Year: 2012

Letter to Gill Potter at the Book Launch of Sacred Paths Entwined

Sandra Love Letters , , , ,

4 July 2012 – Glasgow, Scotland.

Dear Gill

Wow! Lots of emotions have gathered as I shared your book launch with you … joy … pride … excitement … and so many more …

Here follows what is both a Love Letter to your book and the speech I gave on the night …

Good evening everyone and welcome to the  Launch of Gill Potter’s life changing book ‘Sacred Paths Entwined’.  My name is Sandra Peachey and it is my joy and privilege to introduce you to both the author and the book this evening.

Now I have a habit of writing ‘Love Letters to Life’, to analyse, celebrate and give gratitude for the most inspirational and amazing things in my life and THIS is my love letter to Gill Potter and her book …

This evening is a beginning, in so many ways … Of many new chapters, of lives changed, of destinies realised and released. The first of many new creations, of new connections, of lives changed inexorably and for ever – starting here in this sacred space; this delicious pre-ordained bringing together of all of us, on this night of nights.

So … Sacred Paths Entwined … The very thing that brings us all together – to our destiny, and soul to soul – whether the reasons be known or unknown, through kin, friendship or fate … We might say in the grand scheme of things, that all these are one and the same – when we see, know and understand the phenomena, the very formula, of Sacred Paths Entwined.

That I am here with all of you tonight in this room, is, most definitely, a step on my own sacred path. That Gill and I are in each other’s lives, is to us, no singular or random coincidence; it is a step on a sacred path, a joining together – for many reasons, brought together as we are by many golden connections and coincidences, and bought together for reasons constantly revealed to us and yet, not yet all known to us still. Sacred Paths Entwined …

Now in terms of earthly time and space, ours is a short acquaintance, yet it is one one packed with so much meaning for us … at a time of great transitions and steppings up and steppings out, in our separate and in our twinned lives.

In MY working life, I am many things that you may recognise the labels of … I am Leader, coach, entrepreneur, mentor, trainer and latterly too, also walking the path of author.  Yet I am so many other characteristics, skills, aptitudes and stories too; and that is the glorious complexity of all of our lives and ‘Sacred Paths Entwined’ reveals how all these should and could come together if we have the knowledge and the courage to follow our own sacred path.

So … here we are – Gillian and Sandra … how did we 2 souls come together in earthly ways??? Although I live in the centre of England, we actually met here in Scotland, in Edinburgh in fact, around about a year and a bit ago, at a Damsels in Success event.  Damsels’ is a women’s self development community which had just launched on an unsuspecting Scotland. As a leader in that community, I was there to support the launch of a new group and Gill was there to find out more … She was following a calling as it happens, and also her natural, questing curiosity; and so it was that I found myself at her elbow – whispering and laughing and coaching and gently cajoling her to come and join the special sisterhood of which I was part. And so it was that we became sister members of the Damsels in Success community. She in Scotland, and me way back down south in Sassenach land.

And we didn’t meet or talk or connect again until many months later … I’m vague on all the timings and facts, whereas Gill will relate and remember them all with perfect memory and detail … Aligned as they are in the stars and in our traversing of this particular planet.

So, now, moving on through time and happenstance, we had moved from being distant sister members of Damsels in Success, to becoming sister leaders, each of our own group. Gill here in Glasgow and me in Burton on Trent.

So, as the first ever appointed Damsels leader, I was asked by Lucie Bradbury, Founder of Damsels in Success, to be Gill’s mentor – to support and coach her, to care for in her new leadership role.  Gill told me early on that I went above and beyond the job description, yet we realised as we travelled our piece of the path together, that it has been my calling to be who I am in her life story and what I am to her and she has always rewarded me, in so many ways, for the things that I have given, even though at times it does not seem like a fair exchange, yet we know that all will be balanced on our sacred paths entwined.

And it has been a truly gorgeous and ripe association … I have had the joy and the privilege of supporting her and encouraging her and answering her questions and listening to her learnings and her loathings and her lovings – walking with her on this living path, in this earthly plane of being, off and on, from where we met, to where we are now and of course, onwards into our futures.  And as is the way the Universe works, it was pre-ordained for us, that mentor becomes mentored, becomes gifted with the talents of her loving charge and becomes friend. Sacred Paths Entwined.

Gill came into my orbit, has spent time in my home and in my heart, as a sister spirit.  Now Gill is a friend to me, a guide to me, an inspiration to me and so so many other things … And she has given me one of her greatest gifts – to cast my own Sacred Contract with her. And that was pre-ordained too, because quite simply, when she presented me with this opportunity, I resisted for a while, as it was time to walk my own path then and to ride some bumpy beasts on the back of life.  And when the time was right, as I kept stepping along my own sacred path, suddenly it was clear to me that the time was right and we came together, to reveal and then to activate my own Sacred Contract: my divinely pre-ordained purpose, to be shown to and shared with the world.  Elucidating my qualities and my character, understanding my traits and my trials. Shining the light on my own shining being and opening my self out to be my purpose, to live the dreams I was born with and nurtured for and so secretly harboured, as they were part of my soul, my life, my very love.  Sacred Paths Entwined.

And Damsels in Success was the vehicle that bought us together and was the catalyst for so many things and still so it was that other things were in the Universal store for Gill and she passed the leadership of her gorgeous Glasgow group to me, as it became so blindingly clear that her own shining purpose was finding yet another alchemical way of becoming breath, of becoming book: Sacred Paths Entwined.  This book wherein lies the golden threads of her life, her purpose, her god given gifts, her life’s learnings: all bound together, all encapsulated to share, to bare, to teach, to inspire. Sacred Paths Entwined.

This book fascinates and touches on so many levels … Gill shares her story, her history. She takes us on the voyage of her life and at times there is terror and there is pain; and then too … there is poetry, there is redemption, there is healing; there is learning and knowing and growing into her sacred self.  Sacred Paths Entwined.

Then there is teaching, there is wisdom: with this book, our minds and our hearts expand, as our soul takes flight. This volume gives us a sacred structure, to guide us to walk, run or take what ever means belongs to us, as pure individuals, to see, to take and to follow our very own sacred path.

With this book share the story, see who YOU are in the stars; learn yourself, know how to cast your contract and live your joyful purpose. It is all here in these pages, in Gill’s Magnum Opus – which is, quite literally, and in every way, her true life’s work!

And so it is my turn now to step out of the spotlight and to say: Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege, honour and absolute joy, to introduce you to: Archetypal Consultant, Astrologer AND Author of Sacred Paths Entwined: Gill Potter!!!

And that, my wise Celt, is my ‘Love Letter’ to you and your book …

With much love

    Sandie xx

PS: To find out more about Gill’s book, click here and now Peachey Letter has become a book too – follow this link to know more…

Gill & Me
celebrate ‘Sacred Paths Entwined’

For more pictures, click here …

Letter 28: To Celebration

Aside Sandra Love Letters , , ,

28 February 2012

Dear Celebration

You I have always loved … in quietness, in gratitude, in the multitude of a crowd, in the pleasure of a twosome, in a knot of girl friends … on the sofa alone, on a Friday evening, celebrating the end of the week, with a curry, with wine and my favourite TV programme on standby …

I love the very thought of celebration – the preparation, the joy of creating an occasion to come; a coming together to love, to laugh, to eat, to dance, to watch, to share … to whatever it is that that we are celebrating.  You I have always loved …

As a child I remember a Smartie covered birthday cake with particular joy … Ah that ritual too, that we teach to our young: to bring the cake to you – the celebrated one, to blow out the candles to applause; to wish, to laugh – then be sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to … How many billions of times has that celebration song been sung?  Sung to so many ages, to so many shining faces reflected in the candle light?  All those songs, smiles and candles coming together, across so many years, across so many corners of the globe, sang to babies, sang to oldies, sang to tag and celebrate special tide marked years in our own creation – this birthday ritual is a celebration of life that we are all part of, in unison … And a cup cake with one pink candle in it is a celebration and your favourite slice of Victoria Sponge on an ‘un-special’ week day is a savoured celebration too.

And I cannot always wait to be the subject of the celebration, so I seek to create my own festivities – I mark the days, I make the arrangements. My natural born impatience never lets me miss this, even if sometimes it is just quietly with my family, as sometimes, even I, who loves the limelight – shuns the limelight; and so it is perfect for me that my family are there – as they were always there, reflecting me and celebrating and demarcating my existence in their existence.  It is a family ritual, in our tiny genetic family of three, that we always come together on these birth day anniversaries.

Lest I neglect you dear friend, I seek to embrace you at all times, to see your possibilities in the every day, in the simplest of coming togethers.  And if not cake, then food is so often part of even these tiny rituals.  To treat – to eat out. To be cooked for and treasured.  To create a meal for those who come into the orbit of my home – to celebrate them, to nourish them, to bring them to me.  To always celebrate.

So celebration is gratitude too: savouring a little carnival moment, raising my vibration with the gifts of all I have, all I am and all I do; and joining in with the gala days, hours and seconds of those around me, in body and electronically.  I love to ‘ye-ay’ and ‘hurrah’ and employ the exclamation marks of joy!!  I end every day with a litany of all I have to be grateful for – the situations, the gifts, the people, the compliments, the lessons learnt, the sunshine, the rain and sometimes the pain that shapes me to here, to now, to this single point of celebration, this current breath, this life that is the celebration of my own creation.

I choose to think in terms of celebration: to relish it, to seek it, to see its’ possibilities.  I choose to create celebrations tiny and celebrations huge and the panoply of all in between too.  I want to see celebration in my every day existence … and when my head seeks to chide and criticise (and it does all that still – so often), then I can pause and say to myself – what am I grateful for right now, what can I chose to celebrate in this moment, on this day? And so often the chiding demons continue to conceal, and so I continue to count my blessings and this is how I move, I vote to change those dark criticisms into enlightened celebrations …

As a coach too, for me, my role is to celebrate those who come to me for direction, for support, for illumination.  And I will shine the light on their gifts and gratitudes and remind them just how amazing they truly are too, these celebratory creations sent to me.  Every coaching in itself is an act of celebration and for that I speak as someone who is still coached myself; so in turn I turn to those who show me that my reflection is praise and that I am understood and hurrahed and of course celebrated into different, more difficult directions when warranted too.  So some celebrations are sometimes tougher roads to travel, yet always worth it when you know that celebration enervates, raises and ultimately gains you to glory.

YOU I have always loved Celebration, and all my ‘Love Letters to Life’ are celebrant acts: they all bring you along, weave you in and out of the silken fabric of my being, of my creations … all of which, in turn, are of course, celebrations.

This then is the ending of my celebration of Celebration …

       Ye-ay, hurrah, woo hoo and lots of love to you!

S xxx

PS: To celebrate the success of this blog, it has now been turned into a book…  Follow this link to find out more…

Letter 27: To Me

Sandra Love Letters , , , ,

27 February 2012

Dear Me

Well this one – the letter to Me, feels in so many ways like the hardest letter to write …

Where to start ..? How about before the beginning … I’ve got a real sense that I wanted to come into this life … that I chose to be born, that I jumped up into the universal ether and said ‘me, me, me please!’ And yet how many times in my life did I wish that I had never been born … Yes … so much emotional pain, so many tears; and then again how much love and laughter has there been ..?

What can I tell myself here? That it is all perfect, that it is bonkers, that it is beautiful to be me …

And I wonder how I reached where I am and then I look back at the tide marks in my life. And always it comes back to this – one hot summer day, a 6 year old me ran across the road to get an ice cream from the ‘ne nah’ van, and the man in the van misheard me and gave me a lolly instead. And when I ran back, crossing the road, I was knocked down by a car and never got to eat my treat.  Now all things considered it wasn’t so serious and soon I walked and ate ice cream again; but I still bear scars from that day to this day, and part of me has often wondered if I have EVER got over the habit of looking the wrong way and getting crushed as a result …

And on the path to adulthood there have been bullyings and beatings and there have been swings and roundabouts. And I remember sunshine and laughter too, I remember family and friends and seaside happiness. I remember pets, dresses, love and arguments all mixed in to the melee of my memory. The path to me, always being me, always now. Yet so often wanting tomorrow, wanting the day to be different, the place to be different, to be with different people; yes, hankering constantly to be away from me, today …

So Dear Me, what defines me now? My nature, my nurture, my memories, my life’s search, my research – to me? They all play their part. I was born with blue eyes – nurture and life’s literal happenings have never changed that. I am naturally influenced by the people I grew up alongside, walking this path through our lives, sometimes in slow motion and sometimes in quick step. My memory fluctuates – much of my childhood has disappeared into a vacuum … I try to remember land mark birthdays … strangely gone, void … yet still – here I am.  And always there were choices, whether I knew that at the time or not … And I chose and then I chose again and so I chose to be me.

So how would you describe, label or define Sandra Peachey?: daughter, sister, friend, cousin, aunt, niece, Miss, Ms, colleague, boss, teacher, coach, goddess, sex kitten, author, dancer, actor, artist, singer, girl friend, mother (to be), wife (to be), Human Resources Manager, shop assistant, cleaner, cat lover, siren, muse, house wife, gourmet, chef, joker, lover, Leader, Queen of Support, Circe, Cassie, Sandy, Sandie, San, dog breath, Peaches, bitch, angel, saviour, role model, nemesis, babe, babes, bab … the list could quite possibly be endless. What a fabulous, never ending lexicon of my life, of me … And where will the list go on to?

And these labels are opinions, are subjectivities, are passing thoughts … Who am I really??  I am love, I am creativity, I am giver and nurturer, I am laughter, I am the gravitational pull that guides people into their own true orbit, into their own beauty and light.  You may or may not really see me or hear me, yet that doesn’t matter.  I will be visible where I need to be.  But if you DO see me, then you will FEEL me too.

There have been ups and downs, there have been past regrets. Yet no ‘now’ regrets, for all that has happened has led to me now, and where else could I be? Who else could I be? I chose constantly, I live free, I create, I prescribe, I revive. I was born blonde and I stayed blonde; accident prone and lovable; clever and loquacious; attractive and sensitive: me, me, all me.

Now as a love letter, where does the love come in to all this, Dear Me? Well as it happens, I was definitely born to love: to give love, to receive it, to spread it, to write about it, to be it. And the hardest thing, so often, is to love myself. Yet love myself I do: I must, for from that springs the rest – of that comes the best, of me.  And my letters are not just love, they are catharsis and celebration too and so I dare praise myself, just as so often, I have chided myself – yet now is always the time to rejoice!

And my letters are gratitude – so I give immense thanks for those who are in this theatre of my life – in the audience and on the stage.  I have toddled, walked, crawled, danced and ran through my life with a whole cast of characters: some have stayed, many have gone; and the Acts have moved on and the scenery has changed, and who knows where the plot will end. I feel there MUST be rapturous applause at the curtain call, for after all – being me deserves that – doesn’t it?

So Dear Me – I applaud you / me! Here’s your standing ovation – your love letter, your magnum opus. My love in a letter, my life in a letter – Dear Me, that IS me … for now … There’ll be more …

For ever yours,

   Sandra xx

PS: The ‘Letter to Me’ and all my letters have now been published – follow the link here to find out more…

The Response to Peachey Letters …

Sandra Damsels in Success, Family, Friends, Love Letters, Loved Ones , , , , ,

Dear Readers

I have been overwhelmed with the amount of positive feedback received on my Peachey Letters blog, since my first letter went live in February.   Here I would love to share just some the amazing responses I have received …

With love and gratitude, Sandie xxx

Susan Brookes:

Wow, that letter to your father is so touching. May you always have lots of love in your life.

Kay Kirkby:

Sandie this letter to your Dad is so beautiful I cried … I thank you for your wonderful open hearted letter which enabled me to be open about my current journey.

Nadine Honeybone:

Beautiful Sandra, just awesome.

Jacqui Malpass:

I shouldn’t have read that, I now have a wet face… 🙂 My dad … I love him dearly and this beautiful letter is a reminder of all of the good stuff to be treasured. Thank you – blubbering of South Wales.

Karen Edgar:

Lovely photo of you and your dad. Very moving letters. …

Diana Barden:

Wow, what a wonderful letter to your Dad, Sandie. I last wrote to my Dad a couple of years before he died … I’ve had a bit of a blubbery morning of it so far (good stuff!) so thank you! Blubbering of Cambridge (wonder if that means I’m related to Blubbering of South Wales!)

Sue Balcon:

That is such a beautiful letter to your Dad, Sandie – made me shed a few tears …

Sandra Peachey:

Gosh, ladies, I went to bed last night, feeling a little embarrassed with myself, my script telling me that I was being rather self indulgent and attention seeking and no one would notice! Glad I ignored it. Thank you so much for your lovely comments. My Friday is definitely made 🙂 And if you would like to see a little more of my dad’s life, take a look at the photo album I created on his last birthday.

And then there were more gorgeous comments …

Sue Maggott:

Wow, Sandie, that is fabulous, and I love that picture of the two of you together, such a picture of a strong man, giving you the support to be you!

Deborah Meredith:

Sandie, you brought me to tears. Such beautiful letters from a beautiful woman.

Michelle Clarke:

Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous – thank you for sharing Sandie, such a beautiful idea, these letters will make an amazing book 🙂

Lisa Hayward:

What a wonderful thing to do, very touching and very real.

Joanna McCormick:

A fabulous idea and wonderful share Sandie – bless you.

Lyn Bromley:

What a fab idea. It brought tears to my eyes too. It also made me realise that I should write letters to my parents too while they are here to read them. Thanks for sharing, you are a wonderful writer, I look forward to reading the next one!

Lucie Bradbury:

Loving this – we are all blessed with your writing, your love & your courage.

Liz Ivory:

Thank you sooooo much for your beautiful letter and for your love, it’s fabulous the way you are able to express your feelings with sensitivity and humour, a real talent.

Greg Lowe:

Wow, what an amazing idea!

Tracy Cleary:

Lovely Sandra. Thanks for sharing.

Richard Wilkins

I really love this message Sandra.

Sue Maggott

An amazing process to go through Sandie, and very powerful letters.

Susan Brookes:

Brave writing Sandie.

Lucie Bradbury:

I am loving your letters Sandie – you write beautifully with wisdom & grace. Thank you for the acknowledgement – which says so much about the gorgeous goddess that you are.

Susan Tarney:

Thanks for the letter and all the effort you put into your relationships. You are a true friend.

Hayley Wilkins:

Your letters are brilliant. What an amazing talent you have.

Alex Santaro-Emmerson:

Wow. I love this letter [to Every Woman]. Thank You for taking the time to put this in writing so beautifully. Every woman on the planet should read it.

Lyria Normington:

How many emotions you pass on to me through this letter; smiles at you being hauled up in front of the – Head AKA Care Manager of the Home; tears when you mention your Mum’s broken childhood and then “all those dark words were not really you”; relief and joy for you when you describe the love creating a force field around you.

The honesty, not ducking the hard parts, make it so much more real as a love letter … everyone has their darker moments or the things that are difficult to say to someone so close as a mother. I really smiled when you mentioned your “Karma” to Arthur – it’s a lovely way to see it. If fact the whole letter is so beautifully written, I can see how you’re able to help so many others on a very deep level. You do have a precious gift.

What a gift that is – coming through all your life and coming to this point of deep peace and love. And you’ve had the honesty to share it. I just feel so touched and humbled.

Thank you with all my heart.

Monique Blackmore:

Thank you for sharing your letters with us all. You have such a wonderful gift with words … your recent letter, the truth and feeling within … Wishing you joy.

Lucie Bradbury:

[Letter to Lucie Bradbury] I love it – it’s beautiful, it’s so you.  I had to stop half way through to recover from the tears (tears are good!)

A few points felt brutal to read – but then I know love & truth go hand in hand.

I am so honoured & grateful that you would write to me (and appreciate too that you have graciously asked for my approval before going public).

Keep it up – I have a feeling there is nothing stopping you now  & yes I can’t wait to see where our wings will take us.

And you are quite the writer too my lovely!

Well done, with love …

Liz Ivory:

Just re-read your lovely letter to me and Richard, and I just wanted to tell you once again how much it means to us both … your writing is so wonderfully poetic whilst at the same time being merrily mischievous, just like you … really feel you could create a beautiful book with all of these when February is finished … I’d buy your first copy.

Lyn Bromley:

I have commented on a few of your letters already, but wanted to tell you, I have found them really moving and I feel like I have got to know you better through them too. I really think you have a career as a writer – or at least as part of your strategy – you write beautifully. Well done for committing and sticking to your promise! You have also inspired me to write some letters … So thank you for inspiring me Sandie. I am sure you have inspired many more.

Sarupa Shah:

[Letter to Money] My heart’s opened. What a beautiful thing you are doing!!!! And so it is!!!!

Lis Protherough:

Sandra, thank you. Your letters are touching and inspirational – and so amazingly well written, they made my spine tingle …

Thank you so much everyone for sharing your words, thoughts and emotions with me.  My heart is full. 

And apart from all these gorgeous comments, I’ve been told over and over to turn this blog into a book… and so here it is!  Follow this link to find out more…

 S xxx

Letter 26: To My Clients

Sandra Love Letters

26 February 2012

Dear Eleanor and Sean

It doesn’t seem quite right to call you client or customer or consumer; or even punter, coachee, mentee, student … So I warm to you as named beings, representing the sense of how we relate in this crazy and amazing existence we co-inhabit.

Here is my love letter to you and I falter at the beginning, because even now it seems odd to say ‘love letter’, here in this complicated context … but then again, it is so right too … so let’s explore that …

First of all you know always, that I chose to be with you, as you chose to be with me; to step forward together, to figure out the ways, the routes and the senses of your journey.  So I am there to support, to challenge, to advocate, to fuel your propulsion forward.  Some times to teach, oft times to facilitate; always to share, to show my way and in doing that, shining a light on YOUR way.    

So how is that that I can say that I ‘love’ you … As I explore the many facets of love, I discover more and more that each love I have in this life of mine is in itself a multi-faceted, variously fractal and gloriously complex thing. 

And you can dare to love, acknowledge the love you have around you and allow it to take its form in every aspect and yes … I digress … from you – Eleanor and Sean, meandering back to the very subject of love itself, again.

So to you I say our relationship is one composed of many elements … wisdom, love, advise, magic, learning, energy, vision, talent and … well the list is infinite and it is composed of the elements of who I am and who you are … So in fact there are many lists … Who I am in this context is an ever evolving creature made up of my predispositions for connection, communication, pragmatism and result.  To be fulfilled I really want to see, hear, feel and know that I am making a difference, creating an impact, so that you, in your turn do the very same …

So I give you the benefit of my own doubts, my experience, my skills and my knowledge; not to replicate, yet to create – for you have reached this point with all your own amazing specialities.  Your uniqueness may be known to you, yet how do you get it out there ..?  You may have a sense of who you are and crave to have that concreted, to see it, visible in front of you.  Could it be for you that you see the mountain top and seek the way up there?  Every one of you has a mixture of needs, composed of the practical, the task must dos, and then again also the irrational, emotional, inspirational elements that once explored, will take you beyond … beyond where you are now.  And it is the ‘beyond’ that brings you to me.

So how does this work between you and me?  There is the solid … my knowing, my imparting the material, tangible and specific.  There are decades of achievements, downfalls and ground breaking products.  I was an important player in the corporate sphere … so I have all that ‘big world’ background and so where it is necessary, that comes in to what we do together – you and I.  For as I thought one day, not so long ago, that I would walk away from it and on to a life of ‘om’ and pure inspiration instead, there was still a regret at leaving it behind me …

So too then I fire up your inspiration, for that too is the path I have trodden and I grappled with the odds that these contrasting elements that are present in my life, but then that is the dichotomy of life and of work … so often I seen you struggle with this too.  But then when you sit back and ponder, of course we cannot really separate it all out … since all these elements blend together to make the one life that we have, right here and right now.  How often do you see that – see people putting different parts of their lives in different boxes?   Well yes, they all have their own place, their own time and appropriateness, yet so too are they all chemically bound and when I realised this, so much became so much clearer and that will be your clear vistion too.

So together in our space we create magic, sparks, products, realisations, light and what ever is wanted so we flow forward.  So too we traject the obstacles, see things for what they are, see them and feel them differently, explode them or climb them or even dance around them.

And I have to acknowledge YOUR part in my own journey, you give me so much … you reflect, you stretch, you elucidate, you cliché complete me …

At times I feel your frustrations, your energetic obstructions and I celebrate them with you, as I know these are the things that have bought you to me, as has too has your need to change and grow, along with your sense of being – to be aired, to be moved, to go to who knows where?

I’m so glad you come to me, to let me be me, to be who I am, so you can go where you want to, to realise yourself.  For this is the fascination … it’s all there – to be drawn and then drawn upon, in you … we are all deep wells, endless pools of knowing, skill and wisdom.  Each one different, each one presenting to the world only what we can give it – our very own product, to give, to share, to sell.  An exchanged energy that gives to us both – your investment, my return and in our twin orbit, only we can create that perfect picture.

So thank you for taking flight with me, for trusting in me, for knowing this is the right connection.  I am humble and grateful to serve you, to walk with you, to laugh and yes, sometimes to cry and sometimes to shake you … and that is love and it always comes back to that, when we know it, in what ever way we dare and treasure to shape it. 

Yes, I dare speak that word, in this relationship of ours and so that is truly love – for you AND for me.   Indeed it will be ‘Peach Perfect for me’ and what ever name that love is for you, so shall it be.

      With warmest regards

            Sandra, San, Sandie, Miss ..?

PS: Peachey Letters has now been published in book form – follow the link here to find out more…

Letter 25: To Resistance

Sandra Love Letters

25 February 2012

Dear Resistance

‘Love your enemy’ is the first phrase that comes into my head right now.  The reason being that I sat down and pondered who or what to write to next; as I am now so tantalisingly near to finishing my cherished challenge of writing a love letter a day, every single day, for the Valentine month of February.  That is twenty nine epistles … shooting out into the cosmos, reaching into the void … may be to over reach and be sent unseen; or may be to touch and to torch another creature’s flame.  Well so it should be, if indeed twenty nine there were in existence.  For I stared at a white page and racked a blank brain for an object of inspiration … and there was none … Just five letters to go … the end in sight, but now no sight, no sense of next.

So then suddenly, there it was – my enemy: resistance, procrastination, pfaffing, dawdling, dreaming, distracting or what ever name you are going by today … Now I want to have this out with you and I’m guessing this won’t be once and for all: this stalling, this staying, this stopping of my strived for success.

Why can’t I move beyond this solid wall, this barrier, this self created strange protectionism?  Why am I so static, so staid, so very stuck, so often?  What weight is this, what darkness, what blindness to my future?  What rocket, what change or what challenge will shift you out of my path and let me stride, rather than stress my self forward?  I am so staggered that not even grief, tears or terrible fear motivates me on and over you.

So I must consider this and think … well … could it be that now is not my time to move; or may be here is my lesson – my learning obstacle to be climbed up and over and scaled like any average mountain of life.  But then this mountain is unseen, and it feels so solid, so heavy, so truculent, so frustrating, so scream generating; if I let it stick and let it raise steam …  There I am pulled back to black – stale, pale and aged.

So forward now … I see you and I raise you … I am aware of you and I name you.  Not to shame you, though shame is tempting, but to acknowledge you, to understand you, to know your role, to push your boundaries, then to blast through to freedom.

Someone told me there is no real cure.  “My name is Sandra and I am a procrastinator” … I wait for the acknowledged applause to die away …

Now I name you and know you Resistance, I can start to step away from you, to walk around, climb over or sail in you.  I know how you tick, I see how you move, I hear your special solid voice.  That voice is not to be a vice to me now.  For in the very act of stopping me, I learn to step around you, to dance nimbly away.

For me the solution is to share.  Your weight is too much to bear alone.  Life is not meant to be one.  I chose to connect to cherished colleagues, not fellow workers, not sharing inmates.  I chose to commit to promises, rather than to (other’s) deadlines; I move to the light, to the way forward, in ways that work for me – that work with my rhythms, my wants, my true skills, my loves.  I trace the naturalness of my form, my thoughts, of my heart and I replicate that out into the world.  Then I chose to share the un-natural, the unwanted tasks and transferences with those who have the gifts which are my strangers, my sloth and my burdens.

This is not one lesson learned and kept close.  So very often I slip back, absorbed into alternate realities, distracted by your square solid form blocking out the sun.  I forget you are there, lulled into old life patterns, long learned forms of being and of seeing.  Now in my new life there is no pattern of average days to give me reason and meaning, so I chose to create my own way and my freedom.  And freedom is not resistance, it is grace and flow and ease … and THESE I love.  So smugly I will end – my very enemy now my friend, and now my very latest letter.

    Farewell old fiend.

         Not yours. Miss S E A Peachey

PS: For this and all the Letters in book form – follow the link here to find out more…

Letter 24: To Love

Sandra Love Letters

Love letters

24 February 2012

Dear Love

So here we are – you and I – together, quietly, with everything in place. And because I’m sort of stubborn, this letter nearly didn’t happen – simply because some one said to me ‘and of course if you’re writing love letters, then you’ll write a letter to Love …’  Now see, these are MY love letters and I get to make up the rules… but any way, yes, here indeed it is, and no, I did NOT write it on Valentines Day… I had my own original plans for that, so there…

So… awkward pause again… here we are… And what to say / how to start? Well the starting is the thing with love isn’t it? It can crop up unexpectedly, unbidden – suddenly shaking your world; or then again it can creep up on you and slowly envelop you, falling softly on you and through you, like a feather floating down from the sky…

And it can start as a glance, a realisation, a declaration; something known, or on the tip of the tongue; it can be at the back of the brain or from the bottom of the heart … And love comes in many shapes and shades, then forms itself in solidarity or as shimmering waves.

So it’s not surprising then that we don’t always see it in our space.  However, spend a little time with love and you realise how much of it is around; despite the fact that so often we can be strangely pre-occupied with how little of it we have in our lives.  Yet love is an abundance when you consider it in its’ every kind.

Let’s begin with the old cliché of loving yourself – the very best place to embark on this journey, in my own writerly opinion.  For me that is a waxing and waning; and far from loving myself, sometimes I can be my own worst hated enemy.  Yet self is the starting place of all our loves, so we must take care of loving ourselves.  Pay that first love its due, treat it with affection, shine a light on it and show yourself that you are loved.  And the easiest way to do this is to be kind to yourself – do not silently chide or scold you and don’t listen to the dark voice that tells you that you cannot… be loved… Instead, love yourself.

And it reaches out, this love – to those around us, born to us, sent to us by fate as friends, chosen, gifted, sought.  So if we are not healed and solid in our own hearts, how can we reach out for more and give of our own best love?

For love moves and grows and can also stay unfettered in our being, unacknowledged for those around us, not named, when it should be praised and thanked and explored.  Well I’m biased in this of course, for these very letters are a gratitude of love, an exploration of, a voyage through it.  And to my surprise they were largely unchartered waters, so I simply trusted and sailed upon them – sometimes through choppy waters and sometimes through calm, turquoise bays.

Where to sail to next?  Love is in many ways is the simplest of things and then again it can get so obscured.  How strange that at times it can feel it’s way through our hearts as such a strong force, and then again be something that can wane away, grow pale and die. Does real love really die?  I say no: I say you may not feel its’ force in your daily world, but there it lies and shall shock you or sooth you when it rises out of the past and introduces itself to you again.

So to those friends and lovers who have titled me that way in the past, then moved on, please don’t think that you don’t live on in my heart, in some semblance; and never, ever imagine that you have left me for good (or ill).  Love doesn’t work that way – it is alive, even when dormant, and even when it’s object is on a distant unseeable horizon.  And I understand that you may say that you love that thing or that one, no more.  Yet I reply that love changes, transmutes, shifts and transforms.  It can hide, but is always there, around and in you.  Love has been your lesson – providing the research for the life that you life now.  Love is what makes you; love can guard you, buoy you; and when you think that you lack it – shrivel, shrive and waste you.

If then you appreciate love in all its’ forms and not only the romantic him / her version – your world expands; the frequency of love vibrates in you, it pulses and increases and comes to you often and more – so much more when you choose to see it, in all its every glory.  Quite simply like attracts love … and so this letter ends ….

    With love, love, love … from Me xxx

PS: Love in ALL its’ forms is explored and celebrated in the book of the blog – Peachey Letters – Love Letters to Life published in paperback and kindle.  For a St Valentines’ Day special offer of a signed author copy – go to my website now and buy the paperback for just £7.99!

 

Letter 23: To Lucie Bradbury

Sandra Love Letters

23 February 2012

Dear Angel in Chief

That we have stayed together now through thick and thicker is a testament to our own strong wills, sometimes clashing, sometimes forgotten, sometimes celebrated …

And love can come in many ways, and shape itself to time and tide and so it can grow, and here then is OUR love story, told from MY sandy shore …

The first time we were in a room together, we didn’t meet … we were all celebrating an amazing year in someone else’s company.  The same someone else suggested I get in touch with you later, when I wanted to fix myself of my life’s ills (or so I thought).  So I came into your orbit, walking a muddy path from the life I had created towards to the life to be …

Then I find myself in a room with you again, shared with other women, learning NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming … and very scared that I would learn the keys to the Universe, yet would fail to unlock the door …

My eyes were opened to training, but not as I had known it, or had indeed delivered it, in dusty corporate rooms of the past … This Training Room had cushions and candles, hugs and dreams, and still we learned the solid techniques of brain and language.  NLP did not change my world, in some ways, but this new experience showed me that I was not a broken thing; and I realised that this knowing could be a gift that I in turn, would give to the world.

So you didn’t want to send your newly trained fledglings out into the world on their own and created your fabulous feminine community … and there was I, a ‘Damsel in Success’, witnessing you too, stepping onto your stage, sharing the secrets of your heart’s success.  Teaching and inspiring and breathing deep, bringing more and more stars into your orbit.  And I watched too, through my own lenses, as you stepped through your own new life stages – planning a wedding, working with women, loving and laughing and so looking forward to bringing your first baby into the world.

And very soon, I skipped to the front of the room and said, this MUST go further, we must get it out there, let me help you make it so …

I can’t remember why, but we were chatting the day you went for your baby scan … we were both giddy and excited that you would see your unborn girl and get to know her better.  Then the scan revealed that all was not well with the precious embryo princess swelling in your womb.  The news was a blow, a time of tears. You handled it so amazingly … I watched with admiration and love while you shined through the news and loved your way forward.  And since you had created a supportive sisterhood of a community, we closed in to blanket you, as you needed it, and yet still you had the love lead US through this too.

Then your gorgeous girl was born and we watched her stay – an angel child, a true gift of God.  And she didn’t have the simplest of starts, yet she survived and thrived and now toddles amongst us, testament to the love invested in her, in so many ways.

And the ‘Damsels in Success’ community, was your baby too and times changed and that baby needed to leave or needed to grow and so, at this time of love and expansion, when it could have sank or shrank, instead it multiplied …

Your love well invested, now paid dividends and there I was at your elbow, stepping up into the spotlight beside you and then … we fell out … of love, of synchronised vision.  We attacked, we parried.  Our partners duelled on our behalves … Love turned to difficulty and to the heavy weight of picking up the phone to speak words that would not heal … And I really can’t speak for your side, but at this strange and changing time, I was mainly in the business of blowing smoke up your ass …

Yet through all the fog, there was still love.  I LOVED your baby and would not want to let it go.  All the difference had been made to my life and now it was MY turn to shine the light.  Stubbornly I clung on, I would not walk away and so I suggested ways to stay … and we started the clock again and kept on loving and moving …

And here we are now, we have both come so far, and there have still been hillocky jolts along the way, but here is the thing – when you say you love me, I feel the huge force of your heart.  And it is truth and sharing, journeying and light.  And of all your children, I find it strange to be the problem child at times, but you listen and I listen, and as wise women we know that the things that set us apart, sometimes are strangely the things that bring us closest together too … And in the end, as I’ve always said – what we create in our twin energy field, will reap wondrous rewards and glorious lessons for us both … and so it came to pass …

And who knows what stage of our journey we are at, sometimes in step and sometimes out, yet always with the same vision in soft sight.

Now when all is said and done, love is a gift and you are definitely a gift to me, my ‘Angel in Chief’.  Who knows where our wings will take us???  I can’t wait to find out, can you ..?

    With love from Sandie … your ‘Auntie Angel’ xxx

Auntie Angel & Angel in Chief

PS: Thank you Lucie Lu for your love and learning and not least for your permission to let this letter live in public.  S xx

PPS: You can find out more about our community at www.damselsinsuccess.co.uk

PPS: To get this letter and more in its’ book version – follow the link here to find out more…

Letter 22: To Comfort

Sandra Love Letters , , , ,

22 February 2012

Dear Comfort

Well I’ve just got to come straight in with the compliments … what a gorgeous word you are; your beautiful cadent form is just gorgeousness personified …

What a glorious gift, what a soft, tender and giving thing you are … yes, the very thought of you makes my heart glad …

One of the many things I love about you Comfort, is the many forms you may manifest in.  You can be a hug or a healing, you can be light or you can be calming, sweet darkness.  Comfort is a recognised voice, a sense of familiarity and of a knowing. 

Comfort too can be a hot drink, a glass of wine, a chunk of chocolate … the kiss of loving, warming food.  Comfort food … mmmmmmmm …  A comfort of sausage and mash wrapped in a gravy of oniony flavour; or of pure cold ice cream caressing the tongue and the throat, melting into sensory pleasure.  A treasure of taste to be savoured and devoured, inhaled and duly digested.

I say, so sincerely Comfort, that I’m very sorry that I am not always faithful to you and am sometimes forgetful of you … I will often toil and trade and treat you like an affair, a guilty pleasure kept secretly for free and forgotten days, when really you are a necessity – my true love, my joy and my ultimate sanity. At those forgetful, regretful times, I push through life, I thrust and force, I cajole and cry.  These are hard things to do my dear Comfort, and yet so often I do them to myself, being my own willing victim, enslaving myself to time, to effort and to (non comforting) reward. 

Now there’s the thing – is comfort a reward or a right?  Is it a luxury or a necessity?  Is it a guilt or a given?  Is it rebellion or heaven? 

Comfort is love, in many faceted forms and love is my birth right, so comfort be mine and let me be true to you.  Ah comfort, how shall I celebrate you?  Simply or in a spa?  I shall take you and make you in all guises and remember to wrap you around me, to share you, to prioritise you, to eulogise you, to practise you frequently and blissfully.  Oh comfort what shall we do?  Let’s make ‘love’ (and yes that can be a comfort too!)

And your form can be gorgeously simple and shape you into new names … here is one of my very favourites … I shall breathe this gently … the breath of a ‘blankie’, yes, the very caress of comfort enveloping me, making the corporeal me less real.  Softness defined into a loving square of comfort and joy, of pride and possession, my very own selfish delight, wrapping and binding me as a gift. Draped and shaped around me, a new me, yielding and melting and slowed … ah comfort.

Comfort be my very own, engaging my senses with ease and grace and gratitude.  Comfort be long, comfort be often, and comfort be continual. 

Comfort be there in the fabric of my being, not sought after when I am sore or tired or lost; for with you there, as my constant companion, there will be more light and less loss, more energy, more fun and more lingering, yellow sun. 

Comfort is complete and utter surrender to a yummy moment of love, an act of complete submissive tenderness; so seek comfort in your surroundings – take yourself to where comfort resides and call it to you, lure it in with love, love for yourself, for your life, for this cradled, cosseted moment.  The moment of heart’s ease, this single eternity of forgetfulness for everything except this delicious, comforting now.

And what is comfort?  Comfort is a thousand things and it is one thing.  It is various and it is simple.  It is common and it is golden.  It can be resting your head on a cat’s purring form, paddling in the sea, listening to beautiful music: lifting you up, resting you down, flattening out the undulations and tribulations of life, filling you up, filling your senses with nonsensical, whimsical joy.  Comfort, you are relaxation, slow tempo, warmth or coolness, gravity geared or stillness.

Comfort you are the very realisation and personification of slow joy; a gift, a treasure, a genuine pleasure.

Ah comfort, I love you and that you love me too is incontrovertible, for you always welcome me in with hugging, open arms and so too now, my dearest one, I’ll embrace you.  Yes, here is my commitment – to comfort and to love.

   Yours sweetly and softly …

      S xx

PS: If you want the comfort of Peachey Letters in book form – follow the link here to find out more…

Letter 21: To God’s Creatures

Sandra Family, Love Letters, Loved Ones , ,

21 February 2012

Dear Creatures

For all our involvement, for all the power we try to wield over this planet, mankind is, in many ways, in the minority.  We share it all this creation, this never ending motion, with God’s Creatures … the beasts, the animals and the pets.

As I write this letter, my elbow is resting on the haunches of George – a cat, a named pet, a creature on loan to me, a gift from God.

At some point in its evolution, cat-kind left the jungle and became enmeshed in the world of man and womankind.  Its descendants pounced on our vermin, kept us company, then shared their fleas and their purrs.

The domesticated cat – a recognisable cousin to its wild counterparts, now resides alongside many of us and for me that particular co-habitation started early on.

I’m told we had a cat when I was a small child, though I have only one hazy memory of this creature, called Corky, curled up on a blanket.

My solid memories start later, with the kitten bought for me when I was 12.  That was the year my brother left home … so we substituted him with another boy, my lucky black cat ‘Whiskers’.  The love was instant … I met a tiny ball of black fluff who was curled up on my living room chair, who then got up, yawned and stretched luxouriously, found his own way in to the next room for dinner, then availed him self of the litter box.  I was amazed at the confident temerity of this little creature: his self assurance, how at home he already was, how he knew what to do, where to go and next I discovered that he loved to play and he loved to give and receive love and from then on I was hooked on feline kind …

This creature immediately became part of the family unit …  I discovered, unknowingly that my father had an affinity for the feline; in fact he had a special language, reserved just for the cat, (which he in turn had absorbed from his own father) and he would compliment his companion, in fun of and homage to his own lost dad and the cat received these blandishments with quiet, blinking gratitude.

And when I left home 6 years later again, I packed all my belongings away, dry eyed and finally cried at long last when I had to say good bye to my creature friend; as if he some how represented all that was soft and childish in me and embodied the loss of all that I was now leaving behind me, in order to walk towards my adulthood.

I had to bide my time before I was quite grown up and static enough to have my very own cat creature.  And when the time finally came, I chose another black boy, to substitute my child cat, to practise my parenting skills on, to add warmth and dimension to my life; and bought him into my new home, shared with my fiancé – a self confessed cat hater …

Now I did have his permission to bring a cat in, but he was less than impressed at his first meeting with the ‘little rat’.  Then without my bidding, the feline magic was worked … he gave the creature a human name (Dougal) and his affection; he realised he had a live toy, a companion, a subject of endless fascination and conversation and so his own love story with cat kind began …

I left the man and he kept the cat and a little later the next creature came in to my life and so on through my time.  Then there was one man later on who was made sick by my cat, so the cat went and the man stayed … for a short time … Never again I said.  And never again I did.

My next cat – a large ginger tiger tom named Muttley – was a challenge.  He was intelligent and self possessed and kept himself to himself.  I had adopted him as an abandoned adult, so who knew his story before then?   So I learned to love unconditionally, getting little in return for my food and shelter.  Instead I made cat-kind an object of study, I read, I revised, I learnt … all about their physiology, psychology and genetics, and I also studied my own boy – his body language, his voice, his ways and I gave him love by food, by shelter and by soft voice.  Then over years, he returned the favours and the love and later again, when he was run over and his pelvis was crushed – I sobbed sadly and loudly.

He survived the experience – the treating vet telling me that these creatures of God have the best self healing musclo-skeletal system of all animal kind and though his pelvis formed a new shape, the tiger returned to his habitat, changed but yet intact.

And there have been more and more creature companions, and I have seen the love story happen to others, again and again … and for some it becomes a feline obsession …  An endless fascination of conversation and occupation.

For me, the lure is that we are bound by love to these creatures.  They come to us for food of course, but then they stay with us for love.  They seek our company, they desire our affection and so it is love that ties us together.  We receive their company, and are part of a primordial relationship, one that is closer to nature than to man’s machinations.  And at times they are domesticated pets and at times they are wild creatures and it is their very differences – between themselves and ourselves – that is part of their inherent allure.

And that for me is love.  So I am now sending that love out to you – from me and from George and Taz – two of my favourite gifts and most definitely God’s Creatures.

      Yours purringly and adoringly, Sandra x

PS: For all these letters and more, you can buy Peachey Letters as a book – follow the link here to find out more…

Me, George and Taz, all God’s Creatures …