Where is the love?

I have never felt that my family represents the love that so many people talk about. It just wasn't/isn't there. Remembering those old family sitcoms and how caring and supportive everyone was of each other makes me laugh. My family is more like the soap opera generation. It could be called "to each his/her own".

One day before I leave earth I sure would like to know what love feels like. The closest I have come is what I feel for my pre-teen grandson. A little child shall lead them comes to mind, so maybe there is hope for my family yet!

Our latest family tribulation is the fact that my oldest son, who is the only one of my three grown children who still speaks to me, is finding it necessary to move back home. He has no money and no job prospects and will be pretty much starting over; a sad state of affairs for someone past 50. The only family member who is willing to help him is of course, me.

Again, I find this laughable. Why is it the person least equipped to help is often the only one willing to do so? It reminds me of the quote, "if you need something done in a hurry ask the busiest person you know to do it".

My second son owns his own business and travels all over the country, my married daughter and her husband both have full time jobs, my ex-husband lives alone and because of his past life choices is in poor health and paying unforseen medical bills. None of them are willing or able to help.

I'm looking at myself and my life since July 1999 when I became single after 27 years tied to the wrong man and I am thinking- you've done great keep it up. Maybe all this family needs is a positive role model and someday they will learn what love is all about.

There is always hope!

Materializing thoughts

I was aware that changes were about to come into my life, but the details were a bit foggy. I have been having thoughts lately about being sick of eating alone every night. It doesn't pay to eat out because I am still eating alone and the meal costs more than if I had stayed home. I am not looking for a husband. I did that for 40 years and have no desire to do it again- ever! I like taking care of myself and I have become very good at that job. It would be nice to have someone in my house besides my animals to talk to. My house and property are way too big for just me and is getting more difficult to care for with each passing year.

Apparently my recent thoughts have attracted the attention of universal energy. Yesterday my oldest son sent me an email that will address some of these issues in an interesting manner. The information wasn't totally unexpected, but it certainly will cause some changes in my everyday life.

Shortly after Obama took office my son, who is a Sgt.Major in the Army Reserve, was forced out of his job. I won't go into the details, but it was partly because he was about to retire and the Army didn't want to pay up. Now he has to wait until he is age 60 to get his retirement pay. He is now 53. Anyway, three years of trying to find a job, even working as a civilian in Kuwait for a year, equals no money, using up his savings and finally having to give up his house. I'm sure you know what his email asked.

To make a long story shorter, I will very soon be making room for a room mate of sorts. I see it as yet another lesson in control, just when I thought I was finished with that! Perhaps it is a test?

Any new situation has pros and cons and this one is no exception. It will give me a chance to see if I really have learned the difference between offering help and taking over the life of another. The most important thought I will have to keep in my mind is that I need to put myself and my needs before that of anyone else. Readers will just have to stay tuned in to see how this turns out.

Another view

In my post yesterday I shared a memory of an out of body experience I viewed with my heart rather than with my eyes. This excerpt from my unpublished manuscript, Journey of an Enlightened Egotist, describes it:

"Remember me father? When I was six you snatched me from an operating room, right under the nose of the surgeon who was attempting to save my life. He was not aware that at that moment my life was not totally in his hands. I felt loved and protected."

My current life has also given me other memories, not of this lifetime, to help my soul/spirit evolve. These memories are viewed with human eyes because they were human experiences. It is my pleasure to share the following excerpts from the same manuscript:

"An important step on my journey was to accept the concept of reincarnation. Living changes people and who you are today is partly the result of who you were yesterday. Each new experience creates drops of enlightenment on a quest to know the perfect soul you were created to be.

Over time three of my past lives were revealed to help me understand the how and why of me and use the knowledge to evolve my soul. In the first life I was a medieval horse that carried a reluctant knight into many battles. I was killed when the swift blade of an opposing knight's lance slashed open my belly from top to bottom. It perfectly matches two surgery scars I have in this life.

In the second life I was a widowed mother whose life centered around two sons. I drowned while trying to help one of them avoid participation in the military. The third offered my life as a young girl raised by my father because my mother died soon after childbirth. I grew up too fast, assuming adult responsibilities too soon. My sudden death and that of my father were the result of an avalanche."

There have been times when I thought my memories of past lives were a figment of my imagination, but no more. The view I have through my human eyes is as real today as when they happened.

Through these eyes

A couple of nights ago I saw the movie Heaven is for Real. Since then a bunch of personal memories and questions have been stirred up. The movie is a true story of a four year old boy who believes he went to heaven during his surgery.

Although I liked the movie and the little boy is adorable, I question what he saw on his journey. What bothers me the most is my belief that when our life as a human is over our soul returns to where it came from. The body, clothes etc. stay here. The boy saw his deceased relatives as clothed humans, although younger than when they left earth.

This morning as the result of reading a friend's Facebook post sharing among other things that he had died twice in his life, I sent him a message and asked what he saw in the other realm. Without hesitation he answered me. He explained that first of all he didn't see his experience through his human eyes. He did not feel dead; rather he felt universal love and peace and was one with everyone and everything. He said the souls he encountered did not have bodies.

The reason I asked the question of my friend is because I have a memory of what I thought was a near death experience, which occured during surgery as a child. I have never been able to see a clear picture of myself (what I was wearing etc.) or the entity who was talking to me at the time. Now I know why. I was trying to see a spiritual experience with human eyes. This also confirmed for me that my experience really did happen. It was just mislabeled.

I now believe I had what is called an out of body experience rather than a near death experience. As far as I know my heart never stopped beating. I also believe either my creator, an assigned guide or possibly an angel scooped me up to temporarily protect me from the trauma of my surgery.

I find it interesting that both my friend and I were silently given the choice of staying or returning to earth. Perhaps this is what happened to the little boy in the movie. We all made the same decision to come back to our assigned lives and use our human eyes to see.

Maybe I Am invisible after all

According to the Future Foundation Family Center website I was a recreational aide during the school year 2013-2014. Actually I was a part time babysitter for kids who had no better place to be after school. Most were pretty decent kids and I formed some positive relationships with them. The job also gave me an opportunity to bond with my own grandson on a daily basis and observe how he interacts with his peers and adults.

Some of the students were extremely disrespectful and caused me to feel that I wasn't being paid enough. It made me wonder if they had any dicipline at home. When I first started my job a seasoned employee commented, "You just need to keep them from killing each other." I thought he was kidding and later found out he wasn't!

Working at Futures changed my mind about the way it is run. The Administrative Director does not follow through with promises and decisions she makes and tends to believe the kids rather than staff when there is a conflict. Toward the end of my experience I felt as though I was invisible and staff who are not old enough to do so, run the facility.

Although I am grateful for the added income for nine months, I am even more grateful that school is out and my job ended yesterday. My employer, who I also thought was a friend, didn't even take the time to say goodbye to me. It looks as if it wasn't my imagination that I feel I had become invisible.

So I have a weird sense of humor

Yesterday I wrote that everything has humor if you look deep enough. Somehow I just don't think the lessons the universe provides are meant to bring us down. They are meant to lift us up. I know I read or heard somewhere in my past that if you can reach the point of seeing the humor you have learned the lesson. I pretty much believe that.

Some of you know that I have been taking photos for some time of spirits who no longer live a human life. I don't invite them, they just appear. With the exception of a couple I have no idea who the images are. I just know it is my job to share the photos to offer proof that we simply never die.

Thinking about humor in the universal lessons I have been given caused me to remember a photo I have of my deceased mother. She was a very controlling person and it took me years to survive her method of mothering. Her negative energy filtered down to my own children. I know now that there were reasons I was unaware of that influenced her behavior.

Back to humor and the spirit photos...

I am going to share two photos and let you be the judge of who they are. The first is a very old photo of my mother taken before I was born or she was married. Focus on her face.

Now then the following is a spirit photo I took several years ago.

It's a little hard to still carry anger at my controlling mother when I have been given a spirit photo of her as a cone head!

As I said I have a weird sense of humor, but it works for me!

When in doubt ask questions

Several years ago I was asked by a female aquaintance, "What do you do?" Before I could come up with an answer a man who thought he had all the answers to life's questions piped up, "She asks questions."

That experience clearly came back to me this morning when I found a FB quote attributed to philospher Bertrand Russell (1892-1970). "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubt."

I had already been thinking about a number of people that have been deleated from my life in recent years. The one thing they all had in common was that they were very controlling souls who thought they had all the answers. You know the kind; my way or no way. Some of these people were so fanatic about their beliefs that they attempted to live my life for me. Some even went so far as to instruct me in how I should react to life's little lessons. There were one or two or possibly three who had no clue why I had reached my limit with their actions and pushed them away.

In going deeper into this subject I realized that I had attracted these controlling individuals because I was at the time just like them. I once believed my way of thinking was the only way.

This situation smells a little like karma to me, assuming karma smells.

I have found that everything has humor if one looks for it. Today I clearly see that these lost souls are exactly where they were when we parted and I am not. I no longer need to be in charge of anyone but myself. I am unable to speak for them.

There is a big difference between offering information and insisting that others follow. Growth is an individual mission and everyone walks their very own path. I believe we are all eventually going to the same place and information we have gathered when we get there is a matter of asking the right questions and learning from the answers.

So you want a muse?

For many years I have been conscious of the fact that I have a muse, otherwise known to me as a writing guide. Together we have written some amazing stuff that I could not have created alone.

In 2010 I gave my muse, whom I call Richard, a vacation. Perhaps I figured I had learned enough and no longer needed the partnership. I had finished, I thought, my third book, Journey of an Enlightened Egotist and my son helped me offer it as an E-book. It sat on Amazon.com for a long time until the day I decided enough of that and removed the document from the site. Now I am contemplating the next step.

Before I released Richard he devised a rather unique method of letting me know he was still around. Often when I am using "word" he will cause the overtype to go on to get my atention. It messes up what I am typing and I have to stop. His brand of humor was rather annoying until I finally realized who it was and why it was happening. Now I just smile to myself and acknowledge his presence.

At one point in my writing someone suggested my muse was God. Perhaps he was right as our Creator's energy exists in every living thing.

For anyone interested, I believe the best way to connect with a muse/guide is to let go of control and be open to the guidance that is being offered. In my opinion it also helps to reach inside and write from the heart. Good luck with that my friend.

Happy Mother's Day

Wow it would be nice to hear those words from one of my three grown children and four grandchildren! Oh well, maybe next year! In the meantime I am just going to relax and let the world take care of its self. Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Remember to take a breath before leaping

If you have been following along you know that my part time job will end on the last day of school, 10 days from now. At first I was excited that my responsibilities will soon be over. Although there are many good memories there are also some not so good ones. It has been yet another lesson for me in control and patience.

Back in 2010 when I finished a short stint as a Foster Grandparent for the school district I vowed that I had no further desire to control or be controlled by anyone else. So much for vowing. Last August I was right back in the same situation, making sure kids followed rules that had been set up for them by adults. The only difference is that I was better paid for this job. I also had to deal with other staff members who falsely thought they were in charge of me.

In the past week or so I have found two part time jobs on a web site that I could probably obtain with little effort. One is in marketing at a local grocery store and the other is as an activity assistant at our local nursing home.

Without taking the time to allow myself to breathe and contemplate the time off that I have earned I applied online for the first job. Everything was going well until I got to the send part and it wouldn't send, informing me there were errors in the form. I checked it over, couldn't find anything wrong and tried to send it again. It wouldn't budge. I pretty much assumed I just wasn't supposed to have that job.

A couple of days later the second job for an activity assistant popped up on the same site. I made sure my resume etc. was up to date and filled out their online form. The same thing happened. It wouldn't send and again informed me there were errors. Seriously!

Knowing the HR Director personally, I went to the nursing home intending to fill out a hard copy of the form. Guess what? She is on vacation in Alaska and won't be back until Monday.

Now to get to the point of this post which is, quite possibly I need to take a breath before leaping into another situation.

This experience reminds me of a move I made back in 1972. After obtaining a divorce from husband #1, I immediatly wed husband #2. We were also divorced in 1999. Perhaps if I had allowed myself time to take a breath before leaping my life might have had a different outcome.

Although, if I had not wed husband #2 my 3rd child would not be.

On this day

On this day May 7, 2014 I finally realized what I am supposed to do with all the words I have written over the last 14 or so years. I also clearly see why my previously published works really didn't sell well. They weren't supposed to! All that work was waiting for a sibling that hadn't been written or even lived yet- until now.

I thought I was going to have the summer free to do nothing- wrong!

My project will be editing, editing, editing and writing a final chapter to the book I have been compiling for years.

There are a handful of souls whom I now believe have known for some time that this day would come. At least two of them are no doubt included in those souls that Mitch Albom referred to in his popular book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The first is a man who came into my life in 1999. Thomas Brito was a hypnotist who helped me put an end to a long standing nicotine addiction. He also helped me begin to rid my life of other negative addictions that gradually changed my life. The words I remember best are, "Do you ever read what you have written?"

Next is the husband of a friend, Frank Merrick, who one day after reading some work I had written, told his wife, "I wish Barbara would write a big book."

And last, but not least is a sometimes VERY annoying online friend, John Shivell, who among other suggestions said, "Check your archives."

Interesting isn't it that they are all men?!

So,on this day or very soon I will be spending my time on a project with the working title, My Life: All Together Now.