Wired for Utter Chaos

I think this may be the first time in my entire life that I have experienced what it feels like to have space just for me.

When life is at a pace and chaotic, you get very used to that. Only now am I starting to realise just how much I have put myself through in life. I am incredibly fortunate that the space is here for me to recognise this.

My family life growing up was far from straightforward. I was born into an existing family unit, a family dynamic of a mum and a dad and two adopted siblings. They were both teenagers when this little crinkly pink thing arrived.

My sister didn’t want to push me in a pram; she was worried people would think I was hers. Deep shame around that back then.

My brother, well, he was getting nicked all the time by the old bill it is a family joke that is the reason I ended up being a cop myself. Very low-level stuff he was into nicking milk money and glue sniffing in those days to start with.

Later in life I explored my own options to adopt a child, I was avidly reading around all of it, and only then did I discover more about the ways that early experiences of separation, loss, neglect or instability can sometimes affect a child’s relationship with possessions, trust and security. Some children may develop behaviours such as hoarding or taking things, but there can be many reasons behind this, and it certainly isn’t something that can be attributed to adopted children as a group.

It was really quite an eye-opening read and made me understand my own family dynamic much better. Adoption definitely wasn’t handled well in the 70s and 80s, and I really hope it’s a better system now.

I was turned down to adopt a child in 2021 just after we came out of covid lockdown we were never give a reason why I think that was the toughest part. You know, I’m actually now very grateful that it didn’t happen. It would have broken my heart to put a child through the divorce I went through last year. That was the final straw for me not being told I could adopt it sent me deeply on a healing journey as I started to search for something. I was so lost after that.

But then, just maybe, if that had happened, maybe I would have stayed in an unhappy marriage for a child’s sake.

Woulda, shoulda, coulda, Who knows?

Sliding doors, crossroads, divinely guided, Am I ? Are we? I think so now.

How do we make these big decisions for our lives? Some are definitely made for us. Those are crystal clear. But when we get to a crossroads, how do we sit and choose?

My household as a child was disconnected. My brother spent time in a care home and borstal, as it was called then. My sister timidly went about her world, and we had very little time together.

I think I was the annoying little sister and probably seen as spoilt rotten. I was very good at spending time to myself, something that has been there throughout my life.

I love humanity. I just don’t always like humans. They are so complex. We are so complex.

If, like me, you are constantly digging into understanding yourself, often you have actually very little capacity for others complex stuff. Sometimes you have to give it all a break too and just learn to be exactly as you are, no fixing, healing, just moving along daily. A step at a time with as much presence as you can humanly muster.

It amazes me how we manage to connect so well on a surface level when there is such incredible depth beneath. Only a handful of friends in your life really get to see below that surface level. I find this a really interesting thing.

I spent a lot of time out of the house as a teenager, on my bike. I was always a hard worker: paper rounds, waitressing, ice cream kiosk. God, I loved that job.

I even served Whelks to Chas and Dave once, who were performing at the Felixstowe Spa Pavilion. I’m sure that was not the pinnacle of their glittering careers.

I used to go to church too. I got invited to a Christian youth group when I was, like, 15. I got heavily involved and was professing my full Christianity by 16 to anyone that would listen to me, which kind of got renounced a tad once I got to university and met my first proper handsome rugby-playing boyfriend.

But I was definitely away as much as possible from those I was supposed to be the closest to.

I was definitely always drawn to the idea of something bigger, something more than just us.

The police career, well, that really was a whirlwind of chaos, emergencies, trauma, daily drama. So much was suppressed during those years. There was no room for creativity, which was bonkers, considering I’d done an English and Theatre Studies degree just prior to joining at the age of 21.

I really wanted to be a children’s television presenter. I even wrote to the BBC once.

The last few years of my life, in summary, have been leaving the police, getting married, biggest loss of identity I’ve ever experienced.

I didn’t have to work. We didn’t have a family. We lived with incredible abundance and travelled the world, and yet deeply, I was deeply unhappy in myself.

So the last year has seen my life in utter chaos. I turned it all upside down, threw it on its head, smashed it to the ground and burnt it afterwards, leaving the marriage, then subsequently leaving the mill.

I left a lot of friends and family behind. It’s been a huge shift.

I am 50 years old in February, single, running my own home, business, and another little part-time job too.

My yoga journey has helped me survive and find peace in it all. It is something that has only been part of my life since my 30s, but it’s been an incredible grounding tool. It has helped me reframe so much around the stories I have held about myself.

As I start to land from the move to the new studio, there is a huge realisation around the areas of my life where I have really pushed through and not taken care of myself.

The space I feel now is not something I have ever experienced.

And there are days when the calmness physically feels alien in my body.

I am learning to sit with it and breathe with it.

I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know what will unfold with the new studio, I definitely don’t have a five year plan. I do dream of living remotely in the Isle of skye regularly.

But I am sitting with it all, letting it all land without filling the void.

This is probably the most challenging part yet, but I would say it is what everything has led to, to this point: learning to be content where I am with who I am.

Saying that I have bought a camper van and will be escaping often on trips,I have a big one planned to scotland just me and the dogs.

Learning to be alone at this time of my life is a tough lesson.

I am learning to be much kinder to myself, and I truly mean it when I say, for the first time ever, I really do surrender to the flow fully.

Whenever I have forced anything, it’s never worked.

Whenever I have chased anything, it’s been so obvious it was not aligned.

So now I am here, sitting with it, making decisions for me that feel good.

How do I make them?

From a good, rested state, calm and quiet, I ask myself:

What do I want for my life?

How is my body feeling with that?

What do I notice in my body when I ask myself:

What do I need? What do I want?

Maybe this is the most aware I have been of my feelings.

I have burnt some stuff to the ground to get here.

Let’s see what pans out, hey?

Thanks for reading,

Clare