Read the full episode here https://journeyfrommeh.com/uncovering-meaning-stories-tell-ourselves/

Four-letter words don’t offend me. But the one four-letter word that I have battled with is: rest. 

When it comes to that four-letter word my natural inclination is to resist it with the ferocity of a toddler being told to take an afternoon nap.

What is it about this seemingly innocuous word that sets off the stubborn two-year-old in me?

I’m not sure if I’ve figured out all the answers to that question, but I’ve figured out some.

Last week our little pack of two humans and two doggos spent five days far from the crowds; maddening and otherwise. 

We discovered this wonderfully unpopulated 28 hectares of nature some years ago. It’s a rustic retreat where we start each day with a bit of mountaineering down to the clear river that borders the property. The four-legged pack members morph into mountain goats as they bounce from one boulder to another, tails in the air and noses to the ground - absorbing the criss-crossing stories of the veld.

The rocks eventually spill out onto river sand and, while we’re still navigating the last of the rocks, the only evidence that we have dogs are dusty mirages dancing above the path - followed by the sound trail and echo of a plop and a splash telling us they’re swimming in the river.

After a few minutes of them swimming in the natural pools we follow the path that meanders next to the river. They disappear into the surrounding bush proving that they take “bundu bashing” literally. 

Leading up to our time away my husband and I were aware of the mound of work we were leaving behind, so we started to plan what work we were going to take with us. Luckily we course-corrected two days before we left; deciding to rest and recuperate so that we could make a renewed, energised charge at the mountain of work when we got back.

We almost fell back into our old habits, but we were really grateful for the complete downtime.

For most of my life I’ve had the energy pattern of a toddler - manic activity followed by collapse. I used to say that I was only aware of my energy tank as “full” or “empty”, nothing in between.

Mid-life, burnout, and a bunch of life skills I was lacking, eventually led me to a point where I was evaluating my life and decided I needed to change the way I was living. I took a sabbatical to figure out how I was going to do things differently moving forward.

Part of that exploration and figuring out how to manage my energy tank led me back to the word rest.

I love words and I love fiction. Reading is more than escapism, it’s meeting new friends, travelling to the past, the future, different worlds. But the most powerful story that affects my life is the narrative running in my head.

The sabbatical kick-started an exploration of the stories I tell myself on a daily basis. 

Some of those myths and legends are so old that it helps to work with a narrative archaeologist - like a psychologist or life coach. Telling our stories, talking, in a therapeutic space is a powerful experience because it shifts the tales living in our subconscious to our conscious mind. 

And when that shift occurs, it brings the storyline to our awareness, where we can work with it, evaluate it, decipher its meaning and choose what the meaning of that scenario is going to be in our future. This allows for a shift in perspective to take place. Shifts allow us to move forward.

Read the full episode here https://journeyfrommeh.com/friendship-poetry-dance-life-how-i-deal-with-grief/

As I’ve mentioned, my parents moved around a lot when I was growing up. The shortest period we stayed in one place was three months and the longest was four and a half years.

When we moved to the city, where we ended up living for four and a half years, my parents told me and my two older siblings that it was “from her to the grave” for them. They would not be moving again.

I took them at their word and put down roots. I joined the choir, took drama, starred in the school musical, continued to excel in academics and played hockey. My Monday morning lessons started with English, Afrikaans, French and Latin. I dreamed of working as a translator one day.

Then, when I was 14, my parents informed me that we were moving. I was pissed. Betrayed. Reminding them of their promise was as futile as trying to drink the ocean through a straw.

I just felt wrenched. Again. I was going to have to give up everything I’d been working towards. I was gutted. 

Resistance was futile, but I decided that I didn’t have to collaborate with my betrayers. For the first time, I rebelled. 

I told my parents I would not participate in their decision. They hadn’t bothered to consult me, or take my feelings into consideration, so why would what I think matter now. 

I informed them that I wouldn’t look at new homes. I wouldn’t look at schools. 

My sister, at six years older, and brother, at four years older, were already working and studying so weren’t as affected. They had already moved on. I felt alone. 

Saying goodbye to friends, clubs, roles that I’d played in the microcosm of my youth was hard. 

I begged my parents to let me stay in the hostel at the school I was attending. No. The parents of my best friend spoke to my parents. They offered for me to stay with them during the week and travel to the city my parents were moving to, which was an hour away, on weekends. No.

My one-person resistance army was being bulldozed. I was crushed.

At fourteen my female friendships were knotted with shared experiences, interests and coming of age journeys. From too many years of experience, I knew that these ties would not survive the move. I felt like I was betraying our bond and there was nothing I could do about it.

My parents decided what school I would go to with no input from me. The school they chose did not offer French or Latin. Just another one of their awful decisions, I thought. I had to let go of the romance languages and accept the death of my dream to work as a translator.

This would be the eighth school I would attend.

I had left behind history, ties, friends, shared interests, a knowledge of how everything worked, where I excelled, where I fitted in. Here I was the outsider in a school full of girls who’d been at school together since they were five years old. 

The days rolled on with an inevitability that crumbled my fight. 

Eventually, I discovered that humour is a currency that is easily traded and started to make friends. 

Over time, I settled into a friendship with two girls. We shared a love of poetry, books, Merchant Ivory movies, singing loudly together and collapsing into giggling heaps when we wandered off-key and forgot the words. 

We dreamt about our futures and what they would hold. Living in a world where we controlled so little in our lives, we tried to imagine a world of our own making.

Read the full episode here https://journeyfrommeh.com/beyond-breakers-facing-turmoil-finding-peace/

When I was 5 years old my family travelled from the inland town we lived in to holiday with relatives living in Durban; a coastal city. Every evening my dad would excitedly tell us kids that we were going swimming in the sea early the next morning.

My dad would wake us three kids in the dark. My older sister would choose to remain in bed and my older brother and I would accompany my dad to the beach. The routine became that once we got there my brother would decide to remain on the shore.

The beach was deserted. No holidaymakers and their umbrellas and cooler boxes. No frenzied sporting activities, no smell of coconut tanning lotion and melting ice cream. 

The navy blue sea and inky sky seeping into one, making the horizon an imaginary line. The cold grey, blue ocean tones only ruptured by the whipped white foam that indicated where the arching, rolling, crashing waves were breaking. 

At the water’s edge, my dad told me that we were going to swim beyond the breakers.  I had to do exactly what he told me to do when he told me. I only had one request, “Don’t let go of my hand, daddy.”

We ran in, my little hand engulfed in his, our warm bodies swallowed by the icy watery beast. Quickly my body was buoyed and, as my dad strode forward, I followed, tethered to his hand, kicking and swimming to keep abreast of him. 

As we entered the choppy, bubbling aftermath of the bigger waves my dad would pull me up to keep my head above the water. We forged deeper into the blue. Quickly he too was lifted, feet far from the sand, as we faced the sliding walls of water now towering over us.

As the closest mountain of water started to rise, seemingly to engulf us, my dad would tell me to take a big breath. Then we plummeted, blind, into the dark depths beneath the swirl. Eventually emerging on the other side, spluttering and wiping our eyes to see the next challenge ahead of us. 

Again and again, the whale of water rose imposingly over us. We plunged, kicking with four legs and swimming with two hands, locked into his promise to not let go of our connection, as the sea breached behind us.

As we navigated through the breakers we could not see beyond them, all our energy and senses focused on surviving the onslaught of water barrelling towards us - diving deep to avoid, as much as possible, the churning powering each wave.

Ultimately our saline baptisms paid off and we’d emerge through the last breaker, bursting, exhausted, gasping, often gulping mouthfuls of salty liquid to discover we had made it through to the other side. The drama behind us and calm before us. An almost endless stretch of blue from us to the curved outline of the horizon.

The crashing thunder of water now replaced by the gentle swell and fall - the meditative breaths of the sea. Swimming towards the horizon, to put some distance between us and the breakers, it was now time to rest, lie back and float while being lulled by the quiet and calm. Spreadeagle, relaxed, head back, ears below the waterline, our ragged breathing slowed as we floated in silence, secured like otters.

And then it was time for the main event. The sun started to escape the horizon. Bathing us in its glow, warming us, painting the sky and reflecting its artwork on the surface around us. We were lying in a living kaleidoscope. 

Submerged in Neptune’s womb we witnessed the birthing of a new day. The best day - a holiday.