BE THE CHANGE
- Details
- Created on Tuesday, 21 August 2012 17:46
- Written by Marian Moore
Marian @ Krysan
THE WELLBEING CONSULTANCY
Planting Golden Seeds in Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, and Durham
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"De-mystify a complex subject and grow in knowledge. De-stigmatize a taboo subject and grow in spirit."
— Anon.
'A WEED IS BUT AN UNLOVED FLOWER'
(Viewing life from a fresh perspective)
by
Marian Moore, et al
PLEASE, LISTEN ...
THEN, LET'S TALK ...
____________(i) Good friend —
"Through actively loving one another we nurture the richness of everyone's fuller expression. With no more than a nod of attention we can elicit a smile or perhaps a commitment to attempt again a challenge that defeated us earlier. None of us shines as brightly, moves as swiftly, or succeeds as easily as when someone special is rooting in our corner.
"We each need someone special, and let's not forget that we are someone special to another who is walking our path. The loneliness of a day is diminished when we feel the love of someone near or far. The dread of any task is lessened when we bask in the knowledge that we are special to someone. Like roses, we bloom while under the gaze of loving eyes.
"Let's remember to nurture the rose within the friends and strangers who are walking our way today."
— Donald P. (LinkedIn)
(ii) Good story —
When I lost my sense of humour, I lost my perspective on life.
Out went . . . my job, my friends, my family, the books, the typewriter, the clothes. In came . . . what my father before me had described as his ‘black dog’. Yes . . . I was told ‘it’ runs in the family. God, help me! Had I inherited an incurable disease? More terrifying even than that, had I passed ‘it’ onto my children?
Well - what is ‘it’?
For me ‘it’ was a total denial that my life was important. Indeed, that anyone else’s life was important. For three years, I put my head down. I simply stayed in bed. I changed my personality from extravert, fun loving worker, wife, mother, daughter, and friend to introvert.
I became morbid and pre-occupied with my ‘sins'.
They (my doctors and my family and my friends) they tried. But, in vain. Was I going to spend the rest of my life like this? As year followed dreary year, it certainly looked like it. Christmas’s came and went. I became desperate. As, indeed, did those closest to me. Do you recognise yourself?
Do you recognise your family?
It must suffice to say that this state of affairs lasted for twelve, awful, awful years. During that time my children left home, the dog died, the millennium came and went. Fortunately . . . there was Someone who always stood beside me. When all else failed - the counselling, the medication, the friendships - He carried me.
Who is ‘He’? I leave you to answer that.
What I will say is that a three-year-old child reminded me of the ‘password’. It is, quite simply - I love you. The illness is not incurable; I haven’t passed ‘it’ on. My sense of humour has returned. I can now watch the television, read a book, make a meal, speak (and write) kindly words again.
I am nearly there - will you join me? Someone else did . . . Share the love ... A weed is but an unloved flower ...
—Marian M.
(iii) Good quote —
Don't speak to me about your religion;
first show it to me in how you treat other people.
Don't tell me how much you love your God;
show me in how much you love all God's children.
Don't preach to me your passion for your faith;
teach me through your compassion for your neighbors.
In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have
to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.
— Cory B. (Newark Mayor)
(iv) Good news —
When physician-writer William Carlos Williams was asked how he managed his dual careers, he replied, "It's no strain. In fact, the one nourishes the other, even if at times I've groaned to the contrary."
It's a philosophy shared by Rita Charon, director of a new program in narrative medicine at Columbia University, where students and clinicians learn to shape the fragments of medical work — a symptom, a conflict, a difficult conversation — into coherent narratives that reflect not only their points of view but also the patient's.
Here, Charon explains how a habit of narrative writing can change the way a medical professional sees her patients and herself.
http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=16B843E:2E6F1C3A7B21327BA931F489B85E3799B4B847859706E37
— Rita C. (Columbia University)
(v) Good idea —
... consider how much the Mental Health Service User Movement (world-wide) and its experts through experience (patient-writers) have to offer narrative medicine as described in (iv) above ...Marian Moore (Krysan)THANK YOU FOR LISTENING ...
NOW, LET'S TALK ...Here's scientist Albert Einstein to lead the way. Einstein said,
"There are only two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle."
My story — as told in (ii) above — describes that dark night of the soul that many others have quietly endured throughout history. Here is another story about a gift of grace — this set in a cold prison cell in Toledo, Spain in 1578.
Richard Lang writes:
"I am thinking of St. John of the Cross, one of the greatest of Christian mystics, alone in prison in Toledo, Spain in 1578, unjustly condemned. He is weak from illness, hungry, suffering from frostbite. His cell, about nine feet by five, had previously been a lavatory for an adjoining guest room and has only a tiny hole, high up in the wall, to give light. His bed is a board on the floor with two old blankets.
"Clothed only in the tunic of his habit and with only his breviary to read, he is feeling profoundly alone. He knows not how long he will be incarcerated. Perhaps he will die there. I imagine him visited by the demons of hopelessness and despair, of anger and hurt. Another dark night of his soul. Living mostly on only bread and water, subjected to public lashings, for the first six months he hasn’t been allowed to wash or change his clothes.
"Most of us have not been in such dire circumstances, but perhaps we can imagine his condition. Yet St. John of the Cross, embracing his aloneness, facing his abandonment by the world, stumbled yet again upon God. God who is nothing, God who is No-thing, God who is totally Other yet more ourselves than our blood – this Mystery he discovers again, now, alive within the very centre of his soul."Stripped of everything he finds that, wonder upon wonder, he is not stripped of God. Emptied of all he had come to rely on, deprived of contact with his friends, he again finds his cup overflowing. These prison walls do not contain him. This moment is a gift from God, a blessing from his innermost nature. Being here is being in just the right place for now. Gratitude flows.
"During this period of imprisonment St. John of the Cross wrote some of the greatest lyric stanzas in Spanish literature, among them a major portion of The Spiritual Canticle."What happened next? In August of 1578 St. John of the Cross made a dramatic escape from the prison. He went on to write The Dark Night of the Soul and The Ascent of Mount Carmel.
"I don’t think we really value our Source until we discover how desperately in need we are of our Source and Centre and Resource. (Interview with Douglas Harding, His Life and Philosophy)."
Be the change.
For more information about Richard Lang and Douglas Harding, together with news of a method of self-inquiry called the Headless Way, go to www.headless.org.
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Today, it remains only to thank you my friends for joining in another transformative conversation. Always remember that 'conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards'. I hope this resonates with you as it does with me ...
Sincerely yours,
- Marian @ Krysan
- September 2012
ENDS
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