What do your cells believe about life?

My firstborn son became the only person in both our families to be educated at university level, when he gained his degree in Ecology with first class honours four years ago.

 My very clever dad had wanted to go to university himself, but as a working class eldest son of an immigrant family, he had to leave school at 14 and go to work. He never realised his dream. I did everything in my power to turn my back on my educational opportunities, because education to me meant school,and school meant powerlessness, struggle, failure and misery. To top this off, I had a core belief in my innate unworthiness of any reward, which originated from my reaction to some of my earliest experiences.

  In the classroom, I struggled with auditory processing disorder and other factors which created feelings of confusion and isolation, and there was simply no room in my head to deal with what I perceived as overwhelming, pointless and disjointed information and activity.

In my final year of primary school, we went on a school trip.  In typical school fashion, any joy the trip bought was mitigated by the requirement to write up a project about it upon our return. Even at the age of 11, I had no working concept of a 'project' and what it should look like and what I could possibly do to produce one.  Bless my dad, for he decided that this project was going to be extracted from me, word by agonising word, and I can remember his silent frustration as he coaxed the sentences from me and waited whilst my inept fingers scratched them onto the A4 pad with my ink pen. Dad made beautiful drawings for me to trace, and the result was a masterpiece which won dad, or rather, me, a school prize.

The prizes were to be presented at the end of term, on my last day at that school, up on the stage in the school hall in front of everyone...pupils, parents, teaching staff and governors. The night before prize-giving, the projects were displayed in the hall for the children and their parents to see, and mine caused a buzz of interest which overshadowed even the usual top-achievers' work.  This in itself was a revolutionary act by a serial non-achiever and class nuisance, and I can only regret that it failed to ignite in me any sense of the power hard work has to change a life.  I did connect that project with my hard, hard work, but not with my creative originality, which remained hidden from me for a long time. Maybe the grudging recognition by my usually exasperated and hostile teachers up on the stage might have awoken something in me, but the day of prize-giving was spent travelling north with my family for my cousin's wedding, and if there was an actual prize, I didn't receive it. 

This stencil repeated itself when I was a young woman. I trained for three years to qualify as an RGN (registered general nurse) which involved moving away and working physically and mentally harder than I thought possible, whilst loving every minute of it.  I passed my drugs assessments and ward management assessments, but had to extend my training by three months as I had contracted pneumonia that year and thus pushed my sick leave 5 days over the allowed 5 days per year. (A brilliant ruse for retaining competent staff whilst paying them a student wage) With monumental irony I spent the day I was due to sit my finals returning home from hospital dazed from a traumatic instrumental birth and overwhelmed with love for my new little son.  It was his achievement 24 years later, that marked the beginning of the breaking of a spell.

These two occasions are remembered as defining moments, but are just two of many times, little insignificant times, when this pattern showed itself, weaving subtly through the fabric of my life.  Of course these things will happen in a life, but it's how we interpret them which matters. Deep down in my cells I knew that I wasn't  supposed to be here, and that I was incompetent, and a disappointment, and that I shouldn't take up any more space or time than it took to breathe in and out.  I can only give thanks that such core-deep certainties can be changed at cellular level.  This belief did not stand up to my questioning of it, because the truth of the matter is that I am here, and therefore I am supposed to be here, and I know that I am loved and wanted and needed.  And worthy.

Tonight, goddess willing, I will collect my diploma. Even studying for that was something I ended up doing twice, as the blueprint showed itself again, but that's another story!  Questioning my core beliefs about myself, and bringing models of behaviour and thought to consciousness has enabled me to heal and release them with love.

 I am free to accept the rewards of my work, the best of which will be the ability to work with people, specialising in my chosen field, earning a living wage doing what I love. At long last!

Some of the resources that have helped me along the way:
Heal your Birth  Sharon King
You can heal your life  Louise Hay
Byron Katie  The Work
Love and laughter with my friends and family, walks with my dog and talks with the Goddess