give and take

Give and take and vice versa seem to play a rather strong role in my friendships. Just not always on a balanced scale. Sometimes I could be on the end of giving and giving and giving - nonstop! Or perhaps I see it more as someone taking advantage of my generous, willing nature to help or readiness to come up with a solution when asked. And it becomes a right annoyance that I even extended my hand of friendship in the first place not because of being taken advantage of. No. It is more I am peeved with myself for having allowed this situation to even occur. I feel I have been made to cross over the line when I state enough is enough, which was long called for.

Giving is not done with me handing out a payback ticket for the receiver to cash in at a later date for that matter. It should be always undertaken or done freely. The typical reciting of no strings attached is unconsciously known. While the idea of taking from me should mean as well not to devour me, of all my resources. This includes that I not allow them to the stripped down to the end source or the bare bone, by giving you more than your share to be just abused by your carelessness. I know myself very well. Too well at times and yet can I not step away from my own passivity, towards peaceful conservancy of my world?

A shrivelled faded velvet dressed ego devil under my right armpit asks me "did you really just write that? Rather naughty to not be bending over backwards saying sickly nice things about selfish, down trodden “friend-ies” right?” smirking with glee at the needling. While my angelic love sister with crumpled paper wings, under the left armpit states "of course you did dear and don’t you think it’s your fault if you haven't reached that stage of enlightenment when it all just happens by others feeling your vibes; without you having to let them know whats just or not. You’re still experimenting on exactly which way to grow and that’s just perfect for now! Express when a situation stinks. Rather disrupt the air molecules for a second around you than make something inside you rot! Then everything can come up rosy later on."

Does the above conversation sound a tad familiar? Do you have these verbal mental exchanges too when contemplating which friendship to hold on to and which to let go of once you’ve reached your limit? Pondering on which time not to give a bit more even when you know fully well the other party is on the take for all? Friends and friendships are made not in heaven or hell; through thick or thin or by sweat and tears even though many would have you believe these platitudes.

They are made by my own actions; my own re-actions. I see friendships being welded through a give and take of trust, compassion and love for the person taking an exchange with me as I walk my pathway, exploring whom the heck I am.

You do not need to be friends with a single soul but yourself actually. I can state pleasantries to this or that person but when I have not a steady, warm companionship with the person I am it will ring hallow. When I cannot bear to sit alone with myself for hours in a four walled room, with not a single person to communicate than myself then my inner awareness will be of no support to another. For if I cannot handle who I am, I have no leverage to handle what another would place upon me. I befriend myself first, disregarding what I find overbearing, imposing, demanding, selfish, egoistic and pragmatic.  Then I can see it in others with a clarity that stops me from allowing myself to be “taken for” as an easy pushover.

Ok but this can come over hard for some; as if I was being obnoxious or uppity. Nope that is not it. I have put myself so often out there for others be it in my family or acquaintance circle only to be stabbed in the back with a brutally or sly slight of hand that I know now when to give and when to take. It is what is sadly in my view, not taught enough in the preservation of our mental capacity to exist in this world and leads to levels of depression and burnout and sickness that require a heck of a lot more effect to recover from than stating, “sorry not interested in giving you any more or your taking further from me thanks!”

The business world fosters the taker attitude to a perverse level. How many relationships suffer under the phases of “can’t take that on as I need to work or sorry but I have to give this weekend to the business” to name but a few. How many souls break down under the weight of being stripped of humanity and told to become hardened bearer’s of the modern world and show up to work again and again and always!”

The media world imprints this further with asking you to snip a piece off you here and there and take on a whole new version of what is needed. Only they craftily forget to place the statement you will be left dehydrated of a personality known as you. Instead your framework will be plastered, glued and bolted together with toxic waste that corrodes. Leaving an impression of what once was human only in its heartbeat, which trips over static electronic waves invisibly surrounding and passing through you.

If you have read this far then you know what I am saying is true. Have you drawn the line yet in your barometer for giving and allowing to be taken from my your friends? Do you know how too?

I took wobbly baby steps to start with as I began to learn to be my own best friend first before weeding out my friendship circle. Acknowledging not every person I know needs to be looked after on their birthdays. Giving gifts to those friends whom I wished to acknowledge meant something to me. Telephoning when I wanted to talk and not when I felt I must. Inviting to a personal get-to-together people who interested me. Not those who I felt could provide me with a foot up to somewhere or other.

I then acknowledged that some family members are not given a natural pass to be forever in my life. Just as certain friends are only in my circumference for a short time.  To both it is for my health to say goodbye with a grace in allowing them their lives and me, my space. It is healthy to let go and give no more. It is the art of preservation of your sanity to say you are no more to be taken from. It is the protection of in some cases literally your life.

I have gone now to stronger foot holds which at times stagnate as I revisit an old learned lesson or known life affirmation. Then once I re-establish my self worth I begin again to walk. I remind myself that I have today to formulate my moments into sparkles and gems to wonder at in this present time. I give myself the love that I take as a natural attribute to living my life fully today. I give to me and take the bounty as my natural reward.

Your Koruswhispers

Age is something wonderful

Age is something wonderful,

which I have only just began to see.

Not since the skin took to sagging,

exposing a view of the muscle

I so once desired to have on a sport trimmed torso that would

anyway have never been me.

Age is something wonderful,

which I have only just began to see.

Yet neither did I grasp its majestic stance

when the first grey hair slipped in;

making me wonder how did it know my earth bound age?

Had I let a cat out of the box or had I just forgotten

to follow the instructions on the hennas cardboard flap!

Age is something wonderful,

which I have know for quite a while you see and the moment I knew?

Well it was when I realized it allows me to "cross the lines".

Not say I apologise or I wont go on

because you feel it is not appropriate for someone my age,

to dance too such a song.

There is no need to change my style

or take on grandmas boots.

Unless that really suits.

Age is something wonderful when treated with lavishing,

uplifting standards set by you yourself;

for taking your mind to the limits of the body's capacity

and knowing you can even continue on

when the soul steps forward,

for taking up the journey further with you.

Cause you’re made of more than what "they" always told you,

which was never that age is something wonderful.

Oh but it is!

Age is wonderful,

It's the stardust I breathe in.

The wind I carry in my loosely hanging hair.

The scent of the pine trees that lift me over scattered pebbles.

The sun saturating down on my bare skin.

The sensual way my hips flow as they walk on my pathway

not from extra weight but from

the strength of knowing

I still have a long way to go.

My age today is something beautiful.

That is what Sydney my black swan and I both agree!

Your Koruswhispers 

true friendships

Which way should I go when deciding which friendships do I support and which do I let go? Seems a rather simply stated question yet it involves a lot of emotional work that needs to be addressed before we can answer it clearly. I have known this for a long time now and always need to remind myself still of what I have learnt from past experiences when dealing with the reality of my day now.

A healthy stand to and for ourselves, is to know to whom we give our love and attention and why. Just being there for everyone and body, is destructive. That is when you get easily used and abused. Making a decision to stand up for those you love and care for means knowing why you are doing so. Is it an obligation? Is it for feeling a righteous gain? Are you gathering goodie two shoes points? Do you give from the heart with boundless joy? Why I choose to be friends with you or not at all, should always rest first, on how I feel about you deep within my soul. If I can stand by you in your disjointed life or bear with your thought process that might be too mine a juxtaposition or do I want even to invite you in on my skeletons that I have lined up in my closet, are simple factors I review first before extending my hand of friendship to you.

Sometimes we do such emotional damage to ourselves for feeling it is not ok to say goodbye to a once lovely friendship that has turned sour for reasons not in your control hence it is good to take time to reflect upon this as well. A friendship is only positive for both when honesty exists and often our pondering over what that means can be both painful and productive hence letting go is the steppingstone to our own healthy living plan! Years ago when visiting family in Australia I experienced a situation in which I needed to release a friend (lets say her name was Susan) of a very long time and I did not do this at all well in my books, which hurt me deeply later when she died unexpectedly. I had to look into this feeling of regret, unsaid words of explanation or even having taken the time to listen to her reasons for being so vindictive on a wider scale. Through my holistic work I could (at a later date) form a bridge of healing between us, thank her immensely for what she had taught me and realize it was meant to be like this for otherwise I would not have developed further. Though it is never the same when viewed from our human side of needing to have closure here on earth to directly, face-to-face, resolve a misunderstanding or conflict.

Friendships need nourishing. They are not built on money or objects for these relationships are termed more acquaintances or business mates. There is not a giving and receiving of intangible items taking place. Rather the providing of a space to simply be fully within the moment. No pressure to perform or create is required when your friendship is based on taking care to find a time to just listen, be near and accept the person over from you for who they are with all their imperfections and positive qualities.

I had forgotten this by my friendship with Susan. She was human like me and had immense hardships to deal with during her life, which had made her reactions to various situations tainted in her colours of understanding; different to my tones and shades. She had been the older sister I had never had. She had been there from the word go when I went to boarding school at the age of a smidgen under eight.

Susan was such a rock of stability in my world then that was turbulent and really hard going. More than twenty-years separated our earthly counted years but we are from the same soul family and it was a plan worked out long ago which we were living out here. Involving more than us. Expanding beyond only two people and their lives.

That is why I say a true friendship is a gift given from one to another without strings attached. It is not always permanent or present. It could be your receiving this gift of attention to help you through a difficult time. Or the person you bonded with has moved away but is not gone from the memories held dearly in your heart. So your reflecting upon the time spend with them still helps you at a later date too. Friendships are not valued by the amount you can count rather by the sincerity of the affection given from one single person to you within the present time your friendship existed.

Friends and friendships are the first of my 49 items that I am looking closer at this week. For when a B day is celebrated one sees clearly who they are and where you’re placed in their lives as well as them in yours. Susan is still a great influence in my life even though she is no longer physically part of it. Her wisdom, which she gave unconditionally to me, took on deep roots in my life. I have often thought on our never speaking out what was not understood – a situation involving so many others who all had an opinion yet hers I never heard. For it gave me one of the greatest lessons she ever shared with me.

Be you. If you need to state or resolve something, do it then and there. Do not be sided tracked by others views, opinions or ways of reacting or interrelating.  We all know within our core what is for us, right and wrong. No institution, person or doctrine can tell you what you yourself know deep down inside. Susan swam against the stream of normality in the way she lived her life. She gave me the strength to do so too.

Her greatest parting gift to me as our friendship drifted away into non-contact in the last year before her death was being true to yourself – always; no matter what. It is the nourishing soil for authenticity. It is the substance that provides you with tools for moving forward in your life. In expanding your horizons of possibilities today.

I will embrace with compassion and gratitude this lesson. I will do it always in person towards my friend(s). Knowing when to support friends, when to make new friendships and when to let go those whom no longer provide nourishment to my life now.

Your Koruswhispers

49

Time is fickle for it follows not the plan of mankind but the rhythms of another level we are yet to understand. Those, whom created this planet and its universe, well before we began to utilize what it could provide us with to sustain our lives, knew this. We can still not grasp how gravity really works or truly understand the magnetic influence of the poles or really channel the wind currants to stop their effects on weather, migration and receding lands. They are all bound with time in a way we do not see.

We try to rationalize our understanding of time with affirmations, says of flightiness or restrictions and banners. Keeping time. Chasing time. Running from time. Being on time. Holding to time. Needing time. Wanting more time. Forgetting the time. Releasing time. However you view it, time is something that keeps us wrapt up in its presence by reflecting upon the past and dreaming of the future. Yet to stay aware of the moment you’re in, the present time requires you reject the idea of time as a binding force. Rather what if you take time onto your side with the simple thought you have all the time in the world? For if the only moment that counts is now then that is exactly what you have. All the time in the world - your world – my world.

This is where the ego would like to jump in and get you all worked up about honestly not having enough time. Your ego is the element that enough physiologists, physiatrists and physicians of various beliefs and views have tried to rationalize over the centuries. It has its own mind and one I have no concern with in my individual project here. Ego is not invited in to undertake with me my adventure to expanding my horizons for the “I” in me. This is not to boast, boost or increase in any other manner, my self-worth in the eyes of others either. That would be egos timetable not mine.

The goal I have is individually orientated and directed. If another soul is interested, in reading and following my personal journey that’s great. Maybe there could be something I do, say or think and then write about that could be for another, an impulse. It could also be of no concern to anyone. Also ok. For this is my embrace with time and my last year of being in my forties doing the earth bound custom of counting our years.

So over the next 365 days I am going on an exploration of discovering treasures on my horizon; 49 to be exact. The same amount as the years I have so far been here on this planet. They will be "I" orientated but their application in my life will be definitely felt by others. The items I gather in my book of memories will be at times tangible while others will be rather concepts, which I place or have placed into action. I will be going after journeys not yet taken, experiences not yet lived, feelings not yet let out from my inner core. It is Koru’s bucket list of being 49! A celebration of the last of the forties and my embracing of the fact I can. It is the start of a change that could be the catalyst for a deeper way to see life's cycles, live life's potential and be here in the present moment. For living life is never about the breaths we take rather about the moments that take our breath away.

Time will continue along its destined pathway and I will walk my way to find out what it is for a day today. Not knowing what I will get when I reach there, I will walk further if necessary to a place unseen. A dream perhaps that is just now awakening. A pathway lending me to my potential, to perhaps finding out strength I knew not that I processed. It is a day like any other, the first of my 49th year yet it is my moment I am living in, right here now. It is my present to me to really "see it" and just be Korus. I will reflect, ponder, evaluate and take account of where I am today within this present moment. It is a gift I give myself. To look at whom the "I" in Korus is. To be within the quite moment of trust between “I” and Korus as we discover together our today.

Your Koruswhispers