The Talking Head

Posted on June 29, 2011 by JKW
My son and I had an interesting conversation last night. As I’ve admitted before, I go to bed in my son’s bed upon his going to sleep (see post: I Can Hear Again).
The exchange actually started day before yesterday in the basement (a.k.a. Toyland) when he asked me, “Mom, did you know your head can talk to you?” By head he meant mind.
I said, “Sure. My head talks to me all the time. That’s thinking.” I left it at that. But last night he and I got into his bed and he started the conversation again.
He said, “Mom, my head talks to me a lot.”
I asked him, “What is your mind saying? Is it nice or mean?”
He said, “It is mean.” It tells him “shut up” and stuff. So now I figure this is the age negative self-talk begins, for him at least.
First I had a couple of questions. “One, whose voice is it?” I silently pray, Oh God, have I already messed the kid up?
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“Is it male or female?”
“Male.” Whew, not me.
“Does it sound like Daddy?” I asked.
“No.”  Whew again.
So I told him that he is made up of two parts. One called the “Ego.” This is the part that says nasty things like “Shut-up.” The second is the soul, or the part of him that is connected to God.
I tell him, God never says mean things, only nice. He can control that wicked, old ego by saying something nice every time his mind talks mean. Or just telling it to, “Go away.” I also tell him that most everyone experiences the talk in their head that is not nice. It is normal, but you can control it. And anything the Ego says it not true. Only your soul tells you the truth, it’s called your gut or thinking with your heart.
In the end he said, “I hear it.” And I said, “OK.” And he said, “I mean, I understand what you are saying.”
I said, “I thought you might. But if that Ego continues to say malicious things, let’s talk again please.”
He said, “What’s malicious?”
I said, “Not being nice.”
“OK.”
So we agreed.
You might think that this conversation is a little deep for a five and a half year old. It is. But I believe him that he got it.
My son has such an intricate personality. One minute he is driving me bananas by chasing me around trying to get my attention when I am on the brink of insanity. No amount of begging will get him to hear me when I ask for a “mommy break.” (This is when a mommy closet or bathroom hide-out comes in handy or the laundry room if I’m really desperate – it can get kind of hot in there). But when I talk to him about God or the soul, he hears me loud and clear. He gets it.

And I get to watch him get it. And that’s always nice.

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Choosing with Heart

Posted on June 14, 2011 by JKW
Do you think it is a fluke that we are here? I don’t meet many people that think so. Most people I know believe in God or some form of God – called Essence or Universe or something omnipotent sounding. Many people I know think God is somewhere outside of him or her self. But, what does that mean if God is outside of me?
Does it mean that I am not in control? If my house falls down, I say, Oh God, why did you do this to me? But would God really stop my house from falling down when God doesn’t even stop me from taking another human being’s life away?
If all my money disappears because someone stole it from me, do I ask, God why did you let this person steal my money? Even though God would just as easily let me steal the same person’s money if I so desired.
When my child hits a brick wall and has to get stitches in his face, I say, God, thank you for it being a cut instead of his head being damaged and his brain affected. I thank God. But was it really God that didn’t let his head get smashed? Does an action also have free will or is that controlled?
A man may do whatever he so chooses. The wind may blow whichever way it wants. The dog may bite a person if he is so inclined. Even a lowly roach can decide if it wants to come out in the daylight, exposed to a foot ready to stomp it into eternity.
Free will; it’s where life is. Free will; it’s our choice how we react to certain situations. The situation will happen regardless – it is the way we grow in life. The question I ask myself now is, will I react with my mind, (my thoughts), or my heart, (my soul)?  And the answer is, it’s my choice.
My Essence, or the part of me that is one with my Creator, and also one with you, has the desire to be my decision maker. Every time I let that happen, I grow. When I see myself as bigger than just my life, as a part of something more – like part of a universe of actions and reactions, of happenings and happen-stance, of things that can be good or bad, depending on how I look at “it” – I feel small and big at the same time. I know I am a part of a whole. When I let my mind be the decision maker in my reactions, or actions, I go backwards a bit, or at the very least stay the same as I am now.

It is my desire to always decide with my heart, acting in love and kindness towards those around me. To act as my Creator would, with a humble spirit, grateful for what is around me in the present moment, but always looking ahead for how to be better, more loving, more kind, more gentle, more giving, happier, healthier, and most of all, more conscious of my choices.

Note: I realize this post might be a little heavy on the philosophy, but I was inspired to write it after I finished a book this morning called, Radiance: Experiencing Divine Presence by Gina Lake. It was a free e-book I downloaded to my Kindle (the wonderful gift I received on Mother’s Day this year). The book was inspiring and beautifully written. So when I finished it, the writing above is what came out.  Mine does not reflect the beauty of her writing and it does not even begin to touch all that she said in the book. Above is just what came when I sat at the computer today. If you are interested in Lake’s works, she has a big list of books, credentials and a website: http://www.radicalhappiness.com/

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Summer Joy

Posted on June 4, 2011 by JKW
Yesterday was the last day of school this school-year for my kids. They are officially out for the summer. For some, this time might conjure visions of watermelon by the pool, beach towels thrown over deck railings, flip-flops, or kids staying up late watching their favorite movies (with the sun being up so long now).
But I’m a little nervous. It might be a “vacation” or a “break” for my kids from their school activities, but for me it is no break and not exactly what I consider a vacation.
What I see when I imagine summer is me saying for the millionth time that day, “Stop fighting!” I see my daughter screaming when I put on her flip-flops. My son is rounding up the beach towel to “whip” it at my daughter while she continuously screams at the top of her lungs (have I mentioned before how loud my daughter is?), “Mommmmyyyyy!” My deck is blue with paint and my furniture is coated in watermelon juice. And, I don’t have one ounce of energy left to care about it.
My kids are still in pre-school, so the time they are there is short, but oh, so sweet. I picked up my daughter at 12 and my son at 1. I got her; we ate lunch together, and went back for my son.
As long as the school year continued, I had a blissful three hours, 30 minutes and 52 seconds (but who’s counting?). And in that time I usually had to choose a couple of activities: sometimes grocery shopping without the kids, sometimes a nap in my bed, or a squat in the coffee shop with my mocha and a book. I might walk with a friend or have breakfast with friends or Hubby. There are many, many choices I had about how to spend that time, but it was my choice and my time.
My fears about summers are not unfounded. I do have one under my belt to attest for my insanity when it comes to the kids being out of school for so long. Last summer, it was my first time – I was a summer-break virgin, so-to-speak.
I associate that period to the scary movie I saw as a child, “The Shining,” where Jack Nicholson goes a little crazy trapped in that hotel with his family. He tries to fight it, but to no avail. By the end he’s a loon. Even with the entire hotel to hide in, a big maze on the property and snow machines he could take a ride in, he went bonkers.
On a more positive note, while last summer was very hard, I did actually learn a lesson. This year, I have the kids signed up for camps for two weeks. I have my gracious mother-in-law that will come once a week, on a day when there is a meditation for me to attend at the Phoenix and Dragon book store. I have Hubby, who is great to take my son often with him, and sometimes even my baby-girl will leave my side just long enough to enjoy time with her dad and brother. And I am determined to overcome the awkwardness I feel in a bathing suit and go to the neighborhood pool as often as I can. My children will be perfect swimmers by summer’s end, if I have anything to do with it.
Another plus this summer is that I know what I am in for. I liken last summer to when I accidentally had natural child birth with my daughter. She came 40 minutes after I arrived at the hospital and there was no time for the anesthesiologist to make it for my epidural, so she came the natural way. For this experience I was not prepared. It hurt, and I was wild with the excruciating pain and the anxiety not being prepared brought with it. And I mean w-i-l-d, wild. That is how I felt last summer, wild with anxiety and the emotional pain of not being able to cope well with my situation – being with my children days on end, alone, in the house too much. I became depressed and the more depressed I was, the less we left.  I needed camps, activities and an army of friends to play with. But I didn’t have enough of that — I was not prepared.
This year, I vow that my preparedness will bring me comfort. I’m sure the deck will still be blue with paint and the couch coated with juice. I know my kids will fight, they always do. But, my knowledge of what I am in for will hopefully bring me strength. My children are precious and grow more independent daily, for this I am sad to see their baby-hood go, but grateful at the same time to see that they are little capable people. This should be a help this year.
I believe summers are a lesson in endurance for the stay-at-home mom. Wait it out, bide your time, and know school will start again, soon enough.
I now create my summer mantra, and it is: this too shall pass – now breath. Or, I might say: summer is a time of fun, now go have some. If those fail, I might shut myself in the closet with a large bag of Ghirardelli dark chocolate squares or go get a mocha with three shots of espresso.

But I declare today and for the next three months, patience is my best friend and my summer WILL be FUN!

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I Can Hear Again

Posted on May 19, 2011 by JKW
Something strange happened to me. Last Saturday evening, I went to meditation at my local metaphysical book store, Phoenix and Dragon. The subject of the meditation was Deep Listening. Because of a hefty social calendar, I had not been to meditation for about three weeks.
I was particularly keen on going to meditation this week because I had spent the last two weeks with sick children. First, my son was sick for a week with a virus. He recovered easily enough, but not before missing a week of school.
The following week, my daughter was sick. First visit to the pediatrician, diagnosis virus (same as my son). Second visit to the pediatrician, diagnosis ear infection. Needless to say, while I had not been meditating much I had been praying quite a bit. God, please let my son feel better quickly. God, please don’t let his fever go too high. God, please let my baby girl sleep just a couple of hours without waking up coughing. God, please don’t let my head pop off from having no break from my kids for 13 days straight – stuck in the house, cleaning up vomit and attending to their every whim no matter how small. I pray, pray, pray I can get through this time without going completely insane. On and on my prayers went.
So when I went to meditation and finally had that hour all to myself to just sit, be quiet, be without anyone asking me for something, without any television, I relished in it. I felt myself melt into my meditation chair (it’s beautiful, my chair).
I’m not sure how much deep listening I did though. I was distracted by just needing to be there, away from the house and the infirmed in my house. I wasn’t feeling great either, probably fighting off what they had.
I found myself wondering how everyone was doing back at my house. I thought about all the things I had not been able to get done because of being home so much. I thought about how I missed being around people, other women – I had missed a couple of get togethers with friends in the time I was home. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t totally alone during this time. Hubby helped a lot when my daughter was sick. He took Nate plenty and did what he could. But a sick baby needs a mom, and my three-year old was particularly needy. She was coughing so much that I was relieved at the second doctor visit when they said she had an ear infection. I thought she had pneumonia at this point. Her coughing had reached the point of hurting her side and she was throwing up three or four times a day. She was really sick.
In my meditative state, I was able to relax and throw off some of the week’s stress, but I’m not sure how much I was actually meditating versus just taking an hour off from my current world.
Now I have to let you in on a secret. Some know, but not many. It’s actually two secrets in one – first, my son’s bed is still in Hubby’s and my bedroom. We have a sitting room off of our main bedroom where our son has a single bed that he sleeps in every night. He doesn’t even have a “fake” real room – our bedroom is it for him. Second, and this is the big secret, I still get in his bed with him to go to sleep then get out of his bed when he is sleeping and go to my own bed.
I won’t try and justify this, although I find most everyone has a thought or feeling about it. I’m sure the thoughts will range from, so what, to oh my. I have even been called a pacifier. I was told, by a professional, that my son uses me to soothe himself then spits me out when I am not needed anymore. Ouch.
So now that I have divulged my secret to you, I can get back to my strange incident. I was in my son’s bed to go to sleep. Well, he was going to sleep and I was reading a book. He had his back turned to me so the light would not bother him while I read.
He had not said anything in a while, so I assumed he was asleep when he suddenly said, “Mom.”
I said, “Yes?”
He said, “You are a know-it-all girl.”
“What?” That was a strange thing to say.
“You are a know-it-all-girl.”
This did not sound very much like a compliment, so I said, “What does that mean?”
Then he said, “You think too much.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “What did you say?”
He rolled over, eyes closed with a slight smile on his face and said, “I said, you think too much.”
He never opened his eyes and never said another word.
You may think it is a coincidence that I had a meditation on deep listening, where I found it very hard to listen. You might also decide that it means nothing – kids say the darnedest things. But for me, it was more than that. Because I do think too much.
No matter what it was, coincidence or a real communication from the divine, the message helped me greatly. It has served to remind to me to slow down. Be present. Quit thinking so much and start listening to my inner voice again. With my life getting so needled down to waking tired, caring for sick babies and trying not to get sick myself, I had gone off somewhere in my mind.
My son, my angel, reminded me to come out of that place and stop thinking so much. He reminded me to stand in my essence, and to consider my soul. And so in the end, on this Saturday, I may not have been able to listen deeply in meditation, but I heard exactly what I supposed to hear.

And today, because of this extraordinary message I received, I am living more consciously and I am listening.

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Conversation with a Pregnant Woman

Posted on April 30, 2011 by JKW

One of my son’s two teachers recently announced she is four months pregnant. In my mind I said, “Congratulations!” But my mouth said, “Great. Now you get to see what hemorrhoids are really about!” Oops.
Even though both of my pregnancies were relatively smooth, they each left a few markers that are hard to forget, even today, with my children being three and five. This made it challenging for me to say something positive to the sweet, fair haired, blue eyed young lady in front of me. But, after the hemorrhoid statement I felt I had to try again.
And what came out was, “Do you feel sick? It goes away right about the time you can no longer see your feet.” I’m guessing this was not helpful.
So I tried again, “Do not under any circumstances listen to all of those women when they tell you how horrible their births were. By the time your baby is ready to come, you will not care what they are going to do to you. Really, you just want that thing out.” Hmmm. Maybe that wasn’t right either.
I left with my head held low. I made a real effort all day long to think of something positive to say to her.
The next day, I had it. I walked in, looked her straight in the eye and said, “You are the thinnest pregnant woman I have ever seen!” And, I said, “Have your breasts increased a bra size? They look amazing and so perky. Nope, no sagging there… yet.” Oooh, darn. I really tried.

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Living with Purpose

Posted on April 25, 2011 by JKW
Part I – Outer Purpose – Doing
I think many of us come to a point in life where we question our existence. We ask, What is my purpose? What have I been put here to do?
Sometimes, I find, it is easier to not care. But when I stop caring about my purpose and find myself letting life live me (rather than me living life) then I start feeling sad or unfulfilled. For me, I feel most accomplished in my life when I am doing the following:
  • Writing
  • Reading for growth – this usually means I am reading something spiritual
  • Meditating
  • Exercising (treating my body like the temple it is)
  • Walking in nature (not for exercising, but to feel how everything is connected)
  • Acting helpful toward others (my family, my community, my world)
These are actions that help me regard my life as meaningful. Some of these tasks I’m pretty good at doing regularly, and others on my list still need loads of work. I’m sure you have your own, and I’m sure I have some not listed here because I do not even know they exist. I believe my soul expresses itself without my even knowing it every day – doing things to help me be a better person and to learn lessons that will propel me into being a better soul for the next life.
In the past, I thought if I wasn’t doing something Mother Teresa-like then perhaps my life was not being as meaningful as it should be. But being Mother Teresa, for me, is one TALL order.
I’m not that nice, really. I try, but I need a lot of alone time. And when I find myself needing that time and I’m not getting it, I have a hard time being nice. I also can’t deal with the sick (so that definitely puts me out of the Mother Teresa running). Sick people hurt my skin. No joke, my skin literally hurts when I see a cut or something gross on someone. Next, I’m not that un-earthly of a person. I like my creature-comforts. I like nice clothes. I like to have my hair cut stylish, and, please, cover up those gray hairs. I love massages from a spa and having my toenails painted by the Vietnamese lady. I also like to indulge in some of the more expensive foods and drinks – like this crunchy raw kale stuff I discovered at Whole Foods, yum. It’s healthy, tasty and $5.99 for a couple of ounces. And anyone that has kept up with my posts knows how I feel about my $4.33 a day habit of Starbucks mochas.
So let’s face it, I will never achieve Mother Teresa status this time around. It’s not in my cards and I accept that. I can live with myself just like I am as long as I am evolving into a person I feel has greatness as the ultimate achievement in my own right.
For some people life appears much simpler than it is for me. Perhaps a purpose does not need to be questioned. It just is. Like my dad; maybe he has questioned his purpose, I don’t know. But it seems he lives a life of service to others and that is his calling.
He has donated I don’t know how many gallons of blood over the years. First when the donor truck came to his work place, but now, since retiring, he goes over there when they are around just to donate and visit his old co-workers.
He and I exchange an email every night to tell each other about our day and to keep in touch. Many times I read about his visiting a person at the church for this or that. Sometimes it is at a member’s house, other times at the hospital. He had a friend, James, he went to the school football games with. Many of those years his “football buddy” was ill with cancer. At the end, my dad picked James up from his house and took him out. Sometimes they went to eat lunch, or run errands, or just to hang out at my dad’s house. Even if it was to watch my dad take apart a lawn mower to change the blades, James would happily sit and watch and talk to my dad, pleased to be free from his bed for a time. When his buddy died, I know my dad knew that he had made a difference in this man’s life. It was a rewarding experience for my dad and for his friend, James.
My dad loves to serve others in this way and many other ways. He does it through church and through his work (even though my dad is retired he has a lawn business). From what I can see, his purpose is defined by service.
I also have a mentor, Diane. I worked for her for years and we are still in touch today. She’s like a mom to me. She is the most creative person I know. She is involved in her community. She is self serving, but also has the ability to make others feel important. Working for her, I felt empowered, like I was able to do anything, but there was always support a stones-throw away. There is no other person in my life that I laugh with more than Diane. When I am with her, we are living life. But I have never once discussed religious or spiritual life with her. There’s no need. She just is. I have learned much more from her presence than I ever would have learned from a conversation anyway.
Some people are lucky enough to find a job which also fulfills a purpose. Other people I have known work for what seems a lifetime then later may question what really matters later in life. And the answer may be a change in professions. Sometimes getting paid to be nice is nice.
My mom is now in nursing school. Growing up she told me many times that she wished she would have gone to nursing school. She tried to get me to do it, but I believe she came to terms that this was not going to happen when once I fainted at work and they called her to come and get me.
She and I worked at the same office at the time. She was in marketing and I worked in the proposal department of a large medical corporation. I was entertaining a lady who came with her boss on a trip from another office. The lady and I were not the same age, we were not from the same town, we did not know a single person in common, and so what were we to talk about except the gigantic scar running down her forehead? I dared to ask how that scar came to be.
Turns out she was drinking wine (so we did have that in common) and she tripped over her own two feet and hit her oven door handle with her forehead. I regretted asking soon after she started her story. My skin was aching on my head and on my legs. As she was explaining the gap in her face and how her skull was showing I started to see black in front of me. Then I could no longer hear her. The next thing I know I had a group standing over me asking me if I was all right. No, I was not all right!
Someone called my mom to come get me. I had a big scrape on my nose where I hit the floor on that scratchy, thin office carpet – the kind you can feel the concrete through. I told the office people that I had not eaten breakfast, but I told my mom the truth. That lady made me faint with her gross story. My mom realized then that I was not the one to fulfill her dream of being a nurse. She tried to get my cousin, Laura, to become a nurse too, but Laura chose dental hygiene instead. Then my cousin, Christina, was the next for my mom to ask to please be a nurse, but she too chose dentistry. My mom decided she was going to have to go herself. And so she is slated to be a nurse in December at a number in front of a 4. She’s going to have a purpose helping the sick, and be able to make money at the same time. And a flexible schedule to boot.
I have met others that find their task in pain. From a happening that seems like a tragedy comes a purpose. I know a woman who has two children that were both born needing new kidneys. Reading her Facebook posts is a glimpse into the lives of people that deal with serious, lifelong illness on a daily basis. With every cold her children get she has to face life or death. She is a brave reminder for me to not sweat the small stuff (as much as I can). But she has also found much purpose in the challenges of parenting these two children. She writes blogs on more than one site, she is heavily involved with fundraising, she still has to raise her kids as “normal” as possible – taking them to school, homework, decisions on what they are ready for and what should wait, she still has to cook dinner and has to make time for herself when possible. She even has a business from home – she’s a working mom on top of everything.
I believe everyone has a purpose. The other day, I was having coffee with a mom from my son’s school and she was telling me about her boyfriend. She said the boyfriend’s wife died suddenly after 30 years of marriage to him. Of course my response was to make a sorrowful face and give my condolences to her man. But she said, “Well, it is sad, but his family has confided that they are glad for him. They said his former wife was a tyrant that treated him horribly. She was not that nice of a person to anyone.”
I am so glad I was told this story. Because this lady was a mean tyrant to her husband, I get to decide from her legacy that I would rather that not be me upon my own death. It would be my desire to have those that choose to live a life surrounding me say something kinder upon my absence. Maybe to become a teacher upon her death was this lady’s purpose. I sure learned something from her story.
Part Two – First Purpose – Being
In my spiritual studies, one principle mentioned frequently brings me great relief. It says that no matter what I am doing, I always have a purpose for being. In other words, no matter what, I have a purpose. And that purpose is not something outside. It comes from within.
There is a book called, A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, that talks in great detail about how everyone has a purpose that is the same, it is humanity’s bond. This is not about religion, but it is about being connected to all of humanity through one common thread, the Creator, the Universe, or God. Whatever you call it, we all have this same strand in common and we all have this part of us inside. Be still and know that I AM God. The I AM is the common thread and this is the essence of God himself inside each human being here on earth – it’s our connection. If God is you and God is me and God is the sandwich maker that just got your order wrong, it is much easier to have compassion for our fellow man.
We are all created in God’s likeness, this is not to say image – this implies we look like God. But we do not all look alike. And we are not supposed to. We are all God. God is all of us. We are created in God’s likeness, meaning we are God-like and every person has a purpose which is to be like our creator, in spirit. Our creator is kind, compassionate, ever evolving, creative, conscious of choices, and conscious of the world. We are meant to be present – to be STILL – and to see how each moment, each choice, each time we choose to be nice, helpful, wise, creative, kind, and generous, we choose to be like our creator.
Eckhart Tolle, the author of A New Earth, says this in the book:
“As soon as you rise above mere survival, the question of meaning, and purpose becomes of paramount importance in your life. Many people feel caught up in the routines of daily living that seem to deprive their life of significance. Some believe life is passing them by or has passed them by already. Others feel severely restricted by the demands of their job and supporting a family or by their financial or living situation. Some are consumed by acute stress, others by acute boredom. Some are lost in frantic doing; others lost in stagnation. Many people long for the freedom and expansion that prosperity promises. Others already enjoy the relative freedom that comes with prosperity and discover that even that is not enough to endow their lives with meaning. There is no substitute for finding true purpose. But the true or primary purpose of your life cannot be found on the outer level. It does not concern that you do but what you are – that is to say, your state of consciousness.
So the most important thing is to realize this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary.”
The next part of the chapter is spent talking about how to align those two. What I get from this is how, even if I am not always doing something to feel purposeful I always have a purpose to fulfill – being conscious and present in my life and knowing that I have a choice in my being, or how I want to be in the moment.   
And so, no matter what I do, my purpose ends up being this: I am a part of humanity. I am an individual thread of life that knows, feels, believes, that I am connected to all of humanity through a commonness I share with all, a soul.
I want to achieve greatness in my actions, by my soul’s standards. Whatever I came here to do, I hope I choose to do it. I hope I have the courage, the wisdom, the strength and the desire. I hope I always feel that I am not alone in the process, I am never alone. When I encounter greatness I hope to notice it, to appreciate it, to learn from it, and to incorporate the lesson into my self. When I encounter something not so great, I am still going to learn from it. I am going to know that everyone has a soul with goodness and they too are a product of my creator. So I try today, now, this moment, I really try, to find goodness in all, and have compassion for all of mankind.
Today I live with purpose.
Source:
A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
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I’m Alive with Passion

Posted on April 19, 2011 by JKW
I enjoy a crafty disposition. My dad says I get it from his mother. He has told me that she was a very creative woman. My craftiness, like my cooking, is done with abandon for the rules. Trying to do things perfect is not much fun for me. One example of this is, in the past, I have enjoyed a free-form style of painting.
For both of my children’s births, rather than purchase artwork for their bedrooms, I painted them pictures. For Nathan, I looked at sheep paintings on the Internet, found one I liked, and painted it on a canvas the size that I wanted it to be. I emulated another person’s work by blowing it up, tracing it and then filling it in with acrylic paints. I even did the shading by copying the work. It was a folk art piece – a sheep jumping in the clouds with stars all around it. Easy enough.
For Jesse’s room I got a little more ambitious. I did two. Both were bear paintings, again copied. Except this time I used the bears from another person’s work and I made up my own backgrounds. I admit I am person whose spatial-perception is challenged, so I again blew up the bears to the size of my canvas and traced them before painting. It worked. The paintings are still in her room to stay until Jesse is ready for her next, more grown-up, décor (mostly likely in the princess theme). Truth be known, I have my sights set on painting something for that too.
Because of this experience with my children’s rooms, I thought I had a gift for painting. I figured if I took a drawing class to help with my spatial-challenge then I could be a top-notch painter. Painting, as I see it, is a very forgiving art form. From far away you can hardly see when things are not perfect. And, it is easy to paint over something when you mess up.
So, I enrolled in art classes. I signed up for a drawing class and a beginning painting class at an art center known for having great teachers. I printed off my list of supplies, spent my $300 (or more) to have the best of the best. I spared no expense or time in getting ready for my debut to the world of learned drawing and painting.
But once I got there I had a surprise waiting for me. First of all, I was a real dud in the painting class. I stood at my easel behind a woman that, believe me, was no beginner. Our first assignment was to paint an apple. We sat in chairs while the instructor, a woman of about 45 who had been painting since she first left the womb, showed us in five easy steps how to paint an oval, mix our colors, shade it here and there, go back over it with finer strokes, then paint the background. And, voila, there’s an apple on the canvas.
Sound easy? Well, my apple looked like a pumpkin while the “beginner” in front of me had her apple done by the time we left class. And her apple looked exactly like the picture. Exactly. I didn’t give up though. I took my apple home and tried to fix it. I eventually threw it away and started again. And again it looked like a pumpkin. I painted that apple at least six times before it finally looked enough like an apple that I felt it was a keeper and took it back to the next class for critique. My next creations were not much better. My onion and garlic painting looked like a baseball and a ping pong ball next to each other. My grapes looked like they were hanging in the air. Each time I left that class I felt so let down. I went again and again and each time I detested painting more and more. While the lady in front of me was hitting her stride, learning everything she came to learn, I was getting frustrated and sad.  
On the up side, the drawing class went much better. My first assignment there was to draw an egg. My egg looked great. I was a contender here. My second assignment was to draw a coffee cup with the light shining on it. It was a cup, alright. And the shading was magnificent, if I do say so myself. Drawing was agreeing with me, but was I really agreeing with drawing?
I was in the drawing class sitting next to a lady I sat next to every week. She, by trade, is an artist. I went to her website and her work is beautiful. I’m not sure why she was in a beginners drawing class, but she said she felt like being in the class would force her to draw every day, something she does not do often because she is a painter. For some reason it did not bother me that her drawings were far superior to mine like it did when the lady in my painting class left me in the dust. I think I really thought I would excel at painting and when it came to drawing I did not expect to see that I could do well.
One day I was sitting next to the lady in my drawing class and we were drawing a person. I started to feel exhausted by the work we were doing and I said, “This is really wearing me out. I cannot wait to leave here.”
My drawing neighbor said, “Really? I feel so energized by this. It gets me excited.”
That’s when it hit me. I might like to paint and draw, but what gets me jazzed up is when I am writing.
At the time I had been working on my book, Surviving Braces. I found myself awake at 4 a.m. many mornings and I could not help myself but to get up and come to my computer to write, re-arrange, edit, or pick photos for the book. Everything about the project made my heart sing. I felt so alive when I worked on my book.
I feel the same way every time I have an idea for a post for my blog or even when I am writing something for my eyes only. I get keyed up. I cannot wait to have the time to sit and write.
It was after that class when the lady told me she was so energized by the drawing and I knew I was so exhausted by it that I learned what being passionate about something really means. How when it is a passion it feels alive.
This does not mean I do not like painting or drawing. I do. I took two hours just last week to draw two apples, one for each teacher, on the front of cards for Nathan’s teachers. I drew and colored those apples just like my painting teacher said to do it, but I did it with crayons, and they looked great (to my eyes). It was fun. I also love to cook, read, walk in nature, and play tennis.

But these are not writing. Writing is the most fun, it is challenging, it is exciting, it is life altering, it feels like my soul’s work expressed out loud – it is my passion.

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Let’s Not Judge

Posted on April 5, 2011 by JKW
One of the goals in my life is to apply spiritual principles, mostly learned from reading books on spiritual subjects and talking with people far more adept at living spiritually than myself, and then trying my best to live out the lessons that stick with me. For instance, just about any spiritually motivated book you will read or any guided meditation has a lesson or a statement about non-judgment.
Of course, non-judgment can come in many forms. Not judging others, for one. I once heard that there was a study done where some group found that there are 256 ways to wash dishes. This statistic stuck with me. I use it like this: whenever I find myself thinking that my way is the only way, I say to myself, There are 256 ways to wash dishes, so surely there are many ways to do _________ (fill in the blank).
I have also imparted this stat on my children, so when they tell me, or each other, how something must be done, I let them know that everyone has a way of doing things his or her way, and that being one of a kind is what makes the world go around.
I would be amiss in not telling you something – it took me a long time to learn this particular part of living spiritually. I genuinely looked at others as “stupid people” more times than I care to count. And I’m not going to tell you I don’t fall off the bandwagon sometimes either, because I do. For instance, if I am lucky enough to have someone load my dishwasher, it drives me bananas when they put the kids’ plastic plates on the bottom rack. They are supposed to be on the top or they get all scratchy and the kids end up eating plastic with their mac-and-cheese.
But I digress back to non-judgment. Another form of not judging might be not judging oneself – cutting away the tape running through the brain that says things like, that was a stupid thing to do. Or, you are such a messy person. Or, you are terrible with money, no wonder you don’t have enough. Or, you always start things and quit. Or, why was I so active last week, last month, last year, and now I’m so lazy.
These are just a few, but I’m sure everyone has his own self-talk. Not judging oneself is so important that there are entire books dedicated to the subject. One book, A Soul Without Shame, A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge Within by Byron Brown, is helping me learn to accept myself more – my actions and how I am as a person. Even though I have not finished it (yet), I have still gleaned a few nuggets from this book about judging myself.
In this book there are examples of what self judgment sounds like. When seen in the written context it makes it easier for me to say to myself, when I have a self-depreciating thought, That’s not a nice thing to say! Or, I might try and turn the statement around and say, Well the fact that I feel so lazy this week (day) must mean I got a whole lot done last week! I was so busy I wore myself out.
Byron says, “…by paying attention to your self-judgment, you will recognize that your standards are learned from others, and they can run counter to what you yourself want, feel, or know to be true. If you see this, you will realize that the voice you hear is not yours. It belongs to a familiar companion who lives inside you, someone you have brought along on this journey of life.”
By being aware, looking beyond the “voice,” I am learning to help myself not judge myself so much. I become a better person because I don’t have to be angry at myself, or others when I think they are judging me for the same things I am judging myself for, any longer. I’m free.
But non-judgment goes beyond judging people and can also include a situation or life experience. For instance, I have mentioned before that with the housing market these past couple of years Hubby and I are having a hard time affording a private school we chose for our children. I like to tell people, We are doing just fine. How Hubby has kept us going in this market is a miracle in itself. And what I have asked myself from the experience is, even if we could afford the school, should we?
Because of the changes in our life, we started to tour the public schools in our area and they are excellent. I mean excellent. The main reason I chose private schooling was because I felt my children would receive more individualized treatment. And what I found was that public schools today, in my area, are very different than when I was young(er). They want to treat the child as an individual and allow the little person within to flourish, not as a person that should be acting like everyone else, but as an individual.
I’m actually excited to send my children to one of these schools. This change that I, at first, thought was bad will actually benefit us in so many ways. I believe my kids will get exactly what I had wanted from the private school and now we can use our family resources in another way that might be better for us in the long run. This unforeseen change has helped us.
This is not to say the change is not going to be a difficult transition. My son, in particular, is not going to be happy at first. But I believe he will adapt, as will Hubby and I.
And this is not the only life transformation going on for our family. We are not sure we want to stay in our house that we currently live in. Should we, or should we not? Hubby’s work is often in the air – it’s coming in, but a drop at a time is really different than a whole bucket at once, and there is the potential for both.
Our life right now is confusing and scary, but when I think of it from a spiritual aspect, it is exciting. And, here’s why: I mentioned a book in a previous post (on Prosperity) called, A Happy Pocket Full of Money by David Cameron Gikandi.
I mention this book again because of a parable he delivers which shows how one should not judge experiences. The parable goes something like this (I’m paraphrasing):
A farmer has a herd of horses that escapes their enclosure and run away. His neighbor says, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The farmer says, “Don’t be sorry, it is neither good nor bad.”
The farmer sends his son out to retrieve the horses. While he’s out the son also finds a herd of wild horses and brings those back, so now this farmer has even more horses than before.
This time his neighbor says, “Wow, what luck. I’m so glad for your gain.”
The farmer replies, “No need to be glad, it is neither good nor bad.”
The next day the son falls off one of the wild horses and breaks his leg, and the neighbor says, “Oh no, I am so sorry for this bad luck, I know you rely heavily upon your son’s help.”
The farmer again says, “The luck is neither good nor bad, no need to be sorry.”
The next day, the army comes to take the farmer’s son to war because they are short on men to fight, but the son cannot go because he has a broken leg.
I think this story is a wonderful expression of how a situation that can seem “bad” is not so bad after it unfolds, and a situation that can seem “good” is not really that great considering the consequences. This one story taught me a grand lesson in looking at a situation and being able to say, I see this from a higher place, one that I will not judge.
There is also a poem from one of my children’s books that brings me comfort when I feel scared or anxious about change (see the poem below). Long before I began to read spiritual writings and study spiritual principles this poem resonated with me deeply.
I guess I have always had a place in my heart for the unknown and a willingness, or desire, not to fear change. I know change can never really be “bad,” because I believe that I am here for a higher purpose and if I, or my life circumstances, don’t change, how am I to become the person I am meant to be? Complacency is far scarier than change, to me.
So today, right in this moment, I accept my life as it is now, forever changing. I aspire to live in non-judgment of others, of myself and of the happenings in my life.
The poem mentioned above:
Give Yourself to the Rain
By Margaret Wise Brown (the author of Goodnight Moon)
Give yourself to the rain when it falls
Give yourself to the wind
Go with it
Blow through the bright dark
Green light on trees
Listen to the rain
Again – through sleep
Dream of it
Brace nothing against it
Safe in your bed
Listen
And give yourself to the rain
When it falls down.
Sources:
Soul Without Shame, A guide to liberating yourself from the judge within
By Byron Brown
A Happy Pocket Full of Money, your quantum leap into the understanding, having, and enjoying of immense wealth and happiness
by David Cameron Gikandi
Give Yourself to the Rain, poems for the very young
By Margaret Wise Brown
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The Forgiving Heart of a Child

Posted on March 30, 2011 by JKW
One of the greatest lessons my children have taught me is forgiveness. Kids have the grand ability to forgive. For instance, yesterday I was vacuuming my living room (it happens from time to time) and my five-year-old son came in. He started saying, “Don’t hit me with the vacuum.” And, “Don’t try and get me, I know you are trying to get me.”
Well, this was kind of cute at first, but after a few times of indulging the game, acting like I was going to vacuum him up, I gave him the message, OK, that’s good, let me vacuum please. But he wasn’t ready to stop our game. Not only did he not stop, he got even more rowdy about his sport. I got rather annoyed and decided to take a breather. I walked away to another room.
When I came back he had taken up the vacuuming for me. This was nice, but really, I wanted to get the whole down stairs done and in my mind he was just hindering my progress. In fact, I started to feel like I was being a bit bullied.
And worse, I could not get him to understand that I was not playing a game anymore, I wanted the vacuum and I wanted it now. So what ensued was a battle for the vacuum cleaner where I became a child myself. I started a tug-of-war and it ended with me smacking his hands off of the vacuum handle. Silly, right? But it turned even uglier. While I was smacking at his hands I told him, “Just GO AWAY! Go, go, go away.”  Then, of course, I felt horrible.
I waited until I finished the vacuuming so I could decide how to handle it. First, I needed to calm the heck down. Second, I needed to decide if I was going to apologize, or if I was going to operate as if the way I had acted is just how parents get when a kid won’t take the message after repeated attempts of trying nicely to give them the message.
I decided I would apologize. I do believe I overreacted. And even if I wasn’t in the wrong, I decided I would let my son know that I am human. I often tell him not to smack at his sister when he is upset with her, but I went and did the same thing to him.
I found him in the dining room with a Lego ship he had built. He was toying with it when I went to him and said, “I think I over reacted to our little vacuum incident and I am sorry.”
He had tears in his eyes and a frown going. He would not look at me. “OK. You just smacked me on the hand. For nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing to me, at the time. I felt like I wasn’t being heard. I told you I didn’t want to play anymore. I wanted to vacuum, and the way I saw it, you wouldn’t listen,” I said. “But I do feel things went a bit far and for that, I’m sorry. And, if I hurt you when I hit your hand, I’m sorry for that too. Hitting isn’t a good solution to any problem.
Then I said, “Can I give you a hug?”
He turned to me, smiled, and forgave. “Yes!” He had a big hug for me. We were good. Although, he did add, “If you smack me like that again, I’ll call three police cars and send you to Poot Jail.”
Apparently, Poot Jail is, “a place where bad people go to be locked in a cell and a bunch of people poot on them and they are unhappy because it smells so bad.”
I think from now on, I’ll keep my hands to myself. Poot Jail sounds like a place I would rather not visit.  Thank goodness for his forgiving heart.
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Inspiration from Jonn Serrie, a musician and so much more

Posted on March 3, 2011 by JKW
I’m inspired. I have been working on an article for a concert being given by a musician of space-music, Jonn Serrie. Serrie is famous. Although I was not familiar with his work, I have been a fan of another musician of space-music named Jeffery Thompson. Thompson’s, like Serrie’s, music has an ethereal sound and also contains “brain waves” (that’s what I call it, but it is really called Hemi-Sync) that can affect how a person feels when they listen to the music. For instance, the CD I have of Thompson is to enhance creativity. He also has CDs for inducing sleep, decreasing stress and the like. I am excited to find another artist of this caliber, who might just be even better.
When I listen to Serrie’s music I feel the stirring or opening of my chest. That’s me. If you listened to it, you might feel it somewhere else. While researching the article I found a perfect description from a critic of one of Serrie’s CD releases. He says Serrie’s music is, “decidedly ambient, but with subtle bits of melody and rhythm quietly drifting in and out. The music is floating, timeless, swirling, dreamy and cosmic.” I concur. Serrie has 20 CDs to date and a new one has just been released called, Sunday Morning.
Because of the ambient nature of his work, the music he produces is used in a variety of ways. One use is in planetariums. When asked how Serrie would describe his music, he says, “Space is the place.” So I think planetariums are appropriate. It is also where he got his start in this genre of music. His compositions are also found on movies and TV – CNN, the Weather Channel and Discovery Channel to name a couple. His work is used in mediums requiring a certain divinity, like yoga, meditation, prenatal care, music therapy for autistic children, and hospice care.
But, it’s not just Serrie’s music that has me excited. There is another reason I am enthused to find this person out there in our world. He’s inspirational. Like one of those people you see on CBS’s show Sunday Morning, profiled because of their greatness. And I don’t use this term loosely – when I give a shout-out of greatness to a fellow human, it’s like an award in my own mind. The gold standard of being human, if you will.
I meditate most every Saturday evening at Phoenix and Dragon. I also meditate some at home, but with the kids around (and they usually are around), I find myself feeling like someone is about to walk in any moment. I hear them everywhere, even if they are not there. So honestly, my meditations are pretty limited. But I can appreciate others that do it often and do it well. And Serrie is one of those people.
According to my research, Serrie began an advanced form of meditation in 1972. He learned from a teacher in India – the Mecca of mediators. Later, when he was looking for a way to use his meditation as a gift to others, his wife, Ann, suggested he could mediate with patients at her work place – Hospice Atlanta.
Ann had been a volunteer at Hospice Atlanta from 1994 to 2007, then she took a job there as the Volunteer Coordinator. Her job is to find volunteers to help around the place.
I asked her if meditating with patients was something ground breaking that only Jonn is doing and she said, “No, but there is only a small contingent of people who do this particular work.”
Jonn described his meditation with hospice patients in an interview, “A light begins to glow and you get pulled into the process. It is a joyous experience but you have to be totally transcendent to the fear of death.”
To me, this is such a personal experience to have with another human being. Jonn does not even speak to the patient, he gets there in the last few minutes of life when they are past speaking, but he is on the most intimate journey this person will ever take.
What really strikes me about Jonn is that he looks for ways to use his God-given gifts to help others. His music is a given – it’s his life’s work and one can easily see that he uses his soul to create it.
But, Serrie’s talents do not stop at his music. He is also a pilot. In fact, he had to choose between being a pilot for a living and being a musician. He chose music, but when 9/11 happened, Jonn wanted to use his talent as a pilot to help others. He joined a civilian unit of the Air Force called the Search and Rescue Auxiliary. These people go out at whatever time in the morning or night, usually once or twice a week, when called to rescue people from things such as disaster relief, lost airplanes or Homeland Security issues.
I look at Jonn and his wife, Ann, and I see two really giving people, living a life of service. These are the kind of people I want to model my own life after. Often, when I read in spiritual books about living a life of service, I think of church. I see in my mind my dad and his fellow Sunday school goers helping one another out regularly. He is always visiting someone in the hospital, or taking food to someone’s house from the church. But when I meet people like Ann and Jonn, I am reminded that service is all around. Opportunities abound.
Hospice work touches me. My grandmother had a hospice nurse at the end of her life. Even then I thought, this is the work of angels on earth. They deal so closely with death, having that relationship only to say good-bye every time, knowing that this is the job. It would be hard for me.
During my research I found out that not all people that work in hospice are nurses, as was my assumption. And not all people have to say good-bye every day. There are many volunteers that come in. They are companions, or people that work in the libraries at hospice facilities, people that play instruments, like piano and guitar, to bring joy to patients, greeters at the front desk to ease the fear a patient might have when coming in to hospice care – giving nothing more than a warm greeting, but giving a world of comfort to someone who knows why they are coming to hospice, because it’s the end.
I am encouraged to take a tour of Hospice Atlanta. I plan to go there on Friday, for an interview with Jonn and Ann, but also for more than that. I’m not kidding myself by thinking I am ready to meditate with patients at their departing time, but maybe I can smile, or hold a hand, or give a kind word to someone in need. Who knows what I will unearth, but I look forward to finding out.
Resources:
Jonn Serrie’s upcoming concert is on April 10, 7 p.m. at the Universalist Unitarian Congregation of Atlanta (uuca.org).  Tickets: $15.
Visit the International Sound Therapy Association’s website: www.powerofsounds.com
For more information about Jonn Serrie and his music visit: www.thousandstar.com

For more information on Hospice care go to: http://www.vnhs.org/

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