The red cape and the green cape
Not sure why i'm writing this post… I guess I just figured I wanted this blog to become more honest. By that I mean not aways showing the rosy side of my life. i.e:
Good food
Lovely photos
Positive Mantras for life
Silent Sunday's from my 'amazing life'
No one's life is always that rosy. Sometimes it pays to acknowledges the more crappy bits too. If you acknowledge the crappy bits you can work to overcome them.
Sorry if you tend to come here just for the recipes…it's ok you can flip to the recipe tap at the top, always plenty there to browse there!
Ironically as I write this post, I am listening to an IIN lecture on 'positive psychology' and I have just smiled to myself revelling in the irony. I am continuing to smile at that fact. It may well be that this little out burst of a post ends up on a rather positive note.
Anyway, at the moment I am having a frustrating five minutes. This is not uncommon for me. If you are familiar with my blog and in particular my mantra for monday's you will know that I am my worst enemy she it comes to beating my self up about things, I set the bar so high in life I will never achieve what I tell myself I 'should'. This is self destructive I know. Don't get me wrong, I do also set small goals and I do appreciate my successes along the way… it's simply that the so called 'failures' tend to get more than their fair share of air time in my brain and I need to readdress this balance and gain a more healthy sense of perspective.
This will all change over time I am sure of it. Recognition of that fact is the first step to change. Maybe that's why I'm telling you.
As I've been listening to the lecture a useful story has been told. A metaphor for life maybe. I will recount the essence of this for you now and on that note go and have an amazing day.
You are walking along a path and kick an empty bottle- a genie pops put hovering in front of your face. He tells you that you are an amazing human being and wants to give you superhero status… so the first important choice you need to make is the colour of your cape:
A red cape gives you power to 'fight' against the bad things - violence, poverty, injustice….
A green cape allows good things to 'grow' - harmony, peace....
You may take the perspective 'well it's so important to eliminate the bad things- how can we move forward otherwise'. On the other hand if we focus on the good and try to bring harmony into place, that may well have a buffering effect on the bad things by default.
We need to address that issue- if we actually managed to eliminate the violence, it does't mean people would actually like each other- bad things could still be harboured and just not manifested BUT if we work from the perspective of bringing harmony into our world then indirectly this will also eliminate the violence.
You can't be happy without a green cape. Happiness is not the same thing as the absence of happiness!
Maybe we need a reversible cape to make up truly happy, but we should focuss on revealing the green side as often as we can and use the red side only as a backup option.
That way we become totally indestructible.