After the Odyssey

Well it's been a week and a bit since I left Arizona, and I left there a changed man.
I am deeply honoured to have been given the opportunity to tell my story and privileged to have been in the company of a group of practitioners, educators, and conference organizers, who are second to none.
The Arizona trip and the conference marked a turning point for me and my ongoing journey to better health, and I am in an even better place mentally and emotionally than I was when I first started delivering the "After the sirens" presentation a mere six weeks ago. I have all of you to thank for that.

When I decided to move forward with the "After the sirens" presentation and the May campaign there was a large measure of nervousness at the thought of tearing open some very large emotional scabs and exposing my much protected inner self.
Regardless of however uncomfortable and unpleasant I anticipated the process would be, I knew it needed to be done for several reasons, first and foremost for me to gain further ground in my battle against poor health, and secondly to help others appreciate the significance of stress related illness.

The conundrum I faced was that in order to successfully navigate the emotional responses associated with speaking of my battle with stress it would be essential to my emotional health for me to have a safe strategy. For me that meant only telling as much of the story as I was comfortable with and in that light, keeping the presentation in an ever evolving and non stagnant state. True to that, little by little with each presentation I found myself being more open with the groups gathered to hear my story and as time goes on and the campaign continues, I will trim and add as need dictates.

In the week or so that has passed I've given myself some time to decompress and restructure in the wake of the conference and the conversations that ensued, I've stayed away from social media as best I could with the exception of sending and answering a few emails, I've ridden my bike every day I could, I've edited some of the images I captured along the way, and I've spent a bunch of time with my camera outside of my comfort zone, that being photographing things that fart. It's a long story, lol. Reference The Riverpirate Times and www.riverpiratephotography.blogspot.com.
I've also spent some time working on the reno at the farm with Robyn and my son Andre, watched a little TV, and did a bit of socializing along the way.

When I left Phoenix last Friday night I flew to Portland Me. where Robyn picked me up, and we drove to Norwich New York to pick up our newest addition to our Great Dane family, Wysiwyg's Heart of Saturday Night, call name Thomas. For you who are unfamiliar with the reference, Tom Waite's song "The Heart of Saturday Night" was the first song Robyn and I danced to. Corny, I know but it fits.
Our travels home took us through upstate New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, much of which was unfamiliar territory to me and Robyn, and then through Maine, NB, and home to NS. It was a fantastic way to end a fantastic chapter in my life "After the sirens".

As my journey from the brink continues I will keep doing the healthy things I do to keep me as close to my baseline and I'll try again to bring the "After the sirens" presentation to those who might benefit from hearing my story and recognizing that asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.