​As I took my seat on the train, I felt a surge of nausea in my belly, there was an underlying feeling of violation and I could feel people looking at me as though they could see it. I thought; “They know… they can see it in me… they can sense the disgust and how much shame I feel right now.” As we pulled out of the station and made our way into the city the feeling stayed with me, as I got into my apartment and pulled off my clothes, jumped into the shower and scrubbed my skin, it was still there. As I put clothes on and headed to work it was still there. I couldn’t shake it off. I felt sick. I felt like hiding. My skin was crawling. I wanted to shrink, contract, retreat and move inwards. I couldn’t. There was a big day ahead, the biggest event of the year and I was running it so I had to bring my A game for work and all the while I just wanted to curl into a little ball and hide so that no one would see, no one could tell and no one would guess. And so the day went on and I pushed through, smiled when I had to, focused on work and at the end of it went out for drinks with a work colleague. After our meal she asked me: “Are you okay? You seem a bit out of sorts…” It was then, after a few glasses of Dutch courage, that I let myself share what had happened. 

I’d been seeing a guy for a few months, we started out as friends and it shifted into dating and the previous night we went out to dinner. I liked him. He seemed genuine and I was excited to see where it would lead. Looking back there were a couple of signs that kicked off alarm bells and yet I ignored them. One might say there is a naivety in me and I always want to see the best in people so I pushed the warning signs to one side and put it down as something in me that was overreacting. As the meal came to an end we went back to his place and I knew the minute I walked into his home that something was off. It felt too late to leave and we were in the middle of nowhere so I convinced myself that it would be okay… I could handle myself and I knew him. I guess, in this age of us wanting to be seen as equals, we as women don’t want to see that we still need support and help. 

That night, I was sexually assaulted. I said no twice and he listened to the first no, then ignored the second and restrained me. I numbed out. I remember lying there and focusing my mind on other things like moving countries… I could just buy a plane ticket and never come back and then I would never have to see him or anyone who knew him ever again. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak and I felt completely paralysed. I can’t explain it, I don’t know why I didn’t fight him off, tell him to stop or even scream. I’ve asked myself the same questions over and over again and I’ve run the scenario in my head time and time again. I froze and then I exited the situation energetically and headed off to another land in my mind so I didn’t have to deal with what was going on in real time. I blamed myself for not being into what he was into, closed my eyes and willed it to be over. 

The shame I felt was huge and it was only when I shared it with a friend and she said that what had happened was not okay that I realised the extent of what I had experienced.  I went home that evening, had a cry and then pushed it away as if that was it done and dusted and it was time to move on and get over it. 

Over the following months and years it would come up at random times and each time I glossed over it and told myself to wise up and let it go. It wasn’t a big deal, I hadn’t been raped so it was okay and actually I had gotten off lightly compared to other women’s experiences.  Yet the same feelings of nausea would be in my gut, disgust in my throat and the crawling feeling in my skin. There was a sense of not being able to bear the shame I associated with it. I then convinced myself that even if I did share it, I would be admitting that I did something wrong, that I couldn’t protect myself and the shame of that too felt too much to handle. It’s been inside me for a long time and then last year I booked a shamanic retreat and I went to Peru. 

My intention in going on the trip was to celebrate, celebrate all my personal work of the last number of years and to move into this new decade of my life with a sense of freedom and wonder, to be open and to clear the energy that was stopping me from living life fully. Being on a path to healing there is always an uncovering and another layer to peel away but on arriving in Peru this layer felt bigger than anything I had dealt with before and it was totally unexpected. As I said in my last blog, the trip was a subtle unfolding and even on writing my last piece I still didn’t have full comprehension of what I had processed and was integrating. 

“Shame is the most powerful master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.” 
Brene Brown

Not being good enough… the running story in me that always rears it head when things start to go a tad awry in life. When I was in Peru, the memory of what happened years ago resurfaced and I got angry. I was really angry; actually I was boiling with rage. I then moved from anger to feeling sad and then hurt. As I continued to track the emotions and went deeper, I saw the shame and fear sitting underneath it all. The shame was still there and it was coupled with a fear of it happening again and of my inability to stand up for myself and walk away. Listening to how someone else spoke about assault and the beliefs around it, echoed a long held fear in me that I am tainted goods and that ultimately I deserved what had happened to me. I didn’t do anything to prevent it; I actually agreed to go home with him and I trusted him so I invited it in on some level. The shame game kicked into gear and this time I was being forced to play it. After sitting in the stands for years and not dealing with my shame, I now had to look at it, step into the arena, lean into it and get dirty. 

“…The next time you lose heart and you can’t bear to experience what you are feeling, you might recall this instruction: change the way you see it and lean in… Instead of blaming our discomfort on outer circumstances or on our own weakness, we can choose to stay present and awake to our experience, not rejecting it, not grasping it, not buying the same stories we relentlessly tell ourselves. This is priceless advice that addresses the true causes of suffering – yours, mine and that of all living beings.”
Pema Chodron 

When I returned from Peru I knew the game had just begun and that it was integration time and boy has it been a tough one to be with over the last few months. My shame game has an edge and harshness to it and has knocked me down again and again since returning. It has shown up in a number of different ways and this time instead of pushing it to one side, shrinking away and contracting, I have asked myself to be present to it, to ask for help and support from safe spaces and to feel into it. One of the most confronting parts of this was admitting to myself that I was being very hard on me, that I was my own worst critic and in a way I have been abusing myself since that night all those years ago. I have limited myself in terms of what is possible for my life by allowing shame to control me. My self-talk has, in a lot of ways, been worse than what happened that night or what others may have said about my role in it had I been brave enough to speak up and share authentically instead of laughing it off with girlfriends and minimising the reality and actual impact of it on me. 

“Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging.”
Brene Brown

In my quest for allowing myself to settle in a place, to build a home and to belong, I believe my relationship with shame has come up so that I can release the pain, the old belief patterns and really allow myself to come to a place of forgiveness and grace with the experience. In a lot of ways there are days I wish I could just sit back and not say anything, not share and continue to hide these hurt parts of myself away from the world but that doesn’t give others the opportunity to be open and honest about their stories. It doesn’t allow me or them to be brave.

Holding back doesn’t lead me to the most important relationship I want in my life - a graceful relationship with myself, that is open, honest and full of acceptance, forgiveness and love and held in beauty. 

“The truth is unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
Dr Steve Marboli

Today I let go, I forgive me, the situation is over and it no longer owns me. I own my story and I accept that it has, in part, shaped me into the woman I am. It allows me to recognise a person who has also experienced similar trauma, hurt and shame. It has made me a more compassionate and empathic being in the world. 

As of now, the shame game is no longer holding me to ransom or controlling me. I may still be standing in the arena looking it square in the eyes and watching it, but the difference is this time I am ready, I am willing to lean in and I have the tools to deal with it. They may not be the tools I expected to be using – forgiveness, acceptance, grace and connection to those I feel safe sharing with – and yet they are the tools that have been my greatest support over these last few months. 

Most importantly through facing this healing process and leaning into the shame, the story no longer defines me. It is not who I am or who I may become.

In the words of one of my favourite writers and a woman who has spent her entire career researching shame and our relationship with it;  

“When we bury the story, we forever stay the subject of the story.
When we own the story we get to narrate the ending.” 
Brene Brown

So here’s to a new ending and an even brighter new beginning! 

Aho! 

On our last day in Lima, we had the privilege of eating at Central, currently rated as one of the best restaurants in the world. It blew me away. At the beginning of our journey to Peru, we sat in circle, a group of people, some strangers, some not, with a collective intention of connection. Anna, our retreat leader was upfront from the start; “Think of the trip as you would a symphony. There will be highs and lows, there will be waves that you wish were over and waves you wish would last forever and there will be waves of stillness and being.” 

It’s hard to put into words all that I experienced during the two weeks away but the one word that keeps coming back to me is subtle. It might seem like a strange word to describe Peru. There is nothing subtle about the country, its people or the energy there, however the whole experience for me was deeply subtle. There were the emotional highs and lows, and at times anxiety, anger and sadness; there was resistance and holding on; and then there was letting go, laughter and love. Most important of all there was connection and beneath the connection there was the subtle beauty of experiencing a land that holds a strong spiritual energy, a land that holds sacred secrets that it shares with the people who choose to visit, secrets that can’t really be communicated outside of it. The movie Avatar was at the forefront of my mind while we were in the Andes. I can almost see where James Cameron had his vision realised and just as there is the underworld of Avatar, a wondrous place of synchronicity and connection, this exists deep in the heart of Peru if you are shown the way and the places to look. 

To the outside world there are the pictures I took, the new friends I made, the people I met and I can show this all on a screen to you but the subtle intense energy of Peru seduced me in ways I never dreamed possible. The things that I couldn’t capture on camera are the memories I will treasure forever. Sitting in a garden surrounded by hummingbirds as they flew from one plant to the next, watching a caterpillar connect to a wooden table and begin its journey inwards towards its chrysalis, tarantulas that show themselves only when they feel the need too, sloths who hang out in the jungle, hidden unless pointed out, happy within themselves to be on their own and yet part of an ecosystem that is greater than any other on earth, pink dolphins who hide beneath the waters of the Amazon and pop up once in a while to say hi and stars that glisten in the sky during a night boat-ride with fireflies twinkling on the river and a guitar softly playing in the background... this is the connection, the subtle softness of being present and part of a world that is touched and yet untouched by western society. This beauty, that cannot be captured in an image, is what will bring me back to this land again and is also what brought a lost part of me back to myself. 

Coming together at Central, as a group of individuals to celebrate our two weeks on retreat together was a subtle but stunning experience. From entering through high gates, where outside it is only recognisable with a simple sign and then wandering through a garden, a hidden gem tucked away from prying eyes full of flowers and herbs and fresh produce, a garden of eden in the midst of a busy city. Seated at tables with numbers restricted so that the conversation level never quite moves above a certain decibel, a menu that is a veritable taste fest of all that Peru has to offer, decadently prepared with care and served in a timely manner with soft music playing in the background that seems to match each course perfectly. As we sat together and shared our meal, it was not lost on some of us that this experience really epitomised the entire trip. The blank canvas of a gate, our own outer forms as we arrived in Peru, the hidden gems inside ourselves which we were shown time and time again, the stirring of all senses as we moved through the Andes and the Amazon and finally back into "normality"... all culminating in a final dish that tasted sweet and yet left us wanting more. 

There were days in the lead up to travelling where I was nervous and excited with anticipation. There were moments on the trip where there was an edge to a conversation that felt uncomfortable and yet held a lesson and knowing it was time to let go and to move on. There were times where I had to say no and permit myself to be true to my needs and also the days where a yes was the way forward even if it felt out of my comfort zone. And there was the day when the realisation came that sometimes the distractions in life are the point and the space held for heart-opening experiences are exactly why we chose to be a part of something bigger and greater than ourselves. 

In truth I feel a bit like the caterpillar, who has just attached itself to prepare for its' time inside, retreating to allow itself to grow into something wondrous and beautiful. What it may look like, it may not know yet and for now it doesn’t need to know. This is the time for dreaming and being in wonder, the time for allowing life to unfold without an agenda. How timely it is that we have the gift of winter and all its beauty of allowing us to be in hibernation for a little while, so that when spring comes there is something new, something unexpected that arises from the lessons, the learnings and the letting go. There is a pressure that builds so that when it is time, the transitional state of the chrysalis bursts open and the wings of a butterfly unfold to show itself in its truest form and its wisest self. 

​I wrote a blog this week about growing up along the border in Ireland. Then I rewrote it and then I deleted it and wrote it again and again and again. It is something that has been in my heart over recent months with the conversations about what type of border is needed in Ireland with the UK moving out of the EU. I am not a keen political operator and to be honest, there are parts of this landscape I don’t understand and haven’t delved into enough to fully engage with it. I shied away from politics when I was at university as we were encouraged to NOT talk about it. Living in Derry and Portrush during the years when we are traditionally meant to develop opinions on governments’, and whether we are right or left wing, just wasn’t supported. The on-going challenges between sides were always cited as the reason and as students and residents in Northern Ireland we confronted these regularly.  There was always an underlying sense of fear and being on guard in amongst the partying and youthful self-expressions of living away from home from the first time.
 
I moved to Monaghan Town when I was 11 years old. It was 1989 and it was nine years before peace came about in Northern Ireland and the hard border was removed.  Spending my early years in Dublin, I didn’t fully understand or comprehend the situation in Northern Ireland or in the border counties. I certainly don’t remember it ever being talked about and it was only when I moved closer to the border that it suddenly took up residence front and centre in my life. It was a time of education for me. I didn’t really get why, when we travelled into the North, we had to stop at a checkpoint with fully armed military patrolling it, questioning our intentions of traveling to a different county and then searching the boot of the car or why we would be shushed from speaking. At first it felt like being in a movie and there was an element of excitement.  That feeling radically changed and I soon realized this wasn’t a movie; it was now my reality.
 
They say that the feelings of fear and excitement are very close in their nature and that it is the absence of breath or the attitude to either that determines the one we live in. Having lived on both sides of the border, I can safely say that fear and mistrust were overriding no matter your attitude back in the days before peace and even in the years that followed as the transition was not the easiest one. I look at these quotes and wonder if the author ever lived in a place where conflict was at the heart of its community.  
 
The thing to realize is that this became normal life. Living in this way became part of the everyday. Evacuations, bomb scares, police banging on the door at various times of the day and night, name calling, stones thrown, breaking glass, armoured vehicles, random checkpoints, avoiding certain parts of town… it all became “the norm” and there was an immunity that came with it.
 
“In the place of stillness, rises potential. From the place of potential, emerges possibility. Where there is possibility there is choice. And where there is choice, there is freedom.”
Gabrielle Goddard
 
Those of us who have lived on the border had years of having to get on with day-to-day life and deal with the reality of having no choice but to live with the restrictions imposed on us.  We finally found freedom and were given the gift of choice in 1998. The relief and elatedness of this freedom allowed for fear to dissolve. The ‘norm’ shifted to now living in trust and faith. The immunity we had developed to deal with living in an area of conflict melted away. And yet here we are now, asking our immune systems to mobilize once again, against the old deep seeded fears of what the past entailed, and I feel there is a collective question of ourselves as to how we live into a future that continues to be of possibility no matter the border?
 
As we stand together on both sides now, in stillness, waiting for resolution, there is a collective holding of breath for the impact of this decision on our lives and the lives of our children. This is an old narrative that has been healing and like some illnesses it seems she has been in remission and has reared her head to see if we, as a people, are willing to step up, to share our stories and feel into the fear that sits inside so that we can move through it and trust that none of us want to revisit the days of old.
 
I believe the ‘ASK’ is for us to continue to walk the path of potential, to recognize that we are no longer willing to accept that a border comes at the cost of peace in our land. We breathe together and collectively recognize that no matter what border they deem as politically correct for our country, we are already one. We are of this land and we choose to be a part of the greater collective striving for a peaceful and better place to live and be a part of. 

AHO!

Brexit: A cry from the Irish Border 
‘Jacob Rees-Mogg you're right. You don't need to visit the border... you need to have lived here.’ Belfast-born actor Stephen Rea explores the real impact of Brexit and the uncertainty of the future of the Irish border in a short film written by Clare Dwyer Hogg.

 I remember the first time I saw him. He was standing by the large marquee of the camp talking with some other boys. I was 12 and he was 14. I was struck by his stance and then his eyes and couldn’t help but stare over at him. I found myself distracted by his presence and his every move. Being a shy 12 year old, I didn’t really know how to be around boys. I attended an all girls school where there wasn’t a lot of interaction with the boys and if there was, there was always someone there to make fun of it. So it never felt comfortable to simply chat to a boy to get to know him. Hitting puberty and suddenly noticing that there were a range of emotions that came up with that wasn’t my best time, and I had a public teenage experience as we had a family business, so the awkward stages of blushing and getting embarrassed around the opposite sex played out in front of the entire neighbourhood for me. 
 
When I went on holidays with my aunt and uncle that year I had an experience that forever changed me. My uncle was the leader of a Scout group so I went off to hang out with my cousins and my aunt whilst surrounded by a group of boys aged 10-15. It was an experience I will never forget. I remember the days walking the woods and playing around on the assault course, swim competitions in the local pool, dinner with the group in the evenings and this connection that seemed to come out of nowhere with a young man who, to this day is still with me. I remember the first time we said hi to each other and it felt as though I had accomplished a milestone in being able to speak to him. We used to simply sit across from each other and look into the other’s eyes, for what seemed like an age, and then look away embarrassed questioning if it was real. We stood outside the marquee one night and had our first conversation. I couldn’t tell you what it was about but I remember gazing up at him in wonder for what could happen between us. 
 
And life went on, I said goodbye after my time there and every time I visited my relatives I would be itching to get into town to see if I would run into him or catch a glimpse of him once more. He asked my cousin one night, a few months after we had met, if I was coming to the Christmas teenage disco and it ignited hope in that he had felt the same connection I did that week. Weeks and months passed and we came to Valentine’s Day, I had spent the week asking my aunt for his address, choosing a card and sending it to him full of excitement and fear, fear in case he didn’t remember me or that he didn’t feel the same about me anymore. 
 
When the phone call came I was still in my pajama's. It was the 15th February. I let the phone fall into the cradle as my best friend said goodbye and that she was sorry to have to be the bearer of the news. I sat on the stairs and I cried. I cried for what might have been. I cried for the loss of the dream. He was gone. There was no longer a possibility for us. He had left this world unexpectedly and tragically, leaving behind a family who loved him, a community who valued him and a young girl who had seen a life with him even though we had never even kissed. 
 
Last weekend was a weekend of healing and as it turned out a healing into something that I had thought I had let go of a long time ago. Through a visualization I found myself sitting with that same little girl. We sat on the stairs together and I held her as she cried and as she experienced a loss of innocence, a loss of belief and as she made a choice to never fully belong, never fully allow love in and never fully allow the connection to be there for fear it would once again be taken away. Over the years, her fears are exactly what have manifested. Failed relationships that don’t stand the test of time or distance, places that feel like home only to be moved on from and connections that feel so right only to be so wrong. 
 
Being on a path to healing the wounded side of myself has taken me down many roads and it is a path I have never regretted stepping onto. I do question it some days and there are moments I would rather be numb again so it means I don't have to look at who I am in the situation and what I can do to move forward and heal into the present. It isn’t always the easiest path and it takes courage and bravery for those who choose it.  On the weekend as I reflected over recent events in my life, I realised that since the day he died, I haven’t really allowed myself to belong. I have moved and travelled since I was old enough to and I never really gave myself permission to stay in one place too long. I never questioned it; I put it down to my itchy feet and restless spirit. 
 
On the weekend as we moved through various healing journey’s, it suddenly hit me that my fear in life has been not been the fear of never having love, connection and belonging but the fear of fully experiencing love, connection and belonging.  I had it once and it left so there has been a part of me that believed that this was how it was. No one would stay and therefore if I allowed myself to experience it, it wouldn’t hang around.  
 
In not allowing myself to belong anywhere or to anyone, I have also not allowed myself to belong to me, to fully embody who I am and to experience life in all its technicolour glory. 
 
“Belonging so fully to yourself that you’re willing to stand alone is a wilderness - an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can’t control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it is the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.” 
Brené  Brown 
 
So it is with gratitude for the journey so far, a sense of excitement and a little trepidation that I step into embodying love, connection and belonging in my life. It is with baby steps that I ease the younger part of me out of fear and into the wilderness. It is with an open heart I welcome in the unknown, the space for allowing myself to belong and to be at peace with fully being here now because I recognise that I am worthy of love, connection and belonging. We all are.