When is a pimple not a just a pimple?

I’m a great believer that when we don’t express ourselves properly or we try to bury our emotions the body will pay the price. Emotions and feelings are energy and if we do not channel it correctly or release it, it will find alterative routes or just fry our circuitry.


 Currently I’m sporting a rather large and painful pimple on my chin. I haven’t had one like this for absolutely years; it’s the kind that will never be squeezable and glows like a beacon. I don’t need artificial lighting to find my way in the dark; all I need to do is jut my chin out. Of course it’s possible that a pimple is just a pimple, but I’ve had a look at external circumstances and the way they are making me feel and I know that this pimple is a manifestation of my feelings about all this and my inability to express them.


My husband runs a little business renting motor scooters to tourists. However recently he’s allowed one to go to a local which is always a bad idea. The last two failed to pay and I’m angry that he thinks this one is any different. What was going to be 10 days has turned into 32 and promises of “I’ll pay you tomorrow” have not been kept. For some reason he seems to be incapable of dealing with this; he keeps procrastinating about retrieving the bike. I’m resigned to the fact that this guy is not going to pay up and is now just taking the p!ss, but I wish that R would at least get the bike back so it can’t continue.


I’m angry on so many levels, that R is incapable of resolving this – I’ve told him that he has to learn to chase money if he’s going to run a business. I’m angry that he has so little regard for his wife’s happiness; whilst this guy is running around on our motorbike for free I’m confined to the house without any form of transport. I’m angry at the guy for behaving like this even though I should not be surprised. They seem to think that because R has a foreign wife he doesn’t really need the money.


My frustration is born out being unable to do a damned thing about it. Discussions are getting repetitive and now seem to be met with a brick wall. I can’t express how angry I am because it’s impossible to have a normal argument with him; it will escalate into something thoroughly unpleasant and I’m fed up of replacing buckets, plant pots and the bruises.


So I’m sporting the pimple instead and trying to ignore the onset of tonsillitis which is coming because of all the words backed up in my throat.


I wonder if he would understand the saying a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush or one happy wife at home is worth 2 angry acquaintances.

The book that appears at the top of this post is one of the best I've read for explaining how our emotions affect us on a physical right down to cellular level

A random moment in Sri Lanka

A cow wandered into this cafe at the busy bus station in search of a snack

My guardian, Rocky

He's the biggest and daftest Rottweiler and very much my baby, but he's not normally into being hugged; making a gentle rumble of protest as he endures it.

I have a rock in my garden which I call my Angel Rock; it's where I look to sit and talk to my angels and to connect with nature. As soon as I sit down Rocky appears by my side and sits glued to my side. If he gets the chance he'll position himself between my knees to look out over the jungle with me. He willingly accepts big hugs without protest when he's on my rock with me.

Today has been a really low day and I've been crying out to angels for support and to be able to feel their presence. I needed an angel hug especially from michael whom I talk to most. Just as I was begging him to let me feel his presence as I sat on my rock, Rocky arrived at my side and pressed against me. I suddenly wondered if Michael in particular has been sending Rocky to make that physical contact and as the thought formed Rocky gave me a huge nudge with his backside as if to validate my thought!

Thank you Michael and Rocky; it was just what I needed.

The Precipis

I hate days when I'm standing on the edge. I try so hard to be calm and at peace, but sometimes external influences are just too strong for me to beat and I start to spiral. Despair creeps in and I know I'm heading out to deep water again. The tears wont stop and the internal static becomes so loud I can't hear or sense the Angels even though I know they are there.

Days like this make me want to double the cotton wool layer around myself so that whatever it is can't reach in and cause all this hurt and turmoil. The worst thing about anti-depressants is that they wont kick in for 3 or 4 weeks, by which time this will have passed. In my heart I know it will pass, it has to, but right now I feel like taking a step over that edge and letting myself fall.

I know that I am lucky to be living the life I have and in many ways it is so blessed, but depression doesn't care about that. No matter how many times I kick myself up the butt I just can't shake it.

What would it be like to take that fall and succeed? Would the turmoil be over then? I can't do it though. I've done it before and it wasn't my time. I was sent back. So I know that I just have to ride this out and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

Space

Until humanity learns to take better care of this precious planet and to repair the damage it has caused it should never be allowed beyond the reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. The idea of them being allowed to ruin another world is horrifying.

A Map of Depression

 

Depression is something that I've lived with for the last 10 years. It was probably there a lot longer, but that's when I was diagnosed. It was a bit of shock to be told that; I was supposed to be a rufty tufty bobby and immune to such things. The worst blow was when I was filling out an application form for a mortgage and amidst the medical questions was 'Do you have a mental illness?' To clarify the question there was a list of conditions, depression being one of them. I didn't understand much about the workings of the mind and body back then and I had always thought being depressed was just a mood. I've found that where I have limitations of perception and compassion the universe likes to send me things to experience for myself first hand and that's why I believe I have this, so that I may be able to understand and help others with the compassion I had been lacking before.

My experience of depression when it's running out of control is that the inside of your head becomes like a compass with a magnet held over it; the needle loses any sense of where it is supposed to be pointing and just spins wildly. I used to feel like that; I spun between the extreme highs, where I would be like a Border Collie on speed, to unrelenting despair and sadness and then there were the days when I was trapped in a cloud of fear or caught up in a rage. All were equally destructive.

I decided I needed a map to help me find my way out of the confusion and to keep myself centred and also to help me recognise where I was so that I would know which direction to swim in. So I drew a version of this. The island at the centre is the goal, somewhere to feel safe and happy, but that would also give me a good view to see things coming that would trigger the negative responses before they were close enough to take effect. The depths of the water are the overwhelming sadness, where no matter how hard you try to swim you just cannot reach the surface and you start to lose all hope. Fear descends like a fog on one side, introducing paranoia and on the other side is a tsunami wave of rage. The highs were great and had some interesting results; a dragon tattoo and a motorbike to name but two. Some people loved to be around for those; they were wild and exciting, but the descent was always rapid and then the good-time friends vanished into the shadows. Some friends could handle it and stood by no matter which way the compass was pointing. Thank you to those people.

I still use this map when I feel like the depression is getting too tight a grip and I try to get back to my island again.

The Bubble

For as long as I can remember I've felt trapped inside a bubble that was so real I almost felt like I could reach out and touch it, push against the membrane it created around me. When I was a child it seemed to surround the village in which I was growing up and I felt suffocated by it; I desperately wanted to break out of it, to expand the narrow horizons of my world.

 

The desire to escape the village and the bubble was overwhelming and was one of the reasons I opted to join the police. I saw it as an escape, but I also believed that I would be able to help people and somehow contribute to making the world a better place. Silly girl! What I discovered though was the bubble followed me and the effect of joining the police was to make the membrane become thicker and to contract around me. An unhappy first marriage contracted it even further.

I knew there was so much more beyond the membrane, a whole different world, a different way of living and so much more I couldn't identify. I used to envy the wintering seabirds that came in land and wished I could take to the sky and soar with them, totally free. That was what my soul was crying out for – 'Freedom'.

 

My nervous breakdown set me free of both the police and marriage and for a while the membrane expanded and I could breathe again, but I know that I can't escape it entirely. Even when I thought I had set myself free from the way of living in the UK, where it's all so driven and materialistic, I discovered that the bubble was still around me in Sri Lanka. For a while I couldn't reach it, but as my depression started to take hold again and circumstances became difficult here I began to feel trapped and the bubble closed in pretty rapidly again. I tried to last as long as I could, but in the end it got too much and I fled back to the UK where I thought the freedom that we experience in the west would alleviate the suffocation. It didn't.

 

For the last 8 years I've been exploring my spirituality and trying to 'walk the spiritual path'. Most of the time I manage to stay on it, but sometimes I stumble and sometimes I get lost and stagger off in the wrong direction. In the last months I've observed my bubble from a spiritual perspective and I realise that I can control its dimensions by altering my perceptions of things. But I think that I have discovered something far deeper about this bubble which is that I am actually sensing the membrane between this reality and all the others. There is a definite connection between my opening spiritually and the vastness of the space within my bubble which allows more in; when I've got lost along the way is when it shrinks to remove any room for other possibilities. I also think I sense it so strongly because I remember an existence where I lived beyond it, where there were no restrictions and where I could move a pencil just by looking at it. I never understood why I couldn't do that as a child.

 

That recognition and acceptance has pushed the boundaries of my bubble to where I can hardly feel it anymore. I have room to breath, I don't feel trapped and there is so much space for new possibilities.

Old Man of the Garden

This is my favourite tree in the garden. I suspect he's quite old and has grown from a seed that landed on a rock. His root system has embraces the entire rock.

This year I've started watering him when I water the decorative and vegetable plants in the garden and he has responded beautifully with new growth all over. I don't know why we never normally think to water the trees also.

Every morning I greet him and he welcomes me with a shower of energy.

I asked my husband if he had tried talking to the tree and although he wouldn't admit to it, I have caught him coughing at a coconut tree to stimulate it before.