"Laughter, song, and dance create emotional and spiritual connection; they remind us of the one thing that truly matters when we are searching for comfort, celebration, inspiration or healing: we are not alone."
- Brene Brown
One shaky moment in the morning.
One flash of a song in my head.
One promise to myself I will keep.
One shaky step along the narrow path.
One standing in the beautiful whole.
One dance of becoming, of noticing and of appreciating.
One sending love messages in song.
One delighting in the laughing and the sharing.
"While I dance I can not judge, I can not hate,
I can not separate myself from life.
I can only be joyful and whole. This is why I dance." - Hans Bos
"Laughter is a holy thing. It is as sacred as music and silence and solemnity - maybe more sacred. Laughter is like a prayer - like a bridge over which creatures tiptoe to meet each other. Laughter is like mercy - it heals - When you can laugh at yourself - you are free" - Ted Loder
A reminder to my shaky self, through some very old "Youtube" videos, to "Get Going", dance, sing, laugh and "be goofy" today.
“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”
- Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Tuesday's moments - enjoying the NOW and remembering some joyful memories from the past.
1. Making the bed lovingly - while thinking about Mr Stayingawake. As I child I disliked having to make my bed. My foster Mum taught me how to do hospital corners. At the time it seemed like just a bit too much trouble, especially when big things were happening out there in the world! Bed making was a very small and not very important thing to be doing! Boy did I get into trouble if I didn't make that bed, and make it right! These days Mr Stayingawake merely gives a quiet grumble, if the bed isn't made on the days when I am the last one out of it! Quite right too! Oh and I use fitted sheets mostly but if not I do tend to do hospital corners! Old habits.
2. Printing out some photographs and making cards with them. Some as gifts for people, others to send off with messages of good cheer.Slicing, folding and sticking. Completely in the moment.
3. Walking along the beach with the wind blowing my hair around. Sunglasses. No make up. Coat zipped up to my chin. Four minutes of running. Watching the dog walkers. Foam blowing around as the tide comes in.
4. Making Jam. It's the first time I've ever made Jam(too much sugar), or bruised ginger(yes I had to google). I was completely engrossed in the sights, smells and sounds of the jam making, rhubarb soaking, and ginger bruising processes.
Sweetening
Jam making was a big thing in my Mother's family, who owned and ran a market garden. Although I can't actually remember my Mother herself making jam, I do remember once being at one of my Auntie's houses and there being a huge pan of jam boiling away on the stove. I remember the dangers of hot scalding sticky jam, though luckily I wasn't burned.
Ginger wrapped in Muslin. Lemon Juice added.
Boiling, and more boiling, some stiring and then the wrinkle test.
I improvised with my jars, lids and labels. I remember the little circle of greaseproof paper inside the lid, and the lovely little paper tops all tied up with string or elastic bands. So pretty and so much care taken.
5. Listening to Bob Dylan whilst making the Jam and cooking the tea; in honour of his 70th Birthday. Remembering places and people from the time I first discovered his music, in particular a friend who had named her cat after him. I was a little late to find him - about 21 years old. This is Alanis Morissette singing Bob Dylan, in a tribute to him at The 2005 UK Music Hall of Fame.
This is an Excerpt from The Exquisite Risk: Daring to Live An Authentic Life by Mark Nepo - discovered here :
"My own time on earth has led me to believe in two powerful instruments that turn experience into love: holding and listening. For every time I have held or been held, every time I have listened or been listened to, experience burns like wood in that eternal fire and I find myself in the presence of love. This has always been so. Consider these two old beliefs that carry the wisdom and challenge of holding and listening."
"The first is the age-old notion that when holding a shell to your ear, you can hear the ocean. It always seems to work. The scrutiny of medicine has revealed that when you hold that shell to your ear, you actually hear your own pulsations, the ocean of your blood being played back to you. Yet this fact does not diminish this mystery. It only enhances it. For holding a shell to our ear teaches us how to hear the Whole through the part, and how to find the Universe within us. It teaches us that when we dare to hold another being, like a shell, to our ear, we hear both the mystery of all life and the ocean of our own blood."Amazingly, each being has the story of the Universe encoded within them. Each soul is a shell shaped by the currents of the deep. Even physically, the inner ear — that delicate source of balance — is shaped like a conch. And so, whatever is held and listened to will show us where it lives in the world and in us."
"This brings us to the second belief: the folklore that if a horse breaks a leg, it must be put down. I've discovered that this isn't true. Oh it's true that it happens. Breeders shoot horses with broken legs as if there's nothing to be done. But now I know they do this for themselves, not wanting to care for a horse that cannot run."
"In just this way, fearful and selfish people cut the cord to those who are broken, not wanting to sit with a friend who can't find tomorrow, not wanting to be saddled with someone who will slow them down, not wanting to face what is broken in themselves. In this lies the challenge of compassion. For when we dare to hold those forced to the ground, dare to hold them close, the truth of holding and listening sings and we are carried into the wisdom of broken bones and how things heal."
"These are quiet braveries we all need. The courage to wait and watch with all of who we are. The courage to admit that we are not alone. The courage to hold each other to the ear of our heart. And the courage to care for things that are broken."
"The practice ground for these braveries is always the small things at hand. Somehow, through the practice of doing small things with great love, as Mother Teresa puts it, we learn how to be brave. In truth, the work of love is tending to small things completely. Such tending opens the mystery. By the large-heartedness of our smallest attention, we enter the ocean of love that carries us all."
It's round about a year since I started this blog. There has been much navel gazing and some stuckness. Some fear about who is reading, some fear that no-one is reading. Lots of grieving for what has been lost, and lots of adjusting, accommodating and clearing out. Fabulously there has been some amazing growth for me, as a result of the healing that is happening. I am currently working on how to maintain this growth as I move on with life.
So when I saw that Theresa Huse posted an art journal prompt about painting a cartoon character/superhero, I was inspired to have a go. It is a very powerful exercise and one that I feel would be really useful to use with young people. It's great fun too!
Here is my superhero-cartoon character. Like Theresa's she doesn't have a name. She is just YOU. I couldn't have painted YOU this time last year. I didn't know she existed within me then. I have written a description too, but must give out a cheese warning to anyone reading(any one sensitive to cheese that is)! Here she is:
Meet my superhero-cartoon character, able to move freely wherever she goes, through earth, air, water and amongst all of life. With a twirl she can merge with all of this life. Her coloured cloak wrapping around her and allowing her to be one with her surroundings, becoming transparent, the energy of others flowing through her. Her energy source is the sun and she reaches up to connect with it.
She fills the space between the earth and sun, able to become a giant, striding boldly across the earth. Able also to become small again, to wait or move, in response to her inner power, her inner voice. She watches and listens to herself using her internal eyes and sensitive abdominal ears. Her heart has grown new baby wings and she can multiply this, sending her flying hearts bravely out into the world, they surround her and touch others, their wings brushing against others as they flutter by.
Her vision is aided by a head torch, a zoom and focus lens in her eye. They increase and widen her perspective, even in the darkness. She beams light out into the world and recieves it back from the sun.
Her legs are strong and she stands in warrior pose, momentarily balanced. The pose is asymmetrical and ready for change, yet balanced and strong. Her feet are rooted into the ground, yet she can lift herself and flow freely using her powerful arms and her upward gaze. She is watchful but not guarded. She is hopeful and thankful, yet aware of the darkness and accepting of it.
Oh yes! And she is smiling.
She is a reminder for me to listen to my own power, to reclaim it at last. Also to see the light in myself, in others and in the world. I have lived in a dark place too long that was full of fear and enemies. She is also a reminder that I do not need armour and I do not need to stay small either. Being brave enough to stride out into the world with my heart and with the light will be enough. I am enough. There is a reminder too of the importance of developing my practice in Yoga and in Mindfulness, in courage, compassion and connection (The Gifts Of Imperfection). A reminder to "stand on my sacred ground".
I am so very thankful for the opportunity to get to know YOU at last.
I'm a bit late posting this. So busy gazing at my navel these days.
May 17th was IDAHO( International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia ), as I expected there was a bit of a news blackout here in the UK. Unless you are involved in some way through your work or your family , the day tends to go by unnoticed. For LGBT people, their families and friends, supporters and campaigners for human rights, it isn't just about this one day of course. So here is my contribution.
Though this post is entitled "A Story of Love", I have to start with pointing out some of the hate. So much of it everywhere. So much fear! Fear and hate of what? Simply of other human beings, who generally just want to love and to be able to get on with their lives. Lives that are about so much more than sex. Full lives. Meaningful lives. Lives that contribute to making the world a better place. Lives just like heterosexuals have.
Peter Tatchell had an article in the Guardian Newspaper, on 17th May, about the support that exists from governments around the world, towards achieving the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality and equal human rights for LGBT people. Sadly he points out that this is not the case for the Commonwealth and most Commonwealth countries. He writes:
"The Commonwealth is a bastion of global homophobia, often bucking the worldwide trend towards sexual orientation equality, with increased state-sanctioned threats and repression in Malawi, Uganda, Gambia, Malaysia, Cameroon and Nigeria. The 54 Commonwealth member states comprise one quarter of the UN membership and one third of all humanity. Of these Commonwealth countries, 46 still criminalise same-sex relations in all circumstances, with penalties including 25 years' jail in Trinidad and Tobago and 20 years plus flogging in Malaysia. Several countries stipulate life imprisonment: Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Uganda, Tanzania and Bangladesh. These 46 homophobic Commonwealth countries account for more than half of the 76 countries in the world that still have a total prohibition on homosexuality, Nearly all the Commonwealth's anti-gay laws are the poisonous legacy of British colonialism. They were originally imposed by the British government in the 19th century, during the period of colonial rule – and never repealed when the former colonies won their freedom. The post-independence leaders retained the homophobic mindset of their colonial masters. Today, many of their countrymen and women absurdly proclaim that the legal proscription of homosexuality is an authentic expression of indigenous national culture and tradition."
The story is frightening, as is the story of the homophobia that still exists here in the West. Homophobia that drives some of our youth to suicide. Homophobia that teaches others of our youth to hate and ridicule, and devalue other human beings.
There is another story. It is one of hope, and of love, and of courage.
Civil rights activists around the world are continually working to expose human rights abuses against LGBT people. They challenge governments and state authorities to fulfil their responsibility to protect LGBT people from such abuses.Amnesty International's LGBT Network Page highlights actions we can take to support such challenges and ensure the voice of protest and outrage is loud enough for notice to be taken.
Only last week the Ugandan Anti-homosexuality Bill was stalled by a massive global response to a petition circulated mainly through online social networks and organisations like Amnesty and Avaaz. Amnesty reports that, "The proposed Law included the introduction of the death penalty for 'aggravated homosexuality', punishment for those who do not report violations of the Bill's provisions within 24 hours, and the criminalisation of the 'promotion' of homosexuality."
There exists so much love, and there is so much work being done to help create a world where LGBT people do not have to live in fear of violence. A world where they can be true to themselves and where they are not excluded or ridiculed by the mainstream population. Where there is more understanding that they are whole people who are defined by so much more than their sexual orientation. So many people helping and shouting out. A reminder for all of us to help maintain this love story.
Use any of the links above to find out how you can work against homophobia.
Before I go, I thought I'd share two brilliant resources that can be used to help increase understanding.
First, this campaign from Canada to mark this year's IDAHO. Click on the picture and it will take you to the website which explains the theme for 2011 - "Same Sex Couple A Story Of Love". I've also quoted a short description from the website below.
"All too often, people perceive being gay or lesbian in a narrow way in which sexual orientation is reduced to its simplest form - sex.
Just as for opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples form out of emotions and romantic feelings. Sexuality is certainly a part of a couple relationship, and it is often the sexual dimension that sparked the flame. However, a lasting couple relationship cannot be based on sexuality alone.
Same-sex couples, formed by either two women or two men, go through the same good and bad times that opposite-sex couples do."
I'm also loving the courage of this mainstream BBC 1 TV series, for the way it has dealt with many life issues faced by young people and their families, homosexuality being one of them. Young people today need as much education as possible in this much more complex world we live in. I feel that the series can help young people(who I would imagine are the majority of viewers), think about many different situations they might come across in life, and encourages them to discuss these and to explore their own and other people's feelings.
This is the storyline about a young person discovering he is homosexual. It is a story of love and relationships, his relationship with his Dad and with his friends. It is about their acceptance and love.
As the young lad tells them at the end, "I am still me."
Two posts in one day! Reflecting that there is so much going on for me right now. Both internally and externally. An exciting possibility is on the horizon and I also had something of a breakthrough yesterday. It felt as if my heart took wings! I am still reeling from the wonder of it!
It has a bit to do with how well I know the darkness. Here is my shadow about a year ago with a great big stone lodged in her tummy! I've been getting very friendly with her lately but I only realised why just yesterday!
Grizedale Forest - April 2010
At the end of my Yoga session today we did a relaxation exercise, where we had to count backwards from 100 on the in-breath, then say the word relax or let go on the out-breath. Our teacher reassured us that if we lost count, not to worry, just to go back to 100, no-one else would know. I suddenly noticed how tightly I was holding on to the count for fear of losing my place. I was watching myself holding on so tight and once I noticed this, was able just for a moment of two, let go and relax; knowing something/someone within me was taking care of it all.
I know how to go forward, I think, now I just have to get started. It seems like a mammoth task but it's really not at all. It's very simple indeed. So all I have to do now is to remember how simple it all is. To trust. To let go. To relax.
The future may lie this way, or it may lie this way but what I do know is that it certainly lies this way:
May 2011
Though I've read this quote many times before, I only really understood it in my heart yesterday:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.
Rumer Godden in A House with Four Rooms
I'm not simply catching up with prompts just lately, I'm catching up with some important learning that I think I must have missed somehow along the way. I was too busy surviving. Too busy with all that stuff I have written about too much. Too busy struggling. Too busy numbing. Too busy trying to be perfect, trying to fit in; being confused by endless choices. Too busy listening to everyone else's voices. Too busy to distinguish which were the voices I needed to hear. To busy to hear my own voice. Too busy to know what questions I needed to ask. Too busy to take care of myself or others, in anything but the most basic manner.
When I search for a gentle and wise being from my childhood, I cannot find one. I know that I will find one if I look closely enough. For now I choose to think that there just wasn't one, rather than that I chose not to listen to the many teachers there surely were (maybe a post or a journal about my teachers is needed).
So in my late forties, I am catching up at last with the important learning that is helping me to fully inhabit this life I have been given.
I am not comparing myself to anyone else when I say I'm catching up. Many of us have to work hard to look after our "house with four rooms" even if we are given this learning in childhood. What I mean by catching up, is that I'm giving some of the rooms that have been neglected a bit of deliberate attention. Don't worry though, while this might sound a bit ruthless and clinical, and there are some dark and cobwebby corners to reach; this process is on the whole one of joy and love.
The mindful52 prompt I have been working on this week is about renewal. By consciously beginning to pay attention to all of my rooms, I am allowing for renewal to take place. Though it sounds like I am still busy doing, this is a new kind of busyness for me, one which involves learning how to connect with the core of my being.
This prompt has led me to some new reading and learning, and I have started to carve out a direction for this to take. Right now I am keen to read more about the work of Marian Woodman for example. I love what she says right at the end of this clip about the shadow and the light belonging to each other.
Mindful52 has also prompted me to start a Yoga class, after years of saying that I wanted to. I've done a small amount of Yoga in the past, but it has never been a regular part of my life. On the first day of this class I said to myself that it felt like I was coming home, and although some days I really have to force myself out of the door and onto the mat, I still feel this each and every time.
When the body is finally listened to, it becomes eloquent. It's like changing from a fiddle to a Stradivarius. It gets much more highly attuned.
— Marion Woodman in Interviews with Marion Woodman
I've been making a conscious effort to ensure I sleep well. I've also been making time for creativity. I love to get out into nature, sometimes walking and more often lately, working in the garden. When walking I often take my camera with me, sometimes it can help me to pay attention; and as I also need to pay attention without my camera too, I sometimes leave it at home. Some days just the walking, the air on my face and the sound of the sea, is all that I need to feel renewed.
On the beach - March 2011
Lately I've been thinking more about prayer. Although I don't follow a religion, I am drawn to meditation and sacred words from all religious and spiritual traditions. I know that I need and want to make time for this within my life. I found this beautiful blessing today, both the writer and the words are new to me; I love them already and am sending them out to you with all my heart.
Benedicto:
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you - beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.
Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire.
Self-care, renewal and this touching base with my spiritual side, is kind of new to me; amazing though this might seem. After years of work, work, work and no time for anything much else, I started this process of transformation about two years ago. Before that something of this was always calling to me but I would always shout back, "One day...one day I'll listen."
It is now a question of self-discipline, those old habits still call me and I still have to resist. It's also a learning curve to be kind with myself when I don't go out walking and sit down in front of the TV instead; or when I eat too many biscuits and drink too much tea!
I wonder how you visit your rooms each day and what calls you to a more joyful and whole way of living?
This week's prompt about asking for help, has been a really useful thing to ponder on:
What am I not asking for help with? What would this help ideally look like? What if the help came in a less-than-ideal form? What does this help represent for me? Why am I not asking for it? What might I need to do, in order to be able to ask? What would it mean if I asked and help was refused? What if it was given? Have I really looked everywhere, exhausted all possible avenues for help? What role could my inner resources play? Am I really as alone as I keep telling myself I am?
These questions could have brought me to some dark places. So I skirted around the feelings for a bit (as I tend to do), staying on the edge and not going too deep. Just deep enough. Treading water for a while as I got myself to a place where I can hopefully use what I've learned.
There were a couple of days when I told myself another old, old story, about how I did or didn't ask for help in the past. I identified that yes, I have had, and maybe still do have a problem with asking for help. What became usefully clear however was that I needed to focus more on how to ask for help; that is, how to get the balance right between asking for help and appearing needy or of coming from a place of huge lack (which scares other people).
Of course there have been many times when I've asked for help and it has been given and recieved gratefully.
Thank you. I am so lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life.
Sadly there have also been times when I've pulled myself in tightly, putting out only my spikes to face the world!
By Abderitestatos (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
So to all those wonderful people in my life, I'm sorry that I've pushed you all away sometimes.
I'm working on it.
More often I've been indirect in my asking, not knowing how to ask or who to ask. In the context of work, the office/management culture combined with recieved "wisdom" about needing help equalling weakness, meant that I often felt unable to safely ask for help. To be fair to my employers, I dont think that the situation was helped by my own identity and self-worth being so closely tied up with my work(something I've been working on since reading this a few years ago).
I also didn't know until now, just how many other people feel the same! This week I googled "asking for help", and discovered a ton of people writing articles on this very subject. Two of the best are here, Dr Deb and here, How to ask for help ; just in case they are of help to someone reading this one day!
This week I've learned that asking for help might just be about choosing who to ask about what, and being clear about exactly what I want help with. Maybe in the past I wasn't clear or maybe even not honest with myself or others about the effects of, and extent of the depression and anxiety, so the person helping me wasn't clear either.
Then again, there was so much wrong at times, that if I'd asked for help (which sometimes happened), then the whole kit and caboodle would flood out, hence overwhelming the person I'd chosen to ask for help; and probably because they were the wrong person to ask in the first place!
Then there is me - on being given help, maybe I didn't tlike the answers I recieved sometimes. I thought I knew better or I didn't have the strength or motivation to follow it through.
What has to be thrown out today is the need to define myself by how things were in the past. I can still look back with understanding but that is not who I am now.
Lately I feel that I am asking the right people for help. I am also building my own self awareness and clarity, trying to clear out old stories and be kinder and honest with myself. Seeing how all that past stuff has led to the perceived aloneness I have felt for so long, but not beating myself up for that anymore!
It's time to think about who I am now, and to let the past me go to a certain extent.
What all this thinking about asking for help has really opened up for me this week, is the real need to draw on my own strong core, all my strengths, gifts, people that enrich my life, and how I am learning to trust myself.
Something else has opened up also, and that is the need for the spiritual dimension in my life to become more purposeful. Maybe I'll write more about that later.
This week's prompt has brought me back to the people in my life who have loved me with all their heart. I have been thinking particularly of my little sister and my friend, who both sent me mixtapes when I was far away from them, and to whom I sent many letters and music tapes too.
Here is some music from those times. In honour of the angry and very independent young woman I was.
It would help me greatly to hear your thoughts on asking for help.
The petals fell away, and the thing became a stem,
and the floor became scattered in pink.
Containers break. Eras end.
Thing-ness only a stopping ground,
a pause at the train station, followed by moving on.
You were never yourself, and I was never I.
Everything cresting and falling,
giving way, again, to the ocean.
We need more words like arise and fewer like die.
When you know you are a just a disco party
of cells that came together for a time,
you’ll live like the blazing sphere you are,
and dance with the spheres around you.
You won’t ask of them, or tax them, or want them to be anything.
You’ll be boogieing in the sun, and look
over your shoulder, breathless, to say
Quick! It’s only for a moment that we are this.
Let’s feel the sting when we land from a raucous jump.
Let’s watch our knees glisten.
Let’s wait here, as night covers our skin.
Let’s watch our hands darken.
Let’s cry, at the realness of it, and the dreamness of it.
Let’s marvel at it.
It's already been Mother's day here in the UK and I posted about it back in April, thinking then much about carers, and the many children who grow up without Mum around for one reason or another.
This weekend I've been listening to and reading about women who remind me why I changed my job seven years ago, and started working with parents rather than with children. When I started I was full of love for parents and completely aware of the struggle it can be to bring up a child/children. When I started I had good intentions, but I wasn't really strong or whole enough to help in the best way(not for all of these seven years anyway).
I done good, don't get me wrong, that is until I got burned out with giving; and with not knowing how to set boundaries whilst still practicing compassion.
I done good too, while things were going smoothly for me personally, before it all got a bit too raw and sharp.
So as it's Mother's Day today in Australia, the USA and Canada, and simply because they are awesome - I want to share these women with the world. Their work is what mothers and children need, fathers too, in fact their work is what the world needs more of. Maybe I might be getting ready to know where my future might take me because of them too! What gifts they are.
The first woman I would like to share, is of course, Brene Brown, this time talking about parenting, especially about parenting teens, on a radio show called "How she really does it.". Please listen. It's awesome stuff!
I also really want to share Marianne Elliott's blog post, To Suraya with love. Marianne is raising money and awareness, for the work of Suraya Pakzad, whose work supports mothers in Afghanistan. The video on her blog page is really worth a watch, and there are links showing where to donate to the project To Mama With Love. Please watch.
Both these women know how important it is to look after Mothers and Parents.This video of Brene speaking about vulnerability and numbing says it all. I recommend watching the whole of it, however if you are short of time, the last 10 minutes are enough! Inspiring.
I'm holding all Mothers who are feeling vulnerable and scared, close to my heart today.
There came a big and familiar question for me this week, following Kat's Worthiness Wednesday post, as she invited us to "do your thing."
The question? What is my thing?
Arrghh! Huge white space! Silence.
Part of this blogging urge of mine, is all about finding exactly what my thing might be; and about becoming more visible. Visible to myself and to others. Being brave enough to share myself with the world has been a big issue over the past twenty years or more, in that time I almost disappeared completely.
So my Worthiness Wednesday post this week, involves sharing another art journal page. My second ever page, prompted again by Therea Huse over at MsArtist who is posting an art journal prompt every Sunday. I didn't intend to share the page, because as Theresa reminds us, an art journal is for our own eyes. However at the end of my session, the page seemed to fit with Worthiness Wednesday.
I've been wanting to create another page since the first one I did a few weeks ago. I just haven't got around to it, despite there being quite a few mornings where art journalling, or simply just messing around with the paints and stuff, has been on my mind.
Whereas Theresa's page took her an hour, I was conscious that last time it took me all or most of the day! All this is new, the materials, tools and techniques. So on each of those mornings, I've put off yet again getting all the materials out and clearning a space, until this morning.
Each morning is full of possibilies. Each morning is enough and you are enough. Strong, balanced, beautiful.
Theresa's prompt was all about mornings. I guess my reluctance to start another page mirrors my reluctance to start anything much just lately. My page is about the beauty and possibility of each new morning, the birds singing and lately the sun shining; and about how there are so many things I crave to be doing, so many ideas, so many threads to follow, I don't do very many of them and sometimes none. These possibilies are symbolised by an elephant.
Lately mornings are about an "oh my gosh!" panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach; a "what shall I do today?"; an "I should really...."; "I'd quite like to....."; an "if I start this then the day will be wasted"; a "you need to be doing something useful today"; and an "aren't you a bit old for all this." So as I created the page I worked out some of the hard edges that appeared, and the fear that was getting in the way.
When I was working, mornings were about rushing about and looking purposeful. Emergency mode. An "out the door" without touching base kind of feeling; out the door and forget who I am until I get home again, then fall asleep. Very important work you know!
I completely lost myself again today. I found myself again too. I wanted the page to remind me of my love of and connection with nature. When I go out into the world of work again, I want to take this groundedness with me.
Mornings in the future? I wonder?
Kat's prompt this week has also inspired me to use some of my photographs to make notelets. I need to write to one or two folks and what could be better than to use my own photographs? This week I also arranged long overdue meetings with one or two people who had suggested getting together. I will take myself along knowing that they want to share my smile and my company. I will take something I love along to share with them too. Thank you Kat.
There is so much of me to share, each morning something wonderful. STRETCH!
Each morning I so much want to "send my heart out into the world" and to "celebrate being me". BEAM!
To begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling is one way in which anyone using the word in this manner automatically assumes accountability and responsibility.
- Bell Hooks (via Brene Brown)
On shame -
"According to Dr Hartling, in order to deal with shame, some of us move away by withdrawing, hiding, silencing ourselves, and keeping secrets. Some of us move toward by seeking to appease and please. And some of us move against by trying to gain power over others, by being aggressive, and by using shame to fight shame...Most of us use all of these - at different times with different folks for different reasons. Yet all of these strategies move us away from our story.Shame is about fear, blame and disconnection. Story is about worthiness and embracing the imperfections that bring us courage, compassion and connection. if we want to live fully, without the constant fear of not being enough, we have to own our own story. We also have to respond to shame in a way that doesn't exacerbate our shame. One way to do this is to recognize when we're in shame so we can react with intention....it's important to know our personal symptoms so we can get deliberate in our response to shame."
" The majority of shame researchers and clinicians agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between I am bad and I did something bad....Shame is about who we are, and guilt is about our behaviours....When we apologize for something we've done, make amends to others, or change a behaviour that we don't feel good about, guilt is most often the motivator. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its effect is often positive while shame often is destructive....In fact, in my research, I found that shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can change and do better."
- Brene Brown The Gifts Of Imperfection.
I've worked with children and with parents, and at some level I know this about guilt and shame, in the context of discipline ie.,separating out a child's behaviour from the child as a person. Yesterday as I re-read these first chapters from Brene Brown's book it was as if a light bulb had been switched right on in my head. OH! THAT'S IT! EUREKA! All these years of wondering! This book is an amazing gift. What a blessing this woman is to bring this to the world.
Brene Brown also writes, that, "when we're in shame we're not fit for human consumption". When I read this sentence yesterday I smiled to myself. I laughed with myself. How true those words are, and how true they were this weekend for me.
I'm not going to go into too much detail, but let's just say I behaved pretty badly. The behaviour itself was the result of old feelings of lack of worth and massive shame about myself. Then following on from the behaviour I was then in yet another place of shame, my behaviour confirming to distorted thinking how bad a person I was. I mumbled some shocking words about myself through my tears, and returned home in an agony of self loathing, what a bad person I was, I wasn't even fit to be in the world amongst all these decent and lovely souls!
What a low place I was bringing myself to, all borne from old patterns and feelings.
Thank heavens for this book, and that I picked it up and re-read just the right chapters deliberately to help me see more clearly and sort out exactly what was going on.
I wrote these words of apology, choosing to change the way I respond - knowing what the choices are and what the damaging patterns have been. Some of the words I used in a phone call today to the person involved, some will never be spoken or sent, but will serve as a reminder of what I am letting go.
Dear You,
I'm so sorry that I behaved that way towards you yesterday. I'm doing some work on myself at the moment and it doesn't feel good to be me, but that is no reason to treat you in the way that i did.
I'm really so sorry and this is my attempt to build a bridge back between us.
I was thinking about what you suggested, and maybe you have a point. Let's go with your idea and maybe I could come along with you to help out?
You've done so much for me over the years, and I know you will always be there for me. What I would really like to be able to do now that I am getting older, and hopefully a little wiser; is to be able to stop feeling angry with you and to stop beating up on myself. When I am with you, and at other times too, I would quite like the pain inside to stop; so that I am able to open my heart fully; so that I can love you.
I am making a promise to myself today, that I will nolonger be afraid to show you and others my love.My actions will be chosen with care.
Week 17 of Mindful52 and Heather's prompt asks us to contemplate nature:
This week as you contemplate nature, think of all it has to teach us. Think of how it provides for us. But move beyond that to realize you are a beautiful creation of nature as well. Move beyond the thought of nature only being ouside of us. What is the nature of your Self? How can you be more in tune with your inherent nature? How can you allow your beautiful self to just be? How can you be in a state of allowing? How can you inherently shine?
Are there places in life where you are forcing? In what areas should you stand firm, tall, strong and grounded like the trees? Or be a flower and blossom? What about shining like the vibrant leaves of Autumn as you age year after year? Is it possible to look into a dreary situation, to weather the storm and still stand tall? You are beautiful, AWEsome and magical just as you are!
You are nature, whole and perfect exactly as you were created!
This takes some work to believe sometimes.
Luckily there are some very wise beings out there writing books and helping us find our way to self-acceptance, joy and peace.
Enjoying the Moment - In the garden April 2011
"They(flowers) provided inspiration to countless artists, poets and mystics. Jesus tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live. The Buddha is said to have given a "silent sermon" once during which he held up a flower and gazed at it......Seeing beautiy in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature....Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of their inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their pwn physical and psychological form. "
- Eckhart Tolle
The Eden Project - April 2011
"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things."
- Mary Oliver
Leaf with Tiny Buds and Shadow April Evening 2011
"The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell."
- Ben Okri
April Evening Sunshine on the leaves
"Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars... and if you have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful. Everything is simply happy. Trees are happy for no reason; they are not going to become prime ministers or presidents and they are not going to become rich and they will never have any bank balance. Look at the flowers - for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are."
~Osho
Grizedale Forest August 2010
"How do we cultivate the conditions for joy to expand? We train in staying present. In sitting meditation, we train in mindfulness and maitri: in being steadfast with our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts. We stay with our own little plot of earth and trust that it can be cultivated, that cultivation will bring it to it's full potential. Even though it's full of rocks and the soil is dry, we begin to plow this plot with patience. We let the process evolve naturally......At the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be. We've discovered that the continual search for something better does not work out. This doesn't mean that there are suddenly flowers growing where before there were only rocks. it means we have the confidence that something will grow here."
