Starry Night

Starry Night

by | Sep 23, 2026 | Everyday Magic

Quite a few years ago, not long after I’d moved with my fiancé and our first-born to Gozo, Malta, there was an island-wide power cut. I was out at the time, walking home on my own in the dark. One moment there were street lights lighting my way, the next moment it was pitch black.

I had to stop to let my eyes adjust to the darkness and yes, it freaked me out. I couldn’t see where I was going at all. I couldn’t see anything.

It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust because it wasn’t pitch black really. When I looked up into the sky it was alive with light.

This was the first time, that I recall, that I had seen the night sky with no light pollution at all. It was a cloudless night and there was nothing to detract from the sheer magnificence of the scene above my head. It was full, every single square inch was full. Packed tight with stars, and so many shooting stars. I stood there, gazing, for quite some time.

All the time I’d been walking in the dark and spotting a handful of stars, thinking that was it. But no, it was nothing compared to this. It was nothing compared to the depth and beauty that I could see on this night.

I haven’t seen a night like that since, I would like to.

I know it’s there, all the time, I just can’t see it. The lights we use to illuminate our nights hide it so effectively that I forget it’s there.

When I think about that night, I can’t help but draw comparisons with who we are and who we think we are. How layers of fears, experiences, misunderstandings, pain and conditioning can cloud over the light within us, the strength and joy, the ambition and curiosity, the love and connection, the millions of sparks of possibility.

That’s all there too, all of the time, but we can’t always see it and we’re creatures that need to see to believe. And when it’s out of sight, we think it’s gone, we’ve lost something somehow.

I’m sure we all get glimpses at times, ideas that emerge and feelings that tell us that there is more to life than the one we are living. Little hints that beg us to believe that things could be easier and breaks in the clouds of our thinking that let us wonder ‘what else is possible?’

How to Make Problems Disappear or The Mystery of The Disappearing Problems

How to Make Problems Disappear or The Mystery of The Disappearing Problems

by | Aug 2, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic, People Pleasing

“I love talking with you Gail, it’s like you make my problems disappear.”

I can’t lie, that’s a great thing to hear. It makes me feel all lovely and warm. I know that I don’t really make people’s problems disappear though.

When you feel better most problems disappear of their own accord. Occasionally there’s something that you need to do, but most of the time problems are things that have been hanging around in our heads for a while. They come up when we’re not feeling so great. Mood-related problems.

You might have noticed it for yourself.

Have you seen that when you’re feeling stressed or upset, your mind fills with problems that need solving urgently, yet when your mood shifts to something more upbeat, those things don’t really bother you?

Where do those problems go?

Well, they pass on by. Like the thoughts we have that wonder where we’ll be living in 5 years time, or the worrying thoughts that cross our mind at times. They go. They’re likely to be part of a habitual train of thought that you have that comes up when you’re feeling stressed or upset.

Do you know what I mean? You’re feeling stressed out because of the school run and no one was ready and the washing up needs doing and it’s raining and you’re running late and the last thing you need is the car not to start….

One thing after another and your stress levels are through the roof.

Then you notice that the kid’s hair hasn’t been brushed, the packed lunches aren’t done and that school note that needed signing is nowhere to be seen. There’s no one helping you, you don’t have time to do it all, why can’t the kids just think for themselves for once, where the hell is your partner in all of this, you’re sick of doing it all and you’d be better off on your own.

You see, the same list of events could happen when you were in a good mood and you’d handle them like a pro. You might even laugh about it. You might make it all into a game for the kids. Being late probably wouldn’t be an issue as you’d know what had gone on, what was working against you. You’d deal with it.

It’s not our external circumstances that cause our moods, it’s our moods that change our experience of our external circumstances.

Trains of Thought

Trains of thought can be really interesting, unless you’re stuck on one. You can start to recognise them because they sound pretty much the same every time one is set off. They get to be familiar.

I have trains of thought related to relationships, money, work, all sorts of things. It’s lovely when I recognise them because then I don’t have to jump on that train because the stories that accompany them are generally unpleasant and they’re not true. So I can save myself a lot of stress and heartache by letting them go past.

Take this morning for instance. I’d decided not to take a job. I knew that it would be tiring for me and that would impact on everything else that I had going on.

My train of thought took me down a long route, through the lands of ‘this was your once chance’, down to the depths of ‘what’s wrong with you, you could have handled it, anyone else would have!’ and into the murky waters of ‘you could have helped and you didn’t’. These are remnants of my people-pleasing days. They make me feel like I have done something really bad and I don’t like it. But I knew that I’d made the right decision. Within a few minutes in rushed a whole load of different ideas, writing ideas, that were much better suited to me.

Knowing Better, Doing Differently

If I didn’t know better I could have really thought that there was something wrong with me, or I might have emailed them back and said that I’d changed my mind, or I likely would have felt really stressed out because I thought that my one chance had gone and I wouldn’t be able to find something else. But I know better. I know that these are old thoughts that are still kicking around. I can ignore them.

So, yes, problems seem to disappear when I talk to people and most of the time it’s because they weren’t problems in the first place. They’re part of a person’s habitual thinking and they naturally go once you start to feel differently.

I can see that, now the magic happens when you start to.

Photo by Rick Mason on Unsplash

When You Don’t Know What To Do.

When You Don’t Know What To Do.

by | Jul 26, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic

So what do you do when you don’t know what to do? I currently can’t get access to my website. It’s still there, but I can’t log into it. It’s frustrating and I want it back. As a way around this issue, I’ve been considering putting together another site, on a different subject, or a more focused topic. I’m not sure which.

And this is where the problem starts. I’m not sure what to do. So I write down a few ideas, do a bit of brainstorming, consider meditating on the question, try to rehash old ideas, sit and look at the screen and try to will inspiration into being. I then try to convince myself that I really do know what I want to do and it’s just a case of letting the idea rise to the surface…

None of it works, there is nothing there.

Then I consider, that maybe it’s ok that there isn’t an idea there at the moment.

Maybe I could get on with something else, like writing.

And maybe from the ideas that are already spilling from my mind something will form.

But it might not be taking form just yet, or even tomorrow, or next week.

It might take longer than I want it to.

Then I wonder about all of the other things that I try to will into being that simply aren’t ready to step from the ether into the world of form yet.

Because it doesn’t seem to matter how much I want something, if it’s not there it’s not there and no amount of pushing and wanting makes that happen. Not the way I want it to.

And I think that’s the crux of it. I’ll have an idea in mind of what I want, but as I’ve seen from experience, what I get rarely arrives dressed up in what I’ve imagined. And sometimes, I don’t even want it when it does arrive.

So what do I do when I want to know something and I’m wracking my brain for answers?

I stop doing it and move on to something that I do know that I want to do. Whether that’s to write something, as is the usual case, or watch Netflix, or talk to someone, or have a shower or do some housework or figure out a photoshoot or go to bed. I move into a more certain area of my life and give the invisible chance to become visible.

In a world that insists that we know what we want, that we can work anything out, and that tells us that we can have it all now, it can feel like a gamble to stop and step back from something, knowing that you don’t have the answer just yet.

It hurts our brains to be constantly going over the same things. Desperately searching for the answers that just aren’t there yet. It looks tempting to keep running around our minds, looking for it, but you know what? You can stop doing that. You can stop looking and let the answer come to you. 

Wanting to bridge the gap between the unknown and the known won’t make it happen any faster, and expending time and energy grasping for something that isn’t there yet seems a bit pointless. But getting on with life, doing the things that you enjoy doing, building on what already exists, that makes sense. They’re the steps that will bring the ideas closer.

At some point, it will click into place, eventually.

……………………………………………………………………….

It clicked into place, I got access to the hosting and I fixed my website.

Moral of the story, when you don’t know what to do, go do something else!

…………………………………………………………………….

Photo by Ilona Panych on Unsplash

Stop Running From Your Life.

Stop Running From Your Life.

by | Jul 22, 2021 | Anxiety, Stress and PTSD, Everyday Magic

Photo by João Ferreira on Unsplash

Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you think you’re awake and you try to move, but you can’t — sleep paralysis?

I’ve had a few of them.

I used to have them as a child, but the first one that I clearly remember was when I was living with a guy in my 20’s. I was asleep in bed and woke up when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I knew no one else was in the house. I tried to move, but couldn’t I was paralysed.

I could barely breathe with fear as the footsteps grew closer and closer. The handle on the door turned and the door was pushed open. Around the doorframe, a fucking clown slowly moved into view, holding me with its gaze. It was the clown from It, Pennywise, or similar. It was a clown. In my room. And I was awake and couldn’t run because I was paralysed. And it was walking towards me. I tried to move, to force myself awake and out of this nightmare and I couldn’t do it.

After having a few of these I came to realise that despite feeling the terror of having some clown, or hag or some other stuff of nightmares, walking up to me when I couldn’t move, I could wake myself up.

To wake up I had to relax. I had to let go of the fear. I needed to breathe, relax my body, let myself fall asleep again, and then I could wake up.

Have you ever tried relaxing and going back to sleep when your worst nightmare is walking up to you? Every voice in the chorus of your fear screams against it. It goes against all logic, but that’s what worked, every time. To wake up out of the nightmare I had to remember that it was a nightmare, and stop fighting it.

It doesn’t just work with nightmares either. Any sort of internal struggle stops when we stop fighting it and running away from it.

To stop feeling anxious we learn to stop listening to it.

To stop feeling insecure we see our insecurities for what they are.

To stop feeling afraid we eventually, become brave enough to walk through that fear. 

To live a life of freedom, we face what’s keeping us constrained within ourselves.

We fight ourselves, by thinking that we’re not good enough, constantly changing, trying to be a better person, trying to fit in, make ourselves into what we think we should be. Doing what we think should make us happy, not what does actually make us happy. Denying ourselves what we want, who we want, how we want to live. We lie to ourselves, over and over again.

We build walls to defend ourselves and use words and actions and flawed logic to keep people at bay.

We run by not talking to whoever we want to talk to, by not expressing ourselves, by not being honest. And we run by telling ourselves stories of why it could never work, rather than stopping, breathing and finding out.

We run from our dreams and desires and bury our heads in an everyday life that slowly turns grey over time.

But, eventually, we need to stop. It takes effort to avoid so much and we can only do it for so long. Our brain grows tired of finding ways around the things that we want so dearly, because they don’t go away. They may grow quieter, but they never disappear.

And so eventually we slow down, weary of fighting and running; and we stop; and breathe, and face what’s coming our way. Then we can wake up.

The Comfort of Grief

The Comfort of Grief

by | Jun 27, 2021 | Everyday Magic

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

I once knew a man. He felt like home and I liked to be near him. He was sharp, spiky, his defenses were strong, there was no way in. No way past the armor that protected him. He liked to be near me too but he hurt and he threw that hurt out into the world, not caring where it landed or who it hit. I stopped liking being near him. 

And then his father died, and piece by piece his armor fell away, the spikes ground down, the sharpness softened and then I felt like home to him too. 

We would see each other occasionally, but being in different countries, different worlds and with my defenses still ready to rise at a moments notice, it couldn’t last. I still think of him. Home. 

When my own father died, I remembered this man again. After 6 months of existing, grief wrapped her arms around me and pulled me under, I needed her, I yearned for her and so I surrendered to her. I felt her brush aside my defenses, my spikes, my reasons for protecting myself against the world. As I rested in her embrace she showed me what was real, and what wasn’t.

She visits still and makes me rest when I get too confused about how this world works. She pulls me back, breaks my heart over and over again until the brittleness gives way to softness and I can breathe again, unbound and unprotected, safe in my rawness. 

She reminds me that all of this ends. This achingly beautiful, short, sweetest-upon-sweet, painful life ends. Everyone and everything we love will fade from our lives and all of the defenses in the world can’t stop that from happening. 

She reminds me that keeping out the love in the world serves no purpose except to cause myself hurt. All the defenses that I can muster won’t save me from the stark reality of loss. 

She makes sure that I know that there is no hope of escaping death, no means of preventing it. This all ends and there is nothing I can do about it.

As I curl up in her arms, the absence of hope gives way to something else; Here and Now. A place where there is no need for hope, no need for sharp spikes. We think that we are protecting ourselves from hurt, we’re not, we’re protecting ourselves from love. We’re protecting ourselves from the very thing that we have been put on this earth to do, to live, to love. To look with eyes afresh on our brief existence and to decide to love with hearts wide-open. 

This is the gift that grief brings with her, a force that surges through you, demanding your surrender, welcoming you into her arms where she strips you bare, breaks your heart and sends you back to the world new, raw, open, softer, knowing, opening your eyes to what is real, what is here, now.

Let her break you, every time. 

 

Dad’s Bag

Dad’s Bag

by | Jun 10, 2021 | Everyday Magic

“I could do something with Dad’s bag.’ A couple or three days ago this idea sneaked into my mind and sat for a while ‘Oh’, I thought, ‘I guess I could’. 

That was the extent of our exchange that time.

The idea popped it’s head around the corner again, yesterday, and I let it stay longer, then I got up, made a coffee and pulled Dad’s bag from the top of my wardrobe.

An old, grey holdall that’s seen so many trips here, until it made sense for Dad to leave it here. Clean clothes, shoes a hat, fishing reel and line. It was his summer bag. No trousers, no jacket. Shorts, t-shirts, a cotton shirt. And his hat.

I lifted a t-shirt to my face and inhaled. After spending 3.5 years being in a bag on top of the wardrobe in Gozo, it smelled of damp, not the Imperial Leather soap that I’d hoped for.

I wrinked my nose, they all smelled the same, damp. 

I took a deep breath in as nameless, searing emotions radiated from my heart, finding release through my tear ducts. ‘Oh’. I hadn’t expected that. I hadn’t expected to tap into that well of grief so easily. A direct line, no messing about there. 

In the time since Dad died I’ve noticed how he’d filled our lives in different ways. From things that we needed such as kitchen scales, light bulbs, the toaster that only works on one side but I’m not going to replace it until it breaks completely; cuddly toys for the kids, jewellery; thin, green, plastic twine that he used to tie up boxes of goodies that he brought here. Survival packages. treats; advice on what do do with moth larvae infestations and how to move cicadas.

There are photographs that I can’t put up yet, and one of me and my brother with Dad from much earlier days that I have framed, but can’t always look at. 

Things, filled with memories that are too painful to look at. 

I feel disconnected for the rest of the day, going through the motions, something unravelling inside me, unsettling me. I put Dad’s clothes in the washing machine, wondering what I was going to do with them.

The sun rose today and I saw his bag on my bedroom floor. His clothes had finished washing and I could hear his voice ‘Oh Gail, what are you going to do with those, just get rid of them’. He does have a point there…. But I’ll dry them first, I have an idea in mind. 

I think we all get to a point where the effort needed to keep something away is far greater than letting something in. And I feel that I’ve reached that point. It’s time to bring Dad back into my life; to get the photographs on the wall, it’s time to remember the happy times, even if they hurt. He’s been away for far too long.