Morning Pages: The Journey of Self-Recovery

Posted on November 18, 2023 by Louise Gallagher

In March 2007, I embarked on a journey as a blogger, committing to daily writing, seven days a week. This discipline persisted for about five years until life’s complexities – work, responsibilities, and the inevitable “busyness” – prompted me to reassess. Gradually, my posts became less frequent, transitioning from a Monday-to-Friday routine to a more sporadic ‘when inspiration strikes’ schedule.

However, in recently having retired from the workplace, I’ve realized the importance of consistency and discipline, not just in writing but in life. Since stepping away from formal employment, I’ve missed the structure of having to turn up, pay attention and be accountable, not just to myself but to others. For me, ‘a job’ fosters focus and self-discipline in my life. This realization was driven home during my recent solo writer’s retreat in Ireland, where I successfully reintroduced a structured routine into my life. Since returning, I have not touched the project I began on that retreat. It’s become clear: it’s time to embrace this structure once again.

Now, in my defence, amidst the horrific natural and man-made devastation, violence and wars unfolding around the globe, my sister’s health struggles have been a profound emotional journey. She remains in ICU, still in a deep sleep following major surgery over a week ago. My daily visits, standing by her bedside, sharing messages of love and support, have been emotionally draining. This exhaustion has clouded my thoughts, dampening my drive and creativity.

I’ve come to accept that I cannot alter my sister’s path. My role is to hold space for the best for her while continuing to live and create meaningfully in my own life. In this period of emotional turmoil, I confess to succumbing to self-pity. This isn’t self-reproach but a candid acknowledgment, a form of ‘tough loving-kindness’ to break free from the despair and worry engulfing me.

Which is why, in the darkness of an unseasonably warm November morning, I have chosen to mark this day as my turning point. It is time to reconnect to the practices I know create better in my world.

To begin, this morning I revisited a long-abandoned practice: my morning pages, inspired by “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. This practice of free-hand writing three pages daily was once a cornerstone of my creativity, which I had set aside when I began blogging. Today, as part of my recovery process to embrace peace, calm, balance and love in my daily living, I recommit to this and other nurturing practices.

What about you? What practices have you abandoned that once lifted and supported you? Where in your life is there a need to reconnect and recommit to self-care and activities that bring you joy and strength?

What if we embark on this journey of rediscovery and renewal together?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below. Your words inspire me and open gateways for us to create better in the world, together.

Namaste

Embracing Resilience in the Midst of Uncertainty

Posted on November 14, 2023 by Louise Gallagher

Recently, I’ve felt disoriented and unfocused, a state spurred by my eldest sister’s critical condition in intensive care. It was a challenging period, filled with uncertainty and worry.

However, as the skies cleared this morning, so did my mind. Although my sister remains in the ICU, still reliant on life support, there are glimmers of hope. Each day brings small improvements, a testament to her resilience, and I find solace in each small sign of her recovery.

In moments like these, I’m reminded of John Lennon’s poignant words, ‘Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.’ Indeed, life’s unpredictability often disrupts our carefully laid plans. But, as Saint Benedict wisely advised, the key is to ‘Begin Again.’

Embracing this philosophy, I’m moving forward, starting with updates for those who inquired about my calendars. They’re now available for shipping. You can order through PayPal HERE or, for eTransfer orders, please send me an email specifying the quantity, and I’ll forward an e-invoice. Thank you for your support!

Returning to ‘regular programming’, I had an interesting conversation during my morning walk in the park. A fellow dog-walker commented on how well I wear my age. It sparked a thought about age and aging and what each age looks like. Firstly, I honestly don’t know what 70 ‘should’ look like. The second is: Is there a ‘right’ way to age? Can we age ‘wrong’?

The fact is, age is not like going out to by a new pair of shoes which, if they don’t fit, you try another size. Age is simply a measure of our time on this planet, nothing more, nothing less.

What truly matters is how we infuse our moments with life and love. Each word, deed, and thought should reflect this. At any age, living life fully means embracing self-love and kindness. This self-love creates ripples of positivity, impacting the world around us.

So, here’s a loving thought I hope you carry forward into your day today — No matter what life brings, cherish and celebrate every moment. Every moment is an opportunity to begin again, to love yourself fully, to appreciate the road before you, with its many bumps and twists and turns, its darkness, shadows and light, and, to embrace each day, each step, each moment, with love, joy and gratitude.

Namaste

How to reach the stars.

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

On Friday’s post, a commenter mentioned how wanting something too much affects their balance.

I share that feeling.

Except for me, it isn’t so much about balance as it is about fear. I have long known that I have difficulties with ‘trust’. The biggest piece being ‘trusting the universe’ It’s as if within me is this critter voice hissing “don’t tell the world your dreams or even put them down on paper and whatever you do, don’t wish for something too hard! The universe will do its best to push you down if you do.”

I didn’t say it was rational. It just is what it is.

The trick is to be conscious of its irrational and non-supportive nature. In my awareness, I breathe through the fear of being pummeled by the universe so that I am free to do what needs to be done to create a world of beauty, joy, love and laughter all around me.

Again, not trusting the universe ain’t rational. It is a learned behavioral response/thought that does not serve me well. Its genesis is buried deep in my psyche, formed when I was a child trying to cope with a world I did not understand, and a religious upbringing that had me fearing ‘god’ as an angry deity seeking to smoke and destroy those who disobeyed him.

Which is why I write about it.

In writing about it I get to see it, acknowledge it and laugh about it.

I mean, seriously? I think I’m so important to the universe that my wanting to reach the stars of my own dreams would cause it to direct the furies against me?

LOL — I am not that important nor powerful for the universe to change course.

What is important is that I play the leading character at centre stage of my own life – something I’ve struggled with for eons!

This is why it’s so important for me to care deeply about my limiting beliefs that have the capacity to keep me playing small in my own life.

None of us can afford to play small in our own lives.

The universe is going to keep doing what it does to keep the planets in orbit. We each need to do whatever we can to keep our lives growing and evolving and becoming our own special version of life on planet earth.

We need to play as large and loud and joyously as we can. We need to reach for the stars within our own dreams. Topple mountains standing in our way and soar above petty fears seeking to keep us playing safe in mediocrity.

To reach the stars of our own dreams, we must let go of the fears that keep us stuck in believing we don’t deserve to shine bright.

To let go of the fears, we must give ourselves permission to acknowledge our fears and breathe through them.

To breathe through our fears, we must be willing to both laugh at ourselves and be our own biggest cheerleaders.

And, to shine bright, we must never stop believing in ourselves, our dreams, and our right to reach for the stars, no matter our age!

The Story of Love

Posted on February 13, 2021 by Louise Gallagher

I lay in bed this morning, in that space between drifting and awake, my mind rootless, unfocussed.

Images floated through like the chunks of ice that keep floating past on the river’s surface, eventually drifting out of sight, disappearing into an unseen future, perhaps melting or getting stuck in an ice block somewhere upriver.

Like my thoughts. Drifting aimlessly until one comes into view and gets stuck in mental gymnastics.

“You can never begin at the beginning again.”

My mind jumped into alertness. “Of course you can,” it insisted.

The thought had other ideas. “Every beginning drifts into the ending becoming a new beginning. The beginning is gone, changed, morphed into something else. To begin at the beginning again, you must wind back all of time, all of what has transpired between the beginning and the moment you decide to begin again. And you cannot wind back time to make everything exactly as it was when you began. You have changed. The air around you has changed. Life has changed. That’s what life does.”

Seriously? Sometimes the thoughts in my mind are a bit too heady for my heart.

At that moment, Beaumont the Sheepadoodle decided he needed to go out and came and stuck his wet nose in my face.

I got up and left the heady thoughts on my pillow.

At least, that’s what I imagined I did.

Until I sat down at my computer and started to type and the thoughts from when I first began to awaken came hurtling back into my mind.

I can’t quite grasp them the way they appeared earlier. I tried. To go back to the beginning of the thought. But time, and awakening, going outside into the cold winter air while the sky was still dark and the air was filled with sounds of the river passing by changed the beginning, making it impossible to rewind my thinking back to the precise space where the thoughts began.

It’s a grey on grey kind of morning. Dark river flowing between white earth. Withered trunks of winter bare trees standing against a bleak tone-on-tone landscape, their leafless limbs extended up into a bleached sky. The delicate fronds of their outer limbs interlace with one another like the filigree of a necklace my mother gave me long ago. It was from India. A gold slipper of exquisitely interwoven strands of gold.

I no longer have that slipper. It was lost to a time when my world crashed into chaos I feared would never end.

The chaos ended but I could never go back to the beginning to unwind the devastation and pain of those years of terror and abuse.

I could only go forward, gently weaving the many strands of that story into The Story of My Life – one where I live fearlessly and authentically in the beauty of my heart beating fiercely in Love with all of me, my life and everyone and everything in it.

Yesterday, I saw a meme on Instagram that asked, “What’s one thing from your past you wish you’d never done?”

My answer is, ‘Nothing.’

I can’t change the things I’ve done. Nor do I want to. Everything in my life has served its purpose of bringing me here, to this place. I am not powerful enouh to unwind time back to a given point where I can weave a different story of my life. This story. This one I live today was created through all the strands, all the darkness and light, the pain and joy, the hardship and ease I’ve experienced.

I love the story of my life today. It’s the only one I’ve got. It is a story of Love.

And so, I do what I can do, must do, to keep Love flowing freely throughout my world and my being present, in this moment right now, connected through and in Love with all the world around and within me. I weave beauty out of what was and what is, letting Love be the warp and weave of all I create, all I do, all I am.

Namaste.

About the Zine - Created with one sheet of 9 x 12 mixed media paper, the backgrounds were monoprinted with acrylic paint. I used acrylic inks and gold pen along with gold foil to create the hearts.
The story grew out of the paintings.
The video was a 'just for fun' way to stretch my creative muscles.

The best laid plans…

Posted on June 14, 2017 by Louise Gallagher

I had a great plan.

Get back into the studio in the evenings. (I haven’t been in the studio throwing paint for a few weeks now. Busy-ness. New Job. Several events. Summer-like evenings and all that jazz kept getting in my way.)
Wake up earlier (5am) to be able to meditate half an hour every morning followed by half an hour of yoga.
Go to bed earlier. Lights out by 10:30.
Check my diet. Ensure it is laden with nutrients and healthy foods.
Walk an hour a day.

And, like many best laid plans, life got in the way.

Well, a cold actually.

I have managed to fulfill on Step 3 — Go to bed earlier. Sleep is about all that has been calling to me this past week and weekend. Sleep and more sleep. In fact, Saturday, which was a perfect summer day in the studio because of the rain, I did not get out of bed all day.

That’s the thing about ‘plans’.

You gotta be flexible. Adaptable. Kind.

Flexible enough to adapt your plan to unforeseen circumstances. A cold was not on my agenda, but, working back at a frontline homeless-serving agency it is in some ways inevitable. New venue. New germs. And as this is a child and family centered agency, there are always lots of germs floating around.

Years ago, when I started working at an adult shelter, even though I’m not frontline staff, I got a cold every month for a year. After that, my immune system had strengthened itself enough, I didn’t get another cold for the next five years I worked there.

I figure this may be part of my modus operendi. Condition my immune system with variable germs until its strong enough to defend itself.

At least, that’s the plan.

But then, you know what happens to the best laid plans…

We either adapt to present conditions or the plan falls apart.

In the case of a plan that doesn’t follow my script, there’s only one thing I can do, be kind to myself by treating myself with tender loving care, and when conditions improve, give myself the grace to …

Begin again.

Always begin again.

I am on the mend. The bloom is off my cold as its love affair with my immune system wanes. There are clear nasal passages and fewer coughs on the horizon.

All is good. My plan for now is to treat myself with tender loving care, allowing myself the grace to not appear anywhere at 5am except my bed. And if getting up whenever I get up does not allow enough time to appear here on the page, I’m okay with that too. It’s all in the plan.

Namaste.

Let’s begin again.

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Let's begin again copy

Begin Again | 52 Acts of Grace | Week 18

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Louise Gallagher

acts of grace week 18 copy

We know the things we need to do that keep us healthy. We start a regimen, get going and everything goes along swimmingly until a life hiccup interrupts the flow and we stop. We stop exercising daily, writing in our journal, meditating, eating healthily.

And in the stopping, we tell ourselves, “I don’t have time.” “I’m too tired.” “I’ll start tomorrow.” “It wasn’t making a difference anyway.”

And resistance rises. Avoidance mounts. Shame grows.

Stop.

Stop and breathe and tell yourself, “I shall begin again. Right now. Right where I am at.”

And begin again.

Stop the mind chatter. Stop the litany of reasons why you can’t, or how you are such a loser because you never follow through, always fall down, can’t keep agreements with yourself.

Give yourself the grace of letting go of ‘the story’ of why not, and begin again.

Always begin again.