"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, a bird sings because it has a song" (Maya Angelou)

The sky is big enough for every bird

There is a bridge over the Thames River, near where I live, where I love to pause whilst crossing the bridge, whatever the time of day, to stand and look at the river and the meadow alongside it. Often my eyes are drawn to the sky, to the birds flying up above. 

Recently, I found myself looking up at a red kite soaring high up in the sky, so high up, it was as if he was touching the ceiling of the world. It was at that moment that I suddenly realised that the sky is big enough for every single bird, that there is enough space for every one of them, no matter what size, or how high they may fly. 

I realised then that if the sky is big enough for every bird, then maybe there is enough for everyone, and that in order to reach the moon, perhaps we have to help someone else get to Jupiter. 

Perhaps our dreams are so big for a reason, perhaps we are not meant to achieve them by ourselves alone. Perhaps we have to learn how to ask for help and how to give help in order to grow and achieve our goals. 

Perhaps courage is part of this challenge, the courage to tell someone our dream. It takes courage to tell someone your dream, you have to be brave enough to tell them, to open up. Until you tell them, if you don't open up and share what's in your heart, how can you know if they are meant to help you?

I have found myself surprised at times at the people who are able and willing to help me achieve certain things, simply because I told them what I wanted to do. Sometimes just telling someone has given me clarity and insight into what it is that I really want, and no further help is needed. They have provided a listening and encouraging ear, helping me to believe in myself, to bolster my belief that I can achieve my goal, whatever that goal happens to be. 

And that gives me the courage to begin my journey, and in turn to help others begin theirs. 

What's your dream? 

Purlgirl xx

"Always aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars" (W. Clement Stone)

The curse of perfectionism - 80% is merit

Being diagnosed with ADD/Dyspraxia in my 30s was a huge relief. I could let go of the need to be perfect, because I wasn’t and couldn't be.

I have come to accept myself a lot more since I realised it, and recently I found myself aiming for 80% for a practical assessment for coaching, and realised that if I did get 80% it would be not just a merit, but a distinction.

How is that not good enough? 

I remember at school wanting to get 100, if I got 99, and wanting 101 if I got 100. Nothing was ever enough - I was never enough - even though it seemed that others were allowed to get less and were still given encouragement. I don't even remember what I felt when I got 100, if I ever even did.

All I do know is that I was never happy, never content. I had to be the best, because if I wasn't the best I wasn't good enough, but being the best made me fearful - what if I wasn't the best next time?

It takes a lot of nervous energy to be a perfectionist.  It's tiring, it's relentless and it never lets you stop.

And as I have got older and the projects and tasks have got bigger, it is actually impossible to manage - 100 means you have finished, but some things can't be finished in one day or one attempt.

But I wasn't allowed to rest until I had completed the tasks and I now realise that these were the heavy rocks that I mentally carried around with me. Somewhere along the line I realised that I had to break it down, perhaps because with the Dyspraxia I have to break some tasks down to the very smallest step to even start, because sometimes the smallest step is the key that unlocks everything else, or it's the obstacle that stops me moving forward at all. 

So I started breaking things down, rewarding myself for completing that step, even if it meant I had only sat down for an hour, and recognising that perhaps all I need is 80% for that step, and 80% for the next step.

Because 100 also means for the whole project, so I felt unable to break it down, and didn't even know where to begin.

And yet sometimes the only way to move forward is to begin, the only way to learn is to do (Amelia Earhart).

So here's to aiming for 80%, here's to good enough, here's to being the very best we can be this time and knowing that we can learn, and grow, and do better next time.

Purlgirl xx

"Buy yourself flowers, plant your own garden, decorate your soul" (Veronica Shoffstall)

 

Appreciating what we have

 

How many of us only buy flowers when we have guests?

 

When we were living in our rented house last year, the letting agency visited the house one day to perform a routine check, and I bought fresh flowers and cleared all surfaces in all rooms. The house looked spotless, and I remember my housemate at the time asked me if it wouldn't be lovely to come home to this every day, not just when the agency was visiting.

 

This Easter I bought chrysanthemums, and they lasted a month, and daffodils are always good value for money.

 

How many of us buy the luxurious wool for others, but not for ourselves? How many of us refuse to enjoy the cheap and cheerful yarn that makes others smile?

 

Maybe it wouldn't be practical to bring out the best china for every day use, but we  can certainly enjoy other things every day or every weekend.

 

If we make every day a special day, in some little way, we'll enjoy life more.

 

Purlgirl xx

 

“A diamond doesn't start out polished and shining. It once was nothing special, but with enough pressure and time, becomes spectacular.” Solange Nicole

Letting go, with time

I went on a retreat recently, and two things stood out for me on that weekend: We wrote down and burned what wanted to let go of, and we were asked to design our superhero emblem.

Immediately the image of a diamond with many facets, popped into my mind. An uncut diamond needs to be polished for each facet to sparkle and shine brightly.

Burning my list was just the start of letting go, but it's a starting point. In recognising what I was willing to let go of, and burning it, I feel as if I have started a process of transformation.

I realised this when I was cleaning house this afternoon. I realised all that I have been storing under the bed, and how much I have to keep pulling out from under the bed to hoover underneath. 

Perhaps we keep shifting things around when we're in a relationship, too. If we haven't dealt with it, we realise we have stuff under the bed and we have to pull it out to clean. So we resent doing it, or perhaps we just don't do it at all, we let it gather dust. And in time we hide it from others also, and we stop letting them in because we don’t want to admit what’s there.

I'm not willing do to this any more, so I'm only keeping the essentials. I'm willing to look into every corner of my house and my mind, and to decide and evaluate whether what is there is going to help me move forward, or not.

And if it's not “useful, beautiful or joyful” as Regina Brett says, I'm letting it go, even if it takes time.

Because I have finally realised that deep down I'm that diamond that needs to be polished, one facet at a time.

Purlgirl xx

“I think somehow we learn who we really are and then we live with that decision.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

My boudoir photo shoot: 

I've done a photo shoot 3 times in my life until now - when I was 22, when I was convinced I couldn't look beautiful, and ended up buying a beautiful leather book of 10 glossy photos. When I turned 30 and moved cities, changed jobs and was not able to go back to South Africa for a friend's wedding. 

And now this time. 

Each time I have had the photos taken, I've worn my own clothes and I've eventually relaxed and discovered a new side of myself. There is something liberating about seeing yourself in a new light, because it's a new photographer, you are a new person and it's a new environment. 

The first time I discovered that I am beautiful, and that I have a lovely smile and when I smile that there is a light that shines out from within. I carried that visual image around with me for 8 years, from house to house, city to city. It really struck home when I showed it to my friend, and said "but that's not really me, it's the make-up and the photographer was great" and she pointed out that the photos really *were* me, just an enhanced version of me. 

That thought has stayed with me ever since, and I still love the photos. 

When I turned 30, I felt it was time to do some more photos, to commemorate the way my life had changed, and to recognise that I had reached a milestone, turning 30 and seeing myself as a woman. The photos are beautiful, they were done with various backgrounds and in colour, black & white and sepia. They look like a photo shoot from a magazine, and I love them - they show a woman, who had blossomed and grown into a new person. 

And now, 6 years later, I decided it was time to do another set. A few reasons contributed to this, my brother getting married earlier this year, and being bridesmaid on the day, brought me to the realisation that whilst weddings are beautiful occasions, I don't need to wait until my wedding day to do a photo shoot to celebrate my femininity and to feel comfortable in my own skin. 

I'd looked into professional photographers, but when I mentioned this idea to a friend, it came to light that she was interested in doing this, and so I booked  a session. 

I'm so glad I did, doing a photo shoot with a close friend is very different, not least because they know you, and that brings a very different dimension to the experience. It allows you to be yourself, because they know you and your style and can suggest new ideas and ways to be. 

I'm excited to see how these photos develop, it will be a visual record of how I have grown and changed and evolved over time. 

I look forward to having a new visual image to carry around in my head with me of this person that I have become, and wonder what the next photo shoot will celebrate. 

Purlgirl xx

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” (Heraclitus)

I've now been in the UK for 12 years, and in Oxford for 6, half of all that time. 

Earlier this month, I took the same trip from Bristol to Oxford that I took exactly 6 years ago - on exactly the same day of the week. Retracing my steps showed me just how far I have come. 

And just last week at dancing, I asked two men to dance whom I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined I would ever be able to walk up to and ask if they wanted to dance. 

Interestingly, one of them remembered me, and the other one didn't recognise me at all. I like to think that's because I have changed so much over the past 6 years, not least my new haircut. 

But what struck me was not that I wasn't scared to ask them to dance, scared that they might turn me down, but that I felt I was good enough to ask them to dance with me, and that whilst I was dancing with them, I was focussed on the dance and not the mistakes I might have been making. Because they wouldn't point out mistakes, they would give me the opportunity to learn and perhaps admire the attempts, admire my progress. 

It's interesting that the dance floor had been redone for that night. 

It made me realise that I am not the same woman, nor was it the same dance floor.* 

Purlgirl xx

*with apologies to Heraclitus

"You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.” (Tom Hiddleston)

* Update, I completed the 100 Happy Days challenge on Friday, 7th June 2014. 100 days, 100 photos to capture the little things that made each day worthwhile. I've decided to continue taking photos of the things that make me happy, with my own hash tag - ##anotherhappypearl

Knit each step, but look at the pattern

When you're knitting a project, you have to knit each stitch, but as I knit more, I begin to realise that with Mindfulness, whilst you need to knit each stitch, you also have to move on to the next one, and every now and again step back and look at the whole to see if the pattern looks right.

In time, you learn to read the pattern, no matter how complicated, and ask yourself, “Does this look right to you?”

But you don't count every stitch, or you'd lose your motivation, you take each one as it comes.

This year, I signed up to the 100 Happy Days Challenge, a challenge to find something to photograph something makes me happy every day for 100 days. I am on Day 52 – past the halfway mark and reaching Day 50 feels like a milestone. I have become used to taking a photo every day, one step at a time.

My friend Caroline is at the final stages of sewing together around 120 squares that she crocheted over a few years to make a blanket for her bed. I remember when she started, and how I admire her perseverance. If she had focussed on the number she needed to do, instead of crocheting each one, one at a time, she might never have finished.

The same goes at work, when you're having a busy day and there's lots going on, it's easy to get lost in the “busy work”, when really it's the significant few that make the difference. (Stephen Covey, "First Things First")

I'm learning to do this at work. When I work on a task, to go ahead with the task and then to pause and look at the pattern; to find the pattern and check what is out of place, rather than focussing on each individual step and getting lost in the small.

And to focus on the finishing touches, as a way of reminding myself when I have achieved it, e.g. every morning when I put my ear-rings in, they're the finishing touch to my outfit. Then slipping my feet into my shoes and opening the curtains to let the daylight in just before I leave the house. 

This is the finishing touch that tells me I'm ready to leave the house and start my day.

What’s the point that triggers the next step and lets you move forward and climb your mountain? 

Purlgirl xx