Many therapists and life coaches are fond of journaling or writing as a way to release emotions.  Occasionally, I find it very helpful to use writing to bring issues to consciousness.  However, I have found for me personally, the act of writing about something doesn’t actually release the stored trauma.  For that, I need to do metaphysical or physical work after the journaling has begun the process.  

On the many occasions when I have used journaling or freewriting in order to help me get all my ideas out on paper, I find it helps me to see patterns in the issues I was dealing with.  I have also written many unsent letters to people to help me get closure when getting true closure wasn’t possible.  I use both the old fashioned pen and paper method as well as composing on a computer.  It depends on what I am processing as to which method feels better for me. For me, prose is the best way of voicing my thoughts and emotions.  For others, though, writing poetry and song lyrics can be more helpful.  Regardless of what specific approach works for you, getting things on paper can be a great way to understand your emotions. 

So where to start?  Many people suffer from a brain freeze when faced with a blank piece of paper and a writing device.  If you are working with a therapist or life coach, that person may be able to help guide you in selecting topics that would be great for you to write about.  If you’d like to do some emotional exploring on your own, I have created some general prompts below.  Some of these are easy prompts that may not stir up much for you; others have the potential to trigger a great deal of pain.  In those cases, I highly recommend you work with a life coach or therapist to help you process the pain that will surface in the process.  Working with a practitioner who facilitates holistic healing using processes such as energy work, EFT, EMDR, or other methods can help to fully release the issues after you’ve brought them to the surface through writing.  This can bring about healing that is not otherwise possible for many.

Prompts:

• What is my happiest memory (or memories) of childhood?  Why did this event or situation bring me such joy?  How can I find similar joy in my life today?
• What is my worst memory of childhood?  Who was involved with it? How did that event make me feel then?  How does it make me feel now?  What emotions do I have towards the person or people involved in that situation?  Do I feel like this situation still impacts me today?  How and why?  Do I need to do more work to help clear this trauma from my system?
• Who was my closest friend(s) in childhood?  What did we do together?  Why did I enjoy the company of this person?
  
• Who was the person who brought me the most pain in childhood?  Why was that person able to hurt me so much?  What do I feel toward that person now?  Have I forgiven them for their actions?  What do I need to do to find a way to forgive them?  
  
• Who is the person whom I have felt the most love from as an adult?  What does this person do to make me feel loved? How do I respond to this person? How can I deepen or strengthen my relationship with this person?
  
• What situation in my life currently brings me the most stress?  Why does this situation stir up such strong issues for me?  Are there underlying issues from my past that relate to this situation?  How do I help support myself during this stressful situation?  Can I be doing more to reduce my stress?  What is my perspective or role in this situation and the issues that it causes me?
  
• In five years, what do I want to be different in my life?  What will need to change for that to happen?  What can I be doing every day to help bring about that change?
  
• Why do I seem to have the same romantic relationship with people over and over again?  What is the pattern that is there?  Why does this pattern occur?  Is there a parallel to any of my relationships in childhood or in a past life?  What can I do to break free of this pattern?
  
• Why did I choose my current job or profession?  Does it bring me happiness?  How can I make my employment situation better for myself?
  
• What do I feel my purpose is in this life?  Am I working towards that purpose?  What can I do to change my life to be in line with that purpose?  Is there anything else I can I do that will support me in my life journey?
  
• What is my financial situation like?  How do I want it to change?  What can I do to make it change?  Do I have emotional issues around money?  Where do those issues come from? What can I do to release those issues?  
  
• What is the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had?  Why was that particular experience so powerful for me?  Do I attempt to recreate that experience for myself on a regular basis?  Do I seek out other amazing spiritual experiences?  How could I work towards such a goal?
  

© 2015 Green Heart Guidance

Lately I’ve seen a lot of inspirational memes that are along the lines of, “Never look back.  Your past is not your present.”  On one hand, I agree that the past is not the present.  We are not the people we were yesterday.  We are also not the people we will become tomorrow.  Our past is just that: Our past.  However, I disagree strongly with the “never look back” idea that seems to be thriving right now in inspirational thinking.  While it’s important not to dwell in the past, it is very important to examine the past in order not to repeat it and to improve ourselves. 

An example might be a young man named George who lost his mother as a child.  George certainly suffered a great deal of pain and loss at a young age, and that traumatic experience shaped who he became as a man.  As he continues dwelling in the past, George devotes a part of every day to his deceased mother.  He has built an elaborate shrine to her in his spare bedroom.  George continues to set an empty place for his dead mother at the table at every meal.  Furthermore, George makes it clear to everyone that the loss his mother at a young age was devastating and ruined his life.  This is a situation where George is dwelling quite unhealthily in the past, letting the past control the present, and failing to move forward into a healthy life.

In contrast, a healthy adult named Susan lost her father as a child, but she has not forgotten her father by any means.  Susan continues to cherish her father in her daily prayers and in her heart.  She has hung a picture collage of him in her family room along with pictures of other family members.  At her wedding, she offered a tribute to her father, wishing that he could have been with her on her wedding day walking her down the aisle.  However, Susan also understands that her father is gone, and that she is still living.  She has not stopped her life because her father is gone, and she does not let her father’s death hamper her personal growth.  She understands that death is a part of life, and she has let go of the bitterness that she once felt towards whatever higher power took her father away from her at such a young age.

When Susan became seriously involved with her fiancé, she found herself unintentionally doing things that were sabotaging the relationship.  She didn’t mean to cause the problems, but clearly something was askew.  Thus, she met with a therapist who was able to help her determine what was happening.  Susan had a deep-seated unconscious fear of her fiancé abandoning her just as her father had abandoned her (through death) when she was a child.  In this case, it becomes very necessary for Susan to look back to the past to understand her present behavior and to correct it so that she can have the wonderful future with the man she loves.  In this case, it’s not a matter of dwelling in the past but rather re-examining the past to bring about positive change.

For me, I have had to look back to issues across this life and into my past lives in order to bring about physical, emotional and spiritual healing.  I don’t dwell in the past, but I do recognize that those events shaped who I am today.  In studying and working with those past traumas, I have been able to release pain that was holding me back.  Without that pain, I am able to live life more fully in the present and move forward into a future that amazes me.  However, without looking back on those past events, none of it would be possible.  It’s hard and often painful work, but the results are amazing.

© 2015 Green Heart Guidance

When I was born, I was given the wrong name. It was a name my parents chose carefully, but it was not the right name for me. My first name was my mother’s middle name which was also a multi-generational family name from her side. My middle name was my maternal grandmother’s first name, Elizabeth. My last name was my father’s surname as is the American patriarchal tradition.

Throughout my childhood, I hated my first name. My mother in her warped way always insisted that I had a “beautiful” name and that she wished that people would call her by it rather than her nickname. Even as a child, I always wondered, “If you hate the nickname so much, then why do you introduce yourself by that name? Why not tell people to call you by the full name?” However, my sense of self-preservation knew far better than to say something like that to her.

When I went to college, I went by my given name for the first semester. Then when I returned from winter break, I realized, “Wait. I don’t have to use that name. I can go by any name I want. I can use my middle name.” I think in part it was due to the fact that my maternal grandmother had died a few days before I left for college in August, and so in my mind, the name was now available for use in the family. I wish I’d realized that five months earlier when I first arrived at college, but all in all, it wasn’t a hard transition to make. My friends accepted it, and we moved on with most of them calling me “Beth” though I preferred Elizabeth in the classroom. Family members were a bit more resistant, but most eventually adjusted to the change, and they too started calling me Beth.

Two and a half years later I got married. I hated my first name with a passion by that point, and I was incredibly anxious to drop it. In retrospect, I really wish I had approached the name change differently. If I had to do it again, I would have gotten a legal name change to drop my first name and preserving my maiden name as my last name instead of turning it into my middle name. However, I took my husband’s last name as my own even though I didn’t really like the name and I didn’t feel like I was a part of his family.  The net result was bumping over my names by one to add his last name on the end and drop my first name on the front.

I also had the fanciful notion that I could use all three names without a hyphen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did it somewhat successfully, so surely I could, too. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the reality as I quickly discovered. Most people are lazy and want to drop as many syllables as possible. Thus, a year into the marriage, I adopted a hyphen between my maiden last name and his last name to try to force people to use both names. Sometimes it worked. Often it didn’t. His last name is easier to pronounce than my maiden name, so most people just shortened it to his name even if they didn’t know which was his and which was mine. Speaking with other women who hyphenate, I have found they have the same experience. People decide to pick one name and shorten the hyphenated name without the permission of the owner of the name.

Likewise, I often found that people shortened my first name to “Liz” without my permission. They just decided that my nickname would be Liz. Never mind that Beth, Betsy, Libby, Libba, Eliza, Bess, Bessie, Betty, Bette, Lisa, Ellie, and other names are all nicknames for Elizabeth, too. They picked Liz, and the sound of that name when addressed toward me makes my hair stand on end. I have several friends named Liz, and it doesn’t bother me at all to call them Liz. But calling me Liz? That makes me crazy.  I prefer to be called Elizabeth.

Fast-forward twenty years, and my marriage ended. I was left with the dilemma many women face about what to do with their names after divorce. I didn’t want to keep my ex’s name though he explicitly told me that he could understand why I might want to after having used it for 20 years, and he was ok with that. He also understood how much I didn’t really like the name, so he understood if I didn’t want to keep it.

My kids’ names are hyphenated as mine was, so if I had simply dropped my ex’s last name, then I still would have shared part of their name. That seemed like the logical thing to do. Given the usefulness of Facebook in a situation like this, I changed my name to Elizabeth with my maiden last name on Facebook as a trial to see how it felt. For four weeks I lived with that name, but every time I looked at it, I cringed. I couldn’t stand the idea of going back to it even without my birth first name involved.

At that point, I talked to my therapist, and she agreed with what I had figured out: It was time for a new last name. One that was mine. One that had no ties to any of the men in my life. One that represented my new start and my new life. I spent some time thinking about it, and I decided that I wanted a name that meant “healer” as I feel that my purpose in this life was to heal my own soul and in turn, to help others heal. I got on the internet and Googled names that meant healer, and I began perusing various websites. Once I saw the name “Galen” (pronounced GAY-lin), I was certain that was my new name. It jumped out at me, and there was no other word on the screen that mattered. I briefly contemplated the more feminine “Galena,” but it didn’t feel right to me.

Once again, I switched my name on Facebook to see how it felt, this time to Elizabeth Galen. Every time I saw the name, it made me smile and filled me with joy. It was a name that I loved and that I thought was beautiful. It just felt right. Several friends messaged me over the next few weeks to tell me how much they liked it and how much they felt it suited me. None knew the reasons I had picked it; some assumed that it was actually my maiden name.

The only hurdle left at that point was my kids’ last name being completely different than mine. Since my kids were all old enough (14, 14, and 11) to understand, that helped. I explained to them why I had chosen the name and why I was doing it. My ex and I had actually agreed when the kids were born that if we didn’t get their names right, we would pay for legal name changes for any of them when they turned 18. So I informed the kids of on that agreement, telling them that if they wanted to start casually playing with their last names, that was fine. If they wanted to keep them the same, that was fine. And if they wanted to change their last name to Hermes when they turned 18, that was ok, too. When I was younger, I couldn’t have understood that the bond between my kids and me wouldn’t have been affected at all by us having different last names, but at this juncture, it didn’t even seem a remote possibility that the name change could affect our strong bonds. It is a bit strange filling out forms and having my name be completely different than theirs, but I’m getting used to it.

So now I am Elizabeth Galen; when the divorce was finalized, the name change became legal. Every time I sign my new name, I am filled with gratitude for a name that I love so much.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

I am an intellectually gifted individual.  That’s not meant to be an egotistical statement:  It’s a simple fact of who I am.   I’m definitely not the smartest person in the world (by a long shot!), but the more than ample intelligence I possess has created numerous challenges for me over the course of my life. 

I started reading before I was three years old.  From the time I was in kindergarten, I had special permission to check out the “big kid” chapter books in the school library because I was long past reading the picture books in the kindergarten section.  I also have many memories of my teachers using me as a teacher’s aide because I was so far ahead of my peers that having me do the same work as them was pointless.

I have a June birthday, and my parents had considered starting me early in half-day kindergarten at age four.   This is the course I would recommend for most gifted children if it is an option in their school district.  Our society is relatively accepting of starting a child young, especially if the child has a fall or winter birthday.  Also, if I had needed to spend a second year in kindergarten, it probably would not have been as big of deal as skipping a grade became in a later grade.  (One of my kindergarten friends did this due to his lack of emotional maturity.)   However, my parents decided to start me with the rest of my five year old peers.  This began an annual discussion between my parents and the school as to whether or not to have me “skip” a grade.  However, it never happened at that school.

In third grade, I was in a combination third/fourth class, so the teacher just had me do all the fourth grade work.  That meant I finished fourth grade instead of third, making it the perfect opportunity to have me skip a grade.  However, to complicate matters, my family was moving in October of that year.  My parents were concerned that the school in the new state would be more advanced.  It turns out the opposite was true.  I ended up in a fourth grade classroom in the new state doing work that I’d done several years previously, and I was bored silly.  The principal at that school refused to make any accommodations for me to get educational material that was appropriate for me.  He felt being bored was part of life and that I should learn to deal with it.

As a result, my parents moved me to a private school where I was finally skipped from fourth to sixth grade after extensive testing to make sure it was the right decision.  Academically, it was the right decision for me.  However, it created an initial year of social difficulties for me among  my classmates, many of whom were spoiled rich girls who were great at bullying.  I was the target of a lot of negativity that first year because classmates were jealous that I was a year younger than them.  The next year, our class size doubled, and I was once again able to blend in with the crowd.  I remained at the top of our class intellectually.  I hit puberty a little bit early which actually meant that I blended in more with my classmates than I would have if I’d been in my original grade.  By high school, my closest friends (including my future [ex-] husband) were a year ahead of me in school which meant they were two years older than me.  Emotional maturity was not an issue for my old soul self.

Because of the high school I attended, I eventually entered college with 56 college credit hours already on my transcript.  I graduated magna cum laude with 140 hours that included double majoring and secondary teaching certification at the age of 19 years, 2 months.  When I was doing my student teaching, my high school junior students were only a year or two younger than me, though they had no idea until the semester ended!

As an adult, all of this has faded into the background for the most part.  Many of my friends don't know this information (or didn't until this blog post!) unless they've known me since high school.  As adults, age differences become moot as we associate with people who are our emotional, intellectual, professional, spiritual and social peers rather than our classmates.  Because this has all become a part of my distant past, I debated whether or not to even write this post.  However, as there is information here that can help others who are dealing with gifted children, I decided it was important to share.

I definitely have a brain that works differently that a lot of people’s.  I remember a lot, especially if I’ve read it. My memory is not quite photographic, but I am definitely a visual learner.  In recent years, I’ve become more aware of how much people notice this about me.  One acquaintance who adopted boy-girl twins who were born addicted to crack asked me in a conversation what the statistics were about male versus female rates of subsequent problems resulting from the addiction.  When I told her I had no idea and asked her why she thought I would, her response was, “But Elizabeth, you know everything!”  That’s not at all true, but it made me laugh.  Another online friend paid me the great complement of saying that she wished there was a Google function for my brain.  Some days I wish that too, especially when I can’t find my car keys!

Being intellectually gifted seems like it should make life a slam dunk, but unfortunately, the opposite can be quite true.  The American education system as a whole has become more and more botched over the past decades with its emphasis on standardized testing especially through the “no child left behind” program.  As a result, the schools often teach to the test with teachers having no control over this part of the curriculum they are required to teach.  A lowest common denominator is set for achieving passing test scores on the standardized tests.  If gifted children are way beyond the levels of the testing, they are “held back” from their own individual learning while the rest of the class learns the information on the test.

Another issue surrounding being gifted is jealousy.  I experienced it as a student, and I’ve experienced it when dealing with other parents and teachers as an adult dealing with my own gifted children.  Many people want to believe their child is the most special child in the world.  They insist their children are gifted, too, and they don’t want another child to receive anything more advanced than their children.   These parents are right about one thing:  We are all special.  There’s no question about that.  We just have different abilities.  I sure can’t shoot a layup, and if you want to talk about post-modern theory, my brain goes numb.  I don’t really have the capacity to analyze quantum mechanics, either.  However, that doesn’t mean that I should stop others from doing those things out of my jealousy or inability. 

Each of us have a need to learn on the level that is appropriate.  That is why we have special education systems to help those who need additional assistance.  Our society doesn’t question this need nearly as much as it often refuses to provide advanced educational opportunities for those whose brains work differently in another direction.  Instead, our society often clams up, shuts down, and declares gifted programs to be discriminatory.   Popular articles and political leaders often bemoan that the United States ranks very poorly among other leading nations of the world when it comes to education.  There is a great desire for America to “catch up” with other nations.  Yet ironically, our national education system often doesn’t attempt to work with our best and brightest:  Instead, it holds them back from learning at their best capacity.

So how can our society work to change this?  The first thing to do would be to make appropriate placements for grade level.  Using calendar dates that are carved in stone isn’t it the way to do it.  A child who was born on September 2nd may be far more advanced than one who was born on August 25th, but in Texas, the September 1st birthdate for starting kindergarten is strictly enforced in most districts.  Not only should academic need be taken into account, but emotional readiness should be as well.  Many districts allow parents to “red shirt” their  kids and start them in kindergarten at age 6 rather than 5 for emotional reasons, but the opportunity for some kids to start at age 4 because of advanced emotional abilities doesn’t exist in most places.

The next step is getting rid of the cookie cutter educational system we currently have to focus more on learning that develops intellect rather than one that emphasizes rote memorization and test taking skills.  We’ve come a long way since the nineteenth century education system that focused solely on memorizing lessons, but we still have a long way to go.  Many online programs are also being developed for less expensive education that rely more on multiple choice testing rather than critical thinking skills.  Programs such as these discourage a learning process that engages students in classrooms or online with professors who actually grade essays and interact with their students.  This is a step backward in the intellectual development of our children and our nation.

Third, the development of true gifted and talented programs would help immensely.  The school district I live in has a wonderful GT program that pulls gifted kids out into separate classes for the areas in which they need advanced learning.  The neighboring school district, however, has a GT program that is no more than lip service.  It entitles kids to extra worksheets, but not much else.  At the root of part of this is the ever frustrating lack of adequate funding for public schools.  However, the charter school my children attended for most of grade school managed to meet the needs of kids on all levels of the educational spectrum with far less funding than public schools have.  It can be done: Where there is a will (and adequate curriculum support), there is a way.

It is really important that we support each other no matter what our gifts are.  Some people have intellectual gifts, and others have gifts in other areas.  Regardless of how each of our individual abilities manifests, we should all be given opportunities to develop those gifts without having to face resistance or bullying from others.  It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where each person was loved and supported for being their amazing selves.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Often we find ourselves repeating the same patterns in our lives.  We date a guy who reminds us of our father, but we don’t quite buy into the whole Freudian Oedipal theory.  We watch friends seemingly dating the same person over and over again even though each time they think they’ve picked someone totally different than their previous partners.  We switch jobs only to end up a similar awful situation as our previous positions.  Why?

In my personal belief system, we continue repeating patterns until we learn the life lesson we need to learn.  I believe we all came to this planet with specific goals set before us, although I don’t know if we are aware of those goals or not.  Regardless, challenges will continue to present themselves in our lives until we master the higher concept behind them.  Once we’ve learned that lesson, then we are free to move on to the next.  Of course, that’s an oversimplified description of it all as we are often learning many lessons at once.  Because I believe in reincarnation, I also believe that lessons can carry over from past lives if they weren’t completed in previous journeys.

In my own life, especially in earlier years, there was a repeating pattern of narcissists playing prominent roles.  For me, once I was old enough to manage my own decisions in life, the challenge was to figure out why I kept having narcissists appear in my life.  The first question anyone should ask themselves when examining a repeating pattern is, “Are they serving as mirrors of my own behavior?”  For me, narcissism is not a personal issue.  My instinct is to think of others and to care about their health and safety and feelings.  I’m empathic and that dominates my being.  So for me, narcissism is not something I struggle with on a personal level.

Then why so many narcissists in my world?  As I worked through my personal and spiritual issues, I finally was able to realize that I drew those types of people to me because I had low self-worth.  I believed that I didn’t deserve someone who would love me fully for who I am.  So instead, I accepted the abuse and neglect that narcissists would force on me.  As a child, I had no power in my life to stop the behaviors of those around me, but as an adult, I do.  I am able to walk out of a relationship when I am being used or mistreated or even abused. 

Now that I’ve recognized the pattern, I am able to stear clear of the manipulation of narcissists once they come into my life.  I may have to work with them, yet I keep my physical and emotional distance.  I no longer let their distorted views damage my perception.  I stay strong, believing in the amazing person I am.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Over the course of my life, I’ve lived with at least five narcissists and have worked with or encountered several others.  They have ranged from mildly impacted by narcissistic tendencies to those with full blown narcissistic personality disorder.   Narcissism is a spectrum like many other mental health issues such as depression, and it can be concurrent with other mental health issues as well.  Popular culture portrays narcissists as people who are obsessed with their good looks, much like Narcissus in the original Greek myth.  However, in real life, that’s pretty far from the reality of what most narcissists are like.  While some may be overly concerned with their physical appearances, most are much more obsessed with other parts of their psyches.

Narcissists are people who think of their own needs above and beyond anyone else’s.  Narcissists are so deluded and self-involved that they don’t even realize that they are ignoring others’ needs.  Bereft of a true sense of empathy, the narcissists just focus on what they need, and then they decide within their own heads that what is good for them is good for everyone.  Anyone who would dare to claim otherwise is wrong.  Narcissists blame others when things go wrong because narcissists can’t be responsible for their theoretically exemplary actions hurting others. Narcissists often can’t even accept responsibility for simple and common human mistakes such as knocking over a glass.  Someone else must have bumped the table and caused the narcissist’s elbow to hit the glass.  A simple apology for their accidental klutzy behavior is too much to expect.

Narcissists delude others into thinking they, the narcissists, are wonderful people.  The narcissists wear a mask that covers the devious and abusive actions they take against others.  Narcissists are able to manipulate their victims’ feelings and beliefs to the extent that the victims then believe that they are responsible for the narcissists’ self-absorbed behavior.  The victims twistedly accept the blame that narcissists assign to them and believe that things that couldn’t possibly be their fault are actually their fault.

Living with narcissists is exhausting.  Day in and day out, the housemates of a narcissist must constantly be on edge, using their energy to protect themselves against the psychological, energetic and sometimes physical attacks of narcissists.  You never know when or what the next attack may be.  The narcissists will always deny their responsibility or come up with excuses or ways to blame their victims.  Because narcissists are perfect in their deluded minds, there is no real recourse or hope for those who live with them except praying for a good day.

To escape a narcissistic relationship, there is only one real option:  To leave.  Narcissists will not change because they don’t think there is anything wrong with them to change.  People cannot continue to have a relationship with a narcissist and not expect to have serious emotional, spiritual and possibly physical and sexual damage done to them.  While the decision to quit associating with a narcissist whom one loves is traumatic and painful, the other side of the decision is a wonderful place to be.  Once one is no longer associating with the narcissist, one’s perspective becomes much clearer.  One realizes how twisted, demented and damaging the self-absorbed actions of the narcissist are.  At that point, the former victims can begin focusing on their own issues rather than just trying to meet the needs of the narcissists.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Each year around this time, many of my friends begin a “30 Days with a Grateful Heart” project that was started by one of the women in the group we all met through.  Through this exercise, these women post on Facebook or on their blogs almost every day in December about something they are grateful for.  In theory, I can see how this is a beautiful way to bring a positive spirit to a season that has been overly commercialized.  In reality, I used to spend the first week of December fighting anger, depression and frustration related to this project.  I was really bothered.  I couldn’t read most of the posts on the topic.  It took me a while to formulate my thoughts on the subject, and I eventually decided that it was something that others need to hear because my outlook is different.  I formulated this post which I originally posted on Facebook for friends several years ago; I've edited and updated it for this blog.  This post definitely isn’t meant as an attack on those who do the project.  Instead, it’s mean to give the perspective of someone who fights major health issues.

For me, living with chronic illness has changed gratitude from something that can be a project that is confined to one month a year.  Gratitude is something that I have to find every single day.  It is a survival skill.  It is what helps me endure the pain and suffering.  In order to keep myself motivated to keep fighting a seemingly uphill battle, I have to count my blessings daily.  I’m not fortunate enough to only focus on these things for a short time each year.  If I lose sight of the things I am grateful for, I will lose the will to keep going.

My health issues also led me to shift the things that I am grateful for.  To those who do gratitude projects at this time of year, please consider adding “health” towards the top of your list of blessings.  If you can go to the grocery store by yourself; if you can go for a walk in the park almost any day of the year; if you can go to your children’s school pageants; if you can attend weddings and funerals; if you can go out with friends to a happy hour; if you can travel near and far; and if your lack of health does not limit the way you live your life, then you are truly blessed in a way that you don’t realize until you lose all of those things.

In the spirit of gratitude, I am going to share my list of things that I am grateful for.  I don’t give thanks for all of them every day, but I do have to find gratitude for some of them 365 days a year.

• I am grateful for my three living children.  During the worst times of this illness when there was little hope for diagnosis or cure, they were the motivation that kept me alive.  They are amazing humans, and I feel so blessed that the universe has sent them into my life.
• I am grateful to have only endured the death of one of my children when so many women in the world lose far more of theirs due to natural disasters or preventable problems such as starvation and illnesses borne by poor sanitation.  I hope that my remaining three children are blessed with long, healthy and happy lives.
• I am grateful for my metaphysical gifts which have greatly advanced my healing at deeper levels than I ever fathomed possible.  Opening to them has changed my lie in ways I never dreamed of in my younger years.  I am so grateful to be able to use them to help others, too.
  
• I am grateful for my health care providers who work to improve my overall quality of life.  Through years of working intensely with some of them, they have also become close friends.
• I am grateful for both drugs and herbs which help me heal.  I am grateful for the current progress we are making with my healing, painful though it may be.
• I am grateful that I have decent health insurance.  Even though I pay for a large percentage of my health expenses out of pocket, health insurance does cover part of it.  Everyone in the country should be so privileged to have the same or better.
  
• I am grateful that I am able to buy organic food.  Eating organic is not a lifestyle choice for me.  It’s a medical necessity.  Food free of synthetic pesticides prevents me from having reactions that include extreme fatigue (even worse than what I normally endure), breathing problems, and fibromyalgia pain among others.
• I am grateful to have a home where I am safe and able to live healthily.  For many with multiple chemical sensitivities, housing is a huge challenge.  They can’t afford to buy a safe place and finding an affordable safe home to rent is almost impossible.  I am also extremely grateful that the house is still standing and relatively undamaged after a lightning strike in 2009.
• I am grateful for an ex-husband who is such a loving dad to our kids.  I am grateful for our amicable divorce that was completed this year.  I am grateful for all of the positive changes and growth in my life that came through the divorce.
• I am grateful for the beautiful new name that I chose during the divorce.  It makes me smile each time I sign it.
• I am grateful for my intelligence and education.  The disease I am facing requires a large amount of research and action on the part of the patient, and I am able to find and absorb that knowledge.  Without the skills I have, my healing process would not have advanced as far as it has.
• I am grateful for the good (relatively speaking) health days I have.  Any time I get to go for a walk, go to a park,  go to a farmers’ market, or go to a social event, I feel blessed.
• I am grateful for all that photography has brought to my life in terms of stress relief and in giving me a new way to look at the world.  I see new things around me that I never noticed before (especially with my beloved macro lens involved!).
• I am grateful to live in Austin.  Even though I may complain about the heat and allergens and lack of snow, I appreciate the liberal eco-friendly culture that abounds here.  
• And last but not least, I am grateful for the friends, near and far, who have helped me keep some semblance of sanity throughout all of this.    

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Recently while perusing profiles on a popular dating site, I came across a younger man who decided to list his best and worst qualities in his introductory section.  This isn’t an uncommon technique, but it’s not one I’d recommend because it makes such a weak first impression.  I'm definitely not advising that we lie about ourselves even though we all have flaws.  However, when introducing ourselves to new people in person, we don’t usually walk up and say, “Hi.  I’m Jenny.  I failed three classes in college and have had two traffic accidents in the past year that were my fault.  I bite my nails, too.”  Instead, we usually try to put our best foot forward.  First impressions count a lot.

In the case of this man, he actually lists some positive qualities among those he sees as negative things about himself.  He sees being introverted as one of his weaknesses.  Introversion is usually not a weakness or a defect.  It’s a personality type, and one that affects a significant portion of the population (including me).  It simply means you are fond of staying in rather than going out partying frequently.  For other introverts, that’s definitely a positive trait.

The man on the dating site also seemingly judged himself for having “little patience with frivolity.”  Depending on how he means that, I could see that as an attractive quality.  One could easily rephrase that as, “I prefer people who are well-grounded in life.”  I’m a woman who finds ditzy types a turn off, and I’ve long ago outgrown the giggly superficial adolescent stage that many females get stuck in.  So a man who sees this quality as a strength, not a weakness, would be attractive to me.

This issue of strengths and weaknesses came up often in job interviews earlier in my life.  I found myself answering the question, “What is your greatest strength?” usually immediately followed by, “And what is your greatest weakness?”  For me, they are one and the same depending on how they are used.  At that point in my life, I usually answered that my greatest strengths were my determination and my willpower, but if not kept under control, they became my greatest weakness of becoming stubborn in cases when it would have been better to become more flexible. 

I suspect for many others this is true as well:  Our strengths and weaknesses are opposite sides of the same coin.  Our challenge in life is to find a way to accentuate those strengths and grow beyond our weaknesses.  We all have our weaknesses, and we all need to work on them, but that doesn’t mean we have to brand those weaknesses on our foreheads.  Instead, we all need to focus on what amazing people we are, especially when we are trying to convince others of just that.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Most people wouldn’t consider taking something off of a store shelf and then brazenly carrying it out of the store unconcealed without paying for it, nor would they consider plagiarizing a famous author’s work. However, the majority of people don’t think twice about stealing photography off the web. Because it’s “free” and easy to cut and paste, the popular notion has become that it is ok to use whatever one wants however one wants if one found it on the web. However, just because a photo is on the web doesn’t make it in the public domain.

If a photograph is marked as copyright or has a © notation on it, that means that you definitely need permission to use that photograph, especially if you want to put it on your website. Tracking down the photographers or artists can be a little tricky at times, but it is possible to do with a Google image search (GIS) or TinEye search. These plugins allow you to right click on a photo and then search the internet for the photo. I’ve found that GIS does a better job of searching than TinEye, but on occasion, TinEye will find something that GIS does not. From there, you can figure out if the author of the work has granted permission for it to be used on the web or if you will need to message them to gain permission. 

Almost all of the photos on my website are my own; I’m blessed to have a great archive of photos I’ve accumulated over the years. I will grant permission for individuals to use photos on occasion, but as I have a photography business, I generally don’t give away my photos. It’s part of my income. On the other hand, I willingly share my inspirational memes which I’ve created for public dissemination. They are marked as copyright, but my Flickr page, Facebook page, and Pinterest page clearly note that they may be shared without altering, adapting, or changing them in any way.

The photos on my website which aren’t mine are marked as creative commons. Creative commons (cc) is a licensing system that allows photographers and artists to designate how their works may be reproduced. I only use creative commons photos which are allowed to be adapted in making my inspirational mantras. I haven’t used any public domain photos on my website yet, but there is a chance I will do that eventually.

In order to find photos which are ok to use for websites and are free, there are two easy search options: Google and Flickr. On Google images, you can do an advanced search for whatever you are looking for and under the last option of “usage rights” mark what you are looking for. Aside from that direct link above to advanced search, the link can be found on the top of the far right of the website under the control options which look like an illustration of a gear.

To find images that are creative commons or public domain on Flickr, search for whatever you want in the search box. When you get to the page of results, then pick the third option along the top of the screen for “license.” From there you can select from different creative commons types.

Another great resource is Free Range Stock a website that has free membership (registration required) and which allows users to download and use free photos and textures that are not under copyright. [Update 7/14/15: Can Stock Photo has asked that I also share them as a resource for free and low price photography.]

It’s easy to find free and legal photos to use on the web, so there’s no reason to steal pictures from photographers and deny their right to be paid for their work. If you need an even bigger database of photos than are available from creative commons licensing or public domain photos, you can always subscribe to iStock, Getty Images, or one of the many other online stock photography sites for relatively cheaply. This also means you will be helping financially support photographers for their work. Artists, just like everyone else, deserve to be paid for their labor.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

I recently was dealing with a customer service person who was inadvertently teaching me some lessons on patience.  As I told her that the option she was presenting me with was not a good one, she told me, “You don’t have a choice.”  In that regard, she was wrong, and her narrow-minded view was blocking her ability to see my other options.  We almost always have choices.  They may not be great choices, but we have choices.  It just depends on how we frame our vision as to whether or not we can see the choices available to us.

I live in a county which is ruled by one political party which happens to be the party I oppose.  In the 13 years I’ve lived here, there has only been one elected official at any level of government who came from the party I support; she was voted out again after only two years in office.  Often when I go to the polls, there is only one person from the dominant party running for an elected office.  There are no other choices on the ballot.  However, even in this case there are options.  I could have surveyed the candidates for office long before the ballot was formed and seen the lack of opponent, and I could have run for that political office.  That’s not something I want to do, but it is a choice.  I also could have found someone else to run for office, or I could have donated more funds to my political party of choice to encourage someone else to run for office.  Finally, there’s the option I usually take:  Even if there’s only one choice on the ballot, I refuse to vote for that person.  It’s not a great option, but leaving it blank is the way I register my displeasure rather than voting for a person whose beliefs I don’t support.*  

There are other times where all the available choices are downright awful.  We all are going to die: That is one of those few things for which there are no options.  In the case of a pet dying, we sometimes do have option about how that death happens, though.  One of my dogs was diagnosed with cancer of the thymus gland at age 13.  Because he also had Cushing’s Disease, steroids were not good options.  We could have done surgery, but chances were that it was too late for him, and the surgery would have only increased his pain but not lengthened his lifespan.  So we accepted that his death was imminent.  Four weeks after we began noticing a horrid cough and three weeks after diagnosis, he had some sort of stroke or seizure, and the next day he lost the majority of use of his back legs.  Without the ability to walk, dogs have lost almost everything.  At that point, we chose to have him euthanized.  We already knew he was dying and that his time was limited; we merely were shortening his suffering.  It was still an awful choice to make, but we made the decision we felt would be best for him.

We almost always have choices.  They may not be good choices, but they are choices.  Sometimes choosing the lesser of two evils is the best we can do.  However, whenever we are feeling stuck, we should examine the situation carefully; talking to a friend, coach, or therapist can often help in this type of situation because others can sometimes see choices that we are being blind to.  From there, we can make the best choice available.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance


*In the last election, the option of not voting for a solitary candidate was taken away, and there were 13 winners declared before the elections even happened on my electronic ballot.  Time to remove that from my list of choices!

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people. ~Carl Jung 

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough. ~Charles Dudley Warner

If at first you don't succeed, you'll get a lot of free advice from other folks who didn't succeed either.  ~Author Unknown

By the time one is an adult, 99.9% of us have emotional baggage.  Some have more than others, and some are more aware of what their baggage is.  The further we progress in life, the more baggage we can pick up.  It’s possible for that baggage to merely become a part of our emotional past, but it takes active work in order to make that transformation happen.  “Just forgetting about it” doesn’t really work.  Our bodies store traumas and emotional pain even when we emotionally repress our issues.  All of that crud that we pack away will eventually come to the surface in one way or another.

Healers are people, too.  They have their own baggage and problems that they face outside of work hours.  Many therapists, life coaches, and physical healers enter their fields because of the struggles they’ve faced previously.  In my opinion, one of the differences between great practitioners and not-so-great practitioners is that the great practitioners acknowledge their personal issues.  They realize they are human.  And most importantly, they spend their entire lives working on continuing to improve themselves.

Continuing education is required in many healing professions in order to keep one’s licensing or certification up-to-date, so whether they want to or not, practitioners complete courses to meet those requirements.  Beyond that, though, great healers read on their own, exploring books in their fields and others.  They go to classes and conferences not because they have to but because they want to.  Education and healing is part of their personal journey, and their work on themselves benefits their clients and patients, too.

Healing practitioners who present themselves as knowing everything should be trusted very warily.  They are human.  They don’t know everything.  They may know a great deal about a sub-speciality of their field, but they won’t know everything.  If they claim to have a perfect life, be concerned as well.  None of us are without difficulties; our burdens just vary from person to person.  Seek out practitioners who see education and healing as a life-long journey, one that they include in their own personal lives, too.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

On Thursday, I was waiting to get my blood drawn at a local lab.  I wait outside because the lab is cleaned with highly toxic and very fragrant chemicals that I can’t tolerate yet.  As I was sitting outside reading my Kindle, an older woman approached walking slowly with a cane.  She smiled as she commented to me, “Brrr.  It sure has gotten cold out!”  I laughed and politely responded that it had, but I thought it felt wonderful.  She agreed that it did, and she was enjoying it.  I added that the recent rains had been wonderful, too, and she shared her joy at them as well.

This is pretty typical for Austin, and it’s generally what’s referred to as “Texas friendly.”  Strangers walk up to each other and start talking about random topics on a regular basis.  Sometimes it’s merely the weather, but other times there is a bit more to it.  As an introvert, I’ve had to learn how to strike up small talk conversation with people I don’t know.  After getting over the initial years of fear of doing it, now I find it quite easy to talk to people whom I’ve never met before at the grocery store or farmers’ markets or pretty much anywhere else.  It wasn’t like this where I grew up in Missouri, but it was something I really came to like about Texas as an undergraduate.

After receiving my bachelor’s degree, I left Austin to pursue my master’s degree at Boston College, but I missed Austin terribly from the start.  Boston was beautiful and I greatly preferred the cooler weather up there, but generally the culture is much more inhibited.  People aren’t intentionally mean, but they can seem rude if you aren’t used to the ways that they interact.  It’s nothing like Texas friendly.

After six weeks of living in Boston, I flew to Houston to visit my fiancé.  He didn’t have a car, so I had to take the bus from the airport to his college dorm.  While waiting for the bus, I asked a jovial middle-aged man standing next to me if the fare was still 85 cents.  He replied that it was, and then he quickly pulled out a bunch of change and asked me if I needed some.  I thanked him and told him I had the fare; I just hadn’t been in Houston in several months and I wanted to make sure the rates hadn’t changed so I didn’t hold up the line when I was getting on.

Back in Boston several months later, I was riding on the T, the (partially above ground) subway system.  I was sitting at front of the train to minimize my motion sickness.  A business man dressed in a suit got on and was short 25 cents for the fare.  So I opened my wallet and handed him a quarter.  He looked at me like I was an alien.  Once he paid, he thanked to me demurely.  I let him know that it was only a quarter, and it was no big deal (even for me as a grad student!).  Still, you could tell that he was flabbergasted by a stranger reaching out and paying even that amount of the fare for him.

Given that I moved back to Austin after only nine months in Boston and completed my master’s degree long distance, I definitely prefer the Texas friendly attitude.  It can really make my day to have even a few sentences of polite chatting with a complete stranger as it did on Thursday when that other woman shared her smile and her happiness with me.  While there are a great number of things about Texas I truly despise, the general friendliness is not one of them.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Wellness is the complete integration of body, mind, and spirit -- the realization that everything we do, think, feel, and believe has an effect on our state of well-being. ~Greg Anderson

To answer the question, "What is a holistic life coach?", one must first start with the question, “What is a life coach?”  A life coach is someone who helps individuals, couples or groups with their problems.  The goal is to assist people in finding solutions to make their lives better.  Life coaches usually have specialized niches.  Some focus on business; some focus on nutrition; others focus on love and romance.  My focus as a life coach is on healing: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.  Rather than using the generic term of life coach, many life coaches create a unique name for themselves such as a Financial Prosperity Coach or an Academic Success Coach or Integrative Health Coach.  It helps clients better understand the focus of that coach’s specialization.  On the practical side, specific titles also help with search engine optimization and promoting one’s business.

There is no official certification or licensing for life coaches.  When I decided to become a life coach, I investigated getting certified because that certification designation on a website adds credibility in many people’s minds.  However, if you see a life coach who says they are certified, that often just means they paid money to an independent organization.  I could start a life coaching certification program today and start certifying life coaches myself: There’s no oversight.  Many life coaching certification programs require no more than a financial donation (usually $75+), and then they provide you with a certificate saying you’re certified.  A few do require some kind of training before the certify you.  Overall, though, life coaching certification means absolutely nothing.   What matters more with life coaches than certification is their life experiences, their training, their personality, and their natural abilities.

So what makes a holistic life coach different than a life coach?  A holistic life coach focuses on the mind-body-spirit connection that exists in each of us.  We are not just logical beings who live in our brains.  We’re emotional and spiritual beings as well.  Stress affects our body which affects our mind which affects our emotions.  While many of us would like to just take a painkiller and make that pain in our knees go away, but often such attempts fail because they don’t also work at eliminating emotional trauma or issues behind the pain. 

In trying to treat a human as a fully compartmentalized being as our society does, one fails to see the interconnection within us.  Many of us would like to believe that our brain is in our head and is generally separate from our heart which is in our chest.  We’d like to believe that our heart is an organ that pumps blood.  However, science is slowly coming to realize that organs do far more than just a physical job, and the brain is not the only source of emotion and thought in our body.  One of the ways this is coming to be understood is through organ transplants.  It’s not uncommon for individual recipients to take on qualities from their donors without realizing that those traits belonged to the donors.  Clearly demonstrated in those cases, more happens with organs than just physical function.

A holistic life coach, then, works to integrate all parts of a human together in order to achieve healing and success.  Holistic life coaching recognizes that we are souls with bodies, not bodies with souls.  This approach to healing can succeed when other ways fail because it looks for a variety of root causes, not just what is obviously on the surface.

I feel very blessed to be able to help others heal on so many levels.  It’s always amazing to work with people who are willing to take the leap of faith and try something new and different.  Watching the amazing results they are able to achieve when they explore new perspectives in healing is truly a sacred gift.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

There’s a saying about how all people put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.  It’s a reminder that those in positions of power or fame aren’t really superbeings.  They are human, too.  One of my pet peeves is when people put priests, nuns, religious brothers, ministers, gurus and other church officials onto pedestals.  Based on my previous experiences in life, I believe that is a mistake.  Many of the shepherds are no more holy than the rest of us sheep.  They just happen to be our religious leaders.

During graduate school, I lived with nuns and brothers and other lay people in a large Victorian house.  There also were other priests and nuns who resided in the neighboring houses which were also owned by the department.  As most of us know from roommate and partner experiences, living with someone is the quickest way to learn about their faults and flaws.   After living with members of religious communities who were on sabbatical and working on advanced degrees, I was 100% certain they were human.  Many of them were wonderful people, but they were far from perfect and certainly did not deserve to be viewed as “better” than average person.  The shared bathroom issues with one of my housemate nuns were enough to clarify that point rather quickly! 

Later in my life, I worked as the office person for a liberal church. The senior minister was definitely a flawed human being and a rather unpleasant colleague.  I suspect he was having an extramarital affair without his wife’s knowledge or consent.  He was also accused by some of the members of the board of allegedly committing acts that if they’d pursued would have been felonies.  The assistant minister also was a challenging co-worker.  She seemed to believe that laws and rules were things that were only meant to be followed when they were convenient for her.  Her narcissism was difficult to work with, especially since she was in a role which was based on helping others.  Needless to say, I found that environment hard to work in.

In the same way, non-denominational spiritual leaders and gurus are very much human.  I've seen many spiritual leaders who lead highly toxic lives, some allegedly even committing crimes, yet they feel free to dispense advice to others on how to live.  They are not perfect, and just like the rest of us, they are struggling to learn sometimes difficult lessons in their lives.  Assuming that they are holy and trustworthy simply because of their job or vocation can be a major mistake.

Before you put anyone on a pedestal, nonetheless a religious or spiritual leader, remember that they are human, too.  They are just as likely to err as the rest of us.  Recognizing that religious leaders are no different than any other humans will help correct some of the imbalanced social privileges afforded to these religious leaders.  It can also help individuals to think on their own rather than blindly following religious and spiritual leaders who may not always be speaking from a place of divine truth.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

If you haven’t figured it out already from reading previous posts of mine on this blog, I’m about to make it explicit:  There are no sacred cows here.  Except actual sacred cows.  Those I don’t have much to say about, though, so I won’t be discussing them. 

But as far as anything else goes, I’m willing to talk about it.  One of the problems I see in our society as a whole is a lack of willingness to discuss serious physical, emotional and spiritual issues.  As a whole, we prefer to ignore major difficulties and issues.  We clamp down and shut out pain and difficulties both in ourselves and others.  That doesn’t mean we’re an uncaring group of people.  People care.  They just don’t know what to say or what to do most of the time, and so rather than face their fears, they just hide from them.

Through this blog, I hope to put a bunch of ideas out into the mainstream so that others who are seeking information and help can find it.  If you have questions you'd like me to address through this blog, please ask.  I want to promote discussions.  I want to encourage communication.  And most of all, I want to facilitate healing.  Without talking about the difficult issues, I don’t feel healing can happen at deep levels.  Our world needs more people who are brave enough to take on the difficulties in their lives and in the world around them. 

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

One of the quickest turnoffs on a dating website is encountering a highly negative profile.  A guy who starts off his profile by saying, “I don’t date women who have blond hair.  I don't like women who are tall.  Fat women aren’t healthy, and I don’t like them.  Don’t live with your mother either if you message me,” is presenting a very negative vibration to prospective women.  Men aren’t alone in this negativity; many women do it, too.  While most of us do have preferences in what we are looking for in a potential partner, this negative presentation of ideals is likely to drive most candidates away.

There are many who believe that what we think is what we manifest.  If that is true, then it’s best to keep our thoughts as positive as possible.  Even if it’s not true, the expression of positive thoughts can shift our personal views of life by placing an emphasis on what is right rather than what is wrong.  It’s seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty.

An easy example is stating, “I don’t like broccoli.”  Instead, one could state, “I really prefer spinach to broccoli.”  It gives even more information and keeps the sentiment in a positive light.  Rather than saying, “I hate bicycling,” you could suggest, “How about we consider canoeing instead?”

Another school of thought argues that the Universe doesn’t hear the word “no” or “not.” So if you put on your dating profile, “I don’t want to be with anyone who has kids,” you’ll actually end up attracting a lot of people who have children.  Instead, try phrasing your request in a more positive light and without negatives:  “I’d prefer to date people who are childless.”  Instead of saying, “I don’t like conservatives,” you can state, “I find people with a liberal mindset incredibly attractive.”

While these seem like little things, all the little things add up when trying to make one’s life experience more positive.  This is something that is free to do, and it takes very little effort to do once you get in the swing of things. 

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Every day is a surprise. There are confirmations of an interconnectivity and synchronicity which inspire, titillate and confirm the inherent comedy of the universe.  ~Billy Zane

We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding.  Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny.  ~David Richo

There's no such thing as coincidence, I say. It's synchronicity.  ~Raven Kaldera

What is synchronicity? I would describe it as the love child of "it's meant to be" and "what a coincidence."  Synchronicity is based on the belief that things are orchestrated by a higher power in order for things to happen in a meaningful form.  Things that seem coincidental are actually happening for a deeper purpose.

Synchronicity can play out on a relatively low level.  You and a friend might both show up at a movie theater wearing the same dancing friendly outfit because at the last minute you both independently decided that you wanted to change plans from going to the movies to going dancing.  You might be sitting in a coffee shop and look over to notice the person at the next table has the same casual reading that isn't a recent best-seller.  In such a case, you're probably meant to meet and talk to that person for whatever larger reason.  Perhaps it's your new best friend.

Sometimes synchronicity plays out in a much bigger way.  After my youngest was born, I asked my doula to find me a massage therapist who would do outcall because my body was in a lot of pain.  The woman she sent was nice, and I enjoyed the massage.  Many months later, I saw the massage therapist again at a presentation I was giving on infant loss.  Not long after that, I responded to an ad on Craigslist, and the massage therapist turned out to be the poster.  Then her daughter ended up in the same kindergarten class as my daughter at a charter school.  At that point, I surrendered to the Universe and accepted that this woman and I were meant to be friends.  As we got to know each other, we discovered that had I gone to public high school instead of private, we would have graduated from the same high school in the same year in another state!  Clearly our paths were meant to cross in this life for a higher purpose.

In another instance of paths trying to cross multiple times, I used to love a certain road in the town where my grandparents lived.  When we would visit at Christmas time, I used to love to drive on that road but for no particular reason.  It's just a typical suburban road with homes along it.  I later learned that my boyfriend and eventual husband lived along that road at that time!  Later, as a freshman in high school, I went to an educational summer camp.  My parents decided I would be taking physics though I really wanted to take the pottery class.  It turns out my eventual husband was in that pottery class.  We finally managed to actually cross paths at a youth group at his high school that same fall.

Even Google somehow seems to be tied into higher powers' control of synchronicity, or maybe Google has taken over the higher powers.  Either could make sense!  ;)  During a personal message I received a while ago, I saw a man who looked like John Astin driving a 1950s convertible car on a rural British road.  I did quite a bit of Googling on John Astin, but I couldn't find anything that made any sense with regard to this message.  A few days later, I typed "William Clark" plus a few other search terms into Google as I worked on another part of the message.  One of the first hits was William Clark Gable, known to most of us as the actor Clark Gable.  As I looked at his picture, suddenly everything in the message made sense.  I'd mistaken Clark Gable for John Astin!  Sometimes translating messages is a little too much like playing Pictionary with the other side.  However, I'm grateful for when Google helps me to figure things out.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery. ~Dante Alighieri

With all due respect, I have to disagree with the great Dante on this one.  There are two ways that one could interpret the quote.  In the first, Dante could be saying that when one is feeling miserable, it is painful to recall what it feels like to be happy.  In the second, Dante could be saying that the presence of happiness in an otherwise miserable time is sorrowful.  Both of these are incorrect in my opinion.

Laughter is healing:  We all know the adage, “Laughter is the best medicine.”  Scientific studies have proven the healing power of laughter time and again.  Our society has taught us, though, that in times of death and loss, we should be somber.  Laughter is falsely seen as an improper response even though it can be quite healthy.  Recently, Jenny Lawson (a.k.a.The Bloggess) wrote about her grandmother-in-law’s death, and on her Facebook page she described, “That amazing moment when … you find yourself in an unexpected room full of people who make you hold new babies, and make you eat too much food, and make you laugh even when you're crying. Nights like these are the ones that get you through mornings like tomorrow.”  I’ve also found that laughter in times of grief helps make the whole experience more bearable.

One of my strongest memories of my grandmother’s wake 23 years ago is of going out to dinner with family during the viewing the night before the funeral.  My two year old cousin sat at the table eating salsa with a spoon as though it was an entree, leaving us all in tears of laughter.  The release was surely good for us during an otherwise stressful time.  Likewise, it was my two year old niece-in-law who sent us all into laughter during the funeral mass of her great-grandmother twenty years ago.  Someone was speaking of the deceased’s family including her two great-grandchildren, and my niece-in-law piped up quite loudly so that all in the church could hear, “That’s me!”  It was a welcome relief in the somber grief of the service.

When it came to the time of my own daughter’s death, a moment of laughter also remains one of my strongest memories.  When my ex-husband and I were at the funeral home signing the release papers for cremation, there was a clause verifying that the deceased did not have a pacemaker because pacemakers can explode during cremation.  To the outside viewer, including the funeral director who was assisting us, there is absolutely nothing funny about that.  However, for some reason, it sent my ex and I into peals of laughter.  It became one of the funniest things we’d ever read.  The stress simply had tipped us over the edge, and we desperately needed to laugh until we cried.

Oscar Wilde stated, "Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one"; I agree with him.  Some of best funerals and memorial services are those that include much laughter as the life of the deceased is truly celebrated.  When I die, I hope my memorial service will be filled with much laughter and joy as friends and family remember the good times we spent together. 

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

(This is another really long post.  Apologies in advance!  As always, I am not a medical doctor.  This information is based on my personal experiences and should not be substituted for medical diagnosis or treatment.  Please speak to your health care providers about your personal situation.)

I have had lifetime IgE mediated allergies to pretty much any non-food item that I get tested for.  I was first skin prick tested at age four, and then again at age 21.  Trees, grasses, weeds, dander, dust, molds… all of it makes me miserable.  Lyme has increased the severity of my allergies as well due to the impact on my immune system.  Once again, this is one of those areas where my situation is severe enough that natural medicine can help, but it alone is not enough.

The best way to think about allergies is using a glass of water.  Pretend that glass is your immune system.  If you are someone who is genetically prone to allergies as I am, our glass is always half-full.  If you live with pets whom you are allergic to and/or aren’t diligent about dusting, add some more water to the glass.  Then add in a dose of seasonal pollen, and your cup will begin overflowing, as will your sinuses.  Austin is a particularly miserable place for allergens as we don’t have  a single month all year where something isn’t high in the counts.

So what can be done aside from OTC and prescription allergy medicines and nasal sprays?  There are quite a few other things to try that fall under the categories of Western medicine, natural options, lifestyle changes and adaptions, and dietary changes.

Western Medicine

I've found that most over the counter allergy medicines don't have enough oomph in them for me.  Claritin worked for a while, but then stopped.  Benedryl works well for me and doesn't make me drowsy, but it's not very long lasting. I have switched to long acting prescription medications.  I'm on an older prescription medicine that has a generic and which seems to work quite well for my body.

Many years ago I did allergy shots; they too were incredibly helpful until my immune system went completely wonky.  Then they made things much worse, probably because of preservatives.  It is possible to get preservative free allergy shots if you work with an allergist who is aware of chemical sensitivities (which unfortunately, is not most of them).  Allergy shots take a while to kick in so they don't provide immediate relief.

Natural Options

There are various herbal compounds that can help.  Many of them contain nettles which, ironically, I am allergic to.  Most of my practitioners recommend D-Hist.  This supplement requires that one does a higher loading dose for several weeks and then drops down to a regular daily dosage which may then need to be increased again during times of seasonal attack.  

Another herbal remedy I have successfully used is Bi Yan Pian which is for the lung meridian and helps with allergies and asthma.  They are very tiny, easy to swallow pills, and they helped my oak induced asthma quite a bit until I started reacting to them. Check with your acupuncturist or Chinese medical practitioner before taking them, though. 

Body work can help many with allergies, especially acupuncture and chiropractic adjustments.  Unfortunately, they don’t give me much relief. 

The Allergena homeopathic drops that are available locally at People's and Whole Foods are amazing.  They work in the same mechanism as allergy shots.  They helped me greatly for a while, but my immune system also freaked out about those eventually.  These would be easy to give a young child with a health care provider’s supervision and approval.  Because of how they work with the immune system, it is recommended you begin these before seasonal allergies get bad.  That means if you have trouble with cedar fever, now is the time to start the drops before the pollen begins in about six weeks.

One group of local chiropractors will make an energetic homeopathic for allergens. They muscle test using local allergens to figure out what you are allergic to and then create the homeopathic.  Then, you take several drops of the homeopathic daily.  This helped so much when it was working. Then it just flat out stopped working as my immune system figured out how to defeat it, but for the year of relief I got, it was really helpful.  

if your allergies suddenly become much worse, you may want to talk to your alternative health care provider about adrenal fatigue.  Extreme amounts of emotional or physical stress put a great deal of pressure on the adrenal glands which in turn can make allergies worse.  Lyme has done this to my body as well.

I know many who swear by lavender essential oil for allergy, but this is not something I have experienced success with. 

Neti pots are popular with many people who have allergies.  They allow one to use salt water to rinse out the sinuses.  Getting the right angle is crucial to making sure you don't choke on the solution, but once you figure it out, the process is really easy and can be quite soothing.  Keeping eye contact with yourself in the mirror is part of what helps get the angle correct.  I recommend NOT using tap water not because of the very rare risk of bacteria that can kill you but because the chlorine in the water can be very irritating to the nasal passages in someone who is sensitive.  Unfortunately, I'm one of the people who finds that using a neti pot makes things worse for me in the long run:  I hypothesize that the water in my sinuses actually promotes fungal growth which creates additional pain and misery.  As a result, I've given up on using one.  Neti pots are available at Whole Foods and People's Pharmacy locally as well as at many other health stores and online.

Lifestyle Adaptions and Changes

For some people, including me, spontaneous nosebleeds are a side effect of allergies.  It’s not a lot of fun to wake up in the middle of the night with blood dripping out of your nose.  Mine are always caused by mold, but for others, different allergens can be the culprit. Some people find that using a humidifier helps reduce their nosebleeds.  If you take this approach, be sure that you are cleaning the humidifier frequently and well so that it doesn't contribute to the mold and allergy problems.

When it comes to dust, it’s a neverending battle.  Dust allergies are pretty common amongst those with allergies and asthma.  Vacuuming well with a high powered vacuum should happen weekly in any area with carpeting in order to minimize dust.  Getting rid of the carpet is best in the long run if you own your home.  

Line drying laundry is actually not good for those with allergies because it means all your linens and clothes are picking up more pollen. Use a dryer with heat to kill the dust mites.  Bed linens need to be washed weekly if you have dust allergies.  If I don't wash my linens weekly, I pay for it. At my worst of my illness, I had to wash the linens every 3-4 days.  Any stuffed animals that a child with allergies sleeps with also need to be washed on a regular basis.  The dust covers that you can get for pillowcases and mattresses really do help, too.  I avoid the vinyl ones because they off-gas some nasty chemicals which is not good for the immune system or the body in general.

I also find it necessary to wash my hair any time I’ve been outside to minimize pollen on my body and allergic reactions.  Opening the windows, even on gorgeous days, is unfortunately not an option for me as it just makes my allergies much worse.

I am allergic to pet dander.  I love cats, but I cannot be around them without being miserable within 30 minutes even on antihistimines.  I’d love to have a cat as a pet, but as I’ve told my kids, if we get a cat, we’d have to get rid of me.  I am also allergic to dogs, but I can tolerate some breeds better than others.  I had beagles and beagle mixes all my life as they are one breed I do better with; long-haired dogs like golden retrievers are miserable for me.  If you have pets and someone in the household is allergic to them, the pets should stay out of the bedroom of the allergic person.  This can be accomplished in several ways.  We put a baby gate up in our bedroom door to keep the dogs out but to allow us to keep the door open at night; we had to get a taller baby gate after our one beagle rapidly demonstrated his hurdling ability.  If you have cats, a screen door on the bedroom door can help keep them out.

Higher end HEPA filters such as those made by Austin Air and AllerAir can help with dust and pollen.  Some of the lower end brands have formaldehyde in the filters which doesn't help with allergies especially in the chemically sensitive. However, at my worst, I was still reacting to even the high end brand filters. 

Going completely fragrance free can reduce the stress on the immune system and help decrease the impact of allergies, asthma and eczema.  Synthetic fragrances can really mess with the lungs, skin and sinuses.  Be aware that "unscented" actually doesn't mean fragrance free:  It can mean that masking fragrances are added to cover up any odor.  (This is also true with "low odor" paints which are not low VOC paints by definition: They just have something in them to make them stink less.)  For me, I have to use all natural products in addition to using fragrance free products as my body can’t tolerate petroleum based products.  All major brands of conventional detergents, for example, are petroleum based.

Dietary Changes

In order to reduce the overall stress on your immune system, eating organic can help greatly.  When I began eating organic, I was able to drastically reduce the amount of antihistimines I was taking for several years.  The change in diet also stopped the frequent sinus infections I used to battle. 

Removing foods which you are sensitive or allergic to can also help reduce the stress on the immune system and minimize the impact of airborne allergens on your body.  Dairy and gluten are common allergy and asthma triggers for many people.  

There are also foods that can "cross-react."  This essentially means that the immune system sees these foods as close to the pollens that you react to, and thus, eating those foods increases one's reaction to that pollen.  There are many lists of these foods around the internet such as this one and  this one.  You may find that eliminating certain foods while related seasonal allergies are peaking may help your overall health.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

See how nature- trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.  ~Mother Teresa

Anyone who suffers from migraines or similar head pain will immediately understand this post from their perspective of suffering.  When your head feels as though it’s being smashed apart by a hammer, silence is absolutely necessary.  Most who suffer from migraines prefer a dark solitary room as they try to sleep off their misery.

When recovering from an acute or chronic illness, silence can play a similar healing role.  When I was at my sickest, I could not tolerate noise.  When I worked on my computer, I needed silence. When I drove in the car, I needed silence.  My body was so wracked with pain and my brain so overwhelmed with the constant internal stimulation that it simply could not handle the external noise as well.  As my health improved, I slowly saw a return of music into my life.  I started by being able to tolerate calm classical music.  Slowly but surely, I returned to calm pop music as well.  Even now, though, on days when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I return to silence, meditation music or classical music in the car, while working on my computer, or while in my sauna.   My body needs that silence or low key energy to heal.

Silence can play a similar role in emotional healing.  Many of us don’t like to be alone with our thoughts:  Being alone with them means we have to actually pay attention to them and confront them.  It’s easier to ignore that nagging voice in the back of your head that wants you to work through your spiritual and emotional issues if one has loud music and other surrounding noises helping block it all.  Silence can force us to face what we need to work on in order to heal.

Spending time alone in silence can be vital to healing on all levels.  This is one of the many reasons that some spiritual practices include silent retreats for days, weeks, even months.  Others take on commitments of silence that last for years.  In that silence, it becomes easier to hear the higher powers that surround us.  We can use their assistance to heal those emotional and physical pains that are dragging us down.

If you are struggling with an issue, be it emotional, physical or spiritual, try spending some time each day in silence even if it is only for a few minutes.  That silence can be spent sitting next to a lake or outdoors listening to the wind blow in the trees.  You might be laying in shavasana in your room on your yoga mat.  You might be simply staring at a lit candle while curled up on the couch.  But take yourself away from your smart phone, your computer, your iPod, your television, and any of the rest of the chaos that is a part of our lives.  You may find the silence more healing than you ever expected.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

(This is a cross-post from the archives of my much neglected food blog.)

When my twins were two, we began trick or treating with them.  However, they had food sensitivities to dairy, soy, and corn at that point.  If you read the labels on most mainstream candy, that pretty much eliminates everything.  Furthermore, neither of them liked chocolate until recently.  That was definitely not from my part of their gene pool.  To  top it all off, I did not want to be loading them up with artificial flavors and colors since one of them did not do well with those ingredients.  So we were left in a quandary about how to do trick or treating when they couldn’t or wouldn’t eat anything they received.

That first year, my solution was to plant “treats” for them at a few neighbors’ houses.  Books, pencils, erasers—that kind of thing.  We went to the houses, did our trick or treating, and then my son announced, “This is fun!  Let’s do more houses.”  Um, well, no.  I didn’t have any more “safe” houses for us to go to.  We lured them home to look at their new goodies instead.

The next year, we let them collect candy, but we had prepped them in advance that they would “get” to trade in their candy for a new and wonderful toy when they got back to our house.  Since they never really ate candy, the trade was an obvious upgrade from their point of view.  They were really happy with their new toys.

And so it continued for many years with their younger brother eventually joining in the fun.  They would collect candy and trade it in for toys.  We would take the candy they collected, put it out in a bowl on our front porch, and let the local teenagers take it away.  One year the teenagers took the bowl which irked me to no end, so now we leave the candy in a paper bag.  Another year the teenagers failed to take the candy at all which utterly surprised me.  I offered it up on the free section of Craigslist, and within 10 minutes of posting, a local homeschooling teenager had collected it off of my front porch.  I know there are other options like taking it to a local dentist who collects the candy for sending to troops abroad.  Some years Mobile Loaves and Fishes has accepted donations to distribute with the meals they provide for those in need.  However, with my illness, I just haven’t had the energy to do more than put it on the porch and let someone else take it away!

In more recent years as the food sensitivities have waned and my kids have gotten older, we’ve also started buying organic candy from the bulk bins at Whole Foods and including that as part of the trade-in deal.  They surrender most of their loot for organic candy and a game.

However you celebrate, be safe.

copyright 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Families are created in many ways, and all of them are perfectly acceptable.  While parts of our society seem stuck on the archaic and unrealistic notion that families should be one man and one woman married for their entire lives plus their biological children, most of us acknowledge families often don’t look like that.  Divorce, death, remarriage, partnering, fostering and adoption all create novel family units.

Yet despite the fact that most people know as many families that don’t fit the traditional notions as those who do, people often feel a need to be nosy and ask questions that are really none of their business.  Such questions are invasive and generally shouldn’t be asked.  If someone you meet volunteers information about their family structure and how it was created, then it’s obvious they are ok with talking about the subject, and it’s ok to ask reasonable questions.  However, if they don’t bring it up, then it’s not fair game. 

I’ve seen this with regard to families I know with non-heterosexual parents.  When a lesbian couple announces one of them is pregnant, it’s pretty obvious that the conception didn’t happen in the “old fashioned” married heterosexual couple way.  However, it’s no one’s business but theirs where they got the sperm from.  Furthermore, despite what the legal paperwork may say in some states, they are both the mom regardless of who carried the child.  I know one lesbian couple where each gestated one of their two children, but I can never remember which mom carried which child.  And you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  They are both the moms.  They both love and care for their kids, and that’s all that matters.

The same is true when it comes to adoption.  In cases of interracial adoption, it’s sometimes quite obvious that the child isn’t the biological offspring of the parents, and yet it’s irrelevant.  Unless they bring up the topic, it’s completely inappropriate to ask where or how they “got” their child.

In my own case, I found an enormous number of people, especially complete strangers, considered the topic of my twins’ conception to be a suitable topic for public conversation.  Most people presume that twins are a result of fertility treatments, and they crudely ask if the twins are natural.  All children are natural regardless of how they are conceived.  If I was in an ornery mood when people would ask if the twins were a result of IVF or Clomid, I would reply no, that my then-husband and I just had too much sex.  That usually shut them up pretty quickly, possibly because they began to realize other people’s sex lives really are none of their business.

I also had quite a few people make completely inappropriate remarks about my subsequent pregnancy after my twins.  One person blatantly said to me, “Oops!” when I announced my pregnancy.  Um, no.  It was a planned pregnancy, and regardless if it was or wasn’t, that’s no one’s business but mine and my partner’s.  Another person asked, “But why?  You’ve already got one of each.”  This is another foot-in-mouth comment not only because it ignores my deceased daughter in the equation, but it also functions on an erroneous presumption that the perfect family consists of one male and one female child.

All of this applies to families without children as well.  It's nobody's business but theirs if and when couples decide to have children.  People should not expect couples to have children at any given point.  If couples or even individuals choose to do so, great.  If not, then that's often a decision they've made with great thought, and it's the right decision for them.  If it was a decision made because of infertility and not by choice, then the couple definitely doesn't need the pressure of others asking, "So when are you going to have a baby?"  Once again, if, how and when a family decides to conceive is not a question that should be broached.

When someone joyfully announces they are pregnant, the best response is, “I’m happy for you” or “Congratulations!”  When someone introduces you to their children, the best comments are along the lines of “What a beautiful family.”  There’s no need to comment on who looks like whom or to ask how the family is formed.  If a couple doesn't have children, that doesn't make them any less of a family.  Just presume the family exists because of love, and that’s all the information you need.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

For most humans, our instinct is to be independent.  For those who are parents, we see this starting in our children starting at a very young age.  By the time most kids are two, they are very determined to do almost everything by themselves, a frustration for parents who don’t want to be slowed down by toddlers whose skills don’t match their desires for independence.

Our society promotes that independence as well.  The Protestant work ethic which is engrained in our nation’s consciousness dictates that everyone should work long and hard to achieve financial, career and social success.  Strength is rewarded; the weak fall to the bottom of the heap.  Darwinism confirms it.

Beyond those messages, the broader ideas of feminism have shaped many of us as we came of age.  Feminism taught us that women don’t need men to be whole people.  Women don’t need to be dependent on men. Women can do anything they set their minds to.

Except when they can’t.

All of us need help at times.  When our arms are full, we generally don’t cringe at the idea of someone holding a door for us:  We generally appreciate it.  But what happens when we need someone to hold that door open for us all the time because our arms are too weak to open heavy doors? What happened to the idea of the independent, able-bodied woman who didn’t need a man (or any other person) to open doors for her?

For many people, the aging process can be scary, and elderly people are downright terrifying.  Aside from fears of death, the general fear of the elderly is in part because it is so hard for us to see the decline of those we love.  We remember those people as able-bodied providers who took care of us when we were young.  They could do anything, or so we thought.  And now that they are older, it’s unbelievably hard to watch that role change.  For those who are losing their ability to care for themselves, unless they’ve lost their cognitive abilities along the way, it’s a very defeating situation to require so much help.

Most of us accept that the elderly need help despite our discomfort with it.  Yet very few of us really imagine that in our twenties we might be disabled and require assistance at a similar level.  Asking for help can become a very big challenge.  One is still youthful but no longer independent.  Suddenly help is necessary for almost everything in life. 

For me, during the worst years of my disability, I was unable to go grocery shopping or shopping at all for that matter.  I didn’t enter a store for six years.  When I finally was able to go back into Whole Foods for a brief trip, it was such an amazing wonderland.  I still have weeks when I don’t have the energy to handle a trip through Whole Foods and have to get someone else to do it for me.  Even now, after I’ve been in stores again for four years, I still value each trip and see it as such a privilege that I am able to buy groceries for me and my children without physical assistance.

The need for help often extends further for those dealing with chronic or acute illness.  Most of us have struggled with a jewelry clasp at some point, but when one’s hands become arthritic, help is necessary any time one wants to wear jewelry.  And it goes further.  Zipping zippers.  Tying shoes.  All these seemingly little tasks suddenly require asking for help.  When it extends to even more personal things such as getting in and out of the bathtub, asking for help can be truly demoralizing to the person now faced with disability.  The disabled individual must surrender their dignity and their independence in order to survive.  That’s very difficult to do on an emotional level.

It becomes even harder to ask for help when requests are met with bitterness or when it seems like offers aren’t genuine.  Some well-meaning people offer help only to then turn requests for help into means of applying guilt trips.  Caring for the disabled can be a taxing job, one that most people don’t knowingly sign up for.   It’s not hard to understand how one can run out of patience with helping someone who used to be self-sufficient, but it’s likewise very easy to know why being that person who has to ask for help is just as much of a life challenge.

The best ways to help those who are disabled are with genuine, specific offers.  If you’d like to help a friend by listening, then tell them that you’re available whenever they want to call, text, e-mail or Skype.  If you want to help by going for groceries, let them know that you go to the grocery store almost every Saturday and are happy to pick up what they need.  Specific offers generally are more likely to be accepted than general offers of “if you need something, let me know.”  Likewise, if someone asks you for help in a way you just can’t give right now for whatever reason, it’s ok to say no.  You have to take care of yourself and your family first before reaching out to others.  If you can help them find someone else to assist them, that’s often helpful, though.

Likewise, don’t presume disabled people always need help.  Ask before you push someone’s wheelchair without their consent.  Ask before you start cleaning someone’s house while visiting.  The person may be having a rough day but may feel confident they can take care of the tasks before them tomorrow.  Having other people presume they always need help can be demoralizing to those who are disabled.

I’ve also found that higher level help—from spirit guides, angels, and whatever higher sources of power you might believe in—is there, though not always in obvious form.  I’ve learned that we often can’t access that help without asking.  My spirit guides are always willing to assist me with things that will help in my protection or growth.  However, because free will comes into play, they often won’t step in until I explicitly tell them, “I really need your help with this issue.”  I have to make the choice to let them help me.

I have always found it so much easier to give than receive.  My disability has forced me to surrender to accepting help from others.  I still stubbornly try to do things on my own on occasion when I’d be better off asking for help, but I have gotten much better about accepting help when I desperately need it.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Over the past few years, I’ve spent quite a lot of time finding myself.  I love the song “Wake Me Up” by Avicii for its lines, “All this time I was finding myself/ And I didn't know I was lost.”  When I started on this journey, I was seeking inner peace and healing from trials I have endured in my life.  I really had no clue how lost I was.  I never expected that I would end up changing my life course completely.  However, I am so grateful for the results this journey has brought me.

Avicii also sings, “So wake me up when it's all over/ When I'm wiser and I'm older.”  When the road is rough, sometimes I wish that was true.  I really did sleep through many years of my life when I was so sick.  I was in bed 22+ hours a day, and sometimes I was sleeping 16-18 hours of those.  It was typical for me to sleep 14+ hours a day.  My body wasn’t strong enough to function any more than that. 

However, it’s those struggles of becoming wiser as we become older that make us appreciate what we have and which teach us lessons.  If I woke up tomorrow and had the life back that I had twelve years ago, I doubt I could be happy in it.  I have learned too much and changed radically.  If I had missed those years of struggle, I’m also not sure I would be able to value what I have now.  Regardless, hypotheticals like this are really pointless to argue:  We can only face the reality we have.  I’m grateful for the changes I’ve made in my life, and despite the excruciating pain along the way, I’m grateful for the wiser person I am now.

I also really appreciate the lines, “I tried carrying the weight of the world/ But I only have two hands.”  I think far too many of us have tried carrying the weight of the world.  It doesn’t work well.  Chronic illness taught me to let go of so many things.  I’ve narrowed my focus and have learned to change the world in small ways every day.  I am making a difference, just in a way than I ever imagined before.

When I watched the video for this song for the first time a few days ago, I was struck by the scenario of the females trying to fit in a place they didn’t belong.  That truly was me for so many years, trying to pretend I wasn’t an intuitive and pretending that I was happy in a marriage where I wasn’t.  It’s a huge risk to step outside of what you know to search for the place you belong, but it’s worth it in the long run.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

One of the phrases that I’ve had said to me over and over throughout the years is “you’re so strong.”  People mean this as a compliment. They admire my fortitude when faced with devastating or seemingly impossible circumstances.  However, this is one of those phrases that no matter how well meant, it’s hurtful.

Those who are “so strong” are facing trials that seem insurmountable.  They keep putting one foot in front of the other.  When someone says, “I could never do what you’re doing,” the only polite response one can have is, “I hope you never have to.”  Telling someone that you could never handle what they’re handling is not helpful.  That struggling person never thought they could handle it either until their world was turned upside down.  Regardless of what one believes about how much we choose our destiny in this world, painful struggles are just that:  Painful.  No matter how much positive spin one puts on them, one still is dealing with arduous issues that they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.

Some people are better than others at masking their pain and suffering.  Maybe it’s an innate talent.  Maybe it does have to do with inner strength.  Maybe they’ve survived a lifetime of abuse and have learned in a dysfunctional way how to put on a smile for everyone they meet so that no one knows the “dirty” secrets they are protecting.  In many cases, however, those “strong” people you are admiring are crumbling on the inside.  They’re using every bit of strength to keep themselves going each day to fight one more day of a horrible disease or one more day without a job or one more day without a loved one physically present in their lives anymore. 

The next time you want to tell someone “you’re so strong,” stop and think what you really want to say to them.  If what you’re really thinking is, “I’m so glad I don’t have to face the hell you are in,” then withhold the thoughts you’re having.  If what you want to say is, “You’re an amazing person, and you bring so much good into my life,” then pay them the true compliment.  Meanwhile, recognize that what you are seeing on the surface may not be the true reality of what is going on inside any person in a difficult situation.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance.com