Roots for Growth

By Anna Bell

"This is an invitation for you to listen to the voice inside that knows what story you want to write for yourself." Anna Bell

Do you want a happier, peaceful and more contented life? 

When Anna's husband Alan was diagnosed with MS three days befor

• Language: English
• Publisher: Triple Spiral Press
• Release date: Jan 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838340315

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Roots for Growth

Anna Bell

Published in 2021 by Triple Spiral Press

Copyright © Anna Bell 2021

Anna Bell has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

ISBN Paperback: 978-1-8383403-0-8 Ebook: 978-1-8383403-1-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

A CIP catalogue copy of this book can be found in the British Library.

Published with the help of Indie Authors World

www.indieauthorsworld.com

Dedication

 For my family.

Introduction

Welcome, and thank you for joining me.

This book is an invitation to connect with yourself and all the potential that lies within you. If you want to live a happy and fulfilling life with clarity and purpose, and to bring something special to the world – which I believe you already are! - then I hope this book helps you on your way.

Before going any further, you may like to take a moment to think about what your intentions are for reading the book. Is it simply to pass a few hours? Are you looking for ideas and inspiration? Do you have big goals and aspirations in your life? And how might this book help you?

How to get the best from the book

In each chapter, I offer a combination of personal stories and background to the topic, with some recommended resources and some questions to invite you to reflect on what you’ve read. I suggest having a pen and paper handy, and if you like, gather some coloured pens to mind-map and doodle while you learn and discover as the pages unfold.

Anything I offer here is simply me sharing perspectives. You are empowered with the choice and the responsibility to make any changes or decisions (or not!) in response to what you read.

Learning which I’ve gathered from NLP and other programmes is woven throughout the content, and I have referenced specific examples wherever possible. I’m grateful for all the learning and inspiration my teachers and mentors continue to share. Any mistakes or clumsy explanations are down to me. 

A little bit about me

I’m a nature-loving, Scottish 47-year-old, mum to David and Mairi, and Lucy the dog! I’m also a carer for my husband, Alan, who has been medically retired since 1997 due to MS (Multiple Sclerosis).

I love good food, wine, and music, and often while away a few hours mindfully cooking or baking something colourful and tasty for my family. Colours light up my life in other ways, through art, doodling, nature, clothes, even my hair… I like to think of life as a blank canvas, and it’s fun to begin ‘painting’ and see what happens!

Challenges in life have taught me to live in-the-moment and notice what brings the greatest fulfilment, which you’ll find out more about as you read on. I love experiencing new things, like singing in a choir, laughter yoga, writing, and creating. I’m also learning the ukulele and guitar, having great fun doing so but not quite applying myself enough to be any good at it!

Part of being in-the-moment is being present with the darker times, too. I have shared a few personal stories where I think it could be useful to offer perspectives so you can reflect on your own life, if you choose.

Since 2015, my life and work have come together to form a welcome balance, and what was my ‘plan B’ became my ‘plan A’. Even though I did enjoy my job, I found I no longer had the will or the capacity to work long hours in a challenging corporate environment, and I began to reduce my working hours to prioritise family. I had planned to become a coach working from home when my husband Alan reached the point where he needed support almost full-time, until one day I decided the time was now, so that we could enjoy more quality time together as a family. More on that later, but my main message from that is: if you really feel called to do something, and you’re not doing it, understand where your internal resistance is coming from and build a clear path ahead to bring it to life.

Anyway, enough of my rambling… there’s plenty of that in the book!

Chapter One

Resilience

What is resilience?

The Oxford dictionary defines resilience in two ways:

NOUN

the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness

the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity

Notice how different these are, and yet both are important if we want to be resilient and stand up to the storms of life. The best example I’ve seen to illustrate this is one which my friend and mentor Derek Robertson uses in his training programmes, which I’ve been fortunate to facilitate and co-design. It’s a story about the ‘Reed and the Oak Tree’ in a book called Resilience by Mark McGuinness. If you’re solid and heavy like an oak tree, you’re unlikely to budge, or if you do, you’ll fall hard and probably not find it easy to get back up again. If you’re too flimsy and flexible like a reed, you may be flattened and not be able to spring back.

So, being all of one and none of the other doesn’t really work. Resilience is the capacity to adapt and the willingness to be flexible, depending on what the situation calls for.

My story

It was early in my life when I began to learn about resilience. By the time I was a teenager, my family had already experienced bereavement from cancer and suicide, and my uncle died in a fatal motorbike accident the year he would have turned 21. The soul-wrenching grief that comes from loss like that has brought many life lessons. And although the sadness lingers in some dark corners, my parents and grandparents have guided us through it in a loving and resourceful way that I struggle to find words to convey.

In all of this, and everything that’s happened since, I have learned a great deal about myself, too. I was a naturally sensitive and empathic child who later discovered the gifts that this sensitivity could bring. Being a twin has contributed to this way of being attuned to others, including some hard-to-explain moments of having the same thoughts at the same time, buying the same birthday cards and Mother’s Day cards, and having a deep sense of knowing when something was happening to my sister (even when I was 5,000 miles away!).

I am a person who hurts deeply and feels profound joy, and everything in between – a whole-hearted kind of gal. I am comfortable sharing emotions and know when I need time to heal, sensing when it’s time to let go and move on.

This has served me well in life and has had a significant influence on my work, which I would genuinely describe as a calling. It feels like I came into the world to do exactly what I am doing now.

What did you want to be when you grew up? At first, I wanted to be a primary school teacher, and then a nurse. After school, I went to work in an office for 25 years, so it took me a while to come back to my true calling! Reflecting on it now, though, what I am doing – and certainly the higher purpose behind it – has close links to both of my childhood ambitions. Supporting people to heal, learn, and grow features every day in my work, and often in my personal life. The difference now is that I understand it’s not me doing it ‘for them’ or ‘to them’. I’m holding the space so that they can do it for themselves.

Beyond my school years, my life changed significantly. At the age of 23, we were hit with a bombshell just three days before we got married, and I wrote about it in my first ever blog in May 2015. I had never intended to publish it – I wrote it for cathartic reasons. And yet, when I’d written it, I felt like I wanted to share my experiences in the hope of helping others. It turned out to be a significant moment in my change of career direction and in finding the courage to express myself.

‘Falling down is part of life…’

My husband Alan was diagnosed with MS in 1997. He doesn’t have any remission – it’s there, full-on, 365 days a year. I’d like to share some experiences with you about what it’s like having MS in our lives.

We found out just a few days before we got married. It was a relief at first. We had convinced ourselves it was a brain tumour, and with some of the symptoms he had, it would have been really serious if it had been.

But no. MS came into our lives with the impact of a sledgehammer, at the worst possible time. Alan was told not to travel on our honeymoon to Antigua, that he could wake up blind or unable to walk with the effects of the heat. No dithering over that decision then.

At the time, I remember telling people ‘he’ll probably end up in a wheelchair’, and we all felt a bit stunned at the prospect. He is now using a wheelchair and mobility scooter regularly – cheerfully and mischievously, I might add! He’s developed a sneaky move we call a ‘drive-by’, where he wheels into shot just as I’m taking a photo, which I do often as I love to capture the moments on holiday and with family and friends we’re so grateful for.

Sadly, he now experiences many more distressing and painful symptoms than that every day (and night). If you look at any list of MS symptoms – yip, he’s probably got most of them. He deals with it all with an enormous amount of courage, good humour, and grace, and really doesn’t see what all the fuss is about when people praise him for it.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not all smiles and joking. We’ve shed many tears together and sometimes it’s felt like sitting in the dark like a couple of frightened children. But we’re always in it together.

Back to April 1997... I braced myself and cancelled the honeymoon. We were insured for 75% of the cost, but they must have heard from my voice how devastated I was and gave a full refund.

I then thought about how to make the best of the situation and booked a few days away in York. What I thought would be a fairly poor alternative to our original plans turned out to be one of the best times away that we’ve ever had. Granted, we had our first experience of Alan not being able to walk very well, and the rude stares of people as he tried to make his way through the crowds as a new user of a walking stick. As we had done with the wedding, we made spoken and unspoken commitments to each other to have a great time, to live in the moment, and not be crippled (!) by the potentially very scary future ahead.

The strange thing is, I never considered asking someone else to take over and sort things out. I think it was part of my processing what had happened and starting to accept how our lives had changed dramatically in the space of one phone call from the consultant.

I never considered delaying the wedding either. As I said to Alan’s mum, if I had to wheel him down the aisle in a hospital bed, I would have done it. There was never any doubt. The only day I can say I really felt sorry for myself was my first day back at work. Knowing I should have been on a beach in the sun, having endless hazy days and balmy nights sauntering along hand-in-hand, was just too much to bear that day.

Last year [2014] I had a stark reminder of my own, to be in the moment and not worry about the small stuff. I had severe abdominal swelling and later the same day was sitting with a consultant, who had a piece of paper marked ‘SUSPECTED CANCER’ on it. In bold capitals – as if it needed to be emphasised. Talk about a wake-up call. He was able to tell me fairly quickly that it was probably a benign growth, but ‘probably’ isn’t quite reassuring enough for me. I was immediately drawn into the present, appreciating all the fantastic people, experiences, and opportunities in my life. The next few weeks were blissfully relaxing and, even though