Dear Readers,
Since my last blog I’ve been living the dream, as I said I would. I hope you have too. Follow this link to listen to me reading this blog if that’s your preference. I’m excited to be over 20,000 words in already; that’s almost five chapters of the first draft of my new novel. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve been able to clear my diary to make space for this important commitment. It is hard work, turning up day after day to face a blank page and hope that the words will flow. They don’t always want to. But I have a few strategies in place to help, such as meditation and movement. I find that if I get up from my desk and go out into the garden, even in the rain, and breathe in deeply while asking mother nature to inspire me, I come back feeling less blocked. The most powerful strategy of them all though is to cultivate an unwavering belief that I can and will do this.
wasted so many years
It’s taken five years of not reaching for booze or drugs to deal with life for me to finally wake up to my own power, and to understand that, without self-belief, I am nothing. It pains me sometimes to face the fact that I wasted so many years, and spent so many years wasted because of self-loathing, not believing that I was good enough, worthy enough, or capable enough of achieving the things I dreamed of, the things that would allow me to shine as my authentic self.
disconnection from my true self
I have always been something of a conundrum to myself, and no doubt to others as well. On the outside I had much going for me. In my younger years it would have seemed that I had it all. I always landed on my feet when it came to jobs, I had friends, I was good-looking, I was courageous in that I wasn’t afraid to move to a foreign country by myself and start a new life, I could speak five languages proficiently, I had a bubbly personality which enabled me to make conversation easily with just about anyone, and I managed to be financially independent from a young age. It would have seemed to most that I was a confident person who had their act together and the world at their feet. Yet inside I was an angry, confused, fearful, sad, insecure, lonely girl. The girl had left Ireland, but Ireland had never left her. I used alcohol and marijuana to escape the awkward, painful feelings that had resulted from my upbringing. The substances worked on one level in that they allowed me to feel better in the moment so that I could put myself out into the world. But those substances had nasty side-effects, the worst of which was the disconnection from my true self. The little Gill who was scorned and scared by her experiences growing up in Catholic Ireland needed someone to believe in her, she needed to be told that she wasn’t bad and unworthy, that she was just as good as anyone else and deserved to be loved and happy.
a great big dirty secret
For as long as I can remember, I waited and waited for that someone to come along and tell me all those things that I needed to hear so that I could be the person I was desperate to be. But it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen not for lack of supportive and loving people in my life, but because I never believed the things people told me. You see, I knew something that they didn’t. I had a great big dirty secret. I was born bad. That’s what I believed to be truth. I’m not going to delve into the reasons why I believed that I was born bad, suffice to say that my childhood was messy. I have compassion for that little Gill now and I can feel the tears welling up as I write this. I will pause and give myself a hug as I know that she is still in there, and it’s never too late to give her what she needed all those decades ago.
Do you ever stop and give yourself a hug? Try it, it is powerful.
the bitchiness of women who don’t love themselves
Which leads me on to the main gist of blog number one hundred and five, that of self-love and self-compassion. When I was growing up in Ireland, I often heard women around me spewing criticisms about other women who they didn’t approve of. I don’t wish to be too specific about who those critical women were, let’s just say they were people of influence in my life. I was very young and impressionable. When I heard them use the following words in a hyper-critical way, I absorbed the meaning without questioning it, ‘would you look at her, she loves herself that wan, doesn’t she!’ From those words, delivered with such vitriol, I understood that it was a crime against humanity to love yourself. Call me stupid. Maybe I was then. But it is a fact that I absorbed this understanding into my psyche, and it left a lasting impression on me at a very deep level. When I got sober, I had to deal with all of my erroneous beliefs about life and relationships. I discovered that that criticism was the bitchiness of women who don’t love themselves. My attitudes had been shaped by them. Throughout my life thereafter I have borne witness to the bitchiness of women. I have undeniably indulged in it myself. Bitching about others has looked and felt like a major past-time and still to this day, if I’m not careful, I find myself getting sucked into the vortex of women criticising each other. I cannot avoid being gender specific on this topic because rarely do I hear men bitch in the way that women do. What used to confuse the hell out of me as a young person trying to make sense of the world around me was how those same women who bitched lyrical about their fellow females behind their backs would turn on the charm when those fellow females were facing them. It was there that I became acutely aware of female insincerity and dishonesty and where my abhorrence for their hypocrisy began. It had a profound impact on my ability to trust women.
baggage
So, what resulted was a young girl who believed that she was born bad, couldn’t trust women, and at an unconscious level, understood self-love to be taboo. And with that baggage, off out into the world I went. And they say that mind-set is everything. In that case, I was doomed to fail.
And fail I did. I have a string of failed relationships with women behind me that I am deeply sad about. It is the thing that causes me the most grief in my life. But what can I do? Well, here’s what I can do. I can start to truly love myself by forgiving myself for my failures, acknowledging the efforts that I’ve gone to in order to be a better person, treat myself with compassion by recognising my own suffering and allowing it to pass naturally (as it inevitably does because nothing lasts forever), and tuning into the unhelpful beliefs that I have held for so long and replacing them, through my actions, with beliefs that are helpful and life-affirming. I was not born bad, I can trust some women, and self-love is wholesome and acceptable. I am good enough, I am worthy, and I am capable of writing a book that others will want to read and will enjoy.
cop yourself on
I know there will be people who believe that this blog is just more self-indulgence. I can almost hear them say, ‘ah sure, cop yourself on, aren’t there bigger problems in the world to be thinking about than your own tiny issues.’ And to them I say this: By going inwards and facing the truth about my limiting beliefs, understanding their origins, interrogating them with a clear mind and an open heart, I can make better choices about who I want to be from here on in. By embracing self-love and self-compassion wholeheartedly and realising that all living beings deserve love and compassion, I can then go outwards with the best of intentions and bring a sense of hope and love to others through my actions. It all starts with me.
shared humanity
To conclude, I have learnt from experience that bitching about others came from a place within me of self-loathing, a place where anger, bitterness, and envy festered. Self-awareness helped me to see that, and meditation helped me to heal it. Through meditation I have come to understand that we are all connected through our shared humanity. When you are suffering, so too am I hence why we must love ourselves if we are to love others. Relationships are what give meaning to life, and we are better equipped to enjoy meaningful relationships when we can feel love and compassion for ourselves first. It is not selfish; it is essential. I read this powerful line in a book by Viktor Frankl last year which has stayed with me. It is so simple, but oh so true. If you want love, love. I spent a huge chunk of my life waiting for someone to love me. If only I’d known then, what I know now; that I can love myself. I think that when we love ourselves in an honest, authentic way, we are less afraid to face our dreams and do what’s necessary to achieve them. I hope you’ve taken something from this today. Wishing you self-love, and self-compassion. Love, Gill 💚
