LOVE THY BROTHERS/SISTERS AS THY LOVE THYSELF

I don't know how many people read my blog and I don't keep count. But if just one person reads it and something good comes of it I would call it a raging success.

As a result of a recent blog I wrote someone reached out to me and asked me to share a website designed to help us learn how to better Support Black Owned Businesses. So this is what I wanted to utilize this blog for today (click on the link above to access the website).

Please check the website out and share it around. 

If we don't care for one another then what kind of a world are we creating together?

Think about it, please.

In these times it’s even more important for us to be exposed to kindness, compassion, empathy, moral support and love. But because these are such stressful times it’s hard to muster these essentials in our every day lives. While some of us wait for the world to change, some of us understand that the world will never change until enough of us change ourselves, until enough of us choose to BE the change we want to see in the world.

 

There’s an old saying of ‘fake it until you make it’ and it’s been around so long because it works. So, perhaps it’s time for each of us to stop reacting, hating, fearing and suspecting others and begin to fake being kind, being compassionate, being understanding, being forgiving, being generous and supporting other people who need a hand up from someone until it becomes second nature to us.

I’d like to propose a grand experiment. One that quite possibly may help raise us out of our collective despair with the current realities we're all living with. It may not be easy, but in the end, it will be well worth it.

I propose that each of us strongly consider doing one or more or all these things in our every day lives as we move through life. It will take conscious effort, I promise you. But when we do it we will feel better for it, we will feel hope for humanity rise in our souls and we just may be the catalyst for someone else to begin to do the same.

Here’s a few suggestions for you to DO/BE:

1. Be kind to everyone, strangers especially. Smile at people (even if you don't feel like it).
2. Be patient with everyone, strangers especially.
3. Forgive the trespasses of others, understanding that we ourselves are not perfect.
4. Refer to each other as ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ regardless of creed, race, faith or sexual orientation.
5. Listen when others speak, even if we don’t want to hear it or aren’t interested.
6. Reach out to others when they are in distress. Just a shoulder to lean on, an ear listening, can mean so much.
7. Don’t put your expectations on others and accept others as they are; not as you’d like them to be.
8. Look within yourself and have the courage to identify and change your own shortcomings and issues. There's always room for improvement no matter who we are.
9. Be generous of yourself with money if you can but with time, kindness and words of support no matter your financial situation.
10. Believe in the goodness of others, because it is within every human being but is sometimes buried under pain, ignorance and traumas of the past.

I see so many complaining that the world is all f*cked up, that everyone is a bad person, that no one is listening anymore and everyone is hateful but that's NOT true and in each of our hearts we know that's not true. It's just easiest to believe that, easier to believe that than to do our part in manifesting the changes we want so desperately to see in the world around us.

Each of us have the power to reach others we may never meet with our kindness, our compassion, our empathy, our support and, if we are able, with our help.  Every word we utter, every action we take ripples outward into the world like ripples in a pond whether we want to believe it or want it to. So, what kind of ripples do you want to send out? What kind of influence, even if you don't know you are an influence, do you want to have on the world; on other people?

Yes, our country and even the world feels 'wrecked' right now and some days it feels as if there's no end to it and as if it can only worsen. But we exist in a purely interactive/reactive Universe no matter what we believe. We ARE a part of everything that is. We matter. Our words matter. Our actions matter. Our feelings matter.  We are all leaving a legacy with everything we do and everything we choose to be. What legacy do you want to leave? One of despair, mistrust, judgement, unwillingness to see the good in others? Or one of love, caring, compassion, empathy, giving and peace?

It's up to us. This is our time. The only time we may ever have to be the change we want to see in the world; therefore making the world a better place today and tomorrow.

Happiness is a choice. Make the choice to be happy and to spread it as far and as wide as possible. Adversity, emotional pain, betrayal, loss and more comes to us all but it isn't about what happens to us; it's about how we react to it, feel about it and do about it.

Make a choice. Be happy. You deserve to be. Then spread it around as far and as wide as you can as often as you can.

Together we can make a better world and we can begin today with ourselves.

To You With Love

There’s got to be some point in a person’s life when they realize that if they want a happier life it’s up to them to create one. External influences, situations, tragedy’s, adversities will come and go in everyone’s life. No one is immune to personal/emotional losses, to obstacles, to being on the receiving end of anger or hatred or prejudice. EVERYONE has at some time in their lives been down, been kicked while they were down, been marginalized, been hated on, been teased, been disregarded, been silenced, been denied something they needed and so much more. Life is chock full of downs, for some people more downs than others. Perhaps that’s the one single most thing that we human beings have in common. Even the most financially wealthy people experience personal emotional losses, setbacks, disappointments and more. Even the most physically attractive people have personal emotional issues. Even the most famous people have experienced the lows in life that we less famous experience.

What no one tells us, what so very few parents teach their children, is that what happens to us isn’t what really matters but what really matters in life when something happens is how we react to it, how we choose to feel about it, what we choose to learn from it and what we choose to do about it. THOSE are the real choices everyone has when they face losses, disappointment, prejudice, hate, anger, violence and all the other things that may or may not happen to everyone alive sooner or later.  This doesn’t mean that what happens to you that harms you deeply doesn’t matter or that we should just pretend it never happened or that we should never feel resentment or anger about it. It means that WE and WE ALONE choose how long to suffer from it, how well we recover from it and how much we learn from it.

I’m no expert on psychology, I have no doctorate, no diploma, no practical experience save my own personal experience in this life. It’s been a hard road, this life, for me. I was luckier than many but even then there was deep psychological damage done to me that took me into my thirties to figure out was not of my own doing and that resenting those who had done it to me only hurt me, not them.  I’ve made some bad choices and have put myself through some pretty hard situations, painful ones that were difficult to go through and hard to recover from. But I’m a survivor and I am someone who has consciously created the life I have today through introspection, honesty with myself, challenging my beliefs and my own ego and just making a conscious decision to be the kind of person I always admired in life. I’m NOT saying I’m all that and a bag of chips. I have my issues, I’m human, but I know what’s possible in the way of healing oneself and so I share with others what I can when I can in the hope that there’s even a tiny shred of wisdom that they can use to help themselves.

So, all that said I feel oddly ‘qualified’ to pass on some wisdom to others. Why? Because I love humanity, I love other people and I want to be a helper as much as possible. I have benefited greatly over my lifetime from the wisdom of others, some famous some just friends or family.  I know how wisdom can hang around in one’s head for decades until one is ready to use that wisdom to make themselves happier, a better human being or just someone who goes through this life with a lighter soul.

I wrote this list about twenty years ago and it’s served me well. I hope it may serve someone else well too, if not now then whenever they’re ready to utilize it and benefit from it.  I go back to my list from time to time and see that there are things on it that were an idea then that I’ve put into being since writing it. Hopefully some others will find them as useful as I have.

15 Life Keys 

1.  I, and I alone, am responsible for my own happiness, my own perceptions, my own reactions and my own decisions.

2.  That which does not kill me makes me stronger and should never be looked back upon with guilt, anger or regret.  I learn my most valuable lessons from the difficulties I encounter and from the mistakes I make.  The more traumatic the difficulty the more valuable the lesson.  It is ALL good.

3.  My reality is uniquely my own and it is not necessary that any other person share it.  Conversely everyone else's reality is uniquely their own and I am in no way shape or form in a position to judge them for it.

4.  I attract to my life only what I feel deep down inside I deserve to have.  I may wish and hope but until I 'know' that I deserve that which I covet I will not have it and if by some miraculous chance I do get it without that knowledge...I will not appreciate it because I won't really believe that I deserve it.

5.  I get out of life and relationships only what I put in.  If I expect fair and kind treatment I must be prepared to give it and if I have to give it first then so be it.

6.  Different is not bad or good; better or worse; it is simply different.

7.  No one can take advantage of me without my permission.

8.  I am under no obligation to maintain a relationship with someone when having a relationship with that person is detrimental to my well being.

9.  Hardships are an opportunity to rediscover my own strength, tenacity, resourcefulness and grace. They are not to be feared, dreaded or avoided.

10. I, as we all do, have omnipotent power to shape, create, change and improve my life and my relationships.

11. The only moment I have domain over is this one, the past is done and cannot be changed; the future is uncertain and should not be faced with anxiety, dread or doubt.

12. There is no love or acceptance greater than or more valuable than my love for and acceptance of myself...from that love comes all the love I lavish on others and without it I am incapable of loving others as they deserve to be loved, which is unconditionally without limits or expectations.

13. Love, tolerance, understanding, patience and grace is the greatest gift I can give to myself but can only be given to myself by giving to others.

14. Perception and attitude are EVERYTHING!

15. I must 'Be' the change I want to see in the world.

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WILL HATRED BE A PART OF THE LEGACY OF THE RESISTANCE???

It seems that we humans are an illogical specie.  We fight against what we don’t want and yet we don’t see what we’re doing that is identical to what we’re fighting against.  This Resistance we’ve formed feels to me was formed first and foremost as a response to hate, to people who promote hate and to people who express their hatred in public spaces to the detriment of others; to the detriment of non-white, not heterosexual, not Christian people, immigrants, women.  We, The Resistance, rail against such things when the ‘other side’ practices their hatred loud and proud on social media and public spaces. Yet, some of us are guilty of the exact same thing we see the people we are resisting doing.  We just refuse to see it, because we like the way it makes us feel; as in it makes us feel superior to whomever we are hating.

I think it’s safe to say that we are ALL full bore, no holds barred, against hate. So then, why oh why do so many of us practice hatred toward others on an hourly basis on social media?  Why do some even hate on other resisters? Are there two kinds of hate? Is there a good kind and a bad kind? Do we really, truly feel as if our hatred focused on others is somehow ‘righteous’ hate whereas the hate focused on liberals, on people of color, on the LGBTQ+ community, on anyone not Christian, on immigrants, on women, on anyone who doesn’t share their views is ‘unacceptable’ hate?

It most certainly appears that many resisters do feel that our hate is righteous, and we have every right to wield it against anyone at any time without being called out for being a hater. Look people, hate is hate is hate is hate. The target of one’s hate doesn’t change the property of hate. Hate is something that harms, but the person it typically harms the most is the person feeling it. Some may say that hating others is healthy and that everyone does it. That’s an excuse. I know it’s an excuse because I’ve used it myself to justify being a hateful person. I’ve found that there is no excuse for hating others and that it’s not natural to us, not if we accept that love is the natural state of all species. Love is what holds it all together, for without love mothers would not protect their babies, fathers would not protect their families, we would not help and protect one another. 

So many believe that their hatred is somehow ‘different’ than other people’s hate because we are hating those who make hatred their bread and butter; the GOP for instance or hate groups or the KKK or the white supremacists or the Nazi’s. Those people are deluding themselves and are only interested in justifying their own hate while typically speaking out against others whose hatred is focused on us. 

Bottom line folks is that hate cannot eradicate hate. Only love can do that. Hate can’t defeat hate, it only adds to it. Hate has never fed a child, helped a senior citizen, comforted a friend or loved one, cured a disease, repaired or built a home, lifted up one in need, repaired a rift, healed a heart, created a safe harbor for those in need.  Hate has NEVER created peace ANYWHERE on planet earth.

While it’s easily understood why it’s so easy for us to feel hatred, it’s time in our specie’s evolution to recognize that just because it’s easy to feel, easy to do, doesn’t make it good for us or healthy for us. Hatred has a cure. We are the cure when we choose love over hate, knowledge over fear, hope over despair, community over division.  It’s up to us folks, up to every one of us to look within, to monitor our behavior and to choose not to be them in order to overcome them.

In closing I just want to say that I’m not a hypocrite. I have hated. I have enjoyed hating. I have been really good at delving it out on social media and even in my real life. However, at some point not that long ago I started to take notice of how it made me feel which was to feel superior to whomever I was hating, of how easily I hated something or someone, at how my hate somehow was always justified whereas the hate of others (especially directed at me) wasn’t justified. I had to stop and understand that I was making a choice that was harming me so much more than it could ever harm the targets of my hatred. I had to mature, even as late in life as it was, and realize that anger was acceptable and that being disappointed in others was acceptable but that hating anything and anyone who I saw as a threat or was against me or what I think was NOT ACCEPTABLE.  It’s a choice we make. Hate comes without warning into our hearts and minds, but once we see it there it’s up to use to choose not to give it power and not to wield it against others.

HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE - A GIFT WE GIVE OURSELVES

Reading some people’s posts on social media, Twitter this time, I’ve come to realize that some life lessons are harder to learn much more than others. Some take little time to get and some take a lifetime to realize but hopefully we listen and learn when the lesson presents itself. Some of us never figure it out, but not because of anything but our own thinking, our own unwillingness to address that within ourselves that is blocking change. Perhaps for some they believe that all change must be external, and they only react to external changes others implement or cause.  Who knows?  Regardless, the lessons will present themselves and it’s up to us to recognize, listen, learn, embrace them and create the internal change we must create to make use of the lesson.

One lesson I’ve learned, through some pretty tough times (some of my own making) is that happiness is a choice. Yeah, I know it’s an old tired ‘new age’ phrase but phrases like ‘happiness is a choice’ never gain repetition unless they are based on fact; on people’s personal experiences that are shared by millions who have also experienced it.

When my mom had a stroke in December of 2009 a state away and was soon after diagnosed with cancer at the same time my dog needed expensive tests we couldn’t afford that turned out to be a cancer diagnosis for him I almost lost my mind. Those who were close to me knew that I was struggling emotionally. I was sad all the time, I cried a LOT and it truly felt to me as if I was going to have a for real clinical nervous breakdown. I was literally numb with the sadness and desperation of it all and did not feel like I was myself anymore. I had no power to affect, improve or change either major thing that was happening simultaneously and due to my feelings of powerlessness I was in deep emotional trouble. My very nature is to be optimistic to a fault, but during this time optimism left me and all I felt was deep despair bordering on anxiety. I didn’t know how to change the situation or the outcome, no matter how many ‘plans’ I made up in my head, and it was driving me crazy. In addition to the feelings of powerlessness, knowing that both my mother and my dog were going to die soon, I know now that subconsciously I felt as if I had no right to be happy, to feel any sort of happiness at all. For some reason I felt that because two very important beings in my life were dying and perhaps were suffering in the process I didn’t feel I had the right to smile, to laugh or to have any kind of happiness in my life; almost as if I had to suffer with them to show my love for them. I know now that belief was a misconception that was slowly but surely destroying me.

At some point, when I didn’t think I could bear another moment of any of it, I had an epiphany. I realized that to have the strength and the will go get through it all completely and totally depended on my ability to eek some semblance of happiness out of life; no matter how small. I realized that my belief that I had no right to feel happy was silly and stole my strength to get through it all rather than preserved the emotional fortitude to get through it all. It finally occurred to me that the happiness’s I was able to create gave me strength, recharged my batteries, reminded me that life is both happiness and sorrow; not just sorrow. It provided hope, even if a blind hope, where only despair had lived. I know that without hope we fail, without hope we sink into inaction and a feeling of unworthiness to succeed.

I found out, the hard way I suppose, that no matter what’s happening in my life, no matter the threat, no matter the situation, the lack of money, the condition of my health or my loved ones health or whatever not only did I deserve to find some way to feel happiness but I HAD to find a way to feel happiness because without it there was no light in my life, but only despair. One can’t weather any situation in life if all they hold within their hearts, minds and souls is a feeling of despair. It robs us of strength, strength we need to weather whatever is going on in our lives.

It is, in my opinion and experience, a choice. I will always choose happiness, even in times of great adversity because it gives me the strength to go on and is a great reminder that things will get better; life will improve because it has always worked out that way in the past.

LISTEN UP LADIES - LOVE YOURSELF

I’m hoping that my lesson will help others, especially women out there who don’t have the body of a runway model but think they should. 

I grew up with very low self-esteem for many reasons, however the most prevalent reason why I had low self-esteem was because I was heavy, overweight.  I have been all my life. I was a chubby baby born in the 1950’s when a chubby baby was a healthy baby and was a source of pride for any mother who wanted to be a ‘good mother’. As I grew older I remained ‘chubby’ and by the time I got to school had noticed that I was heavier, bigger, than all my contemporaries. Adding to the issue of my weight was the fact that I was taller than all the girls and all but one of the boys. That glaring fact only added to my knowing I was different than everyone else and therefore ‘unacceptable’ to everyone else.

It was in school that I started to feel ashamed of my own body and began to feel isolated from all the other kids. I grew very, very, even painfully, shy as it felt as if I wasn’t accepted by many of the other kids. They never really teased me much, but it was much more about always being the last one to be chosen for any sports related or even group related activities. In a very small rural school being chosen last every single time when teams of any kind were chosen made a HUGE impression on me, a very negative impression about myself and my worth compared to everyone else. As my school career progressed I grew more and more shy and my self-esteem plummeted lower and lower. I had very few friends and all of those were the other ‘outcasts’ from our contemporaries. The poor kids, the not white kids, the not so slim kids; they were my only friends and even among them I was often not invited to birthday parties, group outings and such.  Thus, I’m afraid I grew up feeling about as important to the world as a lump of shit. 

The odd thing was that my mom was overweight, compared to the other moms, and I felt ashamed of her. I have very few regrets in life (what good do regrets do us anyhow?) but one of them is having felt ashamed of my own mother. I didn’t want her to come to my school for anything and when she did I wanted her to leave quickly before anyone could notice she wasn’t slender.

All my life, up into my fifties, I’ve felt like a big, fat, socially unacceptable slob who would never be accepted by anyone unless I lost a LOT of weight. Oddly enough I never dieted, but simply sat in my despair as a fat person in a slender world. Back then obesity was extremely rare to see, and most people had what would be considered healthy, slender bodies. So, I had no role models and felt surrounded by people who could never accept me until I looked like them and I never fooled myself into thinking I could ever lose weight, so I would look like them and therefore could be accepted by them.  A lot of the issues in my life with relationships with other people, especially men, was based on this one self-defeating belief that I was unacceptable and would never truly be loved by anyone because I was 'fat'. 

In my adult life if a man ever showed any interest in me I chased after him like he was my last chance. In school no males ever showed any interest in me at all. Sure, I had male ‘friends’ and more of them than female friends but none of those guys, that I was ever aware of, was the least bit interested in me as a girlfriend to date and to be seen with. There was one, my best friends’ younger brother, but he was younger than us and it felt like he was my brother too; so, I never took him seriously.  As for my relationships with other women as an adult I really didn’t have many beyond co-workers and casual acquaintances and for most other women I felt they were always judging me for being overweight. I never really felt accepted by them and often spending time with them was more an exercise in how demeaned I could feel than anything else. I understand now that it was what I ‘thought’ they thought of me and not really what they thought of me. I know now that I projected what I think they surely must’ve been thinking about me onto them because that was what I was thinking about myself.  It was a lie and now I know it was.

And FINALLY, I’m getting to the point of this blog today. I was looking through some old photos with my husband recently. They were photos of when we were first together, in my early twenties, when I still believed myself to be totally unattractive (fat), unacceptable, unwanted and therefore unlovable. I was taken aback by just how NOT ‘fat’ I was back then. In fact, I looked pretty damned good. Sure, I was larger than most of my peers back then but damn, I had a great shape and was actually quite attractive; an Amazon in fact.

It was then in that moment, when I saw myself in those old photos, that I realized just how much of my life I had wasted feeling bad about myself. I realized that all the things I was sure everyone around me was thinking about me was only in my own head. I realized that my inability to forge and maintain relationships with other people, men and women alike, wasn’t because of my appearance; it was because of what I thought that they thought about my appearance and my own shame at not being as slender as society dictated I should be. I’m not one for regrets as I stated earlier but I felt such sadness that I had gone so many years, decades, of my life feeling so badly about myself and really had no legitimate reason to.

It’s been a while since I’ve completely accepted myself as who I am in the moment and have stopped assuming that others are thinking demeaning things about me. Today, I don’t plant thoughts about me in other people’s heads but have learned to trust that if a person shows they are against me that it’s not me or my appearance but it’s them and I shouldn’t give it another thought. Not everyone is going to love me, but many will. I know that now.

That is what I wanted to share, that we most often put thoughts into other people’s heads about ourselves that just simply are NOT there and then we base relationships, even our own relationship with ourselves, on that fallacy for sometimes an entire lifetime. If this ‘lesson’ helps even one person begin to understand that we often are our own worst enemy and that what we look like on the outside isn’t who we ‘really’ are I’ll be happy I went through it all.

It took me a long, long, long time to learn to love and accept myself and I just want others understand that any moment of self-doubt, of low self-esteem, of feeling inferior to anyone else for ANY reason, of believing that one is unacceptable is a moment too long to waste being the judge, jury and executioner of our own soul. 

Don't let anyone define you and don't ever define yourself by what you think others think about you. Accept yourself just as you are in any given moment because that IS who you are and you are beautiful.

Love yourself first, so that you can love others.

FEAR PROFITS A MAN NOTHING

We have every right to be afraid, to be terrified in fact, of what is happening in our country today in as much as those people in power who seek to destroy our democracy and install trump as our dictator. It IS terrifying, it IS the scariest thing that any living soul in this country has ever had to face as an American citizen or even as an immigrant living here.  This feels like the ‘end game’ where the next step is the demolition of every freedom and every right so many have fought so long and hard to secure for everyone who lives here and most especially the vulnerable, the impoverished and the discriminated against. It ‘feels’ like OUR democracy is slipping away and we don’t know what our future holds.

Yes, we are afraid, and we should be. However, we MUST NOT lose our heads, we MUST NOT panic, we MUST NOT fight among ourselves weakening us as a people. 

Think for a moment about the heroes who keep us safe, who rescue and help us in our every day lives and think about how ineffective they all would be if they allowed their fear to overcome them in the time of the greatest need for their help.  

Think about firefighters who run into a burning building when everyone else is running out. They feel fear, it’s impossible not to feel fear in most of the situations they enter into willingly. But they remain calm and rational as they save lives, fight fires and rescue people from sometimes tragic and impossibly difficult circumstances.  The ONLY way they can do their job is to remain calm and rational. Just imagine if they gave into their fear; people would die, houses would burn to the ground, flood waters would carry away helpless victims and worse. It is ONLY through their resolve to remain calm, cool and collected in the face of possible and sometimes certain death that they are effective.

Think about our amazing military personnel who go to war. They surely must feel fear as they move toward the enemy who they know is dedicated to killing them, to taking their lives by whatever means they can. Imagine how ineffective they would be if they gave into their fears and panicked. These troops who face death every day in foreign lands have one thing at their disposal that keeps them as safe as possible and that can help them make it home alive. That ONE thing is to remain calm and rational. They are trained to know what to do in almost any situation but yet if they were to allow fear to rule them they would quickly abandon their training for panic and the fear of death.

Think about all the public service people out there who brave impossible odds to save lives, to keep others safe and to ensure the public’s safety every single day. Don’t fool yourself that they don’t feel fear, but they are trained to remain calm and rational. We’ve seen with our law enforcement what happens when an officer allows fear to override calm and rational thought and behavior; they kill innocent people because they are ruled by their fear, because they lose their calm and rational thought. 

One thing that all of these people, people who choose to serve us at great risk to their lives, have in common aside from choosing calm and rational thinking over fear and panic is that they draw on the strength of those whom they serve with. Their unity is one of their biggest strengths and without it, without that brother/sister-hood, they would not be able to accomplish the sometimes impossible feats of heroism that they so often do.

So, we must take a lesson from these fine men and women who serve our country abroad and at home every single day. Only the fool denies they are afraid and only the fool chooses to let fear dictate their thoughts, their actions and their reactions.

We are UNITED in this my dear brothers and sisters and if we abandon all hope, all calm, all rationality we will fall as one.  It is OUR TIME and we MUST act and react with calm, we must be rational, we MUST NOT allow our fear to guide us but let us allow it to motivate us to become MORE UNITED, MORE ORGANIZED, MORE DETERMINED that this country, OUR COUNTRY, will not fall to the fascists.

It is said ‘to the victor go the spoils’ so let us be the victor by being ONE UNITED MOVEMENT TO SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY and we will enjoy the spoils of justice and liberty for all.  We will create that brave new land that has been the basis, the promise and the dream of this country but we have thus far fallen far short of manifesting for everyone in it. The land of the free and the home of the brave!!!

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, KEEP YOUR HEAD AND IT WILL SEE YOU THROUGH!!!