The Divorce Coach

A friend of mine took her own life on Friday and amongst other things it's prompted me to think about my own in stark clarity and reality.  I've been very ill for the last week and I've found it's been a challenge to think about how good my life is.  I can't remember the last time I struggled to put my legs over the bed, to get up and walk the dog, to enjoy the fresh air and countryside, to want to eat, to find it easy to talk on the phone and to generally see the funny side of life.  I had to cancel client appointments as I had to look after myself before I could like after them.

This morning I awoke fresh from a straight 7 hour sleep - the first in 8 days.  As I resumed my normal chores -  I took the time to think about my friend again.  She had had some really tough life challenges and when we went through training together she was so positive and getting better every day.  As I walked the dog along the sides of fields, crunching in the frost, with the blue sky and sun above me, the birds tweeting away - I felt very at peace with myself and the world and wondered if she could have done what I was doing and I recognised that nature wasn't her way.  She hadn't really connected with it for a long time.

Have you ever taken the time to know what it is that gives you that deep sense of peace which allows you to just do the Bisto 'Aaaaahhh'?  Sometimes it takes adversity and a throwing off the rails to allow us to realise and waken up to the fact that the smallest things in life around us are what make us content.  The other stuff is quite superficial, even though it often strikes at pain centres and causes us great stress.  I urge you to take time to walk in the park, get into a wood, go to the beach, climb a hill, look at the real world you live in - not the one you've created around you.  Learn the lessons that even after a very cold dark and frozen winter when all has looked bleak for months, the spring will come, the sun will warm up the earth and life will go on. 

My love and respect go to my friend who has chosen what she needed to do, may she now be at peace.