Clearing Mist and Mirage

Self doubt filtered through leafy branches like foggy mist carrying watery images 

memories from yesterday and yesteryear, pulling forth shattered  mirages from future's oracle.

Once more, confidence warmed the air, mist vanished in the sun, mirage became distant dreams and goals to reach.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am

a free human being with an independent will.”

~ Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Red Flags and Crystal Facts

Gut feelings stirred.
Red flags weakly waving.
Certainty or self doubt.
Hesitation til the last moment.
A word.
A concern expressed
One little red flag fluttered cautiously heard by only a few.
Facts crystallized and discussed with no resolution.
Was my intuition on target?

“You have to listen to what resonates within your own gut.

You find your direction there. Your voice comes out.”

~ Kathy Mattea

Bubbles of Self Doubt

Poignant and troubling self doubt
‘My child is an addict - his children are with me.
What should I do with all my
fears for his safety
worries about my grandchildren
anger about his life
grief for my newborn so full of wonder and promise
self doubt about what I did wrong as a parent?’

‘My little sister is an addict - her husband has left with her children.
What should I do with all of my
fears for her safety
worries about my nieces and nephews
anger about her life
grief for the shared childhood that has been lost
self doubt about what I did wrong as a big brother or sister?’

Poignant and so very heartwarming
‘Through all of my fears and worry, grief and anger, 
He is my son
She is my daughter
He is my brother or She is my sister
She is my grandmother or He is my grandfather
Special, precious and loved.’

“Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.”

~ David Ogden Stiers

Instinct and Intuition

Antlers still thick with velvet, the young deer strolled through the tall grass nipping bites of grasses and wildflowers. He saw me and only looked at me long enough to say good morning, then strolled on. Maybe six feet away, he continued on his quiet breakfast stroll in the Garry Oak Meadow of Beacon Hill Park. It occurred to me that he had no fear of my presence, had no doubt about his safety, despite my camera pointed right at him. Aren’t man and wild beast afraid of each other, giving wide berth to each other when suddenly in the same space?

Self-doubt is a human construct. There seems no doubt of any kind among the birds and trees, deer and grasses. Safety or danger is or it isn’t. Able or not able. Trusting their instincts they put themselves forward - or not.  

“By banishing doubt and trusting your intuitive feelings,

you clear a space for the power of intention to flow through.”

~ Wayne Dyer

Good Books and Good Food

Today was the annual wrap up luncheon for the book group I have belonged to for about ten years!  Wow! It definitely doesn’t feel like that. Group members have come and gone with a fairly stable core group.

As we did last year, and for this June, we met at the Vista 18 restaurant high atop the Château Victoria. www.chateauvictoria.com/dining/vista-18/  From the eighteenth floor, at corner tables with magnificent windows overlooking the city of Victoria, we enjoyed a lovely lunch before getting down to the business of books. Next year's book list hasn’t come out yet, but the books we discussed promise to be very interesting indeed.

It has been far too easy for me to doubt myself over the years about choosing a book that would be suitable for this group, many being very well read and belonging to more than one book group. I have always loved to read, and so, pushing self doubt aside I accessed the Goodreads site at https://www.goodreads.com for suggestions. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luiz Zafon was my choice - mystery and intrigue in 1945.

What have I read this last month? The entire Harry Potter series - all seven of them! It was difficult to put them down. J.K.Rowlings wrote a masterful series developing magical growing characters in a magical setting just outside of the Muggle (non-magical humans) world. I loved it. (Kreacher, the house elf in the latter part of the series, seemed a personification of self doubt.)

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. 

The man who never reads lives only one.”

~ George R.R.Martin, A Dance with Dragons.

Entry Denied

Self doubt really is quite a trickster.  

Sliding quietly from one worry to another that old trickster thinks to sneak through a different door

to challenge inner belief and confidence.

After all the poems, muses and story over the last two weeks

it would seem that self doubt hasn’t paid the least bit of attention 

~ except ~

being described as unimportant,

sending him (or her) scurrying for another entrance.

But! not to worry ~

Self confidence stood guard on the other side of the door.

“The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Drawing upon Metaphor

A story: “The stone rose up in the road as if planted there. Striding confidently forward, eyes ahead, not watching where I was going, I stepped hard on it, rolled forward and fell forward onto the ground my face planted in the dirt. What use was there in getting up and going on if a little stone could knock me off of my feet? And right before my eyes, the stone grew larger and larger until it blocked out all light on the journey ahead. I blinked, shook my head and the huge boulder that had expanded before my very eyes was gone. Only the walnut sized stone was there, kicked away where my foot had sent it.”

I could say that this was a dream, but my dreams are usually much more bizarre than that. And it wasn’t reality either. But it is like self doubt. Confidence in direction and abilities get shunted aside when I allow a sudden dip in a moment in time to act like that stone in the road.

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

~ Orson Scott Card, Alvin Journeyman