Shifting Sands

Riding lessons

I love that the Conservatives have put marriage and the state of our society up for debate as it gets people thinking about relationship. Biased, me? Oh, most definitely!

The idea of government money rewarding people for ‘being married’ misses the point for me. I don’t hear any understanding or plans to help people actually ‘be married’ and happy enough in relationship to stay married! Its like strapping a cart onto the horse and watching it gallop off without thinking or explaining anything about horses.

Yes... I guess you could say relationships are like a powerful horse that we’re not bought up to understand or know how to ride (in all senses of the word!). Our parents may have managed to stay on together by putting the horse in blinkers, or perhaps they fell off at the first hurdle, or after years of hanging on. Some may have shown amazing feats of dressage in public, but with a private wild stallion. A few will have learned to ride the horse together, and shown the way.

The hard part is that life has changed and we’ve lost an option. We no longer want to blinker the horse, as we want the excitement and passion to stay alive. We expect to be able to master relationship, yet, most of us don’t know how to ride well, let alone stay on, as we date, live together, perhaps marry, have children or not, work, retire.

I reckon its time for riding lessons... (but I dread the politians getting involved in them!)

Losing your voice

I have literally lost my voice over the last week and in the silence I've been noticing what it is I long to say, miss saying, wish I never had to say again... Interestingly, and I'm sure a therapist would have a field day;

• I long to shout and  scream, or sing at the top of my lungs (so ear plugs might be advisable in our household shortly)
• I miss just chatting away with my son (I wonder what he makes of his suddenly more silent world)
• and I wish (in vain!) that I never had to say 'no' to my son again and again (its certainly been a creative week finding new ways to distract him or set the boundaries, or go with the flow...)

It also reminds me how easy it is in life to lose your voice - as a child, at work, in a relationship, as a parent... I've found losing the option to add my part in a conversation, share my ideas, or say outloud what I am wanting very isolating at times. Others are left filling the gap and not always correctly! I'm left noticing what I care about enough to feel frustrated. A reminder that frustration is a great clue to knowing your voice.

Unknown Talents

Adaptability brings discovery. When my wrist pain stopped me writing, my body and mind found ways to compensate. Suddenly I could remember numerous telephone numbers, revise from a dry textbook rather than my usual handwritten hieroglyphs. When push came to shove, I dictated my A levels, and University exams, with a teacher listening to my every word, from essays to maths solutions. In extreme frustration, I even found I could draw with a pencil in my mouth (my toes were useless!) - not enough for my Art A level, but enough for creative self-expression and neck ache!

I learned much about my own thresholds and whilst adaptation is tiring, I came away with a confidence that there was almost always a solution even if it meant asking for help and doing it in relationship with someone else. Sadly most of the above named talents faded as my wrists recovered, but the sense of possibility stayed, as did a deep respect for anyone who is adapting and choosing to find ways to live fully.

Babies and bathwater

I have had a habit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'd leap onto the next step or challenge, leaving everything in my wake, only to discover I was leaving parts of myself behind. Discovering a more solid sense of who I am has helped me find an anchor inside myself - the 'baby' so to speak - that I want, and know, to hold onto. Transitions can still be hard, but it is such a relief to have stopped the constant searching for an external anchor as I have something solid inside myself.

What do you hold onto inside yourself when everything is changing?

Learning to Live Again

Between the ages of 13 and 25 I suffered from inflammation and pain in my wrists. At times it would cause me to drop things or stop me being able to manage buttons, cook or cut up food. I was regularly in constant pain on and off for years. In my late teens, I did not know if I would lead a normal life with a full-time job, and the ability to drive a car, cuddle a baby or lift a child.

Whilst it sounds bleak, and definitely was some of the time, I learned an enormous amount about myself, my needs, adaptability and above all how to choose to live rather than survive.

I've been reflecting on this time and want to share the gifts it gave me. Many of us live with some level of pain or disabilty, whether it is physical, mental, emotional or situational, and its often not spoken about or even seen. We all have a choice about how we manage our relationship with it, but may not have any idea where to start. I hope that by sharing my story it will help you explore this relationship and, if you're in survival mode, give you hope that there can be a time when you will live again.

Tantrums

The other week, I watched my 17mth old son lie face down crying, pummelling and kicking the floor. He was so angry he was not getting what he wanted he expressed it with the whole of his body.

I was bought up in a family where you didn't show anger. Unsurprisingly, at first my son's 'tantrums' tore me apart inside as I found it hard to be with his anger and just wanted to give him what he wanted. It's pretty obvious that as a child grows up you cannot give them everything they want, assuming they can even tell you what that is, so I struggled with my emotional response and the confusion I felt. Gradually my son is teaching me its OK to be angry - the world, or more to the point the relationship, doesn't end. He's showing me that anger tells us what we want in life.

What did you learn about anger as you grew up? What is your anger telling you?

Tag Team

Over the last week, I've been dropping balls in my juggling act of being me, being a mum, being a wife, being a friend, being self-employed and knowing which way is up. Having learnt as I grew up to be 'Ms Responsibility' and in control of... well, everything... my marriage has and is teaching me to let go, ask for help and share responsibility and life. So I tagged (think Big Daddy and tag team wrestling if you remember it) my husband this week - I'm still me, a mum, a wife, a friend and self-employed, but I no longer feel alone.

Imagine for a moment what it felt like when you last tagged your partner. Where would you love to tag your partner to support you right now?

Project Relationship

My husband recently returned to a daily London commute, and I miss our time together. During the week we now have to make more of an effort to sit down and talk, and its easy to only cover the logistics and basics when we're both tired. Long, rambling conversations where we explore what we love, hate, want from life or where we are going seem to keep happening into the early hours or weekends, and I can see how they could get lost in the rest of life. When work takes up so much of our week, what time do we choose to give our relationship?

Is it time for Project Relationship to sit alongside all the other projects you have in your life?

Know-it-all

I grew up in a family where everyone 'knew' what they were talking about... there wasn't much room for getting things wrong or not knowing. One of the reasons I fell in love with my husband is his ability to gently tease me when I talk as if I 'know' when I don't. He gave me a gift when we met - the space to 'not know' and still be loveable.

The Sufi poet Rumi wrote that it is better to live the questions than always know the answers. Whilst this is hard for me as a trained 'know-it-all' I am experiencing enormous relief as I let go of knowledge and try to live with the questions.

What questions are you living with?