What Positive Influence Do I want To Be?

And ... What do I need to be sure of as I ‘influence?’   

When I had dependent children I wanted to influence them for good.

I tried in every possible way I knew.

I tried to learn how from every good source that came my way.

I don’t really “want to be a positive influence” anymore. I just want to live my life as I want to live my life.   I want to be among the good, useful and happy of the world.  If my life’s of any use to anyone, I’m glad…

I might “want to be a positive influence” if I felt invisible…

I’ve not felt invisible for most of my life.

I’ve relished the times I realized I felt invisible – like in an airport.

Or walking in a shopping mall.

Or strolling along the beach.

In the situations when I feel “on show”

Like now, as our Ward Relief Society President,

I want to be sure to be my better self,

so that I’ll not influence someone to be worse by being careless.  

I want to “sound a certain (sure) sound.” 1 Cor 14:8

I guess we each choose how we’ll be influenced anyway don’t we?  J

I remember a story that goes something like this:

I wonder where I heard it…

It resonated with me!

“I am the way I am because of my parents. 

They were drunkards and losers. 

That’s why I am a drunkard and loser.” 

His brother said on a separate occasion:

“I am who I am because of my parents.

They were drunkards and losers.

I didn’t want to be a drunkard and a loser.

I found better role-models and mentors.

Today I am pleased with who I have become.”

Have a good week!

I love you!

Mom / Judy / Gran Judy

Who Do I Really Care About?

Sunday Afternoon May 24^th 2020

And... How can I show them I really care about them?

As I thought about the ones I care about, and love, the poem of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (below) about her love for her husband came to my mind.

I thought about what my love for "mine" is to me…

I realise I loved “mine” before they came.

I prepared my heart and my life to receive them.

And… When each of them came into my life, I realised love is much more complex than “loving them.”

This is what I'm learning about loving...

Love takes time.

Love takes intelligent thought.

Love is intentional.

Love is daily.

Love is sometimes messy.

Love is sacrificing presently for future envisioned personal and relationship gains.

Love is patient with oneself and the “other.”

Love is making space and time for an “other.”

Love is accepting after learning that the “other” is “other.”

Love is learning about an “other.”

Love is allowing another to be “other.”

Love is learning how to “get used to each other.” Gordon B Hinckley

Love is giving of oneself to another.

Love is giving wisely.

Love is learning what you need to learn to love this person.

Love is knowing you can leave, but choosing to stay.

Love is making plans for leaving, and staying in hope for better times.

Love is knowing when you need to leave, or disengage – for now.

Love is thoughtful and considerate.

Love is learning about things you never imagined or dreamt about.

Love is knowing there is a dark side… and choosing to focus on the light side.

Love is allowing the “other” to choose their life and what they’ll be.

Love is remembering who you are, and discovering more and more who “they” are.

Love is sometimes not liking, but loving enough to continue in hope for more mutual respect.

Love is about growing, maturing, trusting, growing up.

Love is sometimes suffering pain so deep it is unspeakable.

Love is being personally safe whilst in a sometimes hostile situation.

Love is letting go of expectations, norms and imaginations that seemed so important.

Love is insisting on a certain level of civility and safety.
Love is knowing when and how to keep silent.
Love is knowing when and how to speak.

Love is knowing what you deserve, though you might not get it – at present.

Love is being true to yourself, who you really are.

Love is knowing that sometimes sacrifice precedes rewards.

Love is “casting your bread upon the waters.”

Love is a grand adventure.

Love is a hero’s journey.

Love never gives up.

I’ll add to this as I become aware of more that I want to say in this regard.

And – how do I show those I care about and love that I care about and love them?

As well as I know how to.

As honestly as I know how.

And I keep on learning about how to show, with integrity, those I care about, that I care about them!

By wisely being myself with them.

By safely allowing them to be themselves with me.

By patiently persevering with them.

By building on the good between us.

By searching for, and finding, what is lovable in them.

By noticing what is precious and rare about each of them.

By nurturing the unique, special and irreplaceable in them.

By cultivating the positive regard I have for them.

By being respectful of each of them.

By investing my time, talent and means in our relationship.

By being thoughtful and considerate of them.

By keeping contact with them.

By sharing with them what I think might be good, true and useful to them.

By enjoying what they share with me.
By having fun with them.

By being grateful to count them as among “mine.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

What "New and Different" do I Need to Embrace?

Sunday afternoon – May 17^th 2020 

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day.

For our Sacrament meeting Doug invited us, starting with the youngest to oldest,

To say something about our mothers.

I was second last…

Words spilled out of me that I would rather not have said out loud.

Perhaps it was hearing all those “nice” words others had to say about their mothers…

Including me, Doug’s mother, and the mother Glenn’s children, me again.

And a couple of others felt blessed by me “mothering” them in some respect.

My relationship with my mother was complex.

Perhaps because she was complex, perhaps because I was.

Probably because we both were/are.

I didn’t feel like I had a “mother” in her.

I felt more like I was her mother than she was able to be mine.

I felt like I had… someone to beware of, be careful and cautious around.

I remember feeling frustrated around her, on guard.

I’ve spent a week searching my memory for good memories of my mother.

I thought I’d look back at my creative writing to see what I’d written about my mother.

Nothing there.

I started a blog about her…

I looked there – nothing that I had written, just records of her writings.

This I wrote about her:

"I honour my mother and all that she was able to teach me,

and all that I was able to learn from her,

whether she was intending to teach me at that point or not...

I trust my readers will enjoy learning more about my mother."

https://beatricephilippadrydendymondpowrie.blogspot.com/

Sigh…

In my daily calendar this week have been the words:

May 14^th – Believe in the inherent good of each person…

May 15^th – Each person, including yourself, has good points…

May 16^th – Seek out the good points of yourself and others and conditions will change…

May 17^th – Other people have the right to be different from me…

She was good.

She had good points.

I can seek out more and more of her good points.

She certainly has the right to be different from me.

She was who she was…

A product of her time.

A product of her family.

Affected by her thoughts, feelings and experiences.

On her own sacred journey through life.

And now to this week’s conscience-searing (for me) focus question: 

What ‘new and different’ do I need to embrace?  Is this the right time?

These words are a reminder that I am invited again to change my narrative about my mother.

Not only my outer narrative, but also my inner thoughts and feelings…

That will certainly be “new” and “different” for me!

I remember a friend of mine whose mother was decidedly odd.

He once said “From my father I learnt… and from my mother I learnt…”

I was shocked.  He had found something good to say about his mother.

(I think I tried this exercise before… I don’t remember what I decided at that time.

I obviously didn’t spend enough time re-programming myself…

So here goes – again…  “find something positive I learnt from my mother…”)

“From my mother I learnt patriotism, duty and the complexities of right and wrong.”

I’m going to concentrate on that.

Keep it short and sweet.

I’m grateful she was a Montessori teacher and trained me in that in my early childhood.

I’m grateful for all the family history she did – lots.

I admire her love of gardening and passion for trees.

I acknowledge her love for animals.

I’m grateful for her exploratory mind – it’s helped me to explore widely.

I’m grateful for her patriotism – that was a good example to me.

She was compassionate to the waifs and strays that came her way.

She was civic minded.

She was passionately vegetarian.

She enjoyed having people to stay – visitors and borders.

She enjoyed crocheting blankets for her children and grandchildren.

She enjoyed record-keeping and creative writing.

Douglas said “I remember her as a kind person.”

Yes… there was a kind part of her.
And - I know she loved me.
And - I know she did the best she knew how.

I remember “In time take time while time doth last; for time is no time when time is past.”

I remember “Be true for the sake of those who think you are true.”

I remember “Too much laughing comes before crying.”

I’m glad I was able to honour and respect her while she was alive.
(I think... I hope it looked like that too.  I hope it felt like that to her too at least some of the time.)

I’m glad I was able to be patient with her.

I’m glad I was increasingly able to think before I spoke to her.

I’m glad I made the journey to visit her and my Dad in Cape Town before she died.

She died suddenly at age 74 – four hours after having a painful stroke. 

I’m glad she was spared wasting-away and a lingering death.

I hope my “wounded child/teenager/woman” heals some more and that next Mother’s Day I can whole-heartedly pay my warm brief tribute to her to whom I was born.

I believe my Father knows what He is doing.

Therefore… there must be some wise and wonderful reason I was born as her first daughter, first child.

There must be some wise and wonderful reason she was my female predecessor.

I will explore more of those thoughts in my quiet moments.

******************************************

I just watched this/listened to this - Joyce Meyer has helped me along, and along day by day...
(The adverts are irritating...)
(The background music is too loud for me...)
But I've learn a lot from Joyce Meyer about enjoying everyday life...

Pastor Hagin follows her - I don't know of him...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4OL5L9W8ko&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3cn71vpziPlfzhelsXeMyUdsNr7-THmpCuEBsxmjIsAAIfpqZk7cOsY1k

What do I Stand Up for? What do I Stand Out for?

Sunday Afternoon May 10th 2020

It’s been a whirl of a week!

A baby boy born in the Ward at the beginning of the week

and another at the end of the week.

Thank goodness for being able to call on their ministering sisters

to stand by them!  In ways they could… remotely…

They helped me bear my Relief Society President’s load.

In these Covid 19 circumstances there are Ward people in distress.

I needed to help one family.

We had our Ward Council meeting… using zoom.

Travis, next door, helped me get organised with that.

We had our first Relief Society Presidency meeting by Whatsapp video.

Douglas helped me understand how to do that.

I was glad to see and talk to my one counsellor and

my secretary whom I don’t know yet.

I was glad for the one familiar counsellor’s face on my phone…

I also had two counselling sessions by video technology…

Another learning curve…

On the one day, Thursday I think, I was just… dazed…

I went out into the garden and spent some time weeding.  Grounding…

I reached out to one of my long-long-time friends.

She has her own mental health challenges.

She was able to phone me back a day later.

After spending a lovely hour with her, just chatting and being the two of us,

I felt refreshed and “together” again…

I’m also doing more Tai Chi sessions.  That’s also helped.

Yesterday while I did this and that around the house

I watched a feast of TED talks to learn more about autism,

Asbergers and depression.

That change of focus helped too.

There’s so much we didn’t know when we were raising our children.

We didn’t know about much ourselves.  We were both “Babes in the woods.”

And we couldn’t know what it was not possible to know then about

what we didn’t know about raising children.

I thank God for a Bordeaux school bulletin in which was the poem

“Bill of Rights

Please, let me grow as I be,

And try to understand why I want to grow like me,

Not like my Dad hopes I’ll be,

Please try to understand and help me to grow just like me!”

I looked the quote up on the internet – it’s by Hungarian born Magda Gerber.

Her work is shared on magdagerber.org

I would have loved to know more about her at the time in the snippets

I’ve just read briefly.

I’m glad for the Bill of Rights above… It helped me. 

I tried, the very best I knew how… as much as I was able to…

Thankfully, Glenn has been deeply absorbed this week in what he’s doing in the workshop.

Our time together this week at breakfast, lunch and in the evenings has been lovely.

And now my thoughts on the Focus 2020 question for the week:

What do I stand up/stand out for?  Does anything need to change?  If so, what?

Good question…

I don’t know!

I know what I hope I stand up and out for…

Let me know what you think I stand up and out for if you feel like it…

I asked Glenn, and he gave me an answer.

I said “That’s what I want to be known for… but sometimes I’m a wimp, a coward.”

That’s the truth…

Ask those around you what they see you stand up/stand out for…

It’s a precious gift indeed when someone tells you how they see you.

I’m reminded of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, who said

“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.”

It’s a precious gift indeed when someone shares with you how they see you.

It’s also painful sometimes that what you want the other to see and know

is not what you intend or want to be known for, seen for.

Then the search for the truth begins…

Am I being and portraying myself accurately?

Is there some hiccup in their receiving me as I actually am?

The journey of a life-time.

What’s “The journey?”

I think it’s “To be who I am”

and to live my one precious life the way I want to live it.

To be authentic.

I enjoy Judge Judy (on TV) when I get the opportunity to see her.

I remember one thing she said in a programme a long time ago that I wrote down…

“It’s your life!  Live it well.”

If you don’t do that, the consequences are not what you want to have…

Well, the consequences might not be what you want anyway,

we are not the only ones involved in how our lives “turn out.”

But if you’ve lived your life well, there’s a deep peace of conscience

no matter what’s going on around you.

Long, long ago I got a book called “Minute Masterpieces.”

One poem in there helped me to live with myself more contentedly.

By Edgar A Guest – any relation Kieran?

“Myself” I have to live with myself and so I want to be fit for myself to know. I want to be able as days go by, always to look myself straight in the eye; I don't want to stand with the setting sun and hate myself for the things I've done. I don't want to keep on a closet shelf a lot of secrets about myself and fool myself as I come and go into thinking no one will ever know the kind of person I really am, I don't want to dress myself up in sham. I want to go out with my head erect I want to deserve all men's respect; but here in the struggle for fame and pelf I want to be able to like myself. I don't want to look at myself and know I'm bluster and bluff and empty show. I never can hide myself from me; I see what others may never see; I know what others may never know, I never can fool myself and so, whatever happens I want to be self respecting and conscience free. What do you stand up for? What do you stand out for? Love Mom / Judy / Gran Judy

What Helps Me Be Strong?

Sunday Afternoon – May 3^rd 2020 

I was called as the Discovery Ward Relief Society President last Sunday.  
It’s been a week of getting to know what’s changed in Relief Society administration, and finding out about many of our Sisters that I don’t know yet, choosing counsellors and a secretary, proposing them, and making contact with them – two of whom I do not know yet.  
I realized today that if I walked past them in the street, I would not know them.  Sobering…!  
A brave new chapter…  And on we go.  
How will we make meetings happen?  
How will we conduct our business in these circumstances…? 
We’ll find our way…

I’ve always wanted to attend “BYU Women’s Conference.”  
Because of Covid 19 affecting the whole world, this year BYU Women’s Conference was a digital event.  
I got to spend about six hours on Saturday watching the Conference.  
What a spiritual feast!  
I look forward to sharing some of parts of the sessions with those who might be interested as time allows.

We are now on Stage 4 of lock-down.  
I’m not sure what has changed – except that we are all required to wear cloth or other effective face masks when we are out and about for essential shopping and visits to doctors and other essential journeys.  
I’ll find out on a need-to-know basis, or I’ll hear over the radio or internet.  
What a wonderful day to live in!  I’m glad to live now.

This week’s question…  Who helps me be stronger when I need to be?  In what way?

I’ve been thinking a lot about that…

My Heavenly Father helps me be strong when I need to be.

I know I’m His Daughter.   

I’ve made covenants with Him.  I want to keep them. 

I am a Disciple of Jesus Christ.  He helps me be stronger when I need to be.

The more I learn about Him, the more I want to be His Disciple – want to follow Him.

These pictures help me remember to be strong:

  

Prophets, Apostles and those that speak in General Conference help me to be strong.

So have those who have articles printed in the Church magazines.

They help me see what I otherwise might not see.

My husband helps me be stronger when I need to be. 

I have learnt some “street smarts” and to be more realistic, down to earth, from him. 

I’ve learnt lots about how many in the world think, speak and behave from him and his family.

It’s been a truly useful education.

I’m bolder than I would otherwise have been able to be.

My children have helped me be stronger when I’ve needed to be.

I’ve gained insights and experience from these four very different and dearly beloved human beings.

FAMSA and LifeLine have helped me be stronger when I need to be.

I’ve gained deeply valuable information and experience working for them/ with them.

I’ve learnt how to manage, living in this world, speaking in terms they might better understand.

My Tai Chi group helps me be physically stronger than I might otherwise be.

My WeighLess group and leader also motivates me to be strong and helps me manage my weight as well as supportive and encouraging tips like these almost every day.

My beloved family and friends are truly valuable to me. 

Although I don’t see or hear from them often, I know they are there.

They give me honest feed-back.  That’s precious to me.

Now my Relief Society presidency Sisters will also help me be strong when I need to be.

Also my Relief Society Sisters have been a source of valuable learning, a refuge and strength to me through many years.  I’ve learnt a lot, about a lot, from and with them.

I’m reading Paul’s letters in the New Testament at the moment.  He helps me be stronger. 

So does Abraham in the Old Testament, and Jacob, son of Lehi, in the Book of Mormon.

Actually, there are many people I know, and many I don’t personally know, that help me be strong when I need to be.  
Joyce Meyer’s ten or so minutes in the morning on Radio Pulpit has been a great blessing in my life.
Bongi Gwala on SAFM.  
Oh… too many wise ones over these many, many years to remember and mention…  
I’m grateful for those who have lived great lives and accomplished many types of great deeds and shared their experiences.

I just hope I can be strong for my whole life. 

I also know that though I am weak I am strong. 

I also know that my weaknesses can be turned into my strengths.

I’m grateful for those from whom I’ve been able to borrow strength in my years leading to now.
Among them the police, lawyers, doctors, homeopaths, physicians, financial advisors, Bishops, supervisors, professors and others.

What makes me stronger from them all?

I’ve learnt how I want to be, and how I don’t want to be. 

I’ve learnt to be a better woman, wife and mother, in-law, grandmother and great-grandmother.  
I’ve gained vocabulary, and increased comprehension of so much, and increased integrity and maturity!  

I’ve learnt to love more, be more compassionate, patient, understanding, grateful, balanced, imperturbable, confident, genuine, peaceful, temperate, open, happy and cooperative than I used to be able to be. 

I’ve learnt to mind my own business more. 

I’ve learnt to let other people take care of their own business more. 

I’ve learnt to be healthier than I used to be able to be. 

I’ve learnt to enjoy my every-day life more than I used to be able to. 

I’ve learnt what is fun for me.

I’ve learnt to respect myself and others more. 

I’ve learnt to be a better home-maker and property-owner than I used to be able to be.

I’ve learnt to be a better citizen than I used to be able to be.

I love that, imperfect though each one of us is, we can learn, live and, love together. 

I love that I’ve learnt to set reasonable limits for myself and others too.

I’m glad I learnt about

Firm, Fair and Friendly;

Guide, Protect and Bless;

Verbal, Vocal and Visual;

Submissive, Aggressive and Assertive;

Persecutor, Rescuer and Victim;

Problem-solving, Appropriate and Flexible;

Green, Yellow and Red;

Correlate, Reduce and Simplify.

And many more!!!

What a journey I’m on! 

I’m glad I’m making it. 

I’m learning to be myself. 

I’m glad to be who and where I am at the moment.

I’m glad to get to know each of you better too. 

Onward, ever onward… Stronger, ever stronger… Always sufficient for our needs.

Carry on carry on, carry on – as long as I am able and well as I’m able… mind, body and spirit.

This from off my fridge...