TOP 10 AFFIRMATIONS I'VE GOT GOING RIGHT NOW

10. The pressure of my blood is healthy and relaxed.

9. My body is in perfect balance and harmony.

8. My thoughts are positive and create a sense of well-being.

7. All will be well.

6. Only good comes to me.

5. I speak with love and am heard with love.

4. I eat food that nourishes me and makes me feel great.

3. I fall asleep easily and sleep peacefully and solidly, awakening restored and excited for the day ahead.

2. What I ask for is given to me, always, I am grateful in advance for all my needs being fully met.

1. I am happy and grateful for my perfect experiences.


I gotta tell you, dear readers, this stuff WORKS! I've never felt better in my whole entire life. Never. Better. Since I started doing this I have gone cold turkey off my meds for this, that and the other. Every time I start to panic about all I "know" can be a side-effect of such a move, I turn my thinking around and say, "I am in perfect balance and harmony in my body, mind and spirit."

** Read Lee Wolf Blum's comment below, she is TOTALLY right, and I was irresponsible in suggesting otherwise! Please, dear readers, don't go off your meds!

I feel FANTASTIC! And, look at the clock! 7:26! I just awoke from a an 8 1/2 hour SOLID sleep filled with gentle dreams!

This affirmation stuff works. Try it, you'll like it! Believing is seeing!

TOP 10 THINGS I LEARNED FROM "YOU, ME and DUPREE"

10. Marital issues are not caused by "others"

9. It's fun to say, "Blowin' 7 kinds of smoke!"

8. You can't judge a book by its cover

7. Playing is fun, and not a waste of time

6. It's good to say, "I'm sorry"

5. Moderation in everything, including moderation

4. Some "pods" take longer to develop than others

3. Our strengths are our weaknesses, and vice-versa

2. A friend in need, is a friend in deed

1. Love conquers all

I AM HEALING MY OWN LIFE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

I'm doing it. I'm hooked. I watched these two DVDs and I'm telling you, I am HOOKED! I would HIGHLY recommend watching these IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner. Make sure you watch the EXTENDED version, because the interviews on the second DVD are IN-F'ing-CREDIBLE! Cheryl Richardson, Wayne Dyer, Esther and Jerry Hicks, Christiane Northrup and Gregg Braden.

Goosebumps, people, GOOSEBUMPS. All of these spectacular humans say the same thing, in their own unique ways. I'm telling you, not enough can be made of how powerful their message is.

Michelle O'Neil told me to watch them, and I do everything she says, she might be tiny, but she's mighty! Besides, she swears more than I do.

To learn more, click here.

JUST A CRACK

It's beautiful here in Sisters, almost spring-like, I've got the window open a crack and can hear birds again, after months of the sound of their call being silenced by glass and wood, dividers between me and them.

Despite the sun and warmth there is ice on the ground, large patches leftover from the big snow a couple of weeks ago. Near the house and under the trees there's been a melt, but the wide open areas are dense with ice.

Each day I am here I go to the place where driveway meets road, where a solid block of ice makes crossing it dangerous and noisy. I take the snow shovel, the one with no plastic handle any longer, chewed up and rugged on the ends, and I chop at the ice. I wait until afternoon, when temperatures are as high as they are going to go before plummeting again at dark, and I slide the shovel under the weakest link to the mound and hack away.

Today as I dug, picked, shoved and heaved with the snow shovel, I thought a different tool might better serve me. I'm so literal, snow shovel for snow, period. I tossed the broken tool off with the divided bits of ice on the side, and got out a regular old shovel. I finished what I'd started easily and with much satisfaction.

The tool I'd been using had out served itself. Time to try something else, a new approach to an old problem.

Four days, four rounds, sweat, blisters, sore forearms and tingly fingers later, I have broken through. The mound is gone. If there's anywhere I want to go, my car can easily make the move, driveway to road and far away.

I may just leave my car right where it is, it's satisfying enough just to know I have options now. I have broken through.





* photo from users.skynet.be

MEET MY FRIEND, WHITE TARA

I decided to pick White Tara as a Buddhist deity I would use for meditation. I made that decision about a year ago, and let me be perfectly honest, I chose her because of all the colored Taras, white goes with everything. That, and I dig the "A-OK" sign she's making with her hands.

White Tara is the Bodhisattva of wisdom and compassion. Meditating on her is said to bring longevity of life. In Tibetan Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is anyone who is motivated by compassion and seeks enlightenment not only for him/herself but also for everyone else.

And so it goes, Tara and me, working on our wisdom, compassion, and their best friend, gratefulness.

As I rose from my meditation cushion this morning and turned on the computer, this quote had come through:

WORD FOR THE DAY
Sunday, Feb. 24

"Remember this always: The living of your own life writes the book of your most sacred truth, and offers evidence of it." Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow's God.

Shivers run through me. I am in Sisters again, doing another draft of my book, my life, too, is in draft form as I search to unbury my most sacred truth.

As part of my discovery process I continue to record my dreams. Last night I dreamed:

* A tiny, Barbie-sized child that ran on a battery asked me to build her a swimming pool. I built the pool, let her dive in, and it forever ruined her ability to speak, no matter how hard I tried to fix her battery.

* I was in a lecture hall listening to someone speak, and all of a sudden I started to be the speaker, from my seat, all eyes on me. "You need to be a vibrational match for what you want" I preached, per Abraham/Hicks.

* I had to get my son out of a village that was going to be overtaken by some evil person looking to brain-wash all young boys. I made a mistake and took my daughter from the village, instead.

Seems to be that my sacred truth includes free speech, the free telling of my truth, despite obstacles, despite all the shushing and silencing from within and without.

And so my mantra will be: I am grateful for my sacred truth. I have compassion for myself and all other sentient beings.

Note to self: Repeat until fully believed. Fake it 'til you feel it.

WHERE AM I?

Anyone that knows me even a little bit, knows that I have NO sense of direction. Zero. Zilch. Less than zero, really.

This has made my life a bit interesting, read recipe for disaster. If there is a wrong turn to make, I will make it. Always.

And so it is a fitting metaphor for my life, for if there is a wrong turn to make, I will also make it. Always.

Yesterday I read the quote, "Our weaknesses are our strengths, just overused." This led me to question, could ALL my strengths be my weaknesses, and my weaknesses be my actual strengths? Should I turn my thinking upside down and reexamine my life though that lens?

What if having no sense of direction is a strength? I get to see things I hadn't intended to see, go places I hadn't intended to go, do things I hadn't intended to do? Or, to take it one step further, what if my intention was what steers me, rather than a compass? I thought I intended one thing, but my true intention was another?

I'm thinking the issue is word choice. Wrong? Right? Strength? Weakness? WTF kind of words are these? They are just opinions.

The journey is in the eye of the journeyer.

There are no accidents.





* Photo from Jupiter Images

THE LONELINESS OF TOGETHERNESS

Read a blog this morning of a mother worrying that her daughter would grow up and be alone.

My in-laws have this worry about their 51-year-old daughter.

Nobody wants to be all alone.

Nobody wants someone they love to be all alone.

We all buy into the "alone is bad" thinking.

But is it? Does alone = lonely?

Not for me.

I am never less lonely than in solitude.

I am never more lonely than in a 1-way relationship.

Today I will spend the day in utter solitude.

I will not use my voice to speak.

I will not see another human.

I will not be alone.

I will be WITH myself.

GREAT OCCASION

Today is Chotrul Duchen, a holy day for Tibetans. It marks the end of the first 15 days of the Tibetan new year and falls on the first full moon. It is believed that the Buddha displayed a different miracle every day for 15 days, in order to increase the merit and aid the devotion of future disciples. This day honors and celebrates that.

And here's the really exciting part...

This day is AUSPICIOUS. The effects of positive or negative actions are multiplied TEN MILLION TIMES.

Whether or not you believe this, why don't you play along anyway. What can it hurt? If each of us just does ONE positive thing and refrains from negative actions, imagine the global impact.

Imagine.

Feel the goose bumps?

Report back.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Four of us got together for my birthday. Between us we've been married 85 years. We have 11 children. We've lived in the neighborhood 50 years. While swinging from one conversation to another, light to heavy and back again, we swapped stories on who is going to college where, which high schools our kids are going to in the fall, which meds our children are on and how they are working. There was news of who is moving, how we think the New Little Store is doing, and which couples from our community are getting divorced.

"What happened?" One friend asked each time another name came up.

That was on Thursday, and I've been asking myself that same question ever since.

What happened? In each instance the couple had been married for over 15 years, in some cases over 20. When I was a little girl I found each divorce a shock, especially of the longer marriages. "If you've made it that long, why not finish what you start?" I'd think to myself in my ill-informed, Pollyanna brain.

You know what "happened?" Life.

In some cases there were affairs. But affairs don't "happen" to a marriage, the marriage is vulnerable to an affair for a whole host of reasons, the affair is just a smoke screen, an exit strategy, in many cases.

Children "happen."

Typical children and those with special needs.

Health comes and goes.

Parents age and need our care.

Dreams die and are born.

Incomes, jobs, fortunes, come and go.

Our friendship circles change.

We move.

We lose community and support.

Mental illness, depression, anxiety cripple us.

We age.

We evolve at different paces.

We hit certain ages and say, "enough."

We find the life together more toxic for the children than the trauma of divorce.

We add straw upon straw on the backs of our bumpy hides until one day, the most "minor" infraction sweeps us at the knees and we are down for the count.

We are done.

We cannot fight for the marriage and fight for ourselves simultaneously.

We will die if we go one more turn around the hamster wheel. One more time over the same ground, the same core issues, the same fight recycled.

We've given it all we've got and there is not a drop of "got" left to give.

Every resource has been tapped. Every tool in the relationship toolbox has been put to use. Every book has been read. Every avenue explored.

We are done.

That's what "happens."




* photo from www.jmolnar.com

BARE NAKED

The white Target desk I built for my daughter years ago, has replaced the large antique library table I've been using to do my writing for the last few years. I inherited the table after my uncle died. A single bullet to the head ended his life twenty years ago next month. Actually, two weeks from today, March 2nd. Two weeks from today. Fourteen days. A fortnight.

Twenty years ago he made a decision that I still cannot reconcile. I understand his struggle. I understand his pain. I understand having reached the end of what one can endure. But I don't understand the pulling of the trigger. That's where my understanding ends. Thank God. I am thankful I have never been to the very brink like that. That depth of despair has not been mine to know. I am grateful.

I needed new energy in my writing space. The daily reminder of him both held me in his love and kept me pinned to his despair. So I moved it out, and brought in a piece of furniture that has no history, no memories, no character, no baggage. No pain. It is bare. It is naked.

As I close out my power year I look for newness, change, fresh starts. Bareness. Nakedness. Mine to dress as I please.

I will use these two weeks, this fortnight, as a tribute to my uncle. I will allow myself to fully experience the pain in my life, with the belief that at the bottom of it there is a turning point, not a finality.

While some of you, dear readers, have let me know my "melt down" is painful for you, I am truly sorry. I want to complete what I've started, though, it feels important. It feels like the difference between life and death.

Death.

Rebirth.

The last of winter before the spring.

OPENING HEARTS

I was given a very special birthday/Valentine's day gift this year. On Monday, when I went through "attunement" for Reiki, the Reiki master did something around my heart chakra that I'm still feeling, four days, and some heart break later.

Go ahead and call me E.T. My heart light is turned on. There is a warmth, almost like a sunburn, radiating from the center of my upper torso. I love it. It is a constant reminder that I have a heart, much bigger than my mind, the one that wants to nurse grudges and lick old wounds. My heart wants to open bigger and bigger and burst from the shackles the mind imposes.

Didn't someone famous and wise once say, "The best revenge is a life well
lived?" Besides, a heart that is soft and expansive is impossible to truly "break," bruise maybe, but not break.

SING it, Neil!

HEARTLIGHT, by Neil Diamond
Turn on your heartlight
Let it shine wherever you go
Let it make a happy glow
For all the world to see

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Here's the newest/cutest Rojo story...

He was getting out of the tub and asked for a towel, I threw him the closest one. He saw it was the one with his name embroidered on the bottom and said, "Oh! Rojo! I love you, Rojo! Thank you for drying me off! Thank you for being my towel!" Then he looked at me and said, "I just love Rojo. He's always been a big fan of mine."

Here's to big fans!




* Photo from Global Gallery

I'm late to the party known as Reiki, but not as late as one of my friends, whom when I said, "I'm into Reiki, she said, 'Isn't that on Hawthorne?'"

No. It's not on Hawthorne. It's not a martial arts studio. It's not a restaurant. It's a healing art.

Healing.

Art.

Love how those two words come together.

And so it is that I am being trained in Reiki, an ancient, Japanese form of laying on of hands.

It's probably only a matter of time until I start speaking in tongues (which, if you ask me, is just what channeling is).

And I am INTO it. Watch out, dear readers, that means you'll be hearing about it ad nauseum! The part that most excites me is DISTANCE HEALING. Next time we learn how to do that.

So, all this serves as a warning, if you start to spontaneously heal, you know whom to thank.

Just doin' my job, just doin' my job.


To learn more about Reiki, click here.

A DIFFERENT HOLY TRINITY


I bump out of bed, eye mask off, ear plugs out, slippers on, and nearly crawl to the coffee maker. I've spent the night napping again. Every three hours, like an infant, I'm up and needing to eat and be entertained. Menopause is reducing me to my most needy self, in all ways imaginable.

In the time I've submitted my manuscript and waited for others to tell me what to do with it, I've watched as my body takes on the shape and symptoms of a pregnant woman. Breasts tender and swollen, stomach distended, hormones off kilter.

Menopause?

Pregnancy?

Infancy?

A holy trinity?

A quote from the movie, "The Secret" falls into my mind, "When the voice on the inside is louder than the voices on the outside, you will have mastered your life."

My inside voice says, "No more waiting for 'others.' No more putting the onus on anyone but you. YOU know what to write and how to write it. Stop procrastinating, projecting and promising yourself to others. Get your butt in the chair and let those fingers start to fly."

* * * * *

A blogger friend, someone I've never actually met, Lo sends me information on a new book and author I must check out. The author is coming to Portland and I am needing to attend.

I do. I watch and listen to a woman I know nothing about. A woman with not one single thing in common with me other than our gender.

I go home, start to read her book, her memoir, and cannot put it down. Her story is enthralling, but her WRITING, oh, my God. It is the link, the missing one, to what I've been waiting for all these months and years. Suddenly I "get it." I GET what all the teachers and writers have been trying to tell me about my own writing. They've been extraordinarily helpful, but they were virtual lessons on how to fish. Felicia Sullivan's book handed me a pole and said, "Here. Like this."

So inspired after finishing her book I moved straight to the keyboard from the reading chair, and opened a brand new document on my computer. Here's what came out:

CHAPTER 1

“All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.”
Federico Fellini
(1920 – 1993)

I bend at the knees, “Let your legs do the work,” my mother’s voice plays in my ear, “save your back!” Feet in her old sandals, hands in her forgotten gloves, pushing her old, what used to be green, wheelbarrow around her land, I stop the bending, teetering on the balls of my feet, hot, July sun straight above, I let go of the handles of the wheelbarrow. I fall backwards, gently, letting the soft, dry land catch me.
The journey from crouch to stand seems infinite. It’s beyond what I have the energy to do. And so I don’t. I let myself fall. Simply let gravity take over, where my strength has left off.
Eyes at the sky with my hand making shade, I stop. Just like that. I don’t push the wheelbarrow. I don’t lift the rocks. I don’t finish what I started. I stop.
I lie on my back, knees bent, legs splayed to make a W, and I listen. It’s so quiet here. So quiet I hear the birds, the wind, a dog barking far away, the air conditioner humming from inside the house. I’ve never wanted to stop before, never wanted to hear the quiet, make room for what it is trying to say, but I can’t push it back for one more minute. The weight of the quiet is stronger than my will to silence it.
What I was always afraid of happening if I stopped; begins to happen. Tears slip under the barge, first one, then several, evaporating quickly on my cheeks. When they start to fall faster than the sun can dry them, I grab the bottom of my dirty t-shirt and dab them away.
The words on my t-shirt say “Joyful Heart,” but the shirt is a liar and so am I. My heart is not full of joy. My heart is not full at all. My heart is a stranger to itself, empty, void. My head, that is what is full, full of noise and confusion and anger and lies. Grit in my ears, full of messages I am tired of recycling through on a continuous loop. A loop that threatens to clutch at my throat and choke the life right out of it.
When my tears and snot, sweat and soreness make it necessary to get up and address their needs, I do. I rise from my spot on the ground, look over at the house on my left, the mountains on my right, sun up above and the impression my body has left below. I’ve left impressions everywhere I’ve been in this lifetime.
I back the wheelbarrow over the dented earth, scribbling the impression away. Without a trace.

(You'll have to buy the book to get the rest of this type of brilliance.)

Thank you teachers known and unknown.

Thank you voices within and without.

Thank you, no accidents.

Felicia Sullivan

Want to do a good thing and have some fun while you do it? Check it out.

I believe in the power of three. When the third person asked me, point blank, "What is going on with you?" I knew I had to figure out the answer to that hard question!

I don't know.

Something.

Something big.

In the last 24 hours (I now sleep on a 24-hour clock, rather than on a "nighttime basis") I've dreamed this:

1) Making out with my ex (and gay) boyfriend - loving every minute of it.

2) Leading a friend to see the body of her dead grandmother, only to discover the woman wasn't dead, then chasing away the hearse that came to get her.

3) Living with my mom and step-father, as an adult, trying to figure out how I fit into their story now. (BTW, they were divorced for nearly 20 years before he died.)

4) Searching a huge home for decent coffee before leaving for high school without having had any. VERY unhappy about that.

5) Taking care of my childhood friend, Missy, who was sick and staying with me.

6) Getting instructions from a zookeeper how to proceed once all the cages were unlocked and the animals were set loose, leaving me, the only human, alone with them.

So, that's how I am.

Scary.






* Photo from Jupiter Images

Went out with Deb, Jess, and Prema tonight. Three women I've known just a year. Three women I can't imagine or recall a time not knowing. Three fellow memoir writers with stories that burn to be told, that wake us up to be written and draw us away from "real life" until they are finally out.

We went to hear another memoirist, Felicia Sullivan. Many of the questions from the audience were on her process of writing, and whether that process had been healing or re-traumatizing. She said it had been both, but ultimately, deeply healing and had brought her the closure she sought.

These were comforting words to me as I attempt to rewrite my manuscript, AGAIN. There are parts I just can't bear to read one more time, they take me straight back to the pain, the frustration, the isolation, the loneliness. Just reading them back to myself is re-traumatizing, and I am at a loss for how to work those scenes over until they make music. All they make is noise to me.

Perhaps that is the point of all this memoir writing? To revisit and re-examine those darkest points of our lives and scariest parts of our souls until those places lose their grip over us? Until we are no longer at their mercy, but compassionate witnesses looking from a different vantage point?

Just seeing Deb, Jess and Prema mirror back to me my own process over the last year, I see that the pain is part and parcel to the recovery. Pain not dealt with is still pain. Pain grabbed and forced to the light becomes something else.

I'm not sure just what.

But something.

Else.

Still in my nostalgic mood, I'm thinking of the TV shows that I sat glued next to. And here's the funny thing, it wasn't until I put together this list I saw a few themes: Single parenting. Magic. Cute, blond, short haircuts. Make-shift families.

Mr. French, The Ghost, Mrs. Livingston, Nanny, Alice. Where are you now? Come live at my house. Show me the way.

TOP 10 CHILDHOOD TV SHOWS


10. Family Affair



















9. Julia




















8. That Girl




















7. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

















6. The Courtship of Eddie's Father





















5. Nanny and the Professor



















4. The Partridge Family





















3. Gilligan's Island













2. Bewitched















1. The Brady Bunch

I'm about to turn 45. Somehow that seems so much older than 44, it's so officially half of 90.

I'm finding myself nostalgic. I'm trying to recall the good points of my childhood, and when I go down that lane, these are the toys that spring to mind. I was lost, LOST in my imagination when playing with these. I didn't know where I was or what was happening in the world around me. Heaven. Escape. Some of my favorite toys didn't even belong to me, I'd play with them at friend's or cousins' houses and be double lost in play.

Play. There's a word I don't use everyday. I am going to play more. Get lost in my imagination, in a good way, in a happy way, not an obsessive, depressive way.

TOP 10 TOYS OF MY CHILDHOOD

10. Barbie Friend Ship Airplane










9. Fisher Price Barn













8. Fisher Price Castle














7. Easy Bake Oven


















6. Fisher Price House














5. Mystery Date















4. Kiddles






























3. The Sunshine Family





















2. Crissy Doll with hair that grows!




















1. Little Lost Baby with 3-Way Face

RULE #5: NO RESCUES

The last RULE OF COOPERATION is NO RESCUES.

Now, if I were the writer of the rules I would choose to put them all in the positive, rather than the negative, terminology, but alas, I am not, so "no rescues" it is.

A rescue is defined as doing ANYTHING that by so doing, will build resentment.

Examples:

* Your husband suddenly needs to switch cars with you. You get his car, only to discover it's on empty. You don't have anywhere you really need to go, but you go fill it up with gas so he won't run out when you give it back to him.

If you do this lovingly, generously and because you want to surprise your husband? Great! But if you do it because he's an idiot and if it weren't for you he'd never be able to find his way out of a paper bag, and he's a thoughtless louse, etc., etc., etc., and this is just one more example of his thoughtlessness.... Then you are "rescuing" him and not truly gifting him. You'll be pissed, and that's not a gift, that's a power play.

For those of us that find the urge to rescue our children particularly hard to resist, my Sweet Kathleen has the perfect solution. She has three teenage daughters, and for as long as I've known her she gives each girl two rescues a school year. When they call about the forgotten lunch, PE clothes, notes, science project, etc., she asks, "Would you like to use one of your rescues?" and they have to determine the level of importance of their request. They know that two is all they get, period, no re-negotiating for a third. It's been highly effective for her.

So, there you go! The Rules of Cooperation! In summary:


THE RULES OF COOPERATION

1. No scarcity

2. Equal rights

3. No power plays

4. No secrets
a. 100%
b. Negative feelings (anger & fear)
c. Positive feelings (strokes)

5. No rescues

RULES OF COOPERATION RULE #4: NO SECRETS

This is probably the rule that has tripped me up the most. I think it's because I never considered what I was doing, "keeping a secret."

There are three parts to this rule:

1) 100 %

2) Negative feelings (resentment)

3) Positive feelings (strokes)

Here's the way it works: In a cooperative community if someone asks you a question, and you don't answer truthfully, you are not "giving your 100% truth" which leads to resentment. For instance, if you're at work and someone says, "Hey, I'm going down to ___________ and getting a sandwich, do you want to come?" If you do NOT want to go (for whatever reason) but you say, "sure," you will not join this person cooperatively, and your time with them will build resentment. Ideally, you answer kindly and truthfully, first checking in with yourself to figure out what that is, and respond with something like, "You know? I love that you asked me, but I am needing to stay right here and finish what I'm doing so I can go home early for my daughter's basketball game."

In this scenario if you had gone to lunch out of guilt/duty/fear/etc. and then been behind in your work when you got back, you would possibly resent the person that asked, and shift blame for missing the game to them, which is not being cooperative, it's a power play.

Got all that?

This one takes a LONG time to "get."

In a cooperative community each member agrees to share their positive and negative feelings with each other, and there is strict protocol on how to do so, in the spirit of all the other rules.

For a negative feeling you ask the person, "John? I have a resentment for you, will you hear it?" And then John can answer one of two things: 1) Yes, I will hear you, or 2) No, I will not hear you now, but I promise to hear you at such and such a timed.

You must agree to hear the person, but if for whatever reason you are not up for it at the time you are asked, you may search to find a mutually agreeable time. AGREEABLE time. You cannot use your "not now but later" card as a power play.

Here's the key. HEARING DOES NOT EQUAL AGREEING!

You are in no way obligated, in a cooperative community, to validate the resentment, nor do one single thing about it. ALL you must do is agree to HEAR it. Then, you answer, "I hear you," and the subject is CLOSED for the time being. It is not the time to reciprocate. By agreeing to cooperate with this person initially, you are further agreeing to not turn tables and air all your resentments just because "they started it." You must initiate this process with them at another time.

Then, all feelings must be presented without blame or obligation to the person. It is simply an "I" statement.

When you _____________________, I feel ________________________, being careful to avoid, "you make me feel" because nobody makes us feel anything, it is all our choice how we feel.

Examples:

When I say to you, "Good morning," and you don't respond, I feel ignored and resentful.

When the garbage is overflowing and you don't take it out, I feel angry.

When I ask you a question and you turn up the volume on the TV instead of answering me, I feel the need to f'ing kill you.

FOR EXAMPLE, not that I would know ANYTHING about any of these scenarios.

There is something about sharing a positive feeling with another that pushes many a scarcity button. Some belief we've instilled in each other that says, "If I praise you, there will be less praise in the world for me."

To share a stroke, all the same rules apply and the format is identical.

"Joe? I have a stroke for you, will you hear it?" And Joe may or may not agree to hear it at that time. Now, everyone says initially, "Who doesn't want to hear something nice said about them?" But if you dig down another layer, you'll realize that LOTS of times we are so conditioned to hear negative, that hearing positive can feel miserably uncomfortable. And besides, we have been trained in this culture to dismiss all compliments, in the name of humility. It is the harder of the two to hear, and respond simply, "I hear you," than the other for many, many, people. It takes a ton of practice.

I realize I'm sleep deprived and overly caffeinated while I'm hammering out this post. Please ask any clarifying questions you have in your comments, and I'll respond back in the comment section.

Readers, I have a stroke for you, will you hear it?

Yes? Good!

When you read my blog, I feel deeply grateful.

RULES OF COOPERATION
Part 3 of 5

The third rule is NO POWER PLAYS

This one is so obvious, yet so insidious. When people are cooperating, one does not seek power over another. Easy peasy?

That means no:

* Pouting

* Silent treatments

* Screaming

* Shaming

* Threatening

* Insults (however cloaked as a "joke")

* Physical assault

* Arguing

* Lying

* Manipulation (includes having something "on" someone, air of superiority or inferiority, not believing yourself to be equal

* VICTIM MENTALITY (my personal favorite) which has you in agreement with some one/thing/situation in which you can always be the wounded one, and thus wield your poor pitiful self in an effort to gain sympathy/pity/attention

This is a TOUGHIE because power plays are everywhere and socially/familially acceptable (or at least customary)


* Tomorrow: Rule #4!

** Ruth King quote of the day: "When you are shocked by something, it is because it is coming up against a deep assumption." This one has me whirling with "aha!" How about you?