mindset

Walking the road of ‘acceptance.’

/ Lianne / Leave a comment

I went for a long walk today. I know the route well. I know every metre of it, I know how the water flows over the road and how every day I wet my shoes in order to get to the other side, how fish dart in all directions with every step I take. I know the long stretch of road across the dam wall, where the wind picks up and blows in the memories, with our river to my right and a silver expanse of water to my left. I hear the fish eagle in the distance and I see my loyal friend, the long crested eagle perched on the telephone pole, always there, always watching. I follow the road that follows the contour of the dam, around the corner and into a secluded valley, a valley bursting with Red hot Pokers and birdlife. Here I am alone but I am not. Here I am immersed in my deepest thoughts and here is where magic happens.

On this walk, sometimes I feel as if I could explode with hope and purpose, sometimes I get clarity, sometimes I feel fierce determination, sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh, sometimes my heart breaks. But today as I walked this road, I felt acceptance.

Where magic happens…
Red Hot Poker

Right from the beginning, before I had even thought of starting Rosie Goes, I knew I’d be going on some sort of a journey, a journey of many roads with many twists and turns, stories and people from all walks of life and from whom I hope to learn from. There will be no free ride. I will walk this walk myself, I will ‘understand’ what I am exploring and I will feel every stone under my shoe, every bump along the road and I will write about it.

Today I felt what it means to accept something or to surrender to it. How before we can hope to start again, we must accept or surrender to where we are at or what is.

Today I learned how accepting something is not about ‘wanting’ something. I learned how acceptance can be letting go of what I’d like to happen for there to be something positive to happen, though not wanting it less or loving it less. To know that to continue as I am, at the expense of myself, of feeling that I am not being true to myself for the sake of a desired outcome, I lose who I am and what is important to me. And I get stuck. I have learned that with acceptance, there is no anger because it is no longer about something else or someone else or about something that happened or about what you don’t have anymore, but simply a deep knowing that you cannot continue as you are for you to feel at peace with yourself and to walk forward in harmony. I have learned that when I am aligned, I become unstuck.

Wild Dagga

Ironically the very first story that I will be writing about with the theme ‘to surrendering to what is before we can hope to move forward,’ is about someone who cannot walk. I will be writing about Jene Frost who was paralysed from the chest downwards at the age of 15 years old. Jene not only walked before her accident, she ran. She ran every day before school. It was her identity, it was her passion, it was her happy place, and it’s how she started her day. But in a matter of minutes, on a lazy social Sunday afternoon, Jene walked her last walk and the life she knew and the future she expected, was changed forever.  This is a story about the power of ‘acceptance,’ when it comes to change and starting again, how a young women never let being paralysed stop her from moving forward.

Rosie Goes©2022

Stuck in a story

/ Lianne / 1 Comment

It was quiet. Occasionally I’d hear the slow rhythmic footsteps of the night nurse and the swing of a ward door, the hushed voices between patient and nurse, a trolley being wheeled down the corridor, the ping of a microwave, a toilet being flushed. I felt relief for a short while, hoping it would stay like this.

But it never did. I lay still in the hospital bed, nodding off to the sound of hospital white noise when she’d wake again and cry out his name. It was in the darkness of the night when she felt most alone that she’d recede into the depths of her mind and her memories came to life. For a few minutes she was back on the ship on their way to Sydney, safely in his arms, wrapped up in young love and full of hope.

For three nights, I listened to her life story over and over again. I learned how love comforted her and I learned what she feared most. Every night, she lived through each chapter of her life, clinging to the fading memories as if it was all she had left. It was a story on repeat and it always ended with the agonising pain of remembering that he is dead.

At that moment, she’d be swallowed by grief and another narrative would move in like black ink spilled on a page, fear.

“Oh God, my husband is dead. He died 9 years ago.”

“I have nobody, they have all gone. I am all alone.”

“God please help me. God please help me. God please help me.”

“Why are they doing this to me? I have a plane to catch. Why are they being so unkind?”

“I can’t get out of bed, I can’t stand, I can’t walk. I can’t get out.”

“That was a stupid thing to do. Never again will I do this. Never again.”

As she delved deeper into this narrative, the more distressed and anxious she would get. It isolated her and held her hostage in a self-fulfilling prophecy. She was stuck in a story; a narrative that would taunt her and that would whisper in her ear in the hours of darkness. The more attention she gave it, the stronger it got until it screamed, “I am alone, I am alone, I am alone.” And she was alone.

For 3 days, I was with Mrs Harris (not her real name) in the same hospital ward. She suffered from Dementia and was in hospital because she had fallen and broken her hip. I listened to her story many times; tragic and beautiful all in one, ever tussling between love and fear. I learned a lot about Dementia during this time, but more so, this experience prompted me to question my own narrative.

What are my stories that play over and over again in my head? Is it a narrative ground in love or is it a narrative ground in fear? How and why did they begin? What do I not want to feel again because of something that had happened? What do I want to feel again? How do they influence how I live my life and the decisions I make? Do they hold me back? Do they keep me in a negative cycle? Do I keep hitting the same brick wall? Or are they positive narratives, ground in love and truth and that allow me to move forward and to grow?

The morning nurse marched through the ward doors, bright and breezy and ready to take on another day. Good morning Mrs Harris ‘How are you today?’

Mrs Harris groaned and pulled herself up and said, “I have a plane to catch. My husband is waiting for me in France. I must go now. Please help me out of bed, or else I will be late. You must listen to me. I must get to him. Please, help me.”

The nurse replied that she must have breakfast first and before turning to walk out of the room, she switched the television on for Mrs Harris to watch. It was the South African football news bulletin, reporting on the latest regional scores. She stared up at the screen, eyes glazing over as the ball was kicked here and there. And she remembered again, “No, he is gone. He died 9 years ago. I am all alone.”

I knew what I needed to do now.

I sat with her and I asked her about her husband and how they met and what their life was like. For the next half an hour, I heard the beautiful love story of Mr and Mrs Harris and how they met on a ship while travelling from England to Australia. I watched her clenched jaw relax and the muscles in her body soften as she spoke of their time together and of him.

I had heard this story many times by now, but every time she told her love story, I watched Mrs Harris come home.

Dear Narcissist. Thank you.

/ Lianne / Leave a comment

Today I am thanking the Narcissists. I did not want to give them too much attention in the previous post, in which I shared with you some of the journey I have been on these last couple years. In that post, I spoke of the lessons I have learned and the gratitude I have felt in the way of unconditional love and support and finding the courage to accept what is, what was and then ask myself ‘What do I want?’

But talking about my experience of narcissism is important and a big part of my journey. Because you, dear Narcissists’, came into my life just when you did. I had no idea you even existed before this. You came into my life when I already felt broken due to my own personal journey and because of the events at the time that came with immense loss and grief.  Initially, I felt the timing of it was the ‘wrecking ball;’ the final chapter before my life as I knew it fell apart.

There are different levels of narcissism, ranging from someone severely egocentric in the way of self-importance and with an unwavering sense of entitlement, right through to the sociopathic narcissist. Sociopathic narcissistic behaviour, in my understanding, is when an individual deliberately and painstakingly exploits, fabricates and manipulates someone for their own gain with absolutely no remorse or empathy for anyone they have wronged. These individuals can be particularly dangerous, destructive and traumatic for the people they believe who stand in the way of their agenda, and for the actual individual they are seeking to control or punish.  

Quite often, a narcissist will present themselves as charming, caring, upstanding, god-fearing people. Sometimes they present themselves as the ‘victim,’ and deliberately play to our human nature of instinctively wanting to support and protect the victim. They rally up an army of supporters, lawyers and flying monkey’s, who in essence, unknowingly enable their destructive and often ‘dark’ agenda.

I remember someone saying to me, ‘Just ignore them, don’t get involved.’ But if you are being targeted by one of these individuals, that is very difficult to do. Just like COVID-19, you cannot completely escape it, you must learn to live with it, identify it and manage it. We cannot indefinitely live in a state of fear or with the feeling of being under threat, if going forward with our life in a positive manner is our objection.

When it started, it was honestly one of the most confronting and threatening experiences I have ever had and it triggered me, that young girl who was bullied in her youth. My initial reaction was just that, I ‘reacted’… just as they want you to. Your reaction’ to being attacked will often be what they will attempt to use against you to gain support and to justify their accusations and their hidden agenda. They feed off your ‘reactions’ and the attention,’ like it’s a hit of heroin, creating one drama after another and bolstering their fragile and inflated ego, while furthering their agenda at the same time. They prod and provoke you in the most calculating of ways until you react, feeding their addiction and playing into their cycle of drama and sometimes, forgetting who you are in the process.

In hindsight, since identifying and educating myself about this type of abuse and the specific behaviour the narcissist will use to maintain a position of power and which almost always becomes a pattern over time, this experience has become one of the most empowering and valuable lessons I could hope for.  In hindsight, its timing could not have been better.

A big part of my journey to transform my life is practicing being mindful of when the feelings I am having and the decisions I make are grounded in ‘fear and/or ego’ or whether they are from a place of ‘love or truth.’ How a reaction is most often ground in fear or ego opposed to a response which comes with being mindful of your emotions and consciously pausing before responding.

Having this experience when I did, was like the student learning the lesson in theory and then going out into the real world and putting the lesson to practice! This experience was the ultimate test of being mindful and less reactive. It was the ultimate lesson of knowing who I am and staying true to who I am; by setting boundaries, by keeping the ‘facts’ at the forefront, knowing what is true and what is not and recognising when I am being provoked, threatened or baited.

Since understanding all this and also through meeting a number of people who have experienced narcissistic relationships or like myself who has had encounters with such individuals, I have learned that there is one thing they all have in common despite each and every story being different. The ‘narcissist’ is the common factor. Narcissism has been given a label for a reason, because the same tactics and behaviours’ to throw you off balance and to control or punish you are demonstrated from one narc to another. That feeling of unease you have, or that something feels off, is not you imagining things. You are right.

Their tool kit to weaken you is a powerful one and is most destructive when you are not yet aware of what exactly is happening for you to be feeling like you do. You doubt yourself. You begin to believe that you are all to blame for the dysfunction in the relationship. Your support system, be it friends or family starts to change. One by one, the people who truly love and care for you are identified as a ‘threat’ or as someone negative for your relationship. You start to distance yourself from them so not to upset the narcissist in your life and because sometimes they convince you that their delusion in actual fact, is true. Over time, you are completely isolated from the people who care for you and the only person left in your lonely life, is the Narcissist them self…and they become your ‘everything.’  You begin to feel ‘less’ and the confidence and joy you once felt, is replaced by a new reality, of walking on egg shells and focusing completely on them and their needs and never your own.

In the worst cases, these dysfunctional relationships can leave you feeling like a shell of your former self and with a deep sense of hopelessness. Sometimes there are children involved and who are employed in the mind games and become a means of punishment when you do not do as they want.

So much of what a narcissist does, comes from a place of fear and ego. When you know this about them, when you see them for where they are in themselves, and not what they want you to believe about yourself and about them, or fear – that’s when you begin to empower yourself. That’s when you remember who you are and not who they think you are.

Rosie Goes©2022