You have the power - Day 27

27th December 2018

27 moons circle the planet Uranus. Uranus is lopsided - it spins at a 90% angle to our solar
system's other worlds - it is presumed that this is due to a collision with an object at least twice
the size of Earth. The 27 moons, which also spin at an angle, are called: Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca,
Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda, Perdita, Puck, Mab, Miranda, Ariel,
Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Francisco, Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo, Sycorax, Margaret, Prospero,
Setebos and Ferdinand.  Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: thirteen inner moons,
five major moons (Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon), and nine irregular moons. The inner
moons are small dark bodies that share common properties and origins with Uranus's rings. The five
major moons are massive enough to have reached hydrostatic equilibrium, and four of them show
signs of internally driven processes such as canyon formation and volcanism on their surfaces.

Today is my last day not in the office for a while. A break has done me good. I have not written about it here, but the past 3 months have been ghastly (outside work, not in, but a combination of both has been exhausting). However, the past few days has reminded me of how fortunate I am. We have fed well, done interesting things and been showered with thoughtful gifts and good wishes. I am very grateful. We are going out tonight for a family outing to see Hansel and Gretel. There will be 3 generations of us, with ages ranging from 11 to 87. I'm sure that it will be an excellent end to our Christmas celebrations (although, our tree will remain up until 12th Night and there are still a number of presents beneath it that we look forward to unwrapping). I am very fortunate.

Today's post is another new voice for the series - I love the way that the Advent Blogs grow year-on-year. Day 27's author is Norman Murray. Welcome! Norman is a Director at Learning for Success. For a decade Norman was a Director of the Industrial Society. Norman has a flair for enabling people to see things differently and for pragmatic training solutions and coaching that helps achieve results. He and his team have worked with many of the UK's most well known organisations, including American Express, DHL, GSK, Kerry Foods, Kone, Premier Foods, South East Water and Tesco. They also provide open workshops. Norman is based in Eastbourne and works out of Brighton. He is a Qualified ACAS Mediator and also has expertise in: Strength Deployment Inventory: Belbin: Action Centred Leadership: Business Excellence Assessor: Master Practitioner and coach in NLP. He is on Twitter (his handle is @mediationforsuc) He is warm and supportive with amazing enthusiasm. I am delighted that he has written for the series about the heartache that having a lack of self-belief can cause.

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A lack of self-belief can cause heartache and contribute to stress and anxiety. Conversely, taking steps to raise your self-belief can make you less anxious and have a significant and positive effect on the way you handle stressful situations.

You have to believe in yourself. Whether you call it self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-assurance, it's a deep-seated belief that you have what it takes - the abilities, inner resources, talents and skills to handle whatever life throws at you, and create the results that you desire.

Believing In Yourself Is An Attitude 

Believing in yourself is a choice. It's an attitude you develop over time. Although it helps if you had positive and supportive parents, the fact is that most of us had average parents who inadvertently passed on the same self-limiting beliefs and negative conditioning that they grew up with.

But remember the past is the past. There is no point in blaming them for your current level of self-confidence. It's now your responsibility to take charge of your own self-concept and beliefs. You must choose to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to - anything at all - because, in fact, you can. It might help to know that the latest brain research now indicates that with enough positive self-talk and positive visualisation, anyone can learn to do just about anything.

If you assume in favour of yourself and act as if it's possible, then you will do the things that are necessary to bring about the result you desire. If you believe it's impossible , you will not do what is necessary , and you will not produce the result. EIther way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

See Your Troubles As Blessings

You would not have the wisdom and knowledge you now possess were it not for the setbacks you've faced, the mistakes you've made, and the suffering you've endured. Realize that pain is a teacher and failure is the highway to success. You cannot learn to play the piano without hitting a great many wrong notes, and you will never learn how to sail without tipping the boat over a few times. Begin to see your troubles as blessings, resolve to turn your stumbling blocks into stepping stones and vow to turn your wounds into wisdom.

Most people encounter problems as they advance along the path of life. It's important to remind ourselves that our character is shaped not through life's easiest experiences, but during its toughest ones.

It's during life's most trying and difficult times that we discover who we really are and the fullness of the strength that lies within us. If you are currently facing challenges of your own, think about the following words from Rainer Maria Rilke.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves liked locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They could not now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present, you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

Stop Worrying About What Other People Think About You

If having others believe in you and your dream was a requirement for success, most of us would never accomplish anything.

You need to base your decisions about what you want to do based on your dreams and your goals - not the goals, desires, opinions and judgments of your parents, friends, spouse, children and colleagues. Stop worrying about what other people think, and follow your heart. Remember Dr. Daniel Amen's 18/40/60 rule: 

"When you're 18, you worry about what everybody's thinking about you; when you're 40, you don't care about what anybody thinks about you; and when you're 60, you realise that nobody's been think about you at all."

So there you are! Most of the time, nobody's thinking about you at all ! They're too busy thinking about their own lives, and if they are thinking about you, it's only to wonder what you're thinking about them. People think about themselves, not about you. Think about it. All the time you waste worrying what other people are thinking about you, your ideas, your goals, your clothes, your hair - all that time could be far better spent thinking about and doing the things that will achieve your goals.

Inspiration

There may be days when you get up in the morning and things aren't the way you had hoped they would be. That's when you have to tell yourself that things will get better. There are times when people disappoint you and let you down.

But those are the times when you must remind yourself to trust your own judgments and opinions, to keep your life focused on believing in yourself. There will be challenges to face and changes to make in your life, and it is up to you to accept them.

Constantly keep yourself headed in the right direction for you. It may not be easy at times, but in those times of struggle you will find a stronger sense of who you are.

So when the days come that are filled with frustration and unexpected responsibilities, remember to believe in yourself and all you want your life to be.

Because the challenges and changes will only help you to find the goals that you know are meant to come true for you.

Keep Believing in Yourself

----- Author Unknown.

LESSONS OF LIFE . . .

I feared being alone until I learned to like myself. I feared failure until I realized that I only fail when I don't try. I feared success until I realized that I had to try in order to be happy with myself. I feared people's opinions until I learned that people would have opinions about me anyway. I feared rejection until I learned to have faith in myself. I feared pain until I learned that it's necessary for growth. I feared the truth until I saw the ugliness in lies. I feared life until I experienced its beauty. I feared death until I realized that it's not an end, but a beginning. I feared my destiny, until I realized that I had the power to change my life. I feared hate until I saw that it was nothing more than ignorance. I feared love until it touched my heart, making the darkness fade into endless sunny daysI feared ridicule until I learned how to laugh at myself. I feared growing old until I realized that I gained wisdom every day. I feared the future until I realized that life just kept getting better. I feared the past until I realized that it could no longer hurt me. I feared the dark until I saw the beauty of the starlight. I feared the light until I learned that the truth would give me strength. I feared change, until I saw that even the most beautiful butterfly had to undergo a metamorphosis before it could fly.

And ..... AFTER A WHILE.....

....you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul And you learn that love doesn't mean leaving, that company doesn't mean security. And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises; And you begin to accept your defeats with your head held up and you eyes opened. with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child. And you learn to build your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans. After a while, you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much; So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers; And you learn that you really can endure... that you really are strong and you have worth.

                                                    
---- Author Unknown

I am what I am - Gloria Gaynor

Solstice reveries and reflection - Day 21

Day 21 (Thursday 21st December 2017)

21 December is the astronomical first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. 

It is known as the Winter Solstice and is the day with the fewest hours of sunlight 

for the whole year. The word comes from the Latin "sol" for "sun" and "sistere"

meaning "to stand still". In folklore, today was a traditional day to bring sprigs of

holly and ivy (symbols of masculinity and femininity respectively) to the home, both being 

evergreen they acted as a talisman and reminder that the leaves and crops would return. 

Holly was viewed as protective - evil spirits would get trapped in the branches of the tree.

At the Solstice the Oak and Holly Kings would fight, with Oak winning to rule until the Summer 

Solstice. In the Middle Ages unmarried women used to tie a sprig of holly to their beds to

ward off evil spirits. Ivy was seen as symbolising peace because of its ability

to link and bind two different plants together.

After today I am on holiday until the start of 2018. I will be driving down to my mother and sister's tonight, to ensure that all is OK for them over the Christmas period. Today's gem is written by Kate Jones, the founder of Inspired Lives a company that specialises in facilitating individual and organisational transformation based in Manchester. Kate is a superb coach. She and I first met in real life when she was exhibiting her business at the CIPD's annual conference a few years ago, we got chatting and a friendship was formed. Kate is highly intuitive and sensitive to the needs of others, whilst also being commercial and highly organised. She has a flair for understanding people (and not just because she has studied psychology). Kate commenced her career as a lawyer and spent time in professional services, consulting, media and financial services before founding her own business in 2000. She is the former in-house European General Counsel and General Secretary for Kellogg's and has many Blue Chip organisations on her CV. I love catching up with her via Twitter (her handle is @Inspired_Lives - she provides intelligent insight and much appreciated cheer. It is a pleasure having her as a contributor to this year's Advent Blogs series. 

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21 December The Solstice – In the northern hemisphere this is our shortest day. With nature dormant all around us this is a good time for us also to be still, quiet and rest. Consciously notice and appreciate the returning light and the energy of rebirth. Focus on renewing our inner light. What will it take to turn that spark into a flame?

In the southern hemisphere the sun is at its fullest and highest. In the peak of expansiveness we are reminded that from here on the days begin to draw in. 

Embrace the season. Wherever you are today

‘Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.’ Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862).

Engage with the ebb and flow of the season exactly as it is where you are. Align with its pace, work with its metaphors. Enjoy what it feels like to be in tune with, rather than resisting, the patterns of Nature around you.

At Inspired Lives we use the Winter/Summer Solstices to retreat and reflect.

‘Take a rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop’ - Ovid

Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to STOP and say “No, not now”. Whether in our personal or business life it takes a certain steeliness to withdraw when chaos surrounds us. Time is of the essence when it comes to decision making and all manner of stakeholders are looking to us for answers or direction. The urge to please, rescue or solve a problem, can drive us to make a decision before we are ready, have all the pertinent facts, have asked all the questions, researched the options and taken time to look for another/different way.

And yet, what is the price of not doing this? Those who are used to making time for a retreat know that they cannot afford not to.

The definition of retreat includes ‘an act of withdrawing, to reconsider’.  Retreating, stepping back or away from a situation, set of circumstances or habitual way of being gives time to distinguish between what is true and what is false, what is real and what is fiction - a distortion born out of fear, reflex (unconscious automatic) responses, assumptions, partial information or even unconscious bias and hidden agendas.

Taking stock of where we are allows us to appreciate subtleties, uncover the roots of the challenges we are facing, review alternative perspectives and discover wider possibilities. Consciously allowing time and space for reflection helps us find a calmness and centredness that will bring clarity and insight.

Traditionally the calendar year end is a time for reflection; the beginning of a new year, a time for refocusing and re-engaging commitment to action. Taking time out to do this is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Any leadership role or senior management position is highly visible, with great expectations of positive impact both from the organisation and from the individual her/himself. High profile and high stakes in a constantly changing economic environment are likely to be pressurised and stressful. It is also an incredibly exciting and creative challenge, full of potential and possibility.

Marriage - Day 10

Day 10 (Sunday 10th December 2017)

10 day break is possible for UK workers during this year's  festive period, by booking

just three days off - December 27, 28 and 29. The caveat is that workers must not have

roles that require them to work at weekends and they must be able to have all bank holidays off.

The UK has 8 public holidays each year, this does not compare well with Spain (14),

Sweden  and France (11), but equals the Netherlands and Hungary,

 whilst India and Colombia top the league with 18.

I hope your weekend is proving to be a good one. I don't seem to be clearing the mound of tasks I need to get done before the holidays start.

Today's piece is written by Annette Hill. For the past year and a half she has worked as the Director of Workforce development for Hospiscare, a hospice charity based in Exeter. Prior to joining Hospiscare, Annette ran (and indeed still runs) her own HR Consultancy called Acumen HR, through which she started working for Hospiscare. Annette represents HR for the South West region of the UK on the national HR leads forum which is based in the South West of England. Annette cares deeply about others; she chairs a dugs and alcohol charity in Bristol and is one of the CIPD's Steps Ahead mentors. She writes an interesting blog, simply entitled Annette's Blog that covers a wide range of topics as they occur to her. You can follow Annette on Twitter, her handle is @familyhrguru. 

As many of you will know, in past years she has written pieces for the Advent Blog series about Wizard Oscar - based on the bedtime stories told to her by her father. Wizard Oscar was first introduced to the public in 2014 in the book This Time, It's Personnel, Humane Resourced 2. However, in a change from tradition, today she has taken on an even more personal theme.

As you will see from her comments at the end of the post, all of the pictures in today's piece were provided by Annette.

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With a theme this year of Darkness and Dawn, it may seem odd to write a blog about marriage, my own marriage in fact. This may be the most personal blog I have written, but here goes.

On 26 September, we celebrated our Silver Wedding Anniversary. We had been boyfriend and girlfriend, then ‘living in sin’ for 5 years previously, so that’s 30 years. In fact, we’d been friends for a year previously after meeting in a wine bar, well more of a bar really, when introduced by a mutual friend. He was wearing cowboy boots and an Icelandic jumper (note Icelandic, very specifically, not Shetland). I was later to find out that he had another 3 pairs of identical boots and this wasn’t his first Icelandic jumper either. Meanwhile, I was a student, home for Easter from my year abroad in France (the reason I chose to study French at degree level), I had orange spikey hair, shaved at the sides, and may have been wearing my dad’s old gold smoking jacket. It was 1986, and I was doing a joint honours with Art. The term ‘hipster’ hadn’t been coined then. But believe me, I would have embraced it wholesale, if it had.

They say opposites attract… He had a BSc in Physical Sciences and was an engineer (and still is – I still have no idea about what he actually does – beyond software writing and specifications for control systems and Intel being one of the end customers – my brain just can’t process any of the technical details.) I was an arty type and quite left of centre with my ‘bleeding heart’, idealism and social conscience, motivating me to go to work initially in the NHS.

I suppose the best way to describe our different wiring is via the lyrics of the song ‘All of me’ by John Legend. Ray just cannot appreciate the concept of ‘Perfect Imperfection’. I have explained that like most (all) humans, the person John is singing about is not perfect, but such is his love and wonder of her, that she is perfect to him. I have got as far as a grumpy acknowledgment that because this is about emotion, then maybe imperfect perfection can exist, but really, in the logical world, it is just not possible to be perfectly imperfect.

So, why have I chosen this topic? I am always in awe of people who contribute to this series with deeply honest accounts of dark times and how they have overcome serious obstacles and grown. Generally, on Twitter, the bloggers I follow have also written openly and helpfully on once taboo subjects like depression, anxiety, bullying, menopause, childlessness, bereavement. Not sure I’ve read much on marriage – maybe as I don’t delve into ‘American’ style, self help style, motherhood and apple pie style, ‘How to be a good wife in 10 easy steps’ style, blah blah blah bloggage….

I’m writing this from a position of feeling content in my marriage, and ready for another 25 years if we are that lucky. But it hasn’t always been this way.

Some of the things we have in common:

• Loyalty and honesty.
• Importance of family, particularly our children – their development, their happiness, their independence and resilience, seeing them become the sort of adults in their own right who we would want to spend time with.
• Importance of education, and learning.
• Sense of humour – most of the time – in fact we have been called a ‘comedy couple’ or ‘comedy parents’.
• Our values.
• Interest in current events, and love of discussion.
• Holidays, dining out, spending time with good friends.
• Good white wine and decent gin (not in the same glass).

Some of the things we do not have in common:

• TV viewing choices.
• Film viewing choices.
• Music (with a few exceptions).
• Watching any kind of sport on TV.
• Reading (I mean there are so many wonderful novels out there, why would you read a Maths A level revision guide for fun?)
• General Arty stuff – with Picasso being an exception – having seen, in Barcelona, that Picasso was very technically skilled, Ray just can’t understand why he didn’t stick to faithful portrayals of the subject matter, instead opting for increasingly abstract interpretations. Ray will spend a long time in front of a Picasso which is supposed to have a guitar or a mandolin in it, trying to find the instrument and the player.

The last 18 - 24 months or so has been quite a difficult time for me – mostly self-inflicted, stuff going on in my head kind of things. I took redundancy on 30 Nov 2015, and started work for my own small business literally the next day. Things went well and in June 2016, I became an employee 4 days a week for one of my first clients, and I love the charity sector in which I now work, and the little bit of freedom and variety a small amount of private work brings. I was (and still am) doing quite a lot of voluntary work as well, although in a planned way, I am phasing out one of my big voluntary commitments. I call this my recalibration (married to an engineer – see above.) Ray meanwhile, has only had two employers – the first sponsored his degree and he has worked for his current employer for over 15 years.

Although the outcome of my redundancy has been very positive and I have moved on from what went before, I firmly believe that our bodies take longer to catch up. I had been under stress at work for over 18 months by Nov 2015, due to a huge restructure. This waxed and waned in terms of its daily impact on how I felt, probably because I made such a big personal effort to draw upon all my reserves of resilience and try to find positive ways of making a contribution to the new organisation. So, back to bodies catching up… over the next year or so, I seemed to get a virus every couple of months, and lots of aches and pains. Nothing major – just chronically not quite firing on all cylinders and feeling so tired so much of the time. Also, I’m certain now that I was having peri menopausal symptoms for a few years, so when I couldn’t sleep, felt very low in mood, had unexplained pains in my legs (or anywhere in my body) or felt stomach churningly anxious, I didn’t know what to put it down to. Then, the piece de resistance – empty nest syndrome…

Our son, who is our younger child, went to University in Sept 2016. We were so pleased for him as he had to do an additional 6th form year, changing from A levels to the BTec route, which turned out to be ideal for him. I spent the whole summer in dread, worrying about how much I would miss him, and I did, and I still do. But video calls on Facebook Messenger are great, he is absolutely thriving and when he is home during the holidays I become irritated all over again by all of the mess he makes! You can usually locate him, if not by the sounds of his bass guitar practice, then by the trail of sweet wrappers, yoghurt pots, dirty plates and half drank glasses of water.

To cope with the emptiness initially, we threw ourselves into a complete refurbishment of our bedroom, then started planning our Silver Wedding Anniversary holiday, which would see us returning to Bali, our honeymoon destination. But meanwhile, we were doing a lot of solitary activities. He would go for a long bike ride, I would walk the dog. He would devote a weekend (or so it seemed) to each Grand Prix, watching everything including the qualifying, I would cook or mess about on Social Media. We seemed to forget how to communicate with each other effectively, meaning in ways that the other one would understand. So, despite knowing full well how literal and straight forward he is, I would expect him to tune into my feelings just like that without me needing to say anything, or I would read an implied criticism into a perfectly innocent remark he made. We weren’t doing much together, and at some point, I recognised that a feeling I often had at weekends in particular, was loneliness. That seems crazy, I know. Was I difficult to live with, or was he insensitive to what I was going through? Who knows? The truth (if such an absolute exists) is probably a mixture. And actually, we can both be hard to live with sometimes, as well as having great fun and sharing glances only the other will get. Over 30 years is a lot of shared history, a lot of ups, a lot of downs and a lot of in between.

Our daughter and partner, both of whom we get on with tremendously, live nearby, bought their first flat a few months ago, are both setting out in careers they enjoy, and got engaged in the summer. It’s fair to say, a lot of really good things have been happening, often making me feel guilty and self-centred for feeling low. I’ve described quite a bit of darkness, and I want to share some dawn as well. This is really the big life adjustment that has probably been going on for 2 to 3 years physically and emotionally, now transitioning into a good place. How have we achieved that? Lots and lots of talking, straight questions, honest answers and listening. Then our ‘big holiday’. I admit I was worried that it wasn’t going to be a panacea from which we would return to a perfect life! Of course, we haven’t (despite how carefully I manage my Facebook page). But we seem to get on better when we spend more time together, sharing experiences, showing each other appreciation and relaxing. This is harder to maintain now we’re back into the daily grind, but there is not much that good communication, kindness and working on the niggles together cannot solve.

A note on the pictures I have chosen:

Picasso. The first is Picasso’s ‘Portrait of the Mother of the Artist’, which we have seen in Barcelona, and shows his technical skill. The second is Picasso – The Guitar Player. It was Ray who made me visit the Picasso Museum in Paris as well, which has several of his paintings in this style. The next four are all photos I have taken of Balinese paintings in my souvenir official guide book of the Puri Lukisan Art Museum in Ubud, Bali, so please forgive the quality – it doesn’t seem possible to find these on line. This is a lush, calm oasis of a place in the middle of one of the most chaotic and bustling places I have ever visited. We loved, in addition to the intricacy of the paintings representing both life in Bali and the richness of the stories and traditions that form their culture, the absolutely literal names of the paintings. The Balinese are so spiritual, yet note these titles: ‘The Priest Frees the Monkey, Snake and Tiger from a Well’, Ida Bagus Gelgel; ‘The Monkey is playing the Drum to wake up the King’, I Gusti Nyoman Gede; ‘Village Life in Bali’, I Reneh and ‘Looking for Fish in the River’, I Wayan Gedot. There are so many more in this vein. Absolutely wonderful. Many of these and the traditional dances we saw represent the eternal dance between good and evil, with good usually winning when ‘evil’ has seen the error of its ways. No marriage allegory made intentionally, I promise. I will say though, that the complexity and detail in many of these paintings, the interpretation of stories, fables and traditions overlaid with a very straight forward name possibly is a good metaphor for the nature of marriage.

Post Script. I have been writing and editing this for a while. I kept having second thoughts about the subject matter, but I’ve gone for it in the end. I wanted to include some pictures about Bali, whatever I did, and this seems so poignant as I finish writing on 26 November, when Mount Agung has finally started erupting, after about 10 weeks of high alert, including the time we were there. We hope that all of the local people affected will not suffer too badly and will get their livelihoods back soon.

Bali - Mount Agung