Featured

Double Standards

I’ve never seen such hatred in my lifetime as I’ve seen for one man that will go unnamed in this blog. I’d rather we look at his record, without the name so perhaps we can see the good and not the evil that has been perpetuated around by people that are beyond my understanding in how they hate so deeply. Frankly it scares me.

The hatred has permeated our country for 7 years and brought it to the point that we are willing to break laws, bend the constitution and set a narrative that if you’re not on the ‘hate’ train then ‘we hate you too’. Rule of law be damned! As much as people have accused our previous president of divisiveness, they seem to not realize how divisive their hatred is.

We currently tolerate a man in office that has put this country on a very slippery slope across the globe, screwed with the economy to the point that families are just getting by, protected his own family’s indiscretions using the judicial system in his favor and continues to embarrass us on a world stage that has very worrisome implications all due to his significant mental decline that seems to be ignored by his administration. Further, he is the first president ever to refuse a mental exam, and the only reason for a person to refuse a mental exam is ego or something to hide. We tolerate all this from one man, yet we couldn’t tolerate a man in office that actually had mental acuity and policy that drove the American life to a great place in a very short span of time. Below is my opinion of a small sampling of the good things he put in play over his 4 years in office and let us not forget, all during the middle of a pandemic.

He fostered an economic boom the likes of which we hadn’t seen in a long time, consumer confidence was at all time historic high, the stock markets was the likes of what we hadn’t seen in a long time and records were broken; jobs were created; unemployment was at an all time low; household incomes rose; regulatory red tape was reduced that stifled innovation permitting from 10 years to 2 years; fair and balanced trade deals were negotiated with industry replacing the failed NAFTA; he unleashed America’s energy resources, of crude oil and natural resources and ended the ‘war on coal’ that cost industry $81M a year; Expanded options for quality health care outside of the failed Obama care; fought the opioid crisis and put $6B+ toward fighting it and obtained the first ever indictments against Chinese nationals for fentanyl trafficking. Put more money back in people’s pockets with a solid economy, small business optimism was high, he established the National Council for the American Worker, signed the highest tax cuts and reform in American history, he prioritized the economic empowerment of women and helped launch the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, to support women entrepreneurs; Violent crimes were reduced; He signed the First Step Act to make federal justice system fairer and making our communities safer. He signed an EO to restore State and local law enforcement’s access to surplus equipment that could be used to help keep our local communities safe. He restored our leadership around the globe, with historic UN sanctions on corrupt country leaderships, encouraged NATO members to increase their defense spending and advocated for cutting waste at the UN cutting 100s of millions from the budget; protected religious sanctity; He believes in efficiency and effectiveness, and worked to improve the Executive branch toward better accountability and transparency; secured better quality care to Veterans and ended the devastating defense cuts on our military fostering the rebuilding of our defense across the world and secured the largest military pay raise in a decade to our soldiers…

During the current president’s first few days, he reversed much of what had been put in to play by his predecessor through the Executive Order. Why? All just to ‘get back’ at him and satisfy some constituents that had hate in their heart?? His actions immediately hurt Americans in their purse, safety and confidence in our constitution, but that doesn’t seem to matter. We are laughing stocks on the world stage, yet that doesn’t matter, all that matters is we take down a man that loves this country. That we reduce his good to rubble and take his dignity from him. He was not perfect, he made mistakes, he learned, but he also wasn’t a politician, which frankly is what I like about him. He was a everyday business man, that showed how the wheels of democracy works when the people speak. But we couldn’t celebrate that either, because if you’re not in the swamps of politics then you don’t deserve to run the country (or so it would seem).

Now we’ve had the debacle in NYC around $130k hush money payment that his lawyer made and that he paid back to his lawyer. I don’t care about $130k as a taxpayer. I care about the millions of taxpayer dollars that have been spent on trying to take this man down. Nobody talks about that though, do they?? Does anyone realize that while all eyes are on the BS going down on these bogus cases, the world is going to WAR, and we are no longer a powerful respected country. We are laughingstocks. The really disgusting part, when a prior president got a blow job in the oval office, a facility we the taxpayers own, he barely got his hands slapped and ruined the life of his intern, but somehow, he’s a Washington hero! We have moved to a place where there is zero respect for law and order. Police are disrespected, to the point they’ve been made to stand on the sidelines and watch crimes happen. The rule of law is the one thing we have in this country that our forefathers all agreed on, yet it continues to be bent to the wills of those that wish this man to just go down and for what reason? Why are his hater enemies so scared for him to serve another 4 years?

The real BS of all of this, hush-money is not by itself illegal, however, money spent to help a presidential campaign but not disclosing it violates federal campaign finance law and that’s what Cohen was convicted of, thereby tying our previous president to that criminal act and making the falsification of business records a more serious offense? What our current president’s family is accused of is far more egregious than this, yet the justice department seems to ignore the possibility of bad actors, let alone a sitting president. That is more concerning to me.

There was a much politer time in this country when we respected each other, what each other had to say and it didn’t matter if we agreed, we would agree to disagree. Whether we want to believe it or not, there is some other nefariousness at work that has literally brought this country almost to its knees and not in a good way. We no longer stand for the flag nor kneel for the cross. We write our own narrative whether it’s truth or not.

Unfortunately, this is far from over for a man that has literally been judged and crucified simply for winning a presidency. I am sad for our country where such hatred for one of their own even exists. I’m worried how a few in our judicial system seem to outweigh the voices of the many. Our ballot boxes are the only ammunition we have at this point to fight these bad actors that are within our judicial system and right the wrongs that have propagated for 7 years.

Last thought. If you take the specific man out of the equation and then look back over this past 7 years, none of this would have happened if it had been anyone else, and to me that’s a fact. Hate is powerful, but not as powerful as the side of right and truth. I have to believe out of these fires of hell, good will prevail over evil every time.

Just my two cents!

Featured

New Year

We all look forward to New Year, it’s like a cleansing, yet it begs the question what was so wrong in the previous year that we look so forward to a new year? For most, I’m guessing nothing was wrong in the previous year, but ‘new’ always sounds better than ‘old’ and that’s what we say, “in with the new, out with the old.” What does that even mean? Out with the old what? Ways of thinking, old habits, old traditions, old love? what? Like the “Auld Lang Syne” song, which loosely translates from an old Scottish language to ‘for the sake of old times…’! What’s even funnier is that most of us have no idea what the words to the song are. When you read them, it’s definitely about a past that is gone, but up for debate given all the translations. I think most of us sing it like a song that we think we know but really we’re just making words up and mostly humming along! You can read the history here.

New Year brings in a clean slate. Somehow that magic day of January 1, gives permission to just reboot and start over and it doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t matter who you are. It let’s us feel like we’ve started a new chapter when really it’s just a new day, but then we get a new day everyday, with the opportunity to start all over, so why don’t we feel the same as New Year makes us feel? Is it the lore, the traditions, the socialization of what it means? We have the opportunity every second of everyday to start over, to think, act and begin all over, no matter what the situation big or small. It can mean an attitude adjustment, or reconnecting with a loved one or maybe something as simple as saying, “today I’m going to [fill in the blank].”

Often New Year is about a resolution of some sort, but according to history that’s a 4,000 year old tradition started by the Babylonians, some of the first recorded to celebrate a new year. Julius Caesar decided to modify the calendar and established January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C. Janus, a two faced God, is who January is derived from, a God that looked back at the past and ahead into the new year. Even in current times, it’s what we still do, but somehow ‘resolution’ has evolved to not pleasing our Gods but still making some change that will have significant benefit to us e.g., health, family, work, habits etc.

Typically the ‘new’ wans quickly as do resolutions because we often make them within the nostalgia of rehashing what we lived in the past year and the desire to do better. I believe that if we truly want resolution we do it daily, we resolve to make changes that are small and steady instead of sweeping and unrealistic. New can be simply be paying it forward, being thankful for your blessings, buying someone a cup of coffee, not eating the daily candy bar, committing to taking a walk around the block and generally just resolving to be better than you were yesterday.

Featured

It’s About Time

We’ve all said this term, “It’s about time!” Sometimes we say it in a snarky kind of way, sometimes we say it in a ‘I was worried’ kind of way and sometimes we say it because it’s about time to take action.

My husband and I were terrible vacationers throughout our 35+ years of work life, yet have talked for years about taking a road trip across the USA and seeing all the things this beautiful country has to offer when we retire.

The year 2020 impacted us all differently. We were fortunate, we still had our jobs even though we were furloughed for several months during the worst of Covid. I had become disillusioned with work life. We lived only 40 minutes from work but most days, I spent up to 3 hours in a car. We had great jobs, but the incoming generation of workers think, work and act vastly different, as did we when we were the ‘young’ workforce. I had been telling my husband that I wanted to retire soonest, I wasn’t enjoying the commute or work (at least not what I was doing). I am a process engineer and had spent the last 11 years doing SharePoint development work. I worked for many varied customers and in the end, they really didn’t want to “improve” and frankly, many people were just as unhappy and that transcended up and down the chain. I found myself in situations where managers couldn’t manage their own emotions and keep it just business, causing emotional angst, which is where my disillusionment came in. I spent my days spinning my wheels, creating processes that improved productivity, saved time, resources, money etc., only to end up with very few customers that actually wanted to take their level of service to the next level. I knew it was time for me to step away e.g., RETIRE because I had more passion than they did for improving their business. I wanted to champion their causes, but I felt I stood alone most of the time.

In the Fall of 2020, I had a family member die unexpectedly and then not a month later a good friend died unexpectedly. Then in May of 2021, while at work one day, a 57 year old dropped dead and I KNEW it was time to take stock in what we were doing – meaning spending each day in a cubicle, never really embracing life and realizing that any of those deaths could have been ours. In the summer of 2021, we got serious about retiring and made the decision to RV fulltime and travel the country.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a HUGE scary step to actually quit working and walk away from a guaranteed paycheck every two weeks and the stability that provides. But if you believe doors open while others close and have a sense of faith like I do, then throwing fate into the universe isn’t as scary (ok, well who am I kidding it was super scary, but with a sense of peace too). Everything fell into place without one hitch – not ONE. So much had to align, like buying an RV, selling our home, and tasks that are too many to list. Never did we run into a brick wall; all the doors opened and welcomed us on this next journey. It was absolutely AMAZING – it was like once we embraced it, so did the universe.

On November 10th, 2021, we had accomplished what we set out to do and headed down the road in our 44′ Motorhome to explore this United States. We track our journey for friends and family at pws4fun.com, check it out!

We feel very blessed, but honestly, it doesn’t take being blessed it takes being determined and seeing what you want in your future. We take it day-by-day and are just enjoying the ride because we followed our hearts and not our head – not easy for two people that have spent the majority of their life working and taking very few chances without a lot of thought and preparation.

If you find yourself saying, “I need change”, more than not, then perhaps your heart is looking for a new journey. Journeys do not need to be as extreme as what we are doing, but do listen to your heart and give yourself the freedom to choose. Journeys are intended to come to end and a journey can be as little as an hour to as long as a lifetime. Your journey is yours alone, so embrace it and tell yourself, “It’s about time…”!

Featured

The Story of Jen

In 2014, we lost our chocolate lab, Cody unexpectedly and it was devastating. Losing anyone we love always is. Shortly after that loss we bought a new home and were settling in with our black lab rescue, Juny, when our dog walker, Krista, reached out and asked if we’d be interested in a 7-year-old (almost 8) female silver chocolate. The irony is the owners of Jen lived on the road we’d just moved from, but we’d never met Jen or even seen her. Unfortunately, their family had suffered a loss, the wife got cancer and died quickly. She raised and trained labs and they had 6 labs – Jen was her special girl. The husband worked too far away to give the dogs the exercise and quality time they needed, so decided to rehome them. We agreed to meet Jen.

We’ve always had dogs. I never grew up with a dog, but two months after I got married my husband brought me home our first black lab – we named him Shadow because he never left your side. I was in love and remain in love with labs. Anyone who knows us, knows we are lab-lovers. We love all dogs, but labs have a special place. After Shadow, we always said we’d never raise a dog alone again, and we never did.

It was a nice Fall Day when the 85lb girl arrived all happy, tail wagging, a typical lab in a million places all at once and making sure she got all the attention by doing the ole lab lean. We agreed to give it a try for a few days just to make sure she was ok with us as well. We knew however, she was a keeper.

Jen easily settled into our routine and became part of the family right away. She ran, played, barked at the school bus and UPS trucks, played a little fetch, ate her poop (YUCK – that habit was hard fought to get rid of that she always won), took walks like a champ, loved her food, loved her toys, loved car rides, loved everyone she met and loved us.

Almost a year into her life with us, at almost 9 years old she was diagnosed with diabetes. We had no idea what this meant for her, but we quickly came up to speed. She required two shots of insulin a day, a controlled diet and her glucose measured constantly. To keep her healthy and safe, it had to be a strict regimen. Our vet said the best way to ensure you keep track is to journal it … and we did for the last 5 years. During the first year after her diagnosis, she went blind, but she never let it slow her down. She just amazed us!

Prior to her going blind we had a pool put in. It had a bond beam wall due to where it had to be placed in our yard, Jen used to walk on the narrow path of stone on the high wall when she could see, like it was nothing. We of course did not let her when she went blind, but the point is heights never scared Jen, she probably should have been a cadaver/rescue dog. She never let blindness get in her way.

Jen never wanted to stay upstairs with us at night, but she always came up if she had to go outside and being blind did not stop her from coming to get us. She could have just barked, but nope – she would come up stairs. The first time she did, it scared the hell out of us, but watching her go up and down the stairs, you’d never have known she was blind. She knew her way around the house, and we were always on the lookout for making sure she didn’t have obstacles etc. When we’d go back downstairs with her, we taught her the word ‘step,’ so wherever we were if there were steps, she’d know how to navigate when we said that word. Such a SMART girl.

From the very first shot she received and the very first ‘clumsy’ times we had to measure her glucose she was a trooper and all in! She was always calm, never fidgeted and somehow just knew this was part of what had to happen when it was time to eat – she was very patient with us. For five years our girl has had to have insulin shots 2x a day.

Overtime, we also learned that she had adrenal tumors, though there didn’t appear to be any issues that manifested due to those, which stumped the vets. The diabetes, however, took its toll over time. First, she went blind, then her hind legs lost muscle quickly (there’s a name for that too that is super long and unpronounceable), which made her very wobbly and unable to get up without help, not to mention some arthritis just from age, then her fur became less silky and more course and all because the immune system can’t maintain it all when combatting disease so something has to give.

Jen never complained throughout it all. Her vet used the word “stoic” but in a good way, meaning Jen just took all that life threw at her, all the issues, all the disease and just dealt with it even though through the five years her world got smaller and smaller regarding what she could tolerate. She AMAZED us on a daily basis!

We were so very blessed as well. When Jen’s needs became more than we could handle on our own with working fulltime and long commutes, we reached out to our community for help and as people do — they did not disappoint and out of that outreach came several new and very close friends that we will cherish forever. Jen crawled into their hearts just as she did ours and will remain there always.

When we had a recent discussion with the vet about Jen, I learned that the word ‘euthanize’ means ‘good death’. Having to decide about taking a life because their life is so minimized that quality is nonexistent still doesn’t make the decision easy. I listened to a vet podcast that day who discussed making a list of all the affects the illness has inflicted and how it’s reduced quality of life (for the dog and the humans) and then make a second list of all that is still viable for the dog. Her point was that seeing it in writing can help with the decision. So, I did…

After writing it all down and seeing it all on paper and seeing the overall impacts it only made sense that Jen deserves a ‘good death’ not one where we wait for her to quit eating or drinking or some sign that she’s supposed to give us. We do not resent ONE SECOND of how her needs were necessary, and like Jen when something new came along we just dealt with it with her and readjusted, we never thought twice about it. In the same discussion with our vet she point out that, “Jen will not get better, she’ll just age more and decline more…” and because too, there is no way to know exactly what she’s been dealing with and how she really feels, we can only lean toward a kind, peaceful and stress free release from this life. Jen would turn 14 on December 7, 2021. She survived longer than most labs do with normal disease-free lives, all while combatting one of the hardest diseases for a dog to have (as the vets tell us). This was a consideration as well and impacted our path forward.

In the end we made a decision to have our vet let her go with us at our home, where we could spoil her, love her and keep her at peace. There is no easy way to let those we love go, but sometimes we just have to. Jen had a beautiful spirit, a beautiful heart and will forever live in ours.

Featured

Exhale the Past Manifest the Future

We all think about the past, how it affected us, the good the bad the ugly and sometimes we get ‘stuck’ on things that affect how we live in the present and even the future. Those things can be anything from lamenting about how great we use to look and feel, and feeling like it’s too late to change or having endured hardship, abuse or trauma – trust me it comes in all forms.

Our brains don’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s not when our emotions are involved, it just knows that your body’s ecosystem is reacting to happiness, stress, anxiety or fear and this can make it hard to move on from those things that continually creep into our thoughts and drive our actions e.g., we feel bad about ourselves so we reach for ice cream instead of a stick of gum or we sabotage opportunities and then torment ourselves with self-loathing.

What we need to do is help our brain build new path ways to how we want to feel in the future, and have the confidence that if it manifests it was meant to be, but what does that look like? For me, I imagine what I want to be or not to be or to change etc., and actually visualize it. When I say visualize, picture yourself in the midst of what you want, e.g., a new home, better job, money to pay college tuition for your kids, someone to help you take a load off – imagine that you already have it, what does it look like e.g., a new job, picture walking into a new building, a new office, meeting new people and doing the job you really want. If you do this daily, trust me it will manifest.

The world is made up of negative and positive energy, there is no middle ground. If we imagine all the positive energy we have moving in the direction of where we want to be, or what we want to accomplish it will take us there. It’s a process, but if you stick with it, it will happen. I have so many examples in my life that this has been a reality for me.

I know it all sounds a little coocoo crazy, but it works. Throughout my lifetime when I’ve wanted to manifest an idea, or a change or get a new job, or was in a situation I wanted out of etc., I visually looked for it in my future, visualized it daily and eventually it happened. I didn’t question how it would happen, I just knew if I put all my positive energy toward change it could happen. However, sometimes we are scared to change, so even visualization doesn’t help in those cases because we intermix the “what we want” with “what ifs” and though we want change, we can’t manifest it because we’re afraid of what it might mean or most of the time it just has to do with the fact we either don’t trust ourselves enough to know we deserve it or we are afraid of the unknown of what that means if we actually succeed.

I’ve always love writing, I’ve always wanted to impact people’s lives through words but on a global level, however, I don’t work very hard to manifest it because I fear what if I get there and then …… I let someone down or I really suck at it. That’s the ‘what ifs’ I was talking about earlier e.g., What if people don’t like what I have to say, what if I can’t deliver, what if I end up hating it, What if I can’t touch or reach people like I want to … well you get what I’m saying. I’ve been the only one standing in my own way and who knows I may continue to do so, but writing this blog, has been my baby steps to sharing my thoughts and writing.

My really deepest secret desire is to be a song writer and years ago I wrote my husband a song and sang it to him at our wedding. It was so much fun collaborating on the music and I had such a good time doing it. From the time I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to be a song writer or some sort of writer, but I never have believed I could make it happen due to that dang fear and doubt that overrides the positive energy toward it. Even when I had opportunities that I could have tried to pursue, I sabotaged them due to my own self doubts.

Bottom-line, self doubt is the only thing that stops us from achieving pretty much anything. It’s like the people that run toward danger without a thought for themselves. They just don’t doubt that they can do it or at least they don’t let it stop them.

Don’t look to the past for change, always be present in the now, but embrace and visualize the positive things you want for your tomorrows and if you give it time, spend quality time really visualizing it and keep at it like a habit, you will be amazed! I have been so many times.

The Deafening Silence of an Eclipse

Silence can be a blessing and a curse depending on perspective. Sometimes we look for silence as a way to decompress or to get away from the noise we work in all day, or the chatty person that just never shuts up, this silence is a welcome respite from making our brain work hard to parse the pieces and not make us go crazy.

The silence I’m referring to is like the stillness that permeates just before an eclipse, everything comes to a literal standstill, nothing moves, and the hot zone gets very quiet and still, no birds singing, no trees swaying, no atmospheric noise whatsoever. We know it’s a phenomenon and as much as we welcome it, we also look for it to be over quickly, so things get back to normal. There’s a piece of us that worries just a little that it won’t. During such a phenom, the animals know something is coming, we hold our breath and talk in hushed tones and when the light shines again, we give a sigh of relief, and a feeling of exhilaration is had by all on the other side of the deafening silence of the eclipse.

This same sort of silence happens between humans, when deep hurt, anger and unhappiness are variables that someone else has made us feel or that events in our life have caused.  I call it the human eclipse, where we become silent until we get to the other side (sometimes we do not). Sometimes a relationship is forever ruined, or the person never finds their way out and they stay in the dark and silence, feeling removed and isolated from everyone and everything.

The deafening silence serves as a barrier of sorts. In these times of deafening silence, we create an internal dialogue of what we think the silence is made up of, how it happened and usually we avoid taking ownership of our part in it. We ignore our gut and what we know to be true and perpetuate the silence. As humans this internal dialogue is our built-in “nothing is my fault,” or “nothing is wrong” and eventually because of the faulty dialogue our brain just starts to believe it as truth, after all, in that scenario, silence is golden.

Like the universe, the human brain is vast and can stay on the path of silence or create new pathways of thinking and dialogue that takes us the full breadth of the eclipse where we come out the other side and appreciate the journey.

My two cents are that silence is an indicator of something. Not always bad, but when the light goes out, be sure to think about the dialogue in your head, what you think you know but don’t, what you believe is, but that might not be true, and seek the other side of that eclipse, where the nonsensical dialogue stops, where the truth is raw but necessary and where the lift off the shoulders is real.

Emotional Bullies

We’ve all been subjected to being held emotionally hostage in a situation, meaning someone knows how to keep your emotions engaged in a no-win situation and the only loser is the person that is being held hostage – YOU! My two cents is that a no-win situation presents a means for an emotional bully to own us so to speak. They know what to say, how to manipulate the dialogue and are good at turning the tables to make us feel like we’re the bad person and the one with the problem. Usually however, these individuals are just deflecting and finding a reason and a person to deflect on, helping them to not have to face what’s really going on in their own reality.  It’s always easier to place blame elsewhere as a reason for their own actions. The behavior usually comes out of nowhere and stuns the person that is the recipient. Unfortunately, the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes for the bully to walk back their behavior. Emotional Bullies Explained Emotional bullies are generally liked, hard workers and for the most part seem normal and usually feel justified because in their mind they’ve justified that their target deserves their hostility, usually however, the recipient is confused and unaware of exactly what they’ve done to deserve such aggressive behavior. Emotional bullies are “do as I say, not as I do” people and do not care how their behavior effects those around them or the relationships they injure (at least in the beginning). They prefer to be in control of expected reactions and responses, feeding off the good feeling they get of ‘being in control” and “being right!” It’s short lived and usually, they’ve had some event that has triggered this behavior and rather than face it head on, to move on, they use bully behavior toward someone and usually it’s someone they love and are close to. We’ve all likely been an emotional bully at some level to someone close to us. Feeling it’s OK to behave this way because those we love, will understand. Unfortunately, when the behavior goes on without correction, it can ruin relationships and put rifts that cause standoffs for long periods of time, even years, due simply to hurt feelings and regret. One would think having regret would cause an emotional bully to give in, but if they give in, in their mind they are living up to whatever got them down in the first place. It’s a very vicious cycle. Why Bullies Blame Others So why do emotional bullies blame others for the angst in their life? Usually, blaming others comes from how they feel about their own self, e.g., self-esteem issues, lack of confidence, feeling inferior, feeling like they’ve failed or sabotaging self-talk or a trigger event. Emotional bullies want someone to feel as bad as they do, OR they want to justify their behavior and usually it’s easier to do this with someone they are close to because they will better tolerate bad behavior, it’s a ‘safe zone’ so to speak. The unfortunate outcomes for emotional bullies are feelings of resentment from those they love over time.

How Do We Stop a Bully?

There’s no easy answer to this. Confronting a bully is always an option, but better done in a neutral environment with a gentle conversation between two adults. The emotional bully will want to hold on to their angst, remember it justifies their behavior (whether right or wrong) and to admit their behavior has been abhorrent admits that they weren’t justified. Further, the bully generally wants their target to take some responsibility. This can be difficult for the target since they do not feel responsible for the behavior. Asking the bully what will help them move on from their angst should be done in a direct non argumentative tone. This can be frustrating to the bully because by not arguing, they can’t justify continuing to behave badly, but ego can get in their way making it difficult to let it all go. It IS the Bully’s responsibility to make it clear what will help them let it go but can be difficult for them to articulate since the reasons are not likely, what they’ve accused the target of. Be prepared when they are not willing to let it go, usually because they don’t see a way through and not because they don’t want to move on. Forgiveness is a double-edged sword to the bully; accepting it means they must admit that they were wrong too. My Two Cents on Letting Go

If you’re being held an emotional hostage by a bully don’t be. If there’s not a way through, that’s not on you, it’s on the bully. Wasting emotional energy trying to understand what you’ve done wrong is a waste since it’s not about you, it’s about the bully. As hard as it can be to let a relationship go, especially for those we love, it can be more devastating if you continue to allow the behavior.

If you’ve read this and you recognize behavior that has described you, stop to think about what is really driving the behavior and say you’re sorry to those you’ve bullied emotionally, that’s your way through. Emotions are no joke, they are a reality to each of us, but holding others responsible for our actions or self worth is a nonstarter and will never bring peace.

Journey of the Leap of Faith

Originally published in 2019

Throughout my lifetime, most of which has been in a married state, I’ve always known that things would be OK no matter the circumstances. I don’t know why I knew or know this; except I call it having faith. Faith to me is the absence of fear and believing that something greater is at work in the universe working on my behalf if I just believe, so I do, and things always work out. Like the time, we owed annual taxes to the tune of 3k and due to other expenses, we literally did not have the money, but then out of nowhere, before tax deadline, boom it manifested in the form of a gift. Or when our dog, Hunter was diagnosed with cancer, and he was only 3. Like a child, you don’t just discard them because they are sick. But Chemo in a pet is just as pricey as a human, but I had faith that it would work itself out, and it did. We did lose Hunter after a hard-fought battle, but he was worth every hard fought penny earned to pay for his chemo.

It is my belief that when things don’t work out, it’s because we don’t believe in ourselves or believe that we ‘deserve’ what we’ve set our mind to, and that message is what is sent into the universe instead of what we really want. Oh, I’m guilty of not taking leaps of faith too, trust me on that, but whenever, it’s come to anything that has been the most important in my life I took the leap and every single time things worked out.

My trick is to picture what I want, and I make it happen. It doesn’t always happen in the exact way I imagine, or on my timeline, but some form always does and, in the end, always better than I’d imagined. Little tidbit — We don’t always know what’s best for us, (WHAT!!!! how can that be!) but universal karma does. If we become arrogant and unwilling to bend to where life wants to take us, then you will likely miss out on so many things that you imagine for yourself and all because you didn’t believe that they’d happen the way they were supposed to and in the time they were supposed to.

I lost my job in May of 2018, it was completely unexpected. A job I had previously loved – it all changed within a few months when a few new folks in management came on board that were self-serving and self-centered. I cared about the greater customer, they cared about who they could tear down, or make fun of or complain about. In the end I came to resent them and I’m pretty sure they didn’t like me either. The saddest part about that tale, is that there’s very few people I can say that I truly ‘dislike.’ The nonsense took its toll and I think in the end I manifested the job going away (yep, I sure did).

In the end, everything is a journey and I knew I’d find another job. Everything has a lesson in it, mine I think was tolerance (I’m still working on that), but it did solidify to me who I won’t be, or who I won’t work for and that my principles matter.

I did find another job, it too had its challenges but if we never face a challenge and take that leap of faith that it will be OK, we’ll never move forward. Don’t get me wrong, faith falters, but it’s up to me to eliminate the fear and believe in myself. Not an easy task I know, but one worth pursuing.

Are you in there somewhere…

Addiction, it’s a fact of life and at some level we’ve all had one or have one, even if we don’t call it or recognize it as addiction. It used to be when you said the word, “addiction” you were referring to smoking, drugs, alcohol or gambling, but that’s not so, addictions come in all forms e.g., self medicating, phones, food, shopping, hoarding, sex, social media, gaming, OCD etc., there’s no end to what a person can be addicted to and as we already know, some addictions can be worse than others, some addictions are self-evident while others are taking place, but the person isn’t self-aware, either way addictions changes the human personality’s landscape. We don’t intend for it to, but it does. Thus, are they still in there somewhere…

If you’ve ever lived with a person with an addiction to drugs, alcohol, gambling etc., then you know how it consumes them and can change their personality and outward appearance. It’s heartbreaking to watch the decline and usually causes the loved ones watching no small amount of anxiety. It slowly takes over and becomes their main focus because the satisfaction their brain chemical make-up gets from it, is driving the train, unfortunately it’s usually a train wreck waiting to happen. A person that was a model citizen will suddenly lie, cheat, steal, distance themselves from family and friends and suddenly have an outlook that just isn’t their personality at all, in fact, they suddenly start barking very loudly about how the people that love them the most, “just don’t understand” or what they are doing is “no big deal” or the most common, they place blame for their actions on the shoulders of another, again all to hold fast and justify the addiction, that in their mind makes them whole or gives them satisfaction. Addicts will and do ruin relationships in the name of their addiction. It’s a very vicious cycle.

The real question, however, is why do we end up in addictive circumstances in the first place. It’s my humble opinion that some event usually triggers the need to feel better and usually the addiction helps accomplishes that. It doesn’t need to be a traumatic event, it can be as simple as not feeling worthy or the absence of self-esteem. No matter your addiction of choice, there’s a chemical event that makes you feel better — but only temporarily. Usually, addiction starts off small and then WHAM before you know it, it has consumed your life in some form and not in a good way. It interferes with work, relationships and normal day-to-day life.

Addiction can be conquered like anything else, there just needs to be the right motivation – and in my opinion this is important – only the person experiencing the addiction can dig themselves out. Family, friends, doctors, therapists etc., are all a good support system, but in the end, it’s up to the individual to admit and face whatever demons led them down a destructive path. Healing from addiction is no easy task and it’s easy to judge from the outside, however, it’s the inside of the person that’s broken. Fixing that is the hard part.

Addiction is real and rampant in this country. It often goes undiagnosed and I’m talking all forms. It takes an extreme amount of courage and self-love to face and conquer addiction.

I pray for all those that suffer and it is my sincerest hope that they will dig deep and manifest the strength to get their life back, repair relationships and ultimately live their best life.

Can you let go…

We often expend time and energy on things that we don’t have to. We all do it, it’s not unique to any one person or personality for that matter. Most of the time the energy expenditure centers around a relationship we have and the dynamics of it. We tell ourselves over and over, “I’ve got to let this go,” or “I’m not going to think about it anymore” or “I will do better,” and then the next reminder of it brings back all the mad, bad, hurtful things that pissed us off in the first place and there it is STILL festering. Most of the time we fester because we don’t get closure or what we agree is closure. Then again, even if we did get closure by our definition, it still wouldn’t be good enough because frankly we’re just annoyed that someone would have the gall to do, or be or say what they did to make us frustrated in the first place and sometimes that person doesn’t even know what they did. I would like to add here that it is my opinion that we hold on to things most of the time because really we’re mad at ourselves and we don’t know how to forgive ourselves sans we can’t forgive each other.

The worst part about holding on to transgressions is that our brain doesn’t know the difference between what you are ‘thinking or perceiving’ could happen e.g., your internal dialogue vs. what actually happened and thus when we continually expend time on thinking about what we could have said, or done or why did the person say or do what they did, we are just enabling ourselves hold on even tighter and get even madder (for no good reason I might add). It becomes a vicious cycle and drives our behavior over time.

We might find ourselves getting more and more frustrated over simpler and simpler scenarios because we never got closure for the very first thing that set your energy expenditure in motion. For instance, anxiety has a starting point, something triggered in our brains to make us feel that fight or flight. Over time our brain tries to rationalize what brings it on and so we make our world smaller and smaller to feel safe, because our brains react to a seed we planted that may or may not be contributing to the anxiety. Holding on to angst works the same way. Something initially spun us up enough to make us mad or frustrated and because we never let that go or forgive, we add to the layers over time through other events or our own internal dialogue causing bigger and bigger riffs and energy expenditure on things that are long gone and don’t really matter if tomorrow never comes. You can’t live or look forward if you stay in the past.

Yep that’s what I said, TOMORROW IS NOT GUARANTEED! We all know this, yet our arrogance still allows us to be willing to miss out on family or friends because of our own selfish notion that we are more important than having time or forgiving. It’s easier to live in the past than look forward to the future and for most that’s because they know the past, it’s familiar, whereas the future is unknown and we have to be open minded in order to embrace it. Are you open minded?

Time is elusive and fleeting. When I was young I never thought about my parents dying, it wasn’t in my equation. Of course I knew they would one day, but in my arrogance I didn’t make sure that I spent as much time as I could with them when I had opportunities. Why? Because my dialog said, “they are my parents and they’ll be around for a long time, I’d have time.” WRONG!!! I wish I could pick up the phone one more time or hear them give me advice.

If we have a broken relationship that we miss, we should fix it. If you don’t miss it, then let it go (really let it go). If it’s a relationship you miss, but there’s no middle ground then let it go. Letting it go doesn’t mean that you can never have a relationship with that person again, but removing yourself from negative dialog is goodness. Looking to tomorrow is goodness. Expending energy on past transgressions whether real or otherwise, is a waste. Don’t let people steal your joy (read my other blog on that topic). Don’t expend energy or create internal dialog that just adds to your angst, let it go. People either do or don’t want to be in our life. We can’t change people, we can’t change personalities and frankly we shouldn’t want to. We can however, change our approach and thoughts to either find common ground or to just let them go.

I work on this everyday. No one is perfect, though we often expect them to be. Tomorrow they might be if we just give them a chance.