I’ve spent hours – days even – cross-stitching over the last few months.
A lot of other people must have been cross-stitching too, as all the company websites I’ve bought kits from have had special messages up to say how they are coping with unprecedented demand due to the Covid crisis.
Even so, orders have arrived promptly, and been a joy to work with …
… helping me to gain a sense of being at peace with myself and the world:
There’s something so soothing about the technique of counted cross-stitch, that puts my mind at ease.
I’ve mostly made cards – and some Christmas decorations – to send to people – friends – and it’s lovely to think about these friends as I stitch away.
I’m not great on phone calls or Facebook, but stitching has become my thing. I’m going to try knitting again though, for a while. Knitting’s good too. And macramé: knotting!
Lobster meat is sweet, I believe I tasted it once, a long time ago but I really don’t know if the clacking, snapping, pincer-sharp bite of the lobster-look-alike girl’s mind belies anything even remotely kind
As I sit watching her eat that lobster meat sucking her fingers with self-satisfied glee pouting and spouting out the debris of her clacking, snapping pincer-sharp mind and smile inwardly at the resemblance I see a wonderful, horrible thought comes to me
Wouldn’t it be great if a giant lobster loomed and ate her up after popping her into a boiling pot, while she was still alive?
This is the sea-bed of salivation upon which I feed and thrive turning the tables through poetry on the clacking, snapping pincer-sharp lobster-look-alike girl’s mind and her kind
2020
Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Recipe, Random – Glad About Life:
I’ve somehow arrived at the point in retirement where I have ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’ in my non-working week.
After taking Lydia – our dog – for a walk – which I do every day, usually twice a day – I go to a yoga class. Then, at 1pm, I have a therapy session. In the evening, providing I’m not too tired (or relaxed) I go to a Buddhist class which includes two meditations as well as the teachings.
I usually sleep well on a Wednesday evening; another factor which contributes to wellbeing.
I do other things on other days, including a Qigong class on a Monday, and pottery/making things with clay when I feel like it. But Wednesday stands out as the day when three focused activities combine to contribute to a strong sense of wellbeing emerging.
It amazes me that the Buddhist religion, rooted in the East, is so accessible to me here in the West, in the UK.
“Dharma” is the teaching and “sangha” is the community. I’ve taken refuge in Buddha, dharma and sangha recently and will continue to do so, as it helps me to see things differently, train my mind, start to feel calmer about things that have been profoundly distressing.
Sometimes in life it can feel like we’re faced with an impossible situation. ‘Fight’ or ‘flight’ – the reflex responses – seem like the only options and neither of these provides a way forward. But if we can start to see a problem as an opportunity – something that we can grow with rather than get angry about or run away from, there is potential for a way forward to open up after all.
This isn’t something that I’ve found easy, not now and certainly not when I was younger.
I’ve gone into flight mode at critical times in my life because I just didn’t have the skills or insights, confidence or support to help me do it differently.
I used to struggle to assert myself in any way and used to get it horribly wrong, with disastrous consequences in terms of life choices and relationships.
I was in my late thirties when I discovered Buddhism at around the same time as I found out that I could turn to a counsellor for therapeutic support.
I haven’t always found that Buddhism and personal therapy are comfortably aligned. In some ways they have seemed to me to work from opposite polarities – Buddhism teaches that I give up ‘self-cherishing’ and therapy helps me to learn to love myself (with great difficulty). However, my approach has been to not over-think, take from each what they offer and do my best to move forward in more positive ways. It’s an ongoing journey, still fraught with trials and traumas.
I’ve worked through – cried, ached and screamed through – a lot of emotions over the last 30 or so years. There were some, though, that I put to the back of my mind, locked away because they were too difficult to deal with and I had to find a way of building a life for myself rather than staying stuck. Those locked away emotions do, however, have a way of finding their way out, demanding to be addressed because they be need to be resolved. That happened when I retired.
So I’m now at the point where I’m engaging with both therapy and Buddhism again. Except now they don’t feel so polarised. I just feel very lucky to have access to all the wisdom and wonder of Buddhist teachings from the East here in the West, as well as skilled therapy, that will help me to heal, and to make the most of the life that I have.
Lobster meat is sweet, I believe I tasted it once, a long time ago but I really don’t know if the clacking, snapping, pincer-sharp bite of the lobster-look-alike girl’s mind belies anything even remotely kind
As I sit watching her eat that lobster meat sucking her fingers with self-satisfied glee pouting and spouting out the debris of her clacking, snapping pincer-sharp mind and smile inwardly at the resemblance I see a wonderful, horrible thought comes to me
Wouldn’t it be great if a giant lobster loomed and ate her up after popping her into a boiling pot, while she was still alive?
This is the sea-bed of salvation upon which I feed and thrive turning the tables through poetry on the clacking, snapping pincer-sharp lobster-look-alike girl’s mind and her kind
Glad About 
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