The lady who cried

When I was 17 I lay awake in my bed at night not able to sleep. I can't quite remember what was going through my head at the time, however I know it was late (around  2 AM). It was autumn, but not windy or raining. The night was dark and still...until I head the sound of shoes click clacking on the street outside my window. The walk seemed confident, not slow, not fast but a good pace.

About 30 seconds later I heard a voice which I assumed belonged to the shoes. The voice was startled and scared. The voice then said shakily

" Oh, please... DON'T HURT ME"


There was fear,  tears and then silence. No shoes, no voice.

I jumped up to look out of the window, but I could not see anything. My window was situated to the side of the street overloving other houses. I could only see a glimpse of the street itself. I search for the voice and the shoes but did not see a soul. What happened to the voice? Should I do anything, call anybody? What should I tell them? What if it's a joke? So many questions and not a single answer for any of them.

In despair I crawled back into my bed and hoped that it was nothing. I really found myself denying what I'd just heard. I could not take it back or make any difference. How powerless I felt. From that day on I promised myself that I would never turn my head to the voice, or the shoes again. I felt so empty.

2010
I work half a day and decide to pick my Jasmin and Otis from school. I take my usual route which is Via Centraal Station, past the Ibis Hotel, along the bike boat, over the bridge and under the small tunnel. I have a bounce in my walk, after all my meeting this morning was great and left me inspired. Then as I approach the small tunnel I hear tears. A lady is sobbing with her hand across her face. She's really crying. She's also on the phone. I assume that she has had an argument with someone and that its personal, not right for me to ask her why she cries. Then she see's me watching her and  feels my stare, my curiosity. I hope I don't make her feel uncomfortable, but I'm actually quite concerned.

I walk over to her and she continues to cry with her phone to her ear. I'm not sure whether she's a tourist or a resident, so I ask her in English if she is okay and then I ask her in Dutch the same question. I rub her arm to give her some kind of support, but she sobs even more now. She looks at my face, deep in my eyes and her tears flow like a river.

I ask her what has made her so upset, but she cannot speak. Instead she grabs my hand and holds it firmly. She does not let go. I hold her hand too. She cries some more and I stroke her arm again and try to smile warmly at her. She returns my gesture with her eyes. Still she says nothing at all. Not on the 'phone nor to me. Silence...

She is still holding my hand and she is still crying.

Finally she nods at me and two tears trickle down onto her cheek. We look into each other eyes. The frown causes from her crying seem be permanently etched into her brow. Now she squeezes my hand firmly as if to say thank you. She then turns and slowly walks away, he head down and still crying.

I am left there for a few seconds, startled. What just happened? After my own shell shock I continue my journey,  my head wondering about her sadness.

Like when I was 17 I'll never what made the lady cry...

All good things come to those who wait...

My mother used to say this to me. As a child I simply didn't believe it and thought it was only grown ups who understood and used such sayings, but when I did finally grew up I made a decision (only a few years back) to live life at a pace I could define myself. Not completely related to the title of this blog, but as I progress you'll see what I mean.

So my decision basically resulted in me deciding to rid myself of the stresses and expectations of others, including my sometimes perfectionistic self and aim only for goals which were realistically achievable. (No "realistically achievable" is not superfluous because my charachter tends to lean towards goals which are achievable, but not always realistic)

A small example could be demonstrated this morning when I took Otis and Jasmin to school. We arrived early and so I kissed Jasmin goodbye and progressed further with Otis to the junior building. Otis' classroom is on the top floor, so it a 4 storey climb every morning for us. - keeps us fit, that's for sure! We part after I have settled him in the classroom and kissed him goodbye and I make my way to Swordfish.

Via central station I buy myself a cappuccino to go, add sugar, stir for a good 3 minutes and head towards the tram stop. On my arrival I see hordes of people waiting. The trams are delayed and people are agitated. When the tram finally arrives everyone crams in the tram in a frenzy. They look like sardines in a can or even worse cattle heading towards the market.

My composure is relaxed and I see no challenge in joining the madness afterall I have my cappuccino. I search my pockets for a cigarette and decide peacefully to myself that I will wait until the next tram comes. The sardines and cattle pull away and in the distance I see the next tram approaching but I'm only half way smoking my cigarette and it's a good smoke so I say again to myself "ah well, I'll wait".

Just 2 minutes later the 3rd tram arrives (now 3 trams have appeared within a period of 5 minutes). The trams stops. A few people step in and the doors close. The tram is pretty much empty. I remain calm and take the last 2 tokes of my cigarette and another sip of my cappuccino. I'm ultra relaxed and feel no pressure to hurry. But now my smoke is finished so I put my cigarette out, slowly grab a copy of the Spits newspaper and head towards the doors of the tram. They open, I greet the conductor and find a seat. 30 seconds later the tram departs. I continue my journey to Swordfish.

Is this an example of the laws of attraction? Or simply, as my mother used to say that "All good things come to those who wait".

Change , for change's sake

Every now and then it's important for us to reinvent ourselves. Yes, change is a good thing. We have a hard time of it, but it's the only thing constant and guaranteed in this life. Why we cannot find solace in this remains a puzzle for us all, as we know it will come again. What's odd is that we're able to accept and adjust to some of the worst things which life throws at us, such as povety, unhappiness and crime, but not to change. Don't tell me that the reason why change is so difficult is because we don't know what is going to happen. Of course we do.... We know that something unexpected is abound. We know that we will have to re-organise and that a change in ourselves, our structures, our lives is inevitable. So why don't we embrace it?

Actively seeking change prevents complacency - don't confuse this with the saying 'If it ain't broke then don't try and fix it' that's not quite the same and in my opinion not to be used in personal development, but it does ensure growth, improvement and new directions. It doesn't always have to be top of mind and it should never be forced. If actively reinventing yourself is diffcult try to dwell upon a spot of self-reflection - the catalyst to change. Self reflection helps us recognise that something new, however subtle or small is on the horizon; our personal development plan kicked in by our psyche, in need of a long awaited shake-up, perhaps...

So now that you've emerged into the second working week of 2010, ensure that you take time for self-reflection to welcome a spot of change.

What does being successful mean? - Part I

STOP! BEFORE READING THE FOLLOWING. CHOOSE UP TO 6 WORDS/SITUATIONS THAT ANSWER THE ABOVE QUESTION. REMEMBER TO CHOOSE THE FIRST 6 WORDS WHICH COME INTO YOUR HEAD (write them down if necessary).

When you're ready, select the area between ...

(here)

- Good-high earnings/job
- A modern car,
- Great house/penthouse
- Minimum of 2 holidays per year
- Financial stability
....and social life to match.

(and here, to reveal my answers)

So you probably came up with a few or more of these answers or similar, and who would blame you?
I know from within my group of friends that the definition of success would be similar. Why? because success often means status and a high status would fall under having/owning most of the above attributes which consquently means you have money if you are successful.

In realising this, we could say that success, according to the above definition, is external. The list has nothing to do with ourselves you see. It's purely a way of showing others how many expensive items we have been able to purchase over a period of time. Success exists therefore only if others can confirm it? If there is no one to see your success, then are you still sucessful? Think about it, nobody says " Wow, I'm so successful" about themselves. We say it about others. We see the BMW, the Rolex, gold credit cards and the lifestyle and confirm that these are the things which mark and define success. If you do not have these things or nobody can see them you simply are not successful.

Yeah, it's quite shallow, but also a reality for the majority of people.

I don't think success is any of these things. Not one on the list in fact. I don't think success needs to be confirmed by others - if this were so, it would make it as weak as it is powerful. On top of this and at the forefront, I don't believe that success is or should be made easy, in fact it should be down right hard and difficult for us to achieve. Of course there is a reason for this too.

To be continued...

Moriam's reason - sessions for 2010

After a year of hard work Moriam's Reason will be back with new life strategy sessions. Watch this space...

From Woman of the Week to blogging and more

This year started off pretty well when I received news that my Vrouw van de Week (woman of the week) interview would be published the very first week of January 2009. What a honour and what a way to start the new year.

Since this year has progressed (we're still at the beginning) it's been an good time. Lots of developments, changes ( always a positive thing) and challenges have appeared enabling me to continue forth with plans for the future. One of which will be giving Motivational sessions to all who seek a push and reason to get on with their dreams. I'll be developing interactive motivational sessions and will be launching as a brand under the name moriam.net - which just so happens to be the website address.

You see it's not about me, it about everyone and what we can all acheive when we put our minds and will to it. This is my reason, this is Moriam's Reason.

child-friendly plaster saves the day

The intention was to have just one meeting today at home whilst the boys were having their afternoon sleep and to just milly around the house and be with the children. In fact this went according to plan, but the day wouldn't remain as simple as this as I was soon to learn.

Our middle child (OT) is a lovely boy currently aged 3 and a half. His character is lively and social and he's gentle and caring. On top of this he's also going through the terrible three's right now, so is developing an attitude at times and has bursts of energy which he sometimes lets take over him. Anyway to keep this story kinda short what basically happened was that OT was playing wildly (as usual) in the hallway. I'd called him a couple of times to calm down, but in his rave he didn't listen. Suddenly I head a loud bang and him crying quite loudly. I ran to him and saw his head had a blue line almost 2 centimetes in a vertical direction. There was no blood for the first 3 seconds and then there was...it dripped down in the form of a red water droplet towards his nose. His crying escalating. So as I grabbed him and headed off to the bathroom, I then saw the extent of his injury, The wound was as well as being quite long for his little forehead, was also about half a centimeter wide. A trip to the hospital would be required and stitches would be inevitable.

Whilst dabbing his forward with a cold wet rag, escorting the smallest child (Harv) away from naughtyness and asking the oldest (Jaz) remove the cats from their resting place (our bathroom), I managed to get mij blackberry, call the doctor to explain what had happened and speed dial hubby Olaf. Multitasking at it's best. I was quite calm amongst the chaos, but poor Ot was shocked, stunned and in pain.

So Olaf was home within 7 minutes and I was downstairs fully prepared with change for the parking meter, Ot's medical card in my hand and instructions which Olaf needed, completely memorised. With Ot hand in hand we were at ground level a minute later. Husband and my first son would drive away to the doctor who would use glue (sounds weird, I know) to stitch the skin together. By this time Ot was calm and quite excited about going to the hospital. Then I told him it would be a trip to the doctor instead and his enthusiasm dropped.

30 minutes later both O's were back and little O had a winnie the poeh plaster on his head and underneath a tight swallow plaster pushing the skin together. Ot was proud of his wound and his plaster and that made everything alright for my boy despite his injuries.