By Lisa Cherry, on December 29th, 2011%
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Vfp48laS8″>
So we have arrived at the end of another year, or in the words of the great John Lennon, another year over and a new one just began. It is one of my favourite times of the year, far more meaningful to me than Christmas, and it spares any negative emotional yearning that the week prior to this always makes room for. It doesn’t take hold of me because of the external celebrations on offer but because of the internal opportunities to pause, reflect and create. This time allows us to quantify what we have achieved, note who we have in our lives that were not here at the beginning of the year and who we no longer have around us. The deepening of long term friendships is always a favourite reflection for me and it is the ability to project all of that information into the future in terms of thinking about what the following year may hold, that really captures me.
I have given 2012 an incredible amount of thought. I have a clarity about the year ahead and what I want to achieve that can only be described as daring. But, if we are to fully understand that the future is made up by what we do in the present moments that we have right now, then we absolutely have to set ourselves challenges beyond our wildest dreams.
Glossy magazines and newspaper articles are currently spouting the monotonous resolutions dialogue that involves all that we should undoubtedly be striving for anyway…losing weight, getting fit and reducing death-enhancing substance use! These are the kind of goals that we set in order to feel like we ‘fit in’ with what we think people want from us. These are essentially setting resolutions for others’ approval. I’m suggesting that we set different goals altogether.
Make your future different, make it really different. Make resolutions that come from your inner desires born of your authentic self which stem from your very core. Set goals that frighten you as they seem out of your reach, like dreams. I realise that this is contrary to much of what you will read which will include ‘keeping to realistic goals’. But I absolutely wholeheartedly know, that if you reach for the stars, even if you get to the trees, you will have achieved something amazing.
I have set a goal for myself that is terrifying. I know I can do it. I believe it is there for me to do. I know I can make it happen. But the voice of doubt that sits on my shoulder from time to time is saying “You can’t do that”, “Why do you think you can do that?” and “Who do you think you are?”. Well, I am going to do it and I know that when I sit down next year and pause and reflect and look at what I have achieved and created, I will be able to know that I made it happen. I made it happen and I ignored the doubting voice and the constraints of limited thinking. So tell me, what will your resolutions look like? Are you looking at the same picture that you looked at a year ago or are you going to change your future into a future you want for yourself… because I know you can!
. . . → Read More: Authentic New Year Resolutions?
By Lisa Cherry, on December 8th, 2011%
It’s time for a Christmas post. I feel I have to do one and I absolutely know that my regular readers will not be expecting anything other than an alternative post from me compared to most blogging/articles on Christmas right now. Most posts in the Health section seem to focus on at best, managing family relationships, delegating some of the chores, managing the need to be perfect, dealing with guilt….I can’t connect with any of it. So this post is for those of you who sit on the planet I sit on.
The whole world, it seems to me every year, would have us believe that this is a time of year where families sit in one room together happily eating Turkey, playing charades (likes that’s a normal thing to do!) and smiling knowingly at one another. We’re led to thinking that all people are purchasing bits of plastic that no-one even wants, needs or can justify its very existence. That we all have fabulous trees plucked from the ground draped around the house and that we all eat and drink to excess and need an Alka-Seltzer to recover. And yes, some people do indeed live like that during this festive season.
But thinking outside of this, what is Christmas all about for the child in care or the care leaver? It’s a fat slap in the face as to how their life looks nothing like the lives that the media is showing. That knowledge that every person in their lives is paid to be there. It’s a day when the doors of whatever support services are being used are actually closed.
And what is it for the child who lives in fear of their parents? It’s the holidays, which means that both parents are at home, fighting, drinking, frightening.
What is Christmas for the homeless person? It is absolutely nothing other than yet another day of freezing cold Winter weather and possibly some extra food being dished out by the overspill of irrelevant Supermarket food needing displacement prior to close of day on Christmas Eve. I remember one year dishing out food on the strand – freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberries from warmer climates seemed almost offensive but I desperately wanted to be involved in the solution, any solution, even though it seemed a weird way of being able to go about it.
What is Christmas for the parent who has lost a child? I cannot even begin to imagine and I daren’t.
The list could go on… and on and on and well into the rest of the world but I’ll spare us that.
What is Christmas for me? It has been many things over the years, each year bringing something else for me to ponder and each year being slightly less challenging. I spent many Christmases alone as a young person recovering from the effects of being in care and also as a homeless teenager, wandering the streets aimlessly clutching luncheon vouchers dished out from the night shelter. I have had many difficult Christmases but my children have helped me to some degree have some tradition and sentiment about it that I would never have allowed myself to have were they not in my life.
I love putting up the tree with every year of their childhood represented by an ornament made in their primary years. I love filling their stockings and ringing the bells on them on Christmas morning to say Santa has arrived – although last year they told me off as they were still asleep and it was “to early” (teenagers need sleep, even on Christmas Day it seems!).
I like the smell of cinnamon and oranges and I love the sparkly lights on the tree. Last night I sang with the local Singing Group which was lovely and had a Christmassy feel about it that I liked, especially with all the families there and children joining in.
What really cheers me up is when people step outside of their bubble and remember that Christmas is an incredibly difficult time of year for lots of people. But essentially, the world will not be a better place until we spend every day of the year trying to make a difference, thinking about others, understanding our own privileges and not making assumptions about how people live. I use this time to reflect, be grateful and try and make a difference, not only for Christmas time but for every day, all the time. That to me is what Christmas is about….that is how I makes sense if it for me. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas x
. . . → Read More: Is it that time of year again?
By Lisa Cherry, on January 7th, 2011%
Social Media is a big part of my life. Its now a big part of most people’s lives. I embrace it as a tool to use for my businesses and also for my personal life. It keep s me in touch with friends all around the country as if we were all still hanging out together in the various pockets of our intertwined histories….at school, at college, at University, at a particular workplace, ante-natal, post-natal, various courses, numerous Holidays, events, group therapies (ha). If I’ve met you in the last five years and we’ve become friends, chances are, you’re on my Facebook, everyone else can be ‘found’ or can ‘find’ me. Combine my personal and professional Facebook accounts and my Twitter accounts and I am probably in touch with around two and half thousand people a day. Wow! That’s a lot of people.
So what happens when one day a boyfriend from 1987, who inhabits a pocket of history that you’d really rather forget, requests you to become friends? It was six months ago when such a request came flying onto my BlackBerry. It wasn’t that long ago when you could potentially never be found again should you wished it. The ability to reinvent yourself and rewrite chunks of your history were a given. But Social Media has made our worlds a microcosm of existance where we can be found, for better or worse. I spent a good three days pondering whether to accept or delete this potential conversation…
1987 was not a good time for me. I was 17 years old and well into the depths of self destruction, self loathing and substance abuse. I was not long out of the care of the Local Authority and at that time, homelessness always followed such a stay and I was well into the beginning of my two years without anywhere to live. I met this particular boyfriend at a shared house supplied to me by a faceless Social Worker…..I have no recollection as to how or why I was in a completely alien part of the country (Wolverhampton) with a Social Worker I don’t remember, entering into a shared house for people in pain and distress, otherwise known as The Abandoned! He was there and his memory serves him far better than mine.
The details will have to be kept until the book is published later this year. Suffice to say we were stuck together like glue for about 6 months terminating this union in Penzance, Cornwall before I headed off to London. Unfortunately he made the mistake of giving me the ultimatum that all addicts must face…its me or the drugs. The drugs of course won hands down (luckily only for three more years did I dedicate myself to alcohol and substances). Unfortunately, for him, that was the end of that, apart from a brief hello in 1993.
Little could we have known that meeting up after 6 months of writing to each other daily on Facebook, 23 years later, would result in the rekindling of a whole heap of emotions. So when I wasn’t looking, my life changed. Again.
The Universe continues to do that which it does and it needs no interfering from me. I have no idea where this particular leg of the journey may take me, but the beauty is that I don’t need to – the Unverse will manage all of that. In the meantime, I wish you all much love and I urge you all to be mindfull of who you accept as friends on Facebook ;0)
. . . → Read More: Social Media and the Universe…
By Lisa Cherry, on December 30th, 2010%
Having reflected upon the last year in a recent Blog post, I can honestly say that this year has ended as strangely as it began. I have so many people in my life that simply were not here at the beginning of the year. I have had ideas that I did not envisage were capable of being generated from my thinking. I have shifted emotionally in ways I hadn’t thought possible or necessary. I have recovered from many things that I didn’t know I needed to recover from.
I love New Year far more than Xmas because for me, it makes me think about newness. The excitement of the anticipation of what may be, tantalises me like Dark Chocolate Brownies. I want to clean the house and my mind, rid myself of any negative influences and generally take stock of where I’m going and what I want to achieve in the next 12 months.
The notion of making resolutions irritates me on many levels, not least becuase they are usually taken in the negative. For example, I want to stop smoking/drinking so much/eating so much. Or I want to lose weight/a dress size/my relationship. I don’t want to think about what I don’t want to do anymore, I want to think about what I do want to do!
I do want to continue to meet wonderfully inspiring people, who challenge, support and love me. I do want to continue looking after my well being, eating well, playing well, sleeping well. I do want to help my children continue through their difficult journey of adolescence. And I do want to keep growing and developing and embracing all that life offers me. And of course, I do want to continue having love as the cornerstone of all that is good and beautiful in my life. Love makes love….and in the meantime, there is always Green and Blacks ;0)
Happy New Year xxx
. . . → Read More: A time to reflect…
|
Subscribe to the Newsletter
|
