positive psychology

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“Never mind dear, learn to type.”

first typewriter lookalike

My education had to stop when I was 15 as our single parent and elderly person household was not able to manage without a little more income.

In preparation for NOT going to 6th form at the Ilminster Girls’ Grammar School, I was advised by my head teacher (wonderful but scary woman) to take typing and shorthand lessons and get some sort of qualification suitable for a working class young woman of slender means.

I remember the strain of carting my typewriter – similar to that in the photograph – across Chard, typing for the evening and then carrying it back home.   I did get both 25 and 35 wpm RSA typing certificates.  Shorthand – it didn’t happen. English is a struggle and being dyslexic and dyspraxia means that any symbols do not dig themselves into my memory very well.  It was the same with music theory…

However,  I am very glad indeed that I did get typing lessons as well as exercise for my bicep muscles.  Touch typing is a great skill to have in this computer age.  Upgrading to 60 wpm audio typing also got me a job when I desperately needed to put groceries on the table. That speed wasn’t achieved on an upright typewriter I hasten to add!

Computers have also supported me in my quest in my mid forties to upgrade my education.  Various software programmes have helped me organise myself, remember things and be able to get my thoughts out in some semblance of clarity.  Although being rather unhinged when numbers and arithmetic come into things, I took like a duck to water on the software for analysing social sciences data and I loved the graphics I could produce to visually explain my findings.    Nowadays, I can even speak into the computer and it types up my words (although my lingering Somerset accent with  soft consonants and broad vowels gives it a few puzzles…).  I still prefer to type though – I don’t misunderstand myself.

Out of need, in my late twenties, I learned the therapeutic value of writing out my frazzled emotions and tangled thoughts.  In the last five years or so my fingers and hands have decided to become tiresomely lacking in strength making it difficult for me to keep my hand-written journals. Hyper-mobile joints with lax tendons and ligaments rather than arthritic stiffness is the problem apparently. I have adjusted to writing my journal notes straight onto a keyboard with those touch typing skills coming into their own yet again.

I must admit that am glad that I do not have to haul a huge upright typewriter around with me anymore. It was hard when I was a teenager let alone now I am approaching my mid-sixties! I have a smallish bag with my iPhone, iPad, Bluetooth keyboard, various chargers and wifi equipment.

I remain grateful for the advice given to my 15 year old self, although I don’t think my head teacher expected me to go any farther than the typing pool and certainly not to a doctorate and private psychology practice!

 

 

 

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A Work In Progress

Beautiful as it is, yet an unfinished work. (artist Nicki Hodges)

Beautiful as it is, yet an unfinished work. (artist Nicki Hodges)

It has been a long time since I published a blog post. How do I feel about that? Not great: ‘Oughts’, ‘shoulds’ and other demanding words come to mind when I think of the long gap.

I gaze at this picture I have on my wall at home and think again. I am on a journey, I am being ‘me’ as I travel.

How many of us feel ‘okay’ about ourselves, the way we are and our achievements? How many berate themselves for what they are not or have not done? Can’t we see what a marvelous work of creation we are and how much we do achieve, sometimes against tough odds?

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” Arthur Ashe

Enjoy being you and enjoy your journey.

Fellow traveller,

Sharman

Photograph of painting copyright Sharman Jeffries 2015

Majestic wonder

Majestic

Photograph Vancouver sunset taken by Rob Newey http://www.robneweymusic.com. February 2014.

Seeing this scene filled me with awe at the majesty of nature, but also the technical skill that Rob employed in composing and taking this shot. He is a skilled and talented musician and song writer who also has this creative talent.

The shot is artistically beautiful and well composed with a clarity in the photograph difficult to attain. The colour combinations and the texture of the trees and mountains, the movement in the sky was thrilling. Just to meditate and stop to gaze at this picture took me out of myself and my little world of doings and endless ‘stuff’.

On another level, Vancouver was a special place for me as it was where my long lost half brother had grown up. We met when he was 33 and I was 44. I went to visit with him in this country that my mother and I weren’t taken to by my father when he emigrated. Years ago of course…. I was three when he left.

Crossing the border from USA to Canada was a watershed in that I had been given to believe I wasn’t legally allowed to go into Canada. Funny how things can come into your mind that aren’t at all true! I wonder who put that thought there… Hmm.

So, I may have grown up a Canadian had things been different. Would I have been so impressed by the countryside and scenic beauty of the land had I lived their always? Do I remember to look at the South Downs where we live and appreciate what is around me?

A reminder to me : Embrace all you see Sharman and let it into your soul and spirit so your body may vibrate with the wonder of it all.

“Don’t ask your…

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

― Harold Whitman

I found this quote in an old Filofax.  Then found a quote that says “getting excited about an idea is not much of a plan”.  Mm

yup, I am good at excited but need a more focussed thinker to help me with my plan. So it’s TEAMWORK folks!

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A diamond in the dust

This Friday we are getting up VERY early to attend A Call To Business breakfast meeting in London’s City. There is always a buzz inside me when I go up to ‘the smoke’. It’s the place things are happening!

This Friday, Paul and team will be telling us about a young West African man who seems to have become a self taught genius despite having to scour rubbish dumps for the bits and pieces he needed to build and design a radio, just one of his designs. Check him out:

► 10:07► 10:07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOLOLrUBRBY
Nov 16, 2012 – Uploaded by thnkrtv
15-Year-Old Kelvin Doe is an engineering whiz living in Sierra Leone who scours the trash bins …

Half of me is excited that such a thing can happen, the other half challenges me to wonder why I didn’t get ‘discovered’ for the genius that I am.

Each of us have to do the best with what we have been given… In the time that we have…

As Gandalf said to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings film when Frodo wished he had never been given the ring… See my next post!

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perception and bucket lists

Image

This I saw on Facebook.  I like the idea of seeing myself positively don’t you?

“What about realism though?”  you argue.  Well, yes, that would be good, but how many people have an over-inflated view of themselves?  Not that many, I would suggest, as many people I have counselled over the years see themselves as much less than they actually are.

This morning, while putting archive boxes for our business in our already heaving loft, I dropped a lid of a plastic storage box farther back than I could easily reach.  Annoyed because its dusty up there, getting down on my knees I saw a cardboard box and – as I often do – got distracted.  “I wonder what is in there?”

Lifting up the lid I saw several colourful lever arch files and two box files. The lever arch files contained journals written as therapy during my struggle to do my PhD.  The box files contained: YES! my original copies of my poetry (some dating back 25 years or more), articles, short stories and my early attempts at writing down my personal story.

Excited?  Yes very, and intrigued because at Christmas my other half’s brother-in-law (i know, family links are confusing…) gave us his ‘old’ lap top in case any of our adult kids needed one or knew someone who would benefit by having a lap top.  This lap top had an ‘A’ drive – floppy disks.  Bear with me here; the last time I was in the loft, I came across a floopy disk storage box with two disks in it:  my archived poetry, writing, short stories etc.

Put the two finds together and I find my heart leaping with a sense of anticipation and intrigue at coming across the hard copies and the computer files of my non-professional, non-academic work.

Still with me?  One of the tasks given to me the last time I saw my ADHD psychiatrist was to write up a plan to breakdown the first of the academic papers I had outstanding.  Anti-procrastination exercise.  I mentioned that my back log of paper writing had been causing me concern because no matter how I thought I ‘must do this’, I never seemed to get going on it:  other more immediately gratifying tasks or crises got in the way.  I dutifully completed this task – I am paying the guy! – and furthering it to include other papers on my list of things to do at some point (I think it was becoming a ‘bucket list’!), I started to wonder about my creative, literary and therapeutic journal writing…  was I ever going to do that before I swanned off to Heaven?

Two things have miraculously emerged at almost the same time. I reckon this is a ‘sign’.

I have decided to view myself positively like the old girl in the cartoon.  I am more than capable of finishing my academic writing and now and then blogging my poetry, short stories and so on during that time.  I can treat myself with some creative blogging as a carrot to help me drag through some of the dry formal prose needed to get my papers published.

Later on after my list of projects have been done, I can address the issue of publishing more of my writing in a different format… unless Heaven comes first of course?

(C) drsharman.wordpress.com/ 2013