All is well. Come on, you can say it. Take a big deep breath and say, ALL IS WELL. When you say “all is well” and you are bombarded with buts, those are buts that are powerless if you will do this exercise! It is something I was taught as a child by my grandfather and it has served me for well over 60 years. It will help you too. Oh, and it’s kind of fun!

First, imagine that your mind is like your home. Like your home, it has a front door and YOU are in control of whom you let in (those would be thoughts). So imagine the doorbell rings and you go to the door and open it to see a huge long line of Darth Vaders, mixed in with a bunch of Eyores and let’s throw in a big bad wolf or two. Each scary character has a different sign: gloom, doom, fear me, worry about this, what about that, I’m angry, why me, wha, wha, wha, (you get the idea). The line goes as far as you can see! Now, all you have to do is say “All is well” to the first Darth in line with his sign and he will vanish. Each and every negative character will disappear with your words “all is well” because those words are like magic on negative thoughts. You are in control of the front door to your mind and you have protection just as you are in control of whom you allow into your home. The words “all is well” are as affective on negative thoughts as a can of mace would be on an unwanted intruder.

The Vicarious Bite

My husband and I went to a neighbor’s surprise birthday party last Saturday night. It’s always exciting for me to go to this home. The couple is exotic. The birthday man was a concert pianist turned executive of a company that bottles hydrogen peroxide. He has an adorable Belgium accent and is movie star gorgeous. His wife, who is also stunningly beautiful with a tall, slim body crowned by a head of flaming, (not from a bottle) red hair, was an opera singer turned wife, homemaker and mom.

The house is enchanting. It actually looks like an Italian villa perched high on the hill overlooking its own vineyard (all the neighbors are wondering when our resident herd of 36 elk will decide to frisk among the rows of baby grape plants). The two children (nine and five) have their own quarters! The children’s quarters would suffice for most of us to live in beauty and comfort for the rest of our lives.

We arrived with our donation to the potluck, hot chili from my freezer. (I’m on a low carb diet so beans are out until I weigh 120 pounds.) I always make double batches of stews, soups and chili and freeze half. For this party I mixed three different batches (no two are ever alike) spanning three different seasons from last year. The combination was an interesting melting pot of past chili feeds. If anyone would have asked for the recipe (which they didn’t) I wouldn’t have had one.
One of our neighbors brought a homemade German Chocolate Cake for dessert. Michelle is the best baker in the neighborhood and the cake looked alluringly attractive. Nelly (my inner child) said, “We can have some can’t we?”

“No, sugar is poison, remember what we read in Why We Get Fat?”

KATHY ROBERTS COINED THIS ACRONYM: DING DONG DO IT NOW GIRL

DON'T OVER NEGLECT GIRL

Kathy is a longtime friend, sister reformed slob and owner of Tidy Tutor University. She's fun, funny, talented and creative and if you haven't checked out her website, please do! She has tons of videos to share. www.tidytutor.com

Have you ever thought that when we procrastinate we are really over neglecting? As pros at procrastination we could say we are master neglectors. I can’t think the words DING DONG without thinking next about the Wicked Witch of the West which automatically calls up that memorial tune sung by the Munchkins.

So little Munchkins, what if we thought of that old wicked witch as something looming over us that we have to do and we keep putting it off and she gets bigger and bigger and wickeder and wickeder? When we DING DONG, the witch dies! She’s done, gone and we’re free!

If you have something looming right now, sing along with the lyrics below and get the feeling of having that looming task done, then DING DONG.(do it now girl and don't over neglect girl).

Want to sing the song?

We Can't Hide Body Clutter

I was deeply touched by Marla and Leanne’s courage to be honest with us about the issue of their body clutter. It’s embarrassing to admit to being in denial on a subject as personal as our bodies. As clutter goes, there is nothing with which to compare to our body clutter. We can’t stash it like we can household clutter; we can’t store it in the attic, basement or some storage facility. We can try to move it around by wearing control top panty hose or tight jeans or try to cover it up by wearing loose fitting clothes while we stay in a state of denial, but eventually we have to face a moment of truth.

I am just like Leanne in that over my adult lifetime I had lost and gained the same twenty pounds at least eight times (I’m older than Leanne). That’s 160 pounds I’d lost before I faced my moment of truth. I had 35 pounds to lose. My denial caused me to go three years without facing my body clutter and had I continued in my mode of denial I could have gained 70 pounds in six years. It took holding a five pound bag of flour in my hands and feeling the weight of it to wake up and realize I was carrying the equivalent of seven five pound bags of flour around. Today, if I could somehow strap seven, five pound bags of flour to myself and try to wear them for a day, I wouldn’t be able to do that. Yet my little body had carried that burden until I woke up.

Eight almonds and a lot of denial

Reality lives off-line

I’ve been on vacation for a week. One of the highlights of the respite was having lunch with one of Terry’s professors. Mr. Mott made a profound and lasting impression on my wonderful husband. (Thank you Mr. Mott.) Terry has so much respect for the man he cannot bring himself to call him Robert or, God forbid, Bob. Mr. Mott and his wife Edie are in their nineties and both sharp mentally, mobile and healthy. I asked both of them at lunch in a very nice restaurant, “Do you have smart phones and are you on the internet?” Mr. Mott uses a form of email I won’t go into, but otherwise the couple agreed that at their ages they were enjoying life just as it is without the invasion of technology. They both agreed that each day was so filled with thankfulness they are mobile and healthy there was no room for anything else.

During this vacation, I took the six days off from the 21st century and never once even looked at a computer. I didn’t answer anyone’s emails or write my weekly Young@Heart for the last week of March. I just lived in what I’ll call a techless world. Yes, I was party to using the GPS while we “Yelped” our way around San Diego and yeah, once I talked on Terry’s cell phone (which is now a very smart phone thanks to Flylady’s Robert), oh and yes, I used the computer timer on the oven in our condo we lived in for a week, but the rest of the time I enjoyed the real world right in front of me just like Mr. and Mrs. Mott.

There were times when I felt a little like a beloved family dog. Marla, Robert and Terry spent a great deal of our living room time on their thingamajig of choice while I sat and talked to myself, read a little, wrote on a yellow pad and played "retro" Solitaire. (That’s a game you play with a standard deck of real playing cards, dealt onto a real table.)

Challenge Accepted!

I received an email the other day challenging me on my motto “Make it fun and it will get done,” and it caused me to pause. The woman had said something about fun not leading to happiness and since I think happiness is the most important goal we can ever have, (I think it’s more important to be happy than to be organized) I had to think seriously about my definition of fun.

The word fun can conger up vacations, yachts, fast cars, parties and any of the stuff of brochures luring us in to spend money. The brochure brand of fun doesn’t make us happy. I know that from experience. Last summer Terry and I won tickets to a Wine and Jazz Festival in a park in Vancouver. The brochure was glitzy! The thought of a Wine and Jazz Festival made me happy, but in reality I only like a certain kind of jazz (much of it reminds me of being a young mother with the relentless and repetitious sound of young kids saying, “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama”) and I’m not into expensive wines that you are expected to taste and then buy by the case. It was hot the day we went there and we’d never heard of the person who was jamming up on the stage, so we walked through the park and went home. Wheeeeee!

Clooney's Refrigerator

Young@Heart by Pam Young

My son Michael and his wife Meredith were invited by the FOX network to go to the Super Bowl and Terry and I were invited to babysit the two grandchildren ages eight (Jackie) and eleven (Brooklyn). I have such fun with these two!

The first night we were with them, when it was bedtime they both wanted me to tell them a bedtime story. Since they sleep in separate rooms I sat in the hallway with the light on so they could both see me if they sat up and it was easy for them to hear me. I love to make up stories because I never know what I’m going to say myself. I guess I should say Nelly (my inner child) loves to hear my stories or maybe she’s the one who makes them up? Whatever, I love to do it.

Rabbit ears, elephants, and donkeys

Young@Heart by Pam Young

In his breath-taking book Many Lives, Many Masters , Dr. Brian Weiss M.D. (a renown and highly reputable psychiatrist) said, "The steady day-in and day-out pounding of undermining influences such as a parent’s scathing criticisms, could cause even more psychological trauma than a single traumatic event. These damaging influences, because they blend into the everyday background of our lives, are even more difficult to remember and exorcise.

A constantly criticized child can lose as much confidence and self-esteem as one who remembers being humiliated on one particular, horrifying day. A child whose family is impoverished and has very little food available on a day-to-day basis might eventually suffer from the same psychological problems as a child who experienced one major episode of accidental near-starvation. Those day-in and day-out poundings of negative forces have to be recognized and resolved with as much attention as that paid to the single overwhelmingly traumatic event."

Pam here: I loved what Dr. Weiss said and I’ve realized because of my daily attention to Nelly my inner child, I have been able to neutralize the day-in and day-out poundings of the past by becoming aware of her against the background of my daily life that’s going on now. When we shine our attention daily on the inner child, and confront negative behavior in the moment, using love, understanding and compassion, we can almost be like our own psychologist helping ourselves to remember and exorcise the source of any bad behavior.

Loving yourself is NOT a selfish notion!

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King

When I read that quote by King I imagined myself at a staircase. (I was at the top going down.) Then I thought, ‘that’s funny, I wonder what most people envision?’

So I asked my subscribers if they imagined taking the first step up or down. It really doesn’t matter because it’s a metaphor for stepping out on a mission in faith. I spent my entire morning fielding the responses and out of more than 100 who responded only three of us picture that first step going down.

I guess some could say I need to “get a life” spending time on this, but I was really interested in the age of people and what they thought. One of the “downers” was 37 and the range in age for the “uppers” was between 28 and 72. What I loved were some of the thoughtful responses so I’ll share some of them with you. I really didn’t think it was going to be that interesting, but it sure was! I’ll tell you at the end why I think I envision stepping down instead of up.

From psychology of dreams, going up represents a climb from unconsciousness, into consciousness, so a person, who envisions climbing up, has made a resolution to begin something in the conscious awake state. The climbing down represents taking what you know from the conscious level and looking for roots of a problem or the seeking for a resolution from the unconsciousness or dream state.

Joanne