Something that may stop you from seeking, asking or providing help. My personal journey in finding what it is may help you too

As a human being one needs to interact with other people and simply speaking, to seek affirmation, compare lessons, to hear, see, smile, avoid isolation, re-orient, find bonding, find solace and be fulfilled.

I was very reluctant to establish this blog but also see the advantage of writing. I confess I have two reasons why: around 2006 is when I was introduced to blogging (that is writing), I needed to have an audience. I never believed that I may use the blog as a tool that am putting to paper evidence of my work. Secondly, I admit I am still discovering myself and through writing I own my compositions and am ready to say, ‘world, there you are read, criticise and make me better’. In writing, am seeking help much as giving it.  In 2011, we finally decided to seriously author a newsletter on MARPs. I do contribute essays, poems, critiques and commentaries in many other areas too.

 First of all let me share this fact:  the mission of this blog is to offer support and encouragement, help with problem-solving and provide thematic experiences in form of write ups that can be copied or replicated so that many others stay socially active and productive.

I always muse that if our fore-parents decided to bottle up all those very pithy sayings, proverbs and messages passed down generations would never have been with us! Sure you do not have to act tough! I did not point fingers! No, not me! There is evidence that what one endures emotionally may become loose in form of physical bodily ailments!  You do not want your lack of words to express emotions (alexithymia) to turn into heart related conditions (arrhythmias).  In seeking to say something about you or to spill your guts you may be giving yourself a healing balm. It is a form of socializing. In writing options are made wider. You gain skills in looking for stories, in writing them for yourself, in self reflection as one goes about polishing a composition draft one gets to correct mistakes. The self care one is subjected improves on the quality time one sets aside for self.

Find your vulnerability, find your anxiety, make sure you know what depresses you and find how to deal with these forces in an optimistic way. Mark my word well. I have not said you will avoid vulnerability, anxiety or depression. It is better in discovering yourself, your strong side, your belief system, you build and empower yourself so that once in a while when depression surrounds you it finds an armoury of coping skills. Presence of mind and looking at others for help have been some of the age old defenses. In finding vulnerability, anxiety and depression one can find or experience full potential.  Comb your hair, or leave it un-combed; wash the dishes or just go out and pick after the dog; do all those things your culture told you are for women or men (I mean mostly socially. You may not do the biological ones well). Break that masculinity or break that femininity.

I write profusely and do read profusely not because I want to be a professor but because I am my own next stop. I read and write for myself. I do a set of reps and sit ups not because I want to have a flat tummy (which is on the way, after a large pot-belly of yester-years) but because I want to do something early in the morning for the body. I enjoy early morning angelus, rosary and mass not because I am holy but because I find my spiritual self and therefore the goodness in me. I shall reap from a universal addiction of being clean. Cleanliness is next to Godliness.  “Tergeo proximus Deus”.