Let's just start off right there...
I do not proclaim to have inner peace.
Although I am much older,
I am much more the person I want to be
than the person who I knew at 18.
Not that there was anything wrong with her,
but I feel far more comfortable in my shoes today.
I was a teenager in the 60's.
And being thin was the ultimate.
So when it came to being accepted
I had to do what other girls did.
It was all about self image.
There is a lot of pressure put on us to be a certain way,
and nothing has changed that.
Fitting in is a very tight fit to squeeze into.
I spent most of my teenage years dieting
so that I could have a waistline like a wasp.
I was driven by that obsession, I can be quite honest with you...
so much so that I was taking dieting tablets,
I would starve myself during the week
and then reward myself with a Cadbury Crunchie on the weekends.
I made sure that I was thin.
I have not been shaped by much guidance
having lost my father at 12 years old.
We became a family adrift.
My mother, she instilled in me
that I need to marry someone
who puts bread and butter on the table.
And I grew up with that philosophy.
I was very focussed in on the fact that
I didn't have to do much... the husband did it...
he was the bread winner.
Your prince must look after you.
Your prince must see that everything is OK.
I grew up there, in that castle.
And in that sense, I never developed my self image
because I was always looking at my husband.
I became absolutely dependent.
My first marriage was very impetuous
and it didn't last long.
But unfortunately that marriage only exacerbated
already what was going on with me
and my issues about being thin and so on.
Things then turned on their head
because I became depressed.
I guess because I had lost a father figure
I was looking for the love
that simply wasn't there when I was growing up.
On the surface, it's OK.
But at 3 o'clock in the morning there is nowhere to go.
You are lying in bed.
You don't have the words, let alone the thoughts
to give it clarity because it is such a...
it is too big to even put inside your head.
Life simply doesn't make sense.
We can feel helpless and hopeless.
You're no longer on the shore.
Your boat has gone drifting out to sea now.
And that is where we feel the most vulnerable.
We don't have a compass.
What saved me is that I started to read.
I have grown to love books.
Books for me, it's a passion.
And it's not just simply because I have a bookshop.
But books are silent friends.
Books are quiet... but books counsel you.
Anaïs Nin wrote...
you can choose to stay tight in the bud
or open like a rose.
I've had to grow through a lot of trials and tribulations
with issues about self image
and about having an addiction
because I did myself a lot of damage in that time
trying to fill a hunger within.
I fell into the trap of looking outside of myself
instead of within.
What was outside was far more important than what was inside.
No matter what is going on out there,
we have to come home to ourselves, to within.
And within never changes...
that is where our core is, that is where our soul is.
At the age of 34 I met Noel.
And we have been married for 36 years now.
And I think... not I think... I know...
Noel was the first person who saw me
for who I truly am, before I actually saw myself.
Noel has always believed in me
and he believed in me
far more than I believed in myself.
He saw me for who I truly am,
not who I was trying to be.
It was really the first time anyone had
seen me for who I am.
George Eliot put it succinctly when she wrote that
it's never too late to be what you were meant to be.
And I like to think that, it does give me some comfort
in the sense that it is never too late.
That's really what I'm grateful for...
is that I still have time today,
who knows for how long,
to become who I want to be.
All I want actually, is to fit into myself.
I want to be authentic.
I love that word actually, authenticity.
And I love the word abundance.
And I'd like to be abundantly authentic.
Being authentic is about freedom.
Being authentic liberates you.
Not having to conform.
Not having to say this because it is expected of you.
It's to be yourself.
It's to be true to who you are.
Can there be anything better than that?
It must be reaching the summit of the mountain,
when you can actually arrive at the top and say,
I am free because I am me... truly me.
Thanks for watching this film.
All the stories we've made over the last two years
have only been possible because of the support
that we've received from our patrons on Patreon.com
So if you'd like to help us keep these stories coming,
then check out our Green Renaissance page in the link below.
Thanks a lot.
Want a kiss?