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.

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.

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

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

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!)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-singer/spiritual-awakening-super-soul-sunday_b_1729741.html

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 100^th 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 100^th 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 100^th monkey to have a collective heart based emotional connection and we will change the world.

You Can Call Me Master

Just For Today

I will not anger.

I will not worry.

Honor your parents, teachers and elders.

Earn your living honestly.

Show gratitude to every living thing.

Four years after receiving my first Reiki treatment I recently received my own initiation to Reiki Master. I flew up to New York to meet with my mentor and begin the two day process to receive the attunements to the Master level. I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

After receiving my level 1 and 2 advanced I felt something had “shifted” as soon as I did my first self-practice. They say after you are initiated you are “empowered” to practice Reiki and that was certainly corresponding to what I was feeling. Yet it was only through my daily practice in the months to follow that first training did I truly feel all the benefits of Reiki. One session made me feel great, but a few years of daily practice changed my life.

As the day unfolded I found myself writing down the same phrase over and over again. “All work and no play make Jen a dull girl.” Just kidding. What I wrote on my hot pink moleskin notebook I brought along to jot down any gems of wisdom that came to me, (Reiki is taught orally so you really are not required or encouraged to note take), was “A daily practice of Reiki is my commitment to healing.”

To begin the healing process you have to decide whether you are trying to “feel Better” or trying to heal long term. If you want to feel better, you get a massage, have a drink, go shopping, take a pill, enjoy a spa day or read a self-help book. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things if you want a quick fix. However If you want to heal yourself for the long term have to be committed. It takes time and dedication to heal. I didn’t even know I needed healing when I first started this process. I just thought I was learning a new modality. But miraculously over time I found that this new lens I was looking through had started to put things into focus that I couldn’t even see were blurry before.

After the Master initiation I expected to feel “Reikfied” on a whole different level. For me that is a more balanced, relaxed state. Nice and easy. I usually explain the feeling Reiki gives me by telling people to envision themselves in their favorite weather.

For me that is sitting in a beach chair looking at the blue ocean, it is 76 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze and all is right with the world. Since Reiki goes where it needs to go and does what it needs to do, it had something else in mind for me that day.

As I sat in the chair to practice a few moments of self-Reiki after my Mentor had finished with the attunements I felt my heart start beating faster and faster. A feeling of anxiety grew from the bottom of my belly and rose up like wildfire burning up through my chest into my throat and eventually encompassing me entirely. I was wracked with emotion and fear. I opened my eyes and started breathing deeply and evenly trying to calm down. It was if every buried fear I had ever pushed down to the depths of my heart over the course of my lifetime has risen to the surface. Pandora’s box was opened and I was stricken with panic. I collected myself as best I could and made my way across the hall to the discussion room where my Master was waiting for me with a big grin on her face. I don’t think she quite expected dilated pupils and white knuckles.

“Something very strange has happened!” I looked to her and she motioned for me to sit down. As I shakily made my way to my seat she said, “Before you tell me what is wrong I want you to realize that sometimes during attunements you can experience quite a shift. Perhaps you have unlocked some things that had been suppressed for quite a long time. As soon as she said the words my breathing started to regulate and I immediately recognized that is exactly what had happened. Nothing Earth shattering was brought out of my memory banks. Just all of the everyday fears, frustration and worries that we keep tempered down because its just easier just said, time to go! I had turned the light on in the attic and mice were scurrying.

Occasionally during a Reiki session you will feel a twitch or heat where the practitioner’s hands are or have been and sometimes you feel the urge to swallow or your stomach starts rumbling. Reiki is like a snowflake and no two sessions are alike so sometimes these things happen and sometimes they don’t. However the Master attunements were so powerful for me that I had no room left for these buried hurts and I felt my soul purge itself of the waste I had been carrying around with me.

Nothing in my life has changed except the lens I am looking at the world through. And it ain’t really rose colored. Because healing doesn’t mean now I will float through life happy, calm and full of peace without a care in the world. I am a human being after all. I will still get frustrated and have fears but I have the ability to come back to my practice and accept, not change, but accept whatever is happening and move on from there.

It is my hope that now that I have the ability to initiate I will be able to help others make their own commitment to healing. Reiki is a wonderful way for anyone to reconnect to who they truly are.  Not what other people’s perception of you is but rather the balanced and whole person we all truly are. Mothers, Fathers, kids, whole families, people in the business world, absolutely anyone who through the course of everyday life comes out of balance, (so everyone!), would benefit from being able to practice Reiki on themselves and their loved ones. (Even pets love Reiki!)

I don’t feel that now that I have accomplished this level of practice that I have done it all. I truly feel that this is only the beginning for Reiki and me. I am filled with gratitude and excitement that I can pass along this miraculous gift to others and look forward to being a part of their commitment to heal themselves.

Just For Today

I will not anger.

I will not worry.

Honor your parents, teachers and elders.

Earn your living honestly.

Show gratitude to every living thing.

Lose Weight Eating Tacos, Ask Me How!

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil. –Aristotle

 This blog has nothing to do with losing weight while eating tacos but I find that people stumble upon my blog from various Google searches so I thought if I wanted to get information out to a lot of people at once than I should probably give it a title that people would potentially search for. And come on, who hasn't searched for a way to lose weight while eating tacos? What this blog is really about is nutritional empowerment.

All this Mansanto talk has inspired me. I shared a link on Facebook that my friend Amy posted (Holla Amy) about an article  concerning Mansanto and Whole Foods working together. After a 12-year battle it looks like our heroes have caved to the evil empire and have agreed to grow genetically engineered alfalfa. A scary prospect for certain considering the nutritional value of corn and wheat are now under scrutiny. What will be left for us to eat?

Parents of young children are concerned about whom to trust and what do we do now?  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/ronnie-cummins/the-organic-elite-surrend_b_815346.html

Trust the same people you could rely on 100 percent before you found out this information…yourselves.

I don’t look at this article as being frightening even though it is telling us potentially frightening news. I choose to look at it as an opportunity for some positive change to happen.

It is like when you have to clean out your attic and you go up and it actually doesn’t look that bad and then you turn the light on and there is mouse poop everywhere. Oh no! I should have kept the light off, and then I never would have known!  So we get this information but all that has changed from yesterday is now we know.

All of these problems our kids have from peanut allergies to ADHD and obesity are all because their little bodies can’t handle the synthetic food we have been feeding them unbeknownst to us for years. Our own magnificent systems battle enemies foreign and domestic.

So you think you are buying healthy food for your family and really is has been genetically engineered so it isn’t real. We are literally tricking our bodies by giving it what we think is a healthy choice but really it’s a synthetic so the body goes into defense mode.

This has been happening for a long time now. The only thing that is different is that now we know. Nothing has changed except the light bulb was turned on. Were you afraid of this 5 years ago when you didn’t know about it? Nope, but it was still happening. The only difference is now we can do something about it! Yay! Not scary but opportunity.

We have ALL gotten so used to things being easy or at least easier when it comes to food. Nuke that easy Mac, viola! Dinner is served. Maybe I’ll make a salad…Naa, to much chopping.

So sorry all you Mom’s of little kids, the light bulb was out at my house when my kid’s were little. I had four kids and a busy life and I thought it would have been silly not to take advantage of how easy it is to make dinner in 5 minutes flat. Now that it has been turned on, we can’t go back to the dark days. So things will take more time and effort. Parents will have to make things from scratch and know the ingredients. No easy way out anymore.  It is not going to be easy getting home from work and thinking up what can I make for a quick dinner? It will take becoming really organized and planning meals. It will take time and effort. You may want to start a garden even a little one in your kitchen where you plant your own organic seeds. Then you know exactly what you are getting! www.heirloomsolutions.com 

Sounds exhausting? At the very least daunting? I know but taking control and accepting the accountability and responsibility of what we feed our babies and ourselves will empower you. Empowered people are not afraid. It will be worth the effort, I promise. Nothing worthwhile comes easy if you are doing it right.

I am envisioning this beautiful picture of whole families becoming closer and happier together all from just changing how we eat. It took an hour to prepare the dinner but we did it together and now we are sitting down and eating whole food that makes us balanced and happy. And don’t worry about the 4 hours of homework because now that you are eating the real food, your kids won’t have the learning difficulties they had been struggling with then everyone's anxiety level goes down. You will have a calmer, happier more meaningful life. Ahhh, insert deep breath here.

Thank you Mansanto, with out you a lot of us would have never have known just how good and beneficial whole food really is. It is not until we are sick do we appreciate our health. Get more information on what you can do at http://thenaturelyceum.org  

Default Setting

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.

                                                                           –Bruce Barton.

Time to change the default setting on my motherhood mechanism. I have been a mother and a wife for more than half of my life. Making decisions at a very young age to be fully committed and do the best job at both that I possibly could. My husband and I were “all in” and we loved it. It was not without some serious good old-fashioned struggle, but I suppose we needed it.

Twenty-three years later kids are grown and growing and so are we. Part of what I thought went into being a good mother was being a strict disciplinarian. There was not a lot of parental guidance in my house growing up and I would pretend there was all the time.

I would impose on myself rules and regulations, curfews and traditions that didn’t exist. A good friend of mine had similar parents and we would say things to each other like, “ I think we really need more guidance.” Or “Do you think we should eat more vegetables?” Then we would shrug our shoulders and have a keg party because we could, no one seemed to mind. If my friends looked at their watches and were worried they would be in trouble if we stayed out much later I would feign being worried as well. "What time is it? Oh no, I’m going to be grounded!" (Grounded? What’s that??) My parents now claim they were so repressed growing up that they went 60’s style crazy and let me run my own life to a degree. Great idea, newsflash, kids don’t know shit. Looking back, I had plenty of people to run around with though so obviously others were living in a similar way although being the star of my own show it didn't seem that way at the time. My friend and I would chalk it up to our parents living through the “me” decade of the 70’s where adults of a certain age typically got divorced and put themselves first. I learned that I wanted to find more of a balance in my own parenting style. I longed for control in a life where everything seemed to be so out of my hands. On my own yet completely dependent, an inmate running my own asylum.

I don’t know how much you want to argue the nature vs. nurture debate but our kids actually grew up to be really great. Maybe we had a little something to do with it, I don’t know. I am fairly certain they were born this way. The four of them are all with their own faults because they are human beings after all but they are such solid, nice people who make me laugh. Which is basically all I could ever want in anyone, child or friend.

An interesting thing happened when everyone was home for Christmas. My son and I had an explosive argument where he for the first time in 19 and a half years yelled at me! He was always a sweet kid and maybe its because he was so cute and sweet as a little boy that I never got out of that mode of I am his “mommy”. The setting I put my mothering on was still the same one I used when he was a wee boy. We needed an explosive moment to signal to us that a shift was in order. At first I was devastated and I still had to remind him that no matter what I don’t call you sun cuz you shine, I call you son cuz your mine so watch yourself. We ended up having a very open and honest, great conversation.

My brain finally caught up to what was actually happening naturally and instinctively. That much needed shift that we felt happening in our bones long before our minds understood, things have changed. I didn’t need to have that same default setting of mommy that I had when he was 2 or 4 or 10. He was a man now and it was time for our relationship to evolve just like every relationship must do in order for it to keep growing in a healthy and positive direction for everyone involved. 

All relationships are constantly shifting. Relationships with our spouse, our kids, family, friends and our relationships with our selves are, god willing always going through some sort of evolution. Every ten years or so you may look around your house and say, You know, that couch we bought 23 years ago isn’t doing it for me anymore. I think I need a change. The cabbage roses I loved in 1989 just are not buttering the biscuit for me in 2012. Then you recover your couch and you have a little pep in your step when you walk through the room looking at your new/old couch. You feel better. You don’t need to get rid of the old couch; you just have to tweak it a little bit. It’s still the same comfy couch, but now it’s exciting again because you are seeing it in a whole new light.

The same goes for our relationships, (In case you weren’t picking up what I was putting down with my furniture metaphor). Sometimes you just have to shift the perspective. I chose to look at our argument as the greatest gift the boy could ever give me. I was so sad that I was missing him so much when he was away at school. But what he showed me by his exercise in autonomy was that I was missing a 6-year-old boy that didn’t exist anymore because that was what my mommy default setting was still on. We shifted in that one beautiful moment and I saw the man he actually is standing in front of me and not the boy I have to protect and mother. I can still be his mother but I can now care for him with out making him feel like he can’t take care of himself when he is around me. I was so intent all those years ago of being the best mom I could be I kind of got it in my head and I guess everyone else's head too, that I was the only one who could take care of you this way. You need me. (Or rather, I needed you to need me.) In that instant the chains I shackled myself with disappeared, I was free and so was he. Free to be us now, today.

The stages of a relationship infatuation, struggle and commitment are true for everyone. The beginning is infatuation, Oh! This is love! Then you move into the struggle of negotiation and evaluating and reevaluating. And you come to a spoken or unspoken agreement of the way you are going to live and you commit to that. But what we don’t realize is that the negotiations should never stop because we never stop evolving. Do you have what it takes to allow someone to grow and change and evolve without getting stuck in a default setting of “But that is not what we agreed on 10,20,30 years ago!”

Do yourself and the people you love a favor and pay attention to the shifting tides. Each day brings new awareness and possibilities. These moments that seem hard to get through are invaluable for personal growth. Next time you find yourself in this place where your body senses a shift coming long before your mind acknowledges that it is happening, like it or not. Ask yourself, where is this taking me and what is this telling me?

Don’t fear the change, every stage of a relationship can be new and exciting. The future holds endless possibilities, its all how you look at it. Things come to us when we need them the most. The universe is just designed that way I think. It is up to us individually to bear witness to our own evolution.