The Break-up Song of All Break-up Songs

“In these old familiar rooms

children would play,

Now there’s only emptiness,

nothing to say…”

Knowing Me, Knowing You was not only a prophetic anthem for 1970-80’s wonder band, ABBA, it is a present day song of truth for a vast number of couples and families.

‘Walking through an empty house, tears in our eyes,’ brings harrowing, sacred memories for many of us who’ve actually done that. All of what we stood for, and everything we believed in, ripped from our clutches.

It’s the stark realisation that what was once our whole lives is now no more—forever changed and transformed beyond our control (if it was ever ‘in our control’ to begin with).

The pain has given way to a resigned sense of destiny even though there’s a fresh and entirely new journey of tender, throbbing suffering and aloneness about to commence as we rebuild.

Memories of good, bad and indifferent—they linger on the memory, always. We’ll carry them until our dying day. These memories are almost too profound; they haunt as well as sooth. They shape our whole lives and they take us to places in the emotions which are often altogether too abstemious.

The song takes us into many dimensions of the obliteration of the family: nostalgia; pain contrasted, balanced poignantly with truth; knowledge of the partner hardly anyone could know—knowledge beyond truth it seems; distance, emotional distance—not simply physical distance; distance that’s been there for a longer time than we knew or were happy with.

The giving-up point reached is perhaps a relief (to one or both partners) and/or a tearing reality, the identity’s breached—its heart ripped haphazardly away from the body—the relationship.

Hardly a single extended family these days has survived unscathed; many recognise the portrait of truth in songs like Knowing Me, Knowing You. It’s a sad reality, yet there is always a silver lining in these situations, at times years on.

I have learned that in the context of such a tragedy we must always keep moving forward and stay focused on what we’re responsible for. These things might change, but our response never should.

“Knowing me, knowing you—it’s the best I can do.”

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

What’s the Hold Up? Ensuring Meetings Never Get Stuck

Incessant questions and hold up tactics. Some things never go according to plan. Do you ever notice the same people intent on holding up progress? I was in a focus session recently where the facilitator had a great deal of difficulty briefing the participants on the initial purpose and objectives of the session—a half-day set of contingency planning exercises.

As the facilitator opened proceedings, endeavouring to explain the lay of the land, he received a clarifying question; then another, and another and so forth. Most of the clarifications requested would’ve actually been answered had these participants bothered to express some faith and wait.

Instead, they interjected and asked questions interrupting the flow of the briefing—I’m sure they were oblivious to the tedium this created for others in the room, not to mention the facilitator who patiently endured the questions.

The bane of all facilitators is the almost constant interruption of some who must simply assert an ego-based soapbox performance—but in doing so, to elevate their position, they ironically lose face.

It bears consideration that a key role for the facilitator is to eliminate as far as possible the likely, predictable interjections, and this is done with a strong assertive opening:

è Body language is important: stand and do not sit with the group. This is to present you, the facilitator, as set apart from the group—some formality is good. No matter your level organisationally, being set apart like this creates a necessary situational superiority that augments meeting structure.

è Start with ground rules firmly set in place. Ask (demand) permission to be the ‘stick in the mud’ and have the special ability to curb discussion. Don’t be afraid of politely cutting people off to re-direct the group on task. Explain up front this as part of your role. It’s thus not going to come across as being disrespectful.

è Be prepared to manage the egos. We’ve all got one, and every meeting has at least one or two prepared for a dip! The bigger the group the more likely two or more ego-motivated people will rise to the fore—egos are presented in a myriad of ways, but realistically nothing ego-based is going to be productive; be warned.

è Think of ways you can encourage participants to express faith. Simply saying right up front, ‘I’m sure you’ll have some questions and concerns as we go through, but please be assured we’ve planned this session meticulously and questions or concerns may be answered without you needing to ask.’ In other words, you’re asking the group for a little patience and to hold their questions. Apply a “parking bay” on the whiteboard for issues that threaten the flow of the meeting.

Facilitated sessions can mostly be either inspirational or a bore. Without being topic experts, the facilitator can help the process a lot in their management of the overall process.

It’s like herding sheep or conducting the group as if it were an orchestra. The aim is there are no straying sheep or unplanned symphonic solos.

A strong start can do so much to advance the meeting toward the inspirational ensuring the rhythm of the event is kept upbeat.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

Love Languages in Overdrive

Gary Chapman’s Love Languages have been sliced and diced in so very many ways, yet I wonder if the following observations have been made. The Love Languages are a system of thinking around relationships which makes our efforts both tangible and meaningful. They’re also a process; they help us see how our love (expressed as a tangible set of languages) matures.

When we “speak” all the love languages (affirming and helping people, spending quality time with them, able to appropriately touch them (i.e. hugs etc), and give gifts) fluently, we do this in at least two ways when in so-called overdrive:

1. It’s how we more fully recognise and meet the needs of others in our expression of the languages that suit them as individuals; and,
2. It’s how we accept love from others—how we affirm them in their loving of us.

Most people disregard the second angle, though it’s an equally critical component of relational love, especially if we’re dealing with a lot of mature people who naturally wish to love back. It speaks also of our own self-esteem, for many of us find it easy to love other people but we at times struggle to love ourselves. How well do we receive peoples’ thanks or gifts, for instance?

But, it’s possibly this that separates the analysis from others: over our development and incorporation of the love languages personally—over the lifespan—we reach, hopefully, a place where our needs no longer press in so much, for true love (as far as we’re concerned) is not really about us.

Our Divine relationship gives us power in that those relationship languages that held us so tightly and defined us so neatly become, over time, less of a “condition” upon others in their loving and relating of us.

Put simply, if we once pined to be affirmed, that desire for others to meet that need might wane, over time. We become less of a burden upon others in their loving of us because we gradually mature in faith, not requiring the generous helpings of love heaped upon us as they were previously.

It’s the Divine relationship that now meets that need, our higher power; God. For we know, God’s love is all-encompassing. He can love us so sufficiently that if there were a void in all the love languages expressed to us, he’d make up for it. We’re talking the inflow of God’s all-satisfying love here, to the point that externalities of love are now not really an issue.

The ultimate expression of the Love Languages—the perfect aim—is 1) being so skilled in meeting others’ needs (being skilled in loving via all five languages) whilst simultaneously, 2) never needing (i.e. insisting upon) the love of others styled the way we once needed it, complete with, 3) the ability to receive love (that is not needed) in ways others can give it as a way of authentically affirming their love.

When we reach this place we love others unencumbered. We intuit their needs, we subdue our own (because we’ve learned the Divine relationship does it), yet we have a way of making others’ love of us real and meaningful for them.

This is the greatest gift in relationships—allowing others’ love to actually love us in ways they feel truly affirmed, no matter how they offer that love.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

The Confidence of the Undivided Cell

A skerrick from a bursting sense of maddening anger, the undivided cell is the fact of our mental, emotional and spiritual oneness. It’s that juxtaposed place of utopia in the presence of intrapersonal chaos—an inexplicable peace pervading over us as we fight for our sanity. We’re self-protected for some bizarre reason, probably because we’re inexplicably withdrawn.

The undivided cell is the time of surety in the midst of whatever; no exceptions. It’s not dependent on situations. It’s a moment, almost nothing longer, where we feel flawlessly adjacent to our truest ourselves.

These moments we’re thankful for, for they save us; from the errant word, from the poor decision, from the crime of passion. It shouldn’t be this easy but strangely it is.

This is a mode of being that we can attract. We can have more of it. But it can’t happen without faith—faith’s essential. For it is faith that informs the mind of patience beyond what is, at that time, reasonable. It’s faith that deadens the gilt edge of pain, frustration, impertinence or anxiety, bringing to them an acceptability of sufficiency; a capacity of triumph.

Digging into the fibres of this abiding faith we extract threads of bold courage and focus—a certain deafness to the damaging reality. We’re not distractible. Just for this time. Again, we have no rationale for it; it just is.

Call it ‘the zone’ if you will. Call it anything; we just love being there, because it’s a state of mind bringing us invincibility—again, for this treasured time all things are brought together for a purpose beyond the making of us.

Perpetuating the time and making it a regular intrapersonal reality is our goal, and to that end we work on our faith and are so masochistically grateful of those crumbling opportunities that would ordinarily grate upon us, for these very things are our training grounds toward faith.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

Anger Smarts – Long Time!

On one of my ventures into the vehicle licensing centre to book a driving test for my learner driver daughter I was flabbergasted by an elderly couple squabbling incessantly. It would’ve been almost humorous if it wasn’t so sad. I couldn’t escape. Under her breath she peppered and pestered him with deriding name-calling and insults; all over what I determined were probably minor issues, and he’d try (in vain) to ignore her.

When he’d had enough he’d not so gently nudge her repetitively with his shoulder and give her long disdainful, angry nose-to-nose looks, retorting with his own names for her, telling her in his own covert way to ‘shut up, woman.’ It was like being at a tennis match. This went on for a solid five minutes or so until they gradually realised I was right behind them and could hear and see this ‘match made in heaven’ endure.

I wondered how long they’d existed like this; I surmised they might’ve been married all their adult lives. Certainly there seemed a pattern in their interaction—the inability to manage and resolve conflict. This was evidenced if nothing more by the way they kept “at” each other. It seemed a ‘fair-weather’ marriage. All good plain sailing; the storm hits and bunker down!

Every couple has the same issues to contend with—how to resolve conflict. Conflict resolution, and the appropriate dealing of conflict in productive, proactive ways, seems the final frontier in marital and de facto relationships. All else flows from effectively managing and resolving conflict.

Any couple who genuinely wants peace and empowerment in their partnership best attend to the issue of resolving conflict—in ways to produce win/win situations i.e. satisfactory outcomes for both partners.

Conflict can almost never be resolved when one or both partners are angry or upset.

Conflict can only be approached effectively with sensible heads at the table of treaty.

It can only ever be sorted out when each partner is prepared to listen and fill the shoes of the other partner—a genuine teamwork of empathy where we’re not personally afraid of losing out.

Imagine the partnership reaching a place where both in it are free to act without fear and are not weighed down with an inordinate amount of emotional baggage from previous conflicts that were inappropriately dealt with.

They trust each other in their communications and they don’t jump to conclusions thinking the worst of the other person when things get tense.

They’re free to love one another, unencumbered by a world of hurts which ascribe to all our lives. They transcend the hurt through abiding trust in each other.

Anger, at last, is a personal issue—it is never ‘the other person’s fault.’ We are personally responsible for managing our own emotions. Nobody can say, ‘They made me feel this way,’ and be vindicated.

Anger, unresolved anger, smarts—long time! It remains until it’s dealt with. Like the elderly couple profiled above, it will last our lifetimes if we don’t address it. It will cling like a bad smell permeating the best of the relationship with the pungently, hideous tang of discontent.

Manifest anger: go on beyond it!

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

Feeling Bad and Asking Why

Every now and then I feel it. It troubles me for many reasons. I know you relate, for we all do. It’s that sense of emotional discomfort, anxiety, pain, fear or boredom—and we don’t like it one little bit.

On a recent occasion I was troubled within my spirit and really didn’t feel good. It had been a hot day, I’d felt physically tired (which is unusual for me) and I’d not really tried that hard to relate with some people at work I’d normally make more effort with—I didn’t really know why. Add to this, I’d not spent the quality time with my girls as I normally would—I was a bit distant in my approach and this created a real sense of unease in me.

I almost didn’t do anything with this stimulus, though I have learned a valuable lesson in sorting these issues out once and for all. I was thankful for that awareness.

We are such sensitive creatures when we look deeper into our psyches. We ordinarily go on in our problems during the day, not ever really thinking of why they’ve come about—it’s almost easier to sound off at someone, get depressed or seek a material outlet or overeat, or use (or abuse) a substance; there are so many ways of inappropriately dealing with our low times.

Low times of feeling bad, for one reason or other, are normal in life. Like the times when we scratch our leg or blister our thumb (which we do routinely), low times happen more frequently than we’d like. The solution to addressing the issue is surprisingly easy.

Enquire of it.

I told you it was simple! We must get into the habit of consciously asking ourselves why? Then we must take the time to analyse why. Then we can alleviate it.

The reason this is so simple and effective is when we honestly ask ourselves why, we switch our thinking into an adult, logical mindset—and we are far likelier to identify the issues (yes, plural) that are crowding in causing the unease or pain. (Most of the time there will be three of four issues involved, at least.)

My recent example involved a grappling with a lack of feedback and encouragement in an area of my life which was important to me. (One of my major love languages is that of affirmation.) I’d been tired. My ‘relationship effort quotient’ had also been low—cause had become effect.

When I realised all this it was an ‘a-ha’ moment, and suddenly I was able to assure myself of the recent times when I have been affirmed, the need to get more sleep, and that these people would forgive my lack of effort—for I’m not characterised by not putting in effort.

The nature of life is high and low times ebb and flow. Finding the causes of our high and low times can help us to the end goal of much needed life balance.

Enquiring honestly of ourselves is the ability of awareness and poise—it’s the ticket to ourselves, our very souls.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

Untangling the Complicated Life: Freedom Awaits Upon Change

“As rope and cords tangle when they’re being unravelled, so does life, inevitably; haphazard storage practice in housekeeping correlates with insufficient diligence and life planning—a messy life. Then again, at times, there’s just too much on!”

Recently I was tangled myself; this was in the debate over health and social risks and benefits of the fly-in/fly-out working life, relating particularly to individual family impact. Whilst it was a relatively ‘easy shot’ to back a clever and insightful play, it was less easy to determine the effectiveness of certain companies’ success in ameliorating the health, safety and social risks.

Notwithstanding, the reasonable and salient point was made:

“For those people who go into this fully informed and whose relationships are firm etc with a definitive plan this type of work can be highly beneficial. It is often those people/families who do not prepare and investigate the issues who struggle.”

–Dr. Dawn Darlaston-Jones (Head of Psychology, Notre Dame University.)

We’d narrowed down the terms of reference to a fly-in/fly-out working philosophy but the same principles regarding diligence and planning hold basically everywhere in life.

In life, when we invest significant effort and resources it often finally begins to flow well. When it flows easily, keeping it going is not that hard, but when we back off we get increasingly stuck in a stodgy mess that we inevitably trudge through. I most recently discovered this afresh as I juggled a chaotic three-week period only to subsequently lose most semblance of internal balance. Inwardly I was rushing life.

Our lives are metaphors for a long strand of cord or rope. If we use the rope but don’t return it nicely coiled for the next person we end up upsetting them, or if it’s ourselves, we’re inconvenienced trying to untangle the mess. Then there’s the extra effort required, and we often baulk from effort, don’t we? We’re inclined to procrastinate.

And this speaks mostly of the virtue of diligence or plain hard work—the willingness to go the hard yard. It’s unavoidable if we’re to live well. Quite simply maintaining an ordered life is the best insurance against needing to untangle things unnecessarily. This is the minute-by-minute discipline of diligence.

Most inspiring of all is the inward peace we establish, and the allowable vision that’s afforded. And, wow, what a view life can present from that position.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

Harnessing Our Passion – A Wisdom Concept

Barbeques for Australian men augment what we might call “fellowship.” (It might be the same for you in your country.) One such conversation involved a discussion with a guy about another guy—a passionate person, who’d routinely put people off so ardent was their love of things true for them. We mused about this guy—a guy I actually have a sympathetic fondness for. Notwithstanding, all the empathy in the world doesn’t save some. They seem interminably condemned by the deriding many because they’re so wedded to the passionate concepts that have won them over.

Take another situation. An Opposition Leader backs onto Government policy in order to enhance it, making progress achievable. He does so, however, arrogantly—without the support of his team. His method of dictating policy brings about his downfall.

Is there a degree of commonality with these two examples?

It seems that the ones who do the most deriding are either quietly passionate themselves or overtly dispassionate people. Let’s explore this issue of unbridled passion some more:

Passion alone gets us almost nowhere and certainly doesn’t assure the journey. It fractures it. It compromises the issues at hand regarding their sustainability.

Temperance appears to be the key; the tempering of steel is essential almost always in bringing usefulness to it post-hardening, after all, soft steel (most of the time) is even more useless. But, hardened steel alone is just as useless for it is brittle and potentially shatters dangerously, failing when it’s most required to perform—and this is the ideal metaphor.

Passion alone is the pre-tempered hardened steel. It requires tempering; indeed, the process and outcome of tempering the passion is the very thing that draws out its attractiveness, making it useful to both the person possessing the passion and others. In tempering passion it’s made palatable.

Therein lays the balance of wisdom to remain in the game for not only the battle at hand, but the overall war. For at times, crucial times, we must accede to the masses—to the will of others—even when it appears wrong (to us).

We must trust the process, having faith that things will turn. When we enter cautiously at these times with passion in check we are perceived as caring, controlled and even insightful.

Passion alone brings us quickly to ruin; it is otherwise seen as the sin of pride.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

Three Ways of the Fork in the Road – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

If you forget every other self-improvement concept and understand and apply this concept you’ll never be too disappointed. Bold statement. Yet, this one principle underpins every good response to every good, bad or indifferent situation.

I want you to envision a road with a fork in it—a three-way fork. The first fork is 30 degrees to the left i.e. head to 11 o’clock; the second is 30 degrees to the right i.e. divert from your present bearing to 1 o’clock; the final bearing is to continue as you are i.e. in the colloquial, ‘follow your nose,’ or a 12 o’clock bearing.

The golden rule of response in life is to continue going straight—the surest way home. Let me explain.

Going left or right can symbolise our emotional response to situations; emotions generally intuit fear. Fear goes either of two ways. Firstly, it submits to the stimulus and diverts, shrinking from any pain that might come as a result—the perception is, ‘I don’t like this; I’m getting out of here/the way.’ Secondly, it challenges, and by that I mean, aggressively; still it’s fear that generates the response—the perception is, ‘If I don’t act/react here I’m going to be run over.’ Both these reactions are innately emotional. The stimulus generates emotion and the response propagates emotion.

Neither going left nor right is a proactive or appropriate response.

The only correct way of responding to all life situations is to try and remain emotion-free i.e. stay on the pre-stimulus path and handle it adultly, positively, on its merits. It is amazing how common this concept is to a vast amount of life situations.

It could be termed, ‘the good, the bad and the ugly,’ with the bad and ugly being a toss-up between the submissive and aggressive responses—both of which are problematic. My personal view is that the submissive response is the bad and the aggressive response is the ugly—the first is bad for one person (maybe more), whereas the aggressive response is ugly for everyone involved.

We can convert this three-fork approach to balance in life. Being too motivated and owning everything is like the aggressive approach—it’s passionately out of balance. Withdrawing too much is the submissive approach, swinging the balance out dispassionately i.e. too far the other way. The right approach is in the middle—to be approaching life productively and responsibly, getting involved appropriately.

When we apply this rationale to most life situations we suddenly realise that the truth lies somewhere in the middle most of the time.

The key to making this work from a practical viewpoint is having the:

1. Awareness of the situation’s needs and cognisance of continuing straight; and,

2. Courage to enact what our awareness is informing us of.

One is insight, the other is fortitude. Together they equal wisdom: prudence and diligence, discretion and conviction. It’s all about staying on the Ancient Path.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

10 Functions of Holistic Leadership

There are so many leadership ‘how to’s’ in existence, and there’s seemingly an abyss of information out there. So, what do we read and trust with any semblance of authoritativeness?

I’ve embellished the following 10-topic structure which is direct from Human Synergistics—creators of the Organisational Culture Inventory^TM, the Life Styles Inventory^TM, and many more leadership and culture assessment tools and theory.

Firstly, leadership is considered at best prescriptive; at worst restrictive.

Personal Leadership Functions

At an intrapersonal level leaders impact their teams by:

1. Envisioning: as individuals providing leadership we provide clarity, defining the vision regularly for others in different ways. We must actively set out to provide a response to ‘delimiting’ modes that don’t specify vision i.e. if we don’t prescribe the vision others will set their own (‘interpreting’ what they see with the best of intentions) and they’ll be incorrect and misaligned.

Envisioning activity needs to converge and focus effort, not diverge and splinter effort. Leaders appear ambivalent when they don’t exemplify vision in simple, clarifying ways.

2. Role Modelling: the leader exhibits what they’ll eventually get. If we circumscribe our modelling behaviour narrowly that’s what we’ll get—a restricted view toward the example that should ordinarily be set.

Conversely, we are to actively exemplify the image we wish others to model from, personifying the values espoused. Simply, we need to behave strictly in ways we expect others to behave in.

Interpersonal Leadership Functions

At an interpersonal level leaders impact their teams by:

3. Mentoring: we do not ride the waves as followers. We must be active and not passive in this area. However, our methods can more appropriately be read as passive for the best results.

There are not many who want to be told what to do. The best mentors don’t appear to be “mentoring.”

4. Stimulating Thinking: how hard is lateral thinking? It’s impossible when we put a frame around it. Yet, lateral thinking is what’s required in prescriptive cultures. Vertical thinking i.e. ‘leave your brain at the gate,’ is outdated and redundant.

To rise to the fore, lateral thinking needs to be continually encouraged and commended through enthusiastic and open invitation, always.

5. Referring: no leader can know or be it all. They’re effective ‘general practitioners’ for those they lead. The better they teach others to fish for themselves the better they’ll be remembered.

But it’s not simply the desire to refer on—it’s getting the matches toward positive referents that is the key. This takes prudence, discretion and intuition—and an adherence to both team norms and contexts.

6. Monitoring: every leader must know and learn how to employ effective pulse checks to gauge performance levels and success. These are both overt and covert; a mix of the two. Both are contrasted with each other to ensure the right information (in context) is considered.

The trap for the young player here is the ‘by exception’ / ‘by excellence’ test. Stuck, restrictive leaders always i.e. predictably, shoot for a ‘by exception’ clause for their monitoring efforts. Not so with the prescriptive leader. He or she is overridden by the desire for excellence and is therefore open to the heart’s response to that end. This is not an easy thing to teach.

7. Provide feedback: perhaps the most motivating and inspiring and simultaneously the most deflating... receiving feedback can only ever be described as either a negative experience or a positive one.

Good, prescriptive leaders don’t provide feedback simply on the basis of the information; they consider a meld of cognitive input weighing the information with the person in mind, the context and the results desired. The thinking is therefore dynamic; the feedback given is hence “live” i.e. unrehearsed and therefore exciting, and potentially inspirational.

Organisational Leadership Functions

At a suprapersonal level leaders impact their teams by:

8. Reinforcing: what’s working well; what isn’t. No. Not those alone. Reinforcing activities need necessarily to promote rewarding interactions, almost always. Even when punishing there can be a rewarding facet to the reinforcement. Herein enters loving discipline that the person on the receiving end can truly appreciate.

9. Influencing: at a corporate level, influencing is about seeing organisational trends and responding in ways to influence change.

Unilateral influencing is an underplaying of situational determinants where one side alone is influenced to any significant degree—our outlook on influence needs to be less staid, embracing a much fuller picture of reality in view of all stakeholders.

Reciprocal influencing is all about the cliché win/win situation, and more; even to a win/win/win situation where all stakeholders are viewed as a collective. All parties are to be influenced positively and none are to be left behind as a situationally unloved orphan.

Influence that creates positive change for all parties can only be described as inspirationally innovative.

10. Creating a Setting: good, prescriptive leaders are at their core, facilitators. They make things easier and they assist progress, whether it’s enabling direct action toward the goal itself or employing focus on some of the more intuitive aspects of guiding the lesser known, but equally important, objects of the business at hand.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.

NB: I baulked initially at the notion of “prescriptive” leaders being the preferred model, but that was until I understood that most people want to be led, positively, interactively, not forcefully. The prescriptive leader hence has a confidence about them that exudes the desire to lead people toward good outcomes.

Reconciling the Sad Life

Spiritually speaking, Geoff is a sight, but not the sort of sight you’d want to ordinarily write home about. In this way he fits right in with the crowd at a barbeque. Quietly spoken and without much to say other than one or two pieces of small talk, he’s inwardly challenged and struggles for even a modicum of happiness. Life hasn’t quite seemed to work out for him. Sure, he puts on the front, but what most people don’t see is Geoff’s a miserable person deep down.

Most people don’t even notice this sort of thing in the ‘Geoffs’ of this world—they’re frankly more interested in themselves, and why wouldn’t they be? Yet, everyone to some extent seems to struggle for peace and happiness.

I’m constantly dismayed at the sight of young and older people alike who are walking dead people—ridden with fear, as manifest to the testimony of their faces—the outward subdued matt-finish anti-glow of people half alive. It’s the demeanour they wear that sets them apart, and that, in the worst way.

Life was never meant to be like this. The only way out for these people, it seems, is to belligerently throw off the shackles of the old life in order to breathe in a new transcendent existence, full of portions of courage to jettison the past and embrace the unknown future.

This can only ever be a process. Nothing truly good ever happens overnight. It is a process of re-training the mind in response to the truth held in the heart; to go beyond the known into the vast, voluminous—even scary—unknown in search of the holy grail of true personhood.

We’ve all had I suspect, portions of gross sadness and sorrow to contend with. We’re blessed in every move to repel the trappings of this hellish reality, but without denying its existence and impact over us. The impact and the stimulus to change is the celebratory reality, for without need for change we’d be left totally uninspired.

This is resilience personified—to approach and augment change. To break past the things that would otherwise hold us, responding eventually in habit.

And, it’s like this. Change at the personal level, over any circumstance that threatens to crush us—we crush it in our momentary acceptance of its reality but not over its ability to hold us down permanently. And we’ll not be moved in this.

Nothing in our world can really hold us back; only ourselves. When we dare to realise this, we find this is indeed the truth.

© S. J. Wickham, 2009.