You are what you are waiting for!

We spend a lot of our lives looking for role models, mentors, teachers, and gurus to guide us on our path. There is nothing wrong with this and, in fact, finding the right person at the right time can really help. However, it is important to realise that in the absence of such a figure, we can very safely rely upon ourselves. 


We carry within us everything we need to know to make progress on our paths to self-realization. The outer world serves as a mirror. Or to use another metaphor, our inner world has a magnetic force that draws to us what we need to evolve to the next level. All we need to do to see that we already have everything we need is to let go of our belief that we need to seek in order to find. 

The path of the spirit is often defined as a journey with a goal such as the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In this metaphor, a person begins a search for something they want but do not have and then they find it, and there is a happy ending. 

It is all within reach, just go for it. 

However, most of us know that getting what we want only makes us happy for a moment, and then the happiness passes until a new object of desire presents itself. Joy is a permanent aspect of our inner selves and is not separate from us at any point. We do not have to travel to find it or imagine that it resides only in the body of another. In fact, what the best teachers will do is point out that this very precious elixir is something we already possess. 

So when we find ourselves on our path, not knowing which way to turn and wishing for guidance, we can turn to ourselves. We may not know the right answer rationally or intellectually, but if we simply ask, let go, and wait patiently, an answer will come. The more we practice this and trust this process, the less we will look outside ourselves for teachers and guides for we will have successfully become our own. -- DailyOM

I believe I can fly

SOS: Asking for help is not a weakness.

Help! I am drowning. 

Asking for help is something that we all know and understand. Asking for help is admitting that we all co-exist to help, support, and even serve, each other. But how many people fail to ask for help while struggling because of fear of being judged? Or pride? Asking for help is not a weakness. It has everything to do with knowing that motho ke motho ka batho 

(I am ... because of others). 

I came across the below piece of information, relating to asking for help, on the site www.ivillage.com. I was even more attracted to it because of the picture (above) accompanying it. I found it quite catchy and really relevant. You need a helping hand when you can't reach, when you can't see a way forward, when you don't know how you are going to do it. That's when you need help the most.  

Studies show that getting encouragement and support from others is a powerful weapon for changing difficult behaviors. Ask your friends to provide encouragement and offer to do the same for them. 

Sharing your struggles with others can be a powerful motivator for change. That’s why groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Weight Watchers are so popular and successful. 

These groups can also provide information and advice. In addition, if you feel ashamed of your behavior, you may find it therapeutic to share your troubles with other women who are going through similar experiences.

Source: ivillage.com

Read More http://www.ivillage.com/10-ways-reboot-your-get-healthy-motivation/4-b-428091#ixzz1oqTOVJQA 

 Go on, ask for help. And don't forget the magic word: please. 

Does your career need a makeover? Are you sure you love what you do?

It did not take me long to read The Career Clinic. The book, by Maureen Anderson, is about ordinary people who took risks to achieve extraordinary things. The book, just like the title imply, is indeed -- a career clinic.

It is comforting to know that, just like you, other people have fears, regrets, disappointments and expectations in their careers. The book introduces you to those people.  You get to travel with them to the turning points in their lives and careers.

We are often advised: follow your passion; do what you love! That would also include breaking boundaries and pulling out all stops to pursue what you were born to do. But really, how many of us do that? How many of us are happy at what they do? Were you born to do what you are doing right now? I’m talking about your job. Are you enjoying it? Do you love it? If "yes", Good for you! If  "not" (Who are you fooling?) What are you doing about it? These are some of the questions that you get to ask yourself as you read this book. 

The Career Clinic gives you tips to consider:

1.      Have no regrets, it is the only way to living a guilt-free life; and making mistakes helps you to learn.

2.       Talk to yourself. It is not insanity. Let that inner voice come to life, don’t ignore your intuition.

3.       Stop. Wait. Breathe. Take a break to reflect (I think this is the level I’m at right now (February 2012). I’m glad to see that I’m on the right track. It’s not abnormal. It’ not unheard of.  It’s a step that only the brave dare to take. 

4.       Ask for free samples. If you can test-drive a car before you buy it and try on the clothes in a shop before you pay for them, why can’t you test the waters of a career you want to follow? If it does not tickle you fancy you simply get to say: thank you very much, I’ll pass.

5.       Say yes! Yes to life, yes to new opportunities.  Dare to challenge your old beliefs and systems. Who put them in place in the first place?

6.       Have fun. If you stop having fun, you stop enjoying it, it then becomes a routine. Am I hitting a nerve here?

7.       Try something new if you stop having fun. (Exactly!)

If you, like me, enjoy reading inspirational and motivational content, you are going to enjoy reading this book. Accepting that I had finished to read it and that I had to put it down felt like saying goodbye to a friend, not knowing when I’d see them again. Yes, it made that kind of an impact.

Stepping up

Lillian Dube chats to me about how she beat cancer

Talk about laugher is the best medicine

Breast cancer used to be more common among white women and women over 40, but there are increasing cases of breast cancer in black women and women younger than 30. The key is to detect breast cancer early so that you can get treatment and increase your chance of survival.

Who is at risk?

Anyone can get breast cancer, but you are more at risk if your diet is high in fat, if you don’t exercise regularly, are overweight, drink more than two glasses of alcohol per day and if you have a family history of breast cancer.

You are also at a higher risk if you are over 40, if you started your period at a young age, went through menopause at a late stage and if you had children after the age of 40 or not at all.

Symptoms include a lump in your breast, unusual swelling, puckering of the skin (like an orange peel), a sore or rash, pain, discharge from the nipple and indentation of the nipple (instead of pointing out and forward, it is pointing sideways or inwards).

Lillian Dube

All cancer patients and survivors will tell you that finding out they had cancer and then undergoing treatment, was one of the biggest challenges they had ever faced. The physical effects of the treatment are tough with a many side effects, but it is also a psychological and emotional challenge.

Popular actress, Lillian Dube, is a breast cancer survivor who didn’t let the disease dampen her positive spirit. The bubbly and outspoken actress is renowned for her role as the matriarch and matron Sister Bettina in the TV drama Soul City. She also stars in SABC 2’s Muvhango.

Lillian is a very busy lady; everyone wants a piece of her. Her phone keeps on interrupting us, but she manages to tell me how her acting career started. “I was encouraged by my son to get into TV back in the 1980s. He heard on the radio that there were auditions in Johannesburg. He even got a telephone number and address for me,” she says. “At that time I was working as a credit clerk at a retail.”

She is now working on season two of the TV series, Skwizas, which is being produced by her production company: Lillian Dube Productions.

Cancervive campaign

Diagnosed with the disease in December 2007, Lillian was operated on in January 2008 to remove the tumor. She subsequently received chemotherapy treatment every three days for four months and radiotherapy for 30 days as a safety measure to ensure that potentially remaining microscopic cancer cells were totally destroyed.

“I am an only child, I have only one child and I’m a divorcé, so I received most of the support from the community and my co-workers,” said Lillian.

“I am active in creating breast cancer awareness through talks and presentations. I’m now part of the new Cancervive campaign that educates and creates awareness about the shy-cancers. I’m also a member of Bosom Buddies, which is another breast cancer support group, and I have founded a Breast Health Foundation in Lesotho in 2008”.

Treatment

Lillian’s cancer was discovered in a routine check-up. The first mammogram didn’t detect the tumor; the radiographer only noticed it when she went again the following year. “Because early detection is key, I appeal to women over the age of 40 to go for annual mammograms,” she said.

Treatment for breast cancer depends on the stage at which the cancer is detected. It may include surgically removing the tumor and a mastectomy – removal of the affected breast.

A double mastectomy is when both breasts are removed. Radiotherapy is administered to kill cancer cells that may have remained after surgery. Chemotherapy is when powerful drugs are used intravenously and in tablet form to kill the cancer cells internally.


A print version of this article was published in Vuk'uzenzele February 2012 edition.

Who makes a fuss about a small error in a community newspaper? I do (Singular vs Plural)

Ok, I don't think I'm abnormal. I also don't think I'm crazy -- OK  maybe just a little. I'm also not a perfectionist. I'm just a little bit passionate about a few things. "Words" are one of them. They have to make sense. They have to be true and correct. I know a whole lot of people who are like that too. They are called copy- or sub-editors, proofreaders, word-smiths, word engineers, and so forth.

I had just woken up. It must have been 11.15am. I know I'm one of the most envied person right now. I sleep and wake up at whatever time I want to. I don't answer to anyone. (Damn I've always wanted to say that) Let me repeat it: I don't answer to anyone. No more crazy traffic in the morning, no more rat-race for me, and definitely no more waking up in the early morning. (Well except for Saturday mornings when I have to get up at 4am to prepare for my 6am to 9am radio show.) And this is how things are going to be for me, at least, for quite a while.

I am watching you.

So the first thing I did was grab a copy of a local newspaper. Page 1, page 2, then on page 3, I picked up my phone and called the editor/manager. He's not in. So I asked for his e-mail address:

Dear Mr Dlamini

My name is Refilwe Thobega. I was paging through the Express Northern Cape dated Wednesday 1 February when I could not help but notice a glaring subbing error.

It is on page 3, main story, headline: Shucks, there's holes in the condom.

The story is about three million freely available Choice condoms in the Free State, which have been recalled because some had holes. 

It cannot be there "is" if there are "holes".
It should have been there're (there are) because there are not one, but many holes.


Plural and not singular.

Another question: were the holes on only one condom or on a number of condoms?
Answer: there were holes on three million condoms.

"Shucks, there're holes in condoms" could have been the correct headline.

I just thought I should bring this to your attention, sir.

Please just check for errors such as these in the future. Don't underestimate your  readers. An average newspaper team should know the difference between singular and plural.

Kind Regards
Refilwe Thobega

Then I pressed the "send" button. What would I do without my Blackberry?

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

People who are true food lovers will always say that eating is an emotional experience. From that point of view, Aimee Bender tells the story of Rose Edelstein who experiences her adolescence through the emotions that she tastes in the food she eats.

When Rose turns nine her mother bakes a special lemon cake for her, and this is where Rose's food tasting journey starts. Rose is horrified with the realisation that she knows what people feel when she eats the food they prepare.

Reality, Rose discovers, is stranger than fiction.

Aimee Bender writes heartbreaking prose that makes you giggle at one point and then plunges you in deep depression the next. She writes her characters in such a way that the reader can identify with them in all circumstances. We have all felt these emotions. We just did not realise that they are evident in the food we prepare or eat.

A thoroughly enjoyable book to read with such beautiful writing, that once you start, you just continue to turn the pages until you realise that the story is done and life goes on again.

Reviewer: Antonia Vermeulen

Things are to be used and people are to be loved.

People are meant to be loved.

A co-worker just sent me a message on BBM titled: Loved vs Used.

It says:

While a man was polishing his new car, his six-year-old son picked up a stone and scratched lines on the side of the car. In anger, the man took the child’s hand and hit it many times, not realising he was using a wrench.

At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures. When the child saw his father … with painful eyes he asked “Dad when will my fingers grow back”. The man was hurt and speechless, he went back to his car and kicked it many times. Devastated by his own actions, sitting in front of that car he looked at the scratches, the child had written: “love you dad”. The next day that man committed suicide.

The message continues:

Anger and Love have no limits, choose the latter to have a beautiful and lovely life. Things are to be used and people are to be loved. But the problem in today’s world is that people are used and things are loved.

In this year let us be careful to keep this thought in mind. Things are to be used and people are to be loved. Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actins, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character it becomes your destiny.

This made me think of the situation that I had with my mom over the weekend. We got home from Resego Mogodi’s funeral (Rest in Peace nana) and we were flippin’ tired, so we both napped.

She woke up before me and realised that my car was not under the shade anymore. While trying to park it nicely, she scratched it on the side against a heap of bricks that were close by.

Ooooopss

She woke me up immediately to show me and to apologise. I was furious, but tried to contain my anger. Mistakes happen, you know. But, damn, I was mad!

But now, after reading this message from Tendai, I’m reminded that indeed things are meant to be used and people are meant to be loved.

What’s the fuss about? My mom promised to pay for its fixing? So why was I so mad?

We place so much value on material things. How would I feel if things were the other way round? How would I feel if my mom was hit by a car, instead of my mom scratching the car? Now that would be devastating.

Honestly, I rather she scratched the car and she was not harmed. A car is a car, it can be fixed, it can be sold, it can be replaced and as for my mom on the other had – she’s the only mom I have and I can never replace her and life without her would be not imaginable. 

I’m glad that a friend forwarded this message to me as a reminder that these things are just things and we should instead place more value on the people who love us, who would do anything for us, who want to see us happy and whom life without, would be hell.