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Thursday, February 28, 2013
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself, Please?
We are all in this together. - Jeff Frank
God, I won't ask you for strength but I will Thank You for the strength that is already within me.
I attended a beautiful service this morning for my father,
Jeff Frank, who recently passed on. It was at the Spiritual Renewal Center at
the First Parrish Church across the street from The Grange. The Grange is the
ole timey meeting place where my father held his Lyceum classes, (where we will
continue to hold them going forward.)
It was a casual but beautiful service. The tragic shootings of
innocent children and their teachers in Newtown brought an extra heaviness to
the service. We began with a moment of silence for all of those innocent lives
whom were lost, their names were read aloud and a bell chimed after each one
read. I am sure a very similar scene was played out at gatherings everywhere
around the world today.
Friends were asked to speak and they all brought a different
wisdom. His good friend read something from a book called The Immortal by JJ
Dewey. The Immortal is a book about the return of John the Apostle to teach the
keys of knowledge to prepare the world for the new age of peace.
In it he writes, “Even if your Master and your God seem to
completely ignore you as if you do not exist…Through all this, you will
continue to serve with the highest you know. You continue even if God himself
seems to be your enemy, putting every obstacle in your path and laughing while
you stumble and fall. You rise up and you continue.”
I was moved as I could not help but think about the poor
parents, teachers, and first responders who are now dealing with the question
why God? Why these innocent babies?
A few years back I was talking to my Dad about a man named
Gregg Braden who is a scientist who has made his life’s work to bridge the gap
between science and spirituality. He says that there is a bioelectromagnetic field
that is in and around all of us, essentially connecting us all. It can be
measured and when they look back in time they see spikes that correlate to
specific events in our world. Believe it or not, events like the super bowl,
and even the season finale of The Bachelor create a significant spike and of
course the biggest spike in our recent history was around the time of 9/11.
So when we are all united with heartfelt emotion we
collectively make the bioelectromagnetic field spike. When this spikes you notice,
(just like after 9/11), there is a coherence among us. It affects moods, crime
rate, tides and weather. Do you remember when we were all united after 9/11?
There was a collective humble, reverent cohesiveness to all of us. Not just
those of us who lost someone but everyone around the world had a heartfelt
emotion about the events that took so many innocent lives. It connected us all.
But we have a short attention span and we forget, so we have
to be reminded. That heartfelt emotion that connected us gets further and further
away from us. We slip back into our old habits. Then we have this terrible fall
out from the presidential debate where people are just so angry. What we heard over
and over again from both sides was, I don’t really like my guy all that much, I just don’t want
your guy to win. I am against you, you are wrong and not only that if you like
that guy and not this guy your not only wrong your stupid. Bottom line, I am
against you. Our collective heartfelt emotion was angry.
Our “field” was at an all time low.
Then Sandy hits, and in the northeast we come together and
help each other as a community. Around the country people want to help and be a
part of the relief efforts. Over all, our cohesiveness grows, yet something is
still missing because there has to be National Guards and policemen at the gas
stations. We haven’t quite gotten the whole message yet.
Then for me, and our family, and other members of my father’s
community, we lost Jeff. Now our part of the world, our community, and our
tribe became even more united. We had a strong heartfelt bond to and for each
other. Our love for Jeff and all he did to make this world a better place
uniting us all. Our field started to grow and become larger and more encompassing. I believe he knew what his passing
would do. I think essentially he sacrificed himself so he could give us that
extra layer of protection.
Jeff touched so many lives but not enough! To unite the rest
who still would not listen God brought the souls of 20 innocent children and
their caregivers to heaven. Angels who were brought up so they could unite the rest of us here on Earth.
Right
now our “field” is vast and strong. Everyone and anyone who had a heartfelt
response to the events that occurred in Newtown are now connected to each
other. This is a global connection.
Let’s stop having more lessons to learn and now understand
what my father knew all along that we are truly all in this together.
Everyone doesn’t have to believe this, just enough for there
to be a tipping point. Just enough so it starts to spread. Suddenly we “feel”
more than “know”, that what happens to your neighbor affects you and what
happens to you affects your neighbor. Only then when we see that we are all
connected will we start to really take care of each other the way we were meant
to.
I will end with the words of Niels Bohr who said to his
friend Albert Einstein,
“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own
solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
We have the ability to heal the world we have created. It's just time to look at things from a different perspective because the lens we have been looking through up to now, doesn't seem to be the right prescription.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
A Eulogy For My Father
From the bottom of my heart thank you all so much for coming
today to celebrate the life of an amazing person, my father, Jeffrey Thomas Frank
If you do know my Dad then you know that even though he may
not be able to speak to us all he is definitely
here so at this time I would like to ask everyone to stand look right over my
shoulder where I know he is standing and give Jeff a round of applause.
My father loved a good story and growing up, we spent a lot
of time together and we watched a lot of television together. My parents worked
all the time and if my dad got a day off he wanted to relax and watch TV.
As a matter of fact it was during these years that my father
invented the very first remote control. Which was me sitting in a chair next to
the TV and changing the channel at his command during the commercial breaks.
If I complained he said, “No one under four feet gets a
vote.” Or “You’re a cute kid but who likes goats? Change the channel.” That
last one by the way, I remember when I finally realized that a baby goat is
called a kid after being called a goat for several years and not knowing why I came
rushing home from school because I had finally figured out what he was talking
about and he laughed at me for the rest of the day that it had taken me so long
to understand.
But it was during those times together as I switched back
and forth from Star Trek to Mary Tyler Moore to a war movie to a western to
Kung Foo and back again where we had our first real in depth conversations
about anything and everything as only Jeff liked to do.
He would tell me about life in ancient Greece, Egypt, China,
and Rome. He could recall statistics and dates of any battle in any war since
the beginning of man. He often spoke on the character of great men like his
heroes Marcus Auerilious, Alexander the Great, John Wayne, Mark Twain and of
course Mr. Spock to name just a few. My father could talk about astronomy,
agronomy, biology, history, geography, literature, religion and music. A
renaissance man he knew a lot about a lot of things. These are the traits that
made him a great bartender; a great teacher and a great entertainer; he could
talk to anyone that walked through the door about anything.
Once when I asked him if I could go to CCD with the other
kids, He handed me a book called Siddartha by Herman Hesse. Told me I had 2
weeks to read it and then we would discuss it and this would be the start of my
religious education. Having been
in catholic school his entire life including college, he disagreed with the
dogma and wanted me to learn a different way. I was nine years old.
“Dad, I don’t get this book.”
The book was originally written in German and translated in
the 1960’s to tell the story of the man who would be Buddha. It was a little
over my pay grade to say the least. We eventually had the conversation about
the book but I think I was 35 when I finally "got it". Which was probably the
same age he was when he gave it to me to begin with.
My father was also a big catchphrase guy. I think it started
with his admiration of Walter Cronkite’s “And that’s the way it is…” For a
while he would sign at the bottom of every email “Courage is being scared and
saddling up anyway” The immortal words of one of his heroes John Wayne of
course.
I would reply, “Ok, I was just seeing if you wanted to come
over for lunch on Tuesday but I’ll try to be brave till then.”
Then he found two phrases that he really fell in love with,
Yut-tah-hey and Via Con Dios. Yut-tah-hey is a Navajo saying for what I believe
translates to “Walk in Beauty.” And Via Con Dios means go with god. So every time
you would meet Jeff he would greet you with walk in beauty and leave you going
with God. As beautiful a sentiment as these are I must admit that unfortunately
upon hearing Yut-tah-hey it would induce immediate and severe eye rolling into
the back of my head but recently I have been miraculously cured of this and thank god
for you tube, I can listen to him say it anytime I want to.
My father has always been a person you could go to for help.
Not just our family but literally he would help anyone who needed helping. He
was a friend in deed to many in need. He even wanted to save the world.
The content of one’s character meant a lot to him. He taught
me to always do the right thing, even when it’s not the easy thing to do and
especially when no one is looking.
This week I drove around making arrangements and I had this
nagging feeling of unease. I finally realized that this is what it must feel
like to not have a dad in the physical world. My family is lucky, I am lucky
that we have each other and that we got to be around the sad Irish poet that
was my father Jeff for as long as we did. Bum ticker and all.
The parent child relationship is multi-faceted and has many
layers. We were not without our differences and when you love someone so much
sometimes it’s hard to see things as they really are without your own emotions
from past hurts coming into play. Ultimately everything that happens and
everyone that is in your life is there because you need them to be. My father
has been one of my greatest teachers and as he told me many times, I had been
his.
Growing up I really wanted my Dad to be regular.
“Just be more normal”, I would say.
“What is normal”, he would ask?
“Don’t say weird things to my friends.”
“OK, like what?”
“I don't know. Just don’t
talk about Alien life on other planets and things like that.”
“How is that
weird? Statistically its more probable than not”
“I know it
isn’t weird to you but some people think its weird and I would rather you just
didn’t bring it up.”
“OK, that’s
silly but fine.”
So my friends
come over and everyone loves my Dad, he is an engaging and friendly guy, the
kids dig him, as he would say.
Within 30 seconds He says, “You guys want to hear a story?”
I feel my teeth start to crack.
“Yeah Jeff tell us a story!”
“Well I was in
the park today and there was a man with a boa constrictor there.” (Uhm, ok…that is WEIRD!!)
“So I’m watching him as he put the snake down in the grass,
it picked its head up, looked over at me and immediately started slithering
towards me. I looked at the snake, sent it healing love and intention and it
stopped turned and slithered back to its owner. He knew I wasn’t someone to
mess with.”
“Wow Jeff that
is so interesting!”
As steam is coming out of my ears.
Later on I said, “Dad that is what I am talking about. That
was weird.”
“What was?”
“ The snake story!”
“How was that
weird?”
Heavy sigh, never mind.
What I learned with age comes wisdom and that regular is
actually not for me. Be different, think your own thoughts and dream your own
dreams. Everyone is a little weird; Jeff just didn’t pretend he wasn’t.
He died a happy man, having watched Daphne and I grow up and
marry guys who as he said at my wedding and again at Daphne’s “Thank God you
went for nice.” We happen to think they are pretty cute too.
Having grandchildren was what he treasured most in life.
They brought him more joy than anything else in this world and he was so proud
of his “Indigo” grandchildren.
He loved his brothers and sisters and my cousins Casey,
Brendan, Mallory, Mia, Brittany, and of course Brady and Travis who I am sure
were there to greet Jeff.
He loved and was loved in return not just by our family but
as you can see here today his many friends and his extended family through his
life work at The Nature Lyceum. He had found his tribe and with all of you and
a lot of hard work he made his dreams come true.
I was watching one of my Dad’s You Tube videos this week and
in it he said:
“How do we start to make a difference? We start by becoming
aware.” That is literally all it takes.
So Dad, I promise to follow not just your words but by your
example of living in openhearted awareness.
I thank you Dad
and will continue to thank you everyday for the empowerment you have given all of us who knew you and all you continue to do to help us and guide us from
the other side.
Thank you, Via Con Dios.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Corporate Wellness
In these difficult times and with holidays fast approaching it is in our best interest to take care of ourselves and each other. Most of us spend more time with our co-workers than we do our own families. If our work place can be a balanced, happier and more productive environment think of how that would affect our mood and health in general. Please click on the link below for more information.
Corporate Wellness
Corporate Wellness
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Health for Heart and Soul
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Just as
your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther
when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your
thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.
Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy
At the end of this summer I was in an airport and I realized
that although I had a book I was reading on my kindle, I was not going to be
able to have my electronic device out for collectively about half an hour upon
take off and landing so I went to the newsstand to grab a paper to read. The
papers were sold out so I checked out magazines and right next to that was a little
stand with this paperback book called The
Untethered Soul. It had a beautiful cover, (and I must admit, I do judge
books by their covers quite a bit). It also had an endorsement by Deepak Chopra
that read, “Read this book carefully and you will get more than a glimpse of
eternity.” Intriguing, I like to think that I pick up what Deepak puts down
most of the time so I thought I would check it out.
What a beautiful gem I had stumbled across! I ended up
ditching the kindle that day altogether and was glued to this very simple and
straightforward book about what the author Michael Singer refers to as “the
journey beyond yourself.”
(If you are at all interested but don’t see yourself sitting
down and reading an entire book on the subject he has also written a great
article for the Huffington Post condensing his wisdom in 12 easy steps!)
I enjoyed the whole book and from the dog eared pages and
notes in the margins this book already looks like it has been worn out and loved like
an old blanket. Being a Reiki Master I was drawn to one chapter in particular over
and over again entitled Infinite Energy. I am always
intrigued to learn how different people explain this energy, this life force we
all have within us. Something we are all so unconsciously aware of but yet its
affect on us is profound. Energy is in and all around us everywhere.
The Institute
of Heart Math has done extensive research on how energy affects emotional
balance and health. If you are interested check out the website to access all
the readings they provide, it is fascinating work. http://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/introduction.html
We have several “energetic centers” in our body but none as
well known as the heart. What do you do when you hear bad news? Instinctively your
hand comes up to cover your heart. What do you feel when you watch your child accomplish
something great? Your heart swells with emotion. What is it like when someone
you love walks in or out of your life? You feel it in your heart. What happens
when you witness or think about something truly frightening? Your heart starts
beating rapidly. Our thoughts can literally create different energy within us.
Our thoughts and feelings have psychological and
physiological affects on our heart. That energy, even though it cannot be
measured is very real. Michael Singer writes, “The yogi’s call the energy
centers chakras. When you close your heart center, energy can’t flow
in. When energy can’t flow in there’s darkness. Depending upon how closed you
are, you either feel tremendous disturbance or overwhelming lethargy.”
So those times when you are “off” and exhausted and no
matter how much red bull you drink nothing changes is because you are closed
off. You can even see it in someone’s posture. Head down, shoulder’s hunched,
dull look in their eyes could possibly mean heart closed. In the same respect when you see
someone head high, smiling, shoulders back that could indicate heart open. When you are
in this open state, just as red bulls don’t affect your mood when you are
closed, you find that you can go for longer periods of time with less food
because your energy is what is sustaining you. Ever get into a project you feel
passionate about only to look up 6 hours later and realized you haven eaten all
day and you are not even hungry? Since most of us don’t live in that “sweet
spot” of total coherence between activating and reacting to our sympathetic and
our parasympathetic systems, (or our fight or flight), we are either allowing
energy in or we are closing it off most of the time.
Sometimes because of the world we live in closing it off
“feels right.” We are so used to closing for what we believe are self
preservation purposes that we don’t even realize we are doing it. How many
times before you are going to be in a certain situation or with certain people
do you “brace yourself” for the evening ahead? So before we even leave the
house we are tense and uptight. This can ware on our hearts after living like this
for extended periods of time especially
if this is the way we feel before we get to work day in and day out. Our poor
hearts can’t handle it! They try to give us warnings that show up as signs of
stress and anxiety but instead of changing our minds we pop pills. This is a short-term
fix and eventually it is not going to be enough. You either start popping more
pills or feed the addiction in other ways or you listen to the gift your body
is giving you with these signs and do something about it.
What to do to change things? Start to have openhearted
awareness in your day. When do you feel relaxed and open and joyful? When you
find yourself in that moment where you are completely comfortable in your own
skin and your breathing is regulated and your heart beat is steady and even
take note. Where are you and what are you doing and who are you with? Now
harness that and take a little “soulshot” with your spirit camera and remember
that feeling. Start to draw on that when you need to get back to that place.
Even if that just means consciously making the decision to not close off. Think
about it, we close off to protect ourselves but it only ends up making us feel
bad, not the people who we are “protecting” ourselves from! Like that old
saying its like you drinking poison and expecting the other person to die! That
aint gonna happen! The next time you are in the position where you want to
close off ask yourself, “Are these people or is this situation worth putting
all of that excess stress on my beautiful heart?” The answer is always no. Don’t succumb to energetic set
backs because of some jack in the box who doesn’t get it. Shoulders back,
breath even and steady, heartbeat regulated. Choose it! Choose you. It is your
birthright to feel whole. It takes practice and patience and occasional
setbacks. But we are all capable of living in a state of joyful and open-
hearted awareness. We all deserve to live whole, enthusiastic, and joyful
lives. We cannot avoid stress but we can choose how we handle our stressors.
This is who we really are.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Let The Kids Play
Sports do not build
character. They reveal it. -John Wooden
Howard Cosell once said, “Sports is human life in
microcosm”. I do believe that growing up being part of a team is crucial to a
balanced childhood. Learning social mores, forging bonds with teammates, quick
decision making skills, teamwork, being coachable and drawing out leadership qualities
from kids who didn’t even know they had it in them are all revealed through
play.
And from the dawn of sports came the dawn of the sports
parents. Many are great and supportive parents who foster a love of athleticism
and competition in a healthy and nurturing way. But I’ll bet Great Santini
sports parents have also been around since the Native Americans were playing lacrosse
across territory lines for maze. In some old illustrations I am sure there is a
grimacing, tight-lipped Native American Dad yelling from the sidelines that his
kid better win or he was sleeping outside the teepee that night.
In our family we have always encouraged our children to try
all kinds of sports. My oldest grew up in a time shortly before sports changed for
kids in the United States and she skated through her childhood playing
different sports in different seasons. Golf and tennis and swimming in the
summer, soccer in the fall, basketball and ice-skating in the winter, lacrosse
in the spring and dance class during the whole school year. She tried it all;
eventually realizing, as she grew older that what she really loved was golf.
Great, hang up the cleats and the capezios and go hit the range when you aren’t
at work because that is what you love, and even better you can play for the
rest of your life. Back in the day my grandfather played two professional
sports, had a full time day job and six kids. Focusing on one thing and one thing
only just isn’t in our blood.
By the time my son was playing team sports things were
beginning to take a turn for kids but we were still able to encourage him to
play all different sports and have fun doing it. He played football, ice
hockey, little league baseball, golf and of course our family favorite
lacrosse.
Then by the time our third and fourth daughters were coming
down the pike things started to really change for young athletes in America.
Because of where we lived geographically the sport of choice became lacrosse
for the masses. So that is what I know, however I am sure it is the same for hockey
parent’s in Minnesota, baseball families in Florida and football parents in
Texas. Extreme sports enthusiasm is not exclusive to the northeast or to any
one sport. Special teams and special clinics for specific positions started to
crop up and instead of learning to love a whole game kids started to strive to
be the best at their position.
All of the sudden there was fall ball, winter indoor teams,
travel teams, a teams, b teams, elite teams, elite camps, private coaching. Herb
Brooks who coached the 1980 USA “Miracle” Olympic hockey team said, “ I think
we have to many AAA, showcase and elite camps for kids today, and as a result
we are creating a bunch of robots. We need to make it fun for the kids and let
them learn to love the game again the way we did.”
Someone figured out that they could make a lot of money by
telling parents this is what your kid needs to be the best. Then zombie parents
everywhere with their arms stretched out walked trance like with checkbooks in
hand murmuring, “Yesssss….Johnny will be the bessssstttt!” And suddenly it
wasn’t about letting the kids play sports that they loved it was about being
the best one.
As Steve Garvey once said, the difference between a young
ball player and an old ball player is that the young player plays for the name
on the back of the jersey and the old player plays for the name on the front of
the jersey. Kids everywhere, with their parent’s encouragement, started playing
for the name on the back of the jersey instead of the name on the front.
And now parents are stuck because even if you realize it’s a
scam, (And I know there are great teams that are not a scam but if your kid is
playing on a C through Z team, trust me, they just wanted your money.), you
have to do what all of Johnny’s classmates are doing because if you don’t he
will be the only one not doing it and the other kids will make fun of him and
then he feels bad about himself. Cue the sniper in the bell tower in 12 years
all because you wouldn’t spend your summer weekends on a field in the middle of
nowhere? It. Is. All. Your. Fault.
Or maybe…..maybe your kid could be, (gasp!) different! A leader instead of one of
many! If you have a gifted lacrosse player and the kid is going to go the
distance, (and after college, The Long Island Lizards I guess??), then
obviously you must foster that. Please don’t get me wrong, I love lacrosse, I
played, my family played, we are from “Strong Island”, I get it. Sports has
enabled a lot of people to further their educations and most people who
encourage their kids to play at a collegiate level I am sure understand it as a
means to an end.
Encourage, support and inspire I always say. There is so much
potential to be reached out there and everyone has all kinds of untapped greatness
in them. What if your son is really an artist or wants to explore curling, Is
that allowed? What if your daughter loves ice hockey or chess? Being a part of
a team is important but being true to yourself is imperative to cultivating
your authentic self. Try new
things and have different experiences to figure out what you love, who you are
and what you are made of. Who are our children to become if they are meant to
keep their heads down and do what everyone else does. (But try to be better at
it than your best friends because that is a direct reflection on how good a
parent I am, ok Johnny? Thanks, good talk.)
Crazy comes in all shapes and sizes just look at Dance Mom’s
and Toddler’s in Tiara’s. (After watching “Honey Boo Boo”, scientist and
spiritualist, Gregg Braden was quoted as saying, “After watching that I believe
we are six months away from laughing at homeless people on television.”)
I think an equally entertaining show would be “Dangerous Lax
Dad’s” “Psycho Soccer Parent’s” or get more cowbell with “Horrible Hockey
Mom’s”. I would catch those on Bravo when I was folding laundry. (Hey anyone
know Andy Cohen’s number? I think I am onto something...)
Go ahead and be proud and shout encouragement from those sidelines
loudly (But skip the part when one of your kid’s teammates makes a mistake and
you mutter under your breath to the Dad standing next to you, “How much does
that kid suck?”) And then let Johnny go play outside with his friends and leave
him alone to grow up with out being under your thumb 24/7. Being obsessed with
your kids sports teams does not mean you are being a good parent. It could
however potentially mean you are overbearing and controlling. That makes kids
feel like they can’t do things with out you. That is not the goal. Have every
faith in him or her that they can get through life making his or her own
decisions about who to play with and what to play. Empower them with your
confidence.
If you have
every faith in them they in turn will have every faith in themselves and for
the rest of their lives in any given situation they will find themselves in they
will handle it with dignity and grace. That is a gift only you, as their most
trusted person in the world can give.
Now after empowering Johnny with the self worth and
confidence he will carry with him throughout life he will be able to empower
those around him. A true sign of a great leader, is a self assured confident
person who will be happy to see their friends and neighbors succeeding in life
because they will know that someone else’s success doesn’t take anything away
from their own achievements. As well as knowing not to play small to allow
someone else to feel big. We are not all the same. Help your kid figure out
what he or she has a natural ability for and don’t try to force a square peg in
a round hole because that is what everyone else is doing. Don’t teach them to be
sheep, teach them to be the Sheppard.
As a matter of fact energetically speaking I have seen
reports from the Institute of Heart Math that just being around happy,
well-balanced, self-confident and successful people rubs off on you and it
becomes an epidemic of positivity. Give your child the gift of empowering them
to play for the team on the front of the jersey not the back. Let his teammates
have his or her back instead.
Monday, July 30, 2012
A Precious Life
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi)
We had a terribly tragic event occur in our family last
week. My cousin Mallory, who is a young wife and mother, was flying out to Las
Vegas to meet her husband who had been recently transferred there from Tampa,
Florida. Upon arrival she was asked to remain on the plane while the other
passengers disembarked along with her mother, my aunt Jean, and her two young
boys age 2 and 3.
At first she assumed they lost her luggage or something.
What on Earth could it possibly be? This happy young beautiful couple was about
to start a brand new adventure in a brand new city. Always putting his family first, Travis had gone out earlier to settle things so the house would be ready by the time his wife and boys arrived. He told his boys before he left that when
they got off the plane and saw him they were to run up to him, jump in his arms
and say “Daddy we missed you so much!” They practiced this all week long and
the boys had it down by the time they arrived.
As they were escorted off the plane my cousin was greeted by
some airport officials who brought her into a room where she found her in laws
waiting for her crying with three words that would change her life forever. “Travis is dead.”
I can’t imagine what transpired in the moments after that. What it took to comprehend what they were saying to her. How could this young
woman step off a plane to meet the love of her life, the father of her babies
on their brand new adventure only to be faced with this terrible news? A very surreal moment where she must have just kept thinking, Is this really happening?
Although I do not know the exact results of the autopsy I do know
that this young 34 year old, fit and healthy man was unloading the moving truck
in extreme heat with a few of his family members there to help him. It was a very hot day; he was doing some serious
heavy lifting. He said he didn’t feel well and twenty minutes later he was
dead.
A loving son, a wonderful husband an amazing father a devoted brother and a
loyal friend was no longer here in a blink of an eye, so many lives irrevocably changed.
Mallory then had to check into a hotel with her family and
figure out what to do next. Far away from home, a stranger in a strange land
with her world rocked to the core.
I am sure what just kept running
through her brain was "What do I do now?"
She did what she had to. What her boys needed her to do and
what her husband would have wanted her to do. With a heart broken into a
million pieces she started making decisions about things young mothers should
never have to make decisions about.
Sadly when I spoke to her I was reminded of friends and
family who lost fathers of young children in 9/11. Inadequately I offered my
lame words of what I hoped to be comforting. But what can you say to someone
who has a shattered heart? Don't look out on the horizon. Just lower the gaze and take one thing at a time. Words easier said than done. I think all we can do as bystanders to this sad story is be present for them. Wrap them up
in arms of thoughts, prayers and love. Let them know even though it looks so
dark, some stars are bright enough to shine through the darkest of nights.
Why does this happen? Who knows? What I guess is my
beautiful cousin will come out of this not devoid of scars but with a deeper
understanding of just how kick ass a girl can be when she needs to. Stronger,
more capable, empowered to know she faced the hardest thing the most
unimaginable thing you could think of and she still woke up the next day and
got out of bed and the next and the next.
Life moves forward and tremendous joy can live side by side
simultaneously with extreme heartbreak. We are coming together to celebrate her
husband’s life this weekend. Back in Florida where she will set her old house
back up, unpack the boxes from the moving truck that took them from her happy home just last week.
Begin
anew again. It won’t be easy but she is a brave girl and has an amazing support
system in her family that she gets along with like friends and friends who are like their family. Not to mention her two beautiful boys. Her strength will shine through her sadness and tears.
All of Travis and Mallory's friend’s have been remembering him as a person
who touched so many lives and had a positive impact on everyone who came in
contact with him one way or another be it through friendship or business. One
of these dear friends set up a place where you could donate to a fund that will
benefit the boys while their mother places the pieces of their lives back
together.
She told me that as hard as it is to hear her boys keep
asking her "Where is Daddy I have to tell him I missed him so much?" It also
touches her heart and makes her smile through the tears. She brings them outside at night and tells them to look at
the stars and that is where they can tell him anything they want.
This has put a lot in perspective for me and no doubt
everyone that knows Travis and Mallory. Life is precious and we get so easily
caught up in getting frustrated and angry over things that really don’t matter
at all. As Mall keeps saying this week, give the people you love a hug and
don’t take anything for granted. I am sure she has to take each day minute by
minute at this point but someday things will be better. For now let’s send her
family loving thoughts and prayers. And don’t forget to give the people you
love a hug today.
Please consider clicking on the link and contributing even a
small amount to The Travis Williams Memorial Fund.
Travis Williams Memorial Fund
Monday, May 14, 2012
Forward
Have no fear of moving into
the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore
no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and
confidence.
-Pope John Paul
II
Moving on. Packed up, moved out and closed, on to the next
thing. After almost two years in our current home we sold our house and are
downsizing from our downsize. When we first came to Florida I must admit, I
came here from suburbia life clawing and scratching to keep things as they
were. Nothing must change! With change comes the unknown and even if the known
is not so great at least we already know it.
My husband, who is always, sometimes maddeningly so, himself,
like him or not he is 100 percent his authentic self, and as he says, he is not
for everyone, (but I admit he is for me.) In every aspect of his life, what you
see is what you get. He tried to fit smoothly into the round hole I had created
for us. But we are square pegs and he knew it and after awhile he couldn’t
choke it down anymore and he said, “I gotta go. Let’s try something new.”
We have been
together for a long time and I am a team player so I said, “Sure, let’s go.”
Not realizing then that the hardest most introspective times of my life were
lying in wait to pounce on me like prey. I packed up New York and headed for
sunny weather.
We moved our family with a kid in college, a kid in prep
school, one going into ninth grade and one in sixth. Everyone said, “That is so
great, I wish we could be so flexible…but you know, the kids.” Yeah, I know I
have four kids too. I have found that going against the grain works for us and
each new experience weaves new texture into our already colorful tapestry. We
thrive on moving forward, even if at times it may feel like a step back.
However, I have faith that we are blessed and everything we go through in life
is a necessary step to prepare us for something else. Watch Steve Jobs
commencement speech from Stanford. He talks about life experiences that seemed
completely random were in fact actually all dots that connected to enable him
to do what he did.
Our belief that
we knew in our gut that this was a good move for our family was reinforced at
the time by our daughter who would be entering high school in a new state when
she said, “I’ll try it, I know you always do what is right for us.” Gulp, I do?
And off we went.
The first year here was not an easy one. We went from one
end of the spectrum in every aspect of our lives to the opposite. We left
community, comfort, and familiarity all for the unknown.
I had made busy work of my life up north and never had a
moment of downtime to suddenly I was down two kids, half the responsibilities
and a whole lotta social life. It got real quiet and I was not ok with that at
first. I searched around for the root of this feeling of discomfort I was now
living with on a regular basis. I didn’t know at the time that discomfort is your
spirits way of telling you a change is coming. I began to make excuses and lay
blame on anyone and everything for my unhappiness. The only person I didn’t
blame was myself.
Something was not quite right. But it must be someone else’s
fault.
I told my hub a few months in, all right NOW I know what
will make me happy. All I need is a house of my own and I will feel better
because then I will feel like I have solid ground under my feet and a place for
all my things and my kids will have a home here and its all I need. Just like that
movie The Jerk, that and this ashtray, paddle game, remote control, matches,
lamp and this chair and that’s all I need. I laughed at the absurdity when I
watched that movie but the irony was lost on me at the time.
So we bought a house and fixed it up and made it feel like
home. While that was happening I was simultaneously moving away from my old
norms and moreys. Being on my own, I started to enjoy the quiet that at first I
feared. In that space I started to think for myself for the first time, well
probably ever. I went from a kid to a wife and mother in one crazy year. I
didn’t have time to understand and know myself. When my friends were spending
their twenties learning about who they were or were about to be, I was running
a household for a family of 6. When I was younger I thought what my family
thought and then I spent a few years to overwhelmed to think beyond how long is
a Barney episode, do I have time to shower? I evolved to hanging out with a
nice group of people and morphed into thinking along with what my friends
thought and now finally I was breaking off from the pack and understanding that
when I heard or said something that didn’t feel right I felt it in my body literally. So
much so that my throat would feel like it was choking, that was my instincts
talking to me. I was just trained to put on a pretty smile and ignore it till
it went away tempered down in the depths of my soul, (not to be melodramatic
but down there deep anyway.) because I was a good girl, and that is how good
girls survive in the world until they learn better if they ever do.
I was suddenly learning to listen to what I was trying to
tell myself all along. I started to let go of so many what ifs and what would
they think and started to embrace the who cares? It is all smoke and mirrors
anyway. I started to view my possessions and my house, my geography, my family in a whole new light. I
went from holding onto everything with white knuckles to keeping my hands. heart and mind wide open.
Our youngest will be leaving for prep school in the fall so
we suddenly find ourselves having an empty nest and with that comes this
freedom we never experienced on the front end. We put the house on the market,
got rid of a lot of as George Carlin calls it, “stuff”, found a little
apartment on the intercoastal and traded in a dining room table for a paddle
board. I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted. We are fortunate
that we still have a home base on Long Island where our family can come
together. Who knows, maybe we will end up where we started, living back there
full time someday. I know enough to know that I have no idea. I realize now I
never did but now I am ok with that. John Lennon was right “Life is what happens while your busy
making other plans.”
Absolutely nothing has changed except my perspective.
Instead of resentment I feel gratitude for my husband needing to try something
new. Not something I freely admit because it is really hard to be the wise one
when he is constantly teaching me things. Dammit!
Someone said to me in a recent exchange on Facebook of all
places, there are no obstacles, only opportunities for spiritual growth. Which
I agree with wholeheartedly except I propose that there are obstacles and it is
up to you to recognize that you can either fight them kicking and screaming and
make your life and those you love more difficult. OR…you can accept the
obstacles that come your way as an opportunity to learn something about your
spirit. You may not be for everyone, but that is ok. We all can’t be for
everyone, but you are for the ones that matter.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
My Spirit Loves
"With love, with patience and with faith, she'll make her way."-Natalie Merchant, Wonder.
I was driving in the car yesterday listening to Coffee House on my XM radio when Natalie Merchant’s song Wonder came on. On the Coffee House station they play a lot of acoustic versions to familiar songs so I felt as if I were hearing this song for the first time.
“Laughed as my body she lifted.
Know this child will be gifted.
With love and patience and with faith
She’ll make her way.”
I was just driving down the street minding my own business listening to the radio and the lyrics of this song moved me to tears thinking about my three daughters. One graduating from college next month, one going on to be a senior in high school and one entering ninth grade in the fall. All of them at pivotal moments in time.
As I drove thinking of them with heartfelt emotion my phone buzzed. Two daughters texting and one calling simultaneously. (Why couldn’t I have had this heartfelt emotion thinking about the mega jackpot??)
How amazing is that? My spirit was speaking to theirs and they picked up on it and contacted me. Kind of like how life was before cell phones. When we would be at a concert at the Garden knowing another group of friend's were also there. No doubt in your mind you would see them and of course you always would.
What does your spirit love? I mean really love? What makes your eyes twinkle when you talk about it or think about it? I remember back when I came home with my kindergarten school picture, my Dad said, “I love this picture because you are smiling with your eyes.” I thought for years as a kid that meant I was squinting or something. Smile with your eyes? Whatever dad. But now I know when I am truly happy and laughing that twinkle is my spirit talking. I am looking at crows feet with a new found love. These lines mean I have felt and heard my spirit A LOT!
What does my spirit love? My spirit loves my children and my husband and my family and my little dog. My spirit loves to laugh with friends and to nurture people, to share a meal, to be in esthetically pleasing environments. My spirit loves a great playlist and the feeling you get after a hard workout. My spirit loves to dance. My spirit loves adventure, travel and change. My spirit loves to write. My spirit loves to talk to open minded people. My spirit loves the ocean and good food and coffee and wine and books and clean sheets from the dryer.
If you are in any kind of transition period or if you are figuring out what it is that you truly would love to do with your life. (Either the second part or the first.) Go for a walk, or a run and breathe deeply and evenly and don’t think about anything but the sound of your own breath moving in and out. After awhile ask the question. What does my spirit love? The very first thing that comes to mind is what is true. After that first one you might have to say it out loud to see if it feels and sounds true to your own ears. (If you really want to know say it to the mirror. Can you look yourself in the eye and say what your spirit loves? Then it’s the truth.)
Then when you get home write it all down. My spirit loves…..
Look back at what my own spirit loves. Taking all of those loves you basically have the description of what I do and who I am. It took me almost 40 years because I wasn’t listening for a long time but I am completely happy and accepting of who and where I am in life. I have a great family, I teach, I write, I laugh, I change things up, I listen to my spirit and I give my spirit what it loves and my spirit rewards me. I think about my daughters with heartfelt emotion and they call me.
We all have this ability within us it is just a matter of tapping into it and letting it work for you.
It doesn’t work if you look in the mirror and say, “My spirit loves money.” But what you can say is, “My spirit loves being good at what I do.” Think about a wedding, everyone celebrating love by laughing and singing and dancing. Sending that couple out in the world with collective heartfelt emotion. Then they have that “honeymoon period.” Not because they go to Hawaii but because they are still living on high from all of that energy being sent their way. Why is Ellen DeGeneres such a tremendous hit right now? She is true to herself because she listens to her spirit, she sings, dances and laughs everyday and she helps as many people as she possibly can along the way. She is in that upward spiral of listening to what her spirit loves and she is rewarded in turn.
I am going to go out for walk with my friend now. An open-minded person who makes me laugh. I wonder what amazing things will happen today? My spirit loves, my spirit loves.
Friday, March 9, 2012
The 100th Monkey
Here is there and then is now. -Gregg Braden.
Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it. –Niels Bohr.
There is a story about social change called the 100th Monkey. The story goes that scientists were studying a group of monkeys and they fed these monkeys they were watching, sweet potatoes that they would drop in the sand for them each day. The monkeys seemed to like the sweet potatoes but they did not like the taste of the dirt on them. A young female monkey figured out that if she washed her sweet potato off in the stream than she could solve the problem of the dirt taste. She taught this trick to her mother and soon her friends caught on and taught it to their mother’s. Only the adult monkeys that learned from the young monkeys learned how to wash their sweet potatoes. There were plenty of other adult monkeys who didn’t want to learn and just kept eating their dirty potatoes. A few years into the study there were roughly 99 monkeys washing their sweet potatoes and when the 100th monkey went to the stream to wash, that is when it happened. The entire tribe, even the older monkeys that had never washed their potatoes before, all started washing the potatoes in the stream. And not only that, scientists from different colonies in different parts of the world all reported that monkeys everywhere were suddenly washing their food in the stream.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote about these phenomena in his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. He describes it as a “ Moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”
Gladwell says there are three rules to epidemics. The first is “The Law of the Few.” You don’t have to have all the monkeys all over the world to start an epidemic but you do have to have the right kinds of monkeys. The connectors, the persuaders and the salesmen are the kind of monkeys that can really start something that will catch on.
Of course whatever they are selling has to have what he refers to as a “Stickiness Factor” that stays with people after initial contact and means something to them. He gives an example of how when Sesame Street first came on the air and everyone was talking about it and all their kids were watching.
And finally it has to have the “power of context.” The power of context means that human behavior is strongly influenced by its environment. Are you more apt to laugh at a funny movie in a crowded theatre or watching home by yourself?
I remember growing up my stepmother used to tell my father to lock the car door “Because it isn’t right to tempt people.” I didn’t really understand that at the time but that fits right in line with the power of context theory. If a perfectly nice person facing hard times is walking down the street and sees your purse on the front seat of your unlocked car, something may trigger that person to stray out of their normal character and steal that purse. But if the windows are up and the doors or locked or they don’t see the purse, the thought will probably never occur to them.
A few weeks back I went to listen to a man named Gregg Braden who is a trained Scientist who has written many fascinating books on the subject of Science and Spirituality. The book he was speaking about on this day was entitled, Deep Truth; Igniting the Memory of Our Origin, History, Destiny and Fate.
He spoke about countless of interesting subjects that he included in the book and I would love to reiterate and share all of them here but I am not a scientist and I don’t think like one. I love stories and love to understand things through stories and he told us a great one that day. (You can read the whole book if you want to for all the stories, I am just giving you one of many!)
The main thing that “Stuck” with me was that people for hundreds of years have assumed that what we do on this side of the planet and what happens to people clear on the other side has absolutely no effect on either one what so ever. Scientists have found that we are in fact all connected by energy. The Earth itself has measurable geomagnetic field in and around it that we are all a part of. It is literally in and around all of us and that includes human beings, animals, plant life, oceans, atmosphere, everything. These geomagnetic fields affect us as well as we can affect them in turn.
I don’t know if you have noticed but our resistance is running low!! When our resistance is low, when our energy is low, we affect the geomagnetic sphere and it can run low too. When this happens we can get tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, train derailments, murder and crime can go up. We can get in bad moods, depressed, upset about life. The more we are affected the more we affect. It is a catch 22.
Over the years scientists have been monitoring this geomagnetic field and they notice a few times over the years it has significantly spiked. Looking back the biggest spike was calculated as being on 9/11/01 at 9:00 in the morning approximately fifteen minutes after the first tower was hit. What that means is that the world was collectively having a shared experience of a heart-based emotion. No one was intellectually able to process what we were all witnessing but we were able to feel it in our hearts together. Our collective heartfelt emotion drove the geomagnetic field of the earth up to astronomical proportions and for weeks afterward you were able to feel the effect. Everyone was kinder, more sympathetic, we were bonded together and wanted to help each other get through the hardest time our generation has ever known.
Braden explained it doesn’t always have to be tragic circumstances that will spike the field either. Apparently after the very first season finale of The Bachelor the graph also showed a significant rise! Feeling it with our hearts! It happens on days like Super bowl too.
He spoke about the 12/21/12 “Doomsday” date that some people are making a big deal over. While he admits to not really knowing what that will entail he does know that the Mayan calendar is cyclical and it doesn’t end, a new cycle emerges. Remember the Godspell song “The Age of Aquarius”? Well we are cycling out of the very masculine driven Pisces and are moving into more of the feminine wisdom of Aquarius.
Now let me tie all of these things together. As many people have seen on the internet over the past few days there is a short movie called Kony2012 going around and with it some controversy that it may or may not have proceeds going to completely legitimate places.
Regardless of that, how did it make you feel when you watched it? When these young kids watch it and they want to do something to help other children on the other side of the world. That they are feeling a collective heartfelt emotion that what happens to someone on the other side of the planet does affect them and they should do something. Even if is just set an intention that you are praying for them, that connects us. That brings our geomagnetic field up! That protects us from solar winds and climate change and each other! The young people are showing us how to wash our sweet potatoes!
We don’t need the world to all think about this at the same time we just need that 100th monkey to have a collective heart based emotional connection and we will change the world.
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