writing

How to feel better

| Sheree

It’s been a few days (weeks?) since I’ve been here. And I do hate it when I don’t turn up here because I’m missing out on opportunities for connection, with self and you, at the same time as the longer it goes in between posts the harder it is to get back here.

But I’m back and it was something I wrote on my journal last month that spurred me on to turn up. And I wanted to share it with you as it inspired me to feel better.

And these aren’t my usual activities which I go to to feel better but looking over the list this morning, I can honestly say I’ve been leaning into them the last few weeks without knowing it’s been so. I love when we get the chance to take a step back and reflect and see our journey. I’m so grateful for that.

So what has been making me feel better:

1. Cleaning my space. Be that handbag, bedroom, side table or whole house. I’ve been reaping the rewards of moving my body in cleaning/tidying up and then having the satisfaction of sitting down in a decluttered clear space. It helps the mind to gain clarifying also.

2. Eating something healthy. I’ve been deep in essay writing mode and have been living on toast and crisps and wine! But when I take the time, a break from the grind, to make a salad, or stir-fry and sit and eat mindfully, my body is not only fuelled with the good stuff but I’m resting in a space of joy. I enjoy my food and have the double whammy of knowing I’ve just given myself health.

3. Playing some good music. I’m known to have the tunes blasting in the car, especially as I’m using a friend’s mini convertible. Roof down, tunes high and I’m singing along. But I forget I can do the same within my home. Okay maybe not as loud as when outside. But putting on the mini speaker linked to my Tidal music account, I can move throughout my house listening to the music I love. Music that inspires. Music that I can’t help moving my body to. Music that brings back good memories. And bad. But still manages to get a smile out of me.

4. Lighting a candle. This is a simple act. One I’ve been doing more and more recently as I have candles in every room of my house. I’ve been having them on repeat as I attempt to create a welcoming ambience for anyone viewing the flat. Yes the landlord is selling the flat we’re renting so we have to move. So more people are flowing through the space and having candles glowing is my way of keeping the air clean and scented. It reminds me to take deep breaths and trust that everything is going to turn out for the best. Vanilla, cherry, cinnamon and lavender are my favourites at the moment.

5. Drinking water. Oh my. Now this one is a game changer but I admit I forget it. Daily. Water. I love water inside and out but when I get buried under tasks and emotions, I forget to drink water. That feeling of cold liquid journeying down my throat through my chest to my gut is refreshing, revitalising and a blessing. It only take a moment but still obstacles get in my way. I’m carrying a gallon sized bottle around with me as a means of getting more and enough water. It’s a practice and I’m leaning into it.

6. Sleep a little ( or more). Maybe it’s my age. Menopause. Or the time of year, or my body and mind and soul is just racked with anxious vibes but sleep has been evading me of late. But I’m not going to make it an issue. I’ll take sleep when it comes. And if I can help it, I’ll nap when I feel tired and stay in bed that extra hour if my body calls for it. I rest in other ways too. Be that zoning out in front of the TV, reading or an evening walk. All are a rest from ruminations and allow me to switch off.

7. And finally BREATHE. Yes yes yes. We breathe all the time as it keeps us alive. But how deeply are we breathing? It wasn’t until I picked my meditation practice up again did I realised how long I’m been breathing in the shallows not having the utilising the full capacity of my lungs. Living in the shallows means I’ve been panicking, being on edge, anxious, living on scraps of air when I could have been taking and enjoying big juicy expansive breaths that calm and recalibrate my whole body. I’m breathing deeply. I’m stopping what I’m doing/ being at times to take a few deep breathes. They reoxygenate my body and give me pause for gratitude. Gratitude for being alive in this moment.

I hope you find some inspiration in these practices and try a few. They make me feel better and sometimes we all can do with a reminder of what does make us feel better so we can lean into them more often and more deeply.

Summer Wish List

| Sheree

Sheree may you offer yourself light

Sheree may you offer yourself grace

Sheree may you offer yourself rest

Sheree may you offer yourself love

Sheree may you offer yourself ease

Sheree may you offer yourself softness

Sheree may you offer yourself mistakes

Sheree may you offer yourself movement

Sheree may you offer yourself a deep clean

Sheree may you offer yourself hope

Sheree may you offer yourself deep breaths

Sheree may you offer yourself adventure

Sheree may you offer yourself surrender

Sheree may you offer yourself healing

Take a moment …

| Sheree

to list three things you are grateful for right now!

Right now in this moment I am grateful for:

a good night’s sleep and waking up refreshed.

a day of sunshine and space to create.

the love and support I receive from friends and family and the universe.

I only saw his shine once it was too late to feel it

| Sheree

In the dream, he comes back to me, whole and young.

He was always young in my eyes. When I used to ask him at each birthday how old he was, Daddy would answer, 45.

He was always 45 in all the years I knew him. All the years I was living, he was dying.

In the replaying of images, I play it differently.

I keep my distance until he asks for me to bring his slippers or newspaper. I offer them with bowed head. I don’t throw them at him as I used to. Escaping his rage, escaping the beats.

I keep my distance, but I want to be close to him. To hold him. To feel his love for me. Then and now, still needed after so many years gone.

To serve, he brought me up, to serve. Instead of getting the vacuum clearer out, he had us on the floor picking up the bits of fluff and crumbs. To hear his pride at a job well done was enough.

When I enter the chapel of rest, it’s like I’m floating on air, light as the flowing curtains concealing a prize. I see him now, as then …

he‘a surrounded by gold satin, his mahogany black skin shines, relaxed and unlined, sea-black lips wave-curled and still.

He looks younger than 45. Even though the plaque on the coffin lid reads 1920 -1981 – he was 61. And the time he was dying. I was living.

Poem – An Act of Faith

| Sheree

Isn’t that what a poem is?
A lantern glowing in the dark.

Elizabeth Acevedo

Just as dusk is falling, I walk. Affected by the elements,

head in pain from the wind, I force myself out into the dim light,

believing moving my legs will strengthen my heart.

Motherly care, higher forces in radio silence. Walk

The moon pale blue and silent. But still there. Always.

Like the ancestors, guiding. Allowing me to find my own way. Tonight.

To falter, make mistakes and loop back. Remaining open.

Trusting these windows of silence as still inspiration.

Hope holds optimism. Optimism holds joy.

The touch of joy, fine-grained dark jasper, I search for along the path.

This spiritual path of putting pen to page, again and again.

Like one foot in front of another. An act of faith.

Black Aliveness

| Sheree

“We are not the idea of us, not even the idea that we hold of us. We are us, multiple and varied, becoming. The heterogeneity of us. Blackness in a Black world is everything, which means that it gets to be freed from being any one thing. We are ordinary beauty, Black people, and beauty must be allowed to do its beautiful work.” Kevin Quashie describes in Black Aliveness, or, A Black Poetics of Being.

A little list of gratitude

| Sheree

Sometimes we can be our worst enemy. Sometimes we allow thoughts and feelings to invade our calm, our peace. Why?

Something I fail to understand or have a handle on. All I can do is practice. Have faith and trust.

So this little list of gratitude is practiced with the intention of appreciating what is right in front of me instead of skipping to the end and getting all the wires and paths crossed.

Today I am grateful for rest.

Today I am grateful for coffee.

Today I am grateful for the page and pen.

Today I am grateful for the time and space to commune with myself.

Today I am grateful for hot buttered toast.

Today I am grateful for the music.

Today I am grateful for the dawn chorus.

Today I am grateful for the sea.

Today I am grateful for the earth.

Today I am grateful for the light.

Today I am grateful to love and be loved.

End of week gratitude

| Sheree
The Earthcraft Oracle

When life throws you curve balls to knock you off your feet and forces you to reassess everything in your life, this is when you lean into the practices which have seen you right.

Those practices which keep you buoyed when it appears you’re drowning or about to go down.

Those practice which you practice everyday but really come into their own when the chips our down.

One of those practices is keeping a gratitude journal. And it doesn’t have to be something major or time consuming.

Thinking on one simple thing is enough to switch my thinking, to get me to count my blessings and step up again. Renewed, restored and ready.

This week has been a week of happenings and announcements and shit hit the fan moments. But I’m alive and here to live another day. So all is not bad.

I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason. Maybe to test us. Maybe to move us into a better situation. To gain clarity and perspective. To live a better life on my own terms.

This card ‘thunderstorm’ signifies tremendous upheaval and change, happening or about to. And it is out of my control. But I must keep the faith, trust in Mother Nature that these things are happening for the best.

Things are out of my control. But how I respond to this period of upheaval is within my control.

I’m choosing to count my blessings, lean into my practices and give thanks. Give thanks for all that is going right or is good in my life right now. Here and now.

I’m grateful for the light. I’m grateful for rest. I’m grateful for a warm comfortable bed. I’m grateful for morning coffee. I’m grateful for time spent with the people I love. I’m grateful for my health. I’m grateful for my creativity. I’m grateful for all the opportunities which have and are coming my way. I’m grateful for food in the cupboards. I’m grateful for the roof above my head. I’m grateful for the air I breathe. I’m grateful for the earth between my toes. And I’m grateful for the water that holds me.

Evening Walks – Mamathon Continues

| Sheree

As it stands I’ve completed 20 miles of the 52.4 miles for the month of May. Nearly half way there and not even half way through the month yet. So pleased with how I’m moving.

I’ve mentioned my mum and walking , but she’s not my only inspiration when it comes to putting one foot in front of another.

At this time of year when growing up in Bradford, May light nights and rising temperatures, after tea ( as I am a Yorkshire lass!), each evening we would go out for walks. Dad and Mum, sis and me.

Of course I didn’t want to do it. It felt like a punishment. A cruel exercise is working out our energy before bedtime. How I hated going to be in the light nights.

We set out from our maisonette flat, take the bridge over the dual carriage way, to walk up the hill past the textile factories and into the rabbit warren estates of ‘Little Jamaica’.

My only joys of these evening walks, we’re picking up scraps of fur from the toy making factories and lining my pockets with them so I could stroke their softness while I walked.

The only other joy was if we called in Dad and Mum’s friend Beverley who lived over on the other side of the road, who had a son called Ivor, that I quite liked. He had Thunderbirds toys I liked to play with too.

These evening walks were something I endured. Something to get through. Now as I’m older, appreciating the light nights for walks out, I’m inflicting the same ritual on my daughter when she’s staying with me. Ignoring her complaints and marching her out the door.

And on those evenings that I walk alone, covering more miles and sinking deeper into my body and the present moment, no longer needed are scraps of fur in my pocket to keep me walking.

The act of walking itself, being outside with all nature has to offer, with heart and soul open is enough to feel joy and gratitude and light.