Turning the Page

I’ve Had More than Enough of Being Held in Contempt

Ive had more than enough of being held in contempt, but when I know divine approval, I can rise again.  
 
It was like they were at the bottom of the pecking order and being held there.
People had contempt for them.
The word ‘contempt’ is one we don’t often use.
To be ‘held in contempt’, in a general sense, simply means that a person is despised or strongly disapproved of.
I was recently sent this image of what I believe is to be a young girl.
What do you see in the image?
What is her story?
Why is she there?
https://turningthepage.co.nz/ive-had-more-than-enough-of-being-held-in-contempt/

When the Stress is Too Much

The stress load was too much to handle, but they knew what to do, so they took action and calmed the stress load down.
 
It was just getting too much, and I could feel it in my body.
This was the experience from last weekend when I had a very busy social time.
Meeting new people, trying out new things, and so much change that my introvert self was longing for seclusion, or to simply have some quiet time with just one person.
I withdrew a little, had a break, and now my cup has been restored.
The important thing was that I recognised this, was able to communicate my needs, and give myself self care.
What stresses you?
What fills your cup and what drains it?
Do you know when the stress load is too much or it’s getting near its ‘camel straw’ breaking point?
I know you’re not a camel. Camels never read my blog posts, but as the saying goes ‘It’s the final straw that breaks the camel’s back’
So how is your back? What sized load are you carrying and what could be a final straw?
 
https://turningthepage.co.nz/when-the-stress-is-too-much/

There is No Rejection in God

The cold wind of rejection can bite deep, but we are not alone. God knows rejection and can give us perspective and a new home of acceptance. 
I don’t think there is such a cold wind as the wind of rejection.
I don’t want you in my life.You’re not welcome here.Go away.
I’ve seen someone, who I thought was a friend, turn their whole body to look another way to avoid any form of connection.
Rejection is a saying you’re not worthy of my connection. That you don’t matter.
Where have you felt the cutting wind of rejection?
I know you will have because it’s part of the fabric of our humanity.
But how do you handle it? What have you learned?
How much rejection have you faced into?
 
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Are you Weak Enough to Recieve?

We build walls; we build personas, but are we weak enough to receive truth into our innermost being? That is where strength comes out from weakness.
I don’t want to be weak.
I don’t to be known as someone who has nothing to give. I want to move into my world and make a difference.
Much male depression I have found has a strong link to a sense of unfulfilment. A kind of soul impotency. There being no deeply meaningful imprint of a man’s life on the world around him, whether it be his spouse, his family, his career.
Much female depression is linked to an invisibility or a hiding of one’s beauty. ‘Nothing to see here, walk on by, no ‘God delight’ to be shown here.’
I don’t want to be weak, so I flex my muscles, show whose boss, prance and pretend ‘I’m a real man.’
I don’t want to be weak so I will be in control, take charge, but let no one inside.
But often we need to come to a place of absolute weakness to be vulnerable enough to receive.
How are you with weakness?
Recently I have had someone open a door in my life that I didn’t know existed. It felt vulnerable, but also strangely safe. I can’t even put a label on that door. But as it opened, I knew that something good wanted to come out.
 
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I Don’t Need This In My Life Anymore

There comes a time and a place when you say, ‘I don’t need this in my life anymore. That you have options. You are worthy of more than this.
 
It had gone on too long and what was actually abnormal had now become the norm. She had been morphed into a reality that was never meant to be. He had been entranced by some musical flute to follow a fool’s dance tune.
But then a reality lightbulb flicked on. Not a massive lightbulb that you would use to light an entire room, it was more one of those little bulbs you find in a small penlight torch.
It began to glow steady and strong in the soul. She couldn’t put it out. He didn’t want to extinguish it.
But the light grew and grew stronger and stronger until it was so strong that it could not be ignored or turned off.
That light could have various names.
Pick one or two that suit.
You’re worth more than this
You don’t need this in your life
There is something better than this
Their dance dirge doesn’t have to be yours
Self care is not selfishness
Addiction, to anything, doesn’t have to dominate
With the right help, with millimetre steps, change can blossom and grow
She walked out of the marriage.
He sort out better friends.
A distaste, even a revulsion, grew in her for the drink, the drugs, the lies, the sex.
He left his job of convenience, safe and boringingly secure.
She left the porn addiction knowing in-to-me-see (intimacy) needed risk if it was to be real.
He lost his taste for boring mincemeat T.V. and wrote poetry until dawn.
She took a pair of scissors to the credit card.
He sold his ‘pride and joy’ classic car and looked to the curves of his wife.
It wasn’t easy. It was hard, hard, hard. Scarey single tightrope hard, but actually the first little steps weren’t as bad as expected.Read this further here Sign up for my weekly email full of help for your Mental Health, Faith and Spiritual Formation. FOLLOW ME!Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nzWebsite: https://turningthepage.co.nz/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearmanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

There’s Something about Audio

The world is full of words, but how many do we miss because they need to be heard? There is something about audio.
I have books. Lots of them. Books have filled my life for a long time.
From an early age, I had an insatiable appetite for reading. The earliest books I remember were about Biggles, a World War One wartime pilot.
Then transitioning on to large classic doorstops such as ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ or ‘Les Misérables’.
Great books. Classic Books. Books that have shaped the world.
If you want to fully get swept along in the story, forget popcorn movie versions. Read them, or deep dive into the audio version for richness of language.
There is something about audio.
Good audio read by orators that have trained their voice to linger long on some words and rush over others can take the brain into the very scene with an imaginative magic.
Oh yes, and then there is music!
Can music be read? Yes, you can read music, but it was always meant to be heard and absorbed into the soul like a sound wave washing on a shore.
 
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Having an Open Hand

 It takes energy to hold a closed hand, but with gentle movement, we find an open hand. In openness, we both give and receive.
 
A few years ago, I noticed that my right hand was often clenched tight into a fist. Not a fighting fist, but more a fist that was anxious and tense.
I would wake at night to find my hand closed and bound up tight.
I think the body at times reflects in posture what is going on internally in the soul.
It was my closed hand that was speaking something to me about my inner world.
So I began to consciously choose to open my hand. To relax the muscles, allow the energy that was tight and bound up to soften and seep away.
Then I considered if I am living a life that is open-handed to others. To being generous and also being vulnerable.
Or am I being tight, keeping it all in and to myself?
 
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That’s Normal and You’re Going to be Ok

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Am I on the right path?

We often question ‘Am I on the right path’ but learning to hear the shepherd’s voice gives us an assurance to know and trust the good shepherd.
 
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I am a product of

Recently, I have been listening to the audiobook version of Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis.
I like to listen to audio books and podcasts as I do my gardening work.
This book is a memoir or autobiography of C.S. Lewis’ early life.
If you want to get to know someone, explore their early life and come to understand what has shaped them.
He writes this.
I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books. C.S. Lewis.
Two sentences. One long and one short takes us to those elements that, when multiplied together, have produced a C.S. Lewis.
We could put it this way.
Long corridorsx empty sunlit roomsx upstairs indoor silencesx attics explored in solitudex distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipesx and the noise of wind under the tiles.x endless books= C.S. Lewis
Of course, there are many other influences or factors that have gone into the shaping or the product.
In the book, he talks about his parents, being an atheist, life in the trenches of World War One, relationships and many other things.
But what is interesting to me is that he sums up himself as a product of the environs he found himself in.
These are places where we can go to ourselves.
We know what a long corridor looks like. Empty sunlit rooms have a certain feel to them. Attics, those places you go with a torch and have to brush away cobwebs, have a sense of adventure and hiddenness.
For some, the thought of ‘endless books’ might be overwhelming and even repulsive, but for someone like C.S. Lewis it would have been like sitting down to a banquet.
From all these factors being multiplied, we have probably the deepest and most profound theological writing of the 20th century.
We have the beauty of Narnia and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The depth of Mere Christianity and wit of Screwtape Letters.
You are the product of
If you were to write a paragraph containing 36 words that described the factors that have shaped you, what would you write?
The mind has a negative bias. It can so easily drift to the traumas, the hurts, and disappointments. C.S. Lewis had plenty of those.
Instead, look to the environments that you inhabited. Where you immersed your time and felt most comfortable in.
You may find hints in the environments that your parents embraced or took you to.
I am a product of
I was rummaging through some old photos the other day and I came across this photo taken of me in my early twenties.
I am sitting on a hill, which was above my family home, on our farm just outside of Wellsford.
It’s a summer’s day. I have my guitar, and I am looking out over the countryside and sheep are in the background.
I can’t remember what I was playing. Probably something from John Denver! – Country roads, take me home …
But in this one image, I think I capture many of the environmental factors that shaped me.
I am a product of the outdoors, warm summer breezes, musical notes, solitude and silence. Soil, sheep, pastoral care and animal husbandry. The small things inhabiting the large and conversations with earthy depth.
 Not as eloquent as C.S. Lewis, but you get the idea.
Why is this important?
We often come to times when we ask the deeper questions. Places of decision where we question our purpose.
In these times, it’s healthy to reflect on the environments that have shaped the deeper parts of you.
Are there patterns and places where you most feel ‘at home’ in?
What are the environments that have gone into shaping the ‘product’ you are?
How do these reflections inform the choices you are about to make?
 
Questions? Comments?Email me 🙂📨barry@turningthepage.co.nz
 
Quotes to consider
Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. Dr. Seuss
Invisible threads are the strongest ties. Friedrich Nietzsche
I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. Stephen R. Covey.
The New House is almost a major character in my story.I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstair indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them.There were books in the study, books in the drawing-room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents’ interests, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not.Nothing was forbidden me.In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.Where all these books had been before we came to the New House is a problem that never occurred to me until I began writing this paragraph. I have no idea of the answer. C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
Questions to answer
What were the environments that influenced you as a child?
What environments do you naturally drift to?
Think of someone you admire. Research the environments that went into the shaping of their lives.
Formation exercise
Craft a sentence or two where you express the environments that have shaped the ‘product’ you are.
Barry Pearman
 
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