The set up
It is an early August Monday evening and I have just poured myself a nice glass of whisky to go with my favourite M&S Dark Chocolate with Clementine. Music from the 60s and 70s is in the background and there is a bit of a maudlin mood at the start of the week. As much as I am trying not to get affected by the rather poor rainy summer weather we are experiencing this year, and practice all these motivational quotes that I come across in abundance on social media about positive thinking, warm heart and soul despite adverse times, etc., I’m experiencing a pure and simple Monday blues feeling.
My remedy this evening to cure my Monday blues is my beloved blog writing accompanied by the whisky, chocolate and music. Above all music because as you may well know, and I am happy to remind you for one more time, is at the back of my mind constantly, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. I am married to her for life. The minute it stops playing at the back of my mind it will be a serious matter.
Normally when I start a blog, I have pretty much sketched in my mind the content and when I start typing, the sketching takes a full form with the words that I put together to compile it. Today though I am not following exactly this process. There is just a light idea which started on my mind the other day during my morning walk and I have no clue where the writing will take me. The idea stemmed from my acknowledgement that changes are happening to me as a person. They have occured as a consequence of buying my first home, changing jobs and of all of the events that have happened in the last two years leading up to these changes.
Not just a physical change
It all begun, as I was walking the other morning with my new fast pace which I call super power walk – this is my alternative to running at the Heath and my way of training to build up my energy levels – instead of concentrating on the Times Radio morning news, I found myself musing about what I think is a personal discovery journey about who I am. These musings took me quite by surprise and made me stand still on my ground. If one was to use a metaphor about life being a “hybrid car”, all along in the last two years of my life, I have been driving my life’s “hybrid car” in autopilot mode. By autopilot mode I mean that, I have tackled each and every change that has come along in a practical and operational mode allowing myself little or no space for thinking about how these events and experiences have affected me or may have shaped me.
It shouldn’t really surprise me though that, as so many physical changes have taken place and things look like they are settling in one way or the other, it is only just now that space is created for me to reflect of how I have been affected by them. How a different version of myself is surfacing along with some truths about me that were there but which I have never been able to pinpoint or accept them.
Personal discovery journey
So, for the last month or so, I’ve embarked on this new mental walking pathway of what I consider to be my personal discovery journey. A journey that started from my need to give an explanation of some of my behaviours which can no longer continue to go on. Behaviours which make me not recognise myself sometimes. Behaviours which make me feel unhappy and in doubt of whether my actions and thinking are in the right direction. Behaviours which make me question what is a right direction, how can I recognise it and how can I ensure that my inner compass is set on the exact and accurate spot that it needs to be so that I follow the right direction.
This journey started without knowing where it will take me and it is still very much in progress. I believe that I embarked on it without even realising that I needed to walk through it. That is because I was so concentrated on getting through and making the physical changes happen that I ignored looking at the consequences of the emotional ones that were forming in the background.
New truths
There have been some strong milestones that I have reached in this journey, but which came with the price of acquiring new knowledge that hasn’t been easy to process and accept. One of these milestones happened on a recent evening, when out of the blue I shared with a friend my earthquake-surviving experience in so much detail and depth as I’ve never done before since it happened. I relived the facts of what I went through that day almost minute by minute, finally coming to terms with the realisation of what a big achievement it is to have survived and be standing here today as a grown woman. I don’t even know how it came about after all these years and how it just took the courage of one evening to open up and offload what was kept up inside me for such a long time.
The new truth that came about from this vivid recollection of the events from that September day back in 1999, was that it has not done me any justice to have kept this experience to myself for so many years because of my fear of sharing its gory details with someone. My fear that they would not understand it or that they would feel pity for me, is deeply unfounded and far from reality. And it so happens that this deep offloading of emotional baggage that I have been carrying on my shoulders for over twenty years, was followed by a lot of crying and flash backs of details from that day which seemed to have been hidden at the back of mind. Luckily though after a couple of days of going through this, my heart and mind felt lighter and I accepted this new change in my thinking about this survival.
Another new truth that was revealed to me consequently, was that after such an extraordinary experience, I am by no means just an ordinary person who should seek recognition and acceptance through work or personal achievements. With such a significant survival experience comes a great impact which has given me tons of strength and resilience that if deployed when required they are the perfect tools that I need to improve my behaviours.
As a domino effect of the above, there have been quite a few other difficult truths that I am discovering that are not easy to share at the moment nor perhaps necessary. What is important to share is that each new truth that is unearthed brings about a small fear of what happens now that I know. How do I use the newly found information? How do I process it in a way that it ends up being the right spot on the compass? How do I accept it as a change rather than a rebellion against everything and anything?
Rebellion is a sexy word that is associated with a sense of empowerment, fighting spirit and energy but somewhere in it, it includes an element of anger, resistance to authority, leaders and the normal flow of things. And since anger can fire unpleasant fireworks that end up bringing the wrong results, it is much better to refer to what I am experiencing as a re-invention and exploration of newly found knowledge or even experimentation of new theories and truths. Re-invention, exploration and experimentation are such positive notions and more likely to lead to a brighter mental walking adventure. Rebellion and pirates can be exotic and exciting but perhaps not suited for me and my gentle butterfly alter ego that follows me.
The conclusion
I don’t know how near or far to the end of this personal discovery journey I am. It probably is for the best because this way I can keep an open mind and keep searching for the clues that will lead me to the end of it. Even while I am writing these words the thought that comes to my mind is that although I may feel that as adults our personality and character is pretty much formed and settled, in reality we are changing constantly, everyday that we exist. Whether this is true for all adults or for only those who cannot stand still, I leave this to you reader to make your own conclusion. If this constant change though does take place, then my journey is neither near nor far.
Walks and Smiles 