Violence Unsilenced- A survivors' blog

I stumbled across this pretty amazing website through a facebook friend. It is a blog for women who are survivors of violence. The premise of the site is really quite simple. It is a place for people to share their stories of violence and abuse in a safe and supportive way. This site was created to be a safe space for a person to write down their experiences in black and white, sometimes saying it out loud for the very first time. It is a place to get supportive comments from other survivors or just people who care. It can often be difficult to explain the complexities of abuse to friends, family members, or current partners and this platform can give someone the power to share with an audience who doesn't know them personally but can still understand their feelings and emotions. It is also for people to understand that they are not alone.

New Year's Resolutions

People generally try to make new year's resolutions at the dawning of each new year.... those who don't usually are vehemently against them as they see it as a time for people to make goals that they barely try to achieve... or there are the few that forget or just don't care enough to make a change in their lives. Usually I fall into the first category but end up the person that the second category despises,  so on this January 4th I find myself unsure of how to proceed. This year seems to be a big one in London with the Olympics coming to town and all, it also happens to be the year of my ten year high school reunion... lesser milestones would be turning 28 and a 4 year wedding anniversary.  It all feels like a lot of pressure so when my partner asks me what my resolutions are this year I find myself unable to decide. I don't want to just blurt out all of the regular things I want to change about myself but haven't yet been able to succeed but want to come up with something more... something do-able, something that will finally pull me up out of this rut. I do feel like I've made positive changes in the last year (some probably related to last years resolutions, or so I can hope!) including starting to heal some deep down emotional scars that hold me back from getting on with some of the more external goals I have for myself. So in that respect I do feel like I've taken steps to get out of this proverbial rut but I guess it's easier to gauge the more external factors in my life which I haven't been able to conquer yet.

So with some reflection, I've decided that I will have some resolutions for 2012 along with measurable steps to attain these goals. This year my resolutions will not be ones for the new year but instead for the 28th year of my life (or shall I say 29th?) so I have two weeks to fully put my thoughts together and come up with something realistic but continuing in the right direction. Here's to the 28 year old Becky getting past the writing stage and taking a few more steps to make life easier and a bit happier :)

Empower Yourself at Work

Last night I attended a workshop put on by Innerspace called Empower Yourself at Work. I've struggled with my happiness at work and more recently have been struggling with my workload the past month or two. I definitely felt like I could use a pick me up, something to change my mindset around work and maybe a few tips to use to maybe cope a little better.

I was a bit disappointed as the workshop was very similar to the Believe in Yourself lecture I previously attended by Innerspace. But it did remind me about a couple things I should be doing at work to calm my mind and I hope that I can use these things daily to be a bit happier.

The thing that I found especially useful was the Power of Packing Up. It's probably kind of obvious but it means that you don't bring extra thoughts and issues with you throughout the day.. instead you should travel light. This is a tool that also seems to be very useful in going through the journey of life. You choose to deal with your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and issues and then pack up and move on lighter and freer. In the workplace this is about your daily work tasks. Once you finish sending an email or in my case having a keywork session... you take a couple minutes and pack it all up, take a minute to reflect then move on. I find that I very much too often start thinking about what I have to do next while I'm still finishing the task at hand and go on like that throughout the day. Lately I find more and more that I am skipping back and forth between different tasks without completing any right away so my mind is constantly flitting around what I am working on and I'm not being as effective as I used to be.

So this is the new challenge at work. I want to try to be happy in the role that I'm in, the role that I wanted for too long./ I'm afraid that I am living with the idea that the grass is always greener and am quickly forgetting the reasons I do the work in the first place and what I enjoy about it. I need to be calmer within myself in order to move forward and not stay in the rut I've been for too long. I'll let you know how it goes!

Life is a Journey

Life is a Journey by prawkp on polyvore.com

Just a motivational picture I made for one of my clients... It's good to remember that we are in control of our own lives even though sometimes it feels like that's not the case.

Thanksgiving thanks...

Thanksgiving is a big holiday for us Americans, right up there with Christmas. It's a day to spend surrounded by family and eating ridiculous amounts of amazing food. I sadly haven't been home for thanksgiving since 2006 but luckily I have friends who help me to celebrate every year. :)

On facebook some friends are putting up something they are thankful for every day of November and I thought I would take this spirit to my post this Thanksgiving and highlight some things I am thankful for in my life.

I am thankful for my partner who is there for me through the good and the bad and who I hope to spend the rest of my life with.

I am thankful for my parents who raised me to be open-minded and that I could do anything that I set my mind to. Who are always there for any of us no matter how much we messed up.

I am thankful for my sisters and brother who, although we are all very different, I can always depend on and who are the only ones who can truly understand where I'm coming from.

I am thankful for my friends here in London because being so far away from home they have become my family here.

I am thankful for my friends back home in the states because no matter how much time passes I still feel connected and supported.

I am thankful to be doing a job that I like and to have gotten where I wanted to go. This includes being thankful for a steady income that allows me to do things I enjoy including traveling.

I am thankful for the knowledge that no matter what I will be ok because I'm surrounded by caring people and have opportunities to progress and grow.

So this Thanksgiving I hope to have good food with good people... and I hope that I can continue to be grateful every day for who I have in my life and trust myself enough to grow and always be happy.

positivity

positivity by prawkp on polyvore.com

Although I don't always enjoy the Thought of the Day by Innerspace (http://www.innerspace.org.uk/) today's was particularly inspiring. I think it is a phrase most people can do something with. I especially like that it includes holding on to successes as well as failures. I hope you get something from it too!

Vision Board

 polyvore.com

So I've completed my first vision board! I'm pretty excited about how it turned out and really enjoyed the process of putting my goals into art. It was a really nice to have some inspiration and to put these goals again in the forefront of my mind. Now I will put it somewhere I can see it every day and put a bit of positivity into my life.

Self-Care

I've had a particularly grueling past few weeks at work without a moment to reflect or even consider self-care. It's taken its toll on me physically and mentally and I know that I cannot continue on in the way it has been. I stumbled upon a blog exploring self-care today that reminded me what I definitely should have been considering all along. http://selfcarefairy.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-25T21%3A36%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7

The nature of the work I do requires that I leave work at work, which of course is easier said than done. I know that I bore my partner with the negative emotions of my day because I'm not processing my feelings like I should, not thinking positively, and not making the time to take care of myself. It's the perfect concoction to lead to burn out and I'm not ready for that yet, or ever hopefully.

So two points that I'm going to start with from Shannon's blog is to write it down and to make a vision board. I need a way to let out my feelings about confidential subjects and in general just release some of the negative emotions that sneak in throughout the day. And the vision board is way for me to sort out what is important to be right now and what I want for my future which I haven't had the time to think through lately.

I'll let you know how it works! but in the meantime check out the link above because I think it's really helpful in starting a journey of self-care.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

This weekend we went to see the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition at the Natural History Museum. We went last year and were so in awe of the beautiful photographs that we couldn't wait to see this years. We were definitely not let down! The museum does a pretty excellent job of setting it up in the dimly lit room with back lit photos and the captions that the photographers include are pretty inspirational.

If you're in London you should definitely check it out... (Get in two for one with the southern trains brochure!) and if your not check out the website as they have some of the photos online. My favorites are the elephant foot, polar bear, baby monkey, and cuddly monkey... but there are loads of really amazing photos.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/

Making babies

Last weekend I saw online that there was a gay lifestyle event in central London. I had no idea what it was but since we were in London anyway I thought we should stop by and check it out. It was refreshing that we found not the usual loud music, sparkles, and dating but a more routine approach to LGBT life.

This event was basically stalls with different organizations and companies that can offer services to the LGBT community including housing, children's books, holidays, hate crime services, and (most interesting to me) London Women's clinic which had information about making babies and adoption. Needless to say Lina and I got plenty of literature on the subject.

Although we're not ready to move on to that part of our life, emotionally or financially, it is something that is often on my mind. Unfortunately having a baby is much more difficult for us than the regular heterosexual couple (barring of course those with fertility issues) but it is possible, we are young, and we have choices.

Our conception choices are personal ones but I would like to touch on the fact that in things do happen for a reason. Due to circumstances beyond our control I'm living in London, UK with my partner but life surprises you in ways that you wouldn't have expected. In this instance it is that the UK laws and opportunities make it easier for lesbian couples to have a child and securing parental rights.

In 2004 the UK legalize same-sex Civil Partnerships which gives all of the same legal rights as a marriage, except being able to have the ceremony in a church, and is the reason that my partner and I are allowed to live in the UK together. In April 2009 a law went into effect (Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008) which allows both mothers to be on the child's birth certificate if the parents are in a Civil Partnership or conceive within a clinic. That's great news for us because it means that we don't have to go through the extra loops of 2nd parent adoption. In addition we have the choices of going through the NHS (National Health Service), a private clinic, or conceive at home and although these processes are generally still expensive the costs are significantly lower than if we went through it in the states.

Here in the UK the law is catching up with societal needs and that is comforting at a time when the USA seems to be as stagnant on LGBT issues as ever. This is especially apparent in the areas of immigration and federal acknowledgement of same-sex rights.

Here's a few links that I found helpful in about Lesbian options around conception and parental rights. Egg sharing is also something to think about around receiving IVF in order to help another family out and make your own process more affordable.

http://www.stonewall.org.uk/documents/pregnant_pause_with_cover_2.pdf
http://www.londonwomensclinic.com/
http://www.stonewall.org.uk/at_home/parenting/2625.asp