I was talking to a beautiful client the other day and we found that we had a shared experience.

Both of us at some point in our lives had suffered from trauma, like most of us let’s be honest. And over the years we’ve reached out for help. And sometimes that help said, imagine being peaceful, imagine the stillness, imagine not feeling anxious and bring that feeling in to yourself. And we both said. At that point in our life, how the hell were we supposed to do that when we didn’t know or remember what that all feels like?

And it’s the same for trust. We’re often told to go within and trust ourselves. But if you’ve experienced trauma, that’s also a foreign concept.

Trauma healing is a long road. We want to feel better. We want to hope that one day it won’t own us. And we want so desperately to feel better.

I want to remind you that one day you will.

It will happen bit by bit. When your nervous system finally gets the message that all is now safe and it doesn’t have to be on high alert, all the things you were told to imagine, become a reality.

Your anxiety, your trauma responses, your disconnection and numbness, all stem from a physiological response your body has when it feels threatened and it’s designed to protect you. I say well done you and well done body. You did it. You kept safe. Thank you.

Now it’s time to let your body know that you are safe. How do you do this?

One step at a time. One act at a time. One process you find works for you. And for me, when I was experiencing moments of anxiety or panic or disassociation, my way, was to not force my mind to think of anything other than this:

🍁hands on my heart
🍁breathing mindfully
🍁eyes looking around where I am (this tells your nervous system you are actively listening to it by looking for danger or safety)
🍁words spoken either in my head or out loud – Safe. I am safe.
🍁breathe. I am safe. breathe. I am safe

This is the first step to feeling safe in your own body again. This is the first step to being able to calm your anxious stomach down and be able to “hear” what your gut instinct is saying.

This is a first step to being able to trust in yourself again.

I saw an interview with Dr Mary Catherine McDonald, where she was talking about trauma and how she feels it’s been viewed wrongly for some time now.

She says: “We have been fed a great social lie that is, when we continue to suffer after trauma, we should be ashamed of ourselves. The truth? The trauma response is a sign of strength. It’s a biological strength response designed to keep you alive! It is NOT a sign of weakness. It is a sign that your neurobiology is adapting to threat. It is not a sign that you are broken. It is a sign of strength, not weakness”.

I’d love you to remember this if you ever feel weighed down by PTSD, or any trauma response you have to something that triggered panic, anxiety, numbness, fear, or any other overwhelming emotion within that moment.

Your body is designed to keep you safe. That stress response? The flight or fight, freeze or fawn response? It keeps you safe. It’s there to protect you. And after an event or long term suffering of what is called trauma, it takes time to help the mind and body to feel safe again. It takes time to feel balanced and peaceful.

It. Takes. Time.

With the right tools for you, with time and practice, you can and will learn how to feel safe again. You will learn how to recognise what your responses are, and how to bring yourself into what’s called the relaxation response – a calm, peaceful, balanced, healing state.

So remember these words. Your trauma response is not weakness, it’s your body’s way of protecting you, it’s a sign of physiological adaptability and strength. And.

It. Takes. Time.

The last few days my body’s been super tired. Which means I’ve been super tired. And I really don’t like it! I had chronic fatigue a long time ago so, when I feel like this, honestly, I can’t stand it! I’m human! I get a bit emotional and a tad cranky lol, so I had to just surrender to it and rest rest rest. Super annoying lol, but super necessary!

Anyway, it got me thinking about balance.

That life is a balance of doing, being, resting, recovering, growing and thriving. The importance of joy and actively bringing that balance of doing inner work AND laughing, joy, play, fun, living, creativity, adventure! I’ve kind of been doing it but also been kinda crap at it!?!
I mean I’ve been doing the self care, but proper childlike joy?? I needed reminding, maybe you do too, to have some fun amongst the working hard!

Being creative, switching off sometimes and maybe reading a novel, watching a funny movie, playing in the park (yep-sometimes I jump on an empty swing in the park woohoo!), playing with your kids, your dog, jumping in puddles, whatever fun looks like for you!

Maybe you’re like me and needed this reminder. Life is here to be thoroughly enjoyed, not just to survive the hard stuff. Care for and love yourself with the hard times, giving time to heal and do what you need ….then sneak the fun in too xx

So cheers to you and to me!!! To having fun and feeling the joy of life. To remembering and being a joy explorer of what lights us up 🌻

joy #whatlightsyouup #balance #reikienergy

What a ride. Some breeze through it, some feel like every cell in their mind and body is changing – cause it kinda is!

It can happen early or late, and it can happen naturally or due to health reasons, much earlier than expected. 

I guess this post is for those who are struggling through it. Who don’t find it easy. Who feel it or felt it all the way back at peri menopause as early as your late 30’s! It’s for people like me. 

Sudden changes in emotion. Past wounds rearing their heads saying, pay attention to me! Feeling way more emotional than normal, either more teary, more irritable, less tolerant. Physical changes like weight gain, low energy, bloating, hot flushes, feeling flu like, fluid retention, headaches, brain fog, body shape changes, sore joints and the list goes on and on and on….

I experienced all the above and more, as most of you have as well. There’s a lot going on! 

As our body sheds what it no longer needs, so do we in our heart and soul. This is an empowering time. This is a time if you choose to, to really feel into what’s surfacing for you. To support yourself through one of the biggest unavoidable changes and embrace it. 

It’s such a personal time! For some they rejoice in the freedom of no more periods. For some there will be grief at the loss of no more periods and all that represents. Most of us will feel both, I know I did. 

For me, so many emotions and physical changes happened, I put my hand up and got support. I went within and used my knowledge with Reiki and meditation and counselling. But. We can’t always see ourselves clearly. So when I couldn’t see my way through it on my own, I reached out. 

I googled, yep, there’s so much amazing info out there! I spoke with my doctor. I saved up and saw a naturopath. I saw my own reiki and counselling person and spoke about all I was feeling. I tried potions and products and diets etc. I embraced my cranky and furious stages and equally embraced my softening, my grief, my emerging heartache at things I hadn’t voiced enough. I got to know myself really well. And I really embraced my joy, my worth, my potential and my creativity. 

I used meditation A LOT and journaling and movement and nature and sound and energy healing. 

I acknowledged the privilege to go through this and be aging, as I honoured and remembered some incredible friends I’ve lost along the way who didn’t make it this far. 

I gave myself permission to really be present through this experience, warts and all. The good, the bad and the ugly lol. I talked openly with my friends so I and we, felt less alone with the experience and heard lots of omg me too! What have you tried etc? Women, when we choose to, are each others greatest support! 

Mostly, I felt it, accepted it, embraced it, loved it, supported it,released it, sat with it, saw it, buckled up and had the ride of my life. Because “it”, is ME. 

So … A few months back now I had a moment. I had a bit of a panic attack and it was rough. Even though I know it was hormone related (thanks menopause lol), and I have loads of tools in my toolbox to navigate these moments, the after affects weren’t great. I got through it pretty well and had the support of my daughter and partner but the day after, I was tired, I was nauseous and had that foggy brain feeling – I call it the panic attack hangover!

When you have a panic attack or anxiety attack, your body is doing everything it can to help you survive. Rapid heart rate, your nervous system goes into overdrive, muscles get ready for fight of flight, so basically, you’re ready to run, fight or freeze – whatever it takes to keep you safe! It’s physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting!

So what can you do? These are the things I do to help me through and help me recover after:

1. When you’re in the midst of a panic attack, ride it out. Remove yourself and go someplace quiet IF you can. It’s got to work it’s way through you so you need space and time to honour that if you can.
2. Breathe. Slow and steady wins the race here. Breathe mindfully. Count your breath, breathing out slower than the in breath. In for 4 out for 4, in for 4 out for 6, in for 4 out for 8. Or box breathing, in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4 and repeat. Honestly it’s what works for YOU. There is no hard and fast rule here, whatever you can for slowing down your breath.
3. Touch – connection IF this soothes you. It helps me when I do this but it’s not for everyone! Hand on heart. Hand on shoulder. Hands on your belly. Connect with yourself.
4. Start to become aware of your surroundings. This helps your brain disengage from the “threat”. What can you see, smell, feel and hear. For example – find 5 blue things near you (the sky, blue car, blue dress, blue vase, blue book cover); name 5 things you can smell (toast, coffee, rain, flowers, cut grass); name 5 things you can hear (birds, cars, planes, dog barking, water running); name 5 things you can feel (your watch on your wrist, the tshirt you’re wearing, the chair underneath you, your feet on the ground, the ring on your finger).
5. Depending on the severity, sometimes you’ll be able to grab something cold to put on your chest or behind your head, grab a drink of water, step outside and connect to the earth, breath in an oil you like. These are things you can do while your pulse is returning to normal.
6. Move your body to release the nervous energy if you need to. Just like a a gazelle runs and shakes off its body after narrowly escaping certain death from the lions jaw, we too need to expel that “I survived energy”.
7. Rest. Afterwards you will feel like you have just run a marathon and physically you pretty much have! Rest when you can.
8. Recover. The day after you may feel awful. As I mentioned above, it can be like a hangover! Be kind to yourself, drink plenty of water, rest where you can, or do something nice for yourself, honour what the body needs where you can. It just kept you safe and now it needs to repair. This takes energy too!
9. Once it’s over, check in with yourself. What triggered it? How are you feeling now? Do you need support? What do you need?
10. And most importantly, remember you are human. You are not weak or weird because you had a panic or anxiety attack! Once you feel settled, finding the root cause and being self aware will help you recover, and gain insights into your why so you can support yourself.

I’ve had a few people in my life say “I am a truth teller” or, “I am gifted with speaking the truth” or, “I say it like it is” or, “I’m an empath I just know things and speak the truth”…

Any version of this was met with a big bombshell, hurtful words, words they believed I needed to hear, a decision I should make based on the truth they believed was mine or, a way of thinking I didn’t know I had but they saw as my truth. Literally anything that they believed they had the right to tell me whether it hurt me or not, because you know, they’re speakers of truth. And I believed them! I believed they knew more about me than me and they were smarter and better than me because of the way they delivered that “truth” and my then limited self worth. 

Some of these people were under the guise of “spiritual healers”, some were “friends”, nearly all were people who said they loved and cared for me. All of these peoples words and actions caused me immeasurable hurt. They also gifted me invaluable lessons. 

None of those people are in my life any more. 

Why? It’s not because I’m precious and can’t handle any truth when I hear it. It’s because I finally learned about healthy boundaries. Self worth. And. Learned to hear my own voice the loudest. 

Oftentimes people will truth slay you because it makes them feel important. It makes them feel powerful. They’re under a false belief that they know better than you and, maybe you believe them because you haven’t healed from your trauma. They like/need to be the dominant or “wiser” person in the room. Sometimes they genuinely believe they have a gift and therefore need to share their knowledge with everyone else, no matter the consequence. 

Full disclosure, I’ve done it too in some form or another! I remember when I started to tap into my energy healing and started to see things and receive messages, I just “had to” share my knowledge whether you wanted to hear it or not! Apologies to all who suffered through my early days of “I just leaned blah blah and have to share it with you”.  Soon after I realised it’s not my place to force my beliefs or insights of what I believe or think I know on anyone!!! Anyway….live and learn! 

One day I met the person who would become my mentor. He genuinely could read a person, he genuinely could see your truth, he genuinely had a spiritual gift to see into you and all of you. And he never slayed me with cruel words. He never uttered the words I’m a truth teller that’s my gift. He quietly and lovingly held a space so I could eventually be able to see my own truth. Even if he could see I needed a kick up the bum, his way was to ask questions – for myself – and by his questioning, I learned the skills I lacked for inner reflection and self ownership etc to see my way to truth. The only time he ever spoke up about anything was if he felt I was in danger of being harmed. 

There’s a difference between a truth teller and speaking from wisdom, with kindness and for empowerment. Be cautious when you hear words directed your way from the person under the guise of truth teller. Are they telling you their truth? Are they telling you words from a place of superiority? Are they speaking these words to protect you and build you up? Or are they speaking these words to appear all wise and powerful, to keep you looking to them for all your answers while diminishing your light. There’s a difference between speaking truth with love to protect someone, and speaking truth without love to disarm someone and keep them powerless. 

Speaking from personal experience, I gave my power away to people like this in my life for a long time. It came from a place of low self worth and a wounded place of past trauma. The last person who sat across from me and looked me in the eye and said I’m a truth teller, was the last person to ever say it to me and have me believe them over me. I sought help, I went within, I dug super deep and unearthed all of my own treasures and found that I had a well of wisdom and truth of my own. And. 

I could trust it. 

I could trust me. 

I finally heard my voice the loudest. 

What’s your belief system around resting? How often have you heard the saying, I’ll sleep when I’m dead? How often do you tell yourself, I don’t have time to rest?

Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia were once my constant companions. Debilitating doesn’t even begin to cover the experience of living with these conditions. So when I talk about rest, it’s because I have learned the hard way, the value and wisdom of listening to my body and giving it rest.

Having good self-awareness and recognising when it’s time to nurture yourself is one of the kindest gifts you can give yourself!

Give yourself permission to rest when you need it. It’s not being lazy. It’s not a waste of time! It’s good economy! It’s banking energy stores. It’s an act of self love.

And resting will be different for us all. Some need complete bed rest. Some will find rest in being in the garden. Some just sitting in their favourite spot and reading. Some heading to their special place and immersing themselves in that space. Whatever rest is for you, honour the call when you hear it! Your body mind and soul with thank you.