Challenges

Featured

Writing back to Happiness

/ Waves and Pebbles - random thoughts and writing on life, memories and creativity / Leave a comment

In 2015 I started this blog when I was dealing with treatment for a life threatening form of leukaemia. I kept the blog up for some while – it helped provide me with a focus – and when I was able to go out, I enjoyed taking photos and sharing them.

As life returned to some form of normality – I had survived! (needing checks every six months) – my blog writing slipped. I had a couple of attempts to rekindle it but somehow life got in the way. Yet when I wrote my first book “Life Happens, Live Happy” (available on Amazon – author Kay Underdown), I fully realised how both writing and blogging had helped me through some very challenging times.

When I eventually graduated from University in 2017 with my degree in Social Sciences, having had a whole year out due to my illness, the idea for Life Story Writing was born. Workshops and courses using my own unique approach combining coaching, creativity and sense of belonging.

Following graduation I had to negotiate some difficult, and unexpected, life paths. the outcome is living in the most wonderful area by the sea, one of my dreams that I had long wanted to achieve but never before had the guts to see it through.

There followed a period when I half-heartedly worked towards working for myself as a coach and running workshops but somehow the time wasn’t right. Life was good. I still felt as if I was on holiday whenever I had the time to wander but I lacked something and I just didn’t know what that something was. So I returned to University to start a Masters degree in Methods of Social Research and during this time I had a period of exploration and fine-tuned my direction. It was the Life Story Writing workshops I wanted to focus on. I had an inner conviction that they could really make a difference to people’s wellbeing, and could help increase happiness and sense of belonging.

After a few initial workshops on happiness and empowerment and life story writing, I started running a longer course for a local charity aimed at people aged 50+. That course has led to something very special to me – a small life story writing group. One of the outcomes from this will be my next book – “Writing back to Happiness” Life Story Writing the Waves and Pebbles Way. I started handwriting this book just after Christmas with a lovely new fountain pen, part of a set gifted to me by my group.

It is during these meetings that I have realised how much I really enjoyed blogging, and not really understood why I stopped doing something I loved so much. Anyway, here I am, back again!

I am excited for 2020. It somehow feels that it is a year of the unexpected but that it will be good, providing new adventures with opportunities to explore all that life has to offer and doing it in my own way.

I truly wish anyone reading this the very best for 2020 and the coming new decade. May you give yourself the gift of time to explore what it is you really want to do with your life – whether that’s carrying on doing the things that you love or allowing yourself to explore new avenues based on your own life values and future dreams.

Watch this space as I continue “Writing back to Happiness”. My focus for my Waves and Pebbles blog continues to be random stories about life, creativity and memories – with the addition of nature – which are all reflected in my Life Story Writing workshops and groups.

I live in Broadstairs, on the Isle of Thanet in Kent, England. We are blessed with beautiful bays, sandy beaches and amazing skies. In 2020 I will be running short courses at various venues, usually hotels and cafes where you can relax and enjoy a social occasion and do some life story writing back to happiness along the way. I am also exploring the possibility of offering online groups so if you might be interested in this, please let me know.

I hope you have all enjoyed the festive season and are looking forward to what the New Year 2020 and the next decade will bring. I’d love to hear your life stories and what your hopes and dreams are for the future.

Kay xx

Please feel free to comment here or visit my website http://www.kayunderdown.com. You will also find my page on Facebook @empoweringyoubeyondyourdreams (Kay Underdown, Happiness & Empowerment Coach). Like my blog, this has not been kept up to date and I am looking at developing my social media presence specifically aimed at Life Story Writing. I’d love to hear your own experiences of writing … or perhaps the reasons why you don’t write … I also encourage people to draw their stories if they don’t want to write or to do storyboards, a bit of both!

The Strawberry Effect – an A to Z Poetry Challenge

/ Waves and Pebbles - random thoughts and writing on life, memories and creativity / 3 Comments
Copyright 2010 Mr.TinDC, Flickr, CC-BY-ND, via Wylio

Copyright 2010 Mr.TinDC, Flickr, CC-BY-ND, via Wylio

The Strawberry Effect

Apples gleaming with a rosy hue
Bananas browning too soon in the queue
Cherries masquerading with damson delight
Darkening tastebuds with sourness so bright

Endless choice of shapes and flavour
Fondling fruit such strange behaviour
Gathering mounds of good intent
Healthy heroes the world has sent

Isles of green spring way ahead
Jolly leaves stay in their bed
King of mushrooms, sturdy and strong
Laughing lentils, where have they gone?

Melons milking their golden flesh
Nurturing nectar with a honey mesh
Oranges glow with dimpled desire
Peppers compete with radiant fire

Quarrelling cubes of hacked about fruit
Ready-to-eat but do they really suit?
Softening strawberries enticingly placed
Thoughts of the cream and the scones in haste

Under the rainbow hope is born
Visions of dreamy desserts forewarn
Wallowing weighty magical moments
X-rated – so bring back the Clements
Young and fruity and so divine
Zero degrees with a glass of wine

This poem was written this morning after this week discovering the blog of Blair King http://www.peoplethingsandlife.wordpress.com and reading her poem The Storm.  I loved the poem and then discovered Blair had set out to use the alphabet for the start of each line which I thought made her poem even more amazing.  So, I thought I’d have a go with the A to Z and somehow I ended up with this poem based around food shopping – no idea why!  Have a great day!  Kay  (and thanks Blair for the idea)

Clutter-busting … I woke as if in a dream and came up with a plan on how to empty my garage in 4 easy steps

/ Waves and Pebbles - random thoughts and writing on life, memories and creativity / Leave a comment
Copyright 2008, Shane Gorski, Flickr, CC-BY-ND, via Wylio

Copyright 2008, Shane Gorski, Flickr, CC-BY-ND, via Wylio

Suddenly I was awake and felt startled.  I had been dreaming – I can’t recall what about now but it felt very real.  Now it was light and I thought I had overslept.  We would be late for school.  I jumped up and looked outside.  No activity.  Gradually it dawned on me that it was Saturday.  Relief swept over me and I relaxed.

Isn’t it strange how, when you get up first thing in the morning, suddenly a problem that’s been hanging over you just suddenly pops into your mind and a potential solution materialises in your thoughts that had never occurred to you before?  This was what happened to me this morning so I quickly penned a bullet point plan in case it flew away as quickly as it had landed.

I have a garage-full of ‘stuff’ that needs to be sorted and have either not had the motivation, space, resources or energy to deal with it.  It has been there in the background on a ‘to do’ list.  Vague discussions with family about taking action one week-end and clearing it, and one attempt about two years ago when we were not quite ready to dispose of the jumbled child equipment and activities, has meant that it still looms behind the doorway.

It is a block to sorting out my life.  The remnants of the past.  Reminders of good times.  At the moment I am on a role.  Despite my inability to go very far, being at home has meant that things are gradually happening, I have had the time to focus, make those calls, and get things done.

My eyes have become clearer since being on the verge of becoming a compulsive hoarder a few years ago while suffering from depression.  I think I stopped in time.  I took stock of the pile of old books that was building before me from addictive visits to charity shops, second hand bookshops and boot fairs.  I became fired up to take them to a charity shop that supported a local church where there are memories of my mother.  I filled bag after bag and there was a feeling of satisfaction when I delivered them in bulk to the charity shop, knowing that they were going to a good cause that in addition had a link with my mum.

One of the problems is I don’t just want to chuck things away that someone else would benefit from but there is so much (though of no particular value now).  We did spend time a couple of years back re-organising the garage.  We got rid of the most useless and discovered the odd hidden treasure.  Nowadays I sort things into rubbish and charity piles and it goes nowhere near the garage (well, to be honest it’s piled too high now) but the boot of my car is full of items ready to go to charity or recycling that has still not got there.

So … the plan that popped into my head, which may seem very obvious but has never occurred to me before, is to hire a large van big enough to take everything and be able to sort it out inside.  We could then take it to a boot fair so that if it could be of use to anyone, then that is an opportunity.  Whatever is left can then either go to charity or be disposed of as recycling or rubbish.  I have tried selling a few bits online but for me it is a long process, with little reward, and not one that I particularly enjoy after the first feeling of novelty.

So, the plan to clear a garage full of stuff is:

1. Hire a large van for the week-end.
2. Transfer the stuff from the garage to the van, filtering out the obvious rubbish.
3. Go to a boot fair.
4. Remainder goes to (a) charity (b) recycling (c) rubbish

I had thought of a having a skip, but I couldn’t deal with creating a heap of rubbish from many past gifts and memories in such a way.  I have seen the delight at a boot fair when a child excitedly finds something that they really want at that moment and my plan encompasses this.  However, I will check out the cost of a skip compared with my plan above and make a decision.

So when my garage is empty? Well there are some things in the spare bedroom that we want to keep … and underneath the stairs … on top of my wardrobe … under the bed … in the garden … NO!!!! it’s not going to happen.  The garage started off as a place to create, floored and walled, with table and chairs.  We even decorated it out and had Christmas Dinner in it one year.  Maybe a new use will pop into my head that will inspire me.   Anything is possible if you focus and believe it can be done.

Take the rough ground: fighting the system – finding my own way (journal writing 2013 on starting University)

/ Waves and Pebbles - random thoughts and writing on life, memories and creativity / 4 Comments
Copyright 2015 Kay/wavesandpebbles

Copyright 2015 Kay/wavesandpebbles

 

The following is a piece of journal writing that I found while sorting out papers from my first year at University.  I really did get myself into a bit of a state over how much reading I thought I needed to do and it was beginning to become something that would stop me enjoying what to me was a dream come true to be at University.  Sometimes we need to just step back and reflect on our feelings about things that are troubling us and get them in perspective.  I also discovered there’s a lot of support out there for students.

I have lots of happy memories from my first year at University in 2013/14 as a mature student.  The photo was taken on holiday in Devon, England during a wonderful walk on Dartmoor when we met up with these beautiful Dartmoor ponies.

 

‘FIGHTING AGAINST THE SYSTEM – FINDING MY WAY
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Last week was walking on air, this week anxiety has crept in. I’m here to learn. I knew there would be lots of books. But I can’t read! Well, I can read – I know my abc – but I can’t read lots and recall. Yesterday got really stressed when I looked at the never-ending book lists that seemed to go on forever. And I have to read them all! It’s important! Of course I have to read them all – except the small number of optional – elst why would they be optional? I can feel myself dipping, lurching, wilting. And it’s only day 1 of week 1. Tasters and freshers over. This is reality. But I love to learn. It’s enthralling, exciting, inspiring. Yet how do I learn if I can’t read the books??

Today, my answer is, by being me. I’ve lived long enough and delved deep enough to know that I learn and create in unique ways. Probably that’s the key word, create. I am creative in mind. Is it no wonder that I can’t follow systems to the letter? Routine is dull, orders are dull. I need colour, variety, flexibility, spontaneity, adventure. I need to go wherever I feel in the moment. Even I know that’s not reality and I soon swing in with all the rest. Yet when the freedom to learn becomes rigidly fixed in my mind, that’s when I have to find my own way. I have the passion, commitment, desire, inquiring mind, ambition to follow through with my path in my own way. I just need to give myself permission in this world of self-study, self-responsibility, self-organisation to follow the path less travelled – in fact to take the rough ground whenever I feel as sometimes the most magnificent scenes come into our lives when we trust in life and our ability to survive and grow.’