Women Loving Life Worldwide

Marnie Pehrson May 13th, 2009

Imagine that you are standing on a white platform high above the earth. You look down at the swirling marble planet beneath you, and a wave of anticipation courses through your soul. You consider the journey upon which you are about to embark. You are only aware of the basics . . . the type of family into which you will be born, a few challenges you selected with your mentors for your optimal development. The main thing you know is that you won’t remember your life here, won’t remember your friends, your family.

You look up. There surrounding you are hundreds of others standing on their own platforms, forming a circle above the opening into space. Some look down with excited smiles, others with creases of worry upon their brows.

Each person, just like you, has a guide dressed in a flowing white robe standing beside them. You watch your best friend at the platform to your left. Her guide whispers something into her ear. She nods her head, offers you one last wave, and jumps. Down she floats, her arms spread wide, her white robe billowing as she descends toward the earth and disappears into the clouds.

You gulp, knowing your turn is coming soon. You look to your guide. “It’s almost time,” he says. His blue eyes stare deeply into yours. “Remember, remember what you decided upon. What is your mission?”

The familiar refrain runs through your mind as it has millions of times before. You know it well — what you are being sent forth to do. While everyone who descends knows they are going to obtain their body, learn to live by faith, and follow the light home, each individual also has a unique mission, a unique message they hope will guide their lives.

Some will discover it and follow it with intention. Others will stumble upon it, living it without conscious awareness. Still others will become lost in the things of the world and completely forget their message and their promise to magnify it. This is the danger of the journey.

You concentrate, repeating your one-sentence mission twice to your guide. He nods his head vigorously, “Good, good, you’ll do fine. Just remember . . . ” He repeats your mission back to you.

“But how will I remember it when I’m going to forget everything?” you ask for what feels like the hundredth time.

“There will be reminders, indicators, signs. Look for them. But most of all,” he taps you where your heart will one day beat. “Most of all, if it’s in here deep enough, it will guide you like a homing signal. Follow it. Live it. Look for the light and it will guide you home.”

Your head bobs up and down and you put your hand over your chest, repeating your mission one more time for good measure. You understand now why your mentors insisted you keep it short . . . simple . . . powerful.

“It’s time,” he says.

You close your eyes and take your very first leap of faith . . .

Did you know that you were born with a powerful message that you are uniquely designed to deliver? Like a gorgeous garden around a central theme, you’re prepackaged with talent seeds to help you convey your message. Marnie Pehrson (a wife and mother of 6) has been helping people like you start online businesses and earn money from their talents since 1994. She is the author of 26 books and ebooks on such topics as How to Get More Done in a Day than Most People Accomplish in a Week and You’re Here for a Reason: Discover and Live your Purpose. . Marnie loves working with entrepreneurs and helping them monetize their gifts so they can deliver their messages in ways that impact the world for good. Consider her a cultivator of soil — a waterer of crops — who is here to help you reap an abundant harvest! Get the first 50 pages of You’re Here for a Reason for FREE.

Tags: life purpose, marnie pehrson, meaning of life, purpose of life

• Life Purpose , Marriage , Parenting , Relationships
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Joyce Pierce April 23rd, 2009

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a must see!

I looked at the Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com and learned that the movie was released in 1993. I remember seeing it as a newly-released movie, and later bought the DVD. Critics might not give the movie a high rating, but I agree with one of the comments made on this site about the movie. “Those of you with fathers, those of you who have lost fathers, and those of you who are fathers should see this movie.” That pretty much includes all of us, doesn’t it?

I lost my father when I was a young mother myself. I was mad at him for 20 years after that because he left me. One of the lines in this movie is, “This whole dying thing wasn’t my idea.” It was a message I needed to hear, and of course, I knew that if my father could have had a say in the matter, he would definitely not have died.

The reason I mention this movie is that I love the way it stresses the importance of keeping records! I’ve been a pretty faithful journal keeper all of my adult life. I encouraged my grandfather to write about his life, and I love reading through it, but I sure wish I would have done a video recording of him TELLING me about his life.

In 1991, which was about five years after my grandfather died, my mother came to visit. At the time, she was 71 years old, and in pretty good health. We had just bought a video recorder because every new grandparent has to have one! I had Mom sit on the couch and I set the recorder up on a tripod. I stood behind it and asked her questions. One of the things I do regret is that I didn’t ever come forward and sit beside her, or even give her a hug. There is no record of ME – I am just the voice behind the video.

Here is how we got started:

Tell me about your grandparents.

What were their names?

What do you remember about each one of them?

What about your parents?

What were there names?

What do you remember about them?

Tell me about your siblings. Start with the oldest.

Tell me his name, birth date, what was he like as a child?

What about your oldest sister?

You get the idea. I don’t remember having a script, and watching and listening to it today, you can tell it’s done by an amateur, but the thing that impresses me the most is that I was actually listening to what she had to say, and trying to get her to expand on the topic.

For instance, when she told me she went to Hornbeak High School, I asked her what she remembered about the school. How many were in your graduating class? Who was your best friend?

You can’t script something when you’re really wanting to find out who they are! You just have to listen.

As incredible as it seems to me now, we kept the camera rolling for almost two full hours! I couldn’t get my mother to write one word about her life, but she loved talking about it.

When we finally stopped, I put the tape away and told Mom I wouldn’t show it to anyone until after she passed away. She talked about some sensitive issues that I wasn’t sure she wanted shared with everyone at that point. It was nothing as sensational as the discovery the kids made in “The Bridges of Madison County,” but just some details that I wanted to make sure were recorded correctly.

Seventeen years later, we can now watch my mother’s life story, just the way she wanted to tell it.

When we were told that Mom didn’t have long to live, I took the tape to the video copy store and had three DVDs made. One for me, and one for my sister. The third one was for my aunt. I brought it home and cried as I watched the mother who was animated and very much alive in 1991. There she was on my television screen: talking, making familiar hand gestures, throwing her head back to laugh, with twinkling eyes that were full of life. This was not the mother I had known in recent years; the mother who had merely existed in a worn out body. The mother who was often confused as a result of prescribed medications.

The day Mom passed away, I showed the video to my sister. She couldn’t watch more than about five minutes of it because the emotion of losing our mother was just too much. But she did say something that will forever live in my memory. “Joyce, I don’t know what inspired you to do this, but if I had nothing else of Mom’s, this would be enough. This is priceless.”

Priceless. It truly is priceless.

The wonderful thing about capturing someone on film is that in some ways, they live on forever.

Grandchildren who only knew their great-grandmother as someone who was dependent on us for her care, can learn to know her as was one of the most INdependent people who ever lived. They can come to know her as we all did, when she was the traveling grandma who came to visit quite often. The grandma who took us out for pizza on Saturdays. The grandma who was plump and very snuggable. The grandma my children loved and enjoyed. The grandma who tried to recapture so much of her youth through her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

If you’ve got a video camera on the shelf, get it out! Don’t wait for the next family reunion to record those stories. You may not get Uncle Dave to sit still for two hours, but fifteen minutes is better than nothing.

You don’t need to feel like you’re imposing by asking someone to let you tape their story. Wouldn’t you love to think that someone finds you interesting enough to want to capture your life on camera?

Make every moment count!

Joyce Moseley Pierce is a contributing author to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.  She’s the creator of All They’ll Need to Know and owner of Emerson Publications.  She’s the Family Preparedness Expert for Ideamarketers.com as well as Women Loving Life Worldwide.  Visit www.emersonpublications.com or www.preparedineveryway.com to learn more.  Follow Joyce on Twitter @piercejam.

Tags: album, dad, death, history, journal, life, mom, photo

• Family Preparedness , For Women Loving Life , Life Purpose , Marriage , Parenting , Relationships
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Renae Pelo February 25th, 2009

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Bobbie and Mac sought me out for couples counseling because they were on the verge of divorce – after 25 years of marriage. Both had years of counseling, yet they could not find their way through their relationship problems.Bobbie described her experience of their relationship:

“I love Mac but I do not feel seen or loved by him. He is never affectionate with me and does not seem to value all that I do. He blows up over the slightest infraction and I often feel that he is being irrational. He seems to look for things to get angry about. He often accuses me of thinking and behaving in ways that are not me at all. I feel totally invisible to him, and I can’t deal with it any more. He is so kind and loving with others but not with me.”

Mac described his experience of their relationship:

“Bobbie argues and debates with me over every little thing. I feel so angry and controlled by her arguing and debating that I guess I decided a long time ago to no longer let her in. Her debating everything is intolerable to me, and I’d rather end the relationship than keep on being at the other end of this control.”

Bobbie came from a background where she was deeply unseen by her parents. As a child, being unseen felt so lonely to her that she had learned to try to have control over being seen by caretaking, arguing and debating. She had never learned to manage the loneliness of not being seen. She continued in her marriage with Mac to try to have control over how he saw her and felt about her with her caretaking and debating.

Mac came from a very controlling family, and had learned many ways to resist being controlled. In his relationship with Bobbie, his resistance was in full force. He would give her none of himself in his efforts to not be invaded and controlled by her.

I worked with each of them individually, helping each of them take responsibility for their own part of the relationship system. In one of our sessions, Bobbie experienced a deep level of understanding of her behavior. In our next session she reported that:

“I knew I was arguing and debating, but I didn’t realize how terrified I had been of the loneliness of not being seen. In the session, I recalled the depth of the loneliness I experienced with my parents, and after the session I sobbed and sobbed. Then I was able to fully embrace the lonely little child in me instead of abandoning her by trying to control Mac. I apologized to Mac for my unloving behavior and since that time, I have been able to lovingly walk away when I feel so unseen by Mac.”

After a couple of months of Bobbie no longer trying to control Mac, Mac had a breakthrough.

“I was, once again, very angry at Bobbie for some little thing. Instead of arguing with me, she just walked away. I went after her and tried to blame her some more. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “You don’t see me.” Somehow, this stopped me dead. I knew she was right. Even though I knew I had pulled back, I had not realized until that moment how angry and punishing I had been with her. I had seen it as all her fault. But she had stopped the debating and now I had to see my part of this. I was still angry even though she had stopped doing the very thing that I was so angry about. At that moment, all my love for her came flooding back and I was able to deeply apologize to her for my unloving behavior. Since then we are like newlyweds! We never thought we could fall in love with each other again, but we have!”

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. may be contacted at http://www.innerbonding.com margaret@innerbonding.com. Click here to view more of their articles.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Are you are ready to heal your pain and discover your joy? Click here for Your FREE Inner Bonding Course! and visit the IB website at www.innerbonding.com for more articles. Phone Sessions Available. Join the thousands Inner Bonding has already helped!

• Marriage
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