Tag: Angelsey

Categories
fickle gratitude

Easy To Be Ungrateful

Newborough Beach, Anglesey, June 2024

I had a free day and it had been warm for a few days so I decided to set off for my favourite beach within an hour from my home. But when I got there the wind was blowing wildly and it was cold and overcast. So I still did a stamp along the beach scowling into the wind. Then on the way back I thought I’d check out a coffee shop we’d been meaning to go to. I’d checked its reviews and I was sure it was dog friendly. So in I trot with the dog and was told by the very nice owner that they were not dog friendly inside but I was welcome to sit outside. I was cold and fed up after not having a fun walk on the beach and so did not want to get blown away outside. They sent me to another cafe they were sure were dog friendly which wasn’t!

So there I am in my car grumbling about what a waste of a morning I had had, made worse by the sun then coming out and one of my closer beaches looking blissfully sunny. But of course by then the dog had walked enough and was dozing on the back seat. Also I was grumpy and sullen.

But of course then the revelation came as to what an ungrateful person I was being. Firstly I had been able to drive all the way to this beach, had the time to do it as well as the money. I could afford to stop for a coffee without having to worry about money. So many things to be grateful for – not just the time and the money, but my super little car, my super little dog for company, being safe on the road. And all those things were just for that morning. Lunchtime I was meeting a friend who is one of those true friends who encourages, supports, reprimands and challenges, is open and kind and sharing too. And that doesn’t include all the other great people I have in my life and the great things in my life.

It is so easy to dip down that slipper slope of moaning and complaining, of seeing the negative and not the possible rather than being grateful.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! [or in other versions “Rejoice in all things”]

Philippians 4:4

It doesn’t say just rejoice when things are going well but “always/ in all things”. But we are a fickle and perverse people and we very quickly go into grumble or worry mode.

But there is no reason to feel guilty because the amazing thing with God is we can repent/say we’re sorry and turn the other way. So at that moment in the car, when I got that revelation that I was being a grumpy, ungrateful mare, I said I was sorry and turned around [repented] and moved into being grateful not just for that morning but actually for the revelation that I was being ungrateful. Sometimes the revelation is as brilliant as the change of behaviour, I think.

But of course, because I am perverse and fickle I have had a few more times when I have been unnecessarily ungrateful when actually I should have “rejoiced” and let deep joy fill my heart. But again I repent and move. Again it is interesting how looking at the world with different eyes makes the world look different. It doesn’t change but I do!

So much of the real deep healing I’ve done has been about turning around and going the other way, of seeing situations in a different light.

Categories
Perfect day Philippians 4:8

Perfect Day

Photos taken at Newborough Beach and Plas Newydd August 2023 by myself

What is your perfect day?

Well I would have said on Thursday that that was my perfect day – beach, icecream, no agenda. But then on Friday I got my sheets dried in the sunshine; perfect day. Then Saturday a great morning workshop followed by a great movie in the evening. But then Sunday we had a lovely walk on a new bit of coastal path. New for us at least. All great. All with a bit of perfect but also probably a bit of not so perfect.

I got to wondering if a perfect day is actually a state of mind. Since starting part time paid work have I started to see that as a chore and the other things as nearer to perfect? I wonder how things would change at work if I started to pick out the perfect things there.

In the Bible it says

whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:8

I wonder how often I, and maybe you too, put certain things into the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable box and some into the not lovely, not right, not pure, not admirable box when actually it is a judgement call. Yes not all things are pure, true, noble, right, lovely admirable, but actually the paid work I do is all those things but it can be seen as a chore. And going off for a walk, getting sun-dried sheets, having no agenda, etc because they are more enjoyable can fit the Phil 4:8 criteria.

I am not saying we go all pollyannaish and think everything is awesome and I do think we need to stop following a lot of the things on the media, but I do think we need to start looking at the lovely within our ordinary lives, within our work lives, within our relationships, within our hard slog of things.

For me the first full paragraph is a list of things that help to settle me and ground me. For me that’s what makes them perfect. But my QEC counselor says that in every situation we should keep our Autonomic Nervous System in balance and regulation – which involves remembering to do that, breathing slowly, of being grateful and forgiving ourselves and others. This doesn’t make the difficult situation at work go away but it does ground us to be able to deal with it effectively and calmly.

So even though I have loved the last few days with their fill of perfect things in them tomorrow when I do my shift at work I will try to look to those things that are good, true, noble, pure, admirable, noble, etc and keep my ANS in balance and regulation, remember that I am human, that those I work with and live with are human and forgive. Maybe then my perfect day will be every day of the week no matter what goes on in it???

Categories
honest open

Say It As It Is

Beach at Rhosneiger, Angelsey.

It is that time of year when I slow down on my postings. I’ve got a job freelancing in a local high school and potential for another one. That means lots of prep and lots of waiting for funding to be approved. I find it quite tense and I have to honest with myself about that. There is no point saying I still feel creative when actually my head is elsewhere. Also with Christmas coming up I get a bit panicky about it. Silly things like feeling like I don’t have enough time to do what I need to do, see who I want to see, buy the gifts I’d like, etc. So again I have to be honest with myself.

I have just read “My Brother’s Name is Jessica“, which is about a younger brother dealing with his feelings about his older brother wanting to transgender. The parents are busy with the mother’s career in politics and they want to pretend nothing is going on. The part that, for me, opens up the whole story is when Sam shouts at the journalists who are asking probing questions about Jason, the older brother, “My brother’s name is Jessica“. I was on a train and I sobbed. For me it was then that everything comes out into the open. There is no more hiding. No more pretending everything is alright. Everything is in the open. It is at that point that things change. I won’t say any more because it will spoil the story and I would say this is a “must read”. It is one of the few books I have read this year in one sitting.

Too often we try to hide things, pretend everything is alright, hid the truth. I was working some 12-13 years old kids the other day and we were looking at the Stevie Smith poem “Not Waving but Drowning” and how too often not only are we drowning but smiling, but also we often pretend that other people are just waving so we don’t have to ask how they are, don’t have to be open with them. As with the novel it was not just that the rest of the family didn’t want to understand what Jason/Jessica was going through they also had things in themselves they didn’t want to look at.

I think sometimes we do worry that if we are open about how we feel that we have to live out that. So say I say that I feel sad/angry/jealous [those are feelings I often have to deal with especially this time of year] then maybe I worry that I can’t then be happy/content, etc. But, as I’m sure I’ve said in another post, it is possible to acknowledge our feelings, the feelings of others, but it doesn’t mean we have to “live on that island”. All of us live with nuances of a bit of this and a bit of that. It is also why I don’t like to call feelings positive or negative feelings. They are just feelings. Being angry is as true a feeling as being happy. They are both full on real feelings that come from a place of me and what I carry. But if I hide those and then wave away then I am pretending even to myself that I am not really drowning.

So like Sam with his feelings of what is going on with his brother/sister let us be open and say it as it is. Let us be willing to say “I love you because you are you but I need some help getting my head round why you are doing what you are doing“. Let us being willing to say “this is hard work and I need some help because I really want to get some understanding around this“.

Let us all learn to be honest, to say it as it is, but also to know we don’t have to live isolated on that island of confusion. We are all able to change, to learn, to move onward, and to love each other and the process.

As the sea will move over those rocks in the above picture and will change the way the beach looks as it moves the sand, stones and wares away the rocks, so we can move, change and be smoothed if we allow God/The Universe to roll over us. And also to reach out to each other. We are not alone in this, but it can feel like that if we keep quiet and pretend that we are waving when in fact we are drowning.