70forseventy

 1994 - 1998 : the mental health years In September 1994 I moved again, this time to Norwich where I became a full time postgrad student on the UEA year-long Diploma in Person-Centred Counselling. That proved to be another rather turbulent time, with a close fellow student friend attempting suicide after calling at my home for help and finding me absent. They didn't want to go into hospital, so in order to avoid sectioning it was agreed that I would live closely alongside them for a month or so on 'suicide watch' - which turned into a kind of hyper-intensive therapy. At the same time, and 2 hours away, after many years of increasing agoraphobia my mum was also now in a severe depression and had suicidal feelings that my dad found difficult to cope with. I had support from my student community and in particular from my supervisor but found being faced with such deep depths of despair - while still working as a therapist and group facilitator at the university - both moving a...

Moving to Sheffield didn't really go too well for me - I found going back to what felt like the daily grind of being an employee difficult in that it put a real cap on my zest for life. I worked in rehabilitation and citizen advocacy with the most vulnerable of vulnerable people: those with serious mental health problems, abused women, ex-prisoners, people with learning disabilities, and felt my energy being drained by so much of the appallingness I saw in their day to day lives. Needing to find something to help me ground, replenish and to keep myself safe without closing down completely, I found myself drawn to the ceremonies and the teachings of the medicine wheel and the Native Americans. 1989-1991: the shamanic path A summer camp run by the group Prana in west Wales found me participating in my first sweat lodges and other shamanic ceremonies, and connecting strongly with the earth and all the elements for the first time. I joined a local group of people following the Sweet Me...

Looking back on my life doesn't mean that I think I've done everything I'm going to do - far from it! It's more a taking stock - who am I as I approach 70, and what life experiences have helped me become that person? Once I'd started the looking back process, I realised that the life I've led is probably hors normes . I certainly haven't taken the '40-years-at-the-office and then retire' route; in fact my sum total of being an employee amounts to a piddling 15 years ... which is probably why I've never really related to or got my head around the concept of retirement and why my parents thought I was a selfish, lazy drop out (AND why I have such a pathetic pension)! But even from a very young age, my biggest fear was that I'd die with regrets for what I didn't do but had wanted to, or who I wasn't but had wanted to be. And so I've (mostly) followed my heart. I've had so many different experiences since I was an adolescent that ...