Tuesday 4 - Heart to Heart

 

1. Has a conversation ever made you change the way you see yourself?
   
   I remember being at a party at the room of a university friend, who appeared to live quite nearby my gram's.
   Which meant we have played together when we were young. When I visited his parents to show how much I had changed (his parents asked me) his sister immediately remembered me. (She has down syndrome.)
   
   Well, at the party a mutual friend, Marcel, asked me: where is your point of rest in your life?
   Targetting the fact that I was always busy and running from doing the groceries for my gram, cleaning at home, and doing the groceries there too (I was still living at home, because I didn't have the money to move out.), taking ballet lessons, organising nice events at university etc etc.
   
   That question has haunted me all my life.
   
   It made me aware that most people take me and my work for them for granted, and that I almost never ask something for myself.
   I was never really aware before, but I can never sit quiet for an hour, without people asking me things or wanting my attention in another way.
   
   Going to England means to me being with people who want to be nice for me, who grant me "me-time".
   
   
2. What makes a conversation truly meaningful for you?
   
   When it's not just superficial chitter chatter, but is talking about a personal subject, and someone gets further in thinking or feeling about it.
   
   
3. How should a person handle a conversation that grows awkward... press on through or find a way to end it? What would you do?
   
   I aways joke my way out. 
   Unless the person knows me well and I know that person well. Then I just say: stop!
   Or I walk away.
   
   
4. What's one conversation from your life that changed your perspective on something important, and why?
   
   Quite some conversations, to be honest.
   
   Like when my mother was asked if I was allowed to go to the ballet academy and she said "No". Too much hazzle to get me there every week. She was not proud of me, no, she was thinking about herself. I realized she didn't want the best for me, so I should persue that myself.
   
   When my father's army chaplain asked me, when I got my studies of psychology finished, if I would  like to have his full knowledge about soldier-and veteran care?
   I expected a lot of religious matter, but in fact he taught me a lot about trauma development, care, etc etc.
   I use it now almost every day. And it's still a lot better than all the book-knowledge and desktop theories.
   
   When I was told that maybe I wouldn't live the next morning, when I had an emergency admittance at hospital, I was not really shocked, because I had been struggling to move around for months on end.
   Of course I expected to be in panick, but I wasn't.
   I was as much in my brain as I am in (other) emergency situations. Saying to the cardiologist that I'd better keep calm to keep my blood pressure down.
   Looking back, it changed the way I deal with things. I trust myself a lot more, trust my intuition more, and by the reaction of Mr. J. I knew I had to deal with everything in life myself and not rely on others to lend a hand. It made me more outspoken, more of a bitch in medics' land. And I became more aware of how short life is.
   
   
   

. . .

About **Syl

Syl: "Life is a chain of challenges. Sometimes the largest challenges are we ourselves. Facing life, facing others and facing yourself requires either a worryless attitude or plain courage. Most of the time it is dealing with judgement. Maybe life is about getting rid of it."