Have you ever experienced PEACE? (A story about another’s faith)

The first time I heard the phrase “the peace that passes all understanding” I was sitting at the one end of a fabulous lunch table, casually popping a chunk of ice into my glass of Chardonnay. I had just lost my mom and someone asked me how I was coping.

 

Taking a big gulp of wine, I tried to explain to her that although I was utterly distraught about the void she had left with her sudden departure, I had this incredible sense of CALM that had come over me.  “At first I put it down to shock. You know? A kind of inertia that my BODY had gifted to me in order to cope with the loss. Isn’t the BODY amazing like that?” I said with a genuine appreciation for the hormones that I believed had carried me to that place of peace.

 

“That’s the holy spirit” she replied matter of factly as she slowly dipped her piece of bread into a mixture of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. “I guarantee you, that is ONLY the holy spirit who can do that!” 

 

Now, as the beneficiary of a lovely Catholic convent education (With a tonn of experience of telling fibs inside the Confessional. Judge not!), one would think that I would have been quick with something rather Bible-ly to say to her in return. Alas not.

 

The only thing I could manage was “I am so grateful!”

 

And truthfully, I still am.  Grateful for the wine, grateful for the peace, grateful for being in the presence of someone with such unwavering conviction.  God knows, that’s the kind of faith that moves mountains.

 

© Aluta continua, as they say.  A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Whilst we don’t know the origin of the pics used, all respect and due credit are hereby given where appropriate. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and A Heart Full of Stories with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All media rights and copyright for the words reserved.

The Front Row II (A short reflection on CHANGE)

With another birthday approaching, I am naturally reflecting on all things CHANGE (and no, I am not only talking about the spread in the middle)

 

It always fascinates me how deciding who gets a front row seat in the movie that is our lives isn’t exactly as simple as ordering a large popcorn and Slush Puppie.

Friends change, lovers drift, egos inflate, eyes open, lust rattles, death knocks, jobs morph, travel calls, masks drop, strategies shift, needs flip, kids drift, hearts evolve. You know, life happens?

While we are certain that CHANGE is the law of the universe (with seasons changing, leaves falling, blossoms springing effortlessly before our very eyes) I have often wondered why we find it so difficult to just “flow” with these changes especially as they affect key relationships.

 

Then it hit me : We are uneasy with movement, with change itself.

 

The old moulds are more warm and familar than a onesie, clouded in words like “loyalty” and “history”. Deciding to actively drop leaves, sprout flowers and reassign those name tags on the prime VIP spots in our life, ruffling feathers and inviting scrutiny challenges our comfy paradigms. Crap ain’t easy.

But it must be done.

So, as I mascara another grey hair this morning and try not to overthink my Kombucha ambitions, do allow me to send you my best good vibes as you contemplate your own selections.  

• If you have to increase or decrease the number of seats, make that call.
• If you are blessed that no rearrangement is necessary, scream “thank you!”; such blessing is never to be taken lightly.

…BUT yes, that seating chart needs to be issued. (Or else some random weeds will fill those vacant spots and then your garden will really be sad).

Go on…Today is a good day to think about that front row again.  Aluta continua, as they say.

#gratitude #reflections #alutacontinua

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2017.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Whilst we don’t know the origin of the pic above, all respect and due credit are hereby given where appropriate. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and A Heart Full of Stories with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All media rights and copyright for the words reserved.

 

Is THIS it? (A reflection on why the h#ck we are here)

Why am I here?

What is my purpose?

Why do I feel like something is missing?

How can I be happy? 

Is THIS it?

 

Yes, I know it’s only Monday morning but surely you also ask yourself these very questions too. We all do!

 

And I bet you’ve dipped in and out of books, religion, dark incense clouded rooms and travel in a quest to closer to the “answers”. We all have!

 

But here’s the thing,

…We are all here at THIS very time in THIS very place TOGETHER and we are here for an EXPERIENCE.

 

The experience of goosebumps.

The experience of being warmed by fire.

The experience of learning.

The experience of synergy, alchemy, mystery, magic, “God”.

The experience of blooming, ageing.

The experience of vitality, abundance, creativity.

The experience of whispers and loud bangs.

The experience of chemistry and connection.

The experience of rain, pain and sunset.

The experience of recognition, resonance, mastery, reward, acknowledgement.

The experience of tasting a lemon.

 

…and even the experience of loss, illness, abandonment, tragedy, fear, resentment betrayal, loneliness and jealousy.

 

That’s the full package . 

That’s why we’re here.

And yes, to me at least, that’s IT. 

 

I figure that I may as well eassssssse into the EXPERIENCE, learn to ride the waves and flow with the current. You know? After all, none of us are getting out of here alive.

 

I reckon we may as well surrender to the journey….

 

Can YOU?

 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

 

 

 

Do you have a heart-wound after a LOSS? If so, come listen to my story….

All this talk about Mother’s Day has me feeling anxious, I must admit. My heart-wound has only just begun to form a scab and I have been taking good care of it.

 

My approach to its healing has been quite simple, actually. Like a good mother, I have looked primarily at INFECTION PREVENTION.

 

For starters, I took a conscious decision that I needed to keep the environment sterile and germ free.  And while I am under no illusiions that one cannot engineer every social environment or interpersonal encounter completely (particularly with family), I knew that it was indeed possible to focus on “access control”. So, I did.  Quite intuitively, I have been terribly circumspect about who I engage with, what I share, and how I could avoid people with energies that felt harsh to my sensitive film. The daily “disinfectant” through meditation and “fresh dressing” through prayer have helped tremendously.

 

Secondly, I focused my attention on creating a HEALING ENVIRONMENT for the heart-wound. Once more, led purely by my instinct, I began to draw on my good memories of my mother and to allow that positive energy to flow into my home, into my work and into my relationship with my own children. I have also played, laugh, rationed screen time and increased my reading time.  I began to seek out real experiences, people, food and music that made me smile.  And sure enough, the smiles came.

 

I am, of course, always mindful that with this sort of wound, research tells us that there is no prescribed time frame for healing completely. In fact, research tells us that there isn’t really a “cure” at all.  Like diabetes perhaps, one simply learns to “manage” the beast and one learns to adapt one’s lifestyle in order to lead a productive life.

 

So, adapting I am.

And it would seem that the wound is indeed closing up.

And the scab will fall off.

And all that will remain is the scar. 

 

How I will relate to the scar, is of course another story entirely, but I will tell you this honestly:  there IS always light at the end of the proverbial tunnel after a loss. Yes, even when you think your entire world has gone black forever.

 

You will one day be able to reflect on your scar and know for sure that every single day is a GIFT. (After all, no scar is able to form on that which is not alive). And like me, you will also be able to CELEBRATE not only on Mothers Day, but every single day that you are alive.

 

Aluta continua, as they say.  May you never take a day for granted.

 

 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

A Prayer Answered

If you have ever lost someone you love, you will know that it sucks the life out of you.

 

Standing at the shore, I let my heart break. The pieces fell hard and wave after wave picked up a piece and took it away. Completely centred, I stilled myself more, allowing the feelings to come and the waves to go.

 

Softly, the tears fell. Softly too, the waves came in perfect rhythm.    

 

My prayer that morning was a simple one :  I asked that the same one that made the waves, the same one that made my sad heart, would hold my mother in tenderness as she traveled back “home”. She had just passed away and the smell of her still followed me everywhere.

 

Looking back at the footprints and with the sound of the waves getting more and more faint, I realised that the prayer was not only about my mother. It was also about me. For me.  I needed her to journey well, so that I could journey well too.  My happiness was contingent on it.

 

Knowing for sure that my prayer was answered, I began to walk back to the boardwalk.  The connectedness I felt to the ocean, its rhythm and the creator of it all was not for me to try and understand in that moment. (Or perhaps ever!)

 

Instead, I bowed my head for a second in gratitude, delighted that there are undoubtedly magical moments and miracles on the most ordinary of days. Indeed when we’re silent and centered, plugging into the rhythm of the divine flow is not only necessary, it is completely instinctive. A rhythm most divine.

 

 

Ask me, I know.

 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2017

 

Aluta continua, as they say.  Allow me to wish you a million opportunities on the most ordinary of days to plug into the magic and surrender to the rhythm that sustains us all.

The Call to Rip off the Band-Aid

Hardly 24 hours after my mother died, someone walked up to me with the soul (yes soul) purpose of telling me that they were “angry” with me.

 

They felt further entitled to pour out the details, as though I had any capacity whosoever to indulge such a “sharing” at that particular moment in my life.

 

The more I reflected on that emotional ambush in the days after the funeral, the more I tried to empathise, the more I tried to see it from their perspective, the more I rationalised that death brings “complex emotions”, I realised that I was asking the impossible of myself.

 

I had to STOP! 

 

My job was to grieve.

To honour my own tears.

To sit with my own pain.

To validate my own loss.

 

Instead, I was diverted to a lower spectrum of emotions that sought to distract me. 

 

And, I indulged them. Sadly. 

 

Now that all that is in the past, my heart wants to go back there again. To that very point in my life.

 

The voice is gently asking me to lift off the Band-Aid I smacked on the emotional wound and to face what’s been festering there. 

 

And, again I will indulge. Gladly this time. 

 

You see, for me there is real therapy in dissecting the pieces, relooking the complexities with a view to disinfecting the wound in order to clear the inflammation.

 

I know, right? Whooooo volunteers to reopen their own wounds?

 

I do. And, I wish you the courage to do the same.

 

Rip off the Band-Aid! Sure it will hurt for one sick second, but once that initial rip is over, you’re on your way! Then, look at the wound, see it in all its gory complexity and then plot an enlightened way forward.

 

Hey, real healing is a great prospect and it may be just on the other side of your fear.

 

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2016

 

Aluta continua, as they say. This road is indeed still long…. (for me) but gosh am I ready!

 

 

 

 

Do YOU Over Promise and Under Deliver?

I believe in under-promising and over-delivering.

But, if truth be told, I never really feel like I am on top of my game as a parent.

There is always a sock with a hole, a teacher’s birthday I forget or a tooth fairy duty that nearly slips my mind.

As I stood at my kitchen counter, I stared at the half-eaten chicken pie that no one said thank you for. I looked around at the yoghurt smears on my curtains. I read the note in my daughter’s diary, reminding me of an outstanding indemnity form and I thought: Gosh girl!….are you sure you are qualified for this gig?

I couldn’t dwell on the thought because I needed to give my kids a bath. They had jumped into the mud, right after I told them to stay clean.  We were on our way to a dentist appointment.

I snuck in a quick photo (who doesn’t love a muddy face?) before I turned on the bath tap.  There was no water. Our cleaner reminded me that if I had read the letter on the fridge, I would have, and damn right should have, known. Boom!

It was a rough day at Mom HQ.

As I walked into the dentist with the two kids from Mudville, the nurse and I got talking straight away. She was a lovely old woman with a round back — an observation pointed out to me by Miss Mudville herself.

The old lady had lost her daughter 50 years ago. She had been standing on a pavement, minding her own business, when she was knocked by a car. She died instantly. She was just a young girl.

I asked her how she ever found the strength to live and she said “The memories! The memories are all we have in the end!”  She pulled out a small album and shared her most prized possession with me. Her pictures of special family milestones.  I saw muddy faces, spilled drinks, and grazed knees. The other thing I noticed was smiles. Smiles and kisses, hugs and laughter.

I drove home, observing the fighting and moaning coming from the back, and thought: “Of course I am qualified for this gig. The giver of life chose ME by name! Remember?”

We stopped off at the ice cream store and my daughter said, “I thought you said NO ice-cream because we are muddy?”

Now, how do you explain the under-promise and over-deliver concept to a child?…

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and http://www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Car Crash in Tunisia

We were involved in a car crash in Tunisia.  All 15 of us should have died that day.

None of us did.  And ALL of us were shocked.

The bottom line is that even though we survived the burst tyre, the bus continued to spin out control.  It hit a concrete barrier on a highway and put us in the line of another danger.  Oncoming traffic.  It was a horror movie.

We had 4 kids traveling with us.  One of the babies was nursing at her mother’s breast and those screams (and Italian swear words) from the mother still ring in my ear many years on.

Once we managed to get over the danger of the oncoming cars all going 200km/hour, the danger of fire became real.  The bus was smoking and we needed to escape.

That’s when the magic happened.  Our driver, threw off his old grey T-Shirt and changed into his superman cape.  The 60 year old dodged oncoming cars, screaming in Arabic, and ushered each one of us through 3 lanes and safely onto a grass landing.  One by one.  He was calm and gentle.  So in control.  To me, he was a hero!

What a pity, he didn’t FEEL like a hero because once he had evacuated each one of us, he sat down, lit a cigarette and he burst out crying!

Together we watched the smoke engulf the car and destroy his life.  The vehicle was not insured.  It was all he owned.  It was his life.

Once we all regained some level of sanity, we had two concerns, 1. The kids and 2. The groom.  Yes, the groom! We were on our way to his wedding and his bride was concerned with our two hour delay.  He had left his mobile phone in the car and there was no way we could retrieve it.

Today, I am grateful that I have lived to tell the story.  I am grateful for my life.  I am grateful to the 60 year old hero.

As for the wedding, it was amazing!  What a pity they didn’t serve alcohol, because God knows, Tequila mixed with Vodka would have been the real hero of that day.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content

Let your “feelings” guide you home (Sister Stephanie)

I really started to trust my “feelings” when I was about 14.

I was tucked away in a catholic convent school far away from everything I knew and loved. I learnt fast to develop a “feeling” about people.  I also learnt to trust that feeling.  It was part of my survival kit. 

The “feeling” I had about my angry room-mate was spot on.  She had undiagnosed dyslexia and her anger was really just frustration.  When they discovered her wrists covered in blood, my “feeling” was that more trouble was headed her way.

I also had a “feeling” about the nuns.  One nun in particular. Her name was Sister Stephanie.  In stark contrast to her colleagues, she was full of life!  Whilst the other nuns were obsessed with discipline, routine, suspicion and punishment, Sister Stephanie was more relaxed.  She was an avid photographer and delighted in her art.  She told me that she was not a trained photographer and that she used her intuition extensively.  I knew exactly what she meant when she said “you just learn to trust your feelings, to let them guide you”. 

I got to know her when I contracted mumps.  She nursed me and I helped her sort out her printed photos.  I could not shake the feeling that sorting the photos would change my life, and once more, it took me two days to know that my “feeling” was right.  The boy I was in love with had been spending lots of time with one of my “friends”. The photos told me everything I had not known before.

The same girl offered me some new shampoo. Thank goodness that my “feelings” warned me against using it.   It was laced with hair remover.  When I turned up at the sports day with my lovely, shiny locks in-tact, she proceeded to dream up another plan.  And, it worked.  I woke up with no eye brows!  I must admit, I did not see that coming.

You can imagine my “feelings” when more than 20 years later, I read about Sister Stephanie on the front page of the newspaper last week.  To read about murder was horrible enough. To hear that she was raped too turned my stomach!  There are no “feelings” that could adequately correspond with the words I was reading.  There are indeed no words that I could use to describe my feelings either. 

I had to dig deep.  I had to find the words to write this story.  I had to learn to let my “feelings” guide me back to the words.  And I had to let the words guide me back to my “feelings”. 

Aluta continua, friends.  That road is long (for me).

I wish you well as you listen to your feelings this week, and allow them to guide you home.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Angel

I believe in being proactive, punctual, passionate and polite. So, I placed the order for Christmas for my top 50 clients two months before I needed them. Two weeks before the gifts were due to be delivered, I saw an article in the newspaper.  The supplier had gone bust.  My deposit and my order were in liquidation hell. I needed to make another plan.  Yes, I needed to be proactive. That’s when I got a call.  The girl sounded polite. I liked that.  She also sounded passionate about her project. I liked that too. She told me her name but I didn’t register it.  The only thing I heard was that she had a coffee table book with an African influence and that a portion of the proceeds from book sales would go to charity. I saw stars! My problem was solved. My clients would surely love me forever. I quickly forgot about the stupid newspaper article. The saleslady aka my angel and I agreed that we would meet in 2 days time. She needed to pick up a sample from the printer, who was behind schedule. She emailed me to confirm our meeting.  When I saw her name, I felt so stupid!  Definitely not the “polite” princess I fancied myself.  I knew her well but I treated her like a stranger.  I planned to give her a big hug and make up for it when we met.  I also planned to tell her about her new nickname.  Angel. I had not seen her in 7 years and wondered how time would have left its mark on her.  I wondered if she had kids and if life had treated her the way she deserved. She was the sweetest thing. I arrived 15 minutes before our meeting. She was late. Angel was losing points. I tried to distract myself by surfing the net.  I was annoyed. Being “polite” was going to be hard. I went to reception to check if they had heard from her.  They had not.  I tried her mobile, there was no reply.  I reconsidered her nickname. Seriously!  My time was precious, I thought. I went back to the email to see if I had gotten the date wrong.  I had not. She did not turn up.  Just like that I looked out for an email from her.  It did not arrive.  One day, two days. Nothing from Angel. I was not happy.  I liked being punctual. I liked being proactive.  I liked being polite but I was seriously annoyed. That evening, I received a text message.  It said “The memorial service of **** will be held at…” Angel had died.  Tragically. At her funeral, her son said “My mom was an angel. My angel”.  Then he turned to his schoolmates, hundreds of young boys all dressed in their school blazers and said “….and I am so jealous of you guys, because you still have your moms.  Mine is gone”. I burst out crying.  I cried for him. I cried for me. I cried for Angel. My clients never got gifts that year.  I figured it was destiny.

© A Heart Full of Stories, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Lee-Ann Mayimele and www.aheartfullofstories.wordpress.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.