have you ever gone full circle

and suddenly had that lightbulb moment? That moment when it all falls into place and you go ‘ooh, of course! When it all comes together, those little threads of information that create the whole picture. Well I had one of those moments today. A coming together of little nuggets; from reading books on healing, to listening to various spiritual podcasts, to listening to two different hospital consultants, one of whom wanted to put me on epilepsy tablets even though I don’t suffer from epilepsy (I declined but thank you anyway) and having various emergency tests done after a suspected transitory stroke that included an ECG and a CT scan on my brain (the results all came back fine), to seeing an intuitive kinesiologist, and, something that rarely happens in the western medical field, looking at my emotional wellbeing and how it may have affected my physical health.

You see since spring 2020 I started having visual migraines. I’m not sure if you know what they are, they’re not like a migraine per se, with the banging headache, let me sit in a darkened cave for 24 hours and perhaps vomit along the way and for sure feel totally wrecked after, no, far from it. There’s no headache, there’s just this kaleidoscope of vision, what I call the twinkles. The closest I can describe it to is literally like part of what you are looking at is jaggedy, bright, moving, kinda like looking through a kaleidoscope. Google it, you’ll see some quite trippy images. They last for about 20 minutes and leave you feeling quite flat after, a bit down, not depressed, just proper pluff. They can also leave you feeling really sleepy and you just crash out for a couple of hours. Sometimes I don’t have one for ages, months (that was the early days) and other times I have them on a regular, perhaps once a fortnight. Sometimes I may have been alone when I’ve experienced them, other times teaching a class of almost 30 kids.

One thing that pisses me off, not in an angry way, more of in a ‘for fucks sake’ kinda way, is why the western medical profession never wants to look at the cause of a problem and just treat the symptoms. Well actually I think we all know why but I’m not going to go into that right now, that’s for another day, or not. You see, for me, it’s really important to try and get to the cause of any health problem that I might have, and then I can start work on helping it. 

As you’ve probably gathered from looking at my artwork and website, I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself this past year and a half. There’s been a lot of thinking, a lot of introspection, reflection, and dealing with my grief, the trauma, delving into the carrierbag full of the range of loss in my life, and all of the sudden sharp shocks, moves and changes. Someone who has been a constant in helping me along the way, who I am eternally grateful for, is the intuitive kinesiologist that I go to see off and on, who works on all levels; mind, body, spirit, biological and chemical. She has helped me through a lot, and recently we got right into the nitty gritty of my visual migraines. I’m not really sure why I’m sharing all this but something is compelling me to so I’ll keep going. One of the things to come up was me not being heard and that’s exactly what was going on big time in 2020 at work, when I first experienced one. They happen in other contexts as well, conversations, perhaps a bit more serious, profound, difficult, where I’ve felt that I’m not being heard, then comes the feeling of frustration and thoughts of ‘do I need to scream, will you hear me then?’ Through not being able to externalise I unconsciously start to internalise. And then I start to self-punish, you know, like blaming myself, perhaps it was something I did, telling myself how I could have communicated better, etcetera etcetera etcetera. It’s kind of a quiet chatter but it seems like it’s been causing these visual migraines. Maybe the visual migraines have been my body’s way of telling me to stop with such talk.

On a side note, hear me out here, one of the things I’ve been conscious of for a long time now is an aspect of my personality that can be said to be related to the characteristic of the rooster, my Chinese astrology animal and that is the pick pick pick of criticism. Not in a harsh way but more in a ‘okay, that’s enough now, point made, thanks’ kinda way. I was talking to a friend about it recently and interestingly she touched on that maybe my rooster criticism is pick pick picking internally, with that pointy beak aimed at me. Could be. Good point.

A picture is starting to form. So as a proactive step I decided that I needed to sit with, be conscious of, mindful of, the chatter when it arises. And how I needed to quieten that critical voice. And that’s what I’ve been working on. 

Since seeing the intuitive kinesiologist a month ago I have had the pre-twinkle vision altering moments three times (that moment when you go, ‘oh here we go’) and each time I have stopped, and asked myself, ‘Lara, what have you been quietly criticising yourself for?’ and each time I have reflected and located the cause. And each time I have told myself it’s okay, I don’t need to criticise myself, just shower myself with love. Amazingly, each time the skewed vision has ebbed away before it has fully manifested into the twinkles, the visual migraine stopped in its tracks. Wow! It’s been so profound I almost haven’t believed it. 

So you might be wondering how this all goes full circle, how we get back to the beginning. Well, it did the loop whilst I was looking for something in one of my journals and there I came across some notes I had taken from Louise Hay’s – How to Heal Your Life book (I think I’ve had it since I was about 18 years old, long enough for pages to be falling out) and there I had written – ‘the cause of headaches’ (the closest to the visual migraine I could get) – ‘invalidating the self. Self criticism’! My goodness. Louise, you seemed to have known it all along. It’s taken me 5 years to get here, I’ve had ups and downs and scary moments along the way (the suspected transitory stroke was just another form of visual migraine, apparently they can come in all shapes and sizes). I’m enormously grateful for every experience and learning I’ve had along the way, and all of the help and support of the medical profession, friends, family and ‘alternative’ practitioners I’ve had along the way.

And so here I present to you, what Louise Hay presented to me, the affirmation to combat self criticism . . .

“I love and approve of myself. I see myself and what I do with eyes of love. I am safe.” 

with eyes of love

I love that

It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside reading that, tearful even, but tears of joy. I think we could all do with seeing with eyes of love, first and foremost for ourselves, and from there on out it shall radiate to others.