It’s been a strange Christmas so far. And its not here yet.
My Dearest OH has said over the past few months that I’ve changed, but that I’m trying to fight against it. My rather flippant retort to that was (internally anyway) of course I’ve changed, I’m now a mum to two…
But something has happened I notice with the arrival of the Littlest Little One. I find that although I may have tinges here and there of PNA (Post Natal Anxiety) at times, on a baseline with the arrival of the littlest one something else was returned to me. I’m not sure I can explain it properly, but a part of me was returned that I didn’t know had gone.
In years past, there was no christmas like my own christmas. There wouldn’t quite be the christmas ornaments that are sold on QVC every July, but there were certain things that would be out every year, and made whichever house I was in “Christmassed”. It wasn’t just things – but the feeling in the house too. The spirit. (Not from a bottle…)
That’s one of the things I realise was lost. That bit of me that made christmas. I think the clue to that returning was buying the littlest little one a jumper back in October. Yes – a christmas jumper. “Elf in Training”!
The tree went up. The green bough’s went up. In different places. This year christmas invaded the kitchen.
I found my thoughts drifting the other day to a house I once knew. It could have been an amazing home. It had potential. It was quite frankly a really good christmassy house. And I realise that I’d been avoiding this place. Avoiding thinking about it, how it was, how it was left.
And I started to let myself think again about it. It didn’t hurt. I walked in through the front door, to the place I knew and felt home. I walked through its rooms, seeing sunlight at play on windows and floors. Remembered how it felt. Remembered the view from each window. Remembered the kitchen, and view outside.
I looked at the family I have now, and imagined them in that house. Running through the rooms, playing, laughing, shouting, stropping and just living.
One key aspect of any change work undertaken is setting achievable goals. Making sure you’ve done a good outcome direction exercise and that what you want is truly what you desire to happen. One of the key things to look out for in someone you’re working with is to watch for “time travel”. “If only I could go back and…..” “I want to get my body back…” “I want to get back into my jeans”. In such cases you point the client to a “forward” point in time. Whilst “going back” is perfectly do-able in ones own mind, it’s very difficult to physically do so – yet.
But that wasn’t the outcome intended. I do not want to “go back” to living in that time or that house. That’s not to say I wouldn’t be very tempted should it ever come back up for sale again, but no.
With me as I am now, wandering through the house i knew then – I realised that even in that house back then I had lost a big part of me. And the even more lost me now, wandering through imagining my family now there, has somehow let me see the jigsaw picture of what was missing. And something has integrated back into place.
Quantum Therapy at its finest. Love it!