First of all, we now know the Theme of our next ISM Retreat in October - Gentle Strength - so, one can say that the preparation has already begun!

For me being real means simply that I do not pretend to be something else, which includes I do not try to duck and dive or cover up for what I don't like about me or my behaviour. The reward is that I am more in touch with how I really feel... and what can be better than this?! :)

Please enjoy Lady Elizabeth's light-hearted sharing!

With all my love,
(BH)
Milen

~~~

My dear friends,

Happy month! Happy July!

I have just arrived in Europe in the middle of a heat wave! The temperature is now 39° C and my body left a wintery Cape Town temperature of 13 degrees!.. so here is to a hearty happy summer in the Northern Hemisphere!

I find it quite ironical that I am now in a country in Europe where I need to update my residence status as an immigrant, at the very same time that in my country thousands of people are out in the streets demonstrating against so-called undocumented immigrants, but at the same time going for people like me who've been there for 18 years!

I'm also aware that attitudes have been changing quite rapidly in Europe in the same vein and so I am not expecting a walk in the park as I renew my residence after almost 10 years.

I touched down last Thursday and my first opportunity to go to the foreign police was in the early hours of Friday morning. I knew if I didn't go Friday it was going to be Wednesday this week before anything could happen. So 5:30 in the morning Friday I'm up and about when my friend J comes to drag out into the heat my by now seriously jet-lagged body. The offices of the foreign police are in a town 40 minutes away.

We were fully expecting a lot of bureaucracy as has been in the past, but these days probably more so. The very first thing that happens when we get to the foreign police is that whilst there is a place to park as there was 10 years ago, now nobody's allowed to park at the building - at the same time there was no visible parking place anywhere close!

J takes it into her head to stop, switch on the hazard lights and run in to find out what she can find out! She comes back quite exasperated to say we can't just pop in to the office any more, we have to make an online reservation 🙁 More cars are arriving, so we take a chance and park in the empty yard of a medical clinic next door to the foreign police. J runs back in to get clarity as to next steps in terms of making this online reservation.

As J gets back, we are confronted by the owners of the property who want to call the police to remove her car. We head 2 kilometres up the road to the Tesco’s parking lot where there's one little stick like bush tree where we park and regroup in the heat. The air conditioner is not working!

Fortunately, J has her laptop with her, and she starts researching how to make this online reservation thinking it would be simple, but it turns out to be a bureaucratic nightmare!

We pause momentarily.

“Accept yourself for who and what you are, for the you that you are now is the only one that can claim your power, and thereby change yourself. In order to do this, you must hunt for the power inherent within your shortcomings. Wishing to be someone or something you are not is not being real or honest. Be real by making yourself and others real.”

I say to J

“Today we are going to have to harness your shortcoming to make it work for us!” Lol!...
J’s principal shortcoming is stubbornness!!

To cut a long story short, this is what happened for the rest of the morning. It was quite remarkable for me in this whole exercise that whilst we needed to discriminate how best to manage my impaired energy, at the same time we needed to harness J’s shortcoming to get through the day.

With hindsight the remarkable part of it is that some years ago had I even mentioned to J something about her shortcoming, we would have ended up in a major conflict! Whereas now it was just a matter of fact - she has the shortcoming of stubbornness, let's harness it to make it work for us - and she performed miracles as a result - and we spent a lot of time laughing at our folly Lol!

Bottom line - I now have an appointment this coming Friday and we will see where we go from there. Thanks to being real about our particular shortcomings we were able to jump through hoops in one day that otherwise we may not have been able to.

Have fun with being REAL this month, my friends!

With all my love and warm summer hugs,
Elizabeth.