Dandelions and Eternity…

It’s that time of year when dandelion clocks are everywhere. It always reminds me of being a child and being told by my Dad that you tell the time by blowing on them, and the number of puffs can be associated as the time of day.

However, now many years later, I have grown to appreciate them in nature. Any bloom whether wildflower or weed can be perfectly set dependent on the environment. Just like us. And I’m not going to lie – every now and then I still pick one ‘to tell the time’.

But the thing that caught my train of thought was the simple fragility of them. Whilst designed by nature to disintegrate in wind, they can equally be stripped bare by the interaction and intention of those around them.

This got me thinking about how we can be fragile at various times in our lives. Whilst we can remain beautiful/normal on the outside, we can be more fragile than we would first appear. This too must be considered when we are in the company of others – either physically or virtually. For just like the dandelion clock, we have the ability to be broken down by those around us. Yet, unlike the fragile dandelion clock, we can develop coping mechanisms to not let this happen. Well, not if we really don’t want it to.

This then got me thinking about the difficulty of being in a situation where we allow ourselves to be broken down. Knowing that it is not what we want, need, or desire. Yet we allow it to happen, for whatever reason we give ourselves at the time.

This can be in our personal or professional lives.

It then seemed coincidental that Radiohead came on my playlist with their song ‘Just’. The lyrics fitted perfectly with the thought process that has been leading to this weeks blog.

You do it to yourself, you do

And that’s what really hurts

Is that you do it to yourself, just you

You and no one else….

Whilst we can see that this is indeed so very true at times, what we must remember is that the rest of your life is too short to be fragile, and especially at the hands of others.

Tomorrow begins today…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Sounds Like Chaos…

Never underestimate the power of your vocal image.

It may sound weird, because it’s audible rather than visual, but it is more powerful than you may give it credit for. The reason being if someone hears your voice before seeing you, there will automatically be a picturing of what you are like. Just from the tone, accent, annunciation etc.

Depending where we are from, we will have an accent. Not necessarily obvious to ourselves, but when you go somewhere else, it will definitely show. Being from a geographically small country like Northern Ireland, it always amazes me the variations in accents, and in very short distances too. My hometown of Antrim is a prime example of a ‘non-accent’ in terms of the Northern Irish. This is due to an influx of workers to the town in the 1960’s coming from all over Northern Ireland to work in a new yarn production factory ‘British Enkalon’. A Dutch firm who were responsible for the overwhelming growth of the town, as workers came from all over to secure well paid jobs in the factory. This lead to a melting pot of accents and essentially the Antrim ‘accent’ isn’t really an ‘accent’ at all.

However, since moving to England, I stand out as Northern Irish. I’m softly spoken and tend to speak fairly quickly, so I am aware at times when I have to annunciate more, or think of how I say certain words.

One thing that I have maintained is I don’t raise my voice. I have always been a firm believer in when you have an audience who want to listen – they will. If you have to shout to be heard, you’re not being heard.

That said, it is still quite easy to be heard without having to raise your voice. Remember when I said at the start about tone?

Never be afraid to speak out. Never be afraid to say what you need to say. It may feel uncomfortable and it may be hard to do, especially if you kid yourself into thinking that “perhaps I’ll just say nothing”. Don’t ever allow those feelings to take over the desire to say what you need to.

I also am aware that I don’t say a lot, well at times anyway. My reasoning is you can be heard as well in 20 words as you can in 200. The exception to this is story telling; painting a picture with your words.

Our voice is merely the chaos of our minds, reborn as perfection…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Don’t Lose Your Head…

Don’t lose your head, even when the world and everyone around you are losing theirs. When we can do this we can reason with what is going on. We don’t have to like it and we don’t have to be happy about it, but when we can reason it, then we are best placed to deal with it.

I know it can be incredibly hard to do, based on the environment or the circumstances, but the chance to face any given situation with a sense of clarity will make it easier. It is essential when we are going through change; either in our personal or professional lives. This has been mapped out by the Kübler-Ross Change Curve where by default human nature experiences:

Shock

Denial

Frustration/Anger

Depression

Engagement

Decision

Integration

All of which are navigatable with a level head.

In life, for many we get too old too soon, and too wise too late.

The ability to ‘keep your head’ can most definitely help. Though maybe not with the aging, but most definitely with wisdom. We develop a sixth sense to carry ourselves with a quiet dignity. It may be hard to do, and something times it may be more taxing than others, but bringing a calmness to your body, induces calmness to the mind. A calm mind will take you further than you ever thought possible.

No matter what you are faced with today, don’t lose your head. Make every day like today and you will see a change. Rationale, patience, logic, clarity, strength and empowerment – they’re all a by product…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Lapping The Sofa…

Throughout our lives there will be times where we try. Where we try to do something we haven’t done before, or we try to keep doing something we’ve been working on, but progress is slower than we anticipated.

It’s a bit like seeing someone exercising when they may be out of shape, or bigger than anyone else at the gym. But the truth is they are already lapping everyone sat on the sofa.

Everything we do in life starts with us trying. It might be easy, it might be difficult, it might be seemingly impossible at the first attempt, but try we must.

When we try, we are already a million miles ahead of everyone who doesn’t.

Those who say it can’t be done, should not interrupt those who are trying…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Beauty In The Broken…

Every now and then we all can feel a little bit broken. For many different reasons, and with the reasons varying in just impactful they are. What can feel like it may break us, could be manageable to someone else, and vice-versa. The thing is, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, not really. Our challenges are ours, we may be helped, guided or comforted by others along the way but ultimately it’s still ours.

We all have different coping mechanisms. We all have different ways of processing, adapting, overcoming or accepting. No matter how broken we feel.

For those times when we feel that we just don’t seem to be winning, it’s always worth remembering that a winner is just a loser that tried one more time. There is no shame in how ever many times you lose along the way, the important bit is not letting a loss stop you from wanting to keep trying.

Yesterday I saw something that inspired me, in an unusual kind of way. I saw a flower, a daffodil to be precise, that had a broken stem and appeared to be cast aside on a pathway. But the thing is it still had a sense of beauty. Once you look past the broken bits, it’s still got natural beauty. Well, for those that are prepared to look.

The same applies for you and me. When we are broken we can still be beautiful – through the right eyes. Those that see it are truly special. So never be afraid to be yourself. No matter how broken you may feel.

Keep being you, and always more you.

There is beauty in the broken…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Week Full Of Weekends…

So, today is Good Friday. It’s a time when spring should have definitely ‘sprung’ and we start to long for the longer evenings and warmer weather. The reality this year is a little different. Having spent over 3hrs to drive to the office in Llantrisant in South Wales on Wednesday, the torrential rain, sleet and bitter wind was indicative of anything but springtime. Even last night sat at home it was cold and rainy.

Spring has yet to grace us with its presence.

Or has it?

The truth is, if you go for a walk outside you will see the tell tale signs of spring. The daffodils, the crocus’s, the snow drops and even the tulips. All bringing with them a sense of splendour and of new hope.

I love to see the spring flowers. It’s like nature’s promise that the dark days are passing once more into the abyss of the yesteryear. I guess the best way to look at this is, if you only ever look behind yourself you are only ever going to see shadows, but why linger in shadows when you can walk free of them?

You cannot just look forward to what you want, if you cannot take time out to focus on the present?

The present ain’t a bad place to be – beautiful, brighter than you credit it for and most important of all, it’s full of character, vibrancy and conversations yet to be had. Treat each morning like spring. Know that there is beauty emerging all around you, and take the time to appreciate what you see. Especially when you look in the mirror.

Let’s change it up a bit; today is Good Happy Damn Friday.

Live your life like a week full of weekends…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Still Burning…

There’s a fire inside all of us. Sometimes it burns brighter than others, and that’s ok. Sometimes it can be raging like a forest fire, whilst at times it may seem no more than the 5am embers of the fire that burned bright before.

We need to learn what fuels our fire. What makes us burn brighter than the sun, and in contrast what brings it down to nothing more than a flicker. Understanding this might seem easy to comprehend, but the reality is there will be times when the fluctuation of the flame can be confusing in itself.

Not everything we do will fan our inner fire, similarity not everything we do will quench it.

Our interactions with others can be positive and adverse. To think they will always be positive is naive. But as we grow, we get better at spotting those who only bring an adversity to happiness into our lives. Either through their words, their actions and sometimes even just their physical presence.

We all have the capacity to burn bright. Nothing should stop you from wanting to illuminate the world with your inner flame. Even if you only want to illuminate a little bit at a time. The important bit is that you develop enough self confidence and awareness that you know you deserve to blaze the way, leaving the glow of your greatness behind on everything and everyone along the way.

It is possible that you will have an impact on others without even realising just how much you have. Hell, it’s even possible you will not even be aware of having an impact at all if you carry yourself with the humility and grace that sets you aside. The impact you have is the fuel in the fires of others.

Let your fire set theirs soaring. Let them see just how bright and hot and ferocious it can be. Let the world see you’re burning bright. Irrespective of what may be put there to dampen your flames, let the world know you’re still burning.

Don’t let your pilot light fade…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

What Was The Question…?

If you could know the absolute truth to one question, what would it be and why?

Think about it, throughout life we all have questions. Questions we ask of ourselves and of others, but most of them change as we journey through life. As we grow and as our experiences differ, our perceptions change and as such our questions change.

I am sure that the question a 20yr old would ask will be very different from that of a 50yr old. Both ages have a potentially long life ahead of them, so there are a myriad of possibilities. But the maturity of life experience will differ in our approach to the quest for answers.

Sometimes we can, and do accept flippant answers. We may even feel like we are getting brushed off with being told what we want to hear. But when you want to know something, then intrinsically it will drive you in the search for the answer. Or at least it should do.

The other thing you will find as your years advance, is that answers become more meaningful, in that you get better at deciphering quality over quantity. Your acceptance of either should be something you take responsibility for, and take consideration and council from yourself in the gravity you place on how it affects you. Because affect you it will. Maybe not every answer you are given, but some. Some will hit you harder than others.

This is a good thing. Even if it doesn’t seem so at the time. This brings clarity as your journey progresses.

I know I regularly write about being honest to ourselves. This honesty extends to the way we question, and to the way we acknowledge the answers.

Question everything. Never feel comfortable in just accepting.

Go on, what was that question…?

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

Drug of Choice…

I am pretty sure many of us will encounter people at some point in our lives who have a problem that they’d rather not deal with. Most likely there is a denial, and non-acceptance that leads to an almost disbelief that they have a problem at all.

Now, I know we all have our problems. We all have things that we deal with day to day, week by week and we continue to push on to the very best of our abilities. But this is not about dealing with, trying to deal with, or even acknowledging. This is about the outward denial and the inward ostrich – the burying your head in the misguided belief that it will just ‘go away’.

The most common type is through addiction. Most commonly alcoholism, substance abuse, medication or perhaps even gambling. But it is something that will bring an individual down to a shadow of their former self, and one that they will not believe is them; well not outwardly anyway.

I know it can be hard to ask for help, and it would be foolish to think it is as easy and straight forward as that. But the honesty of acceptance is the start. Forget about denial and forget about trying to be the ostrich. Once someone can get past that, and only when they really are honest with themselves before anyone else, then will they enable the facilitation of change. The allowance of betterment, because no matter how bad an addiction is, addressing it through the first stage of accepting responsibility for one’s own actions can bring betterment.

The first step will always be the toughest, because it’s the one that needs total honesty. Everyone who has ever addressed an addiction has been one step closer to beating it. No one who has been the ostrich has ever got their real self back.

Never be afraid to be honest with yourself, to start with it is between you and yourself. Nobody else, not until you’re ready. Then it becomes the moment where help becomes a reality, and the journey starts to gain momentum at whatever pace is required. But it’s a start. Everything needs a start. Addictions need the start of acceptance to enable a stop. But be gentle, as it’s a vulnerability that will never have been felt before. It’s laying yourself bare to yourself.

Until someone acknowledges they have a problem, they will always be the embodiment of the problem…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com

It’s a Pluvio Thing…

ast night before going to bed I was sitting on my sofa, listening to the rain battering off the conservatory on my house. I love this.

For me the sound of heavy rain allows me to almost reset my busy mind. It’s therapeutic listening to the hypnotic patterns as it hits the glass. Like a thousand distant drummers playing a march. The waves of rain almost creates an inland repetition of waves crashing on the shore. Almost.

But the rains white noise also brings me clarity as well as peacefulness.

There are few other things that have the same effect. The technical term for someone who loves the sound of the rain is a ‘Pluviophile’. Pluvio comes from the Latin word ‘Pluviālis’, which basically means ’Rainy’.

You could joke that being Northern Irish, we are all born to be Pluviophiles, whether we want to or not. I fondly remember when growing up, my parents had a static caravan in a holiday park on the north coast of Northern Ireland. With the weather being largely unpredictable, there was always a good chance you could be laying in a bunk bed listening to heavy rain rattling off the aluminium shell like machine gun fire, only louder – and wetter.

Being in the rain is also wonderfully cleansing for the mind, body and soul. This morning I have been walking my dog in the rain. She loves it, well as long as she’s got her ball to play with. For me, I have one of those long waterproof coats that you will see people wear at the beach. It is most definitely one of the best purchases I’ve made because I have always believed that there’s no such thing as bad weather – only bad gear. Now I can be outside in torrential rain, yet dry and allowing it to wash away the stresses of the day/week.

Don’t underestimate the power of the rain and just how much it can cleanse your mind. It’s a gift from nature that nourishes the earth as well as your mental health.

So here’s to splashing through puddles and finding the joy of releasing your inner Pluviophile…

Happy Damn Friday! x

I’d love to hear from you – you can reach me on:

@happydamnfriday on Twitter

happydamnfriday@outlook.com