Expecting the unexpected….

I’m not entirely sure where this blog is going to end up, I only hope that I can write it somewhat close to what is going on in my thoughts. As it is quite challenging to be able to write thoughts down for others to read and make sense of, so here goes……

The past few weeks have been a mixture of fun school holiday activities with my 9 year old, the usual housework and study. Oh and maybe one blog or two? This past week I spent an afternoon/evening with my eldest son and my granddaughter.  Whenever my son rings me to catch up I never take it for granted. After he got married and he and his wife had a baby they have been very busy setting up their own little family. This son was the first one to fly the nest. Whenever I get a call to catch up I always take it as an unexpected surprise, given that he lives quite a drive away from where I am and he is a very busy young man. Spending time with him and my granddaughter always puts a smile on my face like nothing else can.

UNEXPECTED….. This is the main idea I want to centre around and write about from my own journey in a positive light.

Unexpected surprises!

Wouldn’t we all love to have more of those special moments? We may believe the unexpected surprises don’t  come around all that often however if we narrow those moments down a little and forget about the ‘Oprah’ kind of surprises,   we will be surprised to find out that  unexpected moments in any given day happen more than we realise.

Don’t you just love it how kids are so full of expectation; they are innocent and have not been tarnished by the struggles of life just yet. By the time you are an adult you realise that to expect anything amazing to happen is just fantasy most of the time. As an adult you get bogged down with bills, chores, work, study, kids, marriage, shopping, bills, kids, chores, bills, bills, obstacles and so forth.

Unless you have a big large treasure chest of money in the bank$$$ it is all about juggling and priorities. I certainly don’t have a big treasure chest except for perhaps an illustration in one of Camerons books! Let’s face it life CAN and DOES get draining at times. There are so many demands on families these days to keep up with life financially, emotionally, relationally and physically.

This is why we need to remind ourselves of the unexpected surprises! Ones that are realistic of course, perhaps even more valuable than winning a car in a raffle.

During the past few years I have begun to take notice of the unexpected moments and surprises. I treasure them. For me these unexpected surprises can mean something as simple as spotting a beautiful flower in the garden that I had never planted or seen during the time we have lived here in this particular house. It immediately puts a big smile on my face as that random beautiful flower sends me a message of the unexpected. It gives me hope that in the midst of life’s challenges good things can come out of them.  I would love life to be amazing every day but it isn’t.

Which is why we need to remind ourselves….as I am reminding you right now 😀

When I was still a teenager I had an unexpected surprise after going through years of loneliness and confusion. I simply had no idea where I was headed or what the purpose of my life was? I struggled with depression, low self-esteem, negativity and on and on I could go with all the hard stuff.

Then one day at work the unexpected happened and to cut a long story short I ended up in a church of all places. I grew up declaring that I would never go to a church or marry a Finnish man. I did both!

Unless you have had your own personal experience my unexpected moment may not touch you quite the same way it did me, but this particular evening as I sat there in this church I felt as though someone had come along and opened my eyes. The more I listened to the message the more my heart was melting to the truth that I was not alone, that there was a God who loved me and even had a purpose for my life. I eventually ended up going to a youth group at the Finnish church and was unexpectedly surprised as I felt such a strong pull towards giving my heart to the one that created me. No longer did I feel so desperately lonely, I had someone on my side who had been there along.

About six years ago I got to go back to Finland with my mum, dad, three sisters and their husbands, my youngest child and my nieces and nephews, it was a big group travelling together to go and visit the country that my parents and I were born in. Finland took me by surprise. I was amazed as to how connected I felt despite the reality that I had been living in Australia since I was five months old.

There are so many unexpected moments I could tell you about and I am most certain you have your own unexpected stories, the ones that mean the most to you.

When we consciously stop for a minute and start to think about the ‘unexpected’ we may find ourselves surprised as to the sheer number of them. The unexpected is not about winning lottery, or raffles it is about appreciating the everyday moments we can so easily walk past.

Even a simple smile from a stranger can be unexpected these days as not so many feel like smiling anymore. It can be a simple thankyou from someone. There are no limits to these unexpected surprises.

For me right now it is Monday, and often you hear people joking about Monday..itis etc… It is usually not the most favourite day of the week in general. With a new week ahead putting all challenges aside for a moment ‘remind yourself of those unexpected surprises’. How they made you feel and take that thought into the week ahead and LOOKOUT for some new unexpected moments. They are out there, we only need to be reminded to see them to appreciate them.

 

Here’s hoping that this week’s blog puts an unexpected week for you into motion,

God Bless.

♥

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Visited a Cafe and these birds came eating the sugar.
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Had an unexpected visit from Kermit the Frog
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A pretty flower that turned up one day!
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Unexpected Pineapple that grew in the garden.
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Captured a great photo of this little creature that took me by surprise.

What’s the bathroom basin got to do with it…

Firstly to all the guys, my apologies this blog is not a discussion about handyman jobs around the house. Although if a piece of expensive jewellery vanished down the drain you could be summoned by a significant other to grab any tool you can get a hold of leaving no time  to spare in order to save your investment. It is quite a scary thought to imagine an expensive ear ring dropping into a dark drain never to be seen again.

How about if a piece of jewellery worth only a couple of dollars dropped into the basin?

I don’t normally take my ear rings off above the bathroom basin however for whatever reason I did the other night. I took the ear ring off and there it went down the drain! My reaction was quite minor as that ear ring was a cheap one. Had it been expensive I would have been screaming OUT LOUD!

After my cheap ear ring vanished from sight an interesting thought dropped into my head as I stood there wondering why I had picked that spot to take the ear ring off in the first place.

I suppose it could have been one of those automatic pilot moments, when you go about your routine unawares that you are actually not really thinking about what you are doing.

Have you ever had one of those automatic pilot moments?

Changing the topic a little from bathrooms to kitchens, on a particular night a few years ago I had one of those automatic pilot moments with a hand held mixer. I was mixing up butter and sugar. The butter got stuck in the small sharp blades so I decided I would help them get unstuck. With one hand I held the mixer and with the other I started grabbing at the butter. What do you suppose happened? The hand that was holding the mixer suddenly decided all by itself to press the button and turn it on while my fingers from the other hand were in the blades!

OMG I freaked out thinking I had cut the tops of my fingers off, NO thank God, the blades had only hit my thumb nail. Nothing too serious, however it took me at least a good hour and a half lying on the floor to recover from the shock.

OK so back to the cheap ear ring dropping into the bathroom basin scenario.

Had this ear ring been expensive then it would have been a costly exercise that night both financially and emotionally.

So with the topic of drains and expensive items in mind, how true is it that in our everyday lives we can start living on automatic pilot mode and take people or loved ones for granted?

Money can’t buy people or relationships back yet somehow we can lose sight of the true value of people. When a relationship with someone goes down the drain we can be left standing there wondering why we had been so absent minded about taking care of the friendship, marriage, sibling’s, a mum or a dad.

Can we really blame ourselves for being absent minded considering the distractions and busyness we each have to navigate through each and every day. Sometimes we don’t even take the time to stop for ourselves let alone stop for another person. The morning alarm goes off and we are focused on getting through the day.

How easy is it to be living on automatic pilot and not take the time to notice what is really going on in the lives of those around us. We are usually ok with saying hello, but then it can ever so easily stop right there.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and noticed that they were looking around while you were talking to them and it was as though the person was there but no one was home. Ahhh that is the most frustrating situation ever!!!

If people are more valuable than money why do we so easily neglect connecting with our families or the people in our community? Has the true meaning of relationships with others sort of dropped into the drain so to speak? That all we can muster is a quick ‘like’ on a social media site yet when we notice a person  we have on our friends list we can’t even talk to them or even acknowledge them face to face.

Don’t worry, im guilty too!

It is not hard to understand why loneliness is increasing and people are doing desperate things amidst their pain.

What would happen if people decided to snap themselves out of automatic pilot zone and consider others a little bit more?

We can never be there for the whole entire world but we can be there for those in our circle. We can choose to engage in conversation with people beyond the five minutes and choose to listen to what they are saying. Not just listen but really hear what they are saying.

When I was going through some of my tough seasons I remember how I felt when I was desperate to just talk to someone and found that people were almost too scared to hear me. We shouldn’t be scared to hear what someone is saying. It wasn’t as though I was expecting an answer I was just looking for reassurance from people I thought were wiser than me, people that had possibly been through stuff. As a result of experiencing too many of those sorts of situations I stopped talking to people about anything too deep. Hence my passion to listen and reach out!

Don’t underestimate the power of stopping and listening to people. When you stop to listen you may just hear what someone is really saying. You might be the person who is at the right place at the right time for that moment with that person who desperately needs to be reassured that they will be ok.

Perhaps it’s time to go beyond listening and really start hearing.

♥

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The lol’s of Communication

It seems this week’s topic for my blog page is communication. The idea came about one particular morning this week as I had just managed to get myself looking reasonable when suddenly I hear a loud beeping horn coming from a toll delivery van. Usually the delivery person beeps their horn and then comes to the door, however this time they beeped and stayed outside. I opened the door only to be summoned outside by the lady driver who was waving for me to come outside and grab the parcel from the van. “What”, I thought since when has a delivery driver turned up and asked for me to go to the van and collect the parcel? how inconvenient and rude were my next thoughts. I promptly yelled out to her saying that I needed to go and put some shoes on as the ground was wet. For me to go and get shoes or should I say slippers in this case, I had to bolt upstairs to my bedroom. With slippers on I made my way back downstairs only to find the lady was standing at the front door with the box. Hello, now I was really confused, my mind was all over the place wondering what had just happened, after all I did race up those stairs so it wasn’t as though she had been kept waiting, yet here she stood at the door. It must have been one of those mornings in which I don’t really take certain situations as well as I should, my mindset was quite negative by now, yet I managed to approach her calmly for manners sake. She asked for my name so that she could put it into her little gadget in her hand. My name usually does cause problems so this is not unusual. It took several attempts for her to make out that my name was spelt ANU. I signed the gadget with my signature, thanked her while closing the door and couldn’t help myself but start laughing out loud at what had just taken place.

That morning’s hilarious episode while possibly more funny for me, as you would have needed to be there or been in my slippers to appreciate the moment, it got me thinking about all the different situations we can come across in communicating with people.


It really is frustrating when you are trying hard to convey a message to someone who will more than likely be listening from their perspective at that moment. Both parties have their own preconceived ideas and thoughts so when communication is taking place it can turn into a verbal table tennis match. Both are trying to convey a message from their point of view and each person can get more and more frustrated as it seems no one understands anyone.


One of the worst places for this to take place is on social media such as face book. With social media you are unable to physically see the person you are talking with so the communication can get right off track. While I know myself that it is generally best to stay away from controversial discussions on face book there has been those occasions in which I just had to jump in due to my own point of view, yes stupid know! Each time this has happened my eyes have opened a little more to the battle really going on with communication. The person posting the controversial topic has something they want to communicate and me the reader jumps in to comment having a different opinion to the other person. With all of my own values, beliefs and opinions I the reader believe my comment is making sense yet the other person is so set on their campaign that they are not even hearing what I might be saying. All of the comments to the said controversial post that are of a different view or opinion to this person are not being heard, as the other person is consumed with their own channel of thought. We all do it.


While it is so wonderful that human beings have the ability to use language for communicating it does make one wonder how on earth do messages ever get received and sent properly.


Language itself is only one piece to the puzzle of communication, there is body language, tones used and other cultural differences which make a conversation quite challenging at times. We carry with us previous situations which can influence the way we receive a message that someone is trying to convey.


Communication within our own families is often put to the test with each member having their own perspective. Within a family setting it is all too easy to speak out quickly without taking too much notice as to what is truly being said. We can sort of slacken off so to speak, as families can be themselves at home. Whereas when we are communicating with people outside of our family we tend to consider the other person more thoughtfully as we don’t want to appear to be rude.


Life itself can take its toll with all of the busyness we each need to attend to on a given day making it quite the challenge to slow down enough to really hear what someone is saying. I think it is worth reminding ourselves that when we interact with people inside and outside of our homes that it is not merely words that are going to be heard. People are going to hear our tone of voice; they are going to watch our body language in that exchange. While I am still confused about what took place with the toll delivery driver that morning I’m glad that I managed to control myself and not let my own frustration be taken out on her that day.


I wish I could say that I am like that in every situation, but the truth is I am not! I have improved though which is a good thing. When I struggled with low self-esteem I took everything to heart and was unable to slow down and consider the situation without taking it personally. This meant that simple conversations that were a little more on the serious side had me on edge pretty much the whole time as I was convinced I was going to end up the loser by the end of it.


When we consider our own vulnerabilities or areas within us that are yet to be resolved it helps to consider that when communication is going all wrong that perhaps the other person also has unresolved issues. Imagine if we could actually see all of what it really takes when two people are communicating beyond the words used.


I would love to hear from you about a funny breakdown in communication that you have experienced! It would be great to have more of an interaction going on rather than me always doing the talking.

Comment in the section below and make someone’s day with your funny story.

♥

Does a Perfect Day exist?

This past week there has been two words that have hijacked my thoughts, “perfect conditions”. I found myself thinking about how life seems to have so many imperfect situations. This isn’t the only time that I have considered this thought however each time  the conclusion  I end up with tells me that  ‘there will always be something difficult going on in our lives in some area’. I don’t know about you but I am someone who tends to lean more towards being a perfectionist, so when conditions are far from perfect I find that it requires extra effort to stay motivated and believe that things are going to work out regardless.  My greatest battles for moving forward have been in the midst of less than perfect conditions.

In life there are situations that necessitate ‘perfect conditions’ in order for something to be successful. What are some of those situations? A brief google search on when to climb Mt Everest and when not to, describes weather patterns and conditions to watch out for when making a decision about when to climb. While the conditions are never perfect for climbing there is a particular time of the year which ensures a more successful climb. There is what they call ‘the window’, which is a 4-5 day period of stable weather. This window turns up every year around the 23rd May; it is described as a period of ‘perfect weather’.

OK so climbing Mt Everest has never been a dream of mine so how about some of the everyday situations that are more likely to take place requiring ‘perfect conditions’.

Baking a Cake? Alright, to bake a cake you measure up the ingredients and follow the instructions on the recipe. You make note of the oven temperature and make sure it is set at the right heat and wait the required amount of time it takes to cook the cake for success. If it is not in there long enough it won’t be cooked and in too long the family will not be impressed with a burnt crusty cake!

Successful Mt Everest climbs require stable weather and cooking cakes need the right amount of ingredients and oven temperature/time for success. You may think of other situations that require ‘perfect conditions’ to work, unfortunately since I don’t have the perfect conditions in this household such as a maid (I wish)  to do all my work I don’t have time to keep thinking of more examples.

Does the perfect day exist?

A little bit like the Mt Everest climbs we may prepare for our day to run smoothly by planning ahead taking into consideration everything needed to get things done on a given day. You may be on track with your schedule and then something unplanned happens, redirecting the course of your day. Unlike Mt Everest climbs that can turn deadly when weather conditions suddenly change, the sudden unexpected disruptions or changes in our schedule are usually of no physical harm to us. Yes we can get stressed and frustrated yet we make it to the end of the crazy day still intact.

For a perfect day to exist it would mean that everything in life at that time would need to be perfect. For me that would require that my husband, kids and I would be perfect. IMPOSSIBLE!!! If we can’t get everything working perfectly in our day and if we can’t get people being perfect in our day then the perfect day can’t exist. Read more about feelings @  Fickle Feelings.

After getting married and having children you could say that the ‘perfectionist’ in me had to make room for error. On any given morning no one knows which member of the family is going to be in a bad mood or who is going to have a bad day. In a household we all get to hang out together and experience each other’s shifting moods. You may wake up feeling great and then someone else in the household isn’t so great, perhaps their moodiness finally catches onto you and then there goes your great day. Fortunately for our family’s sake we aren’t going to walk out the door on a bad day and not come back. As experience over the years shows us that while today is a bad day tomorrow can be better. We keep doing life and family regardless of the less than perfect conditions.

These less than perfect conditions are often opportunities for growth and change. Every person has the possibility of being selfish or to react with bad attitude. Family scenarios can show us what we are made of and highlight areas we may need to deal with. They are opportunities in which we learn to forgive and communicate.

Sometimes in life we can put things off because we are waiting for the ‘perfect conditions’. I used to believe that I was unable to help anyone if my own life had problems! Or that somehow I was less than other people as they seemed to have all their problems sorted. It is all too easy to look from the outside believing that other families have it all together. We have little conversations in our head saying; if they (the Jones’s) knew what our family was really like………  

There will always be something to work on, some obstacle to overcome, some challenge to persevere through. While it may seem as though you are alone in the struggle, you are not alone. Others do go through stuff too! It may not be talked about or broadcast to the neighbourhood; however no one is immune to difficulties in this life time.

Thankfully the ‘perfect conditions’ or the lack thereof don’t need to dictate where our lives and families are headed. We can allow for issues to be worked out when we are reacting and we can choose how to respond to our imperfect day or imperfect life. There is always room for growth and it tends to happen in our imperfect situations.

Don’t believe for a minute that your life needs to be all in order and perfect to be the person you are destined to be. We are always changing and growing through different seasons in life which will guarantee imperfect situations.

So waiting for that ‘perfect day’ could keep you stuck, how about giving yourself permission to LIVE and ENJOY life right now!

♥

 

Reference: http://www.mounteverest.net/expguide/toclimb.htm

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Authentic You

To be authentic means to be an original rather than a copy of someone else. In a world bombarded with subtle and unattainable messages of what it takes to be accepted it can become all too easy to fall into the trap of wanting to be someone else. As a young person many decades ago I was striving hard to be noticed which meant that it was of utmost necessity to be seen wearing the latest trends in clothing, especially the correct style of Jeans! I can remember as though it was yesterday the intense desperation I felt to get my hands on a particular pair of branded jeans. Back then the branded jeans were very pricey $$$ as they are today, and the fact that the jeans were from a particular store made them very popular. I remember the moment and how I felt when I got home and put those jeans on, it was so cool and I was very excited to join all the other teenagers who were wearing these trendy jeans.

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The excitement was short lived once I decided that I didn’t look as good in those jeans as others did, my bum was too flat! All of a sudden I was so focused on the issue of body shape that I began to dislike these expensive jeans. Every time I put them on I was thinking about how ugly I looked in them. Somehow I had convinced myself that if I didn’t have the right shaped body then I was a reject and would not be as cool as all the other girls who were perfectly proportioned. The desire to have the right clothing and the body to go with it felt like a never ending marathon.

If it wasn’t clothing or body shape that spoiled my week then it was my hair! The teenage girl magazines to this day feature photos of young girls with amazing hair do’s. I would look through these types of magazines and imagine how I could get my hair to look as good. Occasionally I would pick a photo and take it to a hairdresser asking them for the same hairstyle that the model in the picture had. Each time I left the hairdressers feeling disappointed as it was apparent that the look that I saw in the magazine was completely different to the look that I saw in my bedroom mirror. If it wasn’t the 80’s spiral perm that failed me it was the flicky thing we did with our hair back in the day.

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One side of my hair flicked back perfectly while the other side was always temperamental and did everything BUT flick back. The obsession to fitting in and being accepted ruled my life and I would say that my struggle with ‘low self-esteem’ was of no help either.

When I think back to those younger days and my desperation of acceptance one can only imagine how much harder that would be in the current climate we live in. For this reason I am writing this particular blog in the hopes that I can remind individuals younger and older that we only need to be ourselves. To be someone we are not means that we can lose sight of who we are supposed to be. Changing to be like someone else is not limited to clothing or looks, this need to be like someone else can move into the area of our behaviour.

Individuals can end up so desperate for acceptance that they may even go so far as disowning their own values and begin behaving unlike themselves, believing they will be more accepted or popular. This only highlights the great need that humans have of being accepted.

Personally I believe that if acceptance requires you to throw out your true values then something is wrong, whether it is with a group of people or the acceptance of that one person.  Ultimately it is really difficult to continue living a certain way when you know deep down it isn’t really you.  Everyone needs to feel that they belong. If belonging to a group means you have to change who you are and all that you value it is worth looking at finding another group.

Guard your values and your own unique sense of self, whether that be your own personal style of dress or interesting personality. Anyone worth having in your life will accept you as YOU! Imagine a world in which young people or older felt comfortable and content in being authentic.

If we get distracted and focused on becoming someone else we tend to forget what we are good at and our own unique purpose in life. I can remember times in which I would be too consumed with the idea of who I wasn’t that it stopped me from trying anything. It was as though someone had come along and pushed the pause button on my life and everything just stood still with nowhere to go.

When I was at my worst with low self-esteem I used to think that it was only me suffering as it appeared everyone else was doing just fine! You would be surprised how many struggle with not feeling good enough or matching up to the other person we seem to fixate too. Of all the blogs that I have written so far since December 2015 the most views have been on the topic of ‘low self-esteem’. That tells me that there are many people around the globe who are feeling frustrated with themselves.

When you decide to live as the person you truly are in other words be ‘authentic’, it may mean that some people will not want to hang around anymore. I decided some time ago that I was not going to keep forcing relationships with people if it meant that I had to change who I was or the values I held. That can be difficult for someone who has felt rejection throughout their lifetime afterall who wants to feel left out. These are the choices we face to live authentic. Not everyone is going to applaud you when you live by your convictions and decide to do things differently to the rest of the crowd.

My own conviction is that as long as my heavenly father (God) is pleased with me then that is great. After all he made me in the first place and knows better than anyone what I was designed for and where I fit in the best.

All that we need to do is put our best efforts into what we are good at and the rest will work itself out along the way. Every person’s life is different including their purpose; while yours may look different it doesn’t mean there is no value in that. While there is an endless sea of people all around the globe I can guarantee that there is something unique about you. Start thinking about what that could be and then put that uniqueness to good use and you will find yourself getting more satisfied at being who you were made to be rather than wasting your precious energy on being someone you are not.

What is unique about you?

♥