"Just catch the bus", he said.

I was lamenting my inability to stay awake while driving and wondering aloud how I would get somewhere.  "Why don't you just catch the bus?" suggested my friend.  THE bus?  THE bus?  There's no bus that picks you up and takes you where you want to go.  Catching the bus is not like catching a cold.  If you haven't used any mode of transport other than your car, try getting somewhere using public transport before you suggest I "just catch the bus".

I should clarify that when I refer to "my friend", it is not the same person each time.  I'm venting my frustration about things said by many different people.  This is a great forum to share the opinions I don't share with my "my friend"s.  That is, until they read it and discover that I have opinions and they chase me with swords and pitchforks.

In the last 31 days I have still managed to get out of the house a bit which is much better than last time.  It makes a huge difference being able to picture in my mind how close the bus stops are.  I just have to get across the front lawn, up the hill and around the corner.

Maybe this is significant for other things that I find overwhelming.  If I can visualise how to complete the first step, I will probably take it but if it is too far away or too complicated, I will probably not try.  I think it was the main reason I didn't make it to some important things recently.  Looking at it this way, I can give myself a bit of a break for feeling overwhelmed about getting to things.
 

I'm proud of the times I got out of the house and I can understand why sometimes it proved too much of a challenge.

The Tree of Life - Session 2

Wonga Beach, QLD

The Tree of Life - Session 2 

We put our individual Trees of Life together to make a Forest of Life.  
I like analogies and visualising stuff so I found it pretty exciting.  

I imagined my birds (my gifts to others) flying around the forest teaching people, showing empathy and spreading laughter.  I could look at someone else's tree and find fruit (others' gifts to them) of laughter and think "wow, that could have come from one of my birds".  I made all these great connections and was quite exhilarated by it all.  The trees made it so easy to understand. 

The funny thing is that when I was studying Anatomy and Physiology at Flinders Uni I wrote some really dreadful assignments.  Isn't that hilarious?  No, the funny thing is that my lecturer wrote "Can't see the forest for the trees." because I would write paragraph after paragraph of detailed analysis about how some process works in particular cells but I would have no idea how it affected the person in the case study.

Similarly, when I was in primary school we were told to draw a picture of trees and I started by drawing individual leaves of a tree.  When everyone else had finished several trees I was still drawing the little leaves of one tree.  I love that I literally couldn't draw a forest because I was stuck drawing the leaves of one tree.

I think there's another major example of me being blind to the big picture because I was too bogged down in detail but I can't think of it right now.  With the Forest of Life I was able to focus on individual people and also see all people as a community and appreciate the wonderful interactions we have with each other.

 Also in this session we chose someone important to us and drew a picture or wrote them a letter.  I illustrated my Grandma's generosity by drawing stick figures of all the things she does to care for me.  We discussed our letters and drawings in pairs or small groups.