Literary Life - Brenda Grate

Love Lessons

By Brenda | June 6, 2008

In so many ways my life has come full circle. I set out to discover what I needed to make me happy and I came back to what I started with…love. I have believed for my whole life that love is the only thing that truly matters and I believe that more than ever today. I don’t just mean romantic love, but all sorts of love. There really isn’t a certain type of love anyway, it’s all the same and from the same source. There are just varying intensities. But, the thing about love that most people don’t understand is that for it to be real, it has to come from a healthy place. Many people think they love, but few truly do. I don’t believe any human has the capacity for true love, but I now believe that’s what this life journey is about. It’s to teach us true love.

We are selfish beings. It’s been programmed into our makeup. I no longer believe that we started out perfect, sinned, and then became selfish. You have to be selfish in order to sin. I believe God created us exactly as we are. He wanted us to struggle against ourselves and each other in order to learn what love is. For, the only way to learn a lesson is to struggle and go through conflict. The most intense conflict is either with ourselves or another person. Iron sharpens iron.

We are supposed to learn to love God, ourselves and others. For we can’t love another person if we don’t love ourself. It is given to us that way. We can’t get around this one. If we aren’t healthy, how can the love we express be healthy? If we are selfish, so will our love be. We can hold our loved ones hostage rather than love them in freedom. “True love is an act of total surrender,” as Paulo Coelho* says. How can you completely surrender if you live in fear? It also says in the Bible that perfect love casts out fear. I don’t believe the two can co-exist. So, how to surrender? That’s the love lesson. And you either get on the path to learn this, or you will spend the rest of your life trying to avoid the lesson and will be hurt in the process.

*By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Topics: God, Inspirational, Religion, Thinking | 3 Comments »

All or Nothing?

By Brenda | May 30, 2008

As I was mulling things over in my head tonight, trying to decide what topic to blog about (among the myriad of ideas swirling around in my brain), I came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. I’ve been dealing with a lot of issues in my life that are very new to me. Most of them are good things, but for the first time in a long time, I’m faced with issues that I don’t have an immediate answer for. I tend to tackle things face-first and don’t like ambivalence. I am most certainly an ‘All or Nothing’ person. I love how the blog writer explains the danger of being all or nothing, that you can miss out on the small moments of success along the way. A situation doesn’t have to be sewed up tightly, into a neat little package, to give you satisfaction. A small victory can be enough. I had a small victory today and now I’m enjoying it, rather than letting it pass by, as I almost did. It’s important to enjoy the moments in our lives, including the difficult ones. Each situation, each difficulty has something to offer us. I’m in a situation right now that is both blissful and very difficult at the same time. At times I chaff at the frustration it brings me, but other times I tell myself I’ll never experience anything like it again in my life and I try to enjoy it.

Sometimes it’s just about patience. I grew up feeling like I had to grab for every little bit of happiness that came my way because it didn’t come often. But, I see now, this has handicapped me a little. Sometimes I don’t trust the happiness that comes my way. I end up feeling like it can’t last and I get nervous about when it’s going to be over. I don’t want to live that way. I want to open my heart to the good things and believe they actually will last. It’s not about total happiness or none, but about finding happiness in all the things life brings and not wasting the good times by worrying about when they will be gone. This is what I need to change about my ‘All or Nothing’ personality.

One thing that stood out in the post was this:

We need to remember - especially us All or Nothing people - that our stumbles and shambles are also complete.

That is so insightful. We are who we are and learning to accept ourselves, faults and all, is part of being human. We can never be truly human until we accept our fallibility. It’s easy to be hard on ourselves, demanding of our fragile human souls, absolute perfection. It’s much harder to accept weakness. For the first time in my life I have someone that I feel I can lean on in my weak moments without fear of being let down. It is actually unnerving to me at times because I am used to being the strong one. We all need to feel we can be weak without censure. It helps us to stand when it’s our turn to be tough.

So, I found my topic in the blog post of someone else. I am thankful that what I needed today was there even though I didn’t know what I was looking for. This is why I blog. Someone came to my blog today and found inspiration, and it was returned back to me this evening. I love being a part of this world, giving and taking where it is necessary. Thank you blog readers for continuing to support my sometimes meagre efforts. Just knowing I can make a difference to one person makes it worthwhile. After all, we’re on the road called life, together, for better or worse…

Topics: Inspirational, Thinking | 2 Comments »

Wake Up With a Smile

By Brenda | April 24, 2008

I woke up this morning with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. It’s a good way to wake up and is pretty normal for me. This wasn’t always the case. I used to wake up and my first thought was dread for what I had to do that day, such as go to school, or work, or something else unpleasant. It had the effect of either putting me into a bad mood, or making me feel depressed. Not a good way to start the day. As I got older and began to understand how thought patterns affect my life, I made it a habit to pause upon wakening and think of something good that was going to happen that day, no matter how small. It lifted me up and gave me something to look forward to and thus I would start the day with a smile and in a good mood. This is how I became a “morning person.”

That’s why I believe in living life with a thankful heart. Even if life is kicking your butt, you can still find something to be thankful for and that makes everything a little less grim. I know one person especially who lives this way, and even puts me to shame. No matter what this person is going through, and things are pretty tough right now, they still smile and laugh and make me laugh. That impresses me. My friend told me the other day that even if they get a flat tire, they see it as an opportunity to meet someone new, the tow truck driver… Now that is being positive in a negative situation! Being positive brings good things to your life, because I’ve never seen anyone have as many good things happen to them as my friend has had. It’s inspiring.

Topics: Inspirational | 2 Comments »

Home Again

By Brenda | April 24, 2008

I’m back from my trip and now trying to recover some of my sleep. I had a wonderful time both with the Grate side of the family and with my sister and her family. It has been about 10 years since I saw any of them so we had a lot to catch up on. We caught up fast and hard and now I’m in recovery mode. I am looking forward to going back again really soon.

I went to my first baseball game, went quading in the desert and got to see the nightlife of Phoenix. It was a lot to pack into a week, so I guess I’m going to have to go back and experience it some more. It was a nice break from the cold weather we’ve been experiencing here, too. I’ll post some pictures as soon as I get a chance.

It’s nice to be home.

Topics: General | No Comments »

On Holiday

By Brenda | April 9, 2008

I am happy to report that I am heading off on Thursday for my first holiday in several years. I’m going to Seattle for two days and then Arizona for a week to visit my sister. I’m pretty excited about the trip, especially as I’m going alone. I like the adventure of finding my own way around and knowing I did it myself. So, I probably won’t be posting too much over the next couple of weeks, but if I get a chance I’ll post some pictures of the trip. If not, I’ll add pictures when I get back. In the meantime, check out my good friend, Daryl’s site. He has some great short stories posted. If you read them, be sure to leave him a comment and tell him how much you enjoyed them, because I know you will. He’s a terrific writer.

You can also check out a few other good sites:

Hope to see you all soon!

Topics: General | 2 Comments »

Concience vs. Guilt

By Brenda | April 3, 2008

A subject that seems to come up more and more frequent lately is guilt. I keep running into this topic in conversation and I thought it would be a good one to address. I know so many people in my life who live in guilt. Have you met someone like that? Where they evaluate everything they do and if they decide they’ve done something wrong, they live in guilt over that thing for a long time. I feel sad for them because in my opinion guilt is a debilitating emotion. I believe in having a concience rather than guilt because a concience will keep me from doing things I know I shouldn’t, but if I do something wrong I’ll recognize it and move on, trying not to do that thing again. Guilt serves no purpose other than to make me feel bad about myself.

Another thing about feeling guilty, is it has no end. When your concience pokes you, it happens and then it’s over. But guilt will bother you every single time you think of that situation, which most people will do often. You know, it’s like when you have a sore in your mouth. What does your tongue do? Despite the fact that it hurts, your tongue will poke at that sore over and over throughout the day until you make things worse. I see guilt in the same way. Guilt pokes at the soreness of something you’ve done until it actually makes the situation worse than it has to be. That’s why I call guilt a debilitating emotion. It serves no healthy purpose.

This is why I believe in evaluating my life on a regular basis. This keeps me from walking willy-nilly into situations and keeps me from making the same mistakes over and over. But if I do happen to do something stupid, I won’t allow guilt to take a hold in my life. I try to see what brought me to that problem and how I can in future avoid it. But, if I didn’t make a mistake in the first place, I wouldn’t have learned that lesson. Our society is so focused on perfection, that we forget imperfection is a part of the human condition. Perfection alienates us from our fellow humans because each one of us knows inside ourselves that we’re not perfect and when we meet someone who seems to have attained it, we don’t feel worthy to associate with them. All the while these imperfect people are walking around feeling alone.

If you feel guilty about something you’ve said or done, or even not done, take a moment to think about it. Think about the situation and how it happened, then evaluate the steps you would take to ensure it doesn’t happen again. What would you do or say differently, or how would you keep yourself from ending up in that situation again. Once you’ve done that, you’ve established the pattern you’ll follow in future. You have learned your lesson. Now, file it away and get on with things. Next time you come close to a similar situation, you’ll remember the steps and will hopefully deal with it better. You should at least be a step ahead of the last time. That’s progress. Don’t allow guilt to rule your life, rather learn the lesson and move on. You’ll find yourself feeling more confident and will actually deal with things better than if you lived with the guilt constantly. Guilt erodes confidence.

We all make mistakes…repeat this over to yourself when you feel guilt. Mistakes are lessons waiting to be learned, is another good thing to tell yourself. Learn the lesson, file the guilt away and tackle life rather than letting it tackle you. Time to live life on the offensive side.

Topics: Inspirational, Religion, Thinking | No Comments »

Hair Straight Back

By Brenda | March 29, 2008

I chose the title for this entry because that seems to be the way life is right now. I wrote my last entry about control and that’s the last thing I’ve had for the past couple of months. I wanted to be able to give up the desire for control and I haven’t been given a choice. Life is throwing curve ball after curve ball and I’ve finally stopped dodging them. Rather, I’m grabbing each one and seeing what it has to offer. There are so many interesting things if we only give each opportunity a second look to see what it might have for us. Some of them we may reject and drop to the floor, but some of them could end up being more interesting than first glance seems to indicate.

I’m being careful not to make any big decisions because I’ve always heard that after a traumatic event, you shouldn’t make any huge decisions for at least a year. I think that’s good advice, which I’m trying to follow. The problem is I’m probably the most impatient person I’ve ever met in my life. Because of my passion for life, I want everything to happen right now, or yesterday. So, I’m learning a huge lesson about letting things take their natural course and not trying to hurry them along by manipulating the situation. Oh, yes, the control issue again… It’s all about letting go, as I keep telling myself. But, myself doesn’t always listen so well. Sometimes I need to give it a kick in the pants and say, take your own advice, stupid!

I wonder if living life hair straight back is a good thing for most people, or if it’s too much excitement or even stress. Maybe you have to be a certain type of person to live this way. The older I get the more I realize how different I am. I thrive on excitement and change, but I’m realizing that many people don’t feel the same way. Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt that I live somewhere in between the worlds of other people.

I love balance. I try to live by the adage, everything in moderation. This helps to keep me in check and not to overdo anything. I think it’s important to find balance between living life on the edge and just living. To every day be going a hundred miles an hour would exhaust anyone, but sitting around and doing nothing exhausts me. So I am looking for balance. Yesterday was a good day. I spend my day off not doing much. I did some research and then dug into a novel that I’ve been reading (which is also a bit of research as it’s about Queen Juana of Spain, The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli). It was such a nice relaxing day, like I haven’t had in a long time. My girls are spending the weekend with their father, so it’s the first time I’ve been able to have my place to myself and the quiet is soothing.

Finding balance in life is important. So often we are tempted to go overboard in a certain area and it burns us out. I work with some people that put way too much into their jobs. So much that their personal life suffers. I admire dedication like this, but I am concerned for them because no job is more important than family and peace. Other people work only to make money and they can’t wait to get out of work each day to go home. This too can be dangerous because they might not be putting enough effort into their job. I see that a lot where I work. I try to make my job important, but no more important than the other things in my life. It’s tough sometimes because when I was working for an accounting firm, tax season comes along and work is about all you can do. But that’s just for a season. Sometimes work or personal things will take priority, but it should only be for a short time and then things need to be brought into balance again.

It’s important to evaluate where your time is being spent. If you’re consistently working overtime and feeling wiped when you get home, maybe it’s time to decide if work is getting too much of you, maybe your family is suffering and that area needs more attention. It’s so easy to just live life and let time pass by unnoticed until a crisis forces you to evaluate. That scares me a lot. I’d rather be looking ahead and see what’s coming down the road as much as possible, so that I can ward of the crisis. Obviously some of them can’t be foreseen, but the more warded off the better.

Like I’ve said many times before, take a step back. Think about where your time is being spent. Is your life in balance? If it is, good for you! I don’t think I’ve ever completely reached that place, but I’m getting closer every day.

Topics: General, Inspirational, Thinking, Writing | 3 Comments »

Interior Authors Group - Kamloops

By Brenda | March 26, 2008

I realized this morning that I haven’t spoken about the writing group in Kamloops. There are a lot of Kamloops residents that read my blog, so what better way to get the word out. The Interior Authors Group meets on the second Wednesday of each month at the Kamloops Art Gallery from 7:00 - 9:00 pm. I was elected president of the group in September of 07 and I’ve been enjoying being part of such an inspiring group of people. We have many interesting members, many of whom are published authors and many who are still working toward publication, including myself. What I love most about the group is the diversity of talent we have. There are poets, artists, novelists and short-story writers to name just a few. The members are wonderful about supporting and inspiring each other in their craft.

The meetings consist of readings and critiques, inspirational readings on writing, discussions of different writing issues, presentations, ice-breakers for fun, and a lot of networking. The purpose of the group is to inspire and support each person and the group has been very successful in this regard. If you live in Kamloops or surrounding area and are interested in writing, illustrating, editing, etc, please join us at our next meeting, April 9, 2008 at the Kamloops Art Gallery at 7:00 pm. The first three meetings are free for potential members and yearly membership is only $30. We’d love to see you there!

Topics: Journaling, News, Publishing, Writing | 3 Comments »

Toxic People

By Brenda | March 23, 2008

An interesting topic to me of late is toxic people and how we can deal with having them in our lives. I’ve recently seen a few of my close friends go through horrible situations because of a toxic person. It astounds me how easy it is for someone to turn on others, even the closest person in their life, and spew venom at them and do their best to bring that person down. What is even more astounding to me is that a couple of these friends are the most positive and full of life people I’ve ever met. This makes me wonder if there isn’t a correlation.

Positive people don’t always bring out the best in those around them. Frequently, they bring out the worst. I have personally experienced this, but it wasn’t until lately that it became clear to me. Being a person who believes in living my life as whole-hearted as I can, being honest and real, doing my best to give my all to the people I love; I thought this meant people would understand my motivations and see my heart. This hasn’t always been the case. At times it’s even opened me up to some pretty nasty situations. I’ve never understood it. But, seeing one of my closest friends go through the same thing has given me a greater understanding.

When you are positive and happy, and someone else is the opposite, your happiness only shines a light on their feelings and it can even magnify their state. In turn, because they feel bad about themselves, it’s somehow necessary to do everything they can to bring you down to their level. This isn’t anything new, or anything you haven’t heard before, I’m sure, but I want to talk about solutions.

How do you deal with toxic people in your life? I’d be very interested in hearing in the comments, some of the solutions my readers have come up with. I don’t think there is a simple answer to this problem and it’s one that has been around from the beginning of time. Anytime you bring two people into a relationship, there is potential for toxicity.

How do you know if someone you have met is a toxic person? It’s not always immediately apparent. I have met many people and thought they were so nice and enjoyed their company for a long time before I saw the reality. I have gotten better at spotting the warning signs as I’ve gotten older and gained more experience and now I tend to be friendly but distant when I met people like that. I have no desire to invite them into my life. I already know the outcome of that and I just won’t go there. But, what about the toxic people you can’t do anything about? Such as a sibling, or a parent, or a spouse?

Despite or, maybe because of my recent circumstances, I don’t propose getting out of a relationship with a toxic spouse as the answer. When you’ve made a commitment of that magnitude, it isn’t an easy fix, but if you’ve worked and done everything possible to heal the relationship with no positive outcome, then yes, the only way is to separate yourself from them. But what about a family member? Sometimes that’s even harder to deal with than a spouse. The ultimate goal is to preserve your life. How can you live your best life if you’re surrounded by toxic people?

Some of the solutions I propose:

Don’t allow people to talk down to you, or say negative things to or about you. We live with what we allow.
Be positive no matter how negative other people are around you. If they turn on you for your positive attitude, walk away. It isn’t worth getting into conflict because they have their world view and the two seldom meet.
Communicate with the close people in your life and share with them how their negativity makes you feel. Maybe they aren’t even aware of it. Again, we live with what we allow. Communication can sometimes make all the difference.
Put some distance between yourself and the toxic person. Sometimes just giving some breathing room, where you’re not in their space all the time, can make dealing with them a lot easier. If it’s a co-worker, maybe you can shut your door (because you’re really behind and need to catch up of course!) for a while and have some peace. When you can bring yourself back to a healthy balance of mind, it can be easier to shrug off that person’s issues.
If all else fails, remove the person from your life. This is a last resort, but if the toxicity is seriously impacting your life and your stress level is reaching unsafe proportions, this is a must.

This is a serious issue and one that could use a lot of exploring and discussion. I can only say yet again, We live with what we allow. What are you going to allow in your life?

Topics: Inspirational | 3 Comments »

Settling In

By Brenda | March 20, 2008

I am finding my balance again and settling into my new life. When I was first going through this roller coaster ride, I thought it would never happen. It’s scary when your whole life shifts out of its normal orbit and it seems that everything is tilted and off balance. It’s only partly to do with control as I talked about in my last entry, but more to do with understanding where I’m going. I have always been a planner, so when I’m not sure what is coming next, or I can’t even plan for it, it makes things feel really risky. To be honest, though, I find this is kind of exciting. I’m letting go of control and letting some things happen as they will and really nice surprises are happening. I guess that’s the other side of letting go a little.

The writting is starting to pick up again. It took me a while to get back into the groove again. My head just wasn’t in it with so many other things rolling around in my mind. But, I can never stay away from my work for long without feeling edgy. I’m happy that I can finally say that I’m back. The research for La Rosa is exciting and very interesting to me, so it’s not hard to find the time for that.

There are so many things I’ve been learning and want to discuss on the blog, but I’ve been finding it hard to find the time to formulate them. I will try and get a few of them together next week, so look for a bunch of posts back-to-back. I’m going away for the long weekend and seriously looking forward to the break. Then in April I’m off to a long-awaited trip to Arizona to see my sister for the first time in many years. Exciting things to look forward to.

Have a happy long weekend everyone! I’ll be back soon…

Topics: General | No Comments »

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