It is Halloween 2015 and it got me to thinking it is the only day we don’t mind being tormented or afraid. I actually find it amazing that we dedicate a day to scare the living daylight out of ourselves!

So I know Halloween is all fun and ghosts but seriously “What skeleton are you still hiding in your closet that is keeping you from moving forward?” Talk to me. I would love to hear.  Leave me a comment or contact me through the contact me sign up form.

Time to clean that closet out!

Have you ever worried about being accepted, fitting in, or being rejected?  Have you morphed yourself into someone or something else entirely for a chance to be seen and to be applauded?  Do you measure yourself by someone else’s idea or standard of you?  Have you ever felt like a complete accident?  If that is you, that is my story too!  My story however starts in the womb.

My mother had her tubes tied to avoid any more children.  Granted she already had 6!  She went in for her annual physical and discovered she was pregnant again!  So she wasn’t happy then, during, or after my birth. Now as if my surprised birth was not enough, six months after my birth my father died suddenly of a cerebral hematoma or brain aneurysm.  It killed him instantly.  They say everyone has their breaking point.  That one did it for my mom.   She did her best to mask her pain in alcohol but unfortunately it created a much bigger mess for us all.

I don’t remember my toddler years so much except being terribly afraid of our dog Duchess but when I look at my baby pictures none of them look very happy.  At around age 6, my mother left to take a job in Washington DC.  She stayed away for 4 years, during which time I was molested. I believe this was the beginning of when I started to truly go inward and began to disappear.

I take you back to my childhood because, in spite of everything, I am here.  No one can understand the truth of your life until you put it on display and stop hiding.  But why would you want people to know your hurt and pain?  Isn’t that where they get the ammunition to start labeling you as a troubled child, a troubled soul, unworthy, unfortunate, and a statistic? The answer is yes if you let them.  You must learn to define your “who” just like I had to. You must fight for your rightful place.  I got that from my mom.

I tell my story to be real and authentic.  I tell my story be vulnerable.  I tell my story to stay humble and unapologetic.  I tell my story to heal.  To remind myself that others need healing.  I tell my story to inspire and to be an inspiration.  I tell my story for hope; for without hope we die.  My dream or my vision was to help a person heal, even if it is only one.  To see a person become whole in spite of where they started or what they have been through.  We all have a story but the most important story of all is your “who”; the “who” you are inside and the “who” God created you to be.  Regardless of how life or society has kicked in your teeth or tried to keep you down, you matter.  No one who makes it to this earth is an accident.  Whether or not your parents planned you, God planned you!

So how do you get past all the grit and grime?  It means doing the work, taking the journey and digging deep.  Most of us who have been through something learn to mask or hide.  Masking or hiding is not always noticeable.  My masking was through achievement, perfection, the party girl, sex, shopping, sleep, and laughter!  You ever heard the saying, “If I didn’t laugh I would cry!” Since crying wasn’t an option, I laughed at every hurt, every bump, every hurdle and every disappointment.  Even if it royally sucked, I laughed until I couldn’t any more.  It was like coming off a sugar high.  I crashed so unjustly and completely.  I thought I would never get back.  Like my mother I was simply functioning going through the motions.  To understand what I was going through I had to finally face myself.

Now I am not a license therapist or counselor but I have been through tons of counseling myself. And yes, I have even had my stay at Sunnybrooke Farms for rest and recovery to recalibrate my engine but the point is I know and understand the lowest points and want and need to remind others better days can be on the horizon.

In my adult life, I attended college.  I made the best of a dysfunctional situation, left school, and went to work.  Along the way I learned to start making good Life Choices.  My work ethics always ensured me I could quickly move up the corporate ladder.  So my work history is eclectic; sprinkled with a little bit of this and that.  One would say I am also a devil in the details.  Knowing the details helps you get to the root of a thing.  Knowing details allowed me to look at life from a different perspective without understanding the “why me”.  Without the details you just simply keep putting a band-aid on a wound and hope for the best.  But how many of us know if a wound is deep enough it will eventually open again. My background is mostly corporate, primarily in hospitality.  I always said it was a forgiving industry without “putting on airs”.  The industry embraced all misfits and dysfunctions.  Finding a place, I soon went on to software technology where I got my first opportunity to do what I really desired and that was to speak and to teach.  It was the beginning of my coaching, training, personal and professional development career.  So I am an expert trainer with a unique way of taking complicated information and making them make sense.  Whether its technology, content or personal development, there is a way to break things down and get your life back on track by eating the elephant one bite at a time!  It is a novel idea!

So I thought long and hard, did I want to be someone with a slick website or do I want to be someone who owns and tells their truth?  Okay honestly I want both, but right now the latter is more important to me.  So if you have read this whole thing, there is something there.  We have a connection or something you read had an impact. I would love the opportunity to talk with you about your needs.  Let’s see how we can make what I do a win-win.  Contact me!

Coffee really?  I know you might wonder why I should make coffee a conversation starter but so many of us start our day with it.  Unfortunately we drink it for the wrong intention.

Coffee is a very simple beverage.  It is a simple pleasure to start the day.  Today I understood the experience differently.  I wanted to enjoy the beverage versus needing the beverage to have a false sense of energy.  Now granted I am not saying coffee is not a stimulant (on the contrary) but to have a false sense of being awake or well-being is not what we really seek.  I have discovered the energy we seek only comes from within not inside the beautiful coffee beans.  The only thing inside those beautiful coffee beans after too many cups of trying to find false energy is nervous.  What other ways do seek to fulfill our voids by using an artificial substances when what we seek is within each and everyone of us?  We must want to find it and not have to or need to simply get through the day.

Today I sought my energy from within and found it.  I began to enjoy a very simple morning beverage with a new found joy not because I needed to or had to but because I wanted to.

Everyone must find their own direction and keep pushing forward even when life pushes back.  Do not wear yourself out trying to fit into someone’s image of who they think you are.  Deep inside, we all have a voice.  Can you hear it calling?  Within each of us lies greatness.

My Story (The Interview)