Back to work
2 December, 2009
I was not alone as I walked hastily out of the playground. Dropping my second child off for her first day of school was an emotional experience, sort of like ecsatic – except happier. The departing mums, slowed by the narrowing of the school gate, politely squeezing through the chicane – many of us, just a little too eager to get out. I now only have one small child at home.
Distraught mums leave playground.
I feel the world is my oyster, a chance to think, to plan and to start working, albeit from home.
The problem with having three children is the amount of distraction they generate. They re-route synapses in the brain. Thoughts which previously left the brain on superhighways, headed to their destination in micro-seconds, now get diverted onto the back roads of the mind. Once mired in there, they continually take the wrong turns until, either they are lucky enough to happen upon a main route back to memory. Or they just wander around cerebral backwaters until they finally disappear without a trace. This is how I experience it. This is the only way I can understand how I, a mother of three children, had forgotten what having a lone toddler at home was like.
It didn’t take me long to remember. Almost as soon as I’d put my laptop on the kitchen table I remembered just how good toddlers are at climbing. Then I remembered just how much toddlers like buttons and lights. And as I picked up the phone, I remembered just how much toddlers like phones. Finally, I vividly re-experienced just how much toddlers dislike the word “no”. Work, was not working out. I Googled “childcare”.
The cost of nursery for a child under two is £50 a day in my locale. As Income Support is £60.50 a week, nursery might not be the best option. A childminder is cheaper at about £3 an hour, but unfortunately Ofstead’s, ever-exacting, inspectors have reduced the number available considerably. Shifts in Sainsburys has proven less stressful to them than Ofstead’s annual audits. I look for several weeks for a local childminder, but there are no vacancies. The other nail in the coffin of home-based childcare is the government’s introduction of “wrap-around” care. I love that title – like they wrap them up, all snuggly and cosy – as if. “Breakfast clubs” and “After-school clubs” outclass childminders by their convenience and facilities. Such a shame then, that they all shut down for the six week summer break. I meet a lot of parents who are sad about this.
But back to work for me. Eventually I find a way. The brilliant idea is to sell printed umbrellas to hairdressers and eventually maybe even to hotels. Flexible hours and I could do a lot of it from home, on the phone and internet, during kiddie naps and empty evenings – brilliant. It came about when one of my friends left the hairdressers with her new £100 hairdo, and low and behold, it was raining. 
By the time she got home, her £100 hair looked more like something the cat had dragged in. Would she have bought an overpriced umbrella promoting her overpriced salon? You bet. I excitedly take my idea to my Lone Parent Advisor at the job centre.
My Lone Parent Advisor is an expert in unemployment – amazing, considering that she has a job herself. I would have thought that disqualified her immediately. She is always full of new ideas that I would never have otherwise have considered. I see her every six months and each time is pretty revelatory to me. generally what happens is we discuss my current idea about returning to work, then she advises me to stay on benefits. This time is no exception. Sensing my disappointment, she eventually relents a bit and suggests I look for a part-time job in a school office. I had a job as a bursar at Oxford in a previous life, so there is some good logic in her anti-entrepreneurial approach. I respond with a compromise, that I look for a job as a school bursar. She smiles kindly and suggests I work as an assistant to the bursar, but part time. I’m not prepared to go any lower at this stage in the negotiations. I point out that in her scheme I’d be earning £12k a year pro-rata and I’d still be on benefits. In my version, I’d be on at least £22k, and if I add in my child support payments, I could be benefit-free . She shakes her head. With gentle patience she kindly tells me that I’m not going to get off benefits. She also advises me to make sure I work at least 16 hours a week to qualify for help with my childcare. Finally, she reminds me that no one is actually forcing me into work. Did I mention she’s an expert in unemployment?
Undeterred, I go back to the drawing board in my mind. Printed umbrellas are cheap on the internet and it will be hard for me to undercut the online providers. In the meantime, I make an appointment with Business Link to discuss some workshops that I’ve been planning and piloting with a few friends. These are nothing to do with bad hair days, they are bad birth-days. For a long time I’ve wanted to provide help for women who have had distressing births. I had one myself. When I was a student midwife, I saw a lot of women in the same situation I’d been in and there was no support or help getting over it. I decide to pursue this idea and I come off Income Support and change to self employed. What I realize is, that if you are setting up a business, you are not necessarily expected to make any money for the first year. That’s normal and that’s normally the hardest thing about a new business, surviving the first year. So I continue to receive pretty much the same level of benefits as before, except it comes from Tax Credits rather than Income Support. This also means I am able to claim back 80% of my childcare. I put my youngest child in the best nursery in the area and get to work. The older children are overjoyed, it is the end of their free school dinners, they celebrate a return to sandwiches and break-aways.
My business link adviser is brilliant. He’s intelligent and enthusiastic and helpful. He is very positive and interested. We go over the business plan I’ve filled in and we stop at the financial pages, they are empty. He asks me how long I can fund myself and the business with my current resources. I look at him – he hasn’t got it. I tell him I’m on benefits so there isn’t a problem, I’m fully supported. He is amazed, and says, “That’s brilliant”. At last, someone understands me. He looks over my plan again and we talk about grants and funding. “You have four employees?” he asks. I shift uncomfortably in my chair – they are employees in a casual sense of the word. “You see, if you had five employees, even casual ones, you’d be eligible for a Train to Gain grant of £500. You can use it for educational courses of Level 4 or above”. I pick up my mobile and hire someone, he makes the referral. I find a one year Diploma as a Hypnotherapist, I will have a therapy qualification to support the workshops. Theoretically, I will be able to take referrals on the NHS and even better, it’s flexible so I can do it around the children. Three weeks later I am in a comfortable bright room in Birmingham telling the woman next to me to “Relaaax and stare at a spot on the ceiling” . Train to Gain paid for more than half of the course and my Lone Parent Advisor pulled out all the stops to help me when I decided I was leaving Income Support. She helped me apply for a Return to Work Grant, which adds an extra £40 a week to my income. This pays for the additional travel and books I need.
Here and now, I’m a qualified hypnotherapist and I love it. I work part time in Witney at the “Anderson Clinic”. My clients give me warm praise and I meet lovely people. I’m not totally free from benefits yet, but I’m on my way. In the new year I’ll be starting hypnobirthing workshops and workshops for women with distressing childbirths. It’s an exciting time and I can see a future – free from benefits ahead of us. It might take a while, but as a family, we are happily on our way.
http://www.andersonclinic.co.uk
Day trip to Bognor
30 November, 2009
On Saturday I went to Bognor Regis for the day. Last time I’d been that way I’d followed Ben’s car. Ben was following his satnav and no one got lost. Anyway, it was completely different this time. I did eventually find Bognor. (Just incase you’re looking for it – go straight down England to Southampton and then turn left and make your way across the city, as best you can. Continue for another 20 miles on winding back roads). Alternatively just stay on the M27 and follow the massive signs.
Now I’ve never been to Bognor before and as a kid I had a fascination with the name because it had the word “bog” in it. At my catholic junior school, using the term “bog” for the loo, was basically as sinful as questioning things like armaggedon. Sort of like, “Er Sister Emmanuel, how can a fallen angel like satan really challenge god’s position as creator? And can I go to the bog please Sister ?”. (Nun goes ballistic in response). Letter home about my appalling use of language, (no mention of their appalling misuse of philosophy). Junior school wasn’t the highlight of my educational career. In fact neither was grammar school, or university. Er, lets move on.
My mother reliably informed me, during those toilet obsessed years, that Bognor was a upmarket seaside resort. I’ve often referred to it as such when I’ve met people from Bognor, and of course they’ve always agreed. In fact they’ve readily agreed – I now know why. There is a theme that runs through my Mother’s general knowledge which I will call “out of date”. So, normally I could expect her to be, say, between five and forty years out of date which I can accommodate fairly well. It just depends on what you ask her. So, for example if I say, “do you know where I can go for coffee in Cheltenham?” She will suggest a cafe that shut down five years ago. But that’s only because she lives in Cheltenham and regularly goes into town and keeps fairly well informed about such things. But the conversation can easily go like this;
“Mum, I don’t know where to meet Sophie (made up posh friend) for coffee in London?”
Mum: “Well, the Lyons tea-house on Oxford Street is always very nice”
Lyons
Then I’d reply; “You mean HMV?”
Mum, “Oh, has it shut down now?”
Me; “Yes, they just closed it in 1971”
Mum; “What a shame”
Hotham
I’m used to these informal history lessons and I”ve made the most of them over the years. It saved me revising for my history O-level and I even passed (the resit). But every now and then she throws a truly spectacular one in. Bognor is a classic example. She knows it’s an upmarket seaside town, because once, when she was a young child in school, she read a very old book which told her all about Bognor Regis and its development. So the “book” she was reading could have also been called a collection of parchment leaves loosely bound to form a rudimentary precursor to what we now term “book”. At the time her parchment manuscript was scrawled, Bognor was probably an exciting new build, full of new money. History actually confirms this to be true. So top marks there mum. Bognor was apparently a purpose built resort, developed during the 1780s mostly by an East India Company trader, Lord Hotham. He needed somewhere to retire to and found that Bognor had the perfect soil for brick making. So he got all excited and built Bognor Regis to compete with Brighton. Guess what? It didn’t.
So, thanks for knowing your stuff about Bognor mum. Shame, you got the wrong century, but hey, no-one’s perfect. Just in case you want an update - these days, out of season, Bognor is a shabby place with cheap shops and is still no competition for Brighton. But its saving grace is that Dan Jones lives thereabouts, and he’s a skilled hypnotherapist., who is well worth a visit.
http://discoverdanjones.co.uk
Spectacular Bognor Regis
I hit my toddler
22 November, 2009
I hit my toddler, Asha. I hit him again, over and over. I can’t stop. Time opens like a wide cave and we fall, between dark seconds. There is no here, no now, only Asha and the beat of my hand on his back. I look down at his now burgandy face, he looks straight ahead, eyes wide, no sound. Someone shouts for me to turn him upside-down, but I don’t listen. A distant voice says “Do you want a first aider, do you want a first aider?”. It’s the check out girl – full of initiative. I ignore her. An urgent terrifying thought comes to my mind, I throw it out and hit his back again. Something moves in his mouth and he gently throws up into my welcoming hands, he breathes. I breathe.
Check out girl stares at me and I ask her for a tissue. She kindly offers me two of their cheapest tissues and then as an afterthought, a jay cloth. I wipe my slimy hands into a jay-ball of sick, then I hand it confidently back to her. The woman next to me looks away from me in disgust. It’s not the jay-ball, I think it’s to do with my holding up the queue.
Inside I am shaking. I am cracking into a thousand tiny pieces of relief. Calmly I reach for my card, as if nothing has happened and slot it into the machine. Check-out girl says “I’ve never seen a kid do that before?”, She is too shocked to ask if I have a points card. No one else speaks to me, no one asks if he’s ok, I wheel Asha away and we cling gladly to each other. To celebrate his survival we split a chocolate 
Ripple at the fag counter and leave the supermarket. The sun is shining and the world looks good to me. I smile at everyone I pass, and they smile back. Strangely normal in Witney, but that’s they way of small market towns, they are still very local places. And that’s the strangest thing about what happened. No one said anything to us. If Asha falls on the footpath, people stop and see if he’s OK. If he’s feeding the ducks, people pass and smile, and say “hello”. When he played at the check out, people were smiling and watching him. Pointing when he hid from my sight, telling me he was right there – just a few seconds before it happened. But no one spoke to us. I struggle to understand it.
Is this the world I’ve heard about on the news? That world where no one cares about anyone else? The one where people walk the other way, rather than help someone in distress? Am I out of touch with reality? I stopped watching the news a while back, because I objected to it being just so negative. Good things do also happen everyday, but they don’t make dramatic headlines, they dont stike the beats of Big Ben in quite the same way. If the news was renamed, “All the bad things that happened in the world today”, people would think twice about tuning in at the end of a long day.
As we walk across the meadow, safely hand in hand, thoughts come to me. Someone did call out, “turn that kid upside-down”, but I ignored them. The check-out girl did want to get a first aider, but I ignored her. Perhaps people really did want to help. I only looked at the woman next to me, frosty for sure, but I didn’t look down the queues at the others. I paid and left. What if they had wanted to say something to us? Maybe, they were concerned at the little boy choking infront of them? The one they’d just been watching and smiling at. But we, The English, are not good with sticky situations outside our preset social boundaries. We are not easy with the warm words and actions of other cultures. I too played my great british role of “good in a crisis”, to perfection. The irony of it dawns on me, that it was me, who did not look up to meet their concerned eyes. I didn’t let their kindness in.
Those Endless Days
6 November, 2009
I am having one of those days. One of those days when you are just happy to be alive, and grateful for everything in this life. A day when the universe said “I’m looking after you honey”. The sun is shining, warm on my face it is a beautiful day. I glide effortlessly through a spectrum of autumnal colour. I drift off for a few moments of much needed rest, in warmth and comfort. Everything in here is still, everything out there is frantic. I am in the “Now” as Eckhart Tolle would say. Sami, the wonder kid, has arranged this day for me and I haven’t even thanked him. In fact I was on irritation autopilot as I left the house. But now, on reflection, there are so many people I have to be grateful to, because without them I wouldn’t have appreciated these peaceful moments so much. I am having a day off and it is exactly what I need on the first Monday of half term. So, without further delay, I would like to say “thank you” to a few of the supporting cast that made this possible.
The very first “thank you” must go to Mr. Ex. for refusing to have the kids one hour earlier than normal, so that I could make it to the theatre in London. I should also thank him for his three phone calls at 1.30am as he tried to clarify this with me – sorry I didn’t pick up, but it wasn’t a great time for me. I did find an unsuspecting grandmother in London to have the kids (borrowed her from a friend). It was very good of her, especially as she didn’t know we were coming. The theatre was wonderful, Bellydance Superstars at the Bloomsbury. The kids have loved our weekend away – although ironically, my idea had been a break from them, rather than with them. Anyway, we got out and about and managed to do both the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum on the same day – we got there really early.
Which leads nicely into my second “thank you”. This goes to Mr. George Hudson, an entomologist (bug collector) living in New Zealand who died in 1946. 
It was Mr. Hudson’s brilliant idea to change the clocks twice a year. This was so that he could have more time to collect bugs in daylight. Strangely, I can think of a much simpler solutions to this problem. That Mr Hudson could have got up just a bit earlier and stay out just a little bit later doing his bug-thang. But somehow, changing the time in half the world made far better sense to him. He also thought it was a shame how much daylight was wasted by people sleeping. Well, Mr. Hudson, I really hope that reincarnation exists and that you were one of the parents queuing with me, outside the Natural History Museum last Sunday morning. All of us wishing we had stayed in bed that extra hour, instead of lining up outside a closed door. Or perhaps Mr. Hudson, you might be one of the circus performers we saw last Spring – wondering why we trooped in so rudely, halfway through your show. Anyway, it’s not Hudson’s fault. I think if the clocks are going to change twice a year, then we should be properly informed. They should announce it from loudspeakers on the top of a car. There should be government texts sent out to us all. One thing is for sure, we should never find ourselves on a tube train at 8.30am with four young children, when we could be in bed.
My third “thank you” goes to the wonderful AA man who opened my car for me, in a record 30 seconds, when we got back that night. The record is strictly for AA/RAC men who open my cars, not joy riders etc. Just in case you’re interested, the worst attempt was an RAC man who took 35 minutes to open a Volvo that had my keys in the ignition. How dumb was he? The year I had Asha, I used all of my available RAC call-outs on locking my keys, or baby, in the car. Then I had to leave and join the AA. Anyway, Mr AA Man, it was just a tiny bit, well, patronising of you to show me how to lock it, without the keys, by pressing the button. Shame then, that I hadn’t got my stuff out of the car and you had to open it up again. Even though it took you 20 minutes the second time, I’m still going to count your first attempt as my current record. Thanks AA man.
A very special “thank you” to Sami, my first born. Top marks for your brilliant attempt to keep my car keys safe in your hoodie as we crossed London. I had absolutely no idea that you would attempt something so resourceful. Yes, your failure (and I specifically choose that word) was disappointing for both of us. But hopefully I will be able to find the spares when I get back to Oxfordshire. I know they are in the house somewhere, I think I saw them about six months ago.
Thanks now to our wonderful railway network, which can get me back near home in less than an hour. Also for the innovations in online ticket purchasing. I discovered you can even buy tickets for trains which are canceled. In fact, I have one in my purse right now. Amazing, I bet you couldn’t do that in the olden days.
Lastly, my sincere thanks to the wonderful Oxford Tube coach service. Next time I will definitely buy the ticket which was £7 cheaper than the one you sold me. Thanks for telling me about it as you passed me my change. And lastly a massive thank you to the mechanic who is working on the engine right now at the back of the coach on the side of the M40.
But the truth of the matter is, that this wonderful day-off is a choice. It is a choice whether to focus on the pain and disharmony of life – it’s always going to be there. Or whether to take a different view of what’s happneing to us. Which lens we look through, the short sighted one, or the one that gives us a bigger picture. The warmth and silence that this opportunity has provided me with, is exactly what I needed today. I need a rest before half term takes a hold of my time and energy. I’m going to make the most of the beautiful scenery and the chance to catch a nap in a comfy seat. Right here, right now, nothing is wrong and I can choose to find everything perfectly right with life, if I want to. And just for today, I do.
“Thank you for the days, those endless days, those sacred days you gave me”
Resentments
3 November, 2009
He walks away. My children hand in hand with him, my baby in my sling but now wrapped around his waist. Not even a “bye”, I sit in the now empty car, the invisible woman. Anger rises inside me, my mind races, hurting itself with the shrapnel wounds of pains now past. Rage boils at all that I have been through. He walks away, oblivious. With our happy children beside him, excited at his Sunday company. I need to do something to calm down.
The Doctor is running an hour late. I read “Hello” magazine in the waiting room, feeling fatter and poorer than when I arrived. There’s a book called “I can mend your broken heart” by Paul McKenna in a box on the floor. 
It’s in the secondhand pile, which means he’ll mend it for nominal fee, it seems like a reasonable deal. I throw my lefty principles aside and invest 50p in private healthcare.
Dr Late asks me how I’m feeling – “Totally fine, except for odd outbursts of overwhelming anger and resentment”. I don’t mention how the Hello magazine has just destroyed the last of my self-esteem – now is not the time to criticize the NHS. I explain that everyone else has recovered and moved on from the break up. The children are much happier now Mr. Ex is finally having them one night a week. But I find myself looking back over the pregnancy wondering why Mr. Ex made it so hard. I feel angry. I want to be Mrs. Cool. I want the moral high ground, the dignified position. But I’m struggling to hold it together. I ask for counseling on the NHS. Dr. Late is a kind gentleman who listens when his patients talk, he thinks about his patients’ needs. He gives everyone the time it takes to hear them out, hence he is called “Dr. Late”. He probably hasn’t had a lunch hour in 30 years. He writes me a letter of referral, by hand, with an ink pen. Then he tells me that there is only a slim chance I’ll actually get any help, but he’ll give it his best shot.
The days roll on and nothing much changes, except I clean the car out and find Paul McKenna under some crisp packets. His nose is now a yellow boiled lolly, licked to stick and dusted with dirt. I settle down in the driver’s seat for my first appointment. I do as he instructs and read the book in one go. The exercise for resentment is simple – so simple in fact that it’s a bit of a joke, here it is. When I feel resentful, I have to freeze the image, put it on an imaginary TV screen and turn up the whiteness until the picture disappears. That’s it – well at least I only paid 50p. Private medicine is obviously not all it’s cracked up to be. I decide not to use the CD – it’s in brand new condition. If I don’t scratch it, I’ll get more for it on ebay, the lolly has left him in dire need of a nose-job though.
The next time I see Mr. Ex he is in newly aquired smart casual attire for his newly aquired job. I am in something from ebay customized with custard and ketchup. He leaves the 
house but stays with me. He’s in my mind, and I feel the irritation, the anger the resentment. The jealousy – he is so free and I am so trapped. I stop it there, time to call in McKenna. I freeze the thought and hold the image of him in my angry mind’s eye. Slowly I turn up the whiteness and I blast him out of my inner vision. I blast him with brilliant white light and add some sparkles to it and keep it going until there is not trace of him. But there is no epiphany, I get on with my day as if nothing has happened.
But something has happened. Something different has been going on and I haven’t even been aware of it. It’s not until the evening that I notice it. I haven’t given Mr. Ex. a single thought for the entire day. I have thought nothing about him whatsoever. I have completely forgotten to feel resentful of him. I have forgotten to feel hard done by. I am amazed, I can’t believe it’s actually worked. I am shocked. I search for the resentment in my head and I find it, but it is dormant, no longer charging round my mind kicking off. I leave it resting and creep away.
It happens again the next time I see him. I blast his irritating image from my mind and forget all about it until hours later. Same magical result as before. It’s happened twice and I am speechless (almost). But then the time after that when I see him, it is different again. I dont blast him with light this time. I dont need to because I don’t feel resentful anymore. It’s stopped, it’s over, it’s gone. grateful am I to have my peace again. I cannot believe that it has happened so simply. My best friend or worst enemy mind, I am glad to have it back on my side. As I think about the changes, I have realizations about the break up, and these help me to take more responsibility for what happened. I suspect these have been triggered by Mr. McKenna. I have searched my mind for them in the past, but not been able to find the answers, now they are clear to me. I am less of a victim, I understand what I got out of marrying Mr. Ex and why it didn’t work. The results are so amazing that I take McKenna’s book off ebay.
About three months later, I get a phone,call out of the blue. It’s Mrs Psychotherapist from the NHS calling to assess me for her “list”. My referral has finally come through, and she wants to find out just how nuts I am so she can decide how long I can wait to get her help. Obviously she says it a lot nicer than that on the phone. I tell her that I think I’m OK, I get a slightly patronising, “Really?”, in response. It’s the voice of someone who doesn’t want to rain on my parade, but who also clearly doesn’t believe that I am able to get well without a lot of intervention. I tell her about the whitening-out exercise and how well it worked. She is listening, she is curious. I share with her my realization about the marriage; I explain how I got to an age when I wanted a baby, so I looked around and found a really nice baby and married him. How I loved that baby. I bought him nice clothes and cooked him nice meals. I sent him to the best college. But as that baby grew up, he became a teenager and got very difficult. Then he started hanging out with the bad boys in the local pub, and coming home late. He started arguments and picked fights and didn’t want to go out with me anymore, he’d rather be with his friends. Finally, he took some money from my purse and left home blaming all of his problems on me.
There is a pause at the other end of the line. I wait for the verdict on my mental health. She calmly says that she is taking me off her list. That in her professional opinion I don’t need psychotherapy. Then she asks for the name of the book, because she wants to write it down.
And as she wrote, she said to me, “I wish I could get results like that with my clients”.
Dr Late asks me how I’m feeling – “Totally fine, except for odd outbursts of overwhelming anger and resentment”. I don’t mention how the Hello magazine has just destroyed the last of my self-esteem – now is not the time to criticize the NHS. I explain that everyone else has recovered and moved on from the break up. The children are much happier now Mr. Ex is finally having them one night a week. But I find myself looking back over the pregnancy wondering why Mr. Ex made it so hard. I feel angry. I want to be Mrs. Cool. I want the moral high ground, the dignified position. But I’m struggling to hold it together. I ask for counseling on the NHS. Dr. Late is a kind gentleman who listens when his patients talk, who thinks about his patients’ needs. He gives everyone the time it takes to hear them out, hence he is called “Dr. Late”. He probably hasn’t had a lunch hour in 30 years. He writes me a letter of referral, by hand, with an ink pen. Then he tells me that there is only a slim chance I’ll actually get any help, but he’ll give it his best shot.
The days roll on and nothing much changes, except I clean the car out and find Paul McKenna under some crisp packets. His nose is now a yellow boiled lolly, licked to stick and dusted with dirt. I settle down in the driver’s seat for my first appointment. I do as he instructs and read the book in one go. The exercise for resentment is simple – so simple in fact that it’s a bit of a joke, here it is. When I feel resentful, I have to freeze the image, put it on an imaginary TV screen and turn up the whiteness until the picture disappears. That’s it – well at least I only paid 50p. Private medicine is obviously not all it’s cracked up to be.
The next time I see Mr. Ex he is in one of his new outfits for the office, I am in something customized with custard and ketchup. He leaves the house but stays with me. He’s in my mind, and I feel the irritation, the anger the resentment. The jealousy – he is so free. I am so trapped. I stop it there, time to call McKenna. I freeze the thought and hold the image of him in my angry mind’s eye. Slowly I turn up the whiteness and I blast him out of my inner vision. I blast him with brilliant white light and add some sparkles to it and keep it going until there is not trace of him. But there is no epiphany, nothing else happens, I get on with my day. That evening I a thought crosses my mind. I reflect on what’s happened. I haven’t given Mr. Ex. a single thought for the entire day. I have completely forgotten to feel resentful of him. I am amazed, I can’t believe it’s actually worked. I am shocked. I search for the resentment in my mind and I find it, but it is dormant, not alive and kicking me. I leave it resting and creep away.
It happens again the next time I see him. I blast his irritating image from my mind and forget all about it until hours later. I dont even remember I’ve done the exercise for hours. Then the time after that I dont need to blast him with light. Because I don’t feel resentful anymore. It’s stopped, it’s over, it’s gone. I am amazed and grateful. I have my mind back, I have my peace. I cannot believe that it has happened so simply. As they say, the mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I am so glad to have mine back on my side. As I think about the change, I have realizations about the break up that help me to take more responsibility for what happened. I suspect these have been triggered by Mr. McKenna. I have searched for this in the past, but not been able to find the answers, now it is clear to me. I am less of a victim, I understand what I got out of marrying Mr. Ex and why it didn’t work. I resolve not to sell McKenna’s book on Ebay.
About three months later, I get a phone,call out of the blue. It’s Mrs Psychotherapist from the NHS calling to assess me for her “list”. My referral has finally come through and she wants to find out just how nuts I am so she can decide how long I can wait to get her help. Obviously she says it a lot nicer than that on the phone. I tell her that I think I’m OK, I get a slightly patronising, “Really?”, back from her. It’s the voice of someone who doesn’t want to rain on my parade, but clearly doesn’t believe that I am able to get well without a lot of intervention. I tell her about the whitening-out exercise and how well it worked. She is amazed. I share with her my realization about the marriage; I explain how I got to an age when I wanted a baby, so I looked around and found a really nice baby and married him. How I loved that baby. I bought him nice clothes and cooked him nice meals. I sent him to the best college. But as that baby grew up, he became a teenager and got very difficult. Then he started hanging out with the bad boys in the local pub, and coming home late. He started arguments and picked fights and didn’t want to go out with me anymore, he’d rather be with his friends. Finally, he took some money from my purse and left home blaming all of his problems on me.
Mrs. Psychotherapist, crosses me off her list. In her professional opinion I don’t need psychotherapy. Then she asks for the name of the book, writing it down she says, “I wish I could get results like that with my clients”.
