I Choose You

The wedding was outside. It was a crisp autumn afternoon; the loved up couple were under a huge Moreton Bay Fig exchanging tender hand written vows. A lady with blue hair was singing a song that seemed to be called “I choose you.” I was holding back the tears as something sharp was pressed into my hand. I looked down and my hand was full of coloured sequins, too many for me to hold. A small blond child was weaving his way through the crowd dispersing little rainbow handfuls from a large plastic bag of confetti.

I turned to the couple behind me to share. “Do you need some?” I whispered. There was a shuffling and a smile as the man responded “We brought rocks.”  My eyes expanded and my eyebrows hit my hairline before I saw his big smile.  I collapsed into laughter as his wife rolled her eyes. This was my first same sex wedding and I was navigating new territory. I later found out he was the bride’s brother, from a place near Tamworth, I imagine after years of brotherly teasing and jibes, it wasn’t his first rodeo.

This couple are courageous, honest and full of love and support. They come up against prejudice daily. I didn’t understand how difficult it was for them, thinking that most of the country now supports same sex marriage.

I didn’t understand until recently that often in order to retain employment, friendships, or status in family or society, many LGBTQI people let harsh judgements or jokes slide, rather than rising up and facing the inevitable ugly backlash, sometimes violence and often social exclusion.

Reflecting on my own experience and watching the Netflix series Sex Education, I began to realise a lot of the prejudice comes from my generation or beyond. The generation below me are much more socially savvy, accepting and brave. I watch in admiration as students come out in school, inspired by celebrities, musicians, YouTubers or Vloggers and often supported by their families. They are braver than we ever were.

I think about the same sex marriage vote where the majority of Australia voted (61%) for same sex marriage. It seems to me like a basic human right, you get to love who you want and marry them if you want, or don’t want. My daughter didn’t understand why it was even something we needed to vote for. “You should be able to marry whoever you love.” She said. Yep, simple. Some couples I know don’t want to be married as they see it as too mainstream or they don’t feel they need rigorous rules to govern them.  Gay or straight. It’s now at least, a choice.

A few hundred years ago, marrying for love wasn’t a choice. We were indeed a minority group. Marrying for property, trade, social status or bloodlines was more common. Marrying for love was rare and often condemned. Couples eloped, if their families didn’t agree to the union, fled the country or even took their own lives Romeo and Juliet fashion. So marrying for love was seen as strange and against the norm or counter cultural.

Now we see this as normal, traditional and pretty much bog standard. Man and women marry to raise nuclear families, two kids in a suburban block. Bob’s your uncle. Or brother-in-law in my case. Correction, ex brother-in-law but still included in our messy mix of a modern family, because families are changing.

Things have shifted dramatically in the last thirty or so years so to make the nuclear family a rarity. With contraception more readily available there are less adoptions, divorce is more attainable meaning more blended families and step siblings. IVF allows previously infertile couples or gay couples to have children; surrogacy in many countries makes it easier for women to have children whether in a partnership or not. Single parent families are supported in a way they were never before, allowing women to escape domestic violence or to separate without becoming destitute. Families are multi-faceted and diverse. So is life and that’s what makes it beautiful. It would make for a very uninteresting life if we were all the same.

As much as families are changing, attitudes seem to be a little slower to catch up.  Some hold fast to the shelter and protection of religion and to archaic texts which also advise stoning adulterers, sacrificing one’s own children and cutting the hands off thieves. If only we updated our thinking as often as we updated our phones.  If only we could plug in for the night and wake up with the 2019 revision and not 1950. The one thing religion taught me was to love they neighbour and to be kind, tolerant and inclusive. I don’t know if I believe in God anymore but I still believe in values and I still pray for a better world.

I wonder about how we select our clothing and food from organic, free trade suppliers, we recycle to try to save marine life, the trees, the planet, and yet we show such harshness to each other. Whether you believe in it or not, the polar icecaps are melting, our resources are dwindling and all we have is ourselves and each other. In my final hours when I take my last breath on earth, if there is one hand outstretched for me to hold, I don’t care if it is male or female. It is a hand. I choose compassion. I choose you.

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The Shake up

Last week we had our house painted. I think I would have been alright if it was external, so I could close the windows and pretend it wasn’t happening. Denial in the face of change, why not? It’s certainly worked for me in the past. We didn’t move everything, only took pictures off the walls, and the painters pulled furniture into the middle of rooms. They covered everything with large transparent plastic sheets. In the beginning, it was kind of magical, like we’d just returned to our summer house in The Hamptons.

This changed quickly when my husband asked me to clear the book shelf. I felt nausea rising in my throat. Fixed somehow to our lounge room wall is a massive, heavily laden double timber bookshelf. In it are hundreds of books, travel mementos and photo frames. Crowded in together with money boxes, shells, crystals, containers of foreign coins and knick-knacks. Over the years it has sagged under the weight of stuff. Some shelves had popped their supports, wriggled free and fallen, to be propped up underneath by the spines of large scale hard-covered books. The structure had a precarious lean. I once dreamed I watched it topple out from the wall and fall. I was afraid for our children and pets. It was essential this was cleared and dismantled.

Clearing this took me two days. I sorted books into keep, lend or take to charity. I found cards for the girls second and fourth birthdays, they are now almost teenagers. I realised this was the longest time I had ever lived anywhere. As a child I lived in several different towns and homes. I then grew into an adult living in various cities and countries. I realised when I finally settled, I am a person who likes to keep things, cards and photos tucked between and behind books, little notes and old letters to mark a page. As a book lover, I now feel the pressure of every bloody friend watching Marie Kondo telling me to purge anything which doesn’t spark joy. Telling me I can only keep 30 books. Screw you, Marie Kondo. I pick up and handle each one. Remembering the stories inside them and also the ones outside, where I was, who gave me this one, where I bought another. Some had identifying price stickers on the back. Glebebooks. Adyar bookshop. Queensland University Press. Disposing of books felt like throwing out friends. Some of those titles had been kinder to me than people.

As the painters progressed from living areas to the bedrooms, they took the wardrobe doors off their hinges. I was unprepared for the shock of having my mess on display. Things I had shoved to the tops of cupboards to think about later, or sort another time were staring at me. The disorganised contents of my study were revealed, boxes of acrylic paint, water colours, photo albums, bags of party bags and string and ribbons. My husband’s University Rugby trophy leaned on a pot of glitter, a carved cow mask from Guatemala slinking behind an old singer sewing machine. The girl’s wardrobes revealed tiny black puffy ski pants with elastic braces, scarves, caps, unevenly folded blankets, teenie weenie shoes and boxes stuffed full of paintings and craft created in early primary.

My shelves held dusty Mother’s day cards with pink crepe paper hearts and best mother ever.  There were handmade pottery dishes too small for anything but a few earrings. After ten years in the same house, I noticed I had become a little sentimental and quite hoardish. As the days passed and the painting continued, a fine layer of sandpaper dust settled over everything.

I realised we were living in a snow dome. The once pretty picture where everything was ordered and clean was now changing. A giant hand had picked up our place and given us an almighty big shake up. The dust was everywhere. The door-less wardrobes exposed our mess, the window coverings were on the floor as the sills were painted, flooding us with morning light and forcing us to sleep with eye masks. The girls were sharing a bedroom and arguing over lights out, our accidental inside dog dug holes in the yard because no one was watching him. I kept trying to picture how amazing the house was going to look when it was done, but I couldn’t. The mess, the dust, the shakeup was too consuming. We were in the snow storm and I couldn’t see the beauty. I knew it was going to settle into a new kind of shape and I just had to wait it out.

While I waited for the storm to pass, I discovered my counselling clients were coming in with similar issues. In relationships, things were in a state of unrest or upheaval, in business situations were up in the air, in a holding pattern, it seemed everyone’s states were altered, in flux or transforming. I shared my theory of the snow dome and we all agreed. Everything had been shaken up and in a crazy mess and we needed to be kind to each other and patient, until a new kind of settling happened. Change is really about navigating the mess to appreciate the newness it brings.

So for now, I’ve dusted, wiped down surfaces with a wet rag, reordered things, pushed furniture around and cocked my head, imagining how things might look when we are all done; after the carpet is laid.

The lessons I have learned are to wait it out, accept mess, look for the joy in the process and understand everything has its own time-frame and way of unfurling. The more I rally and fight against change the harder it is to bear. As difficult as it is to face, I need to brace myself to get through the storm in order to appreciate the beauty of the finale.

Shake it up – The Cars

 

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January, sick and tired you’ve been hanging on me…

For a week in January we had a short holiday. We went down the coast with some friends. During this time, I tried to relax but I was also very aware that January was a slow month last year and I needed to make sure I had bookings on my return. I didn’t put up a “I’m on holidays” post on social media and continued to book clients, respond to emails, give advice on messenger, reply to texts. My friends are super fit. They run marathon for fun. Even though they were on holidays, they were in the middle of a training program. So on top of taking our kids to the beach and swimming in the resort pool, our week included morning runs, laps in the local pool, a yoga class, and hill sprint. By the time I got home I thought,  “I just really just need a break!”

I’ve now learned to be careful what you wish for.

After three days of complaining about her arm when she slipped playing chasies, I took my youngest child to hospital.  I knew of stories from friends who didn’t check these complaints out and their kids ended up with broken arms, fractured wrists and fingers while they carried the guilt. I marched into emergency demanding an X-ray. I don’t care about the radiation, she gets more from her iPad. I began to worry about the consequences for her with a broken right arm. There would be no swim squad training, or netball, she would probably need a scribe at school. The X-ray showed a perfectly good arm and I felt like a perfectly good mother.  We got a few hours together where we both had a quiet read in an empty children’s waiting area.

After being home for a week and running the air con day and night, the air decided to flip out and only cool the kitchen and lounge not the bedrooms, or the room where I see clients. So, hot and angry I began making calls, we had just had the unit serviced, okay so maybe it was four months ago, but still it was ridiculous. I arranged for a technician to come out, who I think phoned me from his  holidays, walking me through which buttons to press to reactivate the panel. I tried hard to remember the sequence of buttons to reprogram the electric panel, so I could do it myself next time. What a relief to have instantaneous cooling in all rooms at no cost and new skills for me! Yes, sleep!

The night before school started, I came home after my meditation group, to discover my car was leaking fuel all over the garage. I called RACQ who told me their policy was to phone the fire brigade. My husband and I were standing in the driveway at 10:30 pm waiting for the fire crew. They arrived and the loud engine throbbed down the street. There were only three of them, understandably not the whole crew, but still there they were. Firemen.  It was a January night, so they were hot, although a little older than I expected, in bulky yellow uniforms. I was all embarrassed at the no fire situation, but they needed to wash it down before I was allowed to get it towed. My poor neighbour was woken up and came out in her nightie to see what all the fuss was about. I was standing there in a leopard print skirt and heels surrounded by firemen; quite the excitement for a Monday night in our quiet suburb. Shortly after, I shot a text to my friend from meditation group, “The Firies just came over, I wish I had a chance to text you,” He was already on his way to his unit in the city and later on he replied “Lucky you, well at least you looked fabulous!” Situation, contained.

Not even after the third break did I realise “Well, I did ask the universe for this,” I was just thinking about how inconvenient it was, how do I manage without a car and how bad was my luck? I thought my children went back to school on the same day and I had booked a mobile massage with no car and no childcare. Luckily for me, my parents were in town, they came to watch my youngest while I drove his car to my mobile client. The next day was spent writing an overdue marketing plan and a media release. I was really pleased to finally attack this after two years and also write a media release.

On Sunday, the washing machine broke mid cycle, the lid-lock mechanism locked in the school uniforms and I lost my shit. My husband quietly picked up the laundry basket and tiptoed off to the Laundromat. I had to have a little lie down with some headphones on. Then, I finally got it. I has asked for this. I got the break I wanted. I wasn’t able to think about work as everything else had demanded my attention. I was able to focus on being a mother; tending a broken arm, rethinking transport logistics, working together with my husband to repair the air con and washing machine. I had to stop and bring the focus back inward. I was expending all my energy on the external. In order to survive, I needed to make sure my family were looked after. I needed to ensure they were healthy and well, cool and sleeping, organised with transport and clothes.

During the time of the four broken things, the world kept spinning and I got to stop and re-calibrate, stepping towards what was important, myself and my family. Clients continued to make bookings and came when they needed. I managed to fit them in and around everything else.

Result: No broken arm, new skills as an air con tech, car towed and repaired at no cost, and army of friends offering lifts, upgraded washing machine arriving in a few days so no washing for me. We all have plenty of undies and I don’t feel like a housewife.

Next time I need something, I will be very careful how I phrase it.

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The In-between

My husband told me once about a woman he saw at the end of our street. He mentioned it casually a few days after, he said when he was walking the dog, he noticed her, in full Japanese garb, doing some kind of tai chi, with a pink boom box on the grass playing Asian music. I would have checked his medication, if he had any. In our suburb, all we ever see is Dad mowing the lawn in his cargo shorts with a stubby, blonde kids scooting around on bikes, a few border collies running on long leads and a group of oldies on their early morning walk.  It’s all pretty dull and mainstream in our street. I didn’t really think any more of it, as I know he is not really a morning person, and it just didn’t seem plausible.

Until I saw her this morning. I got a bit of a jolt as I rounded the bend towards the creek and there she was like she’d popped out of Monkey Magic. Except for the absence of a pink cloud and a BOING sound effect.  She was, just like he said, in full Japanese garb, hunched down like she was about to kick apart a room full of criminals Kill Bill style.

She had on a light pink Kung Fu two piece with darker pink trimming at the cuffs. The boom box was on the ground playing jangling flutish kind of music. I smiled in amazement. I was in complete shock. My first thought was “Shit, he was right!” She looked right through me, holding perfectly still and gazing off into a thousand yard stare. I continued walking and behind me heard a Whoosh-snap! sound as she spun around and changed position. I was shaking my head and thinking “Did that just happen?” in my suburban street at 6:12 am. Am I dreaming? What the low flying duck?

Everything returned to normal very quickly as a woman ran by in a Bridge to Brisbane T shirt singing me a cheery good morning. That brought me right back into the 21st Century. My dog was sniffing and nudging around in the long grass and came out with a half passion-fruit shell. He held this clamped in his jaws like a prize and it quietened his panting down for a bit.

It was a hot morning already, the lorikeets were squabbling over the syrupy Eucalypt blossoms knocking the discarded casings to the ground and shrieking to each other. I passed the park where someone had left an abandoned yellow Tonka truck sideways in the sand, with some little blue thongs and I started thinking about the lady. What was that? How did she get into that state, glassy eyes, and not really focused on anything? I realised I had been in a similar state thousands of times, a bunch of us spilling out of the doors at closing time, falling in and out of cabs,  giggling ourselves silly in a coffee house in Amsterdam.  She wasn’t drunk or high, yet she wasn’t in the now. I realised she was in the in-between.

She was in the place you go at the end of a long run and when you finish your eyes are misty and stinging with sweat and your face is hot and your blood and heart are pumping so loudly you hear it like a whooshing in your head. You feel kind of elevated, not attached to the earth anymore, like you are hovering in a misty, pink mirage above it.

She was in the place I used to get when I swam lap after lap, falling into the rhythm of the stroke. Breathe to the side, head down, breathe out, head up and the body just follows the movement and my mind disappears. Afterwards the air in my lungs felt cleaner, I felt pure and more alive somehow.  I used to swim with my friend. He’s dead now and I miss him. He was generous with his time, money, advice, but the best thing he ever gave to me was a word. This became my favourite word and I love it still. The Afrikaans word dwaal, which means a dreamy, dazed or absent minded state.  I think this is the in-between as well.

I think back about the woman; and I see she was deep in that place, the place I sometimes go if I’m really tired and I meditate and the voice guiding me disappears and I fall so deep, it feels like I fall through my mattress or the place where my body is resting and beyond the floor. While her feet were firmly planted, she was in the in-between, lost in the place behind the music, in the sequence of the movement and she had almost become transcendental. I know that place and I don’t go there enough. The place I can switch off all the instructions to my body, the lists for the future and the memories from the past; a place of ease, rest and spacious mind. The place of the thousand yard stare.

I also get to the in-between in nature, gazing up at the arch and splayed branches of a Moreton Bay Fig, or watching the clouds scuttling across the bay as a storm approaches. Sometimes momentarily when I see a yacht in the distance over sparkling water, my brain gets falls into sensory overload and retreats.

I feel this when my daughters come to me in the mornings, sleep-rumpled and smiling for a hug. I wrap them in my arms all bra-less and coffee breath and I go somewhere else for a second which is pure, deep and cocooning. I don’t have to plan a run, or schedule a swim to get to the in-between, because it’s here in the simple connection of unconditional love. It elevates me. I grab it quickly because soon they will be hungry, snarling, tangle-haired monsters charging up iPads, checking overnight texts and snap chats, demanding breakfast, even though I tell them they are 10 and 12 years old and I am not their slave. I soak up the feeling of the in-between because I know how quickly the tide can turn and it’s hot and they are hungry and we never have enough time in the mornings.

I hope in the midst of this month, which becomes noisy and cluttered with school starting and work ramping up again after the Christmas break, you find some space for your mind to suspend and re-calibrate from the Christmas holiday chaos. However you get there, whether it is with exercise, cuddling, meditating, or in full Japanese garb down the end of the street, I hope you find a pause, a dwaal and the peaceful state of the in-between.

 

Rachel Wilkinson is a counsellor, massage and reiki therapist, a writer and an over-thinker. She practices from Wello Well in Wellington Point and Step into Health at Mansfield. If you need help with anxiety, depression, addiction, grief, relationship counselling, family or workplace stress you can find her website to read more and send her a message. If she is not trying to manage her crazy Cavoodle, children, appointments or the double shot settings on her coffee machine, she’ll call you right back.

 

 

 

 

 

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The 5am Golfer and the Cob of Corn

I understand that many nefarious and secretive things happen under the cover of darkness. It’s the strange things that happen in the light of day that jolt me.

This morning at the beach, I was helping my wriggly puppy out of the car and heard the unmistakable crack of a golf club connect with a golf ball. I was tangled up inside the car, disconnecting the strap from the seatbelt, fussing with the lead and checking my pocket for poo bags, but I heard it. It sounded so out of context from the normal morning murmur of outboard motors, distant echoes of barking dogs and car engines slowing to a halt.

I straightened up and noticed the bay looking smooth and creamy blue. I saw a few trawlers chugging out through the channel. The tide was out and the orange stretch of sand out to the island exposed. The dog pulled at the lead and crouched into what my daughter calls the “poo-sition”. I’m immediately in new dog owner mode, making a show of getting the black plastic poo bag ready, inserting my hand into the bottom, demonstrating my social conscience and community consideration. At the same time I’m slightly embarrassed, wanting him to hurry up because it smells like wretched dog food and I want to dump it. It is so quiet; I can hear it pat onto the grass as it falls.

I’ve knotted the bag and I walk to the bin when I hear it again, another sharp tuk sound of the club connecting with a ball. I head towards the beach and wonder if it might have been a crab. Sometimes the crabs snap and crack in the mangroves. I watch the smaller crabs scattering sideways into their holes scrabbling over the perfect little balls of sand.

I lift my head towards the island. I feel like Moses here, the thin, long strip of sand lifted up from the sea bed and the water lapping either side. I’m feeling all powerful and biblical when I spot her. A middle aged cranky woman in shorts and joggers making a bee-line towards the mud with a golf club held like a staff. I nearly laugh out loud.

I am full of questions. What is she doing? Doesn’t she have the patience for lessons? Is she deliberately pegging golf balls into the ocean? Is she just plain angry? I wonder how many balls she had and how many she lost. I start to think about marine life and what a golf ball might do to a dugong. I want to talk to her but she was spludging across the mud and crab holes tracking her lost ball. Dog people only seem to talk to other dog people and it didn’t feel right for me to approach a random club wielding cranky-pants lady. I can’t exactly ask her the standard dog introduction; what age and type of club she has. I watch her storm off and realise I’m over thinking again.

The beach is beautiful, the water like silk. I view the flotsam on the sand and the shells strewn where they lay as the water retreated. I see pointed triangle shells with holes, empty half shell pippis as well as fan and oyster shells, there are sponges and craggy, white, coral rocks. I’m not really taking it all in because I am already over thinking. I think about writing a blog about the golfing woman and then I’m busy thinking is overthinking spelt as one word or two, or is it hyphenated? Then I notice I am over thinking the word.

Yesterday I spent an hour with a young girl and her mother assisting them with anxiety and depression. We talked about ways to stop her mind from being too active. I mentioned some strategies I had used which disrupted the over thinking loop: these were things like meditation, walking outside, taking the dog for a walk and listening to music. Here I was, outside, walking the dog in breathtaking scenery; the early morning sunlight reflecting on the water, quite meditative and I am still stuck in the over thinking. I tell my brain to stop it. I pull myself back into the moment. What can I see, hear, smell, touch, taste?

I hear the crunch of sand under my runners. In the distance there is an old man calling to his two black dogs, they are running into the water and splashing. I saw him yesterday he called them his two black monsters. I see the long strip of sand heading towards the island like a long orange road. I smell slightly tangy, briny clean air and seaweed. I feel the wet, grains of sand flicked into my shoes, because I haven’t put socks on. They are rubbing and scratching at my heels a bit and the side of my foot. I walk along watching my dog sniffing at foot and paw prints like he is some kind of forensic dog and we are about to solve a murder mystery from the 1800s.

I look out and take in the whole expanse of the view. I breathe the air, the morning, the ridiculous time of 5:15am and the weirdness of walking along a sandbank which a few hours ago was the bottom of the ocean. I think about how I am walking on the ocean bed, I notice the things on it that are now exposed, an upturned puffer fish, shells, crabs, the sponges and rocks, the weed and a cob of corn. WTF?

I was doing so well, being mindful and not thinking, but this set me off. What the fuck is a cob of corn doing on a sandbank in the middle of the ocean? Did a fisherman toss it out of his dingy? Surely a fisherman would be eating a packet of chips, not corn. Was it dragged here by the tide? It’s not even standard beach-side fish n’ chippery fare.  It seemed so incongruous, like the lady golfer, so out of place and bizarre. It was somehow better than a tin can or a car tyre. Less environmentally offensive; almost an acceptable biodegradable pollutant; if corn cobs are degradable, I seemed to remember they hang around for a long time. I suppose they are less harmful than plastic, but I’m sure it could plug a whale spout. Then I start thinking of Jonah. I know, I’m doing it again.

I begin to understand, from my lived experience with anxiety, it can lead to overwhelm. From my experience with clients who speak of anxiety and depression, I know they go hand in hand. Yesterday we talked about overwhelm tilting off into depression. I know depression and anxiety are bedfellows, so I Google it. On the sandbank, with the dog sniffing around at the three pronged ibis prints. And it comes up. Anxiety leads to depression in more than 50% of cases. I know that too much thinking can push the brain into overwhelm and I know in cases of depression the thinking kind of halts and freezes and the person gets stuck in a demotivated cloudy funk of darkness.

My friend once told me that looking at the water forces the brain into a hazy daydream like state because it overstimulates the brain and it can’t focus. I know this is the same with fire, it kind of hypnotises you, showing you shapes and patterns and the brain can’t think of anything else.  I can see how the constant thinking, with no space for the mind to rest, can lead to overwhelm and depression. I now see the benefit of meditation and not overcrowding my mind with unimportant thoughts. I can see the trap for me and for anxiety sufferers; the brain is caught in a spasm and looping panic of what ifs and what about, and how and what if I die? and overprotective madness.

I refocus and decide I will only worry about the things which impact me directly. I have to actively push away the questions and curiosity of the beach golfer and hand them back to her. Not my business, not my story, not my drama. Bye bye beach golfer. I think about the dugongs and I decide they eat sea-grass and not golf balls. Surely it is the domain of marine biologists and ocean conservationists to worry about. Not me. Not my drama, not my story, not my business.

All I can control is my life, my thoughts and my behaviour.

I wrestle with the sandy, muddy puppy and put him on an old rug in the back of the car. He lets me clip him in without biting me, I’m relieved, he is tired. I drive home with the windows down and listen to the soft radio, the birds waking up the whole peninsula, squawking and telling them how magnificent this bloody morning is. My mind is clear. I am peaceful.

When I arrive home, my husband comes out to help me with the uncooperative side gate. The dog’s feet are mucky and sandy. I can hear the news on in the background and smell coffee on his breath. He pats the dog and says to him “Did you have a good time at the beach?” The puppy lifts his head I hear him say “What the hell is that?” he looks at me confused and says “Why does he have a cob of corn?”

I don’t. I can’t. I shake my head, I will tell him another time, because I can’t save the dugongs or the whales today, I’m too busy with my own stuff. I’m trying to save some space in my head for the upcoming day, we need to Christmas shop, see my brother and his family, then catch up with a friend for coffee, before the networking party. I can’t go into the story of the 5am golfer and the cob of corn. He can read it here. For now, I need coffee.

 

If you or someone you know wrestles with anxiety or depression, we can get together and talk about some ways to assist. I don’t always sit in a clinic room. We can chat over coffee, or go for a walk. Believe it or not, there are some proven strategies that work, it is possible to avoid the downward spiral into depression and come out of the darkness. December is such a busy time, physically, mentally and emotionally. We need more peace on earth.

I am a counsellor, massage therapist and reiki practitioner with a clinic room in Mansfield and Wellington Point. See my website for more details.

 

 

 

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Misery loves company

I’ve just finished jury duty. It was particularly gut-wrenchingly hard for me. Which is why, on the day after it all wrapped up, I found myself in a coffee shop surrounded by a huge mug of coffee, a chocolate milkshake with ice-cream, musk sticks, chocolate wafer biscuits and my misery. They say misery loves company, so together with my coffee and sugar hit I invited a few friends.

I’ve learned some things about my emotional behaviour.  I have witnessed myself emotionally eat, drink, binge on Netflix, shop, isolate myself or hide and excuse any kind of excessive treat as a reward. This is where addiction can chime in. When we feel low, sad, disconnected we try anything to push these feelings down and to fill ourselves up with quick pleasure.

Emotions are complex, tricky little fuckers. Sometimes we choose to behave in a childish way or indulge in excessive or compulsive behaviour. Sometimes we allow these emotions to lead us into regressive, addictive behaviour which we feel like we can’t control. Try as we might to swallow these emotions, they are evil and unquenchable and eager to return!

As much as I wanted to crash head first into a bath of double chocolate mud cake after a six day murder trial, complete with 29 post-mortem images, none of which I can get out of my head; I now know the combination of things which can soothe my soul and re calibrate my equilibrium. It has taken me many years to discover the antidote and it seems counter intuitive. But misery does need company.

Connection

People need people. Isolation and not having a support system can be crushing after an emotional event. Some people need to be heard, some need to be seen, others need to feel worthwhile, valued, and relevant. I need people, I need to talk about the issue, I need to be heard, I need to rant and bang on about the injustice of the world. I need to whine in a shaky voice about the fact that they didn’t tell me they were about to put graphic photos of a deceased person on the seven large TV screens. I want to discuss humanity, hatred, bullying, egos, the lack of compassion in the world.

Support

After a few of my friends asked how it all went and I said “Awful, I don’t want to talk about it.” They let me talk, they told me to phone if I wanted to talk more and they invited me out for more coffee. I am grateful to have a strong support system. As the trial went on for 6 or so days and I couldn’t talk about it, I cried quietly on the train, then in a noisy squeaky way at home. I continued to see the disturbing images and dream of them for over a week.  Thankfully, my family doled out hugs and my husband served up food and did the school run. I was a bit of a wreck. I felt traumatised.

Healing

Fortunately for me, over my life I have met a diverse collection of healers. I now have my very own army of freaks and weirdos who kindly offer to swap treatments. A personal trainer I met last month, spotted me in the cafe with my triple alliance of sugar, caffeine and friends and gently told me when I needed to move just send her a text. I don’t feel like moving just yet. I booked in friends for a reiki session at home and had some energy healing this morning. I feel better, clearer, more myself. Less angry at the world and less attached to someone else’s story.

I know as humans, we try to fill ourselves up when we feel empty. We turn to sugar, fat, sweet, salty foods for comfort. We try to fill and protect the space around the heart, or we use alcohol and drugs to shut down the feelings, to numb the pain and make ourselves feel full. We isolate, we disconnect and we pull away when all we need to do to heal is to engage with others and connect.

I know emptiness, unless addressed, returns, again and again. The hardest part, and what I have learned in the last few weeks is, with clients, friends and myself, is we have to be a little brave to show our vulnerable side and reach out for support. Thank you to the people in my life who have been okay with my snot and tears, I’m okay with yours as well. Thank you to the people this week who have hugged me, helped me, healed me and heard me. There are a bunch! Find the people in your life who are okay with your tears as well as your laughter. Hang out with the ones who are okay with you being human. They are the only ones you need.

If you need help with emotions, addiction, eating, stress, decision making, life, trauma or want to have a chat, I am available. I can be found in cafes around the Redlands as well as Step into Health, Mansfield and Wello Well at Wellington Point.

I am a holistic counsellor, massage therapist and reiki practitioner. Treatments are individually tailored to your needs. www.rachelwilkinson.com.au for appointments please email info@rachelwilkinson.com.au or phone  0402 329 259.

 

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Aging and why it sh!ts me

These are not my hips. Mine would show a smaller than average bladder.

At 48, I consider myself too young for orthotics. For those younger than this – these are things elderly people put in their shoes to help them with their elderly feet. Or so I thought. Apparently people younger than 80, need help with their feet as well. Or hips and consequently feet.

Bloody hell. I used to smile smugly when my older husband and friends spoke about their backs, knees, elbows, shoulders, hips and wrists. I was fine, bouncing out of bed every morning, meditating, going to yoga, eating mostly well, a regular at the gym, no longer drinking. All bouncy, until I wasn’t.

It crept in slowly at yoga when I noticed I couldn’t sit cross legged anymore. I had always been slightly lop-sided and one knee sat taller than everyone else. I figured it was just tight hamstrings and became much worse after I flogged my body in the Sydney City to Surf.

This race, which, I will point out, was only 14ks. I need to qualify this because I know half and full marathon runners, I know trail runners, Oxfam 100k runners, iron men and triathletes. I am only a plodder and still haven’t managed a park run at 5ks. It was only my stubbornness to not be overtaken by anyone in a gorilla suit, which got me over the line. It was mental health, not physical health. Those 14 kilometres felt like a marathon to me.

After this race, I struggled to get on the plane to fly home, I needed to hold on to the rail of the stairs, the wall of the toilets and made old lady grunting noises whenever I raised myself from a seated position and  got back down. The following weeks after this, driving around Brisbane, I found myself putting on the hand break at traffic lights, as my legs started feeling weak and shaky holding down the foot pedal.

I began to notice the neuralgia at the end of the day, when I went to bed. I knew my body needed time to recover and rested my legs on pillows and took it easy. I mentioned it to my husband, as a month after the race I still felt achy and had tingling sensations radiating down my leg and my feet were feeling numb. He suggested I see a Doctor. So I googled the symptoms and decided I had MS. I booked an appointment.

The day before the Dr appointment, I had a booking with my daughter’s Chiro. We booked months ago for my tight hips. I had been taking my daughter to see this pediatric chiropractor for her neck this year. Weirdly, watching my child being adjusted in front of me, while I was sitting with pain for months didn’t actually register with me as an issue. Fairly typical parenting behaviour, putting yourself last. She asked me did I have any leg pain with the tight hip. I said I had a weird leg and feet pain, but I had booked an appointment the next day for suspected MS. She did a quick double take. I wished I could move my head that fast.

“Do you have any trouble with balance?” She asked. I stood in front of her in tree pose, one leg wrapped around the other standing on one foot and wrapped my raised arms in the same way.
“Right. What’s your vision like?” I told her I only wear glasses for reading and really only fine print. She told me to cancel my Dr’s appointment and I didn’t have MS. She fiddled with my right leg, it didn’t go where it was supposed to, she asked me to get an X-ray for osteoarthritis.

Jesus. I was furious with my body. Twenty years of weekly yoga for strength and flexibility and now this! Then when I began to think about it, it all started to makes sense. This is why I am crap at skiing, had difficulty with childbirth and had the emergency Caesar. This is why I hate exercising, can’t run very far and always take longer to recover than anyone else. I have arthritis.

I went for an X-ray. I put on the robe, open at the back. I stood with my butt against the cold wall while she kindly took the photos. Then I lay down in what she called froggy pose while she took more photos. My hip did not like froggy pose, especially when she told me not to breathe and then hold it while she checked the film. Hold what? The breath? The position? Stuff you over thinking. I thought. Then thought, I could die here. I breathed. I let my leg drop back onto my other leg, I couldn’t hold it at the right angle for more than a few seconds. I was already feeling very old and very arthritic.

I received a text from the Chiro the following night. You do not have osteoarthritis. Come in and I will speak with you about it. Looks like leg length. Now, I know there is no such thing as one leg longer than the other. My massage lecturer told me that and he was an Osteopath. So I waltz in and get ready to tell her that I just need to get someone to release my psoas muscle and we are all good. I guess that’s why she is the Dr. She explained the bio-mechanics of the body and hips and showed me the X-ray. It was leg length. Not arthritis.  It had nothing to do with my psoas. It had nothing to do with why I am a crap skier or had a ceasarean.

There was a six millimetre discrepancy which meant I needed heel lifts. When she offered me a three pack my raised eyebrows told her I like my shoes. I like my boots, my sling backs, my slides, my heels and my wedges. I like my shoes so much they are edging my husband’s out of the walk in robe and into the bedroom. Thankfully, she sells them in packs of ten. I refuse to call them orthotics. They are a heel lift and I only need one for my right foot. I need to go back and get another ten because it’s coming into summer and I already put five in my boots.

I’m now grateful. Grateful I don’t have MS because I know how much it sucks. Grateful I don’t have osteoarthritis because that would be painful, limiting and stop me from doing all the things I love. Like short gym sessions, lazy dog walks, gentle swimming and restorative yoga. Now the headaches have backed off and my body has re-calibrated and made its way through sore neck, upper and lower back, hamstrings, calves, ankles and feet, I’m kind of even learning to be okay with the heel lifts. But – just for the record – aging shits me.

 

 

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Cafe Society

When Redland’s mother of two had a mid-life career change, she never expected her new job would involve hanging out in cafes! After 25 years in marketing, Rachel Wilkinson re-trained as a counsellor and entered into private practice in 2017. Since then, she has seen many clients suffering from loneliness and isolation as face to face connection is quickly being replaced by on-line socialising.


Rachel, a resident of the Redlands for over a decade said after she moved from Sydney to Brisbane in the early 2000s she found it difficult to make friends outside the workplace. Once children came along, the opportunities broadened but time diminished. “I know how crucial it is to have someone you can call on, especially if you don’t have family nearby. You need to invest time to be a good friend, but as we all get busier, we really have to schedule it in.”

The idea to form a connection group began initially with sessions at her home in Wellington Point. As the group began to grow, Rachel looked for a larger space. She approached local cafes in Wellington Point and Ormiston with the idea of coffee and counselling.

The group started meeting at Refuelled Cafe in Wellington Point on Fridays and connections were made very quickly. “It didn’t take long to work out we are all connected, either by experiences, friends, upbringing, school, work or business. People walk away with new numbers in their phones after the first session.” Rachel said.

When she approached Coconut Coffee House in Ormiston with the idea of creating a coffee and connection group, owner Catherine Harmer was excited to get on board. “My goal has always been to make Coconut a place where people feel nurtured,” said Catherine. “Rachel’s idea of bringing like-minded people together over coffee and cake is perfect. It is a great way to meet new friends, share thoughts and ideas and feel supported. Some of my best ideas have been over coffee!”

The group sessions run from Refuelled Cafe on Friday from 11 am and Coconut Coffee House on Tuesday mornings from 8.30 am for approximately an hour. Contribution for the sessions is $10. Rachel provides the additional support of counselling in each session. You can book your seat by emailing info@rachelwilkinson.com.au

Rachel Wilkinson has a degree in Communications, and holds Diplomas in Remedial Massage and Holistic Counselling. She operates from a private practice in Wellington Point and Step into Health Clinic at Mansfield. Rachel runs workshops for anxiety, cafe connection groups and is a regular blogger on parenting, family and wellbeing. She has recently released an e-book about giving up drinking called Hell in a Handbag available on her website https://www.rachelwilkinson.com.au/product/hell-in-a-handbag-e-book/

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The gym and why it sh!ts me

This morning I had a re-assessment at the gym. I’ve had these before and they give me whole bunch of exercises I don’t do, show me machines I don’t like and after this I just return to my old routine. Last time, a particularly enthusiastic woman gave me about seven or eight exercises to do on the mat, after my work-out called various things, like 1000 crunches, maniac swinging sit ups, hard core planks and stretches. She told me if I really want to smash out my work-out, then this is what I need to do. I don’t want to smash out my workout. I don’t want to arrive at work a quivering, nauseous wreck, unable to lift a tea cup. I want to run and shut out the world with my headphones. To steal a line from the Piano Man, to forget about life for a while.

I don’t stretch at the gym. I usually arrive thinking “Ugh, thank god, the morning school run is done, I will just jog for a bit, then shower and go to work.” There is no room in my head for complicated warm ups and warm downs. I can’t coordinate my arms and legs into crossover patterns while holding in my core and my butt. I simply want to watch morning TV on the treadmill at a slow run. I realise while the running is good for my brain and cardio health, I am really only using about 1% of the gym equipment and I am still chasing the elusive biceps. I need to do weights.
I need to do some weights because I have the baggy, saggy, side- boob fat happening. I know it’s because of my limited range of motion from the frozen shoulder injury, but that’s better now, so I have no excuse. I see the lady who is doing my assessment. She is the smash-out your work-out one. I come clean. I tell her I lost my program sheet with all the exercises on it months ago and after a few frustrated attempts looking for it, I gave up. I do the machines I like, I have done a few classes, but mostly I just run slowly on the treadmill then flop into the massage chair. They shouldn’t have massage chairs in gyms.

I tell her the truth. She asks me which machines I’m using. I point at the treadmill. She asks what else and I point at the massage chairs. I know they are not technically work-out equipment, but they are equipment and I do use them. She mentions the other machines and I tell her, the bikes bore me and they are a little bit too hard, because I am lazy. I don’t like the thing with the arms and legs going at once, because I feel like a dick. I feel like the Friends episode where Phoebie is running. I feel unco and like I’m not really exercising. I feel a little bit like some kind of weird air dancing. I know it’s a gym for women, and I shouldn’t care how I look, but I can’t use the cross trainer one because I’m too self conscious.

She shows me some equipment I can use to target my Lattisimus Dorsi, which is what I am terming the back fat. She shows me some parts of machines I had never seen before. Some of the weight and pulling ones also go from the back. I didn’t know that. She writes down how many repetitions I need to do and I mentally half it. She looks at me saying, you need to do 12 of these five times. I know I will use this machine but I will only do two. There is too much faffing about changing the lugs into the holes and being careful about how I get in and on and off and how to stand. She also shows me how to hold the 20 kilo weight close to my chest and be careful because some people have broken their feet and crushed their toes. I decide to not change the weights.

The other one she shows me is the stair one. This is new and I’ve watched people on it, but there are too many buttons and I don’t know how to use it. She tells me to get on and shows me the buttons. One is for on and the other for off. There are two more for go faster and slow down. She suggested I could do sprints but sometimes people fall, so I think I will do this slowly, it won’t help the side boob but will work the butt, so I’m okay to do that. I look again at the on button, then the slow button, those are the ones I will be using. She warns me that I need to be careful getting off this as it slows but kind of keeps going. There are numerous images flashing through my head of me descending the stairs backwards and landing on my arse. I remind myself to exit gracefully.

She asks me what classes I am doing. I did one Pilates class and it was okay but I couldn’t roll over in bed the night after and it hurt to laugh and move and kind of disabled me for a few days. I did a yoga class once, but it didn’t feel right at the gym. I need candles and Indian chanty music. Not that it matters, but it didn’t really feel like yoga. It just felt like stretching and there wasn’t enough meditation. I could never be a gym junky or a smash out your work-out kind of person. I prefer lying on the ground stretching and I don’t like planking. Planking is awful and mean.

I know the kind of exercise I like. It is really exercise without any rules, I don’t try to beat a PB on the treadmill, just run for twenty minutes, which is double what I used to do. She suggests this as a warm up, this is news to me, I figured it was the whole workout. We agree that I will start to use a few more machines, but only the easier ones, the safe ones and the less complicated ones. I did not join a gym to become an engineer of knobs and buttons or a workplace health and safety officer. I want it easy, where I can run until I get tired and stretch after, if I feel like it. I told her, I don’t think classes are for me, because I’m not very good with my left and right and I don’t really like being told what to do.

I think she may have gone back to the file where she had hidden my program and scribbled on it, “Do not give me this woman again, she is lazy, fussy and difficult. I hate her.”

I exercise because I like the rhythm and routine of it. I go every second day so I can enjoy the spaces in between. I go to enjoy having a day off. I go because of cake and back fat. I go because it sometimes motivates me to vacuum and I hate wearing leisure wear unless I can justify it. I much prefer incidental exercise, walking the dog outside but this alone will not give me biceps or banish the back fat. So this is why I go to the gym but also why it sh!ts me. I prefer to walk outside.

Click Here for a link to some exercises to get rid of back fat. They all look too hard to me, I won’t be doing any of them.

New Therapy
I’m offering Walk and Talk Therapy as a new session. This way you have an excuse to wear leisure wear, walk outside in the fresh air to chat, get some endorphins and tick off your exercise for the day. The sessions will be run from Wellington Point, taking in the wetlands and Bayside areas for an hour and you set the pace. I can’t run and talk and I’m not a personal trainer, so these are really a casual stroll to change up the formality of a counselling room. Sessions are one on one. Contact me for an appointment or for any questions. M: 0402 329 259 e: info@rachelwilkinson.com.au

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The voyage of the highly sensitive

Lady in a boat – Edward Burne-James

Often I pick up a magazine and self diagnose. Or, there is a pop up ad in my Facebook feed. Are you tired, emotional, moody? You might be suffering from lack of sleep. Well, yes. Isn’t everyone? Are you lack-lustre, flat, hard to motivate  – you may need more Vitamin D! I recently picked up a book at the library called Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity. How to manage the emotions of a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). This one made me say aloud. “Oh, God, that’s me.”

I have always felt different to everyone else. I feel more. I’m more emotional. It can be difficult. I love it when I meet a kindred spirit who has similar idiosyncrasies. I get up early and crash out exhausted, early. Sometimes I just need to shut everything out. I sleep with an airline mask to block out light, but I have to leave a lamp on in the house somewhere, in case I wake up to complete darkness and can’t find my bearings. I am a light sleeper and wake at the slightest sound. I remember once my sister visited when my second daughter was a baby and she said to me in the morning “You must have one of those babies that don’t cry!” I told her I was so attuned to her, I could detect changes in her breathing and know when she was awake. I’m the first to get up for the puppy in the morning as soon as he yawns. Whether this is 4, 5 or if I’m lucky 6am. I sleep, but I wake easily. I’m sensitive to noise and light.

If there are two televisions on in the house, the volume has to be low. I can’t stand too much light and have several lamps. I know this annoys everyone I live with. I’m constantly calling out “Turn it down!” or “Do we need all these lights on?” Lately, if someone is calling me from another room in the house, the dog is yapping and the jug is boiling at the same time I have to go to my room or the bathroom to shut the door. I have to recalibrate. Too much going on at once bombards my senses.

I noticed when I walked the puppy to the main street last week, he was skittish and kept trying to jump into my arms. There were cyclists, cars, more people than he had ever seen and dogs everywhere. He was only used to walking around our neighbourhood of quiet cul-de-sacs without any traffic. This was me the first time I walked into a Westfield’s in Sydney. Competing music from every shop, lights, advertising, people and then the combined overlapping smells of the food court. Too much of everything! My friend couldn’t understand why I wanted to leave.
So it was interesting to find a list of the flip side to being sensitive, the positives.

According to Mensa (America Mensa Ltd., 2017) people who are gifted with greater sensitivity have the following qualities:
• Unique perception and awareness
• A sense of humour and creativity outside the norm
• Intuitiveness
• Insightfulness
• Relentless curiosity
• Heightened creative drive
• High sensitivity, acute awareness of complexities and consequences and the expression of others
• Easily excited
• Possible consistent high energy level
• A regularly activated nervous system

I’ve only flicked through the book and read a few pages and headings. There are eight or nine books on my bedside table I am also flipping through, as well as a few podcasts on the go and a beautiful non-fiction book of Venice. The book goes on to explain how to protect your energy, the use of boundaries and building emotional resilience. I can also see that for me, getting highly excitable is a thing. I need to watch that to make sure I don’t get wiped out. The author Imo Lo talks about feeling drained in large crowds and taking on the energy of the people around you, she mentions empaths, vivid dreams and encounters with the metaphysical world, there is a shadowed box saying “What if I am crazy?” And finally I see the word psychic.

Mystical experiences – this is where it gets unapologetically woo-woo
I’ve had various unexplained things happen in my life. When I was a teenager and secretly smoking, my dead grandfather appeared in my bedroom doorway and told me to come outside for a ciggie. I wasn’t okay with this. IT FREAKED ME OUT. I knew I wasn’t dreaming, because I was awake. I couldn’t tell anyone and so began sleeping with my head under the blankets.

When I lived on my own, I woke one night to see the roof of my bedroom filled with otherworldly beings dressed in strange costumes. I have vivid dreams where I can smell, see colours, touch the texture of things. I dreamed my Grandmother told me the first three Melbourne Cup horses. It only happened once. Many times, asleep and awake, I have felt things touch me which weren’t there. Many things are more like a sense of seeing, something I know or see in my mind or feel in my body.

I’ve told my husband about dreams and feelings with his work, which have later happened. All of these experiences have often made me feel like a freak and a weirdo. I watched a manager in front of me melt to the floor like wax, she died within a year. Sometimes I don’t say anything, or do anything and later find out the feeling was right. When I speak to my intuitive friends, they know this can be a blessing and a curse. It is not always wonderful.

It’s not something you can tell everyone. I know the only people reading this are the people who get it. The others stopped reading after the first paragraph. I know you will understand and you may even have had similar experiences. I’m now accepting my gifts as a sensitive. I once saw broccoli floating around my friend’s head at work and knew when another’s dog was sick. My grandmother speaks to me often, I get guidance in traffic, I sometimes know where places are although I have never been there and although I have no sense of direction, I have strong feelings about the location of places which are often right.

I have now been able to incorporate this sensitivity into everything I do. I use it with friends, clients and family. It is helpful with my children. It helps me to check in as a parent but also to understand other things the girls experience which can’t always be explained. They are learning to meditate and we speak about their dreams and emotions. They know more about their feelings and why sometimes it hurts when their friends are unkind. We can be a little more skinless than everyone else.

Energy Work and insight
Twice in Reiki sessions I have had to ask women if they were pregnant. The feelings were so strong. I could see babies. They were both in their early stages, one didn’t even know. I have seen eggs in my mind, sperm, foetuses and issues with female health. A few times I have seen inside bodies and sensed blockages of emotional or physical pain. When I do energy work, reiki or massage, words and images come to me, voices of people who have passed and messages and visions which I can’t explain. It doesn’t always happen, if the person is not open or not interested I keep it to myself. Sometimes if it seems urgent or I keep seeing a particular thing, I may slip this into conversation and that becomes an easier way to deliver the message.

When these things first started happening for me over 20 years ago, I was nervous, frightened and sometimes I took on the anxiety of the person or the energy. I discovered that for empaths, or people who are highly sensitive, energy can easily cross from one person to another. We are like sponges. The first time this happened I had worked on a man who was very fit and a bit of an adrenalin junky. When I got home from the clinic, I vacuumed my flat, did a load of washing, cooked two meals, when I found myself cleaning windows I had to stop myself, and finally I was able to sit in the bath until my heart stopped racing. I had so much energy I didn’t know how to get rid of it or where it came from. That was my first lesson in energy transfer. Now I know. I know how to protect myself and I have rituals and ways to dispel energy.

Tapping into the added dimension
In counselling sessions, I often see, hear or know things, I haven’t been told. My senses are able to expand more fully and I am now able to switch this on and off. Sometimes it can be a symbol, a wave, or a shape. I may sketch this or draw it, if it is helpful for the person. We can often explore deeper into issues. This can help and assist in times of confusion or to get some peace or clarity. Often a client will leave and I still receive messages or information, which I text. The counsellor I see now, is an Intuitive Counsellor. She sometimes talks to my ancestors. I am learning so much from her and about myself. The experience has been mind blowing, to say the least.

For most of my life, I have doubted things like ESP, sixth sense, and psychic ability. I have rationalised it, I read a lot, I’ve traveled a lot and  have a vivid imagination, or maybe I am making this up or hallucinating. I’ve tried to push it away, because it is too weird, freakish, unexplainable and sometimes frightening. I have studied intuition, spiritualism, yoga, meditation. I have books and books on dreams, spirits, psychics and mysticism. I sit with a group to meditate and have seen things which are too strange to explain.

Recently I was asked to speak at a gathering to share my story. I spoke about being a person who feels more than normal, who sees things which aren’t there and who senses things. I spoke about how this had popped up at inconvenient and convenient times in my life. I told a few stories. I watch the lady in the front row as her eyes grew wider and wider. After this I gave mini healings and intuitive messages to the room. It was successful, empowering and I’m grateful to have been given such an opportunity. I was never brave enough before. I never trusted. The responses have been amazing. Phenomenal even. These extra sensory gifts have given me additional insight into people and they have opened up telling me stories which are amazing, honest, sad and beautiful.

Taking the crunchy with the smooth
I am learning to take the crunchy with the smooth. With these beautiful gifts, come some additional issues faced by the highly sensitive. Interrupted sleep, crazy dreams, unexplained senses of foreboding or excitement. Seeing things that are not there, hearing things and knowing things. I know I have to take care in large crowds or around certain people. I need to watch what I put into my body, good food, enough water. I have to make sure I get outside and walk, exercise and connect with friends. I need to consciously make sure I re-energise and protect myself. I have learned the importance of self care. I am now understanding the need to push away doubt, the importance of asking permission and, the most difficult for me, has been to learn to trust my inner guidance in order to pass on messages of love, truth, courage and hope.

Rachel Wilkinson is an Author, Holistic Counsellor, Massage Therapist and Reiki Practitioner. She practices from Step into Health Clinic in Mansfield and a private practice in Wellington Point. You can email for appointments on info@rachelwilkinson.com.au or visit her website to make an appointment.

You can purchase my New e-book here: Hell in a Handbag.

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