Every cloud has a silver lining

What’s a quote that perfectly describes your outlook on life?

The quote that perfectly describes my outlook on life is “Every cloud has a silver lining “.  We have the opportunity to grow and learn from everything we experience in this life. Something good comes out of all we experience,  even the most challenging times have a bit of bling attached to them, we only need to be open to learning and look for the positive optimistic stuff in life. Next time life brings you lemons, make lemonade by choosing to be optimistic about it.

Unrealistic Expectations

This isn’t an easy blog post to write as it can be quite painful and unhealthy to talk about it,  but I feel guided to write

Straight out of secondary school I ended up studying primary teaching at university.  Going to university was an amazing experience and I don’t regret doing it, but it probably led to me developing mental health issues because of the unrealistic expectations of my family.  I was the first child in the family to attend university and my family had expectations of me that turned out to be very unrealistic and based on some sort of fantasy that my family had concerning me.  I found university very challenging and although I loved my major of children’s literature I struggled with other parts of the course and started to have panic and anxiety attacks that my family chose to ignore. Then my cousin passed away and the panic and anxiety attacks worsened to such an extent that I deferred from uni and never went back.  If only I had a family who were worldly and educated about mental health issues.  For the next few years I worked in a couple of different jobs and moved out of home, so I could be independent and lead my own life even as my mental health declined and I became very unwell very quickly and my family became stereotypical in their judgement and shame of my mental health issues.  I internalised alot of my struggle and was determined to use my experience to help others and I was blessed to study welfare studies at TAFE and make a career in peer support roles in mental health 🙏🏽.   That was a blessing in disguise because it so easily could’ve become a victim but chose instead to grow developing empathy and compassion.   My advice to people is not to let others expectations of you define you . Life is a journey and we are all on different paths learning different lessons. Enjoy your journey and don’t let other people define you

I do think everything happens for a reason

Do you think everything happens for a reason?

I do think everything happens for a reason. There has just been too much happen in my life that could not be coincidence. I believe in fate abd destiny and life purpose. We are on a journey to learn different lessons in life and the people that come who our lives 🙏🏽 come for a reason and similar souls on similar journeys touch our lives.  I believe that part of my life purpose is to have mental health issues be understood and that i am to give empathy,  compassion and love to my fellow humans on their journey of life.  Nothing happens by accident,  God has plans for our life. Life is all about the journey not the destination. Our souls are eternal and live through many different lifetimes to learn different lessons on those journeys.

Neil Finn’s lyrics in Distant Sun

What’s a song lyric that has stuck with you forever?

The song lyric that stays with me forever comes from the heart of Neil Finn in the Crowded House song Distant Sun 🌞.   It is as follows

“I don’t pretend to know what you want but I offer love”.  It is a lyric filled with meaning, compassion and love.  Neil has written many love songs 🎵 and Distant Sun sticks out because it is about universal love. Neil is my absolute favourite songwriter and he is loved and respected for his beautiful songwriting.

Biggest Dream

What’s your biggest dream?

My biggest dream is to own a couple of children’s literature shops here in Melbourne and also in Auckland New Zealand.  I would like to live at Barwon Heads and have a home in Parnell Auckland and have some connections to Sam Neill’s  Two Paddocks vineyard at Central Otago near Dunedin on the south island of New Zealand.  I would like to not have mental health issues and divide my time between Melbourne and Auckland. I would live a very peaceful and contented life and maintain good relationships with my brothers and my nieces and nephews ❤️ 💕 ♥️.

Seeing into her soul

As I sit or lye beside Lily i look tenderly into her beautiful eyes 😍 🤩 and I swear that her eyes are a window or mirror 🪞 into her soul.  How anybody could be cruel to such creatures upsets me.  Dogs definitely have a soul that I wrote about in a past post 📫 A Dog’s Soul.   My ex husband used to say that heaven wasn’t for dumb animals, no wonder with that sort of attitude that our marriage didn’t last. In my heaven we are reunited with all the pets we had loved on earth 🌎 and I know looking into Lily’s eyes 👀 that our love and souls are destined to be together forever, that she will be beside me on my souls next lifetime and adventures.

I ask everyone who has a dog to softly glance into their eyes 👀 and see their soul, one of life’s most meaningful experiences

A promise made

What’s a promise you made to yourself that you’ve actually kept?

There is a promise that I have made that I’ve actually kept and that is to honour Susanna’s wishes to my dying days.

Susanna in the last year of her life was concerned about the impact of worrying about Diana and her children was negatively impacting upon my mental health 🙏🏽 and begged me to cut off contact with them for my own well-being.  It is a promise I have kept and intend to keep to my last day’s to honour Susanna’s wishes. Susanna’s advice to me came from a very good place and she was the absolute best friend in my life. My mental health issues are a lot better now I don’t have Diana’s train wreck dramas in my life. Susanna could see how draining it all was for me and it definitely was the right thing for my well-being to walk away from that drama and put my own welfare first.

BLANE MCDONOUGH

If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?

If I could have dinner with any fictional character it would be with Blane McDonough the character Andrew McCarthy played in the movie Pretty In Pink.   I would like to be younger than I am now, because I would like to be Andie Walsh the character Molly Ringwald played in that movie   Pure teenage fangirl stuff.  Sometimes it is OK to have pure fantasy stuff.