Suz's Blog

People are like Busses

pointeless — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:45:18 +0000

As I saw a bus driving down the road today with its “Not in Service” message displayed above the driver’s sullen face, a thought crossed my mind; If only every person had one of those things! How handy would it be to be able to flick a switch that displays the message “Sorry Not In Service”, across your forehead. Suddenly you wouldn’t be expected to know where you are going in life; you don’t have to declare your direction or route; you’re just not in service right now and so don’t have to be going, or thinking about going, anywhere in particular. Never early or late for anybody else’s schedule. When you think about it, I suppose some people are a lot like those busses whose message displays are broken. They declare that they’re going one place; implying their route; the stops they’ll make along the way; but in fact their sign just got jammed on the wrong message and they aren’t heading in the direction they make out at all. People will be waiting around for them to arrive at the places they were meant to along their ‘route map’ but they won’t show because they’re heading the other way. Rather like recovery and relapse when you think about it. You say you’ll arrive at BMI 18, you’re due there at a certain time as agreed on your dieticians schedule and yet you turn up at BMI 17 instead, followed by BMI 15 and then 14. Everyone around you is standing waiting, including your impatient dietician, thinking how late you are, wondering where you’re going and what the big hold is up. You realise that you must have displayed you’re destination “recovery” incorrectly when your wheels were still taking you towards illness. You become upset that the people around you are impatient for you to reach the next stop along the route, but you realise that all along you’ve been working to convince them that your service was still running when in fact it had hit some major traffic and had to be diverted elsewhere. It would have been easier if you’d had a “not in service” sign; it would have told the world that normal service won’t resume just yet; that you aren’t running a smooth service along route recovery without any interruptions, but that you don’t intend to be hitting up all the stops along route relapse either. You are just driving; sitting at the wheel of your life, taking the traffic and detours as they crop up; and you can’t be late for your own recovery because you never told anyone when you were going to arrive there. People are a lot like vehicles in general I think; like minds on wheels. A mind takes you places. You climb aboard somebody else’s and they’ll drive you new routes you’d never have discovered alone. There’s no psychological sat nav that tells you when to turn around (now there’s a good idea!) if only there were. People wait for each other to pick them up with their ideas and carry them along to someplace new; someplace off the map. We each are the equivalent of an ideas bus; each person a different service provider and as a vast network together, providing an infinitely accessible world of thought transportation. Who needs Arriva eh?! Anyhow, so you know, I’m stealing the Aylesbury Rainbow routes title for MY service because I find it suits me better anyway. I’m trying out every colour of the rainbow for my hair if nothing else! So Suz’s rainbow route it is!; quite a nice ring to it I think. Currently not in service; displaying no destination; running to nobody else’s timetable ; taking passengers from every stop she passes with free tickets for all, with no expected time of arrival anywhere specific! I can’t tell you whether it’s worth hopping aboard or not; that’s your call; but may-b see you around; just don’t be waiting will you

Great link

pointeless — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:30:51 +0000

Distinct lack of entries of late due to having concentrated much more on my art over the past several weeks however…I’ve still been reading alot and have some little gems to throw out there as thinking food..

The following is an amazing article- I find so much of the literature from Brahma Kumararis inspiring and this is definately a piece to share on self esteem and indentity

http://www.bkwsu.org/news-and-media/articles/spiritual-empwr/Living%20with%20Myself

You CAN trust your body after all! WOW!

pointeless — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:25:54 +0000

It’s amazing how long it can take for a true a-hah! moment to occur; that click where things fall into place. I have considered myself as a fighter in the battle of recovery against my eating disorder for a good couple of years now (relapses included; as they seem to be an inevitable part of the recovery journey); and throughout this period dieticians and doctors have been telling me to trust in my body. It always seemed not only like mission impossible (queue theme tune) but it struck me as somewhat of a ridiculous idea; why should I trust my body? Of Course my main ‘core beliefs system’ had built the foundation for my scepticism of the idea; after all I had come to think of myself as a bad person; a greedy person who had too much that they were undeserving of; it stands to reason I could see no reason to trust that my body wouldn’t betray me and act ‘greedily’; eating more than it needed or deserved or ‘should’. There was no evidence I could find to supporting trusting my body in it knowing what it wanted and needed and not to take take take without ceasing. I had to blindfold myself and go to war armed with my meal plan terrified. Now this in itself seems contradictory – here are these so called experts telling me that my body already knew what it wanted and needed and yet at the same time handing me a sheet dictating to me what I should be eating.

But the point I was missing was my body was actually nodding along to the writing on that meal plan – the experts really did have some kind of notion of what they were jabbering on about and had predicted what my body already knew. The thing was I’d stopped listening. The looked at the meal plan and thought ‘ you are having a laugh! No way, just no way does my body need all that!’ , but blind faith – sheer determination; I tried.

Now bear in mind here I have held a number of very fixed food obsessions for a long time now. I have been obsessively thinking about and craving; drawing; imagining; looking at foods of a reasonable fat content; chocolate, cakes, biscuits etc. But I hadn’t allowed myself to eat them because the very food obsessions I held were iron clad in fear; that was what kept them as obsessions ; forbidden fruit ; I simply couldn’t allow myself them ; as far as my head was concerned I didn’t deserve them, they would make me gain ‘loads of weight’ instantaneously (so I imagined) and so I obsessed but never ate. Now what should appear on my meal plan but all the said foods I had so obsessed about?! It’s nothing new and radical; previous meal plans had included them but I’d managed to convince dieticians I could gain weight without such ‘pleasurable’ foods and true I had succeeded in the past but eating triple quantities of diet foods in order to avoid the fear fats evoked In me. But my periods never returned and a lot of the detrimental effects on my body remained because although I’d gained weight my diet lacked any fats and as you know oestrogen is a fat soluble hormone. Not only this though; but the gaining weight had left me with my eating disorder still because my psychological impact remained ; I still couldn’t eat out anywhere, I still had obsessions and fears and regimes; and I was playing the recovery part instead of actually DEALING with the stuff my disorder was made of. I’d painted over walls which weren’t plastered properly in effect; and all the damaged parts were all the more visible now.

This time I decided I had to do this properly and I’ve dug in there full of fear. I’ve only been on the new meal plan for a few days now ; a few days of chocolate and spread and cake and cheese being back in the arena; but you know what ; my obsession about the foods; my fixations; they are already losing some power. I don’t want to go and look at a confectionary stand in tescos for 15 mintues without intending to buy anything anymore; just to imagine the taste ; the idea seems silly to me again. Chocolate is just another food stuff; and it still scares the heck out of me right now; the fear is still DEFINITELY there; but the power of chocolate has gone!!

HOW AMAZING! Did you realise your food has NO POWER AT ALL!

People have been telling me that all along in various other wordings ; that the power was mine and not my foods, that I had control and the eating disorder was the loss of my control not the gaining of it. When I gave me body the craved chocolate and fats the body said; ok now I’ve had that; I just needed a bit of fat to work with lady alright; now we can concentrate on something else. It’s just an incredible – Ohhhhhh!

And me saying this could very well not mean a thing to you; because I can picture myself reading this now a week ago and thinking ; yes of course you can trust YOUR body, I can’t trust mine ; MINE doesn’t deserve to be trusted, MINE really IS bad, MINE really IS greedy ; some magical exception rule is no doubt going through your mind right now. SOME reason why you surely aren’t worth as much as everyone else; but THAT is the REAL LIE.

YOU CAN TRUST YOUR BODY, but you are going to have to find it out for yourself, and it is going to take SO much courage and a heck of a lot of blind faith, but I BELIEVE YOU CAN DO IT. Now just try and believe you can to… don’t give up Suz xx

Autumn

pointeless — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:08:24 +0000

I’ve a warm fondness of autumn, almost akin to the cosy glow of the season itself. But there’s something about it, a sad ravage beauty; it reminds me of the reflection of anorexia in a way, to me it’s inextricable; like peering through a foggy looking glass; I see an enigmatic season living its compelling death. The trees that throughout the summer flourished; growing and spreading a full blossoming canopy of colour; they begin slowly turning at their edges, curling in upon themselves. As the leaves wilt and drop one by one; the trees descend towards their fall; dying slowly and yet with wild glorious passion; the same kind of fiery passion that sparks the anorexic high. It’s the high that preludes the inevitable crash and burn; as the next ‘leaf’ drops off the branch, and then the next; and you watch the season change. You know; that with each leaf, the riotous colours that so captivated you before, that warmed the approaching cold of winter; they too will dull, gray and decay, before rotting to nothing. The tree bare boned, lifeless and exposed. The beautiful colour is lost, and the tree that looked so beautiful in its fullness now looks scrawny, twisted, angular, and rather sad. And then you look at old photos of yourself; and you remember your ‘season in the sun’; and you look at a photo of you that was taken last week, and there it is; right there; you see your autumn. You see the pounds you’ve dropped like leaves; how at the time it seemed so beautiful, but what the process left behind is a skeleton of the real living thing. Autumn to me is the anorexic season; it doesn’t mean I have to follow suit though. It’s time I turned over my new leaf instead of letting it fall to the ground. It’s time to roll in the spring, the new; so if it’s alright with you; I’ll admire the fireside trees at a distance this year, because I’m dreaming of bringing back the summer. After all… we all can dream

Musings on the days weather

pointeless — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:05:03 +0000

It’s the way the sun splits through the trees; Like the cracking of an eggs yolk

Sticky and sweet,

Gold dribbling through the gutter of September,

Peeling bark snaps its branches off a bed of baby blue,

The Beauty of a season singing its rebellion

Till the last of its strength is inevitably through,

Waiting for an autumn’s pass, to graze the last of its faltering light,

With the dregs of our pallor tan peeling away

To reveal the cool crust of a dark scar less night

A poem about Newton Faulkner anticipating his album release next week

pointeless — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:51:31 +0000

He has the kind of voice that creates a crack in your soul

Shaking you down like a feather duvet

Ruffling you up on the inside,

It’s a ripple effect along the underbelly of your very core

Like a wave smashing overhead, splitting you open,

With the Beautiful power of a thunderous ocean, full of the earth’s base and rhythm,

Drumming in your ears and in the cradle of your pulse,

A thud of adrenaline; With sticky sweet velvet notes, like caramel drizzled onto the ear drum,

An audio dessert, Rich and overfilled;

A creamy sound that you want to lick the molten middle from And shudder with the ecstasy of it melting inside,

Fully immersing you in each vertebrae of the song

As he runs up and down your spine like piano keys,

Playing your emotions like a drummer plays his drum,

Melody evolving into a kaleidoscope of sound

And piece by piece tapering back into a single thready note,

As the silence falls His signature scrawls its freehand in your head,

To be listened to again, and yet again

He’ll sing the songs of all the things that you’ve left unsaid.

At First Sight

pointeless — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:34:19 +0000

A movie came on last night on BBC 1 while I just happened the have left the tv running in the background after my mum and dad had gone to bed and I was passing time on the laptop in the lounge. I started to half watch it but I realised it was getting late and that I was a bit too tired to really concentrate and so on a whim I clicked the big red R on my remote (enjoying the wonders of sky plus television) and went to bed.

This morning when I got up after breakfast I decided to settle down to some art work and relocated into the lounge as I thought at worst, the remainder of whatever movie I half recorded last night would make satisfactory background noise while I dabbed away brush upon paper. Turned out I couldn’t have underestimated the film more.

The film was called ‘At first Sight’; I’d not heard of it before; but I’d like to share the following exert of dialogue as spoken by the leading chacter

As a blind man I think I see a lot more than when I was sighted; because I don’t really think we see with our eyes. I think we live in darkness when we don’t look at what’s real about ourselves &about others & about life. I think no operation can do that. When you see what’s real about yourself you see alot &you don’t need eyes for that

The above quote and the film in its entirity in fact, got me thinking about what it really means to see; about trusting what our eyes tell us. I thought about how there can be so many different versions of a singular truth; about perspective and the many arenasin which it plays; the auditory perspective, the visual perspective, the emotional and psychological perspective and the way in which we create our own unique version of reality.

The key character in this movie for those of you who haven’t seen it, was blind, and through an operation previously thought of as impossible by past medical physicians’ that he’d visited as a child, the character miraculously regains his eyesight. However when he does he’s propelled into a world that for him is without all meaning and one which he can make no sense of. He has no visual vocabulary; he can identify objects by touch only; he couldn’t name anything unless he FELT it. To look at something MEANT nothing to him in that it told him nothing about the use of the object.

When he see’s the lady whom he has fallen in love with for the first time he says “So this is what beautiful looks like”

He knew she was beautiful before seeing her because he’s spoken to her, gotten to know who she was, he’d touched her and felt she was beautiful, but he’d never seen her; he didn’t know whether she looked fat or thin, he didn’t know what fat or thin could look like. The words would have had no meaning to him.

Do you think cold hard bone FEELS beautiful to someone else when they go to embrace you? No…,I didn’t think so either.

My point is that we have been pre-conditioned; we have SEEN thin, we have SEEN it labelled as beautiful and had the label reinforced throughout the media day in day out everywhere we look. We have forgotten about our internal feelings. We have pushed aside the sensations in life, and there are so many beautiful sensations that contrast to the painful ones but somehow so many of us have simply learnt to categorize them into one lump classification of ‘sensations which need ignoring’. Sensations seem to threaten and invade and cast demands upon us.

Whilst still blind, the lead character in one of the earlier scenes in the film, has his lover to be, close her eyes and listen to the rain. He talks about how the rain gives him a sense of dimension and perspective and scale, how he can feel it drawing a picture of the place, orientating him. I think that if we were to close our eyes in the same way and dare to really listen, and I mean REALLY listen to our feelings inside, as scary as the prospect sounds; that they can be our real eyes out onto the world of truth.

When you see what’s real about yourself you see alot &you don’t need eyes for that

To see what’s real about yourself you need to look inside, not outside. Our eyes lie. In the movie this can be taken in a very literal sense in that when learning to see for the first time visual ecnosia prevents the character from interpreting what his eyes are telling him. But in essence; this is in fact a problem that is incredibly similar in nature to that of the anorexics’ predicament.

I’ve discussed in previous entries how if I’m able to avoid looking at my face or head, and I’m able to detach my personhood from the image I see in the mirror or in a photo of myself, then I understand that what I’m looking at is somebody who doesn’t look healthy or a desirable image of ‘thin’ but a very ill vulnerable, fractured body. But when I recognize the image as myself , I distort the psychological perspective my mind applies to the feedback it receives from my visual perspective and in effect visual ecnosia takes place ; I misinterpret – I ill-attribute.

Learning to see whether for the first time, or learning to see in a new way, is no less a skill than learning to speak, for the first time or when learning a new language; no different to learning to understand what you hear in English, French, or the millions of other languages out there. But whatever your looking at, talking about, or hearing about – it doesn’t change ; whether you understand the information; whether you process it in a different way or feel differently about it; whatever IT is, STILL IS.

Seeing may be believing – but it doesn’t mean what you believe should be taken as gospel.

Anorexia has different eyes, it looks for faults under a different lens, it speaks with the authority of your name though it has no right to use your voice because IT ISN’T YOU.

I urge you to look, look without opening your eyes- anorexia can use your eyes, it can kidnap that realm of your senses, but your heart is a different matter, your heart knows your real feelings, your heart speaks in truth… listen to it.

I recommend the movie t anyone with enough time on their hands to watch it; cheesy in places you may indeed find it, but it’s had a profound effect on me; an it might just have on you too…

On risk and overgrown gardens

pointeless — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:58:20 +0000

Another interesting piece of writing I discovered from Hannahs treasure trove of inspiration that I wanted to share: The writer is unknown:

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool

To weep ifmto risk appearing sentimental

To reach out for another is to risk involvement

To expose feelings is to risk exposing one’s true self

To place your idea, your dreams,before the crowd is to risk their loss

To love is to risk not being loved in return

To live is to risk drying

To hope is to risk despair

But all risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing

The person who risks nothing, does nothing,has nothing and is nothing

He may avoid suffering and sorrow but he simply cannot learn,feel,change,grow,love,live

Claimed by his certitudes he is a slave,

He has forfeited his freedom

Only a person who risks is free

After a whilte you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul

And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t mean security

And you begin to learn kisses aren’t contracts

And presents aren’t promises

And you begin to accept defeats with your head up and your eyes open

And with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child

And you learn to build all your roads on today because tommorows ground is too uncertain for your plans,

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much

So plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers

And you will learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong

And you really DO have worth

So what does it mean to you to plant your own garden and decorate your own soul?

It made me think; how much of my life I have been waiting for somebody to ‘bring me flowers’ to make my garden beautiful. I’d been waiting for somebody else to admire my ‘garden’ and bring themselves and their gifts to it to make it complete. Without the offerings of somebody else I assumed I couldn’t tend my own plot as it were; that there were too many weeds I cut back without help. I didn’t acknowledge that my helplessness is so self assumed and it’s something I’m learning; to do some gardening myself instead of hiring in help before I’ve had a good old weeding session myself. I need to be able to spend time in my own garden and enjoy it; enjoy myself; and know that it’s ok; that it’s allowed. YOU can too

And risk is the other interesting point made in the above; how ready are you to ACCEPT risk?

Without risk; nothing new can ever happen; and if nothing new ever happens; and you don’t like the way your life is now; then how will it ever improve?? Surely to improve your life, change HAS to happen, and to change is to take a risk…

This doesn’t mean i’m not still terrified of change; but i’m accepting it now; things WILL change, I HAVE to try and take risks or growth can never happen; LIFE can never be lived.

So may-b you might want to ask yourself what is it your’e willing to risk today? What could you stand to gain? What is it your’e really so scared of losing? Is it worth staying in the ‘place’ you are now just because you recognise it? Or may-b just may-b the most beautiful things are those that are yet to come; yet to be found; to be unconvered; with that one step… what if that one what if could be the biggy that could pass you by in wondering… ?

I LOVE this piece of writing and HAD to share it!

pointeless — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:18:58 +0000

I wanted to share the below that I found pasted into a book in Hannahs house (I think it belongs to Anna so Anna I do hope you don’t mind!)

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing

It doesn’t interest me how old you are,

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love; for your dream, for the adventure of being ALIVE

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by lifes betrayals or have been shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own; without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes with cautioning you to be cautious, to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human

It doesn’t interest me if the story your telling me is true

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the acusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy

I want to know if you can see beauty, even when its not so pretty everyday, and if you can source your own life from its presence

I want to know if you can live tiwth failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the moon, “YES!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you liver or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children ( or yourself)

It doesn’t interested me who you know or how you came to be here

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back

It doesn’t interest me where or with whom you have studied

I want to know what sustain you from the inside when all else falls away

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truely like the company you keep in the empty moments

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

So I bolded the most poignant parts of that piece that specifically spoke to me. It really got me thinking about what’s important; the need to be able to accept yourself; recieve yourself; before you can accept and recieve somebody else. That to ‘hold’ another where they are; you have to first be able to BE where you are, completely be there without reference to wanting to be anything other than who and what you are; with them in that moement.

I think i’m getting there; i’m not there yet; but i’m on my way.

I know that my new hair colour isn’t to everyones taste, and lots of people are going to see me and judge me for it; but I feel like it’s ok because it’s me now; I think i’m ready to start being seen for who I am… may-b… just; because i’m ok; i’m not great; but i’m not the worthless thing I always asumed myself to be either.

You are worth alot more than perhaps you give yourself credit for too, in the sermon the other day in church we were talking about loving like Jesus, and how Jesus’s disciples when they spoke back to him were told they were seing things through human eyes. May-b what we need is a little detatched ‘god’ perspective; that he’s loves us, he made us the way we are for a reason; we need to live that passionate creation, we need to bleed with those colours and cry from that ocean, laugh from the earths foundations and know who we are in him above all. We are his, and that makes us worth alot.

Great resource site

pointeless — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:09:58 +0000

http://www.findingbalance.com/about/about.asp

I found the above website Finding Balence through ‘true’. They are a brilliant organisation and they have so many useful resources which I’d really encourage you to look at and access

http://www.findingbalance.com/interact/tenways/others.asp

The above page in particular I found very poigent; reading the number of posts created by women listing the ways in which their lives would be different if they weren’t so obsessed with being thin

It’s so sad, that it’s come down to this isn’t it? I’m not trying to be a hypocrit; i’ve posted my own list; I’m not condemning it, i’m speaking in solidarity with one sad universal voice that we should be worth more than this! we ARE worth more than this!