by Lucretia | Jul 30, 2016 | Bad behaviour, create your life, Fear |
Do you remember that scene from the Wizard of Oz with the flying monkeys? I can’t remember all the details but I do remember the absolute terror they created within me. I still can’t watch that movie as an adult for the same reason. If I was to put an image with my feelings of fear about something, I’d have to say those flying monkeys epitomise what it looks like. Fear is an ever-present resident in my psyche and can serve as a both a catalyst for positive change and an epic destructor of what could be possible in my life. I am as familiar as anyone with its capacity to help create and decimate.
The adrenalin of facing fear and ‘doing it anyway’ has helped me take massive steps forward in my life. Standing in front of my first-ever class of university students four years ago, I was overflowing with fear.
‘What if I say the wrong thing? What if I’m a terrible tutor? I just want to get this right!!!’ My internal voice of fear screamed hysterically.
But I was determined to face the fear and ‘do it anyway’. Nowadays, when asked about my teaching, I say it is one of the most enjoyable and relaxing parts of my life where I get to help people on their path. Imagine if I’d let my fear vanquish my desire to teach? I would never have met all the amazing students I’ve had the honour to work with.
I haven’t always been quite so successful at facing down the flying monkeys. Recently, I found myself in a situation that pushed all my boundaries and insecurities, and fear had a field day. It was like the closet door swung open so violently it almost ripped off the hinges and a horde of flying monkeys poured forth and kept coming until the sky was darkened and the light was almost gone. All those fears I thought I’d dealt with or buried came out to play their vicious games in my present.
It was awful and, as I felt myself in the grip of those monkeys’ claws, my behaviour deteriorated. I was not my best self in the situation and afterwards I felt so very ashamed because I hurt not only me but also someone I cared about.
Mortified and yes, shocked at myself, I slunk away to lick my wounds and regroup.
As I reflected on the situation and sought the counsel of some wise friends over the following days, I came to some realisations about what had happened and the role of fear in my life in general.
Firstly, and quite obviously, fear had taken over my mind that day and I needed to take a good look at all the emotions and memories it had flung into the present. Then I needed to make peace with them and let them go. I needed to acknowledge that while they had taught me a lot, they had no place in present day or in the current situation.
Secondly, I needed to recognise that while the other person’s behaviour had upset me, it wasn’t their fault they had triggered my fears. My response to the situation was my responsibility and, if I’d responded in another way, things might have been resolved a lot more easily and calmly. That’s the ‘downside’ of self-development because invariably and inevitably you have to take ownership of your own role in life rather than place the blame at the feet of someone else.
Thirdly, I owed the person involved a huge and unequivocal apology (which I communicated as soon as possible).
And finally, I understood something fundamental about fear itself. You see, we all have fears and sometimes situations and the behaviours of others are going to trigger those fears in a big way because at those moments you’re being pushed to take a great leap forward in understanding yourself. And you’re also being asked to recognise and release the fears that have been holding you back from where you could be. That place you ‘could be’ is your present where amazing things are right in front of you if only you choose to claim them. But in doing so you must leave the fears of the past behind; you cannot take them with you. It’s by recognising your fears then choosing to let them go that you can create something magical. If you let them take over, you are simply allowing them to decimate what is possible.
Above all, as one wise friend put it, the most important thing to remember when fear rises is, ‘They’re just flying monkeys’.
by Lucretia | Jul 26, 2016 | Being present, create your life, Emotional, empowerment, health, self development, self discovery, Self esteem, Sense of self |
When the idea for this blog arose a couple of days ago, I felt a bit tentative about it. Anxiety, and its loathsome sidekick depression, are sensitive issues and experiencing them, or witnessing someone we care about in depths of these rampant destructors, is traumatic, soul-destroying and deeply personal.
Nevertheless, after reading the thoughts of Chris Nicholas in his blog about mental illness and the need for us to do more (see Introspection and Loss), I felt compelled to share my story in the hope that perhaps, by sharing my own experiences, it might help one another person to navigate their own journey more safely and easily.
Anxiety was my very frequent and unwelcome companion throughout high school. It stalked me at every turn and manifested in a unique propensity to cry at the drop of a hat. I cried all the time. Whenever I was faced with new experiences I usually felt overwhelmed and the tears would start. Fear would turn on the taps and the salt water would pour forth. I can remember starting my first ever clarinet lesson in Grade 8 and crying because I felt so out of my depth. I had barely started and the newness of the experience and the unfamiliarity of the teacher was all too much. I lasted three lessons then never returned.
By Grade 12 I was crying less but inside I was still a mess. I was the lead in the school musical, secretary of the student council and had a diverse and large group of friends. But in my room at night I struggled and often felt like I was climbing the walls. My parents had done their best to get me help over the years with counselors but none of it seemed to work and I guess, as a highly-strung and chronic perfectionist, I became good at hiding my inner torment. On the outside I was an above-average, successful student. On the inside I was a basket-case.
By 23, I was on anti-depressants. Over the following 10 years I’d regularly visit a psychiatrist and numerous counselors as I sought to vanquish my anxious and depressive demons. The demons wreaked havoc in my gut and the medication messed with my weight. But every time I eased back or off the medication entirely, the symptoms would return within months. However, throughout all this time, I was a success on the surface with a good husband and a growing public relations career. I was also a highly judgmental young woman and had a view of the world that was strictly black and white. It wasn’t until much later that I’d realise those harsh judgements of others were the direct result of my own cruel judgement of myself.
Fortunately for me, life began to change in my early 30s and it was this shift that would ultimately help me force that anxiety and occasional depression back into the box where they belonged. Looking back now, I can put these changes down to a journey where I would finally uncover my self-worth and ultimately become a far more grounded human being.
Like a lot of people, I’d never really been shown how to value myself and trust my own judgement first, above all others. As young people we seek the advice of those older than us and, if we are insecure (like I was), we will often think others (even our peers) know best or more than us because we have no faith in ourselves whatsoever. Self-reliance and encouragement to go within for our answers is not frequently taught. Perhaps this is because it would encourage a little too much free-thinking in certain situations and this would disruptive?
Taking steps to connect more fully to who I am, and valuing myself and my capacity to make good decisions for me, has been an integral part in managing my anxiety and depression. But it’s not the full story.
The second component has involved learning to live in my head less and in my heart and body more. As a strongly energetic being (a psychic channel, no less), I am susceptible to picking up the energies of other people. This coupled with a mind that is strongly molded in the Western traditions of rationality and logic, has created numerous conflicts within me. My mind wants to reason everything through and weigh everything up (I am a Libran after all) while my intuitive self and my heart know there is often a very good reason to turn down reason and instead listen to the messages the Universe sends to help me on my journey. In hindsight, I wonder how often I was picking up the energies of others while I was growing up without knowing it. I also wonder if this fed my anxiety and twisted my mind into finding ways to reason through emotions, impressions and my own responses that simply had no rational cause.
Living in your head all the time also means you’re frequently not feeling connected to your body and that equals ungroundedness – a feeling of not being connected to the earth and not being present in the moment. It’s taken me a very long time to know what being grounded feels like and it’s an ongoing practice that I’m still seeking to perfect. But, I have to tell you, being grounded makes managing myself and the daily stresses of life a whole lot easier.
Thankfully, I left the anti-depressants behind in my early 30s. And these days I manage my rare bouts of anxiety with strategies ranging from acupuncture to meditation, exercise and natural remedies. Occasionally I will also see a counselor to talk through and release the thoughts scurrying through my mind.
Will I need medication again in the future? Who knows. If life throws me some unforeseen, painful or traumatic event then maybe I will. And that will okay too.
Do I think my process is a magical cure for everyone. No. I don’t. Everyone’s body is different and some people may always need medical assistance to manage their anxiety and depression. Others may take medication for a while, get better for a while, then regress. That’s the sometimes unpredictable nature of mental health and for everyone it is a unique and very personal journey.
However, I firmly believe that my lack of self-worth and being ungrounded were strong contributors to my personal experiences of anxiety and depression. I also believe that people are happier and more balanced if they are strongly connected to their inner selves, have strong self-worth and are grounded in their bodies.
Perhaps if we can teach our young people how to access these feelings and connections they will be less stressed-out and able to live their individual purpose on this planet with more ease and grace. And if my story can help just one other teenager avoid my less than ideal experiences, then that would be a true blessing indeed.
by Lucretia | Jul 21, 2016 | break ups, create your life, empowerment |
Like most people I have my own cache of emotional baggage. By the age of 43, it’s pretty hard to have avoided experiencing emotional knocks, disappointments and other occasionally negative incidents in relationships. And of course, my heart and mind remembers these things as I move forward in my life.
I’ve often talked about trying to check my emotional baggage at the door when entering a new relationship because surely a new connection with someone doesn’t need to be bashed around the head with the disappointments of relationships past. But today I saw a short film on gaia.com that made me rethink this mindset.
I subscribe to Gaia for their daily yoga videos and this morning I found myself clicking on a different link entitled Baggage. During the film, people lined up at an airport check-in desk to check their baggage and leave it behind. Characters were checking their anger, resentment and all the memories and experiences born out of their past relationships.
But one character had returned to claim his baggage. He’d realised that his recent break-up was caused because he never really offered his partner anything in return. His checked baggage left him like a blank page with no experience or depth.
The idea that our baggage could also serve a constructive purpose took by surprise. After all, aren’t we supposed to leave all that stuff behind and simply move on? Isn’t that what wise people tell us?
Perhaps it’s not as simple as we’ve been told.
Everything in our past has shaped and influenced us. Those experiences have helped to create who we are now, right in this minute. They have taught us love, strength and compassion, and helped us define our boundaries (or where they should have been). In my experience, it is the seemingly negative experiences that have taught me more about myself, who I wish to be and what I wish to create than anything else.
I still believe you should be conscious of how your baggage influences your interactions in the present. And, if it is impacting negatively on your current relationships, then you should look at it with a keen eye, see it for what it is, then make different choices to achieve a different outcome this time round.
But this short film has also made me realise that my baggage doesn’t need to be checked because it has also made me a more interesting person. Life experience, positive or negative, is something you should carry forward because it brings with it a plethora of awarenesses about yourself and your interactions on this planet.
My emotional baggage has helped to create me. But it does not define me.
by Lucretia | Jul 15, 2016 | Being present, create your life |
I am a classic over-thinker. I can’t say it’s a gift exactly but it is definitely a strength of mine. The ability to run scenarios through my head about what could happen, when things might happen and how I can contrive for things to occur when I want them to has, until recently, been a regular activity.
I’m well aware that I’m not alone in this propensity. As I chat to friends it is obvious that many of us suffer from the same affliction.
But you will note that I’ve said ‘until recently’ and yes, the truth is I’ve begun to wrestle in earnest with my over-thinking and, in some situations, I’m surprising myself with success. Instead of wearying my brain with numerous options, I am practising the enemy of over-thinking. That is, I am being present.
Being present is a glorious alternative to over-thinking but needs constant practice. It also requires you to keep a strict vigilance on your mind because, if you’re like me, your mind loves to over-think. I would even say we’re bred for it. For example, take a look at how we need to consume information today. Facebook, Instagram, emails, Google, What’s app, Viber. Every corner we turn there is more information to be accessed and it’s a bombardment. Log in to Facebook and before you know it, you’ve lost three hours scrolling through a news feed featuring information you’ve absorbed but can’t remember.
Add this to the common expectation that we all need to know what we’re doing, where we’re going and our need to ‘have it all together’ and our minds go into over-drive. Seriously, it’s insane what we do in our minds every single day.
We forget that no one really knows what they’re doing. Most of us are making it up as we go along. But somewhere within our cultural conditioning we’re taught that we need to plan and control everything in our lives. We’re taught that we should ‘know’ what we’re doing. But we don’t so we keep coming up short and that just makes us think more about what we’re not doing or should be doing and how we can fix it.
All of this is exhausting and, if you look at it more objectively, it’s kind of ridiculous. It’s like when someone says to me they have a strict five-year plan for how their life is going to work out and I think to myself, ‘Well honey, by all means put a rough structure around it but you actually don’t know what life is going to throw at you tomorrow so be prepared to be flexible.’
The truth is, the only thing we can control is what we do right now, right in this minute. Everything else is in the hands of the Universe and aligns with a plan we know nothing about. So over-thinking it is (how do I put this kindly), not overly helpful.
As I mentioned earlier, the solution is the practice of being present and it’s a challenge for almost everyone. It is the practice of consciously stepping back from the information channels that litter our lives and choosing instead to move to an inwardly focused place of calm. Of course, to get to the calm you must first face down the thoughts that tell you that you must be doing something, fixing something or learning something right now. You must say to your mind, ‘Thank you. I appreciate you are doing what you think is best but it’s really not helping. For now I am going to focus on the now and being present.’
Your mind won’t like it when you start this practice. It will do it’s very best to distract and draw you back to those multiple information channels where your attention is surely immediately needed. It will tell you that if you think about things a little more then you will work everything out and create neat order in your life. But I encourage you to resist its badgering and persevere with your intention to be present because what will happen is really something quite magical.
You will slow down, feel calmer and better able to manage your life. You will also become more accepting of yourself and reduce self-judgement as you begin to realise there is less need to hurry and a greater need to be still. And through this practice you will find the answers to your questions often come more quickly because they don’t need to fight through the noise your mind has been making. You will also feel a lesser need to control everything and become more accepting of the flow of your life.
I promise you, it is possible for this to happen. But it is a practice and you will occasionally slip back into your over-thinking. Lord knows, I do. However, I’m encouraged by my own attempts to be consciously present because they are helping me to navigate relationships and my life so much more effectively. Instead of worrying about what might happen, I am going with the flow more often and with my over-thinking tendencies, this is truly one of the greatest gifts I could give myself.
So, if you’re ready to throw off the curse of the over-thinker, find a way to consciously step back from the information bombardment, and let go of trying know all the answers and control every outcome. Find a way to be present and kindly but firmly tell your mind to rest for a while. I promise you it will be worth it.
by Lucretia | Jul 13, 2016 | Cool People I Know, create your life, follow your dreams, Inspiration |
Guest post by Ellie Chadwick for the #coolpeopleIknow series.
One thing you’ve got to know about me is that I’m an over-doer, or I used to be. During my time at uni I was the vice-president then the president of a club, I signed up for a few programmes including Business Advantage and Leadership, Development and Innovation (LDI) from which I gained a new volunteer role with Volunteering Qld designing social media graphics and assisting with event promotion. I was also a full-time volunteer state manager with a youth based non-government organisation tackling extreme poverty and I had a part-time job as the general manager’s assistant at a hotel in the city. During my summer breaks I traveled, mostly for volunteer work in Cambodia, first as a participant and then as a leader. Now not all of these ran smoothly for me and on a daily basis I would run into problems where I’d have to deal with a work issue during a lecture, or a volunteer issue at work and so forth. At the time I thought being busy was a sign of success and I always wondered why I had no time for things like drawing or going to the beach. I definitely took on too many responsibilities and didn’t focus on achieving one stepping stone at a time. The biggest lesson I learnt was quality over quantity and learning when to say no.
After I graduated I traveled to the Mediterranean and the United Kingdom. I actually skipped my graduation ceremony because it wasn’t about receiving that piece of paper, it was the experiences I had during that time and the person I grew into which I found most valuable. I’m not perfect, I’m still working on being a better sister, daughter and friend and I also know I have a lifelong journey of learning ahead of me. But I’ve found travelling has made me a part of the world not just the town I grew up in; I’ve met and learnt from people, history and culture and learnt new things about myself.
Returning home was difficult because I was back to reality. After having the job at the hotel and seeing my more mature co-workers stressed and complaining about their jobs, I decided not to apply for any but start my own instead. I applied for an ABN and became my own boss just like that, providing graphic design and communication services to small businesses and social enterprises in Australia from my van. Yes, that’s right, my van. The idea came to me after meeting my boyfriend. As a musician he travels a lot for gigs and I enjoy travelling, change and I had no idea where I wanted to base myself. So now I live in a van, travel Australia and freelance for work. It’s great because I’m combining all my passions into one, including my passion for being a global citizen leading a low-impact life, buying Fairtrade and organic, travelling and exercising my creativity through photography and design.
I got so fed up with consumerism especially fast fashion trends and people believing they needed the newest products. I have a keen interest in organic and sustainable living, using natural remedies over artificial and harmful chemicals, and creating less waste. I’m still to try dumpster diving but I truly believe we consume and waste too much so I want to be part of a counter culture which goes back to basics. I’ve always had a thrift mindset, limiting the amount of plastic I use and re-using, upcycling and fixing my possessions. So I cleaned out my bedroom and kept only what I truly needed: clothes, toiletries, laptop, camera and kitchenware. You’ll be able to find all the things I own in one place, my van.
My van has a duel battery system with two solar panels which run the fridge, pump for the tap (you don’t realise how important running water is until you don’t have it), lights, fan, a USB plug, lighter plug and an inverter to charge my laptop and camera battery. It’s fitted with a queen size bed, pantry, plenty of storage and a pull-out table.
So far I’ve travelled extensively around Tasmania and Victoria as well as visiting Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane multiple times. Along the way I take photos and notes about the towns and natural wonders for my own travel blog, Girl vs Van. My focus is on van travellers providing tips about living or temporarily traveling on the road and travel tips and insights about Australia’s beauty.
Living on the road is no picnic all of the time. There’s limited cooking facilities which means we eat a lot of one-bowl meals like rice, pasta, wraps and canned foods but I see it as a challenge to create yummy food with one saucepan. Also I’ve learnt a lot about how the van works because clocking up those kilometres requires a lot of tending to the engine and wheels. On rainy days there’s not a lot of options for activities apart from reading on the bed or retreating to a café. Another weakness of ours is to visit the local café for a coffee that turns into breakfast some mornings while trying not to spend over the weekly budget. The cost of living on the road is reasonably cheap compared to renting although luxuries such as a bathroom are exempt. To compensate for this we stay in free campgrounds and make friends who willingly invite us to their homes to share their company and utilities. I don’t feel like I miss out on anything instead I feel it’s more liberating to make do with limited stuff and it encourages more creativity for problem solving.
In the near future I’ll be travelling up the entire east coast aiming to reach Cairns by the end of August and have a wealth of content to write about. Eventually I’ll make my way around the country, a few times probably. I need to maintain my communication business to be able to live this life. I don’t miss being busy at all, I have found contentment in taking life slow and enjoying the simple things. With time on my hands, I get to work on my own designs and artworks which I had no time for while at uni. I sometimes miss having friends nearby but I enjoy meeting new people and seeing new sights. Living in a van is a challenge but it comes with complete freedom to go anywhere and it creates a sense of blissfulness that I love.
Ellie Chadwick is a freelance graphic designer, writer and amateur photographer born in Tasmania. With a BA Mass Comm (Med, Com & PR) she started her own Communications business focusing on graphic design and copywriting. She lives a minimalist life in a solar powered van writing a travel blog, Girl vs Van to help others explore the best of Australia.
