Mother's day message 2007 from my daughter Amanda.

I want to share with you the message I got from my daughter Amanda on Mother's Day.

Dear Mum,
Happy Mother's day mum, Emma and myself love you and want to thank you for the lessons of
life you give us just by being yourself. I always watch your every move and learn
from that.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator and I immediately wanted to paint another one. When you thought I wasn't looking I saw you feed birds with bread crumbs, and I learned that it was good to be kind to birds and animals.
When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you cook my favorite meal for me and I learned that the little things can be the special things in life. When you thought I wasn't looking I heard you say a prayer, and I knew there is a God I could always talk to and I learned to trust in God.
When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make a meal and take it to a friend who was sick, and I learned that we all have to help take care of each other. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you give of your time and money to help people who had nothing and I learned that those who have something should give to those who don't.
When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you take care of our house and everyone in it and I learned we have to take care of what we are given. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw how you handled your responsibilities, even when you didn't feel good and I learned that I would have to be responsible when I grow up.
When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw tears come from your eyes and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it's alright to cry. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw that you cared and I wanted to be everything that I could be.
When you thought I wasn't looking, I learned most of life's lessons that I need to know to be a good and productive person when I grow up.
When you thought I wasn't looking, I looked at you and wanted to say, 'Thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn't looking.'

Lots of love
Your daughter Amanda

I treasure this Mother's day letter, it had a message every adult should read, because children are watching you and doing as you do, not as you say.
Each of us (parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, teacher or friend) influences the life of a child. How will you touch the life of someone today? Everything you do matters, whether someone sees it, doesn't see it, or secretly sees it.

The power of words

Next to love, words are the next powerful thing on earth. They have
the power to heal or cripple depending on how they are used. So it
is important that we handle words carefully, for they have more
power than atomic bombs due to the fact that they are accessible to
all of us, unlike atomic bombs.

Oh yes words can be so sweet and have the power to heal by
expressing love, by comforting, by encouraging, by inspiring, by 
motivating, by edifying, by praising, by thanking, by sympathising
and by consoling. The list of the sweetness of words is endless, yet most
of us prefer to use words to maim and cripple. Such crippling words as
passed by destructive criticisers, vision crushers, chronic grumblers and
complainers, tyrants, control freaks, discouragers, demotivators, jealousy
people and cruel people cause verbal pollution. 
Such maiming words are used as the poison of pessimists that create an 
atmosphere of wholesale negativism where nothing but the bad side of
everything is emphasized.

If it so happens that we enter a phase in which we might likely use words
carelessly as weapons because we don't think we have anything more to
lose, let us not forget the backfire of words. We should help stamp out
verbal pollution by cleaning up our speech and avoiding speech that has the
power to tear people down, adults and children alike. Let us aim to use words
that have the power to build people up and create connections, and not words
that destroy people. Let us choose our words  carefully, words that do not
escalate conflict. 

For peace, love and happiness to reign on earth, we need to button our lips 
securely against the words that bring a tear, but be swift with words of love,
words of comfort, words of praise and words of cheer.

It's time to quit the demolition crew and join the construction crew

I have seen people with noble visions having their visions crushed
by critics.

There are two modes of criticism. There is one which crushes to earth
without mercy and another mode which believes that no vision is
entirely in vain and so scrutinises circumstances, motive and objective
before it criticises and then help with advice.  The first kind of criticism
demolishes and the other helps to construct. For most of us the first kind
of criticism comes more easily. It takes little thought, less effort and even
less wisdom to kill with criticism. The demolition critics are interested in
making themselves look good by making others look bad, they talk much
and do absolutely nothing to help. When we find ourselves encountering
this demolition criticism from ourselves or others our best defense is to
try to ignore it and take it as an article of faith that even though we make
mistakes we are great because at least we dared to try.
The second kind of criticism which is thoughtful and careful coming from
ourselves and others is invaluable because it actually recognises and
encourages the worth of the efforts we are making, even as it points out
how we might grow differently.

Years ago Theodore Roosevelt said this about critics, "It is not the critic who
counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where
the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with dust and sweat and
blood, and who if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place
shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory no
defeat."

Visionaries when you get pelted by unfair criticisms as you stand for your
vision just remember what Theodore Roosevelt said back then.
To all critics I say it's time to quit the demolition team and join the
construction crew.

I will not bury my feelings

As children many of us were encouraged not to wear our
hearts on our sleeves. Perhaps our parents didnt want to
see us hurt, so they discouraged enthusiasms they thought
would lead to disappointment. Perhaps they couldn't stand
to see us hurting, so they urged us to show a happy face to
the world. Perhaps nobody actually told us to hide our
emotions but as we grew we simply figured out that it seemed
easier to do so since if we expressed our feelings we ran the risk
of appearing stupid or being vulnerable to hurt, to embarassment
or to failure or being misunderstood. Perhaps we just didn't want
to offload our feelings on others and make them uncomfortable
with our emotions or we thought by hiding our feelings we wouldn't
have to deal with the wild uncharted country of those feelings.

As adults we may continue this habit of burying our feelings or
some event may jolt us into emotion - love or happiness or rage or
grief that we can't bury. Such  an event affords us an opportunity to
unearth our feelings. If we resist expressing our feelings, we run the
risk of becoming numb and yet  we have to be able to feel feeilngs
for us express them and become able to deal with them.

I believe that a visionary gets the power to stand through tuning
in to his/her own feelings and then risking expressing them and then
harnessing those feelings to enable himself/herself to make the change
that he/she wants to see in the world.

What is my story today?

 

To suffer in silence, figuratively if not literally to starve, has
too often been considered a womanly virtue. We all know
women about whom it has been said, "She's a saint. She
suffered so much and never complained." No doubt she is
and she did.

I don't want to suffer in silence? I don't want my life forgotten
by everyone-including myself? I want to take  charge, claim the
power of saying that I am who I am? Through this blog I am going
to tell the world my thoughts, my vision, my actions, my life.

Once there was a woman, who didn't speak. She said nothing about
her needs, her wants, her aspirations. She never complained, she
never praised. She never nagged, she never asked. She was silent
for so long that one day she realised that she couldn't hear her own
feelings. She not only didn't say how her day was, she didn't know
how her day was. She tried to speak to herself but after being quiet
about her feelings for so long she didn't know how to connect to 
her innerself. 

Speaking out to ourselves is good not only for us but for our
relationship. It's a cinch that silence never preserved a
relationship worth having. The climax of silence always comes,
the time when we need to speak up for ourselves and to 
ourselves. If we don't we lose ourselves to silence. When you
end the silence you discover that during the silence you lost
the chance to be understood, lost the chance to define to others
the person you are and lost the chance to have your vision heard.
The good news is that you can still recreate those chances by
stopping the silence and speaking up for yourself.

All successful daring starts from within.

For many of us, dare is a word that conjures up childhood power
struggles that didn't end well. "I dare you to climb the tree, jump
the river, try to fly......" If we met the challenge, we ended up doing
things we didn't really want to do and often got hurt in the process.
If we didn't meet the challenge, we were probably taunted for being
stupid or cowardly and probably felt ourselves to be both.

Childhood dares give way to their adult counterparts, often couched
in terms of the society we live in's expectations from us. Examples
of such expectations are, 'A man should not show his gentle feelings',
 'A woman's place is in the home'.  That is what society thinks is good
for men and women but what if there are some men who think
expressing their gentle feelings is good since it enables intimacy
in their love relationship. And what if there are women who are so
brainy and who think that confining those brains to a home will be a 
total waste. For such men and women doing what the society expect
them to do is likely to get the same result as our childhood dares.

Our thoughts, feelings and soul-searching experiences if we really
listen to them and not what society wants us to do will give us an
internal conviction that urges us to dare do what we really want to
do. Such daring that comes from within ourselves always results
in success.

Visionaries have that attribute of daring themselves to be themselves.
   

Solitude is an antidote for loneliness

The advice I get when I tell friends that I am feeling lonely,
feeling blue, or feeling down is that I should go out to places of
entertainment , visit friends, or take on projects. This  advice when 
followed has never managed to lessen the loneliness. What I have
found  helpful in lessening  loneliness is spenting the lonely time
exploring my own heart, mind & soul through meditating,
daydreaming, solitary walks, and getting time to ponder about 
my life.  When I feel lonely, I use that lonely time in quiet,
to reflect, to rejuvenate myself and to write my thoughts on this 
blog.  My loneliness leads me from the despair of being alone to the 
solitude of being able to spend time with myself, bonding with
my inner self.

Whatever those unacquainted with it may think, solitude and utter 
loneliness are far from being devoid of charm. Words can not convey 
the almost  voluptuous  sweetness of the feelings experienced when
mind and senses develop their sensibility in solitude through continual
observations and reflections. In trying to use solitude as an antidote to
loneliness I got time to connect with myself and it made me realise that 
for me to have peace and happiness in my life first and foremost I need
to have Dumi my soulmate, my love, by my side and secondly  I would
need to stand for my vision. I believe that the only way I can succeed in 
advocating peace, love and happiness for the whole world, which is my 
vision, is if I start by ensuring that I experience the peace, love and 
happiness within my own life, before trying to extend it to the world at
large.

  

I shed tears and afterwards felt at peace with myself

This morning during my early morning meditation time I cried as
I thought of my soulmate who is many miles away from me such
that I can't reach out and touch him as and when I feel like doing
so. I cried for the loneliness the distance between us induces, cried
for the times when I want to talk to him and can't get through
because of telecommunication link problems between Australia and
Zimbabwe.
 
The tears streamed down and I let them flow as freely
as they would.  As I let myself cry, I began to hear the many different
tones of my feelings. So the tears started with one feeling and took me
to other feelings. The crying helped me figure out just how important
my soulmate is to my life, to my sense of peace and to my happiness.
It made me vow to myself that the next time I manage to talk to him
over the phone I was going to savour every moment of the communication
and tell him just how much I value our relationship. This vow left me
feeling at peace with myself as if I had just heard a beautiful moving piece of
music.

Tears are a wonderful gift that can open the way for our hearts to sing a song
with many parts. We have only to let them come to hear a song sung in
multi-part harmony. We undervalue tears, think they don't accomplish anything
 yet they do accomplish something. They make us feel better by connecting us to
our feelings and forcing us to think of how to make ourselves feel better after
which we feel at peace with ourselves.

I will speak up for peace, love and happiness

I vowed to myself that I will not keep quiet anymore, will speak up for what I believe in. Am tired
of watching quietly as the economy in my country collapses, am tired of keeping quiet as we get
underpayed at work, am tired of keeping quiet as I watch cases of boiled seeds sprouting. Am
tired of keeping quiet as I watch vision crushers at work. I will speak up for the change I want to
see in the world. I long for peace, love and happiness in the whole wide world 
and will speak up for that. My thoughts will be heard.



We all have our reasons for not speaking out our true feelings and ideas to our 
families, colleagues and the world at large. It may cost us friendships, jobs, money,
 or marriages to speak out. We may find that once we've spoken our feelings and mind
 aloud people may change their perception of us and that might make us move away from the
  comfortable zone we are used to.



Yet to keep our mouths and ourselves closed, to let things pass as if they were unnoticed, day
after day and year after year takes a toll on us. If we are quiet for a long time, we eventually
get to a point where we don't know what we think or feel. So if we don't speak up for ourselves,
it's going to cost us. It will cost us a piece of our hearts and the longer we wait to speak up the
more it will cost us. So I urge you all to speak up now for what you believe in.

A boiled seed does not sprout

A boiled seed does not sprout

An aging king woke up one day to the realisation that should he drop dead, there would be no
male in the royal family to take his place. He was the last male in the royal family in a culture where only a male could succeed to the throne - and he was aging. He decided that if he could not give birth to a male, he would adopt a son who then could take his place but he insisted that such an adopted son must be extraordinary in every sense of the word. So he launched a competition in his kingdom, open to all boys, no matter what their background. Ten boys made it to the very top. There was little to separate these boys in terms of intelligence and physical attributes and capabilities. The king said to them, "I have one last test and whoever comes top will become my adopted son and heir to my throne." Then he said, "This kingdom depends solely on agriculture. So the king must know how to cultivate plants. So here is a seed of corn for each of you. Take it home and plant and nurture it for three weeks. At the end of three weeks, we shall see who has done the best job of cultivating the seed. That person will be my heir-apparent."

The boys took their seeds and hurried home. They each got a flower pot and planted the seed as soon as they got home. There was much excitement in the kingdom as the people waited with bated breath to see who was destined to be their next king. In one home, the boy and his parents were almost heartbroken when after days of intense care, the seed failed to sprout. He did not know what had gone wrong with his. He had selected the soil carefully, he had applied the right quantity and type of fertilizer, he had been very dutiful in watering it at the right intervals, he had even prayed over it day and night and yet his seed had turned out to be unproductive. Some of his friends advised him to go and buy a seed from the market and plant that. "After all," they said, "how can anyone tell one seed of corn from another?" But his parents who had always taught him the value of integrity reminded him that if the king wanted them to plant any corn, he would have asked them to go for their own seed. "If you take anything different from what the king gave you, that would be dishonesty. Maybe we are not destined for the throne. If so, let it be but don't be found to have deceived the king," they told him.

The d-day came and the boys returned to the palace each of them proudly exhibiting a very fine corn seedling. It was obvious that the other nine boys had had great success with their seeds. The king began making his way down the line of eager boys and asked each of them, "Is this what came out of the seed I gave you?" And each boy responded, "Yes, your majesty." And the king would nod and move down the line. The king finally got to the last boy in the line-up. The boy was shaking with fear. He knew that the king was going to have him thrown into prison for wasting his seed.

"What did you do with the seed I gave you?" the king asked.
"I planted it and cared for it diligently, your majesty, but alas it failed to sprout." the boy said tearfully as the crowd booed him. But the king raised his hands and signalled for silence. Then he said, "My people, behold your next king." The people were confused. "Why that one?" many asked. "How can he be the right choice?" The king took his place on his throne with the boy by his side and said, "I gave these boys boiled seeds. This test was not for cultivating corn. It was the test of character; a test of integrity. It was the ultimate test. If a king must have one quality, it must be that he should be above dishonesty. Only this boy passed the test. A boiled seed cannot sprout."

We live in a society that has become obsessed with success and many cheat to show success at
any cost. We say the end justifies the means. It is the tragedy of life. Many sacrifice their
integrity just so as to potray success to the outside world. Yet failure is not a disgrace at all if it
is failure with dignity intact, it is the stepping stone to success, and in our book of life it is written in pencil so that it can easily be erased and replaced with a success story. Failure with dinity
is divinely ordained. But many seek to circumvent divinely ordained failure by resorting to dubious means. When a civil servant builds a big house and sends his five children to expensive schools when he does not have a second source of income, is that not a case of a boiled seed sprouting? When a minister of state is able to sustain a lavish mistress and at the same time put up houses from his income as minister, is that not a case of a boiled seed coming to life? We should stop cheering rogues.

I believe that we have all been given lives to lead according to God's plan and if we are living faithfully, we should all have different results. For instance, I believe that not all marriages are meant to have children. I believe that some women would stand before God with their children and God would say, "That's strange. I did not give you and your husband children so how did you get these?" I believe that not every student should make it to the university. So, many would stand before God with their certificates and God would say, "Now that is strange. How did you get to the university when I closed the door to the university to you?"

Boiled seed does not sprout. Next time you see a successful person, find out what kind of seed he was given and ask him, "how come your boiled seed has sprouted?" if his success is due to unethical means.

The pursuit for happiness

I have always believed that when God created human beings he made sure that each and every male will fit in perfectly with just one female and it is up to the male and female to find each other. In our lifetime we spend a lot of time searching for that special someone in our pursuit for happiness and if we are lucky we find him/her in the very first relationship that we embark on
but in most cases we realise when we are already married that he/she is not that special someone meant for us. In which case we either stick to them out of mere concern for the kids or fear of the uprooting nature of divorce or we get the courage to break-up and start searching again. I also believe that when you find that special someone you experience pure bliss and you will know it deep in your heart and mind that he/she is the one, two hearts become one, two minds become one, two souls become one and two bodies become one. In other words the two of you will be compatible in all the real important issues of life so much that it seems like you are one person. And when you find that special someone you would have succeeded in your pursuit for happiness because you will be overwhelmed with love, peace and happiness. Many search for that special someone and die without finding him/her.
For so many years I have been leading a very lonely life, waiting for my soulmate to find me and then realise that we are meant for each other.