Project O… The importance of having an opinion…

          

Opinionated man is running Project O to raise awareness about the importance of having an opinion… For the last two days I have been looking into the depths of my being and have written my answers… of course my friends here will know what type of answers you’ll see… They came from the heart anyway… and if you want to submit answers too… there is still time…   Template here…

My Answers…

Name: Barbara Franken

Blog: www.memymagnificentself.wordpress.com

Website:  www.sacredheartsretreat.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barbara.franken.98

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/SacredHearts

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/barbara-franken/2a/b67/630

Email: info@sacredheartsretreat.com

Question 1: Please provide a window into who you are, some background information in a not too overwhelming profile here. I am allowing you as the writer to immediately connect with your audience so take advantage. Remember the point of ordering these questions is to arrange this project so it is easy for comparison and not to constrain you as the writer. Write as long as you need to for each question to get your point across just remember not to lose the reader.

IAM Barbara Franken, a 50+ English female… I left my Derbyshire family home to travel Europe at 18 with the question WHO AM I…  I eventually settled down in The Netherlands, making it my family home for the next 25 years with my husband Tom and stepchildren Juliette and Richard.  Tom and I planned an early retirement and moved to our new home in Southern Spain, on the Costa Calida 7 years ago.  We have a great relaxing life that we both enjoy… away from the busy and fast ‘western’ life… We visit our children, who live in Florida and St Maarten during our winter months, making sure we have sunshine all year round…

During my ‘Dutch’ experience, living in an open, free and friendly society, as opposed to the stiff upper lip attitude and narrow mindedness of Britain, I found the answer to my question of WHO AM I…

IAM a DivineHuman Being, teacher and explorer… who inspires conscious living in the New Energy Consciousness…  I share my hearts desire, experience, observations, discoveries and insights as more and more people are naturally awakening to their divinity and creator self…

Can you imagine living in a world full of JOY, COLOUR and HAPPINESS?

Question 2: If you haven’t already done so please provide your country of origin, whether you are male or female, an age would be nice, and where you currently live if that differs from the country of origin. If you are in America this might be a nice time to explain what state you are from. Also try to give us a brief view of your current neighborhood and what it is like in as specific terms as you like. Why is this important? I believe our surroundings and where we come from have a strong impact on our development of opinions. It would also be highly likely that depending on the safety of the country might also determine how willing one is to express their opinions aloud. Does sex also have something to do with this, as well as age? These are all characteristics that can definitely affect a person’s outlook.

Our new home in Mazarron, Murcia, is a small urbanization nestled in the mountains near an  ‘authentic’ Spanish port and town.  Today it is still free from big commercialism and tourism… It is quiet and peaceful and enables us to relax and focus on enjoying ourself… I was looking forward to practicing my Spanish to the locals and speaking my mother tongue to other British residents…

Oh Boy was I in for a shock on both accounts… the Spanish were not to be understood, they had their own half language (not pronouncing the ends of any words) and on my attempt to speak, they looked at me as if I’d just arrived from another planet… Concerning the British, I thought that I’d landed on a live TV Soap Series in the sun… everyone acting out their own drama…  I’m not sure if it was just boredom or frustrations and fear of their past, but they seemed happy enough throwing opinions around, blaming, judging and fighting one another… They were not at all interested in hearing anything from me… what… an expression coming from a place of love… getting together to create a pleasant community… I was not going to fit in… so I stood out… the ‘crazy happy lady who looks up at the full moon’… Luckily there are a few friendly and loving people here that we have made friends with…

Question 3: Recount the first time you remember having a differing opinion from someone significantly older than you. Do you remember what the topic was about? Did you voice your opinion or hold it to yourself?

Thankfully I can’t remember saying anything in detail during my rebel years… but during my late 20’s I remember talking about religion to older adult people, more than once… I didn’t agree why one religion had to be better than another, as each religion had missing points.  Surely, bringing them all together would not only bring most people together, but would also give everyone a bigger and better picture in which to understand the whole truth for themself… It was as if the leaders of the church (and the government too for that matter) benefited from causing separation of ‘their people’…

I also talked to different Christian adults who really believed that I was ‘born a sinner’ and that I would be judged by GOD according to my goodness and badness in life and if I wanted forgiveness I had better attend church… Not wanting to tell them that I thought they spoke a load of rubbish, I expressed the wonder and the miracle of life that I felt when an innocent baby was born, that judgment came into being by power-seeking man who had grand ideas to have slaves work, serve and idolize them… and as for my attending church, my church was wherever my feet rested.

Question 4: What levels of respect were practiced around you when you were a child? Was there bowing involved, handshakes, “yes Sirs and yes Ma’ams,” or some  other equivalent respectfulness in your culture’s tongue? Is an honorific given to someone older than you and do you often respect and practice that? How might the culture you were brought up in have affected the growth of your own opinions?

I grew up in a world where children were to be quiet until spoken to, to not be cheeky and to remember adults and teachers new best… This instilled in me a silent rage… How dare they, who did they think I was… I wasn’t going to fit into any mold and nod my head and follow the crowd.  I knew I was different and that things could be different… but nobody gave me the time of day, nobody wanted to listen to me, I didn’t have a voice… So eventually I screamed for attention, I fought for my own importance and existence… and I said some nasty things that hurt people… I was rebellious…

Thankfully my travelling and settling in Holland was my saviour… I met several wise people who showed me the importance to respect myself, to embrace, listen and love all parts of myself, good, bad, ugly and beautiful…  to accept myself as IAM… They explained that my behavior of hitting out and hurting others and myself was not solving anything… in fact it was only making life more miserable… but I could choose at any moment to change my behavior, I wasn’t a victim of my past.  IAM and always have been a magnificent being, I was just never encouraged to remember it…

Loving myself… by giving myself attention, understanding my own value and importance… Ignoring my loud thoughts and mind, that continued to repeat past programmes and beliefs…who do you think you are, lady high and mighty… you know nothing… you’re not good enough… fighting is the only way to survive…  enabled me to connect to the energy of love that was within me and allowed me to speak from a comfortable and homely place of love, rather than from fear, of being a nobody, unimportant and unnecessary…

Question 5: How traveled are you and to what degree do you keep up with international news? You might also provide an educational background if you wish and if that education was gained from somewhere other than your current location. How available is the news and what goes on in the outside world to you in your country?

I have travelled many countries in Europe, Mexico, The Caribbean and USA (Atlanta and Florida).  I enjoy keeping up with international world news…  but most of what I have learnt is from observing different people, in different place, understanding that we are all unique and there are many ways to get to where we are going… I have always seen the government, church and media as manipulating the news, lying and telling half-truths…  IAM therefore careful of what I believe and always follow my own intuition and heart to come to understand the real truth… What feels good to me, what resonates with my heart is the truth…

In my corner of Spain, the local Spanish people live happily with what they have, there are no big shops, supermarkets etc… we live on locally produced food and everyone gets on with living each day… If truth be know, the world could fall apart and we would continue living our day… but saying this, IAM thankful for the airplanes that take me on my travels to visit family and friends and the internet that has made friendships on WordPress possible…

 

 Question 6: If you could share an opinion on a single international incident or topic that you either feel strongly about or that might not be known to the rest of the world what would it be? You have our attention.

Education has not worked well up until now… we need to change our system of teaching…  What I do and what we can all do for our children… parents, guardians and teachers alike…

• Treat our children with love, respect and as equals… Showing them by example how to own and respect all that we are… our magnificence… no matter what…
• Stop feeding our children our truths, our history and our opinions and ask them to question life, to explore life, find out what resonates with their heart…
• Teach them to explore life and experience in each present moment…
• Give them a variety of reading books, religions and science to read and allow them to question and find out how they fit into the big picture and can stand out in their excellence…
• Allow them to play, be creative, be involved in individual and team sports (the latter in a cooperative way…)
• Allow our children to bring in all their potentials, discover new technologies, new ‘free’ energies to power our world (that will dismantle our corrupt and competitive economics, finances and government) and build bridges of cooperation in the living and work force…
• Allow our children to teach us new ways of being…

 

Question 7: What does the right to an opinion mean to you? Is it essential to freedom to have this right? How far would you go to protect that ability? The world is on fire with people of passion, how passionate are you about things you value?

Even though it is important for each of us to express our own truth, it is equally important that we realize that our truth is not the same truth as another.  Depending on whether we are brought up or dragged up… respected, given attention and allowed a voice early on or isolated, told what to do and made to be fearful of others… or nurtured in an environment of love or fear… our expression, opinions and judgments will reflect this.

True freedom is the absence of inner conflict, where there is no judgment or opinion of what is right or wrong… only an acceptance to what is… Accepting that we are all unique, all different and that there is no right way, no one way, only our way… to live life in joy, knowing what is good for self in each moment (with no detriment to another) and in cooperation with others…

I became aware of the ‘smallness of my mind, that only repeated past experience of duality, conflict and fear… and in quieter moments I could feel the presence of my heart and soul that waited patiently in the background… ready to express ALL THAT IAM… With my mind calm, my passion ignites and IAM free to be inspired, to express WHO IAM and be the creator of my heart and soul’s desire…

I cannot change the world outside of myself… I can only be the change… I claimed my own magnificence and IAM an example of wholeness, balance and love to others… One heart at a time, we lower our defense and finally bring an end to our barbaric behavior… vicious animals fighting to be the best, the most powerful and the survivor…

 

Question 8: Is it ever right for you to be allowed an opinion while someone else is denied that same right on the same topic?

Everyone deserves the right to perceive the world through their own senses.  We are all unique individuals and as a sign of respect we can listen to each other…

It is the person who expresses themselves from a place of fear and eventually finds himself isolated… that I hope realise their way serves no purpose and actually only encourages more conflict.  I hope too that they know they can change in any moment, choosing to believe that they are so much more than they were ever led to believe…

Question 9: The last question. upon completing this template and  hopefully contemplating the issue what does this project mean to you? How can Project O potentially enlighten or help the world?

It would be nice if this project made everyone aware of what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to our own expression…  To create awareness of being responsible for our voice and depending if we choose to speak from love or fear…  know that it affects both ourself and our environment…  and to remember, listening to others is a sign of our respect for them…

‘A person who knows of his own wholeness and magnificence has no need to judge or opinionate… they will simply express themself from a place of love, with no detriment to themself or another…  Only a fearful person who lives only knowing his ‘small programmed mind’ will allow it to play on as he fulfills his role as victim or aggressor’     IAM Barbara Franken… Inspiring New Energy Consciousness…

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you very much indeed ‘opinionated man’ for this wonderful possibility to answer such beautiful questions… that have helped me clarify some deep truths…