Labrador

A very quick post today. The Patchwork Dog has improved it seems. The vet nurse phoned me last night to tell me that her (the dog's!) bloods were improved. She didn't say how much. So the vet is speaking to the specialist (the expensive specialist) to agree a treatment plan. So definately going in the right direction. I thought she seemed better and more lively. And the fur on her belly is starting to grow back too, in wispy little bits - aah!

Time on Time

Time is a much maligned concept in my opinion. We never have enough of it or it goes too quickly or it won't go fast enough. Time is an easy thing to moan about.

But time is wonderful too. It is a great healer when sometimes distance is all we need. Years ago I fell off a horse and injured my back badly. A year later I was still having treatment and more and more. Each treatment was more invasive than the last until I was booked for some injection under Xray. It didn't go ahead because the doctor had not returned from his holiday in California...

I then moved house and had to start on waiting lists and new doctors etc all over again. Except that I didn't bother. I just ignored my back and over time it healed. I learnt a valuable lesson then - to give the body time to heal. To leave well alone sometimes.

This works for the mind as well. The mind needs time to adjust to changes of any kind. Even many traumas can be healed with time alone. Most soldiers who have been traumatised on operational duties feel fine some months later despite having had high emotions at the time and having had no treatment.

It is something to consider sometimes. Do you really need treatment now or will you feel better in time? Giving yourself and your mind the gift of time can be a wonderful healing strategy.

Ignore the Doom-Mongerers!

My accountant has been muttering darkly about 2009 since November last year. He has been wishing it were over already, wishing it was over before it was begun - doom, gloom, recession blah blah. But I am simply not listening, despite it being poor grammar to begin a sentence with a conjunction! We can create a lot of our own reality and if I think it's going to be a bad year then I fully expect it will be. But if I continue to look for the good times then I am more likely to see the good times when they happen, attract more good times in the future AND have a better year anyway just because I have a more optimistic outlook!

The year has started well for me and I am happily practising from my new rooms. I am continuing to attract clients and I am helping them to enjoy their lives. How could I ask for more?!

An update on the Patchwork Dog... she went for blood tests this morning and I will find out how they are later in the week. She is certainly a lively girl at the moment, was bouncing 2 feet in the air this morning off all 4 paws and she hasn't done that in years.

Dog Days

Few people ask how I am but so many people are concerned about my poorly sick dog! So given that I have published a photo of Squeaky, here is a photo of Patchwork Dog.

If you look carefully you can see her poor chilly belly, one patch on her neck, one on each foreleg and one on the left hand rear leg. She has another patch on the other side of her neck and these two I think are just starting to grow back.

Poor old girl. She goes back to the vet on Monday and we shall find out then how much she is recovering. She's so pretty and so valuable to me. The story of Patchwork Dog and me is a longer one and I will save it for another time.

It's another "me" post today and I hope you are still following while I take a break from philosophy and therapy. Having said that...

A dog is amazing therapy in itself. If you are feeling low then consider getting a dog. They love you and need you every day, no matter how you look, what you are wearing or how you are feeling. Dogs don't give a damn about all your perceived failures in life. You don't live alone when you have a dog. I cannot recommend them highly enough. They help you to focus outside yourself. If you are depressed and live alone, the introspection often takes over and you can help yourself into a pit. Having an outside focus brings you away from focussing too hard on yourself. And dogs are quiet and non-judgemental. I can honestly say that I have never been into chatting too much to my dogs but many dog owners do and it probably works.

My second best breed of dog after labrador retriever (yellow is the only colour!) ? It has to be the Border Terrier. Sound, good-natured little dogs. Trainable, small and clean with loads of personality.

Lets hear it for dogs!

To err is human - my Angel story

"...and to forgive is divine" Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before. We can't always forgive in reality can we? It's just not as easy as all that. So what I do is to distance myself. Then if I choose to step into the emotional space between me and a person whom I find it difficult to forgive entirely, then I am going in on my own terms. And those terms can usually mean that the error/misjudgement/deep penetrating hurt can be ignored, for that emotional transaction at least.

It's just an idea that I explored with a client this week. Perhaps it's worth trying.

I promised on a comment on the Majority of Two blog that I would write my angel story.

Some years ago I lived in Cyprus and I hated it there. I was very unhappy, far away from friends and family, my job was a tedious round of long hours whilst my companions were out playing in the sunshine, learning to scuba dive and sail. The job was ok but not how I thought it would be and the sheer volume of work was stressful. I hated where I lived and there was no immediate end to it either.

One morning I had to drive to Nicosia to take my car to a garage for a modification. There is one motorway in Cyprus, a 2 lane fast tarmac road. With a speed limit of 60mph, AARRGGHH! So I was in my new car, an Audi A3 and I enjoyed driving it fast. For fear of traffic cops I only took it to about 70. And as I came around a corner, there he was and I knew I was caught.

He was fairly nice really. Who was I? Where was I going? He realised very quickly that I wasn't a tourist and perhaps the thought of the extra paperwork for copping a Brit was too much for him. He let me off. I was very apologetic, I wouldn't do it again.

5 hours later I was on my way back to the southern end of the island. And was I driving above 60? Of course I was. I tried m'Lud, I really did but it just didn't happen...

As I rounded a different corner there was an entire posse of Police. My heart dropped like a stone. No way could I get off twice in one day, even if these ones didn't know what had happened earlier. The policeman was very nice. He leant down to look me in the eyes through the window. He asked if I lived here. Yes I'm British Forces, from Akrotiri. A long pause.

And as he stared straight into my eyes, "Why do you drive so fast? What are you running from?" Time stood still. Oh how I wished I didn't have the longest answer to that question. I felt like he could see into my soul.

He let me drive away without a ticket. When I told the story to a friend later, her eyes nearly popped out of her skull, "You met an Angel Helen. I wish I could meet an angel." I hadn't particularly believed in angels but I started to wonder.

A few years ago a friend told me she was an angel. Oh yeah, right! And then she explained that we are all angels. When we have realised who we are and the light has come on and is shining, that's when it becomes apparent. And we will know others when we meet them. There is more to this than you might think initially. It's something to just take in gently and let the seed germinate. When you need it again, the knowledge will be there.

Let your light shine.

Success and Failure

Well it's been a funny day or two. I saw my weight loss client today. She is a funny mix of contradictions. I alsways have to aske her the same question twice in different manners because each time the answer is different. She is doing well in my view but on a scale of one to ten she only thinks her progress is a 5 out of 10. So much for my opinions then! She's happy anyhow, a BIG thing for her, because she has been very low and depressed. Before Christmas she got into a dip that I was worried might turn into a huge trough. But is hasn't. Woo Hoo!

So today, for the first time, my lady was not wearing black. I thought it a huge step forward. She had barely noticed and laughed. She also laughed at how excited I was when she told me how good she was feeling. I don't care, I love it.

So where's the bad news then? Well my stop smoking client from last week has gone to pieces according to her sister, can't even get out of the house and is smoking again. Now this is a tough one, really tough. If she can't get to see me then how can I help? I am loathe at the moment to offer to visit. I cannot be all things to everyone, yet I want to help, of course I do. I am suspecting a big guilt trip although I may be wrong. The lady is pregnant and her last baby suffered because she smoked through pregnancy. Hence coming to me to help her stop.

Now is she terrified because she has already failed and she is now putting her baby at risk? Is she worried about the baby? Is she just hormonally and emotionally pregnant? She is apparently an emotional wreck! ANd has gone back to cigarettes, back to the toxic friend that she knows and loves, who makes her feel better. And yet the cigarette friend doesn't make her feel better, no he makes her feel worse. So the family are blaming me. Oh good... It isn't cheap to give up smoking with hypnosis but you can save that money you spent in about a month with what you save on cigarettes. This lady is not well off, quite the opposite. I so want to help her but my messages go unanaswered. What can I do?

So some highs and lows today. Now it's time for another high - taking my beloved out. Going out in the week, how decadent! NO, you fools, taking the dog out for a walk! Oops, Patchwork Dog heard me from her slumber behind my chair and has leapt up with the energy of a coiled spring. Well she looked up and stretched anyway. I mustn't tease her, she is poorly sick after all...

For the Journey

There is a huge hooha in America about the inauguration of Barack Obama. I know I am not alone in wondering about all the fuss. there is some train journey for a start. What is it all about? Why all the expense when many Americans can't afford healthcare?

Don't get me wrong, I am overjoyed that there is a black president. I find it inconceivable that it was only a few years before I was born that there was segregation in America. Around the time I was born, my father was in the RAF and my parents were renting an apartment in Oxfordshire. It was the late sixties, people were still relatively poor, there was a shared bathroom, shared with the occupants of another apartment.

My mother had an American friend at the time, her husband was in the USAF. Her name was Bonnie and she was a southern belle. She confided to my mother, "Oh but Ann, you can't live here." My mother thought it was because the flat was down at heel. "But the bathroom Ann. They're black!" My mother's neighbours, who shared the bathroom were black Americans.

Are you as shocked as I was?

The journey we as a society has come on since then is pleasing in many ways. And we are all on journeys. I often help my clients with NLP work. It is like programming for the brain. We often give the mind a vision of the better future they want, with their goals fulfilled. It helps because it gives the mind a destination to aim for. We can sit down and decide we want to go on holiday but until we know where we want to go, how are we to find our way there? If we don't know whether we are going to Bognor or Barbados, how will we know whether to go to the railway station or to the airport?

I explained this to a client today who told me that we could forget the highway to happiness because for her entire life she hadn't even been on the map! It was a funny moment, not a sad one. This lady is learning a lot, she's coming along for the ride, the journey of change.

I am conscious that yesterday's post was a little "me" orientated. That was not the intention of this blog when I started so I hope I have given you a bit more interest today. Happy travels.