Not the best way to spend time!!!!

Well this wasn't quite how I'd planned to spend my afternoon!
I'd been on my way to Derby to meet my colleague for supervision,an appointment I have to keep once a month to fulfill my professional registration.

So there I was in the inside lane behind a lorry on the A38 just after the Markeaton roundabout. Beside me was a huge lorry.I remember thinking to myself .... He doesn't know I'm here, he can't see me.
Fortunately about 10 metres after the roundabout there is a pelican crossing, and the lights were on red so we stopped to let the people cross.

We all started driving on when the lights changed, and I found out I was right, the driver hadn't seen me.

The next thing I know is the back of my car is hit and I'm forced off the road. Fortunately the speed is only about 20mph at this point, and therefore my life is saved.  And my car is playing ten pin bowling with foot high wooden posts as my out of control car ploughs through them.

In front of me looms this lamp post, I slam on the brakes and try to start moving the car from hitting the car and me head on. I succeed and hit the wing and embed it into the wing of the car. The other wing smashes into a final wooded post.

I sit there for a moment thinking ..... will the lorry stop or am I on my own with this.

I get out of the car taking the keys with me.... although don't think anyone would be moving it in a hurry.

I know that I have to take measures to stay emotionally healthy so I make the decision to scream. I'm not screeching more yelling out my emotional pain.

Two cars stop and the first of two lovely ladies check out how I am.

The lorry has stopped in the slip road ahead and the lorry driver is coming along with two other women, one of whom is on the phone. She is phoning for the police and an ambulance.

It's suggested that I go and sit in the lorry cab to keep warm till the ambulance arrives. I can't get into it the climb into the cab is just beyond me. The ambulance arrives and I'm checked over, with at that time no worries about my body. Now my body feels frightful and I will be visiting to docs in the morning just to get checked over.

The police arrived and told me everything I had to do. My supervisor who I'd phoned from the ambulance to tell her I wouldn't make it, turned up to offer me support and a lift home.

On getting home I've spent hours talking to insurance companies and all related companies.

I've been telling my friends and family and now here.

If there's one thing I know it's how to reduce the affects of trauma on myself psychologically, doesn't mean I won't suffer flash backs but I've done all I can to help it taking over.

But now my beloved pride and joy is broken, probably beyond repair, although I won't know that for sure for a couple of days.

I know that it's only a car and that it is me that matters. But this car of all the cars I've ever owned meant a great deal to me. It was a symbol of my survival from cancer, it was bought with my critical illness insurance. It made me feel endless joy in the summer with the roof down. Okay the down side of that was my frightful fear of dealing with snow in the winter! I'd bought it from new, it had never let me down, it loved been driven hard, and it looked so damned sexy.

Hey ho.... another thing in the list of stuff I'm having to deal with. Thank God for friends who'll listen to me!

River Thames Walks

 Went to stay with my eldest son on Thursday, it was a warmish evening so we set off to the South Bank and walked. First up river to as far as the MI6 building, where the river path stops. Walking back I loved the juxtaposition of this shed against the backdrop of one of the worlds most famous building!

 Continued on back past the London Eye back to the restaurants around the back of Festival Hall and I was taken to a place called the Canteen, which only produces good quality English food, like roast beef, fish and chips, pies or bangers and mash (sausages and potatoes!)

 My son has worked in London now for three years and I've never seen where he worked except as close I could once get on a boat trip. So Saturday was the day, we decided, cause he said it was only an hours walk, to walk from his office back into the centre for lunch. This was after already walking a couple of miles around Highgate to meet my cousin and his wife for breakfast.

 I was blown away by this part of London, it could have been anywhere, New York, Hong Kong, incredible to be walking through this part. There were very few people around, when the city isn't working then the streets are more of less deserted. There were a few cafebars open with a few tourists. I can only imagine the difference during the working week.

 My son's office is on the Isle of Dogs, next to Canary Wharf. He works on the 15th floor of the blue glass building behind him. The water is not really part of the river here or in the other two photos. These are the old water pools that made up the docks in years gone by. Hence the name Docklands now!

 We walked back as much as possible beside the River Thames. Everywhere at  this end of the river is modern,very little of the original remains. Many of the warehouses that once loaded and unloaded cargo from all four corners of the globe are now extremely expensive apartments.But now and again along the path there are staircases that have been there since Victorian times, as in the case of this one. We had to keep cutting back up by these steps and allyways as the apartments own their stretch of path and not open to the public and then down the next one....

..... this one is a lot older and is next to a very old pub. The pubs along this stretch of the Thames have been here since Elizabethan times. One of them still has a gibbot hanging over the river where once criminals hung. Although the current rope I think is more for tourists to photograph then to be actually used! I believe that you can still be hung In Britain, but only for treason and it hasn't been used as a punishment since the beginning of the 1960s

When we saw this view we know the end was almost in sight. This is another wonderful juxtaposition of the very old Thames Barges, Tower Bridge and The Shard, a building in progress that towers over the landscape. And does to me look out of place. The buildings in docklands are tall but they are together. This one stands alone in it's great height and there is no more building land around it so I think, if you pardon the pun, sticks out like a sore thumb!

From Tower Bridge you pass the edge of the Tower of London, photographs impossible at this point the crowds where enormous, and it felt like walking in a flock of black crows, with the occasional flash of colour from someone being brave enough not to wear the uniform black of winter coats.

On we walked past St Paul's Cathedral, down Fleet Street, into the Strand. Stopped for what we hopped would be lunch but the place we had in mind was heaving with people, so it was an emergency coffee and sandwich then carry on walking up to Trafalgar Square, along Piccadilly, past the Ritz and so to Green Park tube. Once off the tube my son lives five minutes walk from the station. So all in all I think we walked close to nine miles from one side of London to the middle. We were exhausted......

Neither of us could cook we had no energy left, so an Indian take away was ordered from the shop across the road from the flat. But we were too far gone and neither of us managed to eat half of our very lovely curries.

I did have very sensible boots on for my trip, but it is amazing how much more effort walking on pavements is compared to hills. I did realise that when I am out walking in the hills I have a rucksack on my back rather than my handbag on my shoulder, which got heavier with every mile!

So after breakfast in Kentish Town Canteen with my son and his girlfriend  on Saturday morning it was time to get back on the tube and then train and come home to the lush green hills that surround where I live.

Recent Walks

 

Lligy Beach, Anglesey

                                   
Welsh lambs

 River Dane, Staffordshire

Cliffs at South Stack, Anglesey

Stream in Macclesfield Forest, Cheshire

 Industrial heritage,canal side, Stoke on Trent

More cliffs at South Stack, Anglesey

  View from Shutlingsloe over the Cheshire plain

Been doing plenty of walking recently, (computer doesn't want to put my pictures in order ,or let me write at the edge of the page!, but that doesn't matter. )So ten days ago I spent a blissful weekend in Anglesey alone just catching up with myself. It was incredibly warm and on my walks I'm in a t shirt. It continued to be really hot on the walk from Shutlingsloe to Macclesfield Forest the following Wednesday, I'd even got the shorts on for this walk. 

Today there can be no walk cause after 10 days of unseasonally warm weather we are now in the middle of a hooley! Gale force winds, snow, rain and below freezing. So I have a morning off ,so all outstanding office like chores are done, and new photos are loaded finally on here

Each walk featured has been somewhere between 6 and 10 miles, I wouldn't recommend the one up Shutlingsloe unless you like climbing steep seemingly vertical hills!!

What has happened to world weather? It will mean that it won't just be the British who will talk about it all the time anymore!

A bit of a rant.

Life is such a tough call. We assume other people are sailing through their lives without any of the stuff we have to put up with. Of course it's all relative and my current bad back is another persons disintegrating discs. I was complaining about my sciatica to my client who finds it difficult walking because of the state of her spine. And as she pointed out, as she quoted me back to me....Each persons issues are there own! Hoisted by own petard,when I felt guilty about moaning to her!

We make assumptions all the time about people, even before they open their mouths sometimes. How they are dressed, what their hair looks like, what their age is, skin colour, sexual orientation. We don't necessarily check out what people have told us about themselves we just relate to them based on our feelings about them ( for those who like to know this is the Freudian concept of transference)

The problem of doing this is that when we relate to people based purely on our judgement call we don't really meet them to know them. We meet them thinking we know how they are, what they feel, who they are. And this does such a disservice to others.

I am constantly reminded of this in my work. A new client comes in, I will  not have read the referral letter, as that is someone else's judgement call. I will because I'm human make an instant appraisal of that person, do I like the look of them, will we be able to work together. All these thoughts go through my head instantly even before the client has spoken. As they do through everyone's head whenever we meet new people.

But then I have to stop that routine human reaction as I have to listen to the client, and find out who they are, and what they are bringing to therapy. It takes a long time to be able to learn to do this and there are times even know when I don't succeed immediately. But I do my best, and I think I can say hand on heart that by the time the first session has finished I have heard them and not imposed my views in my mind about who they are.

I always have to work with what people tell me about themselves, so if a client come in telling me that she is a wood elf then that is what we have to work with It is not for me tell her she's not. I may of course not believe her. But within the session I have to suspend my credulity and work with the clients beliefs. Otherwise how is anyone going to trust me.

So the question is can we break the habit of doing this to people we meet? What do we need to do to allow the person to be who they are, rather than who we think they are? It's not easy, but really it must be done if we as human beings are going to break our unconscious prejudices that make us judge others without checking out who they really are.

If society in any country is going to survive then we have to open our minds to who the people really are around us. Not every foreigner is .... Not every person of colour is.... Not every old person is.... Not everyone hoodie wearing youth is.... etc,etc The list of assumptions made by anyone of us, about anyone of us is at best wrong and at worst destructive.

The world is a dangerous place full of threat and fear,or is it? If we open our minds to meet others without are own labeling being used first, could we as the world's society get on better. Would there be less misunderstanding, less fighting, more peace, more hope of everyone having a right to be who they are and to be heard as such.

Of course if that happens there will always be extremists who believe their views are more right than others. But isn't it time that the majority of us the 'normal' people had a voice about living in tolerance, kindness and peace with our fellow human?

We have a right to be heard, we have a right to believe that we should live in a democracy where our voice is as important as the next humans. What right some people in this world take to think it is okay to kill their fellow human because they are terrified of loosing power or wealth is an absolute disgrace.

I, as an individual may have no real power in the world, but if we who think that what is happening in Syria and many other countries is frightful then we need to speak out, then our voices will gather power.By using this medium to say how I feel I believe the word gathers strength. And although I'm not manning the barricades so to speak. I am angry that people around the world are being denied their voice by others. I may not agree with another's view, but I believe they have as much right as I to state their case.

5.45 and it's not dark!

Valentine's pain

The days were tough
The nights were long
The dreams, a memory
Of things long gone
The sadness spent
And left today
So to move on
The circle comes round again
But until then I'll find the hope
The needed peace and love inside
Of being alone

When you can't see the wood for the trees!

 Here are your two emergency mindfulness exercises to use as and when needed in helping deal with when we get stuck in our thinking and the worries start to make us feel ill with anxiety.

First sit in a chair and out loud talk yourself through what you can feel in your body.... foot on the floor, back against the chair etc. Check out if you are comfortable, if not change your position.

When comfortable continue the out loud dialogue and think about your senses.... what can you see, taste, smell and hear.

Then move to your mind.... how are you feeling? If ok, just sit with that for a moment and be now.

If not okay, using the metaphor of taking the problem out of your head and holding it in your hand, ask yourself what the feeling is?

Then ask what do you need to do with it in the moment..... is it related to something in the past? Can you change it in the here and now? Is it a worry about the future, can you do anything with it in the here and now?

The answer in the here and now is always nothing, as you are  in the moment  and that moment is where you are sitting in that chair.

So with the problem held in your hand in the same way as you moved your body to be more comfortable then allow yourself to be with the issue and to let it go, to slip through your fingers as if sand to the floor.

When we learn to be in the moment the self awareness of what we can do about any thought in our head makes us aware that there is more than likely nothing we can do as the issues are either always behind us or in front of us..... It's like the quote from Alice in Wonderland when she is at the Mad Hatters teaparty.... 'There was jam for tea yesterday, they'll be jam for tea tomorrow, but there is never jam for tea today!'

The second exercise is about what happens to our brain synapses when we are hooked into a problem. What we do when we focus on an issue is make our field of vision tunnel vision. All we can think of is the problem, we can't see anything else. So in affect all our brain synapses are firing in the same direction trying to make sense of whatever we are focused on.

This means that we got narrower and narrower in our thinking as our brain fights to make more and more sense of our problem.

This is damaging to us as we go round and round in ever decreasing circles.

So to change this thinking we have to get our brain synapses working in a different way, as if we are diluting the one way thinking, it offers us a more effective way to look at our issues and to reduce the power of the worry.

We all move around unconsciously, I talk with my hands all the time, even when I'm totally focused on a worry, so this does nothing for my tunnel vision.

What makes a change is if I make deliberate movements with my body.

Sofor example, if I am in bed at night I will start moving my fingers as if playing the piano. I will do this for a while, then stop and check out my worry, if it's still there I will continue with my hand movements for a while longer until when I check again I will find that the worry has dissipated. How this works is that, in making deliberate movements I'm increasing the activity in my brain and the synapses will be working to move my fingers and will no longer have the time to focus solely on my worry. And so reducing the tunnel vision and making the worry far less.

If it's daytime I will probably add walking around for a while whilst moving my fingers, or running up and down stairs, or dancing round the kitchen, anything that moves my brain. 

It works the same way as getting stuck on a crossword. You've stared at the damned thing for ages completely stuck. You walk away from it for ten minutes return and the answer comes straight to your mind.

Both these exercises work really, I know I use them all the time, and I get my clients to use them , who once they get into them are amazed a how effective they are.

What has to go alongside these exercises is deliberate time spent doing your psychological work that is, examining your feelings and letting them out and not swallowing them. So shouting out your rage, holding on tight to yourself (and your bear), and crying your grief out. Writing a daily stress journal to keep a safe place to acknowledge the pain, which then gets dealt with, and doesn't result in nonstop and debilitating trauma which makes it impossible to break out of the tunnel vision that is depression. 

If combinations of these techniques are used then we get mental health and not mental dis-ease. We get a balance of dealing with issues in a healthy way that allows us to feel more balanced. And everything works if we have balance.


 Wretched blog won't print this properly so sorry about the presentation but do not know how to format in usual way as wrote this originally as an email.