My Favourite Books

As inspired by Sheenalashay… My favourite books... Firstly, regarding spirituality or awareness - The 'kun byed rgyal po' or 'The Supreme Ordering Principle in the Universe' written by Longchenpa, the 14th century adept of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism . It is titled 'You are the Eyes of the World' published by Snow Lion. It's about discovering 'pristine' awareness everywhere, all the time. Quote:- 'Innocents, through deception are seduced to a path that is just an idea, with neither time for setting out nor time for realisation - how will they be able to seek reality on it's own terms? When following teachings of a monkey like master which have no logical basis. You end up believing in a false path.' and 'This message which really opens up one's primordial condition is beyond all foundations or bases; it is the core reality of pure and total presence...' It goes on to describe the means and method of realising this awareness.

Then also I like the edition 'Yoga spandakarika' written by Daniel Odier about the origins of Tantra - it has teachings from the ancient Chinese, Tibetan and Kasmiri masters. Quote:- 'If you don't do it yourself, what good will Dharma practises of others do you - it is like a beggar's dream in which he is rich in splendour food and wealth upon awakening all is gone without a trace, like the passing of a bird in the sky, all composite phenomena in the world are just like that.'
I love these books because they are written empirically based on experience, for the well being of others and have lasted thousands of years, only to be picked up by me in Borders of all places. It's like finding a corner of the Himalayas in my backyard. Also in my own life they have strengthened my mind, lessened my suffering and opened a giant window that wasn't there before. They have made me go and meet Tibetan Lamas from the lineages that trace right back to those authors and hear the wisdom afresh and applicable to today. In fact I discovered that my Lama who I went for refuge with is said to be a reincarnation of an aspect of Longchenpa - there's a surprise, puts a whole different spin on the length of an education. I have had so many blessings because I read these words and 'freedom' for me ceased to be a concept and became an actuality. A warning though - reading such books is dangerous to 'normality' you can begin to appear to others as very illogical and this isn't helped by you're being unable to justify your actions. At least that's my experience :)

Also I have a taste for survival stories because they teach a lot and this was kicked off with a wonderful read by Ian Serraillier's 'The Silver Sword' about refugee children in WW2. He went to my college and became a conscientious objector. I loved Nevil Shute's 'A Town Like Alice'. It's the way they write. I like a writer who isn't pretentious and can communicate profound thinking with simple words. The Tibetan Buddhist books force me to think and stretch mind as do any on an unfamiliar subject, but the other books force my character to stretch too - to me reading is like being able to choose your own family.

As a child when I was very ill and in bed for years suffering unimaginably, the only way I could escape was by staying still and reading - I read Enid Blyton books and would have incredible adventures in my mind. I read so much, it was all I could do and then astoundingly as I got better, I actually began to live those adventures. I totally have understood creating our own reality since those days, but the amount to which this happens depends on the clarity and one pointedness of our thinking beforehand... I think a book has the potential to answer the hunger of a soul - its what you search for when perusing bookshelves; which book will fill that gap, answer that aching question or bring joy? I am inclined to think that one must have one's own adventures thoughYou can't rely solely on the lives and learnings of others to inform you. At some point you have to leave the comforts and the house and the familiar and have your own hero's journey..

Winnie the Pooh then, certainly informed me as a child and no doubt an adult too. My love of cake is not unlike Pooh's love of honey in fact Winnie the Pooh and I are quite similar in many respects.
'Greyfriar's Bobby' by Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson based on true events about a little loyal dog in Victorian Edinburgh with beautiful descriptions of the city You can read the book here -

Laurie Lee's 'Cider with Rosie' he also wrote 'As I walked out one Midsummer's morning'. 'Lark Rise to Candleford' by Flora Thompson is in a similar vein and 'On the Black Hill' by Bruce Chatwain author of 'Song Lines'. All autobiographical in nature, gentle tales, beautifully written and heartwarming. I also loved Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' for those same reasons. 'Jane Eyre' by Charlotte Bronte was an old favourite as a teen especially as I visited the Bronte's country. I love to go to places in books. Also Jack London's writing 'Call of the Wild' and 'At the back of the North Wind' by George MacDonald.

Ernest Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms'. He was a great moment catcher. I once read about an article he wrote 'Throng at a smallpoox case' when he chanced upon a crowd of people at a train station. They were surrounding a very sick man who had collapsed with smallpox, the ambulance had been called but did not come... 'distressed that nobody would help him bring a smallpox-afflicted victim to the hospital... Hemingway called a cab and charged the fare to the Star newpaper' and took the man himself picking him up and putting him in the cab. That is why I like Hemingway - all his books are a rage at the people who do nothing but stand and stare and he himself was the antithesis of that. If a book doesn't make you change for the better I generally don't want to read it; if it doesn't rouse you out of a stupor, transport you elsewhere and elsewhen or show you which way to go when you did not know - what good is it to write it or read it when life is but a blink of an eye, of not knowing and then you too are but memory and then history?
My favourite book is 'The Water Babies' by Charles Kingsley (and my favourite character is Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby). Especially the Purnell Classics edition with pictures by Jesus Blasco

Angela Shelton's August 1st live show on writing tips:-

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What does peace mean to you?

Some of my fave peace Quotes:-

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.

-- Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they grow up in peace.

-- Kofi Annan

Peace, to have meaning for many who have only known suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health and education, as well as freedom and human dignity.

-- Ralph Johnson Bunche (1904-1971)

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)


If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

-- John Lennon (1940-1980)

Peace may sound simple - one beautiful word - but it requires everything we have, every quality, every strength, every dream, every high ideal.

-- Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999)

In the hearts of people today there is a deep longing for peace. When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities. Only when this really happens - when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men's hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing.

-- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

-- John Muir (1838-1914)

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

-- Lao Tzu (570-490 B.C.)

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.

-- The XIVth Dalai Lama

It is possible to live in peace.

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

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Personal and Global To-do Lists

When I wake up and go to sleep at night often it's with a thought to what I have or have not addressed on my mental To-Do Lists. It helps me keep track of my long term goals, it helps motivate me, and often the largest motivations are much larger than simply for me and mine. People give in many different ways. We may look out for our elderly neighbour, sponsor a child or volunteer. In many cultures round the world helping people is built in; people go out of their way to be neighbourly and ask for nothing in return. Here in France neighbours will help with your garden, give lifts to the hospital or even get your car out of a ditch. People don't wait for the 'Authorities'. They help with whatever and however they can.

I like to do a little something every day towards my both my Personal and Global To-Do Lists. It means I can leave this world without the regret that I didn't do anything to clean up the mess. Someone has not gone hungry or homeless because I did something. Perhaps someone hasn't died, because I did something. Perhaps because I did something, even though the situation has not changed now, a future generation will not have to address this because I left it for them to solve - to me that's gross negligence. Doing something is doing whatever you are capable of or have the capacity for - not overstretching your limits, although sometimes I think that's a necessity. The Berlin Airlift was and overstretch and 71 Pilots and other technicians lost their lives ensuring that 100'000's of tons of food and supplies were delivered over several months during the blockade. It was truly an astonishing effort. I wonder if we are capable of similar gestures now that are not rooted in economic motives but simply because people need the help and for as long as it is needed. The Haiti Earthquake, the Tsunami - these terrible disasters actually unite us through heroic acts of a generous nature. And if there's anything we need most it's unity... There is enough love on this planet to do EVERYTHING on our To-Do Lists and to do it in style...

Personal To-Do List

1 - Clean everything! WARNING Hurricane Lou is in the house

2 - Do garden; weed, lay compost,mulch, sow endives, cabbage, beans, fennel, kohlrabi, beet, spinach, carrots, radish and lettuce

3 - Have a Bonfire

4 - Finish Illustrations for Book!

5 - Ah and get creatures food

Global To-Do List

1 - Stop causes of global conflict (Don't fund them via your supermarket)

'Those who start wars - never fight them. Those who fight wars never like them' Michael Franti

2 - Care for refugees and IDP's (some folk may need to look that word up, it's 'C.A.R.E'). Let them have futures, not incarceration.

3 - Help grow food for the 1billion hungry folk - abolish hunger. When we've done that I may begin to consider calling us a 'civilisation'.

4 - Look after the orphans of AID's, conflict and poverty. This means school, love, everything they need...

5 - Care for the elderly. Only the best... for the old folk. None of this squalid hospital negligence.

6 - Change law and paperwork requirements for immigrants and homeless folk so that they have OPTIONS! An option for a homeless person means a piece of paper, not the nothing that forces them to become a criminal or become ill and die. It means something that offers them an education or a job, or a Community Service option. Anything is better than nothing.

Sometimes the only reason we're stuck is because there's no box for the life we've led...

It's not for lack of trying. It's a bureaucratic wall that's impossibly high to climb over... We are all immigrants and any of us could become a refugee in any moment.

7 - Stop Human Trafficking by convicting the enablers whatever their station whether they have diplomatic immunity or not... Human Trafficking is about to surpass Drugs in its scale...

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Save Jane - a fellow blogger

She has been persecuted by the judicial system in Austria for speaking out against the H1N1 virus and its inadequate testing and the mainstream media's panic pushing so that the World Health Organisation and the Pharmaceuticals made massive profits. That was the only reason everyone went on and on about the'Pandemic'. Not for any valid reasons or science; other than pseudo science we see a lot of nowadays supporting companies like 'BP' for example. Hmmm? So what to do about it? Having your property taken away is a big deal -HUGE! In fact having any rights taken away at all is a big deal. All the 'criminals' now are hiding in suits behind corporate logos and judges/politicians who are very willing to accept a bribe or two. Don't take my word for it just open your eyes and look around. Take your head out of the sand. This could get worse before it gets better. That said there are equally many good people out their, good honest judges and politicians trying to stop such a scernario of another corrupt world power ever getting complete control. Let's help them. Let's help the blogger Jane's of this world who are keeping it real. Don't be another sucker who swallows everything they says as the God's truth. Question, question, question... Who are the real criminals? The one's putting the neck on the line trying to share information? Or the one's trying to protect their interests by silencing them?

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Positive Impact Living

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Keeping Quiet

By Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about; . . .

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead in winter
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

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Splitting, projection, child abuse, trafficking and international crime

Today I learned about splitting and projection before during and after World War Two in Germany and the extreme detrimental effects of using shame as a way to modify a child's behaviour. You can read more about the work of Mary Katherine Armstrong here. She has also written a very interesting article called The Price We Pay for Shaming Little Boys

I went on an internet safari researching several things at once following a very busy day I had yesterday. Following reading reports on child protection especially those about the 'Rights of the Child' that were several years old; it struck me fairly heavily the collusion of judicial courts of law on both sides of the Atlantic in the tradition of favouring abusers' rights over children's rights to the extent that many professionals like Doctors and Nurses, even fear for their careers and disciplinary punishments if they disclose findings of abuse.

The suggestions of the Rights of the Child report haven't sufficiently been followed through; there are still 'waiting rooms' where trafficked children are mistreated and even beaten by French Airport Police, mother's trying to protect their children from their own fathers are still being locked up a year at a time because they have 'prevented their child from seeing their father'; original findings of Doctors that show a child has an STD (sexually transmitted disease) are later overturned and changed to ambiguous phrases like 'I was misled, the abuse was alleged, their behaviour tendered the assumption' - I think there is nothing more unambiguously a sign of abuse than an STD in a minor.

The fact that the French Government backs up the Judicial Courts who are in charge of caring for families and children, as well as the Medical Board; smacks to me of much more insidious collusion by people in authority to not have full transparency over their actions, or to change laws simply to reinforce protection of a child over a potential abuser. The involvement of police, the identification by NGO's of many abusers being in the judicial system all begs for a massive upheaval and sifting through of courts of law and re-evaluation of many cases - without the protectionism that is clearly rife within them.

This is a deep scar across European and worldwide systems of government and judiciary systems. It is blatant; it is clear that children are being trafficked along routes of transportation that the police already know about as revealed in the McCan case where the Portuguese police 'always believed she had been kidnapped by an international paedophile network who could leave the country to Morocco via the nearest port'.

I also found out that according to projections; profits from Human Trafficking are going to be higher than the drugs trade. That there is a highly complex network of criminal gangs operating across Europe and that 'France is a destination country for women and girls trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation from Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Malaysia and other Asian countries. Men, women and children continued to be trafficked for the purposes of forced labor, including domestic servitude, many from Africa.

Often their “employers” are diplomats who enjoy diplomatic immunity.

- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009

And yet it was only a few years ago that police expressed doubt about the existence of such networks - oh I wonder why? It strikes me that if you want to find out who these are run by then asking those people 'protecting' them; should be your first port of call.

The recent findings of the child abuse scandal in Belgium that eventuated in the sentencing of Marc Dutroux also uncovered multiple perpetrators from diplomats and judges right up to the royal family - none of whom have ever been sentenced despite identification and testimonials by their victims. This is all covered in the book Dossiers X which was the evidence that had to be leaked by its finders after their investigation was 'taken over' and therefore buried and they themselves lost their jobs. I would hate to be a police officer stumbling upon the fact that his/her superiors were involved in human trafficking for their own scary pleasures - I mean what do you do? You leak the evidence to the public. Then what? Then what do you do? What can the public do? I mean even if they question and debate they may not act. And what actions can they take?

Well these were the questions I asked myself today. There were lots of suggestions from the NGO's, from individuals who speak on behalf of children's rights.

First action that might be helpful is to increase space for children at risk. There was for example only one home for one area of France that could take only 1 out of 10 abused children. Which left oh about 900 kids to just get on with it. That's unacceptable and this is only one department of France. Recently in front of the world's eyes France bulldozed camps of illegal immigrants many of whom were clearly minors. I think people have this rosy idea that they were immediately 'taken care of by the authorities'. I dread to think what that really means.

There are thousands of NGO's and individuals around the world that are working against this tide of human trafficking and child abuse within their communities. All I can say is, wherever you are, whatever your role in society - help them; blow the whistle, make a mental note of strange activities you might see, check over the faces for kids who go missing and their locations AND connect the dots. Then when you finally discover something like the Dutroux case, find away to follow the leads and sentence ALL of those involved. Many police have apathy that though they might find a network one day and close it down, it starts up again the next. We have to find a way for this to NOT possible. Only convicting the middlemen is an impotent approach - of course they will start again the next day. I think alliances between organisations are very important to be able to get the bigwigs, the profiteers, the ones 'allowing' and perhaps even aiding and abetting the continuity of trafficking. Maybe they're benefiting financially and perhaps the 'silence' of some folk is also obtained financially.

If abusers have diplomatic immunity then there needs to be some way the law must also apply to them. Immunity should not mean the ability to get away with crimes, especially crimes of this insidious nature. Otherwise trafficking networks will continue to spring up the next day - because they can.

I'm no genius but in my humble opinion there's few worse crimes than child abuse and yet in a court of law there is an almost casual approach to the punishment of child abusers erring towards leniency than their removal from the reach of children. Perhaps because there are so many. Perhaps because they are usually also victims and it goes way way back. Which brings me back to splitting and projection. Splitting and projection are psychological defenses:-

'Splitting is understood in this way: when we find a personality trait in ourselves which we consider unacceptable, we deny that we are like this. We split off ownership of this part of ourselves. As for projection, we attribute the hated quality to someone else and despise it in the other.

Splitting and projection allow us to think well of ourselves and to be comfortable with ourselves. We have all the self-righteous satisfaction of being “right thinking people”. We belong to the right side. We are one of the “good guys”. We are worthy of love and acceptance.'

How many of us are splitting and projecting all the time. We are reeling from one the most violent centuries in history and never before has there been more violence, more slavery, more crimes against humanity than there is now.

Alice Miller wrote 'Whoever they are and however dreadful their crimes, deep down inside every dictator, mass murderer, terrorist cowers the humiliated child they once were, a child that has only survived through the complete and utter denial of its feelings of helplessness. But this complete denial of suffering once borne creates an inner void. Very many of these people will never develop a capacity for normal human compassion. Thus they have few if any qualms about destroying human life, neither that of others nor the void they carry around inside themselves. Today, we can actually see the lesions in the brains of beaten or badly neglected children on the screen of a computer.'The Wellspring of Horror in the Cradle”

And here's a case in point 'Alice Miller provides a dramatic description of Hitler's night terrors as witnessed by his followers when der Führer would wake at night with convulsive screams, yelling for help like a frightened child, hallucinating that "he" was there in the room'. And look what happened because of his shame, his splitting and his projection...

If we can start healing the shame; start holding back the raised fists of others, interrupt their verbal put downs, alert them to their own suffering and their potential for healing. If we can change the paperwork to really protect a child, suppress laws that favour abusers, build more sanctuaries for those who are neglected, who are on the peripheries of society; those who have been pushed there by the endless tide of greed and profiteering at their expense and also by our closed eyes, our closed ears, and our closed mouths.

To have a positive impact in this world sometimes you have to shout louder, much louder than the crowd and you have to have your priorities straight.

Yes each day do one thing on behalf of yourself and your family. But each day do one thing on behalf of the world and your global family.

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Positive Impact Living

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The Healing Journey

Picture - The Healing Journey by Margeaux Gray

This morning I was talking to a survivor about her healing journey. 'Ten years ago' she said she acknowledged what had happened but then it took four years to reach out and start healing, then she encountered the Army of Angels and it wasn't until last year at their conference that she felt able to forgive herself; because so often instead of blaming the appropriate people we blame ourselves.

I asked her because I have been having terrible dreams - she also had terrible dreams to the extent that she would freak out - while asleep and once nearly punched her husband when he kissed her goodnight while she was already asleep; because as a child of course her abusers had similarly disturbed her at night.

After talking I couldn't stay awake. I had had a rough night. When you get bad dreams you don't want to sleep. But then even as you're not sleeping the worst things can enter your mind. It's like a spiritual Dante-an type of purging of the psyche or something. The more I move these days; the more 'stuff' comes up. Needless to say I haven't wanted to move for a very very long time. But that's exactly what has prompted me to move, to exercise, to take risks that may seem small fish for other folk.

She said that 'everything' that happened in her healing journey was something she found difficult to do or deal with. Essentially she was facing and overcoming her fears and not necessarily for herself either but for those around her; so that she could be a rationally protective parent rather than the one that was still traumatised years later, or overprotective, and just wanted to sleep the whole day through.

Like I did. I just wanted to sleep. I wanted 'it' to 'end' that continuum of awareness that says 'I am bad'. Only 'it' is me. It's as though I had to become someone else because I can't be that 'me' any more. And that 'becoming' is tremendously difficult; it's like a whole realignment of your consciousness, of your self awareness.

One of the reasons she cited for her own self-forgiveness was the joy of all these other survivors at the conference; how they lived their passions; their joy at having survived and their strength; that same strength that enabled them to carry on now shone in their smiles and eyes and their work.

As she spoke about this joy that she encountered I listened enthralled. It was so uplifting; such a counter weight to the'badness' I persistently felt inside and heard in my head; 'I am bad, I'm a bad person'. I had heard and felt it for days now. But these were survivors; they had suffered and come through to the other side and now they tried to help others heal not in an ineffective sympathetic wishy washy way; but in a way that said 'This worked for me and her and him and them. Try this' or an 'I'm here for you if you need to talk or to call'. Or 'This is how I came out of a dis-empowering situation where I had nothing, where I felt trapped, where I felt insignificant and 'lower than a dog' and 'now here I am, I have bought my own house, I have got my driving licence, I have my own business, I have kept down a job for three years, which is two years and eleven months longer than any other job AND I have forgiven myself. I deserve to be joyful'.

'Joy cannot coexist with violence' as Angela Shelton says. And it's as much the violence that persists within; that we do to ourselves as that which has been done to us by others.

Joy is also the greatest weapon we have against our self doubts and self harming thoughts and actions. Our discovery of the passion that leads to that joy somehow comes about through this mysterious healing journey. Without what happened or is happening; perhaps we would never know what our 'joy' is; what our 'passion' is, or what our 'work' is. Nor would we be able to value and appreciate it as much if it had not once been taken from us, if we had not once deemed ourselves unworthy of it, if our strength had not been sapped so perniciously by others.

'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger' But what almost kills you can make you weak for a very long time afterwards. There is no indignity in trying to fight that fight, and giving up again and again and losing that fight again and again when it rears its head in other circumstances and misfortunes. There is no shame in failing again and again because the weapons you have left to fight with have got so worn down they are blunt and useless; the shield is dented, the helmet holed; your fighting heart is so weary and sad. None of that makes you a bad person. It does not matter if you couldn't do your job because you could not sleep the night before, or were literally afraid of your boss, or interacting with customers. It does not make you a bad person.

You are not bad because the weapons you were born with; your fighting spirit, your pride, your head held high, your cheek; all those things have got whittled away, eroded and thrown aside. For many of us, all that we had left to fight with was our raw spirit that had been trodden on again and again.

It does not make you a bad person because you can't explain yourself; because you get tongue tied; because your heart beats so fast at the simplest of things the fear strangles your throat and you have to hold a table real hard just to appear 'normal'.

It does not make you a person that you have no money left, that your paperwork is in disarray, that you can just about manage to keep body and soul together from one day to the next.

It does not make you a bad person that when others 'need' you that you're short tempererd; that what you really want to do is cry and curl up and sleep or die only you can't. You can't because somehow these others are saving you with their presence. Without you, they could not keep going. Without you, they would not know love. Without your short tempered moments, they would not have dinner and the loving moments. Because believe me they see you want to cry and give up and die, but they also see how your anger fuels you to keep standing; to find the tin opener and tin and bring the two together. You have just taught them how a soul, though it has already given up a hundred thousand times; how it persists. You have just taught them how to keep going when there's nothing left but raw will holding you together.

So you are not a bad person; I am not a bad person. Actually you are extraordinary. In those ordinary moments that absolutely no-one else notices or sees or values. That you can never give as an example of your strength of character because there have been so many of them and yet they were all so ordinary - there was nothing special about them you think even to yourself.

Those moments when you got up, stood up, carried on, kept going, lifted your head up, or just trudged on looking at the ground, or had tears falling down yourself while you pretended to be looking in the fridge for something. Or those moments when you went to the sanctuary of the bathroom for time out. Those nobody-else-knows-about moments. I want to say they're your extraordinary moments; they are something incredible.

That you who were so engulfed by pain, so that your body contorts and yet there is no escape, whether you curl up or straighten up; some internal and external meeting of agonies and yet somehow you created and 'afterwards'. You got up you wiped your face, you walked out every step laden by the same pain that just had you collapse to the floor or bed, or against the bath, or a wall, you walked out and you said 'Hello, how can I help you?' and 'Have a nice day'.

Those nobody-else-knows-about moments. I want to say I know about them. And you; you are amazing. And if you're amazing, then that must mean I'm amazing too and NOT a bad person whose everyone-should-know-about moments, nobody knows about, except us, because we were there. That 'bad person' we carry around inside of us that's torn at us, berated us, hurt us and degraded us; we've been carrying all along for them. We are that strong that we chose to carry the badness of others as our own.

So drop it...

And what happens when we lighten that load?

Joy happens and love because we are not and never have been 'a bad person'.

But maybe now we get to be bad ass...

Bad Ass - 'A person who defines supreme confidance, fearlessness, nearly divine abilty, and a frequent disregard for authority...'

And if that authority is unjust then that's the kind of bad ass that rocks. Because there is a hell of a lot of authority out there that preaches injustice as though it was a 'nice' thing and there is nothing nice about it at all. They're carrying our 'nice person' round as if it was their own and really, I think it's time we got it back...

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Find your way out of Trauma:- The Survivor Warrior Workbook

This powerful workbook is used as a teaching tool with therapists, support groups and community education programs. It was inspired by Angela's Removing the Sword of Trauma events. It is for survivors, warriors, advocates, loved ones and supporters ready to move past pain and suffering and reclaim joy and happiness. You can use the workbook in a group, on your own or with your therapist.This workbook is 117 pages long and is a DOWNLOAD. Thank you for your commitment to healing BUY NOW $9.99

I'm a Mac and I've got a secret...

'If you take conflict out of your product - I will buy it'

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