https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/shyness-cure-health-mind-healing-advice-shy/

Extract

” It is also the case that every year at this time, at least one such individual contacts me to ask if I can ‘cure’ shyness.

That’s not possible, first because shyness is not a psychiatric disorder. Shy people suffer from anxiety when in social settings, and some may even become depressed as a result of their social difficulties. Nonetheless,shyness itself is simply a personality trait, not a psychological disorder, or illness. Second, shyness is a characteristic that appears to have a relatively heavy genetic loading. In other words, although shy people can learn ways to manage their anxiety, their shyness will usually remain.”

I saw the flowers from underneath that day
As I  lay beside the road alone
The marigolds with petals disarrayed

Nearby cornflowers nodded as they prayed
Round me were  bright pebbles,little stones
I saw the flowers from underneath that day

On the bus, afflicted and in pain
I knew I must lie down beside the road
The marigolds bright maidens of disdain

My GNT spray bombs and I may faint
Noone passed me  I was laid  alone
I saw the flowers from underneath that day

Yet in the snshine happily I lay
The waving stalks and stems spoke  of  love’s goads
The marigolds bright  colour painted plain

The Council sends a gardener to mow
The grass that spreads as willingly as snow
I saw the flowers from underneath the hay
The marigold  fey mistress of the day

A  homeless woman crouched in bitter  cold
Her face was clean, her entire body  shook
Trembling  in the wind, so rough and bold

Though she was young quite soon she would look old
Her  heart bereft she gave me a  dark look
A  homeless woman crouched in bitter  cold

Was she the sheep that left the fold
That Jesus would not leave to fate  so bleak?
She trembles  in the wind, so rough and bold

A coat I’ll bring tomorrow,I’m appalled.
With her   childlike hand she touched my cheek
A  homeless woman crouched in bitter  cold

Then a humble  Cross between her fingers showed
A flame glowed in her eye, a golden streak
Trembling  in the wind, so rough and bold

For the  mystical we do not seek
We are affected by the lost  we meet
A  homeless woman shone in bitter  cold
Trembling  in the wind, her  love,her gold

Consider this  when looking for a  friend
Are they prone to  shout  and wave their arms?
Never borrow assets neither lend

Take care that you don’t fall into dead ends
If they’re  split, some gel will keep them  calm
Consider that  when looking for a  friend

Do you love high fashion  or pretend?
This will anger, even cause great harm
Never borrow  people  and then lend

Dandruff is quite useful  to offend
Or never wash  unless the weather’s warm
Consider that  when hoping for a  friend

Do not  any masochist defend
Never entertain by singing psalms
Never  counterfeint and neither lend

Come my  people,I  welcome dear arms
If you love to hug you need no charm
Consider that  when looking for a  friend
Never borrow Boris neither lend

My husband is a criminal ,despite that he is dead
He  tied a silk tie on my leg and it was blue and red
A policeman asked me what was up,I said  it got me down
My husband was a social worker ,now he’s God’s own clown

I went to bed to have a rest but he kept calling me
I never realised up to now that dead men still drink tea
He wants to know how Emile is, he wants to speak to Dave
I said I should have buried you, because he has no grave

I keep his ashes in the front so he can look  outside
In fact he’s so remarkable that noone knows he’s died
He leaves me money on the floor, he leaves me handkerchiefs
That is very helpful on  the days I’m filled with grief

I cried just once,I cried just twice, and then I cried all day
My nose was red as were my eyes, my hair looked like wild hay
No other man can look at me or  he will punish them
The only answer is my dears, to be a lesbian

I couldn’t find any  new ice pack
Just a frozen slice of brown bread
So I put the Pole’s bread on my hand
And on my knee,  the infra red head

Ice  reduces our swellings
Unless   a man got us with child
Infra red  soothes  our tight muscles
Till they feel as if they’ve been boiled

But if we are swollen with pride
It never gets anyone far
I told you the truth,I’m a liar.
I spent all I owed in  a Bar.

Can’t Jesus be born as a baby
Could  we start over again?
Look at the food banks and wonder
At the words of the  Christian men

Abraham didn’t kill Isaac
But we  killed, withdrawing State aid
Look at the man in the paper
Who weighed less than 6 stone when he died

We killed most of Christ’s people in Europe
We killed the gays and the lost
We could not have sacrificed  children
Unless they were Jewish  like Christ.

Tell God we don’t want any ethics
We want to be free  like the brutes
He will be sad as he wonders
Why he has ashes not fruit

To which great god do  people sacrifice?
Humans are burnt offerings like goats
Is there any god so filled with vice?

Upward  human smoke and ash will fly
We may watch constricted in our throats
To which great god do  people sacrifice?

Which of us can have an alibi?
If we live, we live like dead men float
Is there any god so filled with vice?

Did any try to disrupt with  their cries?
Some rest secluded hid by their own moats
To which great god do  people sacrifice?

Even God the Father ,even Christ
Do not interfere where hate is brought
Are there  other gods who  enjoy vice?

Is it murder.soldiers ask the Ghost
Eternal mother  do you see men roast?
For which great god are  humans sacrificed?
Is there any hymn  composed in vice?

I have been studying wax.I found there was some wax on my wool skirt.I also  found some on the carpet
The way to remove is to put some kitchen paper over it and possibly under it if it is a garment.Then press it with a hot iron.The wax will melt and go onto the paper
This has worked very well but along with fixing my account book it has taken my morning

I find a lightweight dry iron is ok for most clothes.

Thank goodness  the days are longer.I can go out later on at last as I can’t see well in the dark

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
― Stephen A. Mitchell, Freud and Beyond: A History of Modern Psychoanalytic Thought

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/11/01/john-keats-on-negative-capability/

In the introduction to Selected Letters, Jon Mee writes of the letters themselves as a meta-embodiment of “Negative Capability”:

The provisionality of the correspondence might be taken as a triumphant demonstration of negative capability, recording Keats’s ability to project himself into different roles and live in a state of creative uncertainty, but these letters also seem to express a deep sense of insecurity, which frequently took the form of a desire to escape the fever and the fret of the life around him.

Perhaps Christoph Niemann was right, after all, in asserting that insecurity is essential to creativity.

All of Keats’s surviving letters to his family and friends are available as a free ebook.

“Attention without feeling,” Mary Oliver wrote in her beautiful elegy for her soul mate, “is only a report.” To fully feel life course through us, indeed, we ought to befriend our own attention, that “intentional, unapologetic discriminator.”

I have spent the day with a friend helping them to do a factory reset on a new phone after they forgot the password
Then we  did the rubbish and put some new light bulbs in,talked about WW1 and a few other things and suddenly it was the evening!
The days are longer, I can tell now.I am waiting for a new doorbell  ringers to come as  one of my ringers broke and I can’t hear  when I am upstairs so I can put  a new one on the landing….I.
What a  pest they are.Sometimes people phone me from the doorstep.They promise miracles but none really last for long. I must check all 3 ringers immediately.

When I was 9 months old  my mother was taking me out in my  pram.A  neighbour stopped and asked her something.When I replied the poor woman nearly fainted

At last a after many years I have discovered why my brothers hated me.My mother was teaching mt older brothers to read  [4 and 5  years old] I know!!
When they were slow she would point to me sitting by the fire reading  a Rubert Book.I was only three.
But talking too early is not a good thing.It means youw ere not a baby for long enough

Anyway  when I was five I decided the school was boring.I asked what a University was and liked the sound of it.So I asked to go there instead
What a disappointment  I had to spend 13 more years in school where we spent Friday afternoon cleaning ink wells and polishing our desks
Do you think any school now could let chidlren spend two hours polishing the furniture?We loved it

In my last year at  the primary school I was allowed to spend all afternoon reading…I loved that
In the morning the teacher gave me arithmetic booklets with problems in which I worked through at the ba ck of the room

Then I passed the 11 plus and  had to spend 5 years in a grammar school being taught the stuff that I’d  done in 1 year
Schools are prisonsi

At least I know what compound interest is

A home that welcomes our more liberal minds

A home that welcomes, our more liberal minds

Warm sunny weather
I thought I was ill but no,
I was far too hot

Wearing two jumpers
Wearing two of everything
I   hate heavy clothes

I hate heavy coats
I hate heavy books as well
I hate  politics

Will GNT sprays
Be here or will I die?
Anxiety

BTW talking
Raises our blood pressure,wow
I’ll join the Trappists

The Magic Mountain
Is the place of peace
But where is it?

I can’t climb mountains
Nor skate on icy rivers
But I’m not deaf yet!

I’m following you
Through a  meadow of tall bright summer flowers
We’re not rushing, just idling along
Feeling happy

I’m following you
But not on Facebook

I’m following you
Up a  vertical  rock face with few footholds
I am looking to see where you put  your feet
I imitate you.
I’m  not frightened
I feel calm.
I can’t see your face
You move with no  hesitation

I’m following you
But not on WordPress

I’m following you
Well, I am accompanying you
I don’t  know where we are going
But it seems right,somehow

Do we ever know where we are going?
Will  we know when we get there?

I’m with you but I don’t know where
We are happy
We don’t need to talk

When I went out this morning I was wrapped in a red and blue coat with a blue scarf covered in red hearts wrapped twice round my neck.A man came along by me and looked back.He was speaking

“You’ve got  something your leg”

I looked down and there was a red and blue silk tie round my ankle, the property of my late husband Mr Katherine.
So I said, can’t you just leave me a note? I see you approve of my colour scheme…..

Sometimes I  find a tie in the bathroom.I find a newly ironed hankey on my chair.If only he would iron my trousers or my pink blouse with rows of shirred pleats that’s been waiting for 4 months.

More often I find a coin and ,if lucky, enough for a cup of coffee.I wonder what will happen if I go out with a man…. will he  be happy? I shall never know as I refuse to date anybody.I still believe my husband will get permission to return like Jesus did.But will I know?

As a  professor
I am entitled to take  home
Paper,pens and ink

In very large bags
Or even ten suitcases
To write my thoughts down

Of course, my children
Might  draw on the paper sheets
With one of the pens

Condemn young children?~
Is that an ethical act?
They can’t even  write!

I might write,that’s it
For I am genius
And ingenious.

We must be  prepared
To note inspiration
A good idea

What happens to paper
Is not important to me
I am brilliant

I shine in the dark
The  habits of small people
Are not my  concern

I might be the King
Oh,my Coronation
That is so timely!

I phoned Borneo
On my office phone again
Why not? I need perks.

Australia too?
Well it’s a small world
Don’t bother me now.

You do not need me!
What codswallop is that, then?
I was the future

I missed the plane,ah.
The future is fiction
I am still writing.

I am arrested
For bankrupting  colleges
At Cambridge, good Lord!

If they are stupid
I should be rewarded ,see.
You would not have guessed.

Evil genius
Gets government grants awards
Being good, you fools

I need you like I need luck in a cup
Put a  lock on the cop
Look in the coop
Look at cops?
Speak Afrikaans, good luck!
Knock for  headlock
I lack a cap.
Kippah on  the rocks
The super and the  dreck
The beige and the black
Greed fated my socks
Lines on the  dock
Unemployed and sick
Brexit, go f*ck!

In the haunted pub
We ate hot food and wondered
What is common sense?

In the sky ,snow hung
The  park was  icy and black
The farm was quiet

What is common? Sense?
What have we lost since that time?
Now we live nonsense.

Where is the humour?
The wronged kindness of  nonsense
The futility

Who says what is true?
Who speaks what is  silent , lost?
Who is the channel?

What is true has left.
“Maybe” hangs from black branches
Like dead fruit or  leaf

The autumn  orange
The senselessness of speeches
The withering   glance

The edge  of our  land
Borders are  more anguished
Cannot connect us

New laws and rules
Trial  by separation
The barbed rust   pierces

There is no heartland
There is no inside at all
Nowhere to  live well