2023 is over! How was it? 

My shoulders ache; my body is tired. The smallest of tasks feel mammoth. My body craves rest but my mind has different ideas. It wants me to think, work out what to do, problem-solve and worry. I fight to quieten it but the truth is I haven't enough energy. I haven't even enough energy to put on a load of washing in the machine but my kids need clean school shirts. I haven't enough energy to make packed lunches but my kids need to eat. I check what homework they have got, lay the table for dinner, load the dishwasher, make sure the guinea-pigs are fed. My husband, thankfully, makes dinner otherwise I don't know how we would eat. The entire day is like walking through treacle. I cry in sheer exhaustion. The bare minimum is too much. Then I repeat this day after day, year after year. This is surviving, getting through each moment, each day, each year until many have passed and I can no longer remember how living truly feels.

How it felt to have cancer-related fatigue and cancer-related PTSD.

Thankfully, I don't have many days like this any more, though I can have a run of them during times of stress, when menstruating and after socialising (I'm still not used to it and find it very tiring). The cancer-related fatigue has gone but my energy levels are still a lot lower than they were before my cancer diagnosis and I'm impacted by PTSD on an, almost, daily basis. This has lessened and is becoming more manageable but is triggered by stress and tiredness. You can see the cycle I can get trapped in here.

I'm sharing this during Breast Cancer Awareness Month to raise awareness of the long-term impacts of being someone who has had cancer. Also, please check your breasts /chest. It's tough living with the impacts, mostly mental and emotional now, of cancer but I'm, of course, very grateful to be here. Early detection of cancer means outcomes are likely to be better. I found my breast cancer by chance whilst washing. Don't leave it to chance, check today and make it a monthly routine.

In a world of car-dominating towns and cities, what happens if people, plants and animals are put first?

Walking in it's strange to be in a primary school, a once familiar setting now so alien. I turn right, enter the hall and it's a primary school no more. A beautiful alter creates a a focal point in the centre of the room, the space is ready for the start of a sister circle for Beltane (also now known as May Day). I'm greeted by Anna, who I met at the Imbolc circle she facilitated, and asked if I want to be smudged to which I answer yes. I have somewhere along this journey towards an authentic life become able to embrace what I would have found uncomfortable before. 

I unpack my bag. Firstly, taking out and unrolling my yoga mat (my daughter's yoga mat as yoga is not something I do), place my journal and pen next to me and sit crossed-legged on my mat with my blanket covering my feet. Anna goes around the circle, with the invitation for people to pick a card, I guess it's a set of oracle cards. By mistake I take three instead of one! Embracing Change, The Power of Support and Grace. So apt.

I'm eating it, crunching it between my teeth.
It's on my coffee cup, it's in my hair and my eyes.
My phone has a sprinkle of it's grittiness and so has my coat!
It's covering the road and is continuing to swirl across from the beach,
Coating my camper van, no doubt!

The beach has been flattened.
It looks smooth and new.
Footprints covered as soon as they are made.
A few brave walkers head into the wind, hoods up and heads bowed,
Walking with determination.

Nature is powerful and strong in all her wildness.

I'm going to share a little about my garden, in case you are interested and so you might be able to support me in rewilding it and making it more nature friendly. The back garden is mostly lawn. We need to keep it that way as half of it is used for the guinea-pig run, rotating it every few days. This half has currently got lots of lesser celandine, which are good for pollinators. The plant mostly dies off by the time its warm enough for the guinea-pigs to be outside. I have to pull up any remaining plants and anything else that is toxic for them to eat. The other half is wilder and left uncut. A greater variety of plants grow including daisies and ragwort. We keep it as lawn so a tent can be put up for the kids. I also like to put a blanket down and sit on it (once it's drier). Around the edges of the lawn is left fairly wild but we also grow strawberries. The strawberry patch was used by hedgehogs last year to forage for invertebrates, I should think because it was unweeded it provided a lot more for them. Though, I may have to weed it a bit this year to allow the strawberry plants to grow.

The front garden was block paved by previous owners. I've got pots growing food and some with flowers. I'd like to increase the amount of food I grow in this area. I use the front garden for this as it has lots of sunshine. I'd also like to increase the plants for pollinators and have bees and butterflies constantly flying from flower to flower.

That's me, how about you? What's your garden like?

Extract from the Changemaker membership which I run from my Patreon page (there's also a private FB group). We are starting our new focus: Rewilding our gardens and incorporating rest as we move into the, often, busier seasons of spring and summer. It's a form of gentle activism within a supportive community and you're invited! Join for 7 days (it's free!), a month, all spring or more. Any questions? Just ask.

This was a pilgrimage I took last year at Imbolc. I found using the energy of the rising spring was the right time to think about the new year and to let go of some of the things that were no longer serving me. 

I can very gratefully say, that I am now almost three years post hospital treatment for cancer. I’m healthy and I’m okay. I appear from the outside, perhaps, to be totally fine moving through life as before. However, this could not be further from the truth. Barely a day goes by when I don’t think about my cancer experience, often getting consumed by it. The thing that I’ve recently come to realise is that an illness, like this, is actually often initiatory. I have and I am going through a huge transformation, an initiation back into life and it looks like nothing’s happening from the outside. I have also found that there is little acknowledgement, understanding or support for this process. That’s not to say I’ve had no support, what it is to say, though, is that there has been no long term holding of my experience from the wider society. I haven’t been able to communicate this very well thus far, for I only just realised it myself thanks to reading ‘Descent and Rising’ by Carly Mountain. In this book Carly cleverly uses the ancient myth of Inanna alongside modern day real-life stories to show the descent into the underworld often felt by people including those who have illnesses. Up until this point, I simply thought something was wrong with me, that I was failing to recover emotionally.

So, this daily onslaught of emotions manifests for me in many ways. Mostly, it takes a lot of headspace, meaning not a lot left for anything else. It also takes a lot of energy as I try to hold the tension (a phrase I’m so grateful for from ‘Wild Power’ by Alexandra Pope and Sjarnie Hugo Wurlitzer) as I try to hold the enormity of my feelings, feel them, not shy away from them, acknowledge them and behold myself alongside functioning as a human being and as a mother. Emotions of anger, grief, sadness and guilt flow through me on a regular basis. I try to think of them as boats passing me on a river (a technique I learnt by attending a course run by Force Cancer Charity); I know they will go past and I won’t feel like that forever. But the boats can turn round quite quickly and sail back up the river, demanding constant attention.

Thankfully, my cancer-related fatigue stopped around the end of 2021, this level of fatigue is another thing not widely understood in our society. It was debilitating making it almost impossible to look after my children. However, the fatigue was replaced with being tired almost all the time. There’s a difference in that the fatigue never got better with rest but the tiredness can sometimes be eased. Fast forward to June 2023 (when I wrote this blog post), quite a considerable time has passed but I’m tired a lot of the time. I can’t plan much, I wouldn’t feel safe driving for more than about 30 minutes, I have to base my days around the essential tasks and by that I simply mean ensuring we are fed and clothed. In between this I rest. 

A hard learnt thing is rest. It also takes up so much energy to deconstruct the capitalist norms I’ve internalised about my value being linked to productivity. Rest is not simply stopping, the mind needs to be stilled as well. This relearning to rest takes a lot of headspace and energy. I’ve recently read ‘Wise Power’, another excellent book by Alexandra Pope and Sjarnie Hugo Wurlitzer and learnt the term ‘snudging’ which is what I now base my days around, doing just enough to get by (whilst being aware I miss people’s birthdays, lose touch with friends, stay partly in the underworld as there isn’t enough energy to emerge and this in turn creates grief which takes so much energy). This is hard, extremely painful, overwhelming and lonely work for me, however, I now can see it as an initiatory process with gold at the end. I’ve stripped back so much of my life as I entered the underworld and I’m now slowly finding new, boundaried ways of emerging. 

I feel, to be honest, that I’ll rise just in time to hit another initiatory process, menopause. At aged 44 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, menopause seemed a long way off, not even remotely on the horizon, now aged 47 it’s within sight. Maybe, I’m already in it (I’m taking oestrogen suppressing medication so I could be), almost everything written in ‘Wise Power’ a book about menopause sings to my experience but this could be because the initiation I'm experiencing is archetypally like other initiatory processes. I would say, for sure, that trying to recover emotionally from cancer merges with perimenopause, a lack of energy having my oestrogen (medically) supressed along with parenting without a village. It’s a difficult mix. However, on the surface, in some respects, I carry on with everyday life: I wash the clothes, hang them to dry, do some work (though not what I was doing before), pick up the kids, make packed lunches, clear up after dinner etc. But this is just snudging, doing enough to get by whilst trying to trust that being in this unknown is okay, that I will fully emerge back into life, a new life, a much more authentic life with more ease and joy. I get glimpses but, of course, it’s not the linear process we have been taught to expect. 

This is hidden work going on, not just for me, but for others experiencing illness, the initiation into parenthood, menopause and other initiatory processes. But in the hiding, wider understanding is lost. But in the telling, the teller/the sharer, puts their vulnerability in the hands of others, unless they can simply behold themselves. So, that leaves me to enquire can I see myself clearly enough, can I say this is who I am and how I am for the greater good of the wider society gaining some understanding and for me being my authentic self? Or do I just leave this as a file on my laptop, gathering metaphorical dust as the risk of being vulnerable is too big right now?

 

Well, the dust gathered for six months, I recently received a PTSD diagnosis related to my cancer experience and I snudged my way to this point. I decided to share this now in case anyone else is in need of the strategy of snudging but also to say this is me, this is how it is. This is my truth.

 

 

 

Are you like me, obsessively watching your smart meter and despairing at how quickly the cost of electricity and gas goes up throughout the day? Energy prices rising (despite the energy price cap they are still likely to be more than last winter) and the mercury dropping certainly doesn’t help. With a long time to wait until the balmy (or at least warmer) days of summer coupled with the cost of living crisis, how can we keep warm without breaking the bank?

 

Sitting here on a chilly November morning with no heating currently on in my house, one easy, and I know a bit obvious tip, is to dress warmly. Layers really help in trapping air and insulating your body. I also have a blanket to hand and will pop that over me when I’m stationary, maybe watching TV or whilst working from home. It makes sense, to heat yourself first, rather than trying to heat whole rooms or houses. In addition to layers of clothing and blankets, hot water bottles, hand warmers and electric blankets can all keep you toasty and cosy when you are relaxing, or perhaps like me, working from home.

 

This, of course, is not enough but is a starting point. Once you put your central heating on, the cost to you and our planet in terms of carbon emissions really ramps up. So, what’s the most energy efficient way to run your heating? Firstly, turn the thermostat down! The average is set at 23°C which is actually the temperature of a warm summers day; T-shirt weather in fact. For every degree you turn your thermostat down you should reduce your bills by about 10%. You probably won’t even notice a degree difference in terms of temperature. For some people, who are less mobile or unwell, they may need to keep the temperature higher but for many turning the thermostat down and adding a layer of clothing is possible.

 

Other really simple things include shutting doors. I am the door police in my household, forever asking for doors to be shut! It really makes a difference to the warmth of the room. Draught excluders placed at the bottom of doors help too. Simply make one with old tights, filled with worn out or odd socks (though you could just wear the socks, who cares if they’re odd?). Also, shutting your curtains when it’s dark is another free way to save energy.

 

So, you’ve warmed up yourself, turned down your thermostat and done some simple things to insulate your house and reduce draughts, what about how long to have your heating on? Again, this may vary depending on an individual’s health and mobility. However, if you are active, getting up in the morning and going out to work or out and about it is more energy efficient to heat your home when you need it, i.e. when it is cold rather than to leave it on constantly on a lower setting. So, set it to go on in the morning, before you get up, then make sure it’s off before you leave the house. Then set it to come on in the evening but off at night when you are in bed. Obviously, there may be other times when you need it on, so pop it on to warm the house up if you need to but don’t leave it on constantly. My husband and I both work from home and we follow these ideas but still get cold when doing things like writing this newspaper column! We might put the heating on to take the chill off, say at lunchtime, drink lots of hot cups of tea and get up and do something active between the sedentary tasks sat at a computer.

 

These are just a few simple ideas. However, if they’re not enough and you are struggling to pay your energy bills you may be eligible for financial assistance. The government offers a range of benefits, grants, and schemes to help people pay their energy bills. You can find more information on the GOV.UK website.

 

As I’m writing I can feel my sock and slipper clad feet getting a bit chilly so time to shut the laptop, get up and get a warm snack. Mug of tomato soup anyone?

It was one of those ‘it was meant to be moments’, I was sat in a park for the summer meeting of Mother’s Who Make , talking about a recent online course I’d been doing when, due to that, someone else mentioned how much she thinks I’d like the Write on Changemakers Facebook group. So, once home, I joined the group and the following day a post appeared at the top of my newsfeed about the last remaining place on their retreat. It sounded perfect and I knew, if I wanted to go I’d need to push myself out of my comfort zone and act fast!

 So, I secured my place, got on with the rest of the summer holiday and when September arrived it was time to start thinking about the retreat! Looking at the programme which included: campfires, foraged nettle soup and solo writing on a beach, I knew I’d made a good decision and pushed the thought that I’d have to write whilst there out of my mind!

 I arranged train travel and took the slow route up one side of the Exe estuary and back down the other until I got to the nearby town of Totnes where I had arranged a pick-up. Somebody I didn't know giving me a lift set up the tone for the entire weekend, which was a literal and metaphorical 'picking up' as well as warm, friendly and inclusive. 

 We arrived at Slapton and found our way to meet up with facilitator’s Max and Sophie, hugs aplenty between those who knew each other and those who didn’t before I was shown to my room, a dormitory, just like school residentials, all to myself! I knew I’d need some space and that’s what I had with a choice of bunk beds and no one to look after all weekend. I was happy and nervous all at once! I started making up my bed and laying out a few things, so that this room felt like home, and I could hear noise coming from the corridor, it was the rooms being ‘shaken out’ and I was asked if I wanted this for my room too of which I agreed and, at that point, decided to just go with the weekend and be open to what might happen.

 6pm was our first writing session. What I loved so much was the consent-based approach to this and all parts of the retreat. I could have chosen not to attend the session; I could have attended but not written anything. This was all clearly and explicitly explained and made me think of all the other times when it was the opposite (almost every work and educational setting I’ve ever been in). On reflection, I thought that really, I could have made this choice many times in the past, but I hadn’t, I’d always gone along with what I was asked, usually without much question. This says a lot about our culture, the coercive relationships and the being the ‘good girl’, ‘people- pleaser’ that I had clearly internalised.

Anyway, back to the retreat. The writing provocation was “Who are you and why are you here?”. This seemed like an easy enough, yet still potentially juicy question. So, I returned to my room got out my new notebook, especially for the retreat (new to me, but once belonging to a member of my household, still with their drawing on the cover) and wrote. Just wrote whatever was in my head until there was no more. Then stopped. Had a bit of a rest and joined the others for dinner.

 A shared dinner of mushroom risotto, which happens to be one of my favourites but whatever it was I know I’d feel so grateful to turn up and just eat! No buying of food, preparing of food, laying the table, gathering people; just a plate, knife, fork and glass to wash-up at the end. Bliss!

 I didn’t know most people, so, I sat and chatted to whoever happened to be sat with me at the table. Such fabulous, amazing people brought together through an interest in writing and a desire to make changes in whatever way they were called to. I chatted through dinner and was only just ready for the evening session. A circle around a campfire (if you wanted to attend, of course). We were going to have the opportunity to introduce ourselves, so I ripped out the pages I’d written on in my notebook, put on a warm jumper, coat and a hat and headed out into the dark.