Susan Mary Malone's Blog: Happiness is a Story, page 28

THE ART OF FORGIVING ME 3 Basic Steps

Isn’t this just the toughest part?  It is for me, anyhow.  I can forgive (ultimately, although some take longer than others) folks way easier than I can find that for myself.  I truly do ascribe to the theory that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick.

But it all comes down to self-forgiveness in the end. 

 

And when I make some bone-head move (which I’m quite prone to doing!  Just ask my friends :), I can sure beat myself up about it.

 

Just went through that this week.  One of my girls has had a tough time, over a long course of repro things, and oh, how I’ve beat myself up about choices I’ve made and turns in the road.  I should have gone left when I went right.  You know the drill.

 

And while I think some of that can be helpful for next time (and man, did I ever “get” that part!), at some point (with me at least) I descend into pure self-flagellation.  Which doesn’t do one danged bit of good, and actually obfuscates my thinking.

 

I’m really fond of the Maya Angelou theory in these cases, whether about myself or when forgiving one another, that when you know better, you’ll do better.  And I don’t believe this is a defense, but rather, as Dr. Angelou did, that people are basically good.  That we’re all trying, and sometimes miss the mark (which is the actual definition of sin), but inherently, we want to do the right thing.

 

Unless you’re a sociopath to begin with, of course.  But that’s a different issue!  And I don’t think you’d be reading me anyhow.

 

In my process for forgiving others I fall back on what Mother Theresa said—that all issues I have with another aren’t about that person and me.  It is, rather, between me and God.  That I’m the one with the problem here.  And once I clear out my own mote, the other’s part looks quite different indeed.

 

Which circles back to forgiving me. So, my big self says to my little self: “What was your actual part in this?” 

 

And once I dissect that, I can go to step two: Dissecting why I did what I did.

 

And quite often I find that I did the best I could, made the best decisions I could, based on the data at hand.  Who knew.

 

Finally, I can then get to step 3: Atonement. Which isn’t, in my world view at least!  about beating myself with a stick, or professing how sorry I am, or any of that insanity. So often we beg forgiveness not to make the other person feel better, but rather to make ourselves feel better.

 

Instead, atonement is about digging down to find my part, acknowledging it, and that requisite last step—doing it differently next time.

 

Because atoning means nothing if I go do the same thing again. 

 

Besides, who has time?  I make enough mistakes that if I keep making the same ones, I’ll be old or dead by the time I do the correct things.  And frankly, I don’t know about you, but I have a lot more important things to be doing.  The opportunity for mistakes abound!  LOL.

 

Yep, I made mistakes with my girl.  Some of which I had a nagging about while in process.  Some I learned down the road.  But, learn I did.  When this problem, at least rears its head again, I have a positive pathway to follow out of it.  Whew!

 

So, how do you forgive yourself?

 

 

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THINK POSITIVE JUST FOR TODAY

So all those statistics listed before about how optimism does work to enhance our lives weigh solid on my mind. What it mainly does is pierce my excuses with Hunger-Games’ like arrows.  Because not only do I know that when I’m being negative I’m attracting more crap, but also that I’m leaving the benefits of the power of positive thinking on the cutting-room floor.

And that doesn’t make me happy!  I mean, life’s gonna throw enough stuff at everyone that it’s pretty bone-headed to not take advantage of the positive wrenches in my toolbox.

 

You know, it’s funny—I don’t have to get very far off my spiritual/psychological path for things to start falling smooth apart.  I’ll look up and absolutely nothing is working right and irritation will assail me and finally I’ll realize, um, when exactly was the last time I meditated?  The last time I consumed spiritual food?

 

I love the works of David Hawkins, MD, whose Power vs. Force changed my life.  In any number of ways.  A life member of the American Psychiatric Association, he relinquished his extensive practice for a life of research in kinesiology.  He talks about that just by reading or listening to material that calibrates at a high energy-level, yours is also raised.

 

And I like higher energy.  It makes me happy.  And I like to be happy J

 

And since I know how to get there, my excuses hold no power—unless I let them.

 

Anytime I dig my holes really deep (which oh, can I excel at!), once I realize what I’m doing, the first step is of course to stop digging.  That’s translates to negating that energy, so the positive has a place to live.  And once I stop burying myself, I can turn another way and go forward.

 

I used to really beat myself up about this.   I mean—I know what negative thinking does in my life.  What a bone-head am I!

 

But that at least I’ve pretty much quit doing.  Nothing is more fruitless.  I’m not saying that guilt in itself is bad.  I mean, if you kill someone out of spite (in any number of ways) and guilt doesn’t at least rear its pointy head a bit, you have no conscience.  But I’m talking more about self-shame.  You know, where you take a misstep and then get out the whip for self-flagellation, which results only in bloodying up your shoulders and you have that to heal as well.

 

Instead, I do consciously turn that other cheek. Resistance may arise (those old tapes have been playing a long time), but I go right back to what I know works in my life, right back to meditation, right back to finding that power of positive thinking, right back to affirmations that change my consciousness, if only for the time.

 

And I’m quite 12-step about it, the old one-day-at-a-time thing.  The ‘just for today, I’m going to think positive.’  Tomorrow, well, tomorrow can take care of its own danged self.  I have enough to keep me busy this day!

 

As Dr. Hawkins says, “To seek enlightenment is to seek entrainment to the most powerful attractor patterns.  The key, again, is will, a constantly repeated act of choice.” 

 

I can do that!  And, it works for me.   As Dr. Hawkins continually point out, it works whether you’re consciously aware of it or not.  “A persistent willingness is the trigger that activates a new attractor field and allows one to begin to leave the old.”  

 

How do you stay positive?

 

 

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3 INDICATORS OF HAPPINESS IN THE MAKING

Life is so full of insanity.  As my mamaw used to say, “Ain’t it though.”  She believed in tornadoes and storm cellars, staying clear of cattle with horns.  Life on a farm in west Texas!  But I digress.

Especially, though, insanity seems to reign during this time of year, when we’re all running around like lunatics, shocked at how quickly the holidays came upon us, frenzying.  And man, can I ever frenzy!

 

Do you ever get in one of those places where you’re so crazy, you don’t even enjoy the holiday season? You make sure everyone around you does.  Well, if you’re a woman, that is.  Men tend to coast along, saying things such as, “When do we eat?”  That truly is the way to a man’s heart.  A little sex, a little respect, a sammich or two . . .

 

But I digress.

 

This time of year, though, I know that following my spiritual/psychological program (if true, they’re the same thing) is an absolute must.  If I don’t, there are so many holes I fall into that the road ahead looks simply pockmarked.  But if I keep up with my walk, as the 5 Stages of Recovery say, I finally walk down a different road.

 

But again, I digress!

 

Do we see a pattern here?  LOL.  No wonder it’s so difficult to keep me on a positive path.  That’s like Zig Ziglar says though, “Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.”

 

So then what happens, when I’m dedicated to my path, indicators pop up out of nowhere.

 

3 Things Happen to prove Happiness is occurring, even if I didn’t notice it:

 

1). I find myself smiling.  Out of nowhere.  All of a sudden I notice it, but by then it’s been going on a while!  And frequently.

 

2). I see beauty in mundane things.  I’ve always sort of thought this is why people see Jesus’s face in pancakes.  I mean, have four people look at the same cloud formation and they’ll describe four entirely different pictures.  And I’m not pooh-poohing folks who believe Jesus is speaking to them, in any way.  But rather my point is that the world is, indeed, the way we see it.  And when happiness is bubbling up, the things we look at change (a quantum physics fact!). I see the circle of life in even the tragic.  Rather than, All is lost!  LOL.

 

3). My energy level stays up, even at the end of a 12-hour work day.  I feel light, tired but in that “good tired” way.  As opposed to being spent and panting at the end of a similar one.

 

I think it’s the smiling though.  My dad, a psychiatrist, always said that it takes less energy to smile than to frown.  (I think I frowned a lot as a kid.  LOL.)  He said this was scientifically proven, and when I went to research this, all I could find was how many muscles it took to do either.  Which isn’t the same as energy.  I mean, it takes a lot less energy to flex a bicep than a hamstring.

 

But mainly, all I know is smiling makes me happy, and happiness makes me smile.  And then I see beauty.  As the poet John Keats said:

“Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,–that is all

          Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

 

How does happiness take you unawares?

 

 

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THOUGHT STOPPING: 4 STEPS TO OVERCOMING THE NEGATIVE

So we have all those 50,000 thoughts running through our heads every day, and we know we want to at least make use of them!  I mean, if they’re going to be there anyway (which they are), they may as well be helping to achieve our goals, rather than sabotaging them.  Right?

So, merrily down the yellow bricks we skip, singing our positive affirmations as we go.  What could possibly go wrong?

 

I don’t know what the heck it is—some sort of Universal quirk—but all you have to do is commit to something, and all hell rises up to meet you.  And the demons from there are never positive.  And the funny thing is, this has happened since the dawn of humankind.

 

We know this because from the most ancient myths, these plot points play out.  Just about the time the hero finally commits to his quest (that would be you, on the positive path), he starts to encounter trials and tribulations.

 

In our present quest, those come right back at us with the negative side of things.  No need to even give voice to all of those, as I’m sure they popped right into your mind.  I’d as soon take a gun and shoot them, but that just causes them to disperse into about a thousand shards, all of which return as future demons.

 

So, how to stop negative thoughts?

 

A few steps help me:

 

Acknowledge them. Whenever I try and just push them aside, or deny them, I swear they get stronger.  These little asses need a voice.  They’re the conflicts within me anyway (the good and evil of myths), so I may as well let them come out.

 

See if they have any merit. Now, this isn’t a two-month therapy question, but rather a two-minute internal discussion.  For example: You’ve decided to proclaim yourself a genius (a great thing to do!  As Yogi Berra said, “We’re all born geniuses; life just de-geniuses us”).  And that little voice comes right up and says, “You don’t know squat.”  If it says exactly that, we’ll deal with it in the next step.  But if it says, “You mighta been had you studied X,” which revolves around whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.  If that’s the case and you see the merit, go sign up for X!

 

Confront them. Once I’ve ascertained that this is a little demon thought, rather than an angel trying to further my progress, I look that voice in the eye (I do live in an imaginal world!) and say, “I hear you.  And you might be right.  We’ll discuss it later, as right now I have a scene to write . . . “  Not often do I hear from that same ratty demon again.  His brother, maybe  . . .

 

Turn straight back onto that yellow-brick road of positive thinking. Get right back on that horse that bucked you off.  Or any other platitude you want to insert here I. e., whatever works for you.  But just go back to the goal, eye on the prize.

 

And yep, as with anything learned, at first you have to employ tons of determination and persistence.  I mean, how many decades do you have of negative thinking?  Those old tapes don’t just turn off with one day of focusing on the positive.  Well, okay, for some folks they do—I’ve actually seen that happen.  But that’s not my way (maybe I need to change that thought?  LOL).

 

Yep, you’re gonna slip.  God knows I do.  But self-flagellation just sets me back.

 

I love this quote by financial-guru Robert Kiyosaki, “The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.”

 

So, how do you handle those pesky negative devils?

 

 

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AFFIRMATIONS WORK EITHER WAY

A long time ago, I started visualizing goals. Not just the finish line, but each step of the way. Top athletes do this all the time—visualizing each stride, stroke, leap on their way to competition.

And what we know now through neurolinguistic studies, is that this programming actually works. Because the subconscious mind (which governs the vast majority of us and truly is in control) can’t tell the difference in actual reality, and what you feed it as truth.

 

In other words, what you believe to be true, is true. At least for you. So if you tell yourself you’re brilliant, the fastest, wealthy, whatever, your subconscious mind acts on that. And it directs you in ways 180-degree different from if you fed it the opposite.

 

Isn’t it just wonderful when science proves spiritual tenants? Always tweaks me 

 

So often folks tell me, “Thinking positive doesn’t work.” Or, “That’s just a trick to make yourself feel better.”

 

If you believe that, then it is true. But since we know how the subconscious works (scientifically), why not choose the thought that will at least head you toward your goal?

 

Affirmations, then, work either way. Our brains produce as many as 50,000 thoughts per day (National Science Foundation).  Ninety-five percent of these thoughts are repeated daily and reflect the mindset or beliefs we hold that lead to those 50,000 thoughts.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of those are the same ones, and often negative thoughts prevail. So, unbeknownst to you, often you’re basically meditating on the negative throughout your day. Over and over and over again.

 

A positive affirmation may then have a wee bit of trouble taking hold, as your conscious mind at this point is going, “No way! That doesn’t work! This is a trick!” –just as people say every day.

 

So, it takes a bit of mental work to focus on the positive. Okay, so maybe more than a bit! Decades of stinkin’ thinkin’ can sure produce a log-jam between you and your goals. But as with anything, if you commit to the goal, you keep your eye there even when you stumble.

 

Or, as one of my favorite characters in literature said, “Your car goes where your eyes go.” –Enzo, The Art of Racing in the Rain.\

 

Leave it to the dog to catch the Zen!

 

Some people are just born optimistic. You know them, don’tcha? I do. I, myself, was not! It’s been a learned trait. But what we know is that it can be learned, and folks who focus on the positive are more successful than those who don’t (back to the athletes!).

 

World renowned positive psychologist Martin Seligman says, “Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.” (Check out his book, Learned Optimism, for more amazingness on this topic.)

 

As this became more and more apparent to me, I had to decide whether I wanted to succeed or fail. Isn’t that the crux of it? If I know, based on science (and I’m pretty much a skeptic—I want the proof before I dive headlong into something) that a principle works—either way—then it’s up to me to choose.

 

I’m so not perfect. I do descend into the negative, especially in the face of perceived failure, especially when it seemed out of my hands. But what I now know for true is that whether to stay there or focus back on my goal is my choice. And that at the end of the day, I have to answer to me.

 

So, for today, my car is going where my eyes go.

 

What have you experienced with affirmations?

 

 

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SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED TO SAY NO

Easier said than done, no?  I think that’s one of the most difficult things I ever learned.  And we all know why.

Women, especially, are programmed to say yes.  Especially to a request from others.  You want me to take your son to school?  Of course.  You want me to carry you across this river?  Sure.  You want me to put my career on the back burner for yours?  Hm . . .

 

But we acquiesce in subtle ways.  I might not have verbally agreed to the last one, but I’ve done it.

 

In our family anyway, with a dad who was a Freudian psychiatrist, a woman’s place was in the home—emotionally (and every other way) supporting her man, raising their children.   I knew early on that wasn’t the life I wanted.  My mom did a superb job—and loved it.  And unlike most of her peers of that era (coming of age in the ‘40s), she had a very successful career before marrying my dad and having babies.  She was head charge nurse on the pediatric ward at John Sealy teaching hospital in Galveston Texas.

 

And gave it all up, as women had to then, to have her family.  She never regretted it—not once.  Raising children was her greatest passion, and greatest joy.

 

From my dad’s perspective, all women should feel that way (gotta love the Freud!). 

 

And I felt pressure, overt and covert, to live that life.  Those who subscribe to that theory truly believe that a woman’s fulfillment comes from having and raising babies.  And I’m absolutely certain that’s fabulously fulfilling—if it’s the life you choose.

 

But it took me through my thirties to be able to finally say, out loud, without demurring, to the question of having children, “No.”

 

Why was that so hard to say?  I’d never wanted children.  I adore my nieces and nephews (and now my grand nephew!).  I love little kids.  I’ve taught reams of them how to swim and ride horses.  Kids flock to me.  And bring me such joy.

 

But I knew early on where my passion true lay—in stories.  In creating fiction about what makes us tick; about the essence of our lives.

 

Oh, I know so many writers do both!  And successfully.  But I had this sense that I couldn’t.  That while writing I’d be worried about children, and while tending them, feel the lure from the sirens of fiction.

 

Yet and still, with this knowing so deep, it was tough to say no out loud (even though I knew it clearly) to all the various requests, admonitions, out-and-out criticisms, and what seemed like a revolving door of opportunities to have babies.

 

I’ve had other pronounced opportunities to put my career on the back burner for various boyfriends (and a husband as well).  And at times, have done so.

 

But by far the most difficult one to say no to, in the actual analysis, has been myself.  The old tapes of “You need to make a living.”  “Writing is a frivolous activity, in the end.  Time to grow up and be a professional X.”  “Nobody actually eats off their writing.”  I could go on, ad nauseum!

 

And that’s the crux for all of us—if we didn’t have that acquiescing part of ourselves deep inside, saying no to whatever would be a snap.  

 

So, what do I do to tame that internal beast?  I have a simple mantra:  “Yes, you’re probably right.  I hear you.  And we’ll attend to your concerns in a bit.  But at this very instant I have a scene to write. So, talk to you soon.”

 

And by the time I’m done with said scene, that voice is nowhere to be heard.  It just wanted its say, after all J

 

How do you say No?

 

 

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THIS WOMAN IN HISTORY CHANGED OUR WORLD

Especially if you’re a woman.  But she changed it for everyone, man, woman, child.

It’s so difficult, even in 2014, to imagine that in my grandmothers’ day, and even around the time my mother was born, women in this country couldn’t vote.  They could not vote.  It’s such a shocking idea that I have to repeat it to even try and grasp it.

 

That means more than no voice in government.  Women were completely dependent on men, in almost all ways.  A woman couldn’t own property without a man’s co-signature.  That car you drive?  Better get Daddy to sign for it.

 

My mother was around then?  This was just a generation away from me?  I mean, the implications to our lives . . .

 

In the 1910s and for the better part of the last century, Alice Paul campaigned tirelessly for women’s rights.  Paul was the main leader and strategist, who along with Lucy Burns and others fought for the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits gender discrimination as per the right to vote.

 

They fought tirelessly, organizing, marching, and as often happens with activists, were jailed for months in inhumane conditions.  The amendment finally passed in 1920.

 

But that wasn’t all she did.  After the passage, Paul and the National Women’s Party fought for the Equal Rights Amendment,  which would secure constitutional rights and equality for all women.  And even though it received 35 of the 38 necessary state ratifications, that bill hasn’t passed to this day.

 

Think it doesn’t matter to you?   Women’s earnings were 78.3 percent of men’s in 2013, according to the Census statistics. 

 

But if Paul and her crew hadn’t fought so hard for the right to vote, all of this would be moot.

 

It’s funny how subversive some groups can be, and more chilling, how effective, in shaping people’s minds.  Feminism has become a four-letter word, and most young women shy far away from it.  Now it denotes a man-hater, a radical communist, or any litany of negative appellations. 

 

I am neither, and I’m a Feminist to the core.  Because it means what it’s always meant, in truth—someone who hearkens to fairness between the sexes.  That my work is as valuable as a man’s (and yes, we still see this inequality in publishing), dollar for dollar.

 

In 2004, a group of us attended the March for Women’s Lives in DC.  Over one million of us marched.  And contrary to what some religious organizations labeled us, we were not radical communists, we didn’t burn our bras, we weren’t out there with knives trying to castrate men.

 

These were your daughters, your sisters, your mothers, your grandmothers.  Many of whom remembered the horrors before Roe v. Wade.  Our group consisted of me, my teenage niece, my close friend and her teenage daughter, and my minister.  Yup, my minister. 

 

As the radicals on the right continue to paint us as abortion crazed, that’s of course not what this march was about.  That’s not what a Woman’s Right to Choose is about.  It’s not about being pro- or anti- abortion.  It’s about ensuring that reproductive freedom is guaranteed in law as a fundamental right.

 

In other words, ensuring that a woman has the jurisdiction over her own body.   Period.

 

And it all came back to our right to vote.  Finally.

 

Before that march, we attended a rally with the late Texas Governor Ann Richards, along with Attorney Sara Weddington, the lawyer in the Roe v. Wade case, and the delightfully acerbic Molly Ivins.  Sara said one of the reasons she got into activist law, was that once she had graduated from law school, mind you, and tried to buy a house in 1960s Austin, by law she couldn’t borrow the money without a male relative’s signature.  This was in the sixties!   I was alive then!

 

It all does still trail back to Alice Paul.  A great film on the endeavors of those historical women, Iron Jawed Angels is still available.

 

It changed my life.  Will it change yours?

 

 

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GIVE A HUG AND GET A SEROTONIN RUSH

I’m a hugger. Everyone who knows me will tell you this! And not just a namby-pamby little hug, but full body, like I mean it 

 

I always knew I got an emotional lift from doing so, and now I know why. Scientific proof abounds! But then, some things are just intuitive.

 

It’s also a way I say, “You’re important to me.” Otherwise, why would I be in your company?

 

Because you know, my friends and family are important to me. I care about what’s happening in their lives, and want to hear and see and yes, touch what’s going on with them.

 

And so often, I feel a person relax in my arms. There might be tension at first touch, perhaps even stiffness from the stresses of the day, to which we all succumb. Life can be joyous and filled with happiness, and at the same time (or not!) difficult and even painful. It’s that human interaction that gets us through, even if we’re just irritated from crazy traffic and drivers.

 

Hugs also raise oxytocin levels—the bonding hormone. The surge in that causes us to feel better, to feel connected. To feel part of the human race or at least part of our tribe. And since from the dawn of womankind we lived in tribes, feeling as though we belong makes us believe that all is right in our world. At least for the time. Elevated oxytocin alleviates feelings of loneliness, isolation, and anger. I’m in!

 

And holding a hug for a bit lifts serotonin levels. Who knew! Serotonin, the feel-good hormone (and the one in anti-depressants). I love the idea of a natural remedy to elevate mood and create happiness. Plus, it doesn’t cause you to gain weight like drugs do. Talk about win-win!

 

 

I’m a big fan of family therapist Virginia Satir’s work. Satir believed that our personal and professional satisfaction had at their foundation, relationships. Now, I have known some very successful folks who didn’t believe or act on this principle, and the funny thing is, they were never that happy. In fact, the athletes I know who are like this continue to relive their glory days, over and over—even if those were forty years ago. And by now, no one else really cares . . .

 

Ahead of her time, Satir presented the novel idea that the “presenting issue” or “surface problem” wasn’t the real problem. Rather, people’s reaction to, and coping with the issue, was what created the problem. We talk a lot about this in What’s Wrong with My Family? And How to Live Your Best Life Anyway. In fact, that’s the cornerstone of our theme. So, no wonder I love Satir 

 

But mainly I love her because Satir’s encompassed body of work fell under the umbrella of “Becoming More Fully Human.” Now, that’s a goal I can strive for!

 

And she talked about hugs. A lot. And how much we need them, saying, “We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. We need twelve hugs a day for growth.”

 

Wow! I need to up my hugging. A new goal! Gotta keep those serotonin levels rising 

 

How many hugs a day do you give?

 

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THE BOOK THAT CHANGED ME

You know, it’s tough to narrow down to one.  All great books change me.  In some way or another.  That’s a great book’s job—to show a new insight, a way of seeing that you’d missed before, to cause you to think and wonder and consider possibilities on far distant shores.

Like you, I’ve had that experience since childhood, immersed in stories of Ladd A Dog, of The Black Stallion series, of Bugle: Dog of the North.  Okay, so there is a pattern here!  When other kids were reading Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins, et al, I lived in books with animals as the protagonists.  Well, some folks would say the people in some of my favs were the heroes, but the animals always were for me.

 

Which continues of course to today.  One of my very favorites of late is The Art of Racing in the Rain, which is told from Enzo the dog’s viewpoint.  But when the going gets treacherous, I can hear his mantra: “The car goes where the eyes go.”  Doesn’t that just simplify things?  Leave it to a Labrador to distill wisdom down to one piece of Zen.

 

A children’s book I found in adulthood (actually, it was recommended to me by a teacher when I’d come to talk with her writing class) is Love That Dog.  Yes, another dog narrator, but this one is about writing and life and death and, well, you get the picture.  What a great book for kids.  Just brilliance.

 

I’ve loved so many books, and they’ve made me ponder and wonder and transported me to galaxies far far away.  As I bet they have for you!

 

But if pressed to narrow it down to one, a book that changed me as a person, a reader, and a writer, everyone who knows me could guess the answer.  It’s a book that should be read by every person on the planet (the movie version doesn’t count, even though it was actually well done.  Who knew!).

 

One day I was browsing through Taylor’s Book Store on Camp Bowie Blvd.  Lord but I miss that store!  It’s gone the way of most brick-and-mortar bookstores these days.  Sadly.  I had one of my first and wonderful book signing there with my debut novel, By the Book, and sold enough copies that the book stayed on the local best-seller list for weeks.  What fun that was!  (link to that page on my website)

 

But anyway, one day I was browsing and I saw this book with the cover facing of a river meandering below mountains, so of course, being a mountain lover, I picked it up and perused.

 

Right inside was a piece from the story that said in Montana, beer drinking isn’t considered drinking.

 

I was in.

 

I’d never heard of the book or the author (nor had anyone I knew back then as I gushed and gushed about the book later—truly five people on the planet had read it).  But that never gives me pause.  Many of the great books I’ve read no one had heard of at the time.

 

A slim novella, I finished it the night I got back to the farm (where I spent some of the happiest years of my life, poor to the bone but writing and reading and building fence and tending cows to put food on the table.  As Campbell would say, I had found my bliss).

 

The sweet story devastated me.  I plugged in so closely to the family tragic loss, ours having suffered a similar one.  I’ve read the book oh-so-many times, and I still joke that when I really want to break my heart, I read it again.

 

But it was the intense living of life that got me.  The prose, which I aspire to ‘til this day, and most likely always will.  The immense emotion evoked through such spare writing.  The boiling down to its essence what this life and family is all about.

 

I’m still, obviously and to this day, not good at explaining why this book changed me so.  But one day, my main goal in this life—from then until now—is to write something so beautiful before I die.  Although I had begun penning fiction long before finding this story, this is why I write.

 

Almost all of it still filters through me often, and as I type this my eyes are filled with the words.  Perhaps my favorite passage in all of literature goes like this:

 

“Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.  The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops.  Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

“I am haunted by waters.”   —

A River Runs Through It, by Norma Maclean

 

 

 

 

 

The post THE BOOK THAT CHANGED ME appeared first on Susan Mary Malone.

MAKE A GOOD CHOICE TODAY

Ah, the holidays are upon us!  I’ve finally gotten away from stressing over shopping and presents (as my friends and family can attest!), and spend the holiday time enjoying folks. And eating.  Lots of eating.  Which makes me happy

Most of the time, I avoid sugar.  But this is the free-pass season.  And my very fav is the fudge Beth Clark makes.  Oh, it’s melt-in-your-mouth smooth and creamy and rich.  It’s also ruined me for any other fudge on the planet.  We made a deal, Beth and I, a year back.  She and Dave took home one of my loves, the fabulous Luna Labrador, and the trade was her Christmas fudge for life.  Which makes us all happy

 

Of course looming right after all these holidays comes New Year’s, with her litany of resolutions, most of which I always believe stems from the holiday indulgences.  I mean, I’m not alone in O’Ding on sugar during this time, and a host of other consumption that is better left in bits and dribbles rather than whole-pie gluttony.  So, we feel a tad guilty once the parties are all over, and those jeans, well, just put them in the back of the closet for now.

 

And guilt does funny things.  It causes angst.  And angst doesn’t make me happy so I avoid that part at all costs.  But angst causes those proclamations of, “I’ll never eat sugar again!” Kinda the Scarlet O’Hara vow, in reverse.  

 

I’m not immune to them, and at one point in life was actually serious when saying such things.  Even though I’ve learned they’re silly, they still arise like old dragging tapes in my head.

 

But I do know that once you’ve made said proclamation, set out with the best of intentions, ate carrots and celery for a week, your body now starving and pissed off, you fall off that wagon as if the wheel broke.

 

And then you get angry, berating yourself.  All those old negative words come flooding in.

 

Which then makes you feel guilty again.  And the cycle continues.

 

I’m a big fan of recovery groups.  I was a grateful Al-Anon (for friends and family of alcoholics) for many years.  Yep, gotta love those alcoholics!  But I still bless the one who got me there.

 

We all learn through different ways, and that was one of my ways.  And no matter how trite it sounds, the old saying works: Take it one day at a time.

 

It works when I’m writing a novel (otherwise I’d simply sit down with a glass of wine and forget it).  It works when training dogs (they’ll sure keep you in the moment).  And it works when that pesky old sugar calls my name from the cabinet. (Horrors!  Thought I tossed that out!).

 

But now when I leap off that wagon, I shrug it off rather than beat myself with a stick.  Because I can make a different choice.  Not tomorrow, but today.  If I have a piece of chocolate, I can pat myself on the back for the anti-oxidants, and leave it at that.  Today, this very day, I can make a good choice.  Even if the one an hour ago was not-so-stellar.  

 

Because I believe as author Jack Canfield states:

“By taking the time to stop and appreciate who you are and what you’ve achieved – and perhaps learned through a few mistakes, stumbles and losses – you actually can enhance everything about you. Self-acknowledgment and appreciation are what give you the insights and awareness to move forward toward higher goals and accomplishments.”

 

How do you deal with mistakes to make a better choice today?

 

 

 

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