Category: Life experience

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The real challenge

Before my trip to Japan, 3 years ago, I did an interview for a friend.

Revisiting the video earlier this year – my boss wanted to use it – I have realised how important the underlying message is.

And it’s a message that is timeless.

The message I was seeking to drive home, was that the only challenge that is real in life, is to be more loving.

Someone cuts you off in traffic?

Be more loving.

The computer crashes and you lose all your data?

Be more loving.

When things like this happen, loving yourself and others through the mess, is a way of showing your best.

Love beats a path forward, even when all seems lost.

So next time, when life doesn’t go my way, the response I am choosing is to use it as an opportunity to be more loving.

Will you follow me?

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Forgiveness

Often misunderstood as almost a weakness, forgiveness can set a person free.

For me, it’s difficult to forgive. And I’m not alone.

So let’s break it down.

There are two directions that can be taken when an injury occurs. These are revenge. I can hurt you back. Or forgiveness. I can understand that you are human too and I can love you instead.

Once I can forgive, I release myself from the cycle that holds me prisoner to the hurt. And I’m role modelling how I prefer to be treated. Maybe I can use the pain as an opportunity to lead others caught up in the web of pain, into a safer harbour and onto the path of healing.

Forgiveness does not allow the other person involved to get off lightly. If anything, it holds them even more accountable. To believe they have no conscience and to hold onto the belief they are a monster denies true justice. It excuses them for their crimes.

So I’m trying something a little different this time. I’m choosing to heal. I’m choosing to voice the truth of what happened that caused me harm, and I’m setting myself free.

This may take time. I may have to forgive repeatedly. For forgiveness is often a cycle.

But I’m walking this road, instead of denying it.

Will you walk it with me?

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Ideas

Hello My Loyal Readers,

I’m currently having dinner with friends. As my girl friend is cooking, I’m being entertained by her husband.

The conversation has taken a turn towards ending the world’s problems.

One idea with merit is to connect all equipment in the local gym to a generator.

As people cycle or jog on the treadmill, or use the bicycle or rowing machine, they can create environmentally friendly clean electricity to feed into the local network.

To give an incentive, however much electricity is created, let the person get that amount of credit with their gym.

This idea is free to the world. If you’re interested in supporting me with this, please make contact. I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time.

Liz

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Legacy and a homecoming

As the mind turns towards one’s legacy, it also turns towards thoughts about the After life

For some, the After life is a place of desolation and fear. For others, it is a place of non existence.

For me, death is a homecoming.

I can spread my love more evenly in death than in life. No longer, am I restrained by time and space, for I have met my God and realised the secret that is within being made in his image.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being alive too. It’s just an admittance that I cannot predict it’s timing and method. All I can control is how I face each day, and ultimately, my own death.

Do you fear death?

What does thinking about your legacy turn your own mind too?

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Elections

I’m sitting here, at either OMG it’s late… or OMG it’s early. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Where am I sitting?

Well, it’s Election Night. And so now, I am in the Voting Centre Manager room, with a feast set out infront of me of cheese, chocolate, strawberries, nut bars, and coffee.

It is a thank you for all our hard work, ensuring a good Election is had by all.

In Australia, we’ re proud of our Elections. They are one of the fairest in the world, and are conducted without fear.

I’m writing about this because our Elections are close to my heart.

Sometimes, I wonder about young 18 year olds who don’t understand the importance of their vote.

The fact is, for women, this is a right that they were willing to die for. One famous British lady, actually through herself underneath the hooves of the King’s horse at the races, in order to have this right realised.

It was after women received the vote that rape, domestic violence and child abuse became crimes.

And there are plenty of people in other countries where people are fighting and willing to sacrifice their lives for the simple right to determine who will rule their government.

So, if you’re living in a country where the vote is allowed, become engaged in politics, take an interest.

Your vote is precious.

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Simple dreams

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I believed in complicated dreams.

Dreams large enough to fill a nation and to encompass the world.

Now, approaching 40, I have a new and novel strategy.

You see, I’ve many unfulfilled dreams and this both makes me empowered and sad at the same time.

My new strategy involves taking all my dreams and simplifying them.

This means I’m busy boiling them down to the necessary steps that make up each dream.

And maybe, in the next 40 years, I’ll live all of them, with room for more.

Is simplifying dreams a better strategy than the one you’re using now?

How can simplifying your dreams make them more attainable?

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Creation stories

Researching into different religions and cultures, makes it possible to draw parallels between each.

One parallel is the abundance of Creation Stories.

These are stories that hold a people together.

Christians know they’re Christian, because of the story of Adam and Eve. The Romans knew they were Roman because of the story of the twins being suckled by a wolf, and other peoples are not much different.

Now, I’d like to make this a little more personal.

Everyone has an individual Creation Story. This tells us who we are in society and the larger world. It often has information like who our parents are, where we grew up, and our history, told through our eyes.

This creates a filter of how we interpret everything in life.
So, by acknowledging our own Creation Story and its influence, and by understanding how it impacts upon our decisions and perception, we can set ourselves free.

Don’t ignore it, don’t deny it. Embrace it because it is important and unique…

But don’t let it shut down the imagination and the ability to write more stories.

This is my challenge also.

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Life is change and 2019

Everyone is busy signing up to their Resolutions, but how they are achieved is sometimes beyond us. This is because everything changes.

For those of us who freak out about change, coping is really quite simple.

It’s taken me roughly four decades to work this out, but change is cyclical and there will always be something constant… something that doesn’t change.

If I focus on ensuring I’m organised for the things that don’t change, then I’m halfway to coping with the overall change.

Getting finances sorted is a worthwhile Resolution. This one underpins much of what can be achieved and what cannot.

  • How finances work is a very easy example. Bills don’t arrive randomly. Utilities are usually billed every quarter, even though the food budget may change a little depending on season (although that can be brought to order easily too with some know how).

So, the idea is to work out how much the utilities cost for a year (if this amount cannot be calculated, I multiply the bill I do have four times to give me a rough cost) and then save towards that amount every three months.

So randomness is brought to its knees and now there’s more control in our hands. Change is curtailed and more manageable.

And there’s always the trick of getting your finances as well as the rest of life into a routine that takes some of the unpredictability out of life.

An old suggestion but a good one.

What change are you focusing on managing into the New Year?

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R. I. P Milo

This is a poem i wrote when my Granddad passed away. I’m sharing it with you today as a tribute to another death close to my heart.

Yesterday, my beloved dog, Milo, passed away, while i was at work.

R. I. P. love of my life. And thank you for gracing my life for the eleven years you were a part of it.

No one has known love until they’ve been loved by a dog.

…

I thought I was alone today

Looking into the blue,

Then I noticed a change

As the breeze gently blew

I looked around and felt something

I didn’t know what I sought

But realised then that I was wrong

As to me came a thought

It came to me gently as I stood there

It beckoned me to take note

And as I saw the clouds above

To me came new hope

Not quite a memory

Stirred in my mind

A glimpse of better times

That I thought I had left behind

Then I heard a voice

Gently in the breeze

“I am here with you forever

Now just let me stay please

I will stand by your side

And watch while you sleep

I will be there now

Even as for me you weep

And if you ever want a yarn

Or just to let me know

Light a candle and I’ll be there

And I’ll stay until you let me go.

Look for me beyond the clouds

Seek me in the sky

Search for me past the rainbow

And as the rain passes by

I will meet you there one day

I will wait until you see

That past where the night meets the sun

I am where I am meant to be.”

I wrote this the day after Grandad died…so on 21 October 2010.

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Fractured Faith writing challenge

A receipt for a banana, rice and a coffee.

Tonight. It was tonight. Tonight when i had the in laws over for dinner.

What to cook?

My sister was a fussy eater and they were really her in laws, not mine. Her little villa was too small to host the larger family we were meeting with. So i had invited everyone to my place.

And with a baby on the way, she had left me to do all the planning and catering.

My sister hated fruit, but i really thought the best desserts all used fruit in them. How to compromise?

These thoughts were running through my head as i stood in the large supermarket, staring at the endless shelves, trying to dream something up.

Suddenly i had it!

I had the compromise!

With more confidence than i felt, i strode to the aisle containing rice, and grabbed a bag. Then i marched to the fresh produce part of the store and picked up a solitary banana.

I’d make rice pudding and put a single banana into the recipe to keep both of us happy.

After paying for it, i stood outside the supermarket for a little bit.

My brother in law, my sister’s husband, rang to say he’d be late in picking me up.

I wandered back into the store.

I needed a coffee!