Processing death and trying to live the good life!

Life is hard and it's life, why is it so hard to just enjoy it?

Week 1 of school holidays for us and it’s going well! Week 1 is always pretty great. Then usually by the end of week 2 I’m done!

Tim took the two big kids to Wagga for Rugby Sunday and then on to Orange for a few nights so I feel like I’ve had a mini holiday just having two kids at home. It was so lovely and calm and I had so much time! Pops and Hen were super cruisey and it was just so easy. Really reminded Tim and I that we need to do more splitting up. 6 people in a household is a lot. It’s just so nice for us all to have space.

So we don’t have too much more planned for the holidays, maybe a trip to Melbourne for a night or two or a visit to see Mum in Ballarat. But nothing major. Seems like everyone is in Bali or Europe this holidays, catching the warm weather! (THIS from Jimmy Rees is classic if you want a laugh)

We won’t be going on any actual holidays for about 5 years I don’t think - still recovering from the big trip, mentally and financially - eek!

Death and grief and suicide is hard…

This week I learnt of the death by suicide of Meditation teacher, Tim Brown. It really shocked me. Suicide is always a shock with a different layer of complexity but I found Tim’s death particularly hard to reconcile.

I didn’t know Tim personally, but I have done one of his courses and his group meditations and he’s very well known in the meditation world. But I guess what I found hard was that he’s a meditation teacher! He seemed so calm and together and he’s doing the work, you know?

It sort of shook me and I thought, “but he’s doing everything and he still got to that point?” It was discombobulating for me and I realised that I really hold on to my practices and meditation and all the things for protection. Like I feel like if I’m doing all the things I’ll be OK.. And this kind of made that wobbly..

But, it’s that reminder, that you never know what is going on for someone. Perhaps if he hadn’t had his meditation practices and all the things he might not have made it this far, who knows what was going on for him.

I also reflected that often people who are drawn to mediation and yoga and spiritual work are the ones who are the seekers, who are trying to manage some sort of trauma or life experience that’s been hard etc..

Something interesting I noticed is that I have had lots of anxiety thoughts come up. Like fear based thoughts. Things like, what if the car crashes today and we die? Or what if Tim crashes on the way back from Orange? Or maybe the house will burn down.. Lots of those thoughts coming in. Thankfully now I can notice them really quickly and I observe them and I was like oh that’s interesting, that’s what my mind does in reaction to this. I can notice those thoughts immediately and not get attached to them..

Before I learnt to mediate I was running those thoughts all the time without realising. Like every time the phone rang I was worried it was someone calling to say Tim had died. Or if he got home late, I was thinking something had happened. Those thoughts were just always there, running in the back ground, causing me to be in fight or flight without being fully aware of it a lot of the time.. Now, thank god, I notice them, and I don’t attach feeling to them. And that is everything and it’s one of the many reasons I meditate!

So I guess it’s been a reminder this week that being human is hard. Suicide is really hard. Life is hard. And you know, we just gotta keep going. We have to try to enjoy it more, do more fun things, cuddle more, take care of each other, just live more. I really don’t know why it’s so hard to enjoy it all? Like it should be good right? We’re here for a reason, we’re doing it, it should be great!

But I guess, if it was just good all the time we wouldn’t know it was good. If we didn’t have sadness we couldn’t have joy.. So we just gotta keep showing up, keep going, keep trying, working and weaving and threading the needle in the patchwork of life..

Podcast news!

No Spreading the Good Stuff during the holidays, that will be back next week and my podcast is back on the 20th of July - YAY!!!! Can not wait to get that back out to you!

Recommendations

Mel Robbins Podcast

This episode with her husband is so good for the men in our lives. I sent it to Tim and some other mates.

I guess I feel I already have a lot of empathy for men, having seen what Dad experienced and I think this is just such a great episode for us to listen to as women to be reminded of what men are navigating too.

It gives a real insight in to what men are experiencing. It might be tough for the men in your life to high five themselves, but I think the sentiment is so important - can you love yourself enough to look yourself in the mirror and say you are doing a great job?

Also on this - I feel like sometimes, when you’re a feminist it can be mistaken or mixed up with thinking that men are just fine and don’t need any compassion and they’ve got it so easy, but I certainly don’t think like that.

All humans need compassion and empathy and life is hard for everyone. Feminism is just equality in essence anyway. And if we don’t have healthy, well men, then equality isn’t going to happen.

So - we all need to get our shit sorted basically. Learn to love yourself, look after yourself, do your work and be kind to others. Easy right?

Power talks with Kemi

Listen HERE on audible..

How good is Kemi?

Meg just told me about this one and I listened to the first one with Abbie Chatfield. It was so great and I highly recommend. Meg had Kemi on her podcast a while back too..

Can’t wait to get in to the rest, I’ve been wanting a new thing to listen too!

AI Tools?

What do you think about AI? I’m just embracing it. Everyone was scared of the car when it was invented… I think it will be OK. And it’s bloody handy. Here’s on e I discovered this week that’s pretty cool!

AIRPM - learnt about this one from The Real Emgee. It’s a plug in for ChatGpt and it will create a months worth of content Ideas for you.

Joke of the week

Two hats on a coat stand..

One says to the other, you wait here, I’ll go on a head.

Hot Tip

This is for families - Split the fam bam up! Or plan some time with just one kid, or the adults kid free. Honestly I think this can be just as good as a family holiday… Ask yourself, do you need a break or do you need a holiday? If you need a break then a family holiday probably ain’t gonna cut it..

For the most part, a family holiday is not really a break let’s be honest, it’s actually harder than being at home. So - instead, take one or two kids away for a night or two by themselves and the other parent stays home.

Or get one parent to take the kids away and one parent gets to stay home by themselves - that is the dream isn’t it, to be home by yourself?!

Thanks so much for being here guys..

So much love and remember you are loved and you are awesome!

Tell this to yourself and if you haven’t told your loved ones lately - remind them they are doing a great job too!

Love Katrina..