Some months ago, WordPress notified me that a new facility had been created, which would enable the owners of blogs like my own (Premium and Business themes) to add a payment button to our websites. 

At first I decided to ‘file’ that information, feeling that my technological muscles had been sufficiently challenged and that I was not quite ready to learn yet another new skill … the practical and life lessons having been ‘fast and furiously’ presenting themselves over considerable time.

This week, fresh inspiration pinged into my consciousness and I decided to accept that it was time to seek financial contributions towards the time and the effort that is put into all of my written and other work, starting with my blog.

To be perfectly honest, this has taken some justification on my part!

A fair amount of mental gymnastics ensued, before I could bring myself to make the leap into this new form of unknown – “e commerce” comes with faces that I am yet to make the acquaintance of, in most guises.

As a fairly profuse Writer, I have been employing writing as an outlet and an aid, a form of expression, a teaching tool, a mentoring medium, as well as a means to come back from the brink of despair and exhaustion, after suffering complete nervous breakdown in early 2006. 

Writing serves many other purposes as well, not least as a type of practice for the written word that I hope to transform into published book(s) soon. 

There is a story behind this and the story is a long one; it has been confusing and it has taken time to understand. 

Nowadays I find that any story is more authentically real when it is shared, not kept silent, and able to help others in the integrity and expressing of it … which is why I write as I do. 

Writing the blog started with a request from others to get my writing ‘out there’ and so I set off, to learn to climb the blogging ropes. 

I am still learning.

In August 2009, three years after crumbling personally in all sorts of ways … after losing all my confidence, as a result of finding the ‘earth’ constantly moving beneath me; after selling the home we had lived in; putting my much-loved natural products business in Australia ‘to bed’ in order to travel abroad to spend time with family; enduring a range of environments in which to keep our family sane while we moved from place to place without a solid arrangement … we landed in the location where we have been living for close on nine* years now. 

It has been one hell of a ride, in many respects, and has meant that I have not been able to go out into the world to concentrate on other things, financially or otherwise. 

The flip side to the physical and other constraints that I have experienced over the past eleven years is that, out of all of it, my writing has been the one constant and my strength has grown exponentially, along with a very strong resolve to ‘return’. 

I have had to relearn many things, including how to drive again and with confidence; how to speak calmly and in full sentences, without biting my tongue (literally) or simply losing my nerve …

About seven years ago, on the healing journey, I began to tiptoe into the world of social media, on Facebook, keeping communication strictly between my family and friends, at first. 

I was very shy, taking fairly ‘blind’ steps, with very little confidence at speaking, privately or in public, to anyone about anything any more.

I had little energy and found that even a telephone conversation left me mentally and physically fatigued. 

It was a horrible place to operate from and took a huge amount of focus and willpower for me to mentor, guide, model and parent our children.

This challenge was happening, in the process of all that I was going through personally, while our family of four was ‘doing life’ to the extreme, in the opposite hemisphere to that which we were most familiar, including all factors that naturally, emotionally and culturally go along with that … to say the least.

The journey has continued. It gets a little easier at times and in some respects. It takes great resolve and faith and an increasing resilience that comes from overcoming what is hard.

Along the way, I have grown back into more of the self that I was created to be, the self who existed many years before that devastating breakdown of 2006, which saw me drop about 20kgs very quickly and my hair fell out in handfuls daily. 

Throughout, I kept smiling and loving and doing my best under all the circumstances that we were navigating, finding creative ways to manage … resting a lot … having a very strong WHY, dedicated to our wellbeing and our family managing well within our adventure … writing an amazing outlet and brilliant form of communication with a world of friends and family abroad and nearby …

Slowly I have been regaining a semblance of the life that I had known as far back as 1985 … but thus far, only in some ways.  Much has been lost, sadly, and much has to be and has had to be started again, from scratch …

I know very well that one ought never to count experience as “loss” and therefore I count it all as gain, no matter what. I am grateful for the journey, the adventure, all that we have experienced, all that I have learnt and have overcome, the ways we have excelled in the waves and the ways that our children have shone in their lives.

Over the (seven) years since tiptoeing into the technologically social world, I have written vast numbers of words in a range of places now and have found ways to ‘walk again’ and to speak through the written word. 

My silent ‘voice’ has been found and I have been heard commenting on a range of subjects, most frequently speaking out about leadership, authenticity in every area of life, and caring for our natural world and the environment that we each depend upon. 

None of this is new to me, but suddenly became an urgent cry, after finding our family living slap-bang in the middle of farmers’ chemically-treated fields in 2009.

The shock of discovery that we had bought a home in Britain which was located in a danger zone was brutal, cruel and ironic – all rolled into one.  However, I could not change a thing about it. 

I had no time to do anything other than write, no energy to do more than that either … and so I listened to the inner prompt to put something about the environment into a more widely available arena and set up a Facebook page called Towards Greener Borders in May 2014.

It became my ‘voluntary contribution’ to society, my ‘community service’ to the world, working tirelessly at disseminating information and sharing experience or educational prompts about caring for one another and for our precious earth. All this time, I was fearing for the health and safety of our children, our home, our food, our air, water and all else that constitutes our family’s life. 

Towards Greener Borders now has a Twitter presence too, and I have wondered whether it may in due course become a business or a registered charity. Perhaps I shall feel led (and helped by others) to take it further than the written entity that it currently is. It continues to ‘serve’ the community around the world, for whom I set it up, gently and voluntarily.

Every person on the planet needs to give, to receive, to earn a living in one way or another, and I have been as generous as I have been able to be, giving of my time, energy and resources, giving in all directions, without compensation, nor security or financial return.  Economically, life has been biting hard and relentlessly. I know that I must do what I can to take on a level of responsibility to change the flow of the tide in that area. 

As with anyone who loves people, has compassion, lives each day as a leader on the earth, I give freely and willingly, without seeking return.  However, there are life demands that we are unable to meet without considerably upping our resource stream and so I am focusing on gently ‘manning up’ and creating income somehow myself. 

It is time to monetise and take more seriously that which I do, more carefully manage how I steward my life, even though that has been the approach all along … it needs more refinement now.  We each must do this, for it is only in applying and loving and valuing and stewarding ourselves that we are in a position to do that for / with others effectively and well.

My tank is running very low, has been for many years. It is time to top it up or I shall, again, burn out.  That is not an option … with a precious family, one cannot simply give up nor opt out. I must apply what I can to this.

And so I come to the point of this long story and this exercise, which is to introduce a donation facility to The Holly Tree Tales. 

If you would like to make a donation, £5, £10, £25 or any other amount, in recognition of the value of my writing and towards the maintenance of this website (which has annual fees in order to keep it advertisement free and of my own design), I would be most grateful. 

I love to tithe a percentage of ‘income’ received, to keep the energy moving in a positive direction and to maintain correct stewardship of resource. Taking that approach is where I believe blessings are and every seed planted will thus have a chance at least to grow and to sustain the increase of good fruit.

Having decided to step courageously into the e-commerce world, this week I learnt another new skill, by opening a PayPal account for the first time.  This is now set up to create flow.  Please feel free to make your donation here. There is no obligation to do so and no one is under any duress to contribute at all!  This is merely a request.

Thank you so much for reading this long post and for your wonderful support.

In strength and hope and trust,

 

Holly x

 

 First Published: 3 February 2018
UPDATED: June 2025

* sixteen years in 2025

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