On the Move: Autobiography of a Survivor

Wouldn't it be nice to have software that can analyze all your life experiences and provide a report of your soul lessons? And when you "graduate," you become one of many teachers you learned from? I really DO wish software like this exists, but to my knowledge, it doesn't. I am still figuring all that out for myself.

Introducing... my latest book: On the Move: Autobiography of a Survivor.

Book Description

I’m still here. I am a survivor. However, I didn’t realize it during years of experiencing one situation after another with adrenaline rushes that wreaked havoc on my health. Resilience wasn’t in my constitution or my vocabulary. I wandered through life searching relentlessly for meaning and love in all the wrong places through the distorted lens of my false beliefs and programming. While this book is filled with my stories from the past, for the most part, I choose to let them live in my books while I create new, improved stories for my life. Prepare for a wild ride through the roller-coaster of a lifetime.

Preface

I’m still here. I am a survivor. However, I didn’t realize it during years of experiencing one situation after another with adrenaline rushes that wreaked havoc on my health. Resilience wasn’t in my constitution or my vocabulary. I’ve endured and survived childhood abuse, trauma, chronic stress, depression, way too many dysfunctional relationships, date rape, abuse and rape from partners, abortion, walking away from all my possessions, being a single parent, abandonment, car accidents, chronic pain, Epstein-Barr viruses, chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, losing my job, getting on disability, becoming wheelchair dependent, shame, self-loathing, homelessness, un-friendly roommates, slumlords, prescription drug withdrawal, disassociation, and moving 43 times. If life is an education, I’ve obtained a whopper of one. I wandered through life searching relentlessly for meaning and love in all the wrong places through the distorted lens of my false beliefs and programming. I was also a scaredy-cat, so I often up and moved when a situation became uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, in between all the above chaos, life was good. I lived in some very nice places, had mostly great jobs, got to do some traveling, and met a lot of interesting people. At one point I realized I was getting help from the spiritual realm whenever things got too intense.

Just like a parent must allow their children to become independent, solve their own problems, and manage their own lives, it seemed my spiritual helpers were doing the same for me. They didn’t interfere unless they felt it was necessary… or I cried out for help. Perhaps had I had a different type of career (I think of journalism in third world countries and other dangerous places), all my experiences would have been part of the job.

Ultimately, I wanted to do more than just exist like I saw so many other people doing. I wrote poetry, songs, letters, journals, short stories, blog posts, and books. I also kept logs of every job I had, place I lived, man I ‘dated,’ car I owned, and educational course I took.

Meanwhile, I had majored in business in high school and acquired typing, bookkeeping, and secretarial skills. Thus, despite all the chaos, I could always find and keep a job. I was dependable and rarely stayed home when I didn’t feel well, or the stress of a living situation overwhelmed me. When I had to move to an area that had temp agencies, I would get temp assignments which inevitably became full-time, permanent positions. Even though I didn’t go on to college after high school, I often took a class at a local community college, eventually accumulating enough credits to transfer to University of Phoenix and obtained a bachelor’s degree. If a company I worked for offered continuing education, I took advantage of that, too.

While this book is filled with my stories from the past, for the most part, I choose to let them live in my books while I create new, improved stories for my life. I combined content from two books I previously self-published: Appearances: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Love, Life, & God: Getting Past the Pain. Appearances was written by topic vs. chronological order, but the content needed to be modified so it would be compatible with the content of the second book. Thus, I reorganized it all to fit in with a timeline based on the logs I kept.

Linda Roper, the narrator of these two books for Audible, had asked if I considered combining them into one, but at the time, I couldn’t figure out how. Then, when I began to think about getting coaching for speaking as an author, I felt compelled to condense these two books down into one, eliminating the fill-ins such as poetry, song lyrics, quotes, stories about cats, stories about chickens, stories about mice, and more. My goal is to use my stories in speaking but with the focus on the transformation that occurred that made me who I am today.

Chapters 1 through 18 are out of Appearances which I wrote in 1998. In 2013, someone asked me how I ended up in Texas. Since it was a lonnggg story, I sat down and wrote Love, Life, & God. Content from my third memoir titled, Living With Symptomatic Spondylolisthesis: A Personal Survival Guide (2019) is not included. The names of some of the people have been changed to protect their privacy.

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A note on the word meanwhile: I use this word quite often to alert the reader that an event had been taking place in the midst of other events going on in the chapters. This eliminated the challenge of writing events in chronological order by date… which was almost impossible in many circumstances.
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 1. The Beginning

Once upon a time, I was a tiny egg… fertilized by a sperm. I grew… miraculously… into a human being… entering this world on October 29, 1955, the second oldest of six children.

(and the book continues)

Appreciation

In several previous posts, I've written about Gratitude. Appreciation is slightly different. Webster's definition of appreciation is: "a feeling or expression of admiration, approval, or gratitude." If you're like me, having the approval of others has been a major ingredient in your self-esteem. If someone didn't approve of you or your actions, it affected you deeply. Since then, I've learned the only approval anyone needs is from themselves.

Showing appreciation can make a huge difference in relationships between partners, siblings, parents, other relatives, friends, teachers, co-workers, employees, club members, and other associates. Google appreciation in relationships and you'll find a LOT of information. I found in an article by Huffington Post on 5 ways to show appreciation to your partner. I've modified the content to include everyone in your life. Here's the link to the full article if you'd like to read it:

5 Ways to Show Your Appreciation to Your Partner

1) Notice the little things. Show appreciation by saying "Thank You" even for things you may take for granted.

2) Notice the big things. Shower the person with compliments.

3) Support their passions. Offer to do something for them so they have time to pursue a passion as well as encourage them to do so. It's never too late and you're never too old (unless you are in hospice care or on life support). All it takes is consistent baby steps to make progress. Life is a journey, not a destination. Enjoy the journey.

4) Compliment people who are in your life. Find something... anything... to compliment them on. You may have to build trust on this one if in the past, the only time you paid a compliment, it was because you wanted something from the other person.

5) Date your partner... or friend... or sibling... or parent. You get the idea. It means a lot to the other person, especially in a time of internet to actually set a date to meet with someone. If you live long distance, hand-written letters still matter, especially for those of us who save them in a special box. If the internet goes down and the power goes out, you can pass away the time by reading them again.

I subscribe to Katie & Gay Hendricks' emails and many of their content involves restoring relationships through appreciation. Here's their website:

Katie & Gay Hendricks -- Hearts in Harmony

I even go as far as appreciating things.

Try this for 'size': hold a piece of clothing up to your chest before you put it on and after you take it off and say, "I really appreciate you being in my life and keeping me warm" (or cool if it is summer). Admire your shoes and say the same things. If you don't feel this admiration for something you wear, consider donating it.

I've written about The Broken Branch after realizing I was focusing on the one thing (the one broken branch) that I was unhappy with... the spot on my face or the strands of my hair... missing out on the whole of me that made me human as well as the whole of earth that we all live on.

Spend a few minutes every so often looking at each item on your knick-knack shelves, walls, and bookcases. Tell each that you appreciate them coming into form so you can admire their beauty. Do the same for your furniture, plants, and everything else you own. Think about the cat who appreciates a simple shoe box and the toddler who appreciates the wrapping paper more than the gifts.

Whenever you get in your car, tell the car you appreciate it for it transporting you to where you want to go (and sometimes where you don't really want to go). I often say thank you for starting on a frigid cold morning and thank you for keeping me safe. I tell it "you are beautiful" and a very special part of my life.

Yes, one day I learned that all matter is energy and a common thought pattern resulted in the manifestation of everything we have. It feels good to appreciate all that I have, even the silverware I eat with.

At one time, I got through the most difficult days by appreciating all the body parts that were functioning (and didn't hurt) instead of the parts that were 'struggling.' To reflect back on that time, I would have added to tell my body "thank you" for working so efficiently each time I succeeded in urinating, having a bowel movement, swallowing. It is, after all, a miracle we even became a human being from the energy of a single cell. Thank you, heart, for pumping blood all through my body.

What can you appreciate today?

Santa Claus

(Content from this post was included in my book, Appearances: A Journey of Self-Discovery in Chapter 8: Santa Claus. I modified the chapter for Project 4 Toastmaster Speech.)

I was the 2nd born of 6 children. My grandparents on both sides of the family were Russian, Orthodox Jewish immigrants. My mother’s father was a tailor and made clothes. My father’s father started an advertising specialty business.

While my mother stayed home with us, my father worked for his father’s business which didn’t pay very well so when Chanukah came, we got one big present we all had to share. Fortunately, my mother loved crafts, so each year we learned a new craft and made presents for everyone in our family.

In the meantime, everyone I knew in school celebrated Christmas and talked about what Santa Claus brought them. Well, I thought Chanukah was boring! I wanted Christmas! With LOTS of presents, a beautiful big Christmas tree that smelled like evergreen and was decorated with ornaments and colored lights. I wanted decorations on the front lawn… like our neighbor had.

One December, while I was still a little girl, our neighbor asked my mother to paint the details on some reindeer she got for her yard display. Mom did a beautiful job, but would not accept any money—HOWEVER, that year, Santa Claus came.

Santa brought each of us girls our very own baby doll. I didn’t have to share her with ANYone. I played house and made all kinds of houses and furniture out of boxes, cardboard, and fabric.

We all grew up and got busy with our own lives, careers, and families so there was no longer time to be creative. And none of us dated or married anyone Jewish. In 2 separate relationships, the partners I had were often unemployed and had bad credit. They insisted I spend the holidays with their families and I couldn’t go to mine. They also insisted on buying their family members expensive gifts—with MY credit cards. I can’t believe I let them! In spite of the red flags, I even married the 2nd one.

With my life often in a state of chaos, I wished with all my might that there was a real Santa Claus. One day when I was picking up supplies during the holiday season for the service station I was working for, I saw a beautiful stuffed Santa. Back at work, I described it to my boss with childish excitement. When he went to the store the next day, he bought it for me and said Merry Christmas! I don’t think he realized how precious that gift was to me. Santa Claus became a symbol of hope and I kept him out all year long.

My husband not only insisted we spend the holidays with his family, he insisted we move from California to Austin, TX. Most of our stuff, including Santa, went into a storage space in California before we left. We weren’t able to go back that summer and get the stuff out of storage as planned.

As Christmas was approaching, I got homesick and announced I wanted to take a trip to see my family. My husband said NO and replied that I had to choose between him and my family. I chose. I left him in November 1995 and took my son home via Amtrak to visit my family.

During that trip, I drove to the storage locker to get my son’s body-board, my Santa, and a few other things I really missed only to find out that the lock had been changed. Apparently, my husband was afraid that I’d take something of his while he wasn’t there.

My son and I boarded Amtrak Christmas eve to return to Texas. I cried myself to sleep that night on the train. On Christmas morning, Santa Clause came to me again… in a dream. He handed me a small magic sleigh that transported me to many different rooms in a large house. Each room contained one of the goals I had in my life. He said to look! It is all yours! The last room I was taken to was a room full of toys.

There was a little boy sitting in the middle of the toys crying and a little girl standing with a stubborn expression on her face. The little girl was told that she had everything she wanted and needed to make her happy but the boy had nothing but the toys. Why not let the boy have all the toys? When she agreed, I woke up.

Contrary to the way I felt the night before, I was in a state of total and complete joy. I knew that God used the symbol of Santa Claus to give me hope. I realized the little girl was my inner child and that the little boy was my husband’s inner child. With Santa’s promise that every one of my dreams would be fulfilled, I released the despair of losing all my and my son’s things.

When my son and I got back to Texas, I hired a lawyer and filed for divorce with a loan from a friend and gave the whole situation to God to work out. I found Rudolph at a Thrift store and he kept me company, assuring me that Santa would return. At the end of the school year I made arrangements to stay with my older sister, and moved back to California with my son.

Shortly after we arrived, my niece spotted my Rudolph and showed me her Santa. We shared stories about how we ended up with them. The following day, she brought home a Rudolph that matched her Santa and gave them both to me as a gift. She didn’t see my tears. Santa kept showing up to remind me that everything would be OK.

When I felt hopeless that December, I could only see a small part of a much bigger picture. At the time I did not realize I would be returning to California to continue my life. It turned out that I was fortunate our things were still in storage there, for just like we didn’t have the money to bring them to Texas, I would not have had the money to bring it all back home.

My lawyer sent me a letter stating that my soon to be ex would get what was his out of the storage space the following July and turn the key over to me. Since all the furniture had been bought with my credit cards, I was to have the furniture, too. People told me not to trust my ex—but I trusted God, and I knew Santa would be there to supervise.

My son and I celebrated Christmas that July when we were able to get our things out of the storage locker. To this day, Santa Claus is very special to me.

2022 Update. 

I had met a woman named Nancy a few years back at an author event. She asked me if I could produce Grandma's Tales for her. After this was complete, she asked me if I knew any bookkeepers as she and her husband had a nonprofit called Reaching Beyond Words. Early in their lives, they had been missionaries in Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Philippines; however, they felt discouraged when they returned. They met with other people and founded the nonprofit to create sustainable programs. Three of the programs included training widows in business and providing seed money so they could support their families; building a school; building an orphanage. They continue to fund these programs. I took on the task of doing their bookkeeping. 

Nancy noticed I liked doing jigsaw puzzles and brought me one of a Thomas Kinkade 3-story house. I somehow was able to complete this 1,000-piece challenge and decided to hang it on my wall in a frame... because it reminded me of the house in my Santa Claus dream. With Christmas decorations, I placed my small sleigh on the chest below it, a symbol of the sleigh that transported me to the rooms of that house. 

Several months ago, I met a 32-year-old musician and music teacher who inspired me to write songs again and brought hope into my life. I felt a spiritual connection to this old, wise soul who I bonded with via music and conversations. He was playing on Thursday nights at a place called Wool and Vine, so I began to go to listen. After a long period of isolation, it was a good activity for me. The programs I was involved with were online so I was also starving for physical touch, and several of the people there were huggers when we greeted each other.

When someone new comes to visit and asks me about the puzzle art on the wall, I get to retell the above story. Yesterday, December 29, he brought me two more puzzles. In one of many spiritual connection moments, he looked up, saw the painting, and asked if it was a puzzle. Because I just retold the story, I searched my blog for it and decided to update this post. 

And I wonder if this new person is one of Santa's elves aka messengers, sent to give me hope again. I know it is his nature to use his past experiences to give hope to others... and he reminds me to do the same.

Reflections

Life is a journey, not a destination. My personal journey has been about self-discovery and I titled my first memoir, "Appearances: A Journey of Self-Discovery". I titled the sequel, "Love, Life, & God: Getting Past the Pain".

For the last year, I've been listening to a number of personal development seminars, book marketing seminars, and relationship seminars. The common denominator seems to be the necessity of developing self-confidence and self-esteem, areas I've struggled with for most of my life. In the area of relationships, I really wanted to identify the core blocks I knew were still lingering in my subconscious... and the only way to do this was to face them.

Many of my past relationships were abusive ones, and according to Law of Attraction, we attract to us a reflection of how we feel about ourselves. While I have been making strides in self-confidence with exercising, friendships, writing, and music, I became aware that I still was doing some self-loathing for allowing situations with some of the men I've been with to happen, which included rape and molestation. I knew self-loathing had to go, but how?

In listening to about half a dozen dating coaches talk about the issues many women face (and men, too), I kept asking myself, why did I allow those things to happen? 

I contemplated whether energetically, if I disliked myself that much, perhaps the men were doing what they felt they were supposed to do, which was treat me like crap because I believed I was crap. And I couldn't help wonder if I would have been treated the same way had I loved and accepted myself, physical challenges and all. 

I had agreed to doing things I didn't want to do out of the fear of being rejected. I let the resulting injuries linger for way too many years... and emotional baggage gets stored in your muscles. I swallowed a lot of pills to cope with pain in my muscles that I didn't realize were non-physical energetic emotional memories. 

Several years ago, I discovered EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). I did a 20 minute tapping sequence with Carol Tuttle to work through the symtoms of fibromyalgia relating to the car accident I was in when I was 21. A boy I was in love with had just broken up with me and I was devastated. When I was driving home, the fatique of the event along with CFS (after a bout of mono) resulted in my dozing at the wheel and I woke up just in time to see the car I was about to crash into.

In the EFT exercise, I tapped through all the emotions I was experiencing at the time of the car accident which released some of the emotional memory from my muscles. I definitely felt the difference. 

However, I couldn't find any EFT sequences for the other traumatic experiences... and so they lingered... until recently, when one of my sisters told me about Robert Smith's work with people who had been traumatized using a method called Faster EFT (Emotionally Focused Transformations). There are a number of YouTube videos demonstrating how Robert works with people on a variety of topics, including PTSD and rape. I copied the following paragraph from the FasterEFT website:

"FasterEFT is a methodology developed by Robert G. Smith after many years of studying and working with thousands of people. It is a collection of new cutting-edge techniques and processes that integrates the most effective elements of EFT, BSFF, NLP, spiritual understanding, science and the mind’s great ability to transform itself. One of the greatest aspects in FasterEFT is that it is fast, direct and to the point. It has a healthy and logical belief system that is easily accepted. With this great mix of understandings, FasterEFT can quickly transform how you represent your past, shift your emotional disruptions and restore your physical health."

In the meantime, I've been writing Fairy Tales. The most recent one is titled, "Twin Flame". I often experience the magic of spirit (God) talking to me through my fingers while they type on the keyboard. In this tale, an elder tells a soul who is in "heaven", that humans have to live certain life cycles to become mature souls, and we make contracts with other souls before we are born to work out relationship issues. 

And so I wondered... perhaps I had made contracts with the men who had hurt me and they were only doing what I had previously agreed to do. It's definitely time for me to let the pain of the past go and move on to new experiences.

Two Things I Learned About Love

Don't fall in love too fast: I have been reading about false attractions and why men disappear. When we first meet an interesting person, our brains respond to magnetic attraction by releasing chemicals that blind us to reality. Here I thought after all these years that I was stupid for falling for so many wrong guys, but now at least I know I have a normal brain. Your brain lies to you about everything once the love chemicals are triggered, so it is essential that you wait for the euphoria to subside before you decide whether the person you are with is a keeper. For men, this euphoria usually lasts for about 90 days. Suddenly it wears off and he can't remember why he was so attracted to you so he disappears. It is best not to respond to chemistry and take your clothes off for at least 90 days until the chemicals return to normal. I also learned that it is important for you to become the best person you can be on your own (self-love) and have an interesting fulfilling life outside of relationships so you don't become needy or boring, and that a man will respect a woman more if she takes care of herself. It is impossible for a man to provide a woman with everything she needs so if he thinks he can't give you what you need, he will withdraw or disappear. I also learned to make a man prove he is worthy of being your boyfriend before you decide he is. And compliment him on all the things he does right vs. complain about what he does wrong (you're supposed to do this with your children, too). I even learned that by hanging on a guy's every text and waiting for him to call and cancelling plans with friends to meet up with him, you actually energetically repel him. Do as many pleasurable things as you can for yourself (dance, sing, and party) and don't hang on whether he will text or call. And do everything in your power NOT to fantasize about the possibility of him being your Prince just after you meet him. I laugh at this one because I used to do this all the time.

Nerds & Free Spirits: I took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace class where I learned about Nerds & Free Spirits, and how opposites have notoriously attracted each other. The Nerd keeps track of every penny spent and budgets money, while the Free Spirit has no concept of money and as long as there are checks in the checkbook or credit line on a credit card will spend on whatever they decide to spend it on. In relationships and marriages this often proves disastrous. I know for sure my Mom was a Nerd and my father was a Free Spirit. Money was a major source of stress in my family as my father was always buying new things that we could not afford. And I am a Nerd and most of my relationships have been with Free Spirits. At least now I understand why they did what they did without a clue of the consequence. The good news is that if you have survived in one of these relationships for this long, you can still learn to work together and compromise by taking Dave's course together.

Now that I've learned about these two dynamics of love, I no longer beat myself up for all the relationships including marriages that didn't work out. I just didn't know any better. They didn't either. It was more than just growing up in a dysfunctional family environment with parents who didn't know any better. Regardless who your relationships are with (friends, siblings, partners), there is always something new to learn about connecting at a deeper level. First, become aware. Then make a choice. Based on all that I've been reading about EVERYTHING, there is always something else to learn.

What are the most important things you've learned about love? Did this article give you ideas on how you might improve your relationships? How has this post inspired you? Please post your comments below.