Just had my morning coffee call with my Mom, and the subject  today was her college alma mater.  She was wishing I had gone there, because my life might have been so different. I did attend college, albeit a Midwestern state university rather than a ‘seven sisters’ or other New England college. I really didn’t have a clue what I wanted to study, other than people, and had I known then what I know now I might have pursued psychotherapy.  Back in 1964 the choices were less obvious,  many men went to college just to avoid the draft/Vietnam and I found the whole thing a bit of a directionless limbo, so I left after two years to get on with my life.

This morning, perhaps because of my focus recently on re-writing my mental tapes, I asked her how she thought my life would have been different. It amounted to the fact that she thought it would have been less of a struggle for me. How that would have happened she wasn’t sure, but perhaps I would have married differently, had different friends and acquaintances, and perhaps lived a more charmed life with more of the extras (like amazing vacation destinations, parties, and social events).

My life hasn’t been chock full of those things, for sure.  Would I trade it for a life of more luxury? Never! My life has evolved exactly as it should have and I have few, if any, regrets. All of the struggles have born the best fruit and I probably never would have met the people who have crossed my path had I lived life on a different plain. I probably would still have met fascinating people, but I think I have made a difference in those lives I have touched, as they have made in mine.

I need to remember to cherish the paths my sons’ lives take, enjoying with them the outcome of their struggles,  never denying that they are on the course that God has set out for them. While for some of us, having more money has probably given us more options and opportunities in life, for others it would probably just have been harder to make choices. I am someone who has the most difficult time choosing an entree when the  menu looms large in front of me. Invite me for dinner at your home, however, and I will be thrilled with whatever you serve!  The road I have taken has included people I might never have met in that charmed life I never lived, but  knowing them has made all the difference.

I often find that when something is in the material I am reading, it also starts appearing everywhere I look. I think that is how God affirms a certain direction for me…there is no way I could miss it! This week has been all about changing the thought patterns that have occupied my mind for most of my life. This centers on learning to slow things down and observe with mindfulness the triggers that set off a particular habitual response pattern. By bringing conscious awareness we are able to reprogram our responses.  I have found this fascinating reading.

I have also found similar information popping up as the center of a bible study I had never been to before, and again  as I flipped the channel after the beginning of the press conference to find a 1959 Billy Graham special where he preached the idea of turning our thoughts over to God. It was everywhere this week…heal the mind, heal the heart, change your life.

I have a friend who said her father always says God will never put more on our plates than we can handle. I don’t know about you, but I want to be a member of The Clean Plate Club ( what we called it at our house when we finished everything given us for dinner). I guess the idea of hearing Him say “well done, good and faithful servant” would be the same thing.

I have just switched off the TV because everywhere is the same press conference from the White House dealing with the health care bill no one has read but want to vote on quickly so that things get fixed. I heard a quote from a wise person once who said the five worst  decisions you made in your life were probably made hastily. Looking back, I can see the truth of that in my own life, perhaps places where a little more time, thought and information may have resulted in not necessarily a different decision, but one that was clearer and more conscious of underlying motives, both my own and others.

The sixth time I heard “I just want to be clear about this, Let me be clear about this…” I realized that if it was that obvious to himself that he wasn’t being clear, then the whole thing was basically worthless. When you hear the truth and it hits you as the truth, isn’t it clear? Doesn’t it resound in a place in your heart that simply receives it and “knows” without further explanation? At least that’s how it is for me. The more I hear someone trying to clear something up, the fuzzier it becomes, and after awhile I don’t hear anything but static and tune out.

Too bad, great opportunity to just tell it like it is, and we could probably hear it, clear as a bell. Perhaps the one who is speaking isn’t really clear about it, so he can’t communicate it with clarity? Take time, get more information, think deeply, then it should come through loud and clear. On issues that affect the rest of our lives we need to be clear, not hasty.

Single parenting over the past thirty years has taught me a lot.  Not having ‘Dad’ around to tell one of my sons to just punch the guy out when he was approached by a bully left me to try and figure out a solution to that problem when it arose, one that perhaps ended up with less blood on my towels!

One thing I noticed early on was that when my sons were bullied by some one, they were often taunted with name calling that was unfounded….like “You’re a liar!” This threw them on the defensive and made them angry, often just screaming back “I am not”, which escalated the interaction, often to the point of them just wanting  to hit the other guy to  shut him up. This being basically the response the other person had counted on to goad them into a fight, it worked until we figured out the basis of the problem.

I noticed over time that if they hadn’t been guilty of the taunted name they were called, (in this case, they hadn’t lied),  the bully was in fact giving them the main clue to his own behavior, i.e. that he was a liar. He was in fact lying about the fact that my son had lied. Once my sons knew to look for that as a clue to another’s taunting behavior, they ceased to be drawn into a fight with such a person, seeing right off the bat that they were dealing with a liar made them less likely to worry about what they thought about them anyway! End of conflict, as they walked away with a somewhat smug look on their face.

I find I am often using this same perspective dealing with the vicious attacks that have come upon former presidents and candidates for vice president. There is no reason to enter the fray. No response certainly does not confirm my agreement, as the attacker might hope, but only my acceptance of the clue they may have just revealed about themselves. Enough said.

I think we all need to look deeply into our own behaviors right now and question the truth of anything we are  passing on because it stirs the pot. This pressure cooker is going to explode in our faces if we don’t look for the real basis of our problems and disagreements and find “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” I am not saying I know what that is, but I am willing to look at ALL the evidence , not just that which suits my particular bias. Having more people agree with us doesn’t make something true…..mob rule is not always “just” and many men were hanged who weren’t guilty, only to temporarily prove someone was”right” and had plenty of angry supporters to agree with them. We need to remember that in this time. Truth will eventually surface, but we need to try and assist in finding it without personal prejudice. We are all in this together. One thing I learned from being accountable to my children…if I was going to call someone a name, I had better do some soul searching first and see if it had any home within me before I thrust it accusingly on someone else….

This has been an amazing month… it is a month today since the auto accident that totaled my car. I think it takes a good thirty days to get back on track (providing only minor injuries) with the groove of your life. It is as if you are suffering from a temporary mental fog and have also lost muscle memory. I found that almost every day I forgot where simple things like car keys, cell phone, house keys, purse, had been put down,resulting in my frequently leaving without at least one. I found that driving the car felt like when I was sixteen and in Driver’s Ed…..I had to think carefully about every light, every stop sign. Nothing seemed automatic, and if it did, I immediately questioned its authenticity.

The positive part is, a month later, rental car returned, new(used) car in my driveway, I am back to doing what I do….showing houses and working with customers. I am back to mowing my lawn and complaining about the humidity. I am back to real life and sitting at the computer several hours in the day, and none of these seem as taxing as they did in the past 30 day period. I am certain that I will make up the lost income in some form by the end of the year.

What I learned again is how I hate doing life as a “victim”. I guess that works for some people, and there are those who may feel they have no choice, but we always have a choice! I kept reading books that gave me knew ways of looking at the same situation with a different mindset. A new way of thinking that gave me new ways of acting, within the same circumstance. All I know is that power returned to me and positive things started happening everytime I chose to change the lens I was looking through.

Perspective comes usually as we are looking back on our life at previous events. But when you see that all previous events, even those you felt so negative at the time they happened, always turned out to be used toward your greater good. I think that is true for me and will always be true. So if I can just choose to believe that in any circumstance that arises, it ceases to have a negative hold on me. I can choose to respond to it from that position, and I will make a far better choice, involving a lot less worry and self-defeating energy, and arrive sooner at the perspective I have decided to have.

“Are you sitting down…?” That was how my Broker greeted me on Saturday morning. Saturday not usually being  a “bank day” for anything to do with housing sales, the last thing I expected her to say was “They accepted our short sale offer on your house!”

Wow, what is that about doing your best but then turning the outcome over to your higher power? That is exactly what I have been trying to do this past week. Live in the present, not the past or the future. Try not to worry about things that you don’t know the outcome of (like what if the foreclosure pushes me into bankruptcy?). And allow new data (perhaps they will accept the offer) to penetrate your thoughts, more than the negative ones that keep trying to resurface!

The book I finished last week was a Neale Donald Walsh called When Everything Changes, Change Everything! And I must admit, so far I am liking the results of getting “out of my mind!”

I will keep you posted, but I had a contract accepted and found a car I could afford also this weekend, so I am going to keep trying to stay present and await the positive results. This is such a draining experience in so many ways, that it really does open one up to the possibilities of changing the way you look at everything. More on that subject later….

Being a die-hard cock-eyed optimist, I have felt very beaten up lately by the convergence of so many stress related obstacles showing up in my life. Being an avid self-help book devourer, I have taken to buying the used versions of anything I can find I haven’t already read. Point being….all the ones I have read got me to here and now, but I am overloaded with trying to deal with two pre-foreclosures in my own life, and an almost fatal car accident (but not, thanks to an old Buick that I was driving that took the hit for all six people!…..This, of course, is the vehicle that now has no value and is deemed a total loss by the insurance companies). Needlesstosay, since I was just crossing an intersection at a green light, not expecting a red-light runner, I am having some trouble staying “in the moment” and waiting for the best outcome the insurance companies have to offer!

OK, so back to the new self help books. I am sure they are writing new ones as fast as they can, but I am noticing that since I live in a social niche of persons who have been trying to hold on for dear life to the gains they made that almost brought them into the middle class financially, I am really needing a new kind of support right now. I seem to  need to learn to disregard the obvious and still be able to focus on the possibilities that may emerge as opportunities of this downward economic turn. Also, I will need ‘opportunities’ that require no investment upfront! To even be able to create those thoughts I need positive energy and a certain lightness of being that has been seriously missing from my past few weeks!

I do find I have very little room for the negative energy of those who would give up and cave in to all the possible excuses that are so handy to clutch at right now.  I know that I have to keep bringing myself back to being accountable on so many levels for the life situation in which  I presently find myself. By doing that, however, I am still recognizing the responsibility I have to find my way out of it as well. So, keep those books coming! I actually get a lot of encouragement out of them.

We all struggle with some dark corners, areas of our lives where we feel that we “should” do better, where we are just not making the grade. The problem is often our own judgment of how we are doing. We tend to be our own harshest critics.

Often if we are willing to forgive ourselves for avoiding the situation or conversation we need to have, the rest starts to fall in place rather easily. Big things can often be broken up into smaller pieces. I know this sounds like self-help time management 101, but we rarely apply it.

There is a way out, following one breadcrumb at a time. And often we begin to see how much the other people in our lives are there for us, and how much their support means.

It is amazing how a possibility of a positive outcome can summon up more energy than a negative one does for me. For a moment yesterday, I was in a space to believe that my two homes with short sale contracts were going to sell, and it totally reversed my feelings about impending bankruptcy, and therefore about my future. What contributed to this was my Broker saying she wanted to pay for an appraisal on the home we had just received a good contract on.

We proceeded with that, retained an FHA approved appraiser, and did not offer any info to him as to what the contract intended. He did the appraisal immediately, and when we received it we found it was identical to the offer we had received. The BPO, done by a Broker the bank paid last week, was over $30,000 more than the appraisal! Of course, based on the BPO, the bank would have (and may still reject) the offer on the table. But in terms of my feeling much more empowered to defend my position that I was doing everything I could to obtain a fair market offer, it definitely went much further. If in fact, the bank rejects this offer, and allows the property to drift into foreclosure, I will be able to have a record of the possibilities the bank had to avoid losing so much time and money. Also the neighborhood would have been able to recover much faster, had the bank permitted this sale, or a Deed-in-Lieu.

This mere validation of what I know to be the truth of the market here, has allowed me to go forward with a more positive feeling that the banks are working against their own interests, as well as those of the country, and certainly against the local market and buyers, sellers and Realtors, when they refuse to put a realistic price on these properties at the outset, instead of wasting everyone’s valuable time and money in a three month procrastination which results in loss all the way around.  It did, however, give my Broker and I the assurance that in the world of short sales, this investment may be well worth it if the seller will take it seriously. If not, we will know soon. Either way, I feel better!