No more comparisons

It is a glorious day. It’s still early but the sun is warming me as I sit on my doorstep. There is a bit of a wind, enough to keep all our VE Day bunting constantly in motion, quite violently in the gusts.

VE Day-bunting on washing line

VE Day - Flags and Glasses

I have had a revelation. Literally pages into Brené Brown’s book ‘Daring Greatly’ I have realised what my ‘vulnerability’ is - being positive!

We are in the middle of a pandemic; lockdown has been ‘eased’ but not with any real clarity. It is an opportunity for the government to test the water I suppose. In any unknown situation you have to ‘experiment’ otherwise you can’t move forward, you can’t see how the variables will affect the situation.

Less of that.

During this time I have been asked on a couple of occasions to speak to the press. I feel I have an authentic voice when it comes to being a military spouse. I don’t ever claim to speak for anyone but myself however, I do know that much of what I do say resonates with many.

This was encapsulated in my exhibition ‘Not Just a Wife’.

The exhibition had great success. The Royal United Services Institute sponsored the first event and I took it to as many locations as I could afford…and a couple I couldn’t really but the opportunity was there.

I was finding my confidence with the messaging of the exhibition. Why do people want to know about us? This is how we live. This is my life. All I wanted to do was tell people the positives of being a military spouse.

And there you have it - positivity.

I have been watching how many people have book deals, have many followers, do speaking tours based on their lives. I keep comparing to my story and wonder why I can’t do that too.

In those first few pages I have realised its because I want to remain positive. I don’t want people to define me by the number of Community Psychiatric Nurses I have seen, the programmes I have been on or the struggles I have encountered - they don’t ‘define’ me.

What defines me is how I have used my faith, how I have paused and thought about the situation in the positive and how I have reacted to a situation the next time it comes up.

A compass to keep me on track!

I haven’t had the trauma of being shot at to the extent that my husband has but that doesn’t make deployments any less of an emotional stressor. We may move every 2-3 years but the joys are the new people we meet, the reunions, the travel to visit those we have met and the friendships that are for life.

I could tell you about any number of situations that have affected my mental health but I don’t want you to think of me in that way. I don’t want to be defined by those moments; I want to be defined by how I dealt with them and came through them and the positive actions from them.

I have been in the media arena for a number of years and I realise that the best way to not be interviewed is to have a positive story to tell.

‘Not Just a Wife’ is my confidence and resilience story. Neither confidence or resilience are a given; they are grown out of adversity at different levels. I do not dwell in the adversity. I choose to see the positive and how each event in my life, along with my faith, family and friends, have meant that as I, thankfully, continue in this life I am able to ‘note’ the negatives but focus on using the positives.

No more comparisons!