(My Children…..)

Just a quote today…… from the author of Loving What Is.

To my children: “You have the perfect mother. I’m responsible for all your problems, and you’re responsible for the solutions.” Byron Katie

That’s alright then, Mairead.

(Almost finished – one of the wall-hangings)

I’ve been playing today. As soon as the success team meeting finished this morning I ran off to find some playthings. This used to happen once every year since my teens. I’d get a mad craving to make something. So I would make my way as quickly as I could to the wool shop and buy needles, a patterns and beautiful coloured wool. In the beginning the patterns were for jumpers, more recently they’re for small decorations.

(Pinking shears edge)

The patterns became less time consuming because I came to realise the most fun part was the start and if a project took longer than the fun part it became a chore. This year I bought a pattern for bunting – small triangles, make ten or one hundred, either means you’ve completed the pattern. Perfect. Fun.

(Friendly plastic and cutters)

Today’s play involves scraps of material (yum) cut with a pinking shears (scissors with zig-zag edge) and then little melted friendly plastic pieces sewn on. I haven’t got to the sewing on part yet and I have only completed making one set of the plastic pieces but it’s still fun so I anticipate finishing it!

If it’s no longer fun, it could be time to stop doing it, Mairead.

(Roundabout Ahead)

I’ve been working on another book review. This book is called Loving What Is by Byron Katie. I’ll share the review here when its finished. In the meantime, I like one thing about it so much I’ll tell you now. The interpreter….

(Walk the line)

So it’s like this… somewhere in our brain some stuff happens and the easiest way to explain it is to liken it an interpreter, someone who translates from one language to another to assist communication. The one in our brain is not translating languages (unfortunately, as that would be very helpful to me). Our interpreter in our brain interprets what’s happening in our lives and turns it into an easy to understand story with the message, “I’m in control”.

(This is not a meccano crane…..)

Unfortunately……  and this is very unfortunate, sometimes the interpreter has to fabricate some details of the story (i.e. it tells lies!) to make the control message work. It’s very unfortunate because we always think the story is completely true! And we start getting very, very irritated, angry and annoyed at the people (family, friends, anyone really) in the (made up) story. Of course the book comes up with a solution, which I’ll explain in the review (coming soon).

In the meantime, is anyone annoying you at the moment? Mairead.

(Mushrooms in the rain)

I have had the most amazing day, full of ideas for blogs. I have been on the Dart (train) most of the day. Went into  two coffee shops, one hotel, four clothes shops and a magazine shop. I overheard great conversations. I saw very interesting people, for whom I made up little stories.

(Can you spot the hidden duck?)

Just one small little problem…… I can’t remember any of the interesting ideas….. or the stories or even the conversations. (I do remember two of the women, one used to change the subject every time her friend started to complain about something! It was mightily effective!)

(Gateway to a bright future….)

But the ideas…. they sort of floated in and then out again and because they were so interesting I thought I’d never forget them. I was wrong, I forgot. So I’m in the market for a small notebook that fits into my bag, is light and has a pen attached.

Ideas? Mairead.

(A different type of paw(s))

Following some very nice comments to encourage me not to bother getting up early to write, and to be nice to myself instead (thank you Claire, Gabby, Molly), I’ve decided to start now. So I created a special (very little effort) post. It consists of a quote, from someone else. 

“The value of a long pause is difficult to overstate.” Seth Godin.

That’s probably long enough, Mairead. 

(Outlook on the world… bit like a book really…)

As part of my course I have to attend four coaching sessions (where I am the coachee.) I get to choose what I want to be coached about and I decided I would like to be coached about something fun. Something creative, something lovely. So I told her my big want. I told her I wanted to write a book and would she coach me about that. Well, she was very excited and encouraging.

(Some books written by people who started….)

Unfortunately, what I hadn’t anticipated was that once I told her, then I would probably have to do it! Not because she’d make me, or force me, but because she’d hold me accountable….. far worse. So everything was going well, and it was time to decide if I really wanted this, Yes, from me, and so what’s the first step, from her. I adventurously (or foolhardily) said, Start writing.

(Nice blank wall…. like my note book….)

My coach is quite good at this coaching lark and she was very encouraging and just a little pushy, Fantastic, and when will you start writing? As you have possibly been following my complaints about how much work I have to do related to this course, you may know…… I have no time to start writing! But… it was a good first step and I do want to write a book. So what popped out of my mouth was, I’ll get up everyday at 6.30am and write until 8.30am. And didn’t she grab her pen and write my words down (in case I forgot….)

That was eleven days ago and I’ll be seeing her in three days and I didn’t get up and I haven’t started writing……

This was supposed to be lovely and creative and fun, Mairead.

(Old trees at Kilruddery)

It seems to me that people get incredibly hard ”life lessons” not because they need to learn them and not because they don’t know enough…..  it’s because they have the courage needed to learn them. They’re not bad, mad or sad (although they may feel sad)…… but somehow they volunteered to be demonstrators for the rest of us!

(The river at Mount Usher)

Because WE need to learn. When someone else gets the lesson we can still get  the learning, if we are paying attention.

(Butterfly at Mount Usher)

Someone you know is going through a huge life lesson (illness, marriage breakdown, depression, bereavement, to name a few)……. for goodness sake learn from their courage and bravery……oh and thank them.

Thank you (you know who you are), Mairead.

(The Book and the review)

I have to write three book reviews for my course and yesterday I wrote the first one about the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I loved that book when I read it first and re-reading yesterday reminded me of what I loved. So I’m going to tell you. (It’s a bit long….)

Ruiz explains that we are all domesticated by society. We get rules to follow and we follow them because we are afraid…. of being different and getting no attention. Although we got the rules when we were children (from parents, teachers, siblings who got them when they were children) we still follow them. We’re not even aware that we are following them. What’s more, the rules often contradict each other. So here we are blindly following someone else’s, not very logical, rules.The solution? Ruiz says that his four agreements will help us break the old rules and create our own ones. And his four?

(Some four agreement cards)

1.Be Impeccable with your word….. only speak the truth. This doesn’t mean that you must tell everyone what you think of them! Instead, everything that you say is your truth. Gossip is a big no-no! 2. Don’t take anything personally. Someone else’s negative words can only become poison to you if you take it personally, otherwise it’s just their words. Someone saying something good about you? Don’t take that personally either, it is still only their words. 3. Don’t make assumptions. “The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth”, and then we react by sending our own words and creating a big drama. 4. Always do your best. Of course do your best…. but he says to remember it’s never going to be the same from one day to the next. Give yourself a break and do the best you can do in that moment.

(More four agreement cards)

Finally, he says we talk a lot about freedom but we are the only ones who can grant ourselves freedom and the first step is awareness.

Be free… go on, go on, go on, Mairead.

(Light reflection)

Want to know my guilty secret? I love the Xfactor! Yep, last year I was able to blame the daughter. I used to watch it with her, for some quality mother-daughter time. At least that was my story. Now that she’s a foreign student in a land over the sea, I have no cover story. So I’m owning up. It’s probably not a big surprise, all the contestants bravely going for their dream, in spite of the difficulties.

(Baskets of colour)

There’s all the hard work, the judging, the booing, the cheering, the voting and the performing. The staying in the competition and the getting kicked out. The interviews, the backstage snippets, the sniping judges.

No matter what the dream, get up on the stage and tell the people what you want, Mairead.