I have shared many times that I go through lows on a regular basis. It seems that the time for me to go deeper in to these is autumn. In fact, we were still in summer and I felt something shift at the end of August for me. I go inwards, I retreat and as the days are now growing shorter and shorter, I seem to need to sleep that little bit longer.

Last year, around October, I had a big flashback from the past. Those of you who have been reading some of my posts might have read one in April where I shared my experience of ‘Remembering Trauma – my story’ and this flashback belonged to that experience. It came out of nowhere, as flashbacks often do. In fact, I did not know what flashbacks were until a few months later when I was researching a bit more into childhood sexual abuse online.

The information that surfaced was quite shocking. It was one detail I had not been aware and left me quite shaken. Yet, one of the things that characterises my experience of survival of abuse, is that my first reaction after some crying, is to want to move on. To focus on other parts of my life.

When I do not allow time for healing. When I do not allow time to listen to all the parts of me that need attention after such information surfaces, I may want to move on and focus on other things, but I am deeply affected by it.

Life goes on, but even though I try to bring myself back to whatever ‘normal’ might be looking for me at that time, I am deeply affected by this remembering and it’s like living life with lots of start and stop, start and stop moments.

At some point, I push back what I remembered and try and focus in the future, only to find a wall of some sort, like an unexpected sense of dread and a feeling of being deeply depressed. It may feel to me like it has come out of nowhere, but it hasn’t. It’s my wound, my traumatic experience, my remembering coming to the surface, needing time to process.

This description is the best to show how my life has been since my first ever flashback at the beginning of 2016. In fact, this stop and start process, this finding incredible walls of depression has been happening all of my life, but I had no awareness of why.

As I changed my life dramatically at the beginning of 2017, having quit my financially safe job and wanting to start a business of my own, it has often felt that I keep forgetting how much healing I needed and most importantly, how what happened to me as a child will possibly, in some way or another, always affect my life.

As I went through another deep dive into myself this October and November, I very easily forget about my past and I feel incredibly disappointed and frustrated that I have not gotten to where I thought I would be by now, in particular in my business and in providing myself financial stability.

And the word failure surfaces again, and again. In fact, this year, I have done so many things that I labelled as failure when in fact, they have mostly been ways into giving myself some time and support that I need in my day to day life.

When speaking to a friend the other day this sentence came out of me: ‘I’m a failure at life’. It’s such a strong sentence and I believe it is still so ingrained in my psyche. Because on a rational level, I can see how this is false but I have to make a conscious effort to single out every thing and show to that part of myself that ‘believes’ that I am failing, that this is not true. This takes a lot of effort and energy.

The amount of ideas I have had this year and also in the past, take action and then find them to not have the impact I imagined – all of these are immediately labelled as ‘failure’. This is my immediate and innate response. When I finally realise what is happening, I then have to gently but surely, and often more than once, show that part of myself how it’s not really a failure. I have to bring perspective. I have to show myself and remind myself of the bigger picture.

Things for me will possibly take a bit longer than for someone who has had a childhood where they have mostly felt safe and loved.

My process goes more life this:

- the sense of failure immediately shows up

- me possibly ignoring it straight away

- self doubt starts setting camp

- then the low comes (an invitation to go back and look deeper)

- being quite hard on myself, judging myself from a standard that is represented in society as an ideal, and possibly is not even an accurate reflection of what is going on

- finally either being reminded by someone else or remembering that I have to bring my very individual perspective and context in order to have a more real picture of what is happening in my life and business.

Failure, Self doubt, Perspective, Context, Compassion. On a loop. Many times.

So now I am reflecting of how I can have more compassion for what has happened to me and how it still affects my present life. I am reflecting on what sort of goals can I set for myself that will not make it feel like I am failing? How can I change my perspective of the bigger picture of me and take steps that have a lot more compassion for myself?

This is beyond the ‘how can I be kinder to myself?’. This is about being more intentional of the way I plan and look into the future, of the aims I set myself, so that when I go through life, I start gaining more confidence and that at some point, my first reaction might not be to label myself as a failure.

I have started looking into what I want to do and offer next year. I am looking at it from a different perspective. Some of the words that have come up as aims for next year are: showing up and community. I have a few projects in mind and I am trying to find the kindest way of delivering them, so that I do not feel so overwhelmed, so that my aims all seem doable.

One of these is the ‘Morning Star Practice – 21 Day Challenge’ starting on the 5 January 2020. You can already join the group here if you want to participate or be informed of more details. I am gently and intuitively sensing into the best way for me to offer this and show up, but the aim is to come live on Facebook every morning for 21 days to do the Morning Star Practice with others.

I have come up with this practice for myself and I have found it incredibly supportive and a great way to start my day feeling like I am connected to my body in the present moment, to the ground where I stand, as well as bringing my attention to my centre and my needs.

You can of course buy the recorded meditation (here) and do it on your own, but you can also join me in as many lives as possible or watch and participate with the recordings. Hopefully creating a routine for you and inspiring you too to connect more to yourself.

Going back to failure and perspective, I want to turn this to you now. What parts of your life could you bring a different perspective into? How could you set goals or aims that foster a kinder and more compassionate approach to your life and make you feel like you are winning at life?

As always, I would love to hear from you, if you feel compelled to get in touch. One of the things I would like to say is that although I love receiving emails, I can some times get overwhelmed and put enormous pressure on myself to respond, meaning that I then don’t. So, a kinder way for me, is to promise you that I will respond to your email or message but that it may take some time.

With love,

Pelagia

This post was written and sent at the end of November to my mailing list readers. If you would like to receive exclusive writing every month, straight to your inbox, you can sign up to receive it here.

You can see more of what I offer and write on my website: www.pelagiapais.com.

For donations, please use this PayPal link.