Over the course of the last week I have seen the end of my old company – BG Group – and its re-birth into Royal Dutch Shell.  I’ve  heard many upset and disappointed people as well as others who remain optimistic about their future.  I’ve watched people letting go what they once belonged to and take new, tentative steps into the un-known.

In parallel, I’m also having to let go of my notions that my mind will tell my body to get in line and that everything will be in full working order within 30 days.  Well, all the visualisation, tapping, swallowing tablets, drinking green juice and attempts to walk 10,000 steps a day, have not paid attention to my mind’s bidding. I have to let go of my desire to be better NOW and embrace the time it takes.

This week, we’ve also said good-bye to my Mother in-law.  She was stubborn to the very end, defying all medical and family expectations of when she was going to die.  No-one was telling May Fulton when to leave!  Only in her own sweet time did she let go.  And the family marched to her tune for the final time.

And even from a distance, I’m aware that this family dynamic is creaking. It is tough to be one of the younger children and assert yourself with equal standing with two older siblings.  And this battle to be your own self in the family home, is unspoken.  It’s a word, a look, an inference, an assumption.   And it reverberates, silently, as if the wall paper in itself holds the time-bound glue of family rules and rituals.  Yet these patterns are now being broken and in the letting go of the matriarch there is letting go of the family machinations.

And in every letting go there is duality and rich learning .    It’s never either/or, black or white.  It’s always and; in addition to;  as well as.

The BG spirit will infuse Shell with new concepts and ideas.  Our energy, creativity, innovation and passion don’t exist in walls, places, stock prices, shareholder opinions or the BG employee brand, these attributes exist in us.
And whether we work for Shell or anywhere else, we have it, we take it and we use it wherever we go.

My body not playing to the timetable I set myself means  I have set too stretching a timetable.  My ambition and intention are being re-framed given new medical information and prognosis.  And I recognise that I must also align so the mind and body are truly connected.  This wholeness, connectedness makes me stronger and healthier in a longer time-frame.  My body has not failed my mind, it has reminded it to act as one.

And May Fulton’s thrawness – Scots is such a colourful language-exists in every one of her four children.  She infused each of them with a strong sense of righteousness which in turn leads to explosions of opinion, thought and feeling.  They are connected by the passion she bequeathed them and not one of them will ever leave a party early!

And finally for now,  in today’s multi-cultural, blended, technologically advanced environment, family dynamics shift all the time.  When many babies are stimulated by the latest gadgets, when knowledge is ever more accessible to all, when our birth (and company) families fuse and fight and tear apart yet remain connected,  there is no room, no place for this is how it is, how it was, how it must be. We all can choose.

Even when it’s dark, there is light.

Even when it’s set, you can re-frame

Even when there’s loss, there is love.

Let go.