An update of sorts (not out of sorts)

I have had a lot of people follow up with me individually since I stopped blogging, which is nice. It's a safe bet that when I don't blog, things are going pretty smoothly. It's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, or so the saying goes... and the same is true of my bloggy thoughts. The squeakier they are, the more attention they get!

So, how is life for Tash these days?

Well, I'm glad you asked, dear reader.

1. The move home

Going brilliantly. Never better. Could not ask for more amazing housemates. While the transition was rather scary and there were more than a few moments where I thought to myself (and sometimes out loud) "what the hell am I doing, I must be crazy!" it all bedded down pretty quickly and has gone from strange-to-comfortable in no time at all.

But all fears aside, the company has done me the world of good, and the savings I will make mean I will be well-able to afford to travel next year at the very earliest.

2. The new job

Going brilliantly. Never better. Could not ask for a more amazing situation. The change in jobs had nothing to do with being unhappy with my previous employers, and everything to do with looking objectively at what my goals were in my career and realising that I needed to move to achieve that. The support I got in my previous company to explore my options was nothing short of brilliant. And, again while I was nervous about having made a mistake, the new job is proving to be exactly what I listed when I wrote down the values I look for in a role.

3. Travel

This has been put on hold for a year. While it will always be an ultimate goal for me, things didn't work out financially as I had hoped with one or two things, and I am being patient as the Universe provides a clearer path there.

4. Life, love and everything else

Well, we shall see what is down the track for me, but everything else seems to be at status quo since I last blogged.

I have decided to get back to meditation, I think that will do me the world of good. I am also focusing on music, and my next step will be to learn the guitar and start writing down some songs in my head.

I have been helping out the family a fair bit, my dad's starting up a car detailing business (anyone need a car makeover?) so putting my entrepreneurial and marketing hat on for him has been fun.

Not to mention getting the family into more healthy eating patterns with my 12WBT nutrition plan! Oh, and getting back to the gym more frequently, that's been another great step for me. Not a consistent step, to be honest, but a step in the right direction.

Well that's all the news that's fit to print!

The distinction between "alone" and "lonely"

Sometimes a blog or a quote will speak to you. Today I read Sam de Brito's blog "Loneliness" and in particular this quote ""the only thing worse than being lonely, is other people knowing you're lonely", and felt like weeping.

I read all the comments as well, because there are so many perspectives on this, given we live in a society that grows increasingly isolated (or so it feels sometimes).

Some of the comments were heartbreaking and very close to the truth that I live right now. It directly relates to my experience of blogging about my lack-of-a-relationship woes and feeling like a failure (both going through it and also blogging about it). As the quote says, the only thing worse than being lonely is others knowing you are lonely, so blogging about it is quite challenging from a personal perspective. I do it because sometimes it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

However, one thing I find interesting is that when I do wear my heart on my sleeve and reveal the scary truth about how sometimes this aspect of my life wears me right down, I find I get a lot of readers of these entries. But........ not many people comment on those entries.

What do I take away from this? A few things. That there are a lot of us with similar feelings (hence these blogs attract a readership). But that not many people want to admit they identify with it (hence not leaving a comment).

Here is my distinction of alone vs loneliness. Being alone is a fact, devoid of emotion or any physical sensation. We often find ourselves alone at home, the gym, shopping, driving, having a coffee, etc etc. It simply means there is noone else physically with you at the time. There is no physical or emotional sensation to it, it's just a state of being.

Loneliness is a state of mind, a feeling and a physical sensation. You can feel lonely in a crowd of people. You can feel lonely with friends and family. You can feel lonely in a relationship. You can feel lonely at the most intimate moment with your partner.

Loneliness is about feeling a lack of connection. Whether that be a friend, family member or partner. I would go so far as to say it is a lack of connection with self, first and foremost. If you deny yourself the ability to open up and share your inner world, it leads to a feeling of isolation and that's when loneliness sets in. It becomes worse when you allow that lack of connection to define your worth and value as a human. I have traced this process so many times I am extremely familiar with its pathways that ultimately lead to depression when you aren't aware you are in its grip.

First comes the thought: "I am not worthy"
Then comes the mental attitude: "Noone knows or understands me or what I am going through"
Then comes one (or both) action: a) pushing people away or not allowing those close to you into your inner world, or b) clinging on desperately to anyone in your path, which has the effect of pushing people away, compounding your initial thought "I am not worthy"
Next comes the physical sensation: Shallow breathing, knot in stomach, weight on upper chest, stress and tension in upper shoulders, fatigue, tears.
Ultimately, depression sets in, becoming a vicious cycle.

Having a relationship is not a cure for loneliness. But during my single years, I have found myself going through the cycle described above much more than when I was in a relationship. I think having a relationship as a starting point feels like you are a lot closer to a "cure" for loneliness than when you feel like you are still in the starting blocks. When I was in a relationship, I must admit I felt validated and worthy that "at least someone loved me, even if not always in the way I'd like to be loved".

This is a big admission to make, as someone who has been extolling the virtues of being independent, self-reliant and working on being "complete" within myself and not "needing" anyone else to complete me. But the blog (and some of the comments) really hit home for me, and pointed to the fact that we are all social creatures that actually do need each other. Yes, we come into this world alone and leave it alone, but being "alone" as I said is a state of being, not a mindset.

We (I) do need others during to help combat loneliness.

Dreams. You gotta have em

Phew!

I had to shut down my blog for a few days. I don't like it when I get melancholy with my blog, and I can recognise when it stops being an effective mood enhancer, and just becomes a venting ground. So I hired a whole bunch of DVDs and lost myself in other fantasy worlds.

I have been thinking about what I get pleasure from in life and imagining it to be true and playing little games with myself with visualisations. It has really helped!

Some of my little moments I dreamed up included:

• setting myself up in a little studio apartment in New York with lovely sunny outlook and a cosy nook to read and write
• meeting someone deliciously lovely who loves the kinds of things I love doing, walking around nowhere in particular, coffee, chilling, talking about nonsense, laughing and enjoying the small delicious strawberry-flavoured moments of life together
• writing a novel and seeing it in hardcover in a bookstore
• writing a screenplay and watching it come to life on film
• wearing a red floral belt-waisted dress, having my hair styled in a gorgeous 50s wave, with  matching blood red lips and nailpolish (anyone recognise a Mad Men moment there?)
• going on a holiday to a remote beach with my sweetheart, walking along the beach and feeling the sand and water beneath our feet
• making a scrumptious feast for friends hosted at a country cottage surrounded by lush green grass, butterflies and birdsong

Are all these things likely to happen? Some are very probable. Others... well let's wait and see. But it did cheer me up immensely to think about them in technocolour fantasy dreamworld!

More thoughts.... such a bleak night, tonight

I'd like to think this long long period of being on my own is good for me. I'd like to believe it's bringing me greater self-awareness and hence a greater ability to love myself, and therefore building within me the ability to give my love to another in a more complete way than I have in the past.

I'd like to think this is true, and that I will meet the "one" for me someday. But right now, it's so difficult to keep the faith.

Right now, I think that is all bollocks. Right now I think this period of being single is forcing me deeper into myself and into a kind of introspective madness. I really have a horrible feeling that I will be alone for the rest of my life, and will shrivel up when my prime has well and truly passed. In my head I can fight with logic that this is not the case. But my emotions are far more powerful than my intellect at the moment.

I feel so terribly alone and lonely tonight. As Carrie from Sex and the City once said "The loneliness is palpable."

The ever present fear....

I have no fear about certain things.... the ability to get a good job.. the ability to lead an independent life.... the ability to look after myself..... the ability to bring myself back from the brink and flourish again.... the ability to take a good hard look at myself and the circumstances I find myself in and re-chart the course of my life to counter the slings and arrows of my life and my actions.....

These things I am not afraid of.

However, the one thing I am afraid of and almost live in the shadow of its presence is that fear of being let down by others.

I can recognise this so much more sharply today as I have been obsessing about relationships and love and support and family and friends. Nobody has let me down in any way. Well, nobody who should mean anything to me, that is. But I live in the constant fear of the presence of feeling let down.

I don't know how to explain it other than I am noticing the shallowness of my breathing, the hard knots in my stomach, and the feeling that I am living on a knife edge when all reality clearly contradicts that I am actually leading quite a priveleged and stress-free life in comparison to a lot of families in Australia who are battling to survive in a very real sense.

I want to understand better why I feel this way so often. Why do I feel so afraid, so alone, so isolated and so anxious?

There has to be a better explanation than past experiences, surely. Is there a chemical issue in my brain? Is there something that I am overlooking?

A thought...

Have you ever thought that if you could only see yourself how others see you, how much more self confidence and assurance you might have in yourself?

I do.

Victory is mine!

As soon as I hit "post" on the last blog, an email came through that shows I catastrophise about nothing for no good reason.

Big thumbs up to the universe... big pat on the back for me. Big hugs to mum. Big hugs to everyone, really.

Big smiles all around.

Catastrophisation and mum. How one obliterated the other.

I am the world's foremost expert in worryworting, dwelling and catastrophising. If there were an Olympic Gold Medal for Catastrophisation, I'd have won the last (divides age by four) NINE consecutive Olympiads.

This is something I have really been trying very very hard to overcome. But on nights like tonight, I am reminded again of my innate talent for taking "what ifs" to their illogical conclusion and imagining that I am, in fact, a big fat loser in the game of life and that's all I will ever be.

And then I talk to someone who snaps me out of it.

Tonight, mum called and was so supportive of what is going on in my life, and listened to my fears and empathised and told me it would all work out for the best. This is not the relationship I remember having with mum, and it's just gone from strength to strength in the last few years, and I wonder whether it was me or her or a little bit of both bending towards the other with more compassion and acceptance.

I am really loving mum, and am appreciating her love a lot more these days. I also loved our chat. I had been worrying about moving home, and worrying that I might not really be welcome there (I KNOW, right?!?). And her call completely blew my worries out of the water. 

Synchronicity. I can haz.

Sometimes I wonder whether I have super powers.

The power of "putting a thought out there" then getting instant results never ceases to amaze me. My friends have often observed that as soon as I make a decision, something immediately happens as a result (seemingly not of my doing). I call this synchronicity.

It has been happening more frequently lately, and I do wonder whether this is the result of having cleared so much of my path to being on the road to who I truly need to be? That maybe my questioning over the last week has been nothing but worry-worting (as I am wont to do...)

Some examples of synchronicity in action for me:

• About a month ago, I started thinking about getting out of Sydney and visiting the Blue Mountains. I started searching for affordable weekend getaways, and that day my best friend from school days emailed me asking whether I'd like to do a city-Leura house swap with them.
• Last week I had a mini meltdown and started thinking about who to call for support. My sister? My mum? That night, mum called me and I had a little cry on her shoulder.
• On Monday I started thinking it was about time I began looking for contract work, as things have not been moving forward for me on the property sales front, and the very next day I started getting help and support in moving towards that path.
• On Monday I found myself thinking about the last guy I dated, and for the first time since calling things off looked him up, but did nothing more about it. That night he called, having mis-dialled but told me he thought "what the hell, let's have a chat", and we did chat. And a lot of issues appear to have been resolved. And we are catching up for coffee.
• Today I started thinking it's time I begin interviewing real estate agents, as I have just agreed on a date to move back to the family home. Just then, an agent I left a message with on Monday called me. Almost to the minute I resolved "it's time to move forward on this".

So, it is interesting to note, not that things are moving forward as a whole, but that the moment I decide to take action on a stepping stone, a pathway is cleared immediately for me to move in that direction.

Thoughts

It's hard to know whether what you are doing is what you really want, or whether it is what people expect of you.

Sometimes I find it hard to spot the difference.

I am at a crossroads and there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of forward movement. Whenever this happens, I worry. I usually get to the end of the waiting plateau, and realise that it was a time of consolidation and that I needn't have worried, but during the waiting game it never feels like that, and the mind does tend to wander.

Sometimes I don't even feel like I should be here. Sometimes I feel like my time to shine is over, but then I meet someone else that shows me I have more to offer, more to give. And so I am currently forcing myself to keep hoping and keep smiling. But it's an effort.

I am hoping that someday soon that question I constantly ask is answered: what is my purpose? Why am I here? What has all these experiences I have gone through ultimately shown me? Why should I keep hoping? What is it all about?

I am in a questioning mode right now.