What a difference a year makes...

This time last January, I was on cloud 9 (or higher, depending on what’s the best.) J

I had quit my full-time job on December 31^st 2014, and was attempting to fly solo for 2015.  Life was beautiful.  Around the end of May last year, however, fear started to settle in.  I’d had a lot of unexpected expenses, also needed to see a doctor but couldn’t afford the Cobra payments and due to bureaucratic snafus with ObamaCare, I had no insurance (don’t get me started), and my daughter was accepted at the expensive college she applied to.  Right about that time, an opportunity came up in a company to work full time with a former boss that I really liked, so I took it and went back to working full-time on 6/8/15.

From then until now, it has been non-stop work and health issues. (I suspect working 60-90 weeks every week, working all holidays and weekends, might have something to do with the health issues, but who’s to say?)

I’ve basically given up my cover art work due to lack of time and energy, as well as the spasms that have developed in my back, right arm, and leg, which cause me to lose control of my limbs at some point nearly every day now. It started getting worse June (hmm… coinciding with the demanding new job… and keeps getting progressively worse.)  I saw a doctor who referred me to a neurologist, but since the insurance I have is awful and can’t afford all those tests, I haven’t been back.  However, the GP seems to think it’s from stress… go figure…

From January 2015 full of hope to January 2016 wondering what the heck I’m going to do now. L

So, since today is my birthday and I’ve been doing a lot of hard thinking the past couple of weeks, I took the day off to think about where I am and what I could change.  Came to the conclusion that self-care, a positive attitude, and daily meditation on all the things I have go be grateful for will help tremendously.  That is what I plan to focus on for the rest of the year. 

I also came up with a writing plan for the year.  Since the art is on hiatus until I can get my arm under control, I’ve installed Dragon dictation software on my computers and have been having fun training my dragon. J  It’s very helpful. In my insanity, I even attempted NaNoWriMo with it in November and made great progress.  Lost my voice for a couple of days, though, from all that talking. J

Am hopeful that with the dictation software and a good plan, I might actually get back to writing again and release a couple of books this year.

Fingers crossed… J

And to you who may be reading this:  I wish you and yours the best year of your lives for 2016.

Magical Mondays: The Power of Positive Visualization, Part 2

Well, I decided to not go into too much more detail about the last post and risk boring you. So, to cut a long story short: I did reach (and surpass) all those monetary goals that I kept in mind, one after the other.

First $9/hr, then $15/hr, then $64K/yr, and the one after $64k/yr -- $120K/yr -- is now within a few months of my reach should I continue to pursue it.  In fact, I've already crossed that one off my list and moved the next goal into first place, even though technically, I'm not there yet.  It's just that I KNOW I could if I wanted. All I have to do is switch from employee to consultant, which I might do next year.

Keeping goals firmly in mind -- and believing you'll reach them -- really works, folks.

Even for healing, as we can see from the placebo effect.

Definition of Placebo effect

(from http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=31481)_

Placebo effect: Also called the placebo response. A remarkable phenomenon in which a placebo -- a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution -- can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful. Expectation to plays a potent role in the placebo effect. The more a person believes they are going to benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that they will experience a benefit. (highlight and italics mine)

In 2006, I was at work and had sudden, bad chest pain. I went to the ER and they took some images. The first one, on 6/22, showed evidence of a compression fracture. I saw a specialist who looked at the images and agreed. He wanted me to wear a back brace, which I didn't really want to do. When I went to be fitted for the brace, the office I had to go to was closed and it would be a couple of weeks before I go again. 

Over the next two weeks, every single day and several times a day, I strongly visualized my back healing and repeated over and over, "my back is completely healed."  I believed it would work, and was already feeling better by the time I went back for the second set of images on 7/9.

 Below are the results from my own medical record taken 17 days apart.

Of course, people could always come up with alternative explanations for what happened; however, I believed that my back was healthy, and it was. Yet, that's mild compared to what others have been through, and their sheer determination to overcome difficulties.  Morris Goodman comes to mind, and I know there are many others out there as well.

Do you have any stories you'd like to share about the power of positive thinking in your life?

Magical Mondays: The Power of Positive Visualization

In my last blog, I stated that I wanted to share some experiences with you that I felt spoke to the truth of Napoleon Hill’s (and others) assertion that positive visualization and belief in ones' abilities can make a great impact in our lives. But before I get any further into it, I’d like to state that I have NOTHING against working in a factory, nor against accepting aid when needed (you'll see why I say that in just a minute). I’m merely relating some things that were told to me some years ago.


The Conspiring Universe, Part 1

When I filed for divorce from my daughter's father in 1996, I had only a high school education, had been a homemaker for the past 10 years, had no technical skills, and had almost no real work experience to speak of. 

My ex-husband--and even my own lawyer!--advised me not to divorce; they both claimed I would never be able to have more than what I had then, due to my lack of education, being out of the workforce for ten years, and because I’d end up a single mother. The lawyer said I would never remarry (according to him, divorced women in their 30’s never remarry) and that I would either have to work in a factory for the rest of my life or have to go on welfare.

My ex at least had a little more faith in me. He said that if I learned to type, I might get a job making $7.00 an hour working as a secretary (minimum wage at that time was around $5 an hour).  I looked at both of them and thought, "You don't know me."

I made up my mind in that moment to start working at $9.00 hour somehow (in my inexperience, I thought that was a lot of money). And even though I had no idea how I would get there, over the next several weeks I kept picturing myself holding a paycheck with those wages. Once the divorce was final, I applied to a temp agency, and the first job I got was in credit and collections for $9.00 hour.

When that job ended a few months later, I knew $9/hr wasn’t going to be enough to raise a child, and wondered what my next step should be. By “chance” (more about that another time) I found some free classes that offered to help under-employed workers and displaced homemakers. I applied for and was accepted into the classes, and one of the things I had to do for them was listen to tapes on positive visualization.

I was supposed to lie down and meditate every day on what success would look like for me. According to the tapes, I was supposed to "set the dream and grow into it" by writing down a couple of goals that were well beyond my current reach, and work toward them. The first goal was to be a "starter" goal, and the second, an even bigger goal. The idea was that once you reached the first goal, the second goal moved into the first position, and another, larger goal was to be set for the second.

I wrote down my first two things: one, to work as an admin assistant for $15.00 an hour; and two, to somehow, some way, earn $64,000 a year. Mind you, at that time, I still thought $15/hour was a complete impossibility given my lack of education and skills – I still couldn’t even type! 

And the second goal, 64K a year? Ridiculous! I thought I would have to get at least a Master’s degree for that, and I hadn’t the money nor the time to pursue such a goal. However, I did take some of what little money I had and enrolled in a typing class, as well as a basic computer course.

That was the start of what I would remember some years later, when I read the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

Magical Mondays on a Saturday: Napoleon Hill and Encouragement

The past few days I have been listening to recordings from a Napoleon Hill workshop that I found here: http://archive.org/details/Napoleon_Hill_Rare_Recordings. 

What a blast! I love hearing his voice, and those in the audience when they called out the answers. Most importantly, it reaffirmed many beliefs by which I already live my life, formed by personal experience.

In short, that the power of positive belief, a willingness to go above and beyond what is asked of you, and the keeping of a constant, clear image of what you want (and always working toward it) will take you where you want to go. 

Many people throughout history have written and spoken of these things, so the message is not new.  In short, it boils down to faith backed by action. Imagination, determination, and work. Haven't all things created in this world been brought about by those things?

As I listened to the workshop, I was reminded of so many life experiences that I've had which illustrate the truth of his words, and have been sharing some of those with my daughter to encourage her. And over the next few days and weeks, I want to publicly share some of those experiences in the hope that they will encourage others as well. It has certainly been encouraging to me to reflect on them as I start moving in a new direction with my writing and life. 

I'll post the first one on Monday (9/24/12), and hope you'll join in and be encouraged, too. :)