SOAR AND SWOOP

Is your life on a downward or upward trajectory? Have you planned your route and ensured you have the necessary tools to reach your goal? Are you going in the right direction? Are you on track?

Perhaps you’ve never thought about it. You just do the minimum to get through the daily chores and meet your responsibilities. You leave the rest up to fate or karma or luck. Does that sound like you?

Are you happy? Are you fulfilled? Do you feel a sense of achievement? Or are you counting down the years to your retirement when you intend to do all the stuff you don’t have time for right now or can’t afford. Will it be any different topsy- turvy No!

I bet that’s shocked you. Planning and preparation should be long term goals. Using all your mental, emotional and attributes, all your talents, should be part of your life now. Wake up! Don’t let life happen to you. Make it happen for you.

LIFE IS

Life isn’t about walking on flat ground which is always even and smooth. Like the physical world we live in it’s a combination of rough and smooth, valleys and mountains, still pools and cascading rivers. How you approach any one scenario is up to you and you can learn the best way, the safest way. You teach your children emotional intelligence. Ensure you also teach them how to Map-Read Life, and metaphorically speaking -how to wear boots when they are needed. How to cross life’s deep rivers safely. How to climb mountains safely and effectively.

Most of this they will learn automatically from watching your behaviour and your response to life’s curve balls. No-one is perfect and it’s important they learn that. Top of your agenda should be that you learn it yourself. What is important and I will state it again – is how you deal with stuff. The stuff of life. All its trials and tribulations.

A FORMULA FOR LIFE

I love watching birds fly in perfect formation and symmetry. We can learn a lot from them. That amazing V formation they create is not only beautiful, it is also practical. The leading bird breaks up the wall of air and this creates an eddy of air behind, which helps the rest of the birds, propelling them forward.

This is team-work. Can you imagine if we could create the same kind of formation in the workplace or within family structures? Supporting each other. Using our strengths to help each other. Flying together as one cohesive unit without the back-biting, back-stabbing atmosphere that is not conducive to emotional health or wealth. As humans, we have a lot to learn from nature. Our feathered friends know how to soar and swoop, how to use nature’s wealth to their benefit.

HOW?

Everyone has different strengths, different personalities, and different ways of dealing with life. Everyone is unique. I believe that no one person is better than the other and we need each other to progress in life.

How can that be achieved? Simple. Acknowledge each other’s strengths. Celebrate them. Forget the strident caw-caw of the crow and sing like a nightingale. Don’t let personal issues cloud your judgment. Be kind in word, thought and deed. Help each other. Communicate with love. Sounds too perfect. Sure – but it’s not impossible.

We all carry a burden of some sort and in our attempts to deal with it can hurt others, or pull them down to our level. So, we must learn to swoop in a more positive fashion. Swoop to a place of safety and heal. Then soar upwards. Spread your wings and fly in formation with the people you work with, the people you love and care for.

LIFE’S JOURNEY

Life is fraught with many challenges,

Difficulties that at times seem insurmountable,

Together we have climbed a steep mountain,

Sliding and slipping along the way,

Clutching on to the hard rock-face,

Hurting – yet gripping on,

Determined to get to the top.

So many times we faltered,

Despairing – not knowing what else lay ahead,

With strength and courage and most of all love,

We made it and journeyed onward,

Until we reached the gentler slopes,

Finding a place of safety – a shelter from life’s storms,

Giving us time to rest and renew our spirits,

Allowing hope to shine through the darkness.

So many times we have walked along the edge of life,

Fearful – yet determined to move forward,

To overcome the obstacles in our way,

To soar once again,

To spread our wings and fly.

©Helena Abrahams

WHAT IF I CAN’T SOAR?

There are many times in our lives when that happens, or we believe it does. The death of a loved one. Being bullied at school or at work. Loss of a job. Serious illness. These occasions and many more make us feel vulnerable and alone. We may feel stripped of dignity and constantly wonder – “Why me?”

The human spirit is strong and every day that passes whatever pain has been inflicted on us, reduces just a little. We may rail at the world, at God, at anyone who listens, sink into apathy and stop believing.

A bird cannot fly with a broken wing. Humans cannot soar with a broken spirit. First of all acknowledge and accept the trauma in your life. If possible be objective about it. Difficult when your emotions are topsy-turvy. Make a plan. Talk to family and friends. Ring the appropriate help-line. Basically – reach out. Treat this time as a source of healing, a time in your life when you may have to re-assess.

The day will come, sooner than you think when you can soar again. It happens so quickly you may be taken by surprise.