What To Do When People Disappear

Searched high and low to find an image of this pen. Just as I searched 40 years ago to find the one that disappeared.

Never found that multi-cartridge pen that my uncle brought back from his stint in the United States. Just as I could not find an imagine of it today on the WorldWide Web.

What has not disappeared is the memory of it or the "back siding" my mother gave me.

I was warned not to take the pen to school but which child would listen to that when they possessed the very thing that could make them the centre of attraction?

When I discovered that it had disappeared, I searched every crevice along the paths I had taken that day. Not finding it and knowing the hell and powder house that was going to occur when my mother found out, I ran away. Well not quite. I hightailed to my father's family house, a place that I might have visited twice before. That is another story, my infrequent visits to the Esterines.

As night fell, my half brother took me home promising to plead on my behalf. We held high hopes that his pleas would soften my mother's hardening heart as he had done so before. That too is another story.

He failed and I was severely whipped and chastised.

In that incident, I learned my first lesson in disappearing possessions. It would pave the way for how I dealt with disappearing people and problem solving for a couple more decades.

"Hang on to things, people, anything that has material and emotional value or are status symbols with your dear life - or get an ass whipping!"

So I hung on! For dear life I gripped:

• Every relationship or friendship even if the other party did not want to relate to me any longer
• Pieces of papers that said I had earned certification, a degree, experience even though I had suffered through the course, job, etc and hated every second

If it disappeared, I would hunt and tie it down so tightly, rathering it dying than allow it to "leave" me. That is exactly what I did when a long-term relationship started dying in its 9th year.

Seven years later when it finally gave up the ghost and up and disappeared - literally and metaphorically - I started to learn the real lesson in disappearing acts.

Let them go.

In Jamaica we have a saying: "What a fi yuh can't be un-fi-yuh." Translation: What is yours is yours.

It would take me six more years to earn my degree in "Goodbye Psychology." My professor, Life, was patient and allowed me to repeat classes and courses, gave me extra lessons and set for me the most rigorous examinations.

I graduated when I was truly ready to let everything, everyone and every situation disappear once they had fulfill their purpose in my life.

Today is my first anniversary at my current place of enjoyment. It is a proud moment for me not because I will receive a fat bonus cheque or something. My pride stems from the fact that this "Enjoyment Employment" is one of the several rewards that my professor, Life, has given to me.

My certification in "Goodbye" means that, finally I was ready to:

1. Work with an organization not for money but for the richness of service
2. Cherish friendships for their heart value rather than popularity ranking
3. Allow my most precious gift, my daughter, to be who she wants to be
4. Love wastefully anyone even those who piss me off
5. Release easily anything and anyone

Now, my remaining class through which I will receive a doctorate in "Goodbye' is in "The Joys of a Fully Free and Totally Unconditional Intimate Relationship."

If you would like to borrow my notes from previous courses or be my study partner in this class on "What a Fi Yuh..." do write to me, visit my page and join my list to get updates.

Be blessed and be ready to accept that what disappears is no longer yours!

Namaste

P. S.: Check out yesterday's essay before you go: "Your Expectations Are Running Your Life!"

 
Some photo source: pinterest.com

Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy

Pauline was her name. More than likely still is as she is about 65 years old now and the last time I saw her – some 17 years ago – she seemed in good health.

When it comes to my minimal fashion sense – she was my first tutor.

Pauline lived next door to me for about five years. My mother and I had moved so many times in my life that by the time we got to this location in “bottom” Pembroke Hall, I was hesitant of getting acquainted with anyone.

It was difficult not to get to know Pauline though. Tall, elegant and one of the first black women with bald head that I ever met – and I was mesmerized and immediately wanted to cut off my then flowing and very much permed locks.

If her looks took your breath away – her sashay would give you a heart attack!

We were poor – as far as my mother would insist – but it did not matter to me, until I met Pauline. Her sense of style was out of this world. She wore the most gorgeous dresses and skirts imaginable. 

There was no way under the sun my mother could afford to get me anything nearly as beautiful. My clothes were handmade – not from the department stores – and the fabrics were bought at the “pound store.” Those are fabric retail stores where you could purchase material not by the yardage but its weight. You got more for less but the quality was questionable.

Our resources left us without question – it was what we could afford. My ‘aunt’ was the seamstress and my dresses were made on a barter system. My aunt was not the best housekeeper, so my mother would do chores for her in return for her making our clothes.

Those were the years that my ability and propensity to compare my life with those around me heightened. I can recall checking out Pauline’s clothes, touching the labels as if it were silk. Very few items in my ‘wardrobe’ had labels, only my underwear and they were certainly not designer labels.

The comparisons would run beyond Pauline and clothing. Over time, just about everything was subject to comparison. With that came my feeling of unworthiness, shame, guilt but surprisingly there also came a strong desire to achieve.

“Comparison is the thief of joy,” Theodore Roosevelt is reported to have said and I had none for a long while. Joy, that is.

I compared everything and everyone to what I had or did not have; where I was in life and who was with me. It was sad.  Comparing myself was a chronic illness until I got cured. Thank God for break-ups!

Some people shy away from the end of a relationship and I was one such, particularly one that lasted for umpteen years. Brought to my belly, crawling and sliding down the slope into deep depression, it finally came to me:

1.  Stop the comparison – it is what it is (Acceptance)
2.  Be the best at whatever I am in that moment (Embrace)
3. No one can do me like me (Love)

Were those three lessons easy? Of course not! It would take a few years and, sadly, a marriage for me to finally come to accept myself for all that I was and had become. Only then was I able to step into the shoe, the dress, the pantyhose and yes the big girl panties that were made just for me.

Claudette

The greatest transformation and joy arrived and wrapped her arms around me when I learned to love myself – flaws and all.

You too can stop letting comparison steal your joy. Your process might be different from mine but at the root will be self-love. No one can teach you that. I or others may be able to model it for you. I am more than willing, so do feel free to drop me a line, inbox me on my coaching page and do subscribe to this blog.

Have a wonder-filled rest of the day!

Namaste. 

Choose Ye: Romance, Demons Or What Is?

Most of my summer days were spent doing the same thing - daydreaming.

Whether it was in my bedroom at our rented house somewhere in Kingston, Jamaica or lying on the rocks at the seaside with my childhood friend in Oracabessa, St. Mary, the dream was always the same.

A knight in shining armour coming to rescue me from the doldrums of my existence. We eloped for no other reason than it was the seemingly more romantic thing to do. Whisked off to a castle surrounded by the rolling fields of plants and flowers that I knew not the names of, my husband and I lived happily ever after, never aging and having everything a human could possibly imagine.

Either the screaming voice of my mother or the searing heat of the sun would break me loose of the dream.

Only in those years and moments, my life was romantic and idyllic. In reality, there were many times it seemed more like a nightmare.

"Why could life not be basked in such glamour, grace and glory as my dreams?" I would often ask to no one in particular but hoping God would answer.

Told that things would have been much different for us if this, that or the other did or did not happen by my mother, there was one thing I refused to accept. It was not my fault.

It just was.

From an early age, I knew that romanticizing or demonizing anyone or any part of life would not get me where I wanted, which was out of the doorways of poverty. I had heard enough times that education was the key but was confused by the push towards what required only booty power and I had an ample supply back then.

Living the tension of these arguments, I grasped every opportunity that came my way to enhance my educational level. As we all do in different ways, certain things, situations and people are categorised and stored in our romantic box. We pull them out, daydream and fantasize about them until they materialize in some way shape or form or we wake up. We do the opposite with those things, situations and people who scare and frighten us - we turn them into demonic forces.

Education became my new knight and the threat of being penniless my demon.

What most find challenging is living in "the between" place. Until we learn to appreciate the pure potentiality of every situation, circumstance and even people who come into our experience to serve as a teacher in some way, we develop rigid expectations. Life is either good/romantic or bad/filled with evil people.

In my case and to my mind, living humbly had nothing to teach me and education - the higher the better - was the only escape route. So, I fought against one and chased the other.

One of the greatest challenges is to play the hand we are dealt. There are many examples of people, heroes we tend to call them, who do just that. Limbless, uneducated, on death's bed, living in abject poverty or some other dire circumstances, we read stories or watch videos of such persons rising above their situations. They neither romanticize the banality of their surroundings nor do they sit swearing at the invisible demons that have cursed their lives.

Instead, we see these mainly unsung heroes embracing the miniscule to us potential in their situation and transforming their and usually their families' and communities' lives into mountains of greatness.

They embraced the what is.

Breaking Loose from the ties, chains and even threads that bind us to roses and/or demons require, in fact demands, such acceptance and allowing. Only then can Beauty break through and delight us in her mystery and grandeur.

It takes time, some effort and lots of willingness to arrive at this "in between" place. We each must daily ask ourselves "Am I willing to just let what is be?"

After gaining degrees, certificates, diplomas and rising to levels of great professional responsibilities and financial earnings, the beauty of a simple, humble life revealed itself to me. I have asked myself the question and daily the response is the same: "I am more free, happier and living my best life as I continue to grow!"

What is your response? Share with me here or on my Facebook page and have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day!

Whatever Comes My Way

Claudette

"Whatever," she said to me, rolling her neck.

That was my daughter. She was being her obnoxious self and it was making me really angry. That was not her usual demeanor.

Quiet, soft-spoken with big doe-like eyes, my baby girl was stepping into her power and was very much testing it out on me. Truth is, it was a test for both of us. We are two strong-willed women. That was a large part of the challenge, accepting that she was no longer the long-legged little Princess Chulumba that I would have given my life to protect.

There she was, recently disembarked from a misadventure around Europe, South America and the Horn of Africa. All largely at my expense and I was pissing mad because I told her it would have been just that.

My Princess Chulumba

She is very much my child, so she proceeded to ignore my warnings. Granted, my protest was unusually short-lived as I too was on an adventure of my own. It was not long into my doubting "this great opportunity" she had to work on a cruise ship that I decided to say, "Whatever."

Less than six months after she had boarded the flight to London, England, gone through her six weeks training programme and boarded the cruise line that baby girl was calling home disillusioned. Resisting the urge to remind her how much money I had spent on her 18-month College programme, the fees for her accepting this "great opportunity," the special equipment that she required AND her airfare, I asked "So what will you come back to Canada to do?" 

"Whatever." 

Hell no! I was having none of that. Either she laid out a plan or I will. Within weeks of that conversation, I had a plan. Within a year of executing that plan, I lost everything.

"Sovereign in the mountain air
Sovereign on the ocean floor  

With me in the calm
With me in the storm
Sovereign in my greatest joy  

In my deepest cry
With me in the dark
With me at the dawn  

In your everlasting arm
All the pieces of my life  

From beginning to the end
I can trust you  

In your never failing love
You work everything for good
God whatever comes my way
I will trust you  

In your everlasting arms
All the pieces of my life
From beginning to the end
I can trust you  

All my hopes
All I need
Held in your hands  

All my life
All of me
Held in your hands  

All my fears
All my dreams
God whatever comes my way
I will trust you" 

The words of that glorious song by Chris Tomlin describes my journey since November 2011. Learning from one of my greatest teachers, my daughter, "Whatever," now freely flows from my lips.

Today should have been the day I fly back to Canada. Last night before turning off the light in the beauty-filled bedroom with the luxurious king-sized bed that I have had the pleasure to rest in each night for four months now, I opened one of my guides to spiritual living, the Science of Mind monthly magazine.

Image: scienceofmind.com

I had forgotten to read it during what was an extremely hectic day. Much was on my mind not least of which was whether I had done the right thing cancelling my flight a couple days ago. My love interest and I were also contemplating who should visit with whom in the next little while. Should he fly to Jamaica or Canada (God alone knows where I will be) or should I take the transatlantic trip?

The affirmation for the day read simply: "Whatever is best."

A tear rolled down my cheek and kissed my lips. I licked the salty reminder that The Divine still knows how to create. I rolled over, turned out the light with a smile and said, "Whatever," seeing my daughter's big eyes smiling back at me.

Are you experiencing a moment of uncertainty as to what next? Are you busy trying to arrange whatever pieces comes your way? Drop me a line here or on our Facebook page and let us affirm the truth together. You can also follow us on Twitter.

Continue to have an awe-filled day as you embrace whatever comes. Namaste

Other Photo Source: talesfromthelou.wordpress.com


Claudette Esterine is the Founder of Daughters of Sheba Foundation and Editor of our blog. She is a Jamaican-Canadian and a Free Spirit.