Life lesson's for ALL ages

When I was younger my dad wasn't around as much as I would have liked him to be.  I didn't have anyone who really pushed me to do hard things.  I would often find myself taking the easy way out or the path of least resistance.  One major regret I have was giving up on the game of basketball.  I flat out quit!  Growing up in a family of 12 kids, eight of them being boys, I had many opportunities to play sports.  I was an athlete and sports just came naturally to me.  But I also spend countless hours practicing with my brothers.  I spent day in and day out at the school playground shooting hoops, practicing my dribbling skills and more.  My whole life seemed to be centered around basketball.  It was EVERYTHING to me, and I was good at it.  It was the one area in my life where I didn't feel completely worthless.  I struggled with my self esteem which often times was almost debilitating.  But being good at sports is what kept my head above water.  When I got into high school, I played ball my freshman year, but the next year during summer ball I had a varsity player point out something that I was doing wrong.  I thought I knew everything there was to know about basketball, but she proved me wrong.  Something in me changed that day.  I let my PRIDE get in the way!  'Instead of asking her to explain it and teach me a little more, I let my pride get in the way; I quit playing and shut that door.'  As explained in my book...  'I loved that sport so much, that I gave it another shot.  But I threw in the towel again.  I didn't like the way my coach taught.  You see, I didn't like to be yelled at, and my coach like to yell a lot.  I was afraid of getting yelled at if I didn't make my shot.'  So...  long story short is this...  Instead of toughening up my feelings and taking a different approach, I quit.  'And I'll tell you from experience, it's not easy to just forget.  So think again before you quit, you've got to keep on trying.  When things get tough say to yourself "push through it, keep on trying." '

I have learned a lot the past several years and am truly grateful for my husband Chuck who has pushed me to do hard things.  I have tried many new things since being married to him which include snowboarding, dirt biking, snowmobiling, repelling, wake boarding, riding horses and more.  At first I fought it.  I didn't want to do hard things.  I didn't want to get out of my comfort zone.  I was afraid of trying new things and I was afraid of getting hurt.  Have I experience some pain through learning these things?  I have!  But I've gotten back up and I've kept trying. Through the process I've learned so much and grown in many ways.  So.... 'if you're afraid of pain, which a lot of times we are, it will hold you back from trying, and you really won't get far.  Pain is only temporary; it may last a minute or a day.  It may even last a lot longer; it's really hard to say.  But when you push through pain and tell yourself you can do it, a part of you grows stronger and it's easier to get through it.  Pain gets easier to handle, its not as scary anymore.  You come to find it's not as bad as you thought it was before.'  This book "Get back up and keep on trying" is my own personal experience of things that I've learned along the way.  The teachings in this book have helped me become a well rounded person who can face the challenges of life more easily.  I hope that the messages in this book can help you overcome your fears and set backs and help you to experience more of the joys that life has to offer

Growing up, I felt like I was a kind and compassionate person towards others, but didn't quite know how to share that love because of my own insecurities.  I had very low self esteem and would always compare myself to others.  "I am not as pretty as her.  I don't like my nose.  My ears are too small.  I wish my lips were bigger, I don't fit in" ect...  I was never happy with who I was and I always seemed to find something to complain about, especially towards myself.  I realize now that I had a me, me, me attitude.  I was too focused on me and my own problems, rather than looking around at ways I could help lift others. When we focus on our own problems, we often find that they just escalate and get bigger and bigger.  I have found that as we focus on others, our problems seem to disappear.  This has proven to be true through many experiences that I've had in life.  After my husband Darin passed away my 4 kids and I struggled, but to ease our pain we would try and do what Darin did....Serve!  He was a great example when it came to helping others.  This was his answer to many things in life.  As my children and I began to serve our neighbors and help lift their loads, our burdens seemed to lighten as well.  Life became easier to handle and it wasn't as difficult anymore.  As talked about in this book, I truly believe that our inherent nature is to feel joy, love, compassion, and peace.  We are suppose to feel happy!  But too often, we let feelings of anger, sadness and hate get in our way.  'Sometimes we let go because we're simple confused.  Maybe we've been hurt, abandoned, or abused.'  In this book there are suggestions that if applied, can help each of us to forget about our own problems and feel true joy by showing love and kindness to others.

This book, "What Would You Do With A Million Dollars" is a book about GIVING and RECEIVING.  As in all my books, this message is for people of all ages, but can be especially helpful when learned at a young age.  A lot of people have mixed beliefs about money.  In the bible it says "the love of money is the root of all evil."  When we develop the ability to give and to share what we have, we are able to release the excessive attachment we have toward material wealth.  It is the "love" of money or the "excessive attachment" we have that can be traced to most evils and wrongdoings in this world.  I believe strongly in an abundant God and an abundant universe.  I believe that God wants to bless us with not only the things we need, but also the things we want.  And I also believe that He wants us to share what we have.  The minute we start thinking that we are better than someone else because of our money or material wealth, then this is a sign that we are off course.  This is an indication that we are overly attached to the money we've been blessed with.  Once we stop giving and sharing what we have, our life will be negatively impacted in one way or another.  It is simply a law of the universe, that when we give, something always comes back.  In this book you will learn that money is not the only thing that we can give.  We can give service, kindness, love, and even a prayer.  According to Deepak Chopra, "the law of GIVING is very simple: If you want joy, give joy.  If love is what you seek, offer love.  If you crave material affluence, help others become prosperous."  As we learn to give and demonstrate this in our actions, we will see more of those things that we truly desire come into our existence.  And the more SELFLESS we become in our actions towards others, the more deeply we will experience true joy in our lives.

Some of us don't realize or have never been taught the power of our words, especially the two words "I AM".  I grew up not knowing the power behind my thoughts and my words.  Looking back, I was a very negative thinker. I used the "I AM's" but in the wrong way.  I would often say, "I am ugly, I am shy, I don't fit in, No one likes me" ect.  It hasn't been until my adult years that I have finally started to figure out that saying these things will get me absolutely nowhere.  I can't keep telling myself that I am shy, if I want to be able to talk to people, and  I can't keep telling myself that I'm ugly, if I want to feel beautiful.  I wish someone had taught me at a younger age that there is power in my words.  That our words and our thoughts actually become things.  They shape our very existence and bring opportunities into our lives.  Our words either empower or limit us.  If we want success, we need to think and talk about success, not the lack of it.  If we want to be happy, we need to think and speak words of happiness and joy, not the opposite.  A book I read titled "The Power of I Am" by Joel Osteen, has helped me see more clearly the ways I can use the words "I AM" in order to have a more fulfilling and productive life.  It's a book I would recommend to anyone who is struggling with their words and their thoughts.  It will get you thinking.  It has not been an easy task to retrain and re-program my brain to accept better, more positive beliefs.  At first it felt like a lie to say "I am beautiful" or "I am amazing" or "I am just as good as others."  If that's too hard to say at first then start with adding, "I choose to believe that I can be...." " I choose to believe that I can be beautiful."  Then graduate to, "I choose to believe that I am beautiful." And eventually get to where you can say "I am beautiful".  Sometimes we need baby steps to make these changes, especially when our beliefs are so rooted in our subconscious mind.  But the more that you say these positive affirmations, the more they'll start to sink in and eventually these will become your new beliefs.  And once they do, look out, cause this is when miracles start to happen!

I'd like to share my experience of how this book, "The Healing Power of Forgiveness" came about. November 12, 2016 was a monumental day in my life.  Not because of any grand event such as a marriage, birth or graduation.  It was simply the day that I was healed.  When I say healed, let me explain what I am meaning.  Dating all the way back to middle school, I experienced a lot of aches and pains.  So often my knees, hips, legs and other parts of my body would hurt a lot.  I would also experience these sharp chest pains which were very intense.  People would tell me these were just growing pains, but when I never seemed to grow out of them, I figured they were just going to be part of my life.  Through trying different things in my adult years, such as herbal supplements or juice cleanses, I experienced a little bit of relief.  But in 2010 my pains started getting bad; worse than i'd ever had before.  One day I experienced a chest pain that lasted nearly an hour.  Up until this time, the longest I had experienced one was 20 minutes.  So after this intense episode, I decided to make a phone call.  I called a natural doctor whom I had heard good things about.  I am one to seek natural methods first, and then medical profession if that doesn't work.  I scheduled and appointment and after doing some testing, the doctor told me that I had an allergy to wheat and gluten.  He said that it was attacking my joints and causing inflammation in my lungs and throughout my entire body.  He told me I needed to avoid gluten at all costs.  How was I going to do this?  It seemed like wheat or gluten was in EVERYTHING!  But I gave it a try, which lasted only a couple weeks..  I started making up excuses.  Especially the one where I convinced myself that it couldn't be the wheat causing my problems, cause wheat is suppose to be the "staff of life."  So I gave in and continued eating wheat and gluten and didn't give it another thought.  A few months passed however and my pains got worse and worse.  I had a shoulder/upper back pain that was almost unbearable at times, my hips and knees caused excruciating pain to where I would sometimes scream out as I slept. It was time for some intervention.  I decided to call a professional doctor and see what he thought.  After talking with him, he ordered an MRI scan to get a better look. As I sat in his office waiting for the results, a very clear thought came to my mind, almost as if someone had been standing there speaking.  The thought was simple and to the point.  It said..."It's the wheat."  Moments later the doctor came in with my results.  He said to me..."I don't know what's wrong with you.  There's nothing showing up on these scans."  

From that day on I avoided wheat and gluten at all costs.  And within about a month my aches and pains started clearing up.  Three months into it I felt like a new person.  I no longer had any aches and pains.  Occasionally I would cheat, and immediately, almost within seconds, I would start having severe chest pains.  I probably needed this immediate consequence to keep me going on the right path.  One day, November 12th, 2016 to be exact, we were coming home from our son's state football tournament, a five hour trip.  We stopped at a restaurant and I must have eaten something that contained some sort of wheat or gluten unknowingly.  Immediately, my chest pains hit.  I had to breath very shallow to keep the pain from being too intense.  For some reason, this attack was worse than any other I had ever experienced.  It lasted the whole trip home and then some.  I'd learned from some of my studies that our bodies are designed to heal themselves, but sometimes we have buried emotions that get in the way.  I knew there were some things that happened to me as a child and that again contributed to some of my own personal mistakes as a teenager, but I thought that I had forgiven and gotten past that.  But because I was willing to try anything at that moment to experience some relief, I just laid by my fireplace with a blanket and pillow and said..."I Forgive, I Forgive, I Forgive".  I said this over and over for hours.  The pain was still there.  It was time for bed, so as I laid in bed I repeated for another couple of hours until  finally falling asleep, "I Forgive, I Forgive, I Forgive."  I remember waking up a few different times through the night and the pain still being there.  I continued, "I Forgive, I Forgive, I Forgive."  I probably said those words at least 10,000 times.  But by morning a miracle had happened.  The pain was gone, finally!  That was not the miracle though.  I didn't realize the miracle until a couple days later.  I was driving in my car and another clear impression came to my mind just as it had in the doctors office.  It said, "You can eat wheat."  It took me off guard, especially since I had just experienced that intense chest pain that lasted through the day and night.  So I ignored the thought.  But it came again....."you can eat wheat."  After working up enough courage to give it a try I grabbed a little bag of cheese ritz crackers that one of the kids had left in the car.  I took a bite and then waited.  No chest pains.  I took another bite and then another.  Nothing.  This was weird.  Usually the pains would come within seconds of eating wheat.  I ate the whole snack size package and nothing.  I couldn't believe it.  I remember the next thing I ate was a Kit Kat candy bar. (That used to be my favorite many years ago.)  No pains after eating that either.  This was amazing!!  It was truly a miracle.  A few days after this happened I woke up one morning and all of these thoughts started coming to my mind about this book.  I ended up writing "The Healing Power of Forgiveness" in just a couple of hours.  This book has been sitting in my notes for the last few years and now I have decided to share it with the world in hopes that these things can help others as it has me. It's been almost 4 years now since I started eating wheat and gluten again and none of my aches and pains have returned.  I feel better now at the age of 43, than I did most of my life.  I truly am a believer in the healing power of forgiveness.  I encourage you to read through this book, think of all the things that people have done to hurt you, or all the stupid things you yourself have done, and choose to forgive.  Forgive, forgive, forgive.  There is true healing that comes when we forgive!