sprituality – Glad About

Writing into Life

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:

https://amzn.eu/d/fEuGERc

https://amzn.eu/d/0i0dobh

‘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.

https://amzn.eu/d/fEuGERc

‘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.

https://amzn.eu/d/0i0dobh

Continuing the story of Lydia and Me https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk

Lydia and I have both had healthy breakfasts today.

Her dry food has a high protein content, with lots of different ingredients including pumpkin, chickpeas, salmon oil, blueberries, dried ginger root, green-lipped mussels, glucosamine, chondroitin, Vitamin C, and others.

These pellets form the main basis of her diet, which I top up with additional food and treats. I try to make sure that the treats also have a high nutritional value.

I hope that her diet, combined with our regular exercise, combined with our training routines, will help to keep her healthy in mind and body. I hope that the love and attention I give her will help to keep her healthy in spirit.

My own breakfast this morning took the form of half a banana, some fresh strawberries, natural yoghurt, no-added-sugar muesli and some semi-skimmed milk. Historically I haven’t always been great at making sure that I have a healthy diet, but I’m getting better at it now. I’ve previously worked through an eating disorder and body dysmorphia, so it’s taken me a while to reach a point of having a healthy attitude to food. I do now though, on the whole.

In this blog I’ve most recently been writing about life with reference largely to my relationship with Lydia. This is because we are working together, Lydia and Me. She is learning to “heel” and I am learning to ‘heal’. In fact, we are both learning to heal, and we are helping each other.

Pottery also features as part of the healing process for me.

While I describe myself as a ‘Poetic Potter’ and a ‘Potting Poet’, I haven’t written a lot of poems recently.

I used to write more poetry, particularly when I had no other outlet for or inclination towards the creative arts. I do, however, belong to a poetry group, a poetry ‘corner’.

We meet once a month in a local library. It’s the library in the town where I was born.

Each month, we set a theme for the following month’s meeting. This month, the ‘theme’ is the name of the town where we meet; the town where I was born.

The ethos of our group is one of positive feedback; it is a very gentle and supportive group, facilitated by a very gentle and supportive leader. We get a chance to read out poems that we’ve written, and to receive comments about them. This is the poem that I have written for the next meeting:

The Library

We met in a library
It’s a different library
to the one I meet others in, today

Since then
a lot of waves have washed
upon the shore
and pulled back
into nothing at all

I have little in the way of recall
to the times between
but that doesn’t mean
I don’t or didn’t care

It just means
I am aware
of a great tidal void
between then and now

Except that in this library
at this time
I am nowhere near the same
as I was in that library, then

I hope that we can meet
in this library
again.

A fellow member of the group described the meetings as ‘soul food’.

I’m looking forward to some spiritual sustenance on Saturday, when we have our meeting. I’m also looking forward to further spiritual sustenance tonight, when I go to the Buddhist meeting. This will be for the second in the latest group of four classes: ‘Transforming Through Adversity’.

Tag: sprituality

Day 28 – opening

Day 10