“I’m no longer walking in my own shadow……”

I’m sitting here writing this on the eve of the 7 year anniversary of my Dad’s passing. 7th of August 2017, the day my life changed forever. I still can feel the dent in my life from the final breath he took, although so much has happened since then. Life and myself are almost unrecognisable. 

They say death brings change, that you go on living but the sense of loss remains. The hole that was left, is still there, showing me the place where momentous amounts of love lives. But despite the hole, the surrounding area has grown, life has expanded. 

Bereavement and loss, if it's a physical death or a loss of relationship, friendship or job even, can all bring a sense of vulnerability with it. A knowing that life is changing, what we once knew has left and the security of the known is no longer steadily holding the ground beneath us. Shifting perspectives, questions around purpose and direction, can all bring with it more confusion, overwhelm and a disconnection from reality. 

We are humans that seek security and connection, we are neurological designed to seek familiarity and attunement to support our sense of safety, to find comfort and receive love. 

I felt at a loss, when the one person that offered me that safety, gave that security and offered me the stable ground to place my vulnerable at its feet left this world. I wasn’t sure what way was up or down. I didn’t know what to think or say, didn’t know what I needed to fill this hole. I offered to those around me, got on with the practical tasks, ensured my darling mother felt the sense of security and love she deserved and needed and went on with my usual defaulted way of “being there for everyone”. 

I have previously written about this time period and how I dealt with the passing and how I moved on back into the world; it can be read in my blog named “What grief taught me about love”.

In this piece of writing I wanted to share some more insights on the journey of self discovery I’ve been on since then. To share how I’ve found a deeper connection to myself and life. 

How often do we sit and look within ourselves, to take time to question what drives us, what beliefs we make decisions from, what values we hold and what affect all of this has on our lives. We spend most of our waking days on autopilot, moving from waking up to returning to sleep on a similar daily path. Our habits and our thoughts gliding along the same highway, taking the same route and giving us the same outcome. Loss can bring this into our awareness.

We can go through days, months and years repeating patterns, justifying the shitty things in life as them being “just the way it is”. Telling ourselves it will change at some point, giving it a point in time in the future for change, for things to be different. But it does take a pause and some effort on our part to make a real change in our lives. To see where we need to alter our thinking, improve our emotions and create alternative actions. 

When you lose a relationship that has played a significant part in your life, when you lose the person you would always turn to, trust and gain advice from. Even advice you didn’t want to hear, you can find yourself reviewing life, your choices and connections to people, places, habits. I felt I had lost my compass, the source of reassurance and guidance. 

Relationships have always been important to me, I have always given a lot to those that were in my life. Always ensuring they felt heard, seen and their needs were met. Often offering to do for them without being asked, often going above and beyond and out of my way. I would often be doing for others, when I had things I needed to do for myself. I would be the first to deliver food parcels, pick children up, take them to the station, the airport etc. I thought all of this is what a friend should do, otherwise you would be disliked, rejected or left out. I pleased others over pleasing myself, I would often meet the wishes of others at the sacrifice of my own happiness. 

I began to see how this pattern played out in relationships, always finding those men that needed “looking after”, the ones who had had a”terrible time” and I thought I would be the one to rescue them and make life good again. This belief played out fully in my first marriage, I bent and twisted myself into whatever person I thought I needed to be, never really knowing how to be myself, or even asking for what I wanted. This relationship led to me being not only financially bankrupt but emotionally broken. 

The grief of my father broke open the previous wounds, the unprocessed emotions and put in centre stage the need for me to feel like I was “Good Enough” to be loved. Highlighting this core belief that I held, and which most people do to a degree or another I believe; often placing our own sense of value on external validation. 

I recognised that I needed to do something, I wanted a loving relationship, I wanted to feel valued and appreciated for who I was and not what I gave or did. Don’t get me wrong I know my friends cared, I know they wanted me around and didn't intentionally make me feel like I was always on the outside or that they even knew that a lot of social effort left me anxious and fearful of slipping up or not getting it right, desperately wanting to fit in and the need to be liked driving me from the inside. These emotions were driven by the internal stories that I had created when I was younger to understand the world. I was using beliefs that were given to me by others, shown to me by what I saw happening around me or ones I made up whilst not having the cognitive development or understanding to know what was going on. 

I don't’ want to spend time writing about how our beliefs are formed, stored and retrieved I may do that at another point, but what I do want to share was one of the key therapies I used to support myself getting from believing “I’m not enough” to fully embracing the belief that “I’m more than enough and then some”. How I found the confidence to show up, speak up, strut my stuff and then support others to do the same. 

“Being yourself means shedding all the layers of looking good, wanting to be liked, being scared to stand out and trying to be who you think people want you to be.” – Jeff Moore

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) also known as tapping, is a clinically proven form of “emotional acupuncture without needles”, used by therapists, psychologists and millions worldwide to ease emotional distress and clear negative emotions, beliefs, and memories, it’s setting a new tone for how we manage stress in the modern world. I had received several periods of counselling over the years, sat their telling my story over and over to different counsellors, all nodding their heads and offering some words of advice or acknowledgement of the patterns and difficulties. Little difference was ever truly made, perhaps superficially, perhaps I could tell myself the new affirmation of how amazing I am, how I can be who I wanted to be. But underneath the front of confidence I still felt wrapped up in anxiety and would self-sabotage most attempts to show up differently without the knot in my stomach.

EFT began to show me different results, it works by tapping a series of acupressure points on the face and upper body with two fingers whilst voicing the issue. This helps to “short-circuit” the fight or flight (stress) response and re-wire our brain to think more clearly about the problem. It moves our nervous system into the restoration and repair stage so we can heal from the high levels of stress hormones we’ve been living with and create new beliefs about ourselves and the way we belong and interact with others and the world. I began to notice a difference in how I felt when with groups of people, how I would find myself doing things without hesitation and often not even realising I’d acted differently until I had, things became so much easier to manage.

It sounded crazy, but I read the science that has proven it works. Tapping has been researched in more than 10 countries, by more than 60 investigators, with results being published in over 100 papers. The research and evidence is growing even more expeditionary. Even health organisations are now acknowledging the benefits and the profound results achieved.

The mind body connection is now largely accepted and acknowledged even by traditional doctors; that emotional disharmony is a key contributing cause of physical symptoms and disease. Not only does EFT work on our emotional health it can also help with our physical health and pain.

By tackling the emotional element to the pain, the emotions around living with the pain or memories attached to the event which is the reason for the pain, EFT can help alleviate pain from the physical body.

EFT began to bring me back into my natural flow, it cleared out the stuck feelings and stickiness that had accumulated within my body and flushed it out, one tap at a time.

So over a couple years I continued to work with a therapist and I even went on to learn the technique to be a practitioner. Growing in confidence I began to work with the techniques in my nursing role. It was amazing to see changes in the young people so quickly. The more I worked on myself the more comfortable I became to work with others, offering them the same relief and confidence I was growing.

I realised that the relationship I was in wasn’t serving me, I had begun to see how I was allowing me own dreams and my new found confidence and awareness to be still stuck in a box that had been placed around me from my old beliefs so I left. I decided to leave Manchester and return back to Wales.

I continued my training, I expanded my learning about the nervous system, the affects of trauma and the alternative modalities to healing that involve our energy systems and the power of our subconscious mind.

I went on a journey to find more ways to heal, more ways to find my true path and more importantly I found a new belief around boundaries and expectations within relationships. I would of course make bad decisions, believing that I would find happiness in places that really offered little but fun and maybe some more heart ache. But I was now able to see these decisions as opportunities to grow, learn and I didn’t beat myself up, or fall into a spiral of despair and pulling myself apart for being “stupid”.

I love who I am today, I love what I stand for. I am more balanced and find I can weave in and out of situations and find magic in life, even the pain and heartache.

Finding a new belief in myself has also found me having different relationships, relationships where I feel safe to be me. I don’t fear rejection if I don’t agree with someone, and I don’t say what I think people want me to say, so I am accepted.

I don’t go around being confrontational and argumentative, but I will ask for clarification, I will walk away if I feel I am being disrespected. I don’t fear being alone and I’m comfortable in knowing that some people will take different paths and that isn’t a reflection on me.

Working on yourself isn’t always an easy ride, it takes courage to face parts of ourselves we’ve hidden away. We need to be able to learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. To look at our inner world, and find a sense of compassion and love to parts that have acted in ways that we may have shame or guild attached to them.

I find that I am now a better nurse/therapist, friend and hopefully wife as I am more comfortable in my own skin. That I have embraced by vulnerabilities and accepted the flaws. I know I’m not perfect, I understand I might upset people or they my not like me but I am ok with that. I don’t see that now as a fault in myself, it’s life. I have good intentions, I offer a safe space for those who want to share their worries with me. I can hold space without showing judgement and can offer a way for others to begin the journey of peeling the layers back, and finding the love and happiness I have found.

So today, I am celebrating who I am, who I always have been and I who I will become as I continue this journey of life. I stand outside of my shadow, I don’t need to hide, I’m happy to be seen and even happier to shine.

Reach out if you want to speak further, I’m always open for a chat and a cup of tea. I can tell you more about the techniques I use and how they can support you on your journey of discovery.

For more information on EFT you can check out this website; https://eftinternational.org. I am registered as an accredited practitioner.