I enjoyed some relaxing leisure time with colleagues and students on our yearly outing recently. Our trip included time at The Irish National Stud & Japanese Garden. This display of flags represents all the countries that have completed The Irish National Stud Breeding Course. Can you spot your flag here? If you can or if you can’t, please say hello and tell me where you are on the globe? Better still tell me something interesting about where you live?My geography is improving daily thanks to the little map on WP Stats!
A week or two ago I had a lone visitor from Ireland, I wrote about it Here
Today I’d like to welcome readers from the United States! Whether I have only one visitor or many, I’m always happy to have company. If you decide to visit, be sure and leave me a message to say hello!
“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” Epictetus.
Time and the right conditions not only preserve but bring about something of beauty – Marie Clancy.
In my previous post I wrote about the importance of self-care, you might like to read it 4.Self-care x 10! When you or your children are struggling to cope with bullying it is very important to continue to practice self-care during and after the event. Being bullied can cause strong feelings of loneliness which come from the isolation of bullying. Bullying thrives on isolation and fear. Lack of access to information, lack of support and worse still lack of knowing which way to turn or who to ask for help all serve to enhance the isolation and loneliness you feel!
The loneliness was something I found hardest to cope with as I struggled to find answers and effective support.
But there is help out there. Don’t allow yourself to be rendered voiceless.
So I want YOU to know that I am here for YOU and YOU are not alone…reach out, share your concerns and talk about the bullying you or your child are experiencing.
What has been your experience of the loneliness of bullying? How would you describe the loneliness of bullying? How did you overcome it?
Actually, I’d like to take a minute or two to thank everybody!
I won’t start naming Countries or individual names because you know I mean you, and all because you stopped in to visit and share such kind and encouraging words this past week, since Andy joined our family.
The thing is you will never know how much of a difference your words have made to both myself and Emma!
And of course to Andy…as you can see he’s under so much pressure!
I don’t know what we’d do without those frequent “dog-naps!”
Emma has just started an Instagram account and she would love you to visit her and Andy @reallyhandyandy where she will document and share their journey towards improved mental health and where she hopes to fulfill her dream and goal of paving the way towards the availability of Psychiatric Service Dogs in Ireland.
This is Andy, new to our home since yesterday. Isn’t he so beautiful! He’s trying to find his feet and he’s so full of love…just like all of us!
It’s one of those days…
I’m normally quite risk adverse but it’s one of those days…
Where I’m just going to call it… on the subject of ‘likes‘ and ‘follows‘…
If you just ‘follow’ my blog, I’m not going to follow you back. I’m not interested in numbers…
And let’s just call it again…
If you ‘like’ one post from my blog, and it’s a post I re-blogged, because I liked it enough to want to share it some more; and then you ‘follow’ me, I’m still not going to ‘follow’ you back because although I’m glad you liked my re-blog, you still don’t know anything about me and I’m not interested in building numbers, I’m interested in building connections with real people, so please…
Read at least one of my posts, you don’t even have to ‘like’ it, if you don’t think it warrants a ‘like’ but talk to me… so I can talk to you,
I’m Irish… I love people and good conversation. Tell me what you think of my post. Maybe, even though I know you are busy, read two posts of mine and leave me some feedback. Tell me what struck you about my post, first anything positive and then a little, gentle constructive feedback; so I can try to improve how I build my words and how I build a community that really cares.
Thank you for reading. What’s your opinion on ‘follows’ and ‘likes?’
Time and the right conditions not only preserve but bring about something of beauty – Marie Clancy.
Today I would like to share T.S’s very emotive, true story from his blog “Crazywriterof6.” As I read T.S’s distressing reality, I felt my body became anxious. I felt his apprehension and fear. His sense of loneliness and isolation is palpable. He says… “Maybe some of you can relate and see that even then, you weren’t alone”. No child should be in dread every day, isolated and living with the fear of bullying!
In my last post I wrote about the difficulty I had in supporting my children, both victims of bullying, because of the pressure on victims to remain silent. You might like to read it… Big Boys…Don’t Cry!
We now hear in T.S’s own words, his deeply ingrained and debilitating belief as to why he was bullied… “The torture continued. Many moments before this event, many after. I have written some of them out, just to get them out. All this because I was different than the “normal people”, different from what society says I should be. Different because I was overweight”. I believe he was not different… everybody is different and everybody has the right to be respected for who and how they are.
Please enhance your understanding by reading his story…
At a funeral yesterday, one sentence struck me, that sentence was “We could all be better people,” meaning we could all do more to be there for others.
Let’s break down the silence and begin a cross cultural, worldwide conversation about bullying. Let’s educate ourselves and our children about bullying and let’s tear down out-dated social norms.
