HelenzArt-life-musings

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  • A seasonal musing.

    I haven’t continued with my ramblings around taking therapy for a bit.  There’s not one reason that can be given but a combination of excuses perhaps. 

    Not feeling that the timing was right mostly.  yes, I go with my intuition on that.

    Yet, I am prompted to write today, it’s Christmas day here in the UK. For many, a day to gather with family whether we enjoy their company or not.  My own family is much smaller now.  Parents have passed on. The passing of our son, Gavin. That’s been 6 years now and still sometimes feels like yesterday.  My husbands siblings have their own things and families to be with, and that could make me feel excluded.

    So I’ve pondered on that this morning whilst sat in my back garden. Surrounded by dormant plants and flowering plants. Listening to bird song and flutterings. Feeling a breeze on my face.

    All around,  in their houses, people are going about their festivities and celebrations perhaps or maybe feeling a bit lost and sad as they too have fewer loved ones than last year. Trying to shape new traditions as loved faces no longer gather at the table, or laugh at the old jokes.

    It’s OK to miss them, but perhaps remembering them brings them closer, to share in the day anyway.

    I’m grateful to this quiet day.  The birds that visit, my dogs dozing on the grass.  The vast sky above in greys and blues.  A small sliver of moon setting.  I’m at peace with who I am and where I am.  I’m at peace with where others are in their lives, too.  That is the best gift at any time of year!

    As the sun comes out, I’m grateful that my family has other places to go and their own traditions that don’t require my inclusion.  When I’m gone, they will be fine with what they have. They can raise a glass to the memory of me.  Until then I shall enjoy their company when I see them. Hold them and tell them of my love for them. Laugh and cry as needed with them through all my remaining breaths.

    Smile, as every day is a good day.

  • Why has it been a while?

    At the end of my last blog I felt as though I was ready to write about my experiences of unravelling my thought of self. A venture into the paradox of insane, sanity.

    As you can see it’s now 2 months on so ‘why has it been a while?

    I have had life’s usual distractions of being a human, wife and mother and also a hugely rewarding experience of curating a solo exhibition of my art works.

    For 2 weeks I got to sit and paint in the gallery/exhibition space with over 50 of my paintings. Sharing a high ceilinged space with painted musing of almost 5 years.

    From my previous blog to the show opening was nearly a month, 2 weeks of which my hubby was away. I was able to dog walk, eat when I chose and tend to my works by cataloguing, tagging and revisiting them. Sitting and having new conversations with those inner created works. Manifestations that have taught me much about me, gifted insights building on the opening out that therapy offered and which I gratefully took.

    The 2 weeks of the exhibition was opportunity to see how far I have developed, not only as an artist but in my ability to talk freely about how and why I create with the themes involved. Although that isn’t separate from all that I am, I do chose not to mention much of my past as it is simply that now. Past experiences that though shaping who I am now, are no longer held within my body like a toxin, poisoning my view of myself and the relational aspect to the world in my view. And yes, my inner viewing wasn’t the happiest of ones!

    Art can be a therapy too, yet for me it’s never been about putting down emotional content, but an allowing or creating a visual space for emotional content to be found and felt. Not angst ridden vistas of dark and violent strokes, nor fairy tale vistas, but honest, semi surreal landscapes through which I get to express a vision or boundaried version of my world. As neither words nor painted depictions can truely express how I feel in every moment of every breath. Though I must admit that there are just one or two dark recollections. My work comes from my found well-spring of serenity. That place of connection with my soul that is found and valued, loved beyond measure. Balanced to see all, to feel it all deeply and honestly yet to not hold that within, to express with gratitude.

    So that sitting in amongst my work brought about some deep, emotional responses. A rounding up of and integration for the last few years. Letting go of the trauma responses to the revelations gifted through my therapy. A healing of the past and a rehearing of those brought into the present.

    I am now ready to write and express though they may not be chronologically accurate as feelings and high emotions when recollected over time become hazy. I’ll do my best.

    I set myself free.

  • Why the need for change?

    Hind sight is a wonderful thing. I’ve seen where there have been so many times in my adult years where I have been brought to a chance to make those life changing experiences deeper than before. Chances to remember who and what I am in and of myself. Places in time where situations have brought me to my knees in losing so much but not seeing and hearing that inner urge to reawaken to life’s possibilities. To be more me. To emerge from conditionings, yet those chances weren’t heeded as I knew not how to be still and listen to those.

    When, through my own actions of deception I nearly lost our roof over head, my husband having no choice but to eject and reject me to protect himself and our children. I was bereft of family and home. Yes, to terminate my own life was a consideration but I was resolved to see things right first. In doing that I came to stillness of body yet the mind still focused outwards on how to help them. There were glimmerings of seeing my hidden past yet I wasn’t ready to visit those then.

    I ought to state though that ‘my own actions’ is potentially a mis-direction, as, on occasion, it felt as though I was in a room with a window watching a facsimile of me do what was felt to be necessary for survival! I have had insight into that too which may or may not be shared as these blogs turn through my musings.

    As the Universe turns it will bring circumstances into view where that invitation for change comes round again. May be we listen and may be we don’t.

    Our son’s death was pivotal for me. That deep loss and the way I learned to grieve was a loosening of those ties and binds that kept the veil over my inner, as yet unknown, unseen, unfelt, reality. Small learnings through absolute devastation to find a way to rebuild remembrances of innate nature. A darkening of the soul to move toward the light. To choose to undertake hypnotherapy purely to stop smoking was serendipity, as that was going to show me how to open out what lies beneath with guidance from both inside and outside. To plumb unrealised depths of pain and torment. Yes, it hurts, yet it can also bring an intense gratitude. Therapy is of most benefit when it is undertaken of one’s own needing for relief. To do it for the sake of another or because it is prescribed by someone may encounter some resistance in the body. That feeling of non engagement in the process. I’ve seen those that have tried and have felt it to be a failure, thinking that it’s not for them and in that moment, it’s not. Why? Because when it feels right, it is right, that inner instinct of ‘I can and must do this’ will be so strong, there will be no holding back of that will to change.

    I have come to a serene space within. Where works are created and words spill forth in the hope that others can feel safe that all will be OK.

  • Where am I going!?

    When I was made redundant from work 6 months after our son died, I was in a better position to help my husband yet I intuitively knew I wasn’t there to rescue him or divert him from his grief.  I wasn’t going to be able to drag or bully him out of his depression or helplessness or any other feeling that he was having, regardless of whether he was intent on denying them or not.   I could only help myself. To carry on embracing my emotions, and to share that, or rather my,  way of being in his environment.  To share that it’s OK to feel helpless, lost, floundering in a sea of what’s the point. 

    So, I cried when I needed to cry, and I still do that. Its not often but I do have the heaving sobs and snotty nosed cries and always feel better after.  Emotion is energy in motion, it needs to be helped in moving through.  That’s perhaps why laughter is good for you, it moves all of the body with joy. 

    Obviously I wasn’t going to hang around my hubby waiting for his next time of needed solace. So where was I going, there’s only so much busy-ness a body can do, house clean, laundry done, dogs walked etc.

    I began sitting, looking at a golden soul thread that was pulled by my sons departure. I didn’t know that I was pondering on that, but in hindsight, that’s what it was. An invitation to find a different path. To perhaps weave a different cloth in what may remain of my life.  To step out of being daughter, sister, wife, mother, all those facets that have kept me in a seeming place. Doing what I have always done, try to fit in to what I thought others wanted or needed, ‘people please’, so as to find worth from others as I had none in and of myself. Though that too is an hindsight.   How can loss shape such thoughts? Grief,  tears one apart, dismantles a lot of what one thought one knew, opens up those darkened and hidden spaces where we have hidden from ourselves.  That is an opportunity to reorganise, to fling wide the doors and windows and really have a good look into those shadows, and maybe shine a little light.  Maybe with the loss of one purpose perhaps one looks for another and at my age, the patterns can change. Survival needs change. There is a roof over head, money available, children grown.  There is less wanting to climb the social ladder,  seeing that we have enough stuff and perhaps it’s time to gather up the inner treasure and make more or better use of what is already here.

    So,  where was I going? I was going to begin finding me.

  • Seeing through the darkness

    This is a recent painting of mine. When in the depths of grief, there often feels a lack of light. Yet the light is still there, remembered as the good times of laughter and love that we shared with our loved one, who has now transitioned to being elsewhere. The light glimmers and seems out of reach sometimes. Yet it only takes a moment to step into that darkness to see the light. To allow that light to fall on the shadow cast over the heart. Yes for a while it may seem as though that light of remembrances hurt and perhaps even deepens the shade. Yet when we hold those good times near, give ourselves permission to laugh or simply smile a little, cherish the memories that those loved ones have left as a legacy, the light will shine into those corners. Shift the grey to a brighter hue.

  • What does life look like after a loss?

    For me it pretty much looked the same though coloured by the emotions of the loss. We still needed to eat and keep clean. Chores to be done, bills to pay, dogs to walk and tend to. Work to go to, though with a phased return, offering the proviso that if I felt the need to take an unscheduled break I would. 

    Going back to work was actually easy, my closer coworkers had been told of my circumstances but there were others who didn’t know and even after afew weeks I was able to speak about it with out feeling overwhelmed. 

    It’s funny how we try to be tender with other people’s feelings at these times. To make it easier on them to deal with that knowledge of someone’s suffering. Yes, I would often go for a quick weep or deep breaths in the solitude of my car, that being my way to embrace the emotion and not deny it or save it for later. The return to everyday things can make us feel guilty too, perhaps. That we are carrying on as ‘normal’ and the grief and pain looses their grip a little. It’s OK to feel it. It’s survival.

    In that first 6 months I watched my hubby fall to pieces. Trying too hard to be ‘normal’ struggling to express his emotions. Saying yes to work when he ought to say ‘no’. His work asking to much anyway given the circumstances. I had to leave work a couple of times to go to support him as he tried to make sense of world so unfamiliar. It was heart wrenching to see him slumped on the stairs, purposeless and hurting. Yet all I could do was support. Let him know and hold space for him to feel all he was feeling. I felt deep down that I couldn’t rescue him from this. That all I could do was hold his hand as he found his own way to heal, walk his own path to safer ground. By my sharing and showing that grieving fully was OK, that I was willing to share our grief, together, with ugly sobs and snotty noses. That neither he nor I had to be strong and calm for the other, simply be there and hug.

    Why did I feel that to embrace all was the right way? It simply did feel right. A deep knowing that surfaced, and was going to bring support for me and those around me. If they couldn’t do it for themselves, I could show them how. 

    A serendipitous event then came my way. A reshuffle was happening at work, and redundancy was an option on the table. The payout would support my financial contributions to the household for a year, and so I took that chance. I would be able to support my hubby through his own stages of grief as well as begin my own explorations about purpose. that were starting to sift up. Percolating through the emotions and senses that our/my loss had shaken loose within.