Good bye 2011

What I want to leave behind in 2011:

·         Negativity – you are no longer welcome in my head and heart.

·         Financial instability – I no longer want to live from pay to pay

·         Self-doubt:

o   In me

o   In my life

o   Of being a good mother

o   Of my work skills

·         Low self esteem

·         Low confidence

·         Weight issue

·         Worthlessness

·         Control given to others

·         Being closed to the Universe

·         Non acceptance for who I am from my husband

·         Not being listened to at work

 Thankyou for the year 2011, I have started to learn so much. I have met some wonderful people that will be life long friends.  I want to leave behind the old Mari, the one that was sad, recluse and unsure.  The one that hid herself from the world.

 The one that would worry about what others thought and gave all the power over her feelings away to others to control.  I no longer need others to make me happy, justified and fulfilled.  I have the power in me to make my own happiness.

Thankyou 2011 for teaching me that I am more than just plain Mari, that I am worthy because I was born.

Goodbye 2011, it has been a tough year.

My heart

I stand in the middle of a sacred circle; I’m surrounded by all the people that have touched my life. Some I have not seen in years and others are people that have only recently come into my life, others are also my family.

I approach my youngest child, Lilly, I knee down to her and say “My darling little girl, thank you for looking after my heart.  I would have it back now as you are no longer responsible”. With a brilliant smile she hands me back the piece of my heart that she has been holding, which is a beautiful red colour.  I place the piece into my box and move onto Rylie and repeat the same words, this time my child shows a little resistance in give back the piece of my heart.

He is shy and a little upset, I place my arms around him and say “Rylie, dear heart it is not your responsibility to make Mummy feel better, it does not mean I don’t need you.  This means that I’m taking the control of my heart back ”.  With a tentative smile my son places the piece of my heart into my box.

Jordan looks at me with wisdom and complete understanding and after I say to him “My beautiful blue eyed boy, you have held onto my heart for too long my little man, you can give it back”.  He smiles and whispers “I love you Mummy”. 

I then move onto my husband and repeat the words “Thank you for looking after my heart.  I would have it back now as you are no longer responsible”.  He rolls his smiles and places the piece into my box.

Now I turn to a group of people that are no longer in my life, “Thank you all for holding onto a piece of my heart, I relinquish the responsibility. I no longer need you to complete me”.  The pieces that are placed it my box has varying degrees in colour from light grey to black.

I make my way around the circle collecting the pieces of my heart in my box all the while thanking the people in my life that held onto these pieces.

Once completed, I then make my way back into the centre of the circle where I kneel down and peer inside the box.  There are so many pieces some red others appear as mid night black.

All of a sudden I feel an overwhelming sense of despair and I mumble to myself “How am I ever going to fix this?”

I feel someone sitting kneeling down next to me and I look over to see complete compassion in their eyes, they don’t say a word because I can see from their eyes the silent message being given to me “You have the power within yourself to heal your own heart”.

I stare into their eyes for just a little longer and nod my understanding.  The presence remains at my side and then I feel their hand on my shoulder giving me a gentle squeeze of encouragement, it is only for a short moment but it gives the reassurance I need.

I close my eyes and take a few deep breathes in 1-2-3-4 out 1-2-3-4.  I centre myself and open my eyes and place my hands over the box.  I search and reach inside me and where I find the energy required healing my heart.

Nothing happens for a long time but then slowly the black pieces start to change colour and all the pieces start to fit together.  Once my heart is completely restored it is light pink in colour.  The presence next to me then extends their hands just over my heart and with all the love and compassion my heart changes to a beautiful red velvet colour.

“Thank you my friend I really appreciate your acceptance, love and respect. I can take it from here”, I say as I pick up my heart and cradle it to my chest.

I leave the circle and walk out into the meadow where the sun is so warm and bright. Lifting my head up I concentrate on breathing deep in 1-2-3-4 hold 1-2-3-4 out 1-2-3-4 whilst accepting the warm bright white light into my body. I spend some time just breathing, nothing is in my mind other than breathing in deeply.

When I open my eyes the heart that I was cradling is now gone, because it is now inside me.

I have taken back the pieces of my heart.  I no longer need others to make me feel happy, fulfilled or worthy.  I alone make myself feel these things.

Negative thoughts

I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this before and if I have then please forgive me! But I feel the need to talk about it again (or the for the first time..not sure which).
During the past month I have been fighting to keep all sorts of negative thoughts at bay. It is sometimes an hourly battle, but mostly a daily battle. Something can happen and all of a sudden my mind and heart blow it out of proportion. I’m seeing backstabbers every where, things I hear I automatically assume are about me. I’m paranoid and I start second guessing simple innocent comments.
This is all happening to me at work and it is not the first time in my life where these negative thoughts dominate my mind. I know in the past I’ve blogged about fighting the “demons” and what I’m fighting are these negative thoughts they bombard my mind.
Meditation helps and so does getting a balance, however the last time I went to have a balance it didn’t really achieve what I was looking for.
My gut feeling is that these thought are linked to my physical body, my hormones are so out of “balance” that at times when my period decides to rear it’s ugly head I’m not prepared to deal with the emotions. I’ve always felt quiet flat emotionally, flat is not the right word, how about constant? Yeah that is how it is I’m neither extremely angry nor sad, I’m just calm and content and this can go on for months at a time. Yet when my hormones finally decide that it has been enough time for my period to start then I go extremes, I’m uncontrollable.
I scream and yell at a drop of a hat, I accuse my husband on cheating on me, I get paranoid and then the negative thoughts start. I can’t be sure that this is what is happening to me but all I do know is that I need help. 
On the way home from work last night a certain situation was rolling around in my head and I was constantly analysing every gesture, word and look that was thrown my way. I was getting exhausted, depressed and angry. I was sitting there on the train working myself up when I had a brilliant idea.. “Just turn the switch off”.
So that is what I’m doing literally switching the negative thoughts off and turning the positive ones on, the switch keeps on jumping back but I just stop what I’m doing and forcefully switch them back….

Planning

Sometimes it is funny where you learn the most important life lessons, from a book, conversation, tv program or from a “Consulting” training course.

I attended a two day training course on “Consulting 101”. Most of the course was quite dry, but interesting on an intellectual level. I would never have thought that I would learn any home truths at the course.

But yesterday during a conversation about a topic I’ve already forgotten the trainer mentioned “People spend more time and energy planning a 4 week vacation than they do in planning their life.”

That statement rang very true for me as I know how much time and energy went into organising a small vacation yet I seem to just stumble through life with no real plan.

The exercise went on to asks us to write about where we saw ourselves in 5 years time. There was not enough time and I didn’t get a chance to write everything down so I think that I may just start planning for my future. What I want my life to look like in 2 years time.

Shield of protection

I start taking and deep deep breath, breathing in 1,2,3,4 out 1,2,3,4. I do this over and over until I feel myself relaxing, my shoulders drop then tension leaves my arms, legs and neck.

I picture myself sitting here peacefully, just sitting and breathing.

A mirror appears in front of me and I see a small white light in the middle of my chest. The light is pure white and is small. I concentrate on it and then slowly expand it (it was the sized of a ping pong ball but is now the size of a softball). I continue to expand this light until it covers my whole chest.

I continue to expand the light until it covers both my arms and is moving down my legs. The last bit is the hardest, my head. I expand the light moving is up my neck to cover my whole head.

Now when I look at myself in the mirror I can still see myself sitting there but I’m I have a white luminescent light covering the whole of my body. Holding that formation is not difficult but I just take the time to breathe again in 1,2,3,4 out 1,2,3,4.

I feel at peace, loved and blessed all at once.

I concentrate and expand the light bubble away from my skin, continuing to expand it away from my body; I look like I’m living in a bubble. The white light is now an arms length away from my body. I try to touch it but I feel nothing.

The shield is in place and I now make it completely clear. I test it out with all the negative forces and nothing comes through.

So here I sit at work and my shield is in place, I’ve made it extra strong on my left hand side. I’m not going to allow those negative poisonous comments get through my shield.

I am protected now.

Returning to work

December 14th 2009 saw me return to full time employment.

From the time the decision was made to start looking for a job to the date I started working was a matter of only 2 weeks. It all happened so very quickly. So quickly in fact that I barely had time to prepare, (which in hindsight was a good thing in part).

I started this post with describing all the questions / comments that have been thrown at me, with regards to the decision to return back to work. After I read the words written, I was disgusted with how this decision has been treated and I didn’t want these negative thoughts and feelings to be present, they simply do not belong here.

Until you have walked in someone’s shoes you will never truly know what it is like to be them or the true extent of their life situation. No matter how I tried to explain to family and friends the reason for returning to work, it would never be enough and I’m not going to try to hash it out again here.

A netball team mate of mine said the words so very simply. “I live in a reality where both my husband and I have work”.

Once again I opened my self up to the hands of the universe who guided me, and I strongly feel that I was meant to go back to work. The job role was not even advertised and it was exactly what I was looking for. The salary is 50% more than what I was previously earning. The kids have settled in very quickly.

All the signs say to me that it was meant to be, got a really great job, the money is fantastic, the location is great (right in the heart of the city in a beautiful building), the kids are settled.

I could sit here and be depressed and worry about “those poor kid in Child Care”, I could allow myself to feel the full extent of my guilt. Which is weird, why should I feel guilty for working to better my family’s life? My husband can’t do it by himself, why am I expecting him to bear the burden for supporting all of us? Now that is something I SHOULD feel guilty about, not me working again!!!

This is my reality and I’m embracing it, because if I don’t then the negativity will destroy me.

I don't know how you do it

This has been said to so many times, that I’ve just taken to shrugging this comment off. What can I say to that? Not much!

I’ve had friends that try to sympathise with me by saying that they struggle with only having one child and then they shake theirs heads and say “I don’t know how you do it with 3 kids”.

What I would like to say and have said:
- Its hard but you cope
- I don’t have a clean house, there are toys everywhere
- You just adapt and do it
- Your not going to let a child cry so you quickly learn to feed both babies at once
- I have a wonderful husband and great support from my Mum.

The reality is that there is not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to get done. I try to do laundry once a week, but it was hell with our small washing machine (have since purchased a larger one). Hanging the clothes out to dry is an accomplishment, bringing them in may take another week. Once inside it may not be put away. So sometimes we live out of the cleaned laundry basket.

I do cook dinner every night (once a week we have take away) and have learnt that the best meals for us are those that I can put in the oven to cook on its own; we use a timer to keep track of when we need to flip/stir/baste/whatever.

I now do my grocery shopping on-line and dearly thank my sister in law for convincing me it was the way to go. Where possible I also buy in bulk.

Cleaning the house suffers and I sometimes cringe at the thought of people coming into my home. I recently apologised to my dear friend LB about the state of my home and her reply was perfect “I came to visit you not your house”. I’ve learnt that there are friends who really don’t care what your house looks like, but then there are family that come in look around and sniff with disapproval; needless to say they don’t come over often. Ellie recently came over to look after the kids so that I could clean and she promptly said “You are not expecting Queen to come and you have 3 kids so relax”. But it is hard to relax when people come to visit, there is a social expectation that you house must be spotless.

We wash the dishes once a day, sure they pile up and it looks unsightly and honestly I could wash them when the twins sleep. But instead Jordy and I spend that sleep time with one on one play. We draw, play with playdo, do crafts, play board games, go out into the garden. Or I start preparing dinner. Living in Melbourne we are in a drought so I feel that only using water once a day (instead of every time a dish is used) is my way of being water conscious. As much dishes as possible is put into the dish washer, but large pots and pans I still wash by hand.

We are all clean and well fed, our clothes are clean (may not have been put away, but they are clean). We try to spend quality time with each of the kids, so my house is not the cleanest and I have dirty dishes on the counter. But at the end what will my children remember? A clean house with every dish staked away, clothes in the right place or the time Mummy and Daddy have spent with them?

This is the way “I do it” with 3 kids. It may not be the best way but it is my way of coping.