T is for TIME, truth, tales, trust, triumph, thriving, tolerance, test, thanks, transparent, trauma, thermostat & Transformation et al

Becoming REAL, getting in touch with your Core Strengths, dealing with the Downside & then radiating a Lightness of Being to make your Sphere of Influence the World!!

We are all in the Soup as human beings together. Life can be tough to digest sometimes so make life simpler & "chunk" each mouthful down. Enjoy a healthy, hearty & delicious fast-food option. I have pulled together some heart-healthy ingredients & recipes and cooked up some nourishing & stimulating messages for your brain as a quick, easy & simple reminder of what you already know...............simple but not simplistic, sensitive, but not too sweet or spicy!

I will post daily one letter of the Alphabet with full text. The 'master' post is one of my published posts.

LOOK OUT FOR Hot & Cold Soups of the day, FUN FACTS & Poem or Quote of the day. 

T

T is for TIME, talking, tell, tall, tales, truth, themes, triumph, testify, trust, thriving, tolerance, test, thanks, trans-personal, therapy, transparent, trauma, techniques, treatment, thermostat, touchstone, transformation & Time Travel

"How sad the world is, so beautiful yet so absurd" -Irene Nemirovsky, 'Suite Francaise'

It's time to talk about TIME with a capital T. I'm not going to talk about Einstein or Stephen Hawking today or give you a brief history of Time. I want to ask the very important Question: Why does Time Fly when you're having fun! Answer: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314650.php (the neuroscintists again).

I'm a history buff and have my favourite time periods, one of which is 1930-1950. This is because my father fought in WW2 and survived to sire me & tell me many tales, some of which may be tall! I have therefore had a life-long interest in survival and all the things that determine it, enable it or mitigate against it. [As an aside last night I watched a wonderful Welsh documentary called 'How to Live to a Hundred', presented by a Welsh-Italian woman who went to Sardinia to discover why so many of the inhabitants are centenarians. Synchronistically (!) the headline in this morning's NZ Herald newspaper was about diet and the fact that Okinawa is also a hot-spot for longevity].

FUN FACT:

Before I do another segue, Time & survival are obviously interconnected. What interests me right now is not Time Travel (although I love convoluted stories about it), but the grace that seems to run through extended lives and stories of longevity & survival itself. The documentary identified some well-known reasons why people lived to one hundred such as diet, active lives, family support but having a purpose in life was also key.

Recent researchers in the Acciaroli area of Italy south of Naples (from Italy's Sapineza University & The San Diego School of Medicine), have discovered that centenarians "have extraordinarily low levels of adrenomedullin, a hormone that widens blood vessels.....high levels cause blood vessels to contract." (The Independent, Harry Cockburn, 8 September 2016). They also had high levels of sexual activity! According to Cockburn, Acciaroli is in the area "where US nutritionist Ancel Keys cited the highest concentration of centenarians in the world in 1950,as he sought to establish evidence that a "Mediterranean diet" contributed to longevity. He move to the region with his wife, and lived to be 100."

The relevance of themes of community generosity, persecution, heroism, time & survival are highlighted by the current migration crisis.

One of my favourite novels (with many of my favourite themes) is 'A Thread of Grace' by Mary Doria Russell (2005). It is based on the true story of survival of 43,000 Jews in Italy during WW2. A network of Italian citizens saved their lives in 1943. The Guardian Review by Stevie Davies of this book (2005) asked "How could the author of 'A Thread of Grace ' make this (community) generosity credible to the modern reader?.....It is Russell's triumph to portray a charisma of decency, through luminous characterisation..................Russell's magnificent novel is a testament on behalf of persecuted people, which observes it's pledge to testify in a spirit of sympathy and gratitude."

Contrast the approach of this real Italian community with Irene Nemirovsky's novel "Suite Francaise" which, in one of the most excoriating chapters I have ever read at the beginning of her novel, describes in cool forensic detail the callous selfishness of Parisians deserting Paris as the Germans moved in. Irene herself did not survive the war and died in Auschwitz immediately on her arrival in 1942.

Community support, friendship, purpose, activity, heart-healthy eating & care for self and others are the graces that lead us in time not just to survival but longevity.

TRUST was a word I frequently encountered in my other life as a lawyer. Interpersonal trust in personal relationships is another kettle of fish. Many people can take a position. There is the 'all or nothing' cohort as in "once trust is broken it can never be regained". At the other end of the spectrum are the people who endlessly enable others who treat them badly by "forgiving" them over & over.

Where are you along this continuum? It has become clear to me over the years that many factors influence where someone chooses to place themselves. Factors may include, what is at stake, how gross & traumatic was the breach of trust, what past experience has someone had with the person breaking trust, age, relation, motive, whether there are sufficient redeeming features in the person or situation that allow you to cautiously allow a second chance. Teasing out these kinds of factors is very much a Court's job when making decisions about the future. Ronald Reagan said "Trust, but verify". He was talking about the Soviets during the Cold War. Scammers ask those they wish to scam to "trust" without evidence.

The rest of us are not always considered & tolerant & are not obliged to parse the situation that closely. We have different thermostats of tolerance. All of us will do a fast, albeit unconscious, review or calculus but we may not always balance out each individual element. We may simply come up with an answer to the question "What now?" that we can or cannot live with. Let's face it, some people are 'expendable' in our lives. They do not contribute sufficiently to our well-being & needs to warrant a second chance. That does not mean that dispensing with people permanently or firing people does not hurt us (or them). Quite the contrary. There is always a residue of feeling left, usually anger, hurt and sadness that we all need to process with awareness so that an experience does not sour us and infect our willingness to trust others in future. Although we cannot control how we react, we can at least with practice attend to managing how we respond.

All betrayals of trust are serious, but some are more serious than others. What we tell ourselves in our heads about what is ethical behaviour (and our standards of integrity, the basis of trust), varies. Those with high standards rationalise their conduct less. Although we cannot control how we react initially, as emotions derive from an autonomic part of our brain, we can mostly control how we choose to respond; the exception I would make is imminent danger when our reflexes take over.

Those others who value tolerance & forgiveness to whatever point & are willing to provide second chances, are usually mature & wise people who can calibrate with awareness what the person will be trusted with next time. They know that earning trust back can take a long time but are sometimes willing to make the journey. At bottom, they choose to have continuing faith in human nature & the transformative power of redemption. The continuing thanks & gratitude over time shown by the person being given a second chance is a good test and marker of whether that trust is well-placed. Therapy & treatment of those among us who are psychopaths is unlikely to meet with much success and we should be wary of being conned. No amount of technique will 'cure' someone who operates with a false facade and who lives to manipulate & control.

The ones that thrive, not merely survive, are those most willing to lay their souls bare with vulnerability. This is the touchstone of renewed trust & in time brings real hope for TRANSFORMATION.

 SOUPS of the day - Tomato soup with Pancetta (hot); Thai Pea with coconut milk, lemongrass, red pepper flakes & jalapeno (cold)

Quote of the day -

"He who does not trust enough will not be trusted"

- Lao Tsu

I will post daily one letter of the Alphabet with full text. The 'master' post is one of my published posts.

LOOK OUT FOR Hot & Cold Soups of the day, FUN FACTS & Poem or Quote of the day.