Reality TV Stimulates Me

You can read this post at my new and improved blog at http://www.letlifehappen.com/2009/08/08/reality-tv-stimulates-me

Best,
Barbara

What Is A Tinidog?

You can read this post at my new and improve blog at http://www.letlifehappen.com/2009/08/01/what-is-a-tinidog

Best,
Barbara

So You Think You Can Dance and the Breast Cancer Connection

You can read this post at my new and improved blog at http://www.letlifehappen.com/2009/07/25/so-you-think-you-can-dance-and-the-breast-cancer-connection.

Best,
Barbara

What I Want

As I wrote last week, I have spent the last couple of weeks reflecting upon my life and one question had come to my mind – if I could have any ONE thing to come into my life at this moment, what would it be?  At the same time, I had asked you to answer the same question before I revealed my wish to you and I am grateful that I did as your responses confirmed that I really was on the right track.

For those who come here on a regular basis, you have already discovered that I am here for one purpose and that is to help and support anyone who would like to “talk”.  Each week, I discover more and more wonderful friends with whom I can share and understand some of our mutual experiences in life.  Regardless in which form they appear, mostly everyone has some things that have happened in their lives that they would like to share and discuss with others who have had the same experiences.  When you do, you don’t feel so alone or ashamed or isolated and so on.  This brings me to share with you what I want.

I want to have a life where I can spend my time in communications with those who need my help.  While I do not have a degree in psychology or psychiatry, I do believe that I am in a position to help in ways that no other person can because of my life experiences.  I know how hard it is to go inside and find the answers for questions that haven’t even been asked.  I know about the essential goodness in each person and the barriers that we create to protect ourselves.  I know how hard it is to create new habits wherein we realize we are not all of the awful things that someone has told us that we are.  And I know how rewarding it is to do the work necessary to create a new life for yourself that is built on self-love and self-respect.

The other part of this wish is that in order to do what I want, I need to find a way to make it my work on a full-time basis, not just when I can find some time during the day and on weekends.  And although at this moment I haven’t the slightest idea of how to make this happen, I know that there is a way and that the answer will come as always and more than likely, when I least expect it.  In the interim, I will do my best to keep up the correspondence with all that choose to write and I want you to know that for as much as you think that I have helped you, you can’t begin to imagine how much you have all helped me.  For that I thank you so very much and know that I am eternally grateful.

I would love your comments.

What Do You Want?

I have spent the last couple of days reflecting upon my life and one question has come to my mind – if I could have any ONE thing to come into my life at this moment, what would it be?

However, I have decided that I would like to make this week’s blog about YOU!  I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment and go to the link below and tell me the single most important thing that you would want in your life at this moment if you could have anything. 

Please feel free to make your response as long or as short as you would like and then come back to this site throughout the week as everyone shares their wishes.  Then next week, I will share with you the one thing that I have already determined that I would really like in my life now.  I think that this will truly be a very wonderful experience.

Thank you so very much for sharing!

Share your “What Do You Want?” comment.

The 4th of July – Independence Day

As we celebrate this wonderful holiday that marks our freedom and independence as a country, I couldn’t help but reflect on the personal freedoms that we have as individuals living here. I am so grateful for the rights that I am guaranteed and which I so often take for granted. And I am so fortunate to have the freedom of choice that so many other people in this world will never know. That is why I want to reflect on that particular gift at this moment.

As I look back over the choices that I have made in my life, I am really satisfied with them as they were always made with the most information that I had available at the time. As with everything in life, we learn and grow as individuals each day and if we obtain additional information as we go that may be in conflict with what we previously thought about a situation or individual and if that information is detrimental to us and/or other family members, etc., then we can choose to change those circumstances. However, it is very hard to make wise choices for ourselves when we get wrapped up in the emotions of a particular situation. I think that the biggest inhibitors are blame and guilt.

How many times have you heard adults justifying their behavior or choices by suggesting that that is what they were taught? Or what about those who choose to do something because someone else told them to do it? They get so wrapped up in blaming someone else for their choices that they completely miss the opportunity that they had to create a better outcome for themselves.

Similarly, when someone makes a decision that results in a less than successful outcome, they feel guilty about it. But why should you feel guilty? Unless you choose to do something that is harmful to someone else, there should be no guilt involved. You did the best that you could with the information that you had and if you find out later that things were not as they appeared then you have the choice to change those circumstances.

You have the right to make choices. You have the right to be a victim of your circumstances. You have the right to blame others for your situation. You have the right to wallow in self-pity for the situation in which you find yourself. However, you also have the right to be happy. You have the right to create the life that you want. You have the right to treat others with kindness and love. But, most importantly, you have the right to choose whatever you want for yourself because you live in a country that guarantees you that freedom. I hope that you choose well.

I would love your comments.

Michael Jackson – Memorial Pictures / Video

It’s not like me to show up at gatherings such as the memorial outside of the Michael Jackson’s family home. But because of the magnitude of the tribute being shown there, and the fact that I don’t live that far from their home, I thought I would share my personal experiences from the site. I hope that this helps to personalize this tribute a little bit more for those that could not be there in person.

Sorry about the quality of the video, but I took it with my phone. I hope you enjoy.

Vodpod videos no longer available.


Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

 

I would love your comments.

 

 

The Judgment of Michael Jackson

With the passing of Michael Jackson yesterday, I, along with just about everyone else I know, turned on the television to watch the coverage. Since new information was rather scarce in the first couple of hours of this breaking story, the first thing that I saw on most stations was the footage from his trial when charges of child molestation were brought against him along with images of how he was dressed, how he acted and just about everything else associated with his comings and goings to the court. This made me really angry.

Michael Jackson was acquitted of the charges brought against him in that case. He also had his reasons for settling the earlier case which does not automatically mean that he must have been guilty. Now if you have read any of my previous blogs or have seen my profile, you immediately know that one of my major platforms has to do with abuse as a result of my own situation. And for me, any abuse, mentally or physically against children, is horrific and must be stopped. However, I also believe that none of us has the right to judge anyone else with regard to things that did or didn’t happen unless we were an integral part of the experience.

For famous people like Michael Jackson, there are always those people who wish to create negative stories just to have their own fifteen minutes of fame or because they want to make money or because they are just plain jealous of someone else’s success. Just because someone has said something does not make it fact. I know that I have been the victim of false accusations in the past and I am sure that most people have had such an experience at one time or another in their lives. And it didn’t take long for others to spread the falsehood as fact and pass judgment accordingly.

I don’t know whether Michael Jackson was guilty of anything because I wasn’t there. I never met the man. Even as far as the court case is concerned, I didn’t hear the evidence and even then, I would have no way of knowing whether there was anything withheld or inserted that could have made a difference in the final outcome. In fact, it really is none of my business. It is the business of those who were directly involved or directly interacted with him.

As far as I am concerned, Michael Jackson and each of us have only to answer to ourselves at the end of the day. No matter what anyone else has to say, I believe that God is my one and only judge. I don’t believe that anyone else has the right to judge my actions anymore than I have the right to judge someone else. Michael left us yesterday to face his final judgment. It is my hope that he has finally found peace in that judgment.

I would love your comments.

The Father / Daughter Relationship

The most important relationship that any girl has with a parent is the one with her father.   As today is Father’s Day, I felt that it was only fitting to discuss the relationship that I had with my own father that formulated the person that I am today.

First of all, I would like to make it perfectly clear that I loved and respected my father very much. But, my father was raised in a very strict environment and that is the home that he created for us.  I was the middle child with an older sister and younger brother.  My brother was only 15 months younger than me so I was never really the baby.  As for my sister, she was the first to experience everything so that it wasn’t as exciting by the time things were handed down to me.  Of course, this included clothing as well as just about anything else that you can think of.

The biggest thing that both my sister and I faced with our father was that he was extremely concerned with our appearance.  For my sister, at a young age (under 10), he put her on an exercise regimen that included sit-ups, etc.   Since that didn’t work for my sister, he decided that he would put me on a diet and if I didn’t lose 10 pounds by summer, I was not going to be allowed to wear shorts.

The other big thing for me was that my father, and later my brother, never felt that I measured up to my potential.  Nothing that I could do was ever good enough.  When I got great grades in school, it was expected, not rewarded as they were for my brother and sister.  When I became a cheerleader, my parents never once came to any game or to any parade in which we marched.  When it was college time, there were three of us in school at the same time so I stayed at home to go to college and worked every day after school from the time that I was 16 so that I could pay for my own education.  My reward was that there was never enough money left for me to get new clothes, etc. after they got those things for my brother and sister and paid for them to go to college out of town.

As a result, when I found a man who was interested in me and gave me attention, I was “grateful”, I guess.  I finally had a male who thought that I was something special.  My dad didn’t seem to think that I was special so I would show him.  And when I got married and my dad told me that I was not welcome in his home if I brought my husband because he did not approve of him, well, that was the final straw.

Although I didn’t experience any abuse from my husband until after we were several months into the marriage, I could not bring myself to let anyone know.  After all, I had once again proven my dad right by not being smart enough to know what I was getting myself into.  It was up to me to either fix it or be smart enough to find my way out of it.  What a mess! 

I never did figure out what was going on at the time that I was in that relationship but I did learn so much about myself.  Although it took until the point where I could not stand the abuse any longer for me to leave, I am so glad that I had the presence of mind to do so.  And the most interesting thing is that it was my mother and father who were there to move me out the day that I left.  How ironic!

I would love your comments.

The David Letterman/Sarah Palin Controversy

I normally do not include in my blogs the names of specific individuals but rather I try to write about general issues.  This week, I am making an exception.  I was so angered by the comment that David Letterman included in his monologue about Sarah Palin’s daughter that I just can’t sit back and let it go.

For those of you who may have missed this, Palin was in New York with her 14 year old daughter, Willow. The following is the “joke” that he included in his monologue which I have quoted below:

“One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”

I can’t begin to imagine what would inspire a man of his age and stature to include such a comment in his thoughts let alone his presentation.  It would have been bad enough if he had made such a remark as an ad lib but he planned this.  He wrote it in advance and he had no qualms about including it in his show.  And not only did he laugh but he had a whole audience that laughed, too.

I understand that entertainers are doing whatever they can to get ratings and I am sure that creating a controversy like this has certainly put Letterman in the limelight.  But if he thinks that this type of humor is going to increase his viewership, I certainly hope that he is terribly wrong.  To insinuate that someone raping a 14 year old girl is funny under any circumstances is just downright horrible to me.

I don’t have a daughter but I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like for me if someone made such a comment about my daughter on a personal level let alone in front of the whole country.  We all know that there are so many people out there who think that it is okay to abuse young children in this manner and to have a comedian make that comment and laugh about it on national television only spurs on such deviant behavior. 

I don’t know about anyone else out there who may read this blog but I will NEVER watch David Letterman again and I hope that you will join me in this action.  Too many of us have suffered abuse in our lives in many different forms and the idea of thinking that putting out the image of an adult male sexually exploiting a young female as something that is funny is unbelievable.  I can only assume that he lives in such a little bubble that he doesn’t even consider what the ramifications are for those girls who have suffered such abuse in their lives. 

To all of my friends who are working so hard to help end abuse, I beg you to keep up the wonderful work that you are doing to help those who have turned to you for help.  I also hope that you will take this opportunity to let others know that it is never okay to suggest in any way that child abuse is acceptable let alone something about which jokes should be made.

I would love your comments.