Miracle on the Rock – Miracles Do Happen and Prayers Do Get Answered

Previously published on Yahoo! Contributor Network (Yahoo! Voices/Associated Content) March 15, 2009, later published on and then removed from Persona Paper.

Anyone who knows me knows that the one career choice I would have made, if I could have supported my children with it, would have been writing. As I awaited recognition and opportunity, as I scribbled ideas, poems, screenplays, books, and articles in my numerous notebooks, I traveled many paths, several of which were closely related to the writing field, none of which allowed me recognition, stability, or support so that I could make money with my writing.

From a magazine to printing companies to a newspaper to a video production company, from insurance companies to hospitals to a nightclub to a radio station, positioning myself in such diverse roles as secretary, outpatient admitting officer, cocktail waitress, graphic designer, and daycare provider, among others, my work day was spent doing everything but writing. Forced to put writing "for a living" on hold I sought jobs that paid the bills while I anticipated the day my career would take off.

The most recent job I held was working as an "idea" person, writing commercials for a radio station. At least that was why I was hired. The man who hired me, however, left the station prior to my first day. He was replaced with a new manager and a promotions director. The director would be my supervisor. The new manager and the new director decided that since the promotions director would be performing tasks I was hired to do, I should sell advertising.

During my first week, I realized I had become part of a new reality TV series, The Edge of Twilight Zone. Or so it seemed. While we were on our way back from a business function one day, for example, my new supervisor, whose language would have made a pornographer blush, "mooned" a coworker on a busy road in broad daylight. I slouched in the back seat in horror.

In the three months I worked there, my coworkers and I were informed during sales meetings every time she was "f-ing bleeding like an f-ing pig out of her f-ing v…” It appeared that my new supervisor's goal was to make her employees feel uncomfortable; her joy came from being as outrageous as was humanly possible. I'm no prude, but I think that people who use f-bombs to describe every noun are either deliriously stupid or just plain lazy. The job proved to be more than I could (or wanted to) handle.

I immediately sought relief in the Help Wanted section of the newspapers - in print and online. My numerous physical problems made finding an appropriate job a challenge. A swollen right foot (a problem even doctors at one of the highest skilled teaching hospitals couldn't figure out) and scoliosis that caused persistent back pain limited me to jobs that didn't require me to stand for long periods of time. Asthma and borderline COPD prevented me from working around certain types of fumes, perfumes, and cigarette smoke, and carpal tunnel syndrome sometimes required me to wear a wrist brace that made typing difficult.

My long-term goal had always been to write when I retired, but retirement was more than a decade away, and I needed to find something that would sustain me NOW. Once a daycare provider, I wondered if I should return to caring for children. After all, children wear no fragrances, and I could probably contend with the limited exposure to smoking or perfumed parents. I could lie down on the floor when necessary, and I could sit often. I could also write up until the minute the parents arrived with their children and soon after they left to take their children home. But income from daycare never paid the bills.

And so I did what I always do when I grapple with a problem I have to solve - I prayed about it. And I asked God to give me a sign to let me know if I should set up a daycare while I continued to pursue my writing career.

Because this method has worked for me on many occasions, I knew to ask for a specific sign. I chose a butterfly. But not just ANY butterfly, a UNIQUE butterfly, something so unusual, it would grab my attention. If I saw a UNIQUE butterfly, I would know that I should return to daycare.

On my way to work at the Gates of Hell Radio Station the morning after my prayer, I saw a sign with a butterfly on it. However, I reasoned that I had driven by that sign every day on my way to work; I just never noticed it before. Therefore, I couldn't count it as a sign from God.

The following day, because my job required me to travel, I decided to test the limits of the radio signals to see if they matched the area the radio station claimed was included in its map (it didn't). I met my mother - who lived more than fifty miles from where I worked - for lunch. I wanted to tell her about the horrendous job I had and to ask her opinion about my leaving it to return to childcare while I worked on my writing.

Mom, who believes there is no worse job than caring for children all day, was surprisingly supportive. She brought along a tiny shopping bag that she placed on the table as we ordered our food. I wanted to tell her about my prayer, but I felt her support was enough. I would wait patiently for my sign from God if childcare was the job I was supposed to pursue while I wrote. Only after I made my career decision would I share the prayer with my mother.

Before she opened her bag, Mom placed her hand on top of it. "I don't know what you're going to think about this," she said almost apologetically.

She continued to tell me about a friend of hers who had to quit her job to take care of her mother. In her spare time, the friend crafted and painted all sorts of projects. My mom thought of me when she purchased this tiny trinket.

Worried that it was "just a little something - nothing big or expensive," Mom added, "If you don't like it, it's OK."

Whatever Mom gives me is special. On this day, as on any other day, it wouldn't have mattered if it were a scrap of linen from her dresser drawer or a poem she wrote. I would have treasured whatever it was. But I was curious. And so I opened the brown paper bag and unfolded the paper. Inside was a rock painted with a butterfly on the top, its wings folded.

As I was thinking that God had answered my prayer, and as I was about to share the prayer with my mother, I heard her say, "Isn't that the most UNIQUE butterfly you've ever seen painted? Most people spread out both of the wings, but these wings are folded. Isn't this one UNIQUE!"

"Yes," I told her. "It is unique. It's also the answer to my prayer."

Afterword: In September, 2009, I was struck with cancer. Unable to handle chemo well, I had to quit day care. Because I provided daycare from 2007 to 2009, and because it never paid enough for me to live comfortably, the Mills Breast Cancer Institute filed paperwork for me so that the government would put me on short-term disability. After two years on disability, possibly because of my age, the government put me on social security. As a result of those circumstances, I was able to retire early. I now live simply and within budget thanks to my youngest daughter, who pays me to provide care for her children a couple of days a week. As you might guess, I firmly believe in the power of prayer and in miracles. And when I’m not caring for children or crocheting, I’m writing!

What is Your Definition of Beauty?

Initially published as Beauty Defined in The Daily Journal (for the Magical Mysteries Collection), later published by the now defunct Yahoo Contributor Network, July 31, 2008, republished and then removed from Persona Paper.

How many times have you been awed by a spectacular sunset, or felt invigorated by crimson, russet, and amber autumn foliage? We love beautiful things. Our eyes widen and tend to linger on objects we find beautiful. We feel pleasure just looking at them.

For children beauty is different than it is for adults. A child may tell her parents about a beautiful friend she wants to invite to her birthday party, but after meeting the friend, mom bellows, "You think that chubby dumpy little girl is beautiful?"

The little girl begins the process of questioning her own perceptions. Is her overweight elderly aunt as beautiful as the little girl thought she was or is Auntie now the frumpy-looking hag others envision?

How unfortunate that, as we grow older, we incorporate society's vision of beauty into our own. Our aunt isn't skinny or young, so society must be right. Our idea of beauty changes over time.

The branch of philosophy that deals with our perceptions of beauty is Aesthetics. It deals specifically with our judgment of art and nature. And our judgments are made through a process of beliefs we create for ourselves through a system of acceptance and denial. We distort our own perceptions in favor of society's perceptions to "fit in" with society.

But what makes something beautiful and how do we define beauty?

We first sense beauty with our eyes and delight in our appreciation of it. Beyond outward appearances, however, at least in terms of human beings, we should probably consider another intangible component that plays an important role in how we view beauty: presence. Some indefinable and unexplainable "something" causes us to find a person attractive. Children have an innate ability to perceive an inner glow that shines through the surface, a glow that adults, blinded by what society deems acceptable, no longer see or choose to ignore.

Another intangible aspect of beauty is the emotion we attach to it. A child might find beauty in an old tattered recliner if she felt loved when she was being cuddled in daddy's chair. A father might find a ceramic bowl created by his child to be one of his most treasured and beautiful belongings.

Beauty, though, does not exist without something to compare itself. In a forest of green, splashes of color attract our attention. When, during the fall season, the magnificent evergreen stands next to the multi-colored maple, do we notice the evergreen or does it become the backdrop for the more colorful maples?

Does your elderly curly gray-haired wrinkly aunt get even a second glance when standing next to a willowy young blonde woman? Beauty should be grateful for plain, because if not for the plain or the ugly, nobody would recognize beauty.

Aesthetically, beauty is marked with symmetry, balance, texture, and color. But if you look for that inner glow, you can find beauty everywhere you look. And you can begin by looking into your mirror.

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for." (John Lubbock)

Does ANYTHING I Do Matter?

My whole life has been a struggle of some kind or another. Even though intellectually I have always known that everyone else struggles, too, I wondered why some people got occasional breaks from their struggles while I spent every waking hour praying for miracles. Maybe those people found a better paying job, or they came into money, or circumstances changed for the better in some way for them. For me, though, my life has been one endless stream of strife – financial, physical, and emotional. Learning how to survive has been one long relentless challenge that I’m still learning to overcome.

While I think I’ve been handling my physical maladies fairly well, I have to admit that I have failed to conquer the emotional and financial state in which I find myself drowning. But I’ve come to some conclusions about life in general and, after living for over 5 decades, I’d like to share my philosophy with you.

Because I believe that we are all spiritual beings inhabiting bodies for a short time, and because I believe that spirit is energy and energy lives forever, I know that the human life span – the time we spend on Earth – is, in the scheme of things, very short. As our spirits progress toward understanding our purpose for being here, I’ve come to believe that perhaps we summon ourselves before we are born to experience challenges we need to overcome and life lessons we need to learn in order to become One with God. 

As I examine my current life, I have to ask if I was perhaps, in a previous life, a let-them-eat-cake kind of person. Might living my current life in poverty and near poverty teach me lessons I otherwise might never have learned about survival? Maybe I needed to learn empathy by actually experiencing life with very little material possessions, or maybe I didn’t want to be encumbered with a lot of stuff. The burden of knowing that nobody is willing to pay you the salary you need to raise your children is overwhelming. Whatever the reason, though, I’ve decided that I’m now comfortable with what I have. I don’t need a new car or my own home.  

Maybe I was in perfect health in my past life, and, because I was fortunate physically, I criticized others for things about which I had no knowledge and over which they had no control. I remember a woman who appeared once on Oprah (I think), who criticized people for not walking straighter. As I watched her, I thought of people who, for one reason or another, couldn’t walk straight, and I realized how ignorant all of us can be from time to time about problems others experience. She felt the problem with people was that they just didn’t try. “Let them eat cake, let them stand up straighter, let them raise their four children on minimum wage, let them live in tents.”

From asthma, allergies, and arthritis to a bad back to cancer to migraines to a persistently swollen right foot to bad eyesight, I’ve experienced a wide range of physical limitations. From being molested and raped to being robbed, from losing jobs because perverted bosses wanted more from me than I was willing to give them, from feeling abandoned by people when I needed them most, I’ve experienced a wide range of emotional issues. And from never making enough money to raise my children or even to take care of myself, I’ve experienced what it feels like to live below the poverty level.

But like most other people, I survived. Like most people who go through challenges, I’m still here. And I wonder – what if we choose – before we are born (when we are still in spirit form) – to learn certain life lessons in order to advance our souls? What if we are the ones who control our destinies? But because we don’t want our former lives to influence decisions we make in this life and we don’t want memories of our past lives to overshadow the work we have to do in this life, we decide to become oblivious to choices we made before we were born.

If I killed someone in a previous life, for instance, and I was aware in this lifetime that I killed someone, I would probably become so focused on that horrific crime, I’d be more inclined to find the family I wronged and make up for my behavior than to focus on advancing my soul. If I believed in reincarnation and past lives, I’d probably want to learn my previous name and research my old self. I’d place too much time on my past and not enough time on my present. Instead of advancing my soul, I’d be stuck in the past.

Maybe, prior to the lives we live today, we create our own punishments for past crimes. I like to think that all of us, in our souls, live to a certain code of conduct and that all of our souls together – past, present, and future – connect to that one source of love that goes by many names, God. I’d like to think that at the end of our lives, when we view the way we treated people, we can ask for another chance, and God grants us that opportunity. Maybe our suffering has nothing to do with what God does to us and more to do with what we do to ourselves to heal our souls as we return to God. And maybe loved ones work together to help each other heal our souls. 

So in answer to the question I proposed in my title, yes, everything I do matters. Every choice I make comes with a consequence or a reward, and though I may be unaware of the impact I have on the people around me or have any idea when those consequences or rewards will surface, I have to believe that for all of us, what we give out does come back to us and what we reap we do sew. God connects with us through our soul, lives in our heart, and guides us through our conscience. Just because we can’t see results today doesn’t mean they aren’t occurring. Karma may be waiting for us the next time around.

Most Outrageous Bosses I've Met

During our working years, we spend most of our days working and learning how to deal with people who share our workspace. Our experiences can be fun and invigorating or they can suck the souls from our spirits and cause immense pain. If you have ever had to deal with outrageous bosses, you'll empathize! 

Originally posted as Most Outrageous People I’ve Met in the Workplace on Yahoo Contributor Network, January 20, 2010, when I was battling breast cancer.

What follows are four true stories about people I've had to call "boss" since I was a teenager. These four people win the prize as the worst of the worst employers. I invite you to share your worst of the worst in the comments area below.

Most Outrageous Employer #1

Toupee Man was my first boss. He was the owner of a gift shop that housed expensive items and greeting cards. My job was to dust the shelves and to retrieve items from the storage room.

In those days women wore skirts, short skirts, and this dirty old man, instead of climbing the ladder himself, would tell me it was my job to climb the ladder while he stood at the bottom, holding it.

The day I realized that I needed to leave was the day he asked me if my parents knew that he stood outside my bedroom window watching me get dressed. I was 16. He was probably in his 50s or 60s.

Most Outrageous Employer #2

Stereotypical Lawyer munched on a cigar and leaned against his white caddy when he wasn't in the office. After my first four months with him, I was told that it was my duty to climb under his desk every morning and perform a particular act, something his former secretary had done every day.

I thought he was joking until his partner told me he wasn't. This happened in the days when women consistently dealt with sexual harassment. I never would have thought to report him. Instead, I asked for my check early that week and never went back.

The following spring, when I hadn't received my tax information from him, I called his office. His former secretary picked up the phone. What a surprise.

She was expecting my call and told me that the only way I could get my tax forms was to come in to get them.

I reported him to the IRS. When my tax forms came in, he altered my social security number. I reported him again.

I was 19 when I worked for him. Several years later, when I'd found my voice, I went looking for him. Fortunately for him, I never found him. (Update, years after I originally wrote this article, I found him online – in an obituary – he died 3 months before I wrote this article.)

Related Reading: When a Pervert Dies

Most Outrageous Employer #3

Evil Harry wasn't my actual boss. His wife was. But he ended up coming to work for her, because he thought he could help by training me to become an accountant (I was hired to be her assistant for a local cable television program).

Harry's "help" came in the form of incessant badgering, condescending comments, and constant belittling - all reserved for me.

Every morning, when he finally made an appearance, he stank so badly of alcohol, I couldn't stand being in the same room with him. But I put up with him, because I liked his wife and I was hoping this whole accountant phase would pass.

We were shooting a film during that time and he asked me to order a bench that we needed for a scene. I asked, "From where?" He looked at me with a sneer that showed such disgust, I couldn't imagine any human being looking at another with such seething hatred.

"Just find one!"

"What kind of bench?" I asked. At that point, in front of everybody in the room, he went into a tirade telling me that I should KNOW what kind of bench they needed. He then screamed, "FIGURE IT OUT FOR YOURSELF AND STOP BOTHERING ME!"

Later it turned out that he had assumed I had read that part of the script that described the bench (nobody had shared it with me), and rather than apologize to me, he ignored me.

So I went up to him in front of everybody and demanded that he treat me with the same respect he used to treat everybody else. I was fired the following week by his wife, who was so obviously racked with guilt, she had a very hard time telling me.

Most Outrageous Employer #4

The year was 2007. At a time when jobs were hard to come by, I was lucky to have found a job I knew I would enjoy. I was to be the "idea person" for a local radio station. However, just before I started, the station manager who hired me was fired and replaced with another one. They also hired a new promotions director.

Raunchy Roma was a former stand up comedienne who somehow started working at the radio station the same day I started. For reasons that will never make sense to me, she became one of my new bosses.

All three of us started on the same day and my job changed from "idea person" to sales rep. I immediately started looking elsewhere for a different job.

In the meantime I had to put up with Raunchy Roma (30 something), the promotions director. She thrived on making everybody uncomfortable with what she thought were comedic comments. It gave her great joy to see the young 23-year-old man cringe every time she opened her mouth. And she found great pleasure in watching the women gape in astonishment at her unprofessional remarks.

In our first sales meeting she announced to the 23-year-old, to me, and to two other women, one of whom was in her 30s, the other in her 40s, that she was "effing" bleeding out of her "effing" vagina like an "effing" pig. And she didn't say "effing".

She managed to say the raunchiest, vilest things in our sales meetings - so completely unprofessional that all of us were looking elsewhere for jobs. A month later we heard the same "effing" comment. She swore us to secrecy and told us we weren't allowed to tell anybody in the office what went on behind closed doors.

Not everything she did or said was kept inside, however, because on one sales trip, she mooned the 23-year-old on a busy highway in the middle of the afternoon with me in the back seat behind her. The guy was in the car next to us.

Fortunately the entire staff was let go and I thankfully lost that job.

Today

Today, I write from the comfort of my bed (not that I'm lazy - I'm just battling cancer). And today, I would speak out for others who were putting up with people like those mentioned above. I'm glad I spoke up for myself with Evil Harry. I would have loved to have been given that same opportunity with Toupee Man and Stereotypical Lawyer, but I never got the chance.

As far as Raunchy Roma is concerned - I hope she found an audience for herself. I personally don't find that kind of humor amusing, and I definitely do NOT want to see it in the workplace, but I'm sure some people enjoy that kind of humor and really, because she had two small children, I wish her the best.

Smoking - How Bad is it Really?

Previously published on Yahoo January 17, 2010

You've probably seen the video of an old woman lighting her cigarette with one of 100 candles that fire up her birthday cake and thought, well, if she can make it to 100, so can I.

But let's examine your logic and let's look at statistics. According to the National Library of Medicine – National Institutes of Health, "Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths."

Are you willing to risk your life simply because you don't know how to quit smoking? And if you are pregnant, do you want to risk the life of your unborn child by continuing your smoking habit? According to the same source, "Women who smoke have a greater chance of certain pregnancy problems or having a baby die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)."

The habit of smoking is so difficult to break, it causes some people, in the final stages of emphysema, to request a cigarette even as they breathe their last breath. Loved ones standing by watch them die in agony, because dying from emphysema is a painful way to die. It is also frightening.

Smoking affects people with other lung problems as well. People who suffer from asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis, and other lung diseases feel the impact that smoking has on their lungs, because secondhand smoke restricts their airways and sometimes causes an attack.

To understand what somebody suffering from a lung affliction feels like while in the throes of an attack, imagine taking a straw and stuffing it with a couple of rolled up paper towels. Allow only a hairline of air to flow through the straw. Close your nostrils and wrap your lips around the straw.

Try breathing through the straw for a couple of minutes. You will soon notice that your heart is racing and your oxygen level is dropping. Not many people can last long with only a hairline of oxygen entering their lungs.

Besides health problems, other matters that result from smoking require attention. The tongue becomes coated with a smoky residue, teeth turn yellow, clothing and hair smells, and the capacity for exercise is greatly diminished. Smokers put at risk anyone who is around them.

So how can a smoker quit smoking? No one solution is perfect for everybody. From patches to hypnotism, smokers have to find something that works for THEM. The most important factor in quitting smoking, though, is readiness. Until smokers are ready to quit, they will not quit. And they may fail their first, their second, or even their third time.

Smoking is a habit, and smokers must learn to replace their smoking habit with healthy alternatives. Some former smokers eat when they can't smoke, but that remedy contributes to weight gain. Other smokers attempt an exercise routine, but give up quickly when they don't see immediate results. Readiness is key.

If you smoke and you are ready to quit smoking, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers smokers help in quitting. And that help comes in the form of free quit coaching, a free quit plan, and free educational materials. The CDC also refers smokers to local resources. Quit smoking now, by calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669 - TTY 1-800-332-8615).

Sources

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ 

http://www.cdc.gov/

Related Reading

How Alcoholism Affects Loved Ones

Photo courtesy of Morguefile

Coping Strategies – Stop Using Habits as Excuses and Start Using Them as Reasons…

…to DO what you KNOW needs to be done – FOR YOU!

You’ve probably heard or even repeated any of the following excuses: 

“I have to keep eating sweets. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.”

“I can’t quit smoking now. Too much stuff is going on in my life.”

“I have too much stress in my life to stop drinking now.”

“If I gamble just one more time, I’ll pay up all my debts.”

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

STOP! 

We ALL have challenges! Some of us think we have it worse than everybody else does, but not everyone speaks about their challenges. One of us may have just buried a loved one, another may be trying to work through a devastatingly fatal medical diagnosis, and still another may be coping with physical abuse or financial loss or an ill child. Whatever we go through, the one thing that separates us from people who go through life seemingly unaffected by their challenges is our inability to cope with our challenges. 

If I could grade myself as a parent who was successful in teaching her children coping strategies, I would have to fail myself. I never learned how to cope with challenges – how could I teach my children how to cope with theirs? And yet coping strategies are the most pivotal tool children require in order to lead successful lives. Why am I just now learning how to cope with adversity?

Sadly, too many people, unable or unwilling to find appropriate ways of dealing with their problems, resort to drugs, alcohol, gambling, prostitution, or any number of destructive ways to cope with their challenges. And they use excuses to explain their behavior.

Frustration at not knowing what to do when we are presented with challenges gives some of us permission to take the lazy way out. We KNOW that smoking is bad for us, we KNOW that drinking is bad for us, we KNOW we shouldn’t prostitute ourselves for money, but we CHOOSE to engage in exactly those types of behaviors because we see only what is in front of us. We don’t explore other options. We limit our own choices, because we’re “too tired,” or “too upset,” or “too whatever” to put any energy into improving our situations. Rather than work on making life better for ourselves, we take the lazy way out – “it’s hopeless” – and we give up.

How can we afford to go back to school, for instance, provide daycare for our kids, and still afford a home with all its accompanying expenses if we have no money? How can we get to work or school if we don’t have a car and no access to public transportation? And even if we figure out how to handle these challenges because we found the courage to contact a local college financial aid counselor and a self-help group in our neighborhood, the minute we take care of one problem, we’re confronted with ten more.

We say we want to quit the habits we know are hurting us, but just as we’re getting through a bad divorce, one of the kids comes down with a debilitating illness, we find out one of our parents is dying, we just lost our job, etc., so how can we quit now?

But NOW is exactly the time to quit destructive habits! 

We need to understand something about ourselves – the time will never be right for us to quit our unhealthy habits, because life always throws obstacles in our way that we can use either as an excuse to continue the habit that will cause us ruin or as an impetus – or reason – to change. 

Change requires commitment – commitment to adhere to the decisions we make. WE make our own choices and we need to stop excusing our behaviors and start finding resources to help us make the right decisions. In other words, we need to learn how to ask for help and stop thinking we can solely handle everything that comes our way.

We live in a world filled with people who want to help us succeed. But we are too negative in our thinking to believe that anybody would want to help us. Many of us also suffer from a god-complex. Throwing ourselves a pity party, putting ourselves on our own pedestal, far above those wretched souls below us who could care less, because nobody is as good as we are, we provide examples for ourselves that nobody cares – we are in this world alone, fending for ourselves. We allow ourselves to believe that we are good, kind, generous, and helpful, and we can’t depend on anyone else, because we are the only people in the world who care about anything. 

How presumptuous of us, don’t you think? When did we give ourselves permission to be gods and dismiss the fact that others in this world are as kind, friendly, and generous as we are?

It’s time we started thinking more positively about our challenges and stopped looking upon them as roadblocks to our success. Any number of things can inspire us to move forward. Meditation, prayer, faith, and paying attention to somebody we perceive as experiencing worse problems than we have, who know how to cope with those problems in ways that defy our understanding. If we resort to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or any other addictive behavior, we have not learned to successfully cope with stress. Maybe it’s time to start investigating the coping strategies of successful individuals who cope well with adversity.

The Semel Institute at UCLA offers advice on coping. Rather than resort to negative ways of solving our problems, such as using denial and self-blame, successful copers tackle their challenges by using humor or seeking support. They try relaxation, recreation, or problem solving techniques.

For those of us with poor coping skills, it’s time we dealt with our stressors in more positive ways and exchanged our maladaptive behaviors with healthy alternatives.

EVERYTHING we do we do because we CHOOSE to do it. We cannot control what others do to us, but we can control our response to those situations. Instinctively we know the consequences and rewards for whatever behavior we decide to use to conduct ourselves. We say we don’t have a choice, but we always do. “I have to go to work,” you say, but you really don’t. You choose to go to work, because you want to get paid and you don’t want to get fired. “I have to wake up at 5 a.m. if I want to get to work on time.” Again, you choose to wake up at 5 a.m., because you want to keep your job.

You can always look for another job. “I don’t have time to look for another job.” And now you’re creating excuses. We are all very good at creating excuses for why we do or don’t do certain things. And we use those excuses as justifications to stagnate. Ten years from now, one of three things will occur – you will retain your addictive behaviors, because the time was never right, you will challenge yourself to be courageous enough to approach your problems with dignity and strength, or you will die. Unless the world ends, 2025 will arrive. If you plan on being around in ten years you owe it to yourself to find the courage now to face your challenges and to rise above them so that by 2025, if you’re still here, you can celebrate your victories and actually enjoy your life.

The Grudge Wall

Brick by brick, stone by stone, with each betrayal, with each perceived infraction, we add another brick or stone around our heart to protect it from experiencing more pain. We hold onto the grudge and we never forgive, because to let go means the other people won’t understand how truly unworthy of our affections they really are.

What we don’t see is the physiological manifestations of what happens when that grudge wall hardens our hearts. By not forgiving our enemies, we allow dis-ease to enter our soul and infect us with viruses we never saw coming. Cardiovascular (heart) disease is our number one killer. Plaque builds up in the walls of our arteries. If our minds, bodies, and spirits are connected, quite possibly our emotions are reflected in our bodies. That wall we build on the outside thickens on the inside as well. 

In our 3-dimensional world, we pass along only one side of the story, and we infect others with our views. They pass along our side of the story to their friends and family members and the picture they provide is only a third of the truth. The grudge wall congeals. And the message gets passed on much like messages get passed in the “telephone game,” where one player whispers a story to a second person, who then whispers it to a third person, and so on, until the last person repeats aloud the story s/he heard. Like the old telephone game, the story gets twisted and, in the end, sounds nothing like the original story.

Reasons for a different ending are plentiful. Perhaps the listener didn’t actually hear the words and his mind fabricated the misunderstood words. Perhaps the listener decided to embellish what she heard. Or maybe the listener blatantly lied about what he’d heard.

Other factors that affect our ability to relate to the messages we hear and that play a role in determining the way we internalize the messages we receive, are our moods, our actions, our reactions, and even our histories. We have a remarkable tendency to see facial expressions and recognized clenched teeth through telephone lines. But even if the person who causes us anxiety is responsible for our grudges, why do we hang on to that grudge – sometimes forever? 

One of my sisters and I engaged in battle quite frequently as kids and when we were in our twenties and thirties, we continued to battle. She invited me to her home during one phone call and I could tell she was clenching her teeth as she made her repeated commands: “Your kids are now allowed upstairs, they are not allowed to touch anything, you will watch everything they do, and you will monitor their every action – do you understand?” 

“Yes,” I told her every time she repeated herself. 

She continued, “I don’t have to mention these things to (our other sister), but I do have to make sure you understand! Do you!”

At that point, after hearing her admonitions no less than three times, I said, “You know what? I’ll do you a favor. We just won’t come.” And then I hung up.

When my mother heard about the situation, she immediately penned a letter to both of us. In the letter she told us about one of her best friends who had been in a fight with her sister – for decades. The friend never told my mother what the fight was about, so at the wake of her friend, my mother asked the sister what the fight was about. The sister of my mom’s friend responded, “I don’t remember.”

My sister and I made up, and after so many years of wondering what I had done to my sister, I finally asked, “Why do you hate me so much?”

The hesitation in her voice was palpable. I could almost see the words jar her. And the way my sister responded changed my life. She had so much insight into herself in that moment that the words burst out of her like molten lava from a volcano. She admitted that she was jealous of me and she admitted that she had treated me miserably. The funny thing was I had been jealous of her for my whole life too! The realization that jealousy was the basis of our fights was enough to halt the decline in our relationship. And that realization was the turning point for both of us.

Today I see parents fighting with their children, siblings fighting with each other, friends in combat with each other, and the underlying problem is usually much deeper than what appears to be the reason for the fight. We hear one version of the truth, ignore the other two sides, and then we assess the situation based only upon that one-sided explanation.

Every time we hear one version of “the truth,” and we judge the other person involved, we help the storyteller add another brick to her heart. Eventually the grudge wall becomes so thick, no love can enter. Any infraction, small or large, will add thicker layers to the wall that perhaps only a jackhammer can remove. Hardened hearts become etched into deeply creviced faces trenched with scowls and clenched teeth.

But what if something other than a jackhammer can break down the grudge wall? What if forgiveness softens that wall enough to allow all barriers to break down? We have to realize that none of us is perfect and that our perceptions are imperfect as well. What we see is not necessarily what IS. We base our feelings upon what we perceive to be true, so if our perceptions are distorted, anything in our minds that projects from those perceptions becomes warped as well.

Holding onto grudges does not serve us well. Holding onto them burdens us. Letting go allow us to soften our hearts so more love can flow through us. Forgiving does not mean forgetting. But not forgiving reveals more to us about our own characters than it does about the person we can’t seem to forgive.

For more on Grace, Forgiveness, and Thankfulness, please click the link. 

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. ~ Ephesians 4:31-32

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” ~ Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Child, you do not forgive because the person who wronged deserves it. You misunderstood the point of forgiveness entirely. The only cage that a grudge creates is around the holder of the grudge. Forgiveness is not saying that the person who hurt you was right, or has earned it, or is allowed to hurt you again. All forgiveness means is that you will carry on without the burdens of rage or hatred.” ~ Merrie Haskell, The Castle Behind Thorns

photo of stone wall from Morguefile