Half Lived Life

Half Lived Life…….or reasons to be cheerful – PART 1

As I enter my half century there’s a lot to reflect on.

What has got me through the last 50?
An indomitable spirit no less!

So here’s a potted history of the story of my life:

 

 

 

Years 0-5

 I’m born…..8 weeks after a catastrophic event that rocked the world……the assassination of JFK….if I had any notions of the world being a safe place it was knocked out of me then! Adjusting and adapting to a rollercoaster lifestyle which I’m completely obilivous of. In this stage of my life, I exchange a tropical landscape (akin to paradise) for the colder shores of the Northern Hemisphere so snow is a new experience! I sample the delights of my first school and realise that I love learning!

Years 5-10

Reality bites……and I’m learning things that life is not a bowl of cherries! Parental conflict inhibits their childrens’ growth but this appears to be the destiny prescribed; so layers of fear and sadness build up in young hearts. At this stage, I try out my second and third schools as we return to a political battlefield (aka “Paradise”) and brother no. 3 arrives. Paradise is not so pretty so we return to freezing temperatures and hearts to match!

Years 10-15

I discover a flair for writing and while away the hours (that are not filled up with responsibility and chores) by writing poetry and bits of fiction. Learning is still a great adventure but adventure has its fraught moments! Teenage angst and depression kicks in and so it’s the start of the worst wonder years and I wonder if I’ll ever grow …into a graceful swan!! Books become my refuge and spending time at the library is a highlight!

Years 15-20

The swan makes an appearance but low self esteem prevents me from truly appreciating my worth. I lose myself in my insecurities and familial dysfunction but keep a smile pasted on my face….so I fool everyone but myself. People-pleasing is my default setting so I become mediocre by burying my light under a bushel. Whilst I believe myself to be too weak and inadequate to chase after my dreams, I bump into a pipe dream that is merely an illusion and on the way to becoming a full blown nightmare!

Years 20-25

The world is certainly not my oyster. No oyster could thrive in the murky depths of my mind…. and my soul is crushed under the weight of the world on my shoulders. Just as well, since I choose vegetarianism as a healthy option.  I get hitched and have Baby no. 1 who is adorable and as perfect as he needs to be. Motherhood is life-changing and I take to it like a duck to water (responsible people do!) and there’s plenty to smile about!

Years 25-30

Into each life some rain has to fall but this is torrential! I’m starting to see the wood from the trees and it’s not picturesque. Imperfectly perfect is all I can say about this period. I learn things I’d rather forget but this is the character building stage when I have to take the “slings and arrows” of what fate’s dished out (or so I think!).

Years 30-35

Wow – two more babies in this era and they’re both all I could imagine and want. I’m a blissful mother as I have managed to produce a mini-me (daughter) too and that’s a good feeling. But the clouds are never far away and I start growing some courage….deep within tiny shoots develop….and I water and feed them day by day. I also feed my mind good books and endeavour to keep myself in good company but that’s not proving to be easy!

Years 40-45

A period of confident growth. I’ve analysed my life choices and found that they were based on fear and sadness so what good can come of that? Now I come into my own, I grab at opportunities and take “the road less travelled”. I’m relieved to find that it’s not as arduous as I first thought. My body may be tired but my soul’s rested and I experience freedom and (god forbid!) fun! Challenges are the making (not the breaking) of me and my unbound spirit soars.

Years 45-50

I love life – what a revelation! I can (almost) do as I please and not please anyone. My inner resources are strong as I become solution-orientated. Problems come and….go……and I try to see the lesson before I jump into depressive mode. My heart’s light (body needs work) but hey I’m thriving and surviving. I’m ending this half century (and starting a new one) strong.

At this stage of my life:

I’m grateful (for everything I’ve learnt the hard way)

I’m free to be myself (except when I choose not to be)

I’m solvent (most of the time)

I’m in good shape (when I don’t over-indulge)

I even believe in miracles (in fact, I am a miracle!)

 

Life has taught me that it’s short and I need to pay attention to the details – like me, myself and I - and “attention must be paid”……to my mind and my soul…..purity matters.

 

So here’s to the next 50 years of a glass half full……may my cup runneth over! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revolutions and resolutions

Each New Year we make resolutions. Resolutions are something that we make a decision about – we eat so we diet…..we smoke so we quit…..we walk so we run…..we collect so we de-clutter…..we spend so we save.

Resolutions are simple but our mental and emotional systems are complex. We can’t shift our mental gears quick enough to move our butts. Our emotions are so unhealthy that we can’t avoid the tempting Danish, cheesecake or barbecued spare ribs. Artificial stimulants are appealing as they seem to give us confidence and make us “one of the crowd”.  Shopping is the biggest crowd puller and it’s easy to get hooked into the “I love a bargain” brigade. Who can’t love pretty useless things that deplete our savings?!

Resolutions are for the weak-willed as they can be broken and re-made. Flawed as humans are, we love to break our resolves and turn off the self-discipline. Discipline is hard work so why do it? We want to but we just can’t stick to the game plan. There’s a myriad of distractions – a busy social life, clamouring spouses and children, online activities, work that can fill up any available time slot and even plain, old depression……we’re depressed about feeling so overloaded!

What’s required is not a quiet resolve but a loud, all singing and dancing revolution! A revolution can really clear away the cobwebs and radical measures applied to self are far more effective. A revolution is just an idea that’s come of age. It’s like a simmering pot of stew that either burns dry or boils over.

Within us all, is a mini volcano waiting to erupt. Our brains might be programmed for routine but our spirits revel in rebellion. Doesn’t it feel wonderful when you throw a sickie and do something delicious like taking a few good books to bed? Isn’t it uplifting to think that the world won’t come to an end just because we’ve forgotten to do the laundry and make sandwiches? Procrastination is a form of revolution; we are reactionaries against the very systems that provide structure and support. Yes we need some of the same old, same old but a lot of it needs refreshing (and not everyone’s thoughts are fresh!).

Divorce is major rebellion and an “enough is enough” antidote to lame self-esteem. When you’ve lived in quiet desperation, hoping and praying that things will get better….and they don’t….then you know it’s time to revolt. What’s really revolting is putting up with abuse and to keep on making excuses for it!

Revolutions are messy and that’s why most people shy away. The emotional cost of protest and establishment of a new order takes determination, persistence and courage. Revolutions are not for the budget-conscious; the financial costs can break the bank so the financially astute among us will choose a resolution over a revolution any day!

Revolution, when it doesn’t involve hundreds and thousands of devotees, is about a change of environment – be it spiritual or physical. Our physical location can be a hindrance or a help to achieve our goals. A cramped room in an attic can provide the stimulus for the production of great novels (Charles Dickens had great success in his!).

There’s not too many famous writers, inventors, sculptors who’ve lived in opulence and travelled in style. However, following a revolution of spirit - where they dared, cared, shared or even became plain scared – (artists known as the movers and shakers of their time) changed the world.

Revolutions are necessary to make us sit up and think. It puts “change” at the top of the agenda and a change is surely what we all need. Resolution is the strait-laced cousin of revolution and can be a way of seeing things more clearly. Whether it’s resolve or full blown revolution, a new year is a time to take stab at being or doing something new…….so just do it!

 

Anything but lonely

“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’ve had good company” – Benjamin Brooks-Dutton

This is the articulate observation from an up and coming blog “Life as a widower”  penned by the afore-named, which catalogues a journey following the loss of his wife in a freak accident in November 2012.

I find this statement both harrowing and poignant as I face up to the fact that I’ve never had good company. I don’t like to admit it but it’s true. Loneliness has been a constant theme running through my life.

I’m not unhappy about it though. In fact, I love my own company and am a person who loves to go within…and stay there. I’m no retiring wallflower and find myself reasonably popular with a sprinkling of close friends. I’m not short of a social life and my phone does ring with invitations at decent intervals. I was married, have children, now divorced and quite content in my own skin but….there’s something missing.

I’m missing a soul mate of the opposite sex. He passed me by or perhaps I didn’t recognize him when he showed up. I was a closed book, socially awkward and deeply insecure.

 I had no idea about beauty so what was reflected back at me in the mirror seemed ordinary. I didn’t excel at anything but I did have somewhat of a wordsmith flair. I loved to write, to paint with words but most of them were for my eyes only.

Loneliness is not a burden if you haven’t known it’s opposite. For me, the opposite of lonely would have been to have memories of a special someone who thought I was the bees knees. To have had a childhood filled with love and laughter would have set me on a better path. 

My childhood and adolescence was spent locked away in my bedroom listening to my warring parents. I heard and witnessed things that left indelible marks on my heart and mind. I didn’t know what happiness was and my early role models were sugar coated characters on TV shows.

I believed in love and craved it but, with little experience of the unconditional kind, I never knew how and where to find it. I wrote poetry in despair and found a talent but not an outlet for it.

I’ve not been completely loveless. I have always attracted a good deal of it but in fragments and slivers through friendship and little kindnesses. I’m a giver not a taker so I guess that’s why my love cup doesn’t runneth over.

I embrace loneliness as I do the other sorrows of life. It’s the only way I know how to survive. I’d sooner smile than cry and laugh than scream. My soul’s sensitive and my heart’s brittle. It’s been broken many times (not in the romantic sense) but by life or God showing me that there’s no straight paths.

I’m not lonely but I am alone. I am alone but I don’t feel the emptiness. My own company is the best I’ve known. I’ve been lonely in a crowd but never on my own.

Being alone is not lonely; it's a rich experience if you know how to spend time.

Wlecome to my world aka Pity Party extravaganza!

 

Maybe I’ve stepped on a few too many ants, swatted flies and drawn blood from pesky mosquitoes but life seems to bring me to an old, dirt road. If M Scott Peck believed the spiritual life is the road less travelled then I ought to get a satellite naviagator for my life - the road well travelled and in need of new tarmac!

I was raised in the home and school of Hard Knocks……it’s not a lie but could be considered an exaggeration. I guess you might say that everyone comes up the hard way…in some way…and adversity has propelled them to fame and success. That’s true and there are many examples of paupers who’ve turned themselves into princes but what about the ones who don’t……the ones who find solace in alcohol, drugs, food, too many possessions, abusive relationships and other forms of self harm.

We’re all damaged; some more or less than others. Grief dogs our footsteps wherever we may roam on this planet. We’re grieving for our lost souls that we gave away too easily or allowed others to trample over.

Well worn path

There’s a hole in my heart; it’s so big that nothing stays for very long in it. Love comes but it rarely stays so I have to get used to my emotional terrain being a barren wasteland. Toxins have been dumped in my mind as fear seeped through my mental rececces; fear foisted on to me by my caregivers.

Confidence and courage deserted me at the most important times in my life; like when choosing a partner, home, job, investments etc. My ego has been knocked sideways, forwards and backwards and though battered, it’s still standing – don’t ask me how!!?

The gratitude attitude comes easily to me even when you throw me a few peanuts! I count my blessings, no matter how tiny they are and some days they’re invisible.

Fulfilling my destiny? Not a chance as my emotional fragility causes me to wallow….in the flotsam and jetsam….of my daily doings. Destiny is survival and here I am….so destiny is being discharged.

Living on purpose? That’s a tough one ‘cos I try but many things conspire to distract me from my purpose. Don’t complain and don’t explain is the motto I’m forced to live by. I only share my gripes and groans with the chosen few – me, myself and I.

Depressed? Not me…..I smile and soldier through my pains. I’m a pleasant companion to have on the pot-holed road well travelled as I know when to zip it. Occasionally, I let rip when frustration overwhelms but dark looks, idle threats, not to mention, kindness and compassion keep vitriol at bay.

I’m the good person….that bad things are attracted to. Perhaps it’s to stop “bad” from happening to other people!?? Is it karma…..if so….what the hell have I been doing in past lives?? Or is it that I am the light and darkness seems me as a challenge to overcome?

Questions are good; questioning is healthy. Problem solving I’ve done a lot of and though there is a solution to every problem….it often eludes me.

I’m pitiful and imperfect. God forbid the thought I might be otherwise. My ego’s been reined in and penned up.  I’m ordinary and all too human. I need to forgive myself and others on my path and keep moving.

There’s always a load to carry on the road well travelled and the party don't stop!

 

 

 

 

 

Rabbit, Rabbit

According to the Chinese horoscope, I’m a rabbit. After researching the qualities and characteristics I find that I’m a bunny to a T!

I’m sensitive, caring, empathetic and love a good chin wag. I’m not a natural born leader but I’m not a blind follower either.  I thrive in organisations that have flat structures not pyramids that are ruled by the head. I am a creature of the heart and hate confrontations of any kind. I believe anger must be managed (not suppressed)  and should be expressed in a respectful way.

Rabbits attract and generate love. I have a furry bundle that lives in my home called Hunny, who is sweet by name and nature. A rabbit is not an attention seeker but it’s attention is sought after by others….one of them being…..the Rooster…who is its  mortal enemy. I know a couple of roosters and they’re not my cup of tea.

It’s fortunate that I’m compatible with my offspring – a snake, pig and ox so life’s pretty good.

Rabbits are not boring…no way….they are creative and artistic. They are rich in knowledge more than possessions.

Peaceful and tranquil , the rabbit is an ideal companion for a beach holiday or more cultured one. Sitting around for a rabbit is creative activity; their minds are working even if their bodies are still. Rabbits require thinking time and space to re-energise.

A rabbit’s home is his cathedral. It is a sanctuary for communion with its higher self. It must contain  serenity and beauty. The people a rabbit shares her home with should understand her unique sensitivities and negativity of any kind is not permitted…..emotional abusers keep out!

A rabbit has emotional intelligence but is fragile with it. If you hurt a rabbit then you have hurt an innocent being. Rabbits don’t indulge in cheap vanity and shallow behaviour; they are steadfast and true to their values.

When a rabbit meets an enemy, it retreats and never fights back. This is not cowardice but an act of non-violent protest. They don’t hate as that is negative and only adds to the hate that’s already out there beyond the hutch. They choose avoidance tactics. They understand a profound truth: no man is an enemy; no man is a friend but every man is a teacher.

A rabbit’s best friend in love or business is a sheep, pig or another rabbit. They have no conflicts as they know that to argue is to waste  precious minutes and lose out on the joy of living.

When a rabbit is in the company of their soul mate; every day is special. In fact, the ordinary transforms into the extra-ordinary……watching a sunset, listening to the rain and nibbling on some grass. It's a little piece of rabbit heaven!

I’m a happy bunny when I’m left to my own devices and there’s no such thing as lonely for me. But if I get too much of my own company I’ll need to hook up with another rabbit, sheep or pig.... and then I’ll be in clover.

Happy Bunny-day to me!

America...bite that bullet!

One more angel in heaven

Another gun tragedy and another wake-up call for America to review its gun laws. Trust me, they won’t. The gun lobby is one of the strongest and most vociferous. They can wax lyrical about why it’s important to carry a gun for protection; the right to defend themselves from attack. America still thinks of itself as gun slingers in the Wild West…..and that’s primitive thinking for the most powerful country in the world.

Let mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters weep but it will change nothing. America is resistant to change and to life enhancing strategies . America has problems…big ones….ones that they’ve created to which they can find no solution.

Take the parent of the shooter, Nancy Lanza. She’s reported to be a Doomsday prepper and is one of the devotees of survivialist propaganda. She was stockpiling for the end of the world…next week. What has happened to rational thinking? Why do a great many US citizens take these theories seriously? I don’t know of anywhere else in the world where scare-mongering like this works. Most of us in other parts of the world are grateful to have another day, even if it proves to be our last.

Tears for fears

I think it’s a big country mentality; the buildings, cars, roads, homes and food are bigger but the brain has not enlarged to match. Of course, it’s easy for me to talk….I live in a small-ish country where police don’t go on routine patrols with guns. Police here prefer to err on the side of caution and the law states that every man is innocent until proven guilty. The law is to be upheld not taken into our own hands.

Pro-life means being anti-gun – simple? Not so for our brothers across the pond. They need to protect themselves from “the enemy”!!? I thought it was every Christian’s duty to love their enemies or at least make peace with them. Perhaps there is a way to love someone after you’ve pumped them with a few bullets!

The gun culture is a smoke screen for savagery. The lobbyists in favour of holding on to dangerous weaponry will wear the biggest grin when talking about their private arsenal. If you ask me, they should stick it where the sun don’t shine. Those who live by the gun will die so….and Adam Lanza, was no doubt following his mother’s example in seeing guns as powerful.

Guns hurt people. 28 people from Sandy Hook , Connecticut will not be sharing Christmas with their families. There’ll be an empty space in those homes and in many a heart. This tragedy has touched the world. Many people are numb through grief but, around the world, people are also numb with disbelief….that America can’t work it out.




He can do it...with your help...yes he can!

If you want to reduce people’s exposure to crime, for both perpetrators and victims, then remove weapons of mass destruction. If you believe in life then defend it, minus a gun. No one needs a gun unless they’ve got mischief on their mind. I don’t believe it’s ever acceptable to have children and guns under the same roof.

America, I urge you to big up on compassion, take this bull by the horns and stop the slaughter of more innocents. This is not the first school massacre and it won’t be the last. Fear is the evil in your society and it’s senseless to point a gun at it.  America has to bite the bullet in reducing public access to guns.

Land of the brave; be brave. It takes more courage to lay down a weapon than squeeze the trigger. It’s not macho; it’s sick……. to count bodies instead of blessings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respect for the living

 Memories are both happy and painful. Remembrance allows us to indulge in the happy times and also to wallow in self-pity. Our memories seem to store the bad stuff more than the good. When we fill our minds  with negative images from our past then our vision becomes clouded and we withdraw from the joy of life.

Humans have got it wrong when we revere the dead. People who die become glorified and rightly so in some heroic cases but what about the glory of life? How do we celebrate it if we heap pressure upon pressure on ourselves when we should be enjoying the whole breathing experience?

When men go to war, it’s seen as courageous so we remember their sacrifice. The returnees come back to their families with damaged bodies and minds. The latter is the hardest to cure and poses a serious threat to healthy family life.

Memoriam to life

I don’t dwell on my past too much as there’s pain and very few pleasures. When I was young I threw away much of my opportunities as the adults around me didn’t show me any respect so I came to treat myself in disrespectful ways. I courted bad company, married and divorced it. I don’t look back because I prefer to look forwards.

People die….it’s a natural law. It’s hard to lose someone you love but it’s even harder to be a good loser. You always hurt the people closest to you but you immortalize them in your heart at death. It’s easy to dwell on the good points of a dead person but more challenging to dwell on them whilst their walking around.

People mess up during their lives…that’s natural law too. Who can live a completely virtuous and wholesome life? Perhaps a saint but most of them have feet of clay too. Many a saint has led a debauched lifestyle before turning to piety.

When I see people lighting candles for the dead, it makes me uncomfortable. The hypocrisy hits me more than anything else when I recall how these people were thought of when they were in living…..sometimes hardly at all.

The relationship between dead parents and their living children is a fragile one. When parents are ailing, they seem to want to their children around but, in their youth, children were dismissed – seen but not heard. There are a minority of parents who have got this parenting thing right and they accept that their children cannot be around for them.

I am life

“Life does not tarry with yesterday,” Kahlil Gibran reminds us and our children are like “ living arrows”. That clearly implies that once, as parental archers we take aim, then we can’t guarantee seeing where the arrow lands. Children are not boomerangs so don’t expect to see them once they start chasing their dreams.

This is a call to respect life, while it is with us. Respect each person, plant, flower even when you don’t agree with them. It’s hard but it’s the way of peace and if want some in your heart then you’ll have to swallow your baggage.

To respect life is to leave it alone.  To respect yourself, say “no” – many times, over and over, as there are people who don’t accept that word from you. Life goes on and life is what you make of it…in each moment. Honour the pain of your past and look towards a bright future. Draw a line under your past and renew yourself and others.

You can’t make life good for another person when they don’t want it. The veil of ignorance cannot be torn down by you. Let them that haters hate but you will not share that death.

Life and me are one!

Respect yourself above all since your life is about you and no one sees it as you do.

Every woman (and man) is an island

When John Donne, the English poet, penned his Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions in 1624 he wrote for an audience in an era far removed from the one we live in today.

He’d never have imagined that the earth would be re-aligned -  new countries would spring up and old countries would be renamed. The idea of community has been around since time immemorial, ever since birds of a feather have flocked together. 

We have continents and countries that are interconnected and separated by race, religion and nationalist rhetoric. The human race is big on belonging and ownership – the source of nearly all conflict. There’s nothing new about the unification of humanity. Saints, clerics, scholars, rich and poor men understand inter-dependence but what if it’s all too much?

John Donne was an unashamed romantic. He believed in the brotherhood of man, building the world a home and furnishing it with love…growing apple trees and honey bees and snow white coloured doves…get the picture? He would have probably taught the world to sing too!

Blue Bayou

A harmonious world might exist in another galaxy but it’s definitely not Planet Earth! This clod, known as our world, is in dire straits. Hell we can’t even get along in cyberspace let alone in a parking space. Globalisation has made us acutely aware of the challenges we face in re-thinking some of our common values.

The information highway enables us with a username and log-in but disables us from human connections. We have facetime, email time, skype time, phone and text time. There’s very few avenues left for us to escape from our fellow man unless we’re prepared to brave the Antarctic or the Gobi. Communication today is shallow. 

Parents phone their children and ask what they’ve had for lunch. Children phone their parents whilst shopping for shoes trying to squeeze even more cash out of them. We complain and fret simply because there’s a ready ear that we can pour vitriol into. Perhaps women are among the worst offenders since we just love sharing and dissecting the myriad details of our lives. Men, especially the ones with a holier-than-thou attitude, will feel slightly superior until we do some eavesdropping, and find that bitchiness is not just a female perogative.

My idyll

Let phones, emails and males go unanswered and ignored . Our souls seek peace. Men and peace rarely go together.I've yet to meet one who's in touch with his feminine side fails but never out of touch with his contacts who also thinks he’s a babe magnet! 

His toys or weapons – oh yes they have a sharp side -  iphone, ipod, fuel injection and eyeing the softer sex can be causes for concern. He can stalk, provoke, beguile, dupe, disconnect and economise the truth with any or all of those aids. A man’s world is a hallowed domain that he doesn’t care to share and…. he’s welcome to it!

Traditionally women have been the care-givers so they seek out objects on which they can shower their love and affection. That’s why women love purchases and associations. Shoes, clothes, cosmetics, careers and relationships devour their time and wardrobe space.

The men in their life were sometimes acquired like works of art. They are displayed (or just splayed) on the sofa. Sometimes they move from the sofa to the fridge for a snack and a root beer. Nearly always they’re falling asleep sitting down…in front of cable TV. 

Crowded House!

Motherhood is not as attractive an option – too much like hard work….and who wants to work that hard….after a hard day’s work? How can you possibly take care of someone else’s needs if you’ve neglected your own?

Women have gone full circle and claimed Planet Venus for their own. On Venus they find many of their own kind who’ve tried to share their lives with one man or several and it just hasn’t worked out. They haven’t found their equal and looking for him is proving tiresome.

Modern woman (and man) have found sanctuary in their interests. For some, an evening spent on decoupage, stencilling, cross stitch, painting, jewellery making, flower arranging, glass blowing or moulding clay is wholly satisfying. The more energetic find inspiration from toning their bodies at Zumba, sultry, Latin dancing, kick boxing, cycling and circuit training. The intellectual woman (and man) spends time with books – a mind journey will never leave you wanting for physical company – “get out of my face, my nose is staying in this book or glued to my e-reader!” Single-minded woman is a rambunctious story weaver – she’s a blogger, a poet, playwright, novelist and raconteur. She doesn’t need inane company to feel alive.

I don't need rescuing!

She creates Hobby Island and devotes herself to it. Her island is not a lonely place but she is alone. In the vast ocean that is life she stumbles across many islands and she takes pleasure in them all.  Each is not without its dangers though….the danger of discovery.

There’s nothing worse than finding yourself on an island that’s inhabited. Guess who could be coming to dinner? Some ship wrecked dead beat who’ll bore the pants off you with a  repartee of swashbuckling tall stories After all, his imagination has been running wild amongst the flora and fauna on the island and you're the eye candy! The best thing you can do is jump into your boat and hoist up the sails. He’s about to pillage and plunder.

Out there somewhere you may find what you’re looking for but only if you don’t settle for second best. Swaying palms, cool breezes, shimmering seas, bucketfuls of sunshine and white, hot sands – if it’s too good to be true then you’re probably right -  even paradise can be tainted.

Free spirits

Try island hopping before you decide to settle. You are as alluring as the most bountiful island on earth. Don’t be hasty and part with all of your ripeness. There’ll be invaders who’ll want to claim a piece of you. Your time, your space is precious and your shores are to die for. The crested waves know it and impatiently rush to taste the sweetness.

A woman’s heart is an island; a refuge and comfort for herself. Sometimes she’ll share herself and sometimes she’ll erect fences. If she allows you to spend a night under a canopy of tropical stars, watching the sun dip into the horizon, kindly accept. When dawn comes she will busy herself and you may find yourself rebuffed.

Floating my boat

A man and woman are opposites by nature but there is a place for them to meet in harmony. It takes a lot of trying and failing before you get it right. No one should ever feel stranded as gadgets help us keep in touch or you can opt for the old-fashioned method of communication – a message in a bottle.

Enjoy your space and if you ever want to experience the tranquility of an island home then put up a “DO NOT DISTURB” sign. Enlightenment never seeks a companion and neither should you…unless his name is solitude and he knows when to zip it!

Woman (and man) is an island. Home is everywhere and nowhere. Don’t tie her down. Let her spirit dance in the sand and swim to the darkest depths. There’s poetry in her heart but she needs a bolt hole to bring forth her creativity so let her (and him) be.

A critique of criticism

Criticism, in my book, is always negative if you label it as such. It’s not often constructive and it’s sometimes used as a weapon against you. 


The test of effective criticism is that it doesn’t hurt and its’ even welcome. Hurtful words and dramatic exaggerations are not used and the recipient knows (because he receives unconditional love and lives in a supportive environment 95% of the time) that its delivered with love – that’s constructive!

 Criticism is the ego in overdrive – the unhealthy part of us – that can’t mind our own business.

It’s a great human failing that we wish to point out (and take great pleasure in doing so) each other’s inadequacies more than we remark upon each other’s strengths. We think we’re the experts on everything though our own houses may not be in order. We carry on as if we’re perfect. We’ll laugh at others’ mistakes as if we’ve never done a stupid thing in our lives.

Criticism means that you have a holier-than-thou attitude. You’re like the cat that’s licked the cream and eaten the canary. You know it all. You have an interest that you wish to protect – an inflated ego with bragging rights.

She's so perfect?!

There can be positive purpose in criticism. It might be a call to action. “I think you’re going to need a crane to get you out of bed if you don’t start losing some weight” – negative speak.
“ Why don’t we both start going to the gym or jogging in the park?” – positive speak.

Criticism rarely cures and may even aggravate emotional conditions. Anorexia, bulimia, OCD, depression, panic attacks can all be symptoms of criticism. Psychosomatic symptoms are also known to be a consequence of criticism.

Our parents puts us on the rocky road when they start venting their frustrations at us. “Why can’t you be like Mary-Beth, she helps her mother with the chores?” “When I was your age I was better behaved with better grades!” “Do you have to play music so that the neighbours are deafened?”

Hear no evil, speak no evil!

Criticism is not love as we know it, but it’s a kind of tough love. Problem being that it’s so tough it could break you. 
It certainly breaks your self-esteem until you believe you’re worthless. Childhood is a delicate time and children cannot grow healthily without love.

Sad to say, many children who are now adults have never known such love and that’s one of the reasons the world is in such a mess. To put it in a nutshell - war and poverty are caused by a huge vacuum of love (and probably criticism has made a contribution too). It may sound simplistic but it’s the truth.

Admonishments are necessary to instil discipline. Discipline is important for productivity and social order. You have to be love and then give love. Look into a child’s eyes, touch their cheek and deliver plenty of hugs. This will benefit your relationship greatly, more than treats and toys. You cannot hide the truth from a child; he knows if he doesn’t live in a happy home and that knowledge does irreparable damage.

Everyone has a dark side. There are some self-improvement blogs that advise you to examine yourself when a criticism is hurled at you. It’s a valuable tool but don’t become a door mat. 
I have a dark side but I rarely let it out and it’s kept under surveillance at all times.
 I’d rather concentrate on the sides of myself that are bright and positive, in the hope that my dark side may eventually see the light!

Constructively destructive

Criticism is most often channelled through anger. Angry faces and angry words are not going to help anyone to improve. Anger is a debilitating condition and anyone who can’t control theirs needs help or isolate themselves from the triggers…..preferably on a desert island.

Criticism can be a hidden form of abuse.
 It’s subtle yet powerful. Sensitive people are brought down by this vile display of egotism. Criticism is fruitless since the person you’re directing it at may not be able to change their inherent character. Criticism is in the mind of the other person so let your actions speak louder than their words!

Criticism is not the way to win friends and influence people. Criticism destroys relationships. Love is patient; love is kind and when the love you have is neither of those, then it’s time to get out.

Don’t become a verbal punchbag, justifying yourself is a waste of time. Get out of the habit of criticism and into the habit of gratitiude. Thank your critic for his input but leave that sh** at the door.  
Silence your inner critic and you’ll find the world a beautiful place; it doesn’t have to work according to your directives. Let go and let it be.