dancing inside

dancing with no desire to be there
dancing with fear creeping in
dancing with my inner child
without trying to get him out
staying with him
however unconfortable
experiencing his terror
frozenness
disabilities
and tremor

dancing with the feet
when they cramp, get stiff
when the toes get blocked
and the ankles tire
staying with them
however uncomfortable
experiencing the tries
misses
and tries

I am grateful

water, water, water

A couple of months ago, on a Sunday afternoon, on the spur of the moment I went to the local (still unknown to me) Spa to look at the time passing by in the jacuzzi, the sauna, at the cafe table with a fruit juice. At least it as the idea...
Instead I ended up in a basement with a badly lit swimming pool and no cafe, no table, no fruit juice. So I swam for a while and wowwwww

the contact of the water on the skin was pure bliss, the small currents created by the movements of my arms or that or another swimmer I was passing by... there was just an immense pleasure at being in the water! THere was also a great surprised as I haven't enjoyed swimming in the last few years...
Then I remembered how much I loved the water as I was younger, whether pool, sea, lake, river, bath, whether cold or warm...
Then I remembered how much I love my morning shower (even if I don't spend as much time as I'd like as I can't get up in the morning...) not so much to wake up but mostly to be under the running water

Then I realised that i was enjoying it on that evening because I hadn't come to do some exercise, to swim for however long in minutes or meters. No, I had come to have a good and relaxing time! It made all the difference in the world!

And so I promised myself I'd go again - not in that same place though. To night, I'm back from the pool where people go to exercise, lots of people after work... I got in the slow lane and it took some constant awareness to get back to feeling the water on my skin, rather than being impatient because the person in front is slower than me. On those moments though I simply loved it - again.

I am pisces and I love water. It is in constant movement, sound... It is alive and it transmits this life to me when I take the time.

I am so grateful that it's found me again!

grandir

parmi les quelques résolutions, celle de grandir - enfin!?!
non par la force des choses
consciemment, motivée et résolue
intellectuellement bien-sûr mais aussi
dans le ressenti, le coeur et le corps
lui que je souhaite respecter et
que je sabote, encore et encore
parce que je refuse de grandir!

2008, année pleine s'il en fut!!
2009, aurai-je juste un peu de temps pour m'ennuyer?

bonne année 2009

qu'elle soit belle, douce, créative et vous aide à avancer sur ce chemin qui est le vôtre!
tous mes voeux pour le neuf!

Revenir sur terre

se trouver dans des situations qui se répètent et
éviter de simplement répéter l'histoire

se heurter à des situations historiques et
éviter de simplement réagir aveuglément

se frotter à des situations aveuglantes et
éviter de simplement y perdre son latin

parce que ça se passe que dans les rêves
parce qu'on a pas les pieds sur terre
parce que quand on retombe ça fait encore plus mal

s'attendre à des situations inexistantes et
éviter d'y laisser des plumes

les efforts à renouveler sans cesse pour
s'interdirent de vendre la peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tué
et rester les pieds sur terre

new new new

whenever I started this blog, tonight it felt very old and on the spur of the moment it just needed to be changed, revamped, like giving it a new layer of paint and a new lease of life. not that I really like this template, but that'll do anyway :)) more colours, more life!!

je me sens vivante

ca vous tombe dessus comme ça, par surprise, sans prévenir, et ça vous assomme!

il y a six ans je me suis trouvée face à une situation tellement douloureuse qu'il m'a fallu trouver une personne compétente qui pourrait m'aider à la traverser. Je ne souhaitais qu'une chose, faire le dos rond, attende que passe l'orage, et continuer ma route comme si de rien n'était. Mais sans pouvoir mettre de mots, je SAVAIS que jouer l'autruche n'était cette fois pas possible. J'ai eu une chance incroyable dans cette histoire, car le premier psychothérapeute que j'ai rencontré a été le bon. Six ans plus tard, je travaille toujours avec lui, deux fois par semaine...

L'objectif, à l'époque, était de sortir de cette situation le plus vite possible et puis d'être heureuse (happy en anglais, le happy de "don't worry, be happy"). Il était clair dans ma tête qu'une thérapie me rendrait "happy". N'est-ce pas ce que tout un chacun désire et recherche à tout prix ?

Avancée rapide....

Il y a quelques semaines, j'ai compris, mon coeur et mon corps ont touché du doigt une vérité, ma vérité : cette thérapie, cette longue psychananalyse ne me rendrait pas "happy"...

Parce que être "happy" n'existe que s'il y a aussi du non "happy" comme la nuit n'existe pas sans le jour, le chaud sans le froid, le féminin sans le masculin, le yin sans le yang, la conscience sans l'inconscient, l'hiver sans l'été...
Parce que "happy" n'est qu'une seule des nombreuses émotions qui vient nous assaillir, nous submerger parfois
Parce que pour être vivant, vraiment vivant, on ne peut simplement oublier toutes les autres
Parce que le but de cette vie humaine n'est pas d'être "happy" mais d'être vrai et que cela est un labeur quotidien, parfois agréable et léger, parfois qu'on préfèrerait éviter...

Malgré tout, aujourd'hui je n'ai d'autre choix que celui de continuer ma nouvelle route - plus exactement, mon choix est de continuer ma nouvelle route ; quand je regarde vers le passé, je n'y retournerais pour rien au monde. Aujourd'hui j'existe et je me sens vivante

new cycle

as from January 7th 2009 I will be a Jungian psycho-analyst trainee with GAPS, the Guild of Analytical Psychology and Spirituality...

The news came after months of preparation, self- investigation, interviews... if I was half expecting it half hoping for it, it nevertheless became a burden as well as a relief and excitment! A few weeks down the line though, the excitment is growing and the work will be there for me to sit down and read and prepare presentations and write essays... wow!

In these last months of preparation for it, I found out how my life has been marked by recurrent 5 year-cycles. Well, I started the process of applying after 5 years in therapy/analysis! a new cycle is definitely starting!

end of year looming

it's been cold in London for the last week or so, and the sun has been magnificent, showing up everyday, nearly all day...

crossing Tower Bridge in the winter morning light, with a conflicting body: chest and arms craving for me to open y coat as they feel overheated and neck and cheeks begging to keep my scarf on as the wind blows freezing on their soft skin...

or walking East on Jamaica Road to catch the tube at Bermondsey (these are the days I'm running late, or simply lazy...) and being greeted by the most beautiful yellow glow on the forest of Canarywharf glass skyscrapers as the sun rises!! That made not only my day but my week!!

a proud full moon bathed the city last night and as I came back home after a dinner out with a friend, I walked straight from the main door to the garden to say thank you and make a female blood offering to "her" spirit!

Something shifted this week, I feel lighter, less weight on my shoulders, brighter spirits - are the low dark clouds that have been with me for.... a very long time starting to dissipate, etiolate? will the space be filled with an anticyclone?

aggressivity

positive or negative
focused or lost
driving forward - or not

i want to get through the seal not around
i need to feel what it's like
to love someone
to hate that same someone
and love them again

i am scared that my anger will
destroy them for ever
so powerful it has become
omnipotent
ever present

yet i need to unleash it
bit by bit safely
i need the someone that i can destroy
and love again

i know just the person but
i can't feel the anger
yet...

shivering...

i've been feeling cold all day
and shivering
my hands under the blanket don't get warm
the slightest body movement brings its lot of tremor spreading from head to toe
there have been so many today that there's like a gentle vibration inside
very pleasant around my heart and all over my tommy

is my body temperature dropping from outside in?
is my body temperature rising from frozen creating ripples, inside out?

does anyone know what shivering might represent symbolically (not medically...) ?

cycles

squeezed between
tears
and
laughs

swinging between
music
and
silence

begging for
no
words

terrified by
new
openings

no more
inscape

out
it
must
be

today
tomorrow or
the
day
after

La fin d'un jour à Chypre

le soleil descend doucement vers l'horizon sans hâte et je quitte la promenade encore chaude sous mes pieds pour venir m'assoir sur un rocher calcaire criblé de trous d'où s'échappe quelques touffes d'une plante inconnue à petites fleurs blanches. J'ai besoin de quelques minutes pour m'installer confortablement. Le bruit du vent se mêle à celui de vagues venant mourir sur ces rochers et ensemble viennent couvrir une vie autrement grouillante de flâneurs restés sur la promenade, de joggeurs profitant des heures moins chaudes pour s'injecter leur dose régulière d'endorphines, de familles venus s'ouvrir l'appétit avant l'heure du dîner... Je suis seule au monde, ou plutôt je suis seule dans mon monde.

La ligne orangée des derniers rayons de soleil se reflétant sur une eau remplie de clapotis me relie à l'horizon, la blancheur des embruns des vagues qui s'écrasent sur les rochers devant moi et la musique de ce rouli régulier a un effet de vase communicant - ma tête se vide de toute pensée et mon coeur s'emplit, grossi. Mon corps en entier est massé et embrassé.

this is where, allegedly, Aphrodite was born! In the Paphos region in Cyprus, out of the foam and sea.... beautiful place, but the water was cold-ish....

I'm back!

well, at least from a well deserved holiday in Cyprus.

What a wonderful place, and what a treat I've given myself!

Challenging on many fronts but wow....

I currently feel that I want to be writing again!!!!!

watch this space as I still don't know what the future holds for me :-)

is this the end of this blog?

I just don't seem to be coming back to this blank page... Most of the time I don't even think about it...

Something's shifted and I don't necessarily feel the urge to share my emotions, feelings and responses to events and situations of my life... What I know is that this writing has helped me tremendously over the last 2 years or so, the comments and the knowing that I had witnesses coming back to reading me. It made my journey more real in some way...

I'm not saying farewell just yet and I might yet be back soon as regularly as before, but somehow I doubt it...

That'll be it for now

am i back? don't know

I really don't know what's going on these days... I haven't been that silent for such a long time ever since I started this blog. Some days I don't even think about it, it doesn't cross my mind!

Some things are happening: I have finished and sent my application for the GAPS training, I am trying to support a friend who's being bullied by someone who should be helping him instead, I've been quite busy with work in the past few weeks, I'm going on holiday for almost 2 weeks this coming wednesday...

I feel a bit like having an elastic band around my waist - trying hard to get somewhere and being pulled sharply back to where I started... but each new venturing out brings new insights into my life... which seems to become less compartmentalised - this is just the very beginning!

Pas très assidue depuis quelques semaines...
Pourtant les jours se succèdent et ne se ressemblent pas...
C'est aujourd'hui le dernier jour du solstice d'été...

De retour hier soir du dernier long weekend faisant partie de la formation d'un an au "shamanic healing", le bilan de cette année (plus exactement 9 mois - encore!!) est riche de découvertes, d'apprentissages, de tentatives, de réussites...

- Apprendre à apprendre pour moi et non pour le "prof"
- Accepter que je suis unique et non spéciale
- Laisser la place à/faire vivre ce serpent kundalini qui se réveille dans le bas du dos
- Quand je danse, je m'honore
- Le shamanisme est (tout au moins à ce jour) un complément extrêmement important à mon développment personnel, mais n'est pas le centre, n'est pas (encore?) mon chemin
- Apprendre à travailler en groupe, faire tomber les masques et savoir être vulnérable

et maintenant il est temps que je me remette à la rédaction des "facteurs psychologiques qui me poussent à vouloir entamer la formation de psychothérapie"... c'est toute une histoire, je n'en finit pas de finir puis de redémarrer... :-)

chat-chat-chat..... chat-chat-chat......

yes, talking, blah blah blah...
serious and deep one minute, shallow and silly the next, and back again... how fantastic!

Learning to be open, expose and put on the table even (above all?) what's uncomfortable but in a a conscious way - not leaking energy by spreading oneself in bits amongst several friends, rather distillate information that one wants to share... It makes such a difference!! Not only there's no leakage of energy but instead space made free in one's life for newness to enter... unbelievable!

from being soooooo turning inward in the last couple of years, i'm opening to the world again, I'm laughing at myself for taking myself so seriously, I feel lighter and at times shallow... and that is a good feeling!!!

And I feel that I want to put my new strengths, center, femininity, discovered sexuality, sensuality to the test of a new relationship... I feel that I want (and am ready?) to be joyful and also hurt and that this won't crush me... only time will tell!

scary...

2 years that I've been filling in this pages with bits and bobs of my life, situations, crises, introspecting, analysing, observing, chasing and playing the detective, trying to discover who I am, why I act the way I do, judging yet trying to be gentle....

nearly a month that I haven't written anything... almost anything... most of time I didn't even think about it. At times I did, I didn't feel like it. No words, no wish to sit down and share, no need to be serious and evaluate where I am, how far I've gone, compare, judge...

My analyst lent me this book Narcissism and Character Transformation: Psychology of Narcissistic Character , by Nathan Schwartz-Salant a few weeks back. Fantastic book, but very complicated. Yet it shifted something inside and the one thing that had struck me is how narcissistic people can not be happy. As if it's just not on!!! It hit me hard. real hard. And yesterday I was having a wonderful chat with my friend A. and she asked me the question "can you be happy?", to which i finally answered yes!!! That brought tears of fear and relief, pride and guilt....

I am learning to be happy, lighter, frivolous, owning the right to be, with the risk that it brings other people to envy me! basically I'm seeing that it is possible to take life not as seriously, have fun, have various types of friends... and lots more!!

I am very grateful to my current and older friends who've put up with me in these last few years where I've been looking for darkness...