What do we really need?

Hello

I fell out of a tree yesterday! It was very exciting, I was out walking with my partner at Cadbury Castle in Somerset and we were talking about life and how as I have got older I have lost my sense of adventure in many ways; indeed I have become afraid of doing things which might be fun in case I get hurt. 
It seems like a sensible course of action, I am after all thirty seven and with three children I am in a position of responsibility, indeed I have a duty to take care of myself, do I not? I should be sensible, prudent, rational, sober, boring.........

Life is there to be lived, I don't think my children would be proud of me for avoiding anything which could be fun on the grounds that I might end up a bit hurt! Perhaps having responsibilities is just a convenient excuse anyway, "Oh no I can't possibly climb that tree, I have children you know....." 
Having children doesn't stop me from getting in a car and driving about in a metal box on wheels, or from climbing ladders to change light bulbs. There are rather a lot of accidents (statistically speaking) from falling in this country! 
No! my mind selects things for doing and not doing in a seemingly rational way, after all I need to drive the car, and I do not need to climb trees. Or do I? 

I need to have fun, I need to enjoy my life, I need to feel exhilarated  I need to feel like I am alive! I am here for a physical experience after all, otherwise surely I would not have a body! 

Ipso facto I need to climb trees! Ha! 

So there we were and my partner said "climb that tree, it's perfect for climbing." It was a rather beautiful oak tree with many rather conveniently placed limbs for climbing. I got about seven feet up before the world started to swim around me, my belly tingled in an alarming way and I panicked! I hugged the tree tight, I clung to it for safety for a few minutes and then when nothing happened I started to relax! 
If I was to climb this tree every day I would probably figure out the best way of doing it, it would become second nature, I would not need to be scared. I relaxed some more and realised it was fun! I decided to climb higher, I looked up and down and started to reach up to some higher branches, I felt excited and brave. I climbed a couple of feet higher and then realised that to get any further I was going to have to boost myself up from one foot while pulling my body with my arms.
That was when it happened! I boosted and the branch chose that exact moment to crumble beneath me! What a surprise! Luckily for me my partner was very close to me and he slowed my fall by pushing me bodily into the tree trunk, so it was in fact more of a slide than a fall! 

I landed silently in the nettles! I was rather shocked! I had not been expecting to fall. It was all very very exciting and very exhilarating! I loved it. 
Who knew that falling out of a tree could be a good life enhancing experience? Who knew that climbing and falling were missing from my life?

I am definitely gong to climb more trees, I probably would have tried again yesterday if I had not been quite so sore! I learned a very valuable lesson: always check the branches before you put all your weight on them! After all it's not actually that easy to fall from a tree, something has to go wrong, one would never simply let go and fall off! 

Live life! Live Life ! Live Life! 

This may be the only one you get! This is my life and I'm going to have fun.......




Today I have Loving Gratitude for Trees! 
I have Loving Gratitude for the aches and pains today which remind me of the fun I had yesterday!
I have Loving Gratitude for heavy rain
I have Loving Gratitude for herbal medicine
I have Loving Gratitude for books
I have Loving Gratitude for my house which shelters me from the storm
I have Loving Gratitude for my cosy bed where I sleep and recouperate
I have Loving Gratitude for my children
I have Loving Gratitude for wild food
I have Loving Gratitude for the bravery I found for climbing trees!

love Klara. 

Saying Thank You Feels Wonderful!

Hello

There is so much to be thankful for! 

I have been finding it rather difficult lately to stay focused on that which makes me feel good. Summer really felt rather mediocre this year, and really I am specifically talking about the weather! When autumn arrived this year it was almost indistinguishable from the summer, dull days and plenty of rain all round. I fought autumn for a while but I have to admit that it is really here now, the days are getting shorter and darker and the leaves are falling from the trees......

Autumn really is one of my favourite times of year! From my kitchen window I can see a very large sycamore tree, two large patches of its leaves have already turned to a beautiful mixture of reds, yellows and browns; the tree is adorned in glorious technicolour! 

Autumn is a magical show! While falling leaves dance in the wind, those still attached to their trees display a myriad of hues, and those upon the ground crunch beneath my feet in a truly satisfying way! The evenings are drawing in, it is time to put on jumpers and start the heating up, to make big warming stews and dumplings, and bake delicious cakes to munch in the late afternoons.......

Indeed there is much to celebrate in the autumn. 

So here I am again, choosing between different mindsets, I know that I can choose, I have done it so many times before, all the evidence is here in front of my eyes in the form of around one hundred and seventy-five blog posts all about what I have done each day and each moment to motivate my mind into a positive productive way of thinking! 
I know that feeling good is a choice, but I am experiencing a stubbornness, a kind of deliberate refusal to do those things which support my good mental health! Indeed, I am feeling rather cynical! 

The part of my blogs that I find the most uplifting and the most helpful is (rather unsurprisingly) the Gratitude List at the end! I am reading through each and every blog I have written so far, and when I get to the gratitude lists I imagine each thing as I read it, and for a moment and sometimes for quite a long time I feel really very happy, joyful, passionate, excited, sublime!  I smile and laugh, I am moved by the glory of the world.........

There in black and white at the bottom of the page are ten of the things which I love about being alive, ten things which I feel grateful for. It's all in the focus, focus, focus, focus! Shine a light on the glory, shine a light on the love! We are supposed to have fun! 

Shine a light on the beauty of each moment, here is the beauty of autumn, it is only here for three short months every year, it is my joy and my job to notice everything wonderful about the autumn........
So today I feel thankful for thankfulness! 
I feel thankful for the first frosted spider webs in the early autumn sunshine
I feel thankful for tea and cake by a cosy fire
I feel thankful for when the penny finally drops and I understand
I feel thankful for creativity 
I feel thankful for wood polished smooth
I feel thankful for stone polished smooth and shiny by peoples bottoms sliding down it!
I feel thankful for rainbows in my house from sunlight through the fish tank
I feel thankful for the purr of my cats
I feel thankful for my ability to keep trying even when I feel cynical

love Klara. 

The Magical Thought Game!

Hello 

Today I have had a lovely day! 

What's more, it has been raining pretty much all day long, the sky has been grey and brooding and we have spent most of the day inside. I love to be out doors, and in particular I love to be out walking in the woods and the fields, but today that wasn't an option.

Today thinking was easy. Why? I am feeling playful, I have been imagining that thinking is a game, something to have fun with! Today unwanted thoughts did occur, but when they did I saw it as a challenge and I alternated between seeing how quickly I could shift my thoughts onto an entirely different subject, and by attempting not to think. 
I upped the game by thinking up the most amusing things possible in the moment, for example I was at the swimming pool thinking a fairly malevolent thought when I noticed that the cubicle was made of material which looks just like the skin of an orange! So, I imagined for a few moments that I was trapped inside a giant orange floating through space! This made me laugh out loud, I was able to draw myself away from the malevolent thoughts and as I did so I realised that although those kinds of thoughts have a certain addictive quality, (by that I often feel compelled to finish thinking them before I can move on to something more healthy), I realised that the addiction is weakening, I would rather think about Good Feeling Things.  

Thinking good feeling thoughts doesn't have to be a serious thing! I have realised that I am as changeable as the weather, (yesterday it was blue sky and sunshine, today it was clouds and rain) and by that I simply mean that my state of mind is rarely constant, there are moods which pass through my being which I often feel as if I have no control over. 
The more playful I am about my thoughts the easier it is to cope with negative seeming moods, in the past I took thoughts so seriously, I thought that they meant something, I thought that they reflected some aspect of me that needed changing (and perhaps they do in some regards). I found them upsetting, disturbing even, I took them far too seriously! 

My thoughts were burdensome, they were challenging and they were hard work! 

I now believe that much of my thought world is randomly generated. I don't profess to know everything about being human, but I am starting to know quite a lot about how to think myself happy! 

I am enjoying laughing at my thoughts, the less seriously I take them the less power they hold over me and the quicker they dissipate. I used to tell them to clear off but now I find that a simple giggle at their preposterousness usually suffices to send them packing without too much effort on my part! 

I disclaim my unwanted thoughts! 

I disown any thoughts which are going to bring me down or hinder me on my path to happiness!  Life is too short to spend it feeling miserable. 

Today I am Thankful for the way smiling makes me feel
I am Thankful for the smell of freshly baked bread in town
I am Thankful for the sound of people laughing
I am Thankful for the small things which help to bring my mind to happier thoughts
I am Thankful for the love in my life which holds me close
I am Thankful for fairy lights
I am Thankful for flapjacks
I am Thankful for swimming pools
I am Thankful for mossy rocks
I am Thankful for the sound of rain through leaves

love Klara. 

Parenting Myself!

Hello

Today I have been noticing just how often I don't do the things for myself which make life enjoyable! 
What an utterly crazy notion! To know what it is that makes me feel good, and on so many levels, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and to not do them! 

Surely this is utter insanity! 

What on earth is going on? I do wonder!!!

I got to thinking about this because I was sitting upstairs, leaning over and writing on the laptop which was perched on such a low table that poor posture was the only thing which would allow me to continue! I was reading a past post A Recipe For Joy! and was realising that I have not been following my own advice (!?) and that I would definitely benefit from sitting up straight and having a glass of water. 
So what did I do then? Absolutely nothing! Yes, I know it's bonkers........ I continued to lean, dehydrate and write until my back hurt so much that I could no longer ignore it, and then I got up and moved downstairs to a higher table, made a hot water bottle for my back and drank a large glass of water. 

This is just the kind of thing parents nag their children about every day (or at least I imagine it is and that is the important thing here). Stand up straight, it's good for your posture, drink plenty of water, it flushes out the system, eat some fruit, it's better for your body than sugar..... and the list goes on. Why do parents do this? I believe we are hoping that it will help our children to make informed decisions about their lives so that they grow up healthy and strong and live long and prosper, or is that Star Trek? 

Star Trek or not we all grow up (at least physically) eventually and leave home (in most cases) where we live without our mums and dads and have to follow our own guidance. 
So why don't I do the things which I know are good for me?

Here I am again back on the endless whys! 

Can I skip the whys? Is it important to know why things are as they are? Surely it is better to simply move on to the solution (if there is one), or simply forget about it?

When I ask myself why, I only come up with the lame answer of "I can't be bothered" or "I don't care enough". So why is entirely unsatisfying. 

It just zipped into my brain that perhaps I am afraid of what I could become if I did all the things which I know would enhance, enliven and make juicy my experience of life!

I don't have all the answers, I haven't suddenly changed because of this knowledge, no merging of realities has occurred, no bells are ringing in sheer joy at my discovery.....

I would like to start parenting myself, perhaps now is the time to start being my own mum, at least when my mum is not around! Perhaps now is the time to experiment with doing all the things which I know are good for me?
Adolescence is generally regarded as the stage following the onset of puberty, wherein the person develops from childhood into adulthood, adolescents are famous for taking risks and neglecting the things which they could do to look after themselves. 

Help! Am I a thirty seven year old adolescent? Yeah, but no, but seriously.........

I like the idea of the initiation into adulthood which tribal people are known to still practice, it seems to me that there does need to be some kind of marking of the moment when it becomes the time to look after ourselves to our best ability. As a mother I do a great job of looking after other people, but up until recently I have neglected my own needs. Perhaps I can create a little ceremony to mark my graduation to adult life, even if it is a few years later than it could have been. 

I can't be bothered, is a cop out. 

I'm going to do my best! 

Doing my best is always a reward in itself! Now is the time to do the things which I know will benefit me! 

Today I have Loving Gratitude for the water which hydrates me
Today I have Loving Gratitude for all the tribal peoples of the world
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my children
Today I have Loving Gratitude for paper lampshades
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my hearing
Today I have Loving Gratitude for love and kisses
Today I have Loving Gratitude for sunshine through prisms
Today I have Loving Gratitude for rainbows
Today I have Loving Gratitude for the power of thought
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my mum! 








love Klara.

Do Something Great For YourSelf Today!

Hello

Spending time away from writing my blog is showing me exactly how valuable my blog is for my emotional wellbeing! 
My partner was away for a couple of weeks and he has now been back for just over a week, during which time I have spent zero time on my blog.........
Gradually over the time since I last worked on my positive writings poor, thought patterns have set in, gloom has entered the room, in fact an entire herd of spiny lesser spotted doom mongers have taken up residence in my thought world. 

Why? Why? Why? Why can't it be simple? Why should I have to work so hard at being happy in the world? Why is there no magical cure, no Panacea? Eh?

Of course being poor thought forms I could waste masses of time on the whys, I could whittle away hours, days and weeks wondering why and wishing I was different, better, more suited to modern life; and what would I achieve? Most likely Nothing, nada, zilch, other than perhaps a whole entourage of increasingly menacingly negative thoughts and feelings beseeching the world to magically alter my faulty, infuriating, defective brain.

Blah blah blah blah...... Boring Boring Boring, it's so boring. 

What is so boring? Allowing myself to focus on everything that is wrong, and at the moment in particular wondering why things are wrong, because mostly likely I will never find out, so as his holiness the Dali Lama says:

"If there is no solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it. If there is a solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it. "

So goodbye Why, have a nice day, see you again soon but hopefully for a more enjoyable reason.....
Because I do have a solution! How fantastic, I really do have something that helps, something on which I can depend when I need to find a way to feel better. I have my blog. My little tiny bloggy woo.

Ah! Now I am having warm feelings towards myself (a rather drastic improvement on yesterdays thoughts), Thank you me of the past, thank you me of last year. I did a great thing! I started looking for ways to feel good and now I have a resource to help me. 

I thought that I was going to write about something quite different today, but as so often happens the moment has taken over! 
It is all too easy for me to take myself for granted, and to miss all that I do which is great, 

        Focus is so utterly crucial for me! 

I am sure the list of what I do that is great is very long, part of me doesn't want to make one incase it is short but that is just another thought, thoughts are not real, (what is real? That is a question for another day, here is one of my favourite thought on reality from a past blog post: "Take me or you for example, when I touch you physically, I am not really touching you! this is because we are all mostly space; imagine our bodies, in fact every physical thing, being made of molecules, and  each atom in our molecules is a bubble of electrons around a infinitesimally small nucleus, all chained together to make a frogs spawn like structure of mostly space. We are an atomic sponge which when we come in to contact with other physical things, like each other, our electrons repel each other giving the illusion of touch. In reality (if you'll excuse the pun) we do not touch at all and if electrons did not exist we would all just blend into one and other. we are all mostly space and the space we all occupy is connected, a little like being in one infinite ocean all together.")



Ah yes, Focus, I could focus on why, or all that is wrong with me, or I can focus on what I can do to feel great and what better way than by focusing on my own greatness. At times this could seem like an impossible challenge, like slaying a minotaur or snogging Medusa, so on those occasions I could start small, for example, I cook a great pasta sauce which my children always eat all of without complaining, indeed they usually make happy eating comments! I can be relied upon to make a delicious chocolate cake at the drop of a hat! I am very good at finding things my children have lost, and so on. 

I think what I am trying to say here is that we are in control of what we think, our thoughts are the one thing in life which we can reliably choose, and however minor my successes are when I think about them I feel better than when I think about what I might term my 'failures', and when I focus on something which feels good I am on my way to feeling great. 

Feeling great is a place which I can visit, it is a place where I can stay, I am welcome there, I am happy there and it belongs to me. 

I deserve to feel great. 

We all deserve to feel great. 

Today I have Loving Gratitude for my blog
Today I have Loving Gratitude for choice
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my ability to make delicious food
Today I have Loving Gratitude for the food in my cupboards
Today I have Loving Gratitude for the courgettes growing in my garden
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my garden
Today I have Loving Gratitude for the rain
Today I have Loving Gratitude for the sun drying my laundry on the washing line
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my friends
Today I have Loving Gratitude for my baby's smiles

love Klara.

Progress is more Beautiful than Perfection!

Hello

This week has been going really well so far! 

Two very exciting things have happened to make my life more juicy and joyful!

Firstly I have started a new bedtime routine with my baby which has had miraculous results; I had been struggling away each night spending an hour putting my baby to bed and then breast feeding her up to about nine times throughout night, it was really beginning to wear me out! However the other day a friend explained a way I had not heard of before where one does not have to leave the baby to cry to get her to sleep, hallelujah! I cried and immediately went home to try it! Quite frankly I'm stunned by the results, it is a sweet and gentle way to put a baby to bed, tonight being our third night I actually really enjoyed bed time! Thank you Universe! Thank you Zoe! (my wise friend, mother of five, who told me the method and helped me to have the confidence to try!). Astonishingly my baby also slept eight hours straight, breast fed and then went straight back to sleep until morning! Hooray! 

How wonderful! What a life changing event that was for me, it almost feels too easy, which makes me laugh! Why shouldn't life be easy? Life can be easy and life can be beautiful! The first night I tried the new method I had to be extremely patient, I had to sit calmly and quietly, I gave lots of cuddles and kisses and I experienced the feeing of really knowing that I was doing the right thing for the right reasons for both me and my baby. What a relief! 

Secondly I am thoroughly enjoying the work I have started, I am writing a kind of hand book from my blog! At the moment I am reading through and making notes on each and every blog post I have written, starting from the very beginning. At first I thought it might be a rather laborious task, I had even been putting it off, but it turns out I am absolutely loving every minute of it. I love my own writing! and not only that but it seems that I actually wrote a lot of really great advice for little old me, lots of which I had totally forgotten about. 

Revisiting my blog has rekindled the enthusiasm which was blossoming when I started out on my adventure! All the learning and experimenting with thought techniques seems to be starting to consolidate in my mind and now positive thought patterns appear to be coming to me in a rather automatic way, and by that I mean unprompted and effortlessly. In the past I had to be determined and will-ful in order to persuade, cajole and guide my thoughts into better feeling places! 

At times it was effortless (so it says in my blog!) but now it seems to be a rather predominant behaviour of my thoughts to look for the positive in situations and I am loving it! 

Progress, progress, progress! All I am looking for is progress (even tiny fairy footsteps will satisfy me) not perfection! Progress is delicious, delightful and wonderfully pleasing! 

So here I am today, I am proud of my writings, I am impressed by something I have done, I don't mind that it is unfinished and I don't mind that I have a lot of work left to do! I have a delicious feeling of enthusiasm and I simply can't wait to get cracking with my work! ..........

Today I have Loving Gratitude for my blog posts old and new
I have Loving Gratitude for the moment when my baby saw the moon in the sky and asked me to get it down! 
I have Loving Gratitude for the sleep which is coming my way later on
I have Loving Gratitude for enthusiastic feelings
I have Loving Gratitude for the cycle of the seasons
I have Loving Gratitude for change
I have Loving Gratitude for the sharing of information amongst the human family
I have Loving Gratitude for babies for being so incredibly sweet
I have Loving Gratitude for my baby's trusting nature
I have Loving Gratitude for my life! 

love Klara. 

Perfection Lies Somewhere Inside Imperfection!

Hello

So I am back writing my blog! I am not sure how often I am going to write, but at the moment I am planning to write two or three times a week, and the rest of the time that I would normally be blogging I shall be consolidating all that I have learnt so far on my quest to think good feeling thoughts and achieve self-mastery in order to write some sort of hand book to which I can refer during the dark times of my soul (which of course I am hoping not to have any of, but it can't hurt to be prepared just in case!).

So today is going pretty well so far! and considerably better than yesterday, which is always a good sign! Yesterday I was tetchy! I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I was short tempered about pretty much everything! No particular reason! Days like that trouble me, when I can't figure out why I feel irritable I can often end up feeling a bit confused and unsettled. I get caught up in the 'why?'  
Surely it must mean something? Why must it? Of course along comes the 'Everything happens for a reason' school of thought, which I must say where I live is more than just a school of thought, it's more like a belief! I'm on the fence about that one, however if everything did happen for a reason it's also highly probable that one may never find out the reasons for half the things that happen! 

Life the Universe and everything is so complicated! and yes, it is rocket science! Apparently yesterday the blue moon in pisces was to blame for pretty much everything! And that is exactly my point, if my moods are subject to things like the moon or astronomy I really do have a bats (or was that rats?) chance in hell of divining the 'why' for which I might be jolly, irritable or imaginative at any point in time! 

So, yesterday I was irritable, and it would have been a darn sight easier if I had remembered to just give my self a break! I could have allowed myself to be irritable, perhaps I might have then been able to see the funny side of it (it probably was quite funny from the outside anyway). I am always trying to be so damn nice! Mustn't upset anyone after all, I would always like to put other people's feeling first. So I felt ashamed of my short temper, I felt embarrassed and clumsy. 

So here I am again, learning to be kind to myself! I can't always be perfect, likeable and serene! Sometimes the stars simply have other plans for me. In this experience there lies a whole beautiful selection of lovely learning! 

Each moment I could accept myself exactly the way I am right now! 

Each moment I could take myself less seriously!

Each moment I could be kind to myself and allow irritability as part of life's dance

Each moment I could simply go with the mode of the day, hour or minute and see what I become.......

I am sure perfection lies somewhere inside imperfection and beauty cannot exist without its flaws. I am told that perfect symmetry is not as beautiful to the human observer as asymmetry! 

Ha! This surely means my irritable days are just as important for my wholeness and my beauty as my serene mother Theresa days, and everything in between! Hooray I have just found a reason to be pleased with my irritation! We are not supposed to be perfect all the time, life is a dance...........

Today I am thankful for Divine Inspirations
Today I am thankful for my glasses even though they are bent broken and squashed!
Today I am thankful for well written inspiring books
Today I am thankful for the moon
Today I am thankful for the stars
Today I am thankful for candle light
Today I am thankful for electricity
Today I am thankful for the reclamation yard so full of quirky things
Today I am thankful for statues
Today I am thankful for Love 

love Klara.