Tid-Bits From Ben

WOW, it has been a long time since I have blogged.  I need to get back in it.  The business of life has not allowed me the time to blog as I used to anymore.  Sigh….To many irons in the fire.

People are always making fun of me for my bad English.  It seems that I pick up the accent and habits of the location that I am in – wherever it may be.  I was reading this today, and thought it was worth reposting.

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We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes.
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.

The one fowl is goose, but two are called geese.
Yet the plural of moose, should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest of mice.
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

If I spoke of my foot, and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose.

When we say brother, we say brethren.
But though we may say mother, we never say methren.

Then the masculine pronouns are he, his, and him,
But imagine the feminine, she, shis, and shim.

So, English I fancy you will agree
Is the craziest language that you ever did see.

Today, I heard the song“One Day” by Matisyahu, and I like the lyrics…..I wanted to share it with ya’ll.

sometimes I lay
under the moon
and thank God I’m breathing
then I pray
don’t take me soon
cause I am here for a reason
sometimes in my tears I drown
but I never let it get me down
so when negativity surrounds
I know some day it’ll all turn around
because
all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
for the people to say
that we don’t wanna fight no more
they’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day x6
it’s not about
win or lose
we all lose
when they feed on the souls of the innocent
blood drenched pavement
keep on moving though the waters stay raging
in this maze you can lose your way (your way)
it might drive you crazy but don’t let it faze you no way (no way)
sometimes in my tears I drown
but I never let it get me down
so when negativity surrounds
I know some day it’ll all turn around
because
all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
for the people to say
that we don’t wanna fight no more
they’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day x6
one day this all will change
treat people the same
stop with the violence
down with the hate
one day we’ll all be free
and proud to be
under the same sun
singing songs of freedom like
one day x4
all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
for the people to say
that we don’t wanna fight no more
they’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day

THE BUZZARD

 

If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner. The reason is that a buzzard always begins a flight from the ground with a run of 10 to 12 feet. Without space to run, as is its habit, it will not even attempt to fly, but will remain a prisoner for life in a small jail with no top.

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THE BAT

 
The ordinary bat that flies around at night, a remarkable  nimble creature in the air, cannot take off from a level  place..  If it is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle about helplessly and, no doubt, painfully, until it reaches some slight elevation from which it can throw itself into the air. Then, at once, it takes off like a flash.
 

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THE BUMBLEBEE

A bumblebee, if dropped into an open tumbler, will be there until it dies, unless it is taken out.  It never sees the means of escape at the top, but persists in trying to find some way out through the sides near the bottom….  It will seek a way where none exists, until it completely destroys itself.
 

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PEOPLE

In many ways, we are like the buzzard, the bat, and the bumblebee. We struggle about with all our problems and frustrations, never realizing that all we have to do is look up!  That’s the answer, the escape route and the solution to any problem!  Just look up.
 

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Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, But faith looks up! 

Live simply, love generously , care deeply, speak kindly and trust in our Creator who loves us.

I am really thankful for all of those who took their time to do this video.  It is good to see many of these artist come together.  I am really thankful to see the good hearts come out in so many people to help Haiti.

In Guyana, we say skin your teeth when you smile. So, here is something to smile on….

AFTER reading up on the finer points of ice fishing, a young woman heads onto the ice. Just as she’s about to drill her first hole, a booming voice from above bellows, “There are no fish under the ice!”

The woman is startled, but she keeps drilling.

Again the voice thunders, “There are no fish under the ice!”

Now the woman is shaking. But she takes a deep breath, and just as she’s about to cut a new hole -
“There are no fish under the ice!”

The frightened woman looks skyward and asks, “Is that you Lord?”

“No, this is the manager of the skating rink!”

If you want someone who will eat whatever you put in front of him
and never say its not quite as good as his mother’s

…then adopt a dog.

If you want someone always willing to go out, at any hour,
for as long and wherever you want …

…then adopt a dog.

If you want someone who will never touch the remote, doesn’t care
about football, and can sit next to you as you watch romantic movies

…then adopt a dog.

If you want someone who is content to get on your bed just to
warm your feet and whom you can push off if he snores

…then adopt a dog !

If you want someone who never criticizes what you do, doesn’t care
if you are pretty or ugly, fat or thin, young or old, who acts as if
every word you say is especially worthy of listening to, and loves
you unconditionally, perpetually ..

…then adopt a dog.

BUT, on the other hand, if you want someone who will never come
when you call, ignores you totally when you come home, leaves hair
all over the place, walks all over you, runs around all night and only
comes home to eat and sleep, and acts as if your entire existence
is solely to ensure his happiness .,
..
..
..
..
..
..

..
..
..
..

…then adopt a cat!

Now be honest, you thought I was gonna say… marry a man, didn’t you?

You…

…..MAKE it a GREAT Day!!!

It’s not easy to deal with painful emotions head-on. But it’s a key to good health and well-being physically, mentally and spiritually. If we don’t deal with pain when it occurs, it will resurface as compounded emotional toxicity later on — showing up as insomnia, hostility and anger or fear and anxiety.

As a further complication, if you don’t know how to deal with feelings of anger and fear, you’re likely to turn them inward at yourself, believing, “It’s all my fault.” That guilt depletes our physical, emotional and spiritual energy until any initiative or movement feels impossible. We feel exhausted and paralyzed, leading to depression.

You can learn how to recognize painful emotions right away and how to effectively “metabolize” and eliminate pain.

Overcoming difficult emotions such as fear, anger, guilt and anxiety can bring the same disguised benefits that dealing with a physical illness can bring. Patients suffering from life-threatening illness often report that their diseases have taught them to love and value the other people in their lives more deeply than before they became ill. During recovery they learn to appreciate and understand areas of life that they took for granted before. While anger, fear and worry are not diseases, we can grow from them even as we process them to become the person we want to be.

By turning to our inherent intelligence, harmony and creativity, we can create a positive outcome; but if we are emotionally turbulent, we are too agitated to access that possibility.

Why meditation is part of this exercise

Through meditation we can experience our silent self beyond our thoughts and emotions. This is our internal reference point for equilibrium. From here we can create a desired outcome. To restore balance in our life, meditation must be an essential ingredient.

It is also important to support this with balanced activity in the basic areas of diet, exercise and sleep.

Assuming these fundamental balancing components are in place, I would offer an additional exercise to specifically address what to do in the face of intense anxiety and fear.

Learn how to metabolize pain with this seven-step exercise

Toxic, turbulent emotions have one cause — not knowing how to deal with pain. Pain is normal in life, but suffering isn’t. When we do not know how to deal with pain, we suffer.

1. Identify and locate the emotion physically

Set aside a few minutes when you won’t be disturbed. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. For a few minutes, just meditate in silence. Focus on your breathing — or if you prefer, you may use a mantra.

Now with eyes still closed, recall some circumstance in the recent past that was upsetting to you. It may be a time when you felt you were mistreated, an argument with your partner, or perhaps a past injustice at work. Identify some instance where you felt emotionally upset.

For the next 30 seconds, think in detail about that incident. Try to picture what actually happened as vividly as you can, as if you were reporting it for a newspaper. Here, you are the observer watching this event. You are not the event, argument or emotional upset; you are merely witnessing what is happening from the perspective of your silent self. You are carrying the effect of the meditation you just did, allowing you to maintain a vantage point that is not overshadowed by the quality of the emotions.

Now identify exactly what you are feeling. Put some word on the incident that describes what you are experiencing. Be as precise as you can. Do you feel unappreciated? Insulted? Treated unfairly? Give the feeling a name. Come up with a word that epitomizes the painful experience. Focus your attention on that word.

2. Witness the experience

Gradually allow your attention to move away from the word. Let your attention wander into your body. Become aware of the physical sensations that arise in your body as a result of the emotion you’ve identified.

These two elements — an idea in the mind and a physical sensation in the body — are what an emotion truly is, and they can’t really be separated. This is why we call it a feeling — because we feel emotions in our bodies.

Let your attention pass through your body as you’re recalling this experience. Locate the sensations the memory brings up. For many it’s a pressure in the chest or a sensation of tightness in the gut. Some feel it as pressure in their throat. Find where it is in your body that you’re feeling and holding the emotional experience.

3. Express the emotion

Now express that feeling. Place your hand on the part of your body where you sense that the feeling is located. Say it out loud: “It hurts here.” If you’re aware of more than one location for the pain, move your hand from place to place. At every location, pause for a moment and express what you’re feeling. Say, “It hurts here.”

When you experience physical discomfort, it means that something is unbalanced in your experience — physically, mentally or spiritually. Your body knows it — every cell in your body knows it. Befriend these sensations and their wisdom, because the pain is actually leading you to wholeness.

Writing your feelings out on paper is also a valuable way to express the emotion. This is especially effective when you can write out your painful experience in the first person, in the second person and finally from the perspective of a third person account.

4. Take responsibility

Be aware that any painful feelings you experience are your feelings. These feelings are happening inside your body now as you remember the pain, even though nothing is actually taking place in the material world. You’re only remembering what happened, yet your body is reacting with muscle contractions, hormonal secretions and other responses within you. Even when the painful incident was occurring in the material world, the effect was entirely within you. You have choice in how you interpret and respond to emotional turbulence. Recognizing this is taking responsibility for your feelings.

This doesn’t mean you feel guilty. Instead, it means you recognize your ability to respond to painful situations in new and creative ways. By taking responsibility for your feelings, you can also gain the power to make the pain melt away. You’re no longer blaming anyone else for having caused the pain, so you no longer have to depend on anyone else to make it go away. Hold that understanding in your consciousness for the next few moments.

5. Release the emotion

Place your attention on the part of your body where you’re holding the pain, and with every exhalation of your breath, have an intention of releasing that tension. For the next 30 seconds, just feel the painful sensation leaving your body with every breath. Some people find that making an audible tone that resonates in that part of your body where the pain is localized helps to loosen and lift the contraction away.

You can also experiment to discover what works best for you. For some people, singing or dancing does the trick. You may try deep breathing, using essential oils, or taking a long warm bath. Finally, if you have written out your emotions on paper, it can be helpful to ritually burn the paper and offer the ashes to the winds.

6. Share the outcome

Sharing the outcome of releasing your pain is important because it activates the new pattern of behavior after the old painful pattern is released. Imagine that you could speak to the person who was involved in that original painful incident. What would you say to that person now?

Bear in mind that he/she was not the real cause of your pain. The real cause was your response. In your transformed state, you are now free. So you can share what happened without blame, manipulation or seeking approval. Perhaps they intended to cause you pain, and you may have unwittingly collaborated in that intention. Maybe you would like to say you no longer intend to fall into such traps.

Whatever you say is totally up to you. As long as you have an awareness of the steps we’ve taken so far in this exercise, whatever you say will be right for you.

7. Celebrate the process

Now you can celebrate the painful experience that had taken place as the valuable material that helped you move to a higher level of consciousness. What was previously a disconnected, destructive and disabled part of your psyche is now integrated and contributing its power toward your greater spiritual goal. Instead of responding to the situation with a pain reflex, perpetuating the problem, you’ve turned it into an opportunity for spiritual transformation. That is something to celebrate! Go out for a nice dinner or buy yourself some flowers or a present to honor the new you.

I use this exercise whenever you feel upset, to free yourself from emotional turbulence and the underlying pain. When you do that, you’ll find that opportunities will arise more often in every area of your life.

Confidence can come from all the different areas of your life, friendship included. That’s why it’s so important to routinely take an inventory of your friendships to make sure that each one is a healthy part of your life. So imagine yourself being at a traffic light. Now you need to ask yourself, “Does this friendship need to stop, do I need to yield and gather more information about our friendship, or am I good to go with it?”

Friendships can be a wonderful resource. They can provide us with emotional, psychological, physical, and even financial support. They can put a smile on our face, provide a place for our tears to fall, or offer an antidote to loneliness. On the other hand, friendships can sometimes be an unhealthy burden, a lure to trouble, or a culprit in your lack of confidence.

Let’s start with the friendship that may be negatively contributing to your confidence and may in fact be adding to your self-doubt. So what should you look for:

Top 5 List For When it may make Sense to Question a Friendship

1. Drama- If there are constant ups and downs in the relationship. Hint: Things are going great or not well rather than smooth and steady.
2. Finger Pointing- If your friend keeps telling you how you could be a better friend and never takes responsibility for her or his end of the relationship. Remember: There are two people who are equally responsible for the relationship. Are all your friends telling you how to be a better friend or do you just fall short according to this friend’s expectations?
3. Exhaustion- Your friend expects and assumes that you will always be the one to go out of your way to make yourself available to her and its not reciprocated. Tip: Friendships are about equal give and take over time and not hoping or wishing or waiting for someone to change.
4. Exclusivity- Your friend bad mouths your other friends and often puts you in a position to have to chose this relationship over another. Hint: Do people warn you about this relationship or does this person seem to go through a lot of friends?
5. Doubt- You find yourself questioning whether you want to call this person or make plans with them. Tip: Ask yourself what you would genuinely like to do not what you think you should do.

Do any of these sound familiar to you? If you’ve answered Yes to some of these, then it makes sense to take some time to examine your relationship.

Think about your relationships that involve no drama, finger pointing, exhaustion, exclusivity, or doubt. Clearly, those are the relationships worth your energy to nurture. When one of the top five issues arises, it’s time to decide if that minus is outweighed by the pluses of the relationship or if that minus overwhelms any pluses. Without pluses to compensate for the short-comings it might be time to put your energy into nurturing healthier relationships.

Friendships worth going towards are worth the effort. Communication will help make them better. Express your feelings and needs and problem solve when necessary. Delay action if more information is needed. Time will provide you the data to choose the wise path. If a relationship is in the yield zone, put the energy into improving it. Let your friend know what they are doing that bothers you and what they can do to make it better. Give them a chance. If change does not come, have the courage to stop and put your efforts where the yield is healthier.

My friends are very important to me, and I wrote this blog to help me mentally figure out relationships.  I guess this is how I think, and it works for me.  What about you?

An elderly woman unfamiliar with Starbucks and her moderately mentally impaired son wait in line at Starbucks. The son starts barreling his mother with questions. Both are overwhelmed with the abundance of choices and appear baffled. The coffee barrista is inundated making drinks and the cashier can barely keep up with the traffic. I watch as a complete stranger offers to help and provide a lengthy discussion of the options. (I do well to order regular coffee at Starbucks, so I was no help.) Without experience, ordering from Starbucks is like trying to communicate in a foreign language: tall means small, grande means medium, and vente means large.

Once all options have been explained and their selections are decided, I place the order for them. The impaired gentleman sips his grande caramel Frappachino and munches his chocolate chip cookie with glee and turns to the stranger and says, “Thank you so much, you are the nicest person I have ever met.” His mother also bestows an emphatic thank you and I watch as they all leave with a giant smile on their face.

Who gained the most in this transaction? Although it is true that the individuals asking for help gained the information they sought and the satisfaction with their purchase, the greater gain was on the part of the giver. I as the giver gained the most. A rush of positive feelings enveloped me and new energy found its way into my steps. I gained the satisfaction of knowing I helped someone which gave me the opportunity to feel good about myself. I would have liked to thank them for their gift of allowing me the chance to help.

Think back to the times you may have helped out another person. How did it make you feel? What did you gain? We often lose site of the big picture when we get caught up in our own microscopic views of things. When it comes to asking for help, we can get in our own way. Instead of seeing that we are giving others an opportunity to feel good about themselves, we think incorrectly that asking for help means we are a burden.

We also get in our own way when we make asking for help mean something about us when it doesn’t. We may think asking for help means we are weak, inadequate, less desirable, helpless, inferior, or any other derogatory label that comes to mind. The reality is that asking for help does not indicate anything about us; it simply means we need help in a specific situation at a specific time. It is not a reflection of our character, intelligence, competence, or desirability. It is actually a sign of strength and wisdom to seek out help when you need it. Next time you need help have the confidence to ask for it knowing that it can truly benefit you both. Everybody gains! Keep in mind the giver is gaining a boost to their confidence knowing they are a good person and the good feelings that come from that and the recipient gets the help they need.

“There is a certain way that a man stares at the woman he loves. The man looks like a boy on his birthday and he treats the woman like she was a gift that he has waited SO long to open, and now he can’t wait to see what the treasure is inside.”

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Wow!! What a neat analogy. Wouldn’t it be awesome if love worked that way every time?  I mean, wouldn’t be awesome if you we could all just find that perfect mate who treated us like the valued treasure that we so want to be?

Unfortunately for so many of us, we have to look far and wide for the one who is right for us.  Rather than focus on the negative of this process, I have been thinking of the positive side of this.  For those of you who are TCK, you can relate to the fact that you can learn so much from those you encounter each day.  Dating is no different.  As you meet new people with the potential of finding the partner for life, you learn SO MUCH about relationships, selflessness, and even love.

I think that is why dating was invented and important.  In the old days, you were simply placed with someone by your parents.  However, what if you weren’t made for each other?  What if that is not the person that was destined for you?  Isn’t it a tragedy that there are those around us who aren’t given the opportunity and privilege of choosing their life partner?

My challenge to myself and others is to embrace your freedom.  Don’t spend all your time looking for love.  No, let love find you.  This kind of goes with my post where I previously spoke of dating multiple people at once. While you are single, you are free to meet new people and develop relationship skills that will last through your marriage.  You can travel freely and meet people from other cultures.  You may even find another TCK!!  Whatever single means to you, look at the positive side of it, and not the negative side of it.  Because when love hits you, you will have the rest of your life to enjoy it!!

“So how does it happen, great love?  Nobody knows… But what I can tell you is that it happens in a blink of an eye.  One moment you’re enjoying your life, and the next you’re wondering how you ever lived without them.”