Just get on with it!

Posted on by estlh

I am starting to realise more and more, that I am my own worst enemy. I have had issues with self confidence/ self doubt for most of my life, but i am only now realising how much I have allowed these to control and restrict me. For a long time I was confused with confidence. I felt almost guilty if I thought I was good at something, as though I thought it was not up to me to decide what I was good at – I had to wait until somebody else told me I had done something well or that they liked something I had written or created, and even then I would be coy and dismissive of compliments. I thought I was being humble, but this is not humility. I have a book on my bookshelf entitled ‘A Humble Confidence’. Although it is years since I read the book, it has taken until now for me to really grasp what it says, and to truely understand it. A humble confidence might initially sound like a contradiction, but in truth it is what we all need. Humility is not false modesty. It is not being self-effacing, or self-doubting. To be truely humble means to have a realistic appreciation, not just of your weaknesses, but also your great strengths. This allows us to use our gifts and talents in amazing ways, but also to step aside and let someone else to the fore when they are better suited to what is required. It enables us to do this without feeling we are in any way lacking or failing. We are all unique. We are all gifted are competent in different areas. We can all do incredible things, if we just get on with it!

I have put it off too long. 
 Allowed myself to be shackled by a lack of self belief.
 But if this is what I want then I must step out
 Take the risk and expose myself
 To the possibility of ridicule as well as the possibility of success.
 Yet these bounds are tight and as I strain against them i entangle myself
 It is too easy to give up, to just stop struggling against
 These constraints of my own creation.
 But only I can bring them down.
 I alone have the power to crumple and destroy them
 If I am not too afraid to use it.

Coffee & Conversation

Posted on by estlh

Today I am meeting my son for coffee for the first time. I mean, we’ve been out to coffee shops and the like before as a family, but today I am sitting in one of a national chain of coffee shops waiting for him to make his own way here from school. (Tram and a short walk). My son is 13. He is much like many 13 year old boys I imagine i.e. has to be surgically removed from his phone and thinks playing on the X-box is a daily right. Lately it seemed to me that we weren’t really talking too much. Except at bedtime. Bedtime is when he tells me a bit about his day, when he asks me questions about when I was his age, and when he sometimes asks some very deep philosophical questions. The problem is I am always conscious that it is bedtime, that this is the time he should be going to sleep, so I often find myself cutting the conversation short, because I know if I don’t watch out I will be chatting with him into the wee small hours. He is also master of the Bedtime question; “Mu-um,” he asked once, just as I was turning to leave the room “What’s the Patriachy?” How could I just say goodnight and walk away?
So I asked him if he would meet me for coffee after school, in the understanding that neither of us would get out our phones. Instead I am looking forward to an engaging conversation with my favourite teenager. An intelligent, funny, all round amazing wee man, that I am hugely proud of, and love overwhelmingly.

I wrote this for him just as he was starting high school

Time will march on
Though I wish that it would not.
However I implore them to cease
The hours do not heed me.
I could as likely turn the tide
As stop the hands of time.
But still I would cling to what is
Ignoring the promise of what is to come.
How long can I deceive myself?
If I do not let go all will be prised painfully
From my unyielding grasp.

Change is uncomfortable;
The familiar is dependable.
So please forgive me if I cling a little too tight
For a little too long.
I am learning;
Learning how to love with equal strength yet looser grip.
It feels unnatural
And at first I am uncertain.
Yet as time will march on
I must allow you the space
To try your wings.

Just know this -
I will always catch you when you fall,
And all too soon you will learn to soar
While I gaze pride-fully heavenward.
For now, be patient with me
And just know how very loved you are

How is it?

Posted on by estlh

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately, is how it is possible for people who seem so similar to have such widely different opinions. Friends and colleagues who I have assumed were like-minded, say or do something that makes me stop and go ‘wait . . . what?’. I have been guilty of assuming that because I have something in common with someone that we think the same about everything, but this is just not true. I live life viewing it through the lens of my personal experiences, my up-bringing, my education. Even today is colouring tomorrow. When I look around me I see such divisions in our society, and rather than have civilised debate people throw insults and abuse, and do not even try to understand each other. It is hard when discussing emotive issues to remember that none of us can see the whole picture, and what I can see may bear no resemblance to what the person beside me sees. I may argue that everything is blue and that they’re stupid to believe that everything is green, when in truth if I took the time to look I would realise that while i am gazing at the sky their head is bent and they are staring at the grass. So, with this in my mind I wrote a poem.

How is it as we look on this, I do not see as you
How is it as we look on this, we see a different true
Why is it when our hearts are moved we do not feel the same
Why is it when we rage at this we disagree on blame

Why is it when we look on this hearts breaking at the wrong,
that even as we rail at this we do not get along
We see guilt spring from different roots  and do not understand
That if we are to change this, it must be hand in hand.

Is it then, when we look on this and feel a different rage
the stories of our lives are written on a different page
I do not see as one whose life has not been lived as mine
You do not see through eyes like mine however I opine

Why is it as we look on this I cannot see as you?
Why is it as we look on this, I crave a different true.

Why am I writing a blog?

Posted on by estlh

I have always written. Stories, poems, musings. It is one of the ways I make sense of life and sort through my jumble of thoughts and emotions. I love language and and I love words – the myriad ways they can be used to capture a moment, a feeling. But my passion is poetry. Through poetry I can express myself in ways that hopefully others can understand; I can use the detachment of the written word to articulate what I would otherwise be to embarrassed, or tongue-tied to say face to face. So there will be poetry on this blog, as well as short stories and my general musings on faith, mental health and everyday life, as I understand it.