Category Archives: My Adventures

Anything related to surfing, biking, running and the rest

Alive. Awake. Living.

13 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in My Adventures, Touchy-Feely Crap

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So this is completely insane. My last post was barely 24hrs ago and was about how overloaded I am with work – another Mission Impossible Deadline, but something just came up and I have to blog about it.

It’s about living. About being alive and present in your life. It’s about being awake. It’s about loving your own self unconditionally – enough to fix any negative experience. It’s about picking up your shit, getting rid of any “I’m a victim” identity and going on.

I’m feeling so strong about this because two weeks ago I was stood up. Had a date with someone and he just never bothered to call to cancel or apologise. I was really excited, I had my hair done for date night and I had an outfit planned and I waited. And waited…… And waited…

He has his reasons… and in the past two weeks I made peace with it. I believe that essentially everyone is just doing what they can to be happy – just trying to love themselves. We can’t be angry at someone for your choosing their own happiness over ours – when it is in fact what we should all be doing. For some reason this was what right for him to do. I don’t believe it was personal – it wasn’t about me. It was about him. I let go. I breathed in, processed my feelings and breathed out. I shed a few tears (let’s be real – rejection always hurts – even if you didn’t want to go that party – if you don’t get an invite, then it stings). Then I continued with my stuff.

So.….. here’s the bit where I get to living – or why being alive is so wonderful and so scary. Unexpectedly someone asked me on a date today. And it’s someone who I really like (and he is someone who is a available – strange but true – at 40 years old that’s a criterion we don’t take for granted). In fact, I didn’t even realise he was asking me out. I read his message and thought he was saying it’s a lovely day for a cocktail on the beach, and I agreed. Only later when I re-read that I saw that he said he wants to take me for a cocktail on the beach. Like whaaaaat…. super super awesome cool.

Now living is scary because it’s getting close to evening time, a little voice in my heart whispered “What if he stands you up too?”. I freeze, but I am brave. I gently, lovingly tell the voice “Go lie back down. This isn’t your party. It is mine. If he does – then he does. And just like the last time, it is not a reflection on me”.

Anyone who does that just shows me that I should not be hanging out with them in any case. So I waxed my legs and painted my toenails a shade of playful baby blue with silver glitter. Tried on my denim shirt dress to see what it would look like with a pair of wedges because he is rather a tall fella.

I won’t let my past experience steal my happiness and joy. And I will deal with whatever when I need to. It’s scary to keep on living – but I owe it to myself to be brave. The destination of my journey is already determined, I have the ticket. I must just jump back on this train.

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I’ve done enough work for the day and listened to enough Christmas Carols today. (Klaar ge-Boney M for the day). Tonight is date night….. Well, take two at least. Let’s see what happens.

Dala what you must

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in General, My Adventures, Purely Academic

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I shouldn’t be blogging because the truth is I have the most pressing deadline ever – like seriously. But life is feeling beautiful albeit a bit stressful. Can’t explain it, I’m just feeling grateful and remarkably happy despite the stress. And so as I am working on my writing, I am listening to Boney M sing Auld Lang Syne. 😳😱🤭🤫#GuiltyPleasure. My heart is so happy, so I want to capture this moment on my blog.

Back to “Dala what you must” – It’s is colloquialism in my community and my best friends and I use it quite often. It basically means “Do whatever it is that you must do” or “Do whatever you decide you can or must do“. So the phrase can have a positive connotation or a negative one, but generally when we tell each other “Dala what you must” it’s typically when one of us needs to get out of trouble for some or other reason. For me it’s an endearing term.

See I am so over dala’ing my Puh Huh Duh (PhD) project. And I cannot wait to bow down to the universe with gratitude and respect when this is finally done and say Thank You for the lessons that this part of my journey has taught me –  but then also be so glad to be done with writing chapters on Operational Excellence in the Pharmaceutical Industry in South Africa!!!! Yawn…..

I want to get on with my life now. I want to start the next phase. Besides the academic component,  in personal capacity I have grown so much during the time that I have worked on this study. I have gotten to know myself really well, my weaknesses and my flaws. I’ve learnt to love myself, truly unconditionally and deeply. I have finally also learnt to stand up for myself and say an unequivocal No, when something makes me unhappy. And probably the most important is, I have learnt to forgive myself.

So in April this year when my supervisor said “send me your first draft by end of June” and I still hadn’t done my final interviews, I blerrie knew that was practically impossible but I continued working as if I was going to make it.

Then in July she told all her students who were coming to the end of three years (this is a PhD study hey…three years? #SlaveDriverMuchMaybe…. but I push my own self hard too, so I’m  not complaining), to send her all our chapters by 17th August.

And then the 17th August came and I only had chapter one in a presentable format. To explain that – see when you a write a thesis, I would argue that no one in history has ever submitted what they wrote when they started. Yeah, you start writing, then you do literature review and then what you wrote changes, and then you do data analysis, and then what you wrote changes, and then it changes and then changes and then it changes yet again. But I was definitely starting to see my work come together, so I sent her an email and said I’m sorry I didn’t make her deadline. However I asked her permission to send her one chapter per week for the next eight and she said Yes, and I said “Bless you Shalini“

And then end of September came around and I still wasn’t done. Admittedly I wasn’t working completely non-stop like I did with my Masters Degree. But the thing is working non-stop on that degree is what led to me being clinically depressed in that year, and so this time I know better and therefore I strove to do better. I continued to be involved with family and friend activities – took days off to celebrate the birthdays of two of my best friends, celebrated my own children’s birthday and hosted a party at home. I engaged in some other research on educational technology and my abstract was accepted to present a paper at the RITAL conference the end of this year – and I was asked to write a chapter in a book that is being published. I even dated a really nice guy for a bit. Busy but balanced? I was learning and growing.

When we know better, we do better- Angelou Maya.

So back to now. Back to my chapters. I sent my supervisor four chapters last night that I am very proud of and I admitted to her that the others aren’t ready yet. The others are about 70% done, but truthfully I’m feeling excited about them. My voice is getting stronger in my writing because I can see what my OpEx Model looks like. And I’m feeling confident about my work and proud of my work. And so she has given me another two weeks, which I am delighted about. I can do this!

So why Auld Lang Syne?… I don’t know… It just makes me feel happy. Doesn’t it make you feel happy?

Dala what you must

Photo Credit: Vannie Kaap (https://shop.vanniekaap.com/collections/vk-mugs/products/dala-what-you-must-2)

 

Namaskar

13 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in My Adventures, Opinion Post

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🙏🏾 On this beautiful spring morning, one strong beating heart. I am part of this world.

No identity, no background narrative, no defining label.

Not a woman, not a mother, not a child, nor a sister. Not a partner. Not a friend. Not a teacher or a colleague. Not a student. Not a runner, surfer. Not a biker. Not a divorcée or anything else.

Nothing but essence. Just the awareness behind my emotions. Nothing more than the awareness behind my thoughts.

And that is enough.

I am enough.

Dear Brain

09 Thursday Aug 2018

Posted by in Funny, General, My Adventures, Touchy-Feely Crap

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Gosh, I’ll start by saying how grateful I am to you. Not only very grateful, I love you. You amaze me all the time with your ability to remember stuff that would seem impossible to remember. You do snapshot comparisons, you contrast and you detect similarities between issues so incredibly quickly. A master at logic you are. That is your function and you do it so very very well. I bow before you.

You have kept me safe. You have gotten me positions and jobs because people have seen how well you work. You are such a very important part of me. But Brain, my dear Brain, I honestly must tell you are a bit of a speed freak. And because you sometimes go so fast you make mistakes. Not often, but sometimes when you make a mistake it’s a big one, sometimes with severe consequences.

But Brain, don’t feel bad. I’m not telling you this to upset you. We both know how important you are. I’m telling you this because I have some good news. The news is that you can take a break. You don’t have to work so hard all the time. You have a twin sister. Her name is Heart. She’s here to help you.

You and Heart both have the same intention. She also looks after me and I love her too just like I love you. She’s not as quick to react as you are but she is also very very good at her job. She is more sure of herself and more consistent than what you are, even though she allows you override her often – because she is not as insistent or loud as you are.

Heart is funny too, just like you are. After all, She’s your twin! She mirrors your personality but in a softer way. So don’t worry, she’ll keep us entertained with her antics too. Letting her take over is not a threat to us and don’t be deceived – she’s not a weak as she looks like.

Brain, tonight I can feel you are stressed. Again, the world has put lots of items on your to-do list plus there’s a lot of other things going on around us. But don’t worry Brain. I’m here tonight to tell you that it’s ok for you to let Heart take over for a while. It’s more than ok – because you my dear Brain actually are in need of a rest now. You’re going at 180km/hr now and our whole body is feeling it. We’re feeling a bit shaky and wobbly. You are exhausting us. Let’s give the wheel to your sister, Heart. You take a rest now.

Let’s not worry about sharing the power with her dear Brain. You won’t be completely gone, just in the background for now. And let’s trust her (Heart that is) especially when she says, it really doesn’t matter a darn stitch what is going on around outside of us. We know that you my dear Brain have been trying to control all the negative outside of us, to stop it from hurting us, but tonight she has a very valid point.

Screw the negative outside of us Brain. Hand the wheel over to her and let her stabilize us from the inside. Then no matter what negative is happening on the outside we can go on doing what we all, as whole want to, need to and are meant to do.

Take a rest. Let go. She’s got this.

 

#I❤️CPUT

06 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by in General, My Adventures, Purely Academic

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What an insane week. 🤪 Third post 🤯 Happy, sad, exciting, scary, empowering. A proper roller coaster of highs and low. Not gonna write about it all because firstly no one really cares but secondly who got da time for dat?!

ICEL conference. Presented my paper and poster. Met new people, made new connections and reinforced established ones.

Very significantly was reintroduced to a research methodology Prof Garraway mentioned to me three years ago!….. but only now I see its value to the PhD I’ve undertaken.

Activity theory.

I probably make sense to no one but me now. Anyway. I’m feeling energized. Let’s do this. Let’s go on. NRF rating anyone?

I ❤️ CPUT

Dr Basitere…. chasing your tail #JustSaying. Eng Faculty Rocks

Beautiful Daniela…. truly one of my giants – allows me to stand on her shoulders

Bronwyn 4.0

01 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by in General, My Adventures, Touchy-Feely Crap

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Guilty, ashamed, embarrassed because I don’t have a boyfriend. Common sense in 2018 says that is absolutely ridiculous – but my reality is my reality.

To even type that makes me cringe, but also causes a lump to form in my throat and water to well up in my eyes. To face my truth is the path to growth and more than wanting a boyfriend, I want to, need to grow.

See life is good for me. Really good in fact. I have two healthy, loving and quirky kids. My minions are a constant stable source of joy and inspiration.

I have a promising career that is on an upward trajectory.

I have a great family. Supportive and loving.

I have a super set of friends. Funky, cool, supportive and genuine. And even besides my friends just in general, I am well liked and very popular with many people for just being authentically me.

There are probably some people who don’t like me, but I’m really not bothered by them. I am not destructive… those that don’t like me most likely don’t like me because they are insecure. And that doesn’t even matter to me. I really don’t need everyone to like me to be happy.

So I am happy most of the time because I am purposeful and loving.

So then Bronwyn why are you unhappy other times….. the single biggest reason is because I am single. Truth. Ugly embarrassing truth especially given all the beautiful things that I’ve just said about myself above.

And my nature, my core, my heart tells me …. you know what Bronwyn, unhappiness sucks. I don’t want to be unhappy. What can we do to stop being unhappy those times that we are, she asks herself.

After much meditation 🧘🏾‍♀️ I started believing unhappiness doesn’t go away by trying to replace it with a source of happiness.

I need to start a movement in my heart and mind by letting go of my unhappiness first. Softening to the emotions causing unhappiness. (Emotions = the overwhelming feeling of sadness materializes occasionally when I’m alone, that is also the symptom of my unhappiness) Once I’ve softened and stopped resisting them, I can then see the root cause. (First I thought the root cause was just loneliness, but with deeper guided meditation I considered all other possibilities, and the truth is I am ashamed of my single status).

This is interesting and slightly weird because a while ago I realized and fully accepted that I am not single because I’m flawed or broken. There is nothing “wrong” with me. I just am because I am. I also actively work towards loving and looking after myself – fulfilling my own needs. Treating myself with tenderness. And I also realized that single people are discriminated against. So I thought that I was in fact being wary and mindful of not accepting labels.

But an incident that happened this week permitted me to realize that despite my common sense, despite my personal growth and knowing what is logical and what is right, I still carry residual shame and embarrassment for being single.

A colleague labeled me as ‘single’ this week. Instinctively I wanted to tell the woman to fuck off. It was a big deal for me. Hhhhhhmmmm trigger much ….yeah it was. Instead of getting cross I should have actually just politely asked her “Why is it so important to you to refer to me as ‘single’ so completely out of context?”. But I didn’t, I just quietly got pissed off and in my own mind I labeled her as stupid. Tit for tatt…. gosh am I really 40 years old already?

I did that because I’m sensitive. But the truth is I am not going to change the way that the world thinks. I am not going to change the way that society was conditioned… the very way that I’ve been conditioned. In October last year I realized the reason for me having one rebound relationship after the next in last year and the year before was because of a misaligned value due to this very conditioning. Even though I worked towards changing the actual value I never realized that I have to work towards not feeling ashamed too! That just wasn’t common sense to me. I fixed one impact of that conditioning. It never occurred to me that there were other impacts too. And I just discovered another one.

So now, after all this analysis it’s time to let go. I’ve admitted my feelings and I’ve not judged myself. Comforted myself, now I must let go of what no longer serves me. And I want to accept what is because damnit I don’t have energy for any more unhappiness. I feel like smiling. My heart wants to beat strong.

So this is what I’ll do. And then, flowing along with the current of this river of life who knows what next uh, who knows 😁

Bad Moms

13 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in Family and Friends, Funny, General, My Adventures

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So during the week in passing conversation with my minions, we were joking about just what a bad mom I am. My youngest minion reminded me of the day that she had an open wound and I didn’t have Dettol (antiseptic) to clean it – so I used tequila to disinfect her wound.

Admittedly I pulled a couple of weird stunts like, that so every now and then my minions ‘pretend moan’ to each other about me – but I somehow get the idea that they secretly love having a ‘Bad Mom’.

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Their dad is a whole lot more uptight and so when they are with me, they joke about how the roles should be reversed …since I am the ‘mom’ after-all. I have heard them telling their friends in a fake looking for sympathy kind of way about stuff I have done, have not done or have put them through.

These include:

  • Me regularly threatening to sell them on eBay
  • Having a planned ‘bunk school’ day with them as a reward for studying for their exams … Bribery is the key to successful parenting
  • I taught them how to gamble by teaching them to play klawerjas – a trick taking card game. We would play poker chips if they ran out of pocket money, but they better than what I am – so I’m the one always running out of money
  • Me forgetting it was my daughter’s sports day and went hiking up Lion’s Head. Just a few meters from summit my son sent me a picture of her crossing the finish line 🤦🏾‍♀️
  • We went on a family trip to Knysna and I took them with me into a pub. (The context being the whole family went to the pub for a meal – but still they love telling their friends “Mom took us to the pub”)
  • Every now and then I feed them two minute noodles for dinner (note: only when I know that my own mother isn’t coming to visit – because then I would be in trouble!). I personally skip dinner in lieu of work from time to time, and then I tell them to help themselves to two minute noodles if they can find any. They moan about it – but I know they secretly love it…. much rather prefer two minute noodles to veggies
  • I got them up early one Sunday morning to take them to an artsy film at an indi cinema. As we were walking to the cinema my daughter was incessantly moaning about being forced to wake up so early. So my son says to her “Sister, be grateful that our mom is a bad mom – things could be worse, you could have been woken up early on a Sunday to go to church”

 

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So I am a bad mom. I might be the worst mom. I send them to school with creased clothes and unbrushed hair – but I make sure their homework is done. In fact always I do homework and school projects with them.

I don’t care what my kids look like. I do care very much that I teach them how to love and look after themselves.

When I decided to have kids, it wasn’t the plan to raise them as a single mom, but plans change, and that’s just how life worked out for us. And you know what, that’s perfectly fine. My house is a frequently in a mess and my wallet is regularly empty, but my heart….. yes my heart is over the top brimming FULL.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the good moms and also to all my fellow bad moms out there 🌻🌹❤️

The girl with the bow and arrow

11 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by in Family and Friends, General, My Adventures

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No this is not evidence of S&M or an abusive boyfriend! I’m rather chuffed about my purple bruising because it is in fact evidence of my long awaited archery lesson! This happens when you accidentally smack your bow arm with the string of the bow as you discharge the arrow. A novice mistake….. because I am a novice! #PayingMySchoolFees 🏹 🏹🏹🏹

I have bruises on both arms because about halfway through my lesson I learnt that my left eye is my dominant eye. So I should hold the bow with my right arm and discharge the arrow with my left arm – hence I switched my bow arm and ended up having bruises on both arms 🤦🏾‍♀️. No matter, it was so worth it.

I wish I had my own bow with arrows that I could practice every day! Fun cubed for sure. My dream is to be that chic with a bow and a quiver of arrows on my back or side – and while I’m dreaming I might as well add a unicorn to the dream so I can shoot my arrows on the go…. 🦄 😁

Seriously though, it was more than cool. It’s an expensive sport to get started with though. Approximately 10K to just get set up. One day when I have extra cash, I believe I’ll definitely do it. For now it’s time to start saving. A great huge big Thanks to Luther and Sharon at Bowtime in Brackenfell. I definitely will go back to practice again.

Still revelling from an epic experience, Mel and I invited ourselves over to Berty’s house for a braai, and then later the evening he persuaded us to pop in at his Local, where a fundraiser was happening to pay for one of his friend’s charity entry to the Two Oceans Marathon. To end off a rather cool day I won a raffle prize at the fundraiser event 🤸🏾‍♂️👏🏾🌈 -A bottle of black vodka…. never knew the product existed before. So it’s been a pretty cool weekend.

But for now it’s back to work…. gots to earn some cash…. to buy my own bow and arrow! Catch ya later alligator

Living purposefully

09 Friday Mar 2018

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Life is quiet at the moment but life is busy.

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Its 3:03am on a Friday morning. I started to feel fluish (muscles aching) yesterday and so I started taking meds. I don’t know if this is the reason why I find myself wide awake now in the middle of the night. Not sure if my insomnia is related to me feeling sick, me taking meds or related to my hectic work schedule and to-do list or not.

I am currently enjoying my work tremendously despite it being challenging, because I’m slowly getting jobs done. There are practical jobs that I am completing and there are thought processes (ideas that I’ve been mulling over for other practical jobs that I must do) that are evolving. Overall I’m happy, no … I’m delighted that I am moving in a positive trajectory. I’m living purposefully and deliberately.

On an emotional level I have invested a lot of time and energy learning to, and dealing with my emotions in order to overcome any emotional blockages that could hinder me from living purposefully. I think I’ve gotten really good at dealing with emotions. I love the phrase Susan David uses #EmotionalAgility. I love the phrase Mark Manson uses even more! #EmotinalNinja

An interesting observation that I now have is feelings of fear and loneliness don’t hurt anymore like they used to. I have trained myself to see that fear is always the symptom of a deeper message from self to self. And Loneliness is just a thought. It’s not as easy as I’m making it sound. It takes a great deal of courage to firstly recognize fear for exactly what it is and then respond to it by calmly unpacking the reasons for it being there. In terms of loneliness, there was a great deal of pain surrounding me acclimatizing myself to the reality of not having a specific someone to share deep thoughts with and not feeling gutted about it, and also not feeling sorry for myself either.

I believe this was a not so obvious test of my faith… and also my ability to be happy with just living purposefully.

I don’t know what exactly the future has in store but I have a strong feeling about what it is that I must do. I also know that this is my one life. I know that every moment that I have now is a gift. And I know that I am grateful that I am not overwhelmed with negative emotions, because in the past six months I have trained myself to see every feeling that I have as a message (data) from my instrinsic self to make a decision. I am grateful that every little decision I take aligns me with my ultimate decision – which was to live purposefully.

The best way I can describe it is what I am feeling feels like an out of body experience to me now. I am not feeling as affected as I would have expected myself to be affected by the quiet moments in between the spurts of busyness. I wish for more, but I have peace with what is right now. I know that right for now, I’m doing the best that I can.