Office Space!!!!
Submitted by MissionMiraculus on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 22:22
Revving up; laws of attraction; making a start,
What was meant to be a weekly entry from is is turning suspiciously into something more like a monthly journal. Just noticed we had no comments on the last entry so we won't get too worried that you're hanging on our every word ;-)
Up and away the most exciting gift of the new year for us has been that our wish for office space for some time each week has been granted. We have the use of an office for at least a day a week until the end of July, by which time the Road2Recovery Show will already have hit the road signs, if not the headlines lol, in some parts of the west midlands!
Stored in this time-share office we now have a box-file and a very cool savings china 'travelling bus': have plans, will travel, is what we're thinking...
Next Monday some of us are heading south to London to attend the One In Four Conference so let it be noted that Open-Up initiative groups are supporting each other! We're very much looking forward to the conference, one or two of us are less excited about the journey which for two of us starts at 6.15am!!
With regard to the R2R show specifically we've contacted the relevant town councils and made enquiries viz public performance permissions and arrangements for our events and this is a huge relief: it is this formal arranging of the space and permissions for it that has had me lying awake at nights in the fear that it won't get organised in time. Our plan is to ensure we are ahead of ourselves as much as possible to optimise the chance that our events will not merely take place as scheduled but will also be a memorable and enjoyable success for all concerned.
The indirect downside of stuff is that since 29th January I had a spate of stressors that pushed me to the edge of my coping abilities/stamina - first someone in a jag cruised off the road, back onto it and into my car, wrote off my car and the car in front of me and then drove off. The two lucky parts to this is that both cars were parked, we were inside and didn't see the accident; that two neighbours did witness it and that the guy did return an hour or hour and a half later to acknowledge his responsibility for the accident. It jangled my nerves a lot since it appeared in the middle of that 1 to 1 n half hours as another 'hit and run' incident and this had already alerted my nervous system to quite a degree. I woke up the following morning to find that a close relative had died in the night. A few days later my youngest daughter came down with some kind of ear-nose-throat infection on top of tonsillitis that laid her lower than I've ever seen either of my children and I lost at least three nights sleep through this and through the preparations for her 18th birthday. All personal stuff irrelevant to MM and R2R Show, yet becoming relevant simply because I ended up almost burned out with anxiety triggered by the car bashing and exhaustion triggered by a years non-stop work topped off with the lost nights sleep in a row... Thus
We had a meeting about Social Enterprises and CIC registrations and so forth today in the middle of Birmingham and I couldn't make it as I was taking a highly indicated bit of 'time out' or 'down time' as a pal of mine emailed me the other day. Anita and Stephen, however, did get to the meeting and as far as I know all went well; we're forging ahead.
Finally, the rather protracted and complicated Mission Statement on our website www.missionmiraculus.org.uk is being edited and made simpler and punchier - partly for the purposes of the site as communication vehicle, partly for the purposes of clarity for company registration if relevant.
There's a load more to say but, as said, am pretty burned out just now n need to take it as easy as possible.
Over and out, will try to be back next week
Janie & the MM Band
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Comments
yup i read it too lol
yup i read it too lol
Hi Janie
I can only echo Terese and Louise's words - we are 100% behind you and we think you are fab. I hope you are making good use of your down time and looking after yourself. It sounds like you have had a lot going on.
Exciting to hear about your new office, I hope you're settling in well?
Take care, Helen xx
Thanks Helen! :-)
Thanks so much for your support, Helen :-)
I'm feeling loads better, finally, by the way - it's so weird, several years ago, beginning with 11 1/2 yrs ago, probably very similar levels of 'burn out' and 'personal recharging needs' were presenting themselves in my life re events emerging back then, and NOW the difference is - back then I was surrounded by black, discouraging and condemning energy, whilst now I'm infused with friendly warmth so I haven't broken down but allowed myself to rest without beating myself up to a half dead pulp within me. I'm learning simply to 'veg' a while when I can't take any more, and to recognise that when I start climbing the walls and begin to race it's just my body going into overdrive to keep me conscious for even longer past the time it left when it was too late....it's too late if no-one notices what's happening with me and takes away my burdens of responsibility for a while so that I can take a well earned rest...
In the past I was bidden to push through a little harder and erase myself a little more as I worked...It really broke me at times, especially as I was totally brain washed at the time, lol,
Now that finally I know I'm among friends, friends who have and are nurturing me well, I find that I have changed like the ugly duckling into the beautiful swan : nothing has changed but a detail outside of me gifted by circumstance and chance - the detail is emotional context of life and all its expressions... finally I've found myself 'out of the woods' of wolves in sheeps clothing and the scum of the pond (always rises to the surface, by the way) - not to forget 'the wicked step-sisters' and found myself among human beings of infinite patience and love
Why wouldn't that change my resilience cap? Why wouldn't that strengthen my stamina? How couldn't that grow right inside of me like a camp fire fuelled by magic at will? I have no illness now, I had no illness now: it was well of me and appropriate to scream against cruelty and to go berserk in the face of lies and secrecy, it was a healthy reaction to insanity of purpose in life when I asked my husband for divorce and accused him of abusiveness, too. It would have been insane back then not to be mad at the man I'd married at the orders of my mother back then:
The reason I've been tame about being locked up for being so fucking crazy in 1997
Is that I should've been locked up, and punished much more, for marrying the man I married. ;-)
I don't, of course, regret a single thing any more. Why should I? I have the two most beautiful and gifted daughters that I could have ever dreamed of and the gifts of adversity have been my making. And anyway, the bits of me still really mad about this and that have now their dawn beginning. I've learned the truth of what my mother says and I'm planning to test it's truth, to quote, "Slowly, slowly, catch a monkey"
By the way - if any of that sounds bizarre and disturbing, and possibly a little worrying, allow me to try to reassure you by adding: in my framework of behavioural boundaries and protocols there are a few core 'rules' that under no circumstances can not be broken by me at any time. These are as follows:
I am never prepared to:-
I will always :-)
Here endeth my latest drivel from 'front seat, nutters nest'
;-) Janie
certainly not drivel
Janie, I love your posts - it feels like a privilege to have a window into your head... keep writing, because you do it so eloquently!!
Helen x
You Sweetie Helen!!!
Hi there, thanks so much for your generous and warm comment, Helen - I feel so very spoiled these days by the number of wonderful human beings I am privileged to have become surrounded by in recent years! I realised recently that tho I have written relatively few 'blogs' for MM, there weren't appearing any others because I'd completely forgotten actually to SHARE the o-up log in name and password - I think you did give it to Anita too, at the induction day, but she probably didn't realise that it was that same one. So whoops I bth hogged the space whilst not actually doing the once a week blog I'd intended to make sure was a firm unmissed routine. By adding in the others to blog on a rota - we shall make the once a week blog!!! Phew - so watch this space ;-)
whoops, dating error
Please note that the stressors didn't set in as I was writing the blog - what is noted as 29th January in blog, should've read 29th December!!!!
Hi Janie and the MM Band, So
Hi Janie and the MM Band,
So sorry to hear that things have been tough of late - can really identify with the stresses of children's illnesses on top of so many other things going on. Just keep taking it easy as much as you can and let your network of support help you through. Enjoy the 1 in 4 conference - I'm sure it will be a good one! (I'm unable to make it but lots of other Open Up colleagues will be there).
Louise - Open Up
Thanks
Thanks Louise, appreciate the comments, my kids are 18 and going on 20 - just to warn you lol, this mothering stuff never ends lol, as said in my next commentary answer to terese I wasn't able to make the conference but the others did I'm looking forward tohearing all about it,
Janie
Hi Janie & the MM band :) We
Hi Janie & the MM band :)
We are so hanging on your every word, so thanks for this update. I definitely read your last entry, and I'm sorry I forgot to leave a comment. I'm really sorry to hear about your loss and also about all the other stress you have been going through. I hope that you are getting the support that you need and not being too hard on yourself.
Brilliant that you've sorted an office space! It's so important I think to have a proper space to work from. And hope you have a great time at the conference next week.
Terese
Thanks Terese:-)
Hey, that's really lovely, thanks ever so much for this. I'm so worn to a frazzle that my mind is fighting to forward the view you're being sarcastic in the beginning of the posting and it's that bit of my head that looks down on me and say's "who the hell do you think you are, Janie/MM - what makes you think anyone's even the least bit interested in your life and your thoughts, what moronic crap are you drivelling on about now" and it's that critical parent really, that inner judge and ridiculer and humiliator and torturer within myself, and I suspect within most of us to a lesser or greater degree - even as i'm mindful enough to see what 's happening, in this state aI literally lose any sense of where the critical parent ends and harsh reality about me begins..... But even I can see how kind and thoughtful the rest of your message is and to be honest that's pretty much the first understanding acknowledgement I've received - from anyone anywhere - that encapsulates so perfectly the sum of challenges I've been struggling with over the last month and simultaneously the needs I'm experiencing, such deep and yearning needs, for receiving some thoughtfulness, some sensititivity and warmth and reassurance toward and for me that just now I feel like I spend 24:7 for others. In reality I am so very very blessed with the most beautiful and positive and steady friends that I could possibly wish for and the whole of missionmiraculus is the miracle of the formation of human beings, each and between the group of us, that makes it so remarkable, so invincible, almost - the love that this group binds is the most noble love of all - the love of commonality, of purpose and of mutual support and endeavour, 'one for all, all for one' spirit that our group is an expression of. But when enough stresses pile up and I begin to falter under the weight of them I somehow lose the ability to know how to reach out in time, or in a way others can understand, nor yet know what on earth anyone else can possibly do for me until I learn to and master the art of helping myself.... and there's some truth to that in my case...but that's another story.... Thanks again for your comment - meant the world to me.
Dear Janie, Wow what you have
Dear Janie,
Wow what you have written here is so powerful - and I thought it made a lot of sense, not "incompetent prose" at all! I really admire your honesty in describing the way in which conflicting emotions and thoughts can become so overwhelming, especially in times of stress.
Also, I think sometimes written communication can be such a minefield, and there's always room for different interpretations ~ I know that I've done what you described myself often enough, questioning the intention behind each word etc. But please do let me assure you that I was in no way being sarcastic, and it has been great reading about your adventures with MM, and I can't wait to hear more from you as the year progresses.
I hope you are finding some time to take it easy & that February will be a better month for you.
Best wishes, Terese
whoops
I must comment on my own comment, I'm afraid my exhausted state and the normal sleepiness of the hour means that parts of the above are omitting those additional clauses that would complete them as SEN(SE)tences, whilst the grammar suffers badly from what lit crits might describe as 'incompetent stream of consciousness prose' and psychiatrists might describe as 'pressure of ideas; rambling; pressure of speech; rapid switches of subject....' It is of course, the former, incompetent stream of consciousness' prose. Incompetent or rather: unedited. I believe this can be noted as a clear and demonstrable example of why no-one should share unedited writing - unchecked and modified prose or verse is = too often incompetent prose.... Over and Out...