Let the cleaning commence

I am the most disgusting person ever - I even disgust myself sometimes... my room is a mess - and I mean a mess! I cannot walk across the floor, I have to climb the mountains of junk and I have dirty bowls and cutlery in here from the past three days *blushes*

I wish I were tidy - truly I do! My mum is the tidiest person ever - to the extent it really annoys me - you can leave the newspaper lying on the sofa whilst you go to the loo and you get back to find it's been put away lol "I was reading that" you'll say "Oh I thought you'd finished!" hehe

Anyway - I used to like saying that I was untidy in protest to the moaning I used to receive about things being a mess but now I just accept I'm a naturally untidy person and it takes an awful lot of work on my part to tidy up and keep things tidy. And this irritates me, because I do like tidy places *sigh*

Don't get me wrong, other than the dirty plates and my laziness through the working week - I am actually a clean person - I quite enjoy getting a cloth and cleaning up or mopping the floor or putting freshly cleaned sheets on my bed - I just find the tidying up part I have to do first too much of an obstacle to overcome sometimes.

So I have set aside the weekend to once and for all tidy my room and to donate all the things I do not need to charity so that there are less things to clutter me up and less things for me to make a mess with - sounds like a plan. The only problem being that as a lifelong hoarder I have so much junk I'll probably have to make 3 trips into town today with all the stuff I have and don't actually need lol

I so wish I could post a before and after picture but alas my camera has no batteries and I won't be able to get any until after the cleaning commences... you'll just have to picture it in your mind - go on, be ruthless - you can't be too far off the truth ;o)

How does a bit of love and healing sound?

First of all, a big thank you to all of you who have taken the time to visit my blog and leave a comment - it has left a nice warm glow in my heart.

Because of this I feel I want to offer you all something, which is a little bit of love and healing. I was attuned to master practitioner level in celtic reiki this evening and would like to offer anyone who is interested a distance healing session.

Reiki is becoming evermore popular and there are more and more systems of reiki evolving all the time. Reiki is a universal energy, channelled by a practitioner and sent as healing to people and situations. I like to think of Reiki as the following:

A form of prayer - by which you request that the recipient receive the healing and guidance they desire

A form of blessing - by which you give thanks for life by sharing love through the giving and receiving of time and energy


I practise Celtic Reiki, a system which is connected to the energy of trees, as I have always felt a deep affinity to the trees of our world.

If any of you would like to receive a distance reiki session, please let me know.

I'm off now to try and tidy my room lol - I'll be back to posting about my life tomorrow, no doubt!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Omg it was the funniest thing - I was sat on the bus coming home from work and the bus had stopped to let some passengers off. As it began to move again and I was rocked by the sudden movement I suddenly thought "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!" with all the enthusiasm of a kid discovering the delights of being pushed on a swing or going down a slide for the first time - I then proceeded to crack up over this reaction and how good it felt to feel good!

Today was a strange day. It began with waking up having had very little sleep and sitting on the bus fighting my eyes which kept closing and drifting in that inbetween space where you are not fully asleep but you're not fully awake either and you think something is happening but it's not until you are jolted awake that you realise that you had imagined it... you know what I mean?

Anyway, on my trip through the hospital (which I have to walk through to get to the nursery) I dropped off at the shop and bought a smoothie in the hopes that chugging one of those down whilst battling what felt like gale force winds between the hospital and the nursery I might somehow find some energy... and it worked... I didn't feel tired once at work today - not that I ever had time to!

We usually have 4 staff in our room but one is off sick and another only works a half day on Thursdays - so we had an agency worker come in. So basically she just did as she was asked whilst we ran around doing the stuff like nappies, making bottles of milk etc - problematic at the best of times, what with the nursery never having enough bottles and me not being police checked yet and unable to be left in a room alone with any of the kids. So I spent most my day running between the room and the milk kitchen, washing, sterlising and making up around 12 bottles at a time *phew*.

I was late to lunch and then arrived back in time to be sent running round the nursery to tell everyone that Ofsted (the government inspectors for schools and childcarers) had arrived and the rooms needed to be tidied asap and to then run around trying to get everyone fed, cleaned and ready to go home - it was hectic to say the least!

But I do love my work - however many shortcoming the nursery itself has I love working with the babies and chatting with the parents and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I even voluntarily worked an hour and a half overtime today, not leaving until 7pm in order to have time to change the wall display to make a nice colourful and artistic way to display the rainbow collages we made earlier this week :o)

I then came home, in a really good mood, pleased with my work, to find that my reiki master had replied to my message and I am having my master level attunement tomorrow evening :o) and also to find some new comments on my blog -whoopee!!!

And it is Friday tomorrow - meaning that the clearing of my room (which is a tip and which I reall want to clear as the energies are blocked), the sorting through of my belongings and bagging up of stuff for the charity shop (again to move the energies and release ties to the past) and the posting of the crystals I am sending to my friend in return for the book she is sending me can all happen! :o)

I feel good and I feel good for feeling good... and I again feel like saying "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Dreams

I was talking to a friend last night about dreams and fears. She and I often go through similar issues around the same time - currently she is dealing with issues so scarily similar to the ones I was last week that when I was talking to her it was kinda like talking to myself!

Anyway - another similarity between her and myself is that we are both struggling with living what we have always dreamed of - that being writing. She is an incredibly talented writer, I have had the priviledge of reading some of her work (I would share some with you but it's in German) and look forward to the day when she let's go of her fears of not being good enough and simply writes! Which got me to thinking about my own writing dreams.

I love to write, always have and always will. I go through stages where I write incredible amounts of work and others where I just block off the creatvity and don't write a darned thing. I took the step a couple of months back of finally setting up a couple of blogs to showcase some of my poetry and some of my children's stories. This took a lot of courage, for me, because I was afraid that no one would see them or like them or even they might be "stolen". This was a fear I had to get over because I know they are good, they have touched a lot of people in the past and as for being "stolen" - well that's a risk I finally decided I was willing to take.

But I have bigger dreams. I wanted to self-publish a little book of my poems, just to share between close friends and family and perhaps make an extra bob or two - nothing major. I also dreamed of setting up my own mini-business, perhaps on ebay, offering personalised poetry - where I would offer to write a poem based on someone else's requirements - say for a birthday, wedding, whatever. I also dreamt of perhaps creating some artwork with my poetry... All these things would be wonderful, but they take time and again courage and this fear that I won't be good enough pops up yet again...

I think it's time I got out my EFT book, started tapping these fears and bit the bullet. And for fear of getting no replies - as it's delurking week and I have been delurking all over the place - if I have any readers, please leave a comment to help my poor little ego feel better ;o)

My stars and what's faith got to do with it?

First and foremost (well almost) here's my horoscope for today from one of my favourite astrologists Jonathan Cainer.

Comet McNaught heralds the coming of the cavalry and the appearance of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. You have been hoping and waiting for something to lighten up your life. You have been struggling and striving for far too long - and every great step forward has been followed by a setback. There has been a reason for all this. Something had needed to settle and it is now ready. Keep your hopes and aspirations high. Expect a vast improvement over the next few days.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

I love Jonathan Cainer's astrological readings - whenever I've been going through a major lesson in life his readings have always been so so accurate for me - so much so that when I was in Germany my parents used to cut them out of the newspaper and post them to me! I often find, as well, that reading them in retrospect is better - because it often highlights something I have just experienced so I recognise it and go AHA! rather than wondering what it all means.


On to the real topic of my post. Faith - and more importantly the connections and relationships between different faiths and religions.

I was thinking about this yet again last night - I think about it lots - because Christianity, in particular, holds a major part of my recent past. As a child I always wanted to know God and be close to him and always wanted to be a Christian to achieve that. When I reached 17 my friend asked me to join her church choir and so I did. However this was the first year of my depression, I was so caught in my emotions of fear (not being good enough), guilt (not being a good enough friend) and envy (wishing I were as good as others) that I spent most of my time in a very dark place. I was so terrified of singing that I spent most the time trying so hard to sing and not getting anywhere for fear it would sound awful, that I almost left on many occasions and eventually it all became too much for me and I did. Because of this I never really paid attention in church - other than to the almighty feeling of being somewhere peaceful and powerful and enjoying the chance to sit in meditation during the service.

So when I went to uni I immediately jumped at the chance to join the Christian Union and threw myself into Friday night meetings and going to church every Sunday. But this was where the problems (for me) started. The majority of my close friends in that first year at uni were very strong evangelists and the Christian Union put an awful lot of emphasis on converting people - something I felt very uncomfortable with - mostly because I myself was beginning to really doubt I was a Christian at all. The biggest moment for me came when a visiting speaker to one of our meetings read out a poem that was so dear to my heart and then proceeded to pull it apart and ridicule it completely - something which shocked and hurt me...

Eventually I realised that the reason I was so hurt was because I was finding out that I believed some things really deep down in my heart which went against the teachings I was hearing in church and at these meetings. This was a problem because I didn't know where I fit in and suddenly I felt a distance between myself and my friends as I couldn't open up to a lot of them about it - which shows me now that I wasn't as close to them as I thought I was.

Anyway - I spent a few years really thinking about all of this. I truly missed going to church and that sense of community but I didn't know how what I believed and what I experienced to be Christian belief could both work alongside each other - I desperately wanted to join these two parts of my life but couldn't find a way...

This continued but I became much stronger in trusting and honouring what I felt was right in my heart, until I went to Germany for my university course. There I volunteered for the Salvation Army and lived with an officers' family. I really enjoyed my time there and really enjoyed being a part of the community again - but again it threw me into odds about what I believed and what I was being taught. I desperately, desperately wanted to be a full part of the community - even thinking I'd love an officer's job and being told by members of the army I would make a good one - yet I was always aware that I was being untrue to myself by shutting off a part of what was within my heart in order to fit into this community - and I never did quite fully fit anyway...

In fact I shied away from discussing my belief properly with those who asked me - although we did sometimes talk - partly because I didn't feel confident enough discussing it in German and partly because I didn't want to divulge that part of my life - not when I was confused enough as it was.

And still the exploration continues - I do not understand the need in me to reconcile these two parts - I know I have to live my life honouring what "feels" true and right in my heart but wondering why I feel a need to see a connection between it and what I have been taught/shown by my Christian friends...

I'm sure I'll still be debating this with myself in another 30 years time lol

Breakthrough!

Ok, so I started this blog because I wanted somewhere to write about finally living my dream (and I didn't want to be a total stranger to those who may want to see who the heck this weird person is who keeps posting comments on their blogs lol). But somehow it seems to have been moaning all the way. And this is part of my major breakthrough...

I've been depressed on and off for about 5 years now... but unwilling to admit it until recently because I simply couldn't accept it about myself. Yet I knew I was depressed and desperately trying to find a way out - I would wake up feeling sick and wishing I wasn't where I was - be that home, uni, Germany, Russia... but what I didn't fully understand was all my "if onlys" were completely empty.

When I was in Russia, for example, I would think "if only I were in England I'd be happier" or "If only I could speak the language better I'd find this easier". When I was at uni I'd think "If only I was working and not at uni" or "If only I'd had the courage to leave when I was in my second year"

But when those "if onlys" came true I found that actually I was no happier than before - and so my blog became a bit of a moan fest rather than a celebration of finally being somewhere I have always truly dreamed of being.

This past week I did some real soul searching and suddenly what I had believed in theory for so long suddenly really hit home and I finally "got it".

In recent weeks/months I've been trying to be honest with those around me about how I have been feeling. This has caused much upset for many people because I am suddenly no longer hiding the depth of my emotion and saying "actually I hurt" and at the same time I have been healing because I am honouring my feelings. It's still hard but I am beginning to learn that it is ok to feel sad, to feel angry, but more importantly that it is ok to make "mistakes".

This is something I could never do before and I always had to get it right first time... I placed pressures upon myself which didn't exist and which made me truly unhappy. I needed to succeed academically - I couldn't just do a degree I had to get a high mark. I couldn't just start a job - I had to be one of the best new employees they'd ever had and get it right straight away. I couldn't be my own person - I had to be the perfect friend, lodger, student etc even though such a thing doesn't exist.

Once I truly understood this about myself and truly acknowledged that these pressures were my own doing I suddenly had the power to change my perception and experience life differently. As I wrote to a friend yesterday:

Uni wasn't the problem - I was... my need to succeed, my need to be perfect, my need to prove to people (and myself) I could do it...

Specsavers wasn't the problem - I was... my need to succeed, my need to be perfect, my need to prove myself to people (and myself) I could do it...

(see the pattern)

My health isn't the problem - I am... my wallowing in it, my hiding behind it ("If I weren't so ill I'd do better" - the safety clause it offers me), my self-sabotaging behaviour (not taking herbs, vitamins, eating well...)

My parents aren't the problem - I am... my need to be perfect for them rather than being perfect for me, my need for them to grow with me rather than realising they have their own lives and lifepaths


And you know what all this means??

It means *I* have the power to change all this - *I* have the power to be happy, healthy and free

How empowering is that?


And so - even though nothing has changed around me - my perception has and suddenly things feel ok. I know that I will still have rough days - I know I will still hide behind old patterns - but that's ok - I accept that and hope to experience it as it comes.

And suddenly I feel so much more peaceful and I am getting rid of so much old clutter - I am currently swapping some crystals for a book with a friend, sending clothes which no longer fit me to the charity shop, realigning the energy in my room by use of plants, crystals and less clutter and am looking forward to my final reiki attunement :o)

Life is looking good and my greatest dream of being happy and loving myself finally look achieveable!

To blog or not to blog - again...

I cannot decide whether to keep this blog or not...

A while back I closed the blog as I decided that I was just rambling and no one was reading it and I may as well just ramble to myself (as I do anyway).

But today, as I was posting a comment on another blog, I realised that actually the whole reason I really began this blog was so that I wasn't some obscure person who commented on other blogs - if someone saw a comment and wanted to know who on earth I was they might have a chance to see...

So I am now undecided as to whether to keep my blog going or not...

So for the time being I will reopen my blog and see how I feel in a few days time.

I did eventually go home for Christmas - which was nice but very short and I didn't get to see many people and it didn't feel like Christmas at all - so I was quite disappointed. It also hit home how much I do miss my family and I really got homesick and considered moving back to my hometown - so I could visit family members more regularly and also the rent is much cheaper there and here I am really struggling to meet my needs on my income and pay off my overdraft from uni...

But then I spoke to my family and it got quite emotional - as it seems to recently - and came away from that phonecall feeling quite desolate. This could have been a bad thing but it actually brought about a shift within me... I realised that nothing could make me happy - I needed to be happy. I knew this before but it didn't quite connect within me as much as it did this week.

I've spent the week (when I wasn't working) reading books for pleasure, eating well, sleeping lots and thinking about things such as how I need to let go of the past and how I need to be less harsh on myself and how I react strongly to others because of fears within myself...

I've also made some more peace with my work - I had a rought start with all the illnesses and am still feeling rought but it's getting better. This week a new sickness and diarrhoea bug is going round - I have cleaned up I don't know how much sick and poo this week - and I am taking the herbs my uncle gave me and reiki-ing myself and just taking it easy to try and keep my strength up and my health strong.

The nursery where I work has a policy whereby if you are off sick with more than 3 things in 6 months you are liable for a warning and then if things still don't improve you could get a disciplinary... sounds fun especially cos I've already been off sick with two things - so in my interview with my unit co-ordinator she suggested I cut my hours. I told her there was no way I could afford to do that - I am not making enough money as it is. So we then discussed the option of working 4 long days - so spreading my 39 hours over 4 days - and having aa 3 day weekend - I'm not sure whether that would help my health or not - but it is something to think about.