Tag: Ronovan Writes

#Ronovan Writes Weekly #BeWoW Blogshare – Be Good To Yourself

be-wow-blogger

Be good to yourself.

It’s easier said than done, but extremely important to remember. Humility does not ask that we think less of ourselves, just that we think of ourselves less. Many of us spend our days constantly looking out for others and it is a great work. We encourage, inspire, share, and overall put others above ourselves. But we have to remember to give this same kind of love to our own selves too. People who are good to themselves are strong enough to be good to others. On the other hand, there’s a saying that says to beware when a naked person offers you a shirt. What kindness can I offer you if I don’t first have the same kindness for myself? We have to learn to humbly accept compliments, rest when we need to, and treat ourselves every now and again. It’s not asking too much to implement some kind of exercise routine for your physical body, reading for your mind and prayer and reflection for your spirit. Our worlds can be so chaotic at times that we may even need to pull away for a while to tend to ourselves. This is not just a suggestion, but we need this. If you can’t function you can’t perform. We need to take care of ourselves so that we can continue to be of service to others. So take some time today and be wonderful to yourself this Wednesday.

#Ronovan Writes #BeWoW Weekly Prompt – Silence is Golden

be-wow-blogger

I’m not sure what the suggested topic is for today, but I am excited to be back after missing last week. My positive contribution to Ron’s  BeWoW prompt today is Silence is Golden.

I believe there is a time to speak, but I also believe there is a time not to speak. When it is not the time to speak, Silence is Golden. It is worth more than the most trusted opinion, more than the long list of facts, more than the careful strung words we tend to place between our teeth. Silence, when implemented in its time, is a most powerful weapon; it cuts through to the meat and shatters the bones. It ceases the need for a humble snack, or the need to taste your words twice. Most importantly however, it cuts down on unnecessary negative energy. I have come to keep quite on certain matters, not because I am afraid to speak on them, but because I do not desire to give it my energy in the first place. For whatever reason, we tend to realize the need for these things far too late, a lesson we know all too well, that is, hindsight is always 20/20. But that’s life, and what is our existence without these lessons? I have come to understand time as our most precious and most valuable resource, why waste it for the sake of words spoken out of season? Even a fool is considered wise when he closes his mouth and watches his words. Silence indeed is golden.

#Ronovan Writes #BeWoW Prompt – Regret

be-wow-blogger

Regret:
feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity); a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.

Ex. “She immediately regretted her words.”

Today, Ron’s suggested topic for #BeWoW is on Regret:

In my opinion, the idea of Regret is good. In order for someone to change from a negative situation, thought, or feeling, he or she must admit to a wrong and feel sincerely sorry for having committed this wrong. There must be some kind of sadness from having done it. This repentance of sorts then will lead to proper change in whatever capacity that it is needed. So the concept of having Regret for having done wrong is a good thing. If I have no ill will toward having done evil in the past then the reality that it is evil has not left my heart and I do not see it as the evil (or mistake) that it is. If I lied but I do not Regret lying, then I do not see it as the wrong that it is. Life presents the opportunity for change and growth in many instances in our lives. And when I look around at the negative parts of me that I struggle to completely do away with, I see those parts as belonging to a time I have not fully regretted. I know that it is bad, but I do not wholeheartedly feel bad for having participated in that bad, I have not fully Regretted it. Instead, secretly, I still see it as a good thing.

“For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”

― Cynthia Occelli

On the other hand, the problem with Regret comes in when we wallow in that Regret and our repentance then turns not into positive change, but ugly depression, and thus causes us to regress in many ways. Even if I can Regret having made a mistake, I can never correct it if I continue to hold on to it. The amount of energy that I put into that kind of regret has the capacity to single handily destroy me. It leaves no room for positive change or any other feeling. This kind of Regret is a cancer, eating away at our life force until we are a mere reflection of what we used to be. It causes us to feel sorry for ourselves so deeply that we eventually hate ourselves because of it and are no longer any good; not to ourselves and not to anyone else. We fall down, but unlike positive Regret, we do not look on the fall as an opportunity to get back up, we look on it instead as a crutch and as an excuse to keep us down. This is the ugly side of regret and no good can come from it.

In closing, I say to my Regretters:

You should feel sorry when you’ve done something wrong because if not you are bound to repeat it. You should Regret it and be remorseful and sad because this is what is needed to change it from a negative to a positive situation. However, careful not to allow this sadness to turn into depression because it will destroy you. It’s OK to feel bad but eventually you gotta get yourself together and back on track. Your sanity and your growth as an individual depends on it.

#Ronovan Writes Weekly #BeWoW Prompt- Get It Together

be-wow-blogger

No, that’s not Ron’s suggested prompt but it was inspired by it. Ronovan’s prompt is “Are You Ok?”

It’s an interesting thing how a week can comprise a singular theme. Sometimes there are lessons we have to learn and messages silently embedded into our day to day that we do no always see. The central theme of my week for instance had to do with not letting things burden me.  So when I saw Ron’s prompt: “Are You OK?” it was on accord with my thoughts already. So my dose of positivity for today is Ron’s idea with a mixture of something I tell myself often, more so this week, and that is: “Get It Together!”

For those of you who know me by now, you know that I believe strongly in the power of choice and how our choices impact our lives. I counsel sisters from time to time and I noticed there’s a lot of depression taking place. I even found such depression to try and overtake me but I had to stop and ask myself a serious question: “Do you want to feel this way right now? Of all the things that need to be done and that are being done, really EC? Now?” From there I made the conscious decision to be OK with leaving things undone that attempt to rob me of the peace I so need in this moment. This was important to me because I knew that I will not otherwise accomplish the things I needed to. I saw this feeling then as a stumbling block to my daily priorities. Sometimes the problem is that we often try to go back and see how we can redo things that we really need to let go completely. We all have our moments (I know I do), but when our emotions get tangled sometimes we do not need to dwell on why, we just need to “Get it together” because the choice is yours no matter what it is. If you want to, you can shake the baggage and fly or you can give it permission to wear you down.

For the most part the advice to those who suffer from depression or any other negative spirit is “trying to figure out what’s wrong”, but not today. Today my message is the opposite, just drop it and get yourself together. Easier said than done I know, but it’s not impossible to do. Sometimes it’s not about thinking things through, it’s about letting them go completely and being OK with moving on.

#Ronovan Writes #BeWoW Weekly Blog share – Positive Quotes

be-wow-blogger

As I thought about what to write for today’s #BeWoW, I struggled a bit. What is left to be said week after week about positivity? And what purpose does this light afford us? I started to list some of my favorite positive quotes, but it somehow did not seem sufficient. I’m all for happy endings but I also do not want to bore you. Quotes are cool, but they only go so far. And since I already indulged in some “quoting” today, I didn’t want to overdo it. So I sat here and I thought and instead of being my normal speedy gonzales self, I embraced the patience and thought some more. I even let my thoughts roam to other things, did some cleaning, ran some errands and gave this post a rest for a while. And as I did so, I realized how much a day can change from one to another. I thought about how different yesterday was for me than today and how far away last week seems to be from today. I thought about how I felt in the recent past and how it affected the present future. I thought about how easy it is to feel angry or sad one moment and excited and joyful the next. How simple it is to be spun into a wide range of emotions in one moment and to be relaxed and content the next. In this I understood how important it is to find and embrace the positive moments in our life. As a result, I do have a positive quote to share, but only one. And I hope that it gives you the serenity, courage, positivity, and strength you need to continue through to the rest of the week:

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.”

― Bob Marley

#Ronovan Writes #BeWoW Weekly Blog Prompt – Connections

What connects one person to another? What provokes them to inspire, encourage, and to display characteristics of kindness? What makes them care so deeply about the whereabouts and well-being of others as if come from themselves? As if attached at the hip, what makes an individual go out on limbs, what makes them sacrifice?

be-wow-bloggerIn “A Child is Born” a great photographic look on life inside the womb, Lennart Nilson and Lars Hamberger begin their work with love:

“Love is an incredibly strong, enduring force and has been since time immemorial. The pattern is recognized in every culture in our world: two people are mutually attracted and feel the irresistible urge to unite.”

41PF7EZB94LWhen a baby first emerges from his mother’s womb, he is looking for Love. It is the reason he comes out crying. Once safely enveloped in the serenity of his mother’s womb, he emerges into this strange place and must instantly reconnect with love. So he cries, and she cries for it. And in their innocence this love connection is worn like a sacred garment until we reach the age where we are taught to hate. This teaching may take many forms, but we are taught it and eventually we lose our innocence, we lose the ability to love. Maybe we saw something that disturbed us; maybe we were traumatized by an experience. Whatever the reason, when we reach a certain age, a world that is absent of Love eventually teaches us how not to Love, and we thus spend the rest of our lives in search of this connection.

I seek to re-connect with people through love. Despite the stigmatizing of this word, the carelessness in which it is handled, and the abuse it has endured, Love is not just a word. It is not just here for our convenience when we need something or when we think it will be of benefit to us. Love is not just a four letter word we use to justify our wrong, but Love is action. It is not just spoken, it is seen. We see it when people forgive each other. We see it when a homeless man is fed. We see it when a wrong person is corrected. We see it when a hug is distributed. Not only do we see it, we hear it. The beautiful thing about love and how it connects one person to another is that it surpasses language barriers, and culture clashes. If I travel to China and I see that an elderly man has fallen while walking down the street, I will move to assist him so that he stands back on his feet. I have no knowledge of Chinese, but I do know the language of love. Likewise, for many of you good people out there, if you saw that I was in distress, you will move to give encouragement when you see that it is needed. So love is also an interpreter. It has the ability to discern motives and acts as a guide. In this way, we build a bridge of cohesion that makes room for further understanding of one another as individuals. Because there is an absence of Love in the world, it has caused us to disconnect and forget how to treat one another and how to build positive relationships.

So for this week’s Positive #BeWoW Post, I am re-connecting through love. Continuously seeking to better understand what it is, how to distribute it, and how to accept it.

#Ronovan #Writes #BeWoW Blogshare – Ordinary vs. Extraordinary

be-wow-blogger

Ron’s #BeWoW prompt today is to explain what ordinary and extraordinary means to us. As I pondered over and over again about the defining moment of these words for me, I found the prompt to be quite the challenge. It was with interesting difficulty for me to talk about these words. To present something more than definitions, but to really talk about these words. While it is an optional prompt, I thought more and more until I was deeply interested in writing on this topic, and there lies my definition. Ordinary and Extraordinary was right there in the midst of my pondering on whether or not to use the prompt at all, standing finger to face, keyboard to post. I could perceive in my mind a subject I thought far more worthy as it would also be easy. Or I could dictionary Webster’s mind for a sneak peek into the traditional history of these words. I could see each day this way too; commonly held thoughts and belief systems coming and going at average pace. Putting nothing less and nothing more into the day at hand. Never pushing limits. Never going beyond. Never taking risk. Never faithfully walking alongside the edge of possibility. The ordinary.

Or, I could create a post out of the challenging. I can break that level of comfort. I could perceive in my mind an opportunity to force the creative mind to produce. Not just to contribute, but to build. I could see each day this way too; holding fast to the individuality I was birthed with. Producing the unexpected. The perceptibly strange. The odd. The extraordinary. Putting forth nothing less than impeccable effort. Pushing limits. Never giving less than 100% of thought. Never settling for traditional, but embracing the different. Fearlessly and boldly walking alongside the edge of possibility. Immersing both my mind and my spirit in the groundbreaking. The unique. The extraordinary.