Sunday, September 07, 2008





Hey
I have been on the road for the last week and this week-end we have been in Dementiaville.

Joans Mother has deteriorated over the last few weeks. We have spent the week-end with her and she did not remember that she had been with us for two week. She did not know we were there with her this week-end. She has the shortest memory but can remember how to be nasty. She knows how to hurt. How to ignore me when I say good morning. How to silently freeze when I gave her a good bye kiss on her forehead.


I ask Joan how she is feeling on the way home in the car.
A pain in the neck running up into her head.
A sickness in the stomach.
A deep sadness.
Drained.
Frustrated at not being able to help.

I re-enforces to me the critical principle in Emotional Literacy - that we need to decide on how we will communicate/transact with any human we meet, and not have any other human become the conductor of our behaviour.
It would be so easy to respond in kind. 'If yo do that again I will not visit you again.' 'Don't you speak to me like that'.
We can choose to be a reactor or a lover.
A reactor goes back in response to our feelings.
A lover decides how to value and love a person - and does not sway from that.

I guess you have humans in your life who trigger feelings inside. We either fight or flight.
There is another way. That, I believe, is treating all these feelings as signals to trigger our own strategically worked out responses. Otherwise these God given feelings take control of us. We are not managing our feelings - they are controlling us.

I have all sorts of feelings left over from the week.
Most of them are not about those special needs beautiful humans.
They are about the staff around them.
I need to spend time working these through i my mind.
Churning my soul.
I will be going back again and I want to be prepared to be positive and responsive.


One thing I am certain of - You too have feelings about humans you mix with. The journey into wholeness is about working at them and I believe this stuff is all Kingdom stuff.

One other thing I am certain of - you are beautiful
You may not feel it
You may not know it.
You may not accept it but
I have insider information from someone who knows you well -
you ARE beautiful.




ps Thanx to my friend Torgrim who has designed this litle Pipmix of words totally from knowing me over many years. He was the human who also registered me on Facebook as 'Beautiful Human Person'
A good friend eh?