More Writer's Process

Sigh...Sunday morning. Early.

This is a blog I had to write. I want to clear the decks of my own grey matter in the attempt to work out how I could have missed so much the first time. What am I talking about here? What first time? I have edited my novel ten times - check that word 'ten', and still I find errors. The thing that is fuelling me to do extra proofing work is that my novel is currently available online and, to me, near enough isn't good enough. How could that ever be?

Anyway, with rsi strain in my hands from all the typing, I'm sending corrections ie more missing commas, fixing of several 'lazy' sentences, some rephrasing, words in words out. A few additions - a few deletions.

It's actually not like a painting, really, as in, you don't know where to put the last brushstroke - no. That's because the body of the book is finished. It's about getting English grammar correct. I have a book that I use as a leave-it-on-the-coffee-table manual: Essentials of English Grammar by L.Sue Baugh. With reading and more reading, I am teaching myself, what some of my English teachers couldn't be bothered teaching, in high school - things like punctuation of independent clauses, etc. So! I'm trying to get my head into correct grammar, while all the post-modern novels I've read have taken correct use out of me. Sort of like a de-education.

All that, and chronic fatigue, and all the other things that pertain to living, managing a household, appointments, shopping...

Poor ed, he's getting more pages of corrections from me. But he's a good sport, and he's also looking towards the end of a long road.

I will reiterate that I am astounded at what I'm still finding. Well, where there's an 'as' missing, you have to put it in...don't you? Laugh.

My little 'office space' hasn't changed from the last time I rearranged my furniture. But I did bundle up a whole lot of books, and other stuff, I didn't want and took them to the op shop the other week. Another sigh (my much neglected easel...)

This morning I go to get the paper in my constitutional Sunday morning walk. Up with the twittering birds. More work today, and I'm giving it about four or five more days until I can be satisfied with all my hard labours.

Here's a tip for all wannabe writers. Get yourself an on-the-ground proof reader for anything over 200 pages. Mine is 438p. Proof readers are worth their weight...

Strongholds Through 'Culture': The Death of Drew Grant

In the Sunday newspaper was a front page report about the death of Drew Grant, a worker at a gold mine in West Papua, that had been killed by gunfire while driving with some friends to a gold club. He was the only one killed.

My Mum phoned me last night and told me that Drew was actually my Dad's brother's grandson. He was just 29 and had just been back to Australia to see his infant daughter. From the photo, you can see he was a very good-looking young man, and with a bright future ahead of him, but now his life has been tragically cut short.

It's been many years since I've seen my uncle and I've never met this grandson of his. I didn't think about it when I saw the name of the murder victim was 'Grant', being my own surname, so the news came as a shock. Now I look at the photo, there's the family resemblance, shared by male members of the Grant clan.

It's a politically hot area, Papua, and I'm sure the people that go there to work are told about potential threats. Lots of unrest and fighting. Maybe Drew had the attitude that it would never happen to him, maybe he had got to know the natives and had made some friends. But he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and these incidents of people being killed in places were there are guerrillas with arsenals keep being reported.

From the online Herald Sun article:

West Papua police chief Bagus Ekodanto said rebels using military-issue weapons planned the ambush that killed Mr Grant, a project manager at Freeport, reputed to be the world's biggest gold mine.

"The shooting was planned," he said. "(It's) clear they were using weapons belonging to the police or the military."

I've given thought to this sort of terrible occurrence over time. Stories of missionaries and medicos, people with 'good intentions', going into places where certain factions of people there, don't think or believe the same way others do. Maybe there's a naivety with people who have the conscience of human kindness with them, people that want to help the less fortunate, and people like Drew who have left wife and family for a time, to take on work in a place of some adventure, only to become of victim of a factional group that have thought nothing of taking his life.

And so, it's been one of my ponderings that while people can be of a different culture and dwell together in one place, they may not well be integrated for them to coexist.

Dict.def of the word culture (in the context of my commentary):
Sociol. the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings, which is transmitted by one generation to another.

Note that I'm not using the word 'race' here, for I'm talking about how people BELIEVE, and what their driving purposes are. Can you imagine what it must be like, to be encompassed by these men with guns and trying to reason, while the rebels' every thought is for their own ends, on what they will achieve by what they will decide to do with someone that they may have waylaid or captured – someone who they would not hesitate to kill if it suited them? It is pointless to have a naive attitude about people such as these, with thoughts of trying to sway them to mercy or kindness – if the hearts of those men (and sometimes women) are hardened through what they believe.

For it is hard to break through tough mental strongholds when a belief or beliefs are entrenched and are reinforced by those that they are with – and the things in which they they have been immersed, indoctrinated. A mental stronghold may take more than a plea for 'mercy' to breach.

And sometimes I have thought that this is the problem with societies that call themselves 'multi-cultural' (a catch cry often heard in Australia). It's more than eating the same ethic foods, it's not about cuisine, for goodness sake, or dress, or interesting and varietal customs. It's about how people think and what they really believe.

One of my best friends from, and after, high school was a Moslem. He looked after me and we were the best of friends. He went heavily into his family's faith in a sudden turning place in his life, and from then on I never knew him. Instead of looking at me as a 'friend', someone he cared for and was protective towards, he instead began to see me as a 'woman' or 'female'.

One night I needed a place to stay after work as my car had broken down and was at the mechanics. He allowed me to stay at his rented house, but only with the objections that came from his Islamic faith. I knew then that our relationship had been broken, beyond all repair – there wasn't any point to thinking benevolently about it. Now I was a 'woman' to him, a single female under his roof and alone with him, and I wasn't going to ask him about that part of his belief system, I just tacitly understood it.

I still remember him fondly, we had had some great times before his decision to really embrace and take on this faith of his. But from that time on, we couldn't 'meet' anymore. We were thinking two different ways. Culturally divided.

My poor uncle. It is a very sad time for him and his large family. Like I said, I didn't know Drew, but still, the Grants, and the world, have lost a son.

Article about Drew's killing from the Herald Sun:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,27574,25770254-2862,00.html

The Optimum Population Trust

I don't know how many times I've watched David Attenborough's animal programs - I have The Trials of Life on DVD - and thought, how marvellous is the natural world, and how intrinsically animals are incorporated into their native habitats. And how fine that balance can be and also the preciousness of those unique species, many of which the world is losing and in danger of losing forever. So much of this is about how, in certain parts of the world particularly where tree-felling, sea-polluting and animal-killing is rife - man is ever in 'conquest mode' for the sake of economic gain through 'ownership'.

I have to laugh at this, for here we are, a little globe in infinite space, with an amazing blue and green appearance from space, the 'blue' and the 'green' pictorially speaking of what that globe contains - waters, fertile soils, rich diversity of plant and animal life, as well as everything mineral. The globe that feeds and sustains all that it contains. The world that should be able to support all life in it.

But then comes in the human factor...and the greed of man. Then I have another laugh because of man's transient visit on that globe - one lasting the 'three score years and ten' - and then he is gone. Well, I hope he had a comfortable life, that greedy and ownership amassing one, I hope he had a big house and plenty of corporate interests to keep him amused. For there he lies in a plot of ground or as a pile of ashes, going back to dirt, from whence he came.

What can man own? Can he own this old globe, or is he merely a custodian of it? If a man travels in wisdom in this life, and recognises the futility of amassing mega-wealth at the cost of a fragile ecology and the starving of millions, then he has been no 'custodian' of something we might regard as existing in infinite time and space (The Earth) but more as a parasite, a consumer, a user, with all self-justifications as to why he took and took, and why the world with that fragile ecology is depleted for it.

David Attenborough is a patron of a trust, in Britain, called The Optimum Population Trust. That doesn't mean that he wants the world to be filled with human population - no - what the Trust is endeavouring to do is to make known what the Earth is capable of sustaining and to educate the world to keep its population to two offspring per couple - the replacement of the parents or 'breeding couple' - looking at man in mammalian terms.

Attenborough says:

“There are three times as many people in the world as when I started making television programmes only a mere 56 years ago,” he said, after becoming a patron of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) think-tank.

“It is frightening. We can’t go on as we have been. We are seeing the consequences in terms of ecology, atmospheric pollution and in terms of the space and food production.

“I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more. Population is reaching its optimum and the world cannot hold an infinite number of people.”

Anyway, it is worthwhile reading the whole article. To be found here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6087833.ece

The rest of what I'm saying here is now devoted to my own opinion.

I was a youngster at a time when there was not what I see now as 'the urban sprawl', and it seems governments are doing very little to address the increase of human population and what that means to this planet. In Australia, girls have an encouragement to have children, tots not raised by their fathers, so they can draw from single-mother's pensions. Some of these girls have children to more than one father, sometimes several. With all the freely available education and birth control, some females are working on their base-animal nature side to breed like heifers, to satisfy their own baser/selfish desires. And why not, for them, if that's the way their brains are wired? After all, they get paid for doing that.

I suppose to better support my opinion I could produce stats, but let's just say that a child is challenged, from the beginning of that begetting, by not being raised by a consistent paternal influence, that could potentially lead to drugs, alcoholism and antisocial behaviour. Please don't get me wrong here! I'm not 'saying' that all children of this style of parentage is going to end up like this *sheesh*, it's just that, well, children from less stable backgrounds have been statistically shown to be those who will go down those paths. So I'm talking in a broader sense here.

The other thing that comes to mind is China. China have a one child per couple policy. It's a big country, China, but the population there is 1,306,313,812 (on and on, 12 million more per year).

And so my train of thought is this, a little aside, if you will. With such an enormous population in just one country, and everyone selling manufacturing interests offshore to China, sure it keeps the Chinese employed. Good for them. But, because it is a far greater profit margin for retailers to have their goods made in China, China's economy is burgeoning. Where could this lead? I remember being taught in high school that the Chinese have a philosophy called 'The Long View'. Population does mean a lot to them, for it's People Power, and those peoples are in a controlled regime. So China will happily trade with the rest of the world, and become a economic power (pow!) in these contemporary times, and maybe a force to be reckoned with in the future.

Other countries, western and third world, also increasing.

So, why should western nations actively seek to control their populations, given all resources freely available for it to do so? Why encourage young girls to have children that might grow up fatherless? Why? Well, say if China's population (for eg) is growing, then western nations' populations will have to grow as well. We will have to keep up, somehow. Because it's all about The Economy.

The world's economy. What's good for the economy, so it is said. What is good for those that keep the economy the inflationary, monetary wise, and population wise, way it is.

But stuff the world, the planet, the globe in space. Just use, it abuse it, eat it up.

'Some rich men came and raped the land, nobody caught 'em'

A line from the Eagle's song 'The Last Resort'

Relationships - For Life

In aftermath of the passing of Farrah Fawcett, star of the tv movie, The Burning Bed (1984), the following is on the matter of relationships, that between a man and a woman/husband and wife/ boyfriend and girlfriend. I have been reading a book, But I Love Him – Protecting your Teenage Daughter from Controlling, Abusive Relationships by Dr. Jill Murray. The author is a psychotherapist and speaker who has made appearances in high schools in the US on the topic of abusive teen relationships. Upon reading this book, and also inspired by the memory of the movie starring Farrah, I present some views on how the love/romance relationship should be one for life.

By life, I do not necessarily mean forever because a relationship may not necessarily last. But how, if a person, whether female or male (for males can also be abused), desires to be fulfilled in life, with part of that fulfilment met through close intimate relationships, then it could be said that the people that we share most closely with – especially a partner – should give enhancement to that life. This, rather than the relationship being of such negative force and character that being, or remaining, in that relationship can potentially lead down a path that is contrary to living life in a fulfilling, abundant, enhancing way.

In the movie, The Burning Bed, Farrah Fawcett plays the role of Francine Hughes, a woman who was brutally battered by her husband over ten years. Hughes was tried for the murder of her husband who she did kill in her utter desperation. It's been many years since I've seen this movie, but I remember at the time how truly confronting it was, and how Fawcett was an advocate for women in continued publicity for the cause of making the issue of battering and spousal abuse more public.

You know, it truly is amazing, and it does continually amaze me when I consider it, that people begin a relationship with the hope that being with that person of choice and desire will make them happy. Does anyone chose a partner without this thought? The person that one decides to stay with will be the one to requite the heart of what it desires for love, care and nurturing. But why is it that many girls, even older women, chose boyfriends and men that prove to be anything but life enhancing?

Looking at possible reasons:

Lack of parental love, guidance and nurturing:
In other books I've read, I've noted that fathers are an important role-model for a girl's ideal in a boyfriend and husband. If the father himself has been an abuser of the mother, an alcoholic/drug abuser/has been absentee, whether in a physical sense or distant in an emotional sense, then the ideal of what would pertain to suitable life-partner material can be very marred or skewed. If a young girl is used to seeing or being involved with abuse at home, she may not have a healthy image of what would a good boyfriend or husband. Also being in an environment where abuse occurs, whether physical, emotional or financial, will all contribute to a lowering of expectations in the partner she might pick.

Teens are learning though experience, both positive and negative, and guidance may be needed. As teens are growing they are finding out, through experiential and experimental behaviour, more about the world and how they see themselves in it. It is important for the psych to grow healthy to meet the need for what is fulfilling and nurturing. But within a formative history that has already been immersed in anything but a life-enhancing situation, the requirement of a healthy self-esteem so the bar, for the expectations from life, is raised, it may be a lot harder to see themselves as worthy to receive more of what is good and positive, and less of what negative and life-draining.

Physical developmental and social:
Teen girls are also at an age where they are going through hormonal changes, and the human biological/psychological makeup is in preparation for home-making and child rearing. It is only natural for youngsters to pair off. And so dating is a way for the mating 'ritual' to be experienced, thus to finally be able to settle on the life-partner of choice. Moreso in this day and in our culture than in days of yore and in other cultures, where there were and are arranged marriages. So the need to pair off in teens may be strong. Also, being in a relationship in teenage years may be seen as something of being in a situation of peer-esteem success.

A Suitable Boy:
It may also be a sign of success for teen boys, many of them unsuitable boyfriend/husband material because of the reasons of poor upbringing. But, nonetheless, and Dr Murray writes about this in her book, there are males who will chose a girlfriend and proceed to abuse her, whether by controlling behaviour (ie choosing her friends, checking up on her, even the way she dresses, making her wait for his phone calls, demanding sex) and physical and/or emotional abuse. One of the ways these toxic chaps may go about this is initial contact. This may occur at first through the macho 'show' – the preening of the rooster to attract the hens – making some impression on the girl's interest in physical attractiveness, or by telling her early that he “loves” her – thus inspiring within the breast of the girl an appetite for emotional stroking.

I had a friend in high school who was 15 and whose 16 year old boyfriend made her miserable. He had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. One day he would be all attentive and tell her of his deep affections, but the next day he would give her the cold shoulder, even allowing his friends to tease her, and she would be torn to the point of distress. She did not know on what day she would see the Jekyll or the Hyde character come out. Realising that he was tearing her in two, she broke it with him. But she had been damaged by all the ways he had manipulated her feelings, especially creating in her the need to be romanced on a faux-emotional level.

Also it can be that the boy himself has a poor self esteem and externalises his need this by behaving in ways that are abusive.

A bad relationship for a girl is a trap, to be sure, and something to be careful of for all parents. There are ways and ways for one human being to manipulate another, and the abuse may not be physical, but take an emotional form, until the girl's self esteem is attacked and she begins to live just for the boy, his attentions and approval.

Many times I have spoken about issues that involves a fuller need of life-application of the parent towards the offspring. I personally grew up from a generation of people that were not socially in tune with the need to be aware of emotional health and self esteem. There was a stoicism from that generation and people didn't talk about their emotional issues and needs. But in this day, there are books, counselling services and avenues available by which anyone, parent or child can seek help with things pertaining to happiness, health and wealth – all things that pertain to a good life and the continued raising of the bar for good expectations.

A boiling frog situation:
It is therefore a tragedy that some girls and women are ensnared by relationships that would lead then down a path that is contrary to all of the human heart's desire for good. Sometimes it can be like the boiling frog. The frog is in the cold water, but the water heat up over a long, simmering time, until the frog finally boils (never having made the decision to jump from the pot) and dies. Some can enter a relationship and the partner beings to show another side after a while but it seems too late to extricate easily from the soul-tie to that person. There could even be financial considerations and children involved.

People in bad relationships can die by degrees. Life is too important to spend with someone who needs to work out their own issues, thus making themselves too burdensome for their partner to bare or cope. And while some girls, and women, may think they will change a partner who is not good for them, I have found that, unless that man is desiring himself to honestly reform – and without lip service – then there lies the choice to leave the relationship, seeking healing for past hurts and move on. One life is for good and worth living in peace and safety. And each moves down a stream course that is flowing with waters that can either sustain or poison. The choice ultimately lies with each individual.


Farrah Fawcett (Feb 2nd 1947 – June 25th 2009)

Farrah was nominated for an emmy award in her stunning performance in the role of Francine Hughes in The Burning Bed.

The picture shows her in the red swimsuit and was a popular poster in the 70s. She had that amazing hair and smile.

Movie Review: Twilight

Last year I read Stephenie Meyer's novel Twilight and, after reading several authors of the paranormal genre, I did not find it one of the most entertaining I'd read; drawn out and even dull at times, though I thought that Meyers did have a way of depicting character. This is particularly so in the main character of Bella Swan, a teenage girl who goes to live with her father when her mother and mother's new husband are travelling. Bella is introverted and the novel is written in the first person which gives the reader deep insight into her character and thought processes. I thought the subtlety in the novel was a bit overdone, but after seeing the movie adaption, I would read the sequel New Moon – soon to be released in cinemas – with a fresher appreciation.

I don't think that Meyers, when she wrote Twilight, had the goal in mind that her story would be made into film, as some authors do when they write their novel. But I would have to say that it was one of the best film adaptions of a novel that I've ever seen. The director, Catherine Hardwick, has handled the story with such a gentle, yet powerful touch, that the novel is completely brought to life, minus any waffling flat-lined narrative. The novel appeals to teenage girls, but the movie is so enthralling and wonderfully produced, that an any-age audience would enjoy it. And if anyone has read the novel previously, like myself, then the movie has a way of enhancing all the characters and I think, completely would satisfy a reader with its faithfulness in sticking to the original tale without the director taking their own artistic licence with the plot.

It is basically a love story with teenage boy and girl falling in love. The 'supposedly' 17 year old boy, Edward Cullen, at first rejects Bella who he has to sit with in science class, much to Bella's confusion. She wonders how, just by her presence at the school, she has offended him. Edward stays away for days, though his foster brothers and sisters are present at school. When he returns he tells her, in an enigmatic way, that he has tried to stay away but has resigned, but in a mysterious self-control, as to his attraction for her. From there, their relationship begins and it is revealed that Edward is an immortal, a vampire, along with the other members of his family.

I found Bella's introversion at times wearing and the girl that plays the role continually euphemises, uttering quick gasps and making gestures of hesitancy that I felt were overplayed. But there's real chemistry with Bella, played by Kristen Stewart and Edward, Robert Pattinson, which makes their intense relationship very convincing.

As well as really concentrating on this romance, of extraordinary but gentle nature, the story involves incidences that are going on in and around the town to do with some deaths and something that puts Bella's life in danger. There's also a mystery involving the local native American tribe and, while the ending is satisfying, there's room for more with the sequel.

This is a quality film worth seeing and the intensity of the love story, which seems so at odds with the circumstances of Bella and Edward, is moving. I bought it on DVD and have watched it twice.

Jeans On & Off: Calvin Klein

Was watching the American news and an article on the latest Calvin Klein advertising campaign featuring a huge billboard of a teenage girl and three young lads doing some serious partying.

The billboard is in New York in So Ho at the corner of Lafayette and Houston Sts. Hardly something anyone would be able to miss. As you can see by the image, it's what some have called, by news reports, "borderline pornographic". This has happened in Australia too with billboards with sexually charged content. There was one I remember, in a central Victorian city where I used to live, that advertised a brothel. So lots of people complain and these things, a lot of the time, get removed.

With this billboard, CK has certainly got people's attention. So if people are driving, they're concentrating on that and next thing the synapse connections in the brain start travelling to nerve synapses that connect to more primal areas. So what happens if there's a collision in the street (as well as pedestrians not looking where they are walking). Who do they sue? There well could be a precedent if anything untoward happens.

A psychologist on CBS Early show said words to the effect that, it's not like the tv where you can pick and choose by changing channels: this billboard is confronting, you can't turn it off.

A quote from nydailynews.com:
Asked about the message in the ad, a Calvin Klein spokesman said the "intention was to create a very sexy campaign that speaks to our targeted demographic."

Targeted demographic? Teens -them with disposable income for fashion.
Speaks to? How about, teenage 'orgy'?

I have given some thought over time to how the teenage mind is affected by sexuality in advertising. Common consensus, in defining what constitutes morality, is what the wider public finds acceptable - particularly evident in public areas. What structures and edifices that make up community - city and townscapes - are architectural expressions of society. Now, sex is a private thing, something wonderful, precious and something that shouldn't be sold down the river. Why cheapen sex constantly for the almighty buck and the 'look at me, not my competitors' ad campaign?

People are minding their own business in the places where those billboards are and bam! sudden confrontation with a kind of sexual image found in certain magazines. If these images are found publically acceptable then, could it be that in the mind of teens (who are emerging into adult sexuality and have pressures to buy clothing to have a certain look), that such images relay subtle messages re the manege a quatre (go one better!) in the image? The teen and the risqué. Previously adult territory.

How does the mind work here? Advertising: clothing displayed via sex images. Does the person influenced have the feeling of being in that foursome? Is this how it should make one feel?

There's a difference between imagery and reality and need I say it? Klein is relying on imagery to sell the jeans. Klein ads say this: Put our jeans on now, get 'em off, and your rocks, later...

The best thing I would suggest is discussion. Youngsters see these publically-displayed images and so, because they can hardly be ignored, they might be rationally talked about for a bit. Actually it would be interesting to hear what teens of both sexes would have to say about it. The alternative to open discussion is for the images to stay within the youthful imagination and that could end up taking some flight of fancy there.

Ps. Last year I was helping out in the 'clean up Australia Day' and it was noted on the summary form that the most interesting piece of rubbish found by collectors that day (by yours truly) was a pair of sexy but dirty black Calvin Klein Ys. I had discovered them caught in a shrubbery. Landfill now.

Buried Things: On Guilt Part Three (End)

Why is it important for people, who might, at some point in their lives, realise that there's repeated behaviours in themselves that they would otherwise no longer live with – things they do and ways of thinking that are holding them back? Well, I think you only have to bring to mind people that you may have known that continue to show negative traits that not only affect themselves but others in real time or online.

Guilt and its effects can be a very hard emotion to deal with, as I said in part one, because its nature is one of self-blame. In Kathy's story, her brother was telling her to forget about what happened when they were children. For the person with submerged long-term guilt, even though they may finally be able to see the reason for it, it will take acts of effort by will, like self-forgiveness, to then progress and see that they can open out arms to then receive more from life. I'm of the opinion that anyone with wounds of the soul can be healed if they first choose to be set free from them over time and effort. And for those who may think that no one would understand, well that's just a plain fallacy.

It's true that one that seeks deliverance from a wounded past could not go to just anybody and open up. For the person with the wound might be feeling that keenly and deeply, while the wrong person on the receiving end of the confide may wonder what all the fuss is about. The person seeking may hear things like, 'the past is the past, leave it there and move on!' or 'don't live in the past' or 'stop feeling sorry for yourself!. Meanwhile, while the hurting one is seeking healing from a long-term wound, they are not being validated for having something that is still in need of healing. So it's important to seek the right ear, whether through someone trustworthy or professional help.

A list of approach towards self-atonement of long-term guilt.

1. Like in Kathy's story from Part One, though it may be very painful, the incident when the guilt first arose can be revisited in a more objective light rather than in one big emotional fuzz ball. In this one may see where actual blame may lie. I'm not using the word 'blame' in a negative connotation here, but in an objective way. In Kathy's situation back then, she knew her kid brother was too close to danger, but she also saw that her parents had given her more responsibility to look after him than what she was, with a child's immaturity, able to bear. As a result Kathy stopped seeing herself as worthy of shouldering all blame and chose to forgive the child, that she was then, for the mistake.

2. Acceptance that the past cannot be altered. Time spent in rational thought about this will bring about mindfulness of present negative-impact behaviour. No behaviour, that the one seeking change can do, will change the past. In other words, the past cannot be revisited in present behaviour that is producing negative results.

3. Acknowledgement that wounds and deep feelings of pain are shared by others. One's situation is hardly unique, just the circumstances that brought the guilt-wound about. Also, there will be someone with the suitable ear that can understand and help.

4. Prayer, or invoking a higher power. This 'higher power' approach is adopted by 12 step programs. No one has to face any situation alone, no matter how humiliating. Faith is a good key.

5. Realising that other people involved at the time of the guilt-causing incident may not be thinking bad things about the one feeling the guilt in the present. In Kathy's story, her brother felt no hardship towards her. One person will think differently about a situation than another person, yet there may remain the erroneous thought that other people are still projecting blame. I think it is so that other people involved may have well forgotten the original incident anyway.

6.Taking the 'guilty' sign off the head – stopping wearing it like a crown. Working on self-pity.

7. Self forgiveness. This can be a conscious choice, like any act, and need not be emotionally driven. Conscious choices lead to conscious acts.

8. Making amends with the person that one may have wronged to bring about the original guilt onset. This may not be appropriate or possible, but if it is, then seeking forgiveness for anyone wronged may be a course of action. In fact it can be liberating.

9. Giving oneself time to work through the healing process. Also, being mindful of negative pattern behaviour and exchanging long-term irrational behaviour for more rational behaviour by being more conscious. Continued emotional pain, no matter how subtly felt, will serve to tell you that something is wrong – that there's something inside that's in need of healing.

Of course, in all this, there are degrees and degrees of guilt depending on the personality ie an introvert may experience more pain over a similar cause incident than someone with a more extroverted personality. But on the other hand, an introvert may find it easier to reach a state of mindfulness enough to deal with what's going on inside of them more readily than someone with a more extroverted personality might do.

Yes, guilt is a one tough emotion, but it's not a life-sentence. A little humility and a realisation that we are 'only human' might well be the first step to being set free from the ball and chain of it. And to embrace more of what life with all its riches can offer.