SCARS

There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with. -Harry Crews, novelist and playwright (1935-2012) 

HEALING THROUGH WRITING

Write through your pain. It heals the soul. It boosts the immune system. It is therapy and the price is a pen and piece of paper. All you have to do is start.

Here is a starter sentence. My heart broke when (you fill in the blank).

........Then what happened?

..................Did you heal?

............................Then what happened?

.............................................What does it mean? What did you learn?

Before you know it, you have found some relief!

Try it and let me know.

What Legacy Do You Want To Leave?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Man discovering fire was considered a turning point in evolution.

When we fall in love, we feel our hearts on fire.

In the Bible, God’s voice came from a burning bush to speak to Moses.

Firewalking is taught for inspiration and to build a belief within us that anything is possible.

When I need to feel close to something greater than myself, I light a candle. I create a sacred space.

As we go into the holiday weekend to celebrate a life gone too soon. I think the only way to honor his legacy is to try to make each thought, the most loving thought you can have for yourself and for each person who crosses your path.

If my life was cut short and today was my last day, I want my last thought to be of love.

What would be your legacy?

May your day be filled with light, Tina

What dream have you shelved?

Last night I had a sleepless night after launching the social media platform to promote my upcoming memoir, WALK ON WATER.

I had just become satisfied with putting my story on paper, BUT then the next step is to find a publisher and readers and reviewers and, and, and…. The list was building in my head. My thoughts were racing.

I sat very still and said to myself, “You’re right, I am doing something very scary. It is hard to be 51 years old and uncertain and learning new things.”

When we are young, changes happen all the time. Little by little as we grow older, we think we can’t do anything new. I’m only 51 and my grandmother lived to be 91. Forty years allows for a lot of living and change; AND yes failing, but also succeeding.

Adding “author” to my resume is my dream. Self-doubt and second-guessing makes the dream stay on the shelf.

What dream have you shelved?

Remember who you are, Tina

WALK ON WATER, a memoir

About my memoir, WALK ON WATER. What is it about? Here is my story....

At eighteen, I was pregnant and alone. Beaten and mugged by a fellow high school student on a cold night, I found myself begging my estranged parents for help. My body and spirit are in crisis as I have a near death experience during the premature delivery of my son, giving me the choice to live or die.

Twenty-six years later, I was a successful therapist and considered a warrior healer, but my father’s cancer diagnosis ripped open scar tissue from old wounds of childhood isolation, abuse, teenage pregnancy and a brutal early marriage. I return to my childhood home, facing my parents and the painful circumstances that required me to leave my sons in their care.

Soon after my father’s death, my own health scare serves as a wake-up call and a realization that my long-term relationship is failing and never was what I thought it to be. Finding my life in ruins, I start a deeply personal journey to find my way in the darkness, realizing I am no longer a warrior but a wounded healer.

Through deep acceptance and forgiveness for myself, I realize that for almost fifty years I have been surviving but not thriving. I finally find the courage to ask the universe how to thrive.

WALK ON WATER will appeal to readers who desire a writer’s honesty and vulnerability with a message of hope that no matter how dark the despair, love lights the way.

What happened to the babies born in 1962 at the same Arkansas hospital as myself?

At the age of 45, I found myself dealing with the death of my father. I had built a life and career that I thought would see me well into my eighties. Feeling secure, I opened up to memories of a very painful childhood and early life. I then found myself trapped in a life that no longer made sense. I have written a memoir, WALK ON WATER, and am looking for a publisher, but in the meantime to satisfy the writing urge, I am going to blog. I have my original birth announcement from the Arkansas newspaper in 1962. I am going to search for the other babies that were born at the same hospital, on the same day in the announcement. I want to find out what happened to all of us. We began life in the exact same place. Where are we now that we are in our fifties? So follow me into the journey and it might inspire you to do the same thing.