Memories are made in momentous moments, but most are are a collective of the mundane, ordinary days that our lives are made up of. Today is no exception. It is Sunday, a day that stretches ahead of you, delightful in its lack of obligations. Today was wonderful in its nothingness.

I went Spinning and actually kept up without dying! The chicken I threw in the oven, with sweet potatoes, came out succulent and just spiced exactly right. The broccolini and the rice were good. The salad, just right. Connections with people felt right. The walk with the dog and a couple of buddies was great.

Then the topping, sitting on my daughter’s bed for a couple of hours, she was painting her Year 12 final piece. We slipped in and out of conversation, me watching TV, surfing the net on my Mac and writing, and she painting and creating the beautiful work she does. The silences still connected us, the conversation lapsed in and out of the future, her dreams and views. These are the moments of memories, and when I hugged her and said good night, all was right in my world for those few seconds and tonight will be a night I hold onto when I am old and grey and reflect back on “those were the days.”

Make your moments memories…

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

What I love about the human spirit, is that if you are connected to someone you really love, it does not matter the time or the distance, you just pick up where you left off. You dial a number, the person answers, mutual delight in both voices on the phone and time and distance mean nothing. It is a miracle that in the millions of people out there, you never forget a voice or a face, and no matter how many millions of people you see every day, there are the ones that you will remember forever.

We should all be grateful for technology and how small it has made the world. I remember when I emigrated 13 years ago, my grandmother saying how hard it was when she emigrated in 1937 from Holland. She would write a letter, it would take six weeks to get to Holland by boat and then if, her parents replied and posted the letter straight away, it would take another 6 weeks to get back to her. No instant status update!

So today, I am grateful, for phones and computers and how they have kept people I love close by when they could feel so very far away. It is not the same as a hug and a cup of tea together, but it is so much better than the alternative, nothing.

Elaine, it was good to hear your voice and your laugh. Ray, the “capitalist witch” still loves you and wears the “Noble Trade” beanie on cold mornings when I walk the dog. I am sure there would be union officials very confused by that! Oh, Canada! It would be good if you were closer…

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

Usually at a point like this, I would turn to the demi-god of Lindt or Toblerone and seek comfort. I don’t do emotions, well not ones that hurt. Not ones that make your mascara run or your green eyes red (although for colour blind people that would be good right?) See how easily I can distract myself when it comes to emotions, look a bird… a colour blind bird…

OK seriously, my sadness is heavy and raw. Why does no one tell you the roller coaster of emotions you will feel when your children grow up? Why does no one warn you of the sorrow you feel? Yes, there is joy, the joy of being able to shower without someone whining pitifully outside the door when you are missing for five minutes, with dad holding the baby up to the steamy shower door to show her that you are not gone. Why do I now want to stand outside her bedroom door and check that she has not grown that five minutes older that allows her to leave, finish and be done with her childhood? Leave it discarded on the floor like a wet towel? I want to yell “Pick up your childhood! Don’t leave it on the floor where I can trip over it!”

In truth, I am tripping over it and so is she, as we battle to hold onto it hard, when the wind of young adulthood is tugging the kite of her childhood right out of our hands.

What does that mean? Lately, we have railed over tiny things, her and I, who never really argue, we have made mountains out of silly arguments because neither of us want to face the elephant in the room, that she is no longer a tiny girl, whose hand slots around my fingers as we cross a road; that she no longer has a heavy, fuzzy head that falls with a weight into my hands as I look down and feed her.

We have argued hard about tiny things, things that never were an argument before because we can’t acknowledge the one thing that is wounding us both, that this is done. That we will transition to a new space. And when we are done snivelling and asserting ourselves, we have a cup of tea and smile at each other. We sit on the bed and giggle at how silly we are. We have battled for a new more equal relationship and while it still feels like strange and foreign land, it is the beginning of the next stage forged in tears, not unlike her birth. We have a sense of anticipation and beauty that we both know we will rise to, but in the meantime, we forge our way to this new equilibrium, sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter.

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

This weekend in Australia, we celebrate Father’s Day. I often ponder the way men are maligned in today’s society. You see TV ads, mostly making men out to be stupid bogans, who don’t know the first thing about feminine hygiene products and stick them on their heads to look like Darth Vader or having the emotional intelligence of gnats. True, there are some men, that are just like that but the general stereotype does not hold.

So this weekend, as we celebrate Father’s Day let us be grateful for the men who are not afraid of intimacy, who are there supporting their children, taking a keen interest in their families’ lives and who want the very same things that women do, but may not articulate it in quite the same way. They may hide behind their macho facades or they may not even have macho facades. In my time working with many men, most of them miss their families, want to spend more time with them, but carry the mantle of supporting their families seriously and don’t always express it just the way we women think they should. So to all the dads, like mine and my husband, who look after their families and do their best for their children, thank you, happy Father’s Day!

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

So about four weeks ago, I embarked on a new journey. I had over the last twelve months stacked on the weight. It was a number of reasons, comfort eating, being too busy to plan my meals, not really caring that much about how I looked and just being disconnected from my body and living in my head.

Suddenly, the realisation that even jumping off the cupboard to get into my jeans that were standing upright waiting for me, wasn’t going to work, because even then, I would not fit into them, spurred me into trying to find a new solution. Frankly, the old solutions of depriving myself, weighing food, obsessing about it and feeling enormous guilt about eating the ‘wrong’ things just were not an option. The thought of it made me nauseous, tired and just plain sad. So I made the decision to try something new. The Geneen Roth, “Woman, Food and God” resonated so hard, it almost hurt. I decided to give it a try. Four weeks on, it looks something like this…

I really have been eating only that which “fuels my loveliness”, I have stopped obsessing and having negative feelings to food. I have embraced eating what I feel like but really being present when I eat, so that I am not off with the pixies and still eating without the realisation that I am full. I have sat with emotions that are confronting instead of reaching for the chips, the chocolate or the ice cream. I have learned that emotions that are confronting only hang around until they are acknowledged and when they go, they leave a “lightness” that is pretty awesome. I have eaten the occasional thing which definitely does not fuel my loveliness and instead of feeling anxiety, guilt or failure, I have shrugged my shoulders and enjoyed whatever it was. The result, food is feeling a lot less emotionally charged, four kilograms have melted off me, probably about the same as what I would have lost on a heavy, miserable, constricting diet, except in this process I have found peace with the fridge, its contents and the content in my head.

Loving, no dieting! Just loving it…

Share on Facebook

No Dieting

I love this poem by Derek Walcott:

The time will come when,
with elation you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored for another,
who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life. 

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

On the weekend I did a Positive Psychology Certificate at Victoria University, it was based on the popular Harvard course that is constantly oversubscribed by students. Over recent years renowned researchers Seligman, Ben-Shahar, Lyubomirsky have put empirical research around the happiness concept. We all think if we get a better house, car or job, we will be happier. Or if our spouse or boss would only…you add the blanks..you would be amazingly happy.

However, research has now shown that only 10% of our variance in happiness comes from our circumstances. The difference between the happiness of the mega-rich versus blue collar workers is insignificant, with the mega-rich only scoring a 1% higher happiness level than their blue-collar counterparts. 50% of our happiness levels come from our genetic base or “happiness set point” and the other 40% is determined by our behaviour. This means that regardless of our situations or genes, we have the ability to increase our happiness by at least 40%. Happiness enhancing interventions were not falling in love, buying a car, or having that overseas trip. Happiness was enhanced by intentional activity in the following areas: gratitude, optimism, forgiveness, having goals, being spiritual, finding meaning, optimism, kindness, having good social relationships and coping strategies. It would seem then that happiness is within everyone’s reach and control.

So what are you grateful for? What random act of kindness did you perform today? Or have you set yourself a goal that might just dazzle your grin back onto your chin? Huh?

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

Building on the theme of those who are physically talented versus those of us who are not – Look at how amazing these performers are…Amazing…

Share on Facebook

Uncategorized

Funny how in life, the anticipation of the event is sometimes scarier than the reality. I was seriously scared about getting on the bike. I am uncoordinated, floppy and lack confidence about physical things. Give me a mental problem to solve and I am confident and fairly quick with a retort. Make me stand up in front of a group of 800 people and say a speech, I won’t be scared about forgetting what I have to say, I won’t need to imagine the audience naked to calm my nerves, but I will be slightly nervous that I trip over my feet as I head onto the stage!!! I know my limitations and physical adroitness is not up there with my talents, it is one of the reason’s I have decided that I should learn to be better physically! Hence, the bike (and of course, my friend Debra’s incessant nagging to join her…)

We took our bikes down to the velodrome and put on our riding shoes with “cleats”. Let me make it clear, up until a month ago, I would have thought a “cleat” was something else and I would not have associated it with a bicycle, anyhow, we arrive, in our gear and vaguely look like people who know what they are doing. We mount our cycles. Deb sits and practices, getting her cleats in and out of the pedals. Me? I decide, I should just ride. I push off (some people say finally!) and click the cleats in perfectly, I feel the wind in my hair, the joy of freedom, I cycle round the velodrome grinning, like I have won the Tour de France. I come full circle, grinning at Deb’s husband, Peter. I smile and yell, “I am going to fall”, I grin and I elegantly land on my side, While Peter rushes to my aid!

Afterwards, he says “I had no idea you were going to fall. You looked so happy”. I thought about it. This bicycle thing is not unlike how I deal with my life. I love learning new things. More often than not, I just get on and try it. Often, I am so busy enjoying the experience that even when I fall I am still grinning. It has stood me in good stead in a lot of situations! What would also stand me in good stead would be a bit of planning and not so much waving to the crowd (in this case, Peter). I needed to have planned what I was going to do if I could not get my feet out of the cleats. I could have just done another lap, kept going and tried another click out of the pedals. Oh, well, now I know! I spent the rest of the ride clicking in and out. Being at one with many things is fabulous, being at one with a bike is great, except when you suddenly need to be “at two”.

How do you learn? And is it fun?

Share on Facebook

No Dieting

Change is exciting and dynamic! And TERRIFYING! I have heard somewhere, that the universal fear that every human is born with, is the fear of falling. Tomorrow, I get on the road bike for the first time. I am visualising myself staying upright, but honestly, I am terrified of falling…I was even scared of falling in the spinning class and the bike was stationary!

The bike I have just acquired is beautiful, sleek and looks like it can move like the wind. It is specially designed for a woman. A fast one! I am sure that when it was in the factory, dreaming of its new owner, it fantasised about a strong athlete, who had the heart and stamina of a winner. Poor bike, didn’t realise it was getting me – with a penchant for rather chasing a muffin! If this was another area of endeavour, it might have been more lucky. But alas, it is not!

If success is “feel the fear and do it anyway” then I am half way there, I aim to try to get on the bike, stay on the bike and get fit. I believe, according to the weather forecast, that it is going to be sunny tomorrow in gorgeous Melbourne, so it appears that there is no excuse except to “hit the road”. Figuratively, only, please God!

Share on Facebook

No Dieting