What Is Hope?

Hope, the best weapon against life.

I had a rather disconcerting conversation with my friend yesterday, which all began because I asked the question; “What makes me unusual?”

Somehow the topic shifted. Soon we, I.E my friend and I  begun discussing my desire to pursue a career, and the reason why I insist upon believing in a dream job (term applied loosely; this represents a job I truly enjoy, and feel good about doing).

My friend told me; “Dream jobs don’t exist! Plus, they are immaterial because everyone only works for the money”.

I then tried to explain my take on the dream job; “I need to feel I am achieving something and also progressing. My work life cannot be static; it has to move forwards and not backwards. I need to feel I am respected, appreciated and have responsibility in a job. I want to be treated like an intelligent individual and not an idiot. I need to have a say in my working life to prevent me becoming thoroughly miserable”.

This explanation was also frowned upon.

Yet, is wanting those things from a job completely farcical?

I then asked my friend to consider how much she had actually progressed. She now has a better position with more respect and authority given to her. I told her that she may still not be ecstatic, and may still wish to be living a leisurely life with endless funds at her disposal; but compared to how it had been for her, she now had a better life (thanks to her better job, which suits her).

All I ask is similar – to be respected and appreciated. I wouldn’t want to be an employee who is bullied, used and abused. I want to feel I am worthy and being valued in a company. I want to feel invested in. If I have to work for a living I want to be as happy as I can be doing what pays me.

I told my friend; “You are turning what I want into a negative, as though I am a dreamer. I need to believe I can find something which suits me, and will enhance me” (admittedly I am never happy anywhere for long).

My friend replied; “It would be great if dream jobs existed, but they don’t so don’t dwell on them”.

Really, and why not? Why can’t a person have more than they currently have? Why can’t they look at attaining elements of a dream job if it makes them happy or if they feel there is more hope from doing so.

I know my friend has abandoned her ideas of a dream job; thinking they will never come to fruition. Perhaps also she has abandoned her hope to achieve more in her life. This thought saddens me, and she knows it does. I cannot understand why she insists on being resigned to the fact things won’t change.

True enough; we can’t all conquer or  change the world, but we ourselves can change. We do grown, develop, learn and progress – even within a job and this helps us attract more in our lives. If people reflect upon their lives they would be shocked how far they have come, but haven’t even realised. No one should give up without trying to achieve more, as that is what life is; experience and progression from one thing to the next.

 

I think my friend, like many other people feel it is practical to dismiss hope. Just by stating you have achieved all you think is possible at any age is depressing; life isn’t over until its over – so keep going! If I thought there was nothing more I would crack! I have always clung onto hope. I may have fleetingly considered things might not get better or things may not change, yet, not for long. I have never clung to the notion that there is nothing more for me to achieve in this life.

I actually wonder whether losing hope means you die – not physically, but internally? What is hope if not truly delusion, and yet without it, who are we and what is our life?

Without hope life is a reality stripped bare and basic; bills, work, money, worry, aliments, ageing, disappointments, lack of motivation, no goals in life. We would all then lose faith in ourselves and our lives – what would it all be like if we didn’t hope there would be more?

Hope, it is all we have for free, and without it life is damn grim. I know I prefer to live with hope than without it. How about you?

**Above insert by: www.microkosmic.com***

Turn Over A New Leaf

Since my last post ‘A Helping Hand’, I have been trying to reconsider my position or imposition.

I do not propose to dwell upon what I wrote, although I realise it will take time to change what I feel I might be missing within myself or my life. Yet, at the moment I am looking at reassessing myself. I am on a mission of self discovery – I want to relocate exactly what I am all about as a person, to try and redefine me. Since I last checked – I have changed, just as my situation has. This is something I have to accept, come to terms with, work with and not run away from.

So, I took on some advice from those bloggers who responded to my last post (BY THE WAY – THANK YOU!!). I have obtained a copy of ‘What Colour Is Your Parachute’ – which is helping to push me into quantifying myself, to ask myself questions I might be a little afraid of.

I am looking into what ‘meet up’ groups are out there in Madrid for me to get together with people who might be of interest.

Once again I am looking at volunteering positions, and perhaps taking on whatever part time jobs might be available.

I cannot say for certain if any of these things will bring me what I look for or indeed even come to fruition; yet, I will try.

What I do believe is that where I am now, is where I wanted to be. I have gotten exactly what I required, and also, what I needed. I shouldn’t therefore see this as a wasted opportunity – it is a gift of time out from things that injured me. When I am ready to re-engage with whatever I lost or left behind or I buried inside – I will, and not one moment before. I can’t force myself to do, be, or become anything until I am ready, until the time is right. So, I accept what is, I will try to progress and find a direction, BUT, I propose to just enjoy what I have, as that is all there is.

Thank you, sincerely, to the bloggers who responded and provided advice and expressed concern.

I appreciate your input and all you shared with me.

THANK YOU!!!!!!

A Helping Hand

Recently I have been speaking to people about what is takes to help them help themselves through certain situations, which are impacting upon their lives and well-being.

This is a personal issue really, one that involves not just other people, but also myself. I have realised, for some time actually, that this notion of ‘helping yourself’, is something of a hurdle for me at the moment too.

Now I know I am really good at lending helping hands to other people, it had been part and parcel of my many job descriptions over the years, and I did it without question. Providing advice, options, sign posting, information, listening and even comforting others; yet, helping myself to progress, to move on, to find direction, right now I seem unable to, I am beginning to fail myself.

We all find there are times when we have lost ourselves, some control and direction. How do we regain focus and find what we have misplaced????? Is it a case of actions speaking louder than words, or is it that once we find ourselves stuck – we remain so???

Do we all need a helping hand, a sign to show us the way sometimes?? Or is all that help and direction laying dormant within us, and waiting for us to actually see and hear it – rather than insisting upon searching beyond ourselves for answers???

Taking some time out to do what you want, or to think about what it is you want from your life – has to be a good thing, we all need time out. Time out can help us to regain our life’s compass settings. Time out takes you out of you, and the situation you find yourself in – it can help us to see things clearer – to then perhaps progress.

I think thinking is great, but doing something is too. Yet, how do you know what to do and when to do it – how can we know how if we are lost??? Is it just finding a reason to want to do something, and begin the ball rolling, which will help us to then move on and find what is missing in us and our lives? Can we then escape the pit that our lives have fallen into??

What if you don’t want to help yourself though, or more poignantly, can’t help yourself – how can you then progress and move on???

If there is help available for you to help yourself then take it! Yet, help isn’t always there – so what do you do then??

If you don’t know your direction in life; I empathise, as neither do I!!! Nothing I do or think changes this either – it seems complex, unless I am over thinking it all!!!!!!

I am stuck with uncertainties regarding my future, just as anyone could be. Only difference is I know about it in advance, and others might not have this insight so early on. Can I change anything about what might happen to me, well, I have tried.  Have I tried hard enough though, no not really – I have been lazy too long a time.

I now find myself wondering if I have the ability to take back my life and direction. So, what happens – depends on IF
I want to help myself or whether I just continue to sit back, and let MY life slide out of view (well, eventually, perhaps).

Sorry to be angst ridden and depressive, no one likes negative moaners right? Yet, sometimes, I feel like airing my laundry publicly and admitting – I have issues too!!!!! I am stuck, lost and confounded. I require a sign post, a helping hand. I don’t have all the answers I might need. I don’t have all the strength I might need to find my way either.

I admit that, so what??? Turn your back and think pathetic fool? Or, just maybe you get what I feel, and can lend that helping hand as I know I have, and would time and time again.

Yet, you are not me……………….

…………………………………………..and I am not you.

Sucking You Dry

This little thought occurred me to last night, when, as usual I couldn’t sleep!!! Strange how the strange finds me in the very small hours, and just won’t let go of my mind………ummmm.

Anyway, I reflected back upon studying Psychology at college. I recalled reading certain research, which had been conducted into the psychological benefits of relationships. The results of the research discovered that women DO NOT benefit psychologically from being in marriages or long term relationships. Men however, do benefit, and quite significantly.

I found this to be a ‘revelation’ at the time. I remember thinking of everyone I knew who was married, and actually found immediate logic in the findings of this research. Women, or the women I knew – who were Mothers of my friends and relations I had, well, they weren’t too pleased being married. It had been a pretty tough time for them throughout the years; so, discovering women don’t necessarily get much out of a relationship, well, it made sense to me.

So, to condense these research findings, it seems that men tend to suck the life out of women. They use them as tools to enrich their own life and well being, but while the women sacrifice, the men just use the free support base to flourish. Men, men alone are more prone to psychological disorders – depression, isolation,  paranoia, unsociability, instability and even suicide. Women alone, are not prone to such things – they seem to, according to the research, soar like a bird, and a free bird at that.

Men alone can’t cope, women alone cope very well – better than if they are in relationships with the burden of a man in tow. Facetious, feminist, wrong – maybe, but then, let us ask women to be truthful enough to admit that the men in their lives can be cumbersome, and often draining, and enough to often devour the very patience of a Saint.

What do you think; I am asking the women here?????? Is this research true?????

Well, consider this; men don’t often just leave a relationship to be on their own. From what I have seen, they tend to stack up their next ‘victim’ or victims, before they jump ship. What does that say – men don’t like being alone or maybe they are serial monogamists?? Hey wait a minute here – men and faithful – don’t men cheat more often than women in relationships; OR, are men merely caught out cheating more often than woman are?

Either way if men do prefer to peruse their options, why do they need to be in a relationship to be psychologically stable?? Men, what do you think about these psychological research findings – true or hogwash?????? Do you need a relationship????

If this is true and men do get more out of relationships, why then are they so called biologically hard wired to stray like a cat?? Shouldn’t it be women on the prowl, not men, as women don’t need one man, they don’t need a relationship as they get nothing out of it. Women don’t get the same psychological stability, and nutrition as men do from relationships. Women get the depression and suicidal thoughts instead.

Why then would women enter into a relationship if they don’t want to commit suicide any time soon???? Well, WHY?????

What are the answers???? Maybe there are none!

OK, by the way YES I am in a relationship; oh wait, did you ask how my psychological state is??? Well, what do you think???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Golden Child

I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine who complained that her Brother was her Mother’s favourite.  For me this conversation echoed my own families experiences; it was too close for comfort.

My own Mother had issues with her Mother, as she favoured my Mother’s Brother to the point of isolating my own Mother. This ongoing nepotism caused vast rifts in our family, the repercussions of which are still visible today.

My friend, like my Mother has experienced Motherly spite, withheld love and trust and also head games. Whatever was done or said it has never been good enough; never feeling like they belong to the family they were born into because their Mother won’t accept them. Both my friend and my Mother have been left feeling like the underdog or the black sheep in their family for no good reason, other than they are not the favourite.

A result of this unwarranted treatment, years of continual stress, strain, upset, turmoil and anger. Years of wondering in vain, why?? My Mother always felt inadequate somehow, and this was the result of that faulty Mother / Daughter relationship, which my friend is now suffering at the hands of now.

I have heard similar stories related to me time and time again; the golden child scenario and the ensuing faulty parental and child relationship of the one left in the shadows.

The golden child; how much destruction does this effigy of shinning ‘perfection’ in human form cause to families all over the world?? To what extent has this parental favourtism ruined the lives of the siblings not in favour? The fractured self esteem, dampened confidence and even altered functionality of the child who then becomes an adult, feeling somehow as though they have missed out on a necessary piece of their childhood – unconditional love. How can the adult ever then gain any of this missed time, missed life back to become whole??

Why would a parent deny a child unconditional love? Why would they hold onto their favourite child to the detriment of another? Why would they want to hurt their own child in such a profound way?

Do parents do this consciously? It seems to me that often they do. Is it because the parents themselves have witnessed or been the brunt of such behaviour themselves growing up? Does something innate compel them to do this to their own child, something they can’t even understand??

What can any parent gain from ripping the world out from under their own flesh and blood? For me it is a self defeating prospect, that only creates and stores up trouble for the future. It seems to me that once these golden child sides have been drawn up, they cannot be changed or undone; it remains this way, a private family war, forever. The ripple of bad feeling surrounds that golden child, and alienates the child outside of this ‘halo’. It has a massive impact, and effects consequent generations – I know as I have grown up with such things surrounding my own life. The effect on my own Mother from her childhood impacted even when she no longer lived with her parents, and still does.

I empathise with my friend and what she is going through. I hope for her and her families sake (her own children and partner), that she can find a resolution to gain peace of mind, and sooner rather than later.

I hope she doesn’t allow the golden child rot to infiltrate, and mar her life as my own Mother did (to some extent). I hope my friend realises life is too short to measure herself against what her Mother thinks or doesn’t think about her; as she will never gain her approval with whatever she does or says. It is a losing game trying to please someone who cannot be pleased, because you are not their favourite.

 

 

Vanquish The Dark Cloud

Picture called ‘Dark Cloud’ by: chexmixho.deviantart.com

“If something can help you unlock your inner self, then

it is worth while.

Nothing can replace years of feeling a

weight has been lifted’, and ‘a dark cloud’ has been

vanquished”.

 

The Savvy Senorita (AKA: Bex Houghagen) 2013

Healing Within

Picture from: redbubble.com
“Inner Turmoil”

“Trying to win every battle can be hard,

therefore to stay positive and strong is also hard.

That is why inner healing is a

slow process over time, which requires patience”.

 

The Savvy Senorita (AKA: Bex Houghagen) 2013

The Rut

Picture from: thefairobserver.com

“The rut we carve out for ourself is the deepest and

darkest of all”

The Savvy Senorita (AKA: Bex Houghagen) 2013

Suicidal Star

Mindy McCready tried to commit suicide FOUR TIMES in seven years before she ultimately took her own life.

• McCready shot herself at her home in Heber Springs, Arkansas, on Sunday
• Singer was released from rehab last week after spending just two days at in-patient facility
• Doctor found her clean of drugs and alcohol and ‘mentally stable’
• Sex tape of her will not be released (why would it be – surely there is some respect for the dead)
• A shadow was cast over country star after the recent death of live-in boyfriend David Wilson

What went so wrong that Mindy felt she had call the curtain on her life of fame and fortune??

Is this another gun tragedy? 

Why was there no real intervention before such a devastating act could take place?

Is it a case of another star merely seeking attention? Or, was Mindy crying out for help and being ignored? Perhaps, the signs of what she felt were well concealed?

She was a person first and a mother too, and now her children are left behind to wonder why.

No-one is exempt from Depression or even suicide, this proves that clearly enough. It also proves that regardless of money and status, real help is not always available.

If the support networks had been there, would Mindy have lived? Learned to cope?

Are there any real answers for things like this that occur in life? Maybe not.

However, any life lost is truly sad.  

Read more on this topic:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2282243/Mindy-McCready-tried-commit-suicide-FOUR-TIMES-ultimately-took-life.html#ixzz2LXpsRKPM

Not What The Doctor Ordered

Four million people in the UK have an addiction to opioids. Only these aren’t the usual class A varieties we maybe familiar with. They are not the drugs whose vice like grip is reported as ruining people’s lives, destroying communities and killing young people; No, these are the lesser know, but socially accepted prescription variety.

The fact is that in the home of the ordinary everyday person a secret resides.

Many people begin taking opioids after injury, operations, for illness and untreatable conditions; but then this normal and everyday action slips suddenly into an addiction.

Why?

What is it about these ‘safe’ prescription medicines that are leading ordinary everyday people into the territory of the shunned drug addicts of the world?

What is it that makes these painkillers so tempting to our brains?

What is it that allows these drugs to grab hold of people to a point that before they realise it, their addiction is entrenched just like any other ‘junkies’? 

Well, opioids, from codeine to diamorphine (which is basically heroin); all act on the central nervous system. They induce a miraculous feeling of well-being; banishing anxiety, inducing a sense of security and easing pain. It is these facts that have made these drugs, these legal class A drugs, popular for many decades.

Just ask the Hollywood film and television industry; they are no strangers to the short lived delights these little pills have to offer.

In fact many of these seemingly innocent painkillers people take everyday are actually so powerful that some of the brands have been affectionately labelled as “hillbilly heroin” (in America).

Yet, the demand for these opioids is still as fresh as the poppy they all originate from.

There has been no slow down on prescriptions; in fact from 1999 to 2008 dispensed opioids have increased from 6.2 million to 14.8 million. Those number equate to a lot of possible future addicts.

Yet, what other options are available for pain relief via the NHS??

Well, not much – either take these drugs or be left with run of the mill Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Aspirin.

So before we condemn people for taking these heavy duty painkillers think about it; which would you choose if had to,  heroin based pills or excruciating life impairing 24/7 pain??

Not much of an option then.

It is either no pills or take heavy duty painkiller prescriptions and run the risk of becoming a junkie (albeit a self respecting and socially adept junkie).

So is this what the doctor ordered??

Or are the patients to blame for their own addictions by demanding these drugs, when it is made clear often enough they can produce addictive side effects?

What is the solution when this acceptable addiction spirals out of control???

With addiction creating such bad press and negative ideas/stereotypes how does someone exactly admit to the whole world, the world that thinks they are an upstanding and level headed person; that they are in fact addicted to drugs????

What help is out there for these ordinary people hooked on such drugs???

Do they ever receive the help they require or is it merely a case of having to continue to mask their addiction to save face??

What do they do when the pills eventually run out???

OPINIONS PLEASE!!!!!!!

What are your thoughts on prescription medications?? Help or hindrance?

Are these potentially lethal drugs too often dished out like party favours without real pause for thought?

Are patients to blame for demanding the drugs in the first place??

Who is really monitoring the intake of these drugs; GP or patient??