What do you see?

I recall many years ago taking a Neuro-Linguistic Programming test, alternatively known as NLP.  The training had been arranged by work, so all staff had to attend and to be honest at the time I was thinking ‘what a load of cod wallop’. But in fact, a light turned on inside me during that day, well I say ‘a light turned on’ its hard to describe, so let me ‘try to’ explain…

According to NLP, people generally experience the world via five senses — sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell, however each of us also have a  preferred mode of perception, how we see, hear, feel and sense  the world, our environment around us. There are three main modes of perception

  • Visual – Seeing
  • Auditory – Hearing
  • Kinaesthetic – Feelings

In the training room we were asked to take. short test, we were asked to go through a list of statements, but not to spend too much time thinking about the statements and tick the ones that we were drawn to.

I still recall the room, doing the test adding up my scores to find that my scores revield  (I cannot remember what the percentages were but this gives you an idea below)

  • Visual = 15
  • Auditory = 10
  • Kinaesthetic = 75

The theory is that by y understanding your preferred perception (view on the world) you can better understand, how and why you act/react in life.

This helped (for me and I am not saying it will for you). But, this is when the ‘lightbulb went on’. My result was a real revelation for me, because its the first time in my life I recognised  how much of an emotional person I really was.


Even though at the time of taking this test, I had been clean for over 12 months, I was still in early recovery, I was still learning about myself, trying to figure out what I wanted from life, who I was, who I wanted to be etc etc, FUCK ME IM STILL HERE TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT

So whilst on the surface, I may have appeared sorted, back in control, underneath there was always a feeling of uncertainty, self doubt, its always there folks, we all feel it from time to time, I don’t care who you are…

Not that anyone else’s could ever see it, but then how could they? all they had ever seen was someone, getting angry, frustrated, someone who mostly was unable to express herself and say how she really felt.

Feelings are a BIG deal, if you suppress them they WILL ALWAYS pop up again at a later date or time, trust me. Then what will happen is when you get upset/emotional the next time or something really pissed you off, presses your buttons, you will REALLY over-react, I mean really over-react!. I bet you have all done this at some point, then asked yourself “what the fuck is up with me?”

After the test I looked back and thought about who I was when I was admitted into ‘The Nuthouse’ I’ve mentioned in earlier post that I was broken and ‘I was‘ But in all honesty, I think what had happened is all my three modes of perception had snapped, they had stopped working.

I was just an empty shell. SO a major part of my recovery was mainly about rebuilding ‘me’ not the surface me, but the real me’. Not the Tracey, whose life had previously been dictated by what others and society expected, I’d literally, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, had had enough, I was like ‘STOP THE WORLD, IVE FUCKING HAD ENOUGH’. So when I say that being sectioned was the BEST thing that ever happened to me, I really mean it.  I’m getting to my point be patient….

20 odd years ago my recovery wasn’t just about, not taking drugs anymore, for me, it was about finding out who “I was, what I wanted, it was time to get selfish and think about me for a change” being in hospital had allowed me to safely reflect back to my past journey, and try to make sense of where my life had taken me and more importantly “How the FUCK at 22 did I find myself sectioned” I was a mother of two young girls for crying out loud…

I did ALOT of reflection at the time and I mean a lot,  I asked myself loads and loads of questions, I really did question myself …

  • Why did I think it was so important to please everyone else?
  • Why did I always feel a disappointment to others! – not meeting their expectations of who I should be or act, trying to be someone I wasn’t 
  • Why despite everything I did, did I feel misunderstood?
  • Why had I dedicated my life around to trying to make everyone else around me feel happy?
  • Why did I hate letting anyone down! – always saying ‘yes’ when I really wanted to say ‘NO’
  • How come no-one knew or understood how unhappy I really was? – Now, this is the MAJOR one…

The bottom line was if I didn’t know the answers to the questions ? “how the fuck did I expect anyone else to know?”  This was something that I had to work out myself.

So here I am 48 years old and 25 years later asking myself the same questions? Now don’t get me wrong, I am nowhere near the person I was back in hospital all those years ago,  I’m not having a mental breakdown, (I promise) I have a very good sense of self awareness, but I do think and feel that I have been getting by the past 15 years, just focusing on the surface stuff, I’ve lost touch with me! the real me?

Our personalities are made up of different layers, we are very complex human beings and I suppose I haven’t listened to me, the core of who I am for a long time and have basically started to  #haveaword, touch base with me again.

There are a lot of things I still want to achieve in life, I’m not sure what they are yet? well I do,  that dam fucking book, but there is more I can feel it, sense it.

I have a great partner, two great kids, grandson, a few amazing friends, who “get me” and the job I am very fortunate to enjoy, where I know I am making a difference.  But even with all these things, which I am eternally thankful for, I haven’t really been true to me for a long time. But now is the time…

Four weeks ago, something clicked again, I felt like something was missing, I didn’t know what? I couldn’t see it, but I felt it.  The saying is true “you cannot buy happiness” real happiness can only be achieved (in my humble opinion) by learning to take some responsibility and start asking yourself some questions, start thinking about

  • Practicing to accept the things you can change, but more importantly practice accepting the things you cant – a lot of things in life ARE out of our control. 
  • Learn to truly accept and love yourself for who you are – instead of waiting for someone else to make you feel loved, start loving yourself, regardless of how you think YOU look -Trust me, no one is bothered, only YOU
  • Practice looking around you and be thank full for what you ‘have got‘ and stop focusing on  ‘what you haven’t got’ and do you know what with this one? if you have got YOUR HEALTH you are very very lucky, because when your dead, your DEAD
  • If you have a roof over your head, be thankful, some people haven’t!
  • If you can only afford to buy the basic essentials, be thankful, some people cannot!
  • If you aren’t in a place you want to be, learn patience, work toward your goal if you don’t get there, it wasn’t mean to be, but at least you can say you tried?
  • Life is about taking RISK’s, we can either have a go and learn to manage and understand our fears & feelings that prevent us from taking a risk, OR we can stay exactly where we are.

And folks, this is exactly what I have been practicing myself, over the past four weeks…

  • Making time for ME
  • learning to accept that I will always have self-doubt, but I can learn to manage that self-doubt, learn to live with it
  • Learning to accept and ignore when people have questioned why I bought a desk? computer? why I have started writing? because it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks as long as “I’m happy”
  • I’ve learned that the happier I am with myself the happier people around me are
  • I feel less stressed, calmer, sleeping better, ALL because I started to #Haveawordwimesen AGAIN.
  • AND I am practicing to write, FOR ME, whilst I am happy to share my writing with a select few (that’s you by the way) I am writing for ME.
  • In the past 4 weeks, I have had a break, from alcohol, just to see if I could hear and listen to myself again, Trust me it’s hard to hear yourself when you are dealing with a shitty hangover 
  • I set this website up, started a blog, (this was never in my plan) but it feels right?
  • Whilst I am expressing myself on here, I am also learning to develop my own unique style of writing, so when I DO finish the fucking dam book, it will be a real true reflection of my interpretation of the story.

Now in the picture above, you might see someone talking to a wall?

I see someone who is talking to their own reflection, talking to themselves. No one else, that shadow is MY shadow, it’s me, but just a reflection, a different view of who I am, and I for one am happy that our paths have crossed again.

A shadow only appears when the light is present if it is dark and you cannot see your shadow, create some light…

Tracey x

4 thoughts on “What do you see?

  1. Love this one! Especially this:

    “A shadow only appears when light is present, if its dark and you cannot see your shadow, create some light…”💕

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