Tag: Writing

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Leave That Shit Behind

kimberleen

I just wrote a wee post on instagram about this. As I actually considered the future of this blog. I was so committed at the beginng of this year to staying on top of everything when a few months ago I had to allow my work schedule to collapse for my own mental health it was a bit wild. As I sit here writing this I still have to evaluate exactly how it it is that my mental and emotional health can so easily eclipse my productivity. That even though I am a ‘trauma specialist’ or even a ‘trauma doula’ I still get caught up in some pretty destructive life cycles. Which in all seriousness will take several books to explain and that you probably deserve to read.

One thing that I can absolutely assure you of is that I have had a very interesting life. I’m also incredibly proud of that fact too. In the run up to this year’s winter solstice (in the southern hemisphere) is that the unconscious shadow has a huge influence on our lives (no shit sherlock). I know it hardly news is it. It’s also funny as I move through life how many terms I find for the same thing. I mean the unconscious shadow it’s literally the subconscious right? That means that we are unconscious of what is lurking in our psychic field. Depending on how aware we are of our own preferences, behaviours and beliefs we ,can also hold a lot of postive stuff in the subconscious too. You know like, the things we like to do when we aren’t being forced to work in shitty jobs. Or even better the things that bring us joy. Many of us have been entrained to believe that the things that we like, hold no value. It simply isn’t true. If it’s of value to you it is something that you should strive to create more of. The unconscious shadow is the unknown fear that drives you and I’m beginning to learn that it’s a very interesting thing. That the greater our progression through our healing journey the greater our shadow manifests. That actually love and light is a toxic deafening of some of our very real concerns. Unless we learn to listen to ourselves deeply we often repress and project what we feel unconsciously out into the world. That we attract the shadow to ourselves to be continually healed.

What I appreciate now is that much of what I have been trying to write about from my past life is old news for me now. It isn’t keeping me inspired even if it is crucial to what I want to teach. So how is it that my motivation collapsed and my anxiety exploded? When it’s simply a matter of getting shit down. I think it was the idea of having to revisit the same old shit. Of course I’m not meant to say that. It’s like saying what I have to offer is shit, boring, old but then again that is only to me. You see it’s taken me years to figure a lot of shit out and we are constantly evolving and groing. We forget how much we have had to learn to get to where we are. So maybe this is an opportuntiy to reflect on how far we’ve come, what I have learned and how much more I have to give rather than bearate myself for having writers block, being bored and stuck.

Just like that my commitment to this blog is back. It’s in writing that I find my solutions. The passion for what I am doing and creating and the clarity as to how I want to move forward. you see sometime I wonder how would it feel to wake up with a clean slate everyday. As I wonder about people who have had full time jobs all there lives, the things that they have been forced to achieve through consistancy and persistence. Sometime I think that these are qualities that I lack. I only have the pressure of my own conscious to keep me going. If I am out of alignment, have lost my inspiration or purpose it is hard to keep going. I often wonder where my writing is leading me. When actually it is always leading me back to my self . That writing gives me the clean slate that I deserve. That it cleans up the mess of my mind, You see to express somethign fully is a form of trauma healing. Writing is a way to be heard when nobody else is listening. Which leads me to another story.

This article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude.

If you enjoyed reading this article I would be delighted if you can buy me a ko-fi here.

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JOMO: Joy of Missing Out

kimberleen

IMG-3804It’s another morning in beautiful Cape Town and I’m once again getting my priorities straight.  Do I write the blog first, go for coffee or muse a bit more o what my thought process is for the day? The kettle has just boiled and I’ve managed to slurp some water before what has become my daily caffeine intake. It’s winter here and yet it’s hard to believe that from my Scottish self’s projection. Sunshine pours in the window and the chairs that I painted with gloss yesterday are drying on the balcony. In fact, they are still dry no misty morning dew dripping off of them. It’s been a productive weekend and I’m glad to have the extra public holiday of Youth Day to get even more of my personal inventory done. I feel like I want to push a bit more on the business side of things and then I remember that no one is expecting me to be working, and no one is going to be inconvenienced by not receiving an email or an invoice today. Then I think how nice it will be to have the chairs finished and complete the small dreams that make up a life. That getting too small things done opens up the space for new adventures, even if they’re just in my mind.

The coffee is here and it occurs to me suddenly it must be a public holiday as I have already received a flurry of messages from friends. Which is not normal for a Monday. One to tell me that they are having an especially fun time walking along the Seapoint promenade with the dog they are looking after. The other to remind me that there is a holistic fayre going on in my hood (That I probably should have booked stall at). Some just to say howzit, it seems to be a reminder, that all the spare days that we have are an extra opportunity to connect with the ones that we love.

Personally, I feel still and it reminds me that these days I’m far more into the idea of JOMO than FOMO and what an incredible inner journey I’ve been on. That the peace and stillness of my own home are a sanctuary to me. That writing alone in my bedroom is as much as I need to feel satisfied with life and a day alone is a luxury that few get to delve into the way I often do. Sometimes I wonder if I should be out there doing more and then I remember that each place is powerful if we really take time to breathe in the air and witness the magic that surrounds us. There used to be times in my life when I would wonder what it might be like to live in an apartment in Paris, or taking a commute across London, or sitting on the beach in Rio and even hiking some trail in New Zealand? Then no matter where you are there you are. Witnessing your own magic. Your own unique imprint on the world. In this moment, this space, this time and you know how utterly perfect it all is.

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Storytelling

kimberleen

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Yes it’s me writing in bed, typing an coming to the conclusion that I don’t have any photos from this week I can use to illustrate this post. The picture looked good until I noticed all the dirt being reflected in the screen. Oh well. I suppose I’ll have to clean it tomorrow…….

Somewhere along the line, I decided that I didn’t believe in prescriptive advice . Now I’m not even sure what that means? As if I sit with my clients and dish out to do lists of the 10 best ways to improve your life? Personally, I find top tips tedious. Yes as a coach we are supposed to be action focused. That why I’m a doula instead. Yet so much of the time emotions get in the way. I’ve lived much of my life in my emotions and I’m very grateful for it. Most of us are all chasing those action based solutions in the hope that they will make us feel better. Rather than just opting to feel better. Action based solutions can be important. However, so many of us have climbed that mountain, cycled that hill, ticked that box and found ourselves disappointingly underwhelmed on the attainment of the goal, whatever it might be.

 

It is at this point that I personally realise that my process in writing this blog has changed somewhat. That this blog has become far more about cathartic storytelling that you might realate to rather, than a how-to, can do, information guide.

The thing is I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t tell you the things that I think you might benefit from. Ultimately I’m not you.  I’m more inclined to give you homework rather than say hey this will fix everything.  I’m more likely to ask how did you do it? Tell me your technique? So that I might garner yet more pearls of wisdom to cast them on as some kind of sustainable wisdom basket to be dispensed at leisure. You see is that advice or is everything open source? If you believe in collective consciousness it certainly is.

Of course, there are core tenants to nurturance like drinking water, getting good quality sleep. Though even for the most intelligent human soul these things can seem near impossible. I know I’ve been one. Even now my body, my soul and my ego have arguments and procrastination about water. They can range from don’t buy it, it’s in plastic, Ewwww it’s going to be cold,  I can taste the chlorine to Nah I don’t want to. Queue the draining of all power about 2 days later. At times I even drink coca-cola (from a recyclable container) In the hope that the caffeine and sugar infused concoction will provide my body, brain and soul with the synthetic poison it needs to power on numbed to it’s own sense of its self. This week I’ve actually managed to drink two litres of water consecutively more than one day this week. Which for this year is quite remarkable and yes it is the end of March. Thank you for your restraint. This week too I’ve managed to start exercising again if only for the dopamine hit that I get when I start to beat myself up and then realise I have exercised already. Saving me a lot of time. You see why handing out advice isn’t too snappy? The thing is the wellness map or what I’m now coining emotional environments are malleable. They change with time and with seasons, you are human, you’re not going to feel the same the year your mother dies as you did the year before. Rites of passage are real and as we go through them, we change. Certainty, comfort and routine are often blasted away and replaced with very different realities.

As I move through this process of writing for what is supposed to be an ‘audience’ I’m grateful to ever deepen the connection that I have with myself through writing and I hope that it brings something to you.

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Imagine

kimberleen

IMG-0839So here it is. I have made it to the end of my personal working year. The end of the working year is a strange idea when you are in the wellness business. My personal work is my business, so although I may be powering towards writing the last few words of this post trying to put into perspective a 12 month cycle for a customer facing debrief, the work is far from over.  In fact it has only just begun. My head is already spinning around a year in review. The big lessons. How to integrate what I’ve learned into next years planning. How to plan differently. Who to partner with and of course much much more…..

What I find incredulous is that I started out this year hoping to write a blog post each week. Which I’ve kept up with far better than I expected.  I have certainly committed to the process. This time last year I was trying to plan blog posts, schedule them in time with the seasons and my own forced ideas of personal progression, only to find out that the spontaneous nature of my creative intuition has been my premier guiding force.

I found that even though I had started a huge amount of posts, that when I sat down to write or complete them that I simply wasn’t inspired enough to get the words out of my head onto the paper. The things I thought were important didn’t some how  live in the forefront of my mind at that moment. I have often misguidedly thought of myself as deeply liberated and if anything this year I have learned the opposite about myself. That I am very much confined by the idea of what people might think of me. Being a bride has amplified that awareness and I hope in the long run to have broken down that limitation for my benefit. This year blog writing for me has been transformative and become about flow, instinct, personal journey and quite frankly not giving a fuck about what anybody else thinks. That I need to write what I need to write when I need to write it. Sometimes that means I’ve been way ahead of the game and other times it means I’ve been way behind it. What has been the greatest thing about blogging here is emotional freedom it has given me to express myself. What had stated out as a brave step in personal exposure has become a gradual liberation of my personal opinion. Which can at times be totally contradictory. Good Luck with that.

2018 It’s been wild. It’s Scottish wild, here that I refer to – that it’s been a totally out of control bordering on misadventure, with most of the planets going backwards it’s hard to imagine that the celestial beings that roam our skies have not played a hand even for the most detached humans. Luckily though it is where the magic happens. For life to be spectacular it has to have some darkness and intrigue to be able to see the fireworks right?

I’m hoping that the Brexit fiasco is last of what encroaches on my personal life after all a shift in statehood is a big moment in anybody’s life. Along with marital status and nationhood. It’s been a big year…..

Now my need to collapse into myself grows. It’s the end of the year. It’s time to reflect, reward and plan for the next. To expand the time scales and begin to manifest again. As you wonder at it all. The big messages, the major fuck ups, the small victories. And in fact new Scottish words to describe it all clusterburach. Just the other week I was saying to a friend of mine that is 2018 had a meme it would be getting slap in the face by a seal with and octopus. Yes it’s been that kind of year, and lets face it who saw that coming!!!

There is so much to let go of in order to catch another star, to ride a bigger wave and swim in deeper oceans. We are all trying to hold on to so much….. while time slips gladly by. It’s only time, non-linear, perfect time that might only be another illusion to unblock. Maybe we can be it all. Maybe we can understand it all. To do so we have to be able to lose it all. There only moments after all, days, weeks, months, years and decades just strung together in such a way that we can watch them fade aways. Lose the attachment and wonder what could I be if I let go of more. The world turns and we all learn a little more how we change with the seasons and that we have our very own seasons to live through.  So on that note I’m giving myself the next few weeks off if you hear from me consider it a Holiday bonus. I might even surprise myself. Have a great few weeks.

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Flawsome

kimberleen

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When you work in personal development and especially as a Life Doula there is the idea of an invisible and imaginary line that separate your work from your personal life. As I get further into my own personal development, life journey and a deeper knowledge of self, that line becomes increasingly more blurred. I started out with a clear idea of what I wanted to write about, as the The Life Doula, themes that I wanted to explore. Now I know that our greatest learning is from our own direct experience of our own lives. It seems strange  trying to write at a distance about life with self-help references while in truth learning the most from the non-refracted processes that we experience daily. All the while wondering, what was that all about? Is it me? Is it my family? My romantic relationship? Is it the world at large? Is this reaction or response definitive or is it a phase. In fact could it be the stars? Could it be the moon? Do I really need to engage with all this to fully understand myself? Is self-development a deeply personal act or should I be following some kind of shared doctrine? Is religion a feature? Is yoga truly necessary? Is meditation a must? Are spirituality or faith key in all of this? There are so many quests towards personal truth and an infinity of experiences that can take us there. I have to embrace my own complexity and thus fuddlings in the quest for the authentic representation of myself as The Life Doula.

This blog is where life interplays with representation. Who we truly are versus what we present. The masks that we uphold and fake plasticness of a branded stereotype that fits or maybe confounds a business model of a polished finished perfection that has inbuilt imperfection to seem more real.

Why am I writing about all this now today? Flawsomeness it’s a thing? I just got married, more succinctly maybe hosted a wedding. . Even as a Master Life Coach I did not perfectly segway the last few weeks of working, to bride to be, to bride, to married in a smooth pre-planned perfectly coordinated show. I fucked up. I became overworked, overwhelmed, and even exhausted, I broke under the pressure and I failed to deliver both privately and professionally on the level I would have liked. Even though I knew it was a big deal, even though I had planned well. Even though I took time and even scheduled the minutia. Big moments can knock us of course and they are supposed to. Life changing events change our priorities, even though we my have already planned to be perturbed.

 

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Dyslexia – It’s a thing

kimberleen

IMG-8166I’m amazed I can spell Dylslexia all the letters seem to fit together so beautifully that they paint a picture in a word. The letters seem to make perfect sense even though they are arranged so unusually.

I re-read my blog post and find the mistakes and have to hurriedly fix them before anybody notices. People have noticed, switched off to the inaccuracy and skimmed over the top deciding my work is inadequate. I invite the the reader to overlook them and consider the content.

Dyslexia has been given the classification by many as a bullshit diagnosis. Maybe it is? Then there is my diagnosis that is over a decade old and took the acceptance into university to find. I can’t keep up. Never have, and now these days don’t hope too. It’s a challenge  sifting through the thoughts trying to make the right connections to create something linear. How do you create something linear when linear doesn’t come naturally? When the dharma of trying to think straight, it is a full time job that that actually takes you in circles.

As I get older it is not just about the misspelt words or even the misread signpost it’s the continuing ways in which dyslexia still side blinds me. The planning, the thinking, the over working of a thought, the lack of execution and then the disappointment attached to endless planning and organisation. Maybe that is just life the, sods law of the missed spelling mistake. The big dreams in your head that formulate differently in in our earth space reality. I get still get confused between my ability and my barriers to participation and forget the constant, long and arduous reality of working to a standard that is often beyond my own scope. This shit is real.

My free thinking gets me considering discipline and routine in order to create structured life development. What does that mean structured life development? When is most commonly means acquire until you expire.

So much freedom, so much dharma. Progress is slow.

Dyslexia/Free/Creative thinking are they one and the same? Is an explosion of creative vision on a daily basis a good thing? Einstein seemed to know so. How do you manage your ideas? How do we know which things to follow and complete, and which things to abandon on the big to do list of life? Is it a feeling or a thought? A passion or a knowing? Reluctance or embracing? Or all of the above mishmashed together in 24 hour sun ritual?