Your Comfort Zone is the place where you feel safe and secure. It’s the place where nothing and no-one really challenge you. In this place you are never ‘on the line’, exposing your vulnerabilities and your insecurities. You are not going to have to deal with the perception of failure in this place called Comfort Zone and you won’t have to worry yourself about change, unknowns and facing fear.
The flipside to all this of course, is that you won’t get it wrong or ‘fail’ so there are no learning opportunities. You are unlikely to meet interesting and new people that question and challenge and make you think about the world in a different way. You will be unable to gain the experience and knowledge of your own capabilities and strength because you will not have pushed yourself to try something different. Fear lives in Comfort Zone.
Luckily, leaving Comfort Zone, can be achieved by taking small steps.
Try something new as many days a week as you can, whether it’s a new food, taking a different route to somewhere you go all the time (it doesn’t have to be major to start with).
Understand the inevitability of change. Everything changes. All the time. That’s just the way it is. When you embrace this, the world becomes the adventure that it should be appreciated as.
Say yes to doing something different/new.
Do something spontaneously just because you can.
Understand that there is no such thing as failing, only learning (or free training!).
Release the need to believe that you absolutely must know the outcome to everything you do. Not knowing how something is going to pan out, is exciting!
Now you are on your way to be in Experience Life To The Full Zone. Where you can be the very best you can be, feel a sense of fulfilment and experience the love and joy and learning and pleasure that the world has to offer you…. See you there!
As the Christmas holidays come to a close, and my house looks like a bomb site, my 15 year old barely grunting at me as he rises at 12 noon, eats and leaves the building, and a 12 year old eating her entire bodyweight in sugar when I’m not looking, I’ve been continuing to ponder about what messages we give our children about “The Real World”.
While distracting myself from my work, I found an extract from a speech by Bill Gates given a few years ago at a High School about things they did not and will not learn in school. He expressed concern at a generation with no concept of reality and a lack of the necessary skills with which to function in the world. I think this is a great reminder of our role as parents. Even though I am often faced with a horrified expression from my off spring when I try and impose certain values, beliefs, rules and life lessons, with their biggest moan being about why I can’t be a ‘normal’ mother (whatever one of those might look like)!
Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!
Rule 2 : The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, ‘learn from them’..
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
Feel free to print off, colour in and use blutak to stick on their doors!
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
Inspired by a repeated pattern of behaviour that I have observed of myself all of my adult life, I feel compelled to write about ‘sabotage’. Those of you who have done some work on yourself will be familiar with this terminology in relation to self-destructive behaviour, but for those of you who may be yet to explore it, allow me to offer my understanding of this.
Sabotage is born out of fear and operates so as to prevent having to deal with questions such as ‘I’m not enough’, ‘I won’t be loved’, I don’t deserve it’ or ‘what’s the point – I’ll be rejected/abandoned/fired sooner or later’.
In recovery terms, recovery from drug addiction or alcoholism, it might be that a person sabotages their recovery by continuing to go to places where they are at risk of using and then blaming the places, people or things that ‘made’ them use, rather than facing their role in that outcome.
Sabotage is not about taking responsibility. It seeks to blame other people for an outcome. For example, pushing someone away continually until they have no choice other than to actually go away and then they can be blamed as the person who was the abandoner…. In a kind of ‘see, I told you they would leave/reject me/abandon me’.
As a person who is aware of sabotaging, in particular, potential intimate relationships, I am knowledgeable and aware of this behaviour, a behaviour that I was made aware of a very long time ago. But what happens when it becomes more subtle? When knowledge does not equal power? Or worse, when you can actually see yourself in the behaviour but feel powerless to stop it?
We:
Forgive ourselves…first and foremost
With that comes compassion
We then take responsibility
With that comes repairing any damage
And when all is said and done, sit safely and quietly in the knowledge that we have just learned a little more about ourselves that will then make the lesson next time shorter until it has been learnt and does not come again!
Self-awareness is an amazing, frustrating, liberating state of mind, body and spirit. The lessons may take longer than we would like and they may get harder and more difficult to manage than we would like. But essentially what choice do we have if we are to become the best that we can be? The personal goal in life has to be that we can become the very best that we can possibly be, so learn, grow and love yourself in the process, as you are and as you can be.
It seems to me that there is a distinct flaw in the human condition that somehow allows us to forget the point. The point of our relationships, the point of the work we have chosen to do, the point of our friendships that we have chosen to have, indeed the point of life.
We all do it. We all get bogged down in the minutiae of life’s noise on what she said, or he said, or that person or that place or that thing said or did or didn’t do, all of which we can’t quite deal with. We’re upset. We’re hurt. We feel alone in our pain.
It is in these moments particularly, that we must remember that we can change the way we respond to life, we can change the way we understand life and most of all we change the view of life that doesn’t acknowledge that life is a gift. We are a ‘we’ in this context. We have all been given the gift of life…
All the Philosophical and Spiritual teachers have sought to teach us as to what the purpose of it all is. From these teachings, I take it that the purpose of being here is to make a difference. I also take it to believe that the purpose of life of to be happy.
I found a lovely little Video being shared across cyberspace calledLife is Coffee, which as a coffee lover (read coffee snob), I thought was a perfect analogy for me so I hope you like it and that you will share this message.
In line with my Just For Today Vlog from this week, I would like to add a little thought for the day, for my day, one that we can all use in our lives in whatever way works for us. For me, Just For Today I have everything I need and I am loved….
After spending an evening this week with yet another friend who is recovering from the awful experience of being in a ‘happy’ marriage that ends within half hour, always commencing with “It’s not you, it’s me” (The Mid Life Crisis) or “I think this is really it, she’s the ‘one’ for me” (The Affair and The Mid-Life Crisis) or “I never meant to hurt you but I need some space” (The Affair), I decided that a survival plan, laced with a little humour, was probably called for! For the male readers, this blog is entirely from a woman’s perspective, but please feel free to add your own recovery pointers onto the comments section….
Get yourself a goodMulti Vitamin. Oh yes….my all-time favourite from my very sturdy and practical friend, in or out of emotional pain! She is right of course, as your immune system will be low and your food intake will be bizarre so this will keep you vaguely balanced on a nutritional front.
Read a self-help book, a good self-help book and preferably a funny one. My absolute favourite while sobbing all over the house during my own ‘the breakup’ was perfectly titled “It’s Called a Breakup Not A Breakdown.” In other words, you’ll get over it!
Learn everything you can about who you are. Know who you are and what you like and don’t like, because you will be a different person from the person you were before you were together and different from the person that you became in the marriage/relationship. This is a great part of the journey, so try and enjoy it.
You will either eat yourself stupid or you won’t be able to eat at all. In any circumstance, you’ll need ice cream, good quality expensive ice cream, that contains chocolate, cookie dough, nuts, etc. Essential for vague nutrition and comfort.
Get your toe nails painted. One of my ‘favourite’ memories of the darkest days was sitting in the conservatory, eating chocolate and sobbing, while a friend painted my nails for me. Recovery, girlie stylie!
I’ve heard it said that the best ways for a woman to get over a man is to get underneath another one. It isn’t. Really. It isn’t. Go back to number 4 and get the ice cream out of the freezer again!
Don’t be on his Facebook page for a moment longer. You don’t want to know. Trust me on this one. You really don’t want to know.
Go and buy lots of good quality wooden hangers and reorganise your clothing through the whole double wardrobe to replicate Jigsaw. You will now have space in between your clothes as they hang like ‘pieces’ from the rail as opposed to squashed together as if his clothes and yours were having their own private row as they fought for space in a wardrobe that just wasn’t big enough!
On a more serious note, the pain will stop and if you allow yourself the much needed recovery time, you will learn to love your life as a single woman safe in the knowledge that one day, you will be annoyed again by the toilet seat being left up! So this time is your time. Now is the time to enjoy….
In a recent blog, I explored Holistic Health and what I mean when I use that term; the way I understand it and the way I believe it is understood. A natural progression on from that seemed to me to be an exploration of what wellness is and how we understand it.
What I do know is that we all have the power within us to have a feeling of wellness. A feeling of happiness, of enthusiasm for life and a sense of energy is something that we can all work towards and experience. How?
Understand yourself holistically as a whole person with many areas of your life that need to be balanced. You are not ‘stress’ or ‘lethargy’ or ‘a bad back’, you are a person operating in society in a relationships at work and at home. You have your spiritual, physical, emotional and mental aspects of yourself to keep in check. See where the imbalance may be and that will give you a lot of information to help you work through whatever is presenting as the problem.
Self-esteem and self-love is everything or as Louise Hay taught me, the cornerstone to everything. Without it, there is nothing because there is no connection with yourself. If this aspect of yourself is poor, work on it and work on it hard. The use of daily affirmations, positive loving relationships, eating wholesome food and allowing yourself some time to reflect in solitude so as to improve your relationship with yourself and connect spiritually, are all a good start.
Take personal responsibility. When you are wrong, say sorry, learn and move on. Don’t say yes when you mean no. Don’t relive scenarios over and over again punishing yourself for the past and concerning yourself with the future. Keep your side of the street clean so that you can look at yourself in the mirror every day. Forgive yourself….often. Perfectionism is just another form of self-loathing.
Live consciously! Value the food you eat, the trees you pass, the people you smile at. Photography is a great way of living in the moment and seeing something from a different angle. It’s a conscious activity. Care for your environment. Care for the people around you. Turn off the TV and sing or dance or bake a cake. Come alive and stop getting lost in the misery of soap operas…..created I believe to quieten the masses.
Enjoy yourself. Enjoy your sense of connectedness to yourself, the Universe and all people. Have fun. We are here for such a short time. Make your goal that of making a difference to the world, to the people around you.
Your wellness is your responsibility. No-one is going to bring it to you, fix what’s broken, give you a magic pill to ‘make it all better’. The power to do that is within you and no-one else. You can choose this right now. You can choose to take a continuing series of short steps one day at a time and give yourself the life you deserve, being the very best that you can be.
This has to be one of my very favourite poems….it is such a gift.
The Invitation Oriah Mountain Dreamer Canadian Teacher and Author It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
How many times do you get asked to do things for charity? Whether it’s letters from the charities themselves pleading that there aren’t enough runners or friends who are jumping out of planes or swimming the channel with spaghetti on their head, it’s endless. There are always so many requests on my Facebook wall, my inbox gets a fair share and canvassing in the street has become a mission! (I have also been partial to the odd Skydive myself and the associated requests!)
So how do you choose? We all only have a limited amount of money to spend on charity and I always try and support as much as I can, but there is a limit. But this week has been one of those weeks where something becomes clear, ding dong moments of clarity that come flying from everywhere until you say “ok ok….I hear you”.
I had already decided to support Micheal, a business friend, as his passion came flying off the page. But it wasn’t until I went to The Just Giving Page and read his story, that the true emotion behind his passion became clear. He had lost his father to cancer and had never said goodbye or I love you or you are my hero. Youth plays tricks with us about the cycle of life and we all pay the price for that at different times of our lives and it seems to me that this is Michaels opportunity to say the things he never said with a passion and a voice so strong that the wisdom will be embedded not only for him, but for readers of the story who gain their own clarity in their own life lessons. Human beings love stories and we love nothing more than a story that resonates with our own fabric of life or a story that we can learn from.
My Gran was a seamstress, to fund life a single parent after her husband died after only 9 years of marriage. This was much to her disgust in many ways, as she had to kneel on the floor and sew hems of the ‘English peasant women’ (she was French and you’d never know that she lived here for nigh on 50 years). As I tried to make a skirt the other day, I wished I’d watched her. She could have taught me everything, but I cared not for such dull activities as sewing when getting on with my own life. I cried one Christmas after she died, into the washing up, for what seemed like an eternity as the radio provided the background music to my usual Christmas melancholy with the song In The Living Years.
A male business colleague who writes poetry (rather secretly I understand) wrote a line that captured this sense of life’s cruel trickery so beautifully. It reads “And nature’s paradigm laughs at wisdom”.
I take from that line the understanding that this cruelty is how we gain wisdom which is precisely why wisdom can only come with age. These lessons are often un-noticed through life until we have the ability to really learn what we need to learn from them. This is the journey that we all take reagardless of who we are. All of us share this path and all of us will have to watch our children start the journey from the very beginning….as we desperately try and teach them what we know from our wisdom to somehow protect them from the pain (pain which they themselves need to grow and develop their own wisdom); that which they cannot learn until they reach that point where they understand the cycle of life and it’s lessons.
