At last the weather found us and we were waiting. A weekend and a few days of wall to wall sun and the excuse to be out and about is accepted by all and sundry. The legs and bra straps come out, men remove T-shirts to expose lily white skin. Picnics in the park, days out at the beach, suddenly there is laughter, smiles and happy people. So nice to wander through people who only three or so months ago were head down, mouth down, trudging through the snow. Amazing what a bit of warmth can do. Is it any wonder those who live in warmer climes are eternally optimistic? I think I would be if I knew the next week would be warm and I would feel, well, warm. I do wonder if there is a direct relationship between the temperature and the levels of laid-back-ness we exhibit? Lets face it some of the most chilled people seem to live in some of the hottest (but not drought riddled). But then those who live in any society which isn’t driven by possessions and wealth seem happier in their ‘poverty’. Are they? I somehow doubt that.
I sat and watched the world go by and one of our travellers wandered through the park. He didn’t have much of a care in the world, the weather was warm, the restaurant where he went to eat had fed him and he was off to get some R&R somewhere on a park bench away from the noise of the town centre. He looked in my direction and nodded his familiar greeting then disappeared into his world of survival.
‘At least he was able to stop and hear the seasons as they change’, I thought, as yet another item to place on the ‘To Do’ list came into my mind to be added electronically. I got up from the bench and watched the children innocently playing tag and wondered how long it would be before they got their first mobile phone and how long it would be before they were worrying whether they had the latest and best and whether so-and-so would text them and they would be able to show their friends, or whether they would get those horrible bullying texts children get which scare them so successfully. ‘At least my bullying ended at the front door’, I thought, ‘now it can come directly into their bedrooms.’
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Creating Change
OK so look around your home. Is there anywhere you would most certainly NOT want anyone to see? Is there a part of the home which makes you cringe or have you got a part of the house which is so far away from how you would like it you either avoid going there or ignore it because its been like that for so long you fail to notice it any more?
Do you wish to do something about it?
If you do then have a think about these questions and then make a decision based on your findings. If you chose to leave the place as it is then the desire for change isn’t that strong and what you have come up with does not give the compulsion to drive forward. It could be you just haven’t spotted the key factor which is holding it where it is. We are very good at making excuses for not doing things and we have stories to back it up.
I have the one where I cannot get hold of the builder. Well if I called him maybe he would know I need him to come round! See what I mean?
So, let’s start at the beginning;
1. Go round the house and have a dispassionate look at all rooms. Do they reflect what it is you wish them to reflect?
2. Sit down with a cup of tea/coffee and some paper and think about what it is you really want the room to reflect and why. Its important to discover why you want something just as much as it is important to know what. If you want it because you think everyone had this these days and it is what they advertise in the magazines, then question your desires. Are they yours or the need to fit into the mould of expectation?
3. After you have worked out exactly what it is you want and why you want it, think about why it is you haven’t done anything about it up until now. In other words we are looking at the stories we tell ourselves to justify what it is we don’t do.
4. Look at the stories and decide which are excuses and which are genuine. Look at the excuses and decide why it is you have used them to stop you from doing anything up until now.
5. Make the decision as to whether these will continue to run your thinking or whether its time to let them go and move on.
6. If you decide to stay with them the stop at this point there is no point in continuing. If you choose to let the stories go then think about what it is you will gain from making the changes.
7. Begin imagining how it will be with the changes and allow yourself the pleasure of planning the process of change so it becomes more tangible and do-able to coin a modern word.
8. Allow this stage of the process to build up until it becomes a necessity to complete the changing of the room or what-ever. Then do it and follow the plan enjoying the excitement the changes bring.
9. Listen out as you do this for any stories which may get in the way, and make the decision, are they stories kicking in again, or are they genuinely important precautions? If they are genuine then think through the process, don’t abandon the project. Somewhere along the line you have made a poor choice and you are being warned about it. Look over the choices and work out which is the bad choice, then come up with alternatives.
10. Once it is all done, sit back and smile with smug satisfaction that you created the change all by yourself and you will sense it internally because some of the excuses will have been removed from within you as you did it.
Do you wish to do something about it?
If you do then have a think about these questions and then make a decision based on your findings. If you chose to leave the place as it is then the desire for change isn’t that strong and what you have come up with does not give the compulsion to drive forward. It could be you just haven’t spotted the key factor which is holding it where it is. We are very good at making excuses for not doing things and we have stories to back it up.
I have the one where I cannot get hold of the builder. Well if I called him maybe he would know I need him to come round! See what I mean?
So, let’s start at the beginning;
1. Go round the house and have a dispassionate look at all rooms. Do they reflect what it is you wish them to reflect?
2. Sit down with a cup of tea/coffee and some paper and think about what it is you really want the room to reflect and why. Its important to discover why you want something just as much as it is important to know what. If you want it because you think everyone had this these days and it is what they advertise in the magazines, then question your desires. Are they yours or the need to fit into the mould of expectation?
3. After you have worked out exactly what it is you want and why you want it, think about why it is you haven’t done anything about it up until now. In other words we are looking at the stories we tell ourselves to justify what it is we don’t do.
4. Look at the stories and decide which are excuses and which are genuine. Look at the excuses and decide why it is you have used them to stop you from doing anything up until now.
5. Make the decision as to whether these will continue to run your thinking or whether its time to let them go and move on.
6. If you decide to stay with them the stop at this point there is no point in continuing. If you choose to let the stories go then think about what it is you will gain from making the changes.
7. Begin imagining how it will be with the changes and allow yourself the pleasure of planning the process of change so it becomes more tangible and do-able to coin a modern word.
8. Allow this stage of the process to build up until it becomes a necessity to complete the changing of the room or what-ever. Then do it and follow the plan enjoying the excitement the changes bring.
9. Listen out as you do this for any stories which may get in the way, and make the decision, are they stories kicking in again, or are they genuinely important precautions? If they are genuine then think through the process, don’t abandon the project. Somewhere along the line you have made a poor choice and you are being warned about it. Look over the choices and work out which is the bad choice, then come up with alternatives.
10. Once it is all done, sit back and smile with smug satisfaction that you created the change all by yourself and you will sense it internally because some of the excuses will have been removed from within you as you did it.
... and so the dream began
I sat in a coffee house with several of my friends. It was a soft day, the sun shone but not too fiercely, the wind blew but only gently and the birds sang but not too loudly. The day was drawing to and end and the light levels were in that wondrous stage of being there but softening in preparation of the setting sun.
A man in a white coat approached me and standing the other side of the table from me lifted up his clip board and consulted its contents.
“ You have been diagnosed with advanced cancers and have only a short time left before they completely take control of your life,” he said, without a glimmer of emotion, “if you have any plans you wish to fulfil then this is the time to do it because there is very little time in which to plan.”
With that he turned on his heals and left. I was stunned by the way it had been delivered but also stunned by his complete lack of emotional concern for me; he was saying so much and yet in those few words the world as I had grown to live in had been shifted into a different orbit and I was floating free.
My friend turned to me and again without emotional content said, “How many years have we been telling you to live your own life and not to live it in the was others appear to wish you to live it? Isn’t it time you looked into yourself and made conscious decisions for yourself and acted upon them?”
At this point he reached across the table and took my hand, still cold from the shock of the news.
Just think about it for a moment, you have this moment in time to consider what it is you want from life without the constraints you have placed upon yourself recently. No-one expects you to be something or someone you are not and if they do then they are not a true friend, they are an expectant appendage like a child expecting their mother to be this way or that. Your profession dictated a certain conformity but now does that still apply? Do you have to conform and if so to what? Isn’t it your choice and isn’t it even more important that you begin living to those values?”
He smiled at me but as he leant back he looked with a strong steely look, “its your choice at the end of the day, and how you live is only how You live, not how others do, so why live it in the way you presume they expect?”
With that he got up and I was alone staring down at a cup of coffee wondering what it was I was going to do next.
The alarm rang its dulcet tones and I awoke with a start. Turning off the alarm the comments my friend said to me echoed through my conscious mind and reminded me about the fragility of the existence we have on this earth.
“Time to buy a tent!” and with that I got out of bed to face a new chapter in my life.
Sometimes dreams can have an explosive effect on our lives and be a way of telling us something. Often we forget them as quickly as they come and miss the message they are bringing us. for me though this was an opportunity and if I wished to take that I had to acknowledge the content of the dream, the message it was giving and then act on it. I could have thought and worried and then pushed it to the back of my mind but would that have done anything for me?
Like so many challenges we are quick to avoid what may appear to be painful even if the payoff is to our advantage.
Time to change time to move on, time to make that break we have kind of hinted at but as yet taken no action over.
The dream I had was triggered by a friend of mine who has been dealing with breast cancer for the past six months. She has chosen to deal with it in her way and is doing very well, but what it did do was bring home to me the fragility of many things and our own health and well-being in particular, yes, a serious illness could catch up with us at any minute.
A colleague of mine at school was fine and healthy one day, came in with a cold the next, felt rubbish the following two days and within two weeks was diagnosed advanced ME. She is still ill all these years later and is unable to do anything more than sit in a wheelchair and make pressed flower cards.
Another, complained of the inevitable headaches and went home. We saw him three months later; he had lost a great deal of weight, most of his hair and had aged considerably. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Scary stuff but something the dream brought home to me in clear detail. I was being told by my unconscious mind that unless I started living my life the way I wished to then it could pass me by and one day be presented with the ultimate shock; I was terminally ill or just too old to do the things I still have left to do.
So what would this mean to you? Nothing. If something happened to someone you knew it would be sad but it wouldn’t, in the end, stop you from getting on with everything in your life. However, it should make you turn to your own and ask the searching question are you living or existing?
It is so easy to just drift through life. We get up, get ready for school or work, or get the children dressed and out for school. We go to work for the day and earn money to pay the bills and the holidays and everything else we want materially, and then come home, have something to eat and then collapse in front of the television, or if you are an unpaid taxi service for your children, start the evening run around. You collapse into bed, and start the whole thing again in the morning.
So when do you do things which will create memories? When do you do exciting things rather than just the mundane, everyday things? When was the last time, for example, you all went out for the day and can remember it now, with a smile on your face? When was the last time you had a day to yourself to catch up on a bit of ‘Me’ time? When did you last re-charge the batteries and give yourself the boost to return to the job, the taxi runs and the demands of a family?
As I say on my Skype account, when was it we stopped being as children and making memories and began just living on re-telling them?
I have sensed a strong change in me since that dream. I have created change and it shows in the garden and when I can get hold of builder, the bedroom. Its time to continue making the stories I have from the past and create that richness of fun, pleasure and excitement now giving me another layer of stories to remember as I grow older and of course, more outrageous.
A man in a white coat approached me and standing the other side of the table from me lifted up his clip board and consulted its contents.
“ You have been diagnosed with advanced cancers and have only a short time left before they completely take control of your life,” he said, without a glimmer of emotion, “if you have any plans you wish to fulfil then this is the time to do it because there is very little time in which to plan.”
With that he turned on his heals and left. I was stunned by the way it had been delivered but also stunned by his complete lack of emotional concern for me; he was saying so much and yet in those few words the world as I had grown to live in had been shifted into a different orbit and I was floating free.
My friend turned to me and again without emotional content said, “How many years have we been telling you to live your own life and not to live it in the was others appear to wish you to live it? Isn’t it time you looked into yourself and made conscious decisions for yourself and acted upon them?”
At this point he reached across the table and took my hand, still cold from the shock of the news.
Just think about it for a moment, you have this moment in time to consider what it is you want from life without the constraints you have placed upon yourself recently. No-one expects you to be something or someone you are not and if they do then they are not a true friend, they are an expectant appendage like a child expecting their mother to be this way or that. Your profession dictated a certain conformity but now does that still apply? Do you have to conform and if so to what? Isn’t it your choice and isn’t it even more important that you begin living to those values?”
He smiled at me but as he leant back he looked with a strong steely look, “its your choice at the end of the day, and how you live is only how You live, not how others do, so why live it in the way you presume they expect?”
With that he got up and I was alone staring down at a cup of coffee wondering what it was I was going to do next.
The alarm rang its dulcet tones and I awoke with a start. Turning off the alarm the comments my friend said to me echoed through my conscious mind and reminded me about the fragility of the existence we have on this earth.
“Time to buy a tent!” and with that I got out of bed to face a new chapter in my life.
Sometimes dreams can have an explosive effect on our lives and be a way of telling us something. Often we forget them as quickly as they come and miss the message they are bringing us. for me though this was an opportunity and if I wished to take that I had to acknowledge the content of the dream, the message it was giving and then act on it. I could have thought and worried and then pushed it to the back of my mind but would that have done anything for me?
Like so many challenges we are quick to avoid what may appear to be painful even if the payoff is to our advantage.
Time to change time to move on, time to make that break we have kind of hinted at but as yet taken no action over.
The dream I had was triggered by a friend of mine who has been dealing with breast cancer for the past six months. She has chosen to deal with it in her way and is doing very well, but what it did do was bring home to me the fragility of many things and our own health and well-being in particular, yes, a serious illness could catch up with us at any minute.
A colleague of mine at school was fine and healthy one day, came in with a cold the next, felt rubbish the following two days and within two weeks was diagnosed advanced ME. She is still ill all these years later and is unable to do anything more than sit in a wheelchair and make pressed flower cards.
Another, complained of the inevitable headaches and went home. We saw him three months later; he had lost a great deal of weight, most of his hair and had aged considerably. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Scary stuff but something the dream brought home to me in clear detail. I was being told by my unconscious mind that unless I started living my life the way I wished to then it could pass me by and one day be presented with the ultimate shock; I was terminally ill or just too old to do the things I still have left to do.
So what would this mean to you? Nothing. If something happened to someone you knew it would be sad but it wouldn’t, in the end, stop you from getting on with everything in your life. However, it should make you turn to your own and ask the searching question are you living or existing?
It is so easy to just drift through life. We get up, get ready for school or work, or get the children dressed and out for school. We go to work for the day and earn money to pay the bills and the holidays and everything else we want materially, and then come home, have something to eat and then collapse in front of the television, or if you are an unpaid taxi service for your children, start the evening run around. You collapse into bed, and start the whole thing again in the morning.
So when do you do things which will create memories? When do you do exciting things rather than just the mundane, everyday things? When was the last time, for example, you all went out for the day and can remember it now, with a smile on your face? When was the last time you had a day to yourself to catch up on a bit of ‘Me’ time? When did you last re-charge the batteries and give yourself the boost to return to the job, the taxi runs and the demands of a family?
As I say on my Skype account, when was it we stopped being as children and making memories and began just living on re-telling them?
I have sensed a strong change in me since that dream. I have created change and it shows in the garden and when I can get hold of builder, the bedroom. Its time to continue making the stories I have from the past and create that richness of fun, pleasure and excitement now giving me another layer of stories to remember as I grow older and of course, more outrageous.
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