Is Vulnerability a Friend or Foe?

From a young age, I learnt that I needed to be strong and smart in order to survive.  I learnt to be stubborn in my independence and bold in the face of adversity.  I learnt that the only person that can take care of me is myself and that I was the protector of my family.  I learnt that showing (even having) emotion was weak and that people take advantage of weakness.


I have now learnt that all this is crap.  


Up until I was 30yo, I “thought” my feelings rather than “felt” them (or so I thought lol).  My standard practice when I had an emotion, would be to think about whether it was justified (in my mind) then if it didn’t pass the test, I would push it aside and completely deny it.  Handy tool to have when working in the police force but not so handy when you want to connect with people.  When I had my spiritual awakening, I discovered that as much as I tried to deny that I actually had emotions, I did have them and they were actually meant to be felt... oh the horror of it.  Once I got over the shock of this revelation I embraced the journey of discovering what all this meant.    Since then, I have not been one to shy away from the daunting challenge of trying to understand how I feel, even though I still don’t like feeling crappy lol.  


Today I found myself watching a talk on “The Power of Vulnerability” by American research professor Brene Brown and to say I found it challenging is an understatement.   One thing I realised is that in all the times I have analysed (yes very right brained of me) my ups and downs, not once have I really put thought in “vulnerability”.  In fact, I realised that I did everything in my power to steer well clear of it believing that vulnerability is dangerous and naive.  I simply didn’t allow myself to feel it.  Vulnerability is my enemy... or is it?


The talk was about Brene’s six year research into human connection and she focussed on a group of subjects who she believed lived life wholeheartedly and understood connection.  Brene says she discovered that those that had a strong sense of love and belonging, believed that they were worthy of love and belonging.  Brene also said, in regards to the common factors amongst this group:  “They had the courage to be imperfect, the compassion to be kind to themselves first, and the connection as a result of authenticity.  They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they are.  The other thing they had in common was that they all fully embraced vulnerability and they believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful.”


 Wow... this blew me away!  Could vulnerability actually be a good thing? Or at the very least, is it something I can learn to live with?


For the last 16 months I have been on the most significant rollercoaster ride of my life to date.  I have had some great opportunities come my way, learnt amazing lessons about myself, discovered some new talents, met some great new friends, realised a new career direction and understood the true support my family and close friends offer.  I have also gone through the pain of betrayal, taken risks that didn’t pan out, put my trust and faith in people who, in hindsight, didn’t deserve it, and suffered massive financial loss and a business shutdown as a result.  The whole time, I have remained quite positive and stayed strong in my belief that no matter how tough things got, the good things were always worth the pain of the bad ones.  I have even, reluctantly, allowed myself to “feel” through this ride.


In particular, the last two months have seen me so far out of my comfort zone that I sometimes feel that I am losing sense of who I am – or maybe it is that I am creating a new sense of self?  Either way, I can’t shake the underlying feeling of being extremely “out of whack” and have had countless conversations with my beloved best friend in an effort to understand and get over this feeling.  She has mentioned the “V” word to me on a couple of occasions and whilst I heard it, my brain simply didn’t register it at the time... funny about that. 


Whilst watching the talk today, I realised that my feeling of being out of whack is due to not accepting that right now, I am totally and utterly vulnerable... vulnerable to rejection, to pain and to loss.  My work life, my love life and even my home life are all wrapped with uncertainty, and to be honest, at times I really struggle with the whole experience.   I want to be happy and content not scared and insecure – this is not my nature.


According to Brene’s finding, we need to be vulnerable in order to be connected and live wholeheartedly.  She also says that being vulnerable means to do something where there are no guarantees and be willing to invest in something that may or may not work out.   


Hang on just a minute – this is exactly what I am doing in both my career and love lives right now! So what on earth is my problem?  Ok BIG revelation moment (drum roll please)... I am so busy being terrified of vulnerability, that I can’t actually see that no matter how much I fight it, it doesn’t change the fact that I am vulnerable and it is this vulnerability that could give me everything I want!  Wow!  


So what am I going to do about it?  Simple... I am going to stop fighting it, step away from the fear and detach from all the “What could be’s” in order to allow “What will be” to come in.  I am going to find a way to embrace my imperfections and let go of my vision of who I think I should be and accept who I am right now.  I am going to let go of the need for certainty (though I would like just a little of it please lol) and accept my circumstances as being exactly where I need to be right now.  

Wish me luck!




Take care and bye for now!
Smiles,
Meg :)

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The Conundrums of an Indecent Proposal!

I have met a man!   Yes, yes I know – I meet men all the time, but on the very odd occasion I meet one that intrigues me enough to make me sit up and pay attention to what he is saying – not an easy feat I must say.  This man – let’s call him Rhett (to honour his spunkiness, not any Gone with the Wind tendancies lol)  – has many great qualities and one in particular that I enjoy immensely is his willingness to challenge me intellectually.  


Last night, we were discussing my tedious and very challenging financial situation and he asked me the hypothetical question of “Would I sleep with someone for $50 grand?”  My immediate answer was no.  Full stop.  No questions asked.  He then asked if I would sleep with someone for $100 grand and again my answer was a resounding no.  Just quietly at this point, I was wondering where on earth this was going and whether I was about to get a job offer in which case I would be seriously reviewing my answers lol.  He then raised the amount to $1 million.  Although I did admit that I did hesitate on answering this one, I did say no again.  Great topic for a movie, don’t you think lol.  It brings about three separate issues being - the fact that it is, in effect, prostitution; the affect it would have on a relationship; and most importantly, the affect it would have on me.  


I thought I was doing really well standing on my moral pedestal, vehemently replying with the “Hell Nos”.  Then Rhett started to make some very valid points about the pros of accepting such a proposal and effectively countered each of my contentions, providing a great debate and food for thought – love it.  It really challenged my ethical boundaries and gave me a great opportunity to delve further into the mysterious space that is my mind and these so called high values I pander to.  


The big point of difference between our arguments were our methods of justifying our respective side.  Rhett was taking the GO FOR stance and approaching it from a purely business/logical point of view.  He set the ground rules that it would be a one time deal, no strings attached and if I was in a relationship at the time, it was something that both partners needed to agree to.  He agreed there could be small emotional consequences but the fee surely could justify that.  I think there was the commission seed planted discreetly in there too lol. Just imagine what I could accomplish with the money!  What person in their right mind would knock back any of those amounts of money for the sake of a few hours work, so to speak.  Well it does make sense, doesn’t it?


My side of the fence was, quite obviously, NO GO from an emotional and future consequence point of view.  My first point of contention was the whole ‘prostitution is illegal’ thing however I know enough about business to know that this can be structured legally, albeit with a lot of time and red tape (tax man would love it though).  My main contention surrounds the emotional after effects that would no doubt raise their ugly heads after this transaction had taken place.  If I was single, could I live with myself knowing that I had willingly prostituted for the sake of money.  Having said that, I could argue that I have already done in my past, in the form of underpaid, undervalued and overworked employs within businesses who royally screwed me,  lol.  If I was in a relationship, regardless of it being a joint decision to accept the proposal, how on earth could my partner totally trust me again?  How would I feel that my partner supported the idea of me having sex with another man at all, let alone for money?


It certainly brings new dimension to the word infidelity... or does it?  Hmmm maybe it’s time to delve into the meanings of a few of the words that I throw around when ranting about infidelity.  The dictionary states that infidelity is "unfaithfulness or disloyalty, especially to a sexual partner".  It also states that "unfaithfulness means to be untrue to commitments".  If both of us in the relationship agreed to the proposal, isn’t that a new commitment in and of itself?  Disloyalty means a lack of loyalty to a person but is this really the case either?


Ultimately, in this whole wondrously hypothetical situation, the only question that really needs to be addressed is “How would I feel about myself if I went through with this fantasy proposal?”  When I really sat with this floating around in my mind space, it was with a great deal of shock that I got my answer.. which was the realisation that I simply don’t have an answer.  I really don’t know what I would do if I was looking at a guaranteed one million dollars and being asked for a decision right now.  Would there need to be attraction between the consenting parties?  Would I need to perform brilliantly and outside my normal square?  Would there need to be a contract?  It’s all and fine to take an ethical high ground in hypothetical situations but in reality, it is a whole different ball game.  I do know that I value value myself highly and trust that I would have to have extremely good reasons for me to seriously consider a proposal such as this.  I also know is that if I did, it would not be for less than $1 million – I know my monetary value and that is a good starting point lol.      


So for once, I seriously don’t have a straight answer (very unusual for me) to a very interesting conundrum but I do agree with Rhett in his suggestion that it is intriguing enough to blog about.  My final summation in this lively debate with was the suggestion that if Rhett ever happens to come across someone who is actually willing to pay me one million dollars for my wares, then we would revisit this discussion again.  I think I am very safe here as really, come on, who would ever offer me that proposal lol.  So the big question of whether I accept an Indecent Proposal or not could very well remain forever unanswered.


Special thanks to inspirational muse Rhett – you could prove to be a great wealth of topics in the future lol.

Take care and bye for now!
Smiles,
Meg :)

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The True Meaning of Friendship!

In my life, I have met thousands of people.   Some have stayed briefly, some have stayed for a while and some are still in my life.  Today I spent a wonderful afternoon with a very dear friend who I have to say, makes the best coffee in the world (sorry to my poor old IBS lol).  We haven’t caught up for a while so it goes without saying that we had a heap of goss to catch up on.  We spent a lovely time filling each other in on our amazing journeys to date – including the good, the bad and the plain old ugly lol.  As would be expected when two women get together, we covered a multitude of topics, in a short period of time (yes guys, women can actually talk about two things at the same time and keep up with the convo very easily lol) and the subject of old friends came up.  We both found ourselves merrily tripping down memory lane to when we were teaching together many years ago.   


I now find myself pondering the meaning of friendship and realised that sadly, in this day and age, the word friend is becoming very generic.  A classic example is our Facebook friend list.  Let me ask you this – how many of these friends on Facebook do you actually know personally?  How many are actually true friends?  And more to the point, what is your definition of a Friend and Friendship?


Before I give my definition on what a friend is to me, let’s get technical for just a minute.  According to the dictionary a FRIEND is a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard;  who gives assistance; who is a supporter.  There is also another word being ACQUAINTANCE, who is a person known to one, but usually not a close friend.  My feeling is that these two words are now being confused in many cases causing a very grey area for the word friend.


So let’s get back to my thoughts on this.  To me, a friend is someone who cares enough to give their honest opinion on my situations, has no expectations or rules about our friendship and is willing to say they don’t agree with me and give me another perspective.  These are the friends who I love and cherish as a huge part of my life.  You see, I am the type of person that looks at every situation, especially challenging ones, as learning experiences so I want people in my life that will help me to do that.  I have never really respected “Yes” people or those who sit on that proverbial fence.  A true friend is one who realises that we all have our own lives and sometimes we have to divert our attentions to other priorities.  A true friendship is one that, no matter the length of time between calls and visits, picks up where it left off without any guilt about not keeping more regular contact.


I also believe that true friendships, actually all relationships in fact, should be beneficial to both people, allowing growth of both people as well as the friendship itself.  I have been in situations before where I have pulled away as I truly believed that I was not helping the other person by listening to the same old complaints time and time again, with no change or growth.  I have been strongly criticised for doing this.  I am avid about taking responsibility for our own emotions and reactions and whilst I totally understand that sometimes we have challenging situations that happen, we have a choice how we deal with them.  I will not support someone who consistently adopts a victim mentality and refuses to heed the lessons or do something positive to change the situation.  I personally call these people high maintenance and they drain the life literally right out of me.   I do not expect any of my friends to support this behaviour in me, in fact I would be relying on them to hit me between the eyes with my own reality and encourage me to move forward.  I know this makes me sound like a cold hearted bitch but to be honest, I really don’t care.  I simply will not participate in someone’s self destruction.  Having said that, I totally understand that occasionally we all need a good old fashioned off load  – hell, I’ve had a few of those myself recently too.    


Although I have hundreds of people in my life, I have only a handful that I call my true friends.  These people are true to themselves and allow me to be true to myself  and I am blessed to have them as a part of my life.


To these dearest friends I say thank you for being in my life - I love you!  You know who you are!


Take care and bye for now!
Smiles,
Meg :)

The Pros and Cons of Childless-Hood!

When I meet new people in a social (and sometimes business) environment, a common question I am asked is “How many kids do you have?”  Funnily enough, this question almost always comes before “Are you married?”.  Being a 41yo woman, I guess it is a natural presumption that I have kids, possibly even grandkids, and sadly most people assume that I have been married and divorced at least once by now.  Nothing kills a conversation more quickly than my prompt response of “No I don’t have kids and I have never been married”.  Occasionally there will be someone brave enough to venture into questioning why not.  


The quickest and easiest answer I tend to give is that I have never been the maternal type but it is actually a lot more complex than that.  I could cite a whole range of physical reasons including a long ago back injury, plumbing problems and blood type issues that could make it extremely difficult to carry a child if I was even able to fall pregnant.  I may have the good old child bearing hips but I’m convinced that when my maker built me, he didn’t read the instructions properly lol.  I can remember going to a female doctor about five years ago for a girly checkup and mentioned that I was concerned about my hormone levels.  Her callous and totally unexpected response was "What do you expect when you are 36yo and haven't had a child.  Of course your body will be out of whack".  Hmmm I didn't read the small print in my operating manual that stated it is compulsory to child bear to maintain peak health - my bad!  So much for thinking a female doctor would be more understanding.


Then there is the simple fact that I have always been more career focussed than wanting to be a mother.  Wow I just realised how foreign that sounds to me... me being a mother!  I did dabble with the idea when I was thirty but that was only a five minute dabble.  Now don’t get me wrong, I do actually like kids and even find them entertaining at times, especially when they are able to walk and talk.  Hand me a newborn and watch me go all shades of pale which is greatly amusing to the doting parents – the little blighters really scare the hell out of me.  The cold hard truth is that I never wanted to be in the situation of having another little person being totally dependent on me.  Call it selfish if you will but I wasn’t willing to have that kind of responsibility.


I grew up in a broken home, with a wonderful mother who gave us three kids everything she could, with an estranged father that didn’t know how to be a supportive father, either emotionally or financially.  I know how incredibly difficult it was for Mum to feed, clothe and give us all a roof over our heads and I always marvelled at how she always managed on her own.  Her strength and love was unfailing no matter how tough things were for her emotionally – we always came first.  Thanks Mum!  I have enormous respect for single mothers and I also have an enormous fear of being one which I believe is a key factor in my decision so far to not have children.


I have to say there are quite a few pros to being childless, such as only needing to worry about me when times get financially tough, freedom to make plans and come and go as I please, and the big one of not being forever connected to any of my exes which is a real blessing (sorry guys).  In fact, there are quite a few situations in my past that I have thought “Thank god I don’t have kids”, for their benefit as much as mine.


There is, however, one very big con about choosing not to have children not many people would realise and that is the after effects of a breakup involving someone else’s children.  In my past, I have had two significant relationships that have involved children.  Now whilst I have never wanted to be a mother myself, I do make a fabulous step-mum and have cared for those kids as much as I cared for their fathers – in the first case, more so (for those that have read my IBS post, I am talking about Dick here lol).  


My last relationship was a whirlwind that saw me gain an instant family of 3 kids (aged between 11 and 20yo) and 2 little grandkids.  I strongly bonded with his youngest 11yo daughter who spent a lot of time staying with us – I absolutely adored her and we were inseparable when she stayed.  I admit to nearly falling over when his 3yo grandson starting calling me Nanny Megs... um think we missed a step there somewhere as I had never been called Mum, let alone Nanny lol.  


Taking all these people on board as family is a big deal in anyone’s situation, but for a woman who has chosen not to have a family of her own, it is massive.  I felt like I was put behind the wheel of the Titanic with my only instruction being not to crash.  When my ex walked out the door, he took my surrogate family with him, without a single thought for me.  The big con here is that it is assumed by these fathers that as I have made the choice not to have children, I wouldn’t miss them.  In both cases, the fathers expressed true surprise that I was so upset at losing the kids.  Of course I have no rights to request keeping in contact with them and truthfully, I don’t think that would have been beneficial to any of us but that still doesn’t dull the pain of missing them, only time can heal that.  Having experienced this twice now, I can tell you that it is absolutely devastating on so many levels.


The motto of my story is simply to never assume – as they say, it makes an ass out of you and me.  Because of my age, a lot of people assume that I have kids and have been married/divorced and when I tell them NO on all counts, they may assume that I am self centred and don’t like kids.  We all have choices with what we do with our lives and whilst the demographers may be dismayed at my lack of contribution to the Australian economy (no future tax payers from this little duck), so far I am happy with my choice to be childless.


Of course, another motto is to never say never ;)


One of my more recent discussions with a male friend brought about the surprising and profound question “How do you feel about not leaving a legacy behind when you die?”.  My answer was that I didn’t have to have children to be remembered after I cark it.  I believe that my purpose in this lifetime is to be a catalyst for positive change in other people’s lives by teaching from my own experiences and leading by example.  My dream is to create a wellbeing resort that supports my purpose and whilst this dream is still a way off being realised, it is definitely in the Universal pipeline.  


This will be my legacy!


Take care and bye for now!
Smiles,
Meg :)

Living with the Indignity that is IBS!

Irritable Bowel Syndrome!  Just the name of it sounds plain nasty and oh what a wicked ride it is.  Constipation, diarrhoea, nausea, severe cramps, wind, bloating, headaches.. oh the joy and oh so glamorous!

“Hi, my name is Meg and I am an IBS sufferer!”  That’s definitely something you don’t hear me say often, and if I do, it is only to those close to me.  I personally find the symptoms very embarrassing to talk about.  Ok now I know what you are going to ask... why am I telling such a public forum?  Well unfortunately in this day and age, more and more people are being diagnosed with tummy troubles and I think it is about time that someone told it from a sufferer’s point of view, without the medical details.

So let me take you back in time to around 10 years.   I had already spent the last few years back and forth to doctors and gynaecologists, trying to explain, over and over again, that is a completely different pain to the wonderful cramps we women are blessed with.  Given that I was 31yo at the time, most were focussed on the fact that I hadn’t had kids so of course, the problem was my plumbing... argh!  Some of the tests and treatments I had for misdiagnosed conditions were nothing short of horrific and still my condition got worse and worse.

My boyfriend at the time (let’s call him Dick, not his name but definitely his nature) decided that he was taking me to his own doctor as he was sick of not getting his needs met.  His belief was there was a female version of Viagra and we weren’t going to leave the doctor’s until I had a prescription.  Accordingly to Dr Dick, vomiting from every orifice should not be effecting my libido.  What the...?  I went as I was really too depleted to argue.

After 2 years of agony, unwellness and stress whilst seeing three doctors and one gyny, it took five  minutes with this wonderful doctor to diagnose IBS.  That doctor instantly became my hero, especially after giving Dick a massive serving for being so inconsiderate and explaining to him in detail the reason why vomiting was in fact the libido’s natural enemy.  So I left the clinic, feeling that finally someone had heard me and eager to start the high fibre diet recommended to get me back on track. 

A week later I was still in pain and nauseous, swinging from constipation to diarrhoea in hourly cycles, I also began to put on weight at an incredible rate.  Then started the excruciating twisted bowel episodes at night time, which I have now heard the pain can be likened to childbirth or kidney stones.  Needless to say, depression grabbed me in its dark clutches as I couldn’t understand why I was getting sicker, even though I was eating healthily after the diagnosis.   I was a mess and looking back I really don’t know how I survived.

Then fate intervened when the wonderfully self centred and inconsiderate Dick kicked me to the curb literally.  A true blessing in disguise in so many ways.  As a result of that stress, I stopped eating for a few weeks and guess what.. I started to feel better.  After a consultation with a naturopath, I was diagnosed with wheat, lactose and fructose intolerance and immediately started an elimination diet, starting with chicken and day by day adding or eliminating foods that I reacted with.  After six months I had a small menu I could work with and I felt fabulous.

So let’s come back to 2012.  You would think that now I have my menu that should be the end of it right?  Meg and IBS live happily ever after right?  Wrong!  You see IBS is a tricky condition as it can sensitise to foods as quickly as it desensitises.  Just when you think you know what you can eat without reactions, your body changes its mind (usually stress related) and suddenly you can’t eat those foods anymore, meaning back to the drawing board.  Whilst there are quite a few supplements out there specifically for IBS (such as acidophilus), I have personally found that none of them have worked for me.  Having said that, no two people suffer IBS the same way so what doesn’t work for me, may work brilliantly for another sufferer and vice versa.

But after 10 years of suffering this hideous little condition, I am happy to say that we do live in harmony most of the time as I have learnt the signs of a flare up and can counter it before it gets too bad.  I am slowly overcoming my embarrassment about have a bowel condition, especially knowing it could be a much worse conditions like Coeliacs or Chroh's diseases.

To all my fellow sufferers out there, I want to share my secrets to treating my IBS.  It goes without saying to avoid those foods that cause a reaction but hey, we still have to enjoy life.  For me, Magnesium is a must and something that I will stay on for the rest of my life.  I can use it to counter reactions to food types (the sneaky piece of bread at dinner) by taking an extra one at night.  If I don’t take them for a few days, the symptoms come back as bad as before so for me, Magnesium is a godsend.  My favourite is Nutralife Magnesium Complete.  Another wonderful helper is peppermint/oil... tea, tablets (such as Mintec or DeGas), I have even found a peppermint lolly helps too.  My biggest suggestion is to research anything and everything you can about natural treatments as given that IBS is primarily a food related condition, my unqualified opinion is most pharmaceutical treatments don’t work.

To all the non sufferers, please understand that we aren’t being “fussy” with our food.  I hope this blog has helped you to understand that whilst this condition is only labelled as chronic, it can be debilitating and distressing for the sufferer.

Disclaimer:  No farts were harmed in the making of this blog ;)

Take care and bye for now!

Smiles

Meg :)    

What the HELL am I doing Blooggging?

I had heard about blogging over the years and even read the odd one here and there, mainly business related though so it goes without saying that my interest waned pretty darn quickly.  Quite a while ago, someone I worked with suggested that I blog myself.   Pfft.. I mean reeeeally...  what sane person on this planet would be interested in what I have to say about anything and everything?