Category: Creativity

Turning Misfortunes into Blessings

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Celebration, Coaching, Courage, Creativity, Dreams, Faith, Grace, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Resurrection, Season of Life, WorthLeave a comment

I used to be a person who proclaim certain ways of eating some food as being food crime. How could someone possible put rice on pizza? Or what a strange way to eat chips with ice cream! There were heaps of comments that I would make as I was a picky eater. Then the ultimate funny thing happen when I actually started liking the very food crimes I used to judge. It started when I ran out of ingredients to cook the conventional way. What’s the best next option in that case? Creativity kicked in and I started experimenting making food in ways that was crime for me. Those turned out to be the most fun experience as I managed to turn a challenge into a blessing.

Seeming misfortunes happen all the time because our plans do not always turn out the way we want it. The matter here is our response towards those incidences. Some are small matter that can be easily turned into something good and some are heavier stuffs that need time and space to make sense of. Big stuff like the diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis for me was not a pleasant thing that happened. I certainly did not choose that misfortune. However, I have the power to choose my response to move forward to make this a meaningful season in my life.

The experience of making the best of the worst that happened reminded of the song, This is How We Overcome. It says: “You have turned my mourning into dancing, You have turned my sorrow into joy”. Such powerful way of turning the worst scenarios into a blessing – turning to God almighty for help. Even your deepest hurt can be turned into a gift to the world. That brought me to a principle I learnt in prayer school that says: “Your deepest hurt becomes the launching pad of your greatest calling”. More often than not, this is hard to comprehend as deep wounds like childhood trauma often scars people deeply. So much so that some chose the destructive path.

Tragic childhood trauma like an abuse is indeed very detrimental to the person. It confused the child and sent wrong messages to the child which in turn destroyed the true identity of the child. It takes a lot of work and heaps of courage in the part of the victim to rise up to victory – reclaiming their true identity as a beloved child of God. We know for a fact that none of us are immune to trauma whether inflicted by a trusted person, teachers, schoolmates etc. Treating ourselves with great compassion and taking the courageous path of healing with trusted companions have proven to be a path towards great victory. Putting these misfortunes in its right place bring out blessings that would otherwise be hidden.

In my current season of immersion in Positive Intelligence (PQ), I see a connection to this concept. The author of the book, Shirzad Chamine shared his childhood wounds were indeed blessings in disguise. It took him heaps of work to be where he is today, a deeply compassionate person who is directly blessing me with this programme. The inspirations drawn from this program is beyond what I imagined. Being an active gift and opportunities seeker in all circumstances is a powerful gift to self and the world we live in.

Dear friends, what are you facing today? I pray that you are given the grace to turn EVERY circumstances into a blessing. My father’s death which was a tragic event has taught me so much about life precisely because I choose to grieve with gratitude. This blog is one of the beautiful fruit coming out of that season of grieving. Be encouraged dear friends to be conqueror that is capable to tap in the grace of God – turning misfortunes into blessings. In the event that you need some help in getting there, feel free to contact me for coaching information.

May you be blessed!

With lots of love,
Irene

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For the Love of Food

On By IreneIn Celebration, Creativity, Faith, Family, Grace, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Love, Motherhood, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of LifeLeave a comment

Food is a great means of unity, celebration, expression of love, reconciliation, happiness and heaps of other things. For me food is my source of creativity. I am a person who refers to recipe and method but never really follow the exact measurement or method. Most of the time, I prefer to modify the recipe to suit my taste, the needs of my family as well as availability of ingredients.

Recently I felt inspired to try steaming fish the way restaurants did. It was a pleasant learning experience because in the past, I could not be bothered doing a few steps process. I like things simple and easy. However, my past way of steaming fish never produce truly satisfactory taste. With the newfound knowledge, I immediately hooked on to the method and started creating all sort of sauces for steamed fish. It was such fun experiments and I look forward to Fishful Friday just so I can create new dishes every week.

Creating food being therapeutic has been a great help especially when changing diet is a neccesity due to the autoimmune diagnosis. Eating healthy can be tasty and enjoyable. All that is needed is a dash of creativity.

I recently came to realise what a great gift is this expression of creativity. It was a difficult morning and I was starting to beat myself up for not being a perfect parent. I knew “being a perfect parent” is a lie, I had that intercepted so those negative emotions did not drag me further. As I was trying (and struggling) to gain better perspective, I decided to create a new dessert for dinner. It resembles milk pudding from my hometown but I have never been able to get any recipe. So with a little bit of imagination of the taste I began my experiment. Praise God it turned out well.

The effect of that 20 minutes of creativity was beyond just yummy dessert, I was able to clear my mind and start seeing things from a better perspective. I was able to show empathy towards myself and to express my loving concern towards my child. My level of happiness increased so was my overall wellness.

I recalled my days in the mission centre where celebration of life was emphasized. We will work together to create a beautiful atmosphere for celebration. The most elaborated one would be an Agape Meal that typically involved good food, well decorated room, well dressed people and heaps of honouring – a setting that enabled expression of creativity in so many ways. I remember having fun cooking, baking and sometimes trying things like decorating and flower arrangement. That kind of excellence has become my lifestyle though not as elaborated. We recently celebrated my husband’s birthday and it happened to be a Friday. I was jumping with joy as that was an opportunity to express myself creatively. I steamed a large fish and made a marble milk pudding as the “cake”. It was a joyous occasion filled with love.

Some of my food creation

The experience of having my mind cleared and filling my love tank through creative expression has demonstrated to me its importance. Creative outlet does something great to our being. It helps us to connect deeply to our true self and hence enable us to appreciate the being who’s made in the image and likeness of God. The direct impact is the release of stress and clarity of mind. In our fear saturated and highly stressed out world, creative expression becomes a remedy to bring us some sanity.

Dear friends, I pray that you are encouraged to make time for creativity, however you like to express it. May you find joy in the little things in life that fill up your love tank. Make sure you also empty your stress tank regularly. Have fun expressing yourself creatively.

With lots of love,
Irene