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Paralysis

This week I went back to a dark place I haven't been to for a long time.  A place where I wake up and feel paralyzed by the mere thought of having to get out of bed and function like I normally do.  A place where I just want to hide under the covers and for the world to go away and leave me alone until I am ready to come out again.  A place where I place judgement and criticism on myself for feeling like this - I should be fine, I should be ok, so why aren't I? A place where ...

What is failure?

On Monday night I went along to another Seed Waikato event - a Korero on Failure - and picked up some gold nuggets from hearing other people's experiences and beliefs when it comes to failure.  Failure is such a loaded word - that you didn't achieve something or weren't good enough or successful, but one of the gold nuggets I loved was that by failing to try you fail by default. I love this because any outcome, whether perceived positively or negatively, is just a perception. If y...

The black hole

“The doctor just didn’t know what to do with me”. "Our rate of maternal suicide is seven times that of the United Kingdom." "Māori mothers are especially vulnerable to suicide and mental health issues because of the disproportionate poverty they face. You watch in the media the shame and blame culture that’s around. I think many Māori are frightened to seek help." “I had to get to the point where I was having really bad thoughts before anyone would help me.” “I clearly remember t...

What's resilience have to do with it?

I've been asked to provide a workshop to a group of young woman on resilience and wellbeing, and in putting together some of my content I realised that this is a topic that I haven't shared here.  What is resilience? For me, and probably many others, resilience is the ability to bounce back when things get tough. To understand that the bad times are temporary and be able to keep the faith, feel the feels and work through any struggles and adapt so that I can return back to thriving, rather ...

Community Living

On the weekend I became part of a new community. This year I’ve enrolled in Te Ara Rēo Māori at Te Wananga O Aotearoa and on the weekend 70 students from three different classes came together at Raroera campus. I didn't know the majority of the people, and barely knew anyone on Friday evening when we arrived, and I felt a bit outside of my comfort zone. We came together to eat, learn, sing, sleep, help one another and developed great connections and relationships - whakawhanaunga. ...

The period beast

What I think of as my 'period beast' arrived this week, and I want to share this as I'm sure I'm not alone.  In the couple of days leading up to my period I feel like I go from a cool calm kitten into an agitated, irritable and impatient angry lion. For me I experience this through visualising things running up and down my back and seeing hundreds of thoughts zooming in front of my head like high speed trains passing each other on train lines, and I'm unable to slow them down.  When I ...

Juggling balls

You know that feeling where you're juggling many balls in the air and you feel like you're in the zone and you've got this, then one ball drops, then the next one and before you know it you can't keep a ball in the air? You're not alone.  I felt like I had everything under control, then I suddenly realised that balls are dropping. And while this isn't the worst thing in the world, it does make me start to feel like I'm failing and letting people down. Once I drop one ball they all star...

Grounding Practices

Over the last couple of years I've learnt more and more about the importance to 'ground' ourselves.  "Grounding is an exercise that connects you energetically to the earth. It allows you to be more authentically in your body, in the present moment, and receive nourishing energy. Grounding allows your body to use all your talents and gifts, know their value in the world and give birth to your visions and goals." There are lots of ways you can 'ground' yourself, but one of my f...

Riding the waves

Things have been really well with me. I've been feeling so grateful for everything in my life and the beautiful people I'm surrounded by. But this doesn't mean that I don't hit bumps along the way. Because I've been feeling so good, I was knocked back a bit on the weekend when I wasn't feeling so good. I had this anxious knot in my stomach, was feeling a bit 'out of it' and just out of sorts. I pushed through it on Saturday, heading out to Raglan to catch up with a friend for a walk on the beach...

Authenticity

Authenticity is a buzz word that gets thrown around, but I had an experience recently which resonated authenticity with me.  Growing up high school was...interesting. I was in a group of friends where I didn't really feel like I belonged. They were the 'cool group' and I always felt like the imposter on the sidelines.  Over the four years of high school, along with all of the other things that happen in our teens and trying to figure out who we are, I developed a pretty significant imp...

The tug of war with medication

If you've read some of my previous blog posts you may know some of my struggles with medication for anxiety over the years.  I was first diagnosed with anxiety disorder at the age of 20 (2005), and was put on paroxetine (also known as aropax) to manage my anxiety. At 21/22 I weaned myself off the medication, and was off it for a few years until I went back on medication when I was 27 (2012).  At this stage the doctors tried me on citalopram, which made me feel like complete shit with h...

Gratitude

I feel like I have found so much happiness in my life, and a lot of this comes down to practicing gratitude.  This kind of kicked off for me after Vipassana last year. I would like to think that I've always been a somewhat grateful person, and this has grown in me over the last few years and really soared over the last 6-12 months.  Vipassana taught me to stop being so reactive in the moment, especially to what are perceived as negative experiences and feelings. I am now much better at...

New Year's

If you follow me on social media you may have noticed I've been a bit quiet over the last two weeks. I like to take this time of year to almost go into hibernation, spending lots of time on my own, reflecting, pondering, reading, resting and staying pretty clear of social media.  But like most people I have ended up scrolling through the endless social media feeds, and to be honest it hasn't been good for my soul. With New Year's my feed has been inundated with posts around the theme of let...

Kicking new goals

With 2018 now behind us I'm working on the plans for Kamala going forward. I've got lots of dreams for how we grow to support and help more people in ways that are meaningful and responsive to them and their needs. Last year I was able to dip my toes in the water, and this year I'll be dipping my legs.  One of the things that happened in 2018 was that I bought my home, which is where I currently run most of the Kamala events. This was so important to me personally, but also s...

Turning over a new leaf

Isn't it funny how as one year draws to the end we start to think about all of the changes we need to make.  This year hasn't been my finest, but it's had some massive lessons for me which I'm grateful for. I've drunk too much to help numb pain, I've been defensive at times, I've cocooned myself away from people, but I've also learnt a lot and had some really good times. Since I started experiencing anxiety I haven't been a big drinker, as it tends to exasperate my anxiety and I feel 1...

Harnessing the female cycle

It's funny how something that you've never really paid much attention to before suddenly really becomes front of mind. A few discussions recently have really drawn my attention to just how much of a masculine driven world we live in. This isn't all bad, as there are some really positive aspects to masculinity that work really well. Traits such as dominance, strength, success and competition. But are we balancing this with feminine traits such as supporting one another, caring and nurturing? One ...

When the anxiety builds and things turn to custard

On days like today I can feel the anxiety building. I can physically feel it building in my body...I find it hard to concentrate, feel agitated and am emotionally unbalanced, like if one more thing happens I could crack.  This has been building over time. I've been feeling it for a few weeks, but in reality it's probably been building over months. And this is nothing new.  It isn't any one, or even couple of things in particular that lead to this. It is a shit load of small things that...

Finding some treasure at the end of a rainbow

Over the years I have had different levels of fear and acceptance over the things that send me into mental health downward spirals - triggers. For many years, I have steered clear of the things that I have associated with my general anxiety and panic attacks, but this year I've been doing things a bit differently.  I have two strong triggers - food and exercise/overexertion.  Both of these come from the same event.  A few years back I decided to start running, and I've never been ...

Normalising mental health struggles

Living with mental health struggles shouldn't be 'normal'. Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should marginalize, discriminate or put stigmas on mental health struggles either. But is making it 'normal' the right thing to do? Or should we be looking at how the lives we currently live are perpetuating mental health struggles and look at the changes needed so that we can live with healthy minds, rather than accepting mental health struggles as part of life? If we lived in societies and environme...

Learning to accept, but not be defined by, my trauma

If you're like me, you might associate 'trauma' with major things, like death, abuse, major accidents like a car crash, potentially life changing things that happen to some of us.  I wonder if this is because I associate trauma with being a victim, and this conjures up feelings of weakness and vunerability for me. I am now able to accept that I have experienced trauma, but this doesn't make me weak or vulnerable to others or situations.  Earlier in 2018 I found out that the person I&nb...

The gut brain connection

When I was at a workshop a few months ago for the Governments Mental Health and Addiction Inquiry I mentioned something about the connection between our gut health and mental health. I was shocked that no one in the group I was part of knew what I was talking about.  I have done quite a bit of reading over the years about mental illness and anxiety, and when I can I go to any speaking events about wellbeing, so this is something I have become quite familiar with, and want to share.&nbs...

Routine vs obession

It's often said that routine is a good tool to help with mental illness struggles, and I've found this to be true through my own experiences. But sometimes this routine can turn into obsession, and become unhealthy. If you've read some of my previous blog posts you might be familiar with one of my first experiences of this. When I first started experiencing general anxiety disorder and panic attacks at the age of 20 I went to see our family doctor at the time. One of the pieces of advice that he...

Trusting what will be

My mum often says to me 'don't worry, the universe will provide what you need'. I don't recall if this was something she said during my childhood, or if it is a belief that came more recently. It is definitely something I believe in and am sure the people around me hear me say it in relation to different situations every day.This trust in the universe has allowed me to take a step back from my control prone, perfectionist type personality over the years. I definitely still have these moments, ho...

Our intolerance for vulnerability

Vulnerability noun The quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. Vulnerability has been popping up in my thoughts for a wee while. I can trace this back to Easter when I was at the beach with my parents and I read 'The gifts of imperfection, let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are' by Brené Brown. Brené Brown is a research professor and thought leader on vulnerability, courage, wor...

Time to reflect

During my time up north completing the Vipassanā meditation course I definitely did a lot of reflecting. The last 12 months have been full of change for me, and I know that there is more coming.Some of this change has been hard, but a lot of it has been good and positive. I can't believe that we have already run seven months of Kamala workshops! It still amazes me that something that was just a small idea somewhere in the back of my mind a year ago has allowed me to connect with so many amazing...