If I speak my mind…

​16 August, 2020
A heartfelt video sent by my dear friend and colleague, Mary-Anne via WhatsApp today.  She had been reading my blog posts and just wanted to share what she felt might be meaningful to me in connection to what I’d written about.  I feel so grateful for her understanding, authenticating love and presence in my life at this time. 
 
Please click on the link to the song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjvjJsxMnYw
 
Speak My Mind ~ The Willis Clan
 
This will probably stay locked away
And only come out on a rainy day
Cause I will probably go and never show
Every little thing I want you to know
If I speak my mind
Will you take the time
Will you try to find a way
If I take you there
Will you say you care
Will you understand and stay
There's gotta be more courage I can find
To speak my mind
I will stand alone even though
I'm dying inside to trust you so
But I am so afraid that once betrayed
There'll be once again hurt and play
And I pray
If I speak my mind
Will you take the time
Will you try to find a way
If I take you there
Will you say you care
Will you understand and stay
There's gotta be more courage I can find
To speak my mind
(Speak my mind, speak my mind, speak my mind, speak my mind)
There's got to be…
 
Lyrics source: Musixmatch
https://www.google.com/search?q=lyrics+speak+my+mind+willis+clan&rlz=1C1EJFA_enZA794ZA795&oq=lyrics+-+speak+my+mind%2C+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l7.11670j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
 
If you would like to know more about the child abuse struggles of the Willis family, please go to:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5613193/Willis-sister-Jessica-speaks-abuse-left-family.html
 
17 August 2020
 
I had a lovely WhatsApp conversation with another dear friend and colleague, Birgitta, who had made contact because she had also read my blog post.
 
Birgitta
Hi there my friend!  You’ve been so much on my mind the last few days, how have you been?
 
Panayiota
Taking one day at a time dear, lovely friend.  Thanks for letting me know you’re thinking about me.  I love you bunches.  Are you okay?  I’m always here if you need a friend… and don’t you forget it!
 
Birgitta
That’s good.  You’ve been so much on my mind.  You are very special and I look up to you so often as someone who is one of the strongest, bravest people I know.  I’ve been alright, I recently stopped doing tutoring work with children and now only work with horses.  The freedom of following my calling is truly so liberating.  Love you lots and lots! 
 
Panayiota
Thanks so much for your kind words dear friend… do you feel that way even after reading my blogs?  (I’m presuming you might be reading them) … I fear Patricia has gotten me into so much trouble yet again, but feel strongly she needs a voice now also… You are so blessed to be working with horses (and your dogs), and doing what makes you so happy.  That would make me very happy also.  Horses saved my Life during the abusive stepfather era… I LOVE them with every fiber of my being.
 
Birgitta
Yes, my dear friend, not despite her, but because of her. I relate to so many of the things you write about and share.  I can often imagine myself in your shoes and get a glimpse of what it must be like, because the little Birgitta in me is very similar.  That’s why I know you are so strong and brave.
 
Panayiota
Thanks for sharing that.  It means the world to me.
 
A Facebook conversation today, with a friend I’ve never met named Val
 
I posted a quote on Facebook this morning
 
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Val Van Der Vyver
Thank you for sharing this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. I also found a quote from him that really spoke to me and is so prevalent for our day.
 
"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night, already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Panayiota Ryall
It is a lovely quote, and a good reminder of where I need to return to when I'm so shaken up by deep anger... I must always return to LOVE... somehow, I know I have to, and somehow, I eventually always do.

Update on me

Slept better last night, because I took ¼ sleeping pill… it looks like I’m going to need to just take it every night for a while, until my unhappy spirit can settle again.  I’ve still got deep death-loss sadness (I literally experience loss of good friendships and betrayals, etc. as a death in every way) … for today, the anger and anxiety intensity has lessened, thankfully.  With the help of my friends mentioned above, and others, I feel a gradual returning to my center of love and peace, which is the only method by which I can survive in this world… and importantly, just accepting my lot… there’s no fighting it anymore… so, it’s always a matter of just getting through the death-loss grieving, to find a way to keep going… taking one day at a time…
 
My administrative work today was to read through the first 40 pages of our new online, Advanced Training in Logotherapy course, to see if any edits were needed.  There were so many reminders in there of the Logotherapeutic attitudinal values and standards I need to be achieving at this time in order to transcend my current state of hurting and reactions to that.  If it’s to be, it’s up to me!

Teria has set up the course and it is going to be a most amazing course for our students.  I really do believe that.  I feel privileged and definitely very blessed to be part of it.  Reading through those 40 pages today has brought me some semblance of peace… a little more much needed oxygen.
 
I identified so much with what Teria had written on page 37 of our new online, “Advanced Training in Logotherapy” course (www.vfisa.co.za) which we are hoping will be launched by 2021, and I’m so grateful to her for allowing me to share it here:
 
Summary of the chapter in your main prescribed book: The Life-changing Impact of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy by Teria Shantall
 
CHAPTER SIX:  WHAT IS YOUR REAL PROBLEM?
What is at the very basis of every hurt; the real crisis behind whatever problems the client may have to deal with?  This chapter sets out to prove that every distress, whatever its nature, is in essence a disturbance of the sense and experience of meaning in life.  The real issue that is to be dealt with in therapy, over and above whatever other treatment may be required, is a crisis of meaning.  When we suffer, we suffer.  It is not the pain that is the pain; it is not the distress that is the distress; it is not the problem that is the problem.  It is that we feel distressingly disconnected or severed from, or outside the normal flow of things.  Life is going on without us.  The sentence of exile from what others still enjoy has been passed on us.  What lies behind what Frankl called the tragic triad of human existence; the inescapable negatives or tragedies in life?  Why the pain, why do we suffer guilt, what scares us about death?  The pain of any kind of suffering makes us feel discarded by life; out of the normal, healthy and blessed flow of things; guilt makes us feel bad and under judgement, no longer loved and accepted and part of it all; and death ends our life and perhaps its purpose in the eternal scheme of things.  We lost connection with what really matters.  Suffering throws us.  Things are not what they should be.  Things are not sane or normal.  They are insane and abnormal.  Something very bad has happened or is happening to us.  The sea of emotional turmoil and conflict, the distress and anguish of it, can totally mask or temporarily submerge the essence of who we are as spiritual free-willed human beings.  Here is the truth:  We are not meant to suffer!  Suffering in itself is senseless, unwanted and wrong.  It is not something to be desired or wished on anyone.  It is something that is to be combatted, overcome and removed.  It is to no longer be!  All our yearnings, our efforts, our searching will be aimed at coming out of situations of suffering.  We want an end to it, be rid of it forever!  Suffering, Frankl contended, makes us aware of what ought NOT to be.  A case of a woman, our dear Panayiota Ryall, who suffered sexual abuse throughout her childhood is given in detail to illustrate the above truths.  Other case studies further highlight the truth that, at heart, clients want to regain that which they felt they had lost but what was and is still essentially theirs.   The released potential to become what they were meant to be, and could be in the case of a girl coming out of a state of deep depression, ends the chapter.
 
 
I LOVE LOGOTHERAPY! ❤️


Thank you for sharing with me.
 
~ Panayiota