alijamestherapy

It takes immense bravery to step back into life after loss. To dust ourselves down and return to the arena. Moving consciously forward brings us face to face with ourselves and calls us to be in relationship with all that has passed, with who we have been, with grief.

In the ashes of all we have lost, it requires rebellious hope to step toward life again. To believe we are worthy of love. To stand for the dream that there is more life, more love, more joy, more laughter, more holy moments of perfection.

My therapist used to ask me over and over again…’do you want to rise to your destiny or fall to your fate?’
It was a cross roads I sat at many, many times. Rising to my destiny asked me to not make guilt my idol. It asked me to sacrifice the blueprint of how I thought life would be. It asked me to feel the feelings attached to all I had walked away from. To stand with courage on the precipice of uncertainty.

Gradually I chose to rise and gently step back into the arena, forever changed. That’s what grief does, it changes us. It deepens us. And the exquisite moments where I don’t think I could possibly feel any happier are flowing like a little river these days.

It is all possible 💜🙏

I don’t feel much like writing lately, but I’ve been thinking a lot about those who are hurting this Christmas. It can feel extra lonely being sad at this time of year.

Something about the anticipated festive joy, in conflict with the struggles of life. The highlight reel of Christmas memories comes thick and fast. The void feels wider and deeper of those we have no idea how to live without. The passing of time. Regret. Comparison. Our un-lived lives.

Maybe your hurt eclipses this whole month. Maybe it comes and goes like waves on a shore.

There is a line in which I love because it feels comforting and true…
“I think you know how to love better than any of us because you find it all so painful.”

Sending warmth and gentleness to our collective hurting hearts. May we find little glimmers of comfort this Christmas. May we remember that the depth we feel sorrow, is the depth we can feel joy. May we remember that we’re always in the middle of a story. May we deeply know that we are not alone in our struggles 💜

We spend our lives lost
Searching with eyes closed,
grasping, grabbing
For anything,
anyone,
to fill the void.
To become ‘someone’
We cast our hook,
hoping the catch will
ease our existence

CEO
We’re married!
I’m a mother
Tall and toned
The Porsche
Those shoes
That golden handshake

The journey home may be long and arduous
Scraped knees and tear stained cheeks
are the war wounds
from peeling layers of lies,
discarding all the people we are not,
Befriending uncertainty

We arrive
weary and waning
And with wonder
at our own door

How ironic my love,
the gold glistens within us the whole time.
Fulfilment flows from lives that are an honest expression of who we are

Simplicity. Peace. Belonging.

It was never out there my love.
It was never out there.

I was going to write about grief
And loss
And how when we allow ourselves to be carried by the caress of
Feelings and nostalgia and longing and regret
and the lessons.
The bloody lessons.
The safe soft river of emotion moves us onward.
The evolution of who we are as we truly meet ourselves.

The old stories, lives, identities.
The dreams.
All the people we once were.

I realise I write about the same thing
Like a wave rolling to the shore
Over and over and over.
But each time with a deeper knowing
Stronger, bolder, braver.
A closer relationship with my life.

I no longer push the grief away.
I no longer hide my tears in shame.
It’s far from being my enemy,
the grief.
It’s the steadfast vessel that
as I take it’s hand,
gently carries me.
The sweetest deepest stream
flowing forward.
Allowing me to internally
loosen the grip.
Integrating all into the essence of
my becoming.

The alchemy of longing for what was whilst embracing what is.
I realise it now…
The sacrifice of sadness
The paradox
Can I cry whilst singing?
Can I grieve and praise?

Fathers Day. Mothers Day. These days can challenge our sense of belonging in the world, our self-assessed value compared with others’ external lives, our longing to be part of something.

Where do we outsource our sense of belonging solely onto others?
Where do we make others (partners, children) the solution to our pain, our lost sense of self or our un-lived lives?
Where do we attach to identities, ideologies or stories in order to feel we are ‘someone’ in the world?
Who are we when we have lost all that we attached our value to?

Belonging is an innate human survival instinct. These years have challenged my sense of belonging to people, places and things…and forced me back to the relationship with myself. The one relationship where true belonging and a firm anchor is found first.

This weekend I’ve thought a lot about belonging and where I fit as a 42 year old woman with no nuclear family of my own. I don’t have an answer to that. But I have found solace in re-reading Brene Brown’s writings about belonging (‘Braving the Wilderness’).

“Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours…

Belonging to ourselves means being called to stand alone — to brave the wilderness of uncertainty, vulnerability and criticism.

True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

Sending love to the lost ones who feel unsure where they belong right now 💜

Life is happening now
It’s at the margins
It’s in the invitations.
The difficult conversations,
The secrets we daren’t share,
the amends,
the tears.
It’s in the yes and no
It’s whispering to us in the quiet moments.
The golden threads of sunrise,
The dying sunset light.
The turquoise sea, the warm sun.
That hug,
that flower, that look, that smile.
Those few words.
That melody.
The thing that makes your heart stretch with sadness or delight
…that is our only path.
It will not let you down, I promise.
There is loss. Yes.
There is grief and confusion and shedding skins of who were were.
Metamorphosis like waves,
It is all part of it. The shedding.
And yet…
The birthing of something more expansive, more hopeful, more true.
Do we hold on, gripping to old versions, suffocating ourselves with held breath, choking ourselves with familiar, making home in liminal space.
The train that is going to nowhere.
Or do we loosen, do we allow the ebb
And flow
Can we ride the waves of the wide, uncertain place. Can we breathe life into newness.
Can we show up honestly and let life unfold.
Can we trust in something bigger.
Let it become what it wants my love,
because it will.
Like the seasons, life promises to grow into something spectacular.
There is so much more for us…
The promise is more than we could ever imagine.
We see a fraction of what is possible
It is way more expansive, more hopeful, more beautiful, more messy and more real
Experienced in the smallest, most exquisite holy fractured moments.
It feels so good to be alive.
I’m so grateful for all of it
Every single heartbreaking part.

There is no rush,
no requirement to force our way through struggle,
through transitions,
through change.
Things take the time you need them to. Our process can never be compared to another’s despite our propensity to do so.

We can change the externals in an instance and that’s what society typically praises.
The new job,
new home,
new relationship,
new baby,
the weight loss.

But the internal…that takes time to alchemise. Time and focus. Gentleness. Steadfastness to our process. Honesty. Connection. Willingness to fully experience the waves of feelings as they truly carry us forward into authentic sustainable newness.

Sometimes it’s not another course or workshop we need. It’s the journey inward that needs our consistent loving attention.
It can be long and arduous. It can feel like treading water or trudging through a swamp. It can feel like dark stuckness when all around people are seemingly moving forward with their external lives.

We however are quietly moving mountains internally while the world keeps spinning.

I take my hat off to those willing to face themselves. Willing to learn who they truly are. Willing to sit in the face of struggle and pain and mistakes. Willing to feel it all rather than project it outwards. In my eyes, this is truly the hero’s journey and the path to freedom. And it is possible. I promise 💜

For those of us moving through more loss and more change, it’s okay to take things at your own pace.

The soul isn’t dictated by time frames or anyone else’s process.

Some things take years to alchemise into something new. I have tried forcing my way through change, deciding I know the final outcome…and it has never, ever worked.

We don’t have to have it all figured out right now. It’s okay to slow down and rest. It’s okay to reassess. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to sit in uncertainty.

And yet, let’s try and stay open to something new wanting to evolve. Let’s stay a tiny bit curious to what lies ahead. Even in the emotional winter, seeds of spring are growing in the darkness 🌱💜

The man in the flat beneath mine died today. A black van collected his body.
The doors at the back closed, they drove away and he was gone.

I was with a client at the time. Irony sitting between those two worlds.
One craving to live deeper, expand greater, love harder.
Arms stretched wide and face to the sky.
The other was gone.
A fullness and an emptiness.

I wondered if he’d lived his best life,
my neighbour.
I wondered what that even meant;
a question I’ve sat with since forever.

This short but long life.

When it all fades, what is it that matters?

A year yesterday I lost one of my sweetest friends. We sat in the February sunshine weeks before he died.
Just us, in a Liverpool estate on a bench in the sun.
Beautifully simple and deeply profound.
He told me how he’d finally realised that everything he’d been striving for was there for him all along.
That nothing mattered but the love he’d finally let in.
It was his all along.
It was *his* all along.

It was as though all had fallen away.
The scales from his eyes.
The house, the car, the money, the job.
The identity.
The need to prove himself.
The protective armour.
The detail.

Nothing mattered anymore but love.

Love found and felt in the smallest of movements.
Like this one.
This beach, filled with seaweed, the tide out and a cold concrete floor.
This moment is holy though.
This moment is love.

‘There are years that ask questions and years that answer.’ ~ Zora Neale Hurston

I’ve spent 6 or more years sitting with questions. Sometimes clarity comes, sometimes it doesn’t come (yet). Building a relationship with uncertainty is so brave and it’s not easy. Stepping out of the familiar and riding the waves of change is a rebellion against everything we’re taught about stability, certainty and how life should look and feel. I really, really wanted that life - the certain, stable one. I wanted to fit in and do what most women around me were doing at my age. I didn’t want to be the truth teller or the brave one - I wanted to remain small and comfortable. But I couldn’t live there, it’s not who I am. The restlessness of something different never stopped knocking despite desperately trying to drown it all out. My head pulled me back towards the familiar but my feet kept walking away.

I’ve wandered through the last few years feeling pretty lost without a map to navigate. Am I really lost or is this what it feels like to be free? The freedom to be myself and let my life become an expression of that.

Some days there are just a few truths I can rest on…the continual evolution of nature surrounding me, the unconditional love of my cats, my work as a therapist. And most of all, the hard earnt trust in my own internal compass. I learnt about who I was through my deepest struggles. I wanted all the mess, pain and confusion to be for something. Not just for me but as a shelter for others who are traversing a similar path 💜

This December is the first one in a long time that I can feel a twinkle of light in what feels like a journey through the longest dark.

Many are not feeling light though. Many are sitting in the dark underbelly of the festive time. Many feel overwhelmed, confused, conflicted, exhausted, pressurised, despairing, isolated and hopeless. I see you lovely ones, and I have been there…many many times 💜

All the emotions exacerbated because of one day where we eat a roast dinner and open gifts. One day that actually represents so much. A mirror back at us of the unspokens, the melancholies, the memories.

Let’s give each other some grace this weekend. Let’s try our hardest to embody ‘goodwill to all’. Can we step toward connecting with and loving each other as best we can. Life can feel so harsh with the sharp, ugly edges. Maybe this is a time when we can gently hold each others’ hand with kindness and warmth and just be close for a while.

I sent this quote to a friend within weeks of what felt like throwing a gr***de on my life. I honestly thought I was rising. I was riding a euphoric wave of ‘freedom’ but it was foundation-less and I was SO far away from feeling truly free.

Ahead, I had years of descent…crawling around in the dark murkiness of life and loss. Unable to let go of life as I knew it. Grabbing onto suffering and denial and confusion.

I’ve read about liminal space, the corridor between what was and what is, living into the moment, being present. I’ve done all the things…the breath-work, the presence practices, the meditations, podcasts, therapy, crying, shouting, denying, acting out, acting in, being of service to others, daydreaming about a life that hasn’t happened, projecting expectations onto people, places and things. I’ve turned my life inside out and upside down. I’ve remained in confusion to keep heart-wrenching decisions at arms length. I’ve left too fast and stayed too long.

In the complexity though…it has been simple brutal truth that kept me afloat.

Despite the pull back to what was. Despite the longing for things I walked away from. Despite wondering if this was what insanity felt like. Despite standing in the aftermath of a dismantled life and wishing it wasn’t like this…telling myself the truth over and over again has been what saved me.
It has been the path I followed.
I might not know what comes next but I did know what didn’t feel true for me anymore. I knew what felt off. I knew disillusionment and restlessness. I knew who I wasn’t. I knew what soul-less felt like. I knew my life didn’t feel honest to me.

I told myself the truest truth over and over and over again…and when I couldn’t, someone else reminded me of it.

I believe it is this, it is brutal honest truth that leads us home.

Letting go 💜

Days when I feel pulled back to the known. The familiar. The safe.
Fear and doubt have often walked beside me, shouting or whispering.
How selfish to change! Have you lost your mind? The wreckage. The loss.

Nostalgia. If onlys. Sweet memories. Floored by the enormity of it all.
The ache of unspeakable sorrow
merges with a longing for something more. Something different.

The wider, unknown place of possibility and life. The place we visit over and over again, venturing a little further until we make our home there.

The externals can change in a breathtaking instant.
But the internal. That takes time. Love. Attention. Grace.
A subtle emergence of something new in the wasteland of what was.

Heavy tears and gentle hands have carried me on. An internal solitary pilgrimage where words simply cannot wrap around certain experiences.
They are too deep and too painful and too sacred.

The life we know is ending. It is a death that deserves to be felt.

Unhooking loyalties. Refocusing.
Integrating all that has passed.
Inviting back the exiled storied parts. All of them.
The ugly and the sharp.
Lovingly examining each one like sea-washed stones. Dusting off what isn’t mine. Revealing the gold, the learning, the places that require care.
Allowing myself to be rocked by waves of all that needs to be felt.

Anguish and regret become brittle acceptance…
Which becomes
unquestionable ground on which I can stand. Solid.

The dance between creating and allowing. Holding on and surrendering.
Becoming the person the storm forced me to become. Becoming my own lighthouse.

To the one who is riding the waves of life today 💜

Life is beautiful. And life is tragic. The deepest most exquisite joy and immeasurable breathtaking grief. It is both wonder and terror. Peace and chaos.

Can we rest at the feet of the collision of it all? Can we find a firm foundation in the acceptance of both joy and pain? Can we find one anchoring truth here?

I choose to believe that the natural order of things is to continually invite us into something new. It is an endless opportunity of evolving and becoming. Whilst I couldn’t fathom retracing the paths I’ve walked, the whole journey has truly taught me who I am right now. From this place, we can create lives that are an expression of that.

I really really deeply know hardship and pain and sadness and loss and heartbreaking grief. And I also know the most beautiful joy and hope. We live at the confluence of it all.

"Many take the path well-worn, but they are only given a half-lived life.
To those willing to brave the unknown path, the dark thicket, a remembering of love, magic, and purpose returns.

There is a wild woman under our skin who wants nothing more than to dance until her feet are sore, sing her beautiful grief into the rafters, and offer the bottomless cup of her creativity as a way of life.

And if you are able to sing from the very wound that you've worked so hard to hide, not only will it give meaning to your own story, but it becomes a corroborative voice for others with a similar wounding."

Excerpt from "Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home" ~Toko-pa Turner

‘Let your life be your message’ ~ Mahatma Gandhi

As our life becomes an expression of who we truly are, as we live more in alignment with what feels deeply true and honest to us, the way we live will speak for itself. Proving ourselves is not required. The foundation of truth is quiet and calm 💜

“To the simple, the plain, the ordinary life I get to live” 💜🙏✨

It’s going to be more than okay my loves. Holding so much hope today, and wonder and gratitude and love for this ‘brutiful’ life. Let’s keep going, even if that means staying still, surrendering and resting for a while.

Gratitude even to dark places, to the relief of the sun rising again because it always does…it keeps rising again and again and again.

And we get to start again every single day 💜

There were so many days when I didn’t want to keep going. Things got really hard for a while. I held onto a little flicker of hope that maybe things could get good again. And they did, eventually. They got really, really good. There is freedom on the other side lovely ones….keep going 💜🙏✨

“Wherever you are at on your journey through time, be assured that there is a soul path somewhere at the heart of it. And, as difficult as it may be to see it, as overwhelming as it may seem to embody it, it is well worth the effort. Once you catch a glimpse of it, it will beckon you home, like a fire of divine possibility with your name on it. And that fire… will not only show you the direction to walk, it will fuel you as you overcome the obstacles in the way. It will warm and inspire your every step.”

Taking the next right step can feel impossible when we truly don’t know what to do. We drag our past into our present and call it reality. Our emotional history can cloud judgement and confuse our quiet knowing. Trauma robs our sense of self-trust. When fear’s voice is loud, stepping into the unknown can feel like a death sentence.

I have felt so deeply lost in my life with no idea who I am or what the hell to do next. For years it was like someone put my life in a box, vigorously shook it around and emptied the smashed up contents on the floor. I stood alone in the wreckage and all I felt was shame, guilt, panic and despair.

I have hurt people and been hurt. I’ve danced with destruction and chaos. I have made really great choices, and some have been not so good. I have risen to my destiny and fallen hard to my fate. I’ve felt the flow of purpose and meaning to my life. I’ve existed in the hollow emptiness of abandoning myself over and over again, and even in that knowing…still chose more despair. I have felt really proud, and deeply ashamed. I’ve stepped fully into my life, and have hidden in the small dark places, calling it healthy solitude. I’ve loved hard, honestly and deeply. I’ve let fear hold me back from potential new connections. I have known beautiful beginnings, and the desperate grief of un-lived dreams. I have relentless hope…and pangs of melancholy and regret. I’ve said YES to life….fully showing up…and I’ve settled for mediocre. I have lost much, many times over. And I have known true abundance and grace.

Many times though, it has only been through stepping towards something… experiencing it…and asking myself how it feels, that I’ve known if this is the next right step. It’s risky to stay stuck, and it’s risky to shift. I’ve made mistakes, and yet this is where the wisdom is birthed. This is where we get to ask ourselves all the questions. This is where we create a relationship with ourselves, with our deep knowing. This is where we build our own path, creating lives that are a true, evolving expression of who we are 💜

With change comes loss and with loss comes grief…even with the endings we have chosen.

I believe life is a continual invite for growth and evolution towards more of who we truly are. Only when we step towards this truth, do we feel real meaning and deep fulfilment. I realise now that my work has been to grow into a person who can ride the waves of change…to the point of choosing and embracing it over and over again. That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Staying still can feel comforting but we can stagnate in the familiar, with the life inside of us slowly ebbing away. If we are forever internally evolving, our external world will continually become an expression of who we are now. This may mean shedding another layer of who we were and leaving behind all that is no longer in alignment.

Grieve all that you need to in this process. Let the tears flow and your heart feel the depths of sadness for all that was. My experience is that as we do, we organically step toward fertile ground where a new, exciting, terrifying, beautiful life is already growing in the dark.

“But there is a truth and it's on
our side
Dawn is coming open your
eyes
Look into the sun as a new
days rise” ~ José González

“Joy wraps itself around the full spectrum of life.” ~ Rob Bell

I took this photo in the air somewhere between the US and the UK. It was the backend of a 2 week trip that hadn’t entirely gone to plan. And yet, the beautiful moments…like this…they touched me and stayed with me. They were bigger and more compelling than the hard moments.

I read somewhere once that we need the darkness as a backdrop to the light. Without it, the beauty, the tender heartfelt experiences, the fresh new connections, the unexpected next steps, the flickers of hope and joy wouldn’t shine so brightly.

The dark and the light. It’s all part of it.

Keep going, dear ones 💜

The space between knowing better and doing better is your relationship with you. Let’s start there.

That relationship is the one to tend first…from there, our life becomes an expression of who we are.

And that life is the one that can feel deeply & truly meaningful.

Staying the same or evolving…it’s all risky. It just depends what risk you want to take 💜