Dinah Liversidge Woodland Celebrant

Three months later, where is everybody?

The first three weeks after we lose a loved one is often filled with calls and visits from concerned friends and family. Neighbours pop in or stop you in the street to ask how you are doing. You feel a level of support.

Three months in, my clients tell me, is when it seems to suddenly go quiet. They tell me they feel alone, isolated, vulnerable, lost. “Where did everyone go?” They ask me. The truth is, they went and got on with their lives. Not in a cruel way, not in any way saying that you don’t matter. They have to return to their everyday lives.

Grief is different for each of us

It is easy to forget, when we the people supporting someone who is grieving, that this looks and feels different for each of us. Grief is often described as a process and we understand there are several stages of grief that we have to pass through, in order to move on. But let me assure you, telling someone who is experiencing grief what they ‘should’ be feeling, or that they are ready to move-on, is not going to help them. They need to set their own pace for their grief and often the best thing we can do is listen.

After three months, as we return to our lives, we get ‘busy’ and seem to forget the support we were offering to our friend or family member, and it is at this time they really need us the most. When all the goodwill cards and sympathy messages have stopped, when the house starts to feel very quiet in the evenings, that is when we could have most impact. This is the time to be there and show them they are not isolated, they are part of a community who cares about them.

A little effort makes an enormous difference

If this sounds like a big commitment, or if you can already hear the voice in your head telling you it’s going to take up time you don’t have, then take a minute and have a think about how little effort it really takes to include one more person in your plans for a movie night, or one more person to feed at a family Sunday lunch. How much effort would it really be to meet for a cuppa in a local coffee shop once a month, or even go shopping in town together occasionally? And the positive impact this would have on both of your lives might be a pleasant surprise.

I bumped into a client recently, in a local coffee shop. Last year, she lost her husband of 62 years, to Cancer. She was having coffee with a group of five other women, and they were laughing and joking together. She spotted me and came over to say hello and gave me a hug. I looked over at her friends and said how lovely it was to see her out and enjoying herself. She told me that she’d got through the toughest year of her life thanks to those friends. That they had supported her, cried with her, got her out of the house and dragged her to dance classes, swimming, WI meetings and regular long walks. “They were there for me when it all went quiet. They brought hope back into my life.”

Who do you know that lost someone they love in the last few months? Why not pick up the phone to them today and let them know they’re not alone.

Dinah

Vow Renewals are so much more than words

When John and I got married, we chose a Registry Office to hold the ceremony. Well, I say ‘chose’ but to be honest, in 1987 it was pretty much our only choice. We came from different faiths and neither of us was practicing, so using a place of worship felt disingenuous and would have stirred up all kinds of family discussions (polite term) that would have spoiled the occasion. So we went with the safe option. The ceremony was dull and impersonal and neither of us can remember what vows me made. Thirty two years later whatever we agreed to has been surpassed by each of us as we’ve supported, lifted, laughed with and loved each other. Boy, would we write some memorable vows if we could go back and create them for our lives together now.

That’s the reason I love helping people create vow renewals; they get the chance to acknowledge the remarkable thing they have created – the partnership and bond that is so much more than they could have anticipated on their wedding day. This poem From Captain Corelli’s Mandolin says it eloquently:
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being ‘in love’, which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love,
have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree, and not two.

Louis D Bernieres

Every time I read this it gives me goosebumps!

Marriage is an amazing commitment and a complicated yet magical journey. As a friend recently shared on social media “marriage is like the longest sleep-over ever with your best friend”. And I know for us, marriage has been friendship at the core. Enjoying the company of your life partner, without the desire to change them, is key to our story and to the happy marriages of many friends.

Celebrating these stories of success, whether you’ve been together for ten years or fifty, is a joyful acknowledgement of your partnership and the life you have created together. People often choose to renew their vows to mark an anniversary (either of their marriage or their first date or other meaningful event) or after they have come through a particularly challenging time.

The good news is, there really does not have to be a reason; you can renew your vows any time you like, and because there is no legal relevance to the event, you can do it with the words you choose, in the location you choose and with whom you choose. I was recently lucky enough to carry out a ceremony on a hill top by a treehouse for an amazing couple celebrating their tenth anniversary. They did not invite anyone else, it was all about the two of them and making a renewed commitment to each other and acknowledging their love. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever been part of.

Calling this ceremony a vow-renewal is slightly the wrong wording, as this is your chance to write new vows rather than simply renewing the ones you made at the start of your marriage. And if the thought of having to come up with brilliantly worded vows is one of the things stopping you, don’t worry about this. A good Celebrant will help you write vows that are personal and authentic and if you’re doing it yourself there are some great examples online.

If you’re still waiting for a reason to plan your vow renewal, I’d encourage you to make the reason simply that you’ve made it to today, together and that’s worth celebrating!

Dinah xx

Mixed emotions on Mother’s Day

It seems like a wonderful idea; a day to celebrate the most giving, caring and nurturing person in your life. The person who gave you life and raised you, perhaps with the help of another, or perhaps alone, to become the person you are. A day to acknowledge mothers all over the UK who deserve to be pampered and looked after and put-first, even if only for today.

Indeed, it is a great idea. I’m a big fan of it; especially since I became a mother, 28 years ago. However, as an adopted child, and as a child who is estranged from her adopted family too, I have mixed emotions each year as the cards begin to appear in the shops. I find myself staring out of windows and contemplating “what ifs” that become more ridiculous as the frenzy builds. Radio adverts and reminders to buy gifts, or make lunch or ‘just give mum a cuddle’ seem to bring emotions out that I had not anticipated. From anger to fear, from instant tears to derisory laughter, I run a marathon of emotions by lunch time that leave me seeking silence for the rest of the day.

Not every mother-daughter relationship is worth celebrating; and that is ok. Seriously, it has taken me until the age of fifty to be able to add the last bit. It is ok to not think of your mum as your best friend. It is ok to not look forward to her phone calls or visits. It is ok to be real about how she makes you feel and to just “be ok” with that. I know it sounds like I’m making that seem simple and it is far from that. However, it is a choice to accept that you can be ok with it. That it might take work, there might be days when you struggle with being ok with it, and that at times you’ll decide “this is bulls*** of course I’m not ok with it, I want to fix our relationship” and that is ok too.

All I’m suggesting is that, once you’ve given yourself permission to move on from the “if only” you still carry around, you can begin to let go of a lot of baggage. I know that I carried mine for most of the last 35 years. When I finally acknowledged that it was ok to not have either of the women in my life who had been my mother, and instead to focus on the incredible young woman in my life to whom I was a mother, I think I actually began to like myself. I began to see what a great mum I was too.

That’s the great thing about letting go of our baggage; we’ve got the energy available for new things and feel more able to manage change and make choices. No longer weighed-down with unrealistic expectations or regrets, we can become open to positive thoughts to replace the often-reinforced habitual negative ones. The positive self-talk I use in my head these days, far outnumbers the negatives, I know this change has come since I let go of the daily reinforcement of my mother’s negative words, that had long been part of my own self-bashing,

This weekend, my daughter will be here after a couple of weeks away. I’m hoping we’ll get some time together to talk about everything and nothing, to hang-out for a bit with a coffee in our woodland and perhaps even watch a movie together. Being around her reminds me I love being a mum. It also reminds me of all the women in my life who are amazing mothers that will be spending the day being pampered and loved and appreciated.

Five years ago I wrote a letter to my birth mother and another to my adopted mother on Mother’s Day. I never posted either of them, and last year I dug them out and threw them in our Rayburn. I didn’t even bother to re-read them. I knew what I’d written and I knew I deserved to move on. That process of letting go has allowed me to look forward with less dread to Mother’s Day this year and instead, focus on being appreciated as a mum.

Dinah

Let’s Celebrate more often in the year ahead

The past twelve months have not brought many reasons for Planet Earth, or it’s inhabitants, to celebrate. From election results that made me wonder if I had been transported to an alternate reality, to revelations about behaviour that made me feel angry and powerless. Each day of 2017 seemed to increase my levels of astonishment, fury, despair and absolute astonishment. And rage.

As we draw to an end of this dreadful year, I ask myself what I can celebrate; I always reflect on my successes at the end of each day, month and year. It’s a positive, reflective opportunity to acknowledge my achievements and since my change of pace (from a too hectic “doing” life to a more present “being” one) one that helps me notice the little things that make a big difference to my wellness, my friendships and the lives of those I love.

There have been plenty of things to celebrate in my world during the last year, and when I stop looking at the overwhelming world-picture, one I can have very little impact on, and focus instead on my tiny, and rather beautiful, corner of Carmarthenshire, I see far more to be positive about than I imagined. Each morning here, we sit in awe of the view from our window and watch the birds. We start each day with a celebration of the decision we made to move here, thanking each other for the brave and bold move me made.

It can be so easy to focus on the negative news, the social media sensational stories that beg us to share the misinformation, stirring up hatred and ignorance. All too easy. It takes a bit more effort to focus our energy instead, on the positive stories, the daily heroes who interact with others and change lives, the things happening in our communities that we can be proud of. Stories of hope and change. Stories to celebrate.

They are there if we look for them; and when we choose to put our effort into finding, sharing and liking the good and the positive, when we spend time looking for things worth celebrating, guess what happens? We find them! We find them and enjoy them, and gain strength and hope from them, and when we share them with our friends and family, they smile and enjoy the thought that “there are things to celebrate in the world”.

I’m setting myself a challenge for 2018 and I’d love you to join me. I’m going to find more to celebrate. I’m going to go out of my way to share things I believe will encourage other people to celebrate the positives in their lives too. And let me be clear, I’m not hiding my head in the sand or pretending that everything will get better for Planet Earth whilst I’m focussing on the positive. I am not going to be silent, I am not going to sit back and let the world continue on it’s self-destructive path without speaking and peacefully protesting in any way I can. And I will do that in a positive way, celebrating my ability to express my opinions in a (relatively) free country.

Who’s with me? I’d love to know how you’re going to celebrate more in the year ahead, and what you’re celebrating about 2017 that gives you hope.

Dinah

November Myddfai Musings

I’ve been reminded this week of the first time we saw North Lodge in Myddfai, now our home for almost three years. It was a rainy day at the end of October 2014 and we knew we belonged here before we got through the gates. All our previous homes have “spoken” to me long before we’ve reached the front door, and getting that sense of belonging was the first indicator that we’d found our forever-home.

“If we think it’s beautiful on a cold, wet, grey and miserable day, then we’re going to be amazed by it in the spring” John said, as we sat discussing our offer in the car after just 20 minutes in the woods and even less time in the cottage.

And as I look out at our garden and small woodland, through a typical November drizzle, I still find myself overwhelmed by the beauty of this place. We’ve found a little piece of our long-term dream and we’re making it work. I watch the variety of birds coming to feed as the sun sets, getting the last nibble of the day before the bats come out. I listen to the stream running full thanks to the rain, and still find it one of the most restful sounds I’ve ever heard.

I am hugely grateful that we took the plunge and decided to follow our dream, and start a whole new way of living. It’s hard work living this way, using our own coppiced woodland to provide fuel for heating, cooking and hot water. Looking after a woodland and wetland and bog garden, of around two acres, requires every available hour of daylight and some serious wet-weather clothing. And we’re learning as we go with the vegetable patch, expanding into poly-tunnels next year (we hope).

Every evening brings us to the Rayburn, slightly soggy and smiling, covered with aches, wood shavings and clay. We’re always proud of what we’ve achieved during the day, and mostly knackered but happy. We’ve found our happy place, our next chapter. We’re learning, day by day, to let go of the old way of doing, and focusing on being. It takes time.

Dinah x

Why I became an Independent Celebrant

This summer, I was ready. Ready to decide where my new life in Myddfai, Carmarthenshire, was going to head in the next chapter. When you’ve been lucky enough to live a life that has been full and varied (not just because of opportunities but also challenges) then finding the next thing you want to focus on can be a challenge.

“I need to make a difference, I know that” I told John, my husband and partner for over 30 years now (we will celebrate 30 years of marriage next spring) as we sat by our woodland pond celebrating being discharged from my Cardiologist. I’d been given a less than rosy picture for the next ten years, and thanks to Myddfai air, plenty of exercise in the garden and sheer determination as a couple, we’ve re-written our next chapter and I am well enough to work, part-time again.

As a business speaker and mentor, I was doing something I loved, with people who were taking control of their future, determined to make positive change and life-time goals come true. It seems there is already common ground when I take on the role of Celebrant for couples who want to make a life together.

As an adopted child, I was officially given the name of my new family on my brother’s second birthday. Becoming part of a family as an adopted child gives you a new sense of belonging, of being part of a tribe. Working with families to welcome new children into their world, perhaps after a second marriage that means step-kids will be becoming a larger family unit, fills me with excitement.

As a daughter-in-law, who wrote and held the service for her father-in-law, who deserved to be remembered by those who loved and cared about him, who knew his humour and his dreams, I want to support others in saying their good-bye in authentic words, with meaning and love.

Becoming a Celebrant has been my new chapter, and I hope it will allow me to be part of the next chapter in the lives of many families.

Dinah

It’s more than just a communuty class

I am lucky enough to be learning a new skill, making stained glass, as part of this amazing group. It has become so much more for me than a class, it’s a place where I’ve found myself again.

Source: It’s more than just a communuty class

Dear hormones

Dear Hormones,

What are you playing at? Seriously, I thought we, as a body, were all in this together; fighting against the odds of EDS and Heart Failure, beating them against all expectations and doing a pretty impressive job of it actually. Then, you took it upon yourselves to go off-piste and take control in, frankly, a hostile-coup! I have been kidnapped and need to be rescued before all the things I know about myself and who I am fail to exist!

Menopause, peri or otherwise, you need to take a long-hard look at your behaviour and attitude to this relationship. You’re walking all over the rest of the bodily functions and just making decisions without consultation, or warning, and expecting the rest of us to keep up. What about some instructions or case-studies to ponder before being taken down a path we did not choose?

Let’s start with emotions; I have always been an emotional person, driven to hasty outbursts of love, tears or anger, not one to hide how I feel about things. I had them pretty much under control as a woman approaching 50 though, and could usually decide appropriate locations to share emotions that might impact others. Now, however, you’ve decided that I need shaking up a bit and even the mention of a sad-pet-story or a child telling her dad she loves him, reduces me to a wreck, crying uncontrollably, with snot-bubbles and everything. I heard Michael Buble singing this morning and cried for almost an hour. When John innocently entered the room and asked what was wrong, I started all over again.

And let’s not even begin to talk about Politics or I’ll be ranting for hours about the injustices on the planet and whom I believe to be responsible for them. This is often followed by me throwing things! Seriously, I had to replace a whole set of glasses last week as we were down to our last three. I go outside almost daily and throw something at the wall, just so I won’t do anything worse. John is learning to spot the signs and has started suggesting we go and cut wood in these moments as I achieve so much more that physically I thought possible when filled with this overwhelming urge.

Night time seems to be your chance to really punish me though, with sweats that mean I have to shower at 2am and anxiety like I’ve never experienced before. I’m worried about everything at night; from our ongoing struggle to sort our accounts out from when I had my surgery to whether I will make it my 50th this autumn, to what might cause the house to burn down. And each worry seems to real, so important, that I am totally unable to resolve any of them with a sense of my usual calm.

I am horrible to John, to myself and even on occasion to our pets. I am ashamed to say I shouted at Branston (our dog) yesterday, just because he made me jump when he put his head in my lap. He just wanted to let me know he’d picked up my mood and could help, but I shouted at him. I hated myself for a whole day for that. I cried over it every time I thought about it. Thank you for that, dear hormones.

I tell myself every day that I will take control and “own” my response to your constant changing, and that I can get through this without being awful or angry or ridiculously sad. And so far, every day, you do your best to scupper my plans. Well, okay, I get it, you want my attention and you want to be noticed. I NOTICED! YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION! Now please, can we attempt to work together on this?

Yours, in hope,

Dinah

Letting go of letting-go!

A few years ago, I had a series of heart attacks. From out of nowhere they stopped me in my tracks and made me reconsider everything about my life. You could say they were a major crossroads; I’ve spent a great deal of time since focussed on “letting go” of the feelings I was left with, that I’d been deprived of the future I’d been planning, a brief example of what lay ahead enjoyed, the perfect business collaborations and friendships formed, all to be knocked back, all to be no longer available in my new life. I think it was only yesterday that it hit me, I’d been so busy trying to let go, I had forgotten to look forward, to plan a new way, to explore what I have now that will shape a new path.

When life changes mean we have to make new choices, we have to allow ourselves a period of time to learn to adjust; that time required for acceptance to replace anger and frustration, time that heals initial pain and confusion and stops us asking “why did this happen to me” and replaces it with “what can I do no that this has happened?” and finally “I’m ready to see a future, how ever different it looks to the one I imagined.” When I was 26, I had a car accident that left me in a wheelchair for almost 12 years and one of my key learnings from this experience was that we have to mourn things we loose, not just people. I lost the use of my legs at 26, I had to mourn all the things I had lost from my independence to my joy of mountain climbing to making love with my husband. I had suffered a loss, a bereavement, the death of my life the way it had always been.

The last few years have been my time to adjust, to come to terms with my latest loss, the belief that my heart was strong and would work, without me thinking about it, for many years to come. Once you’ve lived through the heart attacks, the surgery, the physical recovery, the news of heart-failure, the difficulty breathing and total inability to do much of anything without help from others, you start to accept. Acceptance that you are a different person, physically, and that means mentally too. Acceptance that life is not going to look how you imagined, or planned. Acceptance that every day is rather special, precious, too important to waste on worries and concerns.

Now, I’ve reached the point of planning for a future; that feels amazing. Seriously, when you’ve spent a few years not knowing if you’re going to make it, you see every single day as a bonus (even the ones where you feel negative and scared and less than great) because it’s been such an enormous effort, on the part of so many, to make it here. Planning can take on a whole new meaning now, not just something I’m told to prepare for my business to thrive, but instead, a plan for my life, to live every day as though it might be the last chance I get to enjoy feeling this good. I’m reminded of a song by Tim McGraw called “My next thirty years” and the lines speak to me of making every moment count.

My focus now is changing, from letting-go to letting-in; I’ve pondered enough times to last me a long, long life, what might have been if I hadn’t had the heart-attacks. It is time to let in the new, embrace the opportunities starting to come my way with my new focus, my new goals in place. It can so often be the case that we’re not open to new opportunities because we’re so focussed on the past, the ones we think we missed or messed up. Not for me, that time in my life is through; I know I have limits, that my heart is depending on me to look after it and make sure I stick to those limits and behave. And it’s also telling me in a loud, strong, clear voice “I trust you. Go get ’em girl. It’s time!”

And it is time. Time to move forward. Time to let go of the letting-go and time to get on with the next chapter of this remarkable life.

Dinah x

Blue hair nightmare!

in June last year, I added a significant streak of blue “semi-permenant” hair colour to my blond bob in order to help raise awareness for Harrison’s Fund, fighting to find a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It seemed like such a good idea at the time; Blue Hair Day – a great way to get people to notice and learn about this terrible disease. What I hadn’t expected was that, almost a year later, I’ve still got remnants of that “semi-permanent” blue. What a nghtmare!

“I take it you won’t be going blue again this year!” My husband, John, commented when I mentioned the new website for Blue Hair Day was up and running. “what a bloody nightmare that’s been!” And that’s when it hit me (okay, it takes time to get things sometimes); my silly bit of blue hair was far from a nightmare. At worst it was a silly frustration that looked a bit like I’d over-done colouring and caused a reaction.

The real nightmare, the one I’d missed was Duchenne itself. The nightamre is what every family living with Duchenne wakes up to every day, only to discover it’s real. My hair was trivial and had, in fact, served its purpose well; by staying put, by being anything but “semi-permanent” I had been given a daily reminder of why I’d gone blue in the first place. I was raising awareness of somethign every child and parent with this awful disease has no choice about; Duchenne isn’t semi-permanent, it’s real, wrecking lives and in urgent need of investment to find a cure and save the lives of every child (almost exclusively boys) fighting every day against this debilitating, terminal condition.

Will I be going blue again this June? Of course I will and this time, I plan to talk to every single person who comments on my hair and tell them “It’s permanent, just like Duchenne.”

Please visit the Facebook page for Blue Hair Day and “like” to follow all the plans and how you can get involved in making a difference. Are you brave enough to go blue?

http://facebook.com/BlueHairDay

Dinah x