Monthly Archives: June 2013

Lightbulb moments on fighting fear

27 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, Fear, Life journey, Life Lessons

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While I think that a bit of fear can be a good thing – because it motivates us to get going and get things done, a lot of fear or constant fear has the ability to absolutely paralyse us.
Fear can really stop you from reaching your full potential to be the person that you are meant to be.
Fighting fear is one way of dealing with it but can be pointless and unproductive.  It is the same as if you are afraid of the dark and you try to deal with your fear by sitting in a dark room all on your own when you could just switch on a light…. Aha! A real lightbulb moment!

So here are my ”lightbulb” suggestions for dealing with fear:
1.  Do not become your fear.  It is not your personality, you are so much more than your fear.
2.  Believe in the real you, not the person that you think that you are – that is often a negative perception of yourself, that nasty little inner voice that keeps on whispering doubts in your mind.
3.  Think big!  Don’t be afraid of success, don’t be afraid of the giant in you that is waiting to burst out.
4.  Try new things.  You never know what you can or can’t do until you try.   Follow every opportunity, open new doors. You may even surprise yourself by doing things that you could not have even imagined a few years ago.
5.  Make mistakes matter.  Rather than beating yourself up about all the things that you shouldn’t have done, learn from your mistakes!  The only way you know what you can’t do is to discover that by actually doing those things.
6.  Step out of the “box”.  Whether it is your parents or your peers, your culture or your environment, or even yourself that puts you in a box, get out! Nobody belongs in a box.
7. Don’t wait for one day to get things done.  Today is just as good a time to be brave, maybe even better than ‘one day’ that  might not come.
8. Change your self talk from “no, I can’t” or “Maybe I might be able to” to “YES I CAN!”
9. Everybody started at the beginning.  If you are at the beginning and you’ve taken one step, then you are well on your way to being successful. Lots of people are afraid to even take that first step.
10.  Just remember, and always remember this: You are amazing!

All for a cricket bat

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Attitude, Gratitude, Life Lessons, Positivity

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Wednesdays in my neighbourhood is garbage collection day.
Early in the morning, way too early actually – especially in winter when it is cold and dark, we hear the sounds of the ‘recycling guys’ carts rolling down the hill toward our street.
I think that they do a wonderful job and that they are true entrepreneurs in an environment where there is no formal recycling.  They fill their carts with plastic that they often dig out of the bins and then walk a very long trek up hill back to the recycling  yards.
It always upsets me when I see them.  They do us such a great service, protect our environment and all for very little money, probably no thanks and a lot of physical labour.  And that makes me sad.
This Wednesday I went outside early in the morning to leave some cricket bats on the pavement for collection by whoever wanted them.
Let me just point out that the reason we have so many bats is because my kids are probably way too spoiled and they get new sports equipment way too often.  Just because they can.
Anyway, as soon as I took the bats out, I noticed a guy with his cart running towards me.  As soon as he opened his mouth, I realised that he was just a child.  He asked if he could please have all the bats so that he could play with his friends.  I gave them to him and asked if he had a ball. He didn’t and I went inside to get one out of our bag filled with balls.  When I passed the ball to him, I noticed that he had wrapped an old cloth around his hands to keep them warm.  It just broke my heart and I ran back inside to get him a pair of gloves.

There were two lessons in this experience for me, besides having a good cry in my kitchen:
Firstly, I had a week where I was really worried (unnecessarily) about money because I have had so many expenses lately.  We tend to forget how much we really have until we are faced head on with people who have so much less than us.  We shouldn’t have to wait until then to really stop and count our blessings.
Take a few moments everyday to think about what you have rather than what you don’t.  Be grateful for your blessings rather than worry about when you are going to have more.  Your old car may not be as fancy as your friend’s newer model, but it is better than somebody else’s bicycle.  And that person with only a bicycle is better off than somebody who doesn’t have one…
You have so much more than you realise and you are surrounded by countless blessings that you forget to notice.

Secondly, it doesn’t take much to make somebody’s day a lot better.  You can get so much from giving.  I may have given a bat and ball and a pair of gloves but you don’t have to give anything material.  Give a smile, share a laugh.  Wave at somebody in the traffic who looks like they need cheering up.  Hold the elevator doors open for a elderly person or for a person who is in a rush; let somebody in front of you in a queue.  Greet everyone that you meet, even if they don’t greet you back.
You may just find that by cheering somebody else up, you cheer yourself up in the process.

I would love it if you let me know what you did to make a difference this week.

These boots were made for dancing

13 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Attitude, Freedom, Life journey, Moods, self esteem

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Let me tell you about the one thing that I love about winter…
Boots! And coats! OK, that’s two things and that is two of my (many) weaknesses.
I am not a fan of the cold – which is an interesting thing for an ex-skater to say, I know – but I love the opportunity that it gives me to get out my boots and my coats.  Those are the things that sit at the back of my cupboard and I stare longingly at all through summer.
I have brown boots and I have black boots but the boots that I love most are bright, bubble gum pink.  They are most likely totally inappropriate for somebody my age but they make me feel young and happy.  They make me feel like dancing.
I read a great quote this week by Harry Winston who said, “People will stare.  Make it worth their while.”
So if people stare at my pink boots, I’ll flaunt them!  And maybe I’ll even add a little skip to my step.
We should all take the time to enjoy the little things in life.  I promise you that if I am in a bad mood, I almost instantly feel better when I am wearing those boots.  And I won’t even go into what happens when I wear my red coat.

Don’t worry about what people say about you;  or how they look at you;  or how they treat you.
You are ‘you-nique’ and you should not be afraid to be different.
There is room for every individual in this world.  And that includes you!
People will only stare or talk or wonder because they are intimidated by your intelligence, your experience, your knowledge, your beauty or just  your sheer brilliance.
And the only reason that they are intimidated is because they doubt themselves.  It is their own low self esteem that is the problem.  Not yours!
Go out, be you.
And enjoy it!

Time heals all wounds?

06 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Advice, Moods, Stress, trauma

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They say that time heals all wounds…
And that is so true.
But what nobody tells you though, is how long it takes for those wounds to heal.
And nobody tells you that you are going to feel like crap (sorry, but no other word describes it as well) for that most of that time.
And more importantly, nobody tells you that it is OK to feel terrible.  To be sad, and miserable, and to feel sorry for yourself.  That it is OK to be angry and frustrated and irritable.
You are not going to sleep, you are going to feel frightened, you won’t be able to concentrate.  You won’t enjoy the things that you used to, or if you do enjoy them, you will feel guilty about it.
You won’t feel like eating, or you will eat too much of the wrong foods.
You will want to drown your sorrows in things that are not good for you.
And maybe you will even have very negative thoughts that will make you  *in a whisper* want to harm yourself, you may think of dying, you may fantasize about killing or harming somebody else!  And it feels so uncomfortable to say those things out loud because nobody wants to hear those things.  They want to hear that you are going to be “fine” (ghastly word that it is).

And all the time, people are telling you things about “time healing all wounds” and “being strong”,  and what about “there’s a silver lining on every cloud”?  And my personal favourite “there’s a light at the end of every tunnel”.  But when you are at the beginning of the tunnel, you have no idea how long it is or where the light is.
And you want to scream at them “Shut up! You don’t understand!”
And do you know what?
They don’t understand.  Even if they’ve been through a similar situation to yours, they are not you and they don’t understand.
And because they don’t understand, you don’t have to listen to what they say.  To their ideas of how you should cope or how long it should take you to feel better.

But please understand this: you don’t have to be strong.  Part of allowing time to heal your wounds is to allow yourself to mourn, to be angry, to be stressed. To just be.
And one morning, you will wake up and feel a little better.  And then a few days after that, you will feel even better.  And then one day, in the not too distant future, you will not even believe how terrible you once felt.
Because now you are a survivor with a whole new story to tell and a whole new journey to explore!