It is simply the way it Has to Be: for the seeker of truth, the soul-searcher and indeed the persontrying as I was to make sense of the non-sensical regarding your past…your lifechoices and the consequences that followed, there comes a point in time when yourealise that all you have ever done to try and help yourself is not enough.Simply not enough!
And believe me, I had tried…
From the countless trips out to an Ashram inthe bush to see an elderly priest by the name of Vyn Bailey who led me throughcountless guided Relaxation and Meditation sessions. The very same priest wholed me through a single session in Contemplation, the result of which left mevery despondent when I realised just how distant I’d become from thatchallenging word trust…the one we all seem to get hung up on at one time oranother.
The Counselling Course I had undertaken in thelate 1990’s, A course I’d participated in but never once realised until 18months into the course, that I was the one being counselled. And theCertificate I’d been awarded at the end of that two year course, the sameCertificate that I never learned to appreciate until decades later. Hence thereason why it had remained hidden away in a cardboard box in the spare room forso long.
From the Unleash the Power Within program Ihad undertaken to the week-long Seminar I had participated in up at the GoldCoast both of which were fantastic at the time, but sadly for me, they hadn’tworked. There was way too much hurting and confusion going on inside of me tobe able to apply what needed to be applied and followed through with, for ongoingsuccess.
To the Life Success programme I hadundertaken in 2005, a series of guided sessions that did help whilst ever Iparticipated in the one on one sessions that focused largely on goal settingand learning how to focus on my goals. And not, the everyday calamities andintense level of brooding that now clearly defined me. Or was that, obstructedme?
Yes, I can say that I’ve tried but then suddenly,the most traumatic and destabilising incident happened. A crisis set to change forever,both my life and the life of my dear husband Bob. A time set to completely changethe way I looked at things and how I valued or undervalued just who was in mylife. The catalyst, the facilitator or in my case, the trauma? The attempt bymy husband to end his life brought about by his then undiagnosed PTSD. The timethat made me want to turn our life around. To stop focusing on myself and whatI thought I was owed or what I thought I needed in my life, and to start tendingto my partner, the husband I had married less than two years previously.
But it wasn’t until I found myself slidingdown that ever-so-slippery and dangerous slope of fear, anxiety, depression andtotal irrationality in Feb 2006 that I made the very crucial and desperatedecision to help myself. But why could I not simply book into a psychologist orif the need arose, to a psychiatrist for help? I had learned very quickly thatmoney becomes a very scarce commodity when the bread-winner is down for thecount. Hence my very brave decision to embark on the intrusive self-developmentjourney that I am still on today.
A journey so unique yet so the same asperhaps the person who might just be sitting right next to me but a journey sointrinsically ours to own and ours to explore in the quest to create a betterself, for ourself…