Ok, so it's fair to say that I don't have the easiest job in the world and to clarify, I'm talking about my "main" job. Facilitating for a 9 year old boy with ADHD was never going to be a walk in the park, but it's actually been fairly ok so far. We've had our ups and downs, but it's been manageable on the whole. Today...? Well, today was a totally different story.
After a fortnight of him being deliberately naughty and generally choosing to misbehave, today he took it to a new level. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that he pushed his boundaries and they snapped. In glowing technicolour! No, I didn't hit him or anything :-). I sent him home. Talking to him on a day like today is like hitting a brick wall. You might as well not bother. In the end, the decision to send him home wasn't an easy one. We've never done it before, but it was the only available choice today. At least he now knows that the "red card" is NOT an empty threat!
Somehow, I feel as though I failed him today. I'm cutting myself a fair bit of slack though because I know that both the school and his folks have days like this all the time and it's my first one! To be honest, my days are often emotionally and physically draining and I find that I'm wiped out by the time I leave school. It can be really hard to get my "groove" back for not only my office work and the projects I have on the go there, but also for tutoring in the late afternoon.
One of the big things that keeps me going though is that I know that I'm making a difference to him. To how he interacts with the world and also with how they interact with him. I just feel so .... well, exhausted.
So... if I'm ever weird with you on the phone, via sms or email or in person... my apologies. My mind has probably melted and pooled somewhere else.
Leave a message and I'll get back to you ok? :-)
Until next time.
Hugs,
Me
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Passion...
I'm a firm believer in following your passion. I also believe that if you are doing something that feeds your spirit and makes you feel at peace with yourself, then the universe will work with you on that. There are so many things in my own life that I could use to illustrate this, but I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm going to tell you about this amazing person that I met this week.
His name is Andrea and he is Italian. That isn't what makes him amazing though :-) He is a gifted photographer, artist, videographer and snowboarder (amongst other things), but one of the things that he is passionate about is travelling. How did the universe help him out? Well, he entered a videoblog contest on National Geographic and won a trip around the world! How awesome is that?!?!
He is a true original, someone that is so totally comfortable in his own skin and a true joy to spend time with. I envy him his journey, but thanks to his phenomenal skills with a camera and the art of web design, I can travel vicariously through him. With this in mind, I have to recommend that you all pay a visit to his website... www.haero.com/blog.
TRUST ME. It's worth it!
'Til next time.
Hugs,
Me
His name is Andrea and he is Italian. That isn't what makes him amazing though :-) He is a gifted photographer, artist, videographer and snowboarder (amongst other things), but one of the things that he is passionate about is travelling. How did the universe help him out? Well, he entered a videoblog contest on National Geographic and won a trip around the world! How awesome is that?!?!
He is a true original, someone that is so totally comfortable in his own skin and a true joy to spend time with. I envy him his journey, but thanks to his phenomenal skills with a camera and the art of web design, I can travel vicariously through him. With this in mind, I have to recommend that you all pay a visit to his website... www.haero.com/blog.
TRUST ME. It's worth it!
'Til next time.
Hugs,
Me
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Go on, be honest...
I'm sure we've all heard the saying "honesty is the best policy" sometime in our lives. Well - I really do believe that that is true. My Mom always used to tell us to be honest with her if we'd done something wrong and she promised us that as mad as she might get, it would be nothing to how mad she would be if she had to find out from someone else later. I tried it once. She wasn't kidding.
The trouble is that even if we try to live an honest life and try to treat those around us honestly and with a good heart, we cannot expect them to do the same. In fact, the chances are that most of the people around us are anything but truly honest. They're not honest with you, with other people and they're certainly not honest with themselves.
It's a funny thing, but dishonesty eats you alive. I'm not talking about the fib you made when you said you liked dinner the other night even though it was burnt or how you told your Great Aunt Gertrude that the butt ugly vase was just what you wanted. Sometimes, we have to do these things. I'm talking about the ugly, soul destroying lies that we tell to ourselves and to others. We think we've hidden them so well, but they change us in ways that are extremely visible to those around us.
Sometimes we lie inadvertantly, but unfortunately, there are times when the lies we tell are not inadvertant. They grow from a deliberate choice we make when we set out to achieve something through dishonest means. We don't really care who we hurt and we will tell any lie that we need to in order to achieve our goals. If you were to confront someone with the evidence of what they are doing, they would deny it vehemently and try to turn it all on you. They simply cannot see what they are doing because the most powerful lies we tell are to ourselves. These lies change us too.
For example: You and a colleague both want the same promotion. You've always been friends, but now you find that you're prepared to do anything for the achievement of the promotion. Or, perhaps you find yourself jealous of something one of your friends has - an object, car, house, girl/boyfriend, job, etc. The more jealous you are of that person, the more resentful you become and the more resentful you become, the more you will pick fights with them, accuse them of things that aren't true and treat them like crap. Worse still, the worse you treat them, the more you blame them for your behaviour. If you take it too far, you end up destroying the friendship. Your behaviour will reflect how ugly the dishonesty is making your soul.
Being honest with yourself is the hardest thing in the world. It requires you to look inside your heart and look past all the bullsh*t and smokes screens that you've built up for yourself and take a good long look at what you find. It could be that you need to do this to see how you really feel about a person or situation or that you simply need to re-evaluate aspects of your life. No matter what the reason, it is hard to do, and you may not like (or expect) what you find.
Here is the challenge... be honest with yourself. Identify areas of your life that can be improved and figure out how to do it. Take a look at your friends, colleagues, job, etc. Are there things you can do without? People that just stress you out? Are you doing things because you feel obligated to? Are you hurting people by what you do or don't do? All you have to do is be honest... ultimately, people will respect you for it.
It's hard. Believe me, it's VERY hard, but it's not impossible.
Until next time,
Me
The trouble is that even if we try to live an honest life and try to treat those around us honestly and with a good heart, we cannot expect them to do the same. In fact, the chances are that most of the people around us are anything but truly honest. They're not honest with you, with other people and they're certainly not honest with themselves.
It's a funny thing, but dishonesty eats you alive. I'm not talking about the fib you made when you said you liked dinner the other night even though it was burnt or how you told your Great Aunt Gertrude that the butt ugly vase was just what you wanted. Sometimes, we have to do these things. I'm talking about the ugly, soul destroying lies that we tell to ourselves and to others. We think we've hidden them so well, but they change us in ways that are extremely visible to those around us.
Sometimes we lie inadvertantly, but unfortunately, there are times when the lies we tell are not inadvertant. They grow from a deliberate choice we make when we set out to achieve something through dishonest means. We don't really care who we hurt and we will tell any lie that we need to in order to achieve our goals. If you were to confront someone with the evidence of what they are doing, they would deny it vehemently and try to turn it all on you. They simply cannot see what they are doing because the most powerful lies we tell are to ourselves. These lies change us too.
For example: You and a colleague both want the same promotion. You've always been friends, but now you find that you're prepared to do anything for the achievement of the promotion. Or, perhaps you find yourself jealous of something one of your friends has - an object, car, house, girl/boyfriend, job, etc. The more jealous you are of that person, the more resentful you become and the more resentful you become, the more you will pick fights with them, accuse them of things that aren't true and treat them like crap. Worse still, the worse you treat them, the more you blame them for your behaviour. If you take it too far, you end up destroying the friendship. Your behaviour will reflect how ugly the dishonesty is making your soul.
Being honest with yourself is the hardest thing in the world. It requires you to look inside your heart and look past all the bullsh*t and smokes screens that you've built up for yourself and take a good long look at what you find. It could be that you need to do this to see how you really feel about a person or situation or that you simply need to re-evaluate aspects of your life. No matter what the reason, it is hard to do, and you may not like (or expect) what you find.
Here is the challenge... be honest with yourself. Identify areas of your life that can be improved and figure out how to do it. Take a look at your friends, colleagues, job, etc. Are there things you can do without? People that just stress you out? Are you doing things because you feel obligated to? Are you hurting people by what you do or don't do? All you have to do is be honest... ultimately, people will respect you for it.
It's hard. Believe me, it's VERY hard, but it's not impossible.
Until next time,
Me
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