Naomi Holdt

Speaker - Trainer - Educational Psychologist

PANDEMIC LIFE LESSON FROM A SMASHED CHILLI BOTTLE

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PANDEMIC LIFE LESSON FROM A SMASHED CHILLI BOTTLE

By Naomi Holdt

My hubby is known within our friendship circle for his incredible homemade chilli… It’s THAT good… I can’t tell you the exact recipe (because I don’t know it) but I do know that it takes a lot of chopping, a lot of time and a very careful chilli-selection to make it as flavoursome and delicious as it is… He makes a super hot one for himself, but a much milder specialized one for the previous ‘non-chilli eater’ me…

A few weeks ago, after waiting quite a while to find the perfect chillies for my milder version, the food art was created… A beautiful full bottle…

I was clearing the table after dinner one night, and in my usual style, I tried to load up all the ‘return- to-fridge’ contents in one tall tower between my hands… Chilli bottle right on top…

I actually saw it happening just before it did… (You know exactly where this is going…)

As I reached to open the fridge, the tower collapsed… the Chilli bottle smashed into smithereens on the tiled kitchen floor…(Smithereens: Those completely impossible minuscule glass shards that disappear between the tile grooves and get stuck in unsuspecting toes the next day!)

All my hubby’s hard work lay in a squished up, unsalvageable splattered heap on the cold kitchen floor… I am not sure who was more devastated between the two of us… His hard work lay in a mess… I had lost a fresh long-awaited delicacy and faced a mammoth amount of vastly ‘spread out’ cleaning up…

What a valuable life lesson…especially as the wheel of 2021 really gets turning… A simple strategy in the face of the chaos of yet another pandemic year…

When we try and load too many ‘to-do’s’ on our towers, it’s inevitable that somethings going to fall… And when it does, it’s likely going to leave us with a splattered mess and potentially cut-up toes…

We just can’t do it all this year my friends… Allow yourself the compassion to breathe more… to move slower… to take life at a different pace… Find the courage say ‘No’ to all of the perhaps ‘typical’ expectations of yourself… Perhaps to others expectations of you… Do one thing at a time… Have the resolution to put down the parts of life’s tower that unbalance you and cause instability…

Move one step at a time… Breathe one breath at a time… One…

“It’s not that we have too little time to do the things we want to do, it’s that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have.” (Gary Keller)

We can’t rush the ‘clearing’ of the 2021 pandemic table… We don’t have the energy to constantly be cleaning up messed chilli…

Keep your darting, stressed, tired eyes straight ahead…

Just one thing at a time… Focus only on that… No more… Only on the very… next… one… ♥️

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Thank You Frontline Workers

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By Naomi Holdt

Last week I read an article written by an ICU doctor in the UK… last night I watched a video posted by an ER doctor in the US… today I chatted to an ICU doctor in South Africa… The message is the same… Things are tough in our hospitals, staff are working long shifts, conditions are devastating, morale is understandably very low…

This virus has most of us feeling very disempowered, but we are not defeated…

Years and years ago (and I really mean years ago), I used to participate in endurance events. There would be some races when I felt so exhausted… when I felt like I had nothing in me left to get me to the end… Somehow, the random cheers of sideline supporters gave me the extra fuel I needed to always cross that finish line… It didn’t matter that I didn’t know them personally… the fact that I knew they stood there made all the difference…

My friends, we are in one of the greatest ultra marathons of our time… Our frontline workers are ploughing ahead on our behalf… They deserve to know that we stand alongside them in support of their daily heroic actions…

Most of us don’t have medical degrees, we can’t ventilate or resuscitate patients… but we are not powerless to help in this war…

The smallest gestures can make the biggest difference… These have the potential to be the fuel that our frontline workers need…

Here’s my challenge to you… No matter what country you live in, or who you are… whether you are an individual, or part of a school, business, church or any organization, let’s help boost morale and show our appreciation. Get hold of your local hospital’s PR person and find out where you can deliver… A note of thanks, a cheerful drawing from your child, a few energy bars or cappuccino sticks… really, the sky is the limit here…

We have started collections in my town and I appeal to you to do the same…

It may not be you in the ICU today, but we know this virus is unpredictable, and tomorrow it could be you or a loved one…
So share this post or create your own… Let’s make this act of support the biggest spreading viral event…

“Whenever there is a human in need, there is an opportunity for kindness and to make a difference.” (Kevin Heath)

This pandemic may have knocked us down, but we have not been defeated. Come on world, let’s support our frontline workers as they get us across the finish line…♥️🌈

PS. If you’re in the Midlands or Pietermaritzburg area in South Africa, we have drop off points at Village Feeds in Hilton and Athlone Circle Pick n Pay. Please help us fill up these boxes. If you’re not in these areas, please, please start your own collections. 🌎

 
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Evidence of the power of play…

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Evidence of the power of play…

By Naomi Holdt

Astounding evidence… I have always believed it… especially in terms of emotional development… but this evening I witnessed the enormity of this power first hand…

Full disclosure… I am THAT mom… THAT working mom that has in all honesty hardly had ANY time for school work… (I did try… at first… for a very short while…)

It hasn’t bothered me too much that the class Whatsapp group is filled with pictures of what my children are meant to be doing and what others are doing… I had just resigned myself to us needing a few extra months to catch up… sometime this year… or even next…

So over the past two and a half months, my little beings have PLAYED… and PLAYED… and PLAYED… all day, everyday… sunrise to moonrise… and sometimes beyond… Riding bicycles, building forts, gardening, creating inventions, reenacting scenes from Bondi Vet (we have had surgeries in every room in the house), climbing trees, bug-hunting, wood-working… Deluxe free-range little humans…

With the anticipated return to school looming ever nearer, I decided that we had better try and do some large-scale catch-up this evening before bathtime… so I pulled out yesterday’s to-do list as a starting point, and explained the writing activity…

It’s been almost three months… the comparison in the book is incredible… Bar a few alphabet letters being formed and a handful of sound words written on a white-board once every two weeks or so (at most)… absolutely NO writing has been done… and tonight… all on his own, my little guy finished his writing task… beautifully…

I think I stopped breathing for just a couple of moments while processing what was unraveling before my eyes…

A few precious home-grown months, where confidence has multiplied, life has been explored, little humans have been saturated in unadulterated play…

Dear Parent, don’t underestimate this mighty force… Play is developing EVERY area of your child’s brain… problem-solving, conflict resolution, motor skills, coordination, memory, imagination, language, creativity and one hundred and three other critically important yet seemingly unrelated areas of childhood development…

“Play is the highest form of research” (Albert Einstein)

Let your children play… free, unstructured, home-grown play… You don’t need to be drilling skills to teach a child… You need to trust… in the POWER of PLAY….

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The coexistence of pain and beauty… Reminders from a purple floral carpet…

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The coexistence of pain and beauty… Reminders from a purple floral carpet…

By Naomi Holdt

Our enormous old Jacaranda tree is currently shedding thousands of tiny purple flowers under the expanse of its branches… A majestic carpet… It is exquisitely beautiful…

But the garden carpet has also become a feast for hundreds of well-hidden bees, finding delight in the sweet nectar of the tubular flowers… Two painful bee stings in a five-year-old’s foot (and some in a Golden Retriever’s paw) this weekend were a reminder that pain and beauty frequently lie intertwined in the fragments of our world… One does not cease to exist because of the presence of the other…

2020 has been evidence of this… It has been an exceptionally painful and trying year for so many… One filled with losses, frustrations, disempowerment, anxiety, stress, uncertainty, exhaustion… It has been one that many have wished could be forgotten, could be started over, could be skipped entirely…

Take a breath… Acknowledge the overwhelm and devastation… the disappointment and the heartache… This is important…

But before you shut the door on 2020, pause to notice the shades of magnificent light that have infiltrated the darkness of the year….

There has been exquisite beauty too, and the pain does not nullify the radiance of it… It too must be acknowledged…

The momentary slowing of the world’s chaotic rush… Family game nights, sibling bonding, garden camping, rainbow-making, tree climbing, backyard picnics, star gazing, realizing we didn’t need much to be happy, realizing that what we had was enough, remembering that we had each other, and that together, we will always be okay… We all have our own stunning purple-carpeted magical moments…

This year has been hard, my friends… Do not let the sting of it sweep away the goodness that has infiltrated between the darkness… Beauty and pain can coexist… Give both a voice…♥️

#painandbeauty
#theyearthatis2020
#floralcarpet
#floweringjacaranda
#livinglife
#goodinthedarkness
#ourpandemicyear
#seethelight
#thequietmamma
#naomiholdtspeaker

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