It’s all about the Balance!
Once again I find/found myself out of kilter, struggling to find the space and time to write, which is far from good for my mental wealth. Channelling Anika Rice, every second counts from the minute the kids are dropped off to school until I have to collect them, rarely willingly as those few hours in between are never enough. It’s all rather hors d’oeuvre and never main course! And then, before I can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious it’s a school holiday!
I thought as they got older they’d get better at self-entertaining and I’d be able to work alongside, ha! If, I am prepared to let them scramble themselves on electronic devices, and then put up with the tumultuous tantrum/ come down when I pull them off to satisfy their bodily functions, then peace could reign…. But I can’t do that, I am too wise about where that particular parenting short cut will get me and them long term.
Before this half term started, I turned up the volume by volunteering to have a live seance with my friend, and fellow witch Death Queen, to show people what a real one looks and feels like. I didn’t give much consideration, okay none, too the fall out. My focus was supporting her to get her message out there, I thought I’d got all my shit sorted so it would all be fairly benign. It only became apparent I was in for stormy weather during the car journey over, when I found myself randomly tearing up. I’m not a great one for lashings of tears…. just random squirts here and there.
Anyway, long story short… and, you can watch the experience here….. https://www.facebook.com/deathqueenhan/videos/2323219984457110/ , it was emotionally traumatic and fantastic in equal measures. I thought Dad and I had cleared the air, but it turned out there was still important things for him to say to me, and actually hearing from him again was very validating. Although we connected last time, it is so easy, with distance, to loose faith. Which he pointed out he knew I was doubting he was really with me but he real was and is.
As you know, we didn’t have the smoothest relationship in the world, despite the love on both sides. That love had been strangled and blocked by a life changing event when I was a young child, subsequently deeply affecting how I felt about myself and him. So, it is quite astounding that this rift can be healed in death. Because, no matter how much therapy I had, and I’ve had A LOT, I just couldn’t sort it until now?! Magic huh! And goes to show death is not the end of the opportunity to make things right and get the healthy relationship your heart truly desires to have. We summarise the session here, if you want the quick and easy version, https://www.facebook.com/deathqueenhan/videos/432599157459678/?epa=SEARCH_BOX
So, apart from kick starting what was supposed to be a chilled week with some of my nearest and dearest with an enormous energetic transformation, I realised that my work life balance had teetered out of the pleasure zone. All this work, little pay and no time for play has left me poor in mind, body and spirit. If I can’t write, there’s no light.
This leads me nicely onto my main point, balance and the very need for it, across the board. Whether that is balance between work and the rest of life or in your diet, with your exercise, with your partying, it’s in every aspect of life. It’s finding yourself, or as is often the case, pushing yourself, beyond your balance that totally fucks you up. I see it all the time in myself, my friends, professionals giving me advice, we’re surrounded by imbalance.
Everything is about extremes these days, work your little cotton socks off at this and then you’ll succeed, eat only these things and you’ll be thin, exercise like a maniac and you’ll feel great.
Well, if you’re a workaholic you won’t have a personal life, which if you make it to old age and don’t die of a stress related disease, won’t leave you with much joy and no one to care for you. If you’re dieting all the time, you’re constantly throwing the switches on your fuse box, ultimately irreversibly damaging the body you want to improve?! Try to love the skin you’re in, because if you lead the way others will follow, and keep that plate balanced like a rainbow. No one can eat shit loads of sugar or drink vats of wine and look good for it, unless they have a plastic surgeon on speed dial.
If you OVER exercise, especially if this form of mental escape comes to you 40+ (mid-thirties is still a bit too late), you can expect to wear through your body parts like beaver through a tree and find yourself immobile and or in pain in older age. We’re not designed to regenerate well over 40….. And, if and when you are stuck in that chair, there will be no escaping your thoughts then, you’ll drown in the disappointment and pain of not having faced them all those years before. Harsh but true! Therapy is far less self-destructive and worth the seemingly high price, it’s definitely cheaper than surgery or a wheelchair!
I find I have to hold my own counsel more and more, because I am the only expert on myself. I can seek and pay for advice, but the individual giving it hasn’t walked in my shoes and certainly has no idea what it’s like to live my life. So, I have to balance out what they’re telling me, which is a challenge as a perfectionist that loves a target! I hate to fail and I take advice I’m paying for very seriously, but rather than aim for the stars these days I have to keep my goals on terra firma. Then I don’t land up hating myself and being mega bitch to my nearest and dearest, avoid that quagmire of parental guilt and losing out on “partner of the year” award yet again!
So, I am asking you my dear reader, to take stock of your balance and to aim to keep it real and achievable, getting more living joy and giving yourself less pressure. Because, let’s face it, every other fucker out there, the ones that haven’t invested in personal therapy yet, will be trying to pile it on! In corporate cheese spiel, aka an acronym for this new way, would be S.M.A.R.T, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely!
And ps. Don’t forget we’re going into winter, this is a time for slowing down, getting the furry comfortable stuff out and chilling. This is not the time for bright lights and burn out, well not if you wish to arrive in January without the blues. Balance, balance, balance!
Originally published at http://celticwitchmama.com on November 6, 2019.
