The Guide to Thriving Beyond the Crises in your Life: 4 Effective Steps

It's not just tea that revives you

As a spouse, parent and caregiver I have been on hyper-alert for 5 years.

Why?

It’s because my family is very good at having serious medical conditions with unpronounceable names.

My husband was first diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia in 2008. And if trigeminal neuralgia wasn’t difficult enough to say and remember, in 2009, our oldest son Benjy won the prize. 

He was diagnosed with a heart condition called Wolff Parkinson White with supraventricular tachycardia. (Try saying that a few times, very quickly.) This condition is sometimes connected with sudden death. Benjy's version of this syndrome meant that he needed two heart surgeries, between January and April  2010. 

My husband had invasive brain surgery ( MVD) for his trigeminal neuralgia in 2011. You can see why I might live on high alert!

Living on hyper-alert puts you in survival mode. You are either waiting for a symptom to show itself, in the midst of an attack, or recovering from the fallout:

Why The Duchess of Cambridge (Kate) Would Find Treatment Diaries Comforting.

How many of you keep or have in the past, kept a private written record of your thoughts and feelings?

How many of you would feel comfortable publishing your emotions and having hundreds or even thousands of people read them?

During my teens I often expressed my teenage angst in a diary that is so well hidden I have no idea where it is now!

So given my preference for privacy you might be wondering how I came to be writing a blog, especially one that expresses a myriad of emotions.( I often wonder this myself!)

5 Rewarding Reasons to Take a Risk-Why It's Worth Getting Your Feet Wet.

Here's a secret you didn't know about me. 

I really don't like walking barefoot. I know some of you hate wearing shoes but I don't like to be without them.

I wear my shoes from the moment I get out of bed until I get back in again. Yes I do take them off to shower and to put on socks, but even if it is flip-flops, I always have something on my feet. 

I don't like the feeling of crumbs (and in our house they feel as though they are everywhere)  or kitchen tile in-between or under my toes and my feet are often cold so shoes of some kind, off-set that. 

And here's another secret......

Moving from Hurt to Healing: How 1 Step Back Can Take You 2 Steps Forward

The Lily we planted has bloomed!

This morning, like every morning as I went out to the car in my driveway, I glanced at the lily. Aida and I had planted it in memory of her sister, who had died suddenly back at the beginning of May.

During difficult times, it is often hard to picture life any other way. In the heart of a crisis, serious illness, medical emergency, divorce, bereavement or job loss it is difficult to imagine that things will ever be different or better. Looking out into the future is frightening particularly if what you imagine is more of what you are living through or dare I say it, worse. Sometimes things do get worse, before they get better. 

Rarely do they stay the same. 

The Secret to Anger Management

.....without using it's turn signal

Have you ever tried to look on the bright side of a challenging situation, only to have it backfire, with you feeling more angry, resentful or frustrated?

Have you ever held anger inside you, only to channel it at some poor innocent bystander or your kids or your mom or your spouse?

Has there ever been a time when anger languished in your mind, festered and grew whilst you tried to see the positive in a difficult situation, only to find it come back to the surface when you met that situation or person again?

The first of these three scenarios happened to me just last week.