Climbing Mountains vs Surfing

February 1, 2008 at 11:16 pm (life improvement, positive thinking)
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Photo by Mike Baird 

When I was 5 years old, I used to say, “When I turn 7, I’ll be a big girl and I’ll be able to do all the things I can’t do now.”When I was 7, I used to say, “When I turn 9, I’ll be a big girl and I’ll be able to do all the things I can’t do now.”Life’s always been that way for me. Always, the eyes on the next peak and climbing hard toward it, knowing that there’ll be the epitome of all knowledge and confidence when I get there.Keeping a journal helps me to see all the shifts over the past few years. How I take great leaps forward, almost as if each one is going to get me to that perfect spot where I’m omnipotent, omniscient, omniLorna. And then, I climb that next boulder and I’m looking at another leap to be made and I’m only in the perfect spot for a while before I’m moving forward again, sometimes struggling, ever aiming for the next peak of a neverending mountain range.Through my journals, I see it not so much as mountain-climbing, which is a great way to beat myself up for not climbing fast enough or high enough or able to perch on a peak indefinitely.

Instead, I’m gradually giving over to a more water-based theory of living, of just surfing on the constant ebb and flow of the tides of life. Sometimes high, sometimes low, always moving even when it seems I’m standing still, staying float and sometimes adrift but following the movement of life without the constant worry of finding the highest rock to perch atop.

c Lorna Tedder

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The To-Don’t List

January 30, 2008 at 11:08 pm (Goal setting, life improvement, relationships, time management)
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 Photo by  Fuschia Foot

Since I was old enough to write, I’ve kept a to-do list. It’s a necessary tool in my daily living and I don’t apologize for it. I acknowledge and honor it. I’ve started a different kind of list, a totally “selfish” list that’s designed to keep me from letting my time get sucked up by things I don’t want to do and/or things that leave me feeling resentful of the time that can never be replaced. Or just things that take up WAAAAAAY too much of my time that other people are completely oblivious to. These are the things I’ve had a hard time saying no to in the past but over recent years, I’ve developed a new mindset of “I don’t do _____” that I don’t—and won’t–apologize for, though I will readily explain because the person asking has usually never thought about why I might say no.This is a powerful tool that prevents me from going back to the days of working an extra 40 to 60 hours a week at work for someone else, whether that work is for a charity or a download of guilt or a feeling of “I have to do this.” It’s much easier to have my own established guidelines, and I’m less likely to get trapped into something I really don’t want to do because of pressure from colleagues or relatives. There’s no waffling on my part because I know my limits.“You want me to sprout wings and fly? Oh, I don’t do that. You want me to make one of my yummy turkey lasagnas and bring it to the office luncheon tomorrow? Oh, I don’t do that, either.”Here are a few of my to-don’ts and why:

- I don’t do fundraising. Never on the selling and very rarely on the buying. I hate it. Have always hated it. Maybe because it feels too much like begging when I’m hawking junk and I’m resentful when I’m asked to buy it. Maybe because I still remember the company VP who was making 10 times my salary (I helped with payroll) but would bring his little kids to my office to guilt us into buying $2 of junk for $25 when most of us were so poorly paid that we couldn’t afford lunch. I have sold my last overpriced candy bars, cookies, calendars, magazines, cheese cakes, gift wrap, candles, whatever. And I’ve bought my last overpriced candy bars, cookies, calendars, magazines, cheese cakes, gift wrap, candles, whatever. If a kid wants to wash my car or pull weeds for the same amount of money, terrific. I want a benefit for what I buy and I want the kids to earn it without expecting a hand-out. (That said, I’ll still direct my own kids to start their fundraising by going to all the people who sent their kids to pester me over the years. Guilt works both ways!)

- I don’t read for other people, including judging writing competitions, participating in critique groups, or reviewing a new author’s work to tell her which publisher to send it to. Yes, the writing may be wonderful and I’ve discovered some terrific new authors that way, but the truth is, I am an extremely slow reader. I refuse to consider it a disability, even though it always hurt my scores on standardized tests because I couldn’t finish long passages and answer questions on them within the allotted time. Most people have no idea how painful it is for me to read hundreds of pages, and what someone else can finish in one hour will easily take me three days.

- I don’t volunteer. I used to spend a disproportionate amount of my time doing volunteer work. The reason I stopped was highlighted for me when my building manager asked for volunteers to lock down the building during the month of July. I was pinged a half dozen times and resisted volunteering because when I do, I end up not only with my shift but with others’. As usual, some of the volunteers decided to take the day off without arranging for a replacement and suddenly building managers were coming to me, Old Reliable, to see if I could step in. I am still there in a crunch, but I’m no longer there twice as much as everyone else.

- I don’t speak at public events or give workshops without compensation. The definition of compensation varies, but the days of spending hours to give workshops that I’m suddenly not allowed to sell my books at, well, I don’t do that anymore. And I set the definition of compensation, not someone who thinks I’ll do it for the “publicity” and should be grateful for the forum.

- I don’t cook or bake for office events. The closest I’ll come to it is asking one of the girls to make something, but only because they’re learning to cook. Otherwise, I’ll buy something on my way into work or I’ll contribute napkins, silverware, juice, etc. When the girls were little and I was on the road a lot, I worked in an office where the women were expected to cook for office potlucks and the other half of the office (the men) would throw a couple of dollars in the kitty to pay for one of them to bring in a store-bought desert. One of the old bastards suggested I bake some blueberry muffins because he liked home-cooked breakfasts, to which I said, “If I don’t have time to bake for my little girls, I’m certainly not getting up at 4 AM to make them for you!”

- I don’t go out with a guy just because he asked or because I have “nothing else to do.” This is one I’ve lived by since my marriage ended. One of my colleagues told me that when she was single, she went out at least once with any guy who asked because he’d had the courage to ask. Even if she dreaded the date before she said yes or knew that they had nothing in common or if she hated his guts. It was her policy to reward any man’s mettle. She usually had stories of dreary five-hour dates that she’d hated every minute of and how she wasted her valuable time when she should have been working on her Master’s degree. A writer friend also believed in the you-have-to-kiss-a-lot-of-toads theory and always gave every man a first date. Both women did marry, but in both cases, they married men they knew upon first glance were not a waste of time, long before the question of a first date came up. So my time isn’t a reward to some man and his time shouldn’t be a reward to me if I’m simply bored. We both deserve more respect than that.

So those are a few of my to-don’ts, my tool to prevent time-suckage. When I look at my list now, it’s hard to believe how many hours I used to throw away.

What’s on YOUR to-don’t list? 

c Lorna Tedder

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The Best Happiness Advice a Teen Ever Gave Her Mom

January 29, 2008 at 11:02 pm (life improvement, positive thinking, relationships)
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This incredible photo by Derek Kolb.

Since my divorce three years ago, my older daughter has come up with some real gems. Forget all the self-help gurus in the world–my teenager’s guidelines for joyful living boil down to these three.

1. Never take advice from unhappy people.

That might seem simple, but how often do we really think about it? I’ve had lots of people–family, friends, colleagues, divorce counselors, strangers on the street, celebrities, teachers–tell me exactly what I needed to do to be happy since I became single again. I followed much
of that advice, thinking that because I was in a stressed and devastated state of being that certainly I didn’t know what I was doing. Following the advice just made things worse and I ended up second-guessing myself and not pursuing some beautiful opportunities. It was a 16-year-old
girl’s simple statement that “I never take advice from unhappy people” that turned all that around. I decided that I would take relationship advice only from people who themselves had happy, emotionally healthy relationships with their partners and with people in general. Once I started to see how people applied their own advice to their own lives, I found myself much happier…and often quite amused. 2. Stop at “happy.”I think the old version of this might have been “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Too often, we make changes because we’re restless, bored, or pressured by outsiders. Things can be really good and we’ll keep tweaking and messing with them until they’re in a less satisfying state. We can be in a sweet relationship and feel we need to keep looking for something better and lose what we have. The guideline to follow? If you’re not happy, by all means change something, anything, to see how that changes your situation, but don’t keep fretting over something that you really like. When you reach the point of being happy with it, stop tweaking it and start enjoying it!

3. Listen to your intuition.

Intuition often goes against what “makes sense,” yet it’s that internal barometer for life. I cannot think of one single time in my life when I listened to my intuition and was sorry for it. The reverse? Extremely painful. Intuition cannot be explained through well-known scientific channels and it cannot be captured in pie charts and bar graphs. It’s an invisible guideline that only you can feel, which is why it’s sometimes said that your intuition is really the voice of God that you’re hearing. Analysis may be your scarecrow and may serve you well in most situations, but if your intuition is so strong that you realize you’re making a conscious decision to ignore that “gut instinct,” that’s the danger signal to pay attention and go with not necessarily what makes sense but what’s right for YOU.  

 c Lorna Tedder  

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7 Tips to Stop Getting Advice You Don’t Want

January 28, 2008 at 11:27 pm (Law of Attraction, life improvement, positive thinking, relationships)
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Bowl of Smoke photo by Melanie Cook

A few years back, imperfect strangers would stop me in the grocery store and give me advice. On everything. My looks, my clothes, my love life, my purchases. Everything. If one more person had told me what I should do with my life, I would have exploded. I was caught up in the adversity of advice-ty, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.“I can’t believe that just happened,” a friend said after witnessing one of these interactions. “Why in the world would a complete stranger ever say that to another person? She didn’t know you or anything about you, but she sure told you how to live your life.”

I wondered that, too, but more recently, I’ve wondered why it stopped more suddenly than it started. What I learned was that the change wasn’t in the world around me but in me, and I realized that, yes, there are some ways to stop getting fire-hosed with advice that drives you crazy.

1. Stop asking for it.

I mean stop LITERALLY asking for advice. When I came out of a long-term marriage, I had to rebuild myself from the ground up. There were areas of my life that were very solid, such as my knowledge of my career field. I rarely asked for advice about work because I didn’t need it. I knew what I was doing. But when it came to being on my own for the first time in a couple of decades? Not just alone, but alone and responsible for my kids as well? I felt I couldn’t afford to make mistakes. I needed tools for dealing with my situation, especially in areas where I’d botched previous relationships, so I asked for help in understanding what was happening and what my options were.

And friends, colleagues, family, and strangers were more than happy to give me their opinions. I needed reinforcement much of the time, validation that I was making a good decision, verification that I was doing something right after feeling for years that I did only the wrong things. But at some point, the advice became overwhelming, and solicited advice turned too quickly into unsolicited advice that was overbearing. Some people just couldn’t stop giving it, long after I didn’t need it or want it. I’d opened a door I couldn’t seem to shut and far too many people took the parental role in doling out their advice on situations that were no longer in need of more analysis or help.

I stopped asking advice of anyone new, except in certain situations where I paid for professional advice, but the overwhelming and now unwanted “friendly” advice was suffocating me with negativity and causing me to questions things I felt good and right about–and that left me hurt, angry, full of doubt, and overwhelmed. And yet, even though I was no longer asking for advice in a literal sense, people whom I’d never laid eyes on sought me out to tell me what “you should do” or “you need to do” or “you ought to do.” No, what I really NEEDED to do was…

2. Stop broadcasting.

I had run into Kmart for some cleaning supplies when I noticed a sale in the garden department. Unfortunately, most of the plants had been picked over and a few were in need of a little care, including a specific variety of plant I really wanted and couldn’t find locally. I paused over the battered plants for a few minutes, trying to decide if they were worth the 75%-off price and how quickly I could nurse them to lushness with my vividly green thumbs. I reluctantly decided to buy the plants but my biggest worry was whether my upcoming two-week trip would hinder their rejuvenation. I was still fretting over it mentally when I rounded the corner with my cart and a stranger stared at me and then wheeled her cart to block me.

“Why are you buying those?” she demanded. “You’re settling for the dregs that they can’t get rid of otherwise. Those plants are half-dead and you’ll never be able to revive them. You’re wasting your money.”

Her diatribe went on for another few minutes before I, somewhat flustered and trying to figure out if I knew her, told her I was buying them anyway and she then wheeled away angrily. Long after I’d resurrected the el-cheapo plants that I couldn’t find elsewhere and nourished them to lovely shrubs in my garden, I was still bothered by her sudden explosion of advice.

That day, I was unsure of the decision I was making, and being the open-book I tend to be with my emotions, ideas, and decisions, I was broadcasting my uncertainty, full-blast. It was probably in my body language if not in my aura. What I’ve discovered is that if you are less than confident about any area of your life, people will step in to fill what they perceive as a void of information and certainty for you–even if they fill it with garbage. Sometimes this is out of concern, but it can also be a power-trip for them or a chance to feel better about their own issues if they can tell themselves–and you–how much better off they are than you. Their unsolicited advice is a result of their own self-importance and self-esteem and has nothing to do with you except that you’re a blank canvas that is radiating insecurity in some area.

Though it was quite common, I found it incredibly easy for one particular colleague who had been married for 20 years–and hadn’t dated around in 25–to advise me on dating after divorce, not realizing that things have changed a little bit since her college days. Part of it was living vicariously though my social life, since she wasn’t terribly happy in her own troubled marriage but felt she was definitely better off than poor, divorced Lorna. Because this situation repeated itself so often, I finally learned to…

3. Tell people what you need.

Early on, when I was unsure of so many things as I re-emerged in the world of single women, I explicitly asked for advice because I didn’t know which direction to take. I needed information then. As I began to work through the information and make decisions, my needs shifted. It wasn’t so much information that I needed as a sounding board and, sometimes, just someone to vent to.

I had certain friends I could call and say, “Hey, I just need to talk through this out loud because I’ve already talked through it in my head a billion times and it doesn’t make sense.” This has worked quite well for me with two life coaches I’ve employed for different reasons (I’ve also fired coaches for failing in this area and letting their personal feelings color their advice). I hired Yoda because I needed 100% objectivity and confidentiality in talking through some life transition issues that I couldn’t talk to other friends about. There were times when I glimpsed some struggle on her face and knew she thought I should handle the situation differently, but instead of giving me advice based on what was right for HER life, she kept quiet and asked probing questions that helped me get to the best spot for me. My other coach was specifically an advisor but kept her personal opinions to herself if she disagreed with the direction I chose. She has on one or two occasions offered her personal opinion but caveated her comments as being her personal opinion and just one of many options available to me. In both cases, these were advisors who were respectful of my needs and didn’t force their own opinions on me. When I asked for advice, both cheerfully gave it. When I asked for a sounding board, both were there for me. When I asked for emotional support regarding a decision, I got that, too.

But telling someone what you need doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to…

4. Tell people what you don’t need.

Let’s use the analogy of telling a friend not to squeeze your arm when they see you because you have a deep wound there and you’re choosing to let it heal in a particular way so please don’t give medical advice or try to re-bandage it in a different way. Does the friend instead pat your back gently and tell you she’ll be careful not to bump your injured arm? Or does she rip off the bandage and pick at the wound and tell you which ointments to use?

Two long-lost friends came back into my life at about the same time but separately, and we caught up on what had happened in our lives over the months–in one case–and decades–in the other case–since we’d been close. I told them both about a particular situation in my life at that time and said, “I’m telling you this so that you understand why I’m doing certain things and don’t ask questions I’m not emotionally prepared to answer. I’m not seeking advice on how to handle it and I specifically do not want anyone’s opinions on how I’m choosing to deal with this issue. I welcome your emotional support if you choose to give it, but my decisions on this are not open for discussion so please don’t give me advice on how you would handle it. This is something in my life that you can’t handle for me and I’m the only one who has to.”

I was very clear in what I didn’t need–advice and probing questions.

After being told specifically NOT to give me advice on this one issue–I needed to decide entirely on my own without anyone else’s influence–my two old friends handled it oppositely. One, who had a prior pattern of coming to me for career advice, was a little hurt that I refused to hear her opinion on any subject at all but thought it through and understood why I needed support without criticism. To this day, she and I are close friends and she has never prodded me about the decision I made.

My other friend, who was older and had adopted me in college, had a pattern decades ago of giving me big sisterly advice. She ignored my request and immediately gave me a harsh lecture on what I should do. Which is why I had to learn to…

5. Cut people off when they don’t respect your boundaries.

I asked her a second time not to pursue it and reiterated that I was informing her of the situation, not asking her how to live it, and to please not continue discussing it. I didn’t have to tell her at all but for old times’ sake, I wanted her to know why I would and wouldn’t be involved in her life in certain ways.

Again, she ignored my request and came back with how she would handle it and how I should handle it and what was best for me, even though she hadn’t been in my life in many, many years and had no idea of much of what had happened in the intervening years. Her lack of respect for this particular boundary I’d established was upsetting and it took several days for me to calm myself about her thoughtless comments. I knew she didn’t mean to be hurtful but the fact that she wouldn’t leave it alone was scraping at a delicate and painful wound that needed time to heal. When I felt able to discuss it again, I told her explicitly that the subject was not up for advisement and if she persisted in giving me advice that I found intrusive and domineering, then I would not be able to keep the friendship we’d revived.

The last I heard from her was an email saying that of course she wouldn’t dump her opinions on me if I didn’t want but she was just concerned and what I really needed to do was…and what I ought to do was…and what I should do was…. Yeah. After so many years of being apart, we could have renewed the friendship very nicely but for her, being the expert advisor was a source of personal power and self-importance, and it was only the tip of the iceberg. I had to turn the boundary I’d set into a wall, but the barrage of “I know what you need even though you obviously don’t” would never have improved.

The ironic thing was, for as good as she was at doling out advice, she was absolutely miserable in a similar situation that I’d seen play out in her life at least thrice and she was really screwed up at the time she came back into my life. But then, as my daughter once told me during a difficult period in my life…

6. Never take advice from unhappy people.

Unhappy people seem loaded with expert advice on what it takes to be happy or successful or whatever it is that eludes them. They’re talented at telling others exactly what will make life wonderful, yet they’ve never achieved wonderful–or never sustained it–for very long. You might think they’re ecstatic from all that knowledge of what really works, but most of the time, their advice is their fantasy or their failure.

In the case of my two coaches (the one I hired and not the ones I fired), both were serene, calm, overall happy people. They had their own problems, yes, but they were what I would qualify as “mostly content.” I’ve talked to relationship coaches who were pleasantly engaged in long-term relationships with partners they considered to be their best friends and they gave sane and smart advice to their clients. I’ve talked to colleagues who were prosperous and well-grounded, and so was their advice. I learned the hard way something that makes so much sense: take advice from people who have successfully navigated your troubled waters to a place of contentment, whether it’s a relationship, finances, career, or family. If you let yourself get in a situation where you are taking advice from negative people, then nothing positive will come from it.

Not only that, but…

7. If you reject advice, be prepared for unpleasant feedback.

I’ve heard some people say that they owe an advice-giver a listen because that person is showing they care. Maybe they do care. Maybe not. Who really knows what they get out of giving you advice? I’ve heard others say they owed an advice-giver a listen because that advisor was investing time in their lives. So what? If it’s unsolicited advice, you don’t owe them a listen. You may choose to listen for a few minutes or even hours or not at all or every time they cross your path, but you don’t owe anyone for unsolicited advice. They choose to give it.

You’re also not obligated to follow through on advice you’re given, whether it’s unsolicited or you asked for it.

As for solicited advice, if you’re not paying for it, thank the other person for their time. If you decide not to follow through with their advice after they’ve spent time with you, you may wish to let them know you’ve considered all the factors and decided to go in a different direction this time but you appreciate them being there for you. Their reaction may or not be gracious.

Don’t be surprised, though, if the advisor becomes angry at you for not taking his or her advice, whether it’s solicited or not. If they find out later that you didn’t take their advice, they’ll likely be perturbed. If you tell them pointblank that you’re not going to take their advice, they’ll be even more perturbed. Advisors, even professional counselors, often take your response to their advice personally.

The best way I’ve found of dealing with rejecting advice (especially unsolicited advice from acquaintances and strangers) is a simple, “Thank you for your feedback on that!” Prepare for unwanted advice by having a catch-phrase ready that acknowledges their opinion, doesn’t commit you, and allows them to trot away happily to be a busy-body elsewhere while you trot away happily to ignore how they think you should live your life.

So why have things changed now, so that I don’t seem to attract all this unwanted advice? Simple. When I was pregnant with Shannon, my first child, I wanted to hide during most of my pregnancy because I got so much unsolicited advice. Some small portion was good but most of it seemed designed to terrorize me: the 60 hours of labor, the wish-you-were-dead pain of childbirth, the change in lifestyle that would make you wish you’d never conceived, how awful it would be to work fulltime and how someone’s cousin’s sister-in-law dropped their baby on its head while bathing it. Most was meant well, but it was absolutely awful. I spent most of those 9 months scared to death and terribly uncertain about what I’d gotten myself into. There was the idiot waitress who asked my husband if it was okay when I ordered a Coke to soothe my morning sickness and the lectures I got from strangers.

Fast-forward to a couple of years later, when Aislinn was conceived and I didn’t tell anyone until I was five months along and couldn’t hide it anymore. I was in no mood for hours of advice per day. I looked about the same as when I’d been pregnant with Shannon. I worked with new people who didn’t know me before. I was just as active. There was really no visible difference, and yet only twice during my entire pregnancy with Aislinn did anyone give me advice. A few people asked if it was my “first” and then shut up. Most just didn’t bother with the horror stories.

The difference? With my second child, I knew what I was up against for the pregnancy (even though it was quite different), the labor, and the delivery (also very different). I carried myself with a confidence that dis-invited anyone to tell me what to do, though I didn’t even know it at the time.

And that’s what’s happened over the last six months or so. I’ve reached a point of knowing which path to take and that I won’t be deterred and no one need waste their breath. There’s no longer a void to be perceived that a stranger must fill with advice that doesn’t really fit my life at all. And if they simply must say something silly to me like, “You haven’t remarried yet? You just need to [fill in the blank],” then I’m most likely to laugh and say, “Oh, I don’t think so!”   c Lorna Tedder     

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The Bracelet Challenge

January 28, 2008 at 11:27 pm (life improvement, positive thinking)
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Photo by  Jenn Vargas   

  
It’s not that I aspire to be Xena, Warrior Priestess, with my armbands and steel brassiere. (Okay, maybe I do, but that’s beside the point.) It’s a challenge I’m taking. Some people refer to it as the “Bracelet Challenge,” but I’m not using it in quite the same way as Pastor Will Bowen who started it with the idea that you wear a small purple bracelet on one wrist for a straight 21 days and every time you catch yourself complaining, you switch to the other wrist and start over. There’s nothing new about that but it’s a little different twist on the usual version of “bracelets.”For years, people have worn loose rubber bands on one wrist and snapped them (slap your own hand!) whenever they committed some awful habit they wanted to break. Cursing, for example. Or a certain phrase. Or a rude remark about their ex. (snap-snap-snap-ouch!-SNAP!)

The difference, to me, with Pastor Bowen’s technique is the switching the bracelet from one wrist to another. Something about that resonates with me, though I really don’t care for the purple bracelet…maybe because other people are using the purple bracelet and I like something unique to me.

I’ve used two pieces of jewelry to aid me in similar behavioral modification over the past few years: one ring that says “allow miracles” and a bracelet that says “Wandering but not lost.” The first was one that Shannon wore during a difficult time last November and December and passed on to me during a difficult time in January and February. The second is one that I wore to remind myself that I didn’t have to know exactly where I was going or how to get there and that that was okay. I don’t wear that bracelet anymore because I’m now good with where I am and where I’m going and enjoying the scenery.

But I’m beginning a challenge today. There’s a particular “thing” (for lack of a better word) in my life that I’m usually very strongly positive on but every now and then, doubt hits and hits hard. I remind myself to “allow miracles” and the “the world comes to me” but I still have to deal with the doubt, and that pushes away what I’m trying to manifest in my life. So, beginning today, I’m back to wearing my “allow miracles” ring and anytime I find myself beginning to doubt this “thing” in my life, I switch hands.

There’s also another habit I want to wean myself of. Nothing big but it ties up my thought process with something that can be draining and self-sabotaging. So, I’ve chosen a stretchy silver bracelet to help me train myself not to think so much in that area. It lies flat against my skin and doesn’t irritate me when I’m at my keyboard or mouse. When I catch myself going into that brooding spot that’s sure to claim too much mental energy, I switch wrists, push those debilitating thoughts away, and replace them with some kind of positive activity that will bring me closer to the future I want.

Though I can think of about 8 behaviors I’d like to change over the next few months, I don’t think I’ll wear 8 bracelets at once. I’ll stick to a ring that I can either switch between hands or turn upside down and a bracelet.

And if I should ever wear a wedding band again, maybe I’ll focus on the positive in our relationship by wearing the band right side up for as many 21-day stretches as possible!  c Lorna Tedder

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Enjoying My Flaws

January 28, 2008 at 10:49 pm (Beauty, Health/Fitness, positive thinking)
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Photo  by  true2source  


I have strawberries. There’s a medical term for it, but I don’t remember it. All I remember is that my lovers have always referred to them as “strawberries”—either with great fascination or great disdain and precious little in between.They’re tiny scarlet freckles, no larger than the size of a pinhead, and I have probably a dozen hidden on my body. The doctor who laser-smoothed my childhood dog-bite scar offered to zap them off for me, but they don’t bother me and I’ve never held any animosity toward them, unlike with the scar. When I was a tiny girl, I was always intrigued with them on the other women in my family and somehow understood them to be a sign of womanhood and would say that I would have them, too, when I became a woman. And I do.But getting dressed in front of the mirror and not yet dressed, I noticed one of the cherry-red flecks and distinctly heard the word INCLUSIONS. Not occlusions, as in a blockage, but inclusions. Like with my favorite quartz crystals.I have quite a few crystals in my home. Some are perfectly clear and pretty. Others have shadows, phantoms, bubbles inside, and some look like computer chips inside. Inclusions, I’m told by geologists.

I’ve been admonished for purchasing “substandard’ crystals that have inclusions in them. I’ve been told that I should spend my money only on the flawless crystals.

Yet, for me, the crystals that are the most powerful, most energetically resonating, most stunning are not the clear ones but the ones with inclusions.

I’m captivated not by perfection but by the imperfections that make each crystal unique.

Then, looking in the mirror at my strawberries, I had to laugh. I don’t have flaws…I have inclusions!  

c Lorna Tedder

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Why I’m Not Looking for My “Other Half”

January 27, 2008 at 10:49 pm (positive thinking, relationships, romance)
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Photo by  Dave Parker  

It’s been at least a dozen years since I was first introduced to Stephen Covey’s THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE but I had forgotten his theories on dependence to independence to interdependence until someone read them to me recently in context of our work environment. I was still teasing my colleague about why, if we’re all so effective, we’ve come up with only one additional habit in all this time when I suddenly saw Covey’s theories from the point of view of romantic relationships instead of career relationships.I can’t explain this whole strange sense of where I am right now. I dated a good bit in March, ran screaming back to my cave in April, dated very pleasantly in May, retreated back to my cave in June to figure out my feelings on how deeply I wanted to get involved, dated A LOT in July but was cancelling dates by the end of the month because they all seemed so wounded and needy and I couldn’t get enthusiastic about any of them. In August, it was just too effing hot to date (no kidding!) and I was too busy making some major life decisions and dealing with family crises. September’s been an all talk and no action month, with things just sorta rumbling along but with no one to entice my enthusiasm and with me being more excited about my creative projects than meeting anyone new–and that’s not been a bad thing at all.I guess the last six months have been an interesting time of transition because I FEEL like I’m on the verge of a major relationship. Six months ago, I just wanted to take it easy and enjoy myself. No pressure, no rush, just having fun with no intentions of physical involvement unless I felt a really strong connection. Somewhere in there, I started rounding up to the number of years since my divorce, when asked, and found that apparently when you reach three years, you expire as a good potential mate–in other words, if you’ve been “on the market” (whether or not you think in those terms) for three years, then there must be something wrong with you, and if you’ve been actively dating a variety of men for more than a few months and haven’t settled into a relationship, then there must be something wrong with you. Funny, but I never even thought in those terms…though other people certainly do and don’t mind voicing their judgment. I always want to demand to see the guidebook they’re reading from.

And yet this feeling of excitement is here NOW, even if the man isn’t. It’s like things are lining up but at the same time, I have so much else to do and I’m having fun with it by myself or with my kids or with a couple of friends. It’s a very free-floaty feeling and a sense of life being really, really good on all levels. And at the same time, a sense of having to merge my household again at some point, though happily.

When I think of how much has gone into separating my household and life from another person, the idea of merging physical space feels different…and it IS different to even consider it. I found myself stepping out of the shower this week and in my head hearing a man tease me about one of my nice towels that had shrunk to the size of a hand towel and me tease back that at least mine weren’t like his ratty ones and the whole image of merging TOWELS seemed to loom all around me for a minute. I don’t think this way. I haven’t, at least, in years. So it’s terribly different that it’s all around me now when my past thoughts of partnering up were so much more on the surface than something I could actually accept as turning from vapor to flesh and blood.

Covey’s ideas of dependence/independence/interdependence suddenly seemed so clear. There was the dependence that came from a long-term marriage that had many, many concessions on my part so that we could stay married but with the divorce, I moved into more independence. Not really independence, though. Because of where I was emotionally at the end of my marriage, I replaced one type of dependence with another, relying too much of the opinions and advice of others who seemed to have it together, even if most didn’t.

So divorce itself wasn’t a move into a state of independence. It was the first step of many to get to the point of being independent. It’s a state I’m now in completely and feel really good about. The past three years and more have been about becoming independent, able to make it on my own and be alone without being lonely and being good with being who I want to be while working out all the kinks of the past. It’s been a transition to independence.

That’s the same as “working on yourself” that I see so few people do when they move from one marriage right into the next without working through what went wrong or who they are or how they became who they are. But once you’ve worked on yourself and worked through all the biggies, then it seems time to transition into…interdependence.

Interdependence, to me, is when two people can be independent but intertwine their independence. It’s not the same as two dependent, needy people coming together and clinging to each other. It’s the process of getting through the healing and truly being whole again so that you’re not looking for your “other half” but for your “other sphere.”

And I think that’s rare as hell, but I kinda like things that are rare.

c Lorna Tedder

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Body Image: Are You a Temple or a Tool?

January 26, 2008 at 10:27 pm (Health/Fitness, positive thinking)
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 Photo by Howie Berlin 

Sitting outside my doctor’s lab and waiting my turn to “donate” blood, I was struck by a conversation I overheard in which the nurse explained that she’d seen everything and it was “all natural.” What bothered her patient about body image didn’t bother the nurse at all. She said that she could easily see past the body to the person inside and wasn’t troubled by any bodily function. Her idea of the human body? “Natural.”That made me wonder how different people see their bodies and how their body image becomes a prophecy to be fulfilled. They treat their bodies according to how they think of them.Some people regard their bodies as “machines.” They work them hard, make them do what they want, keep them running. These machines sometimes malfunction or break down but there’s a sense of ownership and often, control.A former friend once told me that she regarded her body as her ultimate “tool” to get what she wanted. She had a long history of relying on her looks and sexuality to convince a man to do her bidding so that she has yet to hold a full-time job. Her tool, at mid-life, is beginning to fail her though, and it’s harder to catch a young man’s attention when so many women half her age have newly minted “tools” to get what they want.Several acquaintances and friends refer to their bodies as their “rental units” or “borrowed” for while they’re in this lifetime, but believe they’ll be reincarnated into different bodies in the next lifetimes.
How they treat their bodies depends a lot on how they view renting–is it okay to make a mess of it because you don’t own it or do you treat it more gently because it’s not yours?

When I was growing up, I often heard in the Baptist Church that the body was your “temple” and you should treat it as such. This was the usual reasoning for not smoking, not drinking, not having sex before marriage. While I know many spiritual people who have adopted this body image and
improved their health and lives tremendously by taking great care of how they nourished and polished their temples, the religion of my childhood gave me a diametrically opposed set of metaphors. The human body was a “temple,” but it was also an “instrument of shame” and a “vessel of suffering.” The wonderful, beautiful temple was also something to be greatly ashamed of and meant to suffer on Earth in preparation for a pleasant stay in Heaven, presumably without the physical body or with a magically younger version, but go figure.

At some point in my life, I’ve thought of my body as a machine, a rental unit, a temple, and even (when I was very young) an instrument of shame. Probably a few other things as well. Not a tool to get my way, though–that’s just not my style. But I think I should pick one image and focus on treating my body that way. I like the temple image. I always have.

How do you think of YOUR body? And how does that affect the way you treat it?

c Lorna Tedder

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The Universe Wants You to be Happy but the Economy Doesn’t

January 23, 2008 at 10:38 pm (Law of Attraction, positive thinking)
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The question is, Does our culture “allow” us to be happy? Or are we all supposed to put on a “happy face” and pretend we’re happy but while being expected NOT to be truly happy?

[TREE HUGGER photo by Littlesprite Photography, c 2008] 

Tree HuggerI was very impressed with an analogy that I heard in an Abraham-Hicks seminar. The perturbation was one I’ve dealt with myself and worked through myself: how we tell people they can’t be angry or jealous or suffer any of the darker emotions because, according to someone’s religion or the mandated etiquette, to be angry or jealous or depressed or frustrated is a BAD THING and you must TAMP IT DOWN and IGNORE IT. The result of all that hiding of darker but genuine emotion, rather than talking it out, writing it out, or otherwise purging it constructively, is to let it fester and turn inward on itself. Few people in your environment will encourage your anger to be unleashed but it’s sweeter on their own ears and shoulders if you turn it inward and just feel worse and worse and worse…Admitting how you feel would make you an even worse person in the eyes of our society. Besides, we have plenty of drugs to help us handle depression, stress, anxiety, and more, and yet the best they can do is take the edge off the pain, not fill up the emptiness.

What I hadn’t worked out for myself already was Read the rest of this entry »

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How To Make It Better

January 20, 2008 at 10:17 pm (life improvement, positive thinking)
Tags: , , ,

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Photo by fdecomite  

By the end of the first hour at the office, I was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t like it very much. Not that anything was particularly any weightier than usual. It was just the annoying little time and energy consumers that plague most work days and add unnecessary stress. Most of them are chores that have to be taken care of and only I can take care of them. No choices there.So how could I make it better or was I just damned to a miserable day? You know what? I didn’t want a miserable day. There had to be some way of making it better—besides berating myself for not using enough positive thinking.That’s when I began to catalog things that could make the day better. Many of them were things I didn’t have any control over, though I listed those, too, because you never know what might show up or bring things into your control unexpectedly. The surprising thing was how much of my day I actually did have control over and could “make better” without the syrupy nature of so many people who espouse positive thinking. The terminology of “what would make it better” broke through the mandate of a disingenuous “if you want a good day, you must think happy thoughts.”Then again, I love to brainstorm and this method allowed me the chance to take action on my brainstorming.

Just to name a few….

1. I started thinking that one way of making the day better would be to get out of the office at lunch. Hmmm, someplace special. And to share some great conversation with a friendly face who would be supportive and free-thinking. Hmmm, and wouldn’t the Thai House be just delish today? So I suggested to Aquarius Girl that we do Thai for lunch. It turned out that she had other plans but she’s rearranging her schedule tomorrow so that we can invade our favorite Thai spot. I found a pleasant alternative to lunch today and now I’m looking forward to a great lunch tomorrow.

2. I thought about how great it would feel to finish up a project I left hanging in July. It’s not one that would take a long time, but I didn’t have a particular number (not hard to find), or a particular name (a little harder to find), verification of two pages of info (basically printing two pages and checking off numbers), and inserting a graphic into the package (available in another file that’s not too hard to find). All the reasons the project hasn’t been done has been because of tiny things that were too much trouble during the summer. So I put all those tiny annoyances in one place to make them easy to wipe out. The project is now finished and I love feeling good about having it out of the way.

3. I looked at the somewhat boring task on my desk, the kind I can do without much thought at all, and wondered how I could make it more exciting without either picking a fight or setting fire to it or having a guy in a loincloth read it aloud to me. I decided that the task was hopeless in terms of adding excitement to it, but that I could definitely make my work environment more pleasant while accomplishing something mindless. I hooked up my iPod to my computer speakers and gave myself a pleasant choice between listening to some of my favorite electronica and a non-fiction audiobook I’ve been wanting to delve into.

By the third item, I was thinking not only of how to make my day better but the next day and the weekend, too. I was thinking of how it would be better if I could have a little bonfire in the back yard under the cool full moon and the only thing stopping me is that I don’t have the fire wood and I can pick that up at the grocery store. And how much better would everything be if I had incense burning in the house with a small stash of candles on the breakfast counter? And how much better it would be if I could move the church rail in the house to the end of the hallway and put my little vision boards there.

Some of these are little things I have control over and can change without anyone else knowing. Some of these are things that I have to ask someone else for their involvement to make it happen. And some, some are entirely up to other people and up to the Universe, but I’ve put it out there to the Universe that it’s something would “make it better,” and that’s the first step in bringing something closer to making my day, whether I do it myself, ask for help, or just let it happen. 

c Lorna Tedder

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