The Nurturing Project - Look How Far We've Come!

So here is my plant a little more than a month from the beginning of this project.  Just look at my little plant go! 

I have been faithfully watering and feeding this little plant and now it is becoming very top heavy with alot of new leaves.  Can you see how the weight is now shifting? In the first photo what stood out were the long, dead stems devoid of many green, healthy leaves. The plant quickly began to recover and started growing more and more leaves.The long, dead stems are becoming less significant in light of the new growth, the nurturing, that is creating healthy and strong leaves. So it can be with our lives. Sure we have a past and some are far more challenging than others. 

If our past has been, or our present is, less than ideal our focus may just be on the bare stems since there isn't very much new growth going on at the top. If that is the case we need to change our focus, to look at nurturing ourselves - good soil (surround ourselves with good, positive people), food (self-improvement workshops, personal development activities, challenging ourselves for growth), sun and air (have some fun, learn to live not simply exist! Breathe!)

We can overcome when we nurture ourselves, challenge ourselves to become strong, full beings reaching our fullest potential. Then, the challenging past, perhaps the less than ideal life can become much smaller and less significant in contrast to the new growth, the new knowledge, the new us.

Sure, the past is a part of who we are but it doesn't necessarily have to be a part of who we become if we decide to leave it behind, to overcome it.

So how do we go about nurturing ourselves? I'm glad you asked! Find something that you love to do and DO IT! Find your passion, and take time for it.  Even if you can't do it full time due to work, family, whatever.  Take care of your body. Eat right and exercise to keep healthy and strong.  Feed your soul.  Find faith, spirituality, whatever brings your inner being peace and happiness.  Challenge yourself to step outside the box, out of your comfort zone.  Surely at some point in your life you have had nervous excitement.  Didn't you feel alive and energized?  Wouldn't it be great to continue to have that feeling on purpose?  Educate yourself.  Take classes or free online courses to feed your mind and gain new knowledge about the world around you.

All in all, take time for you.  It's not about neglecting what needs to be done, simply putting importance on what is good, nurturing, for you.  The healthier we are, the happier we are the better we are able to nurture and encourage those around us.

You deserve it!

Until next time,

Val

What I Have Learned From My Plant, The Nurturing Project Continued

This is a new photo of my plant taken the end of March.  I hope you can see that there are many more leaves that are stronger and healthier.

What I see with the damaged, neglected stem is how our lives can be if we have been neglected, mistreated, damaged. We cannot change what was, we can only change what is. I may have to cut the top of the plant off and re-root it so it will grow healthy and strong from the bottom up.

Sometimes in our lives we have to make the hard decision to make a cut from the past, or present, that keeps us from being strong and healthy from the inside out.  That can sometimes mean coming t a place of forgiveness with the people or circumstances that have affected our lives. Only then will we be free to live and thrive. We must nurture ourselves, love ourselves, and have a proper environment and good food to keep us moving forward.

That is all for now. I will give this plant a little more time but I am pretty sure I will have to make the cut and replant it so it will be completely healthy from the bottom up. I will continue the Nurturing Project in future posts. I will include it in my book one day.  Thanks for reading!

Upcoming Workshops

Hello Dear Readers,

I am so very excited to let you all know that I will be holding workshops at the Women's Resource Centre in Beamsville.  To the left of this post is a link to the Facebook invitation.

It is very exciting to have this partnership with the centre and I look forward to meeting alot of new women who have an interest in their personal growth.

There is a nominal charge of $5 per evening to help offset the cost of the programs.  Please pre-register so that I know who to expect and I can have materials ready for you.

Come on and check it out.  Bring a friend for some great evenings of learning, growing, and sharing.

I hope to see you there.

Until next time,

Val

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

 Chapter 1

 I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

 

Things happen and sometimes you don't even see it coming.

 

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Denial will keep us from taking ownership and moving forward.

 

Chapter 3

 I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

 

You begin to see there is something different but what IS has become your "normal", good, bad, or otherwise.  You see you've just made some bad choices - you can move forward.

 

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

 

It may not be easy but steer clear of the situation in your life that is signified by the hole!

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

 

Make an absolute change to a different attitude, a different, healthier way of living.

 

Thank you Portia! for this analagy - I have lived it!!

~ Portia Nelson ~

(There's a Hole in My Sidewalk)

Dog Days of Summer

Wow, it's so hard to believe how fast summer is passing by.  It is a busy time for all of us yet it is supposed to be vacation, isn't it? 

I hope you have all had a wonderful summer so far and are remembering to be good to yourselves as well.

It is important to make time, take time for yourself to rejeuvenate and fill your spirit so you can be the best you!

What do you do to relax? How do you find your inner peace and sanity?  Do you take care of you when you are sick?

I'd like for you to answer the questions above in the comments section so we can share with each other.  I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Until next time,

Val

Here I am, Now What?

There are many times in life when we find ourselves in situations or places that are foreign to us.  Things such as the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, divorce or even moving to a different area or perhaps even a new country may leave us feeling displaced or alone.

During these times, these situations, we will run a gamut of emotions; fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, perhaps in the case of moving even excitement.  You get the picture.  What is our best defence in these situations?  Finding a support system in people who are either going through a similar situation or have gone through it.  My belief is that experience is the best teacher.  When you have UNDERSTANDING of a situation rather than EMPATHY for it, you have so much more to offer.  Knowing the emotions and feelings of a situation is a much more effective way to help another, more effective than any book knowledge.  We all need someone we can turn to or rely on to help us through the most difficult of times.

Believing in yourself and your strength to get through it and get on with it is also very important.  When we are challenged we learn about ourselves and our strengths.  Think of a situation where your initial thought was, “I don’t know how I’m going to get through this!”  Now think about how you did get through it, who did you rely on, what resources did you use, what strength or determination did it take for you to get there?  We are far more powerful and capable than we ever would imagine.

Make a plan, set some goals, and take charge of the situation to the best of your ability.  Some situations we create ourselves and we have to live with the consequences.  Other situations just seem to happen to us, an unexpected death in the family for example or being downsized or fired from a job.  In any case, if we take charge as best we can we will at least feel like we have some say in what happens next.  We cannot change the past, we can only deal with the present and prepare for the future.

So here you are, now what?  Let’s say you have moved to a new country.  (A wonderful new friend of mine has specifically asked for me to include this in my blog) Unfamiliar territory, new faces, and foreign languages are some of the challenges one will face.  Just think of a newcomer trying to understand the idioms of our foreign language. 

For example, a newcomer might hear the following:

·         “What’s the damage?” and wonder who did something wrong when in reality it means, “How much does something cost?” 

·          “Put on your thinking cap” this means you think very hard about something.

·         “In the dark” means you don’t know what is happening around you.  Kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

·         “Full speed ahead” – If people do something with all their enthusiasm and energy, they go full speed ahead.

·         “Don’t knock it” (often used with “Till you try it”) – don’t criticize it.

·         “They wear their heart on their sleeve – means that their feelings/emotions are very obvious. You can easily see them

There are many resources online to assist us to understand the idioms that are used in our English language. I just did a Google search and followed some of the links.  I found this site that has worksheets that might be of use http://www.stickyball.net/idioms/199.html  Again, there will likely be many others.

Now in fairness to all of my readers there are other situations that we find ourselves in that are foreign to us.  The unexpected death of a loved one or the end of a marriage, which in and of itself is like a death, an end.  This becomes a foreign land.  You are suddenly a single, no longer a couple.  There is a foreign language – widow/widower, single parent.  There are many new emotions – fear, anxiety, stress, loneliness, uncertainty.  Your future seems unclear and what once was familiar is now unfamiliar.  Even the simple motions of getting through the day, socializing, and coming home to an empty house – it changes everything.  I know I’ve experienced this firsthand.  Even if it wasn’t an ideal situation you still mourn the loss and go through a grieving process.  

My encouragement in any challenging or unfamiliar situation is to find support.  In these times there are support groups for everything, seriously!  You never have to feel alone or foreign in your own situation.  Once you find others who have gone through, or are going through, what you are you will no longer feel like a foreigner but a part of a group, a family if you will.

We all need someone we can relate to, depend on to help us through our most difficult of times.  Sometimes that can be found even in strangers who become our biggest source of support.  Get out there and find yours!

Until next time,

Val

Lighten Up By Letting Go!

Stuff. We all have ‘stuff’ in our lives. There are many aspects to it, some is imposed on us, some we bring upon ourselves and some is really other peoples' stuff.

Regardless of where it comes from, it has an impact on who we are, how we behave and what we think of ourselves. Is your stuff your own? Do you carry burdens that you need not bear? Do not carry burdens that aren't yours! Analyze what affects you most and where it comes from. The reality is that we will continue to have 'stuff' come into our lives. How we deal with it and especially our ability to let it go is vital to our emotional and physical well being.

What we need to realize is that we cannot change other people, not greatly anyway. Can we change how others behave? Not usually but perhaps in some cases and that's great! We do have the ability to change ourselves, how we behave, and how we react to things. One thing I cannot stress enough is that if we always do what we've always done, we'll always get what we've always gotten. Sometimes we need to get off of the merry-go-round of habits and actions that are not beneficial to our happiness and well being.

Here is a formula that is very helpful to me and I hope you will be able to use it too:

E + R = O

Events + our Reaction = an Outcome

Therefore, if you are always reacting in a similar way to a certain event you will always (usually) get the same outcome. So, if you change the formula to E + O = R you can think of the particular Event with the Outcome that you desire to have and then decide on how you are going to React differently to get that desired Outcome.

Some of the effects of holding on to feelings of past mistakes, guilt, shame or anger are emotional and physical unwellness. They go hand in hand. If you are emotionally unwell, chances are you are going to be physically unwell also. Emotional distress can lead to such things as depression, lethargy (tiredness), and lack of motivation.  On the same token, physical sickness can lead to emotional sickness as well.  It can be difficult to keep positive when you aren’t feeling well at all.

As we develop the tools for dealing with our emotional and physical well being we will be better equipped to tell those unhealthy thoughts and feelings to back off, to leave us alone. We will then be empowered, more in charge of our emotional and physical health. What a great place to be!

So when we have worked on ourselves, forgiving, letting go, and forgetting those unhealthy thoughts we become more open for good thoughts, good feelings, and positive experiences. We become much more in control of who we want to be. That in turn makes us more the person we want to be giving us more power over where we are going and how we are going to get there.

So I encourage you to let go of the negative, inhale the positive and decide to enjoy your life more!

Until next time,


Val