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Allow pressure to define you. 

Pressure has the capacity to break us or make us.

There is something about a situation that stretches us, even if it is a tiny amount of pressure, it can grow our capacity and our ability to cope in future opportunities.

Often we say no, out of fear of pressure, expectations or the stretch of the responsibility.

When we are in a rested place and we are not striving to get validation from others, a situation of pressure can be the most liberating opportunity.

You know that feeling, when you take on a project and you are completely afraid but you stretch and do more than you could imagine.

You know that work leadership role, that you take on momentarily and then suddenly you are aware that you can actually do this.

We all have these moments presented to us, but not everyone says yes.

Pressure makes diamonds shine bright.

You were designed to shine brightly at something.

You have a piece of coal inside of you, that with the right environment has the capacity to shine bright.

Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. Matthew 5: 15

Pressure brings forth the deep capacity, the hidden potential, the possible in your future.

If you are feeling pressured right now, you are at the point of change.

Diamonds of opportunities are being formed.

Speak tomorrow.

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Rest. Can you? 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe irony of the season I find myself is this; Novice motherhood has taught me to rest. Ridiculous I know, but it is only by giving up so much that I have realised how out of control my stress and career was.

Sixty hour weeks, two and a half hours of heavy traffic in peak hour, always feeling like I was letting someone down, working the whole weekend. It is only now that I have come to realise how important rest is in the balance of a life sown generously.

You cannot give to someone out of what you have not sown in your life. If you are scraping the bottom of a deep well of energy stores, you are often robbing not only yourself of a quality of life but your family as well.

We all need at least one day of rest a week.

One day of no social media

One day of long walks interspersed with deep breaths.

We all need times of sleeping in.

Pyjama days.

Movie Marathons.

Rolling moments of rest and relaxation.

Maya Angelou, one of my favourite writers explains her need for this brilliantly…

Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. Maya Angelou

I find in my line of work that creatives need this more than anyone. You cannot produce out of something you have not grown in resting inspiration time. My current muse is knitting. I rest while my hands and head engage in something that is creative and meditative. I love that if I am knitting my phone is not in my hand and I am free from the head space that the internet steals from my inspiration tank.

For you it might be music, writing, playing on the piano, taking photos.

Eating with friends, meditation, sport.

What makes you feel most rested?

Maybe a 48 hr weekend once a month with no phone, internet going back to the basics with loved ones like our family easter farm trip. Maybe it is the beach. Maybe it is going for a run. Maybe it is extended times of sleep.

Whatever it is that you need, make sure you schedule it in to happen.

You cannot keep giving out of a place that has not been refilled regularly.

Rest, Can you?

It is a learnt skill. One that I am so grateful for this pause season in my life for.

A season where the corporate ladder and success has not taken over my life.

For the first time in a long time, I am in control of what I say yes and no to and it is seriously the freest place anyone could ever live in.

So grateful.

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People are often unreasonable

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After spending the weekend at our family farm, with no shower, no toilet and lots of children, one would think we are all a little insane. My mums twin sister and her husband have bought a big piece of land and have just built a big farm house shed on it. It is still in its infancy stages, thus the humble start.

This Easter weekend was our families first time all staying there. We had eleven kids, thirteen adults and one puppy dog. It was crazy beautiful. Often people say I’m so lucky to have a family that gets along and doesn’t want to kill each other. They are wrong, we want to kill each other but we choose not too.

Our family is far from perfect and we annoy each other often but we choose to love deeply anyway. We have each other’s back, we create memories and traditions for our children to thrive in. We choose to dig deep and celebrate large because that truly makes life brilliant. 

I have had this poem by Mother Teresa floating around my mind these last few days…it eloquently describes what I am trying to say. 

Love them anyway. 

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

You know what people are often unreasonable. Love them anyway.

Happy Easter my inter-web friends.

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what is love?

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There are many days that I find it difficult to explain love.

Days when I have been betrayed by a friend who I thought had my back,

Days when I am so tired from being a Mum of two, that my legs drag and my heart aches,

Days when I am confused by words, trying to decipher between their lies and secrets held.

Love is not easy to explain, because I think culturally it has been expressed as a feeling, rather than an action.

We say it’s love; when we feel caught up in the emotion of infatuation…

We say it’s love; when we receive something of worth…

Love is in fact the way we act when we have nothing left to give but ourselves.

Love is the moment we say yes, when everything within us wants to say no.

Love is believing the best, love is accepting a difference of opinion, love is holding on when everything in your heart wants to let go.

Love is saying sorry when it hurts, love is finding a way to let go when you think about that situation over and over.

Love is not subjective, love does not have boundaries of race, gender, age or disability.

Love is way beyond an emotion.

Today is the one day that I find myself overwhelmed by love.

A day of reflection, a day of betrayal, a day of sacrifice.

One of the greatest scenes in the Easter story is the one where Jesus hangs between two thieves and he gasps ‘Not my will be done but yours.’

He didn’t want to walk the path towards death. He laid down his will, to prefer another.

Throughout the centuries, the cross has been used as a tool of judgement, a tool of shame, a symbol of exclusion, used to deny people access to the Father through works.

This goes against the very fibre of what the cross actually signifies.

No matter where you stand today surrounding and watching the Easter story unfold. Whether you think it is a fable, whether you feel excluded and stand in its shadow, whether you feel disappointed by its terrible historical implications, whether you are indifferent…

Today in my view the cross equals love.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

From one who was betrayed, to one who was crucified, to one who sacrificed his life to prefer another…

This is love.

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life is a feast but who is in the house next to yours?

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There is a feast awaiting each and everyone of us but it is not the meal we are each expecting…

Today is the last day of school around my part of the world and tomorrow we will wake to a day of rest for most families with a public holiday. A time for family, food and relaxation.

Let me introduce you to my neighbour, we have met only a few times. A wave on the beach, a ball over the fence, a cup of tea in the midst of both our busy schedules. Today is more than a special day as a teacher for her as she signs off from the desk for quite a while. She is due her third baby in a few short weeks so I thought I would drop a bakers dozen at her front door, when she arrives home from work this afternoon.

The feast is not the banana muffins or the raw balls or even the choc chip cookies…

The feast is broken humanity noticing and acknowledging each other.

The feast is knowing my neighbour and the small, inconsequential milestones that my nearest humans are celebrating.

Yesterday my Mum told me a story however that could be a feast awaiting but at the moment it remains lonely and broken.

My Mum runs a home for homeless pregnant women and their greatest joy is to set up house for the ladies as they shift with their newborns into a new accommodation. She was grieved yesterday because a refugee beautiful woman, who is here without her husband because he is in a refugee camp in Sudan, was in need and she was not able to help this lady because of the overwhelming needs in the house right now. The lady with a newborn, had just shifted into a new house from the House of Hope (Mum’s refuge) yet had hardly any furniture and couldn’t even set up the bed she had been given because of her pain from childbirth.

She may be your neighbour?

She may be just around the corner from you…

And she is hurting.

She is afraid.

She is the most vulnerable that she has ever been.

The feast awaits.

It could be a cup of tea and a biscuit.

It could be a washing machine.

It could be so many things.

The problem is the feast remains a famine because of one little thing.

A tiny little thing.

It takes courage to check in and ask the question.

Today marks the beginning of the Easter week journey. Jesus sat with his closest companions to feast and prepare for the greatest act anyone can give. To lay down their life for another. Mixed with sadness, joy, brilliance and betrayal, this feast went ahead, even though it was far from perfect.

In fact it was a very imperfect offering.

But this was the feast…

A call to prefer another before ourselves.

What feast awaits you this Easter?

Maybe it is a little different to the one you imagined

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