Tag Archives: Growth

Midlife Crisis

26 Wednesday Feb 2025

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I think about what it is to have a midlife crisis frequently. I wonder if I am having one, if I have already had one, if I am going to have one, or if it is just a made-up thing that no one really experiences.

That last part seems stupid. It is obviously a legitimate thing, or else it wouldn’t be so widely understood and discussed.

What does it mean exactly? What does a midlife crisis look like?

I am guessing that it is unique to every person who experiences it; yet the stereotypes of divorce, motorcycles, and leather jackets must get their popularity from anecdotal evidence.

I have lived a very long and varied existence, having experienced more in my 40+ years than many do in an entire lifetime. Having said that, I have never been one to be afraid of my age, having to “lie” at birthdays because I felt that I needed to portray myself as younger than I was. I love my age. I love ageing, it means that I have survived another year on this tumultuous planet. I did it.

However, I have been struggling lately with this sense that everything is becoming too much. My 44 years have exhausted me and I wonder if I will be able to find the energy I need for another 44.

Moreover, I find myself experiencing the emotional turmoil discussed in this healthline article

https://www.healthline.com/health/midlife-crisis#takeaway

Declining happiness, aimlessness, self-doubt, frustration with changing life roles and responsibilities, a sense boredom with life in general, changes in energy levels that leave me feeling fatigued most of the time, less motivation or enjoyment in interests and activities I used to enjoy, plenty of mood changes (anger, irritability, sadness, anxiety) (Raypole).

I find it a grueling task to try and do self-care having a visceral response when I sit down and try to “be grateful,” or reflect, or meditate, or anything else really.

Heather Irwin contemplating life

I love to write, thankfully, and this is a place I can often come to safely and easily. This is a place where I can find myself, feel found, feel seen, and heard. Even if it is just me listening to myself. Sometimes, that’s all we really need; to listen to ourselves.

I want to strip away the pressures that surround my joy (writing). I want to just write and not be too concerned about making it perfect or what others might think. With everything that I am experiencing in life at the moment, from what I have mentioned above, to the day-to-day struggles that my family and I are battling, I need an easy and safe place within which to retreat.

Maybe if I had more money a motorbike might be my midlife crisis go-to as well. In lieu of the smell of exhaust and leather, I will write. Balls to the wall, caution to the window, honest to goodness, right from the gut, shoot from the hip, kind of writing. Let’s hope I don’t live to regret it!

Unraveling Religious Trauma and Spiritual Abuse

04 Wednesday Dec 2024

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I have spent the last 14 years trying to “come to grips” with my past. I have made some progress recently. But, the work is tough. Especially when you are doing it on your own. This article is everything: https://www.sandstonecare.com/blog/religious-trauma/

My religious trauma began at an early age, but was kicked into hyperdrive at the same time I began to experience spiritual abuse.

The trauma and abuse went on for years, by multiple people in various locations. But, all with the same messages: You are sinful. There’s something wrong with you. You need us and you need God to be made whole. You won’t receive God’s blessing if you don’t give us 10% of any money you get, but, really you should give 20%…10% is just the baseline. You give as much as you can, even if it means you have to sell your possessions to pay rent, and eat nothing but saltines all day…You will do these things, or else you won’t be welcomed into our inner-sanctum. You should always be a servant – now go clean that person’s apartment because I need you to help me protect myself from their threats. I’m your spiritual leader, and doubting me is sinful, God doesn’t like that, and you want to please God, right? You feel tired and sick? Too bad – go and do the thing I told you to do, or you’ll be letting not just me down, but God as well. You haven’t been trained for it? Do you doubt God? Are you too weak, too selfish, that you won’t stay up all night and pray? You don’t matter. We matter. What you sacrifice for us and the community matters. Not you. You are not allowed to watch tv for a year. No dating. No drinking. Wear only these clothes. Here are the “approved” people you can be around…

and on and on it goes.

No wonder I feel so lost most of the time. It’s good to know that there are people out there who understand, even more than I do, how what I’ve gone through affects me every day; and that there are ways to heal from it.

I don’t write this to be offensive to anyone, or to hurt anyone’s feelings. But, maybe you’re someone out there who has experienced similar things and are struggling now that you’re “out,” or you want to “get out” and don’t know how. Maybe this will help you.

I don’t want to start a fight.

If you want to reach out to me, you can private message me. I’m here.

https://www.sandstonecare.com/blog/religious-trauma/

The Best of Times/The Worst of Times

12 Wednesday Apr 2023

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I frequently have dreams that place me in various times and places of my “previous lives” with people I haven’t seen for years.

There was, what is now, a short period of my life that has had an enormous impact on me. By the amount of emotional and mental baggage it has left, you would think it spanned more than 15 years, when, in reality, it was around 5.

Spanning the years between (roughly) 2001-2007, I lived an incredibly exhilarating and intense life that left me feeling burnt-out, beat-down, and deflated. Though, not right away. Some of this settled-in over the years as I reflected on the life that I have lived, the experiences I had, and how horribly underprepared and unqualified I was for so many moments I found myself living.

I’m going to attempt to unravel this time of my life that has kept me tied in knots for over 15 years now.

This is me just putting it out there and starting the process for myself.

Watch this space.

These are the Times

25 Tuesday Sep 2018

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Sometimes I get lost in nostalgia. Today is one of those days.

I lived in Toronto for 11 years in two different time periods. There was pre-New Zealand and post-New Zealand and the experiences are vastly different from one another.

This morning I find myself in deep reflection, once again, on my time there pre-New Zealand. This was an intense time full of deep relationships, friendships, emotions, highs, lows, struggles and heart aches.

During this time I led a reflection activity for a group of young people using Billy Joel’s song “This is the Time,” encouraging them to make the most of their young days because they would not last forever. I didn’t realize how true these lyrics would become for me. I truly thought that this was a time that would last forever; at least for me.

Watch on YouTube: This is the Time

As I sit here writing this, listening to these lyrics again, I am almost surprised by how much things have changed. I was certain that my life was going to continue-on in the same manner, that I would be surrounded by the same people, doing the same things, for the rest of my days.

But, everything has changed.

There are beliefs, lifestyles, locations and people long-gone that I thought I would never leave, or leave behind.

Despite the fact that I was encouraging a group of young people to be mindful of their current situation, that it would not last forever, I did not seem to grasp this reality for myself.

There is one truth I know in life – things will change. I miss my friends, I miss the city and sometimes I even miss some of the experiences. I never thought I would be sitting here, miles away, having not spoken to most of these friends for many years, worlds apart from one another, living completely different lives.

In-between us now sits the large ocean called “Life,” and it seems impossible to cross.

“Sometimes it’s so easy
To let a day slip on by…”

 

Round My Hometown

05 Saturday May 2018

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It is so strange to be back here. Back where it all began for me. This little town that formed so much of who I am, good and bad. Where I experienced so much joy, sadness, fear, shame, hurt, hope and love.

Each street breathes distant memories, rising up from the pavement and from walls of old buildings like dust being stirred by a strange wind. Sometimes the dust that rises is so thick I feel as though I cannot breathe.

I often ask myself how I will manage being surrounded by these oppressive memories, images and feelings. Will I ever manage to bring some stillness to this never-ending reel of embarrassments and moments of shame that I long to forget? Can I find joy here as well? Can memories that have long been stained and despised be redeemed?

I see a ghost of myself on every street, in corners, down ally’s, in buildings, and in the absence of buildings. She cries-out, asking to be found, to be rescued, to be safe, to be loved and to be free.

I search for ways to mend what was broken, picking up a piece of me that was left here, and a shard of me that was abandoned over there, and I attempt to find a way of putting them together that brings peace and makes me feel whole.

I ask myself if the town itself is oppressive, or if it’s just me – my own mind. I have no answer yet.

What can a person do, but keep pushing-forward, attempting to make things right, to find healing and peace and be better today than yesterday.

A New Year

05 Friday Jan 2018

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I know I have been extremely slack in writing. This will be no surprise to anyone who was followed or known me for any length of time. I have a history of writing faithfully for bursts of time, followed by not writing for a length of time, only to pick it up and start again. On and on the cycle goes.

The main reason for this is that there are many, many, many things I want to write about that involve other people and I am not quite ready to put the stories that include other people (even if I withhold names) out there just yet. But, that doesn’t mean the writing isn’t happening. I still have to go through the process of writing about what’s in my mind. I just can’t share it yet.

These stories invade my mind and I still have to allow myself the time to go through them and let the stories work themselves out before I can move on to something else.

This often includes a process of revisiting the past and sometimes even reaching-out to a long, lost, friend or just trying to come to terms with how an old relationship ended.

There has been a lot of this for me in the past 6 months as our move back home has brought-up many memories and experiences with which I still needed to process and come to terms.

I have also become a full-time university student, via distance ed., working towards a degree. This has been a dream of mine ever since I left High School, when depression and anxiety held me back from being able to attend university. It has been something I had always missed-out on and, being someone who loves school and loves to learn, had always dreamed I would be able to do.

Now I’m doing it and it feels great!

I am also continually improving my health and nutrition and constantly striving to treat myself well.

I feel great.

2018 is going to be a good year.

Empty Time

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

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A space for writing. A space for thinking. For feeling. For being.
I am old enough to remember life before the internet was in every household and in every hand. I am old enough to recall what it means to spend a day in your bedroom, without Facebook, YouTube or instragram to “entertain” you.

I remember listening to Ace of Base for hours (the entire album, not just that one song – because that’s how you listened to music back then), while doodling fashion design sketches on notepads. I dreamt I might become a fashion designer one day, creating clothes that were comfortable, functional, and cool.

I liked to wear my black Doc. Martens boots with floral babydoll dresses and a well-worn jean jacket. Nobody dressed like that in my town, but I didn’t care. I thought I was ahead of my time and, having watched “Reality Bites” more than once, believed I was a Winona Ryder-esque misfit.

This brief soirée into fashion design came from the most unusual place – Archie comics.

I loved Archie comics and I used to own them all. At one point, they started fashion design contests where people could submit outfits for Betty or Veronica. Having seen the winning submissions, I just knew that I could do better than what I was seeing – for Betty, of course. Who the hell cares about Veronica?

There was such an incredible amount of space and time to create back in those days. Time to dream. Time to breathe and just be.

Some of this has been swallowed by adulthood. Time is now used for cooking meals, doing dishes, cleaning the house, taking care of my child, paying bills and the many more responsibilities that age brings with it.

Loss is inevitable when the currency is time.

But, does it always have to be lost? Once we reach a certain age in life are we just doomed to continue losing time until the day we breathe our last?

I don’t think so. I certainly hope not.

I have begun seeking ways to gain time instead of always just losing it. I find I regain a few seconds when I take the time to just look out of a window for a few minutes or sit on the porch swing, empty handed, no music or distractions other than the birds flittering around the bird feeders or landing lightly on the evergreen branches. I gain a minute when I just sit and watch my son playing and allow myself to soak-in every movement and noise he makes. My time bank grows a little bit when I go for a drive and allow myself to breathe-in the landscape around me, letting my mind drift-back to the days of childhood when I used to look-out over the same landscape and dream.

I am on a journey to rediscover the pleasure of empty time. We grow-up and somewhere along the way we buy-in to the concept that empty time is a waste of time. This is simply not true.

Empty time is where life is found. It is where joy exists and time expands.

Empty time is where the magic happens.

Confessions of a Facebook “Creeper”

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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I admit it. I search for people all the time who aren’t my friends on Facebook. Usually, this happens during bouts of nostalgia when I find myself thinking about the people with whom I grew-up and wondering where they are, what they are doing, what they look like and how happy they appear.

I want to compare where I am, what I’m doing, what I look like and how happy I am with my childhood friends. I am always relieved and slightly joyous when I see that there has been weight gain, wrinkles, weariness…good. It’s not just me.

There are many people with whom I wish I had kept more regular contact. People with whom I am no longer “friends” – not even on Facebook. Sometimes I creep these people to see what life is like for them. I did this yesterday and spent a considerable amount of time looking at a few childhood friends and I was genuinely glad to see how happy they appeared. I was pleased that they had experienced adventures, travel, fun, love and beauty.

I considered sending a few friend requests, but got lost in thoughts of how it would be perceived by these people. I suffered from depression for most of my time in high school. This was before depression was really understood, talked about or treated. But, the biggest casualty of my depression was my social life. I withdrew from all of my friends and lost most of those relationships. One of the biggest hangers-on of this time period is embarrassment. I feel embarrassed all the time about how I was and I assume that people remember me in a negative light.

I was moody, judgmental, shy, confused, lonely and lost.

During these years my FB posts would have be the kind that you just get tired of seeing so you block the person so you don’t get the constant drone of negative status updates in your feed.

When I think about these years I am always overwhelmed with sadness for the many memories I have about stupid things I did as a result of my state of mind. I’ve been working on forgiving myself, and giving that girl a chance to heal and find acceptance; strangely, creeping on Facebook kind of helps with this. I’ve managed to ‘rekindle’ a few of these lost relationships and they have been extremely meaningful to me. Every time I send a request to a long, lost, friend and then we message back and forth a bit, and eventually just start to share life through the regular news feed, it helps normalize what feels like an extremely polarizing time for me.

I wish I could sit down with all of my old friends and have an open discussion about those years, explain what was going on in my world, express my regret for how I may have treated them, share my sorrow for all the lost time and then make-up for some of that time and move-forward as friends again.

My mind is full of many happy memories with them. I remember hours and hours of time spent together, laughing, talking about boys, playing stupid games, sleepovers, doing makeup, playing sports, passing notes in school…I see snapshots in my mind of us together on hammocks, acting cool at school dances, playing flag football, flirting and silly things like stuffing our shirts with balloons. The memories are full and rich.

But, then there are years where the memories are filled with pictures of school dances, football games, pep rallies and lunches filled with all these faces growing and enjoying life—but mine is not with them. These memories haunt me like shadows. Life was happening all around me, but I wasn’t in it.

So, I creep on facebook. I try to fill-in some of the gaps. I reach-out. I rekindle. I make progress.

I am so thankful for those friends with whom I’ve managed to reconnect because, the truth is, the folks with whom I grew-up really do mean a lot to me. They were the people that helped shape me into who I am today. They were my original cheerleaders, challengers and role-models. They were my squad, my family, my community. They exist in my memory as a deep and vast resource of life, joy, sorrow, lessons-learned, new experiences, comfort and friendship and I am so thankful for the ability to creep into their lives now and get a little piece of what once was.

257 And Feeling Fantastic

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

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257 is a number I never wanted to see on my scale again. And yet, there it was. 2 mornings in the past 4 days. I’m not going to say that it doesn’t bother me at all, because I am disappointed.

But, it’s just disappointment.

I am not feeling guilty, ashamed, regretful or down on myself. I’m not calling myself names and moaning about how I failed again, etc.

Instead, my reaction has been: “Ok, that happened. Yes, it sucks. Move on.”

I feel fantastic. I feel even stronger and more prepared to avoid the pitfalls in the future. I’ve been exercising daily and back on a healthy eating track. I am aware that I need to keep an eye-out for warning signs that I am pushing myself too hard, too fast. I have, once again, increased my veggie/fruit intake and am increasing healthy proteins.

I went through one menstrual cycle without a major crash. I had increased my protein intake leading-up to, during and for a short time after menstruation to ensure that my energy had a bit of a boost. I also doubled my iron supplements during the bleeding time. I was so glad when I didn’t go into the same crash as before.

It’s exciting to me to see all the ways I have grown, the lessons I have learned that seem to be helping me develop a truly, holistic, long-lasting lifestyle that will allow me to really keep it up so that I can, not only, continue to lose weight, but will be able to maintain the loss.

Part of the journey has been allowing myself to make mistakes without beating myself up about it. Embracing failure has really revolutionized my weight loss.

I evaluate the times I’ve slipped by asking myself questions like these:

What were the warning signs?
What could I have done differently to set myself up to make a better decision?
When did I first realize that I was doing something that wasn’t the best for me?
Why didn’t I stop it at that stage?
What could I do to empower myself to stop and refocus on something healthy?
What do I need to do to prepare for the next time this happens?
What are some tools I can have ready to go so that when I see it approaching, I will be able to, easily, grab what I need to avoid the pitfall?

Yes, I’m 257 again, but I’m smarter, more aware, stronger, more prepared and truly am feeling fantastic about the path that lies before me.

 

Failure

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

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We’ve all heard the jokes about high school locker rooms and seen tv shows and movies that use them as comical fodder. But, for some of us, there was nothing funny about these moments of our lives.

A few weeks ago my husband and I were talking about Volleyball and he made a comment about how someone wouldn’t make a good volleyball player. When I asked why, he replied “she’s too short”. I had never considered the actual physical attributes of women in sports as being part of the reason they had made a sports team. Because, I grew up with none of these barriers, as in my small school, everyone played every sport. 

I went to a small, public school in the country where everyone was involved in all the sports, and I was good in them all. I could keep up with most of the boys playing soccer and football and often surpassed their talents in ball hockey, volleyball and softball. 

High School, however, was a whole new playing field. It brought sports to a new level that I haven’t been able to understand or appreciate until recently.

I tried-out for the volleyball team in high school, and had failed to make the team. I was devastated. I had been one of the best players in my school. During tryouts I did more push-ups and sit-ups than most of the other girls who tried-out; I was very ‘verbal’ and encouraging to my fellow teammates in the try-out games; I kept up with the endurance and proved my exellence in my ability to serve. 

How could I have not made the cut?

And, more than 10 years later, it dawned on me…At 5″2, I was too short. 

But, for years I beat myself up for not being good enough to make the team. I thought that it was just another way that I failed to live up to my peers. I wish someone had talked to me about this failure at the time. I internalized it and let it write a narrative over my life that would so often hold me back from doing things that seemed difficult and carried a high risk of failure. 

Because of this fear I have missed out on so many life experiences that I should have had. I could have been on community sports teams, done more adventure-seeking stuff, gone to more school dances, made more friends, involved myself in more social events…

The older I get, I am starting to understand how important it is to embrace failure, learn from it and let it strengthen and not weaken me.

I’m working on a new mantra:

Try always.

Fail often.

Quit never.

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