The Self Health Revolution - in more ways than one.

If ever I could recommend a book, it would be this one:



It's an easy read - about 175 pages but it's not full of fluff and useless information that bores you to tears. Although the basic foundation of information that it offered is what initially drew me to read it, there was one section that I felt was worth sharing.

Does your past equal your future?

Happiness of the heart that leads to Self Health is not found in possessions, accomplishments or any external circumstance. Health of the heart is something that happens from the inside out. Happiness is determined more by how we handle our circumstances rather than by the circumstances themselves. We all carry around some kind of circumstantial baggage from our past, broken homes, abusive relationships, failures, hurts, guilt, and fears. Many people believe that their past equals their future. Do you?

Charles Darwin basically taught us many years ago that we are the sum total of our past victories. The strongest will always survive and win because they always have (the past equals the future). That doesn't give much hope to those of us who have had less than a perfect past, does it? Then the great psychologist, Sigmund Freud, came along and told us that every future psychological event in our lives is determined by what happened in our past. Again, here we are being told that our past determines our future. Freud's powerful influence, even today, has many spending their lives attempting to fix some unresolved childhood trauma in order to find and fulfill their happiness as an adult.

The Real Freudian Slip

With all due respect to Freud (and Freudites), the truth is, as recent studies have shown, our childhood traumas have little determining influence on our adult happiness. This is not hard to believe. We all know people who had a horrible childhood but were determined to become happy, healthy, positive and productive people despite their rough upbringing. They became successful at being happy and positive without blaming their parents, abuse, stress, spouses, sex, drugs, alcohol, hurts, failures, injustice, or childhood. Perhaps you are one of those self-driven, happy people.

All too often in life, we can become bitter about our past and hopeless about our future, believing those negative events in our personal history have somehow imprisoned us and doomed us to failure, or at least to mediocrity. We allow our joy, contentment and happiness to be stolen by thoughts that overemphasize bad events in our lives without fully appreciating the good ones.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

Do a self check to be sure you are living this way!

Disney + Earth + James Earl Jones = Extraordinary

Disney’s ‘Earth’ opens April 22, 2009, Earth Day. I recommend everyone go and see it, even take your kid’s entire class, too. With the voice of James Earl Jones, how can you go wrong? Be inspired to do something great for our planet and support Disney's efforts! Although I don't see a deep ocean segment, I really think this documentary will be amazing! Deep Ocean stuff can sometimes be over rated, anyway. There is lots to do on dry land as well!

From Here to There

I happened to take a look at my last blog date and I am ashamed to say that it has been nearly a month ago. Time does fly by, ya know! I have been so absorbed with home, work and travel until this little "neck of the woods" had to take the back seat.

We have since sent my wayward 16 year old daughter to live with her father in hopes that she will turn her life around and respect rules and authority in her life. A different school district and new group of friends. She, by far, was not doing this at MY house and she needed a more firm upper hand to get a grip on her. Her dear ole' dad might just be the fella to do that for her. I'll keep my fingers crossed! We miss her and love her but she needs change!

The little one is adjusting well and our life continues as normal. Basketball season has come to an end and we are in full swing with softball (her true love).

We took a long-over-due trip to WV last week and really felt a kick in the stomach with Chef Ed's parents. My, oh my, they are really getting old. It just makes me feel so sad that those lovely people are so fragile and their time with us here is limited. I am more than pleased to see Ed and his dad finally have a loving relationship after years of struggle. It brought tears to my eyes the night before we left. More than anything, I was fearful that it may be the last time we see his dad alive. He was truly a strong and dominate man at some point in his life. My heart kind of aches because they have always been so good to me and have gone above and beyond in welcoming me into their family since day one.

Hope everyone is doing well on your end and I will catch up on everyone's whereabouts really soon!

The Spirit of Rebellion

I didn't want to admit that I had a rebellious spirit that was infecting my children. I don't mind admitting that I'm a sinner saved by grace, but it hurts to say, "I have a rebellious spirit." Does anyone understand what I'm saying? I've heard thousands of testimonies, but I can't remember anyone saying, "God spoke to me about my rebellious spirit."

The spirit of rebellion renders us incapable of giving balanced discipline. This rebellious spirit distorts our judgement so that we are too harsh or too lenient. We are incapable of balance and our children are over-disciplined which causes bitterness or they are undisciplined and become foolish. Either way, we cheat them of character development. By now, some of you may be asking yourselves, "What tell tale signs would I look for to see if I have a rebellious spirit?"

Five evidences of a spirit rebellion are bitterness, stubbornness, unteachableness, undisciplined living, and argumentation.

1. Bitter people reveal their bitterness by complaining about their lot in life. They tell you that things would be different for them if they had your silver spoon. When you listen to a bitter person talk, you discover that all their problems are the fault of others. Bitter people have a difficult time accepting personal responsibility. If you find yourself blaming others, check for spirit rebellion.

2. A stubborn person refuses to open his or her heart to listen to the facts. There is a rejection of open, honest dialog because their position will collapse under the light of truth.

3. A teachable person is an intelligent listener. It's very easy to spot an un-teachable person. First, their principle interest is to support their own position. The intelligent listener will make the extra effort to understand what you are trying to teach them. A rebellious spirit causes us to be selective listeners. An unteachable person will seldom view life through another person's glasses.

4. Undisciplined living can be express in ways other than drunkenness and immorality. Some people show it by over spending their budget, others who are habitually late for meetings, some by laziness, and not keeping the promises they make to others.

5. An argument is a clash of wills. If you have a tendency to want to impose your will on others, that may be your signal that you have not dealt with your spirit of rebellion.

I will bend my knee in submission. Parenting is a high stakes game in which the winner enjoys a life time of happiness, joy and peace of mind and the loser has tears, sorrow and shame. Therefore, play to win.

A Fresh Start

I have neglected to share some very important issues that have taken place in my personal life over the last few months. I was raised in a strict Greek home and "home" issues were always kept behind closed doors out of fearing that the people in the community may look down upon us. That is just one of the excess baggage things that I will probably keep with me forever. The important part is that we were always forgiven and loved no matter what happened.

As most parents do, I have been having some issues with my 16 year old daugher when it comes to defiancey and grades over the last few months. Looking back, it all began in October when my brother came home on hospice care and I was stretched very thin. Don't get me wrong, I am not beating myself up for it - it just happens that way, sometimes. Her grades were falling and no matter how hard we tried, we could see no improvement. We all felt hopeless. We threatened, we took the car and cell phone away, moved her downstairs - did everything but feed her under the door like a prisoner. Still....nothing! She asked about transferring to a private school and we just could not seem to manage an extra $410 a month tuition into the budget! We continued to play tug -o-war and finally, with the help of the high school administrator, we were referred to a small private academy that was willing to work with us and welcome our daughter with open arms. I really felt a sense of peace throughout that place as soon as I stepped foot on the grounds. After having "buyers remorse" this morning and praying that we had made the "right" decision, I came in to work to find the confirmation on my email that was sent to me by my new friend, Sharon.

Beth Moore, who wrote his article, talked about doing some cleaning in her child's room and she spoke about how her child's high school career was filled with scholastic backsliding. Beth gave thought to children and how they have to know that when they stumble and fall, as adults do, they can make a clean start. Whether we feel we've failed ourselves, or others, we all have a head-on collision with varying degrees of it throughout our lives. We can view failure as an opportunity to develop a necessary life skill. After all, we'd be worse than failures without it. We'd be merciless egomaniacs. Failure is one of life's most powerful teachers. We will all sign up for its class at one time or another, but we can each decide whether or not to pass the course. How we handle our failure to measure up determines whether we're simply going to "get by" in life or "press on."

I don't know much, but I know that everyone needs to be released from past mistakes. Life bulge's with burden of mistakes. Somewhere along the way, they've got to be able to lay down the old bag before they start collecting a new one. Double baggers are miserable people. Guilt heaped upon guilt becomes too much to bear. No doubt, people have to deal wisely with poor choices they make, but when it's over, it's got to be over.

My beautiful daughter will have her Fresh Start on Tuesday morning and when I close my eyes at night, I am thankful for the grace that we have been given by someone so powerful and amazing!

Woulda. Shoulda. Coulda

If I woulda put my Prada sunglasses into their case and taken them into the Olive Garden, I would still have them to wear during this blast of spring weather we are having here this week.

I shoulda been more responsible and now I am paying the price and wearing CHEAP sunglasses until I buy another pair. (Don't ask for details about them because it is far too painful to relive).

I coulda lied to Chef Ed about what happened to them but I "cowboy'd up" and admitted my wrong-doing and told him that I left them in my car - which was the truth!

I am always so organized until I don't know how all that happened!!

Yep, my mother always told me that "woulda, shoulda, coulda" gets you nowhere.

She was right, once again!

Bummer.

Stalked By An Unknown Caller

Within the last week to 10 days, we seem to have our cell phone number on speed dial of an Unknown Caller. This person was obviously born in a barn because if our number was connected to theirs on accident, I honestly feel that we are worthy of a "I'm sorry, I must have the wrong number." This is mainly due to the fact that the stalking calls that we are receiving are after 9pm - which is almost past my bedtime!!

For all of you Unknown Caller's out there, please put on your "manner's pants" and apologize for interrupting my nighttime schedule.

Sincerely,

Chef Ed's other half (not necessarily Better.....just Other)