Now is the Time for Courage


A new year begins and with it come all the hopeful resolutions that see the light of day briefly before dying their usual death.

Don't make new resolutions
 I spoke to a group of people yesterday and asked them if they had made resolutions for 2012, many of them had. Most were horrified when I told them to ditch their grand plans as they would cause more stress than they were worth. The 1st of January is like some magical line in the sand – there is a vague hope that we can step across the line and suddenly be all the things that we haven’t been for the last X number of years.

It gets done
Things that need to get done, get done. If you amputate a finger while cunningly carving a radish to decorate a salad, you don’t sit on the couch waiting for the right inspirational moment to go to the closest casualty room. You put your finger in a Tupperware container and just go.

Building a better picture
Our brains contain a dominant picture of who we are. In order to maintain sanity, we have to match the picture of who we know ourselves to be. Have I been on a diet and lost weight? Yes! But my brain can’t hold a picture of a thin Ruth, so back the weight goes until I am once again the shape I know myself to be. Can we change? Yes, we can, the trick is to build such a strong picture of what you want that the new picture becomes the dominant one. We automatically move towards the dominant picture. Easy. Um, no. You can build a new picture using visualisation, vision boards and affirmations but I believe until there is the same urgency to change the picture as there is to get your stray digit out of the Tupperware and back to its right place, there will be little success.

Change takes courage. But perhaps it is time.

Vuka Paphaphama
You must believe that you can rise –
Vuka paphaphama!
Get up! Get up!
Shed yesterday’s memorymuddled sheets,
This is not the time for sleeping.
Life is flowing under the tired mattress,
Beyond the dark tightnight curtains a furious sun is beating.

Leave the bed heavy with old excuses and hungry hurts,
This is the time for courage.
Woza, Woza!
Grass is springing up between the floorboards
The fear-full house is flooding away
You know that you must rise:
Vuka paphaphama! Get up!

It is time.

Ruth Everson
Vuka Paphaphama – get up quickly
Woza - come

(The poem remains the intellectual property of the poet. Please don't use without permission.)

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