Tag: being your best

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The Third Time’s The Charm!

I want to thank everyone who has purchased my first book, Views From My Chariot: A Wheelchair Oddity, and send a special SHOUT OUT to those of you who have contacted me with your kind comments. It’s been a fun reunion, of sorts, catching up with old friends and classmates, as well as making new friends!

Writing Views… was a cathartic experience and the impetus for writing this second book, HOW TO BE THE BEST YOU-from A to Z.

My original goal was to finish the novel I began several years back. But, I began writing a short 10-15 page eBook. When the idea of writing it in color came to me, having never seen one before, it was like receiving a blood doping transfusion. Talk about a performance-enhancing drug!

Then came the downer: somehow, I deleted it at seven thousand words! (In the “Prologue,” I relate how I declared writing war one (WWI) and became “Wheelchair Warrior” the next day.) Amazingly, one month and seventy-five pages later, I stopped to reassess: It would have to be a book.

I learned from my first book that the printing process can add fifteen or more pages. I also knew that color books price higher due to their exorbitant publishing expenses. Therefore, I wanted to stay under one hundred pages for a retail price of $24.

For anyone considering a writing career, pay close attention.

I shot it off to the editor, down under. Three weeks-worth of ping-pong emails—rethinking and rewriting—is arduous work. Then, I sent my edited manuscript back to the publisher for book formatting.

DING! Round two of my writing war (WWII): I’m told I owe an additional $225.

What! For what?

It was now an estimated 110 pages.

NO WAY!

After a half dozen email volleys, inquiring and arguing that I kept it under 100 pages, I found out that my editor had enlarged the font, to ease her read, and forgot to return it to its original size. A larger font increases the number of pages. Duh!

I PAID for her mistake, because I didn’t discriminate the size difference. Now, it was off to the graphic artist for fancy formatting and fun fonts.

This is another couple of weeks of intense eagle-eyed comparisons, assuring that all my bullet lists, graphics, and colored text have been entered and colored correctly.

Once this task is completed, and I approve it, it goes to the printer. Within the week, a sample ‘galley print’ (book) is mailed directly to me for the final approval before it’s listed for sale.
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Aside from writing it, I’ve also read it umpteen times by now. I’m a speed-reader! I can spot an undotted “i” and uncrossed “t” lickety-split; even faster.

I spy a misspelled name. SHOOT! Why didn’t the editor catch that? I choose to let it go.

I see a one-letter color bleed that had previously been corrected after I called attention to it. DARN! Will anyone else see it; hopefully not.

Then, the deal breaker: I had noticed a color change the graphic artist had made to some subtitles. I reasoned that it didn’t matter and dismissed it. BUT upon reading the physical book, the color change caused even me, the author, confusion.

Pay $100 to pass GO!

WWIII: Back it went to the graphic artist for a handful of correction; then boomeranged on to the printer and back to me. FINALLY!

Within the three days to list it with all the book stores, two friends read it. It was when directing my second friend to a specific section that I realized it wasn’t there.

I scrolled through a gazillion email attachments to discover that the designer had accidently deleted it midway through our collaborations. Neither of us caught it. Sale freeze!

WWIV: It went back to the graphic artist (pro bono), the publisher (who extended grace and charged me half the ‘new file’ fee, $98), the printer, and on to me—for the third time, and the third sample book.

The third time’s charm; the paperback is READY to read! Glory, glory hallelujah!

ORDER AWAY! http://booklocker.com/books/6811.html

P.S. I’m weighing the conversions. The only way to replicate the colored fun fonts and fancy formating is to make graphics of each, then manually insert those graphics! That’s conversion cost plus the added labor expense. And, only the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Color Nook read in color. Most people have the basic Kindle. What to do!

 

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Pause For A Cause

I don’t talk much about my problems or the disheartening ramifications of my SCI. I take them to God. That’s where I vent my frustration, cry, and fuss. Then miraculously, I can suck it up, redo whatever, or start over. I believe ‘start overs’—second chances—begin in hope. It’s the pauses that make it possible to start over or to cut a new trail in the actualization of new dreams. Let me use the comma as an example.

A comma is a punctuation mark that represents a pause to the eye of the reader. Whether used to delineate a list, give emphasis to a word, separate words and phrases of words, the comma gives clarity of interpretation. Like in the saying, “Life is just, not fair.” the comma clarifies that happenings in life conform to some fact or reason, although they may not be fair.

For instance: My car ran off the road, up an embankment, and flipped back down onto the road, landing upside down on its roof. The wreck was caused by the fact that my rear tires had a blowout. My SCI is its result. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t something I deserved. It happened.

As with the saying example, I used a pause—the comma after “just”—to accept it, re-evaluate, and clarify my options then, reconfigured my old dreams and created new ones.

WITHOUT the comma/pause, the sentence reads: “Life is just not fair.” Have you omitted the pause that could give clarity to your situation/disability/illness? In belligerence or bitterness, have you ricocheted off every hopeful course of action offered to you to better your life, to adjust to disability? Do you find yourself repeatedly boomeranging back to the same bad attitude of ingratitude and self-pity? It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy only you can change.

We ALL experience dashed hopes and broken dreams, but is that any reason to quit hoping, to stop dreaming, or to punish others because you have? Since we’re promised nothing more than today, why not begin today with a clarifying pause.

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In recognizing there is a problem, you open the mental windows for fresh ideas to circulate. The desire to do something about the problem(s) is the door to your freedom. Then, the choice to make the changes puts you on the path to fulfilling your purpose.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             My

My first book, Views From My Chariot: A Wheelchair  Oddity http://booklocker.com/books/6235.html , is a beginner course for you to recognize fresh ideas that will revive your hope after a SCI, resuscitate mental clarity for strength to push forward, and encourage you to open the door to a promising future that awaits you.

Once you make the choice to open the door to your future, my second book, HOW TO BE THE BEST YOU-from A to Z, coming SOON http://booklocker.com/books/6811.html,
is somewhat of a follow-up—a how-to find yourself, rediscover your heart, change your ‘stinkin’ thinkin’, and take a detour around the roadblocks to fulfill your destiny.

My hope is that you do. Let me be a part of your turnaround, your start-over, your happiness, and your life’s fulfillment. Then, please tell me about it.

We’ll all benefit from your success!

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Beware: Karma-BANG! BANG! DUCK!

We’re all familiar with the Eastern philosophy of karma: the inevitable action of bringing upon oneself results, good or bad, of our own actions, or “What goes around, comes around.” Here in the Bible Belt, it’s referred to as “The Golden Rule”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What personal messages (PM) are you sending out…that inevitably come back to you?

Optimistically, we are always kind (in word and deed), patient, sympathetic, and loving, to the Nth degree. SURE!

In all honesty, you KNOW there are times when you deliver impatient, arrogant, and hateful PMs in a variety of ways: in exasperating return lines, home interruptions by telemarketers, misunderstood orders by outsourced telephone assistants, garbled orders (and prices) in drive-thru food services, road rage reactions, frustratingly persnickety family members, and sadly, on-and-on.

My question is not only to those of you adjusting to disability, but to anyone wondering why life seems to always give you lemons: What boomerangs back at regular intervals in your life? Misunderstandings; relational discord; exclusion from social gatherings; perpetually being over-looked for that promotion; constipated cash flow; recurrent health issues; bad luck? If any of these strikes a cord, you may be the one plucking it.

I’ll illustrate my point with the analogy of ammunition. Much like shooting a shotgun, unresolved issues detonate emotions. There may be lots of issues/pellets loaded into the shell (repressed emotions) or one big issue/slug (volatile emotions). Wrapped in the subconscious, they lay loaded, cocked, and waiting to explode their charge.

When the specific volatile and toxic emotion is triggered, a single projectile of words or actions like the metal slug, or lesser bullet, is aimed to murder its downrange target. Always looking out for a particular perpetrator’s profile, this person is ever-conscious of their injury. This is a stalker/predator hunting style. Vengeance is theirs.
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Then, like the number of smaller pellets wrapped inside a shotgun shell, are the more common repressed emotions from childhood, adolescence, and/or adjustment issues. They have become so enmeshed in our temperaments and relational styles that the emotion triggered is associated with a personal affront or putdown.

In a compulsive need for self-defense, and in ignorance to the cause and effect, the disabled and the able-bodied alike shoot off verbal ballistics. BANG! BANG! Stinging words scatter; more whelped offenses. Remember: What you sow, you will reap.

In PART TWO of my book, HOW TO BE THE BEST YOU http://booklocker.com/books/6811.html,
I offer a strategy of brain exercises to train your out of shape, disabled brain. You will learn to strengthen those flabby mental muscles that have offered no resistance to out-of-control thoughts. You will realize their continued circuitry—mulling them over and over and over in your mind, fires up the same emotions as the original words/action/offense did.

DUCK!

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Dear Family,

I don’t have many disabled friends, although time and again, friends and friends-of-friends give me numbers to call of people adjusting to a disability, disease, or illness. In addition to living with a disability, my counseling experience seems the perfect fit. I can listen with an empathetic ear, answer personal questions, and offer practical solutions for daily living. Before moving away, one of these women became a dear friend.

She was a go-getter. Obstacles were met with determination. She thought of tomorrow as the result of what she made of today. She was, and I’m sure she still is, a trooper. We lost touch after she and her husband moved. It was fun with the both of us rolling around together in our homes. I hadn’t been in a room full of wheelchairs since rehab!

From all the conversations getting to know my comrades-on-wheels, with the exclusion of my friend Julie, this is what I’ve found: Most succumbed to disability.

Understandably, they were faced with the drastic lifestyle change. And, the added stress of dashed dreams, the uncertainty of tomorrow, and pressure to adjust before the impact of the new reality had sunk in, brought an emotional tailspin—depression. This is when family is most important, although it was their families that seemed to be the insurmountable barrier to their emotional freedom and physical independence.

Caustic remarks fueled emotional eruptions. Innuendos, hints, and sarcastic tones of unspoken resentments from care-giving family members were destructive to all; particularly, the ones with broken wings. They couldn’t fly away to safety, and healing. They were sentenced to flop around and be pecked by unkindnesses.

The saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” is untrue. Words wound, as well.

Family should be a safe environment nurturing us back into a productive life. Even so, it’s difficult for you who love us to stand back and watch the struggle—dressing, feeding, wheeling ourselves—when you could easily do it for us. But, we must be allowed the struggles. This not only increases our endurance but also our confidence toward independence.
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Independence requires we care for ourselves, apply make-up, or shave. Adjustment asks for time for our doubts and confusion to settle. In time, we gain confidence on the slippery slope of acceptance toward a healthy adjustment. Please encourage us to hope, to make plans for a new future. When the time comes, we will have learned we will be okay on our own. After all, this is true for anyone.

We don’t like feeling helpless. We don’t like feeling we’re a burden. Help us be neither.

We are aware that it’s a difficult adjustment for you. We do know you’re suffering, as well. Your dreams for and with us have been altered. You miss the way we were. You feel guilty because you do. It’s natural. It’s okay. You have your own adjustment. Together, we can do it.

Once we gain emotional freedom, prove our independence, and begin to laugh again, you can push us around.  We’ll accept a freebie, any day.

THANK YOU!

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Where art Thou, Romeo?

Movies and romance novels propagate the fantastical delusion of the perfect other in our lives. Though it’s subliminal: “…below the threshold of consciousness.” (Merriam-Webster), these scripts imply that The One is out there waiting to meet all our emotional and physical needs, just like that. The infamous line in Jerry Maguire, “You complete me.” doesn’t help in refuting this romantic notion of effortlessly living happily ever after.

STOP! There is no such thing. Forget it! He/she doesn’t exist. Was there a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Two, Sleeping Beauty –After Her Awakening, or Cinderella-My Family Will Come? No, deluded romantics, because after commitment comes reality.

Because God knows the cost of true love, I believe that the physiological and psychological effects of being in love are His whimsical whammy for procreation. (You know, the surges of serotonin in the gut, aka butterflies, and the mood enhancer, dopamine, messing with the brain’s reasoning abilities.) If it weren’t for these out-of-control emotions, how many of you would knowingly walk into the most difficult role of your life? He knew the strength of emotion, as well as the emotional strength, necessary to star in this role. He is the Epitome, Price, and Prize of commitment, of unconditional love.

Although I have yet to experience it, I believe in forever love.The many couples who remain married after decades of living this forever love say that they work at staying in love, day-in and day-out. The secret is that neither one falls out-of-love with the other at the same time.

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PHOTO Heart REFLECTION SWANS LOVEA successful love story takes work and understanding. Getting to know anyone takes patience and time. It requires acceptance (of their preferences or prickly quirks), availability, kindness, selflessness, and persistence when things get painful.This is when most people throw up their hands and throw-in-the-towel on love. They choose to not deal with the conflict. What good story is without conflict? Besides, marriage isn’t a mindless emotional high. Who could sustain it?!

A committed marriage, or any committed relationship, is to selflessly support, help, and heal each other on the road to their (and your) personal wholeness. Let’s face it: the inevitable daily friction of rubbing shoulders, re-opens childhood wounds from early relationships; raw, unresolved emotions sting and irritate.

If you feel you are with The One, are you going to run away when things get tough and let another scab form over your unhealed wounds? Or, will you stay to apply (and receive) the healing salve of true, unconditional love—the ointment of your soul?

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Extraverbalism

One intention for my blog articles is to stimulate thought; not just for the disabled, but for the able-bodied as well. Whether it tweaks a fundamental change in thinking, sparks a revelatory “aha moment,” or brings a view-enlarging paradigm shift, I want you, my readers, not only to be satisfied, but also to be challenged to be the best you.

Reading for information’s sake is a great learning tool, but self-examination and introspective questions result in self-enlightenment and personal growth.

Something Diane Sawyer said made me reconsider my equation for learning. If I’m not mistaken, it was a question asked of her by her father one afternoon after school. It was: “What questions did you ask today?” not, “What did you learn today?” though a good, necessary question.

We can deduce that that provocative question shifted her perspective, propelling her to become the renowned investigative correspondent/anchor she is today.

I was painfully shy in my younger years, and resembled the age-old adage, “Children should be seen, not heard.” It took years, and then some, to realize the self-centeredness of my shyness before I could perform as an extrovert. I had to learn how to carry-off the extrovert personality while having the temperament of an introvert. I learned how-to through required reading for a counseling course.

Most clients, and friends, come to therapy to “talk through” whatever they need help and resolution with. You want to draw them out with questions.

You also need to be a skilled listener; not only to what is said, but also to what isn’t said, in order to ask the poignant questions. I began using these methods with friends, colleagues, and new acquaintances to learn more about them, and to practice my extraverbalism.

Through inquiry, you can learn as well as teach. With the right line of questioning, a question can answer itself for the person being asked the question, an aha moment for them.

For instance: Someone has been burning your ears with insults, complaints, and criticism of a person they know. Ask: “Are you angry with so-in-so?”

In that instant, their ragings will boomerang back in their consciousness, registering their anger. Whether motivated by jealousy or envy, they’re mad about it.

You can also learn through intuitive translation.

Body language validates the truth, or exposes the untruth, of the spoken word. For example: Someone walks up to you, introduces themselves, shakes your hand with, “So nice to meet you.” then backs away.
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I don’t think so! If they were glad to meet you, they would remain within a comfortable space to carry on a conversation. If not, they may have issues with their own personal space.

You might then ask, “Are you uncomfortable?” The question lets them know you see them and understand. Even if they deny it, the question will provoke thought.

The more questions I ask, the more interested I become. The more interested I become, the more I learn. Amidst the conversation, the other party becomes the center of attention and leaves thinking I was a great conversationalist.Truth be told, we like hearing ourselves talk.

The juxtaposition of becoming an inquiring extraverbalist while being an introvert did not belittle who I was. It was not a character compromise. It made me a better me.

What changes have been incubating in you?

Are you ready?

Do it!

Become the best you. No one else can. http://booklocker.com/books/6811.html.

 

 

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Olympic Collaboration

Recently, my 5 ½ year-old Grand Niece and I were playing “I Spy a Color.” Of course, Diego—of the Dora and Diego duo—was participating. It came his turn to pick a color. He normally picks green, because green is his favorite color, but his spokesperson said he chose brown. Herein, lay the challenge.

We were in my great room. In the “Bless This Home” chapter of my book, Views From My Chariot: A Wheelchair Oddity http://booklocker.com/books/6235.html , I reference this room as my mixed child because of the various countries represented in its antique décor.

There is an English bow-front chest, a huge American chest, an African coffee table, Irish, French, and Italian chairs, and to magnify my conundrum, wood floors. If I didn’t use colorful upholstery fabrics and Persian rugs, we would drown in brown.

So, I said, “Baby, tell Diego that this will take forever for Toppy (her pet name for me) to guess. Look at ALL the brown.”

She looked around the room, realizing the truth of the matter, and said, “Oh, it’s easy. It’s round, made of wood (yes) and has horn legs.”

From her fitting description, it was obviously the African coffee table. What struck me was her cooperative compassion.

Now, she likes to win. Don’t take me wrong. We had just played a visual memory card game, “What’s That?” where I pick eight pair of numbers, she lays them face down—four rows, four cards across—then, we take turns turning two cards up trying to find a match. If they don’t match, the cards are turned back over in their same space for the next player’s turn.
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I always make sure that I win one game to give her the “joy exercise” for my win. Life, disappointments, even disability gives us opportunities to look on the bright side. Thereafter, she deserves her win. (Give and take is an important heart lesson/character quality in my book.) Her Olympic victory dance, and its accompanying celebratory song, had lasted ten minutes. She likes winning!

Nonetheless, in her realization of Diego’s difficult color choice, she still played by the rules, but chose to benevolently offer clues to make my guess easier…instead of prolonging the agony of my defeat.

During this Olympic season, winning is the name of the game, as it should be. Each participant has dedicated their life for the goal of the Gold. But, how often in our daily lives do we stroke our own ego above another’s, just to be right, or to win?

I choose cooperative compassionate collaboration to make the world a better place.

How about you?

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Disabled or Enabled Thoughts

I may be living with a disability, but I have enabling thoughts, most of the time.

I enjoy reading and writing, and I love words, but there are times when OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder) sets in—like the Howard Hughes moment when I catch myself repeating, in my head, the same set of words over and over and over and over and over…. I catch myself repeating a slogan on a billboard, a car sticker silly-ism, a TV advertisement, or a thought reminding me to do something.

I fall out of the formal diagnosis of ritualistic behaviors because there is no mental compulsion driving me to relieve an identifiable anxiety. Except, I must confess, on rare occasions since I was a young girl, when a group of birds fly overhead, I am compelled to count them before they disappear from sight. Of course, that’s totally normal. Don’t you also need to know the avian population? No worry; I don’t keep count from one counting to the next and add them up. That would be CUCKOO, and compulsive. Repeating the same set of words in my head is recurrent, it isn’t compulsive, unless I don’t have a pen and paper readily available, or until I turn the oven off…turn the oven off…turn the oven off….

“STOP!” I say out loud, only to hear myself repeating the same stale words moments later. It’s like dictating a Western Union telegram—Stop (period). No such luck! It’s really aggravating.

To get to my point, research has shown that our thoughts (able-bodied and disabled alike), positive and negative, affect our emotions and physiology. Long before this type of research was accepted, James Allen wrote As A Man Thinketh. The following are food-for-thought quotes from his contemplative writing:

“The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind….”

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“Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. Thoughts of fear have been known to kill a man as speedily as a bullet….Anxiety quickly demoralizes the whole body, and lays it open to the entrance of disease; while impure thoughts, even if not physically indulged, will sooner shatter the nervous system.”

“Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in vigor and grace.”

“If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, and despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, pride.”

“There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with goodwill for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow.”

And, along those lines—A REMEDY: When you find yourself feeling depressed and sorry for yourself, do something kind, thoughtful, and generous for someone else; not just once, often. He’s not heavy; he’s your brother. Your heaviness will be lightened, as well. I have always found this to be true.

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The Etiquette of Truth

The truth used to be told straight up, according to the facts, as it was seen, and with no apologies. Of course, if it was bad news, it was given with heart-felt sympathy and concern, as with the doctor’s prognosis of our disability, illness, or disease. Otherwise, the truth was served up as the truth. Who doesn’t tell the truth or want to know the truth? Well….

When I was fifteen, I remember having a conversation with my best girlfriend. I trustingly asked her to tell me something in my personality that needed tweaking; some bothersome trait she found annoying. I seriously wanted to be a better person. Who else would tell you the truth but your best friend? She agreed to tell me something I needed to change on one condition: that I would first tell her a habit she needed to change.

Well, I loved her the way she was. The only thing I could think of was that most of the time I went to her house to spend time with her. So that’s what I said—I would like for her to come to my house more often instead of always having to go to hers.

Now that it was my turn, I asked her again. She said, “I don’t want to. I don’t know.”

I felt so let down and disappointed that she wouldn’t give me any constructive criticism. Now that I’m older, I understand the conflict she must have felt in telling the truth, even though I had asked for it.

Since becoming disabled, I have observed (or have become more aware of) people’s aversion to and avoidance of discomfort, whether mental or physical. One of these seemingly uncomfortable situations is being around the disabled.

During the five months of SCI rehabilitation after my car wreck, we were warned of other’s reactions to us. The teaching staff explained that their responses to us were more a result of their ignorance than our condition. I have experienced this as true.
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Before I internalize another’s words, looks, or actions, I remove my self-centered glasses stained from my life experiences. (Regardless, if a matter has nothing to do with oneself, we tend to interpret it personally.) When I do this, I can see their awkwardness and discomfort as they approach me.

Most often they look over my head or in another direction. If they muster up enough nerve to meet my gaze, I simply smile. I understand. At first, I didn’t know what to do with myself. And, I’ve learned that we in wheelchairs, using walkers, or assisted by guide dogs aren’t the only ones disabled.

For those of you paralyzed by uncertainty of what to do in our presence, it’s okay. For a starter in etiquette, you could just acknowledge that I am there with a smile and a nod.  At our next encounter, you could do the same or ask if there is anything I need help with. You might even confess your lack of experience in helping a disabled person, but you’re available and willing to learn.

Amazingly, truth dismantles barriers. Unhealed wounds, self-absolving justifications, and staid conclusive judgements do not teach us about anyone or anything, particularly ourselves. There should be no consequences to a well-meaning truth.

What has been your experience? Let’s talk about you.