Pain Is My Companion

Pain Is My Companion

This is a poem about the physical and emotional pain of remembering trauma from the past. It was written a while after another flashback, in the autumn of 2020. I first had the flashback and a few weeks later my body just went into excruciating pain. The emotional pain of remembering was followed by physical pain.

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'I am fat'

'I am fat'

There you go, I can finally say (or write) this in a way that brings no strong reaction or emotion within me. I see it as a simple neutral statement that describes my body. My body is fat. I am fat.

This has not always been like this. Not so long ago, I would have cringed, felt deep shame, denied it, or chosen whatever other words I could think of, that felt more soothing to my self-perception.

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'What about me?' The Before - part I

'What about me?' The Before - part I

‘What about me?’ This question popped into my mind several times in my life.

I am giver. I spent a lifetime giving my love, attention, energy, to work and people. I gave, again and again, and there would be times, when I would somehow stop and ask myself: ‘What about me?’

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This is the first part of a two part post. A before and after account of what has changed in me. How I became aware of the many aspects of being me and what it means in practice to become aware, the transformation and the benefits.

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My energy, my mood and the Moon

My energy, my mood and the Moon

This post will be a mixture of the ‘Books that changed my life’ posts I have shared on my social media (check Instagram or Facebook) and a longer reflection on this subject and my experience.

I read ‘Code Red: Know your flow, unlock your monthly super powers and create a bloody amazing life. Period’ by Lisa Lister back in 2017. I don’t quite remember how the book came to me but when I read it, it changed my view of my menstrual cycle quite dramatically. What I once saw as a painful and uncomfortable monthly nuisance, I could now see as something different. I could see that by understanding my cycle I could understand myself better. My moods, my energy and how to harness this knowing into making time to honour the different stages of the cycle.

As I read the book, for the first time in my life, I actually had the time and disposition to observe my body better and try and identify all the phases of my menstrual cycle. As time went on, I started getting confused and then frustrated, because my cycle seemed to not conform to the descriptions in the book.

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How to be a Scientist of the Self - an example

How to be a Scientist of the Self - an example

 ‘Being a Scientist of the Self, means that you take a separate role within yourself and become an observer of your own living experience. After all, you are the most absolute expert at being you. No one else has a clue of what it truly means to be you. You do you in a way that no one else can.’ Pelagia Pais

This piece is an example of how I use this concept for my own self-inquiry and growth. The better I know myself, what motivates my actions and reactions in daily life, the easier it gets for me and for those around me, ultimately, having a bigger impact through ripples into the bigger world. 

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I walk in beauty

I walk in beauty

I was walking back from the seaside, noticing how light and relaxed my body felt when suddenly this line came to my head: ‘I walk in beauty’. It made so much sense and that sentence fitted perfectly with how I felt in that moment.

I felt beautiful because I could sense my body walking following its natural relaxed movement, I felt super soft inside, my legs had a relaxed certainty about them, my arms were dangling in what felt like the perfect movement, I was standing tall without any conscious effort, I had a smile on my face and I felt beautiful.

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Body wisdom

Body wisdom

The other day I noticed something in my body. As I was walking, I noticed that my hand was closed and my thumb was tucked in with my fingers holding it safe. The first time I noticed and realised the reason for walking with this hand position was back in 2016 and I realised, through a series of events, self-enquiry and what was happening then, that this meant I was feeling anxious. To notice my body doing this again after a few years of not doing it, raised alarm bells for me. What part of me was feeling anxious and why was I not aware of it?...

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