d make a cottage pie later for tea, and to take my time to let the rest of the day unfold. I’m booked in to a yoga class later. Tomorrow I’m going to the races but I don’t need to rush to do anything much more today.
I used to feel that I was falling short by not being able to build up and maintain a momentum. I now recognise that if slow is the momentum that works for me, then slow is the momentum I’ll work with.
Lydia had some anxious moments when she saw another dog while we were out on our walk this morning. I helped her through her anxiety with some guidance and reassurance, and hope that, over time, and with continued reinforcement, she will start to realise that she no longer has anything to fear, providing I’m with her. It’s no easy thing, working through deep-rooted fear. I know that from my own experience.
Latterly, and increasingly, I’m finding guidance and reassurance from the Buddhist community that I’m lucky enough to live near. When I say ‘near’, it’s about a 45-minute drive away, but it’s near enough and it still amazes me that it’s there at all.
Finding a source of meaningful guidance and support through fear and anxiety is a big thing. It took me a long time to search out and find this guidance and support but I’m sticking with it now, and hoping that I’ll be able to give back through some volunteering work with the Centre.
I’ve done a lot of volunteering in my life, which has been part of my searching journey.
While at 69 I don’t have the same amount of available energy as I had when I was younger, I feel that I have a clarity and a focus that I didn’t have when I was younger either, so hopefully there’s a bit of a balance going on.
I have a friend who volunteers practically every weekend, after a full-on working week. That’s quite something, especially as it involves a lot of driving and early-morning starts. Most people want to have long lie-ins at the weekend, but not my friend. She’s a true star in every sense. Some people just keep shining. You know who you are Jo!
One of the meanings of the name ‘Lydia’ is ‘beloved. She is.
Some friends have a dog called Faith. Faith is a small dog. I sometimes refer to our friends as, “Oh ye of little Faith”.
Faith is something I’ve been looking for all my life.
For a long time, I didn’t know this. I just knew that there was something missing and I had to find a way of finding it.
In the past I’ve taken ‘leaps of faith’, bracing myself for big steps without knowing where they were going to lead. Landing on unfamiliar ground has led to growth, as I’ve struggled to find my feet and keep going from there.
More recently though, I’ve found an increasing sense of faith in Buddhism; the teachings of Buddha.
Having previously explored different branches of Buddhism, I’ve found strength through the Kadampa tradition, or what is now known as the New Kadampa tradition.
Drawing from my own experiences of Buddhist teachings through the New Kadampa tradition, I find that they are accessible, practical and available.
The Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche – founder and spiritual director of the New Kadampa Tradition – wrote books that present the teachings in a way that is relevant to our modern world and our day-to-day lives.
I’m not a scholar, or a great reader, but I find that I don’t have to be. Other people who are better scholars and readers than me are prepared to share their skills and knowledge, in ways that help me to live my life. That is something I am so grateful and thankful for.
I somehow find that I don’t want or need to question. I just listen, and put what I can into practice on a day-to-day level. It’s so reassuring when I find that even just trying, making a positive effort, is recognised as a step in the right direction.
So, I’ll keep taking those steps, as I keep taking my steps with Lydia when we’re out walking together on a morning. We don’t necessarily know where we’re going, but we have faith that we’re on the right path.
Lydia has been less inclined to tug on her lead so far this week, in whatever walking places we’ve been to.
It’s a slow process, unlearning ingrained responses to situations and re-learning new approaches.
I know that myself because that’s what I’ve been doing myself, for a very long time: learning to change negative thought patterns and actions to positive ones.
For Lydia, I’ve taken guidance from a behaviourist and from on-line learning, applying and repeating what I believe are sound principles and recognising that there are no quick-fix solutions.
For myself, I’ve learnt what I could from experience and taken guidance from sources that I believe are sound, including Buddhist teachings and meditation practices. Again, there are no quick-fix solutions.
It’s hard to find a balance sometimes, between accepting things as they are, and not giving up.
I have by no means given up on anything although, at the moment, I do feel tired, mentally and emotionally.
There is no Buddhist group meeting this week – due to a summer break.
I’ve twice sat down to meditate on my own today, once this morning and again this afternoon. I much prefer to meditate in a group, but the main thing is that I am doing my best to do it on my own, and when I feel tired.
My ‘old’ way would have been to do nothing because I didn’t know what to do. I do now.
Waking up this morning I reflect – as I often do – on how fortunate I am to have access to the Buddhist teachings that I have access to.
We’re on a short break from the mid-week classes that I usually go to, but my mind turns to two of the mantras that I have been learning from most recently. One is in the form of an acronym: RARE.
Recognise
Accept
Reduce
Eliminate
‘Recognise’ is to recognise a negative thought as delusional.
‘Accept’ is to accept the situation in which the thought is arising.
‘Reduce’ is to reduce the impact of the delusional thought.
‘Eliminate’ is to eliminate the delusional thought.
In my experience it can be extremely difficult to identify a thought as delusional because our thought patterns are often so ingrained that we don’t even notice them when they do arise. However, I’ve recently found that if I start to feel anxious, this alerts me to potential negative/delusional thoughts that are giving rise to the anxiety. I can then turn my attention to my breath, engage in a short meditation and find that the anxiety starts to abate.
I’ll continue to do what I can to recognise, accept, reduce and eliminate my delusional thoughts.
Most of us associate ‘www’ with ‘world wide web’ but an alternative presented in a Buddhist teaching recently is: ‘welcome wholeheartedly whatever’.
The nun who gave the teaching presented an example of a monk who lives at the Centre who has significant paralysis, is unable to walk and experiences constant pain. Apparently, he affirms the ‘welcome wholeheartedly whatever’ mantra and I’ve found this immensely humbling and inspirational.
I don’t know how things might unfold in my life – none of us do – but if I keep meditating, keep my focus on positives and aim to eliminate old habits where negative thinking takes hold, then I’ll be better prepared to welcome whatever does lie ahead with an open heart.
Glad About 
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