For those asking about 24/7 (Jim), he's posted this.
Bit of a long read here about choices...... Are you living the life you're choosing?
I'd been wondering for a few weeks how to write something positive about mental health, at work or otherwise, and then inspiration struck me - literally and quite painfully. This post sees me wearing my coaching hat - be warned it might trigger some of you.....
A year ago today, my father succumbed to his drink and depression addictions by making a choice to unilaterally take his life. He made sure of it too, combining several very self-destructive means. The only additional detail I'll add about that is the absence of a suicide note, just a collection on the desk of the thoughts, feelings and ramblings of a man trying to come to terms with his guilt in the last few weeks of the life that he'd chosen.
Those notes got me thinking about my own existence. A lot. I had a crisis, as I wasn't mentioned by name once in his writings and was left off his carefully crafted list of things he considered "achievements" in his life. Okay, I then processed that and Meeli Laane counselled me well (very well - I highly recommend her.)
The point of this post?
Well, this first anniversary doesn't find me lighting incense and doing pagan rituals in the beautiful Estonian countryside. Far from it. I'm in ICU with pneumothorax, following what was meant to be straightforward reconstructive surgery to fix a collar bone I'd innocuously managed to smashed into four pieces! There's a pins and needles joke in there if you want it....! Life reminds me that sometimes there's no such thing as "straightforward"...
Instead, I asked myself this question: "Am I living a life I've consciously chosen?" A year ago I'd have needed to admit that no, I wasn't. This past year has helped me reverse that answer and my father's intrusive presence in dreams and reality also helped...
Let's run a quick check list.
1. Professional. My father was, by all accounts, an excellent Spanish and French teacher, rising through ranks to Head of Modern Languages at a decent school. Problem is he didn't enjoy it, the stress and the admin in particular and he was scathing about students' "changing behaviour." He eventually quit, gave up, took early retirement at 55 and set the scene for two decades of financial strife. Unpick that all you like. A choice to become a teacher in the first place, the career that funded the first few years of his first marriage and the first few years of my life - later doing better by progressing from post to post and raising a new family - I love them all, by the way, they're blameless in all my own emotional turmoil...because love is also a choice. Anyway, he clearly didn't 'love' teaching. He admitted it.
2. Health. My father was, in my eyes, strong and fit - skiing holidays, cycling, feats of DIY you normally only see on TV, thinking nothing of lifting heavy slabs in his late 60s in one of his many garden make-overs, even building and fitting in his 70s an entire new kitchen plus flooring. But years of abusing his own body seemed to catch up with him - and the moment he 'gave up' was when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He fought it though - and won -spectacularly - even when he contracted sepsis from a catheter infection which almost killed him a few years ago, he still fought back. And won again. The last words he spoke to me were, "You know, it was the cancer that did it." No, it wasn't. The drink took him in the end, he couldn't win that one and it affected every area of his life, including, of course, his health - and when I say health, I of course mean physiological, psychological, biological, spiritual, financial and emotional health. All washed down the toilet via the cheapest bottle. It saddens me to write that but how else is it? He had choices, every step (no puns intended) of the way, including when to hang from the balcony late that night a year ago.
3. Love. This is a man who seems to have been so desperate for love and affection that it eluded his skeptical eyes even when it was clinging to him desperate itself to be recognised. Not that I am calling either my mother or stepmother desperate - no - they both loved him. But ultimately the choices he made (I'll leave the many other women he pursued for the same ends out of this) led both my mother and stepmother unable to reconcile their lifestyles with his. They then had to make their choices. I myself stopped at a very young age chasing my father's love, it was a choice he needed to make to accept mine. I spent 51 years waiting for him to do so - it was very, very rarely evident. He just didn't know how to. Doubtlessly my half-siblings will have their own viewpoints on this - and their respective genders say a lot too - he seemed incapable of connecting with his sons yet he seems to have had a deep connection to his daughter - I'm not a psychologist but there's undeniably something in that...anyway, in the end, his inability or unwillingness to meet others in love drove everyone away - choices again - the very thing he most craved was always there...
So. A year later, I am thinking a lot about choices - mine this time. In August 2021 my life was very different to the one I live now. Let's run a quick checklist...
1. Professional. My advice to others has always been to find something you love and then do your best at it. I've not always followed that advice. Back then, I was doing my very best to love something that I was apparently good at - two very different beasts. For reasons best not elaborated on here, it wasn't working out and, in the end, I had to walk away, feeling defeated and demoralised. However, through conscious choice (and the power of manifestation) I'm finally back doing something I love and am learning to do my best at. Lesson one.
2. Health. Okay, stop laughing at the back, yes, I'm in hospital following a stupid accident that wouldn't have happened if I'd continued down the chosen path of walking more!!! I had a health scare last year which was thankfully put down to grief. When I had the all-clear, I launched myself back into the gym. Choice. I also determinedly eschewed alcohol. Another choice. Good ones, it seems - because when I say health, I of course mean all forms. I have benefitted on every level by making two simple choices. I'd be writing this in a forest with a lit incense stick if I'd chosen to walk to a sunset last week....lessons two and a half then...
3. Love. For many reasons I won't bore you with, I have had love tested on all fronts this year. And I've learnt they have one thing in common - choice. I choose to love LFC, no matter the result. I choose to love the work I do, because I truly enjoy it, no matter the challenges. I choose to get rid of Facebook and Instagram and mainstream TV, because I know it's healthier for me to do so, no matter the peer pressure or fear of isolation. I choose to distance myself from people who are either toxic or dangerous to my emotional hygiene, because I know that my partner can never truly love me until she sees me practising self-love, no matter how hard those choices are - acts of self-love have more power than I ever imagined. Evelyn and I were friends for a long time before we became lovers - and neither of us was looking for it - I can honestly say that this is the first relationship I've had on that level - and the more we discover about each other, the more we learn about ourselves too...which feeds back into the connection - deeper and stronger. I've learnt something my father apparently didn't. No what ifs, no 2nd bests, no plan b. Just go all in and commit - all the love you ever need comes flowing back then, it's incredible. And it's a choice.
Lesson three.
This then is why, finally, life feels like something worth living and choosing - at times it's very hard, of course - then you have a choice - fight for what you love, or look elsewhere and kid yourself.
I love my life - I love the work I do - I love the place where I live - I love the way my body, heart and soul respond to my environment - I love the woman to whom I have committed myself 100%.
All because I have made conscious choices about the one life that I have.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-living-life-youre-choosing-jim-sharman/