life change

Making Promises to Myself

~ Kate Wilson ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been full of energy since the New Year began.
There are things I want to write about but I haven’t quite got them straight in my head yet.
But it’s bubbling around.  Perhaps I’ll try.

Looking back over the last year – I see how many hard things there were to deal with and how the dealing with them brought me closer and closer to finding my centre, to feeling anchored.

What won’t kill you will make you strong!

  • Trying to cope with the three dogs here in our town house
  • Increasingly ferocious attacks by Duna on Bonnie.
  • Injuring first my left hand in the van door and then my right hand when I dislocated a finger
  • Preparing my new treatment room only to spend two or three months unable to use my hands
  • Constant and exhausting problems with the Resident Adolescent
  • Changing our home life when the above came to stay permanently after his mother left.
  • Blue’s death
  • Battling with Catalan at the same time as needing to speak English – just for comfort!
  • The death of my brother

I’m not going to list all the wonderful things from the last year but obviously there were also lots of those to keep me sane and at times very happy.

However the deep lows led me directly to a path which I am still walking.
I started to meditate. I began to go to the gym and get running. I read blogs which inspired me like The Wild Elephant Project. I listened to Caroline Myss and began to explore her ideas around Sacred Contracts.  Slowly and little by little I began to feel my energy changing. I started the year  creeping down the streets of Granollers, leaking energy like an old hose pipe and cringing whenever someone gave me a disdainful stare.  Today I noticed how bouncy were my steps along that same road. The stares still happen but somehow I don’t get knocked sideways by them.

Two things help me a lot

  • When I don’t know how to react to something or someone – I send out Love.
  • When I still don’t know what to do – I try to be Present in the moment.

There have been some amazing changes just from remembering to do these two things.

Pacts and Promises and Vows
I have made some promises to myself and am amazed how powerful it is to build this trust with yourself.  I started with the decision to stop drinking CocaCola.  I also stopped shopping in Tescos. Three months ago it seemed fairly easy to give up smoking and this time it feels like forever.
At the beginning of 2013 I stopped eating meat again and renewed my promise to support animals and be vegetarian.  Today I made a pact with myself to eat no wheat for 24 hours – it is a hard one for me so I find it better to take it one day at a time!
I think that the more I gain my own trust, the easier it gets to keep to my promises.

Lastly, but definitely not leastly,  I have started the Kitchen Sink Challenge.  My dear friend Tiffany put me onto this (and many other wonderful and motivational things)  For one month you promise to keep your kitchen sink clean. You are creating a new habit that you want to stick to.  That’s all – just clean the sink and watch your life change. I know it sounds crazy but somehow it brings order into chaos and sows a seed of change.

That’s it for now.  I haven’t even got onto telling you about Swing – that must keep for next time!

E.T. go home!

~ Kate Wilson ~ 6 Comments

It is almost three years since I decided to start up a new life in Catalunya.

I left Cornwall – a place that had always felt like the perfect home with it’s beautiful scenery, relaxed lifestyle, friendly and interesting people and perfect atmosphere for creativity.
I left my home, my work, my friends and for two years I left my dogs and cats as well. It meant giving up a lot of security and of feeling ‘at home’.
Since I have been here in Catalunya I have lived in three places and now again I am thinking of changing house. It has almost become an obsession – Where is Home?  Where is the best place?  Mountains or coast? Town or Countryside?  Where can I find a place to settle my things into their places, somewhere when I can work, a place to make sculptures, to garden and plant vegetables?  Somewhere my dogs can be happy, a place to relax and get to work.

I was walking with Bonnie a few days ago and thinking again about these questions, feeling the painful longing in my stomach that usually makes me head for the computer to search through the houses for rent pages. I often blame myself for this pain – that I chose to leave my own home, that I am not able to feel totally at home in my partners house, that I have not worked hard enough to find a new place to put down my roots.
Into my head came the phrase ‘setting off to seek your fortune in far-off lands’.  I thought of those stories of the traveller who leaves all that is familiar to go on a quest – normally a spiritual one.
It sounds obvious but I hadn’t thought of it like this before. Perhaps I am still journeying, still travelling with my knapsack on my back? I thought I had settled down here but what if the journey is not over?  Perhaps this is not yet the moment to find a new home where I can find a new comfortable security?

Of course I want desperately to be at home, to be safe and settled but, what is it I need to learn before I can go there?
I come back again and again to the need to feel comfortable in myself, to have a strong central axis that keeps me steady no matter where I am.  It is simplistic to just say ‘you need to feel at home in yourself’ as if it were just a decision you can make and …boom…you are at home.

Perhaps The Wizard of Oz is the best example of this process.

To get back home you need to find your brains, your heart, and your courage. And if you can’t find them in the place where you are then you need to go off and look for them.  And this journey can be scary and lonely as well as exciting and fulfilling.
So how am I doing with all this?

Here in Catalonia I feel my heart pulsing with both joy and pain, my brain is working overtime as it copes with language problems and life issues.  That leaves courage. This I think is a work in progress.  While others say I am brave, I feel every day that the battle with fear is not over.
I look forward to the day I can  click my heels and repeat ‘there’s no place like home’.
But I’m not there yet.