OVER THE RAINBOW

WHAT A GIFT!

THEY ARE IN THE PRESENT

The Law of Attraction is still acting like a sneaky little devil, because I am…ACTING. Funny thing, I was just journaling about what is happening today and why I am seeing a lot of negative things taking place and this went through my mind:

“I am looking for the missing link. If I continue to look for the link, I will never find it, I will just create more ways to look for it. I am so grateful to have the missing link, God. Thank you. With All My Love, Thank you, God.
LOL, God (LOVE OUT LOUD).

When we go looking for something, we will only find more of what we are looking for. Like when someone says, “ Hey man, I am just trying to find myself”. What they are saying is they do not know who they are. But if they “realize” that they do not know who they are…THEY ARE IN THE PRESENT for that moment. “Believe it is in your future and live in the present, you already have everything you need.”

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:
THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.
There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.

EASTER SUNDAY FOUR YEARS LATER!

I was sitting in my kitchen last night with two of my children and my daughter’s boyfriend. I was trying to just be there….I watched each of my children as they spoke and realized how amazing they were. I mean, I listen when they talk…but when you quiet your mind and just be…it is amazing what the experience becomes.

I noticed that there is a shelf in my kitchen that I hand painted 4 years ago. I sat there after awhile thinking that I just couldn’t read the date right from the distance I was from the shelf. After a while I got up, and went over to it, and realized I was right, 4 years. The thoughts in my mind at the time were “where did four years go? What had I been doing for four years?” The concept of time was so far from reach. I had nothing to answer the questions with. I know I was here, but I seriously can not put any information into answering those two questions. It was at that moment I realized, that I have been journaling for at least that long, and it was time to collect them and see where I was and what I have been doing. It did not come with a sense of urgency, just a mental note to begin.

In amongst my journals are the answers to the questions and most likely will contain the content that will tell me that I was on my way here.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:
THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.
There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.

I'M A RIOT, AREN'T I?

Seriously, I wrote my last blog and talked about the insignificance of money and then I deluge my next post with business ads. Well, the bills have to get paid, despite the value I place on money.
It is unfortunate, but true, that you cannot live without money. Actually people do, but they are usually homeless, without jobs, or disabled, and unable to earn income from home, or survive on disability or retirement. What I was referring to was the necessity to be rich. Being rich provides the ability to help a great deal more people, but even on a steady income, there should always be enough money for helping others.

A friend once taught me that when you lend money...don't lend...GIVE. So I have adopted that policy. That doesn't mean you should come running to me for money...I am still in the process of earning enough to make what i do for others much greater than it is right now.

When I was younger I still remember thinking "Why can't we just run the government with monopoly money? What is the point of money? Why can't the government just print more? Well, I learned that everything is off balance when the economy is off balance, which is the same for the Universe.

Faith is believing that the universe
is on our side, and that the universe
knows what it’s doing.
Author Unknown From an excerpt of Jack Canfield’s book 2-21-2008

When we are out of align with The Universe, our life is not running on a steady course, we are having a hard time, we are dealing with life issues and crises. God never meant for us to go through hard times, but he is actually pleased when we do, and we find the blessing on the other side. So the next time you are in the middle of something really difficult, remember "FOOTPRINTS"....God is carrying us through the hard times...and when we are past them we have gotten a huge blessing.
"My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."
Mary Stevenson

So try to always remember to find the blessing, because there absolutely is one for every life issue. Make a list off the top of your head...name as many crises as you can and then look for what would not contain a blessing. You will come up with issues like World Wars and 911 and many others but I promise you, if you look from WITHIN... you will find the blessing. It is always there.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:

Thoughts do become things.
There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.
BE GRATEFUL
RUN AN HONEST BUSINESS
READ SOMETHING EVERYDAY
THANK GOD
HAVE GOOD INTENTIONS
A HANDMADE GIFT IS MADE WITH LOVE
LOVE OUR CHILDREN
IF YOU CAN'T READ A BOOK LISTEN TO ONE

WE KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!

IF YOU NEED TO SUBMIT TO SAFE LISTS
YOU NEED OUR TRIPLE WHAMMY PACKAGE

QUIETING THE MIND!

Eckhart Tolle and Oprah discussed "quieting the mind" during their first of ten classes online, Monday nights for 10 weeks. During the conversation he said "just make sure you check to see if you are breathing". I found that odd, and it has been running through my mind a great deal since then. Tonight I discovered what they were talking about. It's the method of breathing you use to quiet the mind.

When I meditate there are seconds in time when an old cartoon runs through my mind. I picture a table with just talking heads on it. It was probably in a "Three Stooges show". That is the kind of humor they had. The feeling of detachment from the body is so surreal (of course), in the sense that although my hands are touching my thighs as I sit cross legged, I begin to lose contact with the feeling of my hands on my thighs. At one point I felt something touch the tops of both hands, as if someone was trying to reassure me.

Eckhart Tolle offered the fact that someone compared the experience of "quieting the mind" to "dropping acid", only the acid experience was more violent in nature. I was intrigued enough to spend more time finding the experience, and I did. There is no experience that I can compare it to. There is no greater peace, ever. It helps me to understand separating from the "ego."
It is a concept I was having difficulty understanding, but feeling it makes it real for me now.

If you are taking this class, getting in touch with this experience is something that I recommend, it is beginning to show in my daily reaction to the normal events that take place in our lives, everyday.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this: THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.
There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.

I GOT KICKED OUT OF THE BOOK CLUB!

I was watching the Oprah Book Club and started to take a few notes on my computer and I suddenly lost the feed. Seeing that over 700,000 people were in this class via internet, I am not surprised. In the few minutes I had until I lost the feed, I was in awe of the messages that were in my mind. The messages I have been getting since I was first introduced to “The Secret.” Eckhart Tolle has taken the principal of “The Secret” to new heights for me. Some experienced it differently, by reading his book and then discovering the movie “The Secret.”

In preparation for this viewing I had in front of me, a note book with questions in it, and the outline that I printed from the class preparation materials, the book, and my mother’s bible.

My mother passed away 25 years ago, and I lived believing that she left after spending time with her minister everyday, preparing herself, I suppose, for her journey to heaven, and saying goodbye and I love you to all family and friends…except me. I was the person who turned their life upside down, gave up the business I was opening, and just packed up and went to live with my mother so she could be released from the hospital. I took her for her radiation and chemotherapy treatments until she chose to stop them. I then took over her nursing care, learning to take care of all her needs, because she was very private about her body. I would never have done these things for anyone in my lifetime, but I did this for my mother, and yet she left the earth without even saying, Thank you or I Love You to me.

I wrestled with these thoughts for so many years until shortly after my sister’s passing, when I saw the cast of “The Secret” on Oprah one day and immediately began to absorb “The Secret” and live the Law of Attraction. One of the days I was watching the movie on my television, which is on an entertainment center in my living room; I glanced around for a moment and noticed that my mother’s bible was on the shelf in front of me. I had not put it there and my children certainly did not, they would not have known what it was. I was still mad at God for my mother’s passing and for so many things that took place in my life after that. I still prayed every night and tried to be a good person and raise my children teaching them the right things to do. I just didn’t focus on my spiritual relationship with God anymore. But I got up off the couch, picked up the bible and opened to the first page, and inside it said:

Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.

And then this:

Acts 17:28

For in him we live and move, and have our being; for we are also his offspring.

My mother had said good bye…. but she left my message in her bible, which is why she wrote in her notebook, the things she specifically wanted each person to have to remember her by. I was so lost in my hurt and anger that I didn’t look for the message. I believed it was too late. She was gone. But there was the message 25 years later. How did I not look in the bible? How did I not treasure it as something that was hers? I was too lost in the pain of her leaving without ever…saying, I love you to me, my whole life. I heard her tell the grandchildren when they were young. I heard her tell every family member and friend that came to see her before she passed, but I never heard her say it to me.

About 6 months before my mother died, I buried my six mo nth old daughter Gillian. Most of my family did not even know I had her. My mother was embarrassed that I had a child out of wedlock. She got a leave from the hospital to come and see Gillian before she (Gillian) went in for surgery. My mother left that day with these words. “Well, I guess if Gillian makes it I will too.” Well, Gillian did not make it and I had to go to the hospital to tell my mother. When I called to talk to my Uncle, who was a Funeral Director, my Aunt got on the phone and said to me, “Ann-Marie, I didn’t even know you had a baby.” I’m sure the fact that my mother was embarrassed by me just added to my hurt. She was in the hospital the day that my daughter died. I went from the hospital my daughter died in, to the hospital my mother was in, to tell her the news. When I got there, she already knew, someone had already told her. I was upset that I had to actually go there and tell her, then to find out that she already knew, was even more painful.

I buried my daughter and then packed up to go and live with my mother until she passed away. I didn’t really even think about these losses for quite a few years later. When I did, the other issues in my life were just too much to even think about these things. I married an abusive man that cheated on me for ten years and I allowed myself to be victimized by his abuse and by turning a deaf ear to his philandering, even when it was with, what I considered, my best friend.

Five years into the marriage I was finally strong enough to put my ex husband out and get on with raising my children. I worked three jobs and did whatever it took to make sure my children never knew we were poor. We moved, by the grace of God, into subsidized housing in a beautiful rural town and I was finally able to pay all of the bills and manage to not work so many jobs all of the time. I took a job driving a school bus for special needs children so I could be home when the children were. When I first started I would take them with me and we always had the same days off so it was the perfect solution. I did that for 10 years.

When I started to obsess over “The Secret”, everyone around me began to think there was something wrong with me, that I was having a nervous breakdown. I began to have issues with just about everyone around me. Despite all of the disappointments and anger, I was feeling stronger, because none of the things that were upsetting me, were anywhere close to the pain I felt for all those years, thinking my mother never loved me. I quit smoking after 40 plus years, I lost 47 pounds and stopped using the excuse that I needed to drink alcohol every night to sleep. I found for awhile, that I had little tolerance for people with drug and alcohol issues, and severed some very difficult relationships. One of those relationships was my youngest son.

I believed that when I began to change that my children would follow me, but I found that not to be true. My youngest son seemed to get worse and it seems now, like it got worse as I got better. Maybe it was the same, but I just never saw it until I stopped abusing myself. My mind was clearer than ever and I began to get over the illness that was keeping me trapped in the house. I started walking again and I would walk and listen to James Taylor, with tears in my eyes, just for the beauty of walking. Just for the beauty of breathing, how energetic and happy I felt. I could see people around me starting to see me change, some resented it, and others wanted to have it themselves. It still is that way. Not everyone will see things the way I do, I would now, never expect them to.

When I began reading “A New Earth”, I immediately felt that I was attracted to it, and understood Eckhart Tolle’s purpose in writing the book. There are many more people in the world, just like me that are seeing things this way. Some people call it new age religion. A woman asked Oprah about that tonight on the show. Oprah’s response was perfect; she said “A true path of spirituality enhances what your religion already is. Jesus came to earth to teach us the Christ Consciousness. The kingdom of heaven is here within you.” I have said that to myself since I first started to apply the principles of “The Secret” to my life. God is within me. I have always believed that my relationship was with God not so much the church.

When Eckhart Tolle talked about whether this book was waiting for him to write it or asked himself what life wants from him, I already had that in my mind. I have been asking God for the past year what my purpose is, and I am still waiting for the answer. I’m not sure if this is the answer but I am learning to quiet my mind so I can hear the answer. Everything in my life is The Law of Attraction in action. I can see it all around me, in everything I say, do, see or hear. I am learning to live within, so what I see without will be me.

This to me is the most amazing part of this whole experience, when I heard about this book and Oprah having the book club online, I was actually doing a search for a new business idea to see if people were doing online book clubs. So I was definitely attracted here. I will just have to keep quieting my mind until God speaks to me, or I discover it by Law of Attraction. I feel such a genuine attraction to everything, and the expectancy I feel, waiting for the answer, is both frightening, but also exhilarating, neither of which I plan to give up, until I know the answer. What my purpose is. I know this much, my purpose is in service, and I will soon be shown the way.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:

THE SECRET

Thoughts do become things.

There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.

WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?

I have mentioned before how difficult it is for my friend who’s child has been diagnosed as having ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). I recently discovered that it is under the umbrella of Autism and usually goes hand in hand with ADHD referred to as Comorbidity.”This is a very difficult diagnosis for parents to live with. I realize the emphasis should be on the treatment of the disorder and the child, but I think that most agencies and state wide resources are forgetting that parents are a crucial part of this disorder. It is parents that have to heal their children. It is parents that have to continually make excuses for their child’s behavior, or have discipline, at school and other places, make exceptions for their child. This is what my friend heard today. “Your daughter will be coming home in a few days and if you feel that you are not “capable” of taking care of her, we will place her in a foster family.” NO PARENT SHOULD EVER HAVE TO HEAR THOSE WORDS. These children are not responsible for this behavior and although parents must monitor their child’s behavior, eventually when things go back to normal for awhile, they begin to trust their child, and they are fooled into believing that they are doing everything they can, which in fact, they are not. (They do not ever realize this at the time, because their wish to believe that their child is taking his or hers medication is what they need to believe). I have seen many parents going through this when my youngest was in school. At some point, every parent has to trust their child in order for that child to get everything they should out of life. But for parents the only hope is disguised as manipulation on the part of the child, which is the most prevalent symptom in the diagnosis. This is a perfect Catch-22 and it is being over- looked on every level of care for these children.

Parents are having to alter their entire life styles. They are forced to sacrifice their own dreams, in order to focus on raising their child with crucial fail safes in place. And to be prepared for the cycling that inevitably takes place, with this disorder.

It is under the Department of Mental Health, which under that title, you would expect a great deal more available to parents raising children with ODD. Well, their method is not a solution. No one has offered my friend support in this. I know that they offer the support of DSS (Department of Social Services) in the form of intervention between parent and child, and frequent visits to gauge the child and the parent‘s behavior, but under that title there is only one solution, keep your child at home and go about daily life as if he or she does not suffer from this disorder, and when he or she cycles again, we can then give you more help by taking her off your hands for another week or two while they adjust her medication and then send her back home, where the parent sits waiting everyday for the other shoe to drop. This puts a lot of parents in the position of raising self indulgent children. Placating them to tone their behavior down, avoid explosions, and live in peace. The mere fact that these agencies are aware that this disorder cycles, should be enough to offer parents more resources.
I had to tell my friend today, that what she was being told was true, and that they were consistently telling her that there are no alternatives for her. However, that is not what my friend needed to hear, so she did not buy into that mind set. I was feeling so disconnected from her on the ride home. I could not find the “right” words to express to
her that I understood what she was trying to accomplish, but it was the “method” she was using to accomplish it. Parents, as well as children, have to know that, there are times when what you are doing is not going to get you anywhere, and continuing along the same lines of communication will only leave you, the parent, with a new label. The label will fall under the heading of inadequate parenting, and he or she will be told that they are the source of the rise in their child’s behavior. NO PARENT IS INADEQUATE WHEN THEY ARE PROACTIVELY TRYING TO GET HELP FOR THEIR CHILD! I am no expert, but I do believe that when a parent is doing everything possible to help their child, the help should come in a message that parents understand. A language that can be used to miraculously change their child’s behavior. It may be something as simple as changing the way that social workers explain the available resources to the parent. Or finding more resources for both the child and the parent.

I know this:

My friend is not the source of her child’s behavior, the disorder that her child has, is the source. Although my friend may not be communicating that well, considering how much pressure this puts on her, social workers should be ready to provide “more than just adequate resources” to aid parents through the most difficult and crucial time with this disorder. During the crisis, not after. After the crisis the whole cycle begins again and it will never end as long as it continues along these lines.

There are alternative methods for children with this disorder and they involve physical activity to raise their endorphin level and to experience deep and sometimes traumatic issues in their life. This is why most of them are sent to ‘Wilderness Programs”that are not covered by insurance and cost $6000. plus per month. Not every family, and in some areas, no family, is prepared to put out that much money. Most parents are saving for college education for their child. Are they supposed to use that resource to change this child’s behavior? Are they supposed to let their child fail in school and not see the child’s dream come to fruition? I do not see how this will work over time, if this is a cycling disorder.

I am not only curious, but I am determined to find, affordable alternative methods to help my friend and other parents like her, through this tragic period in their lives. I hope that as my readers, you will offer help and whatever resources you know of, to help me, help my friend and her daughter. I do see there are some new “self help digital programs” available to parents and teens and maybe my friend will consider one of these, but the important thing to remember is never give up…do not ever give up being the parent you are…try to become the source of your child’s recovery and enjoy the years of ahead with a closer happier relationship with your child.

I still laugh with my friends about my daughter at 15 and the knock, down, drag out fights that we had, while she went through puberty while I was going the menopause, not a road anyone wants to go on, believe me. But if my daughter’s behavior had not changed and I had to continue like that for years, we would not have the relationship we have now. I know my friend and her daughter will get through this and I hope everyone will help me by sending resources my way. Just respond below to the comments and I will be grateful for any help you send.

Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this: “The Secret”

Thoughts do become things.
There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.