Unconventional Friendship and How it Changed Me

Post by Heidi Taylor for the Love for Love series.



print by dannyphillipsart on etsy

Unconventional Friendship and How it Changed Me

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
—
Eric Hoffer
One of life's most valuable lessons
The biggest lessons I have learned in my life have come from my friendship with some of the most vulnerable people in society. Having not been aware of or in situations to be familiar with people who experience mental illness, I really had no idea what I would have to offer.

Friendship teaches us to be open
I have a good friend whom I met while volunteering at a homeless shelter.
I thought I was going there to offer a listening ear if nothing else. I found myself getting so much more than I was giving. When I met my new friend, I have to admit, I felt compassion immediately. You see, he told me about how his family rejected him because of his mental illness. This seemed so inconceivable to me at the time.

Nothing to fear but fear itself
After chatting for about a half an hour, the conversation turned into a harrowing recounting of a life interrupted by mental illness. I learned more about this young man's life in a short amount of time, and I was fearful about the escalating intensity of the conversation. The funny thing is, as I look back on it now, almost 3 years later, I realize I had nothing to be afraid of. The friendship began, as we would chat about his illness and precarious life. I have had the fortuitous experience of seeing how a life lived with mental illness really is. Not the television version, or the scary movie version, or even the newspaper version, but the real life version.

Sympathy or Empathy?
After experiencing many hospital visits, psychiatrists, mental health workers, and emergency room Doctors, I now have a much better understanding of the "reception" someone experiencing mental illness often receives. Having had these experiences alongside my friend, I have come up with, (with the help of my friend of course) a helpful guide for people who are new to how to respond and behave in the presence of someone experiencing mental illness.

My friend’s suggestions

• Someone who experiences mental illness will often hide what is happening because of the fear of rejection and stigma. (This is not unlike those of us without a mental illness)

• Treat the person as a well, real person. No rocket science here, just reality.

• “When I am ready for help, I will ask for it or agree to some assistance.” My friend covets the freedom to try it on his own and not be forced into action by others.

• Have an appointed friend who understands how the illness progresses and ask them to be involved in a proactive plan should the illness progress.

• My friend shines the more he is reminded of his value in the lives of others. (Don't we all?)

Care and Kindness are simple
I am reminded of how similar my friend and I are in so many ways each time we talk. I am reminded of this especially when he is experiencing the cruel effects of something that is out of his control and he needs extra care and concern. I am reminded of my frailties and how little I have “the right” to complain about. Giving care and kindness to my friend inside and outside of his illness is not as selfless as it seems. You see this small act of kindness each time I offer it, gives me the reminder of so much more in return.

It's in the small things
Cultivating a practice of compassion and kindness starts with one act. Mother Teresa said it best, "Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies". I never would have expected that my desire to support someone experiencing homelessness would end up changing me so profoundly. The other lesson I could not have predicted was the strength of a little act of kindness.

Who can you reach out to in your life and offer a simple act of kindness to?
What ways can you offer yourself to the aid of someone new in your life and push you outside of yourself?

Do you believe helping someone else can create compassion for yourself?

Heidi Taylor, Life Coach: I believe in Restoration. I believe the renewal and restoration that you desire for your life is already inside of you. Peeling back the layers of life is where the answers lie. I guide my clients in tearing down emotional walls, revealing hidden potential, and creating an inner restoration and reclaimed life. Connect with me here: Twitter: @heidilistening

An Ode To Life

Post by Jo Anna Rothman.


print by Crokart on etsy

An Ode To Life

To life!
To the great, grand human experience we get to play in.

Make no mistake, to embody in this realm is a privilege. It is where all the hip and happening ones want to be...running in this playground of creativity. Where there is the feeling of the wind on our skin. Where there is sex. And chocolate. And ruby slippers to dance around the world in.

It is messy. Dirty. Wild. Beautiful. Perfect in a way that exists beyond what my words could ever say.

It is easy to dismiss life. To take it for granted as something we all have to do every day. But each moment is a precious chance to rock out. To open your heart. To put it all on the line and reap the gifts that rain down from the heavens.

Yes, it can be sad. It can be maddening. There is not always the rhyme and reason we pray for. Life happens outside of the limits of our minds. So much takes place in the mystery. I don’t know the whys of why things happen the way they do. I do know that each moment, no matter the depth of pain that courses through us, offers a chance to stand in the fullness of our loving. To connect to others in ways that set off the fireworks of our being. And, if we are lucky we will get to see the radiance of our heart reflected back in each and every person we encounter.

In the throws of the human experience we can find who we are. We get boogie down in the illusion of separation only to discover all is one...and we continue to dance. Because in this discotheque there is beauty. There is wonder. There are possibilities that stretch into epic and eternal delights.

There is risk. Yes. Because of the supernatural impermanence, love can appear as lost. Yet the fragile nature can bring forward desire like nothing else. And desire is the soul booming its call of adventure through the flesh and blood of our mortal place. It is here, in this life we inhabit, that we get to shine. That we get to make something out of this world. We can curse the pain and fragility, or we can love as big as we are willing and live electrically.

I’m a fan. Of living. Of the human experience. Of all its plateaus. Its twisty-turney roads. Its surprises. Its opportunities. Let’s take a moment and honor the game. And honor ourselves as the player who once upon a time opted in. It took an act of courage, daring and a deep yearning. It took us wanting to be us in the most magnificent ways possible. I, for one, am going to enjoy it.

Jo Anna Rothman, MA is an intuitive coach and facilitator of The Receiving Project. She revels in assisting people in falling in love with their lives. She is committed to living a life full of pleasure, purpose and enthusiasm. And perhaps most important, she knows the secret to the perfect s’more.

To read more of Jo Anna's guest posts on Kind Over Matter click here!

Sponsor Love : Kids Word Drop

Kids Word Drop

Why is there a videogame ad on this page? Because Amanda (thank you, Amanda) believed in the project I was working on and decided to donate a little to help fund the creation of the game.

In thanksgiving, I decided to return the favor and write a nice thank-you note to Amanda and everyone who supports (and contributes) to what she does.

Not everything you do will be able to produce fruit in your lifetime, sometimes seeds take years to germinate and grow.

This game is the fruit of many hours of coding, testing, re-coding and hard work. Luckily, I was able to finish the game and release it for kids of all ages to enjoy (and maybe some parents).

If you have a kindle, you can download the game here. If you use twitter, you can follow me here.

Never forget that the smallest of deeds can be more important than big ones. With that, here is the story of the Lion and The Mouse:


--Shawn McCullough

Fart by Chelsea Coreen

Stop! I want to hop off! Ending the diet-binge-loathe cycle

Post by Tahlee Rouillon for the Kind Kindred series.



print by kwornson on etsy

Stop! I want to hop off! Ending the diet-binge-loathe cycle

I have learned something incredible about myself.

My quality of health is directly proportional to the quality of my self kindness.

As someone with a long history of both ill health and body hatred, this was a revelation to me.

I used to believe that my body was constantly betraying me. Sabotaging my efforts to be thin, healthy and beautiful.

"Why can't I lose weight and keep it off?" "Why am I always getting sick?" "Why does my body hate me?"

The answers would always come back - "Because you're fat failure. You'll never get what you want because you don't deserve it. You're worthless."

So I decided to hate my body right back. I would punish it with extreme diets, try to "whip it into shape", and feel full of resentment when I was sick.

Strangely enough, this bitter resentment did nothing to improve my health.

Sure, I could get my weight down if I tried. But I was still miserable when I achieved my goal because I felt I still needed to lose more. My ideal weight was never ideal enough.

And often instead of nurturing and nourishing my body during times of illness, I would turn to junk food as a source of comfort and have a binge-fuelled pity party on the couch.

Fortunately, I was blessed to find an emotional healer and mentor who helped me heal long standing issues around my disordered relationship to food and my body.

So I thought I'd share 3 insights that can help if you're also stuck on the diet-binge-loathe cycle and would like to hop off.

Recognise your Inner Bully

We all have a critical and harsh inner monologue. We often say the most unkind things to ourselves and about our bodies that we would never say to anyone else.

Recognising that you have an Inner Bully and cultivating awareness around what they sound like helps to take a lot of its power away. You can never really get rid of your Inner Bully, but you sure can reduce the level of influence it has in your life.

First off, start to list some of the messages that your Inner Bully says. These messages will always be loaded with anxiety and criticism, sound overly harsh and above all will be super repetitive.

{NB: "You're a fat failure" is a classic Inner Bully line for me}

Next, create a character of what your Inner Bully would look like if they were a person. Give them a name like "Miss Perfectionist" or "Anxious Alba". Describe what they would wear and do for a living. Draw a picture of them. Make it as funny and as absurd as you like. Humour helps a lot.

Then, the next time you hear that anxious critical voice, reassure them that you are in control and then take charge. You could imagine sending them to the back seat of the car as you drive towards your dreams. You could reply "Shush now, I've got this".

I like to the send my Inner Bully to a hammock to chill out by saying "Stop. Hammock time!" and then singing the MC Hammer song. (See - I told you humour helps).

Do a 180 towards your Inner Bestie

Practising kind and positive self talk can feel uncomfortable, vain and down right weird if you've let your Inner Bully loose for a long period of time.

But once you accept that you deserve love and compassion as much as your best friend - you can begin to alleviate much of your own suffering.

The next time you catch yourself hating on your body or yourself (Hello Inner Bully) - imagine what you would say if this experience was happening to your best friend.

What are the gracious, utterly kind, uplifting things you would say to help your bestie feel better?

Now say those things to yourself. You can say them in your mind, out loud, journal them, write them on post it notes and stick them around the house.

What are the soothing, calming, nurturing activities that you would do for your bestie who was feeling sick, sad or stuck?

Now brainstorm how can you do and give those things to yourself.

Practice Gratitude

"Have an attitude of gratitude" seems to be a prevalent axiom these days, but it is ancient wisdom that's hung around for eons. And for good reason.

Showing true appreciation for the blessings in your life helps you to do a 180 towards joy. It turns everything you do, are and have into enough. It helps bring relief and a sense satisfaction - excellent emotions for overall wellbeing.

At the end of each day, list 5 specific things that you are super grateful for and feel the difference it makes to your attitude.

These 3 tips have been revolutionary for me. Learning to undo the damage from years of self hatred has been liberating.

I’m certainly not perfect. And there are still days when I struggle with self doubt and shame (there’s that Inner Bully again!). But I’ve learned that when I return to the practice of self kindness, each and every time, the rewards are immense.

How do you show kindness to yourself?

Tahlee Rouillon is the Major Instigator of The Attitude Revolution and a Fighter Pilot of Love. She helps women and men do a 180 towards a body and life they love through her Attitude Coaching practice and meditones music. If you march over to her website you can grab a free copy of the Tactical Mood Transformer e-book, designed to help you achieve your health goals with ease + consistency. Plus there’s a great community of comrades on Facebook. Join us!

Accepting My Perfectly Imperfect Body

Post by Victoria Musgrave for the Love for Love series.



print by Jess Tice-Gilbert on etsy

Accepting My Perfectly Imperfect Body

I was born with a congenital condition called spina bifida. (In the old days it was called a birth defect.) The story that I was told through out my childhood was that I was born prematurely, that I almost died, that I had to have surgery on my back when I was just a month old and wasn’t I lucky that I wasn’t in a wheelchair?

Despite this story, I can walk normally, have no major health issues and live a pretty normal life. But I do have scoliosis - a noticeable curvature of the spine and this affected how I saw myself.

As a child, I saw doctors about my back once a year, but have no memory of those visits until I was five years old. On a sunny spring day my mother collected me from our backyard swing set to take me to a children’s treatment centre to spend the entire day seeing doctor after doctor. I had to endure doctors (always older men in white coats) talking over my head to my mother about my “deformity” and wanting to see my back. I felt uncomfortable lifting up my dress and letting these men see my underwear and touch my back. It was bewildering to go from running around and playing with my little sister to being in a doctor’s office being treated like a specimen.

Gym class at school was a nightmare. I was significantly smaller than the kids in my class and, even if I tried my hardest, I couldn’t keep up with them. I mostly remember running behind the pack during soccer matches or being tagged on the baseball diamond before I made it to base. The gym teacher I had throughout my grade school years didn’t help at all. He liked to grade his students based on ability, not on participation. One year we had to come up with our own gymnastic tumbling routines. Despite having limited flexibility in my spine, I actually liked gymnastics because it was an individual sport and I couldn’t be picked last. I proudly demonstrated my routine to the teacher, only to be told that I got a low mark because I didn’t have a backwards roll. I tried to explain that I just couldn’t bend that way, but it didn’t matter. A deep sense of inferiority was born that day.

Throughout my teenager years, I suffered from terrible body image as my scoliosis became more obvious when I developed breasts and hips. I hid my body under enormous blouses and sweaters that came down to my knees. I thought I was hideous.

The irony is that I loved fashion and would spend hours flipping through fashion magazines, but fantasizing that miraculously my spine would straighten and I’d become tall and slim like a model. Of course it never happened. I reached my full height of 4’7’’ at the age of 12. I was crushed when I realized I would never get any taller.

It wasn’t any better at home. Whenever I happened to say something that revealed how unhappy I was about my body, I would be forcefully reminded that I “could’ve been in a wheelchair.” But I wasn’t in a wheelchair and reminding me of a worse outcome didn’t help me accept my body.

In my late teens and early 20s, I went through bouts of dieting and exercising trying to lose weight (I wasn’t overweight) in the misguided hope that I could somehow change how I looked. Of course it didn’t work, as no amount of exercise would straighten my spine or make me taller.

Slowly, very slowly my view of my body began to change when I moved to a big city. Surrounded by people of all shapes and sizes, I didn’t stand out anymore. People didn’t know me and they didn’t know my story. I could start fresh and reveal as much or little as I wanted about myself.

Then about ten years ago, I decided to take a yoga class.pose I'm not sure what possessed me to try a form of exercise that often involves lots of twists and bends, but I was tired of denying myself, tired of living other peoples' definitions of what I could or couldn't do.

I discovered that the yoga teacher was the complete opposite of my childhood gym teacher. She was open and completely non-judgmental about the limited flexibility of my spine. She never uttered the words “you can’t do that.” Instead, she’d gently put her hands on my body and suggest another way to try a pose. It was also perfectly acceptable to go into child pose when I needed to rest or felt overwhelmed.

I learned that yoga isn’t about forcing your body into weird twists and bends; it is about connecting the body and the mind. For the first time since I was a small child, I began to reconnect to my body and I was amazed when it responded to certain moves, opening up and releasing tension that I’d been holding for years.

Week after week, I kept going back to class. Slowly, I became stronger and more flexible. I was able to do poses that at first had seemed impossible. I still struggled with some of the poses and I became more accepting of that fact. I also became aware that my fellow students also struggled at times, no matter how slim or fit they appeared. Even the instructor, who had been doing yoga for more than 30 years, wouldn’t always be able to hold a balance pose. She’d just shrug and accept that her body wasn’t up to it that day.

I would love to say that the journey towards body acceptance is a linear one, but it isn’t. I still have days when I look into a full-length mirror and don’t like what I see. But I’ve learned to not dwell on those thoughts and have found that physical activity is a great antidote. My spine may be crooked and inflexible, but it isn’t good or bad. It just is. Even with its supposed “imperfections” it can still salute the sun from my yoga mat, carry home the groceries and move the furniture around my apartment. It is my one and only perfectly imperfect body.

Victoria Musgrave is a writer and photographer passionate about telling stories through words and images and is currently writing a memoir about living aboard a sailboat and traveling to the Caribbean as a teenager. She spends her days doing yoga, journaling, working on the book, designing websites, snapping pictures with her iPhone and will soon launch an ebook on creating a daily journaling habit.