Thoughts from 1996

One of My Turning Points: My Creative Writing Course

I really don't know where to start. At this point in my life, I'm at a crossroads (in all manners of speaking) and at times quite confused — just as if I was starting out again, which I guess I am.

In some ways, it's very exciting, exhilarating, and challenging, but also it can be very depressing, deflating, and tiresome if I let it. That can be very easy to do at times, especially with the confusion. What to do? Where to go from here? Where to live? How to cope with the lone responsibility of two teenage children still in my care with very little help, if any at all? How to deal with the separation from my older child while worrying about whether she's OK? Just when we were developing a great friends relationship, I had to move.

Fortunately, the move has turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done (giving birth to my three fantastic children is tops) for everyone, especially me! I still had some intelligence left after all, although I was beginning to wonder!

In the past, I was looking out for everyone else's needs and not my own, and that stressed me to the max; I didn't realize it was affecting my health, physically and mentally. Now I was ready to look after myself and do something special for me. So when I turned up at an introduction meeting at the local TAFE, I thought all my Christmases had come at once. There were all these courses I wanted to do! Some were things I'd always wanted to do someday. Others were things that would come in handy to know. All of them would be a challenge. I wanted to try them all! But there's always that time problem that gets in the way, especially when you're impatient and anxious to get into it. That creates the decision problem!

The reason — or one of them, anyway — for choosing the creative writing course was to encourage my creative side. I had definitely lost this, along with so much of myself, over the years in the process of rearing a family and experiencing a messy divorce. (Sound familiar?) I needed to become more balanced. What better way to have some fun thinking rather than all the morbid thinking like responsibilities and commitments?

Friends have always loved receiving letters from me, saying how great it is because it seems like I'm there with them. I guess there's always been that element of wondering whether I could be any good at writing, including whether it would be for fun or for serious moneymaking stuff.

I'm in both frames of mind at the moment (hence the confusion). I'm trying to find a career rather than just a job, so you could say I'm having an experimental journey to find job satisfaction with monetary benefits as well. Is there such a thing? I'd like to think so, but that becomes very difficult to believe when reality sets in with responsibilities and commitments of the world.

Whichever way it turns out, I'll always appreciate the opportunity to experience a daydream of becoming a great writer, or one who is not necessarily great but has some effect on at least one person. My life would be all the more worthwhile if I could make others' lives a little bit more bearable by giving someone more hope and, above all, positive thinking to help cope with the confusion we put ourselves through.

Heal Your Body by Louise L. Hay was probably the first book I ever read from front to back. I couldn't put it down. I was given it by an ex-nun who was counselling me at one time. From then on, I wanted to read everything this author had written and would write. Along with Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (one of the books published by her company), all the books I have read from then on have become a source of inspiration for me. I hadn't been a keen reader until these books, and now I found I was reading a lot more — but also being fairly selective. One could say the books have been finding me!

I'm a firm believer in the saying "Everything happens for a reason," although I've never been able to figure out exactly why at times. It would save so much time and heartache to know how to read the signs. There is no doubt I'll find out someday what I will achieve out of this course of creative writing.

Thoughts from 1996 Take 2

One of My Turning Points: My Work Experience for TAFE Course

My work experience really lived up to its name, with work meaning "application of effort to a purpose; use of energy" and experience meaning "personal observation or contact; incident that affects one."

I guess an incredible life experience began for me when I met an extraordinary woman, an inspirational, self-published author of her autobiography who has such an effect on anyone who comes in contact with her.

My work experience with her began when she asked if I would like to help in collating her first book. Following that, there was the trip to accompany her to two newspaper interviews and photo sessions. On the trip up, I was madly taking notes on the events of the day to come and reminders for her. (I could have done with a few lessons of shorthand!) At 9:30 a.m., there was the interview with a key journalist for one of the main local newspapers; at 10:30, at a book and coffee shop, was an interview with a feature journalist for another publication. With this interview completed, we quickly munched on a toasted sandwich there while obtaining directions to the local hospital, where we were to make an emergency visit to a special student of hers who'd just been diagnosed with a rare case of leukaemia. She and this therapist/author have been together for about fourteen years, seeing each other about every week for that long. She was anxious to be comforted and counselled by her friend and confidante. While there, we met up with the right-hand person to the head of the cancer clinic. How fascinating and interesting it was to be finding out first-hand the latest information on cancer research and treatments from the best of the experts!

We arrived back at the house around 3:30 p.m., barely managing to gulp down a long-awaited cup of tea before a piano lesson at four. Following that, at 4:30 we were rushing off to this woman's own group of talented students, ranging from five to seventeen years, to sing and dance with them until 7:00. This band of performers was comprised of all her patients and the abused children she had treated for years; she was very successful using this idea and method of therapy for them. I had not packed so much variety into one day, yet even though I was feeling rather tired, I was exhilarated. Using energy seemed to produce energy!

I had four similar days with this remarkable woman. If it was not buying get-well cards, it was thank-you cards and collecting mail, or posting off books and media releases to some of our country's top authors, motivational lecturers, and agents for top publishers. Then there were the visits to the local news agencies and bookshops, checking on the sales, and promoting her book. There were the negotiations about problems with a new cartridge for her photocopier that still was not working properly. And there were drives out to the printer's building to hand over some books needing repairs and count what books were still there. Stock taking was something one might add to the growing list of skills I was acquiring!

Each afternoon, she taught music therapy to a variety of people by way of piano, speech, drama, singing, or talking (counselling). She has them for half-hour sessions, and they all need different approaches because of age or medium, or both. She has to always be alert to enable her to tune in on a one-to-one basis.

Not surprisingly, this can be very stressful and tiring at times, but it is one of the many things to which she has accustomed herself. Thus, she has learned to control, preserve, and maintain her energies in the best possible way. Her students in these private sessions range from five years upwards and have been victims of various kinds of abuse. Most of these students have been referred to her by doctors and practitioners who believe her music therapy methods work, or they are older people who need some kind of outlet for themselves, for their self-esteem, and for their stress. Quite a number of her students have become like family, having had lessons once a week for up to fourteen years and achieving a lot personally as well as professionally. I felt honoured to join in some of these sessions because they played and sang beautifully; it was mixing business with pleasure! That was when the guilt surfaced. I wondered, Should I be enjoying myself while working? One could say it was one of those very rare and unique opportunities made in heaven!

Speaking of enjoying myself and thinking I was in another world, I was amazed at how at ease I felt at this woman's book launches, where I held conversations with some of the most well-known and famous personalities in our country. These included entertainers, motivational speakers, television personalities, authors, printers, publishers, and cancer specialists. I realized they were normal people like you and me, and they had a natural way of making people feel comfortable. Maybe that is why they were who they were, and why they were where they were. It makes perfectly good sense to me now!

Oh, what a feeling! What an experience!

I learnt a bit about time management too, and conserving energy or using it in the most beneficial ways instead of wasting it. Spend a day in the life of this most special human being, and you will know what I mean! Like all new things, though, it takes time and practice to rid oneself of old ways and implement the new. During all this, the one thing that kept my feet on the ground was doing seemingly mundane household duties. I never thought of housework as being good for me before, let alone being thankful for it!

I have always had this saying: "I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none." However, I have improved on it now by saying, "I'm a Jill of all trades, and slowly and surely I'm mastering some."

I will cherish these experiences, and hopefully one day soon, I will be happy, satisfied, and enjoying my career of whatever in the same way — not exhausted at the end of the day, but rather energized and able to truly say thanks each night for a rewarding and wonderful day! I believe this is the most valuable lesson I or anyone can learn in a lifetime. To make this lesson and experience even more truly remarkable, amazing, and overwhelming is the fact that this extraordinary woman has defied death on numerous occasions with cancer after cancer, and she continues to fight for her life with the only means she knows how: pure spirit. Medically, it's been said by some experts, "She should have died over four years ago." She is a true example of how strong the spirit and will can be!

Thoughts from 1996 Take 3

Turning Point Life Begins Again at Forty?

How true is the saying "Life begins at forty"? For some people, it is a turning point in their lives for the better, right from the onset — those who know themselves well, have a lot of confidence, are comfortable with who they are, and have a lifetime of accomplishments behind them, thus giving them self-satisfaction, self-respect, and self-esteem. Because of all this, plus the fact their children are probably more independent and, by following their parents' example, are making similar lives of their own by now, these well-deserving people have much more freedom.

For quite a few of us, though, it can be a turning point, no doubt — but in what direction?

I don't think I'm alone in thinking that while nearing forty, I was hoping everything would be a bed of roses. I wanted to feel secure, satisfied, independent, and free when that magical age came. Life seemed so humdrum and routine, and it was so difficult at times to just survive; it never seemed to be my own. I was always someone's wife or someone's mother. Even if I did have my little bit of independence with my own job, that had to fit in with everybody else's needs first.

It was how so many of us were conditioned: our families meant everything to us. They came first, and so we put our hearts and souls into the thing we loved most, not realizing that along the way, we had completely lost ourselves in the process.

By the time we reach forty, statistics show the majority of people have had at least one relationship break down, creating a dysfunctional family or extended stepfamilies. Also, quite a number of people are lone parents, dealing with so many new things. It becomes such a confusing and devastating time for everyone concerned. It is like starting life all over again, only this time it's a whole new ballgame, a whole new set of rules — or so we initially think!

When we were young, life seemed to be a time of excitement and adventure, with no responsibilities. We were free to go in any direction. This time around, life can seem like a devastation, feeling like a failure!

Where to begin? I thought, How am I going to do this on my own? How do I bring up the children with little or no support at times, financially but more important emotionally? How do I cope with their needs all round when I feel like I'm caving in myself?

After reading, "It's not what happens to you but how you react," I realized that was the thing that had to change first: the way we think about situations. Is it going to be a problem or an opportunity to learn? Are we going to think of ourselves as victims or survivors?

Are we going to learn by our mistakes? This is the time when some of us learn (for the first time) that we have choices. This is when a lifetime of conditioning has to be forgotten for the most part, and we re-educate ourselves with new skills to more efficiently manage our time. We learn to prioritize things. People finding themselves in these situations are, for the most part, usually those who have difficulty asking for help. Also, those who have been adamant in saying, "I can cope on my own. I got myself into this; I have to get myself out. I'm determined to prove I can fix this because I couldn't have been that wrong. I can't possibly admit I'm a failure." Sound familiar? Guess who had all those thoughts going round and round?

In my mind, to admit I was only human and needed help would have been devastating and demoralising; it would have been like admitting failure and defeat. That had to change too. I had to swallow my pride (I thought) and ask!

From personal experience, for your family to survive this, you need to take care of yourself first, or else you are not going to be any good for anyone. This is sometimes difficult to do physically, and it's even more difficult to do mentally. Like all new skills, it takes time and practice, and so you also need to be very patient with yourself. It helps tremendously if you can learn to forgive yourself for whatever guilt you feel you carry, by realizing you can only act on your level of awareness at the time. That in itself is easier said than done, believe me!

The most guilt is because of how the situation has affected the children. None of this is their fault, and they have to be constantly reassured of that. In some ways, it is a learning experience for them too that life is what you make of it. The best you can do at this time as a parent, more so than ever before, is to be a good example. Show them that life can be exciting and adventurous again, just like getting a second chance! How many of us are so lucky?

I'm not saying life's a breeze yet — far from it, at this point in time — but having a positive attitude helps tremendously. Think of the good things you have going for you, like your health, your love for your children, and their love for you. That is the main concern.

If there was more love given out rather than abuse, bitterness, revenge, and resentment, life would be so much simpler to deal with. Most of the time, it's our own pressures and our own limitations we place on ourselves that stop us from moving forward.

If only we could learn to be kinder to ourselves and love ourselves for who we are, and not for other people's expectations. If we can learn to be true to ourselves, we are bound to reap the benefits. After all, we are the ones we have to please. We are the ones with whom we have to live for the rest of our lives! Make it fun and challenging. Make it daring and adventurous with heaps of enthusiasm, potential, motivation, and inspiration.

Make it worth it!

Thoughts from 1997

Turning Point Life Has Begun in My Forties After All!

Materialistically, I still have a long way to go to fulfil my dreams of success, but emotionally and spiritually, I have come a long way towards being fully satisfied. Visiting old friends has made me realize how much I have achieved by myself, and how much I have grown. Words can never describe that feeling of satisfaction!