If you begin to face your fears, something bittersweet is going to happen to you: You’ll grow up. You’ll lose your dependency on the grown-ups of the world because you’ll realize that there is no time, no age, at which fear suddenly fades and you become one of these impervious beings…Fear is the raw material from which courage is manufactured. Without it, we wouldn’t even know what it means to be brave.—Martha Beck, Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live

I love Martha Beck’s writing. I love the quotes from her writing even more. They sum up a feeling or thought that I can hold however briefly, in my mind when I’m challenged by panic or fear, which is frequently.

I often get emails from readers who tell me they love the idea of being on the road, living in a van or an RV and doing what I do. But they’re afraid. “What if?” they ask me….what if the van breaks down, or you run out of money, or someone hassles you or robs you? What if? Well, ALL those things could happen to you too, even though you live in a house or apartment. Life happens no matter where we are. And that can be scary. You have a couple of options. You can hunker down behind a locked door, or you can venture forth armed with what you need to experience the world. Either way there’s going to be some fear. It’s up to you if you experience the fear while driving along the ocean and visiting every museum you ever wanted to see since you were a kid, or if you want to stare at the 12 locks on the door of your fortress and watch cable.

You already know which option I picked. And while Martha’s right about facing our fears, unless we face them with the tools we need to deal with them, we’re not really any better off. To slay dragons you need a sword, or at least a really good fire extinguisher. So, in addition to reading Martha, I’m reading Dr. Henry Cloud’s books on boundaries. My most recent is The One-Life Solution: Reclaim Your Personal Life While Achieving Greater Professional Success
(Yes, that’s an affiliate link. Thanks for the support!)

It sounds simplistic and surreal, but I’m convinced it’s true. When you have good boundaries you have all the tools you’ll need to tackle anything in life – especially the scary stuff. All our problems come back to the strength of our boundaries, which includes our choices and our actions and what we’re willing to own, be it behavior or actions or consequences. When you know what you want, what you’ll accept and what you won’t, and how to say no, and how to go after what you want, life changes. You grow up.

Sorry. You’ll have to read the book for details, but it’s definitely worth it. He does such an excellent job of breaking it all down – and that’s why it’s a book. It can’t be summed up in a blog post!

What I love about Cloud is he makes boundaries so easy to understand. And, he does a great job of showing readers how much easier life is when we have them and use them. He uses the example of a house (us) with a yard (our boundaries). We own the yard and we’re responsible for what happens in that yard, or doesn’t happen. The better care we take of that yard – ie. not letting people drive their herd of cows through it, or let their dogs poop on it, or decide that we should plant cactus instead of sunflowers, the happier we’ll be in that yard.

That yard represents our relationships at work, in the world, at home. HOW are you going to let people treat your yard? Are they welcome to come in, sit down and talk, or admire it? Or do you give them free rein to hold beer bashes there?

By acknowledging and accepting that we own our lives, that we decide what to say yes and no to, we can control the level of satisfaction and success we crave in our lives. We have ownership, control, freedom, responsibility, limits and protection when we have boundaries. We can face our fears when we have that dragon slaying weapon – boundaries.

I’m in the process of sculpting my life and my journey right now. I was just in North Carolina this week, interviewing Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller about their Design Revolution Road Show. Fantastic exhibit if you get a chance to see it before it ends. Their itinerary is on the website. Buy the shirt. It’s $10 plus shipping. It’s cool and it supports what they do – humanitarian design. Tell them you read about it here. I don’t get any kickbacks or anything, but they’re tracking how/where people hear about them.

Anyway, I was in North Carolina this week talking to Emily and Matt for an article I’m writing for Airstream Life
and realized how excited I get when I can do this – spread the idea, tell someone’s story or contribute to making lives and the world a better place. I can’t do that when I focus on the fear or let it rule.

So I reread Dr. Cloud’s book and decided today to really focus on what I want to do with my yard. I’ve allowed people, even well-meaning ones, to wander around in without permission, to set up shop without paying rent, to do all kinds of things without any objection from me. I realized that if I want to enjoy my yard, my life, to enjoy my time here, and to live without fear – I need to do this. My guess is, you do too, to some degree or other.

You CAN set boundaries in a healthy, happy way. And you can take back control of your yard (life). Will you? Cloud’s books are available in most libraries, or order a copy of your own. You won’t regret it. The One-Life Solution: Reclaim Your Personal Life While Achieving Greater Professional Success

Fleamarkets. Yardsales. Thrift sales. We’ve all been. And the thing I find fascinating is that with all the experts, all the collectors, all the people with the mind set that, “I might find a real treasure” – that so much treasure goes undiscovered. Not only that, much of what is true treasure goes home with people who hold priceless artifacts in their hands who bought it not out of knowledge, but because “it looked interesting.”

And so that multi-million dollar painting or that rare Ming vase will sit on a shelf, gather dust in an attic or be recycled back to another yardsale…as was the case of a rock quite a few years ago. (I apologize…I’ve searched for the news story but can’t find it to get all the details so I’m relying on memory…)

But the gist of it was a geologist stopped into a flea market and was looking around when he spotted a large rock in a shoebox. The sign said, $5. He told reporters later that his hands shook as he took the money out of his wallet and dug for a $5 bill.

“$5?” he asked the gentleman sweating in the folding chair behind the table.

“Yes,” the man apologized, “I know that’s a lot for a rock, but it’s an unusual rock.”

Unusual indeed. It turned out to be the largest blue sapphire in the world worth more like $5 million dollars. Yet the rock COLLECTOR didn’t know what he had. The GEOLOGIST did.

Somewhere in a small fishing village years ago villagers were angered when a dock worker stopped fisherman from cutting up an unusual catch. The worker, a college student, was working to become a marine biologist, making good money working summers at a fishing dock to earn tuition. He was quick to recognize a squid unloaded by a fishing vessel was one of the rarest and largest of a certain species. He stopped fishermen from chopping it up for fish bait and/or calamari and called a university with a Marine Biology program and saved the creature . To the fishermen it was a week’s pay. To scientists it was a priceless discovery.

Just last year a man had a childhood toy appraised only to find it was a million dollar artifact his archeologist grandfather had given him years ago. It languished in a shoe box under his bed for decades and was probably destined for a flea market as well until a an expert appraised it. Odd isn’t it? That there are so many ordinary things with extraordinary value all around us. And we fail to spot it.

Every day one of us tells ourselves, “I am remarkable. I am different, unique and good. Why doesn’t anyone notice?” Because my friends, we live in a world of rock collectors and dock workers, not geologists and marine biologists.

I have, on the one hand, a client who was thrilled to get my services for $150 an hour today. On the other – another client is screaming that I am charging $50 for a project I committed to months ago out of fear my rent wouldn’t get paid if I didn’t. Rock collector? Geologist? Dock worker or Biologist?

I ask, when we meet people what do we see? The “odd looking rock,” or the uncut sapphire within? We are all clamouring to be remarkable, to be purple, to stand out…but as I wander this country I see cities full of uncut gems, odd rocks, rare squids…. There are the polished garnets who want to be diamonds and the diamonds who think they’re only garnets. There is talent here I wouldn’t recognize if it bit me. I’m no better than the worst rock collector. But I do know to listen to my gut and to trust my intuition and if something or someone seems “interesting,” I go with it. I move in to take a better look.

But it doesn’t matter how remarkable or valuable you or your product/service is if you’re no more than an “interesting rock.” The world, sadly enough, is filled with rock collectors – not geologists. So how do we move beyond that?

If your sense of worth comes from the value the dock workers and the rock collectors place on you…it’s hard to believe you can “do better.”

We too easily dismiss the “odd,” or the “unusual” and go on in search of the cut diamond ourselves, yet we expect others to see our potential. I marvel at these stories every time I read them – stories of discovery but really more stories of rescue. We have a chance to be geologists and Marine biologists by spotting the rareness in each other here. I hope you all take time to stop and really look at the “odd,” or the offbeat or the quiet ones….the “rocks” and squids and what looks for all the world like a battered toy.

A few summers ago I was visiting Maine and stopped in a small campground office. On the walls of the office were posters with crabs and lobsters on them. Not unusual, except there was a big red circle with the universal slash through it to indicate “No Crabs, No Lobsters.” It being Maine and all, I asked the owner about the posters. He laughed.

“Have you ever seen a bucket of crabs or lobsters?” he asked. “If one of them tries to escape the others will see it and pull him back down into the bucket. No one can escape a bad situation because their peers won’t let them. Jealousy. Pure jealousy,” he laughed. “People are the same way. When someone betters themselves, or gets a little bit ahead, they’ll sabotage them, or gossip about them, or do something to pull them back into the bucket. Around here it’s hard to find good staff. When I get a good staffer, one who is good with the campers and gets more tips, it’s inevitable the *crabs* will crab, gossip and slack off to pull them back down to the lowest level. It ruins things for everyone and makes everyone mediocre and afraid to get ahead or improve. So, I don’t allow any crabbing.”

I was impressed. So I tell this story a lot. Then this week I saw this photo and it occurred to me that it looked like the Panda was HELPING his buddy, giving him a push up, even though there was no way he would be able to climb up alone. Considering that Panda’s are also endangered species, I thought, wow. This is a great counterpoint to the crab story. Are you a “Panda,” helping without thought or possibility for your own gain, or are you a crab, pulling down those around you?

I still have to sign the contracts, get my marching orders and the usual stuff you do when you get a new job, but I’ve just become a hired blogger. It looks like I’ll be writing once or twice a week for Change.org’s website on homelessness. I’m joining a great staff, most of whom, I noticed – are from the west coast and upper east coast. There’s one other writer from Northern Virginia (Arlington), but I didn’t see any writers who hail from the south. Whew! All the more topics to choose from!

Being homeless in a rural area is a lot more difficult in many ways than being homeless in a large city. There are fewer resources, fewer cops – but of the police there are – they quickly come to know you’re homeless and are more likely to harass you. Small towns may have one or no shelter system in place. There are fewer resources and more dangers as gangs typically control mid-sized towns like Danville, VA. For those who are comfortable being in the woods, it’s fairly easy to disappear into the vast, forested lands where only hunters trod. Hunting cabins and trailers, sheds and other rough shelters often double as housing for the rural homeless. It’s a rough life – sparse or no public transportation, no shower access.

People in a small town are less likely to be sympathetic to addicts unless they are potential religious converts. Yet they’re more tolerant of the mentally ill. It’s almost impossible to be homeless and go unnoticed, as small town residents notice everything. Since I’ll be on the road soon, I’m looking forward to covering the challenges, news and reality of being homeless in the south. I’ll be posting my stories at Change.org. So please check it out from time to time. I’ll also be writing about van and car dwelling and a range of topics unique to the south. It ought to be fun and interesting.

Rex Williams, a friend of mine, and his daughter and her troop sold Girl Scout Cookies last week. That’s Sydney, Rex’s daughter, in the photo. Prior to the “the big day” several of us in a social media group were talking about ways to make the experience a positive one for all the girls. As we talked what came out of the discussion was the fact that “It’s not about the cookies.” It’s about the girls.

As Rex told the Everett Herald in Washington state:

“It’s not about the cookies,” said Rex Williams, who helped his 7-year-old daughter Sydney sell Thin Mints, Samoas and other cookies at a Mill Creek-area Safeway on Saturday.

“It’s really about teaching young girls self-confidence,” said Williams, a 39-year-old Boeing engineer. “It’s about teaching them how to handle rejection, being polite and showing appreciation. It’s about showing girls the value of money, and respecting the generosity of those who donate their money to help a cause.”

While a lot of parents and some troops focus on the number of boxes sold, which is a reasonable thing to do, since the funds really do help the troops earn money for their various activities, the real pay off is in the difference it makes to the girls themselves. Rex nailed that critical part of cookie sales with his quote. It’s about parents and children, about spending time, teaching self-confidence, raising them to be savvy, polite, informed and confident young women. After all, isn’t that what scouting is about?

It’s not just standing around accosting strangers for a couple hours on a Saturday. It goes deeper than that. It’s about parents being with their kids, having fun, working on something together, sharing the sales and encouraging each other when business is slow. But it’s about teaching confidence – since I’m sure many parents find it hard to stand there asking people to buy cookies too!! But every year the girls do it. Some hate it. Some love it. All learn something about themselves. I hope it’s something positive. You can help make it positive and change a life for the better. Buy a box of cookies. Or several.

When those young voices pipe up and ask you to buy a box of cookies as you’re headed into or out of a grocery store or wherever this week, remember that. You’re not supporting your sugar habit, you’re making a young girl smile. You’re planting the seeds of self-esteem, of confidence, of faith that they can ask for something and get it. Don’t just hand them your money. Say something positive. Say something like, “I’m really impressed that you’re doing this and working so hard.” Or “I liked the way you smiled when you asked me to buy these cookies. You have a great attitude.” They’ll remember THAT longer than the number of boxes you bought. You’ll make a difference. You’ll change a piece of the world for the better. And you’ll walk away with some thin mints or other great cookies too.

These girls are the business leaders and politicians of tomorrow. Remember that. You’re not buying a box of cookies really. You’re buying a future. Think of it that way and I guarantee the cookies will taste even sweeter than you could imagine.

Christopher Scott Emmett was convicted in October 2001 of the April 27, 2001, capital murder and robbery of his co-worker, John Langley, in Danville, Virginia. On November 2, 2001, Emmett was sentenced to death. On May 30, 2007 I received word that I was one of the media selected to view Emmett’s execution on June 13. How does one prepare to view and cope with an execution? This is my journal of that journey. My thoughts about this are not right or wrong, they’re simply mine.

That paragraph was how I started the first ever blog I wrote. For the next year I would follow Emmett’s story, ultimately leaving the newspaper with PTSD before Emmett was finally put to death. During that year I simply wrote about my experience. And from day one, it wasn’t anything like I expected. What follows is the first post to that blog. If you want to read the rest of it, you can go to the blog itself at: http://apublicdeath.blogspot.com. The reason I’m posting it here is I’m about to hit the road again and find people who move me as much as that experience did. I don’t want to be moved in a negative way, although that is a possibility. I do want to be moved to share stories as openly and rawly as I did that one. So it begins:

* * * * * * * *

The first thing you learn on the rescue squad is not to look into the victim’s eyes. It “personalizes” them, makes them human and gets you feeling sorry, sad, mad at the accident and emotionally distracted. Looking into a person’s eyes does a lot of things – and most of all it makes things after that intensely personal – particularly if they’re in crisis. Look between the eyes, look at the forehead, but don’t get caught in their gaze. It’s deadly, you’re told. You can’t do your job if you’re emotionally distraught. It’s nothing personal – and keep it that way. And most do, be they cops, nurses, emergency room personnel or firefighters. They know the dance.

Journalists do the same. Feature writers WANT to look into the eyes. They want to connect. Want to write great feature articles? Spend as much time learning to look honestly and fearlessly into people’s eyes as you do learning to craft a lead. Investigative reporters on the other hand – learn to study their notebooks, to look at their surroundings, to look between their subject’s eyes. They don’t want to see the human side unless it adds to the story. It’s hard to ruin someone’s life no matter how evil they’ve been, if you’ve connected with their eyes. The really good reporters can do that you know. They can look into the eyes, then back out again and do their job. They know the dance.

I learned well – maybe too well, not to look when it might be painful. When I first got the form asking if I wanted to submit my name for selection as a media witness to an execution I said “Yes, of course.” After 22 years as a journalist there aren’t many stories I haven’t done. An execution is one of them. At that point I hadn’t looked into Emmett’s eyes and I sure didn’t plan to.

I was working on the story first. In my mind I was thinking angles and leads and what I would say when I had to brief other reporters outside the prison afterward. I was doing my job. The “briefing others before filing my story,” I was told, was part of being selected. Never, in my entire career as a journalist, have I been told to tell a competitor all I had witnessed before I filed my own story. Now I was being asked to and it ruffled me.

Then Al Tompkins, of Poynter.org responded to my email to him about that and said, “This is not a time to try to play the scoop game. You are about to see a human die – it is more than a newspaper story.”

Indeed it is. And with that, I caught my first glimpse into Christopher Scott Emmett’s eyes.

Before the day was over I would catch another….

If child sexual abuse were like most childhood diseases, the prevalence and consequences of it would lead to telethons to raise money for its cure every weekend. But child sexual abuse is one of the last cultural taboos. With the exception of child-focused personal safety programs, almost nothing is being done to address it.”

The cost of child sexual abuse alone would pay for America’s health care. A 1996 National Institute of Justice study estimated that each year child sexual abuse in America costs the nation $35 billion dollars. Read that again.
$35 BILLION DOLLARS.

* Victims of child sexual abuse generally spend more on psychiatric care and medical services throughout their lives. Some victims of child sexual abuse require more expensive special educational services. Child sexual abuse causes lost potential and productivity. These expenses, which would not be necessary if not for sexual abuse, come from our taxes. Even if you or someone you know wasn’t directly impacted by sexual abuse, you’re paying for the damage these monsters cause.

As I’ve come to terms with the abuse I suffered, I realize just how much pain child molesters cause others and are still causing others. A minister from my former Presbyterian church in Knoxville, TN, molested friends of mine, and is still, I would guess, at age 76, molesting someone somewhere. A Baylor University graduate, he was connected to the University for quite awhile. I don’t know how Baylor could react other than to deny association with him or knowledge of his activities. Yet he was, he told my mother once, associated with Father Flanagan’s Boys Town in San Antonio, TX where he still keeps a house. That’s not unusual for such places to attract child molesters.

Our high schools, churches, scouting programs, any organization that works with youth will attract these molesters. They’re hard to detect as they go out of their way to be *nice* and charming. Unless a child reports them, and only one in ten will, it’s almost impossible to catch them, and harder to convict them.

But how do you go about outing a child molester so other children are not abused? Do you call up their congregation? Knock on their door? Post their name on the internet? Do you pray they meet a big bus on a rainy highway late at night? How do you protect others from these monsters?

Serial child molesters may have as many as 400 victims in their lifetime. At age 76, he may be adding onto his list. I know I once Googled his name and found he officiated at the funeral of a teenage boy who committed suicide. And I wondered….did the boy commit suicide because of him?

As I read an article on Oprah Winfrey’s site tonight about the male victims of child sexual abuse I wondered about his victims. She asks wives, “Is Your husband a victim?” The article is two years old, but still relevant. It makes my heart hurt for all the men who were victimized by this minister and hurt even more for the women who married those men. I ask again….how do you out them? He’s not on the federal sexual offender registry. So he’s never been caught AND convicted…mostly because when he was caught, no one wanted to prosecute him. He worked with a church camp, with youth groups…he babysat…. and he’s still out there. And someone’s son isn’t safe….

He’s been on Oprah, led seminars all over the country and been active and serious about a very serious issue – housing – the third most common cause for homelessness in America next to addiction and mental illness.

To date, Jay’s approach has been to “Pretty much just live my life in a small footprint and hope that my example might inspire others to do the same.”

As we all know, that doesn’t work so much. Not when Television networks like HGTV and the DIY channels keep giving away castles and mansions and glorifying the addition of thousands of square footage to homes for a couple and their dogs.

He’s tired of being a pacifist. GOOD for him.

Jay wrote his followers recently:

“On Wednesday, March 3 at roughly 7:00pm at the Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol, CA. Jay will be taking a somewhat more active approach. Ignite Sebastopol 3 is part of Global Ignite Week. Roughly a dozen speakers from the Bay Area will be given just twenty slides and five minutes each to present their subjects. I will be using my time to rip America’s system of imposed excess a new body part. My distain for the building codes that restrict how small a house can be is no secret. On March 3rd I’ll be making my position all the more clear. All presentations will be recorded and posted for international viewing.

We’re expecting a full house (~130 inside, and others watching the live feed to a screen in the outdoor Beer Garden), so get your tickets early.

I see this as a great way to kick off a period of more active activism in which I will be working to convince the International Code Council that International Residential Code (sections 304.1,2 &3 in particular) needs revision. I don’t expect this to be easy. The road ahead is likely to be a long one for all opposed to size prohibition- one full of marches and demonstrations, possible jail time and the all the fun stuff seemingly integral to social change. I’m already working on my “I Have a Tiny Dream” speech and bracing for the possibility of my own tiny Waco. I hope everyone else out there in favor of housing rights will start thinking about what they can do to help. I will, of course, be using our website to keep folks posted about marches, sit-ins, stand-offs and other fun ways to get involved.”

What Jay is talking about is how building codes and zoning ordinances conspire to prevent sustainable, small foot print homes of 500 square feet and less. Because a county can’t make as much tax on small homes as they can on large ones, they keep increasing the mandatory size of homes. This shuts most Americans out of the American dream of home ownership since most of us can’t afford a half-million dollar, 1,200 square foot home. We CAN afford a 200 to 400 square foot home for $50,000 or less.

I don’t know if he’ll go to jail or not, but the important thing is, he’s willing to, to stand up for a cause he believes in. I think with the economy, the timing is right. I’m behind him 100%. You go Jay!

Viva la Tiny Revolution!

Chances are very good that snowboarder Kevin Pearce, critically injured in a training accident will return to snowboarding. He may even go on to win a Gold medal one day. Pearce, thought to be a possible gold medal winner in the Vancouver Winter Olympics didn’t compete this year. He struck his head in a training run on New Year’s Eve 2009 and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He can’t walk unassisted, has trouble speaking, and has a long recovery ahead of him. But the discipline and drive that made him a world renowned athlete will come into play as he heals. That, and a loving family – brothers and parents who love him, doesn’t hurt either.

“You can’t let the bumps and bruises affect you,” Jeret Peterson said before the 2002 Olympics. “You’re toast if you do.” Peterson should know. Perhaps no one in these Olympics has come further or done more than Peterson to go for Gold. His sister was killed by a drunk driver. His best friend committed suicide in front of him by putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He was sexually molested as a child. And when he had a shot at gold in the 2002 Olympics, but came in seventh with an imperfect landing he went to a bar to burn off his frustrations. A bar fight got him kicked out of the Olympic village in disgrace. He received over 500 pieces of hate mail, retreated into alcoholism, lost all his sponsors and gave up skiing to work at Home Depot. He was left to deal with his demons alone, except for his mother, who was on his side. Most people would have bet against his turning his life around, but here he is – at the 2010 Olympics, sober, stronger, changed.

Olympic Athlete Nicola Coles and others have atrial fibrillation. That’s a serious heart condition that can lead to all sorts of problems. Yet still they compete.

Speed skater J.R. Celski stunned crowds at the 2010 Olympics with a bronze medal. Only five months prior to his win he was bleeding on the ice at the U.S. Trials. A bone deep gash on his left thigh, six inches wide and two inches deep spilled so much blood on the track he thought his career as a skater was over. The blade was still stuck in his leg, and only an inch away from his femoral artery. Doctors would later use 60 stitches to close the gap. He would not return to the ice at all until eight weeks before Olympic competition.

“When I was laying on that ice, I was in defeat at first,” he later told CNN. “I thought my whole career was over. But I guess in those moments is where we truly define ourselves.”

Over the years the best stories to come out of the Olympics, for me anyway, are the stories of the things the athletes overcome and how in spite of death, disease, injury and all kinds of trauma, they manage to focus on their sport, on what they have to do to win, not just to compete.

They compete with bad backs, torn muscles, intense pain. They display an almost inhuman ability to overcome incredible odds. Is it all really just to win? Is it all for a Gold Medal? Or is it for what it represents? Many of those who don’t make the podium are a half-second off the gold medal time. Some days something as simple as a snow flurry, a drop in temperature, a mis-step is all to it takes to turn four years of focus into one moment of failure. Why do they do it? Why does anyone fight to defy the odds, to work through the pain, the fear and the sacrifices to win a medal, start a business, overcome a disability, find a loved one, save a nation or a people (Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King). It’s not for the money. There are easier, safer, saner ways to make money. What motivates us? Or better – what drives us?

I think J.R. Celski said it best:

“When I was laying on that ice, I was in defeat at first. I thought my whole career was over. But I guess in those moments is where we truly define ourselves.”

HOW we define ourselves in the darkest nights, not the brightest days, is who we become. As someone else once said, ”Hard times don’t build character, they reveal it.“

Who are you in the darkest of nights? Who do you want to be? How will you define yourself as you face YOUR demons?

“… not loving and caring for ourselves first, is the fastest path to one of the biggest and most insidious, self-destructive traps we can fall into—-also, seemingly unique to women. Martrydom. I know you know what I’m talking about. So, when’s the last time you loved being around a martyr? All that self-less-ness, all that bending and scraping and flogging in the name of family or friendship—all that heavy sighing, while reporting the latest selfless act—-which, of course, went unnoticed, and totally unappreciated. Martyrs often play see-saw with victims.Learning that loving ME, first….does not make YOU, last. It allows me to create the envelope for all that I hold dear…

4. Self-love creates balance and boundaries.”

I agree with Peggy. It’s NOT selfish to take care of yourself. I am staying home today for instance, having told a friend “No,” to being able to run her to a second doctor’s appointment today. Two hours of my time this morning was all the time I could spare out of my day. I have things I have to get done, and she has other friends who have volunteered to play chauffeur. I feel guilty for not falling on my martyr’s sword, but in time, I’m sure that will pass as I practice taking care of ME first. I have writing to do, projects that are due. If I said yes, and denied my needs, I’d feel resentful. Given the options I have right now, I prefer guilty to resentful!!

So, I agree with Peggy. It’s NOT selfish to love one’s self. When we love ourselves we have more for others because we’ve budgeted our energy, our time, our resources. We’ve made decisions that benefit everyone involved, not just the recipient of our resources. Sound familiar? It should. If you have and practice setting boundaries you’re budgeting your time and energy like you do your money. If you’re not a great money manager, chances are you’re not managing your boundaries well either. Our money, and the way we manage it, reflects how we manage and allocate our emotions as well.

If I have money for instance, I tend to give it away, spend it generously and freely and often without a thought as to how I should spend it to take care of myself. I put everyone else’s financial worries and needs first, usually ahead of my own.

As a result I undercharge and over-deliver to my clients. Good for them, but then I feel resentful, taken advantage of, and get angry. I realize I am broke or am unable to buy the things I need because I have NOT loved myself. I do the same emotionally. I give and do for people, without taking care of my own emotional needs. Those things, to the dismay of those I give so much to, is changing drastically. The point is, as my emotional boundaries tighten, and become healthier, so do my financial ones.

Conversely, I have, and have had, friends who are not only tight-fisted with their money, but are tight-fisted with their emotions as well. They would prefer to be beaten rather than take time out of their day to help someone else if there was nothing in it for them. They are as miserly with their money as they are with their emotions…and yet wonder why they are so lonely.

Yes, there’s a theme beginning to bloom here. It’s all about learning about boundaries, love, loving self above others (not narcissism).

Part of getting out of the holes we dig for ourselves involves taking an honest look at how co-dependent we are, how much of a martyr we enjoy being, or how much of a victim we are. I know, I know. You can already think of someone you know who is a victim, a martyr or a co-dependent who could really USE this post! We all do! But I’m going to ask you to focus on YOU, not all the dysfunctional people in your life who make YOUR life hard. Trust me, when you fix yourself, all those problem people will miraculously disappear!!

I’m never going to have a happy childhood. And guess what? If you didn’t have one, you aren’t going to have one either. If you were abused, betrayed, abandoned, beaten, ignored or set aside so your parent(s) could tend to a terminally ill sibling that’s what you got. It sucks. But that’s what we had. As adults we have two choices about what we can do now. We can wallow in our pain and become a victim, blaming the world or our partner for our loss, and trying to recreate a scenario in which those around us reparent us. Or we can accept our loss, grieve it, pull up our big boy or big girl pants and move on. I choose to move on. I hope you will too.

I’m hoping that because there’s a much bigger chance of us finding happiness in the here and now, than in the past.

One, the cast has changed. The stage has cleared. We’re adults. We have the power, resources and wisdom we didn’t have as children. We don’t have to keep our mouths shut and accept the abuse because we can’t get away from it.

We’re adults. We have options we didn’t have at age five. We can make choices, take responsibility and do what we need to make ourselves happy. That’s what our parents were supposed to do, to prepare us for adulthood and a life of choices, freedom, peace and love. If they didn’t, and many didn’t, then it’s up to us to do it now. We aren’t three, or five or ten, or fourteen or whatever young, awkward, painful age we were when we were traumatized. We may be 20, 30, 45, 50, 60 or 70 years old now, but it’s never too late to let go of an unhappy childhood. You may have to get angry, to grieve what you lost or what you never had. But you can do it.

If you had a happy childhood – one in which the worst thing that happened to you is not getting the toy you wanted in your Happy Meal, but maybe adulthood hasn’t been good to you, the same thing holds true. It’s never too late to let go and choose happiness.

I’m writing a book called “Staying Hungry, Never Settling for What Life Puts On Your Plate.” It’s a how-to book for people who aren’t happy with the cards they’ve been dealt in life – no matter what those cards are. I got a pretty rotten hand, but I’ve seen worse. In 22 years as a journalist I’ve talked to mothers who’ve lost children, children who’ve lost parents, athletes who’ve lost limbs, and more abused, traumatized and battered women than I can remember. The one thing that remains with me are the things they learned or figured out for themselves about how to turn their lives around.

The idea and the name for the book “Staying Hungry,” came from the idea I sent Dan Pink for a contest he held in 2008. Dan wrote a fantastic book called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
He asked his readers to submit their idea for the seventh lesson Johnny Bunko would learn. Of all the submissions he received, mine was one of three final lessons. I actually wrote my own chapter and brilliant and amazing illustrators and graphic artists Martin Whitmore and Meagan Elizabeth Morris gave it life. And we did it all in a week! See for yourself download the ebook here for free. Just click: stayhungry

Readers voted on the submissions, and thanks to Seth Godin’s promotion of the contest, my lesson *won.* I earned an all expense paid trip to TED Global 2009 in Oxford, England. Not only that, I was selected to speak at TED about the year I was homeless. The theme of TED Global 2009 was, “The Essence of Things Not Seen.” My being one of *invisible,* the “working” homeless, my story fit. Does it sound fairy tale? Or “Law of Attraction”? It’s not magic. It’s the result of a combination of what Dan Pink describes in his manga book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need
and my lesson – Staying Hungry, along with the wisdom of others like me who have risen above their beginnings, risen above their tragedy and gone beyond settling for what life has put on their plates. You can change your life too, as millions have done.

I’m going to be sharing a lot of tips and stories of mine, as well as others. I hope you find one, or more, that speaks to you.

He looked up at her and said, ”Why do you hate me?“ She stopped dead in her tracks. I said, ”Wait until he’s 14 and that’s a declarative sentence, not a question!“ She asked him, ”Why do you think I hate you?“ and he said, ”Well, you put this box on top of me.“ He was sitting in the shopping cart with a large empty plastic storage bin (all of half a pound) crowding him in the cart. He didn’t want to walk, so he had, his mother explained, to share the cart with what they were buying. He was too big to fit in the child seat at the handle.

My first response to both these kids was, ”Wow. They’ve got a long, hard life ahead of them.“ The world would be very cruel and hard if they thought they would die over not getting everything they wanted, or had to share a cart because they didn’t want to walk. No small wonder so many teenagers, adults and kids are so depressed, demanding and disgruntled. They’re self-centered, unrealistic and out-of-touch with reality.

When we have a hair trigger response that throws things like wanting a five-dollar toy, or a new t-shirt, or a knick-knack into the realm of ”I’ve gotta have this or I’ll die,” or we equate our laziness and the consequence of having to share a shopping cart with a plastic bin with someone hating us, there’s not really a lot of room for compassion, or generosity for other people. The children aren’t to blame – yet. They’ve learned their insensitivity from parents who are offended, demanding, and unreasonable.

As always, looking at what’s happening around me as a reflection of what’s happening inside me I have to ask myself when I’m being unreasonable, offended and demanding. That *inner child* that pouts when I can’t afford everything I want, or feels hated when I’ve been slighted, doesn’t need spoiling or coddling. She needs love, the kind of love that only I can give myself. When I *get real* about what I really want, or need, then I’m so much less likely to feel, think or believe that “I’ll just die if I don’t get this.”

What is your inner child screaming for? And how are you treating them?

“The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug.”
— Mark Twain

People often ask me if I have a writing group or other resource I turn to my muse falls asleep or goes on vacation. I do. I have several good friends, all writers, that I swap jokes, laughs, tears, curses, ideas and even job openings and photos with. Tom Bentley is one of those dear writer friends. Not only is he hysterically funny, he’s a great writer. He’s also an accomplished writer – winner of awards and all things shiny and impressive. His website: http://www.tombentley.com contains dozens, if not hundreds of his short stories and a list of his clients, past and present.

Tom and I both write for Airstream Magazine, and regularly swap encouragement, tips and humor. If you’re looking for a great writer, check him out. He’s easy going, funny, talented and brilliant. And he has a great tattoo of Mark Twain on one arm….and a million quotes from Twain in his head. For a sample of Tom’s humor, check out his video, “Sexing Chicken Eggs,” below.

“True Life is lived when tiny choices are made. Tiny choices mean tiny changes. But it is only with infinitesimal change, changes so small no one even realizes you’re making them, that you have any hope for transformation” ~ Leo Tolstoy ”

My life totally changed when I realized everything I did, everything I said, or every way I acted was a choice. When I stopped saying, “I have to go to work,” and acknowledged that “I choose to go to work, because I choose eating over not eating, I choose getting paid over not getting paid, I choose being employed over not being employed,” life really did change.

Even if you don’t feel like you have any power, acknowledging that everything you do is a CHOICE, is totally empowering. Why? Because YOU can change your choices. You CAN be in charge of your life. It won’t be easy. But it will be YOUR choice. I choose to live in a van, but I’ve also decided I want an apartment for those times I DON’T want to live in a van. So, I chose to work rather than play because I choose to make enough money to get that apartment. It’s MY CHOICE.

Life is all about trade-offs. You CAN backpack across Europe and live in a tent, or couch surf with friends and strangers, or you can go to school, work a summer job, lay on the beach or live in your parent’s basement while you try to decide if you want to join the military or get a job at McDonalds to pay for your video game addiction. But it’s YOUR choice. When you realize that, you will change your life. Why? Because choices have POWER. They also have consequences. But when you make a conscious choice you pick your consequence. It isn’t seemingly thrust upon you.

When you start making conscious choices, you start considering conscious consequences. It’s easy to believe life just ”happens“ to you when you believe: “I have to go to work, I have to do this, I have to do that and life sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it…if I didn’t have this stupid job I wouldn’t HAVE to do this, or do that….blah blah blah.“

But when you GET IT about choices, you start thinking, ”I choose to work for the next six months so I can save up for a trip to Europe, or a new car, or an apartment. I realize I won’t be able to hang out, sleep in and buy whatever I want for the next six months, but that’s okay because the pay off is, that new car, apartment, trip.“ You LOSE the resentment, the anger, the frustration because you’re truly in control of both actions AND consequences now. Not only will this awareness help you create new habits, but it will also help you lower your stress levels, resist temptation, stick to a plan, quiet that inner rebellious teenager and beat addictions.

It will take time to adjust to the new way of thinking and acting. You won’t get it all at once. Like a muscle, you build up the strength and control with lots of practice. Then, when you’re ready to conquer an addiction – be it alcohol, drugs, sugar, food, sex or work – you’ll be able to CHOOSE alternatives to the temptation. You’ll choose to stop, choose to get help, choose to deal with your emotions, your life.

Choices. They’re beautiful things.

There’s a big push on the internet to give things away – content, music, services. It’s creating a trend where people are beginning to get angry when they’re expected to pay for something…Somewhere along the line the meaning of that old saying that, ”There’s no such thing as a free lunch,“ was lost.

As a writer, artist, and designer I give away a lot of time, information, help and advice. LOVE doing it – most of the time. I say most of the time because a lot of people have made a lot of money from my free advice and services. None of them have come back to offer me payment for my services or hire me at my going rate. Fewer still have passed along the benefit to others for free. So, the idea that *FREE* is a way to generate sales, or change the world doesn’t really work for me. But I still give. I give because I enjoy helping. I give because there are services and causes that I support because I believe in their mission and work. But I’ve stopped giving altogether because I expect something in return. I’ve also started charging for things I used to do for free. I pick and choose who and were I will give my time and services to. I budget that time in as part of my charity work. “FREE,” as I practice it now, is out of true altruism. I expect nothing financial in return. I DO expect that the person/organization who I give to will use my gifts to make the world, or a small part of it, a better place somehow.

There is no shortage of people who want something for nothing, and there is also no shortage of deserving charities and people who will take my offering and, like Jesus and the five loaves and five fishes, turn it into a feast for thousands. I try hard to choose organizations and individuals who have the potential to do that, or have proven that they can and will improve their corner of the world.

However, I’m not giving away things anymore just because people ask, want it or expect it. I’m investing in people who can’t afford me, but who will give back – if not to me, then to the world. And sorry – no, that doesn’t mean helping make you rich if you’re poor now. When my landlord and car dealers start giving me free rent and cars JUST because I *can’t afford it* – we’ll talk.

People, especially the ones who got everything for free then went on to make money from my free help, aren’t very happy with that. I wish those people well as they move on to use and abuse other people in their lives. I won’t miss you.

There’s the chiropractor who charges patients $200 an hour, then calls me to ask my FREE advice and suggestions for promoting his business. He then hires foreign laborers at $2 an hour to write his copy and design his websites based on my input rather than pay me….not cool. That’s just cheap and sleazy. Don’t call again unless you want to pay for my time/advice. I’m in business too.

There’s the struggling young entrepreneur who *can afford* a $5,000 splurge to attend a trade show to ”get ideas,“ but then *can’t* afford my $500 fee for copy writing and designing a brochure that will bring in customers who will PAY to get the product of those ideas. Yes. You CAN afford it. You CHOOSE not to pay a professional for something you think you can get for free just because you friended me on a social media network. Not happening.

I’m all for providing samples, talking about your project and investing some of my time to see if we’re going to be a good fit. I’m not happy about not getting a return on my investment because someone doesn’t value my work enough to pay for it and is just fishing for free content, ideas or ways to implement something. Why, I ask, is my input *good enough* when it’s free, but not when there’s a price tag on it? If you value it, and me, then please don’t demean yourself by wanting something for nothing.

The fact is, ”There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch,“ is true. When I give away a free ebook I expect something in return – I either expect you to act on the ideas in the book and make the world or yourself a better person in some way, or to pass it on to someone who will if you won’t. Or, I expect you to be so wowed by the content you buy other products/books from me. I think that’s pretty true for everyone in business for themselves.

I love helping people, but I expect them to pass on that help, not hoard it. I don’t do what I do to supplement your bank account while depleting mine. I give freely of my time, of my money when I have it, and of my support, energy, emotions and ideas. I ask that you do the same. I’m not opposed to FREE, I just think people don’t grasp the power and purpose of it. I think giving has been commercialized and abused. I choose not to be part of that bastardization of FREE anymore. So, I still give, but I also charge.

I’m asking you to consider why you do things for free, why you charge people, why you help people and how you treat the businesses and people who give you free things. If you’re taking that calendar, or t-shirt, yes, it’s part of their advertising budget. They expect their name and number to be around so you’ll call when you need what they’re selling. They are not supplementing your office budget by providing you free memo pads and pens for the hell of it. FREE? Yes and no.

FREE worries me because like anything not taken or given in moderation, it can become a liability. Give away too much and you end up poor, broke and unable to take care of yourself. Don’t give away anything and you stunt your soul and miss out on the joy of giving. Take advantage of too much free without giving back or reciprocating and you become greedy and selfish and thought poorly of by friends and businesses alike.

FREE is NOT FREE. It is a form of currency, whether emotional, spiritual or karmic. You can’t keep taking without the universe coming around to take some of back. You have to keep the flow going. Volunteer, charge for your services, respect those who charge for theirs. Value people who give freely, but don’t take advantage of them. Send them clients, send them gifts, support, encourage and promote them every chance you can.

Rethink your stance on FREE and ask yourself how you’re valuing yourself and others by how you use FREE in your life.