HEART'S CRY

Five hundred words may not sound like much or seem as if it is a huge challenge.  So, why is it a big deal?  Joining a blogging commitment to write 500 words a day for 31 days scares me to death.  Why?  I want to be a writer.  There.  I said it.  The minute I say it, my stomach hurts.  An intimidating and terrifying endeavor.   I have always written in a journal.  Scribbled, doodled and wrote.  At times I have felt as if my mind couldn't process all of the words and ideas and dreams until I put my pen to paper.  However, my mind works in a series of pictures and associations and in the linear fashion.  I struggle with transposing thoughts, letters and words at times.  When I'm tired, my family teases me as I struggle to fill in the blanks. Reading is a desire that drives me.  As a young child, I longed for more stories and more books.  It was as if I would starve, if I could not read.  The b...

This morning is my scheduled weekly review.  Where I am supposed to disconnect, reflect and recharge and review my life plan. Sometimes I find myself going down a road, I don't want to be.  I never planned on.  In fact, I had been cruising through life enjoying the view until I suddenly realized...this is not where I am supposed to be. My old operating procedure would have been to shift in to a higher gear and race mindlessly into a wall. Instead, today I am pulling over.  Pulling onto a flat shoulder at the top of a hill.  Getting outside myself to take a long look forward and backward.  Taking some time to accept where I am and my own state of mind.  Pulling out my map...life plan, I consciously choose my next steps carefully.   Going back is not possible.  Getting out of the consequences is not an option.  However, moving forward mindfully and intentionally is. I will follow through with some commitments I made without...

It was a different world and a different time.  A place where time forgot and the world did not know.   My childhood.  The great before. "Let's go get lost in the breaks," I would pronounce as we galloped on our horses across the plains.   The ridges were easy as one could see for miles upon miles.  The breaks and draws weere mysterious and exciting. Our horses would pick the best way down to the bottom of the draw and we "tried" to get lost.  The truth about a draw and the breaks, however, was it never got lost.  So being in it, always took us to where we knew we were.  The same place.  We would ride up and down and explore every inch and never get lost. Once, it began to storm and we were in the far breaks.  In fact, a few hours from home.  Knowing how dangerous lightening was (Mom was terrified of it) we got off the horses and took off the saddles, found a hollow in the shale in a great deep break....

These voices in my head are entrenched.  Those connections and neural pathways created in my mind as a little girl are still strong enough to step back in as my default message if I'm not intentionally aware of it.   Physical and spiritual forces attack when my guard is most down.  When I'm tired, vulnerable and feeling insecure.   When my focus is askew. Before I know it, I'm up in the middle of the night with these embarrassingly self-absorbed crazy voices in my head.  Loud and disruptive. "Who am I to share my story?  ...to help? ... to lead?" "You are a failure and don't have what it takes to do this job." "You annoy people.  You overwhelm people." "You should be further along." "You are too out there and say what you think." "Who do you think you are?" "You can't do it." "You are weak and not strong enough mentally,emotionally and physically." If I am not careful t...

We are in the dead of winter.  Smack dab in the middle of it.  And I struggle.   My energy seems to gel and sink like the sap in the trees and the perennials around my house.  I look wistfully out my back window to the seemingly dead tall grasses.  The big blue-stem has been flattened with the last ice.  The many kinds of sparrows and house finches relish i n the many hiding places the vegetation offers them. Experience and wisdom reminds me of the life under the hard and frosty soil.  I know it will soon be awakened with the spring and I will have a job of keeping the weeds at bay.  Before I know it, I will be traipsing the early morning hours away in my little yard.  Tucking a vine here or supporting a stem there.  Getting lost in the ordinary. My beds look messy with left over vegetation.  Dead branches, vines and vegetation haphazardly spending their days.  "Why not cut them back now?" my husband asks....

Did you know research is finding it takes at least 66 days to change a habit.  According to new research by Phillippa Lally and colleagues from the Cancer Research UK Health Behavior Research Centre, the old 21 days thinking was a myth with little research. (Check it out here.  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/0908040) You can't imagine my relief to learn this. In my quest to lose weight and change my eating behavior, I have failed miserably.  After 40 pounds lost, I stopped being intentional and focused.  Christmas and New Years have come and gone and I am still in drift with this number 1 goal in my life. Knowing, I'm not a complete failure in turning around 47 years of eating habits in the lofty 21 days I had heard it takes...makes me feel as if getting back on the wagon is indeed possible. Something about my brain seeking perfection and performance and leaving me trapped in fight, freeze and flight when "I can't do it," or when I have fai...