"Get busy living, or get busy dying".

Today marks the one year anniversary of my cardiac arrest. When I woke up this morning, it wasn't the first thing I thought of. As my husband was leaving for work I was about to remind him, but I caught my tongue between my teeth and said nothing.

I have no need to relive the event or period surrounding it. What I have are no feelings. It's not even a memory. It's a tiny speckle in the far distance, of an event my husband has described to me. What I have is gratitude for the memory loss I have surrounding the event and for the psychiatric assistance I've had to get over the resounding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) associated with it. It seems the shrink sessions worked...

Love this Angel's expression: "I have a hammer
and a book, I got shit to do, I'm busy, leave me alone!"

I love the quote from Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy living, or get busy dying". For me, it's become as simple a choice as that. My focus has been on health (healthy eating; exercise; minimising stress; resting, when possible with a two year old) and getting on with life. I'm busy living.

I went to a parenting course some weeks back where they discussed "labeling" our kids. The concept took me straight back to childhood: I was always the sick one, the weak one, I had to be constantly careful and looked after, dressed like an onion so I wouldn't catch a cold, excluded from physical activities and ostracised. I had worked really hard before the cardiac arrest to remove the "sick" label from my identity, and after the cardiac arrest, it was hard not yielding to it again. I realised in that moment I was no longer that sick person with a heart problem, or the cardiac arrest victim, I hadn't been for some time now.

50 Cent puts it well in his song Many Men (Wish Death):

Sunny days wouldn't be special, if it wasn't for rain.
Joy wouldn't feel so good, if it wasn't for pain.
Death gotta be easy, 'cause life is hard.
It'll leave you physically, mentally, and emotionally scarred.

I like these lyrics because they remind me that life is about taking the bad with the good and getting on with it. I'd rather be physically, mentally and emotionally scarred, than not be at all. And believe me, I have plenty of scars!

So to that I say: happy anniversary; and happy living to everyone!

The Overwhelming Lightness of Honesty

...or the overwhelming lightness of living your values.

I've been shitty lately. I couldn't put my finger on it until I was in my psychiatrist's office last month. There were a couple of catalysts but the main one that stands out in my mind is the Mexican standoff I had with a stranger in a public shopping centre carpark, the day before I saw my shrink. That was the peak of it.

Firstly, I had gone against my better judgement (and experience) by going to that carpark in the first place. In this suburb I usually park in the (un-metered) back streets about a ten minute walk away. The benefit of this is threefold: light exercise, chance to clear my mind before my appointment and no time pressure for the free parking. In this instance I thought I might try the shopping centre carpark instead, in case I wanted to also do grocery shopping. As always in the carpark, there was mass confusion and people doing stupid and illegal things like driving in the wrong lane and blocking off traffic. Long story short: a lady and I were going for the same carpark. If another carpark hadn’t become available that moment so we could each have one, I’m not sure what would have happened.

For many of you there comes a point in your life where for whatever reason, you may just snap it. You’ve kept doing the same thing over and over again and suddenly you realise, it’s just not working…and it probably never did, but you did it regardless.

I reached this point in that shitty, dark and dank basement carpark. The perfect setting for what felt like a lifetime of frustration that finally peaked and exploded. I realised in that moment that I had been putting up with a constant conflict in my value system, which created that angst, frustration and inconvenience, just so I can be nice and liked by other people. Liked by whom and for what? A stranger for letting her have the carpark, so she can be appreciative and like me, when she doesn’t even know me and will never even speak to me? WTF?!

My Mexican standoff breakthrough is, I’m sure, more (psychologically) complicated than I’m letting on. But it is not necessary to get into the detail or to analyse it to be able to portray the same takeaway message.

When a major life event occurs, like the cardiac arrest in my case, it hopefully makes you look at things and your life differently. The cliché of life being too short really rings true. Furthermore I believe it’s important, if not mandatory, to hold on to that life is too short concept to be able to make positive change in your own life. From one moment to the next, life can be over. So why spend your precious seconds, minutes, hours, days, months or years of your life being unhappy?

image courtesy of Your Core Light

I find that when I’m in the flow and living in harmony with myself and the world around me is when I’m honest with and true to my values. And that means knowing yourself and having the courage to say no to other things that conflict with those values and your happiness.

Making Time for Yourself

After letting the dust settle, I realised my big emotional turnaround began after our recent trip to Perth. It was a chance to get away; spend time with my dear longtime friend Jenny; stop thinking about all the heart stuff and be a family again. In those moments though, I mostly craved to connect with myself. Most prominently, I felt like I was doing a half-assed job of everything: being me, being a partner, being a mother, being a friend; being all the roles that make up the rich spectrum of my life.

I know that I can only be my best and offer my best, when I've connected with myself to begin with. Then I can have more to offer to everyone. The problem was that I felt I needed permission to do this. I felt guilty for being what I perceived to be selfish; for needing time on my own.

The longing to spend time on my own came to a boiling point. I realised I needed to take action when I began getting annoyed not only at myself, but at Chris and Zoe for just being themselves, for wanting me to be around and for engaging with me. I felt stretched really thin, that I had nothing to offer them. I started to resent them. It felt like I was steadily moving in a downwards spiral through a dark abyss with heavy weights on my shoulders, pushing me even further down.

I got really upset feeling this way towards the two most important people in my life; and knew that I had to do something about it. So I gave myself permission to be me, to give myself space to spend time on my own and do things I enjoy. I gave myself permission to have fun, relax, explore and find myself again.

I started with doing something small every day. Below is a list of the things I've done over the past couple of weeks that have contributed to making me feel whole again.

• dinner and movie date with myself
• hot stone massage (never had one before, so it also counted as a new experience)
• take shoes off and walk on the beach, wet my feet in the ocean, sit on the sand and play with it
• take a 2-3 hour afternoon nap
• meet my girlfriend for a 1-1 (no kids, no partners) coffee and gossip
• walk through grass barefoot
• date night with Chris (dessert and a movie) to be a couple again
• family Sunday drive along the coast, lunch and drink with dear friends
• bake with love: birthday cake for Zoe and banana bread for the physiotherapists at my rehab program
• nurtured, watered and caressed my potplants, played with the dirt
• went for a walk through the city to see the VIVID Festival with my girlfriend
• personal maintenance (waxing, shaving, exfoliating, moisturing, file and paint nails, new facial cleansing regime) 
• went out for walks around the neighborhood with just Zoe, so we can reconnect and for me to build my confidence up and look after her on my own again

Both my holistic therapist and my physiotherapist had advised me a while back to take time out to do simple things I enjoy....and now I know why: life goes on, so I may as well enjoy it! This is part of my healing process.

The Only Way is Up

Before the cardiac arrest we had booked three trips: two interstate and one abroad. We like to travel and having family and friends spread all over the world makes it more of a priority. One of the first things I did after coming out of hospital was start organising our upcoming trips.

At the time I had an overwhelming urge to go ahead and lock in the trip details as soon as possible. On the surface I thought the reason was to make the most out of getting a second chance in life. I didn't want to miss the opportunities to see our family and friends. Underneath all that was the overwhelming desire to resume life as normal. You see, I'm the trip organiser in our family, so the trip logistics and destination selections are my domain. So I took the reigns and went full pelt into organisational mode.

In my chat with Dr Jaime O (my holistic therapist) this week we discussed fear and not letting it be the motivating factor behind my actions. Instantly I felt guilty (there is that pesky guilt creeping in again) that fear was my motivation behind continuing with the trips. On one hand I had my existential crisis around mortality and on the other, a bunch of emotions that were only just starting to surface. Evidently, guilt was the initial and predominant emotion, with fear a close second.

I thought maybe I was afraid not having done some things I wanted to do in this life? Afraid that I would leave this existence having missed out on something: a moment, an experience, an interaction. That's what my mind was telling me, that they should be the things I should be afraid of.

I caught up with my dear friend Krystal for a coffee recently. She asked me if what happened made me think about my bucket list. I thought about that question for a moment, lingered over it whilst holding my cup of hot chocolate. "No, not really. I think I do a pretty good job of living my life exactly how I want to live it, and doing all the things I want to", was my response. Perhaps the only things I haven't done from my list are learning Italian or to play the guitar.

Considering I live my life how I want, then logically, I shouldn't be afraid of missing out on anything. I realise now what I was really afraid of, is losing myself. I realise that sometimes we have to lose ourselves before we can find ourselves again.

I've been feeling that I need to redefine who I am. That these events (the cardiac arrest and the insertion of a defibrillator) somehow made me into someone else, that they define me, that once again I'm that sick person I spent the first 25 years of my life believing I was. I've worked really hard to shed that limiting belief. Similarly to life and death, my life and my condition are two very separate entities. So the challenge is to integrate and manage them. I'm like everyone else, with the same hopes and desires, just a little bit special, so I have to ensure to look after myself accordingly.

I no longer think I need to redefine myself. I'm simply Angie 2.0. The same as before but new and improved with the addition of some technological advancements, an insurance policy if you will, in the form of my defibrillator.

I'm writing this 37,000 feet in the air, cruising above the clouds. We're on our way to Perth to visit my long-time friend Jenny and her family. In my state of fear weeks ago I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong. I'd be stuck in a plane for five hours. What if I have an arrest during the flight? What if the defibrillator doesn't work? What if I die on the plane (and all the horrific logistics around that)? What if my defibrillator sets off the security machines at the airport? What if these fears become so overwhelming that I don't want to fly?

Traveling is up there on my value system, along with family, friends and new experiences. These values are closely intertwined. Once I realised that my true fear is losing who I am, and that travel is a big part of me, giving into the fear and not traveling became impossible. Who I am is not negotiable. I refuse to give in to a shitty, intangible emotion like fear. What a waste of time!

For the first time in a long time I finally feel like myself again. I put my headphones on and listened to my music full blast. I starred out the window and looked beyond the clouds into the misty horizon. I dreamt of faraway places. Then I cried. I cried for the fear and guilt I needlessly have been feeling. I cried for the people in my life whom I love. I cried for all the people in our world that feel pain and suffering. I cried for the gratitude I feel for my life and existence. I cried for the moment. I cried for finding myself again. I cried for the surrender that I finally felt.

 

Pharell Williams puts it well: "Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth. Clap along if you know what happiness is for you. Clap along if you feel like that's what you want to do". I'm happy to feel like myself again and live my life how I want to live it. Beyond that there's nothing much I can do, just go along for the ride.

In my mind, I'm clapping all the way to Perth.