Category: acceptance

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acceptance humble

What Sort of Pride?

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

A friend of mine was telling me how she wasn’t happy about the concept of Gay Pride. She said it wasn’t because she was anti gay but it was the word “pride” and the biblical “pride comes before a fall” [Proverbs 6:18] and of pride being one of the seven deadly sins. It got me thinking about the word and different meanings of pride especially as when I run writing groups with adults or children I encourage them to be proud of their work; to have pride in what they do. Then later on that same day someone was bemoaning trying to get a settlement with their estranged husband and said “typical male pride”.

The different meanings of the word PRIDE

  • take pride in something/someone

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pride

I think the Proverbs verse means don’t think too highly of yourself; don’t be prideful. But that Gay pride is to know your own worth and respect yourself. Very different meanings to the same word.

This is one of the problems with the English language I think. Too often there is only one word but many meanings. It is also where things get mixed up when looking at the Bible, a book that was written in at least three very different languages and then translated into many others. Too often the translation comes via Latin which is too often limited in its wording – eg the word we use as Love as many different forms in the Hebrew and at least six in Greek, all with different connotations. A bit like the Eskimos having many words for snow and the Welsh have at least 26 words for rain.

So I agree that none of us should think we are any better than anyone else, prideful, but I think that we should all be content with who we are, be proud of our achievements, be proud when we see those we love and care for doing well. It isn’t this sort of pride that comes before a fall but the sort of pride that stops us asking for help, stops us helping others, stops us realising that we have faults too. The pride we need to live and walking is a humble pride of knowing our strengths and our weaknesses, knowing our wants and needs, and be open and caring to ourselves and each other. True pride [not pridefulness] means we can truly love ourselves and so truly love our neighbour because we know what we can and cannot do.

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acceptance joy peace

Acceptance

Renly accepting that he has to be wrapped up in a towel after he’s been outside in the rain. Photographed by myself November 2024

I was chatting with a friend the other day about how she realised that she had to accept the limitations of what she was going through – her health, her personal situation, etc – and only through that could she feel at peace.

We talk about the Peace or Joy of the Lord [depending on translations] being our strength but very rarely do we look at what that entails – to settle into the peace and/or joy of the Lord during tough situations. But it struck me as we were chatting that accepting things instead of fighting against them makes such a difference.

That isn’t to say we settle back and go “oh well that’s it and I won’t try any more” or as I’ve found from certain people “you can’t expect me to do that because I’m an X personality” or “because I’m such and such diagnosis”

But it is being honest about the situation and saying “this is where it is and I am going to learn to live with that as best I can. I am going to accept the limitations of that [mental health issue, physical health issue, relationship that isn’t going as I’d like, insert your own] and am going to rest in that Higher Power and see what they want to do with me.”

From this place will come peace and that deep joy that transcends understanding.

We all know people who are going through some real tough times but they radiate something that is so gentle, so peaceful, that we want some of it. And we also know people who are going through things that you have to gird yourself up to see because you know you should because they are going through stuff but, boy, are they giving off some negative energy.

Having been through some tough stuff I’m not coming from a place of not knowing. But I also know there have been times when I gave off total negative energy and blamed and hated what I was going through and the whole world. But I also know there have been times when I have been sad and hurting but have lent in to something/someone beyond myself and trusted. Not so much that they would change the situation but that they would hold me through the situations. Whenever I do that I know I feel better, more peaceful, more calm, less blaming, and I’m sure those around me can feel that energy shift.

I don’t say it is easy but I do say it is worth it.

I’ve pondered this many times before. If you do a search of “joy” you will find many other posts linked to this one.

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acceptance Love

Appreciating Each Other

A skeleton found on a dig at Lindisfarne. Probably 700-1500 years old. Photographed by myself Sept 2022

I start with the archeological dig’s skeleton, because we are all going to die And as an old dog walking colleague once said, his Mum died when she was in her 90s and it was still 10 years too soon for him. And I was reminded of the shortness of life last week when my daughter messaged to say her ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend had died suddenly in the night, probably of meningitis. This girl was only in her mid 20s. Too quick and too soon.

But there was a quote a read on Instagram, which I can’t find again, about how life is short and yet we learn to fear each other rather than love each other. I wish I could find it again because it is really good. Then I heard on Cunk on Earth’s Faith episode, about how Christianity preached love and forgiveness and then killed anyone who would not practice it!!!

These things over this last week have left me wondering why we do not love and forgive more than we hold grudges and fear people. I think it is fear rather than hate. Hate I believe comes from fear. As I keep saying the more I do QEC counseling the more accepting I can be of others, but also the more I see that it is my traumas and fears that used to hold me back from forgiving and accepting people than the people themselves.

This isn’t to say that I am swinging my doors wide open to fill my house full of people. That is something I have learned that I do not like and find hard. That is not to with others but to do with me. But it does mean that I can smile at people when I’m out, engage in conversation where I am listening to them, where I am not worrying about how I will look or if they might “get one over on me”. Instead I am accepting myself and them, giving us both/all our space to be who we are, realising when I react to something someone has said it is as much my issue, if not more so, than their fault.

I think, as I get older, my greatest wish is to be accepting of myself fully, forgiving of myself fully, accepting of others fully and forgiving of others fully. Some of these issues I will have to work through with QEC and other stress/trauma calming techniques. But that is my greatest wish to reach a point where I can appreciate all people and myself, and that all people can do that for each other.

I’m ending this now as I can feel myself going into a rant about governments, etc and I want to keep this post free of that. Maybe next time?? 🙂

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acceptance being me

Holding On To Who You Really Are

My dog being himself at The Good Life Camp in July this year

Last night I was home alone and watched the whole of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney Plus, all 6 episodes. Basic story line is Obi-Wan rescuing Princess Leia from the bad guys. What made is so convincing was the young Leia had traits like the grown up Leia from that very first time we all met her on screen back in the 1970s but also showed how what happened to her during the kidnapping and subsequent rescue shaped her too. She was the Princess Leia some of us have loved for 45 years.

But it got me thinking about how we are all born with certain characteristics, traits, ways of being, which are then either shaped, encouraged or squashed as we grow up. I wondered if I would recognise the 10 year old me if I was shown her story.

I did read somewhere that to make a marriage work we have to regular grieve the loss of the person we married and the loss of ourselves – as in I am not the person I was when we married 15 years ago. Life has changed me. And my husband isn’t the person I married 15 years ago as life has changed him too. But I do wonder, after watching things last night, how much of the depth of who I really am, who we really are, is still hiding under there.

I know I bang on about QEC but I think it has helped me to realise the me I really am and also the life events that have encouraged, shaped or crushed those tendencies.

Another of the reasons that got me pondering this is the being home alone. My husband has gone into the Snowdonia for 2 nights camping and walking. It means that from Friday night until he gets home this afternoon I can do what I want. In fact at the moment because I have very little work I can do what I want most days. So what did I choose to do? I walked the dog locally, read, did some writing, sat in the sun, walked the dog some more locally, read some more, and then binge watched Obi-Wan. This was what I wanted to do.

What did I like doing when I was younger? Well I got a memory of me sharing a story I had written with my friends. I remember sitting quietly on the river bank with a fishing rod in my hand. I remembered enjoying being alone with a book or a notepad or nothing at all. That was the me I remember. And now life has gone full circle and I spend much of my time reading, writing and just being. It is coming back slowly. But there are times I feel guilty because I am not “doing”, whatever that means.

I need to learn to be more like my dog and just bounce around being who I am most comfortable being. Just as Leia could only be what she was and Obi-Wan had to get his head round that so I can only be who I am and I need to get my head round that too.

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acceptance Achievement Contentment

What Have I Achieved?

Picture of a broken wall and pebbled beach looking across water to a town and island. Taken by Diane Woodrow
Abergwyngren coastal path looking towards Beaumaris taken by myself – Aug 2021

I woke up feeling low this morning. Low and old. Bemoaning that I only had a handful of years left to live and what had achieved with it. So I sat on my yoga mat with my cat and pondered. Because I’m also following Christine Sine’s example of deep gratitude I did my best to move into that place.

Well to begin with I have two amazing children who are doing great in the world. I have published a book [and trying not to beat myself up over the fact that it is my only one so far. I will go back and read my last post if I get issues there]. I encourage lots of people with my writing groups, with the youthshedz project [more on that in another post]

But it is too easy to look back and think of all the things I haven’t done – not had a great career, not entered politics, not invented something that would change the world, not some recognised person in the media.

But what really is achievement? What does it really mean? As a Christian I have come to believe that it means knowing God deeper and myself as well so that I can love others.

Doing the work with the Youthshedz young people I realise like them that I am luck to be alive. At 25 I didn’t like myself but now, 35 years on I can say that I like myself. I trust myself, and I have noticed the more I trust myself the more I trust God and also other people.

There is a verse about “judging as you will be judged” [Matthew 7:1] and I think that when one is striving to “achieve” something noteworthy one is too often looking at others, judging what they are doing, rating them as better or worse than oneself – generally better than – rather than just getting on and doing the stuff.

So I may not change the world and neither may my children or the young people I encourage, but you know I think if I make my world a more contented place by being more contented myself – by creating that energy around me of acceptance and contentment – then I have achieved enough.

Like the harbour wall in this picture one day all will be gone and I will be forgotten and you know that is ok.