Life is good. I feel soooo much better. I’m sure it’s partly because I’ve increased my dose of anti-depressants, as well as putting in place good habits such as gratitude, healthy eating and exercise. I’d like to spend more time on my Buddhist practice, meditation and focusing on my intentions. It will come.
I want to say something about my decision to go back on the higher dose of anti-depressants. I talked to my wise friends and one of them reminded me that everything comes down to a choice between love and fear. I felt that the loving thing to do would be to go back on the higher dose of anti-depressants. Once I’ve established healthy habits I can think about reducing the dose again and this time I will taper off slowly and carefully.
Business is still quiet and I am loving the time and space that’s allowing me. I feel very relaxed. I still need to increase my income and I have found a job reading Angel cards for a psychic phone line!
Today I am off to my favourite place – the beach – with my amazing boyfriend. I’m looking forward to swimming in the sea. I love the sea’s energy. Life is good.
Well today has been a good day. I must have felt better yesterday to have been motivated to write a blog post and then in turn writing always makes me feel good.
So what has caused me to feel better?
Is it because I have been back on the higher dose of my anti-depressants?
Or is it because I have been writing a gratitude diary since Wednesday?
Or is it something else entirely?
I think on Wednesday I may have hit rock bottom. My good friend Katrina Love, who used to be my life coach, recently agreed to start coaching me again. She called on Wednesday and I wailed down the phone.
“I don’t think there’s any point in me seeing you. You can only help someone that helps themselves and I’m not capable of helping myself at the moment”, I cried. “I’ve got no money. I’m going to have to get a job but I can’t face it. I’m going to have to sell my car. Andy’s going to dump me for being so negative.”
Katrina told me that sometimes when you can’t help yourself, someone reaches out their hand and that’s what she was doing for me. She told me not to do anything rash and we made an appointment for me to see her today. She told me that I was in fear and suggested I start a gratitude diary, “You can’t be in fear and in gratitude at the same time”.
She also told me that when the fear reared its ugly head to put my hand on my tummy and say to myself, “Be still” and to tell myself “I can handle it”.
Today I went to see Katrina and we made a plan as follows:
I will keep a journal, which will help my healing process and hopefully help others. As I said in yesterday’s journal, I have more time to do that while business is quiet.
While business is quiet it’s also an opportunity to really show myself self-love and self-care, mainly by preparing delicious healthy food for myself, exercising, and developing healthy habits, among other things.
Write my affirmations, determinations and intentions and read them first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
I am in the process of writing a series of blog posts about 2015 – my year of transformation, or I was before I started feeling low again. At the beginning of this year I was feeling awesome and I thought I could take on the world, which is why I decided to reduce my anti-depressants. Since I’ve been feeling low, I have felt like a hypocrite and felt adverse to writing about a transformation that suddenly had a hollow ring to it. Now that I’m feeling better I feel this is just the next part of the transformational process.
Last year’s transformation was partly down to the healing I had with Amanda Hart and the habits that we put in place then (to be covered in more detail in my ‘2015 – Year of Transformation’ series). Unfortunately I have let those habits slip and I am determined to start again. One habit that I have kept up is my Buddhist chanting practice, which is another thing that has been highly transformational for me.
I seem to be in a pattern of repeating the same mistakes and lessons. Sometimes I feel like I’m back to square one but dear friends such as my lovely TFT therapist, Val Chater, remind me of how far I have come.
Katrina, Amanda and Val are just three of numerous amazing women that I have attracted into my life who nurture and inspire me. I feel so blessed to have so many amazing friends.
Incidentally, I came back from my appointment with Katrina feeling inspired and I cooked myself a healthy dinner. After dinner I thought I ‘should’ chant but I didn’t feel like it. I immediately felt like a failure and I could feel the negativity creeping in. My next thought was that I could journal about my feelings and share them on my blog and then I felt motivated to chant as I believe that chanting helps me to access my inner wisdom, courage and compassion and reveal my Buddhahood, which is exactly what I need in my writing.
I hope that some of you are finding my ramblings helpful. I am certainly finding it therapeutic. It seems a little self-indulgent. I feel that if my writing just helps one person I have achieved my goal. A few people have told me that they have found my writing helpful and one person told me it has inspired them to start writing about their own journey.
First of all I want to apologise that my blog posts have been less positive than I would like recently. Having said that, it’s important for me to be authentic and I hope that in doing so I can help others through my experiences. The last couple of weeks I have felt pretty shit. Since my last blog post I have felt very up and down. I am lucky that I have the support of my boyfriend Andy and some dear, wise friends. One of my friends recommended a book entitled ‘A Mind of Your Own’ by Dr Kelly Brogan. Dr Brogan is a psychiatrist who has written a book about natural alternatives to anti-depressants, as well as coming off anti-depressants using natural methods; including diet, exercise, supplements and meditation. Dr Brogan links depression to thyroid disease, which I have and it’s notoriously hard to treat. She also emphasises that it is difficult to come off the anti-depressants and that it should be done with extreme caution; only once her programme has been in place for a while. Due to this, as well as the fact that I was starting to feel quite desperate, I spoke to my Doctor and decided to go back on the higher dose of anti-depressants.
Last week I felt much better, possibly due to attending a Buddhist course with SGI1. I was still up and down though. This week I have felt awful again, which if I’m completely honest, could be partly due to me getting totally pissed on Saturday. So much so that I spent most of Sunday morning with my head down the toilet. My wonderful flatmate, Lottie, held my hair out of my face. I think Andy found it quite amusing, especially as I keep lecturing him about drinking too much. On the plus side, we did have a lot of fun.
This week I cancelled all my appointments. I’ve only been out of the house to go next door to the Co-op and to go the cinema with Andy on Tuesday evening. I was very quiet, which is unlike me. I called the Dr yesterday and she said that it will probably take about two weeks for the higher dose to kick in, so fingers crossed, I should feel better in the next day or two.
My business has been quiet. In some ways this is good, as it gives me some breathing space. In other ways it causes me to worry about money. I still think it will help if I fulfil my mission to help others, whether through my writing or other means and while the business is quiet I intend to spend more time pursuing that. I also intend to start serialising my autobiography through my blog. So watch this space.
Well I’ve been up and down recently. I’ve been a bit low for the last few weeks. I’m unsure why that is. Maybe it’s due to me reducing my dose of anti-depressants. Part of me thinks that I should increase my dose again. On the other hand, I will feel like a hypocrite if I do.
I know that sometimes you have to take medication for depression and that taking anti-depressants for depression is no different to a diabetic taking insulin for diabetes. I’ve been really happy for the last few months. Although I’m sure my happiness is partly due to the anti-depressants, I believe it is mainly down to my spiritual and Buddhist practices and beliefs. Therefore I am determined to work through whatever issues I have with the support of these practices and keep on reducing the dose of anti-depressants. My goal is to come off them completely within one year. Then I will have another instance of actual proof that my Buddhism and spiritual practices actually work.
Today is the best I have felt for a few weeks now. It’s the first weekend in a while that I have nothing to do. No work, no boxing class, no boyfriend, no running around like a headless chicken. Just chilling.
Incidentally, I haven’t dumped Andy. He’s away at Scout Camp. Much as I love him to bits, it’s nice to have some quality me time.
The last two or three weeks have been pretty intense. Work has been crazy busy. The boxing training was exhausting. I felt pretty overwhelmed with everything. Then I lost three clients and once again I found myself questioning everything and wondering if it should jack it in and get a job.
Yesterday I made the decision to pull out of the charity boxing match I was due to take part in next Saturday. I have absolutely loved the training; I even enjoyed a weight lifting class! I was nervous right from the beginning of the training and I kept telling myself to forget about the match and just focus on one class at a time. For the past few weeks though I’ve been increasingly dreading taking part in the event.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, The Buddhist Boxer, although I find sparring scary, I really enjoy it. The last few times I haven’t enjoyed it though. I haven’t enjoyed it at all. The final straw came on Wednesday when I was in a particularly grueling round. My partner Julie kept asking me if I was okay. I wasn’t but I was determined to carry on. In the end Julie insisted we stop and I ran out of the ring crying and went and threw up in the loo.
On reflection, in some ways I feel as though it was a mistake to sign up in the first place. With my history of chronic fatigue and depression, I should have realised it would be too much. Even more so, as I already had a lot on my plate. I run my own business, I am the new President of BNI Wolsey and I am in a new relationship. On top of this I reduced my dose of anti-depressants in February. So all in all, possibly the wrong thing for me and possibly the wrong time. On the other hand, I have loved the training, I have learned a lot and I have made some good friends, particularly Julie Ann Warne, my partner and a very inspiring lady.
Over the last two or three weeks I started thinking about pulling out. I kept thinking to myself that I had to do it because everyone would think I was an idiot if I pulled out. Then I kept reminding that I have to stop worrying about what other people think. Everyone kept telling me that I should do it and finally I stopped listening to everyone else and listened to my intuition. Yes, I asked a lot of people for advice and I listened and finally I made up my own mind.
I was also worried about letting people down, especially as I have a history of committing to things and then backing out or not completing. I have a habit of committing to things without stopping to think if I can follow through. This is something I’m working on.
In regard to my business, I thought about jacking it in recently. Something I have thought about before when the going gets tough. The good news is that I have decided to persevere. As I mentioned in another previous post, Journal 13th June 2016, I have realised that I’m straying too far from my life purpose and that I need to get back on track. When I’m feeling out of sorts that is often one of the reasons. I have also realised that I’ve been getting off track with my plans for the business. In both cases, I have been focused too much on the money and too little on being in service.
So as I said earlier, today is the best I have felt for a while. I slept really well and I woke up feeling as though a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I am determined to get back on track with my plans to be in service. An extra blessing is that I have received my first donation for my blog. I think that’s a sign I’m on the right track.
I had a choice with the boxing and a choice with my business. I could give up or I could persevere. As Napoleon Hill said “Don’t quit right before the miracle happens”. Sometimes keeping going is the right thing to do and sometimes knowing when to let go is the only option.
I’ve been feeling low again the last week or so. I am tired and I’ve been having headaches. I feel overwhelmed with work. I am nervous about the boxing match and wondering why I decided to sign up.
I think this is partly a message from the Universe that I am straying too far from my life purpose, or at least not spending enough time on it. I also think that because I’m Lilacing1; it’s bringing everything up to the surface.
I don’t know how I can spend more time on my life purpose. I suppose it’s baby steps. At the lilac enrolment ceremony I set myself a determination2 to spend 15 minutes per day on my personal writing and or journaling, in an effort to serve humanity and shakubuku 3 through my writing.
On the plus side Andy has been amazing. He’s so supportive. Over the last few days I feel as though I love him more and more every day and then yesterday morning he said exactly that to me. When we were playing poker at Kirby Street on Friday, I looked at him and I thought “God, I love you so much”.
I had a great TFT4 session with my dear friend Val Chater on Friday and I released a lot of fears, especially around boxing, including the fear of fear itself. I am probably still releasing stuff now.
I also know that everything always works out for the best and that every challenging situation has a solution. Through my Buddhist practice I can overcome any problems that may otherwise seem insurmountable. I can ‘make the impossible possible’ in the words of SGI leader President Daisaku Ikeda.
Well – what do you know? I feel better already. J
1Lilacing – to be a dedicated volunteer for two years within SGI – a socially engaged Buddhist movement.
2Determination – similar to an intention. I will cover this in more detail in a later post.
3Shakubuku – the way I understand shakubuku is that it’s about teaching people to reveal their Buddhahood, improve their lives and by doing so make a contribution towards world peace. http://www.sgi.org/about-us/buddhism-in-daily-life/shakubuku-reveal-true-potential.html
4TFT – Thought Field Therapy, aka Tapping, releases energetic blocks helping to overcome negativity, fear, limiting beliefs etc and can be used to overcome virtually any problem and help you achieve pretty much anything you want. www.tftval.co.uk
