Rambling Yogi

Tag: journey

  • Don’t look back in anger

    Don’t look back in anger

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    When my father passed away unexpectedly on Friday 3rd July 2015 my entire world changed forever. I remember the most intense feeling of disbelief, as the ICU doctor explained that he was not able to be revived, my brain when into overload.  I had been with him an hour and a half before hand, they had said he would be out of hospital next week. My brain screamed how can he possibly be gone, it wasn’t meant to happen this way, he shouldn’t have been on his own, it’s too soon, he needed more time, I needed more time, this can’t be happening, he wanted to live.

    Losing a loved one in any circumstance is traumatic, losing them before they’re ready to go is the sort of heart break that will stay with you for life and losing them under questionable circumstances can steal part of your life too if you’re not careful.

    My fathers death was referred to the coroners court for investigation because there was so much confusion surrounding this death and a cause of death was not known. At first I was relived that our concerns around the level care he received were being acknowledged with an investigation. But that quickly turned into anger as I began to form the opinion that somebody was to blame.

    For a long time I blamed myself, I was the last person to see him. If I had of stayed another hour and a half maybe things would have been different. I remember clearly the first time I said it out loud, in a session with my psychologist through my tears I told her that I should have saved him, he always protected me and looked after me, I should have done more. I truly believed that it was somehow partially my fault even though I wasn’t a medical professional. There were so many memories that  haunted me; I would constantly repay moments in my head that I thought may have changed the way things ended.

    With the support of great friends I managed to ease up on blaming myself but redirected the blame straight on to the hospital and all the staff who I felt could have done more. I believed that we had to fight for him so that some positive came from losing him.  The hospital failed him and things needed to change to protect other people. No other family should live through our hell.

    Coroners investigations don’t happen quickly, we’ve spent the last 18 months waiting to here any sort of update on my dads case. Then last Friday my family received a letter from the coroners court saying that after considering the circumstances the coroner had decided not to proceed further with the investigation into my fathers death.

    I never saw it coming. I was completely blindsided. I didn’t really know how I felt about it. My brain started to process; so they’re saying that no one is to blame, that’s bullshit, I’m not giving up.

    As I revisited all the mistakes and the distressing level of care my father received, all the anger and pain I’d been storing in my heart began to pour out. I didn’t even realise just how angry I still was. For the first time I could clearly see just how much I’d been holding onto and I started to see the impact it had been having on my life.

    As I took all of this in and became fully aware of my anger I knew there was no other choice. Fighting and holding on to this anger was having a terrible impact on my life. It was time to let go, to accept that no amount of blame will bring him back and make peace with the circumstances that he left us in.

    Beginning to let go wasn’t some simple ahhh I’ve decided to let it go and now I feel great moment. It hurt like hell. I spent almost my entire Saturday crying, journaling, meditating, listening to inspiring talk about life and then crying some more. I let myself fall into habitual patterns of beating myself up. I spent time agonising over the way I had let my anger and victim mentality drive my life and damage relationships. Then I found the awareness to see that thought patter for what it is and with kindness reassured myself that I did the best that I could in the place that I found myself.

    Sunday morning I woke up and my eyes went straight to a quote I have stuck on my wall. It simply reads “you are entirely up to you”. I felt myself filled me a new sense of purpose, I got a bunch of jobs done, went and ran along the beach and decided to end my Sunday with a delicious yin and meditation class.

    As soon as I slowed down all the memories of my dad’s last few days began to flood back into my consciousness. The usual story was playing then the strangest thing happened I began to think about one particular nurse in a way I had never even contemplated before. She was the one person I felt really made the wrong decision at a critical time and I had hated her more than anyone else. As I lay hugging my bolster I was overcome with a deep sense of compassion for her, for the very first time I thought my god she must have felt awful. Tears ran down my face and I began to wonder how many times she may have questioned her decision. I was deeply concerned about the impact my fathers death may have had on her and in the moment I knew something profound had shifted in me.

    It’s been an unbelievably challenging couple of years but with the challenges has come some of the biggest lessons of my life. The most important being the value of acceptance.  I would of course give anything to have more time with my dad but longing for a reality other than the one I have is a recipe for deep seated suffering.  From here I make the commitment to try and live in a way that honours the amazing person he was by making courageous decisions, actively choosing happiness and believing in endless possibility.

     

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  • The grief journey

    The grief journey

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    As I made the long trip up the coast to Merimbula I was struck by how my journey on this road trip reminded me of my journey through grief. When I set off I did what I usually do and quickly looked over the map of where I was going, it all looked pretty straight forward, I took note of the main towns I’d be passing through and then I set off on my way.

    As I got about two hours into my trip I realised that I was in a town that I wasn’t supposed to be. I pulled over and took another look at the map and sure enough I was in the wrong place.  On the map it had looked like a straight route but in reality what looked like the continuation of a road was actually a turn off. By missing my turn off I accidently ended up in a town that my dad used to call on for work so I decided to make the most of my mistake and stop and get food where I knew he used to go. From there I restudied the map and realised that I could keep going on the current road and would link back up with the road I was supposed be on.

    Missing that first turn had simply taken me on a surprisingly nice detour but now I was back on track and I knew that there was one more major turn off that I didn’t want to miss before stopping for lunch. After another forty five minutes of driving I started to wonder if maybe had missed the next turn off and then I see a sign and yup I’m in another town that I’m not supposed to be in. This time I was seriously not impressed with myself. My first response was WTF Clare are you kidding. How did you miss this one and with that I finally turned on my sat nav. Yeah that’s right I had one the whole time, I figured I’d be right driving streets I’d never driver before because I usually can just glance at maps and know where I’m going.

    What has this story got to do with grief? Well first I want to quickly discuss the stages of grief. I’d always figured that there was a stage of  denial but I hadn’t ever really through about the rest until an amazing friend suggested I read Grief on Grieving: Finding the meaning of grief through the five stages of loss. I highly recommend this book to anyone  who is feeling lost in their grief or wants to better understand a friend who is grieving. The five stages that this amazing book talks about are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The book explains that there is no prescribed order for experiencing the stages and that not everyone will experience them all. For me being introduced to these stages really normalised where my head was taking me and I began to think of the stages as places I visit. 

    So coming back to my road trip this is how I began to see it. The journey is life and the towns that I didn’t mean to end up in are the stages of grief, quite often you don’t realise that you’re heading for a particular stage it simply blindsides you like missing a turn. You don’t really know how you came to be in a particular place you just find yourself there. Sometimes you find yourself in a stage of grief and it actually sits well with you, it’s what you know you need or at least your ok with it, like my first unplanned town but other times it’s a really unwelcome stage it doesn’t sit well with you and you can get really upset that you find yourself there.

    When you find yourself in these different stages of grief there are different ways to be respond just like getting lost. You can pull a u-turn straight away and head back the way you came refusing to pass through this new town, you can pull over and become overwhelmed with this new place and perhaps needing to stay the night, or maybe you get out your map and realise that if you keep driving down the road you can pass through this town and get back to the main journey.

    There’s absolutely no right or wrong way to manage getting lost; if you need to turn around then turn around, if you need to stay and sit in a particular place go for it, if you want to slowly move through you should and if you revisit a particular place over and over again that’s fine. Your journey doesn’t need to look like anyone else’s, it should only ever be what you need it to be but know that you can always turn on your sat nav for guidance. Professional help can make unfamiliar roads a lot less daunting.

    To all those that have lost people dear to them I send you love and blessings for a brighter tomorrow.

    xx

  • Finding freedom

    Finding freedom

    I’ve been home from my yoga teacher training for a little over two months now and I’d like to take the chance to talk about the struggles I’ve faced since coming home. Talking about tough times isn’t something I’m comfortable with, but I’ve come to recognise how very important it is. I’ve found that there’s a certain freedom and strength in vulnerability that I never imagined existed.

    I’d always thought that being strong meant putting on a brave face and holding things together when times got tough. It’s how I was brought up and it’s how I have lived most of my life. It wasn’t until I went to my yoga teacher training that I was exposed to the idea that maybe being strong is actually about dropping the mask and being vulnerable. It takes a great deal of courage to own your story and tell your truth.

    Being around such a loving, supportive and open group of people I found it surprisingly easy to drop the mask and be real. For the first time in my life I was openly talking about all the ugly parts of my life without any fear. I didn’t feel uncomfortable telling the whole truth, talking about the things that brought shame, the things that have really hurt and the problems I’ve come up against time and time again. Talking so openly and honestly allowed me to detach from a lot of the emotions that I had connected to certain experiences. I began to heal from things that I didn’t even realise had wounded me. I was able to let go of so much and experienced a freedom I’ve never known before.

    I still remember one afternoon after lunch I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I actually had to stop and stare at myself properly to really take in what I was seeing. In all my life I have never before seen myself look so well and truly happy.

    My amazing teacher Alicia had warned us all that the real yoga starts when you go home. It’s easy to practice yoga and let go of negative behaviours when you’re in such a special bubble, coming home and bring it into real life now that’s the challenge. In fact it’s bloody hard! You’re continually challenged by the environment, people and situations.

    I was initially very nervous about coming home, my job is high stress and big hours, I burn out regularly from taking on too much and my dad who is in remission for a battle with lung cancer has taken to occasionally smoking making my home life a pretty hostile place it be. Nervous is probably an understatement. I was kind of dreading coming home!

    I tried to plan how I would make things work when I got home, I made little rules for myself like no more eating lunch at my desk and working overtime all the time, slowing down and making sure I have a few nights a week just for me and keeping up calming rituals like dry brushing, mindful eating and meditation.

    On my first day back at work one of my colleague said to me “how’s the real world treating you…a little too real?” She could not have been more spot on! The real world was definitely a little too real. I spent the first week crying myself to sleep and waking up wishing I was back in Bali. I’d broken every one of my rules at least once. So much of my life, if not all of my life felt like it didn’t fit anymore.

    Change was the spice of my life. A significant relationship had ended, my boss had left while I was away (essentially doubling my workload) and I had been through a major personal change. For the first few weeks I kept telling myself it’s reverse culture shock, just breathe through it, you’ll be ok, change isn’t easy. I tried to keep up my meditation and asana practice and I kept coming back to the philosophy that had seen me through tough times before. There were times when my efforts worked and things would be okay but mainly things were not okay. I was overwhelmed by my life and starting to slip into a pretty depressed space.

    Then the old Clare came back out to bat; the one who believes that being strong means pulling it together. And the self talk started, what is wrong with you, you have so much to be grateful for, stop being an emotional crazy! I decided in my divine wisdom that what I needed was to start teaching. Yes Clare, take on more when you’re already not coping with life.

    I was putting on my everything is fine, I’m happy little yogi mask each day and each night I’d fall to pieces. The week after I taught my first classes I had lunch with a friend and when he asked me how my week had been I just burst into tears, I couldn’t even talk about it, I wasn’t even happy that I’d just organised and taught two of my own classes. I was exhausted and drowning in my own mess. I’d taken on so much in a bid to make things better and keep moving towards what I wanted that I couldn’t even breathe anymore. That lunch was one of a few turning points; I was in such a mess that I just couldn’t pretend to be okay anymore. I spoke honestly about how miserable I’d been feeling and I walked away feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. There was no great advice given in that conversation, I just felt like I had a compassionate ear that really heard me. He held the mirror up for me, provided a circuit breaker and allowed me to stop and really look at myself honestly.

    Things started to feel a little better from there but I was still very all over the place with everything. I knew that I didn’t want to be in my full time job anymore, but even the thought of leaving made me feel guilty. With my boss gone there was now more dependence on me than ever. Just thinking about the hole I will leave and the strain it will put on my already overworked colleagues was making me feel sick and stressed.

    Then another conversation came. While chatting to a close girlfriend she asked how all my yoga stuff was going, for a moment I wanted to give her my usual it’s great lie. But instead I stopped took a few breathes and made a decision to be real, responding with not so great. From those three words I went on to talk about everything: moving on from the break up, worrying too much about leaving my job, putting myself first, burning out and the courage it takes to turn your life on its head. The honesty in that conversation unburdened me from a lot of the worries I’d been carrying around.

    From there I went back to my notes from teacher training with a new resolve to turn things around. While going through notes and reflecting on the journey I had been on being home it became very apparent just how significant opening up and being vulnerable had been. I went back to a TED talk that we had watched at Teacher Training from Brene Brown on vulnerability. Everything started to click even more, the key to finding the freedom I had known at Teacher Training was in the behaviour I had changed as soon as I go home. As soon as I got home I put the walls up again and attached a sense of shame to my struggles.

    Shame is a nasty pasty! It has this way of making you feel like you can’t share because of the negative judgement you will face. When we hide parts of ourselves in shame from those that would listen with compassion we create a disconnection. And I tell you now, from what I’ve read and my own personal experience it is so beyond important for people to have a sense of connection with other people. Sharing and being vulnerable creates connection between people which then leads to a sense of love and belonging.

    Things have turned around a lot since that realisation, there’s been no great change in my actual situation, my life is what it is but I feel like I could climb Everest! People have been telling me that I’m glowing. Through embracing and sharing who I am and where I’m at, I’ve found a strength and freedom that still blows my mind a little. Vulnerability is something that I’m still not completely comfortable with and I know there will be times that I fall back into old habits but I accept that I am imperfect and I love myself wholeheartedly.

    It is my hope that through speaking honestly in this post and in many more to come I can inspire others to also speak their truth, owns their story and to not attach shame to any part of their lives. I’d like to send a bit of extra love out to anyone struggling with anything at the moment, my heart goes out to you, keep going beautiful souls.

    Love, Blessings & Kindness

    Namaste

    xx
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