Please read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 for context. Thank you.

Family system roles — assigned and designed to contain unresolved conflict and family secrets — add stress and anxiety to family interactions. This stress seems to be exacerbated during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. What may have remained dormant for much of the year now emerges to trigger memories of abusive behavior. To compound or add to the stress of interacting with families is the excessive use of alcohol and /or other mind altering substances.

Abuse of alcohol and other mind altering substances exacerbate the stress and anxiety of family interactions.

What may have been denied as a concern — a family member’s drinking and drugging — comes center stage as family members interact. What was meant to be a joyous time — during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years — instead becomes a chaotic, crazy-making and walking on eggs shells experience. As the family system roles interact — as family members interact — blame and shame are passed around like a “hot potato” because no one in the family knows how to talk, trust or feel.

Because of the three unspoken family rules — Don’t talk, Don’t trust and Don’t feel – family members are led to believe they have no other choice but to endure family interactions during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Because of the three unspoken family rules family member are left feeling isolated, alienated and confused. Because of the three unspoken family rules hope for family intimacy — during the holiday season — is thrashed on the rocks or denial, disappointment and disillusionment.

Because of the three unspoken family rules trust is thrust again and again on the rocks of denial, disappointment and disillusionment. Because of the three unspoken family system rules family members do not know how to talk, trust or feel. For further explanation please read Traumatic Brain Injury and Vines.

The good news is that families do not have to suffer in silence. Although alcoholism and drug addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful family members can reach out for help. Isolation, alienation or confusion can be traded for hope. Each member of the family can attend Alanon and Alateen support group meetings. Alanon and Alateen meeting are for individuals who have been affected by another persons drinking or drugging — in a relative or friend. For support please read Traumatic Brain Injury and Support

The good news is that you no longer have to be alone to suffer in silence. The good news is that you can choose to reach out beyond your own best thinking.

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Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Today is Thanksgiving and I wanted to thank you for being a part of my journey. I am honored by your presence. Thank you for being who you are my friend.

My Mom recently sent me an email that has been a tremendous blessing to me. In the email, I was encouraged to watch a short inspirational movie. I am so glad that I took the time to watch the movie. Consequently, I would encourage you to take a few minutes to watch this short movie — because you make a difference in my life.

After you have watched the movie — as I was encouraged — I encourage you to share the movie with the people who make a difference in your life.

The movie was created by Mary Robinson Reynolds and her husband Craig. Thank you Mary and Craig. You both make a difference in my life.

The link to their movie is here.

Never underestimate the power of kindness.

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I looked into the mirror yesterday and wasn’t sure who or what was looking back at me.  The face seemed familiar, yet I was unacquainted with this particular woman.   She was unusually confident with a definite air of mystery, as if a secret was hiding just behind her eyes.

It caught me by surprise.  I normally avoid looking at my reflection unless absolutely necessary because, like most females, I fixate on imperfection.  This time, however, the face held her ground, mocking my criticism and challenging me to look beyond the surface.  Could it be that this person might actually be a friend?  I’m not sure what alarmed me more, that I could be friend to myself or that I hadn’t been such in decades.

To thine own self be true.  I’ve heard it a million times, but it always seemed shopworn and more than a little selfish.  Haven’t I also been programmed to put others before myself?  Both notions are in opposition; which do you choose?

I chose neither, leaving myself free but rudderless.  Sometimes I’d fluctuate madly between the two, trying to reconcile them, but it only led to frustration.  How could I embody the best of both worlds if neither occupied the same space?  It was like being voluntarily torn asunder.

Why was I playing it safe?  Did I think I could hedge my bet by avoiding allegiance?  In my zeal, I must have forgotten that abstaining is also a choice, one that doesn’t necessarily free me from accountability.  Like the many thousands of voters who fail to turnout on election day, my lack of voice influences the outcome just as severely.  Who was I kidding? 

Apparently no one.  And somewhere along the way, the choice was made and the die cast.  I looked back at my new friend and thanked her for steering me to safety even though I had let go of the wheel long ago.

My writing has become so much less of what it was supposed to be and so much more… journaling? venting? ranting? I don’t know if I should be relieved or embarassed! How can I call myself a writer when all I can bother with is sharing all my personal dating woes and frustrations. I read “good” blogs and people discuss, well, in these cases, food (because what I’ve failed to express in my own blog is my own deep affinity for food), to the utmost! They add in those typical personal tales and little characteristic tidbits to give it spunk and quirk and they include tons of photos. My blog is just a glorified and more grown up version (if I can even say that) of my old live journal!

I had goals to get back to Italy and to WRITE! – to write my personal tale in a book or to submit personal essays for magazines – do something that is worth discussing and write something that is worth reading… not this pathetic self-pitying, male-loathing and perpetually confused exercise of kiss-and-telling… and I say all this because all I could manage to think of to write about tonight is about a boy… A-. My new carrot on a fishing pole.

I thought about going to grad school. In fact, I bought myself a practice GRE to play around with… you know, to see if I had what it takes. I wanted to relocate and start a new life, gain new adventures, just as I’d done in Italy. However… I got carried away and distracted by a temporary glow in my re-association with LA. The problem is, I didn’t realize it was temporary and I made decisions that might keep me here longer than my initial plans would have… I got a car (leased it, a 3 year commitment!!). It was an exciting moment, signing a lease in MY name and making that first payment out of MY bank account (okay, maybe that part wasn’t too exciting). I needed that car to support my heavy work schedule and then suddenly, I was needing that heavy work schedule to pay for everything else BUT a return to Florence. It looks like I may not go back to Florence as soon as I’d like, and it looks like it won’t be as permanent as I’d like… after some deep and long thinking, I realized, a long visit may just be the only thing that is plausible in my near future. Then I was going out and dating… distracted again. I’m like a puppy, picked up a scent trail and tracking it down, gonna get there, gonna reach the…. ohhh, a butterfly… hmm, I’m hungry… I wonder if I could eat this.

I feel like calling myself a Writer required a certain sense of pride — I was in no way an actual writer when I began claiming the title, just drunk with a new sense of self-authority – which I think is some sort of an offshoot of pride. Even so, the moment my plane departed the Peretola airport in Firenze, I realized I forgot to check the suitcase that carried that self-worth and I touched down in Los Angeles as that same, unsure girl that I was pre-Italy. K- Confused was my nickname in Florence, it was a running joke between N- and M-B- and myself… only because I told stories of the confused life I’ve always lived, but it seems that it’s only HERE that I really embody that name.

I just don’t get why it takes so much pride and self-respect to date too. If one is willing to give themselves to someone else, then shouldn’t we be free of so much egoism? Is this where I go wrong? Why is it so terrible of me to wait by my damn phone for a response text after having had such a GREAT connection, on SO MANY levels, with someone. I KNOW he felt it, I could see it in his little skip that he did when he saw me waiting for him after work, or the smile that spreads on his face when we lock eyes. Why these games? Why his pride? What about mine? What about the pride I’ve left behind and the tiny traces of it that survive, barely swimming in the tiny fishbowl I keep it in? Why not just flush it down the toilet and give it a shot?

Maybe I just prefer the familiarity of discomfort. The raw beauty in shame. What about the vulnerability in embarrassment? Or the tingle from guilt? Or the clarity from a blush?

So what if I wanted to have 4 hours of incredible sex on two separate occasions. Why does that have to be it? Why is it a lack of my own pride and an abundance of his? I can’t stand all of this unwritten bullshit. Once upon a time, men and women courted when mutual affection was expressed (sometimes, even when it was a one way street!) and if things progressed smoothly, the professed their love for each other and married. Simple as this perspective may be, I believe a version of it can still exist somewhere under the pages of ridiculous rules that I (personally) believe the men of this world created to “excuse” themselves from their behavior. No, it shouldn’t be okay that I sat on the phone with N- and sighed, repeatedly, after saying “Men…”, as if it answered all of my questions and insecurities… but I did.

Sometimes I have to address the ladies.  Fellas, I’m sure you can relate to this one, but ladies, pay attention.

I was hanging out with a few friends at a bar not too long ago, just letting off some steam on a Saturday night over a few drinks.  It’s a neighborhood dive and it’s a little ghetto, but the music is decent and the drinks are cheap.

I like to people watch.  I’m a people watcher.  As I look across the dance floor, I’m beginning to think that you can tell a lot about a woman over the kind of music she listens to. Maybe I’m putting too much stock into that but I don’t think I’m too far off.

This garbage rap song comes on and the women rush the dance floor, some screaming, “Gurl, that’s my song!”  The chorus goes:

“I know a lil’ freak, in in Hollywood, Sucks on d*ck, does it does it real good

I know a lil’ freak, in in Hollywood, Sucks on d*ck, does it does it real good

I long d*ck her like UGH UGH UGH, I long d*ck her like UGH UGH UGH,”

And the women in the place are singing along like UGH UGH UGH, making thrusting motions, and smacking each other on the ass.  They’re getting it in like they’re shooting the video for this sad ass song.

The only thing I could think was “I feel sorry for the poor bastard that picks a wife out of this sorry group of harlots.”

Now if a man ran up to one of these hoes and asked her “WHAT’S UP WITCHO PUSSY?”, she’d be offended, saying that she’s a woman and should be respected…but two seconds ago, she had her girlfriend bent over givin’ it to her hard and singing along about how her head game is so good.

B*tch please.

If you want me to treat you like a woman, act like one.  Don’t run around the bar with your titties poppin’ out screaming “I long d*ck her like UGH UGH UGH”.  You can bet if a guy asks you to dance while you’re talking about the good head you give, he isn’t thinking that you’re an intellectual and that he might take you home to meet Mom one day.

Trust me, the fellas are not trying to turn hoes into housewives.

My question is where did the ladies run off too? When did women like Anita Baker and Melissa Morgan get replaced by Lil’ Kim and Trina? (I admit though, I had the Lil’ Kim “Hardcore” album cover poster).  And when the f*ck did we think it was good thing?

I wish I could say it’s a sign of the times, but I can’t. I remember back in the mid 90’s, we use to go to this bar not too far from school.  The DJ would put on a certain record and all the girls would rush the dance floor screaming:

“Put it in my mouthhhhhhhhh.  In my muthaf*ckin’ mouthhhhhhhhhh.”

You didn’t need to ask a girl to dance.  Akinyele, Mr. “Ak-nell, you know I rock well, girl I’ll get up in that ass like K-Y Gel” did it for you.  And I knew none of these girls would ever be Ms. Right, just Ms. Right Now.  By 6:15, I was kickin’ em’ out….

I’ll call a ho a ho in a second.  If any lady reading this got offended reading this because they were singing UGH UGH UGH last week at the club…I’m sorry….but you’re probably a ho, or at least have ho tendencies.

If you want a man to respect you, act like the woman you claim to be.  Bottom line.

Feel free to comment.

]]> http://mylipstickonhercollar.com/2009/11/24/the-no-complaining-rule/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:00:50 +0000 mylipstickonhercollar http://mylipstickonhercollar.com/2009/11/24/the-no-complaining-rule/

A few months back my boss bought every member of our staff the book The No Complaining Rule  by Jon Gordon. After a rough year with the real estate market being in such a bad place our company decided it was time for us to get back to basics and to develope a better atmosphere for all of us. After reading this book we had a meeting and decided to implement The No Complaining Rule to everyone in our company and now I have decided to implement it to every aspect of me life.

Basically the No Complaining rule is exactly what it sounds like, you are not allowed to complain. In business it is put more into the idea that if you aren’t supposed to bitch to your coworkers or clients, that if you have a work related problem you are supposed to take it to managment to discuss it in a productive way where you must present solutions as well as the problem. When you take it further in life I think that it is really about just seeing things from an optomistic “half full” point a view where you catch yourself a stop negative thoughts and words and try to look at the more unpleasant parts of your life in the most positive way possible.

I already try and do this at work, I tend to be a people pleaser and I have enough sense to know you don’t bite hand that feeds you and that no one likes a complainer or trouble maker in a business setting, so thats pretty easy for me. In the other aspects of my life is where I feel I need to step up my no complaining game a bit. The book describes 5 things to do instead of complain and I am going to try to implement these things in my personal life this week and hopefully it will help me to change in the ways I hope to as I described in my previous post.

1. Practive Gratitude- Research shows that when we count three blessings a day, we get a measurable boost in happiness that uplifts and engerizes us. It’s alos physiologically impossible to be stressed and thankful at the same time. Two thoughts cannont occupy our mind at the same time. If you are focusing on gratitude, you can’t be negative. You can also energize and engage others be letting them know you are grateful for them.

2. Praise others- Instead of complaining about what others are doing wrong, start focusing on what they are doing right. Praise them and watch as they create more success as a result. Of course point out their mistakes so they can learn and grow but make sure you give 3 times as much praise as criticism.

3. Focus on Success- Start a success journal (I have one of these at work already). Each night before you go to bed write down the one great thing about your day. The one great conversation, accomplishment, or win that you are most proud of. Focus on your success, and you’ll look forward to creating more success tomorrow.

4. Let go- Focus on things that you have the power to change and let go of the things that are beyond your control. You’ll be amazed that when you stop trying to control everything, it all somehow works out.

5. Pray and Meditate (Or Just Meditate for ME!)- Scientific research shows that these daily practices reduce stress; boost positive energy; and promote health, vitality and longevity. When you are faced with the urge to complain you are feeling stressed to the max, stop, be still, plug-in to the ulitmate power and recharge.

So as of right now I putting the no complaining rule into action in my life. I have some things specifically that I am hoping this will help me work on and I invite anyone else who is having similar problems to give it a try as well!

Things I Am Working To Change:

-Lack Of Empathy

-Anger Managment

-Stress Managment

-Positivity and love for life

I think we’ve all seen and read and heard of a lot of horror lately. Sometimes, in the middle of the night and at the end of the year, we need to hold on a little tighter to what we believe in and what we hold dear.

I am a Nichiren Buddhist like Tina. Sometimes we need to hold on to ourselves as well as to each other. There is nothing more valuable and affirming than being here at this moment as a human being. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. Your precious life is all that really matters, and those of your loved ones.

Hang on to what you’ve got. Make something better out of your life.

Please read Part 1, Part 2 for context. Thank you.

The impact of increased stress and sensory overload may result in increased fatigue, impulsivity and misunderstood behavior. Ongoing stress and sensory overloads adversely impact the brain injury survivor’s immune system — thus making the brain injury survivor more susceptible to infection and becoming sick. I can attest to this reality. Consequently, the brain injury survivor needs to pay special attention when they experience ongoing anxiety and stress during the holiday season.

With the awareness the brain injury survivor can take steps to practice health self-care to reduce their stress and anxiety. Please read my 3 part article Traumatic Brain Injury, Fatigue, Anxiety, Anguish and Depression for healthy self-caring suggestions.

As hustle and bustle the holiday season contribute to stress and anxiety, expectations contribute to stress and anxiety. These expectations can be linked to repressed disappointments and resentments from past Thanksgiving’s, Christmas’s and New Years’s get together’s with family. With increased anxiety and stress abusive behavior may be exhibited by family members. These behaviors can be the result of familiar family system roles.

These roles are frequently re-activated as the nuclear and extended family members interact with one another during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

Such roles that can be exhibited by family members are the — Hero, Lost child, Mascot, Scapegoat, Identified Patient. These roles may have been given to family members   to contain unresolved family pain and to mask family secrets. For a further explanation, please read my articles –  Traumatic Brain Injury, Family System Roles and Learning to Thrive and Traumatic Brain Injury and the Identified Patient.

These roles are enforced — some times overtly and other times covertly — by the three rules. These three rules are frequently manifested with in dysfunctional family systems.   For further explanation please read my articles Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust and Don’t Feel, The Three Rules Revisited — Consequences and Displaced Sadness.

Please read Part 4 for context. Thank you.

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Hi sweets,

Feeling the need to share my thoughts with you… I’ve been on a rollercoaster of emotions the past few weeks. Some wonderful, memorable things have happened to me but on the other hand the same things exposed a hurtful truth to me:

How insecurity can sometimes stop a person from fully enjoying a moment, or how someone you really trusted turns out to befriend you for reasons that have nothing to do with you as a person.

I am human, not just a link from one point to another. I’m a woman who carries love, not someone you can fool around with to kill your time. I refuse to be someone’s secret and I refuse to sell my soul for a job, money or a famous name. I’ll do things my way, in a good way, and hopefully reach my dreams.

But I won’t kill my sincerity for a dream, because killing only happens in nightmares.

So please, anyone out there who feels stuck –you feel underappreciated, you feel like no one really understands you, you wish people saw you as you really were- PLEASE stand up for yourself.

Don’t let someone pluck you out of the sky like you’re a tiny frozen drop to push you down a cliff and turn you into a giant snowball. You’re not ice cold. Deep inside you carry a warm heart, don’t let it freeze over, don’t let anyone sends their chills to your veins.

Be a fighter, but a genuine one. Fight with your honesty, not with your hands.

Justice will arise, although it might take some time. Rest your head on your pillow every evening and embrace sleep with a smile – a clear conscience means you’ll find a blissful life filled with love – I truly believe so. It’ll come to you some day. Just believe.  Be a good person and believe.

Don’t be artificial, someone will strip off your wrapping sooner or later and you’ll be left bare-naked and despised.

I really wish people would step up more, stand up for their rights, look for freedom of speech and mind and live through each day with a friendliness towards others that is endless.

Love. Laugh. Be proud. Don’t just chase that dream, catch it.

So remember this : “note to self: I love you.”

Love, Frauke xoxo

Hat tip to The Field Negro:

Lazette Cherry, Jamar Jr.’s mother, said she wanted to get her 15-year-old son help when he came to her and said he had acted inappropriately with his 3-year-old half-sister.

There wasn’t a rape, Cherry said her son told her. But he confessed to his mother that he knew lying on top of the baby was wrong, she said.

So she called her son’s father and told him what she believed happened in his home on Newport on Detroit’s east side.

“I called and told his father this isn’t something you sweep under the rug,” the devastated mother said today.

His father showed up at the house Monday afternoon with a gun, she said.

“He started beating him right here,” Cherry said from her living room. “I said, ‘No, please stop!’ ”

But the father marched Jamar Jr., a sophomore at Martin Luther King High School, outside.

“He got on his knees and begged, ‘No, Daddy! No!’ and he pulled the trigger,” she said. “There wasn’t nothing that my son wouldn’t do for his father. He loved his father so much.”

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office charged Pinkney Sr. with first-degree murder, punishable by up to life in prison. He’s also been charged with three counts of felonious assault for pointing the gun at Cherry and two other people at her home before the shooting.

Follow up story click here.

There are hardly any words to say. The boy did not deserve this. At least, he admitted to what he did. A talking to, yes. That’s what he needed. But not this. He needed to be talked to about what was right and wrong about sex. That you don’t use your younger sister to experiment with. Instead, the father tore the boy’s clothes off, drove him out of the house onto the front lawn before witnesses, and shot him in the head.

The mother cannot blamed if this is what she actually told the father. Now she is a bereaved mother. Her son is gone. She has to take up a collection to bury him. All she wanted was the father to be responsible for his son’s conduct, that this kind of behavior was not okay and could have ramifications for his sister’s mental as well as physical health.

Our children need help, but not this kind of help.

This is a Sunday for praise.  And, by the way, praise is necessary in our lives in order that we age beautifully.  Praise animals, palm trees, rabbits, turtles, men, women everywhere, and children.  Always praise children.  And, do not forget yourself.  We are not speaking to accomplishment here.  We are speaking about beauty.  Yes, the beauty of our hearts and souls and the technology that allows to meet each other fully.  love and grace, Ilene

Success in life has rules just like everything else in life. If there is hot there is cold if there is sadness then there is joy. If there is poverty then there is Prosperity. Recognizing that everything in the universe has a set of criteria that defines it makes everything understandable and achievable. Success is no Different. I have compiled six guidelines for Prosperity that can be utilized by anyone with the desire to achieve.

Rule #1
Potential

The First rule required for success is to recognize that you have the potential to achieve more in life in any area you choose have picked to focus your attention. Too many human beings sell themselves short. Most of us have not even begun to tap our true potential in life. Only when we recognize that we are capable of more, will we then move forward and achieve more.

Make a list of all your strengths and your faults/weaknesses. STOP HERE and do not read on till you have made your list!

Which list was easier for you to create? If you said your weaknesses, then you are like most individuals who do not focus on what they CAN do, they focus on what they cannot. If your lists were equal, then you have reached the stage where at least you can see what you have and what you have yet to perfect. If you say your strengths, then you have learned to recognize your potential OR you have a tendency to next accept that you have faults. Careful of the second, we all have areas that we need to improve upon. Being able to recognize them is also strength. By the way, for the first group, was that strength on your list?? I bet it was not.

Rule #2
Selflessness

One of the things that the universe also teaches is that in order to receive, you have to give. You cannot have fire without first creating a form of heat. You cannot have money without effort of some sort. Many criminals will tell you that money gained without any effort rarely has value. Easy come… so it is easy go and go it will! So what does this have to do with selflessness? Our universe fills voids. For example, to get rid of an old habit, I must replace it with a healthy one. I just can’t eliminate the bad habit. The bad habit met some need of mine and if it is not replaced, then once again, the need is not being met. If the need is not being met, the habit will either reappear or another habit (good or bad) will replace it.

If you apply this to success, then to receive you must give. What you give may vary; it might be your time, money or creativity. Many business people will tell you that you cannot make money without spending money. The basic precept is true, but you can make money without money if you have something to give in exchange. But Zig Ziglar had the precept down to a science, “I find success by helping others to find success.” I have found this precept to be true time after time. My biggest successes whether they were monetary or just personal joy have been when someone else achieved. MLM’s are built on this precept. The upline is only successful if the downline is successful. This is a forced version of a basic law of the universe. What you want in life, you must give away. Monetary compensation will follow if you learn to truly apply the law of selflessness.

Rule #3
Allowance

Allowance, what does that have to do with success? Ever ‘try’ to do something? Let us do an experiment. Drop an item of the floor and ‘try’ to pick it up. Okay, is it in your hand? Yes? Well then, you failed. I did not tell you to pick it up. I told you to try. Yoda from Star wars told Luke, do or do not. That precept is as basic as it gets. You cannot force success or life. We do not make the sun rise, it just does. The same applies to success. You cannot ‘try’ to get it, and you cannot force it. You must allow it to come to you through your daily efforts. The path of least resistance is always followed by nature for a reason. When energy is expended in a direction contrary to its nature, then there is no energy left for accomplishment. In the human experience, it is not uncommon to see businessmen frantically going about their day with high stress and no joy. They are so busy ‘trying’ for success that they cannot enjoy their own prosperity. Their family might enjoy the prosperity but often this forced effort is not enjoyed and often leads to medical consequences such as high blood pressure and heart attacks. Live life to the fullest every day. Live it to your potential. Success will follow. It has to follow because it is a basic law.

One note here: Define what success to you is. Is it a dollar amount? Freedom? Time? What is it and how will you know if you have achieved it? Once you have achieved it, then what?

Rule #4
Goals

The last note leads to the next rule. You must have goals. You do not get in a car normally and drive aimlessly. You have a destination in mind. You may need maps to get there. Depending on how far you are going, you might even have to plan stops, expenses and meals. Life is no different. A life without any goals is a life wandered and lived aimlessly. Your goals do not have to be mine. Your goal might be as simple as a small boat on the lake on warm sunny weekends and mine might be to fly into space before I leave this life. It does not matter how small or how extravagant, a life must have goals.

Make a dream board or book. This is a pictorial reference with notes of everything you want in life. Everything you want to do, see, have or be. Look at it often! Keep your goals in mind. Have at least one you are working towards at any given moment and mark it on your board or in your book. Then break that goal down into achievable and measurable steps. Let’s say my goal is to get promoted. I go and sit down with my boss and flat out ask. What do you need to see in me or what do I need to improve to get a promotion down the road. I take the list from my boss. It might be education, experience or even just showing that I have invested myself into the company. Next, break the goal down into achievable, measurable and time focused steps. For example, let’s say one thing I needed was better communication skills. I might set a date to join toastmasters, or a date to start a class at the local college to improve those skills.

Whatever you dream of should be in your book. Whatever you plan to actually work on should be your goals. Each goal should have ladder like steps to measure progress. If you miss a date, do not give up the goal. Go back and ask yourself was my timeline realistic? If it was, did I procrastinate anywhere? Identify what delayed your progress and rectify it. Once that is done, set a new achievement date and keep on going. We only fail in life when we give up!

Rule #5
Let Go!

Once you set your goal, – let it go. Do not spend every day measuring your progress. Even in weight loss they tell you to only weigh in once a week. It is the same with your goals. Pick a day of the week to figure out if you achieved your weekly goals and set new ones. Once that session of self-evaluation is done, then let it go! Live each day to the fullest. Remember the law of selflessness. Give of your time and your energy but trust that the outcome will occur as long as you are not trying to force it. Each time you force your goals, they no longer bring any satisfaction in the bigger picture because often basic building blocks of the foundation are not strong. It may look like you are making progress only to have it crumble near the top. Just trust in whatever higher power you have and move forward.

Rule #6
Purpose

I have a solid belief that everyone has purpose. If your chosen goals do not bring you happiness, you are contrary to your purpose. If your job is something you dread going to, it is not in line with your purpose. Now in this economy, I am not suggesting that you throw in the towel and quit your job. But what I am suggesting is that while you have that job, you start looking elsewhere. Do not think that winning the lottery will solve the problem if you are still not living to your potential (rule 1) and your purpose. More than one affluent person has committed suicide, been throw multiple marriages and so on. They are not happy, because they are not at purpose. Everything in this universe has a purpose. What is yours? You will know it when you find it. You could be out under the sun and sweating profusely and there will be a smile on your face if you are aligned with your purpose.

Living these six rules in life is difficult. I am not going to hint that they are not. Sometimes, I forget to look at my dream board and lose focus. How about you? Sometimes, I do not let go and try to force results only to spend money I should not have or energy that is wasted. How about you? Sometimes, I try to rush to the end of a goal and do not lay out a path that will actually get me there. How about you? Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy and cite to myself every possible fault I have and reason why I will not achieve a goal and forget I have strengths. How about you?

What I can tell you is when these six rules are in line in my life. I am happy. I do not worry about money. I do not dread getting up in the morning. My alarm clock, like Zig Ziglar often says, becomes my “opportunity clock.” Someday, and it IS in my dream book, I will live all six daily because with that day, comes not only success, but happiness!

Have a prosperous day!
Cheryl Matthynssens
The Balance Guide

Please read Part 1 and Part 2 for context. Thank you.

Through owning and respecting my boundaries, I have come to value where I end and where other people begin. When I maintain healthy boundaries, I am able to keep the focus on what is my business and what is not my business. When I mind my own business the stress associated with trying to change others and/or be manipulated by them is reduced.

Boundaries are meant to keep me in, not to shut other people out of my life. Through maintaining healthy boundaries, I am able to keep the focus on me, while respecting other people and their choices.

Boundaries help me to define what is my responsibility when interacting with other people. Being accountable to others is essential to maintaining healthy relationships. Nevertheless, I need to accept that I am not responsible for other people or for their choices. I am responsible to other people, but not for their choices.

Boundaries have helped me to know where I end and other people begin and where other people begin and where I end.

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Please read Part 1 and Part 3 for context. Thank you.

Such behaviors undermine the individual’s ability to experience their destiny.

These limiting behaviors manifest when personal responsibility is discarded as trivial, while seeking to hold other people accountable for choice, happiness and discontentment. When personal responsibility and accountability is dismissed as trivial, trust is repeatedly thrashed upon the rocks of disillusionment and disappointment.

Hope is also squashed beneath disdain and denial. Resentments become the anesthetic that justifies and defends irrational behavior. Drama and crisis becomes the focus, while a virtual strangle hold is placed upon personal empowerment and creative expression. In the process the individual slowly drowns beneath the under tow of contempt and bitterness.

Consequently, disregard becomes the standard operating procedure in the attempt to force solutions. Expectations dictate the quality of the relationship. Self-serving and self-absorption became the drivers. Power struggles ensue and become the vehicle to assert ones will.

Through my recovery process. I have also come to understand that I am a separate and unique individual. Although this statement may seem naïve, when I do not own and respect my need to have and maintain boundaries, I lose me. I slowly acquiesce to being controlled and manipulated by strong-willed individuals.

Please read Part 1 and Part 3 for context. Thank you.

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Please read Part 1 for context. Thank you.

In my experience I have found that as I am honest, family and friends are more accepting of me. These individuals love and embrace me for who I am as an individual who experienced a brain injury. I have also found that some family members and friends are unable to accept me because of what they find hard to understand. I have had family members tell me my problems are in your head. Well Duh. Head Injury / Brain Injury.

I have found that these individuals many times minimize and marginalize my invisible disability because for them to accept my reality is simply too painful.

With individuals that have a difficult time accepting me — because of my invisible disability — I have come to accept that I need to practice live and let live with those individuals. By practicing live and let live I am able to accept my reality with out berating my worth and value. With my awareness I have come to realize that I need practice detachment with love. For further insight please read my article, Who Am I? Detachment is not about keeping people out of my life, it is about keeping me in my life.

Through being who I am while allowing other people to be who they are I can create a win / win outcome. I can also choose to limit the amount of time that I spend with individuals who have a difficult time accepting me — for whatever reason. I need to remember that a persons lack of acceptance is not about me. It is about their lack of acceptance. With this awareness, I can let people believe what they want to believe without owning their lack of acceptance.

Please read Part 3 for context. Thank you.

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A GRATITUDE TO LORD THE ALMIGHTY ON THE PUBLICATION OF MY BOOK “MADDENING CORRIDORS OF INTRIGUES “IN U.S.
AND EVENTUALLY I RECEIVED HIS BENEVOLENCE
Life is good. It has been good all along. And while I had been saying to myself that it has been my own doing; in so doing I have been slighting over the person responsible for providing this goodness of life to me. That person who I knew as the force that pervades all over the universe has been the one who holds every man’s hand and directs it towards either the good or the evil doings of life. I have been lucky enough to find only the good doings. Touch wood,He never ever forced me to get into the bad points. That is so because I trusted Him always. Even while undergoing trials and tribulations set forth by Him for me. I have lived into the best of times. For I always knew that He is taking care of my interests over my shoulders. He has always held my hands. He has been graceful and I pay my gratitude to Him today when He has once again like the indulgent father handing over a piece of chocolate to the demanding child , has handed over to me the fame of getting published as an international author .
People who have had an excellent life, an enviable assortment of goodies in their life time often forget that there exists a force that had been benevolent enough to dole it out to them every thing that they ever aspired for. While they all enjoy this excellence they should also see if they have been able to accumulate those things that God wanted them to collect along with the goodies of lifetime…. At this juncture of happiness and over brimming sense of achievement, I want to take stock of the things that He wanted me to accept as the value additions to my humble self. I realize that I lack into many aspects. That kind of tells me that though I am earning a name and fame but I lack in terms of gaining a self respect in my own eyes.
I feel that I need to go little more humble in my attitude to build up my own self-respect. I should never say things that I can never take back from others, in order to ensure that along with my self respect each person that comes across me also retains his dignity. I wish I can make every one feel good about themselves, the same way that I am now feeling about myself.

I also want to ensure that I do not act as self righteous always but provide an equal opportunity to others too to express themselves. I must present to them a complete picture of my humility. I must not act as ever out of my bloated ego, I pray to Him to help me in keeping check on my oversized sense of importance.
I pray to Him to provide me with the patience, because I am left with very little. I have always felt that things must materialize instantly. I forget that He knows the right timings and the opportunity will come as and when he desires it. I must continue doing my own things, and at the same time trusting Him to deliver the way I wanted every thing to happen.
I would seek from Him the loads and loads of — compassion. I need it at so many times and places in my life and when I do not show one where it is much needed, I feel ashamed of myself. And that again hits at my self respect. .

I know why it has taken me so long to get rewarded. He has been busy taking care of the others’ similar needs or who were possibly in more urgent and dire need than me. So I would request Him to bestow on to me the sense of understanding the needs of others. They must be taken care of first. I know that my time will come when others have been provided for.
The cups of joy are in HIS hands and these cups do not ever get empty, they just keep on distributing.

Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. A few days ago I received a request to write an article addressing stress related to the holiday season. In the following article I will address several of the factors that I believe impact the lives of  brain injury survivors during  the holiday season.

In 2 weeks Thanksgiving will be upon us, then 3 weeks later Christmas and a week later New Years Eve and New Years Day. For many families these 5-6 weeks — with the anticipation and preparation for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years — can be laden with anxiety and stress.

For many traumatic brain injury survivors the filters with in their brains –  that monitor impulsive  behavior and mood changes — are damaged at the time of their brain injuries. With increased stress and sensory overload –  during Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years — the brain injury survivor filters are taxed.  Consequently, the brain injury survivor is more susceptible to impulsive behavior and  unexplained mood swings.  Consequently, the brain injury survivor may feel shunned and shamed around family and friends because of the invisible nature of their disability.

My suggestion here would be to love and accept yourself and be your own advocate. Rather than feeling shame and shunned — because of your deficits and limitations –  be honest and share your struggles with family members and friends.

Please read Part 2 for context. Thank you.

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It’s sometimes easy in this world to compare ourselves to others.

I notice as I meet people and also in observing those who are already friends of mine, that more often than not they have much nicer homes than me, better vehicles, are able to take vacations, live in nicer areas and many more things it appears they can do that I am unable to afford.

I’ve worked since I was 16-years-old. I’ve never made much money, although I am making more today than I ever did before. It appears I never will really make good money.

I write for a living, for a newspaper, and while I make more at this job than I would while working for a local paper, it’s still a newspaper writing job. There is only so far I can go on the pay scale.

Along the way to becoming a writer I started my life over, literally in ways. It was sometime in 1993 that I turned my back on some things in my life that were oh so dangerous and bad. I started over financially. I started at the bottom in pay at a new job.

In 1995 I returned to college about 13 years after quitting. It was there that I discovered I had been blessed with something, a talent for writing. That’s a difficult thing for me to say … I’m not sure of it — the talent — but that’s what I have been told repeatedly.

So if I was blessed with it, in my belief system it’s something God given.

And if this is what God gave me to do, to write, then how can I bemoan the fact that I don’t make as much money as I would like to make?

My house is old. It needs some major work. I drive a 2000 model vehicle. I have to work odd jobs to help make ends meet. I’m sometimes embarrassed to have people to my home when I know they have houses worth three or four times what mine cost. And the list could go on.

But what I have to remind myself is that in 1993 I started over. I could have and probably should not have lived through a few years of life before that. I was led to where I am now; to the work I was given to do … perhaps not as a newspaper writer, but to put into words what I do otherwise. 

I must always remember that my worth is not determined by my bank account. And I have to keep in mind that if others judge my worth by the things I have then they aren’t the kind of people I really want to spend time with anyway.

There are people who don’t know the meaning of bilateral peaceful/friendly relationship between states on equal grounds , they only know master-slave relationship or enemy-enemy relationship.

We find them in politics,media,intellectual classes and everywhere just like other people because they represent a mindset, mindset of a slave.

They criticize those who talk about protecting the sovereignty and self respect of the country and nation. They think by talking about protecting the sovereignty means going into baseless wars and talking about self respect means insulting others or breaking all ties with others.

I have seen people who demand the freedom loving people not to go to foreign countries or not to send their children in those countries for studies because freedom loving people  oppose the occupation and control of these countries on our country  and the reason is same slave mindset about relationships.

They can’t understand that countries promote bilateral people to people, government to government , institution to institution relationships with each other without ceding their sovereignty and backing off from their principle stands.

Detail of painting (2009) artist: JParadisi

     Many of my patients are recently discharged from the hospital. Most of them tell me about the wonderful care they’ve received while there, and even mention their favorite nurses by name. I know a patient who memorized the names of all twenty nurses caring for him during a lengthy hospitalization, because he is so impressed by the care he received.

     Patients sometimes ask  if it’s difficult taking care of sick people. I always laugh when I’m asked this question, because it reminds me of the summer job I had before my last semester of nursing school. My classmates took summer jobs as certified nurse assistants, honing their new nursing skills. I needed a new, used car that summer, and working as a cocktail waitress in a resort town dining establishment paid better than working as a CNA.  

     While most dinner/cocktail customers I served enjoyed their evenings out, occasionally I’d get a cranky one or two. Besides the perennial customer complaining that his “medium” steak was not medium (is there any more subjective term in cooking than “medium”?), my favorite story is of the drunken male customer who began making lewd gestures and statements while I brought drinks to his table. I refused to serve this customer anymore alcohol, and he complained to the restaurant’s owner, who tried ordering me to serve him. I told him I wouldn’t do it; if he wanted to fire me on the spot, right before Labor Day, fine; I’d already earned the money I needed to buy the car and I was going to be a nurse soon anyway. Realizing he had no influence over me, the boss took a tray of drinks to the offending drinker and his buddies.

     Minutes later, the drunken customer jumped up on the  stage where live music was playing, and stripped off all his  clothes, butt naked. Horrified, my boss tried to man-handle the guy off the stage. He was prevented by the customer’s drunken buddies, who jumped up from their table and threw my boss out the door of his own restaurant,  dead-bolting it behind him. The bartender yelled to me, “Juli, get behind the bar,” and called the police.  I did as I was told this time.

     I’ve had one or two comparably difficult patients, since becoming a Registered Nurse. But, for the most part, I’m gratified by the graciousness, and kindness of the people who come in for care, trusting that my colleagues and I will take good care of them.

Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live my friend. I am happy to see that you decided to stop by to visit with me. Over the past several days I have been thinking about life in general. With my reflection I thought about a reality.

It is not so much what has happened to me that matters, but what matters most is how I chose to use what has happened to me.

Several years ago I felt led to write an article Painting your Portrait {AKA} This is Not a Dress Rehearsal. With my awareness I realized that I needed to play a proactive role in my life — regardless of what has or had happened to me. I needed to be present. I needed to stay in the game. The Measure of a Champion.

It is not how swift that I run the race — that determines my status as a champion — but that I determine to stay in the race.

On December 8, 2008 a good friend of mine passed away — unexpectedly. He was 3 years older than I was at the time. I wrote an article to honor him, The Passing of My Friend. I was in shock when I heard the news, because he and I had a great conversation Friday evening. Dave passed away 2 1/2 days later on Monday morning.

After hearing about my friend Dave’s passing the reality of my finitude became more real. One day — unbeknown to me — some one will sharing with other people who I have passed away. Dave’s passing in essence motivated me. Dave’s passing made me more “awake”. Dave’s passing encouraged me to run my race.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me”.
Erma Bombeck

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