Counselling

Lazy days…

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So tired

This has been another weekend of sheer laziness.  All I’ve done, mostly, is sleep or read or just potter and potch around the place.  All I can say is I must need this quiet time for whatever reason.  I’m most probably emotionally exhausted after a long term and a long year at school, as well as from such a busy fortnight with things happening in the evening.  No, not partying, but various classes and workshops and talks.  It all tires one out.  Perhaps this quiet time will mean that I recover sooner in the summer hols so that I can enjoy more of them.

Part of me is being hard on me for not using the time more productively, for not being busy, busy, busy.  Part of me is patting myself on the back for listening to myself and taking time out.  I wouldn’t sleep if I wasn’t tired or didn’t need it.  I’d have the inspiration to create if I was fully charged.  And if I catch up somewhat with myself I’ll have time in the summer hols to find the inspiration and lose myself in things that bring me pleasure.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

I went to see this on Friday afternoon.  It was good, but somehow anticlimactic.  I can’t put my finger on it, perhaps it’s simply because the book had so much more in it, or my imagination is so much more vivid.  Or maybe it’s because it’s come to an end, for now.  I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more of the wizarding world in the future; I don’t think J K Rowling can keep away from it for much longer!

Fallen Books

I’ve been reading these books by Lauren Kate.  It took a while to get into Fallen, but since I have done so I’ve been engrossed by them (hence the weekend of reading!).  I read Fallen in three or four days, Torment took just two days, and I’m stuck into Passion now.  All I can say is I’d never thought I’d be reading and enjoying books that had angels in them!  Wizards, witches, sorcerors, orcs, elves, fairies, nac-mac-feegles, and others yes, but angels?  I’d recommend the books as a lovely escape with exciting and heart-wrenching moments, as well as moments of that perfect, romantic, sensual love that can only exist in dreams (I think – though if anyone can offer me hard proof that such a love exists, then please tell me; I’ve never experienced it!).

Arty stuff.

My artistic endeavours this week have centred around my latest sketchbook which has pages being filled with work inspired by a photograph of a leaf skeleton.  I’m working with different media, developing shapes and patterns and colours and so on with the aim of producing some textile work.  All I know is that I’m enjoying the time I get to spend on it, which isn’t enough really.  It’s not long, though, until the long holidays…not long to go.  I just need to remember to borrow back my books of inspiration, particularly “Drawn to Stitch” by Gwen Hedley.

I’ve been asked to create a piece of textile art similar to this one for someone at school.  That’s a summer holiday project I’m sure!  Other projects will come from my sketchbook work, I think.  I’d also like to spend time trying to work out how to do landscapes…my way.

Weight loss…

I’m considering joining Slimming World to kickstart myself into eating healthily, taking care of my body via the food I eat, and losing weight.  Over the past couple of years my weight has steadily increased and I’m now where I was the summer after I finished with the long ago ex, which was some 13 years ago now.  I’ll have to be incredibly brave and firm with myself to actually go to a meeting, and then incredibly strong and firm with myself afterwards … and forgiving should I lapse momentarily too.  Believing I deserve to look after myself, treat myself well, be kind to myself is still a huge stumbling block for me.

I’m hoping that the work that has been done with me over the past three years or so will have done the equivalent of ctrl-alt-del and restarted the programs that are ‘me’ as they should run, well most of them; kind of like having the viruses removed, or at least the ones that have been identified.

Second Dragon ‘a’

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Dragon a 13 March 2011 © Angela Porter 2011

I finished this one not very long ago – and it is finished!  I decided not to fill the whole of the outline in with this one, though I am pondering thickening the outline to make it look more like a window frame made of stone, but maybe not.  I do like the empty space – it’s not so busily confusing.

It’s a little less than A4 in size, worked using black in in Rotring Rapidograph pens and white Pilot Uniball and Sakura Souffle pens on brown paper.

Other things …

I’ve been off work since Thursday.  Sore throat and cough, and that turned into a raging upset tummy-tum-tum yesterday, so I’m feeling just a little ‘drained’ today.  I’ll see how I am in the morning before I decide whether or not I’m up to facing the concentrations of confrontation/defiance/disrespect/aggression that are also known as pupils.

The time away has given me a chance to complete the ‘a’ above – it’s always a pleasure to lose myself in art – to do some work on negative automatic thoughts (NATs) and to find out where my deficiencies lie so that myself and my marble-sticker-in-place (counsellor) can work on dispelling the NATs and coming up with strategies to help me change them to PATs (positive automatic thoughts) as well as find the reasons for me to put strategies in place to help me treat myself in a good way, to lead myself to having a healthy lifestyle, and to intervene gently and positively with my comfort eating.  The NATs that are left are ones that lurk deep and have great power still, even though they don’t shout; their messages to sabotage me and my efforts at self-love are fare more devious and catching them in the act will take a lot of stealth on my part too.  They’re likely to be pretty ugly when I finally catch them at it.

No, I’m not mad.  I’m assured I’m not.  I just try to use my imagination to help me find my way through this counselling and on the way to becoming comfortable with who I am, caring for me, loving me in a healthy way, and imagining the NATs as some kind of beings that I call my inner beasties helps me in identifying and confronting them.  I do believe that underneath all the rubbish and poop that has stuck to them over my life time there is a shining, positive version of them, so self-hate is really self-love, and all the work I’m doing and have been doing is cleaning them up, layer by painstaking layer.  However, the deeper down the layers one goes, the longer they have been there and the harder they have stuck; as the layers have been removed, I have become stronger so I’m sure I’ll get to the shining positives beneath.

 

Rose Quartz and Self-Love

Angela Porter4 Comments

During my weekly sessions of trying to put the marbles in the right places and getting them to stay there the focus has been on self-love, self-esteem and self-confidence, or rather the lack of all these things within myself.  I’ve come a fair way during the past several years in terms of personal progress, but these are the knotty issues at the root of everything and my excess weight is a symptom and not a cause of them.  Indeed, my weight may even be a barometer of my internal emotional health.

I spent sometime research what self-love is.  In my mind it’s been equated with those who shout loudly about themselves, who profess themselves to be wonderful in a strident manner, and who are egotistical to the point of excluding any one else in their lives.  And now I’ve kind of worked out what self-love is about those ideas are totally off the wall yet are indicative of how hard the self-talk has been programmed to believe that if I were to love myself, to consider myself worthy of good things then I would be like these loud, boastful egotistical people and that is something I would not wish to be.

Self-love is subtle yet powerful.  It involves having faith in yourself, being there for yourself, caring for yourself.  It’s recognising your talents, achievements, strengths, positive qualities and allowing yourself to be proud of them, to praise yourself for all your successes.  Not in a loud, boastful, bragging kind of way, but quietly, reinforcing all that is positive about yourself and in so doing gaining a positive self-image, a healthy sense of self-worth, of having a quiet confidence about what you are able to do.  It is about being your own best friend as you are the only constant in your life.

In learning to love yourself, you allow others to love you too.  This is a big lesson for me to learn, and it’s going to take time to overturn the thought patterns, the neural nets that have reinforced my poor view of  myself over 40-odd years of my life.  So it’s not going to happen overnight.

Now, I do have a bit of an interest in things of a spiritual nature,  things considered ‘new age’, psychic, metaphysical, parapsychological and so on.  There are some circles I move in where I discuss such things, there are others where it is never mentioned, such as at work.  My own thoughts on things like crystals things is that they are tools, props, symbols to focus on that help change the thought patterns or emotional patterns to more positive ones.  Whether each crystal truly has a different energy, whether colour influences us or not, if we believe it to make a difference, to help us, then it will.  Science is recognising more and more that there is a link between our physical health and our emotional or mental state, so anything that helps to promote a more healthy mind-set or inner emotional climate must have an effect on physical health.  Mind you, that’s all an over simplification of something that is most probably more complex, and my views are likely to change as experience, knowledge and I change.  That’s part of life and how we grow.

Anyway, I digress.  I decided last weekend to look into self-love and to find which crystal or crystals would help me develop self-love, self-worth, self-esteem and rose quartz seems to be the most important one to do this.

Rose quartz is a stone of gentle warmth and love.   It heals emotional wounds and pain and in so doing it opens the heart to the beauty that is within us as well as the beauty that is all around us.  It promotes self-acceptance, self-love and self-worth.  It enhances all forms of love including self-love, mother love, caring, kindness, compassion, platonic and romantic love.  It encourages us to open our heart and to be tender, peaceful and gentle.  It teaches forgiveness and tolerance.  It helps us to emanate unconditional love and a nurturing nature and in so doing it helps us to attract positive, gentle, non-judgemental unconditional love into our lives.

There’s a lot more about it than this on the world weird web and in books on crystal healing and metaphysical topics.  It is suggested that you carry rose quartz with you in a pocket, as a piece of jewellery or, if you are a lady, to keep a piece in your bra close to your heart!  Of course, it’s useful to hold while meditating or working on personal issues in other ways.  It can act very subtly but also very deeply by bringing up past hurts so they can be examined, the reactions to them can be altered and then they can be let go of.

I’m going to use a piece.  I have stumbled across a methodology for self-love that I’ve adapted to my particular way of thinking and spiritual path and will be using that as a focus to help me move forward.  As it resonated in me, it’s something important for me to do, and something practical to do some personal work that I would usually shy away from for it being too painful.   I’m going to be rather secretive here as I’m not going to post any details of the kind of meditative practice here.

Crystals and other things

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The return to work … and stress…

Well, it’s just over a fortnight into the month and me being back and work and juggling everything else that goes on in my life such as taking and going to meditation classes, meetings, workshops, talks has meant that the time I have spent at home has been almost total ‘down time’.  Chilling with mugs of tea and a DVD or several is about all I’ve been able to do.  It may be a good sign that I am taking that time out and not filling my time up with busy-ness.

Stress hit a high on Friday with a confrontation with a pupil … and the fear that I may have done something wrong, that I will end up being told off for it, and yet common sense tells me that I did nothing wrong (apart from shout a little loudly). I was annoyed and angry with myself for letting my temper ooze out, though I regained control very quickly, and gained a stress-headache as a result of keeping things in.  There was no chance to let the temper out as I was on the roller-coaster of lessons yet again.  I wish I could have a ‘get out of lessons free card’ like some of the pupils, just for a few mins to gather myself back together.  I now have another set of negative automatic thoughts and reactions that now need de-programming, or perhaps that need revisiting in the light of some further insight.

Having said that, this was a lesson I had to take as soon as I got to work after a counselling session that ended just half an hour or so before the lesson.  It was an emotional session, with me trying to face up to my emotional eating, self-image, self-confidence, self-esteem and weight issues … sometimes I think I should just phone in ill.  I have leave of absence for these sessions simply because I give up my non-contact time in the week to attend them so that I have no classes to be covered.

Any suggestions for a career change for me?

I think this may be the only way out of what seems to be constant source of stress in my life, and with the way attitudes towards education have changed, both among parents and pupils and the low value placed on education and the lack of respect for teachers from parents, pupils, government and the wider society it’s not going to change, is it?  A way out, but I have no idea what else I would like to do or could do (bearing in mind I do need a certain income to pay the bills …).

Crystals

Thinking about stress, I’m always trying to find ways that work for me to relieve stress in my life and so stop me becoming totally drained and heading towards a dark place.

Meditation certainly helps no end, but that takes a fair amount of time, time I don’t have in the normal school day.  Morning and night not a problem, but during the school day … not even at lunchtime do I have time that is mine.  So, I do look at other things.  Square breathing that can be done ‘on the fly’ to regain control of some part of myself and my emotions, for instance.

Crystals may be another way of helping myself … though I’m not always convinced about such things.  I also have mixed views about the rape of our planet, our home in the Universe, for it’s precious resources that cannot be replaced, well not in our life-time at any rate.

I did have an interesting experience with a tumbled piece of sodalite that I purchased after a particularly emotionally harrowing counselling session a year and a half ago.  I was fondling it while having a make-over in the Body Shop.  There was a cracking sound and a piece of the sodalite had broken off and crumbled.  Now, I’m not strong enough to do that, there were no obvious flaws that I could see in the mineral, and it would most likely have broken into two pieces if that were the case, but to crumble into what looked like blue sand …

Crystal therapists and ‘experts’ I’ve related this tale to tell me that was a sign that some powerful healing had happened, and that such breakages are not uncommon.

The scientist in me is very sceptical about anything like this, even though I know that I did end up feeling better sooner than I thought.  There was a sudden easing of my emotional distress, whether that was due to the crystal or the make-over or just a little bit of time and space I don”t know – too many variables to say which one it was!  Or maybe it was just a combination of them all.

Sodalite

Sodalite from www.exquisiteearth.co.uk
Sodalite from http://www.exquisiteearth.co.uk

Sodalite unites logic with intuition and opens spiritual perception, bringing information from the higher mind down to the physical level.  When used in meditation, the mind can be used to understand the circumstances you find yourself in.  This stone instills a drive for truth and an urge towards idealism, making it possible to remain true to yourself and stand up for your beliefs.

Sodalite eliminates mental confusion and intellectual bondage.  It encourages rational thought, objectivity, truth and intuitive perception along with the verbalisation of feelings.  As it calms the mind it allows new information to be received.  Sodalite stimulates the release of old mental conditioning and rigid mind-sets, creating space to put new insights into practice.

Psychologically, this stone brings about emotional balance and calms panic attacks.  It can transform a defensive or oversensitive personality, releasing the core fears, phobias, guilt and control mechanisms that hold you back from being who you truly are.  It enhances self-esteem, self-acceptance and self-trust.

Sodalite aids, among other things, the throat, vocal cords and larynx and is helpful for hoarseness and digestive disorders.  From The Crystal Bible, Judy Hall.

Well, that most probably covers all I’ve mentioned in my experience of sodalite, as well as issues I’m working on.  I do remember just finding myself attracted to the sodalite in the display of crystals in the shop, which was Exquisite Earth in Merthyr Tydfil.  I also remember the owner telling me to look up the crystal in a copy of ‘The Crystal Bible’ by Judy Hall and at the time it perfectly suited the situation I found myself in, and still do.  However, I am working my way through to the other side, and I am certainly a lot, lot better than I was back then!

Art

Art has taken a bit of a back seat to life in general lately.  I am hoping to lose myself in some art in the very near future – such as as soon as I’ve finished this blog entry and got a mug of tea!  I don’t have a lot of time this afternoon as I have a talk to do tonight.

Currently reading …

My reading list is really odd at the moment :

‘I can make you thin’ by Paul McKenna

‘The Spook’s Battle’ by Joseph Delaney

‘After Death Communication’ by Emma Heathcote-James

‘The Physicists’ View of Nature, Part 2: The Quantum Revolution’ by Amit Goswani

So, you can go figure!

Focusing on the positive

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Being Star Wars-ed?

Well, now, where to start.  I know, I’m going to Star Wars you!  Here’s a quote from Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones

“You’re focusing on the negative, Anakin. Be mindful of your thoughts.” – Obi Wan Kenobi

Over the past week or two, there have been numerous times when I’ve felt I’ve been in a Star Wars movie, being given advice about The Force.  However, the advice given by a dear friend of mine and my counsellor has been about focusing on the positive, good times and things in my life.   The counselling work has been about rebalancing my view of me and my life.  This has involved condensing the negative perceptions of myself and my reactions and thereby reducing their significance and expanding on the positive perceptions with evidence to support it.  The positive evidence, and focusing on the positive is not an easy thing for me to do.  To acknowledge my successes, my achievements, the times I’ve been praised and gained acclaim, these are times that are easily brushed aside.

All the same, I have endeavoured to focus on the positive.  I’ve made a concerted effort to write a list of good events, good feedback, things to be grateful for in my offline journal at the end of every day as I sit in bed before sleep.  I do write about problems, confrontations and so on still so that I can reflect on them, work my way through them, and come to a balanced perspective on them, but I have been doing my best to write down a gratitude list.  And even on the murkiest, darkest, trouble-beset days there are things to be grateful for.

Jedi philosophy, Buddhism, eastern religions … all seem to tie in, don’t they?  I remember seeing the first Star Wars Film – Episode 4, A New Hope.  It was the first time any kind of belief system had struck a chord within me, and though I knew the film was fantasy, the ideas would eventually ignite my own search for my personal brand of spirituality.  And it turns out that things for me aren’t too different from the Force!  Is this worrying?  I think not!

New phone

That time had come around again – the renewal of the mobile phone contract with T-mobile.  This time, I opted for a new phone rather than the £10 per month loyalty discount as the price for my tariff had plummeted considerably.  Essentially, the new bill is £20 a month, compared to £26 with the discount or £36 without the discount!  Brill!  And what phone did I get.  Well, the lovely chaps at T-mobile recommended the Motorola Defy to me, seeing as I have no idea about phones, am not interested in fashion statements and the like.  I wanted something that would be durable, easy to use, and they told me I also would want a phone that would let me use my unlimited internet allowance too.

Well the phone arrived, I was totally bemused for a while, but within a few hours was comfortable with it, and now find it a marvellous thing to have with me!  I certainly won’t get bored when waiting … I must remember to carry my glasses with me as I am getting eye-strain from looking at little letters on a little screen close to me.  Oh the joys of being long-sighted!

My favourite app so far is Google Sky, which was free for me to download and one of the student teachers at school was most disgusted at that as he’d have to pay to get it on his iPhone!  Result I think!  I also downloaded, amongst other things, a nice meditation timer which I’ve yet to use but is likely to prove useful in the future.  I’ve not got music on the phone yet, but there’s no rush for that either.

Having said that, the weather reports have been very useful given all the snow and traffic chaos that has ensued.  And it’s been nice to cwtch up nice and warm in bed and email/message friends rather than get drafty-cool sat at the ‘puter.

So, I march on into a new realm of communication, wondering why it took me so long!

Snow – bleurgh!

I’ve already mentioned the snow.  There’s not been too much of it around South Wales, generally, but enough to cause chaos at times with travelling.  The main roads have mostly stayed pretty clear and I’ve found it perfectly fine to get around, though I’ve not been to the higher reaches of the Valleys.

A bonus has been a couple of days at school with few pupils in.  Small classes, quiet, calm.  It should be like that all the time!  It’s amazing the difference it makes with just 5 or 6 out of each class – the mainstream class sizes then become around 25 to 27.  I’m a lot calmer, the pupils are a lot calmer too.  How on Earth class sizes have been allowed to creep up to such huge sizes.  Some days I feel like I’m engaging more in crowd-control than actually teaching.

New career needed … ideas anyone?

The good thing about smaller classes and the snow is that it reminds me of how teaching can be, how it would benefit the pupils and the teachers.

As I type this blog entry, it is now raining here.  I hope it washes away the snow and ice quick-sharp!

Arty stuff

I’ve not been able to settle to do much art in the last couple of weeks.  I seem to have been either tired or dashing around from place to place.  But that’s ok.  That’s how life is at times.

I have completed another auragraph for a lady, but I won’t post a picture of it until she’s had it and had a chance to show others it, if she wishes.  It is personal for her.  I have another two to do, and I hope to get one done later today.

Music and railways

Some musical events are coming up for me.  Firstly, I’ll be playing my flute with Marcus (of Marcus Music, Newport, South Wales) and his wife, Pauline, at the Pontypool and Blaenavon Railway on the 19th December.  Christmas carols/songs will be the order of the day.  Pauline asked if I would go and play with them again this year, which was really nice of her to do so.  That’s as long as I can get there given the weather conditions!  I always enjoy playing with Marcus and Pauline – no pressure on me with them at all.

There’s also the school Carol Concert coming up, where I’ll be playing flute in the orchestra and singing alto in the choir.  In years gone by it’s always been a stressful time for me and I often come down with tonsilitis, pharyngitis or some horrible form of ‘flu all brought about by the stress of performing in school, which goes back to my school days as a pupil!  I wish I could find a way to get over this … I really do.

However, it’s always nice to play with other people, and I do wish I could do so more often.  I’ve not found people to do that with … yet.

Things have taken an interesting turn concerning the railway and myself recently.  The creaking door that was still open by just a nano-metre has finally been closed.  To be honest, this is a relief to me.  I can now walk away from there without any guilt and find somewhere else to volunteer my time where I can learn and also teach others things.  One adventure has come to an end, many more await me.  That is perhaps a sign of a more positive me about me!  The only problem is getting me out there to take part in the adventures!

Limits and Growth

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“This wasn’t about overcoming one’s limits, but acknowledging and living with them.” – Darren Shan, “The Birth of  Killer”

This sentence hit a chord within me, as I realised that part of my counselling process has been about recognising and accepting the limits that are part of who I really am, and recognising and dispelling limits that have been placed there as a result of other peoples actions.

I’m not talking about limits as in skills, talents and so on.

I am talking about limits that define you as a person.  Limits such as ‘you are not …’, limits that have been imposed on us by other people, people who think by getting us to fit into their image of who we should be they are helping us.

An example of this is that from a young age I was told that I was no good at art, that my brothers/sisters were much better than me, and I shouldn’t waste my time even thinking about taking art courses in school.  I’ve since found out that I really do have a talent for art, quirky as it is, it is there and it is me.

Another example is the flute.  I wanted to play flute when I started secondary school and we were played the young person’s guide to the orchestra.  It took me a couple of weeks to pluck up the courage to ask if I could learn, by which time all the flutes and flute lessons had been allocated and the only instruments and lessons left were ‘cello and double bass.  I chose to learn the ‘cello as I really wanted to play an instrument.  I went home and told my mother about the flute and her words were, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, you’d never be able to play the flute anyway – you have the wrong shaped mouth’.  Sympathy?  Empathy?  From my mother?  Never!

Anyway, a few years ago I had a phone call from a dear friend who told me I was to phone a number he gave me and I was to get a ticket for that night’s concert.  He wouldn’t tell me who it was, but that I was to call him back when I had one.  I duly did that, found myself speaking to someone at St David’s Hall in Cardiff, purchasing a ticket (one had been returned for an otherwise sold out concert!) and then asking who it was for.  I found out it was for Jethro Tull!

I rang my friend back, all excited and went to the concert.  I was absolutely transfixed by it all.  And, as Ian Anderson did things with a flute (musical things!) that were absolutely amazing, my love the flute came rushing back to me … and I was determined to play.  That very night, when I returned home, I went online and bought a flute, a decent quality flute which was on sale, as well as a tutor book or three.

The flute arrived a couple of days later, then the tutor books.  And I’ve not stopped practising and playing my flute ever since!  I did buy a better flute fairly soon after I realised that I could play, one with French keys and a silver head-joint.  And I still love to play!

My only regret is that it took me around 30 years of my life to discover this!

Counselling, particularly recently, has been about finding the limits that I have placed upon myself as a result of the way that other people have spoken to me and treated me throughout my life.  Then, looking for the evidence that refutes them and replacing them with a truer image of myself.  It’s about being an individual, being true to myself, and not trying to be something different just to please another person, as I have done since a very young age.  I’d not expect anyone else to change who they are for me (though our contact with others does change us in some way), and anyone who would want me to be something I am not in order to make them happy isn’t the right kind of person to have a place in my life.

There’s more to it than this, but that’s more than a tad personal, and I would not be comfortable sharing it with just anyone!