words, music, food to lighten the heart
Yep. That’s All Folks.
My Feet Hurt. And So My Brain is On Strike. So I’m Cabbing It Home. Maybe I’ll Get a Serenade of a Old Haitian Hymn like Last Time by my Cabbie. I will Put My Sweats On. And I Will Banish These Dang Shoes to the Never Again To Work Pile.
Love From Blistey Blisterson. Hobbie Hobbleson. Cranky Crankerson.
Hope Your Feet Are Happy.
xo
Every Day we Either Sail or Take on Water. Staying Still will Always Swamp the Boat. Most of Us are Pretty Low Riders. Our Boats are Pretty Cargoed Up.
Burdens, Responsibilities. All Good Things. But Unless we are Purposeful and Making Progress, Those Waves are Coming On Over the Bow.
So How Do we Keep the Sputtering and the Stalling to a Minimal? How do we keep the Clean Fuel Burning and Engines Firing Steadily? For Me, Clean Fuel is Courage. The Greatest Engine Oil is Hope. Gratitude.
Some Resent the Burdens Laid Upon Their Ship. And Yes, Too Much is Too Much. But the Boats with Heavy Burdens are the Most Stable in Stormy Seas. When there’s Not Enough Cargo, too much of Our Hull above the Water Line. We become Top Heavy and Easily Capsizable.
Allow Your Burdens to Hunker You Down on the Sea of Life. There’s Safety in Our Burdens. And Plus, the Captain Trusts You with Your Precious Cargo. And we Have the BEST Captain. Our Burdens are Our Privileges. Our Responsibilities are Precious.
Love You All So Much! Can’t even Explain It.
xo
Everyone at some point has Dealt with a Bully. Taking your Gentleness as Weakness, they Push You Around. They Need to Feel Powerful. Loving to Oppress. For a Moment they Feed their Need for Power and Relevance through You.
Silently Observe…
Look in their eyes….
You’ll Often See Fear. Bullies are Afraid Insecure People . When you can Understand this, it takes their Power Away to Hurt You.
Disarm them with Your Quiet Confidence. Stay Comfortable in Your Own Skin. Two Things Often Happen…
Their Attention goes Elsewhere…or as you Role Model Strength and Courage
Sometimes…
The Fear in their Eyes Melts away. Confidence finds a New Spring in Their Step.
They’ve Become Inspired…
and…
The World Becomes a Little Kinder. A Little Brighter.
One Bully at a Time.
It’s Worth a Shot…
The Proper Kinda Shot…
need – verb
require (something) because it is essential or very important.
Whatever we Need will Control us. We think of these things like Our Breath. Without it we Feel We Die. Fade Into Oblivion. We become Invisible. Irrelevant. Purposeless. Our life Feels In Vain.
For some its External Validation. Admiration. Others, it’s Wealth. Status.
Some Days we Have It All. Some Years. A Golden Decade. An Admiring Tribe of Supporters. Money and Status Comes Easily.
For Some, Circumstances Change. What we’ve come to Believe We Need, Slips Away. We aren’t As Shiny. Passersby Don’t Look Twice. Our Bank Accounts Dwindle. Our Status is a Few Levels Below Amazing.
None of it Matters. Unless you Need it. And Need is a Nasty Rollercoaster in Maybe Land. Maybe Today’s the Day. Maybe this Will Work. Maybe …Maybe…Maybe. It’s like a Sipping a Straw in the Very Bottom of a Draining Well. Mostly Nothing, but Frantic Hope.
So Today I Need Serenity. It’s Free for the Taking. I Need Joy. It’s All Around Me. I Need Simplicity, and that’s Up to Me.
What we Actually Need is Everywhere in Abundance.
Feeling Grateful.
xo
I feel we should be able to describe in a few sentences our Life’s Objective. When the Dust Settles Over our Finished Lives, what will our Lives Accomplished? The Ripple Effect of our Lives we Cannot Deny. Whether it has been One of Good or Not So Good is the Only Variable in Our Control.
So Here’s Mine…
The First Draft Anyway…
I want to Walk Gently. Love Fiercely. Be a Lifelong Learner. Open Minded. Not Bitter. Always Grateful. Ever Hopeful. To Smile Always. Cry when Necessary. Embrace Change. Pure in My Thoughts Towards Others. Courageous.
Most of these Characteristics are States of Being. Because if we aren’t these things, our Accomplishments Don’t Matter.
Accomplishments come to those who first have learned….
To Be.
Here’s To Being!
Let me know your Life Objective! Can’t Wait to Hear!!
xo
They Make Tears Run Down My Face Like Rivers. The Wind as I walk Charlie Whisks them Away. The Stain Still Smeared on my Cheeks. Sometimes, they just Show up Unannounced. Demanding Entry. Smashing Down my Bolted Heart’s Door.
Shame. Regret. Grief. Longing. Fear. Pain.
Gosh What a Family.
Obnoxious.
They Rip the Living Room Carpet Up Every Time. Exposing the Elephants in the Room. There’s a lot of Elephant Excrement too under that Dang Rug.
They Demand my Attention. That they be Acknowledged. Their Needs Attended to. Which Always Includes that Dumb Elephant.
When they Show their Ugly Heads Around, I know my Dream Day is Gone. That I will now be Engrossed in this Flipping Family Fraught with Failures. Feelings. I will Cry Inconsolably. I will Wish. I will Repeat “I’m So Sorry” to No One and Everyone Inparticular.
But You Know What, Each Time They Come, They Lay Claim to an Elephant. They Drag its Lumbering Behind Out the Door with them. Like they’re taking Some Treasure. If They Only Knew.
I Feel Lighter. The Living Room Rug is One Less Elephant Lumpy. And A lot Less Smelly. I Got More Heart Leg Room. Room to Stretch. Room for Good Guests.
And hey, Look Who’s At the Door….
Humility. Forgiveness. Gratitude. Love. Joy.
Come In, I’ve Missed You.
xo
One of my Greatest Interview Questions was ….
“How do you Deal with your Inner Critic?”
What if you don’t have one? The Inner Critic Evaporates into Thin Air as soon as we learn to Live in Compassion. Walk in Gentleness. When we Learn to Encourage Ourselves.
Kindness Starts in Your Own Heart For Yourself. Love and Nurturing Begins With You.
Kindness. Gentleness. Love. Nurturing. Support.
They are not Action Words First. They are a Spirit we Live In. They are a State of Being. That First Nourishes Our Own Hearts. Then Extends to Our Families. Then to our Outer Circle.
Whatever Inner Dialogue we have with ourselves is what we also Extend To Others.
Gentleness is a Great Leader. Love Gives Wind. Kindness is the Greatest Way to Strengthen the Strengths in Others.
Harshness. Judgment. Force. Criticism . These Ugly Traits will never Produce Good Results. Certainly not in ourselves. Certainly not in others.
We all have an Inner Voice. Let’s Train it to Be Kind. Always Supportive. Always Grateful. Always Compassionate.
First to Ourselves. Then to our Fellow Man.
xo
Sometimes we have an Urge to Utilize Force. We see Waiting and Patience as the Enemy to Fruition. Not understanding the Actual Word.
Fruit.ion.
Fruit starts as a Tiny Little Bud. Then Passersby enjoy the Beauty of the Bud, then the Fragrance of the Flower. We Find Hope in the Unripened Fruit, and Love the Memories of the Taste of It. We enjoy the Wonderful Butterflies of Anticipation. We Dream of the Possibilities of the Fruit. It Gives Hope for the Future. Of Sustenance. Of Enjoyment.
Everything in Life is a Process. Whether it Be Personal Growth. Our Careers. Our Relationships. Every Stage is Beautiful. Culminating in Gorgeous Fruit if all Stages are Embraced. With Patience.
We are a Society of Rushers. Instant Gratification. We are those who Cut Down Trees of Possibility because of our Own Impatience.
Let’s Enjoy the Processes of Life. In Ourselves and In Others.
Our Dreams will Come to Fruition. Let’s Create an Environment Conducive to Growth.
No Rushing.
Just Diligence. Warmth. Faith.
Yesterday on my walk, I passed a Little Tree. It Stands Up to My Chin. Indescript. Almost Fragile. It could be said Almost Sickly. But Yesterday, I Almost Cried. I stood there Silently Staring at Little Twiggy Tree.
On it were Big Fat Apples. Beautiful Soft Green Orbs of Gorgeousness. More Apples Than Branches. Dear Little Thing.
Small But Mighty.
It Fed My Heart looking at That Little Thing. I Learned a Giant Lesson. Gods Quiet Voice Said…” Fruit is Never For the Tree. But For Others.”
That Sweet Little Flimsy Tree spent Its Energy Nurturing Sweet Fruit for the Nurturing of Any who Desired. It wasn’t Building Its Branches. Making Its Leaves Glorious and Full.
There it Was. Silently Offering to This Hungry World its Essence. Filling its Precious Purpose. So Quietly Offering its Precious Fruit.
Speechless by this Silent Lesson I Walked On.
Changed.
Humbled.
Even this Morning as I turned my Fireplace On for the First Time in the Chill of the Oncoming Autumn. I thought of Autumn Joys. Fires. Lamplight. Trees Shining Golden. Apple Pie.
A..pple…Pie.
And I thought of Blessed Little Tree.
My Heart…
xoxo
There’s Nothing Like a Girl Tribe.
Mine Began with My Mother. My Matriarch of Many Musterings. Mostly My Courage.
There were my Dear Sisters. We Rarely Fought and Fiercely Loved Each Other.
There was Sandi. My Beautiful Brunette Childhood Bestie. Her Tinkly Laugh and Freckles Bestrewn on her Darling Face. We never had a Fight.
There was Miss Brown, my Grade 7 teacher. She Loved me and Believed in Me. I Flourished in her class. I Learned I Loved Public Speaking. Speech Writing. Essays.
There was my Guidance Counsellor in High School. She loved me enough to Phone Home Personally if I Skipped Class. Deep Down I was Grateful.
There was also the Woman of Grace I lived with the First Year of Adulthood. Three Thousand Miles from Home. A Desperate Lonely Girl Found Solace Under Her Gentle Wings. I owe her My Life.
There was Rita. My First Female Coworker at My First Real Job out of College. She RODE my *ss. I had one case of stress induced hives after the other that first three months. I thank her. She taught me things. I knew she Loved Me enough to Make Me Reach For My Best Work.
That’s My Life to Twenty. It would take Too Long to Expound on More. Or to even state all the women who made a difference in my formative years. That’ll Be Another Blog Someday.
Thank You to All My Helpers and Missy Helper Helpertons. I love you all
b l a c k l i l y 