inner work

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Island Blog – Freedom and the Pefficor

So what is freedom? A massive question and with a gazillion answers, for sure. For some it means a facilitated or courageous move away from confinement. For others it might mean, well, pretty much the same thing. I get that it isn’t always possible. I also get that it is possible, but would take huge courage and a faith that, eventually, a life would improve. It has to. Confinement is always wrong. Always. However, a person may have been complicit in the confining thing and that bit is often the one reason to stay. I agreed to this. I let this happen. I am to blame. We are such suckers for personal blame, as if it was born with us like a tricky twin.

Here’s a thing, one which might sound bajonkers. Not only might we be the one confined, physically or mentally, but we are also the pefficor, the more senior ‘officer’ in the ranks, of which we are but one. This nonsense is crazy but it is real. Inside our minds there are the critical voices, or just one, from our past, our childhood, and there is the pefficor, quite a gentle name for such an ungentle, who didn’t see us, not really, hear us, not at all, ask about us, our feelings, our life, well, maybe once or maybe twice. We can’t understand the power of that voice, nor why it keeps triggering us into a big response in the life we now live. I know what is missing. A good self-esteem, a strong sense of self within any dynamic, any workspace, any group of friends/ strangers.

The next bit is always inner work. In this world, so lost in the machinations of gain and power, even though all of us seek simple, gentle, loving, kind, we keep listening to the pefficor in our heads. Life is all about success. No, it isn’t. Life is all about listening, learning, uplifting, observing, slowing, watching, accepting. Striving for money is a death wish. We know this. We’ve seen so very many fall into that black, snake-infested pit. The wrong goal.

Whom do we admire? And I omit with a big omit anyone in fame because that place just doesn’t exist beyond a cloudal fluff. However, with many teens in my grandlings, I can see the power of the pefficor in their lives, the subsuming of self into the morass. I can see how tough parenting is nowadays and I am glad my kids, now parents, had the freedom of the wild.

I have no idea why all this came to me as I sat down to write, but it did. All any of us ever want is the freedom to live, to love, to move, to lift, to change, to settle, to choose, to speak, to listen, to be heard. Not a lot to ask.

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Island Blog – Remote Control and Smartarse

I set off, car packed, morning bright with a few clouds that didn’t seem to know quite where to go, a sort of fluffy ‘what’s next?’ thing going on between cumulus and cirrus. I left them to their dilemma and headed for the ferry, nothing but sheep on the road, and radio two my upbeat companion. I had thought of everything, chosen what to take most carefully, organised this and sorted that and I was feeling cocky, or henny, in my case. The usual anxiety around travel was noticeably absent, and I was. surprised at that, wondering if it would arise and catastrophise me. Nothing. Just excitement and anticipation of an open road adventure. Early I was, of course, and took my place with the other Earlies in Lane One. The sea was a blue pancake with a couple of sailors already canvassed up to catch the little breeze. Waiting is no problem for me. I have learned how to wait like a pro and over decades of husband, children, guests, oldies, dodgy vehicles and stubborn animals. Noticing a friend pull up in the car behind, I got out to chat, share news, have a laugh. See you on the boat, I chirruped, bright as a wren, as the ticketmaster appeared to point his pinger thing at our QR codes, whatever the hell that means. Loading now, and I strap up, push the start button. Nothing. Again. Nothing. On my screen it says I must hold up the start button to release the steering wheel. This has happened before, and, come to think of it, quite a lot, lately. I obey and I pray, as Miss Pixty makes no sound, like she dead. I tell the behind me cars to pass me by, feeling very spiritually damp, and continue pushing buttons and praying as I watch all the cars load onto the boat, even the standbys. I am doomed. I also look ridiculous, well, we do, me and Miss P, alone in this vast empty space, and the ferry pulls out on time. My heart is in my boots. I have a meet with my son first, then a journey to other family and from what I could remember, this space on any boat was the only one today.

I and me need a word. One of us is panicking, the other smartarse, smartarsing. All shall be well, she says, calm as you like, to heart thumping me now flicking through the mini manual for a solution. My brain is on over-rush. Who do I call to sort my car? The AA on the island is actually far enough away to be extra terrestrial, many hours between us, and that’s only if the good man is free to come. The screen tells me my remote control needs a new battery. I have a remote control? Calming, and with the gentle guidance of the extremely handsome ticketmaster, I read that, if I hold the remote control (the key, for goodness sake) against the steering column whilst pushing the start button up, a message will go to Mini HQ and they will ignite my engine. Good flipping lord. Where is Mini HQ btw? I obey, the engine starts and I swear Miss P chuckles, a sort of throaty giggle. I’ll talk to you later, I say. About what, says the ticketmaster who looks about 19 and of the caring sort. Ah, not you, my car. O…K… he grins, adding, I’ll change your ticket for the next boat, due about an hour. I relax and pull forward to the top of Lane One, a huge smile on my face.

And, I congratulate myself. I did not panic. I found help, found a way, called my kids, felt no rise of anxiety, nothing more than oh bugger and that one is always sortable, all swash and buckle, like being threatened with a plastic sword. All, is, I concede to the smartarse, well. It thinks me.

I know I have been working a lot on perspective of late, just thinking about thoughts, the emotions they arise, the knee-jerks of old. I wanted change, hence the work. At each and any rise of anxiety, I notice it, and we have a chat. Thing is, if given clearance to develop, a little nothing much can grow into a monster, blocking out the light, the way forward invisible. It also brings indigestion, wobbly legs, a reminder of personal past failures and a sense of being quite pathetic and a mega wimp. It also brings in the ‘shoulds’. I should be able to do this, sort this, get over this, work this out, get through this, overcome this, change this, all followed by a slump of the shoulders and the turn into defeat and punishment. Well to hell with that damn nonsense! I know who I am, and so does the delightful ticketmaster, #bonkers. I have lived through many real and many imagined disasters and, on reflection, was good in a crisis, despite the fact that all my organs changed places for a few moments, unbalancing me somewhat. Missing one ferry, meeting kindness and support, my travel plans altered for an hour or two – absolutely not a disaster. Perspective is everything at such times. What ifs get blown away, adventure beckons. And, if I am honest, I feel proud of myself. I can do this, whatever the ‘this’ is, not only with my innate strength, both mental and physical (that’s the work), but more, with humour and curiosity.

The journey was a doddle. Roads were clear, sun shone merrily, having banished the dithering of both cirrus and cumulus, and I arrived safely. Yes I had to do the remote-to-steering colum thing, a few times, and yes, my heart did flutter each time, but we got here, to a family welcome. Then, my little granddaughter googled something, told me I needed a new battery, found one and all is well.

Smartarse is right, again.

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Island Blog – Inside Out

My washing machine, which, by the way, has behaved normally for a long time, has suddenly begun to turn clothes, bedding and other things, inside out during each wash. At first it annoyed me. What do you think you’re doing? I asked it. I mean, you have washed things as I rendered them into your maw for, oh, years now, and all of a sudden, without consulting me, you turn things about. Yes, I know that most goodly women wash everything inside out. We are advised to do this. It says so on the label. But I never read labels and there was a frisson of excitement that arose in my goodly breast as I pushed everything in with the outside on the outside. I love to break the rules anyway.

As I fight with a huge cotton/linen duvet cover that is half inside out and half outside in, I have some thinks. Going deeper, I wonder if the Universal Mother Protector is trying to tell me something. What could that be? Is she advising me that, before it is too late, I begin at the age of 67, with a hec of a lot of washing years under my belt, to obey the rules? Surely it can’t be that. This bedding, these jeans and tops, frocks and socks have managed with my disobedience for as long as I can remember and nothing has fallen apart. Well, not many things, anyway.

Then I walk my thinks into other areas of life. I ponder the inside and I ponder the out. I know only too well that if the inside of me does not relate and connect with the outside of me there is trouble. If I feel one way and communicate another, I am lacking congruence. My inside, feeling as she does, is sloshing about in my drum if I don’t show her to the world. If I see injustice, feel the pain of it, the wrongness of it, and say or do nothing, I am disconnected from my own self and I will carry that disconnection like a lead weight for a long time. Regrets, shame, crimes of omission, admissions of guilt, apologies proffered, wounds healed, all will fester in a darkling silence, challenging the health and well-being of both my mind and my body. You, on the outside of me will see none of it, feel none of my disconnection. But I will.

The start point is to admit this disconnection to myself. To acknowledge that I am outside my inside and that the two haven’t been on speaking terms for way too long, is critical. Do I want to? Well, no, not really. I want the outside of me to look goodly. I want the inside of me to catch up, to hurry up and fit the space without me having to do any of this tedious inner work. But this is not how we learn, not how we grow, develop and understand the vital need to be inside out. Now, I am not saying that we need to rush out to tell folk a thing or two about what we don’t like about them. Not at all. In fact, what we find, as we admit our fear of being inside out, is that we don’t want to do that at all. What we find, as we gently open up to our own fears of being naked before all men (dreadful thought) and women (slightly less so) is that compassion arises like Venus from the waves, gentle, soft, loving and at peace with both ourselves and all those who are not us.

As I pull out the washing nowadays I smile at the inside out-ness of random things. I know this washing machine, this behemoth of importance, has a lesson to teach me. Nowadays I can inside out-flip a big duvet cover in minutes. In paying attention to something that most of us would dismiss with a worldly snort, I am learning to reconnect with the inside of me. I recommend it.

And so, it is.

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Island Blog – Garlic, Gratefulness and Fairies

In the afternoon sunshine of yesterday we set off to the Fairy Woods to gather wild garlic. I had a recipe for pesto and was keen to make it. Popz on his quad, me on my feet, Poppy trotting alongside, we wound our way through the violets, primroses, wood anemones and sorrel, between the mish-mash of ancient trees, all pushing out green. Turning down towards the shore we couldn’t avoid squashing a carpet of Celandine, faces pointed towards the sun, yellow as new butter, petal perfect. The ground was crunchy, old leaves drying, finally, and as far as we could see, a wide stretch of emerald green wild garlic leaves fluttered in the breeze. I knew I had to find 150 grams and made, as it turned out, a good guess. As we wandered back home, seeing absolutely nobody, we reflected on how this lockdown is a blessing for us. And how it must be a prison sentence for so many others. It’s good to be grateful, good for the health of the person with a thank you in her mouth.

In South Africa, nobody is allowed to go beyond the perimeter fence of their own garden, reserve, township or flat. Anybody found on the streets is at the mercy of the police. One person from each household is allowed to shop alone and once a week. All sales of alcohol and cigarettes are banned. I don’t think that sort of lockdown would make me all that grateful, although gratitude is not something we feel because we have everything. Sometimes our everything is someone else’s nothing much, but we can still find a thank you, if we trouble ourselves to think and reflect and, to a degree, compare our situation with another’s.

This slowdown lockdown time is giving us opportunities to check ourselves from the inside out; to question why we feel this flash of discontent or loneliness or self-criticism. What is it that brings these feelings? Have I felt this before, even when lockdown was not in place? Chances are, I have. So let me poke around through my memories, remembering how good they are at lying. Let me stop when the feeling comes and turn to say ‘hallo’. Let me look this feeling smack in the eyeballs and ask it what it wants from me now, now that I don’t need it at all. There is time for such work these days and, if we are canny, and if we have remembered our dreams and hopes for our own future, we have the chance to find an answer. Ah, so this thing that you do that annoys the bejabers out of me and always has……yes, that thing, the one you have no intention of stopping, even supposing you consciously know you do it in the first place, which you probably don’t.

So, instead of allowing that irritation to rise in me, I will consider a different way to live with this thing in you. How about I am so busy doing my own thing that yours is just a whisper in the winds of change? Or perhaps I will notice and reflect on my own habits that I know irritate you; if I have the humility to go there, of course. It takes courage to go there. Many of us don’t bother. We want everything, not just something and there’s not a lot of gratitude in that. In fact we prefer, if you don’t mind, to grumble about ‘your’ irritating thing, to growl at it, to let it control us, for that is exactly what we are doing.

Well, poo to that. I know that I do spend much time poking about inside myself, and that for some I am a bit of a laughing matter, but it is my thing. If I want to rise from this slowdown lockdown not only intact, but elevated and forever changed, which I do, then I must adopt an attitude of non-judgemental humility and that non-judgement must apply to me too. This way gratitude lies, even for those who cannot walk as we do every day into the Fairy Woods, even them. A time of reflection is laid out before us now, like the Celandine and, if we turn our perfect petals to the light of the sun, we can all come out on the other side of this as better humans.

We never did see a fairy.