Aloha and Mahalo

I recently spent eight glorious days in paradise AKA Hawaii with my spunky man. Despite my extensive travel to-do list; Hawaii did not rate a mention. This trip was my man's idea. He had visited there a couple of years ago for his sister's 40th birthday and loved it. He had a whole list of places he wanted to take me to. And I was not disappointed.

Hawaii and Oahu were amazing. I preferred Hawaii as I felt it was more authentic. Waikiki on Oahu was a bit Gold Coast-esq which does not appeal to me. I am an adventure holiday person. Too fidgety to spend hours lying on the beach sunning myself, I like to be active. I like to wake in the morning and go for a run. I like to see and do things, truly experience the local culture and explore the little out of the way towns rather than stick to the touristy locations.

Prior to our trip to Hawaii I was aware of aloha. Not one for languages, I am at least aware of the basics in many tongues. Aloha is a state of greeting - hello or goodbye. But, I learned that it is also a spirit of living; an expression of love, and, as such, it is to be said only with sincerity. Aloha is in everything. It is a life essence; a way of being for aloha encompasses the following

A is for AKAHAI, meaning kindness, to be expressed with a feeling of  tenderness.

L is for LÔKAHI, meaning unity, to be expressed with a feeling of harmony.

O is for `OLU`OLU, meaning agreeable, to be expressed with a feeling of  pleasantness.

H stands for HA`AHA`A, meaning humility, to be expressed with a feeling of modesty.

A stands for AHONUI, meaning patient, to be applied with perseverance. ~ Pîlahi Pâkî

Holidays are a time to rejuvenate. They are a time when you find peace and truth. Holidays are a mental and physical break from the mundane. A hiatus from work and chores, holidays give the opportunity to honestly reflect on life. The brain space sheds light onto things that need attention, giving focus to the importance of people and relationships. Where the insignificance of consumerism and ego fade.

I went to Hawaii feeling ill at ease. I could not pinpoint the cause but I knew that something was just not right. I found the source of the unbalance while snorkelling on a beach on the west coast of Hawaii and spent time in quiet reflection for the following three days until I found a way forward.

For the first time, the cause is not something I am willing to share in this space but I wanted to highlight how important the break from reality was in helping me navigate my way through the rockiness, the uncertainty and self-doubt. Ergo, I implore you all to travel as much as your bank balance will permit you to.

Like Mark Twain says - Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer. 

Mahalo Hawaii, for providing me with relief, perspective and sense of balance.

Losing sight of the big picture

I find that life is so busy - kids, work, family, friends, housework, study, gym - that it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. Life drifts by and months go past without any progress towards the areas of life that you want to change. We are pulled along by the flow of daily life and all of a sudden another year has swept by.

For the first time in a long time, I have set real goals for my own life for 2015. As I have already mentioned, realising that we're half way there and I have made no progress on any of them is frightening me. Rather than be disappointed in myself (something I excel at), I am making a conscious effort to remain positive. To take the time now to refocus on my ambitions and reassess the situation. Circumstances have changed somewhat for me in the last six months and I am not where I had hoped to be. Nevertheless, it is important to focus ahead and aim high.

My children are happy and healthy. I am in love. I have at least started formal study which will hopefully put me on the right path for career progression and an inspiring professional life. And I have a wonderful Hawaiian holiday coming up at the end of the month which will get me away from the Antarctic winds that have been freezing me to the bone lately. 

There is still a lot of work to be done in the latter half of 2015 to ensure that I am in a better position entering into 2016 but I am on my way and I have reassessed my priorities to ensure success. Accepting there are things that are out of my control is a big part of ensuring that I maintain motivation and perspective in achieving my goals. I cannot help illness or injury. While they will affect my training and impose on my fitness goals, they are out of my control and therefore not worthy of my attention. I have instead chosen to focus on healthy eating and maintaining hydration to ensure that I give my body the best chance to fight off infection. I am trying to address my sleep issues so as to set myself up for optimal physical health.

I feel like my mental health is suffering of late so I have reprioritised to ensure that this gets the attention and time required to ensure that my stress levels are under control. While maintaining honesty, integrity and compassion, my focus is to get my head into the right space for repair and growth.

We may be six months into 2015 but there's still so much opportunity to achieve greatness this year. Up and at 'em!

Half way there

I realised this morning that we're nearly half way through 2015. At the start of the year I made a few loose New Year's resolutions. Namely to prioritise my health and get back into learning new things. I have the latter underway but the former is proving difficult for me. I am the queen of self sabbotage. I am not managing stress well. I am squashing my feeling down and soldiering on. I continue to try to be everything for everyone. And I am failing. while I try to eat clean, I keep diverging from my promise to myself. I am not sleeping well. My brain cannot be quietened. My heart feels like it is constantly fluttering with stress. I fear I am disappointing everyone.

I have multiple health issues that I am trying to address without too many medications. Side effects from meds are, in my experience, generally worse than the initial condition. As a result of excess uterine bleeding, my iron levels have dropped dangerously low. I am constantly tired and I am now suffering with associated blood pressure problems which sees me lightheaded and feeling like shit most of the time. I experience shortness of breath even when I am not exerting myself and almost constant headaches.

I am taking iron supplements but (assuming I get the menstrual bleeding under control) it is estimated that it will take at least three months for my iron levels to start to make a comeback. At the moment there are not a lot of options available to me that will maintain my fertility (something I am not quite willing to let go of emotionally).

My focus for the remainder of the year is to get back to peak health. I have adjusted my diet to incorporate more high iron foods. I am being less social to ensure I can rest more. I am working on maintaining my mental health and managing my stress with yoga and meditation. As the weather warms up I will get back into running as it provides me with great therapeutic relief.

Celebrating hope

Life without hope is an endless drag. Hope brings optimism and positivity. Hope comes at random times in life but also with regularity - the birth of a child, New Year's Eve and the celebration of someone's life. The mother of a very dear friend passed away recently and her funeral was a celebration of a beautiful life. An amazing woman, she led a very full life; taking opportunities as they arose despite her failing health. Her life was an inspiration. A true testament of the strength of her character.

With her passing, I have hope that I will also be able to provide motivation and inspiration to others through surviving hardship.

Motivate me

Motivation, like love, waxes and wanes. Sometimes it is high, others not so much. Maintaining motivation can be hard work. For some, motivation to stay fit is hard. Others, like me, find that task pretty easy. For me, motivation at work is a real issue at the moment. 

I have explored this at length and have found there are a few outstanding reasons for this

1. I am bored. Really bored. Completely and utterly bored. Out of my mind bored. I am underutilised and every strategy I have tried to get onto interesting projects has failed. I feel like I am at a dead end. There is no ladder in sight. No avenue for change. There is a dark, gloomy cloud overhead and the trapped feeling is most unpleasant. 

The standard "look for another job" is harder to apply in my situation because I need a nine day fornight in which  I can see my kids every second weekend. Within that I also need some flexibility because my ex does not work to a strict one week on one week off arrangement. My current boss is amazing! She's really great at being flexible which is worth a lot in my current position.

2. I have no incentive to climb the corporate ladder because any pay increase goes into my ex's pocket. While I would like to think that my children see the benefit of that, the fact that he recently bought a yacht after the children ate sausages and chips for a whole summer would indicate otherwise.

3. I am scared. It has been a long time since I held a position which I was proud of and I am worried that I would not be able to function at that level again.

So, in an attempt to find my mojo again I have enrolled in a Diploma of Project Management and am studying in the mornings before work. It'll take me a year but it's better than sitting around complaining about the status quo.

Connection

I have been thinking about connection recently. About the way relationships form; how they change over time; how they are fed; what nurtures them; how they decay. I don't have any answers yet but I find it interesting how you can have really deep relationships with some people and others are just superficial acquaintances.

I feel lacking in the former and don't care a whit about the latter. As usual, fear holds me back from forming deep relationships. The more you commit to someone, the more likely that you will be hurt. The more exposed you are, the more ammunition the other person has to use against you. I worry that, if someone truly knows all there is to know about me they won't want to be around me. I am scared that, at my core, I am unlovable and worthless. Part of me can see that these fears come from years of emotional abuse. Where I was told that I would be all alone if I left. Where I was taught, through reinforcement, that I have nothing to offer a significant other.

However, without exposing yourself you risk leading a life that has little meaning. True purpose, I believe, comes from connection to others. We are social creatures. Humans are designed to be around other humans. While solitude is important for mental health and emotional stability; deep connections with other people is what gives us a sense of purpose.

Ergo, I am in a constant state of internal conflict. On one hand I crave deep connection with people. While on the other I am deeply fearful that I will be rejected.

Silent reflection

I drove to pick up the kids without the radio on this week. Driving is usually my thinking time anyway but I felt like I needed to pay extra attention to my thoughts. My inner voice is often quietened by the busy lifestyle I lead. I work full time in a nine day fortnight. I have two bright and energetic kids. My father is terminally ill. I like to stay active. All this means I have precious little "me time.

So on my drive a million things flowed through my mind. My children. My boyfriend. My father. My mother. My sister. My troubled teen of a nephew. My sick niece. My best friend. My job. The usual suspects.

But the repeating theme was my mental health. There is no doubt that I struggled with my separation and, nearly three and a half years later, my divorce is finally through. On Monday at 1000 I was officially unmarried. It was a non event in the end. No email confirmation from Births Deaths and Marriages. So I logged into my online account and had to put on my wet suit and go deep diving in search of the documentation. Fifteen minutes later (that site needs a serious overhaul) I find the divorce papers and email them to my ex.

Now, I would never be one to have a divorce party (honestly, I find them disrespectful and inappropriate) but I would have liked a nice lunch or dinner to mark the end of an emotionally draining time of my life. However, with my father in hospital, it turned out that there was no time for such frivolities.

So, I drove in the silence of my beautiful new car, and thought through the journey I have been on.

As a teen I was quietly confident. I knew what I wanted and I knew how to get there. I studied hard, played plenty of sport and had a solid friendship group. I was happy.

In uni I was dating a guy that ended up being a complete jerk. I moved to a country town in second year where I was away from said boyfriend four nights a week. Apparently it was impossible for him to keep it in his pants for that long and he had an affair. I'm not sure how long it was going on for when I found out but I don't tolerate such behaviour. As such, I ended the relationship. This marks the start in the decline of my mental health.

The boy in question (and I refer to him as a boy because a grown man should not behave in such a way) lost it. He had it in his mind that he wanted to marry me and could not cope with the fact that I was not interested in being with him anymore (at this point I was singing in my head Katy Perry's Dark Horse). He became obsessive. He would call me hundreds of times a day. He would make midnight trips from Melbourne to try to beg me to take him back. He would stalk me at work. In short he made my life a living hell.

I got a new phone number. I had campus security on alert for his car at uni. I had my locks changed. I called the police. Many times.

I started having trouble sleeping. I saw a psychologist. My grades were dropping. I was on high alert all the time.

On a train trip home from the city he tracked me down and raped me. While I reported it to the police they persuaded me not to put in a formal charge as convictions against a known predator were not often successful. I was warned that of the case went to court I would have to relive the events of the day. I was essentially bullied into walking away from the police station without completing paperwork that would give, in the words of one of the male officers, a "heartbroken young man" a criminal conviction.

Sadly, that's not the worst of it. The pinnacle was the night he drove from Melbourne to my country campus and too all my sleeping meds with a fuckton of vodka. A near lethal combo of Valium, various other prescription pain medication and a bottle and a half of Smirnoff. I came back from a game of netball to find him unconscious on my bedroom floor. My lock had been broken. My room was a mess. He was laying on my floor. Lifeless. I called into the corridor for help and help came. One of the guys I played netball with and my now ex husband helped me man handle him into a car and we drove at top speed to the local rural hospital.

I called the paramedics. Through my fear and rage I managed to get instructions on how to induce vomiting. I tried and tried to make him throw up with no response. We met the ambulance on the bridge over the highway. I will never forget that night.

It was a cold night. The kind there must hangs low and frost forms on the grass. I was still in my netball gear but I didn't feel the freeze. I was in a panic.

I mindlessly jumped into the ambulance and held his hand. I loathed the man for what he had done to me but I did not want him to die. I remember the ambulance officer telling me sit behind him; hold onto him and to speak to him. I have no idea what I said.

I recall phoning his mother from the ambulance as two paramedics worked to bring him back. A lovely lady, his mother apologised; told me her son was a fool to muck me around. I recall telling her through my tears to get in the car and get to the hospital. Her son was dying in my arms. He spent nearly a week in hospital but he survived.

The mind is all powerful.