Are you wearing tinted glasses? Teddy talks....

 

Have you heard the expression "he/she was wearing rose coloured glasses"?

If not, then let me offer a brief definition: the term is commonly used as a way of saying that someone is a bit too naïve, innocent, or overly optimistic. (Basically, for some it may be seen as an insult, although perhaps for some, it may be viewed as a compliment.)

What we "see", is often affected by our biases. Bias? A definition: Bias; a particular tendency/inclination/point of view so strongly held, that it makes it difficult to consider other possible points of view.

The tricky thing with biases is that we are not always aware of having them.

According to some research, our biases are formed very early in our childhood and they can become so deeply ingrained in our minds that they become  virtually "invisible" to us.

To make the biases "visible" to us, it can be very helpful to ask ourselves: why do I hold this view? how did I come to hold this view? is this view founded on my own experiences? is there perhaps another way to view this?

Am I wearing any kind of "glasses" through which I view the world?

As an experiment, why not try this: Sunglasses have different coloured tints that vary from yellow, orange, green, brown, blue, and variations thereof. Try different colours and ascertain if the different colours affect the "mood" of your impression of what you see.

(Often we tend to have a preference as to which tint we feel most comfortable with and in my case, I prefer the brownish tints. What is yours?)

If there are "rose-coloured" glasses, perhaps there are also "gloom-coloured" glasses?

If someone wearing rose-coloured glasses is overly optimistic, perhaps someone wearing gloom-coloured glasses is overly pessimistic?

When my son was going through a particularly difficult period in his life, he would phone me all hours of the night, drunk, distraught, angry, sad, and often times, incoherent. This happened so often that I began to have anxieties connected to the sound of a phone ringing; any phone, anywhere, anytime. The sound of a phone ringing became synonymous with some form of disaster, suffering, and unmitigated fear; I donned (put on) the gloom-coloured glasses. Wearing those glasses on and off eventually led to me wearing them all the time, although by this stage, I was no longer aware of doing so.

At times, we can get so used to thinking along particular lines that we may find it hard to even entertain the possibility that there may be other possible lines of thinking. Our way of viewing something a particular way, becomes "the truth";  blue tinted glasses only offer the right light.

(Which can be tricky when it comes to getting along with others who may be wearing orange, green, brown or even rose-tinted glasses.)

Becoming aware of that we perhaps view the world, our experiences, through "filters" (tinted glasses) can be helpful, because we then have the opportunity to choose to affect a change.

We can try different "tints"; if I am more optimistic, how does my situation look then? ... if I consider another way of interpreting what person xxx said, how will I feel then?.... if I choose another way of responding to zzz, what will happen then? .... are there other ways of viewing this?.... et cetera.

What if we don't want to change, what if we are happy sticking with our gloom-tinted glasses?

Then gloom is what we will see.

And if we are happy sticking with rose-coloured glasses?

Optimism, hope, and opportunity is what we will see.

 

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” (Robertson Davies)

 

 

Forgiveness...."To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you."

 

The first beams of golden light slithers through the drawn blinds.

Eventually the beams find their way across her face. Their gentle warmth nudge her eyelids open.

Ekaterina startles. Once again she had fallen asleep in the chair by the window.

The room is filled with light and gone are the beasts of the night.

An alarm clock suddenly breaks the silence. Ekaterina rubs her sore feet, then slowly walks to her bedroom to turn off the angry sounding alarm clock.

To ease the pain in her aching body and make it possible for her to go to work, she decides to have a long, hot, shower.

The hot water sends shivers through her body but the pain remains.

With shaking fingers she touches the scars running up and down her arms, legs, and torso. Years have gone by since the assault, but the pain from the scars often remind her of the nightmare that once was her life. When the war had begun, she was a fourteen year old girl with hopes and dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer, but when it ended, she was an old soul with broken dreams, a broken family, a broken heart, and a broken body.

She was still preoccupied with perfecting the 'pas the deux' when her brothers joined up, and when her father disappeared night after night to secret meetings, she stayed at home with her mother sewing costumes. For her, the war was inconvenient, but somewhat unreal, until the bombs started to fall and people disappear. First Dejan, then Goran, then her father. Food became scarce, her mother would leave at dawn to stand in line for a piece of bread, some potatoes, and a cup of milk. Ekaterina watched the light in her mother's eyes slowly die, as days, weeks, months, went by. On her sixteen's birthday, they were given the news, that her father and brothers, had been found dead in a shallow grave; all shot in the back of their heads.

Her mother's heart, fell apart, and soon she was gone, and Ekaterina was left on her own. She decided to leave, to run away, to find some peace, somewhere safe to stay. Then one night she packed a small bag, some morsels of food, some clothes to wear, and wrapped up in satin, her most beloved possession; her ballet shoes.

She was only a few kilometres from the border, when she run out of luck, she was spotted by a soldier from the back of a truck. Before she knew it, she was on her back, and one by one, they took turns, in defiling her body, and hitting her with their guns. Barely conscious, she realised that the worst was yet to come, she saw a big knife on top of a gun. He cut her arms, he cut her legs, he cut her feet, he cut her chest. She should have died, but death was denied, she woke three days later, a nurse by her side. A kind old shepherd minding his flock, found Ekaterina half dead and in a state of shock. On his back he carried her across the border, found a hospital to look after her to help her recover.

One year later, it was time for her to leave, to find new life, pastures green.

She settled in a city, not too big not too small,

with many ballet venues and concert halls. She found a job and a place to live,

made some friends, and decided to forgive.

Ekaterina carefully dries herself, then gets dressed. She swallows two pain killers, ties her hair in a bun, and turns on the radio. The small flat fills with music and Ekaterina gently begins to dance.

 When she decided to forgive the soldiers who assaulted her, a burden lifted and she found the desire to dance again. Although the scars on her feet still cause some pain, when she dances, she feels no pain at all.

"Soon, Mama, soon, I will be able to dance joyfully again," she whispers as she gracefully dances across the sunlit floor.

 

"When we forgive, we set ourselves free regardless of ...."

 

"Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting, nor does it mean that you've given the message that what someone did was okay. It just means that you've let go of the anger or guilt towards someone, or towards yourself."

"Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning." (Desmond Tutu)

"When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future."

(Bernard Meltzer)

 

Friendship.....what does it mean to you?

A friend is someone who stays with you regardless of the weather.
A friend is someone who supports you, when you're at the end of your tether.
A friend is someone who will desert you,... never.

A friend is someone who treats you with respect,
inspite of flaws and being less than perfect.
A friend is someone who knows when to listen,
and when to offer, some gentle friction.

A friend is someone with whom you feel at ease,
warts and all, no need to appease.
A friend is someone who stays in touch,
has you on speed-dial, (or .. some such).

A friend is someone who calls when running late,
or if for some reason, have to break a date.
A friend is someone who stands by your side
when things fall apart and you're caught in a tide.

A friend is someone who openly shares,
concerns and worries, life's many cares.
A friend is someone who offers you honesty,
steadfastness, and utmost, loyalty.

On the list of things, of what a friend ought to be,
perhaps it may be prudent to ask: Is this true, true of me?
Am I such a friend, a friend like this?
I hope that I am, and you wont find me remiss.


"A good way to find a friend, is to become one."

(Citizen X)

 

Who am I ?.......on finding "me"...

 

"Tell me something, what do you mean with you have find yourself, do you mean that you somehow "lost" yourself, and now you need to find yourself again?" asked Linda's grand mother.

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of silly, but yes, I feel as if I don't really know who I am, what I stand for, or what I believe in," Linda answered.

"Did you use to know these things then?"

"Yes, I used to be very sure of who I was and what I believed in".

"So why do you now feel as if you are lost?"

"I don't know, but recently I have started to question myself. I mean, why do I hold the views that I do? Are they truly my own views, or are they hand-me-down views that I have picked up along the way? I feel lost I guess, because I am no longer sure of who the real me is."

"Is there such a thing as a "real" you then?"

"That's the thing, I don't know. Things happen, and suddenly I find myself doing things I don't want to do, and not doing the things I want to do. It's like there is a war going on inside of me between a "real" and "false" me."

"How is the "false" you different to the "real" you?

"Well, the "real" me wants to be kind, hard working, fair, patient, understanding, wise, supportive, loving, fun, loyal and so on, but often that other "false" me shows up instead. That "me" gets irritated, impatient, jealous, envious, competitive, angry, .......basically not a very nice person at all".

"Being a nice person is important to you?"

"Yes, I want people to think well of me."

"Why is it important for you that other people think well of you?"

"See, that's another struggle I have. I want people to like me, but I also want to stand by my principles, and sometimes those things clash."

"What do you usually do when they clash?"

"It depends I guess. If sticking up for my principles will cause a loss of some kind, like a friend, or a job, or cause friction in my family, then I often choose to ignore my principles and go with the flow.

I mean, people are more important than principles aren't they?

"Are people more important than principles?

Perhaps that is a principle for you; people are more important than principles?"

"Well, I have relationships with people, but not with principles."

"Yes, but the kind of relationships you have with people depends to a great extent on your principles."

"Hmmm....so I guess it is important for me to be really clear about what my belief system and guiding life principles are? Do they make up the core of who I am perhaps?"

"In my opinion, they certainly play an important role. However, life is not static and you may encounter experiences in life that may cause you to question your belief system and guiding life principles. At times  you may even find that you may need to revise or even change them."

"So, my sense of who I am is not static? It keeps changing?

I am neither "lost" or "found", I am both, I am neither my "real" or my "false" self, I am both?

"Well, Linda, I am a mother, a grand-mother, a woman, a wife, a human being, a cook, a gardener; yet my experience of me is that of one "me" with many aspects."

"Is who I am the same as what I do?

"Part of who you are, is what you do, just like part of what you do is part of who you are.

What you think you are, you become."

"Will I ever really know for sure who I am, Grandma?

"Knowing what kind of human being you want to be is a very good start, Linda,

and if you find yourself falling short of being the kind of person you want to be, you can always make a change. As Vera Nazarian wrote: "Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow."

 

(About the painting: This is a piece that came about while I was teaching a student to paint.)

 

On feeling helpless........

One by one the baby turtles were snapped up by predators. Hundreds were decimated to a few. A bystander watching a woman assisting the baby turtles by gently carrying them one by one to the ocean, walked up to the woman and asked: "What's the point of what you are doing, what difference does it make if you rescue a few of these turtles?" The woman turned around and looked at the man and then answered: "Well, it makes a big difference to this little one"  then she walked to the water where she released the baby turtle.

Have you ever experienced times in your life when you have felt helpless? "Hmmm...helpless in what way?" you may ask. While shifting a piano with a friend I suddenly lost my grip and the piano came crashing down on my left foot.....no matter how hard I tried I couldn't lift it...I was helpless...until my friend came around to my end of the piano and helped me lift it off my foot.  I recently had a conversation with a friend who told me that he felt utterly helpless to change the situation he was in, and due to his feelings of helplessness, he felt depressed.

Physical helplessness may be quickly fixed with an influx of physical strength/help, but what about emotional helplessness?

First I looked up: Helpless = unable to help oneself/others...or = lacking support, or = powerless, or = defenseless, or = weak/dependent....the more definitions I looked up the more puzzled I became...was there a slight twinge of disapprovement hidden in the definitions?

Next I searched for "emotional helplessness"......lo and behold, more bewilderment.

Attached to the word "emotional helplessness" very often was the word "learned".

This led me to ponder what different kinds of experiencing "emotional helplessness" there were; so there is "learned emotional helplessness", but what about "circumstantial emotional helplessness" or "adapted emotional helplessness", or just plain "I-feel-so-emotionally-overwhelmed-right-now-that-I-feel-helpless-to-affect-any-change" emotional helplessness"?

Is being emotionally competent a "natural/common" state of being/behaviour and so any deviations from such becomes "learned"?

Hmmm...........

Perhaps we can learn to become "emotionally competent" even though we may struggle with feelings of helplessness?

Are there some steps one can take to overcome feelings of helplessness?

I believe there are.

My suggestions are as follows: What are the issues over which you feel helpless? At times being able to define the issues clearly and precisely can help us establish what we know to be true compared to what we believe to be true. (Being told by a trusted doctor that you have "xxx-disorder" is different to believing that you do because your dad did.)

Share your concerns with someone; getting a different perspective can be very useful/helpful.

At times it can be easy to get stuck in a pessimistic loop when we feel helpless; sharing our concerns with someone with an optimistic disposition may assist us in entertaining new possibilities.

For some people it can be helpful to set goals.

"Of the issues that I find problematic, are there perhaps some that I can do something about?

What do I need to do to affect change?"

Sometimes even the smallest of successes make a big difference in achieving a sense of hope and empowerment.

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." (Francis of Assisi)

Strange though it may seem, when we shoulder the responsibility for our own lives,

an amazing sense of empowerment often follows.

 

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”

(Rumi)

 

Many voices when in harmony makes a choir......

During my last few years of high school, I belonged to a choir.

I can't really remember how or why I joined a choir since I didn't really like singing and I couldn't read music, but joined, I did. (How I passed the audition, is still a mystery to me.)

It was a motley crew of people from many different backgrounds, but what was quickly apparent to me, was that they all seemed very dedicated to this choir.

When the conductor raised his baton (conductors stick), forgotten were the differing views on religion, politics, moral dilemmas, whether Jimi Hendrix were a better guitarist than Eric Clapton, or Yoko Ono destroyed the Beatles. Once the baton was raised, all that mattered, was the music.

I was amazed at the transition from a cacophony of people arguing and debating to in an instant becoming the harmonious sound of a choir.

My conclusion was, that there was one thing that was more important than anything else; the love of making wonderful music, together.

The algorithm (formula for solving a problem) for the choir, was the music.

If mass media is to be believed, then it occurs to me that mankind better come up with a new algorithm for peaceful co-existence, because whatever algorithm we are currently using, is obviously not working.

But why care?

With everything going on all over the planet, what difference does it make if we care?

May I suggest that because of the ripple effect, and because the world is an interconnected system, it makes a difference when we care.

Expanding on Edmund Burke's words: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing".

Evil?

Some of us don't adhere to that term. Okay, perhaps expressed differently: "All that is necessary for injustice to triumph, is for righteous people to do nothing." Or: "All that is necessary for indifference to triumph, is for people to not care." Or: "All that is necessary for apathy to triumph, is for people to abandon hope."

Have you heard of the Butterfly Effect? (The term not the movie) The Butterfly Effect is "the idea, used in chaos theory, that a very small difference in the initial state of a physical system can make a significant difference to the state at some later time ".

Put another way: A small change can end up being a big change.

Consider the "Power of One", some examples: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Lord Buddha, Jesus Christ, William Shakespeare, Socrates, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Marcus Aurelius, ......and so on.

"Never believe that a few caring people cannot change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have." (Margret Mead)

In the face of  24/7 reports of wars, atrocities, famines, poverty, crimes, natural disasters, et cetera

it can be tempting to apply the "It's all too much" algorithm, and according to research, human beings find it easier to become emotionally involved with the fate of one missing child in their own home town than 3.000 children in peril "somewhere over there".

Another algorithm is: "If I ignore it, it will go away."

(Climate change? What climate change?)

If we are not directly affected by natural disasters, economic down turns, pandemics, growing unrest and political upheavals, it is possible to ignore such....however, if the Butterfly Effect Theory is correct, then whether we like it or not, we will be affected.

The population on this planet consists of many "voices", but perhaps it would do all of us some good if we could find a way to put aside our many differences and started to focus more of our attention on what we have in common, and how we can create "harmony" rather than dissonance, together?

 

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." (Jack Layton)

 

(About the image: The reason I have chosen to use bears rather than humans, is that I am cautious as to not offend any peoples. The bears are symbolic representations.)

Parents and children.......

We are all someone's child,

and some of us,

are someone's parent.

 

From the moment my son was born,

not a moment has passed,

when I was not aware of his existence.

 

The love that comes with being a parent,

is equal to none.

Every fibre, every heartbeat, 

 the very last pore,

is ones own,.... no more.

 

When my child is happy, I soar,

when my child is hurting, I bleed from every pore,

when my child despairs, I am anxious to the core.

 

The instinct to protect,

to offer cover from life's darts

so very persuasive

when his dreams fall apart.

 

If my child's heart is broken,

from pain unspoken,

what do I have to offer

but an endless supply

of love, unconditional in design.

 

For me there will never be a time,

when I will desert this child of mine,

I'll be his shelter in the storm,

his friend when he feels low.

 

He shares my heart, he shares my soul,

he owns his heart, he owns his soul,

and though my child he well may be,

to know himself, he must be free.

 

To learn to cope with fiery darts and broken hearts,

life must be lived with all its parts,

to learn to grow, how to be strong

one cannot quit when things go wrong.

 

When the bough breaks and the skies turn grey,

a parents lot is to show the way,

how to find the crack where the light shines through

and what to do when one's feeling blue.

 

To learn to be selfless, patient, and kind

a good way of learning

is to love a child.