I should be in bed

Posted on September 20, 2011 by

I should be in bed. I’m knackered. I’m trying to do far too much stuff. I’m fairly sure that I’m not alone! But I have just a minor revelation whilst watching Holby City and I thought I’d better share it before it vanishes into the foggy recesses of my mind and never resurfaces.
So, yesterday I spent several mind-numbing hours sorting through my filing assisted by my very practical friend Laura. I have to pay her to help me: nobody has a friend that good, but she’s worth every penny. While she marvelled at the volumes of paperwork generated in our household and set about whacking my files into shape with a baseball bat and hole punch, I was assigned the task of “weeding” one of the more unruly tomes. We like to call it “extreme filing”.
But! I digress. Whilst ruthlessly hurling old copies of Disabled Childrens Database News (you never know when I might need that phone number), I discovered a small pouch called “Moral Support”. It contained Theo’s “Registered blind” card (no longer needed!), a letter from a trainee doctor thanking me for speaking at a conference and various other scraps of comfort from the carnage that was Theo’s early years. I was very tempted to read through and have a good weep, but at least I now have enough control to realise that this would actually just be disturbing my peace. Unfortunately I didn’t quite have the strength to throw it all away.
And then, watching Holby this evening it suddenly occurred to me that my Guru is always saying, “live in the present, yesterday is gone, don’t worry about it. You can’t predict or alter the future, so don’t worry about it”. Don’t ask me why Holby should drag this truth to the surface demanding my attention, it just did. So, do I need to keep stuff that reminds me of Theo’s past and upsets me every time I see it? No. Do I need to look at old photos that bring up bad memories and disturb my peace? No. So why keep them? The whole lot is going in the fire.
Am I running away from the past, or trying to bury it? No. I face it every day and thank God that today I have a beautiful son who smiles into my eyes with pure, unconditional love while I brush his teeth and wipe his bum! Om shanthi shanthi shanthi.

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No expectations

Posted on August 20, 2011 by

Well, haven’t blogged for so long, think I’ve forgotten how! I’ve done so much over the last few weeks that my computer has sat gathering dust. It is mad season in my “real job” although standing around in the dark waving a piece of electronic wizardry around in the hope of detecting bats is perhaps more surreal than real. How did my life get so weird? So yoga went on hold for a while, while ecology work took over, then, just as I was getting suuuuper-stressed, it was time to head for Florida for my next training course.
Before you get too jealous, I have been saving every penny for this course for the last two and a half years and have done without most of my favourite things (new shoes, new clothes, coffee from COSTA and any beauty therapies not absolutely necessary for basic human decency, you do NOT want to see my hair right now).
So, the Yoga for the Special Child Advanced 2 course: I completed the basic and Advanced 1 in London, but now it was time to start chasing my beautiful teacher around the world and Sarasota seemed to be the nicest destination. One very nice American on the plane said it must have been a pretty special course to travel all that way for it. He was right. And Sonia Sumar is a very special teacher.
It was quite bizarre stepping out of my mad busy life revolving around children, husband and work and flying half way round the aorld on my own. A truly incredible opportunity. I arrived safely at my hotel and swanned around for two days before the course began – alone! No demands other than those of my stomach and the jet lag. Wow! I felt very grateful for the opportunity my husband had given me by looking after the kids for the whole week.
And then the real yoga started. We meditated, chanted, practised asana choreography and studied the yoga sutras as well as bombarded Sonia with questions. How often to you get to sit in a room with someone truly wise and ask things like “is an act truly selfless if you get a good feeling when you do it?” let alone get a sensible answer? Sonia answered all our confused, stupid and even daft questions so patiently and in a way that made everything seem so simple and straightforward. The message was the same over and over again. I don’t take many notes on my courses as I like to try and hold onto the main teaching in my heart rather than my mind, but the two things that reached me the most were to have no expectations and a lovely phrase of Sonia’s, said with her Portugese accent, shrug and wicked smile – “God gave me this job, what can I do?”
This might not mean much to you right now, but to me it became clear that if you have no expectations of what life should be like, what you should be able to get, how you should look, how you should feel, you are free to notice what is. Then accept it and do Gods will. Serve humanity. Be content. Be happy. Simples 

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Degrees of Freedom

Posted on July 8, 2011 by

Yoga encourages us to be self-reliant and this week several things happened that have made me think more deeply about independence. The process started as I watched my disabled son swim for the first time on his own. We found him a life vest to help him float and he was killing himself laughing as he worked out that kicking his legs and madly waving his arms propelled him across the pool. He may never walk but he has achieved a degree of independence and I am so proud of him!
At home, two of the guinea pigs made a break for freedom and we spent some fun time on our knees in the nettliest part of the garden trying to repatriate them. Having tried coaxing and herding to no avail we finally pounced and grabbed one poor beastie. The other one was having none of it and we had to leave her roaming the garden, fearing the worst. Several days later I noticed her little hairy face poking out from under the boy pigs cage and we gratefully rounded her up and put her back with her girly friend. She obviously enjoyed her few days of freedom, but we were convinced that she’d never survive in a big bad garden full of cats, foxes and other piggy perils. Independence can be risky!
Many people value their independence highly, they pride themselves on not relying on anyone, but when you look more deeply it is possible to peel back the layers of perceived freedom until we get to a point where we see that we are all totally reliant on everyone else in the world. You may have your own house, car, job, income, be able to buy whatever you need. But who built your house? Who transported your car to the showroom and sold it to you? Who extracted the metal and oil based plastics that built the car? On a more basic level, where do you buy your food? Who grows it? Who made the clothes you’re wearing? Where did the cotton, viscose or silk come from? The deeper you look the more you realise how connected we are to each other and to the planet that nurtures us.
And on a different level again, the struggles for democracy in the Middle East demonstrate what people are prepared to sacrifice for their freedom, while the shocking abuse of privacy in the News of the World phone hacking scandal seems to reinforce the idea that no one really has any privacy or freedom of choice even in an established democracy.
Thinking round this subject has led me in circles and now my head hurts! I think my conclusion at this point in time is that none of us are truly independent on this earth but by knowing ourselves we can be free to make our own choices.

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Missing son

Posted on June 27, 2011 by

Haven’t blogged for ages. Last week just went totally mental. I still don’t quite know how we survived it. Two of our wonderful personal assistants took some time off so we were flying solo. And, as if on purpose, Theo decided to start screaming as if in horrendous pain on Tuesday night. This isn’t particularly unusual as he is a bit of a drama queen and he screams as though he’s being murdered when he wants a drink, but he’d had a few absences the day before at school and wasn’t really with us. Didn’t want to play with his favourite toys or smile at Tim’s funny faces. We thought it was probably his adult teeth coming through some more.
He had a pretty bad night but was bright and breezy on Wednesday morning. So, we sent him to school. He was home again by 1.00 as he was so distressed at school they couldn’t do anything with him and the paracetamol they gave him had no effect. I left Tim working at the Cheshire Show, (Nomi and I had been admiring the prize guinea pigs), and collected Theo.
A couple of tortured hours later, all 3 kids in tow, I went back to the show, to pick Tim up and let the kids have a mooch. Finally managed to get a phone call through to our GP (don’t ask) who listened to him scream over the phone and very kindly prescribed some codeine, prescription to be collected before 6 when the surgery shut. So we leapt into the van and set off, only to be stuck in the show traffic with Theo still hitting notes that Pavarotti would have been proud of. As you can imagine we were all slightly on edge by now, except Arran, who had his headphones on – lucky brat!
Anyway, super sister in law came to the rescue, flying down to the docs, grabbing the prescription and forcing her way into the chemists just as they were barring the door. She’s not easily stopped when her mind’s made up.
Well, the codeine seemed to have no effect whatsoever, so now we really hadn’t got a clue what was wrong with him. He just wasn’t with us. My heart broke every time I cuddled him and then he’d throw himself backwards and pull his knees to his chest and scream. We did the only thing we could – gave him his sedative and put him in bed. Thank God he was out cold til 6am.
Kept him off school Thursday and by the time I came home from work, I’m surprised Tim wasn’t in a corner rocking back and forth. Both Theo and his darling little sister had screamed all day. Tim hadn’t been able to get a GP appointment all day and the GP never managed to ring back. So once again I rang my favourite people, NHS direct and set off to see the out of hours GP.
My heart sank as we drove off. Theo stopped screaming and looked vaguely happy as he gazed out of the van window. I can’t remember the number of times my children have embarrassed me by being perfectly healthy as soon as we reach the doctors. I am not a neurotic Mother – honest!
Theo did have the grace to remember to scream a bit in the waiting room and the Doctor was LOVELY. Checked Theo out from head to toe – couldn’t find anything wrong with him though! Grrrrrrrr
So home, more screaming, more sedative (at least now we knew he wasn’t dying from something nasty) and back to school on Friday. They sent him home at lunchtime again – wimps! And we clung to our sanity and a large glass of wine. More sedative Friday night.
And Saturday morning he woke up happy. It was as if our little lad had been away and had just come back. He had a fantastic riding lesson in the morning and was happy and interacting all day. Still don’t know what was wrong with him. Glad he’s back though.

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very special yoga!

Posted on June 16, 2011 by

I may have done this one before, but I love it so much – it’s what it’s all about! Om shanthi shanthi shanthiyoga for special children

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Trust me, I’m The Universe

Posted on June 9, 2011 by

Went to my regular yoga class this week and our lovely teacher, Tabs (www.yogaincheshire.co.uk), did an interesting breathing practice at the end of the class. We tried to breathe into the three different areas of our body i.e chest, ribs and belly, one bit at a time. Apparently where you breathe is not only important physically but also suggests some of your personal mental attributes. I, for example find it most difficult to breathe into my chest but find rib expansion and belly breathing easy. This  indicates that I have difficulty in trusting people. My initial reaction to that was “rubbish, I’m far too trusting, I’ll believe anything anyone tells me”.
I’ve thought about it a bit more and decided that that’s probably gullible rather than trusting, and that maybe I do only open up so far.. Although I believe I am always honest with people, there are only a very few, perhaps only really one that I trust with my real deep dark self. I also realised that I have a big problem trusting God/TheUniverse/Life particularly after some of the shit it has dealt my family in the last few years. I find it very difficult to do as my Guru tells me and to just let go and trust that everything will be OK. Why? Because, although it started out nicely enough, it hasn’t been very OK in recent years!!
However, I have been pursuing my yoga for a few years now and I have practised my back bends and heart opening postures as often as I can, and I have to say that finally my experience is starting to outweigh my mistrust. As I let go fear and begin to trust (with a kind of “what the hell, it can’t get much worse, I might as well try it” sort of attitude) I have found that quietly things have been going my way.
There seems to be quite a lot of value in just “letting it flow”. I have practised my Gurus advice to try not to let things disturb my peace if there is nothing I can do to change them. It’s the same principle as not sweating the small stuff I guess. I find that by observing life more than getting involved in it unnecessarily I am a lot more peaceful and a lot more able to cope with the things I really do have to deal with. Need an example? Well, I won’t waste my energy watching all the terrible things on the news and feeling bad any more. There is nothing I can achieve by making myself feel bad. Instead I’ll find a project or charity that is helping and give my energy/time/money to them.
I practised my new breathing in the swimming pool last night. I was lucky enough to have it to myself so nobody thought I was mad or drowning! I floated on my back and relaxed my whole body as much as possible. Then I breathed in and out through my nose, slowly, concentrating on filling and opening my chest. AS I fully breathed out my legs sank and my face started to go under. I didn’t panic because I am quit confident in the water, but I did tense up. So the next breath I really tried to not move and stay completely relaxed. My face went under, all except my nose! I could still breathe in and float back up again. How’s that for trust??!

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Weight loss and losing my mind

Posted on June 3, 2011 by

Well, the recent blog was a little down so I thought I’d cheer this one up a bit. It turns out, surprise surprise that the reason for the crash I’ve had over the last few days would appear to be sugar and possibly caffeine. Wow! Who’d a thunk it? I’ve been avoiding sugar as much as possible for the last three weeks and then, like a fool I conveniently forgot this when we visited one of my oldest and dearest friend on bank holiday Monday. I thoroughly indulged in my favourite Cadburys dairy milk, kitkats, endless cups of full strength coffee and sticky toffee pudding for tea! Then I wondered why, on the way home, I felt wiped out, rundown and totally depressed. I had a complete crash, full on sobbing on poor long-suffering husband and everything. He thought we’d had a really nice day!
It’s always difficult visiting these friends because they have a beautiful son who is a few months younger than Theo. He was born while Theo was in hospital with meningitis and he is a typical healthy and active 6 year old. I always forget how old he is because I can’t remember anything much from the time Theo was ill. I know there are loads of typical healthy active 6 year old boys out there but for some reason my best mates little boy sets me on the path of wondering what Theo would be like now if his brain hadn’t been so severely injured. It’s a totally hopeless and pointless route to follow and I can usually divert my thoughts to something much more positive (like how Theo will never have to suffer High School) but this time I was done in by me diet!
So I suppose I’ve learned some very valuable lessons over the last few days: 1. Refined sugar really is poison and it affects my mind even more than I ever could have predicted, 2.caffeine’s probably not that good for me either! 3. If you give up something you have to remember that you’ve given it up! And 4. Weight loss is not the only reason to change your diet.
Wow! Every day, a new revelation. I’m off to buy some gherkins!

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lovely blog comments

Posted on June 1, 2011 by

thanks to everyone for their lovely comments on my blog! The reason it looks so cool is my fabulous web designer Mick Walmsley. check him out at www.mickwalmsley.com He even let me have as much pink as I liked!

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Yoga, Grief, Depression and Cheese

Posted on May 31, 2011 by

Sometimes it’s difficult to write because everything you want to say is sad. There are days when nothing particularly has changed but you can’t find the energy to be cheerful. It feels like you’re slowly being sucked down into treacle and struggling just makes you sink faster. Words won’t arrange themselves into sentences that make sense and you feel like every time you speak people look at you as if you are speaking Martian. You try to form what you want to say but the words just kind of drift away. There’s a heavy kind of feeling in your chest as if your heart is weighing you down and your arms and legs feel slow and clumsy. Functioning on standby mode. Your mind can talk your body into walking and talking and smiling but it takes a huge amount of energy.
People who don’t know you may not notice any difference, but the people who are close will pick up on the subtle changes and keep asking you if you’re OK. You tell them you’re fine but you know you’re lying. It’s crept up on you again and you can’t believe you didn’t notice it sooner. You’ve been here before and it wasn’t pretty. You really don’t want to have to put all that hard work in again; all the crying and the snot and the dragging stuff out from deep inside and examining it. Stuff you thought you were done with. Yoga teaches us that everything passes, but my own experience tells me that grief hangs around for an awfully long time. I think I’ll still be waiting for it to pass well into my old age and in the mean time it re-emerges every now and again just as raw as ever.
Each time you get better, you think that’s it, I’m not going there again. I’ve got all the answers now, I know how to live. Yoga helps, exercise helps, a philosophical approach to life helps, SSRIs help, sunshine helps, light boxes help, cheese helps, aromatherapy helps.
Life is a journey and I would rather be journeying without depression but it seems I don’t have a choice. I use yoga and it helps, especially if I can practice some asana and pranayama every day. I also use SSRIs (Prozac) because without those my mind can’t persuade my body to leave the sofa and sit on the yoga mat!

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Real Love

Posted on May 24, 2011 by

Sri Swami Satchidananda talks on real love. I could watch him all day
Real Love

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