Sticks and Stones

The following Blog is also posted on my page

" The Soap Box Truth "

“ Sticks and Stones may break

my bones, but Names

will never hurt me ”

Remember singing that as a child ?

Do you also remember being told

“ If you just ignore a bully they will simply go away ”

Unfortunately neither were true words of wisdom, in fact in the real world exactly the opposite would actually happen. Sticks and Stones in most cases may cause cuts and bruises that you can see heal with care and time while with words the wounds can not always be readily seen but can cut so deep that they never truly heal and if they do scar up then normally they permanently effect they way the persons spirit develops.

I was a victim of continual bullying while growing up, not so much the physical type but the verbal and behavioral types. I was always a overweight child and have always been a very emotional type of person. I am one of those people who just can’t hide their emotions and I wear them on my sleeve for all to see. This unfortunately while seen as a fairly admirable characteristic for a S.N.A.G “ Sensitive New Age Guy ” in adulthood it was just a big red target for other kids while growing up.

What better past time for a board kid then to take a poke at me when they were guaranteed a response every time, I never let them down !

I never felt like I belonged anywhere or as a part of any group, I was always the one on the outside looking in and wondering what it would be like to be one of them !

I was always the biggest kid in both height and weight and with time as I grew up I managed to build a exterior image of the Big Silent Guy which ( thankfully due to a couple of fights I managed to win ) no one quite knew how to take so by the time I hit mid high school I was left alone, completely. I may now have been completely alone but at least I wasn’t the butt of everyone else’s boredom and taunts.

Have you ever stopped to contemplate just how powerful your words are?

Those early years have profoundly effected how I deal with life to this day, even though I understand the pettiness of what was said all those years ago. My attempts to change my reaction to them as an adult is futile as my flight or fight responses are so ingrained that they are fundamentally a part of who I am for the rest of my days.

These days I talk very long and very hard with my son about what people say to him and how he deals with others words. I constantly tell him that words can only hurt if you give them the power too but you know what, that’s not true, once the words have been thrown at you they stick to you and corrode away at your spirit. As I write this I realize that they are just more of those fable words that we are taught as kids because adults don’t have the right answers for us.

My son “ Grub ” is very much like me in build and personality. He sees the world though very innocent eyes at times which is a characteristic I have openly encouraged as he grew up, after all we are adults long enough, all children should be able to enjoy the innocence of childhood as long as they can.

Because Grub is so sensitive, the littlest word can hurt him and parenting a sensitive child can be a tight balance at times preparing him for his teenage years and the real world verses trying to keep some of that gentle innocence within him so that he may grow into a strong compassionate young man.

I caught myself using the wrong words in frustration this morning when talking to Grub. In a frustrated moment while discussing Grub’s wish to drop one of his extra curricular activities I told him he was lazy for not wanting to put in the effort.

Now “ Lazy ” is such a small word, it is such a common word, it’s not considers a nasty word or a rude word and yet its effect on Grub was profound. He got extremely sad and upset, quite some time later he sent me a simple text with the simple message “ I’m not lazy, I’m just not interested in it anymore ”. The word had stuck to him and was eroding his spirit.

Now I know better, I know how words can hurt and I will apologies profusely this afternoon when I see him next but the damage is done and words can not be unsaid. I love my boy beyond words and I am forever protective of him from the outside world which makes my laps in judgment all the worse.

Each year you read about the new words they add to the dictionary, wouldn’t it be a giant leap for mankind if we could also remove words from the dictionary. Just think of it, our children would never have to hear words like Hate, Fat, Ugly, Dumb, Stupid, Unattractive & Lazy just to name a few.

Wouldn’t that be an amazing world !

~~~~~~~

Sharp Words

Please don’t whip me with you’re sharp words,
They cut so deep and burn.

They etch scars upon my heart,
And cause my innocence to turn.

Please don’t tell me your cruel untruths,
My soul screams for you to stop.

Please don’t push me down again,
Just to make you feel on top.

All smothered in hate and lies,
I can not breath.

I am like you,
I breath, I bleed.

I am not what you say I am,
But I’m starting to believe.

Please don’t whip me with your sharp words,
They cut so deep and burn.

They etch a scar upon my heart,
And my innocence can never return.

Andrew Swansson
© April 2010

100 Things

by Kristin (kbxmas)
This was posted on my blog, Wanderlust, where it truly is my 100th post.

In honor of my 100th post, I offer you 100 bullet points.

• 100 posts
• 5 months
• 58 sexy flags
• A web of connections across the continents
• new friends, more than I dreamed
• a world opened up before me
• one marriage, lost
• one voice, found
• one future, unknown
• Tonight I sorted through boxes in the basement looking for things to give away
• digging deep into the past and pulling up armloads of clothes and jetsam from days gone by
• I found an old purse and realized it had never been divulged of its contents
• One by one I pulled out pens, lipstick, chewing gum
• Then I froze
• This was my mother's purse
• The purse she had been using when she died
• Here was an address book from 1990
• and she had carefully written in and scratched out my various addresses, tracking me across the country, across continents
• and her last paystub, dated January 3, 1993
• The chewing gum was still soft
• I stood there for a long time
• When the purse was empty I handed it to Jim to put with the rest of the stuff we were giving away
• He handed it back to me, gently, told me to smell it
• I did
• but it didn't smell like her
• Too many years gone by
• Here is what I want
• To hold a mirror up to my children so that they may never doubt
• the incredible light of their own souls
• To never stop writing
• To travel the world, all of it
• To speak my truth, all of it
• And come late June, when the days stretch long and coreopsis and phlox and coneflowers blanket the prairie floor and the sky is a thousand miles wide
• I’m getting in my car and driving to western Kansas
• to Amy Leigh’s farm
• where I’m going to run naked through a field of wheat
• with or without you President Obama
• And that’s not all
• You know that new URL I have (wanderlustlust)?
• I didn’t buy just one
• flaghussy.com
• Uh huh
• And what the hell
• Australiancrush.org
• That’s right
• I’m an org
• Care to donate?
• But on this, my 100th post, I'm thinking mostly about you
• Without you
• all of this wouldn't exist
• and to me you are more than just someone who reads my blog
• because when I fell
• you were there to catch me
• and I’ll never forget that
• People can say what they will about virtual friendships
• and people have
• but I know better
• I know that you are not just a name on a screen
• that you live and breathe and love and hurt and write a piece of yourself into every post
• that you are gloriously imperfect
• as am I
• as are we all
• We are nevertheless blog gods and goddesses
• are we not?
• Expression spilling from our fingertips
• onto pages
• so that we may rest another day
• tame the wild beast
• Well, quiet her at least
• And something in the telling helps us know that we are not alone
• in what we feel
• in who we are
• because we are not alone
• ever
• ever
• ever
• And through each other’s eyes
• we see ourselves
• reflected back
• in all our wonder
• and in that reflection
• we hold a vision of each other at our best
• Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters
• we become our consummate selves
• courageous in the face of pain
• gracious in the face of slight
• We are artists in the medium of life
• dreaming dreams of who we really are
• fearless explorers
• genius creators
• lovers of venusian proportion
• hot bloggy sex on a popsicle stick
• That’s us
• you
• me
• we
• shine

 

Unorthodox Meditation

I've been absent from blogging for a bit longer than is 'normal' for me, although I already exist outside the accepted norm of multiple posts per week. Usually, my blogging process is to wait for inspiration to strike. I don't stress over it, or worry that it won't happen because it always does. People, places, things, moments all come together in a beautiful harmony that will inevitably spark thoughts which lead to a blog article being born in my mind. It is a pulse of sorts, with a rise and fall aspect to how inspiration and writing occur for me on a personal level.


These past ten days or so have been curiously quiet in that regard. Again, I haven't worried overly much. Friends online have begun to email with concerned questions of, "Is your RSS feed messed up? I'm not getting your blog posts. What do you mean, you haven't been writing?? You always write!" That's a composite comment of many. If nothing else, it was a pleasant thing to know that people who follow my blog do look forward to reading my newest work. This didn't do anything, however, to spark that next line of thought that would create a blog post.

So, I have remained open and receptive, but somewhat detached. There are simply times when we all feel the need to retreat. It is not that there are not words or topics to be written - there are many. I just haven't felt that sense of rightness that I normally do with blogging, so, although I have been writing, I haven't posted anything. Tonight, I spent time thinking about this. It suddenly occurred to me that I have been engaging in what I would call an active state of meditation.

'Active', in that I have been living the process outwardly, rather than only mentally and emotionally. I have been writing, quite a lot, yet none of the drafts of posts have resonated as being just the right note for being published on my blog. So, I have written thoughts in snippets, lines of text to come back to or delete, some fully realized posts that will eventually be posted. The sudden epiphany that just hit me is that this is the same process we experience with traditional meditation.

When meditating, we usually sit or recline quietly, allowing thoughts to flicker across our consciousness. We study those thoughts, embrace them enough to honor the thought, then we gently tuck them away and come back to quiet. It is usually a completely mental, inward exercise. Occasionally this will manifest in a different manner - through exercise, through creating art, through music, through spending time in nature. For me, these past 10 days or so have become a physical manifestation of meditation.

I have been physically processing a great deal of information and experiencing the effects this information, these contacts and these thoughts are all having on my body and immediate surroundings. I have been discarding some long held behaviors and activities that no longer serve me, while giving deeper thought to some I wouldn't have even contemplated mere weeks earlier.

I am sure this is nothing new under the sun. I am positive we all go through these active meditative states occasionally. For me, it is a bit unorthodox, but a method that I do occasionally feel shifting to the forefront of my attention. Because it is so completely different to my regular process of meditation, it can be slightly uncomfortable and cause frustration and confusion. I remind myself that this is another instance of Stackable Energy and breathe deeply as I navigate my way along, casting the occasional assessing gaze upwards at that tower of blocks of energy.

Generally when this physical type of meditation takes hold, I do tend to retreat a bit. Sometimes I will become mildly or aggressively ill, depending on the nature of the shifting and meditative energy that I am facing. Indeed, this past weekend, I came down with an indeterminate stomach bug that further pulled me back from the world. I have found that this is part of the whole process and seems to be the physical body's way of cleansing old energy, clearing the way for fresh, new energy to flood forward.

Perhaps this all sounds slightly cryptic and muddled. If so, forgive the indulgence. It makes perfect sense to me and is part of a concept I have been working on for a while. So, rather than writing about a specific topic that struck me in that lovely rush of excitement and enthusiasm, I chose to write about the less sparkly, more subtle aspect of inspiration....that of doing constant inner housekeeping and refining of mental discipline, energetic flow and methods of communicating. Without this slower, more quiet interaction with Self, I would not be able to write the lighter, or, conversely, deeper, more evocative posts. Yin and yang. Endless processing and striving for balance is what I chose to write about this time.

When this type of energy hits my personal horizon, bigger shifts are in the works. I have come to recognize this particular rhythm and cycle. What is it bringing my way? I have thoughts and dreams, but at this moment, I am choosing to not limit the possibilities with labels and words. I am staying open to the experience with arms open and heart full of expectation. I am going through a dramatic shifting of energy, which generally occurs in my life every 5-7 years. This shift has been enveloping me for the past 18+ months and is still in a state of flux. Some of it is mutable, meaning I have control over the eventual outcome; some of it is immutable, and something that will happen regardless of how I resist or embrace the inevitable outcome.

No, I don't always immediately embrace it. Oftentimes, I fight it, resist it, struggle to impose my own will, my own wishes and my own wants. I have learned over a lifetime, however, that this only postpones the inevitable and puts me through a lot of needless grief. Knowing this still doesn't always make the process enjoyable, but it does help to adapt and assimilate the new energy patterns.

I have somewhat of an idea and understanding of what is coming towards me. There are days it feels just right and other days it feels like my shoes are on the wrong feet. This is when the physical act of outward, active, unorthodox meditation becomes necessary. I am navigating my way through it all, swimming with and against the currents at various moments. In a few days, or a few weeks, I will step back into my regular routine, slightly different than it used to be, but better for the changes.
________________________________

If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more, you can find me at Healing Morning blog.

The calmness within

There are some things that you just can't take your eyes off of.

Like these stone sculptures.

There was something about their still presence that captivated me.

Someone had spent the time to find the right-sized, right-shaped stones that could be aligned perfectly. Stacked them up. And then left them there for others to enjoy -- or destroy -- as they pleased.

Here were these smoothed-over rocks lying around randomly that someone had picked up and turned into artwork.

They sat there gracefully. Enjoying the view from their new vantage point.

Eliciting smiles.

The volatile ocean in the background providing a stark contrast to their quietude.

They looked unmoved. Resolute. Strong.

Yet so fragile.

Later that day I found myself experiencing the same swoop of silence.

A large cement ship, christened The Palo Alto, stoically resisting the throbbing sea.

A haven for birds. A sightseer's delight.

Built for one purpose. Cherished for another.

Abandoned as they were, the stone sculptures and the ship shared a sort of silent bond.

Witnessing time fly by.

There was movement all around them, yet they stayed unruffled.

Each of them with some history and an unknown future.

Inanimate objects that somehow managed to inspire a deep sense of calm.

The longer I looked at them, the more grounded I felt.

Invoking a sense of calm.

I saw a parallel with the demands of life.

Every day a series of turbulences. Big and small waves.

If we could learn to stay cool and collected -- face the crashing tide with equanimity -- life would be so much easier.

And we could appreciate the beauty of it all from a unique vantage point.

An inanimate frame of reference.

Experiencing the rough seas but not reacting to the turmoil.

Finding peace within.

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2010 Mansi Bhatia

Also posted on my blog.

Twitter Delivers

I’m enjoying Twitter. Most days I am tuning in to other people’s thoughts, complaints and shared information because I am chained to my computer for up to 8 hours a day.
And because I’m working from my home I have lost that angsty space that exists between work and home-The Commute.

I think I must really miss it because lately I’ve caught myself following the tweets of a 20 something Australian girl as she is homeward bound on an (often late) Brisbane train.

At 4.04pm she tweets: Why the hell am I only at Bowen Hills when I left work 50 minutes ago?! Goddamn #bnept.

4.08pm She then tunes in to the conversations around her: This yuppie across from me on the train is gossiping about someone jumping on the tracks near her house. I really don't want to hear it :(

4.10pm : And apparently gay men tip better than straight men. I'm assuming the girl is a waitress. #traintalk

4.17pm She receives the following complaint about Sydney train passengers by another commuter - Seriously. Can Sydneysiders please learn to put their bags on their laps or on the floor? I would like a seat too.

4.17pm She advises - ask them to move. I also glare at people or talk to others there about it loudly.

4.21 pm (I imagine an exasperated, weary tone) Finally approaching train station. Long trip home this one has been. Stupid.

Then nothing for an hour or so and I imagine her off the train and walking towards home, checking the mail, letting the cat out and kicking off her shoes.

*Sigh*- I really do miss coming home.

Hat Tip @nicolejensen

Diary of A Fading Rockstar — Episode XII: NEVER TRUST A MAN IN A BLUE TRENCHCOAT Or, You Kids Get Off My Lawn | CWG Magazine

Diary of A Fading Rockstar — Episode XII: NEVER TRUST A MAN IN A BLUE TRENCHCOAT Or, You Kids Get Off My Lawn | CWG Magazine

The Inspirational Cynic

Afternoon all. Thank you Kathy for allowing me to join your merry band of scribers. I am truly delighted to be here.

When I was 9 years old I read a book called Little Ed by Ed Tully, and from the moment I had finished it I knew that I wanted to be a writer. When I was 8 years old, we moved from the north of England to the south. I had a little typewriter and I would correspond to Toni Smith, my northern best friend, who I have known since I was 5 years old (and we are still writing to each other 30 years on but via email now) using my clumsy fingers on my clumsy machine.

As I got older my passion for writing grew but I it was always underpinned by a need to make money from it. I have never been very good at writing creatively just for the joy of self-expression. In fact, when I do such endeavours invariably the result makes my toes curl, and I hope and pray that they are never discovered. If they are, then at the very earliest, after I am dead and ideally completely dead, and not hanging around in some transitional plane having to endure the criticism, but not having the means to defend my intentions. A bit like Joe Orton’s diaries, I am sure that he never expected to have his shorthand decoded and the world to read about how often he bashed one out. In my teens I had heard that you could make £200 per Mills and Boon novel so I thought this was an ideal way of writing to formula and earning some easy cash. My friend’s mum was a Mills and Boon member and had hundreds of them, so I read a few, which was very entertaining and then began my first draft. The problem was I just couldn’t take it seriously and it always ended up as some stupid parody, full of sexual debauchery and drunken frolics that amused me, and my school chums, but didn’t really stand any chance of earning me the coveted £200.

While I was at university, my housemates and I, on rainy, cash strapped days, would pen erotic fiction stories about each of us in compromising positions with celebrities of our choice. Again, they just turned into stupid parodies, which were hilarious. The olives and the pool table were a nice touch. Anyone who has seen Priscilla Queen of the Desert will know what I mean. As I was studying a PR degree we thought it would be funny to try and sell them to men’s magazine Maxim. It was my first pitch into a features editor and it wasn’t my crowning glory. It went something along the lines of, “Hi, we have written these really funny erotic fictions stories and as Maxim is a glorified porn mag with words we thought they might be your cup of tea.” Click, as the features editor put the phone down.

After graduation I started working and was given the opportunity to work with the press photographer for Lawrie Smith’s yacht racing team, Silk Cut, who were participating in the 1998 Whitbread Round the World Race. I became privy to an inside look at these globetrotting, womanising, yachtsmen. At a summer bbq at my parents, I was introduced to a literary agent who had given up the big smoke for life in Middle Earth. I pitched the idea ‘Silk Sluts – The Inside Tale’ to her and we began the proposal writing process. The book looked like a winning combination and Silk Cut were definitely the team to watch when it came to debauched behaviour. It wasn’t long before they made the tabloid front pages when boat driver, super sexy Gordon Maguire, left his wife, and began a year-long affair with Page 3 hottie Jo Guest. However, my literary dreams were once again shattered, when I broke my leg, while watching the start of the race, onboard a speed-boat and spent the next year learning to walk again.

I next came into contact with the world of publishing when I was managing the communications programme for, British yachtsman, Mike Golding. He was competing in a yacht race called the Vendee Globe, a non-stop, circumnavigation of the world. As he approached Cape Horn his winning strategy looked like it might deliver, and so, in-conjunction with The Daily Telegraph sailing correspondent, Kate Laven, we began drafting a book proposal. She introduced me to literary agent David Luxton, from Luxton Harris ltd, and he agreed to represent Mike, with Kate Laven as the co-writer. Kate wrote a great proposal and David managed to muster some interest from publishers. Mike eventually, after a dramatic finish, secured a brilliant third place but he felt that third didn’t warrant a book so once again my brush with publishing dissipated.

However, I stayed in touch with David Luxton and kept my ear to the ground. On another gig as Communications Director of the Velux 5 Oceans, a global solo yacht race with stopovers, the sailing legend Sir Robin Knox Johnston, who in 1969 became the first man ever to successfully complete a solo circumnavigation of the globe, decided to enter. He was going to be a big media pull and was in a severely under funded campaign. In order to boost his income and on the back of a front cover of the Sunday Times magazine, it was time once again to pull in the dynamic trio of Luxton, Laven and Macnaughton. Before the proposal was even drafted we were beginning to get offers from publishers. I managed the relationship between Kate, David and RKJ, just because of the complex logistics involved with RKJ trying to co-ordinate his sailing campaign. Kate drafted a fantastic proposal and it went out to tender. There was huge interest and the book finished in a bidding war between two publishers. In the end, in a nail biting board level sign off, a six-figure advance was offered which secured the book deal for ‘Force of Nature’, with Penguin. Our editor was to be Rowland White, the author of bestselling aviation non-fiction novel, ‘Vulcan 607’. Before Kate got stuck into the writing we all went up to London to meet Rowland, I shook his hand, we chatted a little and I mentioned that I had married a Chinook pilot in the RAF. Rowland, who obviously has a keen interest in aviation, he mentioned another Chinook pilot, who was a mutual friend and it was all very jolly. I then walked away from the publishing world once more to get on with my very time-consuming day job.

After the race had finished, and Force of Nature had been published, Kate, David and I met up for a celebratory lunch at Soho House. David and I were talking and he mentioned that non-fiction military history was very much the books of the moment. He asked that if I got a sniff of a tale in this field, knowing I lived amongst the military, in a military house, as I was married to a Chinook pilot, that he wanted first refusal. I didn’t think much of it but agreed that I would only do so if I got to write it.

About six months later I was having a cup of tea in the living room of a fellow wife, who lived two doors up the street from me, and her husband, a Major in the Royal Marines, on an exchange tour with RAF, came home with a book in his hand called, In Foreign Fields by Dan Collins. He threw the book at me and said, “read that – it’s about me” alluding to a chapter in it. Her husband had earned a gallantry medal, called the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) in Afghanistan, and his endeavours were described in it. I said to him that I thought that I could get him a book deal. He agreed to let me try but only because he didn’t believe that it would ever happen. I contacted David and the machinations began. We, in-conjunction, with the Major drafted the proposal and then it was submitted. Somehow it ended up in front of Rowland at Penguin. At first, he turned us down, but he did agree to a meeting to see if we could expand the story a bit further to give it more substance. At this meeting we did so, I then wrote a sample chapter, and it was with great jubilation that I received a call from David to say that we had an offer from Penguin.

The contract was signed and I was the co-writer. I couldn’t believe that finally my dream to write a book was finally going to come to fruition. Then I found out that I was pregnant and we were being posted to Dorset. Penguin gave me a deadline of March 1st, this gave me time to grow the baby, move, have the baby, get the baby to nursery age and then have 6 months to research and write the book. No problem. Thankfully, the world had invented Skype and I was very resourceful. On the 1st January 2009 I declared myself teetotal until handover and began my writing marathon. Against all odds, and under some pretty extreme endurance writing sessions, ‘Immediate Response’ by Major Mark Hammond was drafted.

After a series of edits and a faff with the MOD, it was released on the 6th August. In it’s second week of sales it debuted in The Sunday Times bestseller non-fiction chart, at number 9, making it an official bestseller. The next job for me is now to publish a book in my own name. I am working on a non-fiction look at life onboard a superyacht, through the eyes of a stewardess. It’s going to be like Hotel Babylon but with teeth and I am loving every minute of it. It is a comedy noir and I guarantee it will be a page turner. However, I am currently still looking for a publisher to agree to take it on so watch this space. One day my dream will come true and I am not going to give up trying.

Immediate Response by Major Mark Hammond DFC RM with Clare Macnaughton Michael Josesph 2009 ISBN 0718154746

Hardback:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Immediate-Response-Mark-Hammond/dp/0718154746

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Immediate-Response-Mark-Hammond/dp/0141039043/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271776405&sr=1-2

There is nothing more disappointing then discovering, no matter how much you were born to scribe that becoming a bestselling writer and earning tonnes of money from my dream career is an enormous mountain to climb. I am still looking at the summit but I am not daunted by the prospect of never reaching the top. I don't choose to write. I have to write. I look forward to sharing, and receiving your words.

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