by Michelle Potter Artist - Energy Worker - Wayshower | Aug 11, 2024 | Art as Therapy, Blogs
Let’s rewind to wear it all began.
I was only 6 years old when my father died and I remember those early weeks quite distinctly. Dad had bowel cancer and from diagnosis to his passing was about 4 months. One day he got sick and the next day he was gone.
Everyone bought me gifts. Passing mourners that entered our home brought me something nice, shiny and new. I was never a spoilt child and these sorts of presents were normally reserved for Christmas and birthdays. I was supposed to be sad wasn’t I? How could I possibly be sad when I had all these wonderful new toys to distract me. It was a very emotionally confusing time for me.
The morning of the funeral, I recall my grandparents pulling up the driveway quite early. I was excited because Grandad was here and it wasn’t even the weekend. He was all dressed up in his suit and tie. My Nan never got out of the car, and my excitement was short-lived as I also saw the neighbour, who always ate the best biscuits when she babysat, trundling up behind. Then Mum said goodbye and left. I remember watching them leave in Grandad’s car and feeling terrible and confused about the whole thing.
I cannot recall them telling me they were burying my Dad that day because that would be something I would definitely remember. I was just annoyed and confused that they had gone somewhere without me, and I was left in the house with the lady from around the corner who would tie her kid to the clothesline by his child harness.
Mum wanted me to remember Dad the way he was, not laying in a box, and as a parent we all have to make terribly difficult decisions. But I never had a chance to say goodbye. I never even had a chance to grieve. I carried that grief with me for over 30 years until I lost my second pregnancy at 11 weeks. The impact of well-meaning decisions around my father’s death influenced so much of my life. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I realised how important it was that, no matter how hard, little humans also need a space to grieve.
As adults, we do everything possible to protect our children from the hurts and pain of the world, but it catches up. It’s not something that ever goes away until we are faced to deal with it differently. I spent many many years grieving the loss of my father instead of praising the effects and hard work of my mother. It was always about the loss for me. The Dad who didn’t come to special Father’s Day events. The Dad that couldn’t walk me down the aisle. The Dad I couldn’t hug and confide in because, well, he was dead. All I had for many years was a plague in a crematorium and no closure.
The void this created was a severe sense of lack. My mother became fiercely independent, and to her credit, we never went without. I may have grown up on second-hand clothes and Vegemite sandwiches, but we never went hungry, we always had clothes, and we always had a roof over our heads.
Losing a father figure at a very young age changed the course of my life and it hasn’t been all bad. Pain can bring out the worst and the best in some people. Not all people that are hurting hurt people.
Art has taught me how to express emotion productively and positively. Take my latest ‘Art with Heart’ cards as an example. I needed a constructive way to view my situation when I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I knew exactly what the negative self-talk was telling me, and sometimes, it was dressed up with pretty clothes and lipstick. This is why the negative side of these cards looks attractive and colourful, not dark and foreboding.
It’s a tough journey taking a good hard look in the mirror and recognising everything that needs to change within ourselves. The ego is designed to protect us and sometimes it takes a hard life lesson or two to knock us back on the right path.
Cancer turns you inside out. It affects everything and everyone around you. I believe my stomach cancer was my massive initiation into my life’s purpose. My more recent cancer diagnosis was to just make sure I’d learned my lessons. There are still lessons as part of this process, but I’m pretty confident I’m done.
I got it loud and clear.
Boundaries, non judgment, forgiveness.
Done done done.
Please, Universe, let me be done. I’ll be quite happy to shine right up until my number is up.
by Michelle Potter Artist - Energy Worker - Wayshower | Jul 3, 2019 | Cancer, Life Lessons, Stomach Cancer
Fifteen years ago I became a mum. I left the workforce and became a full time stay at home parent. Still wanting to keep my mind active I studied to become a swimming teacher but ended up paying more out in childcare fees than my actual wage. When my second baby arrived I decided to put my work life on hold until he was a little more independent. That was 11 years ago. When my youngest was heading off to four year old kindergarten I thought great, now I can get back into work and start contributing to the household finances, then I was diagnosed with cancer. That was 7 years ago.
Over the last seven years I have worked a casual job which ended rather abruptly after I had a dumping episode. Unfortunately a side effect of living without a stomach and a boss who was not willing to compromise. I’ve also done contract work but the pay and the hour and 20 minute round trip wasn’t even covering my petrol. Don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of pluses. I get to stay at home, attend children’s events at school, dont have to compromise my boss if any of the kids are home sick, volunteer my time to the school community, eat when I want, rest when I want, go out when I want and work on my art portfolio. Its like being on one big holiday only there is no sightseeing or spending money and you have to motivate yourself to get out of bed every single day.
Sacrificing all the things that come with working full time and being able to up skill in the creative sense has been the most selfish and fulfilling part of being at home. Launching a website and Page on Facebook, doing commissioned art pieces for people all over the world. Pushing myself on a daily basis to be better, to be more visible, to extend my experiences into meditation classes, art classes, craft workshops. Advertising, daily posts, sticking flyers up around local shops. Expand, expand, expand, doing what I love in the hope that I can not only help others but give my family the financial freedom we so desire. Here I am nearly eight years down the track and I feel like a bit of a failure. I am so tired. So tired of trying to balance my health, my family, my support page and my business. So tired of feeling guilty for not being able to financially contribute to the family income, so tired of feeling I am not where I thought I would be. Watching others around me so motivated, meditating daily for blasts of inspiring feel good posts, feeling into the rhythm of the universe and working with the cycles of the moon, bla bla bla, plastering positivity all over their social media, watching friends who have their shit together and feeling I could be doing more, I should be doing more, I need to be seeing and being more. But I can’t because I am SO TIRED of trying and failing. Seriously, there are only so many times you can pick yourself up before you have to stop and reevaluate your entire life and the current direction you are facing. And now a quiet pause…….
“Hey Spirit, here is your opportunity to send that big bolt of
lightening I have been waiting for.”
I can understand why so many amazing Artists simply give up trying to make a living from their Art. I really wanted to be the exception. After all I am a walking miracle and by all accounts I shouldn’t be alive right now. Should’nt that mean something? Didn’t God let me live so that I could see out a much greater purpose? I thought I’d been grasping life by the big kahunas to create the successful abundant life I deserve, but I haven’t succeeded and being granted a second chance at life doesn’t make me special, it just makes me extremely lucky. My life holds no more value than anyone else’s. My experiences certainly make me look at life with a different perspective and I always look for every possibility. If I didn’t I could possibly be the most miserable person on the planet. Here’s a depiction of me looking miserable with a pair of useless big kahunas.
Is there a part of me that has had a sense of entitlement that because I survived that makes me somehow special? Reality check …… I think there might have been. My shadow just got a big slap in face and knows this is a complete fabrication to cover up any insecurities and fear around lack and acceptance. Getting through cancer doesn’t make me special, it makes me a liability. Lets face it letting a few organs go is going to compromise a lot of things and those that say it was a small price to pay to survive, well lets just say that comment is not helpful. They have absolutely no comprehension what price I have had to pay and continue to pay for everyday of my life. I simply do not have the capacity to work full time anymore. I don’t even know how I will cope part time. If I disclose the reasons for the gap in my of employment then I can almost guarantee that no matter how experienced I am or how much of a kind competent person I maybe, my resume will be cast aside quicker than yesterday’s newspaper. Let’s just look at the term cast aside for a moment. Abandoned, unwanted, undervalued, overlooked, ignored, forgotten, unused, depreciated, declined, passed over. Ever fiber in my being fights these words every single day, consciously and unconsciously. PTSD is very real in my world and it comes out in various ways, some of them extremely healing and creative and some not so constructive.
What does success look like anyway?
A large social media following? – These people probably have no time for anything else or they have lots of people working for them so stop comparing.
A healthy bank account? – Who doesn’t want an endless supply of cash but think about all of the things that are sacrificed in order to have this, including being with the most important people in your life.
A balanced body? – This is hard work in every sense of the word.
A great job? – Whats that? Unless you are extremely fortunate to love what you do or work for yourself in which case there are also big sacrifices.
Holidays? – That was nice for all of three seconds, now go chain yourself back to your desk in a job you hate with people you don’t really like but have to tolerate so you can save up for your next holiday.
Healthy relationships? – Saying no, creating boundaries, letting toxic people go no matter how much it hurts – did I also mention hard work.
Lots of friends? – The more friends you have the more drama you are likely to be pulled into – keep your circle small.
OR
Just the fact that you have somewhere soft and warm to sleep with food in your cupboards? – Some may call that gratitude others might call that living in survival energy. Either way it’s all a matter of perspective.
I am also under no illusion that what people post is what they want you to see. Most people do not want other people to see that they are not coping, that their marriage is falling apart, that they cant afford to feed themselves, there are bills on the fridge they cant pay, that their health is failing, that their job is taking a mental and physical toll on their well-being and that life can sometimes be really tough. A beautiful made up face and cute baby photos do not equate to a good sleep and a well adjusted baby! All the misconceptions and in-authenticity out there in social media land causes a ripple of self doubt and anxiety that we all should be more that what we are or what we are capable of achieving. One big Snap chat filter so the world never has to see the real us. Even the most positive posts can be full of falseness and fishing for more likes or comments. Ive seen it happen in groups where people strategically reply over several days to comments on posts to bring their post back up to the top of the page for more exposure. It happens and these people are sprinkling spirituality out of their calculating fingertips. Sometimes I cant work out if I admire their enterprising genius or despise their disingenuous. Like it or not social media is such an integrated part of our daily lives that it plays a part in what I consider part of my success and some days like today I am just as messed up as the next person.
As I approach my eight year cancer free I am also contemplating what the future holds for me. But for today I do nothing but write as my head hurts from projecting, my heart aches from my past failures, my body is completely and utterly exhausted and my soul is so so tired. I know this shall pass and when the waves of emotion retreat I will have found another spark of inspiration from God knows where and a renewed sense of hope for better more abundant days to come. If there is one thing I love about me its the fact that I can recognize when I need to stop, retreat and give myself the time to reinvent myself. Kind of like Madonna but without her bank account!
When life gives you lemons, you say F?@k lemonade. Then google every single recipe you can using lemons!
Michelle <3
by Michelle Potter Artist - Energy Worker - Wayshower | Feb 5, 2019 | Life Lessons
Most of us make life so complicated, like a pressure cooker of expectations all thrown together in a massive soup of exhaustion and stress. Then all of a sudden, your body screams STOP and you have no choice because the Universe does it for you.
If you have ever been through a cancer journey, then you would understand the weight of getting through another year.
I rarely announce it anymore, because those that don’t understand may look at the celebration as an opportunity of glorifying my own self-importance.
Lots of people get through cancer right? Just get over it already.
Quoting Kerwin Rae ‘ Your problems don’t make you special because everyone’s got them.’ *BTW actually a really good
article . The problem is, this is not like a cold or flu.
You don’t just get over cancer and get on with life like it never happened.
The fall out from my surgery has been huge, more than anyone around me can appreciate let alone understand. Not only did I discover that I carry a genetic predisposition for gastrointestinal cancers, I have gone ahead and had preventative surgery to eliminate some of them. Do you know how many organs the human body can live without? I certainly do because I’m missing quite a few of them.
I never thought that becoming a Light-worker would be quite so literal. I joke about being a pure chancel of light and that the only thing they cannot surgically remove is my sense of humor. I even like to tell people if I was abducted by aliens they would transport me back thinking they’d accidentally picked up one of their own!
So lets fast forward to 2018. This was the first year in 7 years (colonoscopy/endoscopy excluded) that I did not have to go under any major anesthetics. I managed to keep all my organs and only lost a few nasty polyps, good riddance to those. Then in November I started to develop tinnitus. A constant ringing in my ears that would drive anyone crazy. One night I went to bed and the ON switch in my brain got stuck.
If there is one thing that my cancer and gastrectomy taught me it was to be my own advocate. To be aware that there are many options out there to try and to never give up if one thing doesn’t work. Even when the experts in the field tell you ‘There is nothing further we can do, go home and learn to live with it.’ I consider myself a walking miracle so if I can find my way through to a solution then I will do everything I can to find it. I have become a seeker.
Not all questions can be answered with Western medical solutions and other times we have to wait for technology to catch up. In the meantime, it is important to find new ways of being. If this new condition has taught me anything it is that I really need to look after myself more. Its like a forced holiday but with self-care. I now sleep with BOSS Sleep buds. An expensive but necessary part of keeping my sanity. I have been meditating, soaking my feet in epson salts, fine tuning my supplements and giving myself time to ground my feet in the Earth and sit in nature.
Being your own best advocate also means being pro-active. Go to the doctor, have all the required tests. Anxiety and PTSD in cancer patients can take an enormous toll on your mental health and well-being. To many sleepless nights and I know I am unable to function as a human being. Seek help where you need it but do not look to others for the answers. Sometimes its about listening to your own inner voice and following your intuition.
Remembering each experience, good or bad is just an experience. If you can learn what works for you then you can share your findings with others. Sometimes just having one person who understands you can make all the difference in the world.
I do not understand why this is happening to me now, but I can tell you it is making me step out of my comfort zone and forcing me to seek out new and different things. It is hard work, annoying, frustrating and uncomfortable because I like routine, organization and knowing what tomorrow is going to bring. I’m not going to lie, when this first started it completely sucked the sparkle out of me and I just managed to grab hold before I went into an uncontrolled tail spin of depression.
I have to remind myself that every time I am forced to jump in feet first I learn something incredibly new about myself.
As
Gabby Bernstein suggests there are many moments where obstacles are opportunities to see things differently and I choose to see this as a detour in the right direction.
The Universe has my back!
Michelle Potter
by Michelle Potter Artist - Energy Worker - Wayshower | Feb 5, 2019 | Cancer, Life Lessons, Stomach Cancer
What do you do when the best version of yourself is never enough for someone else?
This belief pattern started when I was eight years old. My mum met and married a man after a whirlwind romance. My father’s replacement would literally put his hand out and hold me at arm’s length when I went to give him a hug. This rejection caused my little heart to cry with despair. After losing my father to cancer a couple of years prior all I was looking for was his unconditional love and affection. I couldn’t change want I wanted, I was just a kid.
I fell in love at twenty and married a man whose attention was anywhere other than the relationship he had committed to. Reinforcing the belief that the best version of me was not worth loving and was never going to be good enough for anyone.
My second husband and I met at work. As like attracts like, we were thrown together by the Universe with our pending divorces and emotional distress. After a few false starts we decided to try and make a go of it. Here’s the irony, I thought he was the one that came with baggage! I had cut ties from my ex and saw myself as a childless, free spirit ready to explore the world of the Thirty somethings. Whereas he came with two young children, parents steeped in tradition and an ex-wife, who for the sake of the children was still very much in the picture.
With the addition of two impressionable girls into my life I did not want to repeat the experiences I had as a child. So, I always went over and above to make them feel comfortable, welcome and loved. You could say at that time I had a Wonder Woman complex. If I wasn’t organized, then I couldn’t control the outcome. If I couldn’t control the outcome, well that thought was terrifying. I was conscious of needing to feel accepted and I was literally stuck in a pattern of old belief systems that were self-destructive. I was on a collision course heading for disaster.
Eleven years into our relationship I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. At the time circumstances would have it that neither of my step daughters wanted a relationship with me. I felt totally and utterly defeated. A crescendo of years’ worth of self-sacrifice and desperation to be loved. The ultra-best version of me was never going to be good enough, ever. So where did this leave me? What lesson was I not learning here? Why did each karmic challenge seem more heart wrenching and harder to pull through? This one contributing to and almost costing me my life.
The original wound of my eight-year-old self was still playing out and cancer was my opportunity to fully awaken and see things very clearly. It was never about the people that rejected me, they were just the mirror of what I didn’t want to see in myself. Being brave enough to confront my old beliefs allowed me to understand that I have purpose and no longer needed to look outside of myself for love, acceptance or validation.
I love my authentic self and thank my teachers in life for helping me find her.
Michelle Potter
Visionary Artist
by Michelle Potter Artist - Energy Worker - Wayshower | Oct 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
Hello readers, I know I have been quiet for way too long!
I’m sure those that took the time to read my previous blogs have missed my tongue in cheek humor and hysterical content (because I am really am quite funny, just ask me!) I have missed blogging, but boy it was getting me into a bit of trouble. You may have noticed I shut down my blog a while back mainly due to a handful of self important, sociopathic people who shall not be named. In case you don’t know what a sociopath is click here for a bit of educating, number 6 and 8 are my special favorites http://www.wikihow.com/Spot-a-Sociopath ! Some people certainly didn’t like hearing what I had to say, or maybe they just didn’t like hearing it from me. Who cares really, I’m back 🙂
Writing is another extension of me although I don’t write as much as I would like given most of my time is taken juggling being a full time mum, managing 3 facebook pages and my art work. When I do get a little down-time or if something really gets up my goat, I like to write it down and usually with a little bit of humor because lets face it, life can be pretty tough sometimes.
I have been on my road to self awareness for a good 5 years now. This has seen me take up my passion for art and create a very real business dream of doing what I love and creating an income. Although I have been known to speak to dead people (‘mediumship’ for a better term), this is not my area of expertise (yet). I work with spirit guides through art and oracle readings and I hope by sharing my journey I will inspire and encourage others to find their passion and to create something amazing out of it for themselves.
I have two feet firmly planted on the ground and as much as I am in touch with all that I am not, I am also very in touch with the reality we call home. Nothing in my blogs are ever supposed to offend people because its just my experience or opinion on something. So in saying that, don’t be hating on me if I don’t put the knives and forks in the same draw as you!
I have taken a little time out to regroup my thoughts and realized that no matter what I do, some people are just not going to like it – you know like you believe in God and Angels but I should be burnt at the stake for talking to dead people……that sort of thing! Seriously I can’t help being sexy and creative at the same time, it’s a burden I know. Oh and did I mention skinny? Well that was the stomach cancer, which BTW I don’t recommend in order to loose a few kilos. Nutritional fall out and being fully trained in all aspects of fartology is not only inconvenient but can be downright painful.
I have a HUGE amount of life experience and I know a little bit about alot of things!! If I can share and if it helps you, makes you laugh or inspires you to be the best person you can be then why wouldn’t I.
So a big welcome back to me to the bloggers world! Can’t say they will be terribly frequent but they will definitely be worth waiting for.
