Sometimes it doesn’t harm to make positive affirmations that help purify our thoughts and realign us. They steady us and strengthen us and give us confidence so that they become central to our lived experience. A little positive reminder.
What would your affirmation be today?
Clickbait society
Where likes and shares and such
Are central to the mindsets
Of those who yearn so much
For approval from all others
Over knowing their true worth
Abandoning self reliance
Whilst failing to unearth
A hidden gem that lies within
With dopaminergic zest
Called intrinsic satisfaction
Of yourself who knows you best
What do you see when you look in the sky?
What shapes do you see when you gaze on up high?
What images run amok in your head
As your mind’s eye takes control to lead – not be led
What beasts rear their heads? What creatures appear?
What visions unfold as you stare and you peer?
For do your see this or do you see that?
An elephant, penguin or even a cat?
A car on heaven’s highway; a train or a fleet
Of circus trucks in the ether; even a cold ice cream treat
Or a smile or some glimmer of a face to behold?
What forms kiss your eyes as clouds roll and unfold?
Or is this a trick of the mind saying ‘boo’!
As skies overhead fly on by over you
Conjuring up mental images, ambiguous stimuli
With subcortical might that identifies
Pareidolia; illusions; tripped senses in thin air
Making something from nothing that’s simply not there
Picture from @Richardesty on Twitter (used with permission)
I just thought I would like to dedicate a post to all of you who have followed this blog over the past few years day in day out and thank you for continuing to do so.
In recent months , you may have noticed that I have been posting fewer poems but that is because something exciting has come out of the original reason for posting a poem a day which I will share now.
As you may be aware, I started this blog on the back of a challenge to post a poem a day for a year at the same time raising awareness of cardiac arrhythmias and syncope. This was a very personal challenge for me, having been diagnosed with PoTS after a 30 plus year struggle of passing out in the most bizarre situations yet never getting a diagnosis until 2008. But true to form, when life gives you lemons and you choose to make lemonade, truly remarkable things can happen.
The poetry challenge was well received and the statistics showed just how many of you read it but more importantly just how many were finding out why I was doing it. From this, Ginz and Tonic started to raise awareness just as I had hoped and to this day continues to do so. But it also led to the formation of a specialist support group for patients in our area who also have an arrhythmia or suffer from Syncope.
As a psychology student with special interest and a background in Positive Psychology and coaching, I set about working with dedicated clinicians from our local hospital, Grantham Hospital and together we formed Beat-It Grantham. This arrhythmia and syncope support group facilitates a programme of education, a platform of shared lived experience between members and much needed social support. We also go into the local community to raise further awareness of these conditions and last night were delighted to be recognised for our work at the United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust Staff Awards evening as we were presented with the working together award for 2016.
Life is a collaboration and when we work together we can truly benefit so many but then doesn’t the blogging community know that already!?! So my message is one of thanks to all who have supported this venture from the beginning. I don’t think I ever thought that the beat in poetry would translate into the beat within that is our heartbeat but there you go – remarkable things happen with a little innovation and a lot of help from your friends! Life is good! Life is inspirational!
Many thanks
Gini
There are times when the pen
Becomes a channel
Expanding consciousness
Mediating the unseen
Through the medium of ink
Accessing a higher realm
That is inspired from within
Through dissociated flow
Bursting forth springs of spontaneity
Where words will appear as strangers
When reunited with their author
Surprising writer and reader alike
For then when the quill becomes still
That which is written is a mystery
An inscription of discovery
Paranormal prose
Dopamine triggers
Pulling you in
With addictive endeavour
To achieve and then win
An opioid hit
When you’re lured and enticed
By drugs, sex and booze
Or the roll of a dice
Though why you react
Cave in and enrol
To hedonic pleasure
When that isn’t the goal
To be ensnared by a craving
Means the system seems stuffed
Hell bent on a path
That will destruct soon enough
Yet maybe in time
We’ll look back; understand
If this trade with addiction
Is all out of hand
Or see through the gamble
To then comprehend
If there’s a reason at all
To this self-serving end
Rummage through a handbag
And you will surely find
The kitchen sink and lots of stuff
That will just blow your mind
From hairbrushes to lipstick
From note pads to house keys
From purses to perfume as well
And plasters for your knees
From tickets that are out of date
To biscuit crumbs and more
Plus mobile phone and charging lead
And shells from the seashore
But most of all a bag contains
A signature story
Of who a girl is; what she likes
A statement; mystery
An insight into how she ticks
What she projects or holds
As part of her psyche; make up
If she be quiet or bold
And by bagology one might
Gain scientific view
If only having a quick peak
Was not just so taboo!
What is a child? It’s hard to say
For concepts and beliefs
Vary so much from here to there
In time span and relief
A “social actor” some may say
With ideas of their own
Or maybe childhood simply is
A construct all alone
A definition of the young
That’s made to represent
The way non-adults operate
And their development
Development that wax and wanes
With patterns that reveal
A change towards more organised
Not just the way they feel
Debated through biology
And the environment
Traced back to the great minds of old
Philosophy’s intent
And so what is a child you ask?
A question that implores
The quest to look at social traits
Genes, culture and much more
Reference: Woodhead, M. (2005). ‘Children and Development’ in Oates, J. Wood, C. Grayson, A. (eds) Psychological Development and Early Childhood, Milton Keynes: Open University
Lets rethread our heads
Unwind our minds
Through neural corridors
Potentially with active might
Synaptic strength and more
Controlling what we think and do
Project or indeed say
The way we rock to innervate
Our outcomes every day
English: Two heads (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
You meet them all at summer school
They come from far and wide
Hailing from Scotland, Belgium, Spain
And even Merseyside
And London town and Basildon
From Kent and Middlewich
From Thame and Dorset, Grantham too
They come without a hitch!
They come with bags and books and stuff
By train, by car, by air
On foot or bike, arriving with
One mission – let’s be fair!
To study, work, improve their mind
For education’s might
Who are we kidding? That perhaps
But also fun at night!
To mix their learning like a drink
A cocktail shall we say
With few parts gin, a glass of wine
For work combined with play
To have a laugh and seriously
Study behaviour too
The science of Psychology
Why we do what we do
And live it all – well let’s be frank
The practical’s the best
To analyse conditions in
Experimental test
To set it up. To see just how
Statistically it falls
Determine the significance
Of OU life in halls
Hypothesising that above
This week by Brighton pier
Will change all for the better good
Inspire each year on year!
And where the results surely show
A correlation true
‘Tween working hard whilst having fun
With no sleep for a few!
You meet them all at summer school
The good; the bad; the weird
The cool; the fun; the wacky and
Then those by Merlin’s beard
Who add in drops of pure surprise
As time goes flying by
Much learning done; much laughter had
To leave there on a high!
University of Sussex Campus in Summer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Ginz&Tonic 