Mindful of each moment

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I wish I could tell you when you experience grief and loss there was any easy, magical way of moving through what feels like the most excruitating physical pain you’ve ever experienced, to turn back the clock or a workshop on what this feeling is, may help you heal it.

There was a time I ruptured a cyst on an ovary & they couldn’t find out for over three days in one of the largest hospitals in Brisbane what was going on, until all they could see was a huge mass, I went to surgery not knowing what parts I was going to miss when I returned, nearly out from all the drugs to manage the pain, or the time I was crushed under a horse & knocked out most of the memories of childhood at a time I needed it for high school exams, when there were no MRI’s and so little known about neurological trauma. There are so many moments where life just didn’t go the way I planned, yet none ever as painful as grief and loss.

I can’t tell you it won’t hurt or feel ike it will never go away, we will all experience these emotions in our own personal way or how to step by step like a dot to dot drawing, put the pieces back together.

I can say there is something on the otherside of grief, so profound it can change your life as every experience does, reshape your experience and has the potential to see the world as if you are looking through a different lens, not available unless you had experienced that moment, as sad, as tragic and as heartbreaking as it may be. The intensity lessoned, the ability to get up and keep going strengthened and somehow I learned through the courage of a child to look at scary stuff in a whole different way.

It was once hypothesised experiencing so much grief from various events, including the death of my son at such an early age, had made me weak, more vulnerable to suffering, to trauma and I was so fortunate at the time to have a wonderful clinical psychologist supporting me through a really tough time with a few stressors at work who retorted, not only was this incorrect, these events had not created a weakness or vulnerability, they had in fact reshaped my perspective to be one of the most resilient people he knew.

Facing cancer in your 16month child, was up there on the hardest challenge I’ve ever had and the first of so many challenges ahead. However, when I forget to be present in a moment or I meet another simpler, yet what feels like a diffulty at the time, I find myself reflecting, drawing on those experiences, innately as if my body recalibrated it’s persistence and resistance gear, shifts in the next and reminds me nothing will ever be that hard, keep going, you’ve got this.

Some days it can be frustrating to see how trauma, grief, loss and suffering is manipulated by those who think anyone who feels more intensely psychologically or emotionally will be somewhat less than they were before; as if trauma creates imperfection, individuals are more likely to attract further suffering and trauma through what some professionals are paid to describe as a weakness. Our entire compensation, rehabilitation and mental health systems underpin a great deal of this thinking. Post traumatic stress disorder cannot be compensated for unless you have a TPI diagnosis, total permanent impairment (TPI) and the reality is those who do suffer PTSD, may in fact live with this for the rest of their lives, as we do with all events, all experiences as much as our body, mind and spirit recall. How we live with suffering, how it impacts on our body, our mind and erodes the spirit, will show in the future hurt people experience, be present in their behaviour to others and with themselves.

However, what many professionals won’t say, is you can learn to live with trauma and still move forward, reshape these experiences, rewire your brain, get to know your body through sensory awareness, to understand the relationships between experience, thoughts and behaviours, these are beginnings of choosing the way you continue to experience the life ahead.

It is physically not possible to change what has already happened, you may even try, many do, afterall we are hardwired to survive, sometimes attempting to do whatever we can to keep going, often with consequences and still we survive, with a strength that has kept us going. Substance abuse, alcohol, drugs, over spending, working in places they people don’t enjoy, cigarettes, self-harming, over eating, over obsessing, social isolation or taking risks, violence, all hurt people, hurting people, even themselves. Our behaviour tells the story. You may not be able to rewind the tape recording of your internal diaglogue, although you have another option. Not sure if you are old enough like me, to remember the old cassettes? We would recycle old songs or conversations on tape, by recording something more recent and new over the top? You have the power to change your narrative, to tell yourself a different story, to rework your inner diaglogue, just like when you hold back from something which your inner self says “not a good idea”, only reworking a narrative which may have taken root over years, might not be easy.

There is a great deal of evidence to link the sensations in the body to trauma and suffering. Somedays when I smell certain things, my sisters perfume (who took her life the year I my son died), when I hear a song, touch something, a word or phrase, a movie, my body remembers, the sensory relationship with an event, an intense moment of either pleasure or pain can be triggered, it is often more widely discussed in relation to veterans or complex trauma. There isn’t a lot of television I watch, things I no longer do, I decided I wanted an inner dialogue which aligned with my need for a healthy brain and helpful narrative. I no longer pursue things for the sake of filling time, stay in relationships friendships or with a partner, for any other reason than it is helpful, rewarding, inspiring, challenges and fosters a capacity to continually evolve.

It means not needing to worry about why someone hasn’t returned a call unless I’m concerned about their welbeing, thinking differently about allowing others to take responsibility for their own thoughts and behaviours. It’s about not having to save the world or myself, just do my best at whatever I do, when I know more, do more, be more and most importantly, be present with who I am in each moment, I’m enough without a desire to fit any square peg or round hole, just do my best and sleep well with that.

We are a social species, we interact, communicate and learn in social environments, it shapes our behaviour. Identifying and understanding how this occurs can often lead to changing, rewording the narrative and mapping out a path forward which provides you with a different lens to look through.

If someone would ask how could I possibly get up after so many things had occurred and keep smiling, keep moving forward, being optimistic, my response would be, when you get knocked down, the view isn’t very good from down there, of course you can stay there, yet the only way to see where you are going, to be in the present moment, is stand up, stand tall, look ahead and keep going. Rest by all means, recharge, do what you need to validate your emotional connection to events, people, moments in your life and give yourself the opportunity to ask yourself is this where you want to stay, to celebrate in the beautiful ways those who come into our life, move us, show us how to feel things we may never have experienced. Clinging to them as if we need a safety raft from the life we are not living with authenticity will only weigh you both down. Love does not require possession, you can love anyone or anything you like without having to hold a single thing in your hands. Love is an inside job, not something you must touch in order to have it. I love the sound of the ocean, I love my children, my dogs, the smell of spring, a storm on a tin roof, being alive, these are not all things I can hold or possess. Sometimes love is letting something be, someone be as their life goes in a different direction.

Too often therapy becomes about ‘fixing’ people, as if we need to disregard or worst squeeze out the pus from someone’s grief wound, somehow pushing pain to the surface and reworking it means it will heal. There are thousands of therapies around the globe for trauma, although, the efficacy of most is poor.  The term ‘let go’ has become about forgetting experiences, if you just learn to forget, you could be all better. For some, a type of cathartic experience of scrapping  your mind of anything which hurt and filling your world with only positive words, positive people and positive experiences, the reality is shit happens, we cannot control others, we can only make choices about ourselves. Peace is not out there, in others, it comes from within. For me I choose a different path and whilst every year on this day I feel somewhat different, there is a great deal that remains the same, nothing can change the past or the date. What I can change is how I experience it, I can redirect my attention, reword the narrative, identify, validate, know these events are my life, I am who I am today not just because of, despite of all the events and some have given me incredible gifts.

Today my son would have been 23 years old. Ben remains forever 3 years and 4 months of age, it was a long time ago and it’s how I understand, became passionate about trauma, grief and loss. In just a few short years, the incredible battle of one small human being, with no doctorates or letters after their name, no scientific discoveries or wealthy investments, property or status taught me more about life and being human than any person since that time or before. Prior to walking into the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne or even the GP who was the first out of 6 specialists to pick up it wasn’t a lazy eye, it was something far more sinister, I was a very different human being, with different goals, different ways of doing things, of even seeing and experiencing life.

Ben was diagnosed at 16months of age, when most babies are discovering the benefits of walking, grasping hold of things they see as interesting, learning to laugh, seek out cuddles whenever their sensations demand, look for reassurance and step into a world of adventure and discovery. It was hard, very hard. Hard to sit with an awful lot of parents, families and children who became our family for the next two and a bit years, I lived at the hospital most days, 5 days a week with my eldest in more hours of childcare than any other child, so much I exceeded the authorised amount and was asked to sign a declaration as to why. I was also having my third at the time, three under 4 years, 5, 3, 1 when it came time to plan a funeral. There were times I had to sit one on my lap, one in the pram and another in the safety seat on top of the pram, just so I could have a haircut.

Even at this time, I had this overwhelming ‘get on with it’ pushing me out of bed every day, things to do, central line to keep clean, injections to give, alternate therapies to seek out, debrief with families around the world on a forum for rare tumours, as the internet just begun to develop; needs to meet, ways to do better pushing me forward. I don’t really know exactly where it begins or hardwires because I know there were times, like many years later I find myself in tears when my Mum calls after a busy work week, around 3 hours sleep a night, being told it was not enough to give all I could and then some, in tears because I couldn’t find a broom to sweep the floors. So I’m not here describing having all the balls in the air at the same time and doing the Irish jig as well, life is hard on us at times, we are human beings, not machines.

I can tell you, the things which made the difference.

What made these moments less painful were the smallest of moments. I came home one afternoon, after a long week of chemotherapy, day in, day out, physically exhausted, child to collect who had bitten someone that day, paperwork to fill out, everyone else focussed on what they needed, I dreamed of a quiet bath and sleeping children, my husband at that time (far more work than 3 children put together) away for work and when I pulled in the driveway well after dark, tummy touching the steering wheel, grumpy preschooler and very toddler after a week of chemo, noticed something stuck to the door. Someone had not only gone to my clothesline and folded the washing, leaving it at the back door, there was a note to call into their house and pick up dinner and freshly home made bread. Just to sit and eat a meal, to not have to worry about one extra chore made the most enormous difference, I’m certain many will appreciate. There were more of these experiences, kindness and compassion eased the load and whilst others made it harder, I can only say in my experience, human empathy in the face of adversity can be the difference to how we survive.

So today, rather than feeding a narrative of how difficult this was, I can reflect on how much gratitude I have for the lessons I learned at this time, for those who made the difference, how human beings can be so incredibly powerful in reshaping our experiences, in strengthening our resilience, in how the courage, bravery and love of someone can entirely change the way you experience life, if you allow them to, regardless of their age. One person can make a difference to an entire life.

It can be easily to slip into allowing those who are hurting to hurt others. It could be easy to fall into a pattern of only seeing that which makes life hard, to not notice that whilst there were no carparking spaces in the parents with prams because someone without a child didn’t want to walk further at the children’s hospital and you are heavily pregnant with a toddler needing carrying, a preschooler who doesn’t want to be there, need to park on the top floor and navigate several flights of ramps, only to find the white cells are too low, your bills won’t get paid and you are not sure how to find petrol to get there to do it all again the next day, the nurse has a smile, sings to your children to calm them down, incredible, amazing staff with hearts of gold make the difference the day needs, someone lets you in to the traffic lane you need, the person at the supermarket makes eye contact, smiles and tells you to take care, you get to read your children a story with their heads resting on your tummy to hear their sister and for a little while the world reminds you how the best parts and people are there, around us, in our lives, in communities, we just have to open our hearts and our eyes to see them.

If your world doesn’t appear to have kindness or compassion, I beg you to go exploring. Give yourself the opportunity to get out there, join groups, go to work, seek out that which you need to life up your heart and feel the love everywhere, in so many people and then we you are strong enough, go spread your own as wide as you can, first put on your own oxygen mask, take care of you before you go taking care of others.

Although I must say, somehow in all these years, nothing has ever felt as warm and fuzzy as giving to others. It’s as if our life force is born out of selflessness. The more we take, we do not receive, we drain our capacity and continue filling an empty void. The more we give, the more we feel lighter, free, loved.

No matter how much Ben suffered, he always had this way of smiling, of changing the way people felt. Of course he didn’t have the scary information adults have about cancer, about dying, about life being a particular length or story. There is evidence out there to say children with cancer often survive way longer than adults because they have a very different narrative in their heads, they don’t know what they are expected to do. Neutropenia or not, play means play and if you are up to it, you go for it and sleep when you must.

Ben painted rainbows and loved sprinkles, sand on his hands and feet, hanging with his brother and smiling at the new sister who he welcomed for a year, he could never have too much of anything, with an infectious laugh, even if you were in tears would change the way you felt and we were all blessed for having his presence and magic in our lives. I am forever grateful.

Namaste xo

May you find peace and compassion in your heart.
May you learn how to give without wanting in return.
May you see the goodness in people and learn to forgive.
Not so others may be without consequence, so you can be free.
To live the life you deserve.

Go spread that magic as far as you can, to as many as you can.

Lift up your heart with gratitude. xo

In memory of Ben 10.8.95 – 12.12.98

Awakening the inner truth

Awakening – not a new you, just a more aware you, the inner truth.

It’s the strangest thing and yet normal to go through life with little awareness of your inner consciousness. You probably hear it from time to time, the quiet voice, the one that might appear a split second before you do something you later wish you hadn’t, the moment before you act without taking more time to process, you just hurl that stone into the water without regard for how wide the ripple will spread, sometimes with the illusion there will be no ripple at all, however there is always a ripple. Human behaviour is rooted in the impacts of our social environment, everything connects, all living beings. What we do, say, act upon, our decisions affect the social systems around us.

Suggesting you ‘discover’ an inner consciousness sounds as if it’s an experience of stumbling across something that has existed through all time and never realised it before, so in this sense I guess it is a discovery, like a place you longed for, somehow your intuition knew it was there, just it seemed to far & you didn’t know the way. What you had been looking for in things, in stuff, in status, money, power, religion, has been inside you all along, not on some map or in another person, yet maybe you discover it via one of these or all of these moments, external environments in life.  Although sometimes awakening to a greater awareness of your inner truth might feel a bit odd, there is something familiar and true. Yet for some it may feel overwhelming and outside your comfort zone, particularly if you have followed the flow, without resistance, stepped from one stone to the next as you were told, controlled life, planned and organised or maybe you awaken to how much you’ve hurt yourself and others, ouch; suppressed your emotions, or realise you don’t feel anything at all & something is not right about this awareness.  Maybe you’ve shut those senses down, you played it safe, followed all the rules, stayed where you were told to stay, always following someone else’s dogma, while inside you felt like something was missing. For some, awarness may feel like an unravelling and frightening.

For those of us who had tolerated or accepted something in life as it was, maybe it was a person, a relationship, a career, a behaviour or situation. You told yourself this is your lot, this is how it is, make the most of it, be grateful (gratitude is another discusison altogether), maybe you accepted ‘good enough’ because someone else told you so, so is the story of so many who were advised by generations before them.

Women were told they were the property of their spouses, many laws didn’t change until uprisings, women were given the right to vote, family law was introduced after the matrimonial act, things changed, we evolved, the consciousness grew. Many indigenous groups around the world were suppressed, murdered, tortured, so many people sat quiet and accepted what governments told them is true, despite their inner consciousness saying otherwise. So many still today, accept the fate of the environment, despite thousands of species lost to extinction. So what makes the difference between those who awaken and those who stay silent? Asleep? Who follow the status quo or who say ‘not my problem’, who manage to go through life without regard for the impact their ripple has on the wider social environment?

Awareness, the ability to ask questions, the moment you tune into how the body feels, what you sense and think, in that moment, acknowledging, validating, awaken to the inner truth under your skin. When you begin to connect and unpack the sensations by examining the inner truth “why does my skin crawl when they raise their voice?” “Why do I feel sick, sad, depressed on my way to that job everyday?” “Why doesn’t this feel right to say this?”, “why cannot I not sit at home & need to drink at the pub every single night?”, “what is it about life that I’m hiding from”…….

It’s not easy, it may not be smooth, as a species of patterns and habits, we develop comfort zones, stay inside the lines where we can predict with sometimes certainty what will happen next, even if it is painful, this is far easier than the uncertain future of challenging the sensation or exploring answers to those questions. For years the many social environments have demanded perfection, parenting to be without effort, make friends with your children rather than battle against their own inner truths or understand guiding a human being into adulthood will not be easy if you are trying to force them into being someone that is in conflict with their inner consciousness. Staying in situations you have found yourself in is a better possibility, if you’ve done it for so long. Feeling something may be so much harder than taking down the wall you’ve built to protect yourself from further pain and believing in yourself, acceptance of you deserving love and connection as anyone and trying something completely knew may come with endless possibilities, may take you to places to people you’ve never thought possible, if you step off the mat of predictable and certain, not knowing how far you might fall before your wings open is just too greater risk to take.

In my experience, this awareness is somewhat like what Dr Brene’ Brown discusses in those who dare greatly or in the whole hearted and not whole hearted, those who are willing, consciously choosing to get up and get up and get up, every time life takes them down, when it hurts, when it’s not easy. Those who are willing to dare there is a possibility life can be more than it is right at the moment of impact, to look beyond the suffering, the attachments, the things and stuff we accumulate and question the purpose, fulfilment and greater meaning which is buried under the layers of acceptance we’ve perfected for so long, letting go takes faith, sometimes extreme levels of faith. I liken it to a moment in Scotland I was hugging a tree several stories up at an adventure training centre, my adult children were calling “Mum let go of the tree”. There was a foot space between my feet and the edge of a small round platform that hugged the tree, the next obstacle was two thin lines, one above to hold, one below to walk across to the next level. Mind you I had a safety harness, it didn’t matter, my heart was racing, fear gripped my fingers into the bark.

I looked down to my youngest who had a huge fear of heights and yet had already made it to several obstacles and then had decided to absail down the tree, it was too much. I thought for goodness sake, you have faced more obstacles than a thin line with a safety harness, you can get passed this, you can show her to look fear in the face and tell it to get the hell out of your way. So I let go of the tree. I can’t really express what happened in those few minutes, it was a culmination of so many other fears connected to that one moment, a fear of greatness, a fear of being outside my comfort zone, of asking hard questions, of unpacking a crap load of stuff I was heaving from one moment to the next. Everything after that first step onto the line, through the tyres, onto the swinging small pieces of timber, down the zip wire three stories up, life just seemed easier. Colours seemed richer, the sun had a different glow, I started spending more time using my senses, listening to my inner self more and more and more. It was only a day or so after, we were driving out towards Glencoe, the most incredible scenery I had seen, snow capped mountains, isolation and peace, I came across this dirt road & put my indicator on. The kids were “where are we going” their fear kicked in, worried the GPS didn’t pick up the details & we’d be lost. I just knew something was pulling me forward.

I came across this small lake, what we would call a small lake in Australia, I think is more like a Loch in Scotland, it was bitterly cold and yet I stepped out of the car, took off my shoes & felt the need to walk to the waters edge & step in. I can’t really tell you what was going through my mind, yet I had the sense I had been there before, I felt incredibly emotional, sad, as if leaving was like leaving home, I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. For the rest of the trip around Scotland I kept sensing a connection, leaving was harder than leaving anything I had before. For someone who has spent their entire career and life moving about, it was more than odd. There was no more fear, no more disconnection. I started making choices from a deep sense of knowing, from intentions bound to an inner truth. Life began to take shape, doors opened, I began to meet people I loved being around, enjoyed and learned from.

I’ve witnessed people step out, step back in, try time and time again to tune in to their consciousness, fear can at times be overriding, leaving a situation they’ve known for so long, to let go of the opinions of others, should do and could do, if they only would do. At times it has resulted in depression, yet also periods of intense suffering by not tuning in, by knowing there is something more inside their soul and then silence it everyday with keeping busy, staying with what they know, expecting less of themselves, making partners with acceptance. Of all those I’ve known, all of them, who have made the conscious decision to increase their awareness of an inner truth, they have not looked back, increased inner peace and happiness.

There are so many quotes to stir the inner consciousness, we see them plastered across social media, through poetry and imagery, friend’s, family, colleagues post them, I even hear people complain that they irritate them. What is it about a small number of words from some other person which triggers frustration? The inner voice, truth, reaching out hoping somehow someone hears the quiet voice, with a soul not ready or brave enough to shout it from the roof tops and those where it touches a raw nerve, stuck in lives they continue to tell themselves there is now way out from, a lost hope of ever knowing a someone who can hold our hand and lead us through to happiness, joy, fulfilment, out of the mud and that someone is ourselves.

We ventured on to Europe, to the States via Iceland. Yes I could have purchased a new car, flashier homewares or completed studies earlier. I could have purchased my kids lots of new gadgets and against the grain, I packed backpacks & took them on the adventure of a lifetime, to show them life didn’t have to painful, they had a much bigger world than all they had experienced, amazing people lived on this planet, incredible places, inspiring adventures, to look outside the box, to look inside themselves, to learn how to contribute to life rather than take from it.

To simplify life, we often settle, give in, cooperate, buy things instead of giving more of ourselves, rather than over invest into others hoping it will fill an empty feeling inside and no one is suggesting this is not OK either to invest in others. However if you are going to give your heart to all you do, take your brain along with you, become familiar with your intentions. If your inner self is safe and content, if joy is found in this place you have chosen to stay, then embrace it.

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If this resonates with you and changing your situation is too great a step to take, then maybe its about practicing, building on your capacity to allow yourself to unfold and to awaken. Maybe it’s not entirely a cathartic experience of scraping everything off your shoe, rather rediscovering yourself in the process of moving forward, giving yourself more time, reflecting on your inner truth rather than seeking it in others. It’s deciding you don’t want another drink when someone keeps persisting “go on, I know you want one”, it’s saying no means no & saying no when someone asks you a simple question, it’s being honest, authentic, real, true to yourself, instead of always being agreeable and feeling miserable later, own your stuff, rather than be a carbon copy of someone else.

I had this knack when I was younger, I didn’t unpack it until much much later, of tending to do the opposite to what was expected, I never realised a deep need to feel I had something to prove stemmed from feeling ‘not good enough’. Now some of you may assume I was already on the path of awakening, of stepping outside my comfort zone, no it was more ego than anything, it was me not wanting to ever be pigeon-holed into a square or round peg, it was one experience after another of messges of being different, not enough, not worthy. So if someone said I couldn’t I had this urge to do it even if I wasn’t interested, if the jump was too high, I had to jump it, even if it took months to train. Some of it was scary, some of it fun, adventurous, yet until I started to unpack why I was doing what was clearly exhausting, stubborn, connected to feelings of inadequacy, to never being enough, until I unpacked the layers of words stacked on from other peoples perspectives, I continued to react instead of connecting to the inner consciousness. I thought I was in control, I was so not in control. I was reacting each time, triggered by someone else’s belief system, without even questioning my own.
I was under the misguided belief this was my inner strength and energy, yet how could it possibly be strength, if I was unable to control my emotional and psychological responses to the words and actions of others, if I didn’t have the courage, the capacity to say “I don’t need to be enough for you”, “I am enough for me”.

Many years down the track, one experience after another, many incredibly traumatic & painful, the inner Shakti grew. An ability, effort, energy and strength, a capacity to tune more deeply into myself within a much bigger universe than the one I had believed I existed, my own. The goddess Shakti represents the feminine energy of all, the universe, the divine mother. Our inner Shakti, our inner strength, power and energy, life force; the creative force aligns our thinking, acting, our feelings, senses, the capacity of our mind and emotions to power up our health, wellbeing, psychological and physical.

It goes without too many more words to say if life isn’t going as planned are you really tuning in or tuning out? Are you living your dharma or someone else’s dogma?

There is so much written about inner peace, just enter it in Google and begin reading, we all have different views, it means so many things because we are all so different. In my experience, inner peace is not found by blocking out all the negative, in how many cars you drive or things you have, how much you remove yourself from challenge or forces beyond your control, it’s not about control at all. I found inner peace in my capacity to stay present in each moment, it’s a constant work in progress, to develop, embrace and foster an inner resource in the smallest of ways in order to strengthen myself in more difficult situations, to awaken my inner consciousness, to open up the door, to recognise how I was feeling in a given situation, listen intently, observe the detail, to build a mental strength where I could call upon an inner calm even in the most difficult of situations. It’s been even more challenging with a physically changing brain, living with MS, reshaping the brain I knew I could rely on, staying in the present moment, working with what is, rather than what I want to be, is vital to ongoing health. The more I tuned in, the more confident I became. The more I unpacked, the lighter my heart felt, the more space I created to welcome the  peace, the calm, the self-love, the whole-hearted, the more room I had to be with people in the present moment.

Be curious when your inner voice speaks up, ask questions, explore and examine sensations in the body, inquire more.  Tune in to those feelings, give yourself permission to ask more, to silence the overriding control and manipulation of your own body speaking to you. I’m certainly not prophesising the answer is just around the corner, you may continue on this journey through many discoveries, more questions may arise; there is no possible way I could have visualised I would be where I am right now, doing what I am doing, with the life I have, a decade ago.

One day and literally it was one day, I had enough of being quiet, of being silent, of accepting life the way it was as if I deserved the life I was living. I knew for a long time I wasn’t in the place I could have been, with people who lifted my vibration, could see possibilities, encourage or allow me to find my gifts and give them freely away. I knew on every drive home, every moment to think long enough, to tune out to how I was feeling, over eating or over indulging, over doing anything to numb how I was feeling, I was aware, just working hard & telling my inner voice to be quiet, I just didn’t have the strength and courage to make the choices I needed to make or the inner resources. Like most moments in life, we are challenged or forced to change & that time came leaving no option to stay quiet. I thought if I just gave and gave and gave more, happiness would come from giving 150% of myself, I just hadn’t realise the bucket was empty & how tired I had become. One loss after another, it was easier to be distracted, to hold the tree, it took one moment to overcome the fear of letting go, to ignite the torch I needed to see the way forward.

There were ties I severed, not out of negativity or anger or a sense of righteousness or better than, I let go because the weight was too heavy to carry any longer, I stepped back from keeping others from discovering their own inner purpose, for taking responsibility for their own actions, words, decisions. I no longer felt any need to apologise for not being perfect or better or complete. I no longer needed answers I was ready to let things unfold as I stayed in each moment. I stopped attaching to the wrongs of others, a need to fix or repair the choices of others, to pave an easier path, to soften responsibility and accountability. I gave my best and it was enough, it still is enough, if it isn’t then it is you who needs to do more work on your inner consciousness. I am enough.

From the moment I cut the strings and allowed myself to be non-attached to things, to words and actions of others, I began to grow, it was as if there was no possible way I could rise when I was tethered to the weights of attachment to what other people thought I should be, I was, I am, me, as different, as odd, as wild & as free as I allow myself to be. I no longer needed the ego, it didn’t matter if I should wear two blue socks or one red and one blue, if I was size 8 or a 12, as long as my feet were warm right in that moment, if I knew I was enough, the day just seemed to take on a whole knew purpose & meaning. It didn’t matter if I was single for a decade, I went against what others said was ‘normal’ or ‘expected’, I fine tuned the reception & volume of my inner voice, let Shakti raise her voice & allowed others whose expectations I could not meet, go their own way without any need to make them stay, to impress anyone, to convince them to like me, I liked me.
The moment when you awaken to being fully responsible for yourself, for your interaction with others, for staying or going, for acting or reacting, for words, thoughts, decisions, is a bit like turning off the GPS because you are in the middle of nowhere it is telling you to turn left & yet to the left of you is bush & there is no road, instead of you keep relying on the GPS, you stop looking towards others to tell you where to go, how to get there and why you are on this journey in the first place, you tune in to your own guidance, to the inner knowing, your truth. If it is to be be, then it is up to me is your new mantra.

I had stopped believing in myself, lost faith in my own capacity, I had allowed others to tell me where I should be, how I should be, who I should be. People came and they would go, leaving their mark & many scars, I chose to carry these & each time the next person touched them, I reignited the power it had to still hurt until I said ‘enough’, I had to make a conscious, aware decision to acknowledge this before I could heal those wounds.

Tuning in to the inner consciousness, allowing the awakening, is saying to yourself growth did not stop at the point of childhood to adulthood, it is never ending. Every person provides an opportunity to learn, to discover more about yourself, every opportunity, event, more room to grow as you own your role in every moment. There will be many people who will hurt others, because they are hurting, believing if they project their own untruths onto others, it will lighten their suffering. Try hard to stay present in the moment, to see this hurt for what it is, open up your heart rather than close it off, let them be who they are, you be who you are, without the need to attach to what you truly know, deep within, is not true of yourself.

You may find you begin wondering why you always say sorry for being late, when you really did your best. You might stop expecting others to meet your ideas of how they should be, you may discover you sleep better when you are not pushing the judgements and self-righteousness of others to the back of your mind to disrupt your rest.

Allow yourself to do the best you can, when you can and when your best is not enough, give yourself permission to see you are enough, you are doing what you can, when you can, there is no more of you to give, regardless of the expectations of  others, be realistic, be true, be authentic.

What others believe is based on their own perceptions, they may see something in you, maybe you can’t see in yourself, yet it is you who needs the energy to realise that potential, it is you that will need the physical & psychological strength to rise to each challenge. It’s not abandoning everything you’ve ever known or maybe for some it is. Maybe you are so far into a life that doesn’t look anything like the one you’ve dreamed of, the only way out is to leave it all behind, it will not be the same for all of us. Yet for many, an author I know, it is staying in the job that pays the bills & keeps the family with food on the table, it is staying up until early hours after work to finish their book, their inner passion & when that first one sold, it paid for the next & within a couple of years they were able to leave their day job & find their purpose without hurting others in the process.

Allowing your inner Shakti to connect to the divine you is without arrogance & ignorance, it’s with an absence of disregard or causing others to suffer as you power ahead. Go gentle into the unknown, if you can live without hurting others, why would you?

If it’s not now, then nurture your inner awakening in your meditation practice and make time to examine your sensations in the body during your asana practice. Give yourself permission to explore the deeper consciousness, connect to your inner Shakti, create a ripple of consciousness, contribute to the vibration of a greater awakening across the globe, ask yourself are you being kind to you, compassionate, patient, authentic & true?

In more recent times we have seen more consciousness with the #metoo campaign, of more awareness & changes to law relating to domestic violence, sexual abuse, how countries regard those seeking to be free from persecution, basic human rights being abused, a global shift in consciousness begins with the individuals who raise their own vibration, who say ‘enough’ we can do better, there is more than this, it’s our purpose.

As a vegan I’m challenged everyday by my decision to choose not to harm other living beings. I don’t go about my day judging others for their choice to not be vegan, I live, work, play, socialise with people making their own choices. Yet everyday on social media, in the community, the wider world, there is condemnation, bullying, harassment of those who make a decision to not harm others because we don’t have to in order to survive.

My choices are not a reflection of your choices they are not a slap to those who choose the opposite. They are merely the evolution of my own consciousness, a decision to listen to my own body, sense how I feel about how I live my life and make choices which generate more calm, more inner peace, more awareness, to go about my life leaving as little footprint as I can. It’s recognising habit forming behaviours, it’s awareness of patterns of behaviours which are emotionally harmful or disempowering. It’s developing a spirituality which aligns with my own consciousness, rests, restores and renews.

I’m often asked why I’m single, why I’ve been on my own for so long and it’s usually measured by someone who is not single or has never been, there must be something wrong with me because I don’t fit their own beliefs around how culture has ingrained a belief system which says become an adult, have a relationship, get married, buy a house, have children, grow old together, regardless of how you feel. I was that person, I lived that life and I wasn’t happy. If I am to connect to my inner truth, spirituality, faith & awareness, it takes a time & energy I wouldn’t have within a relationship that demanded all of my energy. I didn’t want to be half of a relationship, I desired to be a whole person on my own first. It showed in my health, in my psychological & emotional wellbeing, in the choices I made. It reflected in my friendships, in how I cared for myself. I see it in so many others & while I may be further down the path, it is their journey to discover their own awareness, to learn from others, to discover their own truth.

I believe there is a global shift happening there is a growth in a greater consciousness. People are questioning what is true, what is reasonable, what is fair & what is kind, change is happening. More people are listening to their inner self & it’s contributing towards a global awakening & its not something you are gifted with at birth, something you buy or pretend to participate in, it comes from the inside, it comes from sometimes painful hard enduring work on your self of the realisation you are completely responsible for your life. If it is to be, it is up to me.

It comes from patience, understanding, compassion, to yourself; its not found in going along to a yoga class to force poses or beating yourself up about why can’t I stand on my head or why can’t I sit in full lotus when that person can or in the attachment to social media images in difficult asana and counting how many likes you receive. It comes from embracing your body, your own senses and breathing as you experience it, as your body, soul, spirit presents, an acceptance of your body as you feel each sensation, validate the thoughts, acknowledge & then nurture yourself through meditation, a deep realisation there is more to you than what is on the surface, you can run from your inner awareness, but we can’t hide, our body knows the truth & it speaks to you through illness, suffering, physical & psychological health, through your experience of unhappiness.

As you let go of the weight of attachments to expectations, you allow yourself to step more freely into your future you contribute to your own evolution. This is not suggesting everything can be miraculously repaired by just becoming aware, disease happens, illness occurs, some is beyond our control, there are people who suffer at the hands of others, who become ill due to environmental & unknown causes, let’s not blow this opportunity to improve our welbeing by taking everything in the literal sense. I’m speaking merely from my own experience, knowledge & from the lessons I learned along the way. What you decide to take from this is entirely up to you.

I love my life, it took a long time to get here, I know my purpose, have embraced the challenges of what that is, accept the hard work & energy it takes to be part of something much, much bigger than myself. Yoga has certainly been a force directing the old me into the new more aware version, not someone else, just someone more consciously aware & responsible.

Have faith as you move forward, have faith like riding a bike, you won’t need someone to hold the seat forever, have faith you can do this & keep going.  There is no wrong, allow yourself to tune into the pull towards your hearts longing, where you feel most like you belong, lift your spirit, embrace your authentic self, invite as much joy & happiness into your life as you deserve.

Allow yourself to grow, to learn, to feel, to love. Lift your vibration to spread as wide as you can, create a ripple of joy, of compassion, kindness, truth; as you give yourself permission to let go of the weight holding you down.

Awaken yourself, stretch out your arms, lift your heart to the sun & welcome life as the gift it is.

xo

 

 

Food for thought

Yesterday the temp peaked around 45 or so, apparently the day prior, Sydney at 47.  In the western suburbs, the hottest temp recorded in 80 years or so, things are certainly warming up.

When my core temp rises by even as little as 0.25 degrees, those neurons missing their protective barriers, the myelin, those damaged nerves, may lose their capacity to function at all. I guess the brain is being asked to work extra hard, as the hard drive of the body, trying to send messages, for the body to still function & regulate a temp it can’t control. When you’re hot you’re hot & the hotter I become the more my brain fatigues, the more it shuts down. It has been the most frustrating part of living with multiple sclerosis.

Yet few people would know what is going on inside my brain, how my nerves are functioning at any one time, few have that much empathy or care to understand, judgement is far easier. It’s far easier to complain about something someone does or isn’t doing, rather than understand why.

Society has this skewed lense of health being related mostly to physical appearance, the physical body from the neck down. I guess it’s why there is a struggle, to accept the things they cannot see, mental illness, the impact of trauma on the brain, fatigue. All the ignorances have one thing in common, the human brain. This amazing, incredibly powerful part of our existence, without it we die, simple. The brain facilitates everything in our body to function. Understanding more about the brain helps to develop more understanding for everyone around you and the differences we all experience.

I’m not really sure how we ended up with so much ignorance about something we each have and demand more from every day. Maybe it’s been a failure of science to identify the importance of neurology as much as our heart, lungs, reproductive system, schools to teach and pass on this knowledge, health professionals to advocate better for a healthy brain even at times more important than our body, after all, it’s the brain that steers this ship. How could we evolve to believe anything could be more important than the central processing system for our entire body, for every human function, the air we breathe, the movements we create, the language we use, the way something feels on our skins, tastes in our mouth, the sound of birds as the sun rises….our brain, all our brain and this astounds me at times that despite knowledge, science, medicine, history, human beings do not maximise their potential, in fact in many cases destroy it.

Sport is a compulsory activity at school, children are encouraged to participate, if not forced to participate in physical sport, in curricula matter which gives the brain a workout. Many will tell you it’s great for the brain, yet we know from data, elite athletes & sports enthusiasts take their lives, so it’s not the answer to good mental health, it’s a contributing factor. However sport, competitive sport, competitive anything, doesn’t calm the brain, it stimulates it. It lights up a totally different part of the human brain, stimulates the ego, the attachment to winning, to fitting in, standing out. It’s gone from being fun, a chance to hang out with friends, play as a team, to who gets the biggest prize wins.

There are few activities, resources or dedicated classes every day to calming, nurturing, soothing & engaging the parasympathetic nervous system, a central component of our ability to switch on the ‘I’ve got this’ calm mode when it’s needed.  Very few schools offer what science has documented is found in a yoga practice, in mindfulness, activities are ad-hoc, knee-jerk reactions to popularity contests.  The media reports bulging mental stats for our young people, crime, under-performing child protection services, underachieving students & the voices of those who know where this stems from, just doesn’t seem heard.

It appears more acceptable to jump into relationships with both feet, marry at an early age, conceive children while still exploring childhood and not address the attachment, behavioural or underlying antecedents to look for yourself in relationships with others, in status, rather than educate, train and skill human beings in self-love, adventure, what is in their best interest, how to pursue a goal without your ego pulling you forward, how to love others without the need to control, manipulate, live your life through your children or the connections you make with others.

The State dictates what family means to us all, tells us the rights of parents & whilst it defines the rights of the child, the child is completely silent in the processes. The child is free to live without harm, yet the parent has a right to their child. See the conflict. If we are to provide children with rights then we must do away with this out-dated construct of family & redefine family as a healthy, nurturing place in which to grow & develop in your best interests. Imagine that! Wow, wouldn’t that shake up the religious views and cultural traditions of ensuring children pursue a trajectory of generational abuse, neglect and, harm; Rarely do people address their underlying issues, can they identify the impact their own behaviour has on their children. If we are to expect change then change starts with ourselves, we must do something different and different and different & keep trying until the behaviour has changed. There is no one way. Until we recognise the vulnerability (which has clearly been defined) of the developing human brain and really put this stuff into practice, our stats will keep blowing out. We must learn to value the fragility of the human brain and appreciate our capacity to do something about it.

Whether we ignore it or not, everything we say, do, feel, relate to, want, anything & everything starts with our brain. The brain wires & fires nerves together, messages travel from one nerve to the next & off down the line to parts of your body. As I sit here typing, my brain sends signals to my legs & feet on the floor, incredibly fast signals via my eyes, back to my brain, out to my hands, all the while I can still hear the washing machine, my dog barking as he is waiting for his walk, I can notice the sounds of birds outside, my daughter reading her book, a car in the distance, the feel of the keys on my finger tips, the taste of coconut milk & fruit, flax seed still lingering in my mouth. All this information begins & is processed in my brain. Have you ever paused for a moment, absorbed, listened, felt, touched, tasted, heard the moment you are experiencing. That’s your brain, pumping your heart, opening & closing your lungs, holding that bladder, lining the spine. It’s your brain as well as your body that is affected when you diet, starve, binge, self-harm. It’s your brain that is affected as well as your body when the crap hits the fan, screaming, yelling, family violence, relationship violence, dysfunction, random acts of violence outside what a brain would normally see on a day to day basis. Even the sitting at your screen, staring into human-like characters ‘taking each other out’, firing bullets into imaginary characters, your body is affected by the lack of activity, your brain by the over-stimulation, levels of chemicals constantly engaged in fight mode.

There are companies around the world, Google as one, who have appreciated healthy brains means better more productive work. Providing employees with opportunities for creativity, relaxation and healthy brain activity is the key to sustaining a healthy workforce.

Human behaviour fascinates me, it always has, for as long as my memory can recall. Whether it was Margaret Mead’s anthropological works, Darwin’s theories, Maslow’s hierarchy, even Freud’s hypothesis, Skinner & Bowlby, why we do what we do, what motivates us, inspires us, creates change; why we hurt others, how we heal, why we love. I love reading anthropological studies of communities untouched by modern society, how they parented, formed relationships, survived. Then look at where I live, look around, at the suffering, despite all the technology, income, money, conveniences, unhappy people & so unhappy, that many are taking their lives. Something must change.

Once I began learning about human behaviour, the more I needed to learn, the more I wanted to learn, the more intriguing a delayed flight could be at an airport, watching, observing, listening, as human beings go about doing what they do. The more I could learn from a conversation, from listening, from taking in the surrounds, the before, the after, the here and now.

Yet, as much as we have learned about human behaviour the need to categorise, simplify and pop everyone into neat little boxes to aid funding, treatment, therapeutic services, has increased. The more we know, the less we know, weird really. The more labels & divides, less understanding & more assumptions are made.

Some time ago I had just been discharged from an MS flare up in hospital. I’d had 4 days of steroids, normal process for a flare. I’d also had a crap time, the hospital struggled to provide for a vegan diet, my stomach was upset, I didn’t sleep well & felt crappy. I still didn’t have a new GP at that time, so I checked out someone local. Without even looking up or examination (not that you can see inside my brain), he began typing. At first, I thought he was making notes, then he started to speak as if he was prescribing, so I asked. Yep, wouldn’t you know it, he stated “you have MS, most people suffer depression, its a normal part of MS” and began writing out a script for anti-depressants!

I wasn’t there about feeling depressed, I was tired, having a check-in after checking out of the hospital, I didn’t state I had depression or needed them & of course I didn’t go back, he wasn’t even a neuro specialist, hadn’t collected a history, hadn’t discussed any other symptoms & yet here he was about to give me something that could alter the way my brain functioned.

I have no doubt this is not an isolated incident. Of all & I’m talking all…the people I know who go to this same doctor, all have been prescribed anti-depressants. I have a brain disease and I’m an individual. Where these lesions are located, what size and how many will & does have a direct effect on how my brain functions. Understanding that is a key to providing a treatment in my best interest, not the pharmaceutical kickback schemes.

One of the tools used to diagnosed how our brain functions, identify underlying causes & it has clear criteria for diagnoses, is the Data & Statistical Manual – the DSM. In 2013 it became the DSM V.

In the last edition, the following additional diagnoses were added.

* Binge eating disorder
* Caffeine withdrawal
* Cannabis withdrawal
* Disinhibited social engagement Disorder
* Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
* Excoriation (Skin Picking) Disorder
* Hoarding Disorder
* Hypersexual Disorder
* Major Neurocognitive Disorder (& Mild)
* Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
* Social Communication (pragmatic) Withdrawal

In 1943 the US Navy & then, Army, began documenting a more efficient way to assess, categorise & treat US soldiers and their symptoms following the war. By 1949, the World Health Organisation had added in the first of mental health disorders to the ICD (International Statistical Classification of Diseases) adopted from those ‘similar to the armed forces’. In 1952 the APA (Psych association) listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance; and wasn’t removed until 1974.

Then in the 1960’s the tide began to change. Up until then a great deal of the DSM & statistical data had been recorded & hypothesised by psychiatrists. With more behavioural psychologists studying, observing, documenting & analysing human behaviour, they began to challenge the medical model and unobservable disorders previously claimed by psychiatrists.

In 1973 Stanford University Professor David Rosenhan attempted to make this point loud & clear when he conducted an experiment to highlight the issues with psychiatry. With a small group, 3 women & 5 men, faking auditory hallucinations and in an attempt to enter 12 different psychiatric facilities and then acted normal following admission.

Once admitted, they were prescribed antipsychotic drugs. He published his study in Science titled ‘Being sane in insane places’. You might think how hard this was or unfair to the hospitals? Well, it was only the first part of the experiment. The ticked off hospitals then posed a second part of the experiment, they challenged Rosenhan to send pseudopatients and with the knowledge, they were being sent a ‘test’ like scenario to see if they could appropriately diagnosed, the 2nd part of this interesting experiment occurred. Out of 193 patients, the staff stated they detected 41 pseudopatients, suspecting a further 19. Yet what makes this part so interesting & questions the whole process of diagnosing & its risk of assumption, is Rosenhan hadn’t actually sent anyone at all. Think about that for a while. Rosenhan identified what he called ‘expectation bias’. We will come back to that.

Not only did these experiments highlight the validity of psychiatric diagnoses, they also brought to light the dehumanisation of those with potential mental health concerns.

The thing about our humanness is when we know better, we have the capacity to do better. However, history continues to be repeating itself, despite what we learned from making assumptions about behaviour, changes in behaviour, without really unpacking the bias & going below the surface, taking off the layers and getting to what the hell is going on for this individual, human beings continue to assume so much based on so little, just as the GP had done with my appointment above.

In 2015 a survey revealed 1 in 7 children and adolescents between 4-17 are diagnosed with a mental health disorder in Australia. ADHD the most common, 7.4% of the data collected. It also shows the data is higher for males than females, except for depression, which was slightly higher in childhood for females. It also identified children from families experiencing high unemployment, lower incomes, less education and even where children reside (non-metro areas) had higher rates of mental health diagnoses. If you then look at the data by family type, males are twice more likely to be diagnosed in a single parent home than in a two-parent family.

What the data is supposed to do is inform policy & planning. It is supposed to help increase funding & show us where the gaps are & how we need to do better at supporting families. That isn’t exactly what happens. Now don’t go assuming as many have done & using the data out of context or pointing fingers at single parents, we know that safety is always a priority with children. What I’d like you to contemplate & look for in this data is one glaringly obvious thing, look outside the box, look at what brings all these statistics together? These are all highly stressful environments for adults, let alone a child, is it no wonder you will see a difference in childhood behaviours, outside the norm. What are adults expecting should happen? Seriously!

Back to the brain. Before my diagnosis, I had experienced symptoms for over a decade. Unusual little things happening, yet every time I had a symptom, it was the associated physical part of the body treated,  not the origin of the signal. So, my arm hurt, we looked at my arm, took an x-ray, made sure nothing was broken, I had multiple MRI’s of my brain, starting with a few ‘unexplained white matter’ on the brain. It continued to be unexplained with more symptoms, years of odd little changes I could notice. The more I learned about behaviour & observation, the more I noticed my own brain changing. Still ‘unexplained white matter’, from 3 or 4 lesions up to around 20 or so.

It wasn’t until a new GP & a suggestion from someone who had also been diagnosed with MS after a long history of symptoms & misdiagnosis, that the lesions began to appear in the correct location for MS & I was diagnosed with RRMS, remitting-relapsing multiple sclerosis. I had even seen a Professor who specialises in MS ‘absolutely not MS’. However, 3 months later, another MRI, a relapse or flare-up & new lesions appeared. The same occurred when my son was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Sixteen months, numerous pediatricians, general practitioners and ‘just a lazy eye’. Ben died when he was 3 years and 4 months of age from malignant tumour, in the brain stem.

Your brain, my brain, our brains, they affect everything we do, they are everything. What you fuel your body with affects your brain, what you drink affects your brain, how you sleep, what you enjoy. Your brain records your behaviour, your behaviour tells the story of what goes on in your brain. I cannot think of a more critical part to care for than our brain. Yet it was many years before I really acknowledged this, years of adolescent experimentation, backpacking, drinking, partying, stressful environments, working long hours for more money, staying in relationships because of skewed ideas of loyalty, responsibility and, love. All these culturally ingrained in my brain as ways I had to survive. Wrong. All wrong.

Maybe it took the risk of losing my mind to discover how vital it was to me. The idea that I could forget how to paint, to sing, to laugh, experience joy. The thought that I could forget my memories, faces, people, places, whether they were good or bad or ugly, that I could lose my history, my movement, capacity to make the toilet in time, to eat, swallow, sleep, breathe. Maybe it took all of this to slap me so hard that it would rattle all that data & info upstairs & make it clear. Nothing was more important than my brain health.

For years it had been neglected, on auto-pilot, reacting behaving, responding to stimuli. I made myself so busy there was no time to stop & unpack what I was hoarding up there, just shove it to the back & get on with being busy, with living. Heavier it became, more stressed, more toxic it’s environment. Imagine running your body constantly on high, never walking, always running, running, running, busy, busy, busy. More, more, more. It sounds exhausting just typing it.

Then while you are running, while you are physically pushing your body as hard as you can, you eat crap. You drink alcohol, you smoke (not that I ever smoked), you fill it with stimulants like sugar, fats, inflammatory foods the nerves hate, you smother it to the point it struggles, impacts on your organs.

This is what happens to our brain. Everything you do to your body, I’ve done to my body, impacts on our brain. Nothing is more important than nurturing the brain. If you were to make brain health your priority, physical health would go hand-in-hand. If you eat for brain health, you don’t need to count calories, you are eating well already, because the food you need for thought & processing, well it’s damn fantastic food for your body.

A few years back I switched from vegetarian to a vegan diet after my yoga teaching experiences in Indonesia and the yummy food dished up each day. I then began learning more about a vegan lifestyle, about my impact on the planet, about living a yogi lifestyle. Living with compassion to all living things, with kindness in my heart every day, to nurture my body while nurturing the planet at the same time. I began to see myself as a key part of change; If change, was to occur, it started with me. Kindness, compassion, love, had to start from the inside to ripple out.

A shift began to happen, despite the lesions, despite the stress of living with a brain disease (what people tell me is stressful), despite experiencing 9 out of the top 10 traumas previously (if I was to visit a new psych that expectation bias often resulted in a script before I’d even finished the introduction), despite fitting the high statistics categories, single parent, lower income, social isolation, disability, trauma, all the factors which are supposedly documented as putting my children and I at higher risk, we are thriving, we laugh, we sing, we love hard, we have our own home and it has been a while in the making, yet we are blessed with the life we have, I wake with gratitude every day.

I now travel the Western region of Victoria bringing the therapeutic benefits of yoga, mindfulness, brain health to as many as interested. I am back working a few days a week, hoping to complete a Masters this year, still working on those novels and whilst the MS does have its impacts & lets me know just what that is on warm days, I am learning to listen to my brain, to my body and when I can do more, I do more, when I can’t, I rest. It’s living a mindful life in all I do.

I eat for brain health.

I noticed a short while ago I wasn’t having as much fruit as I had previously, I was attempting to follow recommendations for overcoming inflammation in the brain, yet my body needed something more, my brain was sending signals something was missing. I was out of balance.

I started with the fruits I love, the benefits of great Australian summers; kiwi, strawberries, nectarines, a few nuts, fresh coconut, the odd date or two & wow it made a difference to the start of the day. On some of the online MS groups, they would advocate no coconut, no this or that, once I admitted I had a tablespoon of coconut oil, someone suggested this was the whole reason my MS had progressed! Woah, fancy that, MS is the result of coconut oil! Tell that to the cultures around the world where it is a staple in their diet. Balance. Individualised balance. How can you possibly imagine that what works for someone on the other side of the world will work for you? Try by all means, yet find your balance.

What does this all mean? One thing seems clear, over-generalizing, trying to fit everyone into boxes negates the individual differences, ignores listening, engaging in the moment, being present with what is arising for each and every one of us. We might all share the same species category, yet our parents are different, our birthing stories, our childhoods, injuries, events, people, places, how we live our lives, culture, language, homes, treat our brain and our bodies are different.

What fires together, wires together.

So there is no doubt what your brain needs is an individualised approach. Yes, there are similarities and these are the diagnostic areas which bring people together in data & stats. Yet, we are all still different. There are individual differences.

I’ve lost count the number of time someone has said “oh yeah I have a friend with MS, they are fine”, now I’ve started responding with “fantastic. How many lesions do they have and where are they are located” of course no one ever knows that information, sometimes not even the patients themselves. Yet ask someone which disc in their back hurts or ligament they tore and for some reason generally, people know their body from the neck down better than the engine that makes it all happen and forget the brain is all about space, what occupies that space. Something that impacts on it, like a tumour, a lesion, benign or malignant, it’s about the space it takes up and the nerves that are meant to be taking up that space instead, that’s what is affected.

Many across society understand & accept the impacts of alcohol and smoking, prescription drugs, even food, on the body, yet how many understand how it impacts on brain development and function? I wondered how many brain cells I might have today if only I had realised this in childhood. When doctors are treating the 40 plus generations or even younger, do they really gather all the info on their previous history, the impacts on their brain health before diagnosing and prescribing & do people tell the truth?

Rarely today are people diagnosed without multiple issues going on at the same time, that’s because everything in our body is connected. When we are stressed, anxious, fearful, traumatised, people substance abuse, overeat, undereat, binge, take risks, isolate themselves and all these behaviours have an impact on our brain and body.

In 2017 after taking the prescribed MS treatment drug to try & slow the progression down, I became more chronically fatigued. Whether it was the drug, the lowered Vitamin D, which so many attributed to the MS (yet the funny thing is my D was fine before I started the immunosuppressant drug & picked up when I stopped it) or it the lesions, that’s the magic question, yet I was picking up everyone’s bugs & having to cancel teaching yoga classes & without an income my stress was going up, my brain more fatigued & so the cycle worsened. I used a basic functional assessment technique to evaluate everything & anything contributing & impacting.

I decided to stop the treatment. It wasn’t the best option, yet one I had at the time. I then trialed removing all stimulants, any sugars, caffeine, even a wine or two each week. I completely bottomed out, so much on an extremely hot day I was so fatigued I couldn’t move off the lounge to get water. I felt miserable, so my brain chemicals were struggling to maintain a feel-good chemical response.

I put the coffee back in, a long black each morning, things picked up, because I enjoyed my early coffee before everyone else wakes up. I put more yoga in, less heat generating asana & more mindfulness. I cleared out the house & unnecessary clutter, so I wasted less time finding things & less time tidying, there was more order.

I continued to tweak my routine diet until it worked & I still tune in every day. I became mindful of what I was eating, how it affected my brain, increased or decreased energy. Alcohol is a significant role player. Despite only 1 or 2 wines here or there, the after effect, was not worth it. If I do choose to enjoy a glass with friends, I know the next day I’m going to need to rest more, drink more water and feel a bit like crap. My brain loves greens, most things from the garden. I’m completely vegan, I cannot imagine how I could live another way, the thought of another life ending, suffering, the pain and fear they must experience, even the use of palm oil, I can picture the destruction and devastation of natural habitats, killing our planet’s orangutan populations. I can’t bring myself to cause suffering to another to meet my own needs, it feels as if it contributes to the imbalance in our world, not a legacy of compassion, joy & happiness our children so need right now.  In order to put something in my mouth out of habit, which is harmful & inflammatory to my brain, heart, organs, I have no idea why I could have ever thought this was Ok, other than culturally a habit because history continues to repeat itself until someone starts to use their brain.

Years ago we were told vegans were pasty looking people who lacked the vitamins, minerals & proteins their body needed. It was completely false. Science has now supported vegan diets and lifestyles & says the eating of any animal source is unnecessary. I mean we are the only species (not me) on the planet who drinks another species milk! Athletes, bodybuilders, people from all walks of life are vegan and they do extremely well in their chosen field. There is no evidence without it being out-dated that can support that vegan is unhealthy. Of course, you have vegan’s who eat crap as well, sugar & too high fats, too much of anything isn’t great for you. Yet there is an opportunity through a whole food, plant-based diet to overhaul your body & brain health, be more compassionate & kind to the planet, to leave the world more gentle than you found it. It’s a choice. I can’t look at my dogs without respect, they are not pets they are my companions, I treat them with the same kindness & respect they deserve as a living being without the words to say when they are thirsty, hungry, in need of love & attention, empathy. I can’t look at an animal destined for a food source or a meat product and not see suffering. However, that does not equate to causing disrespect or suffering to human beings and sadly this is where veganism has had its challenges. My son is not vegan & I love him just as much as I do all my children. By role modeling a different way to eat, a kinder, more compassionate way to live my life, this is his opportunity to learn. So whilst I choose this path, I don’t try & drag people down it with me using force. Compassion & kindness in all we do.

I encourage the students in my classes as I practice each day, to be mindful in all they do, to listen to your own body, your brain, your heart. To tune in & notice what is arising when you feel good, what is arising when you feel like hell. Do more of what feels good. This doesn’t mean isolating yourself from the world of not so great people, places or events. It means discovering a peace so sustainable, an inner compassion and self-love so strong and resilient, you could be anywhere at any time, in the midst of chaos & still find peace. Discovering that peace you are seeking, that peace that is so good for your brain, that destresses, calms, helps you listen to others, develops empathy, patience, tolerance, acceptance, all these values which engage the parasympathetic nervous system & aide your brain to rest, restore & renew, you had it all along, right there inside you, it’s not found in things, in careers, in people, it is found in you, originates from you, comes from your brain. So wouldn’t it be in your best interest to give your brain the best possible chance it has? Those things may create opportunities for joy, meaning, purpose & fulfillment, yet they are only a part of this journey.

So, I decided to embrace right here, right now. The past is gone, the future is unknown, what matters is how I live my life in the present moment. What matters is how I live now. How I eat, breathe, behave, experience living in all its magical moments and how I attach my brain to any of these experiences.

When Bowlby posited his hypotheses on attachment, it was like a lightbulb moment for many across the world, professions. Harry Harlow attempted to show how dysfunctional attachment can be by hurting rhesus monkey’s in the process. The thing with attachment, with theories, is we start out with good data, as the Navy & Army attempted to do, to better provide for soldiers experiencing trauma following war & then it becomes manipulated & twisted & taken out of context. Attachment is a buzz word, also a key indicator of our behaviour, what is tick ticking away under the layers. How we attach, what we attach to, why we attach & sometimes it is the key to unraveling, the key to change, the key to finding peace, learning attachment can be as Buddha once said ‘at the root of all suffering’.

So to nurture my brain I looked at my own behaviour in this functional assessment, I looked at my attachments, who, what, where & why. What mattered, why it mattered, did it really matter when I unpacked it & how did I think that way (not that it was really relevant, yet it helped to address how it became entrenched).

I let go of my attachments. I literally unpacked it until there was nothing remaining & I listened to my body, noticed what was arising in conversations, in interactions, how I was feeling, little triggers & neither need to fix or over analyse just notice & then breathe, to not attach to it. To things, to people, to places, to events. I didn’t stop thinking or remembering or caring, it was the weight I placed on those things & how they impacted on my brain I opened my hands & no longer held tightly to. It’s when you start thinking…when this happens…this will happen. You can’t predict, we can hypothesise, we can assess the risk, yet we can’t know how others will react completely without a pretty good grounding in behavioural analysis & that is with knowing everything about that person. What you can know is yourself, how you feel around different people, how situations change the sensations in your body, you can keep a journal & begin to unpack what is going on, what is arising on the inside under different circumstances.

Why are we attracted to certain personalities?
Why do we like certain foods?
What we enjoy about different experiences that are unhealthy for us?
Do we actually enjoy them or are they merely covering up something underneath?

So many mindful questions you can ask yourself in the moment or merely notice & become more aware of who you are, why you are & how you are. Become more aware of you & discover how to be you. Knowing yourself more, understanding your brain, is the key to the path of finding joy, peace, contentment.

So just as I practice in asana & meditation, I decided to create space by clearing out the old files to allow for the new. I dusted off the cobwebs inside my head, unpacked a lot of luggage & boxes up there I had packed away in the too hard basket & decided to focus on breathing through every single piece as I unfolded each layer. Some I found I didn’t even need to look inside, the more I began to let go of cultural conditioning, the more accepting I became of myself, the lighter I began to feel, the less need to fit anything or anyone, to fit in or stand out, to please or displease. The more I was able to just rise each morning greet the sun, feel amazing blessings for the day and air in my lungs, the body & brain I have right here, right now, the opportunities I’ve had to grow and learn & discover to adventure through life. I opened up my arms & welcome it all as opportunities to learn more. Wouldn’t you know it, through that process I empowered myself, I rose above all the events & traumas, the grief & loss, I could see the potential in each story, in anyone, anywhere, because of letting go of the attachment, to particularly the ego, to live without without judgement or self-righteousness. It liberates the soul, breathes life into the brain, the human consciousness, where we stockpile all our stuff, that can get really hot & cluttered in there. I felt free.

I began asking what can I learn from this person?
What can this teach me?
What are my lessons here?
or to merely experience the here & now as it occurred.

My brain breathed a massive exhale.

I began to sleep better, despite years of instruction, trialing different procedures, my brain was able to rest. I began to taste things differently, appreciate experiences more, I felt no need to have anything, other than for joy or how it could lift my psychological and physical wellbeing.

When I realised I didn’t need fixing, I found acceptance.
When I realised I didn’t need to go faster, I found patience.
When I realised I didn’t need to fit in, I found tolerance.
When I realised I didn’t need anyone to make my life better, I found self-love.
I began doing more of what I could do when I could & rested when I couldn’t.

At present I have over 30 or so lesions on my brain, how many of these are a result of MS and how many are developmental changes, trauma or from another cause, we will not know. I only know during a short period of a few years, intense traumatic experiences, cumulative stressors, they increased from a handful to dozens.

If trauma, experience and both of these are basic stimulus, can have a negative impact on the brain, then it seems pretty easy to consider so can positive experiences.

Whether these meaningful & joyful experiences reshape, heal or merely train our brain to re-route to a different pathway, that’s for the neuroscientists to discuss.

I learned brain health is a key to whole health, you can be as fit as you like, a 6 pack and all & yet still battle depression. We are a web of layers, of experiences, learning, events, people, everything & everyone impacts on us. The magic is that you get to decide what to keep & what to let go, to acknowledge for what it was & then realise you don’t need to carry everything. Just like you were packing for a holiday, you don’t need to take the whole wardrobe, just the things that are relevant.

With the minimalist movement growing by the day & vegan lifestyles, cafes, restaurants & social media multiplying rapidly as the fastest growing change in the food industry ever, change is coming, we are actually evolving. As we know more, we can & will do more.

For too long the brain has been used for suffering, for hurt, hate, anger, greed, competitiveness & for so many experiences which have been detrimental to the human mind. Our mental health stats haven’t stopped rising, our children are losing the joys of childhood, of play, of random acts of fun & making mistakes! For goodness sake, perfection has taken over, alongside disrespect, disregard & an apathy that is killing our planet. The world does not revolve around you, you are part of the world, we are all connected, all living beings, what ripple you create is a choice, you can decide your own vibration. Imagine deciding to make it one of kindness, compassion, gratitude, love & wellness.

Finding yoga has probably saved my life, living a yogi lifestyle has enriched it, shown a clarity nothing or any professional has ever been able to prescribe. The more I unpack, the lighter I feel, the more space I create, the more liberated & free I feel. The more I can welcome the new, people, places, events, open my mind to new possibilities, the healthier opportunities my brain has to survive & continue to give the best possible experiences it can.

Be the change.

Namaste
xo