Tryfan taken from near Llyn Ogwen Sunday 28th April 2024 by myself
I know I said yesterday’s was the last post until after my holiday but I really wanted to tell you about what happened yesterday afternoon. To me it felt like the serendipitous moments that happen when you follow your heart.
I woke up feeling like, after I walked the greyhound mid morning, that I wanted to go to see if I could buy some new trainers. My heart also said that I should treat myself to lunch at a cafe I like. So after walking Mikey the greyhound Renly and I set off in the car. We had lunch then I dragged him round Sport Direct looking at trainers and walking boots. But I couldn’t find any I liked. So I put all the boxes down, said sorry to the shop assistant and left the shop. Outside were a group of women that I had to walk round.
One of them squealed “Mum look at that cute dog” about my Renly. She must have been in her mid-twenties 🙂 The younger women were asking about the dog and then their Mum said “It’s you. You’re the writer.”
Her and I had met at that well-being day I’d done at the end of February. She’d done the cooking for the event. She had said she wanted to come to one of my writing workshops sometime.
As we chatted it turned out things had been tough with her grown-up children and she hadn’t had the headspace to get in touch. This time I was bold enough to take her email address. This way she can come as and when she feels like it.
So I came out of the shop feeling despondent because I driven 12 miles and not bought anything but then I meet this lovely lady and also get a confidence boost; one that she recognised me; and two that she praised me to her daughters.
I got in the car thanking God and my heart for leading me there. I also thanked myself for the work I have been doing via QEC and other things to clear my heart so I can hear it clearly. Now I trust my heart even when it makes no sense.
St Asaph Monday 15th April 2024 Photgraphed by myself
What’s your default mode? What’s the place you go back to when you are feeling tired, stress, anxious, attacked?
In some of the Josh Luke Smith “Speak into the Chaos” stuff he talks about how our shame causes us to want to control our situations. And the more we let go of our shame, forgive ourselves and others, accept as Gabor Maté says that lots of what we do was programmed into us before we had logical thoughts, forgive into those situations and take agency with them, the more we change our belief systems about the world, the more we can let go of needing to control.
I’ve had a few interesting situations over the last couple of weeks where I have firstly felt myself wanting to take control but have ANSed, let gratitude roll through me and let go of the need to control. But then I have spoken something that rock the boat a bit, unintentionally. I was just saying how I saw the situation. I have then been met with a barrage of the other person regaining control in a quite forceful way.
For each of us, until we can let go of our shame and need for control we will all have a default method of dealing with that.
There is the person who goes tight lipped and says nothing
There is the one who comes out fighting – either with fist or with tongue
There is the explain it all away
There is the person who will suddenly change tact and agree with everything their supposed attacker is saying
There is the person who just walks away and won’t talk about the situation again.
For each, and the myriad of other types, it is a way of keeping control.
My default rolled between going in with words to fight my corner or cutting the person out of my life. I have now come to see that a lot of the time I don’t care. Like with a meeting recently where I’d voiced an issue and the other person was defending themselves way beyond what my concern had been and they gave no hint to the issue I had raised and whether it was valid to me.
Before QECing my default would have been to no longer have anything to do with this person and their organisation. I would have dismissed the whole lot, bad mouthed them to other people, and ignored emails etc from them or emailed to tell them exactly what I thought of them. Instead, no longer needing to have that control over the situation, I allowed myself to feel sad and disappointed that they did not hear my concern, allowed them to waffle on till they had finished, and then went on to the next point I had on my agenda that needed dealing with.
Because I did not go into my old default way of keeping control I could let things wash over me, decide what was important, forgive them for not hearing me, and move on.
Too often we lose the most important thing because we “throw the baby out with the bath water” because we need to keep control, because we refuse to give ground to the other person.
I think Jesus did that. When challenged he didn’t come out fighting but would tell a story to emphasis the point. He’d bring the energy of the encounter down a notch or two. But I think that’s because Jesus knew and trusted his own heart. Too often our hearts are full of shames and hurts and wounds that we ignore them, we don’t see them as important. We don’t see they are trying to communicate with us. So we shut them away. We hold on to our shame, our hurt, our wounds.
For those old enough do you remember the “What Would Jesus Do” [WWJD] bracelets, mugs, etc used to help us know what to do? Well I think in any and every given situation that arises Jesus would breath, not rush to an answer, would check his autonomic nervous system was in balance and regulation, know he carried no shame, guilt or hurts, and would be able to respond with a gentle, strong, clear heart.
If we want to get to be more like Jesus that is the place we need to get to.
Llyn Crafnant 3rd March 2024 photographed by myself
Yes apocalyptic can look as much like a sun-kissed Welsh llyn [lake] as it can those “end of the world” movies some of us love to watch.
Do you get it sometimes when you’re listening to something and someone says something and you want to jump up and down and tell the world? This is my space to tell the world – or at least you my dear subscribers. Some posts I really really hope get out there to loads of people and some I’m a bit embarrassed by and some, like this one, I am writing because I cannot contain what is going on in my head and cannot yet find a way of bringing it up when out dog walking 🙂
I was listening to Drew Jackson [yes I have been banging on about Drew and the podcast on Godspace but, for me, it has been amazing]. There is one point, in talking about his poetry that he calls it apocalyptic, and then says that we are living in apocalyptic times. He then explains that, for him, apocalyptic times mean “unveiling times” and not so much as we’ve come to think of them as “end of the world as we know it times” – though it is a bit like that too. But it is much more about things, structures, being unveiled.
I was so excited because I had written around this from 2020 onwards in various forms, and keep saying to my husband when another “unveiling” of something corrupt comes on the news that, I think, the whole of the 2020s – until the end of 2029 – will be a time of unveiling, a time of relooking at things and saying “that’s not right” – governments, health care, education, racism, sexism, gender issues, climate change, nature issues, homelessness, poverty, materialism, the whole Israel/Palestine, Russia/Ukraine, and more that are not coming to mind at the moment. And more that I’m sure you can name.
This is what the book of Revelation talks about, what Jesus talked about when he said about the end times. It may not mean the world is going to end and we will all go off to heaven, or wherever. It means, as Drew said, apocalyptic times are times of unveiling, times of revealing what’s wrong in our systems. A time to change.
At the event I was at last week one of the women speaking said about how things are changing with regard to clairvoyants and how the understanding of spirituality is changing. She said how she believed that the control of religious structures was lifting and people are starting to explore different ways of being. All the way through that day there was an understanding that people are starting to realise that we buzz with energy, and that we do affect others by our energy and other people’s energy affects us. A lot of QEC is about changing your energy as you are healed from your traumas.
Again these things are unveilings, are changes, are seeing things that were there all along but were hidden. As Christians we need to make sure we don’t stay in our safe boxes but that we get rebellious, get out there and explore what is being unveiled. Get out there and really live in these apocalyptic times without fear. I believe it is what God talks of in the Bible but there has been a fear about it. Instead we need to view it as exciting, as change, as seeing things differently.
Also the reason for the above photo is that the sun still shines, the lakes are still beautiful, families still go out and walk their dogs. Things being unveiled does not mean the end but the in-between space before we go into a new beginning.
But again for me personally the most exciting thing from all this was that Drew was saying what I had been thinking. So if he is and I am and things on Christine’s Liturgical Rebels podcasts are saying things then … let’s be awake and aware and responsive.
This is a follow on from yesterday’s post on how Deborah and Jael were most powerful by being in situ and not trying to fill their day with many things. Yet this is so often what we do even as Christians.
We pray as an activity rather than as a just being. But often if we try the just being we then need to tell someone about that. Or to fill in time we read a book. It becomes another activity. We got to church. We join a club. We meet with others. We do things all the time. We rarely just sit about “wasting time”.
Like I said Jael could have been somewhere else being busy but instead I like to think she was at the entrance to her tent maybe watching the battle unfurl in the valley below. She wasn’t waiting for God to use her, which I think we can often be guilty of, but she was just being.
I have been amazed at how many fitness apps and organisational apps and books are being advertised as something to “fit into your busy life” as though being busy is the important bit. And not being busy is wasting time. When we see someone they are “what have you been up to?” and rarely ask “how are you?” And even if they do ask “how are you?” that is quickly followed by “what have you been doing?” And a young friend of mine once showed me how people ask younger people “What have you been up to?” and even “what have you done at school/college/exams are you taking/doing in your future?” and rarely ask them how they are leading to that conviction that doing nothing is not a good thing.
As you know I’ve been challenged on this recently and I decided to do some QEC around it. Turns out that, for me, and I suspect for others, I worry about what other people will think. I feel that to justify my existence I should be doing something., that I should not be wasting my time and that I should be productive. So I get busy busy busy and then don’t have time for what really matters – being me.
I am now in my 6th decade and there are those things that pull to say “time is running out” and that one should “do something with one’s life“. Now Jael was just being by her tent and because of that God could use her. She may have been young. She may have been old. But she was there. And I don’t think she was sitting there going “God use me” or even bargaining with God that if she learned how to be then God could use her.
Also I am learning if I am not busy doing then I have time to think. Not think about what I can do but just ponder life. I probably pray more as a chatting with God thing than an activity. It is a longer process. I also read a lot more which gives me more things to think about.
We live in a world, whether sacred or secular, that tells us we should be doing. And not just doing but being seen to be doing. We need to have something to tell people. But I am finding the more that I am just being the more I can listen to people because I’m not tired, not stressed, not wondering what I should be doing to fill my time. It means I have time to walk the extra round of the park to find out how someone is, time to go for coffee, time to listen to my husband, my children, my friends, to God.
I don’t know if I’ll even be expected to drive a metaphorical tent peg through someone’s head [whatever that means in 21st Century North Wales terms] but I do hope I am sitting by my tent to do whatever God wants of me if God ever does. And I also hope that if I spend the rest of my life hanging out by my tent and am never used I will also known and trust I have been in the right place.
Photo from October 2023. These were the last locally cut flowers of the year
The reason for the photo is because it shows the inside wall of my house which is in need of redecorating. We’ve been in this house for eight years now and the hall is one of the rooms I’ve not yet started on.
I have just booked another session of QEC counseling/healing for next week and was free writing around it. As I did that more and more things came up and I started to feel a bit fed up with it. I have been doing this “inner healing” stuff for soooooo long now. Not just QEC but other forms. And yet still there is more.
Someone once compared inner healing to taking off the layers of an onion; that just because you had taken off one layer there were still more to come. I’ve never settled well with that analogy because if one kept on with the healing and taking off the layers soon there would be nothing left.
I know that can be a Christian way of looking at things – to get rid of “me” and just be Jesus. But don’t think there would be verses in the Bible like
“Come to me, all who labour and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:29-30
if we were meant to be in the picture at all. I think Jesus is saying that the whole healed me is walk in tandem with the whole Jesus and it won’t be a big deal.
So I am not an onion where eventually there will be nothing left of me.
Whilst free writing this morning what came to me when we do QEC or similar types of healing is we are stripping off the wallpaper that we have used to cover up the walls of who we are. Often whether in the Bible, in dreams, etc “house” or “home” represents ourselves. So what we often do, or let others do, is paper over things in our lives to make us seem more acceptable, to fit in better, to keep us safe. But to be wholly me I have to strip those walls right back to the original plaster and see what cracks are there. Then not paper over the cracks but heal those cracks.
Have you ever stripped wallpaper from an old house where previous occupants haven’t done it? That old wallpaper paste was more like superglue than modern wallpaper paste is. That stuff is rock solid. Sometimes too you come across old newspapers which for some reason were used as lining before putting the wallpaper on. That is then like trying to remove papier mache. It was meant to stay.
Sometimes some of the things we’ve put in to keep us safe after childhood traumas, or even grown up traumas, we’ve put on to last. We don’t want to revisit that. But it makes a bulge in the walls.
So I go back again and again for more healing not because the first lot didn’t work, not because I am an onion, but because I am an grand house that is being renovated room by room.
Here are a selection of photos from the second half of my year!
It’s that time of year when people start emailing or posting their Christmas catch up newsletters. With that there is the dilemma of how much do you believe and how much do you read between the lines, and that depends very much on how well you know the person. And probably how cynical you are 🙂
I’m never sure if I like them or not. I do love the ones from friends that I have had a glimpse of their comings and going throughout the year and that are honest about how their year has been.
I know at one time I did find it hard when I’d get a letter from someone who had been too busy to catch up during the year and then whose newsletter was full of the amazing achievements their children had done. It would make me feel inadequate and feel like either I or my children were failing. I do wish I had had some QEC healing at this time because I know now that a lot of what I felt was my issues not theirs. A lot came from that having to be doing and pushing so I was not in second place. I think I saw, and I think some of them were, that elbowing to show they and their offspring were elbowing their way to first place. I needed to let that go and be healed and to know what I know now that being the support act is ok so long as I am being my full creative self.
But then there is the dilemma of “do I send one too?” Some people put on theirs that they love hearing other people’s news but others don’t. I used to be an avid newsletter sender. At times I even shared my newsletters on this WordPress site. Now I’m not so sure.
When I was a single mum I used to get my children to do a paragraph each of the highlights of their year. The problem was they are like me and only remember so much. I am very much a “live in the present and walk forward” person. I do forget sometimes what I did last week unless it is memorable. 🙂 But things have changed. The children have left home and I have a husband who works very hard. Also I do forget to ask him to do something when he’s not doing something else!!!
I did write a very upbeat newsletter which I may or may not send. But how long should it be? What should I put in? What should I leave out? Does anyone really care where we went on holiday this year? Or that I started 2023 without a job and am finishing without a job but did have one for 8 months in between? And also all those people who probably do care probably know anyway.
So I reach the end of this with no decision on whether to do one or not, but whilst procrastination on the subject I had fun doing this – Highlights of 2023 picture
Magic of a river in full flow after a storm. Abergywngregan August 2023 Photographed by myself
Did you know you could do magic? In fact you do it every day by the things you think and how you hold on to your feelings.
I tried to write this without mentioning the people concerned but realised it didn’t make sense otherwise so I’ve had to name the relationships. Bit of tough vulnerability here!!!
This revelation came to me whilst I was having negative jealous insecure thoughts around my daughter-in-law. As I was journaling and pondering and, I suppose, justifying my feelings, I got a picture in my head of the Snow White’s wicked stepmother. From that picture this came.
Snow White’s stepmother would have been a kind and beautiful woman when the Snow White’s father pick her as his second wife. He didn’t have to marry to have someone to look after his daughter after he was widowed as some men do. He could have had servants to do that for him. He chose her, I am sure, for her beauty and beautiful nature. But she had been wounded in childhood by someone so as Snow White grew into a young woman she got jealous. Then I am sure there were times when Snow White went off and did things just with her father. This would have exasperated the stepmother’s wound. I wonder too if she also pondered whether the father looked at his daughter and remembered his love for his first wife. All this added to the stepmother’s insecurities making her feel angry dark thought inside. She then chose to act on those thoughts and, if she had been successful, instead of helping her step daughter through teenagehood and out into the wider world, she as good as killed her.
It made me realise that we can choose what magic we use and how we act on our feelings. I had a choice – 1. to be jealous and angry with this person and to send out negative vibes. Ok not a poisoned apple but something close to that which would have killed our relationship and killed my relationship with my son 2. I could accept that this was how I felt but then let those feelings slide from me, know that my relationship with my son was not based on who they were with now but on some “deeper magic”.
I could trust in the depth of the relationship with my son and no longer be jealous of his wife then give life to our time, or I could spoil everything with my jealousy.
[I was going to say petty jealous but actually it was very real and I had to accept it before I could let it go. I think too often we dismiss our feelings and so they fester about because they haven’t been truly banished.]
The stepmother did not accept her jealous feelings, instead she acted on them and went into destroy mode. I decided to accept my feelings, let them go, go to my safe place of deep gratitude, and allow a better magic to flow.
And of course as you know the answer to the Snow White story so you can guess the answer to this story. Yes we all had a great time together. There was no negative animosity. I grew in love for my daughter-in-law and got some great times on my own with my son.
The magic I made was my choice, but it comes through the healing I’ve gone, my relationship with myself, my trust in God/The Universe to have my back and love me unconditionally. Without all that I would still have that wound and be wanting to hold too tight, to poison what was, not be able to enjoy what is going on around me.
Though sometimes I think we don’t realise we can do magic so we say things about a situation or person that are not uplifting or positive, we work towards a worst case scenario, and we are not disappointed. Snow White’s stepmother “knew” that eventually Snow White would be more popular and more beautiful than her so she had a plan on what to do with her then. If I had planned in a “I know this time will be hard work” I am sure it would have been. But instead, once I’d free wrote/journaled around it, accepted what I was feeling and accepted that this was not a good place to be, ANSed myself, etc then I could believe this was going to be a lovely magical time with my son and his wife.
Because it was deep magic from being healed and knowing I am an amazing person then it wasn’t a “trying hard” but was from a place deep in my heart.
We need to all remember we are all making magic every day by what we think, feel, do and believe.
Photos taken at Newborough Beach and Plas Newydd August 2023 by myself
What is your perfect day?
Well I would have said on Thursday that that was my perfect day – beach, icecream, no agenda. But then on Friday I got my sheets dried in the sunshine; perfect day. Then Saturday a great morning workshop followed by a great movie in the evening. But then Sunday we had a lovely walk on a new bit of coastal path. New for us at least. All great. All with a bit of perfect but also probably a bit of not so perfect.
I got to wondering if a perfect day is actually a state of mind. Since starting part time paid work have I started to see that as a chore and the other things as nearer to perfect? I wonder how things would change at work if I started to pick out the perfect things there.
In the Bible it says
whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
I wonder how often I, and maybe you too, put certain things into the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable box and some into the not lovely, not right, not pure, not admirable box when actually it is a judgement call. Yes not all things are pure, true, noble, right, lovely admirable, but actually the paid work I do is all those things but it can be seen as a chore. And going off for a walk, getting sun-dried sheets, having no agenda, etc because they are more enjoyable can fit the Phil 4:8 criteria.
I am not saying we go all pollyannaish and think everything is awesome and I do think we need to stop following a lot of the things on the media, but I do think we need to start looking at the lovely within our ordinary lives, within our work lives, within our relationships, within our hard slog of things.
For me the first full paragraph is a list of things that help to settle me and ground me. For me that’s what makes them perfect. But my QEC counselor says that in every situation we should keep our Autonomic Nervous System in balance and regulation – which involves remembering to do that, breathing slowly, of being grateful and forgiving ourselves and others. This doesn’t make the difficult situation at work go away but it does ground us to be able to deal with it effectively and calmly.
So even though I have loved the last few days with their fill of perfect things in them tomorrow when I do my shift at work I will try to look to those things that are good, true, noble, pure, admirable, noble, etc and keep my ANS in balance and regulation, remember that I am human, that those I work with and live with are human and forgive. Maybe then my perfect day will be every day of the week no matter what goes on in it???
I’ve never been one for a bucket list. Much as my family teases me about writing lists, and how on my death bed I will be leaving them all lists of what to do, I am not great at doing that listing of things I’d like to do. My lists are things to do during today. But if I had had a bucket list of things I would like to do before I die one of those things I’ve realised I would have put on would be to have a painting commissioned for myself. Not just to buy a good piece of art but to have one that is total mine and mine alone.
The other thing I would have put on my bucket list if I’d done one years ago would be to have a room of my own. A room that is totally mine. I’ve lived in rented accommodation on my own and when a single mum, or I’d lived with parents or with a partner. And even though I do take charge of the decorating in this house the rooms are still “ours” not “mine”, whereas now I have this study; a room that is s totally my room.
Anyway my friend, Rossie, started getting properly back into her art a while ago as her family’s time running Ywam Bristol was nearing an end. It is funny in wondering why her family moved to Bristol with this wonderful vision then things went awry, I do wonder if they were there so that Rossie could connect with some from the art scene there but also to be strategically placed to rekindle her art.
Anyway in May she wished me a happy birthday and something pinged within me and I asked her if she would paint me a picture because I felt it would fit perfectly with the new colours in my study. She asked me what I wanted and I just said for her to do as she felt.
Well as we all know I’ve been doing a lot of “work” on myself via QEC etc and I think the biggest thing to emerge is that I am being able to more clearly say what I want, when I want and how I want. I am being released from people pleasing, needing to be loved, from needing to complying, from my guilt of my past, etc, etc. Well guess what Rossie felt to call the painting??? “Finding Your Voice”
Finding Your Voice is often used in writing as in finding your writing style. But as I gaze at this painting I know it is more than just that. It is being able to know that the still small voice of your heart is clear, is you, is safe, can be trusted. It is knowing that the voice you hear is clear and true. It is hearing it within the clutter of shoulds and oughts and conditioning.
Over the past few years I have been finding that true heart voice, that voice that is truly me, that voice that can cope with the difference facets of myself without fear or criticism. Interestingly too as I’ve found my own voice I have been able to decorate my study as I like it, put in bits and pieces that I like, turn my desk so I’m looking out at the world rather than at a wall, added a comfy chair, a floor cushion, coverings, etc that I would not put in a shared room in the house. As I have found my voice so I have also found my space. I think too I’ve found my space within the wider world too without having to push myself to fit in with a clique.
So this painting is not just a something from a bucket list I didn’t have but it is something that says something about my journey. It has also come just as I was ready for it.
Unfortunately the photos do not do it justice. I messaged Rossie and told her that it is like trying to photograph a feeling. It doesn’t quite work, doesn’t convey what it says to me.
Please do check out more of my lovely friend’s painting as www.rossiehb.art and on social media on @rossiehb.art
And even the dog’s floor cushion matches the decor. The cushion is from Gill’s cushions, who is also someone I know. I’m slowly filling my space with personal things!
Llyn Idwal approach photographed by myself July 2023. Not related to the post really but just a beautiful waterfall in North Wales
I submit to nycmidnight.com competitions regularly. They aren’t cheap to enter but each piece of work submitted is critiqued by three different people whether you get placed in the competition or not. But much as I loved doing this and would read the critiquing very rarely did I do anything with it until this time.
Here is the piece in the origin and then with my revisions. It’s never too late for revenge. Maybe it was because I was a runner up this time I did something with it.
Anyway this got me thinking about life etc. How often do we put ourselves out there to ask for advise, for support, for how to do something better, and then don’t do something with it? Even if we get unsolicited advice how often do we ignore that? I was even pondering on the times we’ve gone for paid counseling, paid life coaching, paid gym membership, etc, etc and then ignore the instructions, directions, suggestions. It may not be for you but it is definitely loads and loads for me.
Why?
Well with the writing I know it was because it takes time. It means going back and redoing rather than just producing more writing. A new project is more fun than looking over an old project and finding what could be improved.
I have to say with myself the more I’ve done work with QEC the more I’ve been able to listen to others, to not get hurt when I hear advise that I am not sure I like. I was chatting with my QEC practitioner about this and she thought it was that as we deal with the issues from our childhood that it is easier to listen to others and weigh up what we need to change, need to alter, need to think about, whereas with all those layers of childhood survival techniques in place we could fully hear/feel/know. As opposed to either thinking we should do all that we are told or nothing.
I’ve had an incident at work where I know that my old gut reaction would one of the following; to leave because why should I stay if they don’t value me; be super super nice and people pleasing so they wouldn’t sack me; spend loads of time feeling awful that I did that and beating myself up about it; and maybe even thinking “how dare they speak to me when I am older than they are?”. Instead I listened to what my manager said, saw my errors, said sorry, we were also able to talk about how it wasn’t totally my fault and that there were things needed ironing out in this area. Together we have been able to put together a plan that works for who I am and the situation. I feel fine about going to work and have not spent the weekend stressing about it. In fact it has only come back into my mind when I was thinking through how I could share my flash fiction writing within a blog.
I’ve been able to listen clearly because a lot of the rubbish that I didn’t even know was there has been cleared away. Maybe though it is also why I was able to read the comments about my flash fiction and see which ones I wanted to take and which ones I did not find helpful. I was even able to put this in the feedback NYCMidnight asked for about the comments.
So I think it is not that we don’t want to take the advice given, or feel we have to do everything we were told. We do but we have so many issues from our past that cause our nervous system to kick in that we don’t fully hear. So my advise to myself is to think about why I get uptight when someone gives me advice, whether unsolicited or asked for, really listen to my heart [that again], see what has made me either fight, flight, fawn or freeze, and get rid of that bug in my system.
Then I can change what I really know needs changing but also not get hurt is someone has misread me totally and doesn’t “see who I truly am”. [That feels like a title for another blog piece soon 🙂
Aspirational Adventures 