What & Who is Yellow Inspiration?

I received a note from someone the other day, who asked me, ‘What is Yellow Inspiration? Is it yours? I appreciated the questions, they motivated me to talk about Yellow Inspiration and who I am.

Yes, Yellow Inspiration is mine and ii is pretty young; only 18 blogs old. Like any other blog, it's basically a place for me to put my thoughts, and a place for people to go and read them.

Although, my desire for Yellow Inspiration is that people who read it, will take time later in their day to think about what they’ve read.

I don’t expect every person, every day, to find what I say interesting. Everybody is different, and we all require different things. Although, I do have one hope, that whatever it is most people are looking for, they find it here.

And what might people be looking for? Maybe they’re looking for a little inspiration and motivation, (who isn’t?).  Maybe they’re just looking for another way to look at a repetitive problem or a dull day. Maybe they are in a slump they can’t get out of and they want some kind of insight or answers. Maybe they just want a laugh. Hopefully, whatever it is, they find it here and it makes them feel better. 

Yellow Inspiration is me working on fulfilling a dream.

When I was in fifth grade, I knew that I wanted to write. I knew it when I won a special certificate for a small book I wrote. I was one of five students who won this particular achievement and we were privileged enough to travel to another school in the community to present and share our books. I was hooked... I wanted to write books and talk in front of people.

As a student in elementary school, my writing skills showed. I forever aced English and never missed an assignment. In middle school, I used my writing skills to boost my grades on a social studies or science assignment by writing essays or reports. I loved writing, it didn’t matter what I needed to write, I just wrote.

When I was a young child, I guess I never did say out loud what I really wanted to do when I grew up, since to this day, my dad cannot remember it. Maybe I thought, at that age, I didn’t know enough of what I wanted. (Today, as a mother with a middle schooler, who's known what she wants to do since fifth grade, I wish I knew then, what I know now...hint hint...Kids really do have a clue ;). And I really knew too...

As I got older, my writing skills in class and at home, advanced. My father took notice of this and bought me a type-writer. It was the best gift I had ever gotten. I loved it and spent tons of time on it. I wrote school papers on it and even pretended to be a writer and an editor! (I wore that type-writer out! Only recently did I get rid of it because it was so hard to part with.)

Soon into high school, my father began to send me towards what he thought I should do in  life, a career in administrative  and business management. While I clearly appreciated the college prep courses and the business management classes...I purposely flunked out of many of the other classes which he decided I should take, like computers and accounting, and instead took art and lit classes.
At age 16, I spent most of my academic class time counseling my friends and spending many study halls writing...My own personal choice of classes did not last long though…Dad said: ‘back to administrative classes’… it's not what I wanted...

So....at 17, I decided to voice some of what I wanted in life. I wanted to go to Interior Design School to become an Interior Designer, but Dad would have none of that, and kept pushing me on the administrative path…

Gone- were the dreams of writing books and designing interiors. And so, it was off to legal secretarial school, I was sent.

Most people who know me, and have known me for years, know where I've come from and they know where I'm going.

My name is Amber Jeanne Chapman (born Amber J.-no middle name-just the initial-another story for another day). I’m not perfect and do have my down moments, as some will contest to. I get frustrated and irritated; I get sad and mad. I am human. And if I didn’t feel these emotions, I would worry. But I wear my heart on my sleeve, I am helpful and true. I have compassion as wide as Lake Erie and  I will listen to you as long as you can talk. I care, and I like to help. I am a devoted mother of three.  I seek to understand others while holding true to myself. I am open minded, compassionate and will stop at nothing to fight what I know in my heart to be right.

I am tenacious, courageous and strong. But I wasn't always, though.

My parents divorced when I was seven and a half. No mother in my life, (because she just didn’t want to be a mom-is her explanation) and not a whole lot explained to me during the divorce. I grew up learning things the hard way. Raised by my dad, who loved and adored his only child at the time, his little girl, he was tough to live with. Lots of rules (which later I appreciated, thanks Dad ;) We moved many times, and I switched schools often. Not a fun start, to say the least.

After a miserable set of teen years, and the mistakes that go with them, I got married at 22, to the man that I thought was my best friend and the love of my life. We were happy together, so I thought and I'd felt that we'd arrived. We were married, we were now grown ups! We would live Happily Ever After.

We were married nearly ten years, had three children together, and we did anything but live happily ever after.

In a state of denial, probably about as long as our marriage, if not longer, I divorced him. At which point, I was a shell, who hated who she was and who she had become, and the only part about me that I liked, or that I knew, was the mother in me.

So, I looked at those babies, ages 10 mos., 4 yrs and 8 years, pulled my self up by my boot straps and got ready to weather yet another storm in my life, but this one, I was about to bring on myself.

There’s way more to this story too, as someday I will share. But the point is, my life hasn’t been that easy. No one knows how I have triumphed. Only those close to me, who’ve known me for many years know where I have come from and where I am trying to go. I’ve learned an enormous amount by the jobs I’ve had, the people I’ve met and the mistakes I’ve made. I've especially grown through being a mother. By this one job, I have been shaped into a completely different person than I would without the challenges that come with being a mother. I’ve had a lot of character building moments (it's more like years, rather than moments) and a multitude of epiphanies on this trip called 'life'. I feel it’s been a very educational ride and so I want to share the lessons that I’ve learned, and those I continue to learn.

I am not wealthy monetarily, nor do I have a bunch of degrees hung on the wall, but I am rich in love and soul and I'm educated in 'life'. I have an exceptional family and I'm blessed with many gifts. I am where I am today because of what happened in the past.

As life went on, I never really forgot my dreams. I still practiced my natural talent with creative interiors, in my rented homes, and then used them on our family house that we built. I inspired many friends and neighbors to 'try a little color on their walls' and think outside of the box when building.

I found ways to keep writing by helping friends and co-workers do their resumes, business letters and business plans. I kept files of personal journals and book ideas, and I wrote as often as possible. I also wrote a newsletter for a group of home schooled Tween group that I started for my daughter and I found ways to listen and support others by helping a local Mom's chapter begin a support group.

Doing the things I loved didn't necessarily mean that i had to get paid for them.

So, where did the name Yellow Inspiration come in? Well, it’s probably no secret, I love yellow and my favorite song is Yellow, by Coldplay. Yellow is a positive, bright and cheerful color. If I was a crayon, I would be yellow.

I find my strength in the sun. Whether it be the sunrise or sunset, it doesn’t matter. The sun is our days end and another days beginning. On some of my most difficult times over the past several years, I would look out at the sunset and draw comfort knowing there was another day on its way, a new day, where I could do it all over again, and do it better.

My goal is to help as many others as I can along the path of life. That’s why Yellow Inspiration was started, and someday, I hope it will grow to something bigger. Because I can always dream bigger!

Please, if you haven’t yet read Randy Pausch’s, The Last Lecture, read it. It’s a small, but poignant book, and will help you see your life as many-fulfilled-dreams already.

As fate may have it:

1. I have been honored in the past to speak publicly on many occassion, in front of 100+ people, while working with a wonderful leader and friend in a company called Partylite.

2. I used to write a weekly column in the Sunday paper, in Connecticut, about my life after divorce (a column that I created myself and was paid for my writings).

3. For the last year and half, I have been working as an administrative assistant for an interior design company. (I wasn’t looking for that specific job, I was merely looking for work.)

  Life has a funny way of working itself out.

If you have any stories or insightful experiences you’d like to share confidentially, have any thoughts you want to express, or have any writing requests, please email me at AmberInspiration@gmail.com

Thank you for reading.

 Amber

Don't try, Just Do it.

                                (Sorry for the absence…I was sick…and it was no fun…Here’s to a healthier week.)

I saw a friend of mine recently and she told me that she was quitting smoking.

Actually, she said that she was trying.

I know that when I used to say I was trying to quit smoking, I never quit, I just tried.

At which point I would smoke less, in hopes to quit. I would not smoke in the car. I would not smoke at work. I would not smoke before work. But, I would smoke after work, all the way up until I went to bed.

Quitting smoking is not easy to do. Nicotine is a strong drug. Each time that I started up again and tried to quit, it would get harder and harder to actually kick the habit.

I’ve tried the gum, and it works if you chew it, and not spit it out because you want a cigarette. Patches work if you want the cleaner air, but don’t mind spending  the money. Because they aren’t cheap . And neither of these erases the real problem; being addicted to nicotine.

I started smoking at age 11. My grandparents smoked. I picked it up there. Then I inevitably met kids who smoked and kept on smoking.

I smoked a pack a day from age 13 until age 20, when my then boyfriend (who became my husband a couple of year later) said, ‘it’s me or the cigarettes’. I ditched the cigarettes cold turkey. I didn’t smoke for 10 years. We were married and had three babies in that time. Smoking never really came to mind. I didn’t want cigarettes, I just wasn’t interested.

Then came my divorce.

I went back to smoking. It was no accident that I started again, it was a decision. I bought them, and I smoked them.  And I knew even before I bought that pack that I would be using cigarettes as crutch during my divorce. Even after ten years of being a non-smoker, I could feel the sensation like it was yesterday, how smoking brought me relief from stress.

I smoked in secret from my kids, on and off for two years.

One day my daughter confronted me about it, I told her yes, I smoked. She was so upset and said, ‘Mommy, after all you told us about cigarettes!!!’ I told her ‘yes, all that I told you is true and that this is something that I did and I intend to stop’. (This did not go over well, as you can imagine.)

Nicotine is an awful habit to kick. Years later, it will still leave an ex-smoker with memories of feel good moments, but the problem is, it can kill you.

If you’re trying to quit, but can’t seem to, than your why may not be great enough. And if the why isn’t big enough, the pleasure you receive from smoking will always outweigh the why. And you will forever try to quit, but never actually quit.

My  trick: is not to try to quit smoking; it’s to quit smoking, cold turkey. The half hearted trys never worked for me. Only when I quit cold turkey, have I succeeded.

Smoking or not smoking is a choice. You must find the reason you want, or need, to quit and you must be ready to quit. Then make the conscious decision not smoke. There is no try. Because try is a set up. It’s a set up to fail.

My method of quitting involved smoking every cigarette in my pack, and as I did, I envisioned the number of cigarettes left matched to the days it would take me to smoke them all. That put me to the day I would essentially quit. I would tell myself at every cigarette and every day, ‘only so-many left, okay, Sunday will be my last day, I will be quitting when I smoke this last cigarette’. Then I envisioned my why (my children of course) and the years that I want with them, and then I told someone that I knew, who  would hold me accountable for quitting. Someone that wanted to quit smoking too and who would not enable me.

I was overjoyed and excited to be quitting. I was no longer going to be controlled by something other than myself. I would now smell nice and clean all day. I would not have bad breath. I would not be up and down on mood swings. I would be adding years to my life and be able to run around with my kids without being winded. All of those things were in my grasp.

Then came the tough part; like the routines when you used to have a cigarette in your hand, being in the presence of others who were smoking, watching a movie where the characters were smoking, and worst of all, those common stressors that brought on the need to smoke to calm down.

By day three or four it seemed difficult and then always much harder on days 6, 7, and 8. That’s when I would slowly become a basket case of emotions.  

Sound tough? It is. Don’t start and you’ll never have to worry about stopping. But, if you are one of the unlucky ones to have taken on smoking, and you are just itching to quit but can’t put them down, believe me, there is no easy way to do it. It requires a lot of hard work, tons of will power and a lot of deep breathing and positive self-talk.

You will have to change the way you think, from ‘I need a cigarette to deal with this’ to ‘I need to deal with this without a cigarette’. Tell yourself that taking a drag of a cigarette is not going to take away the problem but it is slowly taking away your life.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

One of the most common things that most of us deal with is getting out of bed in the morning. Blach…

Some can just wake up with energy and hop out of bed with pep. Some cannot. And some have no choice, they have built-in alarm clocks called kids or pets. Every day, at about the same time, (barring there hasn’t been a recent time change;),  at their feet, is a big set of eyes, letting them know, ‘it is now time to get up’. For some people, it’s both the kids and the pets, in which case would be several sets of eyes.

For those of us who were not blessed that unexplained a.m. energy, or those lovely gifts of children and animals, they might need some of the well-known tricks and tips to help them get up from their nice warm beds.

Here are a few:

1.       Putting  your alarm across the room in hopes that when it goes off, you will get up…and stay up, rather than hit snooze and go back to sleep.

2.       A fancy alarm with a light on it; when the alarm begins reaching the scheduled time to go off, the light begins to come on, mimicking the sun-rise and waking you naturally. It’s actually very cool and does work.

3.       Put the alarm near the bed, and have a smooth routine of hitting snooze once, maybe twice, and then, be awake enough to start the day.  

4.       A loud obnoxious alarm to motivate you to get up and shut the darn thing off. (Personally, that never worked for me…Honestly all I wanted to do was pick it up and throw it across the room. Not a good way to begin the day.)

Maybe you need the fancy, loud alarm, placed on the dresser across the room, the cat or dog whining, the kids at your bedside staring at you, with the lights on, while someone’s banging at your front door.

That would get me up too.

Years ago, I traded in my alarm clock for my phone. I set it to wake me up to the same song every day. Yellow, by Coldplay. I love that song. It just talks to me. And although it doesn’t always get me rushing out of bed, it does motivate me enough and reminds me that there is a super day waiting for me and I have some many wonderful reasons to leave my nice cozy bed and go out into the world.

No matter how you do it, find some way to make you’re a.m. start off right because it will set the pace for the rest of the day. Ask me how I know…

I'm sorry.

No one’s perfect right? If I screw up, oh well, right? It’s no secret that I make mistakes. So, the sooner I apologize and work on rectifying the situation, the better…I try to teach this to my children, by example. And in the past, I have more than once, admitted being tired and that ‘I didn’t mean to yell’.  I’ve also been known to admit I was wrong when I didn’t let my child finish their sentence before I jumped to a conclusion.

I’m hoping that I’m  teaching them that I’ve acknowledged my wrong-doing, and  they were correct in feeling I was off base, or out of line. During moments like those I end up learning a valuable lesson on how to handle things the next time, while teaching them how to behave and how not to behave.

So, what’s the big deal with making an apology to my significant other?

There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it, but it always seems slightly more difficult to do than apologizing to the kids.

Today was one of those days….

My significant other was doing his best to address something we talked about previously. He was being pro-active, and trying to do the right thing, he was trying to talk to me about something and I basically made him wish he hadn’t.

I was having a rough morning. I hadn’t gotten up when the alarm first went off, my children needed assistance all at the same time, and I was doing a last minute thing for school. I was not happy with the situation.  Nor was I happy with myself.

I was frustrated and I just wanted to be done with what I was doing. I did not want any interruptions, let alone any questions. I had a ton of other things on my mind and I was abrupt. I quickly cut off the conversation. I did not handle it well, to say the least.

I felt awful. I knew, even before he left for work, that I was wrong. I tried to talk to him about it, but without apologizing. I guess I wanted to think that I was right.

After he left I felt even worse. I knew I was wrong and I really hadn’t meant to start the day off that way.

We would now spend all day apart…he would think that he’d been wrong, when all along, he’d been right.

I put on some quiet music and began to think as I went about my morning. I let go of my pride and had the sudden urge to text him, two words: I’m sorry.

To my surprise, he apologized back. He said that he could have handled things better and I said the same. It made me smile. I felt relieved, the weight had been lifted.

Now he could go about his day without the stress and anguish he’d gotten, from being confused. And, although I may have preferred him to go about the morning’s discussion a little differently, the truth was, he did the best he could. He was working hard to communicate. (Something I’ve asked him to improve on.)

I, on the other hand, displayed no patience what-so-ever and ended up messing up a good moment and feeling guilty about it.

So, I learned today, that my patience is best used when I don’t have any ;)

I suppose it’s moments like those that counting to 5, or 10, if need be, would be wise and quite helpful. Even just putting up a hand to ask for a second or two to think and focus. That way, I will refrain from pushing someone away, when all they were trying to do was ‘the right thing’. And…most likely, it would keep me from having to apologize.

Thankfully, my mistake was easily rectified and I was forgiven. It’s not easy to admit your wrong, but it sure is best to not wait too long to make the apology.

We both learned a little something today about our communication habits, we both had a great day at work, and coming home tonight was wonderful. It was as if this morning never happened.

Nobody accomplishes anything by holding on to pride or anger. No one wins when you want to be right.

Be humble and love.

Symbols

I’m listening to an audio book called ‘What Would You Do If You Had No Fear, by Diane Conway. I just started it today. Early into the first c.d. it mentions symbols, and no, not the ones we use when we want to let someone know, via text message, that we’re angry. These are different symbols.

Symbols; like things that remind you of, or represent something. Like a rabbits foot can help someone feel good luck will be with them. 

The book says that there’s really something to using symbols, that works for people. Personally, I agree. During the course of a day, I know I can’t always have my nose in a book,  be in the car listening to a motivational c.d. or reading an inspiring story or blog on the internet, so I use symbols.

I have them on my computer at home and at work. At home, I use a screensaver that says Dream. On my computer at work, I have a side bar where I put pictures of my children and quotes that motivate me, focus me, or keep me positive and talk to my soul.

Around my house I keep an award or two that remind me how hard I worked for a certain promotion in the past.

During my divorce, I wore a small gold disk on a tiny chain around my neck which bore the Chinese symbol for strength. In my bathroom I kept a framed picture of my children, the frame had an Eleanor Roosevelt quote on it, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. Both were to remind me not to give up.

Once the divorce was finalized, I had a family picture taken of me and my three children. I had it blown up and framed. It was a major turning point in our lives. I see that picture every single day and recall how much courage it took to do what I had to do and how young my children were. It was the end of one life and the beginning of another. I don’t want to forget it, we are who we are today, because of it.

 In my car, I keep a picture of my kids, and on the visor I have a sticker of Super Man that my son gave me. Attached to Super Man is a quote that says “Success is not a destination, it’s a journey”. Super Man helps me remember that I am strong enough to endure anything life throws at me, and the quote reminds me not to stress about things needing to be done to perfection, yesterday..but to relax and enjoy the ride, today.

For the last year, I’ve had taped to the refrigerator, a piece of paper with the date of when I phoned an attorney to seek custody, and the phrase, “This is your lucky day”, which was what the attorney said when she heard that I couldn’t get anyone else to take my case, though she would. Below it, I taped a penny, on heads; my son had found it the next day. Looking at those symbols every day, no matter how ugly things got and how financially burdening they were, helped keep me stay hopeful, and believe that in the end, it would all work out…and that it was all worth it, and all signs were pointing to a victory.

Five years later, my divorce is long over and a promising new life has been in the works. A year later, the custody battle is over and everything worked out perfectly.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t do life without visual reminders of what my intentions are.

I’ve mentioned before, I have a black and white framed photo of ripples of water that were affected by a single drop. That’s my daily visual inspiration of how I want to touch others with the life I’ve lived and the experiences I’ve had.

Recently I learned a new way to visually stay motivated; it’s called a goal card. It is a laminated card that you keep in your pocket or wallet, which lists your long term goals. But not just any long term goals. Those big lofty long term goals, the dreams that everyone thinks you’re e crazy for thinking...I’m going to try that one next.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Why a Mission Statement?

The first time I created a mission statement was when I was preparing to become a columnist for the Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut.

The senior editor talked with me before we launched and went over the agenda and the scope of the job. He also asked me to create a mission statement. It was then that I put on paper what I wanted to accomplish with my writing.

My mission statement  for my column was :To help people find the profound moments in life’s daily routines, while inspiring them to gain insight and an optimistic mindset about the future.I basically wanted to help divorced readers find positive insight.

Because, as many divorcees will attest to, divorce can wreak havoc on your life.  Whether it was a necessary divorce, or not, whether you prepared for it or not, it can destroy your present world and leave your future world uncertain.

It’s as if you are standing in the middle of a bustling city with hundreds of things going on around you, there’s people everywhere. You have a secure feeling.  Then suddenly, the city stops, it becomes completely silent, and then each and every building falls down around you, simultaneously, with a crash. You are left standing alone, and there is nothing left but several large clouds of dust.  

The clouds of dust are the after math of divorce. And as you begin to rebuild, and work through each dust cloud of obstacles, you begin to see the light, and then you suddenly enter another cloud. Divorce is a hard thing to get through, and isn’t over in a day.

My goal as a columnist with Life Goes On was to help divorced readers get through their clouds of dust, helping them to know they weren’t the only ones going through it. For them,  and other readers going through different difficulties, I tried to leave them with positive thoughts by sharing my silver lining moments and humorous takes on the little things.

When the column was over, I didn’t think that I had the need for a mission statement. But, in Chapter 9 of the book, Live Your Calling, by Kevin and Kay Marie Brennfleck, they explain why we should write a mission statement for our life.

I was surprised to read that, I had thought that mission statements were just for businesses. But Kevin and Kay explain that your mission statement is your why. And when you know your why, you have the desire to take action in your life, and will have the drive to stay focused and motivated. The book says that if you have your why, it will help you make goals and prioritize things in your life based on your inner desire. Your why will keep you focused on your goals and will keep your goals in sync with your life’s purpose.

I was immediately inspired. I had had a why for my column. I have a why for my blog. I suppose I needed to have a why for my life.

My Mission Statement hasn’t changed much from the start of Life Goes On, it’s very much the same. I guess that’s how you know your true why…if 4 years later, you can say it almost verbatim from when you first wrote it.

My mission: To share with people my personal perspective and and the ways that I endure life’s events,  in hopes that they find some insight, inspiration or humor from it. To help improve emotional wellbeing by uniting people through common experiences, encouraging them to reach out to one another with empathy by sharing their thoughts and their life’s experiences with genuine understanding.

We are all the same emotionally. We all experience the same feelings. We all hurt and heal. We all get stuck in life, and we all persevere. It is how we cope with all of these, that is different.

I want to make people happy, help them feel better. I want to help them persevere and rebuild. I know my why. 

Do you?

A Classic

My father came to stay with our family this summer. We spent a week of doing fun things with the kids. One of the places we took him was a car museum. I pass by it almost every day and had not yet visited it.

I didn’t know  exactly what to expect. I figured, at a place with Speed in its name, we’d find a ton of fast cars. I was very excited to go; I love cars and so does my dad.

After walking around a while, at the museum, I noticed that there weren’t only fast cars, but some serious classic cars on display. Some of them were around when my grandparents were very young. Others cars my father owned at one time or another. ‘How neat!’, I thought.

It was neat alright, until, at the end of our visit, I found my old car.

UGH!! MY car in a MUSEUM!!!??? I was shocked, and said so, out loud! My children, all three of them, carried on through the museum with no regard what-so-ever.  They didn’t get it. Mom was 37 and her car is in a museum…they saw nothing wrong with it.

Walking through the aisles of cars, I kept doing the math, since I really thought it was silly that a car I used to own was on display in a museum…as a classic. ‘Is that car really a classic? Is that car really that old? What year was that?’ I mean, I didn’t buy the car as a classic. It was used, it was seven years old when I got it. Am I really that old?

No matter how I added it up, the numbers did not lie.  My car, the one I thought was the cat’s meow of a sports car when I was 19; a 5 speed with t-tops and bucket seats was now sitting in a museum, it was 23 years old, and considered a classic in most states.  

I never was the type to care about aging before. But today, I sort of felt a little uneasy. Honestly, around my birthday, I usually enjoy being a year older. It didn't bother me how old I was and  would tell friends, ‘you couldn’t pay me to go back to being younger again’. Not after how each year I grow and overcome obstacles, correct mistakes, improve on my weaknesses and find new strengths. I loved aging….until of course I found my car in a classic car museum.  

Looking back, I don’t know what the big deal was, it was just a car, in a museum. 

But last week, I found out that the car-in-the-museum-thing was just a small taste of what was to come, a preparation of sorts. Because,on Halloween, I realized it was my 21^st anniversary of getting my driver’s license. Then one night I woke up at 4 a.m. sweating (when I’m usually a freeze baby). And the other day, I found a gray hair while getting ready for work….ssshhhh, don’t tell anyone…I pulled it out.

No, I should not have been bothered by my car being labeled a classic and put into a museum…because I had a bigger set of things lurking in the shadows to remind me that I was getting older.

You know, though, this could be okay. I mean, wine is better with age, right? And so is cheese. Besides, what's wrong with being a classic? Yes, YES! Aging is a good thing!

Change

A friend once told me, that two things you can be sure of are death and taxes. Another is change.

Today, the weather is changing, again. The fall leaves are not yet completely off the trees and we have our first snow in Ohio.

It’s beautiful to me. I love it and I embrace the difference of the seasons (hence, why I made a geographical move laterally, relocating from Connecticut to Ohio three years ago, when I had an opportunity to move south).

Change is inevitable. I think most of the time, once comfortable, we’d prefer no change whatsoever. When something’s working, why change? Similarly, we wish that the good times would last, the warm weather would stay longer and relationships would freeze in the ideal romantic moments. But they can’t.

Take ourselves, for example. If things are comfortable, why seek anything else? Things are working out, so why change?

I love to persue self-understanding and personal growth. I believe that although we all have our own knowledge, perspective and outlooks we should be open-minded to different ones. We should be open to change.

If we are, we will actually see ourselves and our abilities grow to amazing capacitie. We will seek new heights and may surprise ourselves with what we can accomplish and who we can become.

I feel that on the other hand, being close-minded to change, can lead us to become stagnant. We can be so set in our ways and habits we will ultimately limit our abilities to succeed at greater levels and grow as a person.

Granted the top reasons for close-mindedness tend to be ignorance and fear; just not understanding or wanting to understand new ideas or concepts and the fear of the work that might be involved.

Acceptance of circumstances and settling for what the situation is, can also prevent change.  We just assume we can’t change, and that change would be too difficult to achieve; downright nearly impossible. So, it is what it is.

But, if we only take a look at things with new eyes, be curious and investigate new ideas, face the fear and come out of our comfort zone, we will expand our perspective and our potential!

I feel passionate about what people can do when they embrace change. Make a goal to try something new this week, take on a different perspective or ask a new question. Challenge yourself to think. You might find change isn’t such a bad thing;) and that it may just open some doors.

Don’t forget to set the clocks back tonight and look forward to change.

Silver Lining (A Post from my previous column)

  To fill in a little back-story regarding Thursday's post, 

             while ending on a positive note;

We’ve all heard about clouds with silver linings.  We get handed a lot of these every day.  Sometimes our paths are altered in minor ways, sometimes major.  When this happens, we have a choice; we can view it as either positive or negative. 

          In my case I was eight years old my parents got divorced.  My father chose to raise me.  I never saw my mother again until I was twenty.  I was extremely resentful that she was not a part of my childhood and I was teased relentlessly by the kids in elementary school about not having a mother. 

            As you can imagine, it took me a long time to find something positive about this situation.

            Once I became a mother myself and was more mature, I felt that there were several good reasons why my mother had not been a large part of my life growing up.

            My mother is the type of person who says yes to anything and everything.  She doesn’t know how to say no.  Had she stuck around, my life would have been quite different.   I can see now how her leniency and her extra sweet, eager to please personality would have deprived me some of the life lessons that I needed to learn.

          My father was the one who knew how to set boundaries for me and who was a thorough disciplinarian.  And although I despised the rules and punishments as a kid, I look back now and appreciate them.

            The best of all about my mother not being around when I was growing up was that I got the opportunity to have several women in my lives as mother figures.   They included my Nanny, (my father’s mother), my father’s two sisters, his long term girlfriend and my step-mother.  Each of these women taught me different things about life, and as I reflect upon who I am, I find within myself, many of these women's qualities. 

For example, I have my Nanny’s old fashioned values, her tenacity and her humor.   From my eldest Aunt I have a deep love of people, family, emotions and the psyche.  From my younger aunt I have the love of architecture, art, photography, and music.   From my Dad’s old girlfriend from way back, I learned to cook and decorate the house to celebrate the holidays.  From my step-mom I have learned how to believe in myself and accept myself. She was the one who was most understanding and supportive while I was going through my divorce.

As my marriage had come to an end, I was frustrated about not being able to come up with even one good reason why I was getting divorced.  Maybe it had been too soon after the divorce to think positively, but as time passed, I finally found many good reasons that my marriage didn’t work out.

One reason being, I am finding more of myself, the same person I used to be before I got married, just better. I have more self-confidence. I‘ve made many more friends, and have found within me, strengths and abilities that I didn’t know I possessed or just forgot I had.  Best of all, the bond that I have with my children is much stronger now that I am a happier, healthier person. 

While going through these two unfortunate events wasn’t easy, I feel that because of them I became better prepared to teach my three children about what’s really important in life.  Like how to look within themselves for true love and happiness prior to loving someone else.   That sometimes things aren’t going to go their way so they need to learn good coping skills. 

Beeing a child of divorce, I also wanted to be sure not to repeat the same mistakes with my kids as my parents did with me. 

 I wanted to reduce the amount of trauma on my children, as much as possible.  So, unlike my parents, who never explained to me what was happening to our family, I’ve offered constant, open communication with my children.

 In the case where I was moved around from place to place for much of my childhood, I’ve provided my kids with as much stability as possible by keeping them in their family home for as long as I could and keeping much of their routines the same.We waited to make major changes, and made them slowly and only when we all felt that we could handle them.

 Life is not without mistakes or misfortune and without these things we would miss opportunities to grow and become better people.  My oldest child is happy it worked out this way, she knows we have all grown since the divorce.

There are lessons to be learned with each obstacle and hardship in life, and while we hope they never happen and when they do happen we instantly want to wish them away, they're happening for a reason.  

 If we can learn the lesson, than we will pass the test.  We’ll be stronger for next test and we might even be able to help someone else along the way.

I went without a mother for most of my life, I endured a ton of sorrow and pain, but it was not in vain..It prepared me for raising healthy children in the turmoil of divorce.

Read to Learn

Parent teacher conferences were Wednesday.  It was good to hear right from the teacher how my child was doing. Apparently, my middle child, the one I worried would never read a book in her life, is reading at a sixth grade reading level. She is a fourth grader. I’m so proud of her, and I know that it took a lot of hard work to get where she is.

I’m excited watching my children grow. I love seeing them develop into who they were meant to be. I try so hard to support, nurture and love them to my fullest potential, so that they may live up to theirs.

Occasionally, I wonder what kind of mother I would have been if I had not gone through the childhood experiences I had.

I’ve been told that I am an excellent mother and it’s probably because of the type of mother that I had.

My mother was no picnic, and when I say no picnic, it means there was not a picnic. I had no mother. In third grade I recall getting into fights with people because I was the kid ‘with no mother’. It was true, but I didn’t want it to be.

As a kid, I knew someone gave birth to me, I knew her name, but couldn’t remember for the life of me what she looked like. I was 9, 10, teens and a young adult. She just wasn’t there, ever. I was then married, and then a mother myself…yep, still no mom…well, technically by then she was reachable, but not emotionally.

So, when I meet the teacher and she tells me how wonderful my child is, and what good grades she has, and that I am doing a wonderful  job with her, I have to wonder, ‘Where do I get my mothering skills

Because, clearly my own mother did not have them.

Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe I get them from my grandmother. She loved me unconditionally, she was always there for me, and still is to this day. She’s funny, loving and straight up. I love her like she is my mother, always have and always will. She cared for people, showed you respect (if you deserved it) and she never faked who she was. She instilled manors and never, ever, ever, under any circumstance told me what to do or ‘I told ya so’.

There were many influences on me that could have contributed to my ability to being a good mother, but above of all, I think I learned the most about being a mother by reading books.

I keep telling my daughter that reading will open doors for her in every aspect of her life and that if she can read, she will be able to do anything.

I didn’t have a mother and I didn’t have sisters with children, so I read. At every stage and every age of my childrens lives, I read. I want to continually educate myself on parenting.  

Of course, every parent knows that it takes more than just reading a book to parent well, but it’s a great start.  So in my eyes, yes, you can do anything if you read. It worked for me.