Forgive others

I watched a very interesting film recently. It was very random how I stumbled across it and then happened to stumble across it again on Facebook (must be a sign!). Anyway, the short international film begins with two strangers on a plane, talking about their jobs and the conversation leads to them finding out that they both know the same person. When they discover this, another stranger overhears the conversation and reveals that they also know this person. Strangely they realise that all of their interactions with this mutual person involved upsetting or offending him in some way, shape or form. This continues to happen until someone decides to investigate why they would all be on the same plane, as this has to be more than coincidence. After some discussion, they realise that although they had obtained their tickets in different ways i.e winning the raffle or part of work, they realise that it isn't by coincidence that these tickets were bought for them. Finally, the passengers are told by the stewardess that this man that they all know is the pilot of the plane and he has locked himself in the cockpit. I will leave you to find out what happens next.

But, back to the blog! I was thinking this week about forgiveness (or un-forgiveness), which then reminded me of this film. I would like to think of myself as a very friendly and gracious person, however truth be told, I am not always like that. I think about some of the behaviours I used to exhibit as a child like not speaking to people if I lost during a board game, and I see those days as behind, as I am now a mature, good teammate. But every so often, that side of me rears its ugly head, as un-forgiveness can get the best of all. 

When we feel hurt or offended by others and don't deal with it, we end up building it all up inside of us. If it's not dealt with, it will come out in some terrible way. One of the definitions of forgiveness is 'no longer wishing to punish someone'. That can be a huge thing to ask if the offence was very hurtful. However, forgiveness is not something that happens overnight, but a decision that has to be made regularly. 

This means that we need to regularly deal with any hurt we experience and not leave it to build up. Many studies have shown that un-forgiveness can lead to sickness. Un-forgiveness can place stress on our minds and bodies - think about the emotions you feel when you are hurt by somebody. What do you think happens when we replay that hurt over and over again in our minds? We put our minds and bodies under unnecessary stress. We deal with it, we're better for it. I'm downplaying how hard it is, but it's more important that we put things into place to deal with the hurt and frustration we may feel.

Don't let un-forgiveness take you on a plane journey you can't come back from. Deal with hurts and offences and live free.

How do you eat an elephant?

I feel like I give up way too easily! You have a magnificent idea or a goal you want to achieve and set out to climb that mountain with enthusiasm and zeal. You take the first few steps feeling so full of excitement about your new venture. Not long into the journey, you make the mistake of looking up. Although you knew the size of the mountain when you started, you would have hoped that the top of the mountain would seem closer to you. In fact, the destination seems further away!! 

At times, I feel like I try and I try but I am nowhere near to reaching my goal. And can I be honest? Sometimes I give up, not knowing that I was much more closer to my destination than I thought. It’s the big dreams that I have, as well as the daily routines. Its my dreams of a PhD as well as cooking and cleaning after a long day at work. But I know if I give up, I’ll be further away than where I would be if I kept on going. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And if we keep on going, that elephant will soon be devoured! You’re achieving your goals, one step at a time.

It's just emotions taking me over...

It's Monday morning and it's cold. I'm waking up early for work after a tiring and emotional weekend. The last thing I wanted to do, was to make the long, early morning journey to work, through the freezing cold English weather. Yes, you have it! I had the Monday morning blues. Or did I? 

Arguably, it's the Monday morning blues, but to be fair, it could be any morning. But what made the morning harder, was waking up early for work!! What we really have here, is a case of 'led by emotions'. It was easy for me to feel frustrated waking up Monday morning and allow that to impinge on the rest of my day. Walk into work and ignore the people that I see. Have a grumpy look on my face. Snap at anybody who dares to talk to me. But, just because I feel frustrated in response to a situation or a moment, does that really need to lead my day? This Monday morning in particular, I was able to identify my negative impulse and opted not to let it determine how the rest of my day turned out. I hate the cold! "Fact" - but I also enjoy having positive conversations with people. I hate waking up early!  "Fact" - but I enjoy providing engaging lessons for the children that I teach. 

I don't know about you, but for me I can fail to lead my emotions and I will often allow my emotions to lead me astray. Sadly, I then live out that frustration in situations where I could experience happiness. So here are a few things I have decided to do to help me get out of that thinking.

1. Be thankful - having a grateful mindset challenges and changes the perspective that you have. See life through thankful eyes. If it helps, make a list of what you are thankful for.

2. Encourage others - Again this could just be me, but I can get stuck in my emotions. Encouraging others around me, helps me to get unstuck, because then I am not just focussing on me.

3. Identify your emotion, why it exists and the situation you are in - I've added this because it's important not to overlook how you are feeling. Although I don't think we should live in an emotion, I think we should deal with the emotion. Also, once we know why the emotion exists, we can strategise or move on a lot quicker. Sometimes I'm annoyed because I'm just hungry! True stories!!

I hope these points help - let me know how you find leading your emotions in the comments section below :)

How does you garden grow?

Last week, I shared how I have learnt to value self-development. When you are a child, you learn

different things in stages to help you  develop into an adult. Similarly, if we want to develop new skills, we have to have plans in place. Sadly, skills can’t grow overnight, it takes hard work. My front garden is currently a mess, and I wish that I could sleep, wake up and see it filled with all sorts of beautiful, fragrant flowers... but that’s just not going to happen without me putting the work in. To invest in our self development, we need to take out time to do that. So here are 5 tips for self development.

1. Know your areas of development
It sounds obvious but it isn't always! If you are investing in your development, you need to know what you want to develop. If I am making a journey somewhere, I need to need to know where I am going. Not planning where you want to go, will mean you will end up where you don't want to be. Using my sat nav should mean I'll get to my destination, however there are times when I have mixed up my addresses and ended up where I didn't intend to be! Therefore, it is important that we should know what area of our life we want to invest in. Another reason why this is important, is because we can't spread ourselves too thin! When we focus on different things, we may not invest enough to see certain things grow...and it's not necessarily that we can't invest in different areas of our lives but we have to be intentional. Without intent, we can find ourselves aimlessly heading for nothing.

2. Read

There are many different quotes that show the importance of reading i.e. ‘readers are leaders’ or my favourite, ‘the more you read, the more you you know, the more things you learn, the more places you’ll grow. Reading is invaluable as you gain so much knowledge. Read into the area you want to develop and as your knowledge increases, so will you.

3. Watch videos

This is almost the same as reading, but it isn't! It is just another way for us to gain our knowledge. No longer do we need to travel long distances to find out information, but in a few clicks I can watch an informative video on how to play the guitar. We put things off and say we can't do 'a' or can't do 'b' because how can we learn? But we can't let that be an excuse anymore. There's lots of information out there for us to tap into, but we must be willing to do it.

4. Observe people

No, I didn't say stalk, I said observe. Let's go with the guitar idea. I want to learn how to play guitar, I am going to observe some great guitarists. How do they develop their skills? What do they do to perfect their skill? If I wanted to be more assertive, I would do something similar. I would observe how people communicate, observing body language and the verbal language people use. But remember observe not stalk! 

5. Apply

Now this is where I make false starts, I must admit. This point is easy for some but hard for me. You see I love learning, but application is hard. When teaching, I see children develop their skills well, but trip up when it comes to application. It's like doing well in practise tests but becoming anxious about the final exam! But this is the most important part of self-development - a very important part of growth. Whatever we learn, we have to put it into practise as then we can truly develop and grow. 

I hope these 5 tips help. They're helping me and I am sure they will help you too. 

Stuck behind an open door

I work in a school so a high importance is placed on the safety of the children. To get into certain areas of the school, a fob must be used. Recently, there have been many changes to the structure of the school and some of the onsite doors no longer lock. However, this doesn't effect the safety of the children, as these doors still keep the children on site. Anyway, today as I was carrying out errand #134, I walked towards one of the unlocked and noticed some children standing by the door. 'Ask Miss to open it,' one of the children whisper. "Miss, can you open the door for us please?'. I look at the children perplexed. The door is open, so they can get in and out to the playground but they don't know that it is open because they are used to it being locked. The children had been so used to a locked door, they expected this open door to be locked. The scary thing is, I think the children must have been there for quite a while, standing behind an open door.

How many of us stand behind open doors? How many of us have amazing potential, but we're too afraid to step into it? 

I know because of my reserved nature, I tend not to 'let it all out' and hold back in different ways. There are different reasons why we don't give our all to some things. Many times, it because we're afraid. Or it is because we don't think we will get anywhere. We stand behind an open door, expecting our potential to be inaccessible. I've stood behind many open doors, questioning my abilities and highlighting my insecurities. How do I know the door won't open, if I don't try to push it? 

There are open doors in our lives that we are not walking through because we think they are locked. Potential that can be reached but we think we can't get there. 

Susan Jeffers's book, 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway' highlights the importance of us facing our fears. We can’t let certain things hold us back, when we have so much to achieve.

Will you let your open doors keep you locked out from your future?

Why I decided to neglect self-development

I'm going to start this blog with two very important quotes.

The first is from James Baldwin, which states, 'The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.'

The second is from Akala, 'What a weapon that your brain is, get educated'.

Recently, I read a life-impacting book called 'The Little Voice'. I highly recommend it. But...this is not a book review! If you want to know more about the book, you can find it here:  The Little Voice.

 For me, this book highlighted the fact that we have so many voices in our lives - so many people offering their opinion. I had/have many! It also highlights the impact these different voices can have on us.

It's great to be in a place where you have lots of advice around you when you are facing a crazy world, but too many cooks spoil the broth, right?

When I was young, the voices around me encouraged me to do well in education and get into a good career. So, what did the young me do? I did well in education and got into a career. What's the problem with that? Well, nothing. But where was my voice in all of this?

I decided to neglect self-development because I depended on all of the voices around me - in a sense I trusted that, that was what I needed to do - do well in education and get into a good career. As much I trusted the voices around me, I also trusted that my education was teaching me everything that I needed to know. Naive right? Right.

Discovering my voice, helped me to discover the things that I actually wanted to do and I soon realised that I didn't have to rely on the education that society provided (as I wasn't going to learn all I needed to learn this way). We must be willing to learn and teach ourselves new things. We must be willing to grow and invest in our self-development.

Self-development is about you growing as a person. If something isn't growing that means it is not alive! Therefore, while we are alive, our development must be at the top of our list. 

I encourage you to find your voice. Know what you want to do. Then ... get educated.