IT ISN'T 'ROCKET SURGERY'!

When my friend used that expression the other day, I laughed myself silly. She did so on purpose: combining two well-worn phrases that speak to how easy something is supposed to be when compared with something that is really difficult.

I laugh every time I even think about my new favorite phrase. And I've been thinking about it alot.

Surgery is the removal of something that doesn't belong, is life-threatening, impedes something vital...it is cutting out a toxic thing.

A rocket is meant for infinity and beyond, goes to the moon, shoots to the stars...it is fireworks in the night sky.

I would like you to think now about what stands in the way of your happiness, peace of mind, serenity, joy, love, calmness, accomplishment, acceptance of self. Think about how you would feel, could feel, if you cut out that toxic thought or belief that roots you to the very spot in which you stand.

Cut out the disempowering meme. Think differently. Feel your potential. Immerse in your purpose. Envelop yourself in unconditional love and take the rocket ride of your life.

Perhaps all happiness requires is a little 'rocket surgery'.

GRATEFUL AS CAN BE

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day.

I am grateful that I'm going to my friend Melanie's house!

She is a wonderful cook, has a beautiful home, is the matriarch of a lovely family...sons, daughters-in-law, grandkids, and friends galore. I feel lucky to be invited even though we are eating in her garage! Actually, Melanie has a garage floor clean enough to eat off of, holiday or not. I don't have to cook: just show up with some gluten-free corn bread stuffing.

I am grateful for Chef Susan, who made the gluten-free stuffing!

Susan is so gifted...as a chef and as a writer, intelligent with a sense of humor that can keep me laughing until the tears roll down my cheeks! She is the mother of wonderful twin girls, also

intelligent, with a sense of humor, and talented who just happen to be on the spectrum for Autism. Listening to Susan talk about this journey she and her husband and daughters are on has been extremely humbling. Some things are achingly funny. Some things just make me ache. I admire her patience and dedication to giving these girls the very best care and education, even if the stress often wrecks havoc on her physical and emotional body.

I am grateful my daughter is healthy.

Kelsey will be 40 years old on November 28th. I cannot say my mothering skills were finely honed. Many times, I can say I have felt like a failure as a mom. But being a mother has been an opportunity to know a love like no other. Though I am not sure that I would actually throw myself in front of a bus to save her, she is the only person on earth for whom I would even think about doing such a thing! Motherhood made me a less selfish person than I would have been otherwise. There is not much I ask of the Universe: keep my child healthy and safe from harm. Thank you.

I am also grateful that our mother-daughter relationship has flourished in the past four years, that we are growing into an unconditional love for each other, that we do not need to place demands on each other because we are secure in the love we share.

Would that every parent-child relationship could be so. It is so freeing for both parent and child. The letting-go on the part of the parent does not create distance. It actually draws the child closer. You want to be together. You don't get together because you feel you have to. I have my kid to thank for this...she set the standard to create boundaries in our relationship which led to this freedom and acceptance.

I am grateful for my independence, that I am finally growing up!

Trust me, I have fought it tooth and nail. I have been a loner who needed to not be alone! Now that I have chosen to be alone, there is such a sense of peace in my life. It has also given me the opportunity to learn to take care of myself, make reasoned, thoughtful decisions. I have taken responsibility for myself. I'm not perfect at it, but I am grabbing the bull by the horns. Sometimes, the bull wins, but I'm fighting the good fight and I do like a tight fitting pant!

I am grateful to my former husband for creating a secure life for our family when I so needed someone to take care of me.

I am also grateful for the manner in which he allowed me to leave our marriage.

I am grateful for my sense of humor! Period.

I am grateful that I still recognize I have work to do on myself and have the energy and spirit to do it.

My path to health and self-acceptance has not been a straight one. It has taken twists and turns, many times screeching to a dead halt. However, I have never given up on myself nor the hope that I could find the key to unlock a door of my own making. The human spirit is a remarkable thing. I have often likened it to an intricately woven spider's web...able to withstand buffeting winds yet fragile enough to be destroyed by the flick of a wrist. I don't know why some spirits can be dashed and extinguished, but I am ever so thankful that I can persevere.

I am grateful that I have work to do - grace through purpose. My business partner is dedicated, talented, a skilled coach and trainer.

Thank you, Scott.

I am grateful for the beauty I see in the lives around me!

Lauren and Roland in a new house, with a new baby...Emma taking course work which will allow her to fulfill her dream...Suzanne and Scott beginning their life together after so many years together...Dan being healed enough to find the perfect new dog...Legacy clients reclaiming their health so that they can imagine life uncompromised by pain and injury.

Hope abounds. People persevere. Life is good.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

FAKE OR THE REAL THING?

No, I not talking about boobs although, in Dallas, to not have breast implants takes a lot of courage!

I'm talking about food.

Every time we grocery shop and put a product in our shopping cart, we are sending a message to ourselves and to others: this is who I am...this is what I am made of...this is a core value.

If I choose margarine instead of organic butter or Ghee, it's like I am wearing a gaudy, bawdy T-shirt that says "I don't give a %@*^ about what goes in my body and I'm proud of it". Essentially, if I buy a food product that is actually something that was created in a laboratory instead of by nature, I am saying that I am fine with ingesting petrol-chemical products that have no food value and may be seriously toxic to my system. I am also saying that I am okay with these poisons being on the market so that others can feed them to their families.

But I'm not okay with it. When it comes to the state of child health in America, I am really not okay with it.

The Dallas Morning News ran an article last week that stated it is now a recommendation that children be tested for high cholesterol. This is insanity, folks.

What I really don't understand is how intelligent people with the wealth of information on hand about food, chemicals in the food, in the soil, nutritional needs, and the statistics on childhood diabetes (now this cholesterol thing) can continue to buy into the American C.R.A.P. Diet - Conventional...Refined...Additives...Preservatives.

The only reason I can come up with that explains this behavior is that their minds have been impaired because they have been eating fake their entire lives. I may sound like a broken record but "Eat cleanly. Think clearly. Live fully!"

We need real food in order to run our hormonal, digestive, cleansing, and neurological pathways. Garbage in, garbage out. Do you want your blood cells, the millions created every day, to be the stuff of iced tea sweetened with the chemical called aspartame, or pure, un-chlorinated water? Do you want your sex hormones to be made from something that came out of a petri dish or something that has the natural building blocks our body needs?

http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/questions-and-misconceptions-on-fats-and-oils

Most people wouldn't talk up the bogus art piece they purchased or that the five-carat diamond they are wearing is a fake. Many women who do choose to have plastic surgery deny it. People don't want to advertise that what they have or do isn't real. But when you run a boxed or canned food through the check out line at the supermarket, your T-shirt says "Fake as a fake can be."

Eat better. Feel better. Look better. Teach your children the difference by supporting their chance to thrive in an increasingly toxic world. Live more authentically because you are eating that way.

You are what eat. Eat real food.

And, by the way, my boobs are real...just saying, though that's not saying much!

What iPod Can Teach Us About Ourselves

In a 2006 interview with Newsweek, Steve Jobs said: "Look at the design of a lot of consumer products - they're really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often-times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions."

Substitute yourself for the iPod.

Think about it.

As we have 'survived' our lives, we have made ourselves very complicated products...layer after layer of personae, each with its light and shadow sides, some recognized and honored, others despised and hidden even from ourselves. In an effort to become whole, become happier, live more authentically, we do attempt to peel off these layers like peeling off the layers of an onion. Sometimes, it is too painful. Sometimes, we are too invested in our "story". Sometimes, we are afraid that if we peel away too much, there won't be anything left of us. Sometimes, we give up because it is too difficult to "live with the problem" until we are better equipped to craft a solution.

But if we persevere, if we have a good 'coach' or mentor, we are able to arrive at a very elegant and simple self.

This is our true self. This is the person we are born to be.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.

I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT DEATH...

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2011

...about life. And sacrifice.

More than likely, on this tenth year anniversary of 9/11, I am not the only one doing so.

I remember being in New York City after the terrorist attack, seeing Fire Stations in the Tribeca area bearing the tributes to those first responders: public servants who might have thought twice about what they were rushing toward, but did it anyway.

Two of my cousins - in high school when I was born - became firemen. Later, one moved to Alaska and became a police officer, not on horseback or in a squad car, but in a single engine plane. He flew his beat. Coming home from work one day, he flew into a freakish snow storm not forecast and unusual for that time of the year. His plane went down and he was killed. Bobby was larger than life to me - a beautiful man who was a body-builder, a mountain man born in the Rockies and happier in the wilderness than in civilization, a man who died doing what he loved. There is a kind of peace in that for me.

One definition of "sacrifice" is the surrender or loss of something in order to gain an objective.

This morning, I read the story of an off-duty NYC fire fighter, who, while driving to play golf, saw the first plane hit the Tower. He turned around and drove toward the city, but unable to get through the Tunnel by car, he abandoned his vehicle and ran through the Tunnel to the Towers. He lost his life that day ten years ago. I think about all those who went into that hell as others were trying to get away from it as fast as they could. (His family established the Tunnel to Towers 5K race in his honor and millions of dollars have been raised for those in need...a wonderful remembrance of this man.)

Giving your life because your job may require it is the ultimate sacrifice, but I have been reminded over the years that sacrifices are made daily for those we love. My friend, Kenny, loved his family. When his architectural firm fell on hard times, he moved to Los Angeles, leaving his wife and two kids in Dallas, in order to take a lesser position so he could feed his family and send his kids to college. He didn't want to leave, but he sacrificed his needs for those of his family. Men (and now women in the military) have been forced to do this through the ages.

Which brings me to Karlis. He was on the Russian plane that crashed into the Volga River on Wednesday. He was on that plane, with the rest of his hockey team, because he made the choice to leave his expectant wife and two daughters in the States in order to sign a player's contract that would insure the financial safety of a family he loved. This has been an ugly week.

But life goes on...

...as it should.

I think about my own death. Of course, I can laugh at the Woody Allen line: "I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." I don't want to die; I'll hate missing out on the things that will happen after I'm gone! In reality, I don't want to be forgotten, but would I want my daughter's life to stop just because mine had? Absolutely not.

Memory is not always accurate...we may forget some of the details, embellish others, have selective recall about certain events and people in our lives. Every person that has truly been a part of our experience here has left an imprint on us. They are carried with us into everything we experience as we go forward. The term "washboard abs" always makes me think of my friend Kenny, because he had them and he knew I loved them! People who met Karlis briefly through the business I am a part of have emailed condolences not only to me and my partner, but for us to pass along to his family...he was such a good man and they were struck by the force of his goodness. Those things do not die in us because the person was taken away from us.

I have been thinking about death...

...about life and sacrifice.

But mostly, about remembrance: a sacred act.

KISS YOUR BABIES...

...AND TELL SOMEONE YOU LOVE THEM, because life is short.

Life might be likened to a spider's web: intricate, delicate, beautiful, strong, complex, whimsical...

...able to be destroyed by the flick of the wrist.

We get so caught up in our daily routines we often forget that our time here is not a given, to paraphrase Alicia Keys. There are no guarantees. What we do have is this moment in time. What we do with it has the potential to be so meaningful, so loving, so compassionate, so REAL...

...or so ugly, hurtful, mean-spirited.

If what you said right now was going to be the last words you uttered, what would you want them to be? If what you experienced with the person in front of you was going to be the last thing they experienced, what would you want that to be?

"Every day here is a gift".

Rest in peace, Karlis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kārlis_Skrastiņš

WELL, MAYBE NOT EXACTLY...

My blogs are usually personal, reflecting some troubling aspect of a life lesson that I am attempting to get a handle on.

Many times I have said that there is no unique human experience and many readers have commented that they felt I was reading their minds when I wrote about what I was grappling with. But I was wrong about that.

More specifically, I should have said there is no unique human emotion. We all experience anger, sadness, love, fear...we may or may not share an experience that creates that emotion in us.

I remember being in a department store with my three year-old daughter. I was buying a lipstick or something and when I turned around, Kelsey was not in sight. Nowhere. I called her name. No response. She had been right beside me, but I couldn't find her. I started to feel a rising panic as I made small but every widening circles from the make-up counter in search of her. This went on for several minutes - maybe only seconds in reality - as I began to imagine the worst: my child had been taken. I began to get physically ill, praying that she was safe, trying to decide if now was the moment I called store security. And then, there she was, right in front of me, as though she had been there all the time.

I can tell you what that sick fear feels like. I share that emotion with the mother who has had a child taken from a playground or her front yard. Our human experience was not the same, but our initial gut reaction was exactly the same...disbelief, terror, a sickness in the pit of the stomach that cannot be described in words.

There is no unique human emotion. The experiences that create these emotions are what create "our story" as Byron Katie calls our life. The experience is the landscape of our life and that terrain varies from individual to individual. The visceral reaction is the underpinning that connects us in our humanity, just as the earth's crust has a structural foundation upon which mountains, valleys, prairie lands, and the seas rest.

I was lucky. My child was safe, unharmed, probably not even aware of what had happened in that store those few moments. Do I know what the other mother went through as hours grew into days or weeks? Well, not exactly, and yet we are sisters.