Shhhh.... Listen!

Our ability to hear is probably the weakest developed skill we have
We are born with two ears
but only one tongue
and this means that we were meant to listen
twice as much as we talk

What we learn about another person
will always result in a greater reward
than what we tell him about ourselves
We need to learn to listen and observe
and we must try harder to truly listen, and not just to hear.

Our Thoughts...

We need to be more careful about what we think about
and if thinking is so powerful
as so many schools of though are suggesting
then we need to be extremely selective in our thoughts...

It's never too late...

This morning I found this joke in my inbox...

Little girl, "Mummy, how soon is Christmas?"
Mother, "Not long. Why do you ask?"
Girl, "I was wondering if it was near enough for me to start being good."

The other side...

There are things we cannot change
We must adjust
Sometimes the greatest change we can make is to change our viewpoint

But most of us fight against this
Our pride gets in the way
What we need to do is to make an effort to look at situations
we face from a totally different perspective
And often we are surprised by the view from the other side

We each seem to view things from our own personal point of reference
But there are always two sides to the coin
And remember nothing looks the same when viewed from a different angle

When we feel stuck
it helps to view our situation from another angle
it might just give us the new perspective we need to move ahead

Monday Motivator...

Faith is taking that first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King Jr

Once you choose Hope, anything is possible
- Christopher Reeve

Each man is the architect of his own Destiny
- Appius Caecus

Faith, Hope and Destiny - the fuel that drives me....

Trial and Error...

Every mistake we make is another opportunity to become better

Life is a lifelong journey of trial and error

an opportunity to learn and grow

Depending on our attitude it's more like an opportunity

we have where we can choose to learn or not

Not everyone learns from their mistakes

Most of us actually repeat the same mistake several times

before we learn something

Some of us never learn

When problems come our way

we can to choose how to respond

We can either see them as another chance to grow

or we can complain about how unlucky we are

Ultimately it is our attitude towards these challenges

that will determine who we become

and how we live our life...

Altering my Attitude...

A turning point in my life was when I discovered
that I was able to alter my life by altering my attitude

For me each day is a new opportunity to decide to have a good attitude
In the good times it is very easy have a good attitude
but when things do not go well it’s a different story
But it remains my choice whether I choose to have a bad day
or whether I choose to give it my all
and add a couple of colourful paint strokes that will eventually turn into
the master piece that is meant to be my life...

Wacky Wednesdays...


Wednesdays are poised perfectly in the middle
of the beginning and the end...
A day that brings relief from Blue Mondays and holds
a promise of the imminent arrival of Fabulous Friday
and the weekend where I can spend time
with people I love and care for...

But sometimes it scares me to see how quickly time passes
I have so much to do...
so much to say...

No Pain.... No Gain...

Some wise person once said;
In the presence of trouble, some people grow wings; others buy crutches

We have all heard the saying - No pain... No gain...
Body builders tell us that in order to grow those
big muscles they have
they have to push themselves beyond the pain...

And just so in life it is only when we push ourselves
beyond our comfort zone that we grow
We need to challenge ourselves
we need to move beyond our comfort zones
we need to grow wings and transcend our limitations
or...
we can buy crutches and limp along in life

When we test ourselves
and venture into unknown territory
we begin to develop ourselves
we develop our true character
and become the person we were born to be

Photo - taken in my garden

Monday motivator...

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
you are the one who gets burned."
- Buddha

Letting go of past hurts has been a major
contributor to my growth and healing over the years...

Photo - taken in a garden at Hartebeespoort Dam

Dear Abuser

I want to give up being a grown-up for just a week
I want to be 8 years old again
I want to think that the Wimpy is a 5 star restaurant
I want to walk barefoot through a mud puddle
And throw stones just a few meters
but believe they have travelled into the far blue yonder

I want to believe that the most important things to learn in life
is the colours
and multiplication tables
and nursery rhymes

I want to believe that anything in life is possible
and that I will be an airhostess when I grow up
I want to trust everybody
And believe that nobody will do me any harm
I want to live in a time where a hug and a smile
and a gentle voice made everything right

For just one week I do not want to worry about
my bond repayments
my credit card bills
my overdraft and doctors bills

For just one week
I want to resign from being an adult
and be 8 years old again…

I want my childhood back!

Photo - taken in my garden

They say...

"The grateful mind is a great mind, and attracts to it great things."
- Plato

If it worked for Plato who am I to argue with a statement like that?

Photo - taken in my garden

The Power that lies within me...

I've noticed many people on Facebook and the Blogs
declare themselves as Agnostic
- a person who believes that it is impossible to know if God exists...

And then I respectfully wonder :-)
"what planet do these people live on?"
because even though I do the Catholic thing -
I have become less enchanted with formal religion as such
But... I cannot escape the fact that there is a Higher Consciousness

I think of God as an all encompassing Universal Force -
the energy that makes up the universe...
And I believe that because I know I am made of molecules
and these molecules are made of atoms
and those atoms are made of protons neutrons and electrons
that they are elementary particles dancing a cosmic dance...

And that means that I am therefor no longer matter - but energy...

And I am exactly the same as the beautiful flower in the photo above
with one major difference....
I am energy in physical form but in addition
I have an awareness of myself...
And this awareness leads me to believe that none of this is random
and that the order in all this energy is God
and my awareness of my self is God

And then that verse in the bible makes sense...

I am created in the likeness of God...

And today... I rejoice in that fact!

Photo - taken at Walter Sisulu Gardens

Great expectations...

I did not expect to find the plant in the photo above
growing out of a crack in a rock
But it happens and it is possible
My expectations of plants is that they will only grow in fertile soil
Not so....
The picture above is proof of that

And just so we tend to limit ourselves
because we expect the things in life that our brains think about
and what we think about... we attract
So the more we think about what we expect
the greater the likelihood that those expectations will be fulfilled

When we expect something exciting to happen in our lives
we feel exited....
And when we expect something bad to happen
we feel anxious...

Our expectations have an effect on our emotions
Our emotions influence our attitude
Negative expectations will result in negative emotions
which could lead to a negative attitude
which will inevitably attract a negative result...

So... I have decided to have great expectations
and I will be ready to receive it when it comes...
because I know it will...

Photo - taken in the hills above Hartebeespoort Dam

Time waits for nobody...

I cannot believe how fast this year is drawing to a close and
my to-to list for this year still has way too many un-ticked items on it

For many years I did the resolutions thing and failed horribly
but when I changed my attitude
and shifted my focus from "I want to..." -
to "I am going to..."
things worked out much easier

None of us would dare go on a holiday
or get married without doing any planning
Yet so many of us go through life without a plan
Without any sense of what we want in life
and how we are going to go about getting it

We live our lives from day to day
and we often wonder what's missing
and we have a sense that there should be more...

If we do not know where we are going to
how can we expect to get there?

There are 1440 minutes in a day
and today...
I am going to use one of them to plan my day
because that is all it takes for me to decide
that today...
I am going to be grateful for my life
and this brand new day
and all the possibilities it holds for each of us...

Photo - taken of the sundial at the Walter Sisulu Gardens

Monday motivator...

I have always been big on day dreaming
And then I learnt that I should put my dreams down on paper

But the hardest part is truly believing in those dreams
believing that I can make them come true
believing that I can achieve my goals
and accomplish great things
and be all I am meant to be...

It is often said that we are our own worst enemy
that we are the only thing that stands between us and our dreams

But the happenings of last week have given so many of us hope
The historic event of Barack Obama being elected as the first
black man to president of the USA has given lots of people hope

YES we can....

YES I can!!!!!!

Photo - a Daylilly in my garden

Fighting friends...

My two dogs - the Mad Circus Dog and Princess Cleopatra usually sleep together
But when I opened my office curtains this morning
I noticed that the Mad Circus Dog had spent the night all alone on the patio

"Are you fighting with your sister again?" I asked him
He opened his eyes and slowly stretched and then yawned
with his usual -she started it- expression on his face...

Never go to bed on an argument my Granny had taught me
and I live by that...
I love kissing and making up
But I cannot seem to teach the Mad Circus Dog that :-)

Photo - My Dogs

Duvet day...

It's a grey wet Saturday here in Johannesburg
An ideal day to spend in bed
curled up with a book

But instead I am working -
preparing for a workshop
And I do not mind at all
because I love what I do
and with that attitude it feels
like I never work a day in my life

And I am grateful...

Photo - My bedroom.

Happiness is....

Being grateful for what we have!
Someone once said - "If you don't feel gratitude for what you have, what makes you think that you will be happy with more?"
Gratitude and appreciation can transform our lives
and today....
I find myself being grateful that my web page http://www.deborah.co.za/ is finally up and running even though there are still some aspects to be finalised.
Gratitude is a choice. when we make a choice to see things differently we are focusing on all the things that are good or right in our lives as opposed to focusing on things that are not.
Be grateful...
Be happy...

Photo - taken at Walter Sisulu Gardens.