Wednesday 20 July 2016

I'm oh so blue and ..........fabulous!


On Saturday 9th July 2016, in the early hours of the morning in Hull, I did something that I thought I would never do! I stripped naked in public, had my photograph taken and I am very very proud of it.

Before everyone throws there arms up in horror and asks how my criminal record is coming along I guess I should explain a little more. There is a very good explanation honest and one it is entirely possible that you've seen on the news, Internet or newspapers over the last couple of weeks

Hull is my home town and next year it will be City of Culture 2017. As part of that artist Spencer Tunick was commissioned to produce pieces of art to reflect the city. You may not know the name of Tunick but he produces powerful art installations using people, usually naked, to add to the messages of the piece. Controversial, yep,but also very beautiful. So I along with 3199 others stripped naked and painted ourselves four different shades of blue for the Sea of Hull (#seaofhull), it was amazing.

My reasons for doing this where two fold really. First I wanted to be a part of something that is and is going to be really major for my beloved home town. I wanted to say I was there, I'm in that, I helped raise Hull's profile away from the reputation of crap town that its been labelled with for years. A positive to move forward from all the rubbish that Hull has put up with since the decline in the docks and other industry in the area.

If I'm really honest though I was the main reason that I did this! Pushing my boundaries and just seeing what me and my body can do together. We have a fractious relationship, my body and I, in fact I would go so far as to say love/hate.  I am a lady of plus size proportions and I am very aware of that all of the time. The way I am feeling about how I look can affect my mood, the way I react to situations and indeed to people.  To put it bluntly I have felt ugly for a very long time, I think all of the time I have been aware of the concept of beauty v.s ugly.

Why then expose myself (literally) in such a way! I wanted to see if I could change the way I feel about myself, to see if being part of something so beautiful would help me feel a change, accept who I am as I am and love that concept. As a therapist I ask clients all of the time to take major risks to help them alter the way they react to situations and feel about themselves, so I feel if I ask this of others I should be prepared to test me too.

I decided to take part at the end of March 2016 and shared it on my private social media, mainly so that I wouldn't back out. Those of you reading this who are a part of my private life may well be sick of hearing about this. The reactions where mainly Wow or your so brave, I couldn't do that.  I did get a couple of people disapproving but in the main very supportive. 
So I was committed!

Telling my family I was nervous, its a bit of a weird conversation to have with your Dad but they backed me up too.  I knew that they would, they always do and managed to do it with out cringing too much.  I did have conversations with friends about not telling my Dad, but I couldn't do that and knowing me if I had have gone down that path I would have been front and centre of the news coverage or something.

I travelled down from Glasgow on the Friday evening after a few clients that morning, to say the traffic was a hindrance is an understatement and I arrived at Dads house at about 10 pm that night. House was empty as my Dad was away, the restless dance of that night started. I was up and down, thinking of things I might need to do, where would I park, deciding to take off my toe nail polish in case it showed through the paint. No sleep that night at all!!!

Call time for me the next morning was 3 am in Queens Gardens in central Hull, me being me and in a bit of a tizzy with myself by this stage was there at 2 am. When worried/ anxious I am always early, however I was not alone. My tummy by this stage was doing a full blown spin cycle and I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing and if the blue paint will hide my red blushes!

I did what I always do when nervous start chatting to others , checking I'm not the only one feeling this and then providing reassurance to others. That in turn helps me to feel better.  We were put in to four groups upon registration and hand over of forms giving permission to use our image etc. B2 was me, what did that mean, what was going to happen next.  I found the flag for B2 and dutifully queued up to be issued with a small pot of paint to shake but not to put on yet!

I shook that tub whilst chatting to a lovely posse of people that I had started talking with in the paint queue. I must have shook that tub none stop for at least an hour as we stood round waiting for others to arrive and groups to be formed, stood round for ages. Just about the right amount of time for the anxiety to hit a peak. Not going to lie I was starting to feel a little sick. 

Everyone around me was just so lovely and in the same boat, wave after wave of people coming into the Gardens. As I looked around me I realised there was every shape, size and colour there, all in this together. There where people in wheel chairs, people with sticks, really old and young people too (over 18 though). I felt a weird surge of emotion, everyone was here doing this together. It didn't matter background or size or colour or orientation or anything, we were a group of people doing something as a community to create something beautiful, they were all beautiful. Then I knew I could do it because if they were all beautiful then I was too, big boobs, wobbly belly and all!

The call came to undress and my little group and I had agreed to do this altogether and help each other with any painting requirements. There we were 3200 people undressing in a central Hull park at 4.30 am, slapping paint on each other like this was entirely normal thing to be doing, checking various crevices and bumps to make sure we had full coverage. 

This was one of the least sexual experiences I have ever had, it wasn't about that, there was such a sense of positive spirit and we were all in this as one. It was fabulous.  I lost all embarrassment and shame about showing myself and was left with this sense of excitement and that something really special was happening and I was right in the middle of it, not standing on the sidelines like I might have done in the past. It was also a shade chilly.

There were quite a few poses in all different positions through some of the most well know areas of the civic part of Hull, I think I had my most surreal moment when passing Marks and Spencer's walking with a whole bunch of blue and green people. Also laid on Alfred Gelder Street wondering what my Mum would have made of all this, that will have to remain a mystery.

The camaraderie of the crowd was positive and funny all at the same time.  Tunick struggled with some of English terms for things (Tunick is from the USA) so the crowd as a whole would help him out, yelling back pavement when sidewalk was mentioned and Guildhall when Tunick didn't know the buildings name. Most memorably of all the artists assistant was named Steve, every time the artist called for him the crowd responded with 'Steve, Steve'. This may well be one of those moments you had to be there for but it was hilarious and put me in mind of the Minions!

After a couple of hours of posing most of us where let go while a small group went for a final set up on the Scale Lane Bridge (can only hold 800). So i returned to Queens Gardens, glad for some warmth from the clothes but in no real hurry to put them back on apart from that. I was buzzing, so excited by what had happened. I wanted to tell the world all about it, about how amazing it was, about how I felt.

How did I feel about me...... proud! Proud that I had done it, proud that I was part of something that feels important for Hull, proud to be from Hull and actually proud of my body! Proud in a way that I didn't think was really real, I watch with admiration models like Tess Holiday and the #effyourbeautystandards movement in the USA but I will admit I assumed it was just a brave front.  Now I know that isn't true!

I know that my body isn't likely to feature in any commercial idea of beauty but I don't care, I now can see that all bodies are beautiful, including mine with its curves, rolls and scars. No one really looked that different with their clothes off, no one deserves to think that they are not worth thinking about or criticism if their body doesn't fit in with a very narrow view of what a small few people think is attractive. We, bodies and all, are individual and deserve love because of that ability to be different not because we all conform to one standard.

There you go! I don't know precisely what it was that affected me that morning as the sun came up but it did and it was powerful. No more dance of the seven vales on holiday beside the pool, next Turkish bath I wont be worrying about keeping my top on and I am actually going to look at a bikini for me next time I get the chance of some sun.

Thank you #seaofhull and I cant wait to see the exhibition next April.

















Friday 27 November 2015

Procrastination and graduation

Hi folks,

Been a while since I have put anything up on here. Partly due to an awful lot happening but mainly down to my spectacular ability to procrastinate. This in itself got me thinking about why I have the ability to anything else, and I mean anything, apart from the thing I either need to do or have promised myself I would do, for example this blog!

I love to write, I keep a diary of things when they bother me and I work through a great deal of my own stuff by writing it down. In reality when I don't understand why I'm feeling what I feel or I have something that really upsets me I write down whatever flows through my pen. It some how helps me order my thoughts and sometimes changes how I am feeling, lets me be more rational as if I have got rid of the unhelpful bits floating around my head.

No one ever sees it, it is no one else's business. More often then not I will destroy what I have written ( that in itself can be a weird realise for me, like I've killed off the negative stuff.  When things have really bothered me I have been known to burn bits in the garden fire pit).

If this is the case why do I struggle so much with getting down to producing essays and things that people will see. Well that's all a part of my spectacularly avoidant personality. I am very conscious of others reading things that I have written, that comes from a number of things I think but I suspect it's my worry about being unmasked as a bit stupid really.

In my head I can talk a good game, waffle on sounding plausible for Great Britain, but actually committing something to text to be read by another human leaves no where for me to hide what I perceive as my lack of knowledge in either the subject of the piece or the English language in general.

Spelling and grammar has always been a thing for me and anyone who knows me even a little bit will tell you at one time or another I will have been quite defensive about it. Usually by way of a slightly dodgy joke or quoting how long the English language had been around before someone decided we needed rules. You will have noticed on my first post I mention this quite quickly, almost excusing it or giving you advanced warning not to expect anything else. I do this with clients and groups as well, which I am not proud of really. I would be (have been) mortally embarrassed if someone corrected me in public so I get in first.

So I avoid thinking about it, avoid doing anything that I know people will see and if people do see it and have to comment on it I will avoid looking at it until I absolutely have too. My Dipolma essay results I would look at the mark to check I had passed and then go back a number of weeks later in some cases to read the feed back, when I felt able to deal with the inevitable comment about the spelling and grammar. Sounds daft doesn't it and in truth I know that not being able to handle all the rules of language does not make me stupid.

So there you go after a great deal of procrastination I do get there and this blog may well be my therapy for dealing with the defensive behaviour around it (hmmmm suspect not but we can hope). It's all a bit self indulgent but I hope someone seeing a fellow spelling struggler doing ok really might be helpful. I aim for this to be the end of my blog procrastinating!!!

So now what I actually wanted to talk about (ok you got me I really mean show off about 😉). I graduated on 31st October 2015 with my SCOTAS Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Groupwork. Obviously I've known for a a while that I qualified and have been working as a CBT therapist for a number of months now but this was the official day, the official ending!

Its a powerful thing that ending, marking the change and the achievements. Emotional in many ways, not believing that we would ever get to the end, new friendships and bonds that in a lot of cases I think will last a lifetime and family being there to see all this. There were people missing from that family that made it even more emotive for me but I know they all would have been proud that day which makes me smile too. Always good to mark an ending.

Right that's the end of my ramblings for the moment. Thanks for reading!

Nadine

Tuesday 20 October 2015

1st Post

Hello,

Think you will all have worked out by now that I am Nadine and I am a Therapist.  First off thanks for getting this far and looking at my blog, I am just starting out in the world of therapy and in the world of self employment. Its all quite new, exciting and scary if I am honest.

What I am hoping to do with this blog is too talk a bit about some of the things that I think about as a therapist and as a person. When I am in a room with clients we share an experience and play a little part in what happens in each others lives and that's what I am hoping to do here.

I will never (obviously) speak about clients but I will share some of general areas that come up in therapy and about some of my own experiences and indeed feelings.  I hope that by doing this that it makes someones path a little smoother and in many ways will help me process some of my own thoughts.

I have had a few discussions over the last couple of weeks about blogs and about the motivations for people sharing things online and some people are concerned about it.  I have thought long and hard about the inclusion of a blog in my website and I do think its important, I myself follow many blogs that have been both eye opening and a support to me. I've done a lot of work on me as I have studied to be a therapist and I am OK with sharing parts of me if it makes the world of our emotions a little easier for some, even if they are not coming to see me.

I cant claim that the blog is entirely selfless as it is a part of my website and a tool that I hope will help me build my practice, showing possible clients the kind of person that they will be coming to see.  Also I know that writing helps me process whats happening with me so fingers crossed that is a bonus too.

I feel I also need say, before I really get going on this world of public writing, that I have struggled for a long time with spelling and grammar.  It's a part of me that I have taken a long time to get to love but I think I actually do now, one of my little quirks and something I am going to write about in future posts. For now though please excuse the possible dodgy spelling, these posts will come from the heart and therefore I wont be getting them prof read.

Ok so that's me laid that out, hopefully I haven't scared you off with that.  I aim to post at least once a week (even have it marked in my diary so it must be true).

Nadine x