Quiet Day

After all the busy preparations and excitement of the Festive Season, it feels so good to sit quietly and just be still for a while.

A simple bowl of cereal for breakfast provided a welcome antidote to the excesses of consumption of the last few day. Home made vegetable soup with wholemeal bread for lunch and a simple organic chicken roasted with onions, parsnips and carrots seved with a fresh salad for dinner will go a long way to settling a system unused to such richness. We had been invited out to dinner tonight but the thought of eating another bite which was anything other than home cooked and utterly plain was just too much for us, so we rearranged for next Saturday. Thanks be for understanding friends.

Speaking of friends, a true friend is someone who allows you to be exactly who you are, without feeling the need to "fix" or "improve" you. As a therapist and a coach, I see the destructive downside of that need to alter others. Too many people wander into relationships of all kinds with the primary thought of "what a lovely person, if only..." They then make it their mission to bring about that "if only" whether the object of their affection wishes it or not. At least in my profession, I wait here politely until I am asked to interfere or was that intervene?

The way I look at it is that either you love them as they are, accept them for all their foibles and deficits, or just leave them the hell alone! That does not mean that you have to stand by and allow self-destructive or even plain aggravating behaviour without clearly expressing your concerns, or be completely supportive of their own desire to change. (NB. THEIR desire, not YOUR desire) However if that was the way it was from the beginning, then tough luck; you bought it having read the big print warnings that rose up to bite your nose, so why should you feel aggrieved when those character flaws devoured you whole, burped politely and wondered why you were giving them chronic indigestion with your complaining?

So in the interests of peace amongst all beings, take the enormous beam out of your own eye before you try to extract the tiny mote from your significant other's. (For those not familiar with archaic biblical language, it translates as remove that huge tree trunk from your eye before you even think of helping another with their tiny little speck of dust) Clarity of vision requires taking a good look at our own little and no so little personal quirks and behavioural deficits before we have a go at sorting those of others we profess to care about.. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.

What, not takers?

Thought not.

So there.

Quirkily and inperfectly yours,

Maria

Endings and Beginnings

In the year now leaving the cosmic train station, my own mortality reached out and brushed its cold breath upon my soul.

Like so many others I am waiting. Will my biopsy take me from this limbo back into the world of the living or will it bring that cold breath closer and deeper? I am one of many waiting in that place of unknowing. I have no answer, no prescient glimpse of what the outcome will be. I wait, sometimes with quiet stoicism and sometimes I am swept up in storms of intense emotion.

Death is theoretical until it comes whispering at your door. We all know that it is the one great certainty in life and yet do we truly live our lives in the real knowing of its imminent ending? How would we live it differently if we were truly aware of its transient nature, immersed in the reality and not the theory?

This is our big chance, our day in the sun, our place centre stage. This day. This hour. This moment. Wrap it around you lovingly. Live it fully. Feel the truth of the gift that is life flowing in every cell. Embrace it as a lover. Give it all of you and suck the marrow from the bones of being.

This day, this hour, this moment. This is truth. This is life. Live it.

Letter to Obama from Alice Walker

I had to share this with as many people as possible today. It is from Alice Walker, author of the Color Purple and a woman I would be proud to call a friend. As I am never likely to meet her, the nearest thing I can be is someone who sends her words of wisdom out into a world in need of them.

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history.But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried,year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear.

And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed,because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large.

We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate.

One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want.They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain.Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit.This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally,it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges,purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,

Alice Walker

© 2008, Alice Walker

"Love You"

My mother had a stroke in June of this year. I was sitting in my office preparing for my next client when the phone range. It was my sister-in-law who had been out shopping with Mum.

Her voice was filled with panic as she told me that Mum had suddenly collapsed and was being attended to by the Paramedics who were stabilising her before taking her to Hairmyres Accident and Emergency Department.

We were lucky. Mum survived and made a full recovery. At the age of 80, we get to keep our mother with us. I look around at all my friends and realise that I am one of the fortunate few who has both parents alive as I move towards my own 57th year.

I am also blessed in that I am secure in the knowing that I am loved by my parents and that they know how much I love them. I look around at friends and clients and the contrast in their own parental relationships makes me even more appreciative.

We can take our loved ones for granted. We can blind ourselves to the fact that one day death will separate us because we simply find it too painful to face.

Face it. I have. They are mortal and with aging, ailing parents, the time is drawing in. Don't dwell on the pain, dwell on making each moment count, on making positive memories that will warm your soul when their physical presence is no longer there.

Make your peace with your parents if there is dissension; let go of the past and be fully present with them as they are right now. You will not get the chance later, for there may be no later, only a life time of regret for words unspoken. Our parents are human; they are imperfect. Just like you and I, they grow and evolve. Look at them now and look at them through the eyes of compassion. Look at them through the eyes of love.

Whether I am face to face with my parents or on the telephone, my last words to them are always, "I love you". When they part from this life, I want those words to be their last memory of me and I want them to be my last gift to them.

Think about it and maybe if you still have time with your parents, you could try it too.

Ask for what you need

I was clearing out my email folders when I came across this. It was the answer to a question asked in one of Julie Jordan Scott's online coaching classes in 2004.

"What I love about myself is my growing ability to ask for what I need. This was not always the case. I was always the helper and could never find the words to ask for help myself. I still hesitate sometimes and the words get stuck in my heart, but more and more often now, I just blurt them out, sometimes not very gracefully but increasingly clearly.
When you really love yourself, then you know how to ask and you know how to receive. That is something I needed and I love how that has changed my life. "

Learning to love and care for myself as much as I love and care for others was a long and sometimes challenging lesson for me. Now as a therapist, coach and Personal Growth Facilitator, it is a large part of my daily work to be a catalyst for this transformation in others.

One of the areas I love working in is the courses we run for carers under the auspices of the Princess Royal's Trust for Carers. We offer EFT, Be Your Own Life Coach and a Life Enhancement Course which is about raising self-awareness and self-esteem.

I see the same struggle in those carers as I found in myself. As we work together I can't begin to describe how good it feels when there is the momentary glimmer of liberation from duty and a glimpse of what it is to love and be your own carer. It is at moments like this that I count myself blessed to do this work.