Finishing what I started - and digressing a bit...

 Botanical Gardens - sculpture

In this post, I am going to try and finish the review - the one that I never quite got around to completing before - (and maybe, for future reference, I need to reduce the number of points to focus on at a time, for these projects I set myself to be more manageable).

1. The first one of the remaining five, is Therapy. Now, don't laugh, but I can't exactly remember what I meant by therapy (!).  I am going to guess that it is about ongoing professional development. Since identifying these goals/values two years ago. I have embarked on a Masters of Social Work, which is half complete, so in a sense, I have this one covered. I have also attended and presented at Acceptance and Commitment Therapy conferences, and organised an Art Therapy conference, as well. Life Long Learning, as they (we?) say at QUT. I really enjoy learning new things, although I sometimes have difficulty putting new knowledge into practice. 

 

home away from home - 

community bike repair station at South Bank Parklands

I love this!

2. Home, is the second value, and what better time to be writing about it, on my holidays at home...all good that is, until we have an extremely hot day. Which tomorrow is predicted to be, in several states, but fortunately not for South East Queensland. Tasmania's bushland has been burning out of control this week, and it is two years since Queensland, including Brisbane, was extensively flooded. This makes me appreciate Home. Oh, and the shower is leaking, so a plumber is coming tomorrow. But usually, I love being at home, its one of my favourite places. 

 

Botanical growth

3. Emotional growth - trying to write (and make art) here about emotions is interesting. I am fairly cautious about writing about others, but I consider myself fair game. I am pretty open about my anxiety, which is the private (hidden) emotion that I struggle with most - often around 3am. I believe that meditation is making me calmer overall, however. Which is the main reason I keep doing it. Having just witnessed my dog having a near panic attack at the vet this arvo, I truly appreciate the value of CALM.

                                                                            speechless
 
4. Communication. Funnily enough, one of my social work assignments is to write, in a public blog, on a topic of current economic policy...this is actually a bit terrifying, as the comments from other bloggers are often brutal. I think I am going to write about the single parent pension being cut to parents with children over 8, which was implemented on 1st January. Instead, they will get New Start, which will take them below the poverty line. This apparently is an 'Incentive to work'. And the Minister, Jenny Macklin, said she could live on $35 a day. And lots of people now want her to prove it.

One of the things I enjoyed learning about this year was Non-Violent Communication. This is one of those 'hard to put into practice' examples. And especially on a public blog!

5. Spirituality - the last of the thirteen - and the one I struggle most with. I think it is somehow too intangible for me. Whereas mindfulness, I can handle. Having said that, I saw the movie Samsara the other night: quite a splendid visual feast, and with Spiritual Themes. Quite amazing. I think it had a vaguely Buddhist underlying theme - with Tibetan monks, a prayer wheel, a sand mandala, and the title, Samsara, which means the 'ever turning wheel of life' in Sanskrit. It seemed to emphasise impermanence, or change, to me, which I guess is a variation of the same thing. It is also slightly unnerving, especially some scenes in Chinese (I presume) factories, prisons and on rubbish dumps. And the Ghanian man, who is buried in a coffin shaped like a gun. Seriously.

Well, I think I have done my baker's dozen, and without a digression. I thought I should call the blog, 'Doing what matters - and the odd digression' - and perhaps I will. My next task is to whittle down the 13 into a manageable number, say three.

And to spend less time on ancestry.com (but I did trace a direct line of 22 generations, back to Robert the Bruce, aka Braveheart, yay!).

And to start my assignment.

more later. 

'too far, too much, too quickly': happy chaotic new year

'too far, too much, too quickly': my image for the new year

I started 2012 with the image of a firework. For 2013, I chose this photo from the Brisbane protest rally on 12th September, the day after the Queensland public service budget cuts were announced. This confrontation is, quite rightly, going to continue to dominate the state government arena in 2013. The meta message to myself, politics aside for a moment, is to slow down, do (or have) less, and be less ambitious! And these imperatives can be applied to many areas, including this blog!

Perhaps, cherished long term readers, you were all too polite to mention it, but I have realised I have been very disorganised. From the outset, in writing this blog, particularly in relation to stating and reviewing my values, or areas of committed action, and the goals that flow from them, I have been remiss. By actually reviewing (rather than assuming I knew or remembered)  what I had written, I discovered, to my shame, that I didn't ever complete defining my original thirteen 'areas'. No wonder it has been difficult to review them: the best attempt was in July 2011, in three word rhymes. In consistent fashion, I am in danger of doing the same again, by failing to deliver on my promise to review them all at the beginning of this year. So to try to prevent this, the remaining seven areas still to be reviewed are as follows:

• leisure,
• frugality,
• therapy,
• home,
• emotional growth
• communication
• spirituality

I will start each topic by trying to write what I was trying to achieve. In some cases, I am not quite sure. At my age, I need to write everything down, obviously!

 bird of leisure - Brisbane Botanic gardens

Leisure
This is a fairly straightforward  value, namely to focus on leisure, and actively doing fun stuff, rather than passively vegging (?) out. Which of course, is sometimes a great thing, and possibly the only thing I am capable of at the time, but I need to remind myself that actively seeking leisure is also worthwhile and fun. This can include reading - apart from text books, which I usually try to avoid anyway - and watching movies, but not tv. Unless it is mindful tv, which is watching something because I want to, not because it is on at the time (usually its an old episode of QI - how many did they make?). I have done reasonably well on this one, but sometimes, surprisingly, holidays are a challenge, as I am so reliant on structure the rest of the time.

cockatoos taking tea - Mount Nebo

Another photo of birds relaxing, suggesting perhaps they are a good model to follow? This was taken on a bushland drive, to give my younger son some driving practice the other day.

Frugality is a big one, so I will do a separate post, hopefully later today. Now I have a vacuum cleaner to collect from the repair shop. And that is another story.

more later...