Lance Armstrong donations
How life changes. Over the last week we have had a hurricane. A hurricane is not just a simple storm but one that blows over a low pressure area, and the circling winds seem to pick up more and more energy. This energy, the disturbance in the atmosphere, the instability such as a front, a depression, or a wind shear. All these factors, the energy, moisture, upper level winds and a trigger going upwards will blow into a tropical storm that can grow into a hurricane. So many factors come into making a storm into a hurricane.
A seemingly innocuous sounding hurricane named ‘Sandy’ wrecked havoc and destruction in the East Coast of the United States. I have a friend named Sandy and she is a friendliest and most personable person I know; so unlike her namesake hurricane. So much can change in such a short time. So many have died and been injured and destroyed in its wake. It really is awful and it will take ages for some to recover from it. There was a smaller one in the UK in the 80s and even today I meet people who still remember and suffered loss from it.
Another hurricane, a personal hurricane I was thinking of was what had happened recently to Lance Armstrong, a professional road-racing cyclist. He had also started and made a huge contribution to charity after he himself also suffered and recovered from cancer. Just recently he had been stripped of his 7 titles and wins of the Tour de France for being a “serial cheat who led the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping programme the sport has ever seen”. So dramatic has his rise and fall been. It must be so painful at many levels for him and those who love him to be so close to what went on.
Another individual who not doubt would be turning in his grave if people really do turn in their graves was Sir Jimmy Saville. He died a year ago and whilst he was alive he had been known (by some but not to most of the public) to be a sexual predator and paedophile who also had full access to children in hospitals and schools. His activities for some reason had been hidden by those who were unaware or did not take his activities seriously as to what sexual grooming meant or could be. It is reported that over 300 women and children have come forward to report his abuse. We cannot truly know the numbers but he had also (like Lance Armstrong) made an enormous contribution to charity too. We often hear people talk about not “talking ill of the dead”. In this case the dead seem to be pervious. Even in death our secrets do not seem to end but can also be exposed.
We can all have our ‘secrets’, secrets that seem hidden and if let to fester will come out in a hurricane of all hurricanes. I can tell you after a few decades of personal experience and work with numerous clients that if any secret is left to ‘go away’ it does not go away. Hope or self-medicating with prescription drugs or alcohol, avoiding and distractions do not make it shrink or disappear. It instead, one day comes back and haunts and zaps us by surprise. I wish it could go away by simply wishing it does. Maybe some reparation is possible or maybe it also starts as a storm, an instability such as a front, a depression, or a wind shear and then becomes our very own personal hurricane…….
©Yaz 2012
Dr Yaz Headley 