Sleeping with bread

There was much that moved me at the Methodist Women in Britain gathering last weekend. I really liked that we were encouraged to connect from the get-go, by being asked not what our names were, but to share a time we felt like giving up. Powerful stuff.

At one workshop I discovered a book that I’ve not fully read, but had a good flick through, entitled “Sleeping with Bread: Holding what Gives you Life” by the Linn family. The title is borne out of experiences of children who had survived concentration camps who then struggled to sleep. When given a piece of bread to hold, sleep came more easily as they were better able to hold onto the knowledge that they had eaten that day and there would be food the next. In a similar way, the book encourages us to think what we can hold onto, what it is that gives us life.

I’m very lucky – most nights my children want to sleep in my bed, so I am literally able to hold onto the most precious things in my life. And a while back a wise friend encouraged me to turn my mind to 3 blessings of the day so that I fall asleep thankful rather than lie agitated or desolate.

Steering our minds isn’t always easy, but there is much to be grateful for, and I’m always much happier when I’m focussed on the love rather than the fear, funnily enough!

One Day

I selected and then sobbed through the film “One Day”. There was lots in it for me, but right now I’m taking it as a message to be conscious about the choices I make and make the most of the paths I'm on. To stay focussed on the why am I here and how do I want to be spending my life.

It’s good to notice what can pull me to maybe spend time and energy on things other than those that make most sense for me. I have a little reminder stuck to my computer screen that challenges me “Is this children time?” cos if I’m not careful, I can spend time on the internet that afterwards I think may have been more fruitfully spent with my children. It’s not to beat myself up with regrets (tho that’s easily done). And it’s not a selfish “I must have what I want.” Maybe it depends what we think we’re about, what dreams we’re following. For me who has decided I want to live a life of love, it’s about checking in with myself, am I taking opportunities to love as much as I can or have other things distracted me? Reflecting on what gets in the way of me parenting in the way I’d like; noticing when I’ve not again found time to do something that actually I’d really like to do (like phone some of my good friends). I guess most of us frequently question "is this a good use of my time/resources?" but it feels a bit different when looking at productivity and efficiency than when thinking about love.

Once more it’s a balance of seeking changes if I’m not living as I’d like, yet also trusting that there is rightness in the how-things-are. A friend recently used the word “mindfulness” and I have been continuing my attempts to live presently and contentedly. So I was detained a short while today and instead of feeling frustrated, went with it – this is where I am and there’s nothing I can do so I’ll choose to be fully in it and enjoy it, and find and share the love in where I am. All tips you have for doing this will be much appreciated :)

walking each other home

“We are all just walking each other home” Ram Dass

I’ve just come across this quote and love it!!!! For starters it conjours up Elbow lyrics about how our loved ones are the stars we navigate home by. It has the imagery of companionship and ‘being alongside’ – a concept I find really important given that I think a lot of us sometimes feel isolated in our struggles. It combines the notion of journey – that it’s the travelling that’s important – as well as destination. I know “home” is used as an idyllic representation when for many it’s not a place of refuge, but a place of much hard work, maybe even abuse. But here I like to think of home as that place where a person feels fully at one with themselves, a sense of moving towards fulfilled potential. And so that’s what we’re doing – we’re being alongside people (and they’re being alongside us walking us home too), being a sounding board, providing light relief, offering to help carry the plastic bag maybe. A vicar did that with me once. I had, as usual, purchased far more from Morrisons than I could comfortably carry home, and as we met and were heading in the same direction, he wordlessly held out a hand and took one of the bags from me. I wonder if he knows that that act spoke more to me than his words from the pulpit?

Believe in your significance

Lyrics from another Seize the Day song (I am dust):

“Stop feeling small, you’re a part of it all, and everything you say and do
And everytime you let your truth come through – It makes a difference.
Believe in your significance”

http://www.seizetheday.org/music.cfm?albumID=3&trackID=47

A recurring theme of the moment seems to be significance, and how for some of us it can be tough acknowledging our own significance. How we can doubt our importance – the difference we have made, and the way we matter to other people. Given that most of us don’t go around letting others know just how important they are to us, I appreciate for the most part it has to be an act of trust. But I do think our every action and interaction has an impact. (Butterfly theory, anyone?) It’s not about being arrogant, our significance is no larger than other people’s – but we don’t have to down play it either (and yes, this is very reminiscent of another of my blogs. Several blogs even. I’m kind of beating the same drum still, but maybe that’s fine!!)

I once was shown a fab quote – will have to see if my friend still has it – about not waiting to be asked to come into the centre of a group, but to know that your presence is vital, trusting you are central – just as each one of us is.

I don’t think we have to wait and see where others will put us, what others make of us, where we fit, how we belong. I think we can put aside our doubts as to if we are wanted, if we have a role, and trust that actually, we matter immensely, and that whatever has us question that is just our own or other people’s stuff.

Wishing you all the love you need for your sense of significance to bloom…

Ephemeral love?

I’ve been wondering why it can be hard to hold onto the knowledge that we are loved… I’m lucky to have people who love me, that tell me over and over again. Mainly I don’t need re-telling, I know they still do – but there can be times when I just don’t feel that same level of conviction cos the fear has surfaced. I guess that might be why we make use of symbols and gifts, photos and greetings cards, so that the people we love can then be surrounded by a constant reminder of our love for them. It’s partly why in my house we have a “wall of love” with the names of people who have in some way touched our lives.

A moment from today’s Passion has really struck – a daughter telling her alcoholic mum that she’ll love her no matter what. I’ve been wondering if I do/will ever stop loving people once I’ve started? I’m fairly sure, once I’ve made that decision to love you, that’s it, for ever… it isn’t always easy, but it doesn’t stop. I concede that maybe someday I’ll find it isn’t always possible – if someone I love hurt one of my children for example, would I still be able to love them? I know it’s not always been easy to keep loving my husband since he left, but I still do – I don’t think love just “goes” – where would it go to? And what would be the point in it going?

So, that’s it – once I love you, I love you for good (or bad). Even if we’re no longer in touch – some people so dear to me now live a long way away, or have died – and I still love them just as much now as when they had a more present presence in my life. Love might sometimes feel a bit wispy and elusive, but actually it’s the most solid thing I know.

On the same side

I guess it’s all part of the same reducing isolation/building community/loving one another kind of goal, but I’ve recently noticed that I function much better when I decide people are on the same side as me. Sometimes I feel as if some people are not, and I find that hard. The times when I feel most at ease with the world, and myself, is when I remember that actually, we’re all in this together. There’s a song I like, that includes the line “we’re on this road: you, me, everybody together” and I often play it in the car and like to imagine that all the people sharing the literal road with me are actually fighting similar battles and probably have a common/similar purpose. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want everyone to be the same as me, or want the same as me – I still love that we’re all different and have diverse things that make us tick, motivate us, shape who we are. But I find it much more helpful to remember the commonalities – sometimes a shared situation like a traffic jam means it's easy to think we probably all want a similar outcome of moving along soon, sometimes I have to use a bit more imagination.

It’s the searching for the common humanity notion, the belief that we all are working for good, rather than succumbing to the fear that everyone is in it for themselves, that the world is against us. Cos my experiences of life and of people, is that yes, we’re all hurting and so hit out, or pull inside ourselves, from time to time, and that can be hard to be around. But mainly, people again and again are kind and compassionate, and act in ways that are not from self interest. Maybe I’m just lucky, maybe it is in part the way that we see. But what I know is that when I think I’m up against others, it is way way harder to live and love, than when I remind myself that me and the person I’m in conflict with are actually in it together after all.