for a long, long time...
Feel I'm beginning to surface after being deluged by problems, heartaches, and various issues.
To start me on my way again, Life threw this at me this morning:
“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
~Michael Jordan
It is the "You have to expect things of yourself" that has caught me....caught in the maelstrom of life, I think all that thrashing around took the juice out of me and out of my life.
Going to get it back!
28 June 2014
16 June 2014
I don't know why...
I am suddenly assailed by all kinds of doubts and regrets.
Chief of these is my inability to put into words my feelings about the loss of my mother. As I've mentioned before, since I didn't see my beloved Dad (he was also an extremely important presence in the life of my DD) interred, to me he is still around....but Mom was different - I saw her suffer - a lot of it because of her stubbornness - but suffer she did, and badly...
I was comforted by these words:
A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.
A mother is beyond any notion of a beginning. That’s what makes her a mother: you cannot start the story.
When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it.
Grief requires acquainting yourself with the world again and again; each “first” causes a break that must be reset… And so you always feel suspense, a queer dread—you never know what occasion will break the loss freshly open.
It’s not a question of getting over it or healing. No; it’s a question of learning to live with this transformation. For the loss is transformative.....it's like a tree growing around an obstruction.
Taken from 'In The Long Goodbye' - Meghan O'Rourke's magnificent memoir of grieving her mother's death. In this book, she crafts a masterwork of remembrance and reflection.
Chief of these is my inability to put into words my feelings about the loss of my mother. As I've mentioned before, since I didn't see my beloved Dad (he was also an extremely important presence in the life of my DD) interred, to me he is still around....but Mom was different - I saw her suffer - a lot of it because of her stubbornness - but suffer she did, and badly...
I was comforted by these words:
A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.
A mother is beyond any notion of a beginning. That’s what makes her a mother: you cannot start the story.
When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it.
Grief requires acquainting yourself with the world again and again; each “first” causes a break that must be reset… And so you always feel suspense, a queer dread—you never know what occasion will break the loss freshly open.
It’s not a question of getting over it or healing. No; it’s a question of learning to live with this transformation. For the loss is transformative.....it's like a tree growing around an obstruction.
Taken from 'In The Long Goodbye' - Meghan O'Rourke's magnificent memoir of grieving her mother's death. In this book, she crafts a masterwork of remembrance and reflection.
It is in the presence of death...
especially of those we love - that we come face to face with our own mortality...
05 June 2014
Laws are something you merely obey...
Values are something you feel.
~ Edward Slingerland
This really clarifies things for me. Not the laws part - of course laws are to be obeyed, or if you know the laws well, they can be broken, or well, they can be broken anyway...
But what Slingerland says about values made me sit up straight. There are many ways in which 'values' are explained...I seem to get stuck every now and again in one or the other of these explanations. This one spells it out loud and clear - it is what we feel - so if we don't feel good, obviously that is not for us, and if we do feel good, then, wow, it can work for us....The key words are how you - the person - feels.
~ Edward Slingerland
This really clarifies things for me. Not the laws part - of course laws are to be obeyed, or if you know the laws well, they can be broken, or well, they can be broken anyway...
But what Slingerland says about values made me sit up straight. There are many ways in which 'values' are explained...I seem to get stuck every now and again in one or the other of these explanations. This one spells it out loud and clear - it is what we feel - so if we don't feel good, obviously that is not for us, and if we do feel good, then, wow, it can work for us....The key words are how you - the person - feels.
31 May 2014
I totally loved this take on dealing with negativeness...
Don't bury your burden in saintly silence.
Too good!!!
We learn - often the very, very hard way - to deal with negativity-negativeness. Besides the anger that surges up when people around you are constantly being negative - for and about everything and everyone, there is fear that the negativity will destroy you in some way...there is also resentment when someone else's negativity creeps into your space destroying the peace, or denting the calm, or shattering the feeling of well-being and contentment...we also sometimes are beset by feelings of low self-esteem, our sense of self-worth is trashed and we condemn ourselves for, in all probability, something that was an innocent gesture or word said or done on the spur of the moment - some spontaneous action or word...
We're told by wise people that we should look on negativeness as opportunities to learn and grow. I prefer the more direct lesson which tells us that when some kind of negativity hits us, in whichever way, we should dive in.....investigate it....and then, either forget about it, or if we can, then happily make the changes. But on no account--no account at all should bury it in saintly silence....
I particularly like Maya Angelou's take on negativeness.
'A negative statement is poison. And the negative has power. It lives. So, if you allow it to perch in your home, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. Negative words climb into the woodwork, and into the furniture, and the next thing you know they'll be on your skin.'
Too good!!!
We learn - often the very, very hard way - to deal with negativity-negativeness. Besides the anger that surges up when people around you are constantly being negative - for and about everything and everyone, there is fear that the negativity will destroy you in some way...there is also resentment when someone else's negativity creeps into your space destroying the peace, or denting the calm, or shattering the feeling of well-being and contentment...we also sometimes are beset by feelings of low self-esteem, our sense of self-worth is trashed and we condemn ourselves for, in all probability, something that was an innocent gesture or word said or done on the spur of the moment - some spontaneous action or word...
We're told by wise people that we should look on negativeness as opportunities to learn and grow. I prefer the more direct lesson which tells us that when some kind of negativity hits us, in whichever way, we should dive in.....investigate it....and then, either forget about it, or if we can, then happily make the changes. But on no account--no account at all should bury it in saintly silence....
I particularly like Maya Angelou's take on negativeness.
'A negative statement is poison. And the negative has power. It lives. So, if you allow it to perch in your home, in your mind, in your life, it can take you over. Negative words climb into the woodwork, and into the furniture, and the next thing you know they'll be on your skin.'
29 May 2014
Totally devastated...
at Maya Angelou's passing.
She taught me it was all right to make mistakes
She taught me to have a strong sense of self
She taught me about resilience
She gave me my life....
Rest in peace, Maya Angelou....
You will never be in the past tense for me.....and I will try to live, even as I am trying now, drawing strength and inspiration from you...
She taught me to have a strong sense of self
She taught me about resilience
She gave me my life....
Rest in peace, Maya Angelou....
You will never be in the past tense for me.....and I will try to live, even as I am trying now, drawing strength and inspiration from you...
23 May 2014
Lesson I learnt from Anne Lamott...
"When people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you."
~ Anne Lamott
How many times we've heard ourselves trying, sometimes desperately, to correct someone else's opinion of us...how many times have we tried to tell them that what we said means this, and not what the other person has assumed; cried over misunderstandings that got created just because the other person refused to listen to what we were trying to say instead of just hearing our voice and the words; tried to tell the person who is busy trashing us that what we did/said was what we believed in; desperately tried to correct an impression that someone whom we would like to talk to, has formed of us from hearsay, or tried to tell someone who is talking to us in this superior, self-righteous, moralistic manner, that we were responding to the circumstances that we found ourselves in, never mind the reason (for i do believe that trying to make someone understand our reasons is like paddling in the same place)...
There are so many times when we have put all our effort and then some more, into trying to correct someone's opinion of us...so much time and energy (and sometimes even desperation) into trying to show others what we are....
The truth is - Noone, not any one, other than a loving child, can really understand who you are or what you are saying, or what you are doing...and if we think that someone is caring.....think again - for noone, other than your loving child, really cares, or has the time to care or has the wish to take the time to care. How much time we waste in trying to find ways and means of being accepted, how many times we drown out our inner voice, and our inner needs in trying to please others....and all the while in reality, noone cares....
We little realize that we who are trying so desperately to show who we are, if we are not careful, we will end up losing ourselves - our real selves - our real, beautiful selves.
The alternative is so simple and stares us in the face: bask in the love of your child or of those who genuinely care and love you as you are.
What we need to accept wholeheartedly and believe - 'the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.'
~ Anne Lamott
How many times we've heard ourselves trying, sometimes desperately, to correct someone else's opinion of us...how many times have we tried to tell them that what we said means this, and not what the other person has assumed; cried over misunderstandings that got created just because the other person refused to listen to what we were trying to say instead of just hearing our voice and the words; tried to tell the person who is busy trashing us that what we did/said was what we believed in; desperately tried to correct an impression that someone whom we would like to talk to, has formed of us from hearsay, or tried to tell someone who is talking to us in this superior, self-righteous, moralistic manner, that we were responding to the circumstances that we found ourselves in, never mind the reason (for i do believe that trying to make someone understand our reasons is like paddling in the same place)...
There are so many times when we have put all our effort and then some more, into trying to correct someone's opinion of us...so much time and energy (and sometimes even desperation) into trying to show others what we are....
The truth is - Noone, not any one, other than a loving child, can really understand who you are or what you are saying, or what you are doing...and if we think that someone is caring.....think again - for noone, other than your loving child, really cares, or has the time to care or has the wish to take the time to care. How much time we waste in trying to find ways and means of being accepted, how many times we drown out our inner voice, and our inner needs in trying to please others....and all the while in reality, noone cares....
We little realize that we who are trying so desperately to show who we are, if we are not careful, we will end up losing ourselves - our real selves - our real, beautiful selves.
The alternative is so simple and stares us in the face: bask in the love of your child or of those who genuinely care and love you as you are.
What we need to accept wholeheartedly and believe - 'the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you.'
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