Contagious

We were at Subway eating dinner. It's always a challenge getting four kids to place their orders and keep their attention focused all the way through the meats and on through the vegetables. If one of them gets theirs toasted, you've lost them and you have got to hunt them down and get them back for the vegetables. Luckily Subway restaurants are never that big! We sat down with our sandwiches and began to eat. I can usually relax a little when there is food in front of the kids, it keeps them out of trouble. LOL. As we were eating I hear Zadyn, my nine year old son, start giggling. His giggles get louder and then he is full out laughing! At this point I look over and he can't keep his eyes open, he gasps for breath in between the extended laughter. I start to smile, I look over at Awan, my twelve year old daughter and she is laughing too. She actually has no idea what Zadyn is laughing about but because he is laughing, so does she! At this point I start to giggle a bit to myself and look around as other people look over ... smiling! My dad was with us and I heard a giggle from him. My nearly 4 year old daughter looks at me pointing at Zadyn and lets out a ha ha ha. The other people in subway, even the employees are either smiling or giggling under their breath! I still don't know what he was laughing about, but does it matter? He started an epidemic, an outbreak of laughter that was so contagious the whole restaurant was affected or infected!

When we talk about the contagious, we normally talk about diseases. Colds, the flu, west nile, ebola, etc. However, there are so many more things that are so contagious that we don't normally even think about. Excitement, sadness, encouragement or abuse. Traditions, traits, passions and care can all be just as contagious.

A few weeks ago I wrote an experimental post called "Hopeless" where I expressed some troubled feelings that was having at the time. It wasn't a positive post. It was difficult to write and difficult for some to read, however, I had several people talk to me about how they felt the same way. How they had situations where they felt hopeless and it honestly felt good to them that they weren't the only one that felt this way. They connected and by their admittance, I believe that we both felt a little stronger and even encouraged by such a negative topic. Sharing your pain can be contagious too! And contagious in a good way. I'm not talking about just being negative, but truly sharing the the pain and the source of it. Negativity is just a façade to hide the true problem, the true pain. Truly and honestly sharing your pain can bring out other who are or have dealt with it before and their are strength in numbers. Your pain is not your own, someone else has gone through it and all can be helped by it!

Two of my children are adopted, from Ethiopia. When we decided to adopt we began to talk about it with friends and family as any parents do with the induction of any new family member. The word spread quickly and others began to wonder and ask questions. People in a position where adoption wasn't even considered an option because they had never thought about it, were now thinking about it and I have even helped several families as they took steps toward inviting someone new into their family.

When someone else gets excited, don't we even a little? When someone else cries, don't we even a little? When someone else gets stronger, don't we even a little?

Your life is contagious! What you choose, how you live and what you say will affect those around you! Even those that your decisions don't even directly benefit will be touched. Be passionate, get excited, share with others, care for others, start traditions that mean something and encourage those around you! As insignificant you think your life may be, you have a huge foot print. Just start laughing in a restaurant and see!

You can make a difference, you are contagious!

Dance with me

My two youngest kids are my son, Tad, who is nine and Samiah, who is almost four. Right now they have the most conflict between them. They have the most fun as well. They pick on each other and sometimes that produces laughter and other times screaming and fits of rage! Yesterday they were on that track yet again. They would even go from laughing to anger then back to giggling with in as short as five minutes. When we arrived at the playground, Tad stepped right up on the edging that contained the playground mulch. They were about six inches wide and raised from the ground about six or eight inches. It made for a great balance beam that Tad followed around the playground. Samiah had seen him do this, so she decided to follow him as well. She was much slower at it than her five years older brother. Tad knew this and went around the playground passing Samiah and as he passed said something like "I'm going to beat you" or "I am going to win!" Samiah, feeling helpless to be able to prove him wrong let out a huge scream, fell down off the edging and began to cry and scream a bit more. I walked over to her to ask what was wrong because all I could see was Tad pass her without touching her. (Yes I was looking for him to do something to her) She sat there crying and she said "I want to win!" What? What did Tad do? "I want to Win!" she said! After consoling her a bit, I got the two of them together and made them apologize to each other. Shortly there after they were laughing and playing once again.

Relationships are hard! I don't have very many people that I am at odds with right now. I am certainly not perfect at relationships ... I have been divorced by the way. I also have a few relationships that are a little odd or off kilter. Not necessarily bad, but maybe slightly broken. The thing that I am most guilty of, is letting relationships fade away.

My best friend ... well I guess that we used to be anyway. We have never made the statement that we are no longer best friends but we haven't talked but once or twice in two and a half years! I am not blaming him, we are both very similar and that is why we connected so well. When we have something that we are focused on it is easy for us to lose sight of the relationships that are fading away around us. It's not intentional, it's just that I look back and six months may have flown by since we last talked. Just keeping up with relationships is hard!

We have a friend, Tiffany, who has a daughter, Tenleigh who was the flower girl at my wedding last June! She is an adorable little 4 year old with an attitude! She looks cute but will put you in your place quickly. We were a little worried that she wouldn't make it down the isle so I did all that I could that weekend to help her connect with me hoping to make her trip towards us a little less scary. Well, we really connected and when the music played during the reception, I grabbed her, took her to the dance floor and began to dance with her. We danced until I couldn't anymore. After a couple of minutes off of the dance floor, Tenleigh would come up to me and say "Dance with me!" When I had the energy to do so, I would. She probably asked me that twenty or thirty times and I just couldn't resist. Tiffany text my wife a week later because Tenleigh had asked her if we could get married again the next weekend so that she could dance with me again!

My wife and I like to dance. We have danced in clubs and have just slow danced in our living room. You see she has been in "dance" for a long time and she is really good. I, on the other hand, have nervous fits similar to seizures yet feel like I am as awesome as Usher! You better believe that when "Sexy and I know it" comes on by LMFAO my confidence goes through the roof and the dancing get all that much worse and more flamboyant! When my wife and I dance together, it mandates give and take, a bit of coordination and movements that compliment each other in order for it to even work.

Relationships are like little dances. Give and take, coordinated movements and watching your steps are all important to the whole choreography. I have been in relationships where toes have been stepped on, trust has been lost and a toss has been dropped. People have been hurt, the dance has seemed to have been ruined and you even want to give up and just stop the music. The thing is, in all the competitions that I have watched, when a mistake happens ... the music plays on! Dancers pick themselves up, dust themselves off and try it again. When dancers move together allowing each to play their role and even adjusting when things seem to change it is beautiful! When we interact with each other as though it's a dance and look toward what it could be if we work together, how beautiful our relationships could be.

Love each other, live life to it's fullest and don't forget to DANCE!

Will you dance with me?

Hopeless

Have you ever truly been hopeless? No options, possibilities or relief! Where no thing, no person and it seems that not even God can help you. For you, it feels like the the end of the world.

I have been there… Who am I kidding… I am there now! 

I have made some decisions that have put me in a position where I have no way out. Consequences of my decisions, I know. It is my own fault, I have trapped myself. It is like I am trapped in a room. Now, the room has two doors. Both doors seem like viable options, But when I open one of the doors I step into the room I just left from the opposite door. Any help that I receive only prolongs the inevitable. Kind of like I dig a hole through the wall only to find a hallway from which each door leads me back to the room that I was trapped in. I can't fix it, but I always fix it! That is what I do, I fix problems, bring solutions and mend the broken. With no fix possible, I am lost. Every time that I think about it, all I can do is shut down, paralyzed by the impossibilities. My Stomach starts churning and I feel nauseous. Soon after the feeling moves lower and reeks havoc through my bowels. I get nervous and short of breath. At this point I know that what is happening is not healthy. I don't like this feeling so on comes shutdown mode. I want to hide and the only thing that seems to hold these feelings back the longest and most securely is sleep! If I go to bed early and wake up just in time for work, I can dive in and not have to think about it as long as I can. The problem is that it catches back up with me. Just because I don't think about my problems doesn't mean that they go away! The way that I have dealt with this so far has not actually been of any real help. It has actually, kind of made things worse because when I remember, it amplifies my anxieties. 

So how can I actually get through this?

The thing is that I am human! The most evolved and resilient of creatures! We strive, persevere, survive and thrive! When bad things happen, when all hope seems lost, we gather together, support one another and make the world a better place because we care! My ancestors have survived under greater pressure, stress and circumstance. They have done it with less, under more stress! 

What are causing me the most stress honestly are some of the most insignificant things! I worry, if I fail, what will people think, who will I let down? What stature will I lose? Will this go on my permanent life report card? 

What does that matter? What matters is that I survive, I live and get to experience life at its fullest! At its fullest, life includes the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the exciting and the scary! I get a gift! The chance at life, the opportunities to love and be loved, hurt and care, make mistakes and help others! This is worth living! This is worth surviving! 

I will survive and thrive!

You will survive and thrive!

You da man

I was at this event and next to me was this man. My best description of him would be a short, homeless, homely John Lennon. He was late 40's to early 50's and maybe 4 feet tall. He had long, stringy, dirty blonde hair just a little shorter than shoulder length. He would use his fingers to gather his bangs and tuck them behind his ears about every 5 minutes. He had small, horizontally oval, wire rimmed glasses with old thick lenses that looked to be half as useful as they once were. His face was scraggly, not bearded but certainly unshaven. He was wearing blue jeans in that 90's splotchy bleach or white washed style and a thick solid blue jean jacket that as he swung it around to his back smelled of musty thrift shop. I don't know the man. I don't know if he was homeless, poor and if he walked to the event by himself.

There was a variety of people at the event. Business people, teens, mothers and general middle class workforce were in attendance, all of which certainly appeared to have a much higher income than this man. Yet he attended the event not wavered by this. I am not exactly sure why this man caught my attention! Maybe it was my slight infatuation with John Lennon and their eerie similarities, but what impacted me the most was that as baskets were passed through the event to raise money for the cause of the event, he grabbed a handful of change from his pocket, maybe at a max of $2, and placed it in the basket! This happening after I placed absolutely nothing in the basket myself before passing it to him! I can tell you, however, what I saw was a beautiful thing! That man gave more out of what he didn't have then what everyone else gave from what they had! His gift certainly didn't change the world, but he gave anyway! He actually cared about the well being of others even when it appeared that he would be most in need! Find something that you care about like that. Give to that whether it's $2 or $2,000! Give and be a part of something beautiful as we, collectively, make a difference in the world!

I really need a change

I love the holidays! Especially after them, because all the candy is like half priced! ... Yeah, I am large! I can't help it. When I see day after Easter, jelly beans, chocolate bunnies and Easter Ghirardelli chocolates ... yes you heard me right, Ghirardelli ... for 70% OFF, I just have to have me some! So I bought this package for like $1 and I asked my wife if she wanted me to get her a package too ... yeah, I wasn't sharing! She decided to be all responsible and she tells me no she didn't need it. So I said that's fine and just got mine. I ate a few of those delectable little chocolates and I thought, I'm going to save some for the next day. Responsible right ... NO it was foolish! Three of my chocolates were gone the next day! Three of them! My wife obviously changed her mind. After confronting her, she proceeds to tell me how delicious they were and how she should have gotten a package all her own ... yes, I KNOW! I go on to finish the rest of the package and she has the nerve to get upset that I ate them all! Really, you get upset because I eat MY candy! The following night she reminds me of how good they were and that she would like me to go back to the store and get her a package. I go to get my shoes on, jacket and keys. As I was about to leave, she says, "no, stay here, I don't need it." So I stay, put up my keys, shoes and jacket. As I start to sit down next to her she tells me again about how tasty those Ghirardelli chocolates were and that she actually would like me to go and get her some. I go again and get my shoes, keys and jacket. As I head back out to the living room she stops me again and says "no, I really don't need it." I asked her "are you sure?" And she says "yes I'm sure." I returned my shoes, keys, and jacket. Then I sat back down beside her on the couch. Now when we went to bed, I had gotten in my pajamas, laid down beside her and she says "you know I really would like that Ghirardelli chocolate!" ... I immediately said "NO!" I kissed her on the forehead and went to sleep. Yesterday I went to the store and I thought, as a loving husband, "let me get her that chocolate." I went and searched in the discounted candy but they were out of it by then, so I bought some malted eggs instead (which she can't have as she is allergic to gluten) :)!

She kept changing her mind! I nearly couldn't keep up.

When I was like five or six years old, I had this friend at church named Maria. She was energetic and fun. I even remember having a five-year-old pretend karate match with her and kicking her rather hard one time (accidentally) and she bounced right back up ready to go another round! Later that year I was told  by my parents that Maria was sick and that I needed to be a bit more careful with her. I honestly didn't notice much difference at first but over the coming years learned a lot more about her disease. Maria has a muscular dystrophy. A muscular disease that hasn't allowed her muscles to develop and even deteriorated them. She had get a motorized wheel chair and lost nearly all of her mobility. Though she never lost her spunk, she rarely was afraid to step in and tell you what she thought. Today she is in her thirties, is married and has kids. Maria, however, went through a huge change in her life.

Change is a part of life! It happens. Good changes and seemingly bad changes. Change happens to those who do good and those who do bad things in life. Sometimes the change means that we can do or have more and other times it means we do or have less.

"Change is the only constant in life!" Heraclitus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

If we can't stop change from happening, how do we digest it? How do we deal with it? Is it an attitude? Is it yoga? Do we just hide and sleep it away? Do we attack it and change it back? Changes, bad changes, can obviously cause stress and anxiety. How do we keep from being tied up in knots over it?

I have a friend, Ann, who worked for a family services organization that had a residential campus for rehabilitation and development for kids and teens going through difficult situations. Their families could visit during a few hours every three weeks but there were some whose parents gave them over to the state and therefore these kids would not have visitors. This made that weekend in particular difficult for some of these kids. Ann came to me and several of my friends and asked if we would be willing to visit with some of these kids on that weekend for a little bit every three weeks which we did. It took a while for them to warm up but when they did you could see the anticipation they had for the next time they would get to see you.  It was a positive change in their life and really a positive change in mine!

To be honest, I can't tell you how to deal with change. I am not here to give you a seven step process to handle any of the changes that can occur in your family, job or friends. It would be easy to give some "get over it" philosophy with a "think positively" structure that sounds great in theory but can be impractical as we are emotional and erratic. However, what I do know is that we can positively enact change into the lives of others! If change is inevitable then why not use it to the advantage of benefiting others? Change is going to happen and if we can be a part of helping, appreciating and accepting someone else, we will make things better! We will make things right and the positive changes we have made for someone else will bleed over to affect us very much in the same way!

What you don't see

At work the other day my finger hurt whenever I pressed it. It wasn't like it was excruciating or anything but just enough to be annoying. When typing or using fine motor skills repetitively, it could get painful enough to make me stop whatever I was doing.  I would look to see what was causing it. Honestly, I couldn't see anything. There was a small bit of what seemed to be dirt under my fingernail. Not the usual kind of dirt that I normally clean out of my fingernails… Too much information, I know! It was so small and so difficult to get out.

How could something so small annoy me so badly? How could something so small impact my every day activities so drastically?

So, I sell cars. I actually care about my customers and I send them birthday cards on their birthday. I sold this one couple a car and in the meantime they had a birthday and I sent them each a birthday card. They came back and bought a second car for me. The reason they said that they came back to me was because I sent them a birthday card. Really? A birthday card? It didn't take much for me to send them their cards, however, it made such a huge impact. It really was important for them!

How could something that takes such little effort affect someone so profoundly?

Shortly after my divorce, my grandfather died. Now I'm pretty sure I didn't cause it, but I'm sure my divorce didn't help. I took some time off of work to be sure to be a part of the funeral. Now my divorce left several of my immediate family members a bit confused and I don't blame them. They were left in a state of hurt and shock! I had portrayed to them a perfect marriage and happy family. It was almost like I lied to them. So at the funeral, I walked in to the funeral home kind of like the first day of my freshman year in high school asking myself, "where am I going to fit in?" As I stepped in the doors I looked around the room searching, feeling like I didn't fit and didn't have a place in the receiving line. My Aunt Peg, however, catches my eyes and motions me to her. As I began walking toward her she meets me half way, embraces me with a hug and says, "you can stand here with us," motioning next to my cousins. Wow! I tear up just thinking about it! Something so little as acceptance! I didn't deserve it, but she gave it to me anyway! So little of a gesture, but I will remember it the rest of my life!

The little things matter! It's what we don't see that we do that makes such a huge impact on those around us! The simple "hello" or "I like your shoes!" The small act of carrying something for someone or holding the door for an extra second or two for a person about to pass through. These tiny things are huge and could be the very thing that changes the trajectory, emotions or fate of that person's day!

Whatever you do, it matters! Your smile, your pat on the back or even just your thumbs up gesture, it matters! Don't give up, your life and what you do, matters! It certainly matters to me! Thank you!

In My Feelings

Two and a half years ago I made a decision that transformed my life! It not only affected me but many of those around me. This decision affected my career, where I lived, what people thought of me and my relationships!

My wife and I divorced!

I stepped out of the house and my kids stayed with my wife! I had to find a new job, a new place and a new support system. This began a totally new relationship with my kids, my parents and my sisters.

Now don't get me wrong, this was my fault! Our marriage wasn't perfect and a relationship has two sides, I know, but ultimately I made the final decision and I hurt a lot of people in the process!

I hurt my wife because we never discussed divorce as an option. My kids were confused and didn't know how to react. My sisters were really good friends with my wife and it made it hard as they felt the need to choose sides. My parents, who are fantastic parents, had to question who they raised me to be. My Church, that I was majorly involved in, I left immediately with responsibilities and a confused spirit about me. I didn't talk to my best friend about any of it and left him completely out of the loop. There are so many more that I haven't mentioned here that I left hurt and confused with no explanation or consoling.

The thing is, at first, I had to focus! I had lost my job by leaving my wife (I worked for her parents company). I needed to find a new place and a new job immediately! Miraculously I found a job and was hired within eight days of leaving and I found an apartment within two days! With this intense focus, I had somewhat left everyone behind without giving proper attention to those left hurting and this left the pain more intense. After settling in and looking back, I noticed everything and everyone who was left in the wake of my decision. On noticing what had happened, to me and to those around me. Seeing, hearing and feeling the hurt that others had, I opened my self to listen to them. My sisters and my parents lit into me. My kids retreated from me. Many people un friended me on Facebook. I listened to them, all of them.

After seeing, hearing and feeling all the hurt that I caused, it boiled up inside me and I began to cry not just once but for days. Yes, you heard it, a grown man cried! There was so much damage and so little that I could do to fix it! I felt the pain that I caused and even do many times still today. I am actively pursing the relationships that I once had with my kids, my family and some friends though it is not easy or  even the same.

So, it's over, you may say. It's done, move on. There is no need to feel that way about it anymore.

Well there certainly is benefit to moving on. I have gotten married to an amazing woman! I am having success in my job and have built a new circle of friends. However it is okay that I still feel for the hurt and pain that others feel. It is okay for me to feel because my feelings are what make me experience things most alive! It is what makes us human, it's what makes us special! Our compassion, care, excitement and energy is what keeps this whole of humanity moving and growing, progressing and changing.

Have you ever noticed how contagious feelings are? When someone cries about a story in their life that they are telling, most everyone else seeing and hearing it end up with tears in their eyes! When someone starts laughing about something, it doesn't matter what it is about, just their laughter makes everyone around them snicker or even laugh out loud! Someone with energy and passion about something can so easily get others motivated and excited about it as well!

When we identify ourselves with the hurting, abused, entrapped and poor, we then can transfer those feelings from sadness and anger to motivation and passion. To help those experiencing what they cannot change. Without feeling, we are drones moving about with out purpose or direction.

When we feel, we become alive! We become human and we can change the world!

I will continue to do whatever that I need, to help in the healing of those that I hurt the most! I will do what I can to help those in my community and around the world in their healing as well.

I will feel with them and I will live! Live with a passion, a drive and an excitement for a future laced with new beginnings, healing and rejuvenation!

It's okay to feel!