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It’s my favorite season. While I still struggle through the emotional swamp I’m in right now, I’m going to focus on pretty things. Pretty things like these.

I’m late publishing today and I’m not going to write on healthier meat choices as I had planned.  Yesterday was a ridiculous day for me and I’m going to share some of it with you. I hadn’t originally thought that I would since I claim that whole Positive Thinking Blog Goddess thing and it was really not a positive day; however, after talking with my aunt Judy (remember her?) I changed my mind.

As you know, I’ve been under a great deal of stress lately – personally and professionally – and I don’t seem to be able to find effective relief for either sector.  Clearly, I’ve never been a boxer; but, I feel like if I lean left to dodge a punch to the right, I run into a fist from the left. If I lean right, I hit a fist from that direction.  I don’t feel like I recover my equilibrium from the right hook before I’m hit with a left uppercut. For weeks now, I’ve been reeling. Yesterday, I caught another jab to the mid-section.

My son called to report that someone had broken into his truck. They stole his backpack containing all of his class notes and a calculator. The monetary value of what they stole was maybe ten bucks. The cost to my son was far greater in that those notes represented hours of class time and he cannot get those back. The cost to me is that now I have to pay to replace the broken window. At this point in my life and career, the cost of that repair will mean more sacrifices in some other area. It’s not something I have just sitting around.

And I’m angry about that.

I’m angry that people take things that don’t belong to them. I’m angry that someone totaled my car in my own driveway in March and left. I’m angry that people don’t take responsibility for themselves and for their actions. I’m angry that those of us who strive every day to be good people and to leave situations better than we found them get nailed. I’m angry that I now have to figure out how to fix the damage some %$#(*&^ caused.

I’m angry and I’m tired.

When I spoke with Judy about this yesterday, she said that she enjoys reading the blog because she feels like it’s our morning cup of tea together. She also said that she enjoys it because of its authenticity. (Well, to a degree. In person, I often have a potty mouth. Out of respect for you, I clean it up here.)  She enjoys it because it reminds her that she’s not alone in her victories and celebrations, and it reminds her that she’s not alone in her struggles, her frustrations or her defeats. Your comments remind me of the same things.

So, today, as I struggle to deal with this most recently landed punch, I share that struggle with you. I am trying to remain positive even while I’m angry that, once again, the best thing I can say about the situation is that, “It’s not as bad as it might have been.”

We spend a lot of time learning to identify things and to teach our young to identify them. It’s important to be able to discern friend from foe, and danger from safety, right? We learn to identify things that are obviously different – chalk from cheese, fish from fowl, and Mississippi State fan from Ole Miss fan. (We’re the ones with the cowbells.  They’re the ones with no mascot.  Or, put another way, we’re the ones with the cowbells. They’re the ones that just beat LSU.)

Here are a few teasers: can you tell a dolphin from a porpoise? How about an ape from a monkey? A sea lion from a seal? Or, here’s a big one, a want from a need?

That’s the kicker.  Knowing what we need.

Without going too far into detail (on account of you really don’t need all that nonsense) I’ll tell you that at this particular juncture in my life, I’m having to relearn this skill.  My pets need food. I WANT for them to have Iam’s.  My cats need litter. I need for them to have Dr. Elsey’s litter (otherwise, the smell.  Oh, god! The smell.) I need a car. I WANT my Subaru. I need food. I WANT seafood and sirloin prepared by someone else. When my Sweet recently did a scarper, I WANTED an explanation. I didn’t get one and I’m still alive; so, I don’t guess I needed that. I WANTED his company; but, as it turns out, I just NEEDED my friends.

Eating healthfully, exercising, sleeping enough, hydrating, spending time with positive people – these are things that I need and that you need. The rest of what we do are more wants that needs.  I want to go to the movies. I want to go to the library. I want to go back to Venice.  Right now, I need to focus on building my business. I need to stay in touch with good people. I need to take care of my body.  My daily productive time is limited; so, it’s essential that I be able to discern my needs from my wants.

I had thought that life would be easier when I got to this age.  Of course, I also thought that I would have had a normal life with at least one marriage, PTO meetings, soccer games, job security, etc. I somehow missed the boat on a lot of those things and I don’t know if these current challenges are a result of that or if they would have come my way anyway. I do know that the challenges have a wide exit path leading to self-pity, anger and depression. That path is easy to find. They have a much narrower exit path leading to success.  That path is hard to find.

Simple or difficult, I have to continue to search for that path.  I need it.

Yesterday, in a business discussion, the subject of self-delusion (and our reluctance to confront it) was raised.  I believe that it’s one thing to knowingly lie to other people – something that is bad enough.  But, it’s a whole other issue when we lie to ourselves. When we start to believe our own press, we’re in big trouble.

And we all do it, don’t we?

I smoked off and on (mostly on) for the better part of 20 years – sometimes up to two packs a day. “I won’t get emphysema, lung cancer, throat cancer, tongue cancer, etc. That happens to other people.” It happened to my grandfather, two of my uncles and one of my aunts.  Those “other people” sure were close to me!  Still, I kept my butt in the air and my head in the sand.

I’ve been overweight or obese for most of my life. “I won’t have diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, etc.  That happens to other people.” Again, it happened to my grandmother, at least one of my aunts, and an uncle.  Wow.  What a coincidence that those “other people” were so close to me again!

The point is that we don’t want to face our failures or our ignorance.  We might not know how to plan our meals effectively for either nutrition or a budget. We might not know how to invest our money or save for our futures. We might not know how to exercise to receive the most benefit and minimize our risk of injury. We might not know how to best buy a car, buy a house, or effectively insure those belongings or ourselves.  There are lots of things that we don’t know, that we may suspect we are doing ineffectively or outright incorrectly, but we convince ourselves that it’s okay. That as long as we don’t look at the failure, it’s not there. As a result, we don’t seek professional council that could save us.

We tell everyone we’re okay and doing fine when we suspect or when we know that we’re not.  Finally, we believe the lie and all hope of correction is lost.

Well, not lost, exactly.  We might have some kind of Road to Damascus moment. We might have friends stage an intervention. We might have a professional take us by the lapels and get our attention.

As you know, for me, it was my visit to my doctor on July 24, 2011. That nurse practitioner metaphorically took me by the lapels and said that if I didn’t stop living the lie that my extra weight wasn’t hurting me, it was going to kill me.  I’m fortunate. I didn’t have to have a heart attack, a stroke or a diabetes diagnosis to wake up.

I’m not going to lie to either one of us and say that there aren’t places in my life where I still need to wake up and smell the coffee.  But, I can tell you that my obesity is no longer one of them and I couldn’t be more pleased.  Imperfect creature that I am (stop snickering, sister of mine), my work on eradicating self-deception will never end.

And I trust that’s not a lie I tell myself.

….who’s the blindest one of all?

One day, I had lunch with my friend Nan.  In discussing a business venture, she used a word that struck fear directly into my heart.  She said that I would need to write down my (gulp) dreams.

Now, friends, I’ll tell you, more than once over the years I’ve metaphorically had my teeth kicked in – sometimes through no fault of my own, sometimes completely through fault of my own.  During those times, I lost dreams.  I lost them to the extent that I just stopped dreaming.  I was too afraid to lose any more.

So, when Nan said the D word, I actually excused myself from the table for a moment.  While I was washing my hands and composing myself, I looked at my reflection.  I looked at my NON-OBESE reflection.  Wait a minute. I’m not obese anymore. For years, that was less a dream than a fantasy. Yet.  There I am. Right in the looking glass.  A reality.

Today, while I am still struggling to believe that my professional dreams will come true, I start a new road that is going to be even harder than the very difficult one I was already on. I’m having to swallow my pride to do what I have to do and, y’all, that’s hard for me.  I’m not overly proud about most things; but, those things I am proud of are very difficult for me to let go of. For at least the next three months, I’m going to have to let go of them.

To be honest, I’m angry, frustrated, disappointed and humiliated by this. However, if my dream has any hope of ever being reality, I must suck it up and get through these coming months. My dream is worth it.

So, what about you? What dream do you relegate to the corner of your mind because you’re afraid to admit to it and have it fail? C’mon. I’m pretty sure you’ve got one. How long has it been there? Take a good hard look at it. Do you really want it? Really? If you don’t and it’s more of a habit than an actual dream, let it go. While you’ll cringe at first, eventually, your spirit will feel lighter and you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it before.

If you really want it, it’s going to cost you.  You may have to eat a little crow, sacrifice a little or a lot more, and work your butt off to give it a fighting chance. So, get to it already! If you succeed, then, there you go. And, if you fail, at least you know and your thoughts and desires are based in reality.

In either case – whether you release or follow the dream, whether you succeed or fail – you win.

Now. Today. I am putting my money where my mouth is and, frankly, I feel nauseated. But, it’s time for me to want it enough to pay for it. It’s time to succeed or fail. It’s time to win.

When an aircraft enters a flat spin, the pilot is often crippled by the centrifugal forces created by the spin and unable to eject, parachuting to safety.  In the early days of aviation, many pilots died before Lt. Willfred Parke became the first aviator to recover from such a spin.

How often do we find ourselves in emotional flat spins?  Today, I spoke with a friend who is in one.  In his eyes, he has let everyone down.  Every minor failure is a major issue.  Everything he touches is ruined. His world is spinning out of control and he is crippled by the force of it.  He cannot reach his ejection button.

Good thing other people can.

I have eight friends, family members and acquaintances who have committed suicide. Eight. Those are eight beautiful souls who could not reach their ejection buttons. They left behind scores of mourners who, if they had but known, would have happily pushed that button, allowing for escape.

I am a month late. September was Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in Tennessee where an estimated 900 men, women and children commit suicide each year. That’s more deaths than by AIDS, homicide, drunk driving or any traffic death.  But we don’t talk about it.

We need to.

Serial killers are always described as “such nice, quiet neighbors,” aren’t they? Suicide victims are often described as “so happy.” We must all look around, be vigilant and ready to help.  Don’t think that anyone you know would kill themselves? Neither did I.  But, in a completely inappropriate application of a Monty Python quote, “No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

In 2006, British comedian Stephen Fry responded to a viewer’s plea for help with her depression in a particularly moving letter:

Dear Crystal,

I’m so sorry to hear that life is getting you down at the moment. Goodness knows, it can be so tough when nothing seems to fit and little seems to be fulfilling. I’m not sure there’s any specific advice I can give that will help bring life back its savour. Although they mean well, it’s sometimes quite galling to be reminded how much people love you when you don’t love yourself that much.

I’ve found that it’s of some help to think of one’s moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather:

Here are some obvious things about the weather:

It’s real.
You can’t change it by wishing it away.
If it’s dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can’t alter it.
It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.

BUT

It will be sunny one day.
It isn’t under one’s control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
One day.

It really is the same with one’s moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. They are real. Depression, anxiety, listlessness – these are as real as the weather – AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE’s CONTROL. Not one’s fault.

BUT

They will pass: they really will.

In the same way that one has to accept the weather, so one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes.

‘Today’s a crap day,’ is a perfectly realistic approach. It’s all about finding a kind of mental umbrella.

‘Hey-ho, it’s raining inside: it isn’t my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow and when it does, I shall take full advantage.’

I don’t know if any of that is of any use: it may not seem it, and if so, I’m sorry. I just thought I’d drop you a line to wish you well in your search to find a little more pleasure and purpose in life.

Very best wishes
(Signed)
Stephen Fry

So, whether it’s a flat spin or rain, may we always be alert to help those struggling; and, if we’re struggling, may we always be strong enough to reach for help.

A colleague challenged me with that question yesterday. What would I do if I weren’t afraid? She was asking in a strictly business sense, but the question is much larger than that, isn’t it?

I posed the same question on Facebook and, let me just tell you, I have WAY too many friends who would to jump out of perfectly good airplanes! Skydiving? Really?

You should have seen my daddy’s face when he got my grades from Mississippi State the first semester of my junior year. “Western equitation?! I’m paying for you to take horseback riding lessons?! What in the cat hair?!!!” (My daddy says “cat hair” in lieu of curse words a lot.) He was less than pleased. But for me, it wasn’t really about learning to ride a horse. For me, it was about overcoming a paralyzing fear.  I was palpably terrified the first several times I had to catch and saddle Buzz, my horse who was, poor thing, just all the way at the bottom of the herd ranking. The first time I put the bit in his mouth, I nearly fainted. Put my thumb in there? Are you mad?! Dr. Boyd, my professor, realized that I was battling a profound fear and patiently helped me overcome it.  By semester’s end, I was often first off the rail and we were ready to go, me and my buddy Buzz.

I took the class because I was tired of fear ruling so much of my life.  Today, 25 years later (ugh, how did that happen?), I still find myself paralyzed by fear more frequently than I care for.  And why? What am I really afraid of? Failure? Ridicule? Pain?

Probably.

I believe that we all fear those things sometimes to the point of feeling ill. We all fear them. We all avoid them. And we all deny it.

So, what would I do if I weren’t afraid?

From a professional perspective, I would approach strangers and ask for their business. I would approach friends and ask for their business.  I would ask for what I want.  From a personal perspective, I would finish writing my book. I would clearly define my goals. I would love with all my heart.

Yesterday, I shared a 30-Day Challenge with you (and, yes, I know that October has 31 days – one day is a freebie). Conquering fear isn’t really at the core of that challenge; however, it makes sense to me that I approach conquering fear the same way I am approaching that challenge – one bite at a time.

So, from a professional perspective, the first bite was tackling that cold call list. From a personal perspective, my first bite was in defining my goals – in writing. So far, I haven’t exploded; no bits of the space station have conked me on the head. And, in spite of some nervous nausea, the world didn’t come to an end. Progress has been made.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, though; so, I’ll work on the book in my spare time. I’ll continue to write down my goals.  And, you can relax, you’ve got a little while to go before I’m asking for your business.

….but get ready.

My grandmothers were amazing women.  I have long said that if I could be half the woman either of them was, I would have really accomplished something.  As amazing as they were and as much adversity as they overcame, you don’t know who they are.

But you know Helen Keller.

Born normal, Helen lost her sight and hearing during an illness as a toddler. Without that horrific event, she would likely have grown into a normal woman who overcame normal things, to live a normal life and leave a normal family.  And she would have been just as anonymous to the world at large as my grandmothers. She would likely have been just some old lady.

Several times recently, I’ve seen this Helen Keller quote on Facebook: “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.”

Now, my first thought in response to that quote is (frankly) snarky, centers on the word “see” and you can probably guess what it is.  However, when I yank my head around to being a grown-up again, I think of how remarkable this statement really is.  I may claim to be the Positive Thinking Blog Goddess, but the only reason that title is available is because blogs weren’t around when Helen Keller was alive.

Can you imagine what her life must have been like without sound or sight? I can’t even fathom it. I would think that it was particularly difficult if she had memories of those senses from her early childhood. Regardless, she didn’t just deal with the loss of her senses; she kicked butt.

Her disabilities, her struggles and the people who helped her with them made her a great woman in history. If any piece of that trifecta had been missing, she would have ended up being a totally different person – perhaps an even greater one, but, likely, just somebody’s grandmother. Without blindness, Ray Charles would probably have just been some guy.  With a present father, Bill Clinton might have been just another lawyer. These people turned difficulties into stepping stones.

These past few weeks, I have struggled (and continue to struggle) with some things.  During these times, the temptation to eat like a Labrador is great. Difficulties are real tests of our resolve and of our new coping mechanisms. I cannot say that mine have been successful every time; but, I can say that I’ve actually lost about three pounds. Net effect is that I win. My struggles and issues don’t put me in the realm of those people, surely; but, I’m okay with that.  I don’t need to be a great speaker, musician or politician. I need to be a good human and these present difficulties, as badly as they annoy me, make me better – more compassionate, more patient, more humble.

One day, I will likely be “just some old lady” to most; however, I work every day to become a grandmother worthy of imitation to at least some.

Fair warning – the part of the Positive Thinking Blog Goddess is being played today by Senora Buzzkill.

Aside from helping people solve problems and protect themselves, my favorite part of my job is getting out and meeting all kinds of interesting people. I recently had coffee with the fascinating Kate. During the course of conversation, the subject of Hope arose. Kate shared her theory that Hope is neither created nor destroyed, rather, it is redistributed. Her thoughts captured my imagination, which has just run amok with them ever since.

Within an isolated system (a person) Hope can be neither created nor destroyed, only change form, like both mass and energy. I’m sure this parallel is all kinds of Swiss cheese with logical holes; however, I like the notion of it – the Law of Conservation of Hope.

We were discussing Hope as it relates to coping with cataclysmic loss – of a parent, child, spouse, sibling, friend or in cases of natural disaster. I looked for instances of Hope’s metamorphosis during times of loss for me: my mother’s death after a long bout with cancer and my dear friend’s death in a car wreck.

I did some research on Mother’s diagnosis of mantle cell lymphoma and found no survival rate for that particular kind of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. My research did not leave room for hope of survival for Mother, only that perhaps she had been misdiagnosed. Even that quickly changed. Hope then centered on handling this correctly – in a way that would be honest with my son (but not gruesome), supportive for my mother and as healthy as possible for the rest of us. Those hopes ended up centered on controlling the collateral damage – people don’t get cancer, families do – and finally hoping that it would all be over soon. (And we’re not even going to discuss the incredible guilt that goes with that!)  Finally, the hope was that I would get my life back. The metamorphoses of Hope in this experience were over 3.5 years.

Joey’s death was much more abrupt. I found out in a 6:30 Monday morning phone call. I hoped Larry was wrong. Then I just hoped that I would remember to breathe again. I hoped that for weeks. Then, I hoped there would come a day when I wouldn’t miss him. Now I hope that it never does. These metamorphoses have continued for 20 years.

Hope is our coping mechanism. It is the thing that gets us through the unbearable as surely as it enhances the joyful.  Even for those we think have lost hope, maybe their’s centers on the hereafter being better than the now. Maybe even then, Hope exists in some form. It is, I think, the genesis of faith.

(Or maybe contemplation of Hope is the path to madness as surely as the effort to define Quality was for the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.)

This idea is really intriguing to me; so, I invite you along for a little audience participation today.  What are your thoughts? Share them with us below. (You do have to supply some basic information before your comments are sent to me for approval.  Don’t worry, though, you can give your name as Anonymous. Signing up doesn’t put you on a spam list for me,)

I really would love to hear what you think.

Mama Gump says that,” Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” As I cleaned my house this weekend (it was still looking like Hoarders – Pre-K), I came to think that perhaps life is also like the monkey bars.

We had a set of those old, straight monkey bars on the playground at St. Francis when I was a kid. I was chubby, slow, awkward and fearful. I was afraid to play on them for fear that I would get hurt, that someone would laugh or look up my skirt. When I finally did try crossing them, I did it slowly, moving one rung at a time.  No so my friend Kelly.  She was fearless! She swung across them gracefully, skipping rungs as she used her momentum to propel her from one side to the other. Shorts beneath her uniform, she would hang upside down, wringing every ounce of joy from the experience as she was suspended there.

On the 12th, I talked about conflicts that eventually claim those who originally claimed them. The same thing is true with anything, don’t you think? We claim a job, a possession, a relationship; but, those things often end up claiming and owning us. A job becomes who I am, not what I do. I insure and guard my possessions. Friendships and romantic relationships can easily become an end in themselves. We end up possessed by things we once called our own. As I sifted through the flotsam of my life this weekend, I saw it in technicolor.

So how do we know when we need to let go of those things? If I had the answer to that, you’d be reading it in my bestselling book or watching me talk about it on reruns of my talk show (I’d be hiking in Scotland somewhere, natch).

Here’s what I do know: when I feel myself becoming someone I don’t like, it’s time to take a hard look.

I’ve had jobs where I felt taken advantage of, taken for granted, underpaid, underappreciated. I became angry stayed that way. I’ve had possessions that made me feel weighted down and panicked over how to protect them. I’ve had friendships and romantic relationships in which I have felt uneasy, unsure, undervalued and overvalued. In all of those cases, I became anxious.

I choose not to live an angry life; so, I had to leave those jobs. Katrina cleaned me out on the possessions once. I’m trying to figure out how to do it voluntarily right this very minute. And I would love to say that I was strong enough to have ended all of those bad relationships myself; however, that would be a big, fat lie. In all of those instances, the change was painful; however, to preserve or become the person I want to be, I had to make them or accept the ones others made. That’s my key – knowing who it is (or isn’t) that I want to be.

As we move through situations that require changes, here’s to knowing when to let go of the last rung and to moving through the rungs fluidly and joyfully.