Permaculture Womens Guild
When we struggle with frustrations, overwhelm, anger, anxiety, our family members or keeping our socks together in pairs, there is this one advice we hear often:
Permaculture Womens Guild
How do we have difficult conversations? Any time we expect a conversation to be(come) difficult, it is because we assume that either the other person will reject what we propose or they will be hurt by what we share with them. I want to talk about the latter.
Permaculture Womens Guild
Did you know that the primary definition of purging — before involving your bowels or getting rid of stuff — is this: a : to clear of guilt b : to free from moral or ceremonial defilement (Merriam-Webster) I’m often not very good at self-care. The one thing I am good at, though, is purging. The fact that I move my family from continent to continent every three or so years helps reduce our clutter frequently to two suitcases each. Even in between, I need purging. That is my self-care. Let’s have a look at purging and what it means for us as beings. It doesn’t…
Permaculture Womens Guild
For most of my career as advisor for Results Based Monitoring (RBM) I supported government and NGO teams in changing their perspective and approach to the way projects are planned, implemented and monitored. The most important shift was moving from asking “Why” to asking “What for”. Over the years and decades thousands of projects have been implemented around the world in reaction to an undesired situation. Wells were drilled, schools and hospitals built, roads constructed, “because there were none.” (Yes, I’m simplifying.). Little thought was given to the people these projects were supposed to serve, until the day governments and…
Permaculture Womens Guild
By Julia Pereira Dias Shame spits into your romantic dinner. Shame coughs blood on the hands that reach out. Shame laughs its ugly cackle at your reflection in the mirror. Shame is the last door in your dungeon. Locked tight with a thousand padlocks, barricaded, fortified with thick chains and boarded up with massive wood. A door so deep down you have forgotten it was there. Except when you hear it spit, its coughing, its laughter it. When it spoils your moments of freedom, intimacy and expression. When it pops up like a jack-in-a-box before you make that courageous move.…
Permaculture Womens Guild
By Julia Pereira Dias Aren’t we the selfless ones? “My husband could save so much time, if only he’d listen to me,” sighs Diane. She used to do what most of us do when the other fails to comply: she repeated her instructions. Maybe, somehow, he overheard her casually mentioning 348 times that if he cut all the veggies first he could save at least four minutes every time he prepared a meal? Or maybe he did not. Instead of happily taking up Diane’s advice and changing the way he operates in the kitchen, he firmly invited Diane to leave.…
Permaculture Womens Guild
By Julia Pereira Dias Most of us are primarily concerned with the question: what can I get? That question is futile. You can have it all. The real question is: what are you willing to receive? When I ask people that question I usually get some funny looks. “Why, of course, I’m happy to receive. After all, I’m asking for it! Who wouldn’t want to receive a check over $500,000 or a whole pack of orange-flavored chocolate?” Think again. How do you react when someone praises your work? Do you take it in with a smile, say thank you and…