Your Life is Your Lesson

If you have ever felt a victim of life's circumstances, you're not alone. Life is hard and suffering is inevitable. We all experience grief, heartbreak, pain and traumatic experiences. I may have been the world's most desperate victim. I felt as though life was just happening to me and that I didn't deserve it. Luckily, as I have matured and have had to deal with problems both of my own making and as a result of things outside my control, I have been able to slowly shift my mindset into one that there are lessons to be learned from each experience and that as a domino in the domino effect of society, if it is the fate of others, it is my fate as well. Over the past year, I have not been in my healthiest mind, body, spirit, even though I dedicate my time to creating that atmosphere for both my family and my clients. Giving advice that I do not take myself and going along with what seemed inevitable but were actually choices I was making. I have been an avid learner from Gabor Mate, Bessel Van der Kolk, etc. and a loud ambassador for the fact that your body does indeed keep the score, yet when my body began shouting at me, it look at least a year for me to decode what was so dire, I felt as though I was getting sick. My partner and I have been building an eco-home for the past five years and we have been homeschooling our children for the last three. Recently, our workload has increased both outside the home and at home in the likes of running a small lifestyle block. In addition to this, we are trying to save money, and we live in a half-built house. Now, keeping things in perspective has been a huge part of staying mentally healthy through the busy times in life. We are so lucky in so many ways and above everything else, we have healthy relationships within our family. Because of this gratitude mindset, it felt as though I was not allowed to complain about how hard it actually has been. In the past year, I have experienced fibromyalgia type symptoms, feeling like the connective tissue in my body was aching relentlessly, my joints hurt, and I felt brain fog. In the past 7 months, I have experienced debilitating fatigue and intolerance to inflammatory type foods. My doctor suggested I try anti-depressants again to give me energy to sort out the stress in my life. These helped, but I realised that I would say, out loud, that I was taking these because I didn't have the time not to and that was my cue to stop.

The lesson that I have been learning throughout my life is this: The happiness of other people is not in my control. The only thing in my control are the boundaries that I create for my own sanity. Do I love the farm, the eco house and the homeschooling? Yes, I do! Do I have the capacity to carry at least 50% of the responsibilities that we have created for ourselves? ABSOLUTELY NOT. For me, this level of keeping things up is impossible and given that we do not have family here and are trying to run a 'community style living' with no community has been making me sick. Creating the life that works for me to be the healthiest has been an impossibly hard decision. But why? I am a recovering people pleaser and highly sensitive empath. I want the best for the people around me, but it has been pulling from my energy my whole life. Boundaries feel mean. Watching my children be nervous about starting school (which has been a big decision for our family) feels like I am being a bad parent. Watching our dreams shift a little because I cannot hold the weight of the world on my shoulders feels selfish. When in fact, looking after yourself is NEVER selfish. In life, we will continue to bump up against things are physically, emotionally and spiritually uncomfortable at best and excruciating at worst and our best efforts to move into our own well-being is to listen to your body, your gut and find the lesson. This lesson will come up again and again for me, I am sure, in many different ways throughout my life and new lessons that I have no scope of understanding yet. I extend this story as an invitation to begin the shift your mindset, to look at challenges and misfortune as guidance to investigate what is best for you. With each person stepping into their own well-being, the world shifts slightly.