Life is all just one big tapestry isn’t it? Feelings and facts interwoven over time, and we are all a thread in another’s tapestry. My cats like to scratch the carpet, and no matter how many scratching posts I get, they still do it. Rebellious little things! I find myself constantly picking up bits of carpet or tucking threads back in to rugs. I know the damage is there, but it sure looks better when I’ve titivated!
Isn’t that what we do in life? Titivate? Repair, restore, but can we really change behaviour? My learned (assuming it’s learned and not primal), behaviour is to make everything look and feel great. Instinctively, this has served me very well in my career in spa ,creating a soothing, environment that enhances a supportive, relaxing ambience. For those that visit me at home, you’ll know this extends to my space there too. I want to feel great in my space, I want the aromas, the textures, the sounds and the sights to make me appreciate where I am, and make me feel good. This isn’t about being materialistic, it’s more about providing a safe space for my body and mind.
I can’t help but think that although I like to make everything look and feel nice, it can be just another distraction from what’s going on in my head. It never stops, my mind just never stops working! From one thought to the next, I find myself hungrier than ever to find out ‘the why’ in everything. Thank god for google, because my shoulders would be boulders from carrying around a bloody encyclopaedia! From TED talks to Wikipedia, to anything else I can get my hands on to get answers, I’m there.
What’s more, friends of my age are taking a deep dive too. It seems that we now want to understand the damage we have done over the years, get to the bottom of it and sort it all out. This is of course - mid life. This is where we evaluate where we are, who we are, and things we would like to understand, and potentially change. If you have been reading my blogs for some time now, you would have followed me on this journey. My blogs are pretty personal, and I write them because I want to speak out and see if. like me, you perhaps think these things too?
Back to the threads...we are all made up of invisible threads, our feelings. Feelings have a field, a cloak, and feeling someone else’s feelings is what I tend to do. It’s a blessing and a curse. Consistently putting myself in someone else’s shoes, understanding from the other's perspective is my default position. I am a pleaser to an extent, until I really am not.
Whilst upon some recent self assessment googlicious exploratory ‘why am I like this’ research, I can surmise that daughters of single parent mothers will often take this role. Children that have had to play an adult role, be it as a care giver to a parent, or taking on the role of a partner instead of a child, has us growing up pretty quickly. Making decisions, and taking the higher ground seems the only way. It’s almost impossible to act out and be unreasonable. The adult child in me prevents me from upsetting others, because of the consequences.
There is a flutter that begins in my solar plexus ( think middle chest just under the breast bone). It can begin quietly, until it grows into a big black ball of negative anxious emotion. This ball then interrupts my usual ability to think clearly, and sends a wave of irregular thoughts through my head. These are thoughts, they aren’t facts. They disrupt my memory and my clarity of thought until I express how I feel. This is often a reaction to an emotional situation, and the need to get it it out, in the right way, when the timing is right.
As I write this, the people of the Ukraine are living through a nightmare, they are losing their homes, their family, their pets and their rights. They are petrified, and their whole world is upside down. Yes there it is, that’s perspective.
Even with perspective, your feelings aren’t suddenly changed because you reframed the situation. Those feelings are still there, they are still important to you, and it is indeed affecting you. Yes, you know that someone else out there is going through a worse time, but don’t disguise how you are feeling and don’t put another plaster on the wound.
I’ll continue to work on me, and in turn, I hope sharing my thought processes help you too. I know I’m not alone, and I know that many that read this will be feeling the same way too. In the meantime I am off to sew my cape back up, some threads have come loose, it’s a pattern, that distorts the pattern of the cloak.
Artwork credit to a family friend Bruno Cavellec
Did you know In Japan objects aren’t often repaired with gold. The flaw is seen as a unique piece of the objects history, which adds to its beauty. Consider this when you feel broken.
Blue tights?