Here is an example of one of my new Guilt Free Life cards, which will be released in a bound mini-book on July 1, 2009.   It’s a 24-page “feel-gooder” that won’t be horribly expensive, but you can throw it in your purse or car and glance at one of 22 different reminders of how to live guilt free every day.  I will be offering free downloads of the cards here and there so that you can print them out before the book is released.

You can download this one here.

Before I went in to smooth things over, I spoke to my partner, who spilled the beans.

“He told me that he was using the thing that works best on you:  guilt.”

My own son was using all of the lessons I taught him about living a guilt-free life against me.  Here I have spent years teaching others about how to live a life without guilt, and he had jumped the fence and honed my techniques for his own benefit.  Now I’m not releasing myself from blame here, because if I had taken the time to actually confront my own issues and enjoy the time with my son then he never would have had to use guilt against me.

Does anyone use these techniques on you?  It’s up to you to recognize the signs that someone is trying to reach you, and this may have been their last ditch attempt to get through to you.

Let’s say someone breaks into your house while you’re at work. They take your laptop, some jewelry, the money from the jar in your closet. They leave a window broken where they got in, but no one is hurt in the incident. You come home, and find your possessions missing, and a hundred different, NEW, thoughts race through your mind: Are they still here? Are they coming back? What’s this world coming to? Why me?

Suddenly you are a victim, the innocent underdog who never hurt a fly, and you are violated and sullied by the acts of another faceless, ruthless human being.

At least that’s how most people would see it.

Now I know you would feel mad, maybe a little afraid because you hear such horror stories on the news about such things (isn’t that why they broadcast it–to scare the shit out of you so you’re glued to the TV waiting for the outcome?); but what if you weren’t mad at all? Are there really people who could come home to that same house, with its broken glass on the floor, their possessions missing, and the same possibility that the culprits could return; and perceive the loss as one they’ve created themselves?

It’s how you view yourself, that’s all. In Neale Donald Walsch’s Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends, he says:

It is as I said before: If you think that you are a victim, say that you are a victim, and act as if you are a victim, you will experience yourself as a victim in spite of the fact that you are not.

(p.56)

Plain and simply, we create our reality. Here’s the difference:

A victim would relish in fear, anger, desperation and anxiety.
A more self-aware person may feel that it was time for his possessions to move on, or that his low-frequency thoughts had matched those of his perpetrators, and may then immediately choose to change his mental attitude in order to bring it back into a positive balance.

So next time you experience a loss or are at the receiving end of a short deal, ask yourself if it really wasn’t time to realign yourself for something better anyway.

Now this story resulted in several potentially positive consequences:

1)  Patrons, hearing of the generosity of the staff, padded their tips in order to show their support.

2) National broadcasts of the story will no doubt draw in new customers who would like to say that they shared the experience of eating at Mr. B’s

3) The employees themselves have essentially strengthened their ties with their employer, who will remember their loyalty and perhaps be more compassionate should cutbacks be necessary.

It is a great story and a great lesson to us all how giving–and receiving–in this case, pays off for everyone involved.

You can read the full story here if you’re interested.

That day I organized my home office, poured the grains I’d had in bags into the clear plastic containers that had looked so appealing on the shelf at Storables;  I matched up the lone socks in the laundry room, determined how much I lost in the stock market last year; and wrote out to-do lists for my many projects.  In essence, I regained my sanity.

I felt revived, renewed and relieved that the mayhem among which I was living was finally heading towards harmony.  I went into work the next day happy to be there after my break.

Yet early the next week, I got sick for real.  Immediately after I made the call, I began justifying all the reasons I was a slacker–I let down my team, I really wasn’t that sick, I should be there for my customers, and so on.  The guilt I felt was like a deadweight on my only slightly-pounding head.  I was too guilty to sleep, too tired to organize, and too engaged in self-flagellation to bother using my brain for anything productive whatsoever.  I wallowed in my guilt all day, when just days before I had cherished the time I had to myself.  Yet what was the difference between the two days off?

Basically, the difference was my point of view.  Since I rarely called in sick, the initial day off was time for me;  the second, for which I had a justifiable reason to be home, instilled guilt in me because it was so close to the first.  Whose life was I living anyway?  Who were my allegiances to?  Apparently not myself, since my guilt was related to my feeling that I let others down.

It took a day or two to process my reasoning, and afterward I recalculated my priorities (yet again) to put myself, and my sanity, back at the top of the list where it belongs.  My team, my family and my customers will be much happier when I restore my sanity anyway, so next time I feel the need to take a day off, it will be guilt-free one for sure.

Now I’m not being high and mighty here, because in my years, I’ve done exactly the same thing, and yes, it came right back at me later on. The issue here is that she’s my friend and I love her. She, like all of us, had a momentary lapse of reason, and made a mistake. And although I’ve experienced the consequences of my actions, I cannot determine what her experience will be. It’s about keeping my mouth shut and not judging her actions, but rather loving them, for whatever lesson she may learn from it.

Maybe she’ll experience great pain, and then again, maybe she’ll just wake up next week and realize that she should put that incident on her stupid list and move on, and that’ll be it.

It’s the fact that I love her no matter her actions that makes me guilt free.

Along with this book, I was asked to create a weekend-long workshop to deal with loss of any type I choose, whether it be death (which is the subject of my book), divorce (also got experience there!), financial (another nod) or physical possessions (go ahead–guess–yup!). I made a list of different types of loss, and fell asleep with exhaustion somewhere around 33. With all this latitude, I am finding it hard to hone in on a specific subject, or even where to start.

Writer’s block occurs when the white page stares back at you, and although you have a mind full of ideas, nothing comes out right when the type is on the page. Me, I suffer from thinker’s block. The experience is there, yet when I try to materialize it on paper, my head is empty!

If anyone has suggestions as to what they would like to see in a workshop, please feel free to comment.

My definition of Attention: the search for external validation for a person with little to no perceived internal value.

That’s not the Merriam-Webster version, but it does apply to a majority of celebrities, sports figures, artists, and, well, me.

So the other night I was looking forward to a nice dinner out with a few close friends. They were, as usual, interminably late, and Jerry and I sat at the bar, eating appetizers and glancing at the door. In walked party after party, and tables filled quickly, but our friends were nowhere to be seen. One couple walked in, and announced that they were meeting friends here. The concierge pointed us out, and asked if we were the friends they were meeting. With a firm “NOPE” as their eyes swept over us and looked beyond, they were seated at one of the few remaining empty tables.

The trouble is, we have dined with this very couple on several occasions. They had been invited at the last minute by our mutual friends, still nowhere to be seen; and they were as unaware of our intent to be there as we were of theirs. By the time our friends arrived, I was in a foul mood, ready for the check and unwilling to be talked into joining the now large party. Our uninvited guests had ruined my night.

Well, I begrudgingly joined the party, yet sat against the wall at the far end of the table glaring at a baseball game on television. They laughed and ate, barely casting a glance in my direction. My friends were so engulfed in conversation with the other couple that even if I had been so inclined to contribute, I had no knowledge of the people or subjects they discussed. Of course, the service was awful and the entire disastrous meal took nearly two hours.

After an hour of silence on my part, my concerned friends, knowing this was not typical behavior for me, asked if there were anything they could do: Did I feel all right? Did I have a bad day at work? Was I tired?

No, I was simply lacking the attention I was so accustomed to in such situations. And I suffered just as a Vicodin addict suffers from lack of her fix. Was I really that shallow inside, my character so weak, that I feared engaging in conversation with people who couldn’t even remember meeting me? Was their forgetfulness a signal that my flower is fading?

This temper tantrum taught me that sharing the spotlight is a gift, not an obligation. For our validation of significance should be from within; and the growth I experienced that night simply by exposing my weaknesses to the most important judge–me–was well worth the two hours sitting against the wall.

When I told people I was going to Haiti, I received one of two responses:

1. Wow! How lovely! I’m sure you’ll have lots of relaxing time.

2. WHY would you want to go there? That’s not exactly a vacation destination!

The Polyannas in the first group simply lumped Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, in with the rest of the exotic-sounding islands somewhere off the coast of somewhere. The second group had been exposed to recent media horror stories about the kidnapping, rape and murder of visitors and natives alike in Haiti. I really didn’t know what to think, and to be honest about it, I hadn’t done much homework about the country. Although we spoke to his family in Haiti on a daily basis, my connection to the country was limited to hearing endless streams of excited gossip-swapping in Creole.

But one day back in March we were sick of it all in the United States, and sitting by the pool, we decided that we needed a vacation abroad. How we agreed on Haiti escapes me, but I do remember being slightly excited about visiting a new land, and that was good enough to fuel the fire of airline ticket purchasing, calendar marking and submitting for vacation days at work.

Everything was fine for the few months prior to our trip, but the more people I spoke to, the more of the second response of horror I encountered. I had avoided typing those 5 letters in the Google search box for fear of what I’d find, but one night in a weak moment I gave in. Story after story detailed the horrific experiences of Americans, Germans, even Haitians of all ages and status being kidnapped, raped, terrorized and held for ransom by gangs who performed these atrocities purely and simply for the money.

And that started the panic.

So much so that the day before our departure, I had worked myself into a shaking, sweating and hyper-ventilating frenzy at the thought that I could be one of those victims. This was the “vacation” I had chosen–my first vacation in two years–and I was visiting a land where every minute could be my last. Visions of ropes tied around wrists and hot steamy cinder block huts crowded my head, pushing out any thoughts of relaxation like bees smoked from a hive. A mere 24 hours before we were to board the plane, I backed out.

And my loyal boyfriend, remaining by my side always, agreed to change our plans. Yet there was suddenly no where else we could go; all the cruises were booked, last-minute hotels full. Hours of searching revealed no other viable option for our vacation. Reluctantly, I resigned myself to my fate, and prayed like never before.

So we went.

And we’re back. And nothing bad happened.

The people I met were the warmest, most jubilant souls I have met in decades of traveling. They exuded sempiternal pride for their culture despite the unfortunate incidents that occurred in their island paradise. Families ate together and sat around the table for an hour afterward; trips were taken together for the companionship rather than for the safety; and laughter arose from every room with people in it.

I think of what I would have lost had I not taken that chance and swallowed my fear. I never would have had that memorable adventure, and the dozens of newly adopted family members that still ask about me today. And when I compare the kidnapping and murders that occasionally happen in that beautiful land, I wonder if Haitians coming to New York City for the first time might feel that same apprehension. For those things probably occur far more often there than they do in Haiti.

Even within our false sense of safety, most American families don’t bother to share a meal with their loved ones. I wonder which is the paradise and which is the place we should fear?

And those people who gave me the first response? They were the ones who knew that no matter where you go, you can find peace and relaxation anywhere you choose.

In Neale Donald Walsch’s Home with God, there is a passage that rings true to me regarding this situation: that everyone who is aware of a person’s death is affected by it. However I didn’t spend time with him outside of the work environment in which I knew him–in fact, he had left my company months ago. So how could the death of this young man affect me?

An untimely death always reminds us of the preciousness of life; that theme is prevalent in film, books and art in our society. But there is something more…and I wonder if this “accident” wasn’t one at all.

Just think…if we exist in our physical lives to love others, learn lessons—and to help each other learn theirs—then what happens when those tasks are achieved? Did we all learn to read or tie our shoes at the same time? Don’t some others excel at certain skills while others lag behind? Could it be that his tasks were completed in a timely fashion, and he decided to move on?

This belief is not meant to diminish the need for grief. Grieving is a tribute to the sadness we feel at the loss of a loved one. Yet his death, and his life, affected hundreds of people at different levels; and dealing with loss is one of God’s challenges to those of us left behind.

Yet what does his death mean to me?

His death allows me to believe that he chose it–at exactly this time and in this manner–in order to enable us the deeper journey into life’s nuances within our souls. It gives us a reason for introspection about our purpose here, and to show our support to those more impacted by the loss than we.

So farewell, Kevin, and know that your life touched many—both near and far, and it woke up something inside me like a breeze to an ember.