'Becoming Who You Wish To Be Known As'

I am into Week 8 of the Edx Course, "Becoming A Resilient Person:The Science of Stress Management" presented by Prof Clayton Cook of the University of Washington.  It's the last week and it's been fantastic. 

The quote above, from week 2 only hit home this morning as I went through the course summing- up. 

"Becoming who you wish to be known as." This is not a new theme for this blog. I am very interested in knowing who I wish to be known as, and am aware of undergoing many metamorphoses in my long and eventful life. 

I view the creation I am with a degree of suspicion. Some days I have it made, and walk on rainbows, other times, I want to hide beneath the duvet and cry like a baby. I see that both incarnations, and a realm of others, are All authentically me, with an orchestrating Self that may, or may not be 'me too' working to hold it all rogether. 

The Science of Stress Management explains and explores the bio-chemistry of Me, the evolutionary drivers that kept my ancestors safe enough to produce me, but don't always serve me well today. It's very enlightening, and the knowing has put me in a place of choosing. So let me pat the lizard in me on the head and soothe her with some TLC, then remember that I AM the ape at the top of the tree, and I have the capacity to say no to rage.  

"Observe the situation with a kind and gentle attitude." 

I really like that this comes from a science professor and not a priest, though it pretty well sums up the Beatitudes, the core of Jesus' teaching. Here's the thing:

Do good

Be kind

Show compassion

Give of your time and resources to help others

Cultivate a habit of gratitude 

Because these things promote your own well-being: boosting your immune sytem, making you feel happier, reducing  the risk, of cardio-vascular disease and lengthening your life. Wow! 

So here's the thing. Who do I wish to be known as? I've already told you. The woman who walks on rainbows some days, and cries under the duvet on others, and is totally at peace with both. God summed it up totally: I am that I am. I would add, and I am glad that I am!

Lucky woman eh? 

:) 

You Have All That You Need

My friend Alex is tall, thin and very religious ... in the best possible way - by which I mean the, 'God Loves You' way. The other way, 'God Loves You If You're Good' way, doesn't hold any attraction for me, because if it's true, then, frankly, I'm stuffed. 

So, Alex. He's been to Bible College, and has returned from Canada, where he went to Bible College, looking for God to tell him what to do. 

Now I have a problem with this. To me, God has a true Name, which Is, 'I Am'. We don't use it much, because it's a bit hard to make sense of, which is how it's meant to be, I think. I Am has some pretty peculiar characteristics in my book. If you wait for him to tell you what to do, or not to do, you could be hanging about for ever. This isn't written down anywhere, you'll find, except here, of course, which probably doesn't count. I'm just giving you the benefit of my sixty years in the faith's worth of experience. 

See, I Am too, and I don't hang about waiting to be told, I just say, 'You know, I Am going to do THIS."... And I do, and usually it works out just fine. I Am smiling at some of the less conventional things I've done, and might be tempted to shake my head and wonder ... But no, it was all good. :) 

Jesus led the way. This makes sense because that was the name, 'The Way', he gave himself, and the name taken up by early adopters to Christianity. He said, "I do what I see my father doing." That's the trick to this Divine Guidance lark, look about you, if you're so inclined, and do what you see The Father doing. How you feel about it will be your guide. It will feel:

Good

Kind

Loving

Tender

Compassionate

Worthwhile

It will bring you:

Peace

Comfort

Well-being

Hope

Love

There ought to be more, I think, I shall definitely return to this.

So when Alex falls to his knees in the prayer time begore going out on the streets, I listen for what I Am is doing. He's telling Alex, "You have all that you need." I go over and whisper it to him, in case he's too busy pleading, to be listening, and I see his face  light up. 

"You have all that you need, because the  indwelling one, I AM, has put it there." 

God and I have both learned to do this: stand back and let people find out what's in them for themselves. So much easier than trying to give advice. Which, as you know, I NEVER do. 

The Pursuit of Happiness

I wrote down as one of my goals today, to write on the Pursuit of Happiness, and as I'm at the stage in goal-setting where the goals are pursued whether they make me happy or not - i.e. Day One - I'd better get started.

Naturally, I have nothing original to say, but as this is no hindrance to any other of the blogs around, I'm not going to let THAT get me down. 

(Two paragraphs ... Well, it's a start.)

This all stems of course from my Resilience Training, which is now in Week 6. We are doing TLC's which in the context of my RT means, Therapuetic Lifestyle Choices. Groan. I eat too much, I don't get enough sleep, exercise is horrid, and I spend too much time doing untherapuetic things like ... Sitting on my big fat sofa watching highly unsuitable television. I do have some fun too, but it does rather feel as though I shouldn't ... 

"Seriously, Mary," I nag, (And you know me, I NEVER nag.) "You have to make some changes if you want to live to be 106 in order to get every last penny back that you invested in The Prudential." 

The above is a long story, and I strongly suspect only I find it interesting, so moving on... . 

There's an App for it, says Clay Cook, the prof delivering this course, so I went to look, and there IS. I have been tinkering with it all day, and I am now checking on every one  of my goings-on in order to decide whether or not I derive any benefit from them. It might sound very selfish to ask of the World, "Are you making me happy?" But as happiness is derived as much by giving as getting, or more so, it can work out to everyone's benefit. Besides, if I'm pissed, everybody gets it. Not good. 

Actually, apart from a slight 'not being in the moment, moment' when I thought something unpleasant about a woman who drove discourteously in my direction, and advising her to be more considerate in future, I haven't done too badly today. 

Nothing dramatic. No adrenaline rushes or mighty acts of mercy, just this:

Took clothes to a charity shop

Made a conscious act of forgiveness 

Cleared out some junk 

Bought a Big Issue

Ate a fruit salad instead of a bar of chocolate

Did my exercises the physio gave me for my back

Weighed in on Wii Fit

Spent some time in silence  after doing the church flowers

Offered to help a friend out on Sunday

Played with my granddaughters

Had a glass of wine with my lunch

And finally...

Sat in the garden with the flowers, trees and birds and 

Blogged.

Not a single moment of unhappiness. 

Result! 

Conversation in a Victorian Tea Room

On 8 August 2012 20:11, Mary Francis <francismef@gmail.com> wrote:

Silvana (73) said she'd never laughed so much since she was at school, and it was Agnes' (75) fault. We three agreed afterwards that it was just as well Margareta, (82) is deaf. If there's ever a conversation you would have wanted to be a fly on the wall for, this was it!

We were at a Victorian Tea Room, and we're delicately drinking tea and forking our way through scones with cream and jam, having an unexpectedly good time.

Agnes is very smart both in dress and appearance, slim petite and blonde, with hilarious tales of her life in the travelling community. Most of them involving Agnes bossing her enormous and devoted husband about, keeping him on his toes by proving time and again that whatever he does to please her, he can't get it right.

It's how she tells them.

During a lull in the conversation I casually mentioned the controversy over Fifty Shades Of Grey. Without batting an eyelid, Agnes tells us she's reading it at the moment. I really hadn't expected this, we are, after all, Catholic Matrons in a Tea Shoppe!

'I'll tell you one thing, 'she said,' It's really badly written. I shan't be reading the other two!'

'What's she talking about?' asks Margareta, so I have to relay a slightly modified but still unmistakably risqué conversation about which parts of a man's body we find most attractive and generally hooting over the assumptions behind this question. Sylvana thought male bums too hairy to be attractive, but that a deep voice really turns her on. She's French, and was free with gestures and facial expressions, such as made my attempt to tone down her remarks for Margareta, redundant.

I would blush to repeat what wiles Sylvana and Agnes employ to cool the ardour of their respective mates: these are the tactics of black belt, medal- winning, wives that have both served terms of well over fifty years. I think it safe to say that Agnes occasionally employs a wincyette nightdress.

I don't expect you know what a wincyette  nightdress is! Hint: It doesn't plunge.

A film crew were filming the occasion for, 'Food Glorious Food' a prog that wias screened early last year. They took footage of me pouring tea, but they were, thankfully, elsewhere in the room for our confessions.

Fr Aidan was seated right behind Agnes, but she didn't care. 'Oh he knows what a wicked soul I have!' she laughed.

'Agnes,' I said, You have an innocent heart! A dirty mind... But an innocent heart... .