Failure to launch

Failure to launch.

 

Forgive me for not posting a blog the last two days.  I have decided that Sundays really need to be a day of rest, so I will not be posting a blog on Sundays.  As for my lack of a blog yesterday, which quite clearly was not a Sunday, I have an explanation.

There are times in life when you need to put all other things aside and deal with a situation as it arises.  Yesterday was just that.  A situation arose that required complete commitment and my undivided attention.  What, you ask, could this possibly be? 

Worry.  That's it!  Worry!  I needed to drop everything to help a family member through a bout of worry.  What where they worried about?  To be honest, the source of their worry isn't really important, it is the fact that they were in the state of worry, that required my attention.

Worry is an insidious beast that can paralyze those who fall victim to it.  It can also cause a plethora of health related problems to boot!  I will devote this week to helping you deal with worry.  You can learn to conquer it!  This weeks blogs will help you learn how to master worry.

Tags: Inspiration, Believe, Worry, Hope,

Public Service Announcement

The video clip below is from a news show.  It is real.  Please share it with everyone you know.  You could save someones life.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Tags: Breast Cancer, Love, Hope, Believe, Inspiration

may i feel?

This couple was decidedly not patient(especially he!).  It is however my second favorite poem.

may i feel said he
by e.e. cummings
 
 
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she 

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she) 

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she

but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she

(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she 

(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she

Tags: Patience, Inspiration, Believe, Hope, Poetry

Decisions, Decisions Whats YOUR Decision?

He Who Hesitates is Lost!

The woodpecker's gotta go!

What are you waiting for?  Get off your ass (arss for the Irish out there) and do something already!

 

OK, yeah I can hear you already, what happened to patience.  Patinece is fine and very necessary and I am not tossing that asside.  I do not however want you to confuse patience, with lack of action and decisseveness.

 

Let me tell you a  story.  I don't usually include anectodes about myself, however if I have one positive trait is my decisive nature.

 

One evening my family was in town, my mother and father and her sister and brother and their spouses.  They were all many years my senior and we all went to a local chinese resturant for dinner.  Menu's were handed out and the waitress stopped by the table 3x in a 30min period to take our order.  Each time she stopped by the banter stopped for all of 10 seconds before resuming and the poor girl left the table without any more information then she came with.  When she came around for the fourth time I gave her the order while the rest of the table was still arguing about what they were going to order.  Froutry five min. after our arrival the "adults" had decided what they were going to order.  They then became impatinet wondering when the waitress was ever going to come and take their order.  It was at this time I let them know that I had ordered dinner for the table.  A hush fell over the table and they all looked at me in disbelief.  I could read their minds.  I'm sure you can imagine what they were thinking as well.

 

Long story short, the food came, it was great, everyone was happy. FORTUNATELY!

 

The moral:  Are you sitting around letting someone else make a decission for you?  If you know what you want, why not go for it?  Patience is important if you have a plan that is goal oriented. We will go into this more next week! 

 

Tags: Decisions, Inspiration, Hope, Believe, Patience

The Empathy Method

The Empathy Method

Using the Empathy method of gaining patience requires much more effort and imagination then finding your "happy place."  It does however provide a broader range of recall and application.  The empathy method requires you to walk a mile in the other persons shoes.  When you are able put yourself in the place of the other person and truly experience their feelings, patience occurs naturally and often changes to a spirit of giving.

 

Let me give you an example:

 

Imagine you are on a crowded plane and you are seated in front of a young mother with a screaming child.  This can be quite upsetting because you have nowhere to go, and no way of stopping the child from screaming.  Neither does the mother of the child!

 

The empathy method would require you to think like the young mother.

 

Imagine this woman traveling alone with a small child in tow.  It's been a long day for her and for the child.  She has spent most of the day in worry.  Worry that she will miss her flight.  Worry that she has forgotten something for the child. Worry that the child will upset the people around her, you included.  Worry that she will not be able to keep the child happy so that it doesn't upset other travelers.  Worry that if she misses her flight it will cause financial hardship to her family, or that it will upset others schedules.  Finally this young mother arrives on the flight, gets settled and attempts to settle the child.  The child does nothing but scream.

 

If you take all of the scenarios above into your frame of reference, you now go from a frustrated and inpatient person, to a person with choices and options.

 

You could of course choose to remain annoyed and upset, or you could empathize with the woman and try one of the following options:

 

1) You could sit with patience and whisper a prayer to yourself for the woman.

2) Offer the woman assistance Perhaps she just needs some help.

3) Ask a flight attendant to assist the woman

4) Distract the child.  Many times a child will calm down just by having someone new talk to them.

 

This is just one example.  The empathy method works on many levels.  It challenges the control of your emotions long enough to find empathy.  Once you find empathy it challenges your imagination to find a variety of applicable situations.  The beauty of empathy however, is that once you force yourself to use it in a new situation, it is always available for instant recall should the situation occur again.

 

Tags: Empathy, Happy Place, Believe, Frustration, Peace, Patience, Inspiration, Hope, Believe

The Peter Pan Method to Patience

The Peter Pan Method to Peace

The Peter Pan Method to dealing with frustrationi and having patience is FIND YOUR HAPPY PLACE!

 

Remember when Peter Pan was trying to teach Wendy and the boys how to fly?  He told them that they had to find their happy place.  They had to think happy thoughts, this way they would be able to fly.

 

This does take practice.  Lots of it!  It also helps to try it when you don't need patience, or when your patience is only being tried just a little bit.

 

Amy commented in a previous Blog that people admire her patience.  That doesn't come from being tired!  When you are tired, your nerves are usually raw and you want to belt the first person who gets on the last never you have left.  I am guessing Amy has learned to find her happy place.  That's the place you can go to in you mind where you realize that what you are experiencing is a) normal b) necessary c) fleeting and d) comical. (Someday, it certainly isn't funny but someday you will look back and laugh.)

 

Find that spot in your mind that takes you away to a place of peace, happiness and positive energy.  This is not escaping, it is not denial.  This is the power that all the great minds knew.  Negativity, anger and reaction to those feelings can be very harmful to you.  Finding a place of peace and patience will help you to step back from what you are experiencing, and allow you to have a clear mind to deal with the issue.

 

Try experiencing patience by finding your "Happy Place."

Tags: Peter Pan, Inspiration, Peace, Patince, Frustration, Hope, Believe

Patience

 

Last week we talked about Frustration, I think this week would be a good week to talk about patience.  You need it when you are dealing with frustration.

Patience is a virtue, keep it if you can.  If I had a dime for every time my mother said that to me when I was a kid I could have paid for college.  Funny thing was, she never really had any.  Patience requires struggle, often a very difficult struggle.  Sometimes the struggle is emotional, physical and draining.  Sometimes, it is simply needing the ability to wait.

For me I have found patience can be experienced using one of two methods

1) The Peter Pan Method

2) The Empathy Method

We will discuss them both during the week.  For now consider this story.

The Struggle of the Butterfly

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared and he sat and watched the butterfly as it struggled for several hours to force its body through the little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared it had gotten as far as it could. The man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would expand and be able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! in fact, the butterfly spent its whole life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly. What the man, in kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required to get through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved freedom.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If God allowed us to go through life without obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as we could have been. We would never learn what the rewards of patience can be.

And... we would never fly.

 

Tags: Inspiration, Believe, Frustration, Patience, Struggle