Newcastle Personal Development Group

05/03/2026

Choctaw Sun Poem

Sun Tracks

The track of the sun
across the sky
leaves its shining message,
Illuminating,
Strengthening,
Warming us who are here,
Showing us we are not alone,
we are yet ALIVE!
And this fire…
Our fire…
Shall not die.

22/01/2026

It’s this time of year when people start setting their goals or trying to keep up their resolutions. I’m not a fan of resolutions or goals but would write my list of intentions at the start of the year. This year I have found that I can’t even sit with the word intention. It just doesn’t feel right. Maybe you’re feeling it too? Afterall 2025 was such a bumpy year.

As I sat with the feeling the word embrace came to me. What do I want to embrace this year? Embrace all of me. Embrace being more authentic.

What would you like to embrace this year?

24/12/2025

Absolutely! It's not about the presents, but the presence🌹

19/12/2025

It’s okay to feel whatever you need to feel. Your emotions are a response to what is happening internally from your thoughts, beliefs and experiences. There is no right or wrong with them as long as we don’t allow them to take over our lives.

Stay curious. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? What do I need to move through this? Allow and it will move through you.

11/12/2025

26/11/2025

Thought of the day:


Knowing is not doing. Doing is doing.

19/11/2025

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

22/10/2025

Please Hear What I’m Not Saying - Charles Finn

Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
Masks that I’m afraid to take off,
And none of them is me.
Pretending is an art that’s second nature to me,
But don’t be fooled.
For God’s sake don’t be fooled,
I give you the impression that I’m secure,
That confidence is my name and coolness is my game,
That the water’s calm and I’m in command,
And that I need no one.
But don’t believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface
Is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing,
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion and fear and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed.
That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
A nonchalant sophisticated façade, to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation.
My only hope, and I know it.
That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,
If it’s followed by love.
It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
From my own self-built prison walls,
From the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It’s the only thing that will assure me
Of what I can’t assure myself,
That I’m really worth something.
I don’t like to hide.
I don’t like to play superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me,
But you’ve got to help me.
You’ve got to hold out your hand
Even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
The bland stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.

Each time you’re kind and gentle and encouraging,
Each time you try to understand because you really care,
My heart begins to grow wings, very small wings,
Very feeble wings,
But Wings!
With you power to touch me into feeling
You can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.

Who am I, you may wonder.
I am someone you know very well,
For I am every man you meet,
And I am every woman you meet.

01/10/2025

What Is Success?

What is success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And the affection of children
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endure the betrayal of false friends
To appreciate beauty
To find the best in others
To leave the world a bit better, whether by
A healthy child, a garden patch
Or a redeemed social condition
To know even one life has breathed
Easier because you have lived
This is to have succeeded

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

24/09/2025

Please Listen - Stacia Gilmer

When I ask you to listen to me
And you start giving me advice,
You have not done what I asked.

When I ask you to listen to me
And you begin to tell me why
I shouldn't feel that way,
You are trampling on my feelings.

When I ask you to listen to me
And you feel you have to do something
To solve my problem,
You have failed me,
Strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask is that you listen.
Don't talk or do - just hear me.
Advice is cheap, 20 cents will get you both
Dear Abby and Billy Graham
In the same newspaper.
And I can do for myself; I am not helpless.
Maybe discouraged and faltering
But not helpless.

When you do something for me that I can
And need to do for myself
You contribute to my fear and inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact
That I feel what I feel,
No matter how irrational,
That I can stop trying to convince
You and get about this business of
Understanding what's behind this irrational feeling.
And when that's clear, the answers are
Obvious and I don't need advice.

Irrational feelings make sense when
We understand what's behind them.
Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes
For some people - because God is mute;
And he doesn't give advice or try to fix things.
God just listens and lets you work it out
For yourself.

So please listen, and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute
For your turn - and I will listen to you.