Lorna@Large

“You make me feel so good…” the woman whispered sweetly in her partner’s ears as she accepted the watch for her birthday…

“You make me soo *%%$@ mad!” The man shouted angrily at his son as he drew his leather belt from his waist…

“You make me feel so happy, I’m so glad I found you…”  The newly married man whispered to his bride just before he dimmed the light…

I am curious. Do other people make you feel things? How is another person responsible for the way you feel? How do they make you feel this way?

Do they say, “Hey, here’s a tin of sadness, be sure to use it up!”Or maybe they say, “Ahh, you need a bucket of happiness. Hold on, I’ve got one here you can have!” Can you find happiness, sadness or even anger on the supermarket shelves, pre-packaged and ready to go?

The way you make me feel

We often rely on other people to “make” us feel a certain way. We rely on them to do something, say something, be something in order for us to feel happy. If they don’t do what we are expecting them to, we get upset, sad and hurt.

In short, we often attempt to control other people in order to control how we feel; that is, our emotions. And when you do this, you are setting yourselves up for pain because you can’t control anyone else.

Well listen up people! There is only one person you can control: yourself.

You cannot force anyone to do anything or even assume that they will. People don’t make you feel certain emotions. You choose to feel them. You decide to react in a certain way. You make assumptions about what people mean. You leap to conclusions.

No one can give you a tin of unhappiness, or a bucket of joy. Neither can they give you a pot of sadness or a bottle of anger. These things are not physical items that can be passed from person to person. They are intangible emotions that exist within a person.

Believe it or not, each one of us is in control of how we feel. Yes! Right now, you could choose to feel happy; or I am sure you could choose to feel sad. Just by thinking about it, you could change how you feel.

So why not choose happiness? Why not choose a positive mental attitude? Why not get in the habit of choosing how you feel? It’s so powerful and so empowering. Only last week I asked a colleague for more information about something to help me to decide if I wanted to be angry or not. That made him angry. That was his choice even though he placed my name on it.

I want you today, to begin making conscious choices about your emotions. Understand and embrace the fact that no one has more power over you than that which you choose to give them. My mother always said that insults are given never taken. Someone may have intended for their comment to be insulting but you can decide if they are successful or not.

Decide to take back control of yourself and your life and to stop being on auto-pilot. Choose how you are going to feel instead of allowing other people to choose for you.

When you do, let me know all the ways it made you feel!

I looked through my living room window yesterday and I saw of all things a turtle. A turtle? In our neighborhood? Cheez!

I later learnt that it was a pet which had escaped the confines of its upper class accommodation and perhaps decided to explore its surroundings. No problem, he was definitely friendlier than his owners but that aside, I’m no fan of turtles and so I began to observe him closely to make sure he did not end up in my backyard.

Life Lessons from a Turtle

In observing the curious journey of this animal, I was struck by how much we humans, with all our superior intellect, opportunities and resources, can sometimes behave much like this turtle.

Observation #1: As the turtle progressed down the road, he kept close to the by now familiar sidewalk, hardly daring to leave its protective cover even though not many cars would be passing at that time.

This is similar to the way in which we hug the protective blanket of our comfort zones, hardly daring to try anything that takes us away from “home”. We travel down the highway of life, slowly and carefully, analyzing and then re-analysing every opportunity, learning always and never attempting to do and then criticizing every other person who tries anything. Read the rest of this entry »

“Who me? I should be living in the red? Stupes! What is the matter with this man? I’m struggling so hard to get out of debt and he come wid this foolishness!”

 Those were my thoughts recently when I heard a priest make that declaration. I was attending the memorial service for a good friend and reflecting on his life when the priest interrupted my thoughts with his bold assertion: You, yes you should be living in the red!

Well, Dog bite me! who sent this man?

I had to admit though, he caught the attention of every person in that room and as we listened to him we began to realize that living in the red might actually be a good thing.  As a matter of fact, a desired thing.

 As he went on to describe the red lifestyle, I reached over my shoulder and patted myself on the back because all my life, I have lived some version of this lifestyle. So I want to inspire you with my RED lifestyle. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I had a conversation that went something like this:

 Me (animatedly): Hi Friend X, I haven’t seen you in a while, whatever become of you?

 Friend X (dejectedly): Girl, things are not good at all. As a matter of fact, I think I’m having a nervous breakdown!

 Alrighty then!  I looked hard at the woman and she was very serious.

 The last I heard, a nervous breakdown is something serious that required some sort of professional intervention to assist with the diagnosis and not something that you just decide to “have”. Naturally, this woman got me thinking and I ask myself:  

Supposing, just supposing, I decided to have a nervous breakdown, when is the best time for me to have a nervous breakdown?  Read the rest of this entry »

All my life I heard my mother and my grandmother declare “common sense ain’t common!”

 This statement always made me go very quiet and it still does even now because I always thought that if it were true, common sense would dictate that you change the name of this apparently uncommon thing to an equally uncommon name like gemeinschaft or muscaevolitantes.

You see what I mean! My spell check immediately underlined those two words in red which is not the common sense thing to do because they do exist and are spelt correctly.

 But that aside, the question is “how common is Common Sense?” Apparently, not very. And even so, what is common sense anyhow?

 I read somewhere that a good technical definition of common sense is “sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge.” I like this because it means just once, here was something you don’t need to have a Ph.D. to convince somebody that you have it. It is a trait that you develop by a little thought and lots of practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, a friend whom I talk to quite a bit, especially to bounce ideas and thoughts off each other, described in detail how I should scale back my “behaviour” so that people around me could feel comfortable dealing with me.

The “behaviour” which I am supposed to scale back is my “cut to the chase” drama-free approach to dealing with the issues that present themselves in my space. According to her, this makes me appear “plastic” and without emotion. She hastened to add that she was quite comfortable dealing with me but she felt sorry for those others who were not.

As I reflected on her ridiculous request, the quotation by Marianne Williamson from: A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, so often incorrectly accredited to Nelson Mandela, came to my mind. I share this quotation below. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since I watched a few episodes of Dr Phil, I was impressed. Can you believe it? There’s someone out there who actually thinks like me: logical, practical and in your face. So today, in honour of Dr Phil, I write this post to answer a few of the many issues and items that people seek my advice on. So here goes: Read the rest of this entry »

Politicians abuse it. Barrack Obama has it. Sarah Palin wants it but for me, it’s elusive.

Last week Thursday, I decided I wanted to watch a movie and so, swaying my hips appreciatively, I approached my son’s DVD player courageously. You must understand that I have the ability to make the most robust of electrical equipment disintegrate just by coming within two feet of its location.

Half day later, I was still trying to turn on the darn thing. My son walked through the door, Read the rest of this entry »

I am suspended on the precipice of indecision, juxtaposed between the quality of the past and the convenience of the present. I embrace the decency of the skirt length befitting my age, while I long for the mini skirt of my youth! What am I talking about? I’m talking about living between two generations. Read the rest of this entry »

My mother never questions him. My grandmother exhibits the same blind faith. My great-aunt Clara swears that she has to have him at her bedside when she is dying. My children have denounced him. Me, I have a similar adversarial relationship as those I have with people whose authority I question.

Who is this person? Why do we worship him so blindly? Is he God? Read the rest of this entry »