"Change is the very nature of life, - welcome it. No glass ever became sand again; No bread ever became wheat; No ripened fruit ever became a flower. Welcome change, and choose what kind of glass you create, what kind of bread you bake, what kind of fruit you harvest" - Unknown

I really Like this quote! one up on "embrace change"

I can be the Kayak girl!

I had a dream a little while ago which has made me realise something quite significant about myself. In this dream I saw myself in a kayak doing a canoe race with someone. I knew it was me in the dream although I did not recognise myself. I had long brown hair, I was tanned ( not likely after a year in Ireland and returning to South Africa for a second winter). But what has had a major impact on me is that I had this super toned body - muscles everywhere. I even had my much desired Michelle Obama Arms!!
Why the impact? I realised that I had never seen myself or even imagined myself like that before. Yes, I desired it, and have tried endlessly  to tone up... but never actually 'seen' myself looking so super hot and healthy ... Fit, Firm and Fabulous! The image inspired me and motivates me now ... because I guess the cliche 'if u can see it - you can achieve it' (I hope). But this is not my point.

My point is that my self-image has always been distorted. I have always! always! always! seen myself as the 'very chubby, friendly girl'. I know that ones self-image is like the cruise-control setting in Ian's much loved TDi Polo. If you set the cruise control at 100km per hour, you can slow down or accelerate to a higher speed for what ever you need to, but the cruise control will always bring you back to 100km per hour.  To make point: If my self-image is me weighing 10 tons - I may lose or gain 5tons. But if my self-image is or I see myself as 10 tons its likely that I will always slowly creep back 10 tons. The same goes if you see your self as a loser or as unsuccessful or a bad friend. You will never rise above the expectation you have of yourself.

I will give you some example of my mindset. I joined the gym here in Worcester for the couple of months that we'd be here. As you know you have to go through the whole assessment - make me a program exercise first. Anyway, so I go and tell them my usual goals blah blah blah... get on the scale ( The usual result ) and then the BMI and fat percentage. I read the results and expect the worst. I was surprised to see I am in the normal-healthy range for fat percentage.... and my thought is first 'the dude is clearly not a professional,he must of made a mistake'. Then my mom gets one of these fancy scales that can measure your fat percentage...I am surprised it is almost exactly the same percentage as the 'unprofessional gym dude'. So I think it must be his table that's incorrect,I search the web and check the scales handbook ...I am in the healthy zone. I did a few more tests at Run/Walk for Life and yip same result. My problem is that self-image is that I am not 'Normal'!! but maybe, just maybe I am. Not my ideal!!, but 'normal' is a very big jump from what I thought I was.

I need to change the expectation of myself in order to firstly accept that maybe I am okay - even now - which  is the hardest part! and that 'I'...yes 'me'  can actually be the girl in the Kayak! I have seen an image of myself - and that I can actually be 'her', IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE ...because I have seen an image that it is! even if only in my dream  =).

In my next blog will be about how I got this self-image - the lies I hear/heard and believed which set my cruise control at very chubby - friendly girl.  Likely the most important reason for this post being written. Because many of us have been  told lies about ourselves that we have believed and it may be stealing our potential.

Quote of the day. " I have learnt... that if someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it."

Accepting Second Best?

In my post ‘The 2 year Old in You’ I wrote about how adults have lots their ability to make their world colourful. We have lost our creativity, imagination and belief that we can change our life-world. I have also come to know that we have lost the dreams we hoped for in our lives. The dreams we desire most are the very things we have lost faith in believing we can achieve them. Dreams including a love story with a romance so beautiful its tangible to everyone around you; marriage that lasts a lifetime and doesn’t fear divorce; a career so exciting you actually jump out of bed in the morning – not necessarily a career that will change the world but one that changes yours; or a family that’s still together and not broken. We have come to accepting that this world is a dysfunctional mess - Why pretend things can ever be any different? We accept mediocrity at the cost of the dreams for our lives. We settle for second best and wonder why we are ‘just living’.

A quote by Eric and Lesley Ludy puts it like this “As we grow up, the world tells us that aiming our lives at the impossible only leads to disappointment. Somewhere along the way, we are persuaded to loosen our grip on our dreams and we pitch our tents in a land where everyday humans dwell”. Why would we want to settle where everyday humans dwell??? Where is the adventure? Where is that person in you that would rather go take a step into the wild to discover something new and exciting rather than stay inside where it’s boring and safe?
Something else the Ludy’s said that I thought was so significant: and hear this…"After all, if you never aim high, you will never be disappointed with mediocrity”

Either we play it so safe that we say “Its not worth taking the Risk” so we often settle for second best or harden our hearts so much in order to avoid disappointment – suppressing and suffocating the very dream we desire most.

I mean the above most in regards to Love. I have had 3 conversations with friends recently that have made my heart rather sad. The first one is a 16 year old, beautiful, talented young woman who tells me that she will never get married. Don’t get me wrong I think she would love to, but she says ‘It’s not worth the risk’ she lived through her parents divorce and now continues to give me stats on the divorce rate in SA. Then the situation with my last two friends is that they have come to that point in their relationships where they have been dating the ‘great guy’ for a while and they are dreaming of marriage, but he just isn’t asking or planning anything of the sort. And if the girls try hint their hearts desire of a man so in love with them that he wouldn’t hesitate to fulfil their childhood dream of a romantic story of when he buys the prettiest ring and promises to honour her by making her his wife forever! Instead he has excuses of ‘I just haven’t thought about it, or I like the way it is’, or ‘I don’t believe in marriage’. The girls’ heart begins to harden, her love and childhood dream of marriage and a family begins to suffocate. What I fear most is that they ‘pitch a tent where everyday humans dwell’. That they settle for second best.
If your boyfriend cannot see himself marrying and honouring you and it’s your hearts desire and dream to get married’…and he isn’t planning on changing his mind and your love and heart is beginning to harden… know this, it is his loss! He will wake up and one day and realise that he believed the world lies. He settled. Pitched a tent of mediocrity without taking any risks and lost out.
Believe this - you were born for a romance! It is out there when two people believe that love is possible and realise that is worth taking the risk and if you are both willing to give 110%. Don’t hold back because you scared of a statistic. Believe that your life can be different and you do not have to settle for ‘everyday'. Don’t hold back because life is an adventure and there is a lot to be discovered. Don’t lose your passion and belief that the impossible is possible. After all, with God all things are possible to those who love and trust him. The God who is the God of the impossible, who can do above and beyond what we expect loves us and desires to give us the desire of our hearts. If you cannot trust yourself with your dreams… trust God.

And if any boys who aren’t honouring their girlfriends with their hearts desires happen to stumble on this blog. If you love her, honour her! Be her knight in shinning armour. The world lies and leave you empty. A Women blossoms when she is in love and loved – you will benefit in her glow I promise you.

I updated my Facebook profile yesterday as ' It's time to start my adventure'. What I meant is that I am going to step into the life that I have been living on the side lines for the last while. I wrote in my first blog post about what I intended for this blog 'Girl Talk Topics'. If you read my last couple of posts they have been what I have been reflecting on in my life but not what I wanted the focus of this GIRL TALK blog to be. This same 'theme' has been in my life too. It has been my hearts desire to pursue doing GIRL TALK workshops on Self Image, Self- worth and accepting yourself as a unique, beautiful, purpose filled girl. Helping women like me and many others who struggle for their self worth in a world that makes a women's worth often look cheap. The workshops are to help girls find their identity, help them find the girl God made them specially, for a purpose on purpose! I hope to host these workshops with an team that I haven't met in Pietermaritzburg yet, but am hopeful and faithful that God is preparing their hearts for this mission. Together we will hopefully help plant seeds and truths into many girls hearts at schools, youth camps and churches. Seeds that will help girls' grow into more confident, wiser, purpose filled girls and with the ability to say the word 'NO' loudly when needed. My blogging is meant to compliment this, to help me sort through some ideas and together with your feedback and critism get the best of the best in order to help a generation get a clear message instead of from a world that sends a thousand different ones.

So my point ... watch this space. I am going to get focused and step into my greatest adventure yet! I am going to try stay focused on my dream and hearts desire and not step into the norms of this world. And norms for me are the getting a job so I can 'fit in' with everyone else, if its not a job at a school with teens or a youth group ... STOP ME! and a big temptation - earning money for the sake of earning money.  I enjoy business, and see lots of opportunity thats gets me on my rollercoaster ride of planning and scheming, unfortunately a ride that wastes my time and gets me off of the path that my hearts desires most to walk. 

I am sure I will still throw in a couple of odd ball 'what I am thinking about ( normally chocolate, my handsom husband Ian and flowers)' blog posts. But my theme is going to be mainly GIRL TALK REHAB!  =) enjoy!

The 2 year Old In You.

We have lost something very special in the process of growing up into being an adult. We have lost the colourfulness, creativity and beauty that we were born with. Most adults are dull dispassionate people that believe that we are no more special or beautiful than the next. Our lives are colourless and we accept it because we are pretty similar to everyone else we meet. Where did our beauty get lost? And how would it change our lives if we found it again?
Little children dress up into princesses or super hero outfits. Girls in pretty dresses and crowns, and then they come to display just how very pretty they are to just about everyone, and when their daddy or child minder says they the prettiest little girl they have ever seen, they do believe it!
Little boys are firemen, Ben 10 or Spiderman and when they have their right outfit on they truly believe they can change and save the world. They are heroes and nothing can defeat their abilities. They can protect and save anyone and everyone. They can achieve anything!
Psychologists call this fantasy play, where children create a world they can control and feel secure and safe in. They make their own colourful interpretation of their world around them. They know the difference between reality and fantasy. But what I find incredible is that they can create this world with their own meaning and belief in themselves by the age of two. They splash the creations of their imaginations to make a safe place and add beauty into a world that’s big, dark and scary at times. And they believe that they can make a difference, they can achieve anything and yes, that they are the most beautiful or the greatest hero that has ever lived.

Somewhere along the line we step into a ‘reality’ that we cannot change our life-world around us. It is what it is. We listen to the lies of people that we have met and believe we no longer have anything worth offering and are no longer beautiful. We are plain and ordinary, even when we are dressed in our pretty dresses and shoes - deep down inside our hearts we question whether we are beautiful, and when our husbands or loved ones say “WOW you are the prettiest women I have ever seen” We don't believe it!
Adults lose their creativity; we seem to accept our lives the way they are instead of adding our own colourful interpretation to it.

I want to find the childhood ‘Juliette’ again. I am going to try out new things and believe before I start that I can do it. I am going to learn to play an instrument with my own tunes; ride my bike in the mountains and not worry so much about falling. I am going to learn to mosaic and even if what I create isn’t what I hoped it would look like, I am going to stick it up on the wall anyway, to try and learn from it – instead of chucking it away and saying I am useless and not artistic. What if one day by accident I create a new style of mosaic that’s never been created before? Maybe my mosaic creation will change the way people have been doing mosaic for thousands of years. Yes it maybe a pointless example but that’s the kind of belief that will change my life-world. The small things in my life matter. And lastly but most important I am going to try believe that I am going to find the little girl who knew she was pretty and special, because we all are unique and beautiful, perfectly made in Gods image. He knitted us together in our mothers wombs. We are entirely perfect in God's eyes and also perfect in the eyes of the ones who love us unconditionally too. So I will dash on perfume to fragrance my day, pick flowers for my desk because they brighten the room, send my husband silly ‘I am mad about you sms’s’ every now and again because I believe it will add a smile to his day. Or bake my neighbours cupcakes even though I don’t know them. All day, everyday I am going to try splash a little bit of inspiration into my life and hopefully the lives of others too. To make my world seem less dark and big and impossible to change, I am going to change the ‘reality’ of this mundane listless life and step into the fantasy play of life – adding colour to whatever I want, to make this world seem like more of a fairytale to me again.

Cocoa Children

On the way home from fetching Kirstin and Megan - my two younger cousins from school. Kirstin, the eldest announces that she no longer eats chocolate! As you can imagine it was followed by a gasp and a " what on earth are you thinking" and then silence.She begins to explain her reasons and the main one being that her friend had recently given a speech in English class informing them about the children slave labour in the cocoa fields. For a chocolate lover like 99% of the female population on the planet to stop indulging in our much needed cocoa moments it had to be serious, very serious. I started to investigate and think about it with a critical mindset, hoping to possibly find her a cure for her distate for chocolate - I found out so much more than a cure.

West Africa's produces 70% of the world's cocoa. The Ivory Coast produces 40% of West Africa's cocoa, with the main supplies going to our favourite chocolate sources Cadbury, Nestle and Hershey's amongst others. It is well known that the Ivory Coast, Ghana, many central South American and African countries where cocoa is grown are some of the most poverty stricken, third world, undeveloped countries. Children are dying of starvation daily. This terrible truth is why many children are forced into slave labour with the promise and hope that they can feed themselves and their families. Many of the children start to work in the fields from the age of 8 years old. Sadly many of these children are also bought and sold across borders - a very real form of slave trade in today times.

Through westerner's eyes that has been educated and never ever had to labour in a field, I see this as shocking!! But having been on outreach into Mozambique experiencing poverty amongst the people in the community. I am also able to look at the issue through different eyes. These children have almost nothing, many only have one or two sets of clothes - shoes are a luxury. A family may have a small piece of land that they can produce a few crops. If these crops don't produce food it is an all-or-nothing situation. I hate to think about how many children have to go to bed daily with empty stomachs. This is a reality in a poverty stricken country. Now as an 8 year old in that situation, where there is no opportunity for education as there is no educational system for you to attend. Your mother and father and their fathers have all worked on the plantations all their lives. You have never known or seen anything different. You are hungry and your family needs you to bring in a much-needed wage, would you mind working on a cocoa field? I have to wonder if these children see it as abnormal or as child abuse or if they see it as an opportunity. Culture is very different in cocoa producing countries.It may be a very honourable thing to go out and work for your family. To me it seems as crazy as sending your son off to war in our society, but there is honour for those sons that go - in doing it for your family and country. Its a cultural norm, it is expected.

I still don't agree with the child slave labour on any level. But I would like to look at who are the real child abusers here. Is it not the government that fails these children by not creating a educational system to give them a real chance for an opportunity in life. Is it not the world's fault for standing by and not assisting these countries develope themselves optimally. I am not saying just with money but with life skills to improve their situation and lives.
We can all start by buying only FairTrade chocolate. If more of us would support the Fair Trade brands, the suppliers who have to meet the markets needs, forcing our favourite brands like Cadbury and Nestle to become FairTrade. By buying FairTrade you not only meeting your chocolate fix needs gulit free, you are ensuring that the labourers in the cocoa fields are getting a fair wage and there is local community developement happening with the profits made from the fields. Supporting Fair Trade farmers that don't abuse children for slave labour. You will be putting your money into business that creates a work opportunity for many families - making positive impact on their communities.

It does not help we all stop eating chocolate, this would only create a situation where even more people have no hope or way to earn a honest wage. We just need to choose what chocolate is actually good ethically. And make a statement - if its not Fair Trade its not worth it