Trying to stay positive

Trying to nurture a positive view of life is so important.. it is made much harder when we meet with unkindness or lack of empathy, if we dont get that support to know how we feel and feel okay to feel it, it can feel impossible to be positive…

I just listened to an interview with a psychologist on grief and complicated grief around Covid. The interviewer was asking when grief becomes a mental illness, my belief is when we are not helped to express it and understand, when we are given no support to express, rather than suppress or de-press it. It was certainly this way for me after Dad died and even after my older sister left at 3… there were a lot of losses that went on for me even before that, the loss of having a means to express and be assisted to move out and through really impacted on me negatively.. And in a way, the smash up I sustained at 17 in 1979 in which I was trapped in the car, pierced by metal and lost my front teeth, was like a profound metaphor for being boxed in and crushed.

Last night as I struggled to breathe after waking two or three times it occurred to me how important breathing is to emotional expression and vice versa.. In trauma or stress we tend to freeze up raise our shoulders pull ourselves out of our natural relaxed belly breath and this then begins to become a habit we are not even conscious of..We can also have this reaction when someone react in a disparaging or adverse way to our valid expession of grief (even if it comes out as anger.) In addition, shocks or arrests of having feeling thwarted or actively blocked remain frozen or stored up as vibrational charge inside of us, I am sure this kind of stored shock energy is part of why people end up with neurological disorders and things like Parkinson’s disease in later life.

Today I heard from Scott again as I do every Tuesday morning.. they are tied up with protecting the civilian population in Nigera over Sunday and so I dont hear from him until his Monday night.. Today I actually avoided the first message, but this made me sad when we finally got to talk. All he ever talks about is loving me, missing me and longing to be together but that rests on the final balance of his Security Clearance Certificate being paid and at this point I need my own money for my life even though I know I will be repaid when he finally gets free. I told him today that as an adult I try not to long for or miss him too much, I don’t want to feel sad, I don’t want to feel deprived, I truly (for the good of my own physical, mental and emotional self) what to be grateful for WHAT I DO HAVE WHILE BEING AN ADULT AND WORKING TO MAKE MY LIFE MORE PRODUCTIVE MEANINGFUL AND HAPPY WITH POWER TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN WHILE LETTING GO OF WHAT IS OUTSIDE OF MY CONTROL. Never the less I sat on the side of the bed praying and crying a moment ago about it all. Three years on deployment just feels too long but is not in my control. I do long for us to meet but he will have to go to the States first anyway and at this point Australia is not even allowing residents home from overseas.

On a brighter note, I organised to meet a good friend this morning and am looking forward to that.. I put no pressure on myself to walk Jasper, he is snoring beside me while I write this post.. I had a talk to him about taking him out but he didn’t seem that interested tbh (thanks buddy for taking the pressure off me to do it all, I can write this blog instead).I groomed his long fur and got a few burs out of the copious hair around his butterfly spaniel ears..

Today is a good day.. I have enough.. I am blessed. I do not have to lose myself in longing for what is not present here right now.. And I can cry. I can even recognise after hearing the interview that my unresolved grief over so much did turn into a kind of mental illness in my life for a long time.. I withdrew, I lost faith and trust, I isolated, but all along the way I also stayed sober (at least after the age of 31) and I kept looking for a place to feel and heal. Luckily I found that with Kat in therapy… so I feel grateful she is there and also for my blog and all the lovely souls here who also try to stay positive and deal with the manifold things life throws at them while sharing their own grief.. I love you lots… .. The truth is we are not so very different and WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.. SO I HOPE TO SHARE THE HOPE AND JOY AND BLESSINGS WITH YOU ALL TODAY…..HAVE A BLESSED TUESDAY WHERE EVER YOU ARE IN THE WORLD. MAY TODAY BRING YOU GOOD THINGS.