Living convert to nuisance
Bruised and wounded, buried in a stinky hole
Ambiguous life continues without remorse
And you lay waiting

Reasons unheard and crumbled.
Gained experience win no point to the outcome
Ugly truth darkens your credence
Words lose their grip at the tip of your tongue

Dried tears will not leave a trace.
Just as the scars in your heart are not visible to any
Like a falling leaf, you float high and low
No one hears its mourn or the shudder when it hits the ground.

When you hit a low point in life and have a hard time dealing with it, write down what comes to your heart to find solace in your own words!

Bea

Distresses come from expectations. Our expectations of ourselves and others are a set of rules we have created in our hearts about how others should treat us. We dream of acceptance, recognition, and unique treatments from everyone. We also expect others to act according to our beliefs. “Things didn’t go the way you expected, the speech was not to your satisfaction, the food didn’t taste good on your tongue,” and such unnecessary things disappoint us. We build ourselves for high expectations and train our thoughts and minds to always accept only success. When something doesn’t turnout per our expectations, we are sour, sad, unhappy, and even react violently. These feelings can lead to trauma, self-harm and addictions, and even death. It is our own way of thinking that makes us vulnerable to disappointment. How can we undo our programming and retrain our minds to act neutrally with any outcome? Can you try to be neutral when you are waiting for something?

We hope and dream for our children to reach for the stars, believe in our spouses to treat us right, trust our friends to be there for us, but we cannot expect everything to be right as we wished. So, why not accept our children for who they are, and encourage their success and failures without disappointment. Encourage them to do their best and if they didn’t achieve their goals, take it for what it is, without falling apart. If you know the answer to a question you will get, why bother asking it? Instead, accept it without being asked. You expected a promotion or a raise at work, and when you didn’t get it, don’t let that cloud your mind. If you have done your job to the best of your ability, you are honest to yourself, and it doesn’t matter if your boss did not recognize your talent and work ethics, as long as you value yourself and be proud of who you are. When your child gets in trouble for something you didn’t expect him to do, what’s the point of being disappointed? Instead, figure out what went wrong and take actions to prevent that from happening again. If a child did not reach his/her potential according to your expectation, don’t beat yourself about it. Be the parent and show love and understanding the child needs. Encourage him and find support for where the help is needed. When someone is keeping secrets from you, why waste your time and energy worrying about it. Don’t work your mind to figure out the unknown; let it go. You are better off not knowing whatever they are hiding.

Don’t go looking for ways to get hurt. Try and avoid it so you won’t be disappointed. Suppose we can take away our own desires and needs from any situation and be selfless? Stay positive. Give the other party to do things per their willingness, and accept the outcome without any reservation. Be happy for what is and not what it should or could be. We do our best and obtain the result, both positive and negative. Everyone has to pass or fail, win or lose and make mistakes. Accept that middle ground where you have zero expectations and only acceptance. The bottom line is, look deep within yourself, be true to yourself, be honest to others, be trustworthy. If you can believe in yourself, nothing others do or don’t do should affect you. Stay neutral always about anything and everything, without expectation and willingness to accept any outcome. Look at everything positively.

I know we are human, and it is hard to shut down our feelings of need for love and satisfaction, but we certainly can try to minimize the pain we bring to ourselves by taking steps to avoid them. It will take some practice to master your courage, but once you get the hang of it, you will feel happy and peaceful all the time. Nothing can touch you, and you will be free from disappointments!

These are my own experience and opinions that have helped me shaped my life journey. My wish is to share the lessons I’ve learned with my readers.

Bea

The memories of 2020 will not be happy, and soon it will be a distant memory. But it will remind you what you have overcome, so be grateful for your survival. Remember the sacrifices made by those who cared for the sick who held their hands when they took their last breath, how we have come together to protect each other, staying in lockdown, giving up travel, holiday functions, and being in isolation and dealing with depression. We have suffered through and through and have survived so far. Soon the year 2020 will be behind us, along with the devastating dilemma we suffered. With promising COVID vaccines on board, we will ring in 2021 with optimism wishing for a healthy life for all. The lessons we learned through the grief-stricken tragedies we endeavored has given a new meaning to life. We were made more potent, tested to the extremes, and the will to survive. Trauma and Suffering always bring out the best in us and makes us better people. Hopefully, with eyes open, knowledge sharpened, we should recognize that we need to work in unison to take on the responsibility to make this a better place for our children. The task at hand is to care for Mother Earth, help halt pollution, enrich our environment. Breathing fresh air, consuming food that’s not toxic, and nourishing the earth we walk on may avoid future disasters, pandemics, tsunamis, earthquakes, and so forth. Why not believe in science, support, and help prevent more harm to our earth before we destroy it forever.

Let’s be optimistic as we welcome the year 2021 and work together to bring a better, safer, and healthy new year for all humanity, and try our best to be a part of taking care of one another and our earth!

Wish you all a Healthy, Joyful Prosperous life in the New year 2021!

Bea

There is much I’d love to know about you.
The life you lived and grew up without us.
The heartaches and suffering you had endeavor
Who gave you the strength to overcome life battles?

We met only on a few occasions.
Not much time to build a rapport
Your humor attained my devotion.
But I loved it when you called me “Nanga.”

Our father loved being around his children.
I loved to be among my siblings.
We only have a handful of those occasions.
I treasured every moment when you joined in

I remember those few instances we met as adults.
How we laughed at your jokes at father’s funeral
When you sang at our familial gathering
Would that be the last memory you will leave behind

If we ever had any hurt or mistakes among us
I ask for your forgiveness, for you already have mine.
Let there be no doubt or regret for mishaps in the past.
Shed a tear reflecting only of the good times

I want to say I love you while you are still with us.
I hope you will not have any form of suffering till the end.
If your destiny allows it, I will trade place with you.
To spare your life and offer you mine to live.

Love, Nanga

This has been a very unsettling year since the beginning. Each and every person on this earth has been affected one way or the other. Loss of wealth, health, life, and living have altered all human lives, and we learn to live with it. Tomorrow seems so far away, and yesterday was chaotic and today is overwhelming. Hope for a better future at hand, but the path is blocked, so how we find our way is the challenge at hand. Nothing is certain in this time of our existence. What matters is getting through the day, waiting, and hoping for the best. This, too, shall pass, and we will look back one day and tell our children, grandchildren, how we have survived.

My grandson had his first communion, without his family around, no celebration. A happy moment was stolen from a child.
My nephew’s, chemo treatment was delayed, and his cancer has spread throughout his body. He depends on his children, 23, 18, and 13year old, for his care, who are terrified of what’s to come. My brother is dying of an unknown disease, which is incurable. I can’t imagine the state of mind of his wife as she shoulder this burden alone. Would we get a chance to say goodbye to our loved ones, celebrate their life, or offer comfort and support before it’s too late?
Each family is affected and goes through their own suffering, writing their own stories in the book of life. Corona has not favored any but attacks anyone, rich and poor, young and old, with its viper. What remains is to hold our breath, follow safety guidelines, put on our barriers, stay alert, and help minimize the spread of the virus until the vaccination takes control.

I’d ask you to take this time to tell your loved ones how much you love them, forgive for everything, and feel the peace in your heart instead of waiting. What is the point of crying at a funeral if you never took the time to appreciate their lives when they were alive?

Bea

Love and Fear are the two sides of good and evil. Love makes you durable, smart, compassionate, happy, and those who live by the guidance see the world with Love, appreciation, empathy, and respect. If you love your mother, father, siblings, and children, then you will respect all mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and children. The whole world becomes your family, and you will not intentionally hurt another human being. You will never fear to love, show compassion, but will ache and feel the pain of others and become the saviors, guardians, and healers to all mankind without discrimination.
Fear is the Evil creation of disruption, hatred. Those who are consumed with Fear, lose all control of their heart and acts out with jealousy, doubt, and anger. They are blind to reality and hate the world. Fear makes them stupid, angry, resentful, and unhappy. They live by the guidance of Fear and spread violence, threats, doubt, and promote hate and destroy anything good in this world. They see the color of people as a threat, minorities as targets, innocence as weakness, and attack those that they fear to feel empowered. Deep inside, they think nothing to keep them secure but the rage. They hide their Fear through hate and act of violence to feel empowered. Abusing their spouse, children animal or a stranger to fulfill their ego. They are the bullies. So today, we see the disruption in our land of freedom. An innocent man is murdered. People take it to the streets to show Love, compassion, and find justice for the unthinkable act of angry, racist humans that used their Fear to feel empowered.
This act of violence is very close to my heart; I survived death in the hands of a bully, who felt superior to me due to my color of the skin, my race, and my standard. My employer showed her power over me, through physical abuse, starvation. She drew my energy to lighten her day. People who grow up without Love, and raised with hatred lose their heart and reasoning in their head. They grow up as bullies, who attack the innocent, vulnerable people, with rage, hate. I came to this land looking for freedom, and how often I heard people telling me “go back to where you came from,” there are many who showed compassion, Love and acceptance and gave me the strength to survive through the abuse that left me physically broken. This is the Love I see in people, and I see on the streets today. The good standing up for justice, fairness, and the right of the human being. Fear never wins, but Love will.
I mourn with all of you fighting to bring justice, risking your life to change and discredit the violence of discrimination. Love is more potent than Fear and will conquer anything any battles of injustice.

I offer my deepest condolence to George Floyd’s family for their tragic loss, the pain, and suffering in their hearts. His name will live for centuries to come with the change he will bring to the country!

Bea