fear

I refuse to give fear any conscious power any more.  So much so that I am not even spelling it with a capital in the title here.

fear has been a constant companion of mine for as long as I can remember and over the past 3 years I have been trying to recognise it more quickly and feel the energy of it, to move through it as quickly as possible and let it go so I am free to feel love and joy instead.  It's not easy.  My brain has a very strong map for fear and at my age, my brain is loathe to create new maps, but it can and I am.  By doing one thing different, taking tiny, baby steps, I feel certain that change is happening.  It takes time and practice and I am determined, I believe I can do it so I know that I am.

Last night I was very steadfastly declaring how strongly I feel about exposing fear for what it is to me and wrapping it with love.  My new catchphrase for myself is "if it is not from love, it is fear".  I knew, even as I said it that I was sending out some sort of cosmic challenge by merely speaking those words and I am ready to pay the piper on this.  I want to BE love and I cannot do that if I stay in fear.  I have vowed to serve God and I cannot do that if I serve fear too.  I want to be humble and fear will keep humility from me so I have declared war on fear, peaceful, loving, resolute war.  It's funny to me this is the first time I have been able to think of any kind of war in a positive way.

And it is positive.  As I have been afraid of so much for so long, fear is a part of me like any other and I will therefore not abuse that.  I am committed to loving every part of myself unconditionally and finding a purpose for everything that makes me me.  I am now on a journey of discovering how I can love fear unconditionally, embrace it, love it forgive it and find a new role for it that works for all of me.

Today I could sense fear poking at me and I stood firm over and over again.  Each time I said "hey, that's fear, come back here.  God can you deal with this."  Each time, fear left defeated and each time, I felt more happy and strong.  Unfortunately I allowed my attention to wander and fear sneaked in and bit me again more sharply.  Then I was triggered and all my fear came screaming out through tears, anguish and self-hatred.  This is what fear does, it turns me against myself and others and takes me away from love, from being who I want to be.  This is fear and I am truly sorry for the pain I cause in my fear.  I have apologised and learned.  What happened to me today was a timely reminder to be vigilant and to love myself more.  That fear was able to take hold because I was not ready to take responsibility for what is mine and so I took responsibility for what is not mine.  I now know that I need to continue on as I do, loving, learning. Exploring and dreaming.

I need to acknowledge and accept where I'm at and keep moving forward one, tiny baby step at a time.  Sorry fear, love lives here and if you don't love, you are no longer squatting in me.  You have hereby been served notice.  You tenancy is up and I will not be renewing the lease.

I'm off now to sleep restfully and peacefully.  No fear.

xxjxx

Life experience matters

I wash 15 before I figured out how to wash my body properly instead of just letting water fall over it.  I was 17 before I learned to iron clothes and to this day I hate it.  I learned to apply makeup from Dolly magazine.  I learned to cook properly from Australian Women's Weekly and in Home Economics at school.  I learned English from Christine Lovatt and Mr Wisdoms Whopper.  I learned mathematics from living hand-to-mouth throughout my late teens.  I learned optimism from counsellors.  

I'm still learning about hair care, skin care, nutrition, exercise, my body, my brain, my feelings, my spirituality and my self.  I am now 45.

There is no one to blame for my lack of information.  My mother taught me all that she knew and then some.  Sadly, she didn't know about self care either.  Had my father been there, he would have had little more to share.  Self care was not included in their own upbringings.  

I feel sad about all the people who even now, do not have any concept of self care, self worth, self esteem, self love or self nurturing.  I know people who don't know how to wash dishes, who don't know how to sweep, mop or vacuum a floor, how to cook or clean, how to wash, how to iron, how to brush their teeth, how to say yes or no, how to "be".  Every one of these people has extraordinary gifts of their own.  Many are completely unaware of the information they lack.  Each is incredible in many ways and, they have taught me to judge less and love more.

Although I have grieved what I thought I lacked, I have a huge appreciation for what I've got and my motto is: "if I've learned something new, I've had a very good day".

I don't want to be a genius, nor do I consider 'knowledge' all that important.  I am simply trying to provide the child parts of me with enough learning to grow up in a healthy, well adjusted way, with nurturing, good health and nutrition and to have reasonable expectations of myself.  and I am very happy to encourage others to do that in their own way too.

xxjxx

A long, living, loving life

Today, I sat beaming from ear to ear, face and hands covered in orange paint, in a class full of people.  I felt happy, peaceful, excited, scared, anxious, sad and content all at the same time.  I had just jumped another chasm of trauma and landed safely on the healing side of me.

During this leap of faith, I experienced the sensations of feeling fear in my body as it happened.  Not old fear from the past or imagined fear of the future but sudden, trembling, real and instant fear from that very moment and I gave myself permission to stop and allow it to pass through me unhindered.  It was scary.  It was also incredible and I felt so free, alive, real and whole as I did that.  I wanted to whoop for joy but I gave fear it's time and then gave myself permission to just be.  I moved through many facets of myself in wonderment and awe afterwards and I felt completely at ease being young, younger, old, older, male, female, human, spirit, whole and shameless.  I experienced being a healthier me today and I loved it.  

The fear came from claiming back my body and letting go of the unconscious need to feel my body through pain.

A wonderful woman sat silently by me as I gifted myself with this blessed moment and in her heart space, seemed completely at ease while she waited.  I feel blessed and grateful today.  I had only ever fully experienced fear before as terror, pain and powerlessness, never before had I felt simple, clean fear.  I have had so many moments of that overwhelming horror that my brain had learned to switch off to the slightest exposure to fear.  It turns out that while I was very afraid of many things, I could not feel fear inside me because without terror and pain, the instant numbness always took over and rescued me, disempowering me in its own way.

I hated my body for many years, for many reasons and I've been working towards changing that for a few years now.  Over the past couple of weeks, I knew something big was about to happen within and I was content to just let it surface in its own time and way.  I have learned great patience and it really paid off today.  Resisting the urge to hurry it up because others wanted me to.  Choosing resolutely to make different choices for myself.  Repeating every day "good morning body, I love you".  Becoming more mindful of how I speak about my body and the biggest shift, finally acknowledging, understanding, permitting and accepting that my body is a part of who "I" am.  That might sound weird but I have been so disconnected to my body my whole life that it did not actually seem like a part of me at all.  I'm not sure I can explain it and maybe I don't need to.

Now that I have welcomed my body into my 'being' I will listen better to it, honour it more, cherish it more and love it more.  I know I will, I've already started.  I feel sad that it took me so long when I have already learned to love every other part of myself unconditionally - my soul, my brain, the fragments of my psyche - it's okay to feel sad, right now.  I will feel it, move through it and celebrate that I can feel the sadness because I am who I am and everything else is a big, beautiful bonus.

For many years I abused my body in my ignorance and I am sorry for that.  I have gorged and starved my body at times.  I have worked it like a slave till it broke down, cracked the whip over myself while exercising and had no concern when it became sore or tired, lazed around till it atrophied, deprived it of sleep and plied it with alcohol and drugs to distance myself from it further, medicated it to make it more numb because I did not understand the pain was a warning.  I've caused damage over the years to my poor, long suffering,  wonderful, amazing body and now, slowly but surely, I am repairing that damage with love, patience, kindness and awareness.  My body is a temple and I will love it my own way.

xxjxx

Love and fear

Love.  The only thing real.  Fear.  An illusion I create within myself when I am not loving.  Judging. A fear based behaviour that soothes my ego and feeds the fear.  Blaming.  Another fear based behaviour that I can deceive myself with when I feel afraid.  Control. A natural, non-love reaction to fear.

Fear:                                          Love:

shame,                                      confidence

control                                       abandon

judgment.                                  acceptance

blaming.                                    gratitude   

ego,                                           soul

limiting.                                      liberating

labelling.                                    individuality

scorning.                                   celebrating

justifiying.                                  embracing

suffering.                                   experiencing

surviving.                                   thriving

doing.                                        being

closing off.                                opening up

stifling.                                      breathing

inertia.                                       exhilaration

hopelessness.                           miraculous

deadening.                                life-giving

war.                                           peace

anger.                                        patience

earthly.                                      ethereal

isolation.                                    solitude

separateness.                            togetherness

me/you.                                      us/we

Oh that I may cast off my illusion and stand more firmly in love.  Be more loving.  Think more lovingly.  Speak with love.  Grow familiar with love.  Welcome love.  Accept love.  Embrace love.  Be love.

© June Parkin 2014

Self forgiveness

I took part in a discussion about forgiveness today with some loving, open-hearted people and although I once spurned the very idea of forgiving those that I had once felt very hurt by, I realised with joy today that I truly have found forgiveness for each of them now.  I now choose to believe that each of those people were coming from a place of personal torment within themselves, a lack of self-awareness and self-love and that they each have taught me something very valuable too.  I did not suddenly wake up one day and decide to forgive.  Forgiveness was a whole journey of its own for me and I gave myself a lot of time and patience to travel that particular path.  It was where I wanted to get to and now that I am there, I feel more peaceful within myself.

Today I realise that self-forgiveness has not been as easy and I still have some distance to travel to that destination.  I know the abuse and trauma is not my fault.  It is the years of self abuse, self loathing, self flagellation and self doubt that still lingers in my heart.  Still keeps me a victim to feelings of worthlessness.  Although my intellectual self 'knows' that I learned to treat myself that way over time, via poor examples being set, my heart cries out to me over all the times I started to love and value myself and slipped back into the old, self destructive patterns of inactivity, over eating, mindlessness and apathy.

Right now, I choose to forgive myself for all of the damage I have suffered at my own hands, just as I have forgiven others.  I choose to be kinder and try harder to not judge myself for the mistakes I have perceived myself to make and recognise my efforts today instead.  Because I forgive myself, I can now enter another level of peace and look forward to the miracles I am sure will abound in self love.

xxjxx