Thank you to the City of Vancouver!

It is with much gratitude that I write this post this evening. I learned to day that the City of Vancouver, as of June 3, 2014, have cancelled it’s plans for previously proposed changes to the Trout Lake Dog park as well as the thirty six other dog parks in the city of Vancouver. When I remember that day, I know for certain that self doubt does not permeate every single moment of every single day. On April 21 of this year, self doubt was not even a consideration.

On that particular day, the annoying gremlin of self doubt had not interfered. (I will admit that there was the briefest flash of ‘should I?’) However, as I said in my post of April 21 ~ ‘When this non-resident and non-dog owner visits, our walks there, with my sons and my grand dogs, are cherished parts of our family time together.’ My belief in these family times is solid and wonderful. We’ve experienced this sort of family time in parks with our dear dogs over a lifetime ~ from Kenosee Lake in Saskatchewan, to Trout Lake in Vancouver and on to Dallas Road Dog Park in Victoria, BC.  With our family and our dogs, we have enjoyed many other parks and green spaces over a life time.

So I say “Well done, Vancouver and thank you!”

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life!”

~ Albert Einstein

Hat's Off!

“Can you imagine the effrontery! He walked right in the restaurant, sat down and ordered his meal without even taking off his hat!”

I’m not certain those are the exact words uttered, however I do know that this was often a topic of great concern among my parent’s generation and many in my generation. That comment was reserved for the male population. 

“That woman should know better than to wear such a broad brimmed hat and then sit in the middle of the row! At least she could take it off.”

Those comments, reserved for the female population, were uttered if the hat was too tall, too wide, or decorated too lavishly with feathers or other accoutrements. Those large or outlandish hats definitely were not to be worn in church. Tasteful, rather quiet hats, were strongly suggested.

There is actually a fair amount of history that accompanies the wearing or when to not wear hats and can be found at friend Google’s site. In general, these societal rules come from distant cultural and religious norms, from the need to wear protective head gear for a variety of situations, and from many desiring to decorate and adorn themselves. Over time the needs and reasons have shifted and morphed with the cultural climate of the day. We now have fancy bicycle helmets and colourful hard hats that are, almost always, removed when entering a building. They do look to be hot and uncomfortable.

Not everything this month has to do with self doubt, although I’m certain if I will try hard to make a case for self doubt and the wearing of a hat. To begin with, wearing a hat to disguise, to hide, to avoid one’s ordinary image from being seen is one possible indicator. Placing a hat just so with a tilt, pushed back on your head or low over one’s eye changes as much as feelings change. Another detail involved in self image could be when one’s public face is needing a bit of a lift. Hat’s or head gear, with any form of a veil covering a portion of one’s face can be another way to hide oneself. And yet, some form of veil is still required in some cultures erasing any argument I may have had about hats and self doubt.

Wearing a hat is still something for me that is a kind of bitter-sweet fun. It protects my eyes from the sun while giving me the ‘hat head’ look - not the most flattering coiffure. But mostly I think that hats remind me of the community I grew up in, the church teas, weddings and, yes, funerals, dad’s farmer tan ~ pure white above the eyebrows, mom making hats and even Friday night bridge club where the statements of offence were shared.

“Cock your hat - angles are attitudes.”

~ Frank Sinatra

Remembering Shame

This inspiration came from a garbage bag and a toothpick.
An innocent looking, but used, toothpick lay on my kitchen counter - a tester for a banana cake I baked. So, it was not especially dirty, but used and needing disposal.
The garbage bag? Innocent white plastic - a clean liner to my kitchen garbage container.

vivid shaming memories of 
everything done wrong, 
been told I’ve done wrong
even been suspected of wrong doing

Throwing the toothpick in the freshly lined kitchen garage pail, my hope was that it wouldn’t make a hole in the bottom of the bag so nasty stuff would not leak from the bag. Fruit and vegetable peels are put in a separate container, so I quickly dismissed that possibility.

vivid shaming memories of
who do you think you are
you can’t do that
don’t bother trying
you shouldn’t have done that

Memories, shaped like toothpicks, do not grow as we grow.
Forgotten in the mist of memory are
youth of the child or teen or young parent............
exciting inspiration like fragile balloons
life experience behind the voice of a memory.
(and that voice may have been my own! using those same words on another!)

vivid self doubt
planted deep and nurtured carefully
fed and watered with shame and tears
roots clinging to the soil around spirit
choking out healthy growth.

Once self doubt is planted 
and if memory is to be believed 100%
can there be any turning back?
Or like the weeds in the garden, 
four foot tall thistles with vicious barbs,
or the undergrowth of an untamed field
are we willing to find tools to tackle this long planted self doubt?

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”

~ Brene Brown,  I Thought It Was Just Me: 

Women Reclaining Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Tell the Truth

Self Doubt is sneaky
a bothersome earworm
telling rusty old lies
to anyone who’ll listen

Don’t listen ~
answer lies with your own truth
until self doubt shrinks and shrivels away,
(or gets put in dry dock!)

“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because

Fiction is obliged to stick to the possiblities; Truth isn’t.”

~Mark Twain

Stones in My Shoe

Self doubt speaks little in the way of answers

throwing darts and barbed questions

interfering with direction and intent

little bits of rocky grit

wandered and wedged

beneath my soul

the weight of my own expectations

boulders built and tumbled over years of living ~

removal of assumption and expectation,

brushing away useless grit ~

my bared soul touches reality and breathes.

“Our limitations and success will be based, 

most often, on your own expectations for ourselves. 

What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.”

~  Denis Waitley

Redefining Self Doubt

Playing my game of redefining  words, I really think that ‘self-doubt’ deserves this treatment. And I may just post this one on my refrigerator to read daily!

Stick-to-itiveness

Enthusiastic

Laughter

Fullness of meaning

Deserving

Openminded

Unique

Belief in oneself

Trickster

“Accept yourself as you are. Otherwise you will 

never see opportunity. You will not feel free to move 

toward it; you will feel you are not deserving.”

~ Maxwell Maltz

Tricks and Disguises ~ Theme for June 2014 - SELF-DOUBT

It’s all very well and good to set one’s intention.
It is pretty important to make preparations,
but somewhere along the line,
not always in the same place for everyone,
there is a gremlin hiding ~ a trickster ~ 
waiting to pull taut a trip wire
dump a balloon of cold water on your head
Throwing things ~ chattering away nasty character assassinations.
“You’re not good enough.”
‘What makes you think you’ll ever get there?”
“Who do you think you are?”

I’ve met with that trickster more than a time or two
always with a different face ~ a different voice
And it’s always when I’m in a low spot of mood or energy,
or so distracted by other things that the trickster can slip in
change my attitude, 
question my beliefs,
or worse yet ~ question me about me.
Of course we all know that the different voices 
all come from within, 
memories attached to chatter or to the cold water, the trip wire or the chants ~
so that I don’t have to be responsible,
so I can blame someone else ~ who may only be miles away
or who may no longer walk this earth.

Is there any value to self-doubt?
Well, I suppose self-doubt slows me down ~ sometimes too slow,
gives me a chance to examine what my actions are,
tweak them or change them completely,
look at the other side of the coin.

But if I let a landslide of self-doubt bury me ~
well there’s a long hard dig to get footing back on solid ground.
Can I always look at the gremlin as a trickster?
Shake hands and stride forward to write another day?
I can certainly try ..............

“I am the one constant obstacle to my own momentum.”

~ Pete Vellucci, Jr.