There Is a Hole in My Sidewalk: Autobiography in Five Short Chapters By Portia Nelson

Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.I am lost…I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep whole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.I still fall in…it’s a habit…but,
My eyes are openI know where I amIt is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
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Does that remind us of ourselves? So often we take the long way to learn to walk around a hole (a problem in our lives) rather than recognize a hole straight away, acknowledge there is a hole, and have the right navigation tools to walk around it the first time round.

Strengths

I just heard the son of someone I know from church committed his 3rd suicide attempt. And as I sat at the pew hearing his mum share about his life and her family, I heard a certain strength in her voice. A courage that has carried her through many, many heartaches and disappointments. Both her and her son has been subject to the same circumstances but what makes her different from her son? Partly his genetic make-up, partly his other separate and unique experiences and partly the lack of tools he has to weather tough times. Whilst his mother is able to turn to the strength of the one she believes in, Yahweh God, this poor young man felt he had no one to go to in his darkest hour. She had hope and he felt he didn't. Her notable strength from her 15 mins of sharing is her humility and faith in a higher being. I'm sure his son has strenghts he is not aware of based on the fact that he had lasted this long without ending his life.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses. How do we tap into our strengths and minimise our weakness? Are we aware of our strengths? Do we have support systems in place in our lives to weather through tough times?

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child - The Heart of Parenting by John Gottman

I am a parent and I highly recommend this book. I think this world will need a lot less counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists if more parents understand the importance of teaching their child emotional intelligence. Nothing else is more important than this single life skill.

Have you ever felt so embarrassed by your child's behaviour in front of strangers, your friends or your relatives that you take all actions to make your child do as you say? Or have you found yourself so tired and impatient to even bother to listen first before you issue an order to your child?

Well, raising an emotionally intelligent child means we take the time and effort to deal with our child's negative emotions by first acknowledging and listening to those emotions. It does not mean that we give in to the child's requests but it means that we identify with their feelings first and then offer the child ways of dispersing those emotions.

However, that also often also requires that we ourselves have gained a certain level of emotional intelligence. That's the hardest bit. If we ourselves do not know what to do with our emotions or deal with it in an appropriate way, then it will be difficult for us to coach our child emotional intelligence. We need to start looking at re-parenting ourselves and change.

Jesus, Take the Wheel(James/Lindsey/Sampson) - Lyrics

She was driving last Friday on her way to Cincinnati
On a snow white Christmas Eve
Going home to see her Mama and her Daddy with the baby in the backseat
Fifty miles to go and she was running low on faith and gasoline
It'd been a long hard year
She had a lot on her mind and she didn't pay attention
She was going way too fast
Before she knew it she was spinning on a thin black sheet of glass
She saw both their lives flash before her eyes
She didn't even have time to cry
She was sooo scared
She threw her hands up in the air

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel

It was still getting colder when she made it to the shoulder
And the car came to a stop
She cried when she saw that baby in the backseat sleeping like a rock
And for the first time in a long time
She bowed her head to pray
She said I'm sorry for the way
I've been living my life
I know I've got to change
So from now on tonight

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can't do this on my own
I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I'm on

Ooh, Jesus take the wheel
Ooh, I'm letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I'm on
From this road I'm on
Jesus take the wheel
Ooh, take it, take it from me
Ooh ooh wah ah ooh ooh ooh

Carrie Underwood's - Jesus, Take The Wheel

A friend of mine sent me this video clip and I really like it.

Letting go is hard to do but sometimes we've got no choice... but it does get easier once we let go.

Hope you like it too.

"Life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you're gonna get..." (Forest Gump)

Isn't it true? That's what makes life so difficult. When we think we've got it under control, it throws another one at us. We're constantly trying to juggle and make sense of our world and the events of our lives. Even if we play it safe, there's always something that is beyond our control... like the recent US credit & housing crisis, financial crisis, stockmarket meltdown, economic slowdown, recession, depression, ... whatever you want to call it. Then there's the unexpected war, bushfire, flood, tsunami, accidents, mass shooting, sudden rage of violence or simply just your partner walking out. The news is plastered with abuse and tragedies of all sorts that we sometimes fail to prevent or cannot prevent.

How do we cope when something like that happens to us?

How do we cope even with the seemingly little things in our own personal world that doesn't get plastered on the news. Things like work bully at our workplace, our rocky relationships, our unruly and disrespectful children, loneliness, mental illness or things just falling apart for us.

We will touch on those issues and whatever else that is relevant to having a beautiful mind.

Feel free to put topics of interest to you down for later blogs and discussion.