Light and Shadow

Yesterday evening I went walking on our beach. What a privilege it is to have this wondrous resource so close at hand; a place to wander, to marvel at and that leaves one to ponder about life in all its various hues and shades. The play of the evening light, even as it is fading, is fascinating to me. I feel my heart pump as I pull out my camera to capture a feast of light and shadow created by small clear 'jellyfish'. That's what I've always known them as but today someone suggested that they might be eggs laid by sea cucumbers. I had a look online for some images of sea cucumber eggs and found these...so I am back with the jellyfish idea for now! 

 As for sea cucumbers, we saw many of them in our travels 'up north' in Queensland during sailing days. Mostly long, fat, black caterpillars of the sea creeping lazily in the ponds left at low tide on rocky, muddy shores. They come in many shapes and colours, the most remarkable I've ever seen resembling bright round rubber balls. They were red and black, yellow and black or blue and black and came up in the nets of a scallop trawler on which we were lucky enough to do a 'tucker trip' back in the mid-eighties. Yes, well inside last century - where does the time go?! The world is full of often unseen wonders. I am constantly delighted and surprised by what turns up! 

A 'tucker trip', by the way, was the term given for an agreement whereby we yachties could be volunteer crew on a trawler in exchange for our 'tucker' or food. It was such a fantastic opportunity to see a working fishing boat and one we jumped at. I was the only female on board and the loo was a bucket on the aft deck which had to be emptied over side! I just had to 'get over' myself and get on with it. I did my best to time my visits for when no one else was on deck. I doubt these kinds of opportunities exist now, given the nature of litigation and insurance. It probably wouldn't be possible.

Anyway, whatever they are, jellyfish or other, they are fascinating little works of nature and the light plays on them in a spectacular way. I found a few other treasures along the way. I hope you'll enjoy them too.

The pondering about life? It was inspired by the light play on those wee jelly blobs. Whatever is going on in life, there are always moments of light and wonder to be found if you're looking for them. Never discount them. They are tiny glimpses of bigger and better things to come. Without the shadows, we might not be able to appreciate the light. Without the light, we would never see the shadows. Both are necessary for us to enjoy a life rich with lessons on how to live better or longer or wiser. Nothing stays the same forever. Change is inevitable. It may be dreaded or welcomed or sneered at. However you receive it, it will come. Life is ever-changing as is the light; as are the shadows on the shore.

With love,

Kerry x

Christmas indiscretions and the dreaded aftermath

It all began with the gradual appearance, in the staffroom at work, of mince pies and shortbreads and chocolate treats. Slowly they came, at first in dribs and drabs and then in a rushing torrent of sugary delights. Some were labelled and placed in pigeon holes - yes, some had my name on them. Others were placed enticingly on tables - on plates - no protective coverings to stop tempted fingers from grabbing a little something on the way through. 

Then came the gatherings, the parties, attended and catered with such enthusiasm. Cheesecakes, pavlovas, cakes and puddings. And more chocolate. Chocolate in the shape of trees or Santas or candy canes. And the candy canes, mint and cherry and... But not just the sweet stuff. Cheeses and biscuits, lavash and dips and drinks (low alcohol but still, additional to what I normally consume).

I had to go and do some Christmas shopping, of course, and of course, I bought more shortbreads and chocolates - not for me, of course...And I baked a delicious fruit cake, the fruit soaked first in a generous bowl of green ginger wine. I made rich and beautiful Swiss muesli loaded with full fat yoghurt and oats and nuts, seeds and berries. 

These devils all flirted and flashed their irresistable delights and I succumbed. At first with a 'just this one' attitude, but as the sugar lit up my brain with a hefty dopamine response, caution went the way of the wind. Now if it was only for a week, it might not be so bad. Alas the decadence proceeded for weekS! Apart from the festive season goodies, I also fell foul to home baked bread and other everyday goodies, but with festive season gusto! Yes, I know I'm not the only one who was eating too much or too often. Not just once but over and over again. Whilst it was all very social and enjoyable and of course, delectable, I am now left with the aftermath.

I didn't notice it happening really, but when I slowed down enough to tune in with my body again, oops! My waist has swelled noticeably and my digestive system (after all, that's where all this stuff went) is showing signs of discontent. Visits to the loo are too frequent and less satisfying than they ought to be. My body is anxious to rid itself of my indiscretions but I guess it might take a week or two of more virtuous living to get its rhythms back where they work best. 

Interesting enough, I don't think this will be a struggle. It's such a relief to be eating salads and drinking herb teas. Litres of water complete with Himalayan Pink Salt to replenish minerals and fluids are being welcomed with gratitude. My whole body is sighing with relief that I have stopped filling it with crap. Sorry to say it, but as far as my body is concerned, that is what sugary delights are. My body can't deal with it well. It can't use it constructively, so it just stores it away until it gets the chance to off-load it. 

For a fortnight I've felt too sluggish and tired to be bothered getting up early. I'm not even waking early - that's bad! Walks on the beach have been thought about but rarely executed (sorry, I mean enjoyed). Yesterday I found the motivation to get on my stationary bike. I pedalled through the 4 o'clock news (well, 20 minutes of it), raising my heart-rate and covering a theoretical 8 kilometres. Usually I can manage 30 minutes, Give me a day or two and I'll be back!

Sometimes it just takes one little bit of motivation to turn things around. Motivation - you can't buy it but it's one of those magical things you can create from NOTHING!! It is simply a thought, a mind-set. So I did it. I got started on getting my clean-living self back. I have no imaginings of getting skinny or looking younger. I want to feel good. That's it. I know what to do. I know what helps my body to help me. And I'm doing it. From now on. Perhaps by next festive season I'll feel so good I won't be tempted!

My body repair plan:

1. Plenty of water with Himalayan Pink Salt
2. Herbal teas in place of tea/coffee most of the time (I'm only human!)
3. Plenty of sleep - going to bed around 9.30pm - this is when my first 'sleep' indicator hits me. If I miss it I can keep going until after midnight easily and it's difficult to get to sleep in between.
4. Plenty of movement - on my bike, going for walks, cleaning windows, tidying outside, washing the car...
5. Wholefoods, fresh, raw, plentiful (loads of fibre) and delicious - making time to prepare and keep raw vegetables washed and cut up ready to go for snacking

It's simple. It's a good life. My body will appreciate my TLC and will give me a better life in return. Sounds like a good deal to me!

One final thought. Guilt. I entertained it briefly and decided no, I will not feel guilty. What a wretched and wasteful emotion it is. How it robs us of feeling good about life. So, rather than feeling guilty I'm giving thanks. Yes, I am so very thankful for this good life I have. I am thankful that I have the choice to take care of myself by eating well and exercising. I'm thankful that I can choose to go to bed early in order to function better. I'm thankful for the chance to lift my game and to live life to the fullest. No guilt. Just joy. Just thankfulness.

Join me in making choices that help you to feel better about life. And about yourself. Every good choice is a way to be thankful for all the marvellous things your body is and can do. Give thanks by making thankful choices. 

More joy, more freedom. 

Now it's time to go get on my bike!

With love

Kerry x

Freedom from repeated 'failure'

Thought I'd better check in and say hello again today and let you all know that I am okay today, having shredded all my old journals yesterday. I did wonder if I might have some regrets today, but so far, none! In fact, I loaded the whole shebang - bags of shredded paper and journal covers - into the car and took them to the tip. I unceremoniously dumped them into the dumper and that was it. Gone! Properly gone!

It occurred to me today that there is one more reason to be letting them go...and those old patterns of thinking. I have 'struggled' with my weight and overall health for a long time and in particular in the past couple of years. I am so great (if I do say so myself) at creating forms and tables to inspire myself to start on new health regimes. I weigh and measure and tabulate and create and it's all just marvellous. I feel all inspired and do great things - writing down my progress and my slip ups on my wonderful forms and tables and graphs - for about a fortnight. Then I stop. I get busy with other stuff and forget to write it down. Then I lose my focus. And give up. Again and again and again. And that was all in those journals too.

Well, I don't really need to have those reminders of past 'failures' or 'failings'. They leave me feeling dis-empowered and miserable each time I revisit them. So, they are gone now. Yay! I've decided that I will tackle life in a different way. 

I was talking with a friend the other day about giving up smoking. I gave up about twenty-six years ago. I had tried on previous occasions but had gone back to it each time. I had 'failed' but I didn't need to record it anywhere. When I eventually managed to stop, it was because I had a 'good enough' reason. Protecting and restoring my own health at that time obviously wasn't sufficient inspiration, but when my husband and I decided to start a family, that turned out to be the key. I knew that I didn't want to smoke around my baby. I knew that smoking affected my health and that it was worth getting myself on track even before falling pregnant. I'm not judging anyone else here, or the decisions they make in life, but that is what worked for me.

Weight loss and overall health will come into line in the same way I imagine. I am always mindful of the fact that every choice I make in life leads me either towards or away from good health. Most of the time I make pretty reasonable choices with my food. I slip off track now and then. That's okay. 

The biggest thing for me is to get myself out for a walk every day and to set aside a sacred time for meditation every day. Even if it's only an hour for the two combined, these are the things that will motivate me and make it easier to keep the rest on track. I'm not going to write it down any more or create tables to map my progress. I know how I'm going by looking at my skin, by how I feel (how my energy level is going), by how well I sleep and by how my clothes fit and feel. It's pretty simple really. Here it is 9.31pm. I promised myself I'd be in bed early tonight so I'll have to wrap it up here. 

So, no more torturing myself by holding onto evidence of perceived 'failure'. My plan from here on in is to just live one day at a time, to notice things that are going right and to keep adding to those! I am not stuck in any cycle unless I perceive myself to be. That's a rather important revelation for me.

Here's to enjoying life.
One day at a time.
Lots of love.
Kerry x

5 Great Reasons for Shredding My Old Journals

Isn't life GRAND when you get hold of some new thinking...a new perspective on things that have been weighing you down for a long time...and suddenly you can move forward with a spring in your step and 20/20 vision! Today has been one of those days for me and I am so grateful I can hardly contain myself. I just HAVE to tell you about it. 

Over the past decade or so there have been some pretty tough years and through them, kicking and screaming all the way, I've made some pretty massive shifts in my understanding of myself and of being human. I've struggled and wept and gnashed my teeth largely in the company of several A4 bound books that I chose to be my confidantes over those years - my 'journals'. 

Now it is important to understand that a journal is NOT a diary. They are two very different animals. A diary is a place to list events as they occur or to remind you to get yourself to them: went shopping bought red shoes, dentist - two fillings, won CWA raffle - lucky me! Xanmyne's birthday next week, 29, send card. That sort of thing. Whereas a journal is a place to write about feelings, thoughts, ideas and more: must buy red shoes to go with terrible ugly bridesmaid dress bestie is making me wear it's disgusting - how will I ever match that colour - maybe I can wear just the shoes, so scared of the dentist Mr X - he's such a mongrel with the needle and his breathe stinks, cheated in CWA raffle (lucky me having my bestie on the committee - off to Hawaii next month, woohoo!). Xanmyne's birthday next week, I bet she'll put a selfie up on Facebook - taken in the bathroom of some cheap hotel - skirt up to there...wish she would just grow up. Yes, one can be childish, bitchy, selfish, naughty, angry, anything in a journal. All the things one doesn't usually bother with in a diary. 

It's a bit more like baring your soul and really not the stuff you particularly want your loved ones to find whether you're just out for the day or at worst, dead. I'm serious about that because the stuff that happens in a journal has the potential to hurt people (not always, but what I'm saying is that it can be filled with stuff that is raw - anger, frustration, madness!) and none of us would want to hurt our loved ones by letting them inside our heads on a bad emotions day, surely! Bad enough what we let ourselves say sometimes!

So, my journals, a sizable stack of them, were filled with 'that' kind of stuff and I lived in constant fear that someone would find them and read them and be heart-broken (or just plain shocked - it's not always nice inside my head, even for me, which is why I choose to write and get it all out of there). Of course there were also pages I'd printed of inspirational writings and the occasional emails to and fro that I wanted to keep track of in non-digital format. Often I'd come across personal development activities and would do the work in my journals (frighteningly embarrassing and confronting at times).

I was afraid to let them go.

 Given just how vulnerable I made myself in my writings, and given that essentially this was a massive journey of self-assessment, berating, soul-searching and rebuilding, it is reasonable to wonder why I didn't burn each page as it was completed. I have held onto them for years. Why?

I thought that it was going to be important to me in the future. I wanted to be able to draw on what I went through in those journals to help other people. I believed I could write and save others from going through the same struggles, or at least give struggling people someone to identify with and perhaps to feel less alone. Surely our journeys and struggles constitute some value in that way. 


Also, some time ago, my darling mum had burned a collection of letters I had sent her while travelling; when she told me I had cried for a day and a half without respite*. I was so afraid that I might feel the same if I destroyed my journals which were, essentially, letters I'd written to myself in order to understand who I was...to become myself...a record of a different kind of travel. I was scared to let them go!

Then a week or so ago I got the box of journals out and started reading. Not in chronological order but somewhat randomly. I've read them before, of course, and have revelled at how much progress I've made and how I've changed along the way. In the past it has been a positive experience to read back over them. This time it was different. I read for hours and hours until I had read them all. And then I fell into a dreadful funk that lasted at least a couple of days. I realised I wanted to shred them all but I was so terrified of doing that. How could I do that? It took me a few more days to give myself more reasons for shredding them than I had for keeping them...and here they are:

5 Great Reasons for Shredding My Old Journals

1. One day someone else will find them and read them. It is possible they will think the writer is or was insane or they might be dreadfully wounded by what they read. Things can be taken out of context and greatly misunderstood. It's just not worth the risk.

2. Reality is, I believe, that we all have a 'dark' side. We all entertain 'dark' thoughts at times, whether we are open to admitting it or not. I would prefer to reveal my 'darkness' to others on my own terms, selectively and only in company I absolutely trust. Or not at all. 

3. If I am going to write to help people I will do it better from who and where I am now. I have done the learning I needed to in that time. I trust myself to remember and to share from the heart what I know is important to share. 

4. The value of revisiting times of struggle by immersing oneself in old thinking is unlikely to be helpful beyond a certain point, if at all. It can lead to feelings of pain, despair and deep sadness to experience in that way old perceptions and beliefs. 

5. It is symbolic of freeing oneself from the past. Life is better when it is lived in the present. It can be cathartic to shred those pages and know that they will  no longer be evidence of long days and nights of anguish, It is freeing to know that I won't ever read that stuff again. It is gone. The work is done. I am me. I am free. I honour myself by letting the old stuff go.

No tears, just relief.

Love to all.
Happy New Year.
Let it go.
Be free.
Don't say I made you do it!!

Kerry x

*Mum, I forgave you ages ago, was just using it to make a point.