Confidence

Tonight, I am feeling grateful for the gift of CONFIDENCE. I haven't written in quite a while, so thought maybe I'd share a virtues reflection.
The week started with thoughts about Sunday School. The lesson tomorrow morning is intended to be about Acts 5 27-32, and so some of my time this week has been spent reflecting on and trying to prepare to speak with children about that. As I'm preparing, I like to try to work out which virtue is most strongly represented in the story we are meant to focus on. In this story, we hear how Peter and the other apostles respond when they are told they should not teach about Jesus. They were given strict orders not to speak out anymore, after Jesus himself was crucified for doing so, and yet they still chose to tell people about Jesus. I suppose these men had amazing CONFIDENCE in order to do that.

As the week marched on, next I learned about the passing of an amazing woman in our community, Jennie. As I read her story, I realized that this woman was a role model of CONFIDENCE for me. She once told me that I could become President of our local Women's Institute group, which before saying that I would never have dreamed I could do, and with her encouragement I actually went on to do that. I now teach Sunday School as well, as I have learned she once did, and there are other activities in her life story that I feel connected to as well. I will be forever grateful for her presence in my life, as she gave me CONFIDENCE that even a woman like me in a small community can make a difference in this crazy world that we live in.

Of course, my CONFIDENCE  has been shaken at times as well this week, but I think that also has led to some personal development. Stories of friends and family passing have become very common in this past year. This week alone, three friends have each lost parents, and another friend lost her brother. This has left me quiet and reflective, especially today as it's been such a dark and rainy day. I recall that, when visiting a friend at a funeral home a few years ago... I cried so much the poor soul on the receiving end probably did not want me anywhere near there. However I reflect now that, as my faith in what cannot be seen has grown in recent years, as I have watched people like Jennie approach life, I have strengthened CONFIDENCE now - I feel I can cope with whatever happens, and so no longer have a breakdown when I visit a funeral home. Tonight I visited a friend and even managed to smile in her presence in the funeral home! I truly admire her CONFIDENCE as she is receiving each visitor tonight in her time of grief.

One more example from this week before I close this post...  My daughter was an entrant in a Music Festival competition. In the traditional folk song class, my daughter sang solo and unaccompanied! That too was a great example of CONFIDENCE this week, and she did very well, too! Just now, I was reminded as well in Facebook that my son also competed in the festival six years ago and did very well. My children are growing up with a great deal of CONFIDENCE, and so I feel gratitude for this!

All this to say, I am grateful for the gift of CONFIDENCE, and hope you also feel some CONFIDENCE as you proceed into the coming week, too!

Join my Book Club?

I recently finished reading what's available so far from Louise Penny. This series was very good and kept me busy for the past year, but then I found myself left with a dilemma - I could no longer escape to White Pines! ...  What to read next?!

A friend recommended "House Rules" by Jodi Picoult, so part of January was spent immersed in listening to that. (I don't recommended borrowing the 17 CD set from the library as I did. Download an audiobook online instead and save yourself some grief in trying to get it to play!) The main character in this book is a teenage boy diagnosed with Asperger's, and it was rather neat to find I could relate to a LOT in this novel. I would recommend it to anyone who is not familiar with the traits that can lead to this diagnosis. Bit of a scary read as well though, as it is a compelling reminder that it is very important that police officers are trained to understand the challenges that can be experienced when trying to communicate with someone with Asperger's traits. If you read this, i expect you will be on the edge of your seat as you wonder if the boy murdered his Social Literacy teacher or not. I won't spoil the ending here!

Following this, I moved on to reading "A Seat at the Table" by Mark Schwartz. If you are working with technology and looking to understand Agile and DevOps more, this is a good one for leaders. Mostly in this one I've picked up on the idea that IT folks need to stop writing "requirements" and instead focus on documenting the "business outcomes" we want to achieve in order to inspire developers into action. We should not "require" that developers create specific deliverables, but instead talk about the outcomes we want to achieve and let creativity take over from there. We are moving faster and faster away from Waterfall approaches in project management, to a world where the vision is that someday we'll have developed so much automation that we'll live in a world of NoOps.. where people are no longer needed to operate things anymore. You can perhaps imagine that where I work is doing some pretty interesting things now - focused on new ways to automate our world!

Now, with all that complexity in my work life, I've found myself physically and mentally worn out at night. Time to focus on spirit then, I decided! What better way to do that than to tackle the Bible? Yikes! I have tried this before, but I generally made it only a few pages into the book of Genesis and gave up. Of course, I've read passages as directed in church and for the Sunday School curriculum, but I've never managed to read it cover to cover. Has anyone?! I suppose many have, but this book is so tedious to read, so kudos to you if you did this! 

I'm not giving up though... I discovered there are free audio book readings for the Bible, too, so I've been listening to "The Book of Genesis - NIV Audio Holy Bible - High Quality and Best Speed - Book 1" by The Two Preachers. This is still a bit tedious, but also I've found some of it quite interesting. Now I can understand how Bible study groups come to be! My takeaway so far is that Genesis is a great reminder that, while things are pretty challenging in our world now, we have certainly come a long way as well to improve. I woke up a few nights ago with my brain trying to draw a picture. Thankfully, a simple Google search turned up multiple versions of this picture, such as this one: https://www.adamandevefamilytree.com/store/products.php?product=THE-ADAM-AND-EVE-FAMILY-TREE-WALL-CHART. No wonder I was finding this tedious to read! Most of the book of Genesis is focused on words to describe this picture, where it seems men would "lie down" repeatedly with women and had many, many offspring, provided many names I've never heard before, and they lived much longer than we do now well. I'm nearly through this Book 1, happy to find as well that I've enjoyed learning a few things...  I now have renewed understanding of where Israel and Iran apparently began, and about Joseph and his "technicolour dreamcoat", and I'm interested to hear more of this famous story in the order it has been compiled. Want to join my online Bible study book club? If so, listen to this audio book and share your thoughts.

What are you reading now?

Peace

I've started to get comments that I am "too quiet" and queries about whether or not I'm okay, so figured time to at least write a quick message here to share an update.

Since my last post, I have been back to work for a while, which I think has gone pretty well. My health issues seem to be behind me for now, as I've moved into a state of healthier eating and no longer seem to be constantly fighting insomnia. Of course, the kids are continuing to grow up and assert their independence, bringing a variety of challenges, but I think my mindset is better now than it was in recent months and so generally I suppose I'm FINE (yes, as Louise Penny would describe, if you have read her books and know what that means).

By the time Christmas came along, I was very ready for another break though, as most people are at this time of year, so grateful to have a week off. I basically kicked back and did nothing for the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, as I hope you had the chance to do as well, if you so desired. Most of my time was spent reading - two more Penny novels and most of "Pillars of the Earth". We had our annual games night with family and friends to "ring in" the new year, which was wonderful as always. After that, I returned to work and have been in a mode of trying to "up skill" myself related to DevOps, as the coming year will involve more and more change with that in mind. I've also done a little bit more house organizing - inspired by watching some "Tidying Up" episodes featuring Marie Kondo. I recommend these if you want a small nudge toward tidying, too! Generally, I suppose my days have been pretty low key, which I don't really see as a bad thing!

These past few weeks have also been a time of quiet reflection. 2018 was a rough year for many of us! In my own circle of family and friends, I can name at least 16 people who I had to say goodbye to. Grief seemed to be a state I was more often experiencing than not. I suppose I have been in a calm state of "acceptance" generally lately.

In conclusion, yes, I'm okay. I think quiet is just a sign that I'm feeling at peace at this time. I write a lot less when I'm doing well - I seem to experience "writer's block" unless I'm very stressed out, so I suppose folks should not be concerned when I'm writing less, though also know that I like to write and hear from people, and so will do more if I think of something to write about!

At the very least, I wish to say that I hope that each and every person reading this feels peace, too. 2019 feels like it's starting out in a more positive light than 2018. With gratitude for all of your support in the past year, may God bless you and Happy New Year!

Please Help Me

Sometime last week, some quotes by a man named Franz Kafka appeared in Facebook and one in particular caught my attention... #3 as posted here: https://tzbarry.com/2015/07/10/kafka/

Too often, I find myself writing things that I seem unable to say "in the moment" of a conversation, or reflecting after time has passed that I wish thoughts I was having then had arose in the previous moments, in a way that led me to be more positively responsive. How fitting that Kafka describes the result of such a situation as "deepest darkness"... It can be very frustrating to be a person who cannot respond "in the moment" as one desires, to be someone who needs time to process and reflect before being able to respond to other people who are trying to have a conversation, especially when you want to be helpful when someone like your kid, a family member or a friend is seeking your advice or guidance. With that in mind, I tend to prefer "conversation" in writing. Typically, I find that my "present" thoughts in a situation are pretty negative, and so I either keep quiet (which tends to be lead to comments in my direction indicating I'm too quiet) or I end up saying things I regret later (because I end up saying something negative). 

It would be wonderful to be more like the people I admire, who seem to be able to speak positively in the present moments so easily! You know who you are - please help me!

If you are reading this, chances are you are a fan of Facebook or other social media, as I have become. Perhaps you spend time daily, reading what other people are writing, and engaging in "conversation" with people by responding to various posts. With this in mind then, I wonder, have you also sat in a room with people expressing strong opinions that social media is a negative force in our world now? "I don't do Facebook. It causes too much trouble." - I have heard these well meaning people often say. If so, how do you tend to respond? I tend to have what a teacher friend recently described as "uncomfortable thoughts" when in that situation.

I don't know about you, but I tend to keep quiet as a result of those thoughts. I figure that the folks who are saying this are not really interested in hearing counter opinions on the subject, or if they are then I guess I lack the confidence to express my opinion in a way I think would be compelling. More and more, there seems to be research indicating that anxiety levels in society are growing, and many seem to think this is because of use of social media. I wish to offer a counter thought here though...  

When I am feeling particular anxious, I often turn to social media, and typically after I do that I find myself feeling better. I think my life has been greatly enriched by my interactions in social media, as I have learned there are many people who have thoughts similar to my own, and so I am left feeling less anxious as I feel less alone. It's not possible for me to go out and meet someone face-to-face all the time, and I'm not good at such conversation anyway, so I consider social media a great alterative to that. Sometimes, yes, I have also thought of it as an addiction, as the negative media would suggest, but then there are other times when I think, wow, without social media I would never have known that great person I've been interacting with! Oh, and guess what?! People have been feeling similar to me long before social media was popular...  people like Kafka. Anxiety is not a new phenomenon caused by social media - I think it's just more understood and visible now that many experience anxiety, because now more of us are talking about it.

Please don't misunderstand me... I don't think we should be on social media night and day...  that is for sure unhealthy, but honestly I feel a bit sorry for folks who swear it off completely. I think they are missing out on observing and engaging with the real human heart that we all share. The collaboration that happens via social media can be very positive and powerful!

As for the fact that my thoughts tend to me more negative "in the moment"... I'm working on changing that, and that happened long before social media was in my life. I know that I used to be a VERY positive person - so much so that I was described as "shiny happy" and people wondered why I smiled so much...  Then life happened, and it got hard to keep the smile....  I've prayed to God repeatedly about this, and I find there is a consistent theme in the information that is coming to me in these days, both via social media and via other avenues, helping me to I think get back some of my "old self" again, slowly but I hope surely. 

Today, I especially enjoyed this video: "Oprah Winfrey talks with Thich Nhat Hanh Excerpt - Powerful" https://youtu.be/NJ9UtuWfs3U. Truly folks, I think we're all similar! As the mantra states, "I suffer. I am trying my best to practice. Please help me." If you observe me saying negative thoughts, please do know that I'm working hard to try to change my behaviour through various "practices", and know it's not my desire to send those thoughts in your direction! Many of you have been supporting me in this, and for this I have deepest "gratitude" (not "darkness").

Tonight, I finished reading "The Beautiful Mystery", by Louise Penny. This book also drives home the message that as humans we are all caught between our positive and negative thoughts. With practice, we can focus on the positive more often, and "practice makes perfect", so I hear!

Share how you keep positive, especially during face-to-face conversation. I'm interested in more ways to "practice" doing that!

The "present moments" are getting easier to manage every day. Looking forward to heading "back to work" on November 13th!

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If life makes you a "basket case"...

I'm sleeping a LOT, and today is also a rest day for my Piyo program, so thought I'd use what's recently been my daily workout time to share what I experienced yesterday, as I do have many wonderful family and friends reaching out and wondering how I'm doing...

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you already know that the winds of life have been blowing lots of waves in my direction (https://isitaspergerssyn.blogspot.com/2018/09/riding-waves-of-life.html). Recognizing this, I booked myself a week of vacation last week, with goal of just relaxing and cleaning up my office room, where a family situation meant I suddenly needed to dump a bunch of clutter back in August (https://isitaspergerssyn.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-house-rules.html) that has been weighing on my mind since.

As I've been inclined to say lately, it seems God had other plans last week.

Someone wise, years ago, once said to me that we all live "many lives" at once. We live our work life, family life, volunteer life, church life, etc. Sometimes, it can feel like we are living too many lives at once, though we love all of our lives. Those words could not have been more true last week. The biggest wave in my "family life" crested last week, and so this week I've been on medical leave under doctor's orders to rest so I can get my blood pressure back in check. Not easy for someone with "many lives" in progress to do!

Still, I have managed to do a lot of resting. My goals of last week were not really met. That is quite evident by the state of my office room and dining room table.

 

I started to make progress last week in clearing clutter, by giving away a boxspring that was sucking up lots of space, and by taking bags and boxes of paper stuff from the pile and making portfolios for each of my kids. Portfolios are binders displaying achievement certificates earned, as might be helpful toward getting jobs someday. Proud to say my kids have a LOT of these! I threw away two full garbage bags of paper last week as well though, and now have largely been stalled all this week in trying to finish clearing the paper piles on the table and then moving to sort the rest of the boxes. At least now each of my kids has a portfolio started, covering about the last 10 of 18 years, so that's a start!

If you are a new parent, hear me on this..  Do NOT pile your kids papers in bags and boxes. Deal with them AS THEY COME IN, so you do not end up with this mess to clean later! You're welcome :-)

I managed to clear the table enough yesterday to give space for a visitor. I enjoyed my first "pastoral visit" in my home. I am grateful for this, as we "talked out" various things that have been bothering me for a while. Being the kind person he is, my minister has offered this many times, but I've always felt sort of odd about taking him up on his offer. Stepped out of my comfort zone here, and finally "let him in" to talk. Again the life lesson of "stepping out of your comfort zone" bringing benefits comes up! The "old ways" of going to your minister for support really do make sense :-) Up to now, I had being doing quite a lot of this with my minister via email, and I thank him for that, but that was getting exhausting for both of us (though he never complained). I think this different approach will be better going forward!

More good news is that, after a wave crests, the wave also tends to crash down and subside completely. That is where we are now. The wave from my "family life" has crashed, and so I'm able to rest and eventually will meet that goal of cleaning my office space and returning to my "work life" as I had intended to last week. I'm optimistic that I will be ready by next Monday, after another week of rest, that I will go back to work and then also get the house in order again. (Better if I can do that in reverse order, but I think I'd need more time off for that.)

It's often said that a good way to address mental health issues is through art, so I decided to go to our monthly Women's Institute meeting last night. The activity was much more difficult than I expected, but now I have great appreciation for what people used to go through to prepare to gather food - and still do go through in some parts of the world - glad I don't live there! Much like everything else in life that is challenging though, if you persevere, it may turn out a little "rough around the edges", but there is usually something good at the end, too!

If life makes you a "basket case", try making a basket!

(No, Nollie, you will not fit inside this one.)

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Courage?

On Friday, I made a big decision, or rather I would like to think God made it for me. A friend responded by saying I have courage, but there was no courage in those moments, unless you count fact I did not run out the door.

I went for a check-up and ended up in one of my "out of control" crying states. She prescribed medical leave from work, and I decided to "take the prescription"... Likely should have done so long before now.

This post just came up that I relate very well to:
https://www.goalcast.com/2018/01/16/power-reframing-use-depression-improve-life/

I am diagnosed, not with depression, but with anxiety disorder.

Definitely "a part of me" and, since so many around the world know (had a few cries in Manila, too), I have decided no point hiding it. As I started out saying, I  probably would have kept hiding, but God had other ideas I guess, as I have lost count of the number of times I have ended up crying in public <3

Now on medical leave, I am doing a lot of "reframing" ... Helps to know I am not the only person of the nearly 7.7 billion out there going through this. Deeply saddens me that this year alone I have known two people who could not cope and ended their lives over this. I will not become part of that statistic, and it is my deepest hope no one else will either!

At time of sharing his thoughts in "The Book of Joy" a few years ago, the Dalai Lama talked a lot about us being part of 6 billion people suffering in this world... This world really is growing very quickly, and the more I talk to people the more I realize what I am going through is common!

"Tough titmouse!" was the line on "The Good Doctor" last night. Trying to have a sense of humour about this!

"We all bleed the same. We're more beautiful when we come together." also comes to mind. https://www.goalcast.com/2018/01/16/power-reframing-use-depression-improve-life/

Let's "end the stigma" now. Keep talking.

"Make Me a Channel of Your Peace" https://g.co/kgs/VVYoEB

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Riding the Waves of Life

It is 2 am on Sunday morning, September 23, 2018, and I am sitting in the Halifax airport at the end of a two week trip to Manila, Philippines, grateful that I attended a DXC Technology Buildathon. In Manila, it is about 1 pm on Sunday, so I am strangely awake as I wait for the bus to arrive to take me home. Seems like a good time to write!

On August 28th, I shared in Facebook that I had spent some time in the wee hours of the morning scribbling notes with some ideas for a blog post. I didn't expect it would take me so long to actually write this post. Time sure has gone fast since then!

I've dug out those scribbles and had a good chuckle just now with myself, because the notes I scribbled on August 28th are actually indecipherable now... They are destined for the recycle bin. However, the key point from that morning is still clear in my mind. I had reflected about something I had heard various times in my past, but that really I had not fully grasped until that moment on August 28th, and I think that realization has led me to a much better mental state, so wish to share in case this helps someone else as well.

The key reflection was that thoughts seem to lead to actions, and those actions put me in a state where my emotions are stronger and more difficult to regulate, but if I work through those actions then that seems to lead to new beliefs where my emotional state becomes more controlled and positive again. With each thought in life, I think a "wave" of emotion seems to occur, and so the key to life seems to be to "ride the waves" that come with thoughts. Ultimately, after thoughts occur, through taking actions with focus on practicing virtues, by practicing patience, persistence, and love, to name a few of those virtues, even the strongest states of negative emotion eventually seem to settle down, leading to new states of being that tend to be quite wonderful, where my beliefs are much more positive. When many such thoughts all occur at once, life can feel like there are too many waves to cope, but it's important to remember that even the stormiest moments in the ocean eventually are followed by times when the waves settle down and there is calm again.

Sadly, I reflect that not everyone is able to "ride those waves"... All too often, people reach states where they cannot cope with the crests of too many waves at once, and so instead of having their thoughts lead to actions that eventually lead to new and positive beliefs, those people end up in a state where their beliefs include the idea that life is not worth living anymore. Too often, this happens with people we know and love, and we do not even know it's happening until it's too late. In fact, this happened to an extended family member just a few short weeks ago, as I was leaving to attend Buildathon, and so I have been reflecting on this quite a lot in the past few weeks. Whenever such events happen, I sadly also think of famous people that I admired, like Robin Williams or Whitney Houston, or the boy my son's age who took his life earlier this year, who clearly struggled to "ride the waves" as well. 

Perhaps you have felt like this, too? In early August, it scares me now a bit to think I was close to this state myself. Since then, I feel grateful that the actions that occurred led me to a better state of belief though, where my faith has grown and my outlook on life has improved greatly. Conversations have led me to realize as well, life often makes people feel that way... Often, as humans we are put into situations where those waves of life can put us into negative states of belief, and when many such waves occur simultaneously it can be very difficult to cope. On the other hand, those waves of life can lead to some pretty amazing outcomes as well!

To illustrate, now I'll share some of the "waves" of thoughts, actions and new beliefs from Buildathon. As I tell this story, perhaps you can visualize all the waves that happened at once, and just how "rocky" the experience became.  

In early August, I received a message indicating I should get ready to attend Buildathon. At that time, I knew little about what a Buildathon was, so I confess I had a belief that sending me to participate in one with such short notice was not going to be worthwhile. Still, I try to approach life with thoughts that my boss perhaps knows better than I do, and so I chose to take actions to try to achieve positive results even when my beliefs were not aligned in that direction. Even though I was not really clear about what we were going to do at the event, I took actions to get ready to go by doing things like booking flights and hotel and getting vaccinations, and participated in meetings where I did my best to understand what I was meant to do at the event. I had thoughts that if I took actions to get ready as requested, then ultimately something good would come from the experience. I really had little idea about what I was getting myself into!  

As I experienced this "getting ready" wave, I was home, so there were personal waves happening as well... This was when I had the thought that I wanted to have some fun, so I took actions to organize and host a family and friends potluck, and that led to belief that indeed we did have some fun. This was when I had the thought that I would help a girl by taking action to allow her to live with us for a while to get back on her feet, and that led to belief that indeed she did get back on her feet as now she is living on her own. This was when I had thought that I would try publicly praying for a cousin who is seriously ill, in hopes this would help him, and I believe now he is doing a bit better as a result of that action. Even before the trip to Buildathon, it seemed like there were "many waves to ride", to point I had serious insomnia before even leaving for the event, so it was hard to believe back then that the event would turn out in the positive way it actually did.

I reflect now that we experienced many waves at Buildathon as well. The event brought together several small teams of people, all kicked off with thoughts about what should be achieved by each team. Each team was expected to learn about Platform DXC and then apply what we learned to achieve some results. Without really understanding Platform DXC, we were directed by architects that we should try to apply what we would learn in order to improve our way of working and develop new solutions that they designed to support DXC Workplace Device Services offering delivery. Belief when we began was that we probably could not achieve much in just two weeks. What I reflect now is really cool is that ultimately the waves at Buildathon became full of turmoil, but also we developed a LOT of new automation by leveraging what Platform DXC has to offer. This automation is getting us started on a path where we can develop, test and deliver our solutions much faster than before, and this automation is also going to transform the end-user experience with our offering in amazing ways as well. Ultimately, the waves have settled down and our beliefs have changed. At the end of this experience, everyone expressed strong feelings of gratitude, despite the intensely "rocky seas" we experienced in the middle of the event! During this event, some people even experienced what I would describe as "near death" experiences... two people were hospitalized and we feared for their lives, and we all got quite worried for a while as a "super typhoon" was in the forecast and eventually passed us by. What is awesome look back is that we all "rode the waves" together, and the results led to belief that we really are "thriving on change" in DXC Technology (as our CEO often says). I believe the changes we are making now at work as we apply what we learned at Buildathon are going to make a dramatic, positive difference in the world as we go forward, and that is very exciting! New waves will continue to form, and eventually those too will calm down.

Hope you are able to "ride the waves" of life, too! When you feel like you may not be able to, please know that you are not alone, and consider reflecting on this story, as I sincerely hope this will help you get to the calm at the end of each storm!

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God bless you all!