With renewed clarity, I find I can see the path that led into many years of chronic pain...and the way out of it. Sharing some bullet-point thoughts on this topic, to help and inspire you, for the start of this potential-filled new year.
It's been a while since I wrote about Myers Briggs personality types though the method remains one of the most consistently useful tools I have ever used to come to deeply understand myself. Yesterday, I happened upon a particular foible of each personality type called a “grip stress" state, something I had never come across … Continue reading INFJ “Grip Stress” sheds light on lasting trauma and chronic pain
If recovery from chronic illness is like a long-running detective story, with us as its protagonist, this year has felt like one of those chapters that make sense of quite a few things in a series of "a-ha" moments. And though what I have learned in quick succession may very-well have overwhelmed me, it has also enlightened me as in TO LIGHT ME UP with a new degree of self-appreciation and awareness, also clarity as to how certain root circumstances click together to make chronic illness what it is.
When we subscribe to the belief that we are ugly compared to others, especially when it is delivered to us by other people (and it can be very subtle, but it all comes from the same place of power-play…). it is all one very manipulative case of “smoke and mirrors”. We are being duped…and it makes us into targets for more of the same. When I fell for those lies, I manifested it, and now I don’t, it’s not even a factor in my life. Rather, it’s been a tender plunge into the most supportive relationship I could ever imagine, to love and appreciate all my unique qualities and stand up for them, in all their differences and similarities; a whole mixed bag of traits that makes me who I am. This is as it is meant to be, in spite of the prevailing culture that tries to dictate “conform at all costs”, as is so loudly delivered through life’s tannoy by mainstream media.
Exploring the extreme softness that offers increased strength, increased resilience, increased GROWTH...as long as we don't rush to label it!
Sometimes we all need a little faith in ourselves, and the gentle push of momentum, to realise we can be our own rescue party. Exploring the extraordinary power of momentum in the journey of self-healing and becoming more whole.
How do we know the difference between when our intuition is speaking to us or when our self-sabotaging fears are stopping us in our tracks? This is an essential lifeskill for self-care and guidance when we venture back into life's busy fray...
A magical thing happens when we get even close to wholeness; we feel an updraft, as it were, lifting us up to a new level of experience and we become the spiral that breaks us out of the tedium of circles. Suddenly, we are viewing things from a more advantageous perspective than before and everything seems clearer, crisper and more vibrant, somehow. Without having to "solve" anything, we make better sense of some of the chaos that once bewildered us and we love ourselves more completely, less conditionally, than ever before. We can tell when we are getting there as we feel the joy build in our heart and the excitement in our gut; life starts to feel appealing again, even with all its difficulties. Its as though nothing has changed yet everything has. Its fascinating how better health almost always comes in this feeling's wake; as soon as we surrender to the not-knowing part of how we got there, since this is not to do with "figuring anything out"...(cont. reading).
Introversion is a topic very close to my own heart, as I've written about before, especially at the end of a year in which I have finally owned my very own version of it, with more than a small sigh of whole-body relief. In fact, its been one of my crowning glories of 2017 to achieve this degree of self-acceptance and, yes, appreciation, understanding and respect, at last; which comes with huge health benefits. Having just realised that I have now spent twelve continuous years being home-based with almost no regular people-contact outside of immediate family members and, prior to the two years in an office that led to that, a further nine years running a small business from home, I am forced to admit that twenty-one years of near solitude marks a defining trait more so than an accident. Yet it is incredibly hard to explain such a preference or, rather, need to others; especially when you can be as sociable and, yes, fun-loving and conversational as the next person on the rare times that you go anywhere. So as I start to visualise a year of "getting out there" somewhat more than I have for a while, in 2018 (on my own terms), I feel it is just as important to extoll the positives of introversion and to help others understand that it is a valid and powerful way to be, not an illness or problem to be solved.
When we focus on doing exactly what we are capable of doing, right here and right now, we let go of the self-torture of "oughts" and "have to"s and we become more compassionate towards everyone else, too. Its the ultimate couldron of creation to act out of what is available to you right here and now...not some projection that has you over-reaching yourself until you topple over. On so many levels, its the ultimate self-loving act.
Living whole 