We are evoling not revolving - the power of language

A word of warning, my language is all over the place here today.  I recently had an experience where I allowed myself to witness ignorance at its worse and I decided not to take it on.  The choice bothered me to the point I internalised it and allowed it to boil over into my communication with those totally uninvolved in the previous situation (the collateral damage) and kept me awake for the rest of the evening.  So my usual Sunday blog is a little disjointed, a rambling of language and thoughts. Be warned.
It's been a long while since I felt the turn of the newspaper, the quiet morning with a cuppa browsing.  I'd taken to online reporting, it's more sensitive to the environment, yet strangely enough I rarely read it anymore.  So a moment to spare, I picked up a few papers (always good to read a few points of view on the same subject! we all have those friends who could be a writer for the Telegraph).
Somewhere in PNG a young woman had been tortured for witchcraft under a tribal type system of justice. They had beaten and tortured this young woman with a poker. From a western middle class, Christian perspective (& I'm not suggesting this is mine only generalising here) I could see the gasps now, the squirmish and quickly turning to something more sensitive and interesting.  If you read on it tells the details of how the woman was handed down a system of punishment for using witchcraft on a 6 yr old child who was killed by this woman.  Would that change your perspective?
On another more elaborate full spread was the story of the Olympic SA 'Blade Runner' currently accused of taking his pistol, possibly after consuming too much alcohol and putting several bullets in his girlfriends head.  There is no history on his girlfriend.  The article featured the disappointments of a person placed so high on the hero ladder his fall collects a few misguided individuals on the way down, the ones who think to be a good person requires success in sport, politics, coming first in something; the same people thinking "oh how very sad that he should be experiencing this, surely there must be a reason for such an amazing person to behave this way". There are amazing successful people in sport, yet let's not assume that makes them nice, honest people as well. You don't think about his girlfriend, her family, her loss of potential, life ahead; you are manipulated by the lack of information you are given.
It is rather interesting the way we use language to push an agenda, to manipulate the visual representaation of language, tell the public what is more important than something else and nothing pushes my buttons more than the arrogance of a 'white way is the right way' approach to anything. On watching the anniversary of the Sorry Day speeches the other evening, I was glad to hear that our education curriculum will now represent an account of Aboriginal history which includes the Stolen Generation history, the systematic government policies of removing children from their families. 
We should never need to have such information made as part of the curriculum in order to teach our children our countries history, yet sadly in so many homes people only hear what they choose to hear. When we only teach our children one way of knowing, we promote the development of a precious bubble in which they surround themselves, believing their world is the only world, we are witnessing this more today than ever before in the change in use of language across our younger generations.  Yet let's not jump on the internet bandwagon, as at the core of language is the family environment and to be honest about it, if internet were to blame language should be improving as access to the wider world has never been more available.  Yet what is occurring is a decline in the rules of language, how we speak to others, how we share information, learn from each other.
In a discussion with a teacher the other day we were reflecting on the huge decline in language pragmatics in our children, homes and communities than ever before. The rules of language which we learn from our social environments, parenting/childhood, reading, education, knowledge, appears to be declining and we are being influenced by it's disappearance with the increase in social networking, the media grasping to hold on to their audience and needing to find more ways to influence the reader to see their way of interpreting an event. Even our political agendas manipulate what is acceptable and non acceptable forms of language in certain environments; with graphic signs of our PM with defamatory slogans and personal attacks common in the background of media reports. What does this tell our children, let alone the ignorant uneducated persons who are easily influenced by creative persuasion.
The days of minding your manners, being sensitive to someone's feelings, not always speaking your mind as the words come to your mouth, these cognitive skills we develop in childhood from our own parents, families, education; is it disappearing at such a rapid rate as a social network explosion provides immediate large scale soap boxes in which to skip all the rules of basic language. There are forums, agendas, ways to have your thoughts heard, blogging for example! Yet these are opportunities to vent appropriately, you can choose to log out, you don't have to read, you can choose read several, even hundreds of views on the same topic at the same time.  What you take on board is up to you.  When I write an article, I pull the reserach on the topic and then I search the criticism and read their research as well. It gives a balance to presenting anther point of view. 
I have a friend who has chosen for a long time not to watch the news, read the papers, follow any news basically outside their small community, with a desire to focus on what is relative to them.  At first glance I thought this was incredibly ignorant, yet on further examination of how other people develop their understanding of what is going on in their community, in the wider world I wonder if chosing to only hear one view on something, read the same paper each time (just like your father or mother or someone did) or watch the same channel, the same current affairs program, whether that is just as ignorant? This is not a conclusion merely a question.
Learning does not cease at adulthood.  Understanding ourselves, our impact on the world, on others never needs to cease.  We choose our knowledge, we choose whether to educate ourselves, we choose whether to educate our children.  We only need to follow the process of racism, sterotyping, violence; these beliefs and understandings begin in the earliest years of a child's development. It is the language they are exposed, the knowledge they are limited to, the questions that are not answered. this whole process intrigues me; at times completely fascinated by human behaviour, why people do what they do, how they do what they do and how we learn, what shapes our behaviour, modifies it and influences our interactions with each other.
The other day I witnessed a conversation between two 7yr olds, one asking if the other would like an iceblock for afternoon tea in a polite and non threatening manner and the other 7yr old responded with a loud, aggressive and categorical "why would you eat that, it makes you put on weight, it's just junk food", it was language straight out of the mouth of an adult who had predisposed their child to flippant comments only to be re shaped by a 7yr old into their way of understanding of it's relevance.  Yet adults often forget children are incredibly easily manipulated by our language, what we say; monkey see, monkey do. What was even more interesting, is the 7yr old who referred to the water iceblock as being a threat to their weight, was incredibly underweight.  The teacher and I were discussing at the time how influential a parents view of the world, themselves is to their child's, it was straight out Skinner's conditioning theories, like training a puppy, your behaviour follows down the lead.
Language is one of the most incredibly powerful tools we have as human beings, how we speak, converse, use our body language, interact with each other says alot about who we are, what beliefs we have, our education, our personality. Most people are completely unaware short simple statements reveal so much about their unconscious mental processes, their schemas (beliefs about things, people, events), their defence mechanisms; you only need to open your mouth and a history of information about you oozes out. How you use language, speak to others, understand information tells a story like a map to your encoding. These understandings have opened thousands of opportunities for profiling, predicting human behaviour, understanding who we are, it's my passion and I can see in the near future I will be swimming in a sea of literature hoping to better understand this interesting area of human development.
Most people go along their merry little way and tell themselves "I am what I am, I ain't no more" (thanks Popeye), justify their beliefs using cultural props to hold up their backbone, rather than learning to stand erect with the knowledge they have sought, to better understand their childhood encoding, it's benefits and risks. Encoding, the root of behaviour in our brain; the way we represent people, places, things, events that are significant to us, how we understand and interpret the world in many different ways does and will define our personality.  It goes on to influence our behaviour, our use of language and it will go on to influence our children's.  By understanding our persons limited understanding of the world it is much easier to predict their intelligence and success in life, even their child's; those with accurate and more organised schemas (encoded information) are closely linked with superior levels of social intelligence, high results in achieveing interpersonal goals, make friends, keep friends easier, get the jobs they want, have a high level of resilience, these people get up, get up and get up again.
So what this tells us is what we read, what we learn, what we accept as information, how we educate our children about language, about understanding the smaller and wider world forms the basics of their language and primary to influencing their behaviour, the formation of their bias, their stereotyping and understanding who they are and where they are in the grand scheme of things.
I watched a show the other evening on relationships and couples. The program focussed on identifying the issues and then developing strategies for healing the relationships, these were relationships in obvious trouble.  One would only need to see how the couples verbally expressed themselves to each other to know which relationships were going south no matter what strategies were attempted.  I recall discussing this once before and it never ceases to amaze me how little people communicate verbally and appropriately with the most significant person in their life.  They are happy to share a bed with, their most intimate parts of themselves, yet be honest in their thoughts and use of language.....pffff, no never! Bettina Ardnt (Clinical Psych & sex therapy guru) highlighted this phenomena in her book 'The Sex Diaries', of many couples who live these false, plastic lives yet too hung up on their own crap to be able to be vulnerable mentally with the one person they committed a life to! It is so insane!!!
Sometimes we use language to vent, we excuse our rants and sharp words as some sort of cathartic process to feel better about ourselves, denying the other people around us the right to live without your inability to control your emotions, to do something about educating yourself about the power of language.  Let me tell you, your apologies are all well and good yet they also condition the person who may love and have developed strong attachments to you, to be your doormat, unless you change your behaviour.  They don't deserve your crap, your irresponsible rants and raves, just because you have bottled up something and too afraid to be vulnerable, to be honest with them about how you are feeling, in a more appropriate, sensitive and respectful manner. Take some responsibility people for the power of your language, do something about it.  You are not an expert just because you know how to form words.  I ate french food once, does that make me an expert in French cuisine? You do not have all the answers, unless of course this is your field of experteise, see an expert!Your lack of insight and ability to control the power of your language tells us you have a long way to go.
I have seen this over and over and over again to the point of frustration some years ago and now to the point of knowing humanity is incredibly imperfect, flawed and underpinned by ignorance, that I will not sit quietly and listen to someone's ignorance, to do so would enable it to flourish. Never have more true words been spoken than by Mr Burke "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing". Sitting back and pretending everything is going to be OK if you just think positive thoughts, is not only stupid and naive, it's dangerous. It is those individuals who make a conscious choice to stand with a backbone, to not ignore the ego drive need to change other cultures, justify arriving into foreign shores, slaughter of millions of people in the name of advancing western civilisation.  No this is not just history, we are still doing it today.  We are still going into countries with our religion, our culture, our western practices and thinking we need to fix, remedy and improve the lives of peoples who have survived for thousands of years.  How many times have you heard the phrase "I tried to help her but she didn't want my help". It is only ever help if you have allowed the other person, country, culture to have self determination.  You don't ever need to shove help down anyone's throats, they embrace it when it is genuine and sincere. Does anyone bother to ask whether on a friendship level, family or country/cultural level does a person/country want your help? Our white way is not the right way just because someone says it is. Your religious beliefs are yours to keep, to nurture, to hold.  Why do you feel the need to ram them down the throat of others? What makes your belief so right and everyone else so wrong? Books people, books, words and language; stories of thousands and thousands of years have underpinned these beliefs.  Words underpin these beliefs, manipulated and told into so many different spin offs, it makes the head spin thinking about it.  Millions, trillions of financial institutions bricks and mortar relies on these words on the manipulation of these beliefs, there is a lot vested in promoting these and invading the shores of other countries and ramming our ways down the throats of other cultures. 
Maybe you think I'm being a bit harsh, yet I find the whole arrogance disgusting and a total waste of our humanities intelligence.  I'm not referring to the safety of others, I'm not referring to going to aid the wellbeing of other human beings; why we have borders other than to determine financial obligations and political responsibilities is questionable.  We have every responsibility to support our fellow human beings, yet to be so arrogant to want everyone to be like us? WT? because we know better? Do we really?
Take a little time to read a few anthropological studies on parenting, on the basic needs Maslow describes, our connections with each other.  We have more dysfunction and declining values, more mental health issues than many other cultures in the world. We have diagnoses that are not even heard of on some shores! Oh please give me a break.  We live in a culture where we have government funding for education, where it is a right and afforded right to go to school, yet we still have not-for-profit organisations having to provide 'sponsor an Australian child' to attend school, provide clothing, shoes and basic essentials.  We have a massive homeless rate and child abuse is not going down in statistics it is increasing! Yet we have people more comfortable with knowing what is so far away from our shores that they can be arm-chair advocates rather than do something about their own community, create a ripple of change around the globe. We have people dying in their homes in our cities, surrounded by neighbours and their corpse is discovered years down the track. Family is becoming synomous with friends, colleagues and work. People have more time to ring/message and chat on Facebook than they do to support their own family. We put sporting success at the top of our hero scales, sports people who use illegal substances, greed and power to fund their success.  We hold rallies regarding the injustices across the world, scream our distaste and shock at how women are treated around the globe yet totally oblivious to the mortality rate of domestic violence in our communities, to the mortality rate of child abuse, neglect, poverty and disease. It is so much easier to point the finger at another country, to look at our own requires taking responsibility for the impact we have ourselves on our own society.
When we know better, we have the capacity to learn more, to do more and to do better. This is our gift as human beings.  To push our our choices onto others who are neither hurting themselves or hurting others is just ignorance, it is the ego marching to the beat of it's own drum.
Who are we to take our language and use it to manipulate the language of others? That it is more important to feel disappointed about a man who kills his girlfriend in cold blood, because he wins a gold medal in running than it is to be concerned about the use of witchcraft on 6yr old children.
I'm hearing those of you out there who work in those fields where you feel the need to slap someone so hard it shakes all that encoding and schemas in their brain that they re align their basic functions so as to cease the constant justification of violence, racism, discrimination, abuse in the name of "I didn't know" or religion or I was told to.
Think for yourselves people.  Educate yourselves.  Open your mind, let the power of language educate you, so as to prevent the concrete setting on your ignorance. Do better than your childhood experiences, we are evolving, not revolving. This not the rinse and spin cycle.  We are here to do better and better and better. I'm not suggesting you go out there and tell everyone what you think they need to know, yet impart your own skills if they are open to it, impart information, listen to others, learn about each other, about cultures, religions different to your own, let your brain grow and in turn watch your behaviour change.  Be a ripple of change.  Learn how to speak, communicate and interact with all the gifts you are afforded.  Keep learning about yourself, about others, build on those blocks you have been resting your backside on for too long, get up and give your brain a chance!
I had a rather funny, yet interesting experience among many yesterday.  I was at a country show and there was this religious organisation and their big bus, which is fitted out with a health/education unit in which to help the public understand their health needs. It is an awesome concept, yet underlying is information about the religious practices and how we could better change our lives.  Anyway I thougth it would be fun to have the health check, given I have a pretty good understanding of my health at present.  So I ticked a few boxes regarding sleep, eating, exercise, alcohol consumption, basic health info.  Apparently this group had conducted a study and been able to predict the changes need to a persons health based on physical attributes (I can hear the psych friends reading this now having a giggle....yep I was laughing internally as well).
So I ticked the boxes, jumped on the scales (damn I had gained 2kg! wooo hooo so excited! no really I was), I remained polite as I do and waited for the results.  Had my blood pressure checked etc. The computer spits out this predictor of age.  It came in I am much younger than my years, however I could make some improvement on my weight as I am slightly over for my height, that maybe "I could exercise more" (yep I'm still laughing internally).
The young nurse was extremely informative, we spoke a little about the philanthropic history of the bus project, it often feeds young adolescent people at the local skate park and provides educational material on health issues at a community level.
Whilst this approach is incredibly useful for people who have no idea about their health, which always surprises me given the onslaught of media promoting good health practices, I wondered when will start using our language to highlight someone's strengths, to build them up, rather than continually telling people what they need to fix; not just on the individual level.  When will use our gifts of language to change the way we do what we do.  Oh I know it is happening all the time, we have an amazing array of 'crazy ones' as they are referred who have changed the world for the better.
Yet imagine being a single parent, slightly overweight, working your tail off doing two jobs maybe or one and studying, trying to improve your outcomes, budget is tight, do what you can, really trying hard to keep on top and you think such a little test might help you with some positive direction.  Only to be told, you are overweight, you need more sleep, you need to cut down on stress etc.  Wow just what you need more weight on those shoulders!
When the very pleasant nurse had finished I asked her what the correlation between the weight and muscle weight is, she never asked me if I was overweight due to fat or overweight due to muscle (muscle weighs more than fat). Under my clothes  I had trimmed downed my body fat to well as far as I can go today, more work still to be done, yet I had gained a few kilos not from fat, from muscle mass.  Whilst I had gained a few kilos in the last few weeks I've dropped a couple of inches, so I'm definitely losing it and gaining it in muscle! Yet the computer program doesn't provide for this.
I also asked about the psychological health questions, which there weren't any.
You can be the fittest, most controlled eater in the world, yet if you are unhappy, lonely, without love, dissatisfied with your job, your life expectancy is much lower.  Yes there are correlations between healthy people and positive people, yet as the article from South Africa above goes to show, you can be an elite athlete and psychologically you still sit in the gutter unless you can manage your behaviour; to take another human beings life is certainly not worthy of a gold medal.
Late last year in Victoria a man was stripped of his bravery medal for saving lives and risking his own life in the Black Saturday Bushfires.  After petitioning the authorities his ex wife was successful in having his hero status removed following years of sytematic horrific abuse.  He was not a hero, he was not even a nice man, he was abusive, violent and had ignorant to his behaviour and the impact it had on the people he called family.
So where does this leave us early this Sunday? Language and the power of language, you always had it.  Do you use it to evolve or are you stuck in a revolving door, leaning on the patterns of learned conditioned behaviour from childhood, because it feels comfortable and it means you don't have to change, to take on any responsibility for the mistakes of previous generations, take some guts and make the world a better place.
Language and the power of language, what do you tell your children about themselves, how do you role model the power of language.  Are they encouraged to speak up, to advocate for what is right or do you suppress with your power every opportunity they have to make sense of the world? Do you encourage them to read, to learn about other cultures, to learn about other religions, to touch, feel and use every sense to see the world as it is, not through the television and internet where they are desensitised?
I made a mistake (yep I put it here in writing lol) I will not make again.  I do not need to sit quietly and play to the ignorance of others because it makes them feel uncomfortable to be challenged on their stupidity and ignorance, nor should I expect others to treat me with the same enabling behaviour.  I look forward to the year I ahead, to a lifetime of endless learning; to be educated to the point of exhaustion on the nature of human behaviour, to think outside the square, to learn, learn and learn more about understanding why we do what we do.  The challenge will be how I will ever look with the same lense at humanity again, yet I'm already considering that is an amazing positive consequence! I am excited by the intriguing, educated and open minded people I will come across, the lives I may witness evolving, making history, bringing understanding to complex behaviours. I'm emptying out the unused crap in brain and making room for a lot more meaning and relevance.  I will not be weighed down by ignorance and apathy, nor let it dampen my spirit, erode my values or persuade me to surrender my standards.
I leave with a few ideas I came across on predictors of a child's success (please email me with more ideas - ps thanks Ms J for your email on child/parent relationship awesome research!); based on a number of behavioural theories and hope that your mind remains forever open to growth and change.

Parent indicator's of a child's success (what we do)

- Parent can think outside the square
- Parent has developed autonomy
- Parent has well developed independence
- Monkey see, monkey do (healthy lifestyle, positive communication, self respect, respect for others)
- Has a good relationship with child
- Strives to maintain a good relationship with child
- Attempts tasks beyond their own reach (models success, reilisence, perserverance)
- Exhibits intuition

Key ingredients to success & motivation for children

ACHIEVEMENT IS LEARNED = GOOD ROLE MODELLING

Strong correlations between - parent:child relationship, child's self talk/beliefs & the parents self talk & beliefs, quality of the parent/child relationship

* parent discourages inappropriate complaining/advocates positive dialogue
* build on child's strengths rather than consistent focussing on what they child doesn't/can't do
* encourage independent thinking
* encourages abstract thinking (outside the square), OK to be different, question things/advocate for yourself/others, uniqueness celebrated
* promotes multiple solutions (rejects the one way is the only way - eg encourages to seek help, parent role models ability to do so)
* encourages autonomy (responsible to self, respect for others, responsibility for their actions)
* praise succcess when it occurs
* BUILD'S THE CHILD'S INTEGRITY (HONESTY, TRUST & POSITIVE VALUES)
 

If there is light in the soul, there is love

Someone, somewhere decided it would be an awesome idea to have one day to remind others to share the love, let someone know, the someone you may never in your wildest dreams speak to at any other time, let them know of your unrequited love.  For others it is a quick stroll down the flower isle in the supermarket to acknowledge you remembered, then there are those, who justify their lack of participation by stating they love all year round and so why bother on one particular day.
Mmmm why bother to express love visually?
Being a long term single household, we refer to it as Happy Love Day, no restrictions on partnerships, relationships or unrequited love, it's a day you can be that little bit more romantic (for some it might be the only time) without needing a special reason to do so.  You can be seen holding roses and those ridiculous soft toys and the only looks will be the smiles of people as they are reminded of the sweetness of such gestures.
How do we love, why do we love and what does it look like?
For some the word love an excuse for demanding control, saying what they want and living with someone too committed, too deep in financial liability they can't get out.  For some love is painful and hurts, people use it as an excuse to vent their own inadequacies onto others.
If you are walking in any of these stories know that if you are looking for that deep, passionate, hot love they make movies out of, you won't find it strangling it out of someone else.  Real love, awesome, amazing love....starts with yourself.
Love is so incredible, it's a level way above happiness, joy, erotic desire, sadness and pain.  It is the be all of the all.  We have become so accustomed to calling every connection love.  Every boyfriend, girlfriend, partner, latest fad, latest job a facet of love.  Do we love these things, people, moments are are they merely a mediocre form of something we aspire to feel? If you are letting go of someone or something, if you've lost the motivation to put someone's needs before your own, then how do you call that love?
I've never liked the concept of 'letting go' like it is something you exorcise from your mind and body.  Everything, everyone, every experience we have in life moves us, shapes, is part of us.  Who we are right now is a mix of all those connections. If you are one of the rare human beings who found real love, the stuff that people look for in novels, poems and the stars, you don't let it go like there is plenty more what that came from.  You learn to live with it, you tuck it into a warm place in your heart, it powers you through the years, provides strength, courage and wisdom.  You don't need to hold it, strangle it or keep it in your back pocket, it is enough for you to feel grateful to be one of the chosen few to be able to love with all your heart.
Too often, too many stories in early childhood, on movie screens and beyond encourage our children to think love is an external something you find in things, when I have more I'll feel more love, when I find the right person, I'll know what love is.  You are love.  All of you.  Can you stand yourself? Would you love you? Would you be friends with you? These are hard confronting questions on such a soft and mushy day, yet let's get to the crux of it.  How can we assume we have the capacity to love so unconditionally when we have a limited ability to love the one person we should know so well, ourselves. What are we offering to someone else? Half of us? A quarter? What is left over from our anger, our frustration, our disappointments in ourselves?
There are many historical accounts of Valentine's Day, I like the story of Valentine himself.  It says sacrifice to me and love is at its core, sacrifice.
When the Emperor Claudius II made the decision that only single men made better and great soldiers, he outlawed marriage for young men, in order to create soldiers without love.  A young man by the name of Valentine, realising the injustice of this decree, defies Claudius.  Now this is where the history books waiver.  Some say Valentine was  priest who continued to perform the marriages for lovers and soldiers in secret and for this he was put to death.  Others say Valentine was a young soldier himself and refused to give up the love of his live, marrying her in secret and was killed for his actions.
As the stories go Valentine's Day is a day of honouring the name of Valentine, his sacrifice for love, above all other pursuits in life, religion, employment, finances; that nothing in life is greater than the desire to love, to share love, more precious than to receive it.
Before the internet, before telephones made direct mobile text, Facetime and connected you anywhere and just about at anytime, love travelled miles in tiny envelopes, sometimes scented, with words touched by the pen of the person, eloquent strokes of ink over pages and pages.  You put them in boxes and looked back on them across the miles apart, to keep the love alive.  Lovers held on without gifts, daily contact, instant texting, fancy dinners, holidays in the Whitsundays, they held on to what I believe passed on from Valentine, the essence of all that is love, it is hope, longing, passion. These words created friendships, they built the foundations of love that would last a lifetime.  For some the letters would be all that remained of their love one, over many wars, many lovers never returned.  They didn't need to stick the OMO in the front window of the house or ask someone to 'cut their grass', there was no need to consider love as being anything more than be grateful for having what you had right then. Real love transcended all physical desires, being close did not always require geographical proximity.
Today over time, changes in technology, errosion of basic values, love has become a commodity and as transparent as many of the othe material possessions that fill large, empty loveless homes.
Who today takes a plane to Verona and writes a plea to Juliet, tucking a tiny note in the wall of hope and love? Who these days waits a "thousand years" as the song would have us believe to realise we do not find love, it finds us, that you have loved have loved this soul connected to you all this time.
Love is the last frontier of immeasurable human uniqueness, we love because we can, we can because we must, we must because to live without love is to empty the soul, to live without the basic of human ingredients,  Love drives our passions, it pushes us past our pain barriers, it lifts us to places we can only imagine in dreams.
I've been single for a long while now, I've had many a person try to tell me I need to try harder to find someone, like I'm missing an extension of myself and for some reason of stupidity I need to locate it in order to be complete.  Let me tell you, I am complete.  I don't need fixing and I don't need to shop for someone like I'm grabbing a purchase at Bunnings with a bbq snack in one hand on the way in! I don't need someone to mow the lawn, I don't mind doing that myself & about the lightbulbs, ever hear of a ladder?
Maybe I realised through all the stories, through years of reading accounts of different types of love, sarcasm, pain, suffering and love which transcends all obstacles, maybe I realised love is not something you grab on the way in or out, that like Winnie once stated, what you are searching for is not on any map, you don't need a guide or someone to give to you, that place you are looking for has been right inside you all along.
Valentine loved himself enough to sacrifice his life for others, he loved another so deeply no logic or reason could explain his sacrific other than for love.  He didn't need to have his ego boosted by telling him oh what a great job you've done, he didn't need gifts, treasures and reminders; he didn't need to be smothered or resort to manipulating someone in the name of love; he loved because it was the right thing to do, he loved unconditionally, with all his heart; he did not seek anything in return, there was not goal to achieve, no needing to be fixed or 'complete', he was complete.  Valentine stood up for what he believed in, he put his heart out there on his chest, he was completely selfless, he knew that great soldiers do not lack love, they carry it as a strength. Valentine was love and his symbol of love is a reminder to us all that great love requires great sacrifice, it requires knowing ourselves, loving ourselves, loving others enough to do what is right. 
Love is not a weakness, it is not someone to mow the lawns, reach the lightbulbs, carry the shopping, buy you a car or help you obtain financial security. It is knowing you can love whether you receive it in return or not; forgiveness, selfless, wanting what is truly the best for another human being without any need to receive in return, sometimes it is walking away with love, sometimes it is making a stand, love is never giving up. It is cherishing all that is the other person, like a parent to a child; it is wanting them to be their best, not your idea of their best, what they long for, dream for, aspire towards. 
For me love epitomises motherhood; these things and more come easy to mothering.  Maybe it's those early soul connections, like a hidden bond between souls.
We have a few extra teenagers over at present and I invited them to join me for yoga before the sun was up earlier today.  A series of questions followed regarding my motivation to get up so early, how long have I been doing that, is it easy. Love is not easy.  I get up because I decided years ago to look at a picture of my son, at a happy time before he died of cancer at 3yrs and 4months of age; on the bedside first thing every morning and to know great love comes with great sacrifice.  To love life is to give your all to it, even when it is hard, you are tired.  I rarely know what the term "can't be bothered" looks like.  If you love life, then you will always be bothered. If you love another, a child, a man, a woman, your family, you will be bothered. Love is giving up some of the ego that weighs you down, your expectations, assumptions, neatly planned out future, it is accepting the here and now and loving people unconditionally in the package they came in, not the one you wished for.  It is loving what life gives you, not what you expect.  It is realising that to see another day, to be blessed with a gorgeous view each morning, the clouds bleeding the sun through mist and mountains, you are grateful for the smallest of pleasures in life, so many are not afforded, so many little ones will never see.  You will love life and everything it gives you, every lesson.
Whoever he is, wherever he is, you will love with all your heart.  You don't need to see it, touch it or have him pay your bills.  Great love has no price tag.  It does not hurt, it does not ask, it just is. If it takes you a thousand years, you will wait. You will not rush into mediocre, ordinary love, you will find the light in your soul and let it guide you.
Sometime ago I started writing something other than exploring creative sarcasm on here and self help guides for parents who fail to engage their frontal lobe, it's a work in progress (so please acknowledge copyright).  It's a perspective which denies logic or reason; it requires an intuitive being, not lost in what is right in front of them, it is a connection, a love so powerful it requires silent moments, hard decisions and sometimes loneliness.  Why anyone would want to settle for something that feels ordinary or fits the criteria is beyond me; when you could have something that moves mountains.

I leave you with part 1, following a short history on love & a wish that may you find the love dreams are made of, may you take today to love with all your heart, to remind yourself what you seek is right inside you all along; like a beacon to another soul, let your heart guide you xo

Happy love Day people xo

Part 1

There are times when I believe my soul would have bettered served its purpose in another species, one which eats its prey, or possibly one whose brain is the size of a pea, rather the seed of a pea before it sprouts, a tiny, miniscule brain, smaller than plankton, which doesn’t know let alone care what anyone thinks, does or wants. What did I do that was so bad to end up in this soul? No I couldn’t be reincarnated into some Asiatic tiger, um.... stripes, no not stripes, not my thing; polka dots maybe, what has polka dots? A cuscus, no that’s not me either; sounds like the name of something a small child would say on the back door step rattling a container “here cuscus”....see what I mean, still going there, the brain that never sleeps.

Instead I was born a girl, a middle class, middle child, middle average, except intelligence of course (well that is my spin on it) and height, I was average. How the hell I ended up with a short stature with a baby brother who turns out 6ft 4 and sisters, aunts and babies (stretching that one) even taller than I I’m yet to know, the milkman was actually a milk woman, so that rules that one out!.  You know you are short when you are jumping up and down waving your arms at those damn automatic doors at the shopping centre, a bit like the kids when we pass the speed cameras! They too are probably crying “help”.

Not that I wished for one day I was born a male, it was the whole being born in the 1960’s when women were burning their bras, wearing flowers in their hair and giving away ‘free love’; come on members of the female species what would ‘Lucy’ (Australopithecus afarensis the most complete, well preserved skeleton of any human ancestor walking upright to be found), be thinking of us....men were being put on the moon and you were burning your bras!.  Some God whoever she is must have been distracted by a social gathering, unlike that of a mother talking on the phone when the children ask is it alright to put their sibling in the dishwasher...”yes fine, Ok, just leave me to finish my conversation” when it was time to decide whether to descend my ovaries or not.  I can hear them discussing it now “I was thinking of spending the weekend over at cloud nine, dropping in on Allah, Jesus it’s never been the same between you two since they called Mohammed a prophet and he decided to go his own way, I hear there is trouble in them there woods maybe he could do with a chat”. The trusty disciple responds “what about this one, what shall it be”. 

They stop, stare and look bemused as my soul flashes back to them like a charging red blinking battery “and this other one” they point to a beaming soul waiting quietly in the wings, its light green and calm “come on you lot, these are coming in and at a rapid rate, I better take a look at what’s going on down there” (after all it is the 60’s!).  

They push me to the side and my soul spirals down a golden passage of time and on the way God shouts from the heavens “better leave those ovaries up, her balls are too big to descend”, with amusement the disciple replies “ heaven help the soul that connects to her. So what about this one? ” That’s her soul” God replies with a smile that reeks of pleasure and satisfaction of making the grandest of all discoveries “no this one” repeats her trusty disciple right hand man.   “Yes, that’s the other half, he can wait, we’ll send him later, and she’s not ready yet”.  Fear grips his face, another soul destined for a short passage “but she won’t....”, God interrupts” (being a woman she takes pride in this) “make it without him you jest, who am I? the Yes man” “she has the heart of a lion, a soul directly touched by my hand as long as he doesn’t stuff around, she’ll make it”, turning around so the others can’t see, she crosses her fingers “think I better have that chat”.

Did you know that? That each soul has another half? A bit yin and yang, like magnets they are drawn to each other, unlike Hancock they do not suck the life out of each other and their super powers the closer they are.  They share a light, a tiny beacon, the essence of hope, somewhere, out there we matter to someone.  Hollywood has thrived on its comparisons, yet none can define either in words or with rationale thinking what love is. Now don’t go analysing this all on me, I’m just passing on the tale, what happens if one dies? I don’t know this is my story; you write that one out and tell me how it ends. 

If there is light in the soul,

There will be beauty in the person.

If there is beauty in the person,

There will be harmony in the house.

If there is harmony in the house,

There will be order in the nation.

If there is order in the nation,

There will be peace in the World.

(Old Chinese proverb)

You are the change you seek

Ten Thousand years ago or more, values held clans together, common rules and understandings which gave meaning and direction as a collective community.  The cultural difference with mostly Western society today is our more insular, self dependent, self centred approach, yet at what cost?
As mental health figures continue to rise, the demand on helping professions is too great as individuals seek to find meaning in life, answers to an ache in bones not broken.
As the humanity which struggles seeks meaning in food, objects, material possessions, alcohol, drugs and anything external, they slide further and further off the track as technology and science speed towards the next quick fix. At what cost is this top down approach on our innate being as a species? Trying to fix something which isn't broken at all rather than build up the foundations of what has been there all along, by teaching us how to use our skills, bodies and power to be all we are destined to be.
Life is a journey, full of pot holes, hills and sharp curves.  Are you a passenger in the backseat looking out the window watching the world go by just waiting to get there? Are you a backseat driver and telling everyone else where to go and yet can't be bothered to drive yourself? Are you a co pilot or a driver? This is your journey, you choose the tranport, the stops along the way and whether you embrace it or resist it.
What is innate in human beings is our need as a species to connect with each other, to have a sense of purpose, self worth and relevance; to feel like we matter.  So much time is wasted on temper tantrums and a refusal to accept that this is your life, this is what you have created and this is where you are right now, right here, right now.  Everything that has brought you to this point, good, bad, ugly, has created the person you are right now. 
Until a time machine is invented, you cannot go back and change the past, you cannot go forward to map out your future and even if you could there is no way of controlling every single variable, every person who could alter your 'big plan'; ask yourself what is it you really want here? Why do you want it?
If only I had a better home, better car, more money, more time; if only the kids would behave better, work harder; if only my partner was nicer, easier, more attentive more loving.  All of these "if only..." suggest you as a victim in your life with no power to be the change you want to see.
Are you listening to yourself or silencing your inner voice?
Do you spend more time pretending to be something you are not, try to seek answers by observing what others do, think, wear, say and then wonder why your life has lost direction?
You are a gift, an amazing example of a living organism. You've had everything you need to be the best you can be all along.
Doubting yourself will not serve you well. Switching off to the voice which tries to scream under water "wake up, wake up you are walking asleep" will not bring you closer to your authentic self.
Blaming others, life, not having enough, will not satisfy the voice inside you that cries unhappiness.
There comes a time in life, whether a catalyst shoves you in the right direction, you have lost all that mattered or your own mortality forces self evaluation on you.
Let me reassure you it is not only normal, it is part of growing as a human being to reach a point in life when you look back on the lessons learned, the life before you, the legacy you will leave behind. If you have gone past 40 and haven't reached this point then get your head out of the sand! If you were a child some self righteous adult would label you as 'developmentally delayed'.  Yet as adults people walk around all the time with the heads up their backsides blaming the world for a great deal of the situations they were active contributors and wonder why this ache they try to heal does not repair!
Development does not stop at 18! Mastery of your body, your thoughts, of your power is not a licence issued on your 18th birthday or on which ever ritual passage you reach.  It is through reflecting on yourself, not as some broken object that needs fixing or mending, on your gifts, strengths and contribution; the legacy you will leave long after you cease to exist.
We are all connected by living things, we cannot exist on our own.  We rely on the nature, other species to provide for our shelter, safety and fuel to power our bodies.  Yet a great proportion of humanity ignores this symbiotic relationship, taking for granted the planet will just keep providing as long as we keep taking.
What we do know for certain is nothing last forever.  Living organisms have a beginning and an end.  As we continue to take, take and take from each other, from all living things, eventually the bucket will run dry.
This goes for you, for your relationships, your friendships. Everything has a limit. You have the power to choose everything; yes you have the right to speak and act as you so see fit! Eat what you like, say what you like, you also end up with your own consequences! You cannot continue to punish yourself without your body wearing the brunt of it and your mind; you cannot take from your relationship and punish those who love you without it having a consquence; you cannot keep spending, wanting and needing, without a risk of running out! You are not infinite!
If you want something different, do something different. 
As you condition yourself, you condition others.  The scary part is watching parents conditioning their children, despite all our skill and survival over millions of years, we still have generations of human beings following the same patterns of their parents and those before them, without at least adjusting a few improvements! If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
In the first five years of development our moral coding begins imprinting on our brains; respect, honesty, our sense of self and reasoning or alternatively disorder, poor self esteem, anti social behaviour (dominant, controlling, difficulty making new friends etc), dishonesty! These are the years of shaping our personality, the innate beliefs about ourselves, our dependence on others (or not). Throughout childhood how we speak to our children is the voice they hear in their heads, whether you believe it or not. 
So where is the balance? What is the point?
The point is for the world to have balance you have an opportunity to be the best you can be.  I'm not suggesting 'the best' that would be to compare you with others and once you go down that path you begin the same spiral.  This is about you.  Are you your best? Do you use your talents? Do you embrace the day? Could you improve your health? Could you love more, be more, do more?
If you don't want your child to be something or someone, ask yourself why? Is this about them or you? Why does it matter? What matters to them? How we value each other is by showing respect for the things that matter to us, through our own eyes. When you criticise, humiliate and belittle, you are telling a story of irrelevance, it doesn't matter, it isn't important, they are not worthy. Your chink in the chain of balance sets in motion an alternative ripple which works against what you unconsciously seek; meaning, to be loved.
I was having a chat with a friend this morning, which spark these thoughts.  They had always needed someone to tell them how to live, what to do and when, their unhappiness with themselves was projected onto others which created this continuous cycle of unhappiness, it justified their actions.  Then the penny dropped. 
There are many different approaches to becoming self actualised, to developing as an adult.  You could go to a therapist who might squeeze the pus out of your unconscious childhood issues, may ask you to lay down on a couch or might empower you to come up with your own solutions.  There is no one way, only the way that works for you.
I'm a strengths based approach person.  I find when people are going through hell it's best not to top up their load with more crap, by digging open wounds which were partially healed, to tell someone when they are worn and tired you need them to run a marathon! I've seen many positive results by people who focus on what they are doing right, enhance their strengths and get themselves into psychologically and physically awesome shape before tackling an olympic style emotional surgery.  No one likes to be kicked when they are down. I'm not suggesting you enable anyone's behaviour, you only allow someone to treat you the way you think you deserve, there is never an excuse for someone wiping their feet on you! That is their issue, handball it back!!!!
We make up rules and justifications to hold on to that which only hurts ourselves; such phrases as "they can't be trusted...." "they made me do it.......", yet trust really is what you extend, someone doesn't give it to you at all. It has been a constant lesson for me in recent years, most importantly trusting myself to make good decisions.  I've had the complete extremes of lessons, friends who said they wouldn't know a more trustworthy or honest person on the planet and others who when life doesn't go right for them, disregard every connection you've ever made and reach for you as the first person to blame; life has this way of presenting the lessons, whether we choose to listen is another thing; trust is never about someone else, it is about you, about trusting yourself, your feelings, your friendship.  You could pour yourself into a relationship and at the end of the day if the other person has trust issues, you will always seem untrustworthy, whether you are an angel sent from heaven or not. This will always be about their vulnerability.  Trust is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and for some that doesn't sit so well.
I do believe whole heartedly that when you change yourself, when you reflect on yourself as a contributor, you empower yourself with courage and strength, you see your potential, you see you have the capacity to change the circumstances of your life.  You wake up and realise you have been sitting in the back seat and it's about time you drive this life.  You start with being honest with yourself, your motivations and intention.  You look at yourself in the mirror and you absorb the reality of where you are, you are a beautiful, amazing human being and you have so much to offer the world!!!!
Up til now life has been a challenge, all that is going to change, it starts with your attitude.  You are going to be grateful for every single blessing. You are grateful people love you, want you and enjoy your being around.  You will start with respecting yourself and respecting others. You role model your children beauty, radiance, fairness, human compassion and understanding; you create the foundation  of your legacy, respect of self, respect of others, responsibility for your actions.
You contribute to a global shift, that it is time we stop taking, step up and start taking responsibility for ourselves, each other and the planet. It is time to give back. 
You are here, you exist, you have survived not on your own, with the help and support of many, some of whom you will never know. You are grateful beyond measure, for the roof over your head, the food on your table, for the people who matter to you, for life!
You are going be the change you want in your life.  You know where you came from, we all made some bad choices, they were hard lessons, now its time to put those lessons into action. You are going to start and start right now.  xoxoxo

Free love....where? really...???

Relationships are one of the greatest investments of our time (energy, patience, finances and physical capacity) that we will ever make in our lifetime. Relationships require everything and more from us.
If relationships were a bank account and you kept depositing your life savings, everything you had, everytime you went to the bank the teller was rude and abnoxious, then only to find out that on the occasions you went spend a little of those savings, it was empty and in the red, you would close the account, write to the Financial Ombudsman and start hiding your funds under the bed! Why invest so much into something that only takes and allows you to become emotionally bankrupt?
Free love, the term coined in the 60's of the ability to be liberal and generous with our emotional bank account, many children (generations!) appeared from 'free love' yet is it ever really free. What happened to authentic, true, honest, unconditional love. The media plays on the divorce rate and sensationalises the figures, yet who talks about the relationships where people are literally sucking the love out of each other? This affects us all! It's like a chink in the chain.
Attachment has never been more complicated than it is today, with its rules, regulations, contracts and obligations and that is just marriage! Billions, even trillions of unhealthy imprinted children now adults, imprinting on their own children and attempting to condition their spouses to fit a mould which needs re shaping! If only they had read Erickson's theories on psychosocial development and realise they are way off course, love is so much more. A healthy strong relationship says as much about you as it does about you as part of a couple.
If you were to sit down with a timer, a pen, a notepad and as you press go I want you to write every single thing you would like in a relationship, in a committed, intimate, amazing, fulfilling relationship with another human being.  Do you really want to be with a man? or a woman? Who would they be, what do they do, what is it you really want from a relationship?
Go ahead give it a go, I dare you.  If you were authentic (remembering true change, growth and sense of self comes from change) you would turn the key on that mind you lock into constraints, into rules and routines, into shoulds and coulds, let it go, imagine for just a minute, imagine your ultimate relationship.

Now.....are you done with that? I want you to give up another 60 seconds, just a minute of your time.  Grab a timer, use your phone! Sit down, piece of paper and when you press start write everything you have to offer in a relationship, what do you give, will do, to create this amazing fullfilling, hot, passionate and til death do you part relationship! What do you bring to a relationship.  So you do the dishes and fold the washing, no come on.....what do you give to the person you love?

There is no stopping when you do this, let the mind wander, be creative, stop trying to over think, over analyse, control everything, just write!!! Tap into those unconscious thoughts and let them out.

I'm not sure if you are in the relationship you long for, uconsciously or consciously, yet wherever you are right now, you brought yourself to it and you are where you are as an active contributor.  Now that is a hard call I know, there are complex relationships and nothing is ever that simple.  Yet if we know we cannot change someone else, we can only change ourselves, what choices are you making to bring you to your hearts longing? Are you a passenger in your life or in the driving seat!

People stay in unhealthy relationships, unloving; relationships which lack all the things they desire from a connection with another human being like some scene from this is as good as it gets!

What you tolerate, you accept; what you accept, you believe you deserve (whether consciously or unconsciously).

You deserve love, unconditional love. Love which lifts you up, celebrates all the amazing qualities you bring to a relationship.  Love that doesn't tie a rope to your ankle and weigh you down.  Love that is actions not words, you are the best you can be in this relationship and then some! You are radiating, gorgeous, a power to be reckoned with, this relationship is like an energy source and every morning you spring into life stronger, more capable and more alive.

You are the best you can be.......

You are content, happy, joyful, satisfied, you love your body, you enjoy your life, you feel joy and confidence in each step.

You look around your home, it is alive with your presence, this is where you want to be right here right now!

This is not to say relationships don't come with their ups and downs; anyone who has had children, financial pressure, health and disease inflicted on their relationship will know each of these issues on their own can weaken a relationship to the point of it breaking, let along altogether. 

You will hear alot of fake and over sensationalised information telling you what type of relationship you need, should have, yet not until you open your own heart, until you jump in with both feet, will you fail to find the answers.  You are not the person next door, the woman at work or the old friend.  Your relationship is about you and the person you love.  It is much better for you and everyone around you to be a first rate version of yourself than a second rate version of someone else. Be yourself, be authentic!

Honesty, the key ingredient to a healthy relationship, honesty and trust! Have you got the key?

Be honest with yourself, honest with your partner, trust yourself, trust your partner.

What is holding you back, what are you holding back from the person you love.  What choices do you make which prevent them from having the love they so rightfully deserve? Are they the best they can be?

I was chatting with a friend the other day about this very topic, about women who stay in relationships where they live half a life (not just those in violent situations that is a whole different conversation and complex situation this general chat does not include to some point), it is reflected in their body, their skin, their fulfillment, in their conversations, the choices they make in whether they radiate happiness or as good as it gets. Women who have lost the passion for their partners, women who no longer want to be touched by them, let alone any intimacy, women who have given up on themselves as if life stops the moment you enter a relationship! By doing this, you also withhold from the other half of that relationship. You starve yourself, your partner and your relationship.

Ask yourself do you dress they way you like, listen to the music you like, is your routine reflected by your authentic self, do you look forward to your partner, miss them, crave for them. Can you look around your home and is it reflective of the both of you, what does it say? Parenting....oh wow that is a whole other blog! What does your parenting say about you both? Do you parent together, co construct and lead your family as equal guardians or are you at bitter ends over a power struggle? How is this affecting your children! We reap what we sow, children are conditioned into relationships by watching, observing and role modelling.  What will be your legacy?

Yep Black Eyed Peas "where is the love, the love, the love....."

You are a human being, you are a gift of amazing treasures, your learning never ceases, life does not cease until the last breathe you take.

Life may have taken you on a detour, you were tired and needed to pull to the side of the road for a while.  Time to start that engine and get going. You can choose to grow or stagnate. You deserve a relationship alive with love, your partner deserves it and so do your children.

Last year the world was taken by storm by the Fifty Shades Of Grey series; it was one of those conversations like to smack or not to smack which brought out the radicals and the self righteous!
What it demonstrated is the unspoken desire people are craving in relationships.  All these unspoken words, untapped feelings, conversations not being had with their emotional and psychological bank! 

Bettina Ardnt (Psychologist) in her 'Sex Diaries' book highlighted this with real couples of different ages and stages of a relationship all demomtrating again how much is not said in a relationship, how much is withheld, used as currency, human beings suffering through lack of love, affection, intimacy with the most important perosn in their life.  I was absolutely horrified to read of men who stayed in loveless relationships and felt powerless to do anything! Let alone the women who didn't know how to talk with their partners. What would the evolutionary theorists say about that one!

You can choose unconditional love, celebrate everything about yourself, be the best you can be because you deserve it and so does the person who loves you. You can choose confidence, you can choosse to be the best version of yourself or a second rate. Ask yourself are you confident to stand naked in front of the mirror and embrace who you are, each inch, each scar, each lesson along the way.  Are you then prepared to walk naked in front of your partner, are you honest with yourself, do you trust the person you love?

A relationship, your love, is the greatest most amazing investment you will ever make in your lifetime.  It deserves your full conscious attention to yourself and your partner. You deserve to be the best you can be, to experience the full range of emotions human beings come with, to experience the full package.

Get up passionate, incredible women and get going, be the person you so want to be, need to be, long to be. Stop waiting! Put a spring in your step, laughter in your voice, food in the soul, be all that you can be and share it freely, the true meaning of free love.

Go on...get going xo

Same & Different - be the difference you want to see

I am not the person down the street, the story you heard yesterday or a statistic on a piece of paper. We are people, each with our individual differences. Why are people so compelled to focus more on similarities than difference?
When my son was on treatment for a brain tumour, we would often receive well meaning phone calls from people who had "just caught this show on t.v. about breast cancer". Some days I was reduced to simple syllables and was unable to be drawn into the ignorance; a small sympathetic part of me (hanging on by a thread) knew they "just wanted to help". Did they stop before picking up the phone and consider an anaplastic astroyctoma in the brain stem may share the same superordinate level of categorisation yet is a 46 year old woman, a 52 year old man the same as a 16 month old child who has neither touched a drop of alcohol, a cigarette, had a sexual relationship or roasted his tender skin in the sun or voluntarily put his body through any of the contributing risk categories which will see him loose the chance to go to school, marry, have children, live a life. No they didn't stop and they don't think.
I've been reduced to every box, category and similarity you can think of and not just by the professionals.  In my younger more feisty days I had the strength and stupidity to try and highlight the ignorance, now I smile, grab a cup of tea and pick my battles more wisely. It helps me identify who really gives a crap about who I am, where I am going and how I feel and really who doesn't, who needs to reduce me to the person down the street or the chick in a magazine due to the fact that so many complex issues are outside their comprehension in one person, so let's just keep it simple shall we!
It isn't a relatively new soap box topic of mine and many who know me are aware it has this way of pushing a tucked away button everytime when someone over generalises about human beings, particulary mmmwwwaa!.  If we could so easily help each other or judge based on the colour of our skin (OM...Gosh...imagine assuming all white people were the same, now that's a hornets nest waiting for a poke!). 
Everyday in every corner of the globe our lives are being reduced, minimised to tiny categories of generalisation.  It encourages individuals to ignore the differences and focus on the similarities, to judge, to make assumptions, to foster ignorance, it breeds apathy and strips away from humanity the fundamental evolutionary strengths gifted to us which bring us and hold us together.
If you were to focus for one day on how many groups you contribute to, promote and use everyday, then how this impacts on your thinking, how you relate to your family, your friends, loved ones, strangers and ask yourself to do you struggle against it or are you one of the easily led who has so little reality, implicit learning in which to draw from so they are reduced to magazines, newspaper articles and the person down the street to compare people to; you would discover a window of opportunity to change yourself and change the way you impact on others.
We are not numbers or things and there are times when similarities aid us in providing support, treatment and getting jobs done! The DSMV is not an instruction booklet, nor the New Idea, they are different forms of helping us better understand human needs.  If you picked up a new piece of IKEA with or without instructions how would you approach it? Did you know it tells a lot about how you approach anything!. Human beings have no instructions. Our behaviours do not define us, they are guidelines to understanding who we are, don't confuse the two! We can learn to understand triggers and motivations for behaviour, how we process information, a lot of what we do and say is predictable. How you live in your home, where you place your items, what items, what you eat, how you speak, what career you've chosen, partner, how you raise your children, how you communicate with others, with yourself; yes all this information gives hints as to who we are and what drives and motivates us! It's one of the most interesting aspects of being human, why we are who we are and why we do what we do. Yet like a doctor learning about the impact of choices on his health, you start learning more about human behaviour and realise the type of relationships you have enabled!
Human beings are driven by two forms of processing information, the big words are experiential and rational yet basically it comes down to the heart (experiential) and the head (rational) thinking/processing, resulting in how we behave and act. Most people assume the head rules, in fact most our decisions are made through implicit learning, through the experiential system; experiences, interpretation of events, personally meaningful, a system so powerful it has a great deal to do with how the head makes its choices! Hence why despite people being made aware of their irrational thinking and choices, they will still go ahead and do it anyway!
Hence reducing someone you care about, even in a professional capacity, reducing people to pre-planning your help completely negates their experiences, everything before that very moment that has brought them to this point! Now let's not over generalise about generalising! I'm talking about HELP people, when you want to connect with other human beings, sometimes you just need to LISTEN!
It is not statistically or humanly possible to have two people the same, it can't be done.  The environment, our childhoods, our life, living, every single event, our genes make up who we are. 
Two women in their 40's (yep this would be an easy example) one has recently experienced the loss of someone and breakdown of her marriage, the other as well, if this is the only two things which you identify as similarities how could you possibly group these two people in the same category? Do they have children? the same number, same gender, did their marriage breakdown for the same reasons, what was their husbands like, families, extended family, support, where do they live, are they both financially secure, do they eat, live, work the same, have the same professions, the same schooling, have they experienced the same traumas in life, has one had fortune and the other hasn't, do they even have similar personalities, is there really anything similar about these women other than a couple of simple categories?  Forty years people! Forty years of living has brought these two women to this point, don't ignore all that because it makes it easier for you rather than actually listening, actually hear their differences, if you truly understand the meaning of help, it has nothing to do with preconceived ignorant notions and everything to do with listening, hearing and being present in the moment.
I've seen it time and time again with children, with people with mental health illness, with trauma; when we treat people as if they are just like the last and the next you will miss the very difference which can help. Each child is different, not just due to gender, age and appearance; they have their own interests, likes, dislikes, for goodness sake something as basic as the order in which they were born will impact on who they become, you will treat them differently so why assume they are the same?
Advice is well meaning, I get that, people try from the heart (well....most), you cannot stand there and criticise another person for their choices in life, for their motivations, tell them when it's time to move on, let go, get their crap together or stop feeling sorry for themselves, if you really haven't bothered to hear them out, talked the talk and walked their walk! Be the bird! "If you are a bird, I am a bird"..(The Notebook).
The most common mistake people make in over generalising is in relationships.  Individuals compare partners, friends compare friends, their partners; families compare each other.  We neither love the same or act the same with each person, so why would you expect someone to treat everyone they come into contact the same, aside from common values, morals and basic manners! You need to weigh the individual differences, ask yourself what does this person need?
Categories, statistics help; they help professionals, statiticians, management and politicians so let's leave that to them. We need categories, they have their purpose, life is full of groups, sub groups and institutional size sameness.  Categories help to minimise risk, identify it and provide treatment and care. However, even for the professionals they too are separated by the bad, the good and the ones who actually contribute to making a difference, simply by those who identify through attention to detail the individual differences which separates each person with depression, each person grieving, each person who experiences loss, has a diagnosis, needs help.
I would bet you each have a story of misdiagnosis somewhere in there. I can tell you more than a few. Even the professionals get it wrong and they do so spectacularly! I would hedge another bet that each time it is through their failure to look at individual differences, to shoosh their opinions, beliefs and stories in their mind and listen to the tiny details which make this person, what separates their needs, what makes them different to all others with the a similar diagnosis, similar experience, similar lifestyle.
One of the challenges I have on blogging and even Crackbook is generalising has become such a widespread disease you make a simple statement and I guarantee, like firing a round of heat seeking missles, the information seems to be absorbed by those who assume the purpose of your day is to get up and shoot them down! Oh please! 9 out of 10 times I'm discussing an action, a behaviour, an assumption, not a person.
Stereotyping people is such a damaging form of abuse on each other; it infects our core beliefs and values, it can only be irradicated by your refusal to treat all people the same, to challenge the pattern of behaviour which compares your children, partner, friend, family member, colleague, random person in the street "the same" because they look, dress, talk or have the same marital status or illness! These generalisations about children, women, men, married women, divorced men, violence, crime, mental illness, cultures at the opportune times when we can make a difference are neither helpful or use our gifts well. When you stop assuming, you stop making an ass out of u and me!
Nowhere in life are assumptions so devestating, is stereotyping more harmful than in the crime of sexual assault.  With conviction rates in NSW less than 1.6% some years, estimations of over 60,000 (including hospital admissions, crisis services and Police reports) victims and yet so few convictions due to the myths, lies and stereotypes people believe about victims of sexual assault! Just because you carry money in your wallet should you expect to be robbed? When then should a woman who wears a certain clothing, career, stays out late, smiles at someone or even rides a damn bus should expect to be the victim of such an horrific crime! Come on people stop and think before you speak, before you spread the infection of sterotyping.
Now if you are one of those reading this and you can already hear that voice inside your head forming it's assumptions, you haven't heard a thing. You are one of those who need to hear this.
When we talk to people and compare them to someone else who had a similar, yes people, similar not the same experience, we minimise their individual stories to becoming irrelevant, to lack meaning, it tells them you already have a plan to fix them (by the way they are not broken), you may have thought about this before even having a chat, already decided where to file their issues, you have a plan and the most important person in this plan was never consulted!
Believe me it is ingrained in us!
I've worked in catergory driven environments; when you conduct risk assessment, observe behaviour you are looking for similarities, yet never in on my worst days would I ignore the differences, something as simple as a person's pattern and history tells us their story, tells us what brought them to this point, gives us sign posts, what went wrong, what needs to go right and how we can help.  Listen people, listen! Look for the signs, for the differences, hear their unspoken words, treat others as you would like to be treated.
Look at the stranger in the street, regardless of their clothing with an open heart and mind, try giving unconditionally to a friend, without judgement, even when they can't give back (yep that would be an expectation, that is your problem not theirs). Take the time to share our gifts, to reach out to each other in our times of need, to listen, to feel and to connect with each other; to make a difference, to be the difference you want to see.

2013 A year of giving

Of all my children, at some point in their lives they have had the painful experience of having to deal with grief & loss, too many lessons in fact at times they should have gone to bed dreaming more of wish lists and fairytales, what they wanted to be when they grow up, instead of attempting to process how something so painful could be so real, wondering what as adults many never cease asking...when will it stop!

As part of these experiences they've participated in the 'Seasons' program at school, a concept of life being a process of seasons; with everything beginning and ending.  Life being a part of summer, a winter, an autumn, a spring. A time for living, a time for dying, for waiting, for joy.  A season destined with a process of change, for without it there would be no life, we would have no seasons, there would be no symbiotic relationships, no connections, we would all cease to exist.  Instead we do, we exist by our constant interaction with each other, as we begin, we live and life ends.
I entered into to 2012 already stuck an the approaching winter storm.  The gorgeous Australian sun was beaming outside and on the inside we were battening down the hatches. We held our breathe until the storm passed, til the shaking stopped, the noise quietened and waited for winter to begin.  Life is like that, one winter after another, one storm after another. There are days when it seems life has been just that, one long winter. We wait patiently, some make a great fuss about having to stay safe during those cool months, years even, for the moment when 'this too shall pass', we become frustrated, angry, inpatient.
Life is;  there is a time for beginnings, a time for endings, a time for waiting.

I took the time hauled up indoors to keep focussed on the end of winter, I pulled out the 'bucket list' that has kept me alive through every event.  Something so simple as a list of dreams, a list of hopes, of imagining a life other than where I am right then at that moment. It was never called the bucket list back then, it was one of those catalyst moments when you realise dreams are what keep us going forward, they give us hope, they help us grow, aide our change.  As a pre-school teacher many years ago I encouraged children to dream and dream big! I mean what is the point of dreaming who you would be when you grow up if you can't imagine yourself being anyone other than who you are right now.
Somewhere in between preschool and adulthood I noticed the need and greed creep in slowly and consistently.  To prevent it as parents we need to make conscious decisions to foster our children's dreams, to believe in their hopes, to enhance every aspect of their growth. For those who don't have a bucket list or need one, how incredibly inspiring and fortunate. It isn't for everyone, nor should it need to be.  For me there were times when no one called, no one visited and everyday blended into the next; when I looked up to the heavens and said I will not attend one more funeral, I want the next time I enter a church to be a christening, a wedding, a celebration; believing I had unfinished business with life, my foot stuck in the door preventing it from closing, something as simple as a list of tasks, of moments I would love to  experience allowed me to keep going.  I really didn't know when winter would end, so I kept writing my list, I held my breathe and waited for the season to exhale.  Yet to be honest, human behaviour is so predictable that the trajectory of people without dreams, without hope, without belief in themselves or the capacity to change, to learn and to grow, to become a better human being, is pretty clear as all things in nature stagnate. So whilst you may sit there and say I don't need dreams, I don't need hope, I don't need to change; we are not an island. We either change with the seasons or we cease to exist.
I call it waiting for the winter to end, as it seems to be like a ride coming to the final stop; so whilst I call it waiting, it is one hell of an experience in between. It would be ignorant to see waiting as a form of non-participation in life, to see it as allowing others to give you a hand out rather than a hand up, as if waiting is a non-compliance with life.  I strongly advocate positive thinking, staying focussed on your dreams, creating goals for wishes (otherwise a wish will remain a dream), yet the same basic road rules we learned as a child, stop, look, listen, think, applies for every decision you will make.  Waiting is an opportunity for you to stop, look and ask yourself where are you, where do you want to go, what is the impact of you crossing this street, on yourself, on everyone around you; listen to your voice, the voice of others, to the sounds of approaching traffic and over all the noise, listen to your heart; think about stepping off that path in a rush to cross the metaphorical street into spring or summer, are you ready?

Whatever you choose, this is your life, there is a path, one for your neighbour, your friend, your children, your parents, your siblings, everyone and there is only your path. So chose it wisely.

The Mayans hadn't predicted the end of the planet as we know it, why no one ever considered they may have just been short on stone tablets that day is beyond me! The Mayans hypothesised life as having beginnings and endings; a season of growth, of change, of re birth, of new beginnings. What we choose to do with those beginnings will determine the ending, the life in between, the joy, the peace, the happiness, the death. Calendars are another way of constructing a season, a beginning, another end, with man days in between.

For too long humanity has been focussed on need and greed, on wanting more and giving less.  Of taking to the point of generating a drive of consumerism so great we disrupt the seasons of the Amazon, we erradicate species from the face of the planet.  Whether you believe in global warming or not, there is no denying the destruction of humanity on the natural environment in every corner of the globe. As we take more and more from the very living force which sustains our own lives, we de stabilise the very balance of our existence, to live alongside all living things, with each other.

You may think you are just one person, how could you possibly effect something occurring on another continent? So let's take one product, say chocolate for example.  The bulk of chocolate is sourced from cocoa plantations on the West Coast of Africa, some is Fair Trade, yet even then there are no guarantees.  Most of the chocolate we eat has been hand picked by children as young as 6 or even younger; stolen, abducted from their families, told their parents have died or surrendered them into the care of their captors, forced into slave labour to hand pick the cocoa beans which produce the chocolate consumers demand a need for. Without the need there would be no greed.  We produce the need.

You name it, we produce it by how we purchase, how we take, what we fail to give back.  Over fishing our oceans (I mean Queensland has some of the best Barramundi on the planet, yet we are sourcing it from Vietnam?), over clearing our forests, over mining our shores.  I am not suggesting we cease using our resources, yet to the point of leaving a legacy of devestation for our children, a crap load of mess is our legacy? What kind of evolutionary process is this? That is not an evolved race!

It is on these massive scales of selfishness and greed, which trickles into the home, into each person, each instrument of change that the most basic of growth occurs.  It is our inability to step off our paths, to be the force of change, to say this is not good enough, I will not take for granted the air I breathe, the heart I've been given, the life I have. I will make a conscious decision to continue to grow, to change, to be a force of nature, to share my gifts, to dream big, to give back, to stop taking! I will step up and take responsibility for who I am and where I am going.

Life is balance. A balance of nature, a balance of living/dying, happiness/sadness, seasons are a process of balance.  When you stagnate in the suffering, the pain and the hurt, you upset your balance, your balance upsets those around you, those around you upset the universal balance.  You drive the demands of your life, the needs around you, your words, your actions, your beliefs, opinions, how you share with others, give to others, what you give to yourself, it is YOU, it was always YOU.

What if you stopped taking? What if you dipped your toe in the water of change and created a ripple by simply giving back.  Accepting that who you are right now at this moment, you are a part of every person and every event before you. What if you accepted yourself as part of life's balance. What if you discovered your passion, what makes you tick and you gave yourself to it.  What if you woke up and realised it won't matter how many cars you have, how big your house is or bling on your body, without a sense of balance for yourself, you will forever seek to fill an empty space only you can resolve. What if you finally realised love has nothing to do with possession, in telling others how to live their life, in making partners, children, family go without so you feel more fulfilled, what if you stopped taking from everyone around you and started to give back, unconditionally, completely. What if instead of wanting a friend, you were a friend. What if instead of expecting your children to be better, you expected yourself to be a better parent. What if instead of demanding someone love you, you loved someone so completely, so unconditionally, you didn't need their permission to do so.

Life is love increases our sense of balance in life, then love is the stabilising force.  It is a human word and construct, it applies to no other species, we call love anything we want to possess, to own, hang on to.  Yet how can that be love, the very essence of something which is good, selfless and unconditional.  It is not. It is not anger, violence and taking. Like a tight rope walker as our balance in love wobbles from side to side, we try to straighten up by leaning on committment, loyalty, pieces of paper like marriage, on material possessions, even on our children.  We blame everyone and everything around us for our lack of love, our unbalance in life, for our hurt, our pain, our suffering.  Some go to extraordinary lengths as to compete with others as to who has suffered the most, who has it the hardest, who has walked the most miles. We keep throwing things on either end of the balancing pole, hoping that when we get it right, we will find balance.  Don't you get it!

Only one person on the rope at one time! This is your path, your balancing act, the only true force of balance is an empty pole, one foot in front of the other, you with a clear head, heart and soul, from one end to the other, the beginning to the end. You don't add to the balancing act, you give back! Take all that crap off your pole!!!! Take off the material issues weighing you down. Stand naked in all your entered the world in, ask yourself are you ready, are you in the shape you need to make it through winter, to cross this tightrope, are you giving it all you've got!

You cannot force love, you cannot make it, create it, bend it, hold it.  You can give it! Give it unconditionally, share it, spread it, be it. You are your own balance.

You cannot continue to take from others, from humanity, from the planet and not expect that your taking will upset the balance of life.

“To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced
life.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

You cannot love without loss.  There will be winters, the seasons will change, go with it, don't resist, don't try to force it, hold on to it or grip it like it's the last chance you will have. Sometimes you need to feel the unbalance, to remember to listen to your breathe, quieten the mind, connect with your heart and centre yourself. Winters are part of our process of balance in life.  There would be no rainbows without both sun and rain. These events do happen and they will, people will come and go, life will happen.  There will be times of unbalance and times of stability, never stop breathing. Take all life has in and breathe out all that is unnecessary.  Give back to yourself, clear your mind, your lungs, nurture your body, heal the soul.

What if in 2013, you took this opportunity to give yourself to others, to yourself; by starting with nurturing the very gifts you have taken for granted. If you started to appreciate every blessing, every friend, family member, every task before you.  What if by the very process of changing your attitude towards life you created a ripple across your life in abudance. If instead of focussing on others need to change, you changed yourself and by doing so, all around you began to change.

The other night after a few extremely nice wines, trying to stay off a winter chill :) I pulled out my bucket list and with the help of a few volunteers who shall remain sworn to secrecy and nameless, I sent it out there to the universe, it had started to feel like this winter had developed into hibernation and it was time to put a little sun on those seeds of change.  I had unconsciously already started without knowing to put one foot in front of the other, one by one I was removing the weights holding me down, challenging my sense of balance. Not until I looked at the list did I realise it made complete sense why my yoga had improved, my sense of balance restored and the frost was lifting. I was lighter physically, mentally and I was working on the spiritual.

For a long time it  was as D'Souza had stated, "it seemed like life was about to begin", about to.  Stop, listen, think! This is my life, the winter, the seasons of change, these are my forces of change. I could try to resist or I could go with it, be part of the living force that gives us life and takes it away. I could step into everyday in better condition than the day before or refuse to get out of bed. Damn right I was checking off the top most challenging traumas in life and why break a good record now! So everytime you get knocked down it hurts a little more, your body aches a little longer and you need to lay there a fraction more, that is life. Get up! There is no view from down there! Have you ever seen a whale off shore as you bask in the sun during a yoga session on the beach? Get up!

Twelve months ago I could barely cross my legs let alone consider the bakasana. I thought inversion therapy was putting more ice in my drink, never could have possibly conceived the practice of placing my heart higher than my head could create such a ripple of change and a sense of balance. I dreamed of being the same size one day as I was when I finished school (didn't appreciate what I had then either!) let alone go past this and end up sharing a wardrobe with my daughter (I draw the line at cut off denim studded shorts though!!). Yoga has become part of my life, it is my balance barometer and as I salute the sun I am made aware of surrendering to the daily inbalance, the winter, the autumn, the summer and the spring.  It isn't a religion, it isn't something you have to do.  It's a choice.  Seeking balance in life is a choice.  To celebrate what is and what isn't. To breathe in and let it out.  In 2012 People came into my life with skill, with amazing ideas, creativity, friendship and love.  I rediscovered friendships, I found myself. I didn't need to dig too far, it was there all along, I just learned to silence it whilst I was busy getting on with life? People changed who I was 12 months ago and nurtured who I am today. They believed in me and reminded me to believe in myself, to never ever give up.

I learned this year to let go of holding on and start embracing more; I've always known love is not something you steal, take or borrow, it is unconditional, it knows no boundaries, it lives beyond death. I learned not to take the smallest of opportunities for granted, to listen to the lessons, to plant my seeds of change, to nurture them, no matter the years, the lack of rain, to be patient for the sun, that something which has life, that needs rain and sun to grow, needs time. I did a little weeding along the way, nurtured my own patch, worried more about being a better person than being concerned with who wasn't. I shared my gifts more, mothering, friendship, family and love. I made a few committments to myself, to honour the gift of life; to never take it for granted, to be honest, true to myself, to others, to live an authentic life. I opened up to new ways of knowing, of learning, growing, dreaming.  The bucket list grew! I slowed down to spare time to ask an older person struggling with groceries if I could carry anything, hold a new baby for her Mum to shop, pay for something other than for myself, to make someone elses dream a reality and in so I stepped off the path to cross the street!

I'm going into 2013, the year of giving, with a heart open to change, a mind read to explore every adventure as I watch the ripples of friendship (you are just awesome!!!!!! this will be so much fun) break down the obstacles to tackling that bucket list! I have one massive list which includes many miles, many dreams and many challenging experiences, it scares the hell out of me (see crossed another one off just thinking of the list!).  It's like writing your own happy ending, chosing to stop being a passenger of humanity, stop riding on the tailgate, to stop holding life with two hands, to wrap your body around it and suck it in until the two of you become one. The very thought of making this happen is exciting and inspiring, before I even buy a ticket.  I listened to what Oriah called our longing, I stopped, looked, listen and I'm thinking.  Bring on one endless summer!

Ok so I still haven't finished that assignment, I still have 3 exams before the end of January and a pile of unfinished tasks, I didn't say I could do it all over night nor have I have suggested life is easy, I would be the last person persuing that belief! I've stepped off the curb, I've looked and I've listened. I've waited the winter out and I'm looking forward to who and what is on the other side.  The view from where I am standing now is so incredible I can feel the summer on its way.

I have a few mammoth adventures ahead, so if you are up to hiking Cradle Mountain, a trip to PNG, a little Chocolat experience or a damn fine cold beer in Germany, the spiritual connection of Machu Picchu, you have a story to tell and you need a writer or maybe you a publisher and you are after the next big sell! Do I have a year for you!!!!!!

Bring on 2013! the year of giving, to you and to yourselves xo

We can do better

There is intense sadness, loss and grief around the globe tonight, a grief beyond comprehension as an event so unnatural, unfair and man made it swells beyond the borders of a small community in Conneticut. As a friend commented on a Facebook page yesterday, only in the US could gun control be a right and healthcare a privilege.  When children, little children, our children, your children, cannot go to school, to feel safe receiving their human right to an education, we need to do better. We need to do so much better people.
Scientist and anthropologists; some believe we are the most intelligent species on the planet, are we, really? In a world where 95% of our health systems are burdened by preventable disease; famine takes the lives of millions, children, women, men, families; dysfunction is now a common word in families, communities are disconnected and only brought together by tragedy and grief. Someone tell me what is so intelligent about that.
War continues to perpetuate violence, using power, authority and force, as to this day we have failed to produce an alternative.  Greed, anger, hate; the most powerful motivators behind human suffering fueled and justified in the name of peace. Someone please explain to me the intelligence in that. Over thousands of years of killing, hating, using force, we still do not have an alternative solution. What is intelligent about that?

 

When our homes, in the very neighbourhoods we share are experiencing rising family violence, childhood abuse, mental health statistics rising, where many are more concerned about the interest rate of the mortgage rates than they have interest in making their communities safer for children.  When we cannot face the reality of what is in our own street, in our own homes; we cannot protect the very people we may ride the bus with, see in the shopping isle, buy milk from, pick up our garbage, when we cannot even reach out and do something to protect our own neighbours, what hope have we of protecting on a universal scale. What is intelligent about that?

In Australia people sit silently on a bus while a woman is being taunted and abused, the elderly die in their homes and only when the stench is concerning, does someone notice them gone; children being abucted from public highways and shopping centres and we need forensic evidence to find them; neighbours killing their partners and not one damn person steps up and says or does something to prevent it. Come on people! Pick up the phone at least.  People who think not watching the news or reading about it makes their world safer, until it happens to them and then wonder why it happened in the first place. People who have stopped questioning the very moral code and compass we use daily to path a legacy for our children. We are not evolving in some parts of the world, we are expiring.  The human race is adapting to an insular and self motivated, self preserving attitude that is allowing violence to continue in our communities.  When the majority of crime, death by violent crime is drug related and I'm not just talking illegal drugs, we need to ask ourselves what the hell is going on and what are we going to do better!

When we have a headache it is much easier to reach for a tablet and fix it in seconds than it is to change our lifestyle, question what we've been eating, not eating, stress we've been under, what we contributed to it. It is much easier to push responsibility for your child onto the school or your doctor to fix them, than to change yourself. It is much easier and convenient to turn off the tv than to step up as a human being and take responsibility for the gift of life, of breathe and presence on this planet, to be a seed of change, to do something, anything damn, just don't ignore it and please do not use the "it's not my responsibility"....tone with me.  Let's examine that, tell me then what is your responsibility? You, you are responsible for yourself, for your attitudes, your health, your motives and as parents, oh that is so big I don't have the time here this morning.  There is not a piece of research out there about childhood which can steer away from the impact parenting has on the development of the child into an adult.  Your responsibility is a member of the human race to educate, raise and encourage, love, your children.  Not to set them loose irresponsibly on a community and onto others to hurt, harm and abuse, so you can kick back and enjoy the years spending your children's inheritance.  Oh get with it people, wake up.  Advertising is there to tell you the opposite to what you should hear.  It is there to program you into wanting something beyond what you have conceived. Our responsibilities as communities is to help those who cannot help themselves, when we screw up and wow we do it so well as adults, to own it, take responsibility and the level of responsibility that comes with your role and do something about it!

I don't believe I would have been alone in being completely moved as a mother, a human being, having previously worked as a teacher, by the shattered voice of a young teacher who instinctivly knew the right thing to do in those final moments was to tell her class what a parent would say, that she loved them, they are loved, that it is going to be ok, in her heart she believed they would die. I wept and was pulled back to a time, holding my son's hand, he was cold, his breathing had slowed and telling him it was ok to let go, to stop fighting the cancer, that I loved him, I would always love him, knowing in my heart it was never going to be ok. One child suffering is never going to be ok, when we have been gifted with the intelligence to do better. When as adults we have the power, the authority and the knowledge to do better.

As those entrusted with the care of our children, we need to learn from these events and the actions, the courage, the bravery of those teachers who in absolute fear and horror knew to shield their students from the terror unfolding, told the children to close their eyes, to prevent them from absorbing the horror, from searing into their developing minds this tragedy in their school. Little ones with their eyes closed, hands on each others shoulders, one by one, connected to each other; guided by a teacher brave with courage leading them through fear and sheer strength.

The other week in the shopping centre a young Mum with a screaming new baby, absolutely screaming, the tiny one week old sound. All these ignorant people with their judgemental stares, not one offering any assistance, anyone could see or having experienced knows what it is like with a hungry new baby and a trolley full of shopping. I was keen for a cuddle and asked if it was ok I carry the baby for her, new baby and new smell, still gets me everytime; I followed her around the shop having a cuddle while she finished her shopping. We chatted and talked about how hard parenting is and I confirmed for her, it is one of the hardest and most valuable roles we ever have. 
Stepping up, costs nothing and does so much. Step up people.  Use the intelligence you are gifted with, do something to be a contributor, not a taker from this amazing planet.  You do not need fancy gifts, expensive ones or multiple presents to be present in the life of people, you don't need wrapping or a bow.  The most precious gifts you have cost nothing, a phone call, a letter, a card to let someone, even a complete stranger know they matter; to not speak when they need to talk (believe me even I struggle with that, though I guess you would know that by now!), mow a lawn, hold the shopping, take a cake to a neighbour, wash a car, babysit, put the rubbish out, heaven forbid mow your neighbours nature strip!! Extend your hand, reach out, like little children onto one another, put your hands on someones shoulders, lead them forward, give them a path, show them it is going to be Ok.
I heard the US Gun Lobby has hit back fast stating if only the teachers had been armed, if every single person was armed then this type of event might never happen. I'm sorry I don't see the intelligence in the argument that every single human being needs to live in fear they could be next and forearmed is forewarned.  Someone explain to me why this belief is not across every country on the planet are we accepting that the US Gun Lobby has the greatest intelligence representative of our species? I also don't believe we can wind back the clock, guns are the instrument, the weapon of choice, they can only hurt when a human being uses them to hurt, so do knives, so do drugs, so do cars.  Yet why any person can justify the ownership of a military weapon is beyond comprehension.  Heaven forbid, oh absolutely tragic, is the death of a young person yesterday from an umbrella in Bundaberg, QLD, Australia. I've used a gun, used several, it was a struggle at my size to manage; I haven't touched one since high school.  I was brought up in a time and environment/community where most people either owned a gun or had used on and didn't have an opinion on them.  There were no automatic weapons, no assault rifles and no amnesty forced onto law abidding people to surrender family heirlooms, yet there was always crime, there always will be.
I have lived in a country where Police do not have guns, for those of us at present, who live in countries where our 'Force' have force, this would be inconceivable, yet it's the reality.
Violence breeds violence, fear breeds fear, violence breeds fear. There is nothing more powerful or profitable than the person who taps into human fear.
When I was teaching pre-school many years ago, it was sometime after September 11 and children were still asking questions, still building towers and knocking them down, still attempting to make meaning out of something adults could not make sense from. Their questions were simple and yet we had no answers, we could only allow them a safe environment in which to voice their concerns, struggle to come to terms with a reality one begs to consider why intelligence was wasted on a species which continues to fail so spectacularly. I remember a friend who had been teaching at a diverse metropolitan school, where few children in the class spoke English, many had spent years as refugees transitioning into Australia; children as young as 6 years old confused as to why violence was not an answer to resolving disputes and why they couldn't bring a gun to school. We need to do better, so much better.  Children should be concerned about anything except adult responsibilities.

Whether you are Australian children, American, Palestinian, Israeli, any child, anywhere at any given time of the day or night; children wanting an education, to feel safe going to school, you should not have to carry the burden of our mistakes, of our ignorance and irresponsible actions. As a species we will continue to expire as we allow each other to hurt the most vulnerable, when we turn our backs and do nothing.  You have a voice, as a parent, as a family, as a friend.  You can make a difference.  When we would prefer to sit quietly, to save face, to "not get involved", to not step up and make those accountable for violence against children, we contribute to allowing it to continue.

I've lost several close people to guns, it weighs heavy on your mind and heart to know your life, our lives will be forever changed by their loss of life.  I picked up the phone for several years following, when I was missing a recipe or had a question; I'd been so use to these conversations in the past, it was sometime before I reprogrammed myself to believing no one would answer. No one should ever have to say goodbye to someone they love because of the ease of access to a weapon which takes less than a second to change their life, less than the time it takes for conscious problem solving and decision making, we need to do better, so much better.

We need to do so much better, today and tomorrow and everyday; to continue to learn and develop better ways of being human, of providing safer communities for our children to grow.

Today, only 24hrs after the most recent aftermath, around the world thousands of children will have lost their lives in violence, due to famine, disease, neglect.  As adults we are failing our children.

I read a story yesterday of a mother whose daughter was killed from domestic violence and years down the track she continues to advocate for legislative change, driven by her daughters memory and the grief of knowing, experiencing, feeling, no parent should ever have to experience what she had gone through.  This same mother made a point of speaking to those who have tried to tell her it is time to "move on" and "let go" and she raised the question, what does that mean? What is this construct of Western societies belief about grief that one just gives it a time limit and then gets on with life? Do we let go of the love we feel for our parnters when we first meet them? Do we let go of the passion or skill we have for our careers? Do we let go of the connections between our friends, our relationships, the gratitude for people who have touched our lives? Why do we tell people they need to empty a memory only they will carry? Try telling a greedy person to let go of their posessions!

Get over it people, allow people the time, the space and a way to express their grief in a way that brings them comfort, allows them to cherish, value and remember their loved ones. I can remember attending a grief and loss workshop the year my son died and an educator telling me when it was time to let go of Ben's things, his clothes, toys, bed. Over the years I've passed those toys onto children to enjoy, the bed donated to a charity fundraising for children not so long ago and the clothes to be made into a memory quilt.  What right does anyone who has not experienced this loss and believe me you cannot begin to imagine what the reality is like no matter how many times you think you 'get it' by reading about it, know a friend of a friend. 

The grief of losing a child is so great there is no word in the dictionary to describe it.  You are widowed from the death of a partner, orphaned from the death of a parent, yet there is no word to describe a pain so great, there are no words to describe it.

So in this time of mourning and reflection, for families everywhere placing their hands on their heart, looking at pictures, wiping tears, take this time to ask yourself what could you do better!