Posts from — April 2009

A reminder to gather together wherever you are to celebrate Earth Day April 22, 2009. With your individual touch and by gathering with others you will expand consciousness for our Mother Earth. No matter where you are, you will be gathered in Spirit with those celebrating with you in gratitude for all the wonders we are blessed to have and want to preserve

Here is a wonderful video from HeartMath Institute.

When you first open your eyes in the morning, what is the first thought that crosses your mind?

“Good God, it’s morning!” or “Good morning, God.”

Especially if fatigue permeates you or the pressures nip at your heals, it may be a challenge to ignite your optimism for the day.

If you can embrace that your attitude shapes your outcome, and choose over and over the path of joy, even if step by step, soon sustainable joy will be a way of life, regardless of your circumstances.

I find great joy in passing along the reminders that come my way to keep me on course. I am delighted to promote those who I feel are authentic in offering their wisdom and information to serve in expanding joy.

Here is a meaningful nudge toward happiness I received today from a dear friend, ongoing mentor, and amazing women, Betty Lue Lieber. I trust it will assist you in having a beautiful day, even when there are storms all around you.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning!

When you cannot find the music in your heart,
When you do not hear the birds singing in the trees,
When you are not aware of how much you are loved,
When you are consumed with the business of life……….
Make up your own personal prescription list of how to heal.

When in doubt, Bless
When in fear, Love.
When angry, Breathe.
When critical, Forgive.
When alone, Listen.
When hurt, Comfort.
When lost, Pray.
When unhappy, Appreciate.
When confused, Open.

Life is filled with healing tools.

You are the Healer and the wounded.
You are the Reminder and the forgetful.
You are the Way Finder and the lost.
You are the Chosen One and the dismissed.

Each of us has the power and the purpose to find what is missing.
Each one of us has the inner knowing and the key to the door.
Each one of us has within us the strength and the opportunity.
Each one of us has been where we are before.

We know.
We have.
We are.
We can.

Let us take the time today to stretch our wings and fly.
Stretch our faith, open our heart, soar with joy and bless our lives.
“Birds can fly, so why oh why can’t I?” Somewhere over the Rainbow
Yes, I can.

Betty Lue Lieber, Ph.D. MFT and Robert Waldon, Ph.D. ND
Values-Centered Coaching and Counseling, Holistic Health Consulting
LovingReminders.org
CreativeSolutionsCoaching.org
BettyLue.org
UnityontheDelta.org

Dear Happy Travelers,

Parenting (and grand-parenting) has its bumps and detours, and through it all offers so much joy. Being a grandma is as much fun with less responsibility. Still, one of my greatest challenges is to balance self-care with my urge to care for them. I want to spare both my babies and grandbabies from any hurt and would like to think that I know best.

Here we walk a fine line between Divine Order and Ego Expectations. It is hard to discern sometimes  when to actively help, or when it is best to ‘help’ by ‘not helping.’ Sometimes we guess right and sometimes we guess wrong. Regardless, our intentions are most likely good, and this is important.

It has taken me years of practice to understand (most of the time) that those we love, especially our children, have their own lives. They need to learn from their own mistakes. It can be deceiving, but worry is not the same as love. Worry makes us feel like we are doing something when we feel out of control.

It is important for all of us to remember that it is not our job to fix anyone. It is our place to empower them to know that they carry that strength within themselves… as do I. All we must do is access it. It is so much easier to guide our children and feel we have to define their direction that offer our self the same care and nurturing.

I have always told my daughters that I would rather visit for a few fleeting minutes by choice rather than days and days of forced connection out of obligation. Love is not measured by time, but by authenticity. It is not as much about quantity, but quality of time spent in one another’s company.

As my two daughters continue on their individual unfolding adventure of relationship and parenting I experience a relief in observing that I have nudged them out of the nest with a sense of their own strength and magnificence. We lean on one another often, but know that we can travel the road alone without resentment and expectations. We all forget at times, but when things get tough, they dig deep and access the power that comes when you remember who you really are. As hard as it is, we must not deprive our children to gain the experience of their own power by interfering on their journey. This does not mean we don’t step in to help, but that we do so mindfully, and without guilt when we cannot assist them. We listen from within rather than push from without.

Though my ‘default’ used to be set to worry and fret many years ago, I recognize now (and sometimes day by day) that such concern is really counter-productive. Worry offers us a choice-point… to waste our energy and teach learned-helplessness, or to choose to trust they will find their own way to their magnificence so they can become fully who they are meant to be.

My mom always was the first to remind me that “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” Although we all want the road to be smooth, challenges are often our greatest teacher. The reason I want to jump to their aid is because I’ve gained a bit of wisdom through my mis-steps. Still, there is no better unforgettable lesson learned than through our own experience.

There is nothing more important than to give your child than the courage to know  that they are capable. No one needs to be rescued or fixed… only bathed in the light of encouragement in order to connect with their own wonder.

When we learn how to take full accountability and responsibility for our own happiness and connect fully with our magnificence, the gifts we offer become more true, our happiness is more durable, and blessings become more evident. Life is an incredible dance, an intuitive adventure, where those with hope experience more durable happiness.

After all, would you rather be accused of false-hope or false-pessimism? [Read more →]

I don’t know about you, but meaningful quotes (thank goodness!) seem to find me at just the right moments and re- balance me.

When time is so short and demands are so high, leisure and lengthy reflection opportunities can be illusive.

In those rushed moments quotes like these revive me, remind me of my purpose, untangle what my mind has made difficult, and return me to my  true self.

Do these speak to you today?

Life always gives us
exactly the teacher we need
at every moment.
This includes every mosquito,
every misfortune,
every red light,
every traffic jam,
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss,
every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction,
every piece of garbage,
every breath.

Every moment is the Guru.

– Charlotte Joko Beck
American Author and Zen Teacher

“Every experience in your life is an opportunity to love”

– Rich German

“The mind is the last part of yourself to listen to.
It thinks of everything you can lose.
The heart thinks of everything you can give,
and the soul thinks of everything you are.”

– Neale Donald Walsh [Read more →]

Dear Happy Traveler,

I have always been curious about words… their origin, their apparent meaning, and their embedded or double meaning. As many of you know, I also enjoy revising the meaning to words so they hold a more intentional impact.

A word that caught my fancy recently was one we hear far too often these days: overwhelmed. Everywhere I turned, I hear the word in conversation, experience it in everyone’s attitudes, and witness the result on people’s faces.

Honestly I, too, had a week that tempted me to concur, however, remembered the words of Mother Teresa,

“I know God will never give me more than I can handle, I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.”

Her cantankerous commitment to optimism reminded me to take a deep breath and look again from a different view-point.

With her whispering in my ear, I insisted on believing there has to be a better way than despair, and somehow had it in me to refuse to succumb to this overwhelmed perception that only leads to feeling worse.

These feelings caused me to ponder what exactly is the “whelm” we are “overed” by? Hmmmmm. What is whelm?

whelm
Pronunciation: \?hwelm, ?welm\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English
Date: 14th century
Definition:
1 : transitive verb 1 : to turn (as a dish or vessel) upside down, usually to cover something : cover or engulf completely with, usually disastrous effect
2 : to overcome in thought or feeling : overwhelm <whelmed with a rush of joy — G. A. Wagner> intransitive verb

When we get attached to the way we think life “should” be, we resist what is, even miss it all together. Life then moves forward about as easy as a car with the parking brake on. Our creativity and compassion shut down, prohibiting us to see all the alternative possibilities for joy available to us, even amidst challenging circumstances. Life becomes a pain in the rear to endure rather than an adventure to be explored. [Read more →]

Autism can be a huge bump on the road to happiness, but it need not be a detour. As a care-giver, it certainly takes you on a journey of personal growth.

Have any of you had your life touched in some way by someone with autism, or on the autistic spectrum, including ADHD? Did you know that 1 out of every 60 kids is diagnosed to be on the spectrum?

My oldest grandson, Parker, who is now 7 has ADHD, and has struggled in school (and at home) as a result. Due to the commitment of his parents and his first grade teacher, he is doing very well. He still has some challenging days, however it is remarkable how much more calm his life is for him and everyone around him due to having him on
what is called the Finegold Diet, free of preservatives, pesticides, dairy and eggs.

Then along comes my second grandson. Although in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit the first 3 days of his life, he seemed to meet all his developmental milestones, although he was always plagued by ear infections and was prescribed antibiotic after antibiotic along the way. However, by about 18 months he started to regress.
What little speech he had began to disappear. He had less and less eye contact and seemed to spend more and more time in his own world.

My background in early childhood education told me that by age 2 he should have at least 20 words, so we stepped out of our denial and began the journey of learning the impact of high levels of mercury and other heavy metals
trapped in his body, and other sensitivities that cloud his brain.

Now Brody in 3 and a half. He has come along way with the help of a gluten free/casien free/dairy free diet, although still has many self-stimulation behaviors. For Brody, his most severe behavior is echolalia. He repeats books that have been read to him or dialogue he has heard only once over and over. He is very bright, can recognize many words but has little understanding of language. Tantrums are a regular indication of him being over-stressed, and the bigger he gets the harder they get. Of all of these it symptoms it seems hardest that Brody cannot spontaneously tell his mom or his dad that he loves them.

We have taken a biomedical approach, and Brody will soon begin I. V chelation therapy. His parents even made the hard decision to short-sale their house that is on the take-off flight path of a major airport to minimize his
exposure to the jet fuel that contains the contaminants that have rained on him since he was born. All of this is calling us to be more mindful of pollution and do what we can to create a more green environment for all our kids.

The other day my daughter showed me an ad in Parent’s Magazine for weighted vests that looks like a fireman’s or a policeman’s uniform. Children with sensory needs often benefit from the added weight to ‘ground’ them. I commented to my daughter how we have normalized this problem. Now in a magazine for typical children, products to deal with sensory issues are becoming mainstream and accepted as normal.

These amazing young people seem to have a divine assignment. They are our canaries in the gold mine if we dare to listen. They are telling us through the oddities of their challenges that our earth is troubled and our abilities to
deeply connect and communicate are in peril. It is not only about what we are here to teach them, but I think even more important to become curious about what they are here to teach us. They are calling us to deepen the quality of
our relationships and fine-tune our ability to see joy in the oddest places. They invite us to make friends not only with technology, but with one another, face to face, heart to heart. They challenge us to look beyond differences
to see our common ground. [Read more →]