concrete

You’re not in a storm, you’re in transition.

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

When you feel weighed down by life, it can often feel like you’re stuck in a bad weather. You ‘baton down the hatches’ (I shut the door?), you hibernate until it’s over and at times you moan about the heat of summer and how you miss it. If you live in the UK then a very British culture trend is to discuss the weather in great detail with everyone you meet. “Did you have that storm last night’ you say to the Lady at the bus stop…the bus stop that’s around the corner from where you live. She replies “it was horrendous” she then extends with tales of garden pots crashing to the ground, how she can’t hang her washings and that the trampoline from next door nearly took off…it didnt, but that’s what she tells you.

You can actually make the ‘stories of the storm’ last for a while, my friendship group still discuss the Storm of 1987 whenever the ‘S’ word appears, its the mecca of all storms in my lifetime and every storm / hurricane in the UK has been compared to it ever since. It was a good storm, if such a thing can exist….

Of course it can exist. Storms rock natures, remove weak trees, turn the earth over, add decomposing elements and allow for new growth to thrive. It humans a metaphorical storm is an occasion where we sit in our negative pattern like concert. We wallow in our story…in concrete. We can’t grow in concrete, we can’t thrive, we just sit and think about how bad we have it.

All Storms have to end, in fact all weather systems are temporary….the sun goes down, the clouds fill with water, the rain falls… it moves, it flows and even storms, thunder, lightning and hurricanes ‘blow over’. As do peoples ‘storm like’ situations. The problem is if we are so invested in being negative, we can’t see the moments of sunlight that inevitable pass. Instead we wallow in our negative patterns and perpetuate the situation.

While life isn’t all rainbows and at time certainly many of us will need to seek external support to lift ourselves up from our dark skies…it’s possible….it happens in small transitions and I am proud to say that I’ve seen so many people find glimmers of light, sometimes the heavy clouds return but just like our weather – its often temporary, its often made up of many elements, and its just another transition in the weather map of our lives.

If you or someone to love needs to seek professional support, this UK site gives you the A-Z of charities and organisations that are trained specifically in taking down storms and throwing out lights. Much love to you on your journey.

Getting up and moving forward is a choice

~ Fridgesays ~ 4 Comments

Quote from Zig Ziglar

I recently listened to a podcast with Tim Storey as a guest and he made a point that I wanted to share.

Life inevitably brings joy and also hardship, but so many people when they hit a set back – take a step back. Worse still Tim went on to describe that they lose their direction and in worst cases concrete themselves in the moment. That means they can’t get out of that moment. Wise words Tim.

A moment is just that, a small amount of time. If you concrete yourself and become the issue you can’t move forward…you can’t move at all, you can’t fulfil your purpose and you become the concrete.

This terrifies me. I see so many young people that by eleven years old have already concreted their life. They can’t do this or that because of a medical condition, parents limit them in what they perceive is an act of love, but it’s so often rooted in fear. “I don’t think she would want to do that because her anxiety is so bad”….well let’s take a moment to break the task down, to inspire her, to change our vocabulary to tell her that she CAN – don’t concrete her in anxiety.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting we don’t have boundaries and say no to things. Used well ‘No’ can be an amazing tool. I’m also not suggesting that I don’t concrete myself from time to time, that I don’t project my fears on those I love in a moment of thoughtlessness…but we don’t need to stay forever in the concrete. We can hammer out, we can make a CHOICE and we can move forward. I’m going to focus over the next few weeks at watching my thoughts and words to prevent the concrete from being mixed. So what’s your next move or is your concrete too thick to make a choice?