Warning. Caution. Invitation.

I was once in an abusive relationship. It was a long time ago. At least, it feels like a long time ago. It certainly changed me as a person and had a massive impact on my life. If I refer to that period of my life at all, I call it my time in Hiroshima shortly after the bomb dropped. Because that is what if felt like to me.

I was treated for post traumatic stress disorder. I'm okay now. I laugh. I cry. I live. What I find difficult to watch is someone walking into the mouth of the devil that is the abusive relationship. So I wrote this article, and sent it to Women24.

Brave.

Five Minute Friday (done on a Monday) from Lisa-Jo Baker's blog. This is an awesome way to shake the cobwebs out and write. You have five minutes to write on the topic selected. GO!

Brave.

You never really know you have it in you to be brave until that moment arrives when brave is really the only option. Courage is much the same.

I've been told how brave I am for having come through what I have come through in my life, but really, I did what had to be done in order to move my life forward. There was a moment in each of those instances when I could have chosen to keep the status quo, but instead, chose the only realistic option for me: be brave.

During those days, when I lived in darkness, the very act of getting up out of bed and facing the day was, to me, an act of great courage. You don't have to already have brave as a default setting in order to be brave. Brave is what happens in the moment you need it.

I wouldn't call myself brave. And other women, like Julie who ended up tetraplegic and abandoned by her boyfriend after a motorcycle accident, won't call themselves brave either. It's as though the truly brave women I know keep silent about their courage. And we are all silently courageous. We don't realise it or admit it, but it is there. Every day.

STOP. Your turn.

The Simple Woman's Day Book

I thought I would give this a shot. Sounds interesting. It comes from a blog called The Simple Woman's Day Book: 

FOR TODAY

Outside my window... I have no window. I work in a windowless office.

I am thinking... it would be nice to have a large decaf cappuccino right now.

I am thankful... that I spoke to my cousin for a long while last night and we both managed to release some grief

In the kitchen... the kettle is boiling

I am wearing... my favourite African shirt with jeans

I am creating... documents to be sent out for a law firm

I am going...to my cousin Linsay for dinner tonight

I am wondering...how my wife's day is going

I am reading... The Gabriel Method

I am hoping...that someone will offer to make tea soon

I am looking forward to...the one week holiday we have planned for June

I am learning to be more mindful

Around the house...I am certain the cats are wandering

I am pondering...what the next chapter in my life will reveal.
A favorite quote for today... "Life is too short for bullshit"
One of my favorite things... cuddling with the dogs and cats. Especially in winter.

A few plans for the rest of the week: making music with Justin and catching up with Dori

A peek into my day... I was in the office at twenty to eight this morning. Working flat out since. I could use a power nap around about now.

The Law of Karma

When we think of Buddhism, we think of Karma. When we think of Karma, we often link it to the old adage, "What goes around comes around", and for most people, that is precisely what they believe Karma is.

Karma, however, is more than a cosmic justice system or a reason to feel bad about one's life ("I've got such bad karma, no wonder these bad things keep happening..."). It's also not the feel-good fix-all that you can throw out to make yourself feel better about someone else's misfortune either ("I knew that karma would bite them in the arse eventually).

Karma is a Sanskrit word meaning "action" or "deed". Karma is the action that sets in motion the wheels of cause and effect, and was originally a tennet of the Hindu faith. (It's also a common idea shared in Jainism, Sikhism and even the Falun Gong. Although, if you are familiar with anything new-agey, you'll be familiar with karma too.)

Tied in with Karma is the concept of reincarnation* and the idea that our past actions - stretching back over many life times - all have some sort of impact on the life we are living right now. There are some schools of thought that one has to reincarnate many times in order to transform one's karma and reach Nirvana. There are other schools, like Nichiren Buddhism, who believe that one can transform karma right now, in this very lifetime.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Karma is created through cause and effect. We create causes all day long, we just don't pay much attention to it. An easy example to illustrate this would be my dad. My dad smoked 60 cigarettes a day for most of his life. (The Cause) He died as a result of complications arising from emphysema, a direct result of smoking 60 cigarettes a day for most of his life (The Effect). We can create helpful causes (quitting smoking or not smoking at all) or unhelpful causes (smoking 60 cigarettes a day). These produce helpful effects (better health) or unhelpful effects (slow, painful illness culminating in death by heart attack or stroke). We get to choose.

Every moment of every day provides us with an opportunity to create helpful or unhelpful karma.**  I can choose to donate money to the homeless guy in the street or not. If I choose to donate, I may want to examine my intentions: donating so I can boast to my friends how generous I am (less helpful) or donating because the poor guy looked hungry and could do with a plate of food (more helpful).

SO HOW DO I CHANGE MY KARMA IN DAILY LIFE?

1. First of all, take a look at your less helpful behaviours. This is not an easy or comfortable task, but it will assist you in finding some of the 'biggies' (and some of the biggies, when examined, are actually not that big). For example, mine include a bit of swearing at taxi drivers and getting stressed out and frustrated with people, some jealousy, some poor self esteem.

2. Live mindfully. Be aware of how your actions and words will influence the people around you. Are you saying or doing something out of revenge or spite or are you doing it because you truly are working towards finding the justice in a situation?

3.  Gratitude is fantastic. Being grateful for what we have in the moment brings us back to the ever popular and sometimes elusive "now". Even the now is temporary and will change. Gratitude is a great way of releasing anger, frustration and jealousy.

4.  Nichiren Buddhists believe that chanting Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo helps to polish one's karma. Meditation works on the same level.

5.  Remember it's not all about you. And it is all about you. Your perception of the world is purely that: YOUR perception. To someone else you may seem like the bossy client, but to you, you may seem like someone who knows what she wants and the service providor may appear to be an idiot. Which of these is true? Both. And neither. It's all about how YOU perceive a given situation.

6. Karma isn't a bitch. Your own actions - cause and effect - created the situation you're in. Accept responsibility for your part in your psychodrama and realistically set about rectifying or improving on it.

Your karma is your own responsibility. It's not something that happens to you. It's not a punishment from God, Buddha or the Great Cosmic Joker. Karma holds YOU accountable for your thoughts and actions within your own life. There's no blaming the bunny, or the devil. The only one doing the living in your life is you.

The idea of Karma being my own responsibility is both liberating and sobering. How I treat others and myself will determine my Karma. I am not interested in transforming the karmic backlog of however many lifetimes. I am certain that some things have already been dealt with, or have manifested in this current life to be dealt with now. I only have this moment to polish the mirror in which my karma is reflected. So do you.

*Incidentally, early Christians believed in the concept of reincarnation too, but the idea was one of those that got ditched at the first Vatican Council. The Gnostics and Cathars, however, continued preaching reincarnation until they were all summarily murdered by the Church as heretics and witches

 ** I prefer the terms 'helpful' and 'unhelpful' when it comes to describing karma, as 'good' and 'bad' don't seem to include our own accountability and responsibility.



Friend.

This comes from a friend of a friend, actually. Lisa-Jo Baker's blog was discovered by me, this morning on Kerry's blog. And I decided to take her up on her invitation to spend five minutes of my morning just writing. On the topic of "Friend"... 3... 2... 1.... Time starts... NOW:

I am an odd sort of person when it comes to friends. I have to really like them. That sounds odd, considering everyone really likes their friends, right? What I mean is - like them to the point that their eccentricities, darkness, bad days, let downs, letting me downs don't matter as much as just loving them as my friend.

I am incredibly luck in that I can count some family members as friends too. Not everyone can say that.

I have several friends who have been around a long time. Twenty-five years for two of them. Sixteen years. Fourteen years. Some, fourteen months. And I love them all.

They are all excritiatingly diverse in personality, but they do share just one thing in common: if I haven't seen or spoken to them in ten years, ten months, ten minutes, whenever we get together, it feels as though no time has passed at all and we can simply pick up the thread of the last conversation and reconnect. For that, I am blessed.


STOP. TIME'S UP.

READ MORE ABOUT A SPECIAL FRIEND, HERE

Now it's YOUR turn. Go visit Lisa's blog, read the instructions and do your own "Friend" inspired post. Stick a comment on my page so I can go read your stuff.

Have To / Must.

So here's the thing. I am  undoubtedly very stressed out. In March, I landed my arse in the emergency room with chest pains that I thought were the start of a heart attack. Turns out that I was only having a very severe anxiety attack. And I say 'only' with a tinge of sarcasm.

As a result I have decided to cut all my 'crazy makers', 'have tos' and 'musts' loose. Because they are fucking with my head. First to go was Facebook. Then a few ideas hit the dirt: "I have to become a chiropractor. I have to listen to this idiot. I have to keep my mouth shut. I have to be nice/perfect/thin/go to gym five days a week."

Yesterday I was given a freelance editing job that came with no brief, changing of goal posts and a ridiculous deadline. My reaction was:

I am now going to take a break and drink a nice hot cup of tea and I am going to take however long it takes. Because I don't  have to get stressed out about a job that I wasn't given all the pieces of the puzzle for.

A Change of Direction

It was in either 2005 or 2006 that I received Gohonzon from the SGI (Sokka-Gakkai International), a lay organisation based on Nichiren Buddhism.

For some time now I have been practicing independently, and this morning I had a revelation while chanting with new friends who practice in the Nichiren Shu tradition: it is time to return my Gohonzon to the SGI.

As was pointed out to me today, the Gohonzon I received from the SGI is still property of the SGI - it doesn't belong to me per se. Which means that it was never mine and only on loan.

So now begins an interesting process, one that is undertaken with seriousness: the process of returning my Gohonzon.

I didn't even realise I had that decision to make until in a flash it was there, fully formed and my mind already made up. It was instant. It was like believing the world was only made of darkness until someone switched on the lights and it changed everything you thought you know. That dramatic and that instantaneous.

It seems apt. The past year has been a journey through a number of different forms of suffering and now as I stand at the precipice of 40, a lot of things in my life are looking very different.

On 11 March I went into the emergency room because I had chest pains so severe, I thought I was having a heart attack. It turns out that what I was experiencing was a rather severe form of an anxiety attack. I have been making changes that benefit my life since then. I deactivated my Facebook account, I now take lunch breaks. I speak up for myself when I would have remained silent in the past. And here it is, another decision that I didn't realise I had already made: return Gohonzon, keep practicing Nichiren Buddhism and learn more about the Nichiren Shu practice and Buddhism as a whole.

I know I will be fine. Yes, there are other changes to make. One at a time. And this change feels 100% right and in line with my life and in line with respecting myself.