ERIC BUGVILIONIS
              

                                             ERIC BUGVILIONIS

WELCOME TO BLOGGERS GREEN BOOKS CAMPAIGN 2010

BLOGGERS GREEN BOOKS CAMPAIGN 2010

The above link is an annual campaign to provide environmentalists and people who care with reviews of over 200 books written on sustainable paper that doesn't harm the environment.  Please do click and choose a few.  Pass it on to your friends.

CONSUMERS; YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE THAT CRAP!

Time to eat a meal in peace, sleep soundly till noon, not have a mountain of junk mail on your entrance way table, find the important e-mails among the ones for Viagra and health insurance, and let soliticitors in general know you won't stand for any more pestering.

Remember, if you signed up for the "Do Not Call Registry" you should be covered, but if someone violates the rules, you need to go to the site and file a complaint.

Here are some addresses and phone numbers to simplify your life and bring you some peace:


Do Not Call Registry:  https://donotcall.gov/   or call 1-888-382-1221 TTY-1-866-290-4236

If you think you're on the list and you're still getting telemarketing calls, go here:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt136.shtm

If you need more help against sales calls, contact the FTC at: www.ftc.gov.

Check out the FTC's one-stop shopping Consumer Alert Website Board of Information, Resources and Links at http://www.www.ftc.gov/blp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt102.shtm.

And if you want to know everything about defending yourself, getting money for college, credit and debt, fraud, id theft, and so much more, get the 192-page downloadable 2010 Consumer Action Handbook at the Consumer Action Website:
http://www.consumeraction.gov/viewpdf.shtml.  This book is a must have.  The website has other .pdf books that are also must-haves for consumers.  There is information on all government agencies, consumer organizations, how to write a complaint letter with a sample and much more.  Check it out.

Want to subscribe to the latest information on computer security threats, 


Stop Junk E-mail:         eMPS-  http://www.ims-dm.com/cgi/optoutemps.php

(Who knew it could be so simple to get rid of 50 Viagra e-mails a day?)

Would you like to subscribe to updates and the latest information on environmental changes, employment projections, Spanish language publications, educational funding opportunities, energy advancements, international women's issues, status of efforts to assist refugees with human rights, FDA approvals, product safety recalls and more?  Simple and all in one place:

IS SOMETHING JUST PLAIN WRONG WITH YOUR LIFE?

You may not like to talk about it, you don't even like thinking about it anymore, but you know something is wrong with your life.  Your relationships are suffering, you're not happy, it's hard to focus on work when you do go in, and sometimes you feel like feel like you might be losing your mind. 

The worst time for me were the long periods when I knew something was terribly wrong with my life but it didn't know what it was.  If it didn't have a diagnosis, it couldn't be treated.  So I went without help in a mysterious limbo where everyday brought new things that I could not explain, identify or account for to myself. 

Perhaps your wife, husband, partner, friend, parent or someone else close to you has made remarks or asked you questions about the changes they see in you and your behavior.  This may have irritated you and caused you more anxiety since you didn't have any answers for them.

One day you wake up and think it was going to be like one of the good old days and everything was going to be normal for a change, and then like a jack-in-the-box popping out, you'd have what you had come to think of as your "episodes" and everything was off kilter or off into a maze of craziness once again.  

Do you look in the mirror and ask, "What's wrong with me?"

So what do you do to get help?  Are you ready to get help?  You may not be ready yet. 

You continue to see your therapist, but you don't really talk about what's bothering you.

You go to church.

You pray.

You throw yourself into volunteer or service work.

You change these around in your lifestyle, routines and behaviors like buying a new day planner in an effort to stop being chronically late.   Or you cut up your credit cards,  and stop carrying around more than ten dollars at a time.  You go back to trying to just smoke marijuana.  You only drink every other day.  You sign up for a group that will help you get out of yourself.  You take up a new hobby. You take up a new sport or exercise regimen.  But nothing changes the thing, the big thing that is terribly wrong with your life and won't just go away on its own.

Why doesn't it get better?  Maybe you did talk about it in therapy, at least parts of it.  You wrote about it in your journal.  You confided in a friend or family member.  You went to confession and started going to church.  You got up earlier and picked up breakfast on the way to work.  You promised the boss you would have that presentation done by Wednesday and you really made an effort, even giving up your night out and your lunch hours, but you missed the deadline again. 

You forgot to pick up the kids.  You suddenly quit your job or were terminated.  You had your first panic attack.  You bought a new car you know you can't afford.  You stole money from your own mother.  You haven't been out of bed except to go to the bathroom in three weeks.  You thought you saw your dead grandfather in your bedroom.  You hit your wife.   You got to the grocery store and couldn't remember a single thing you had come to buy.  You received over one hundred dollars in overdraft notices from the bank. Your mind is constantly racing and you can't focus.   You told your boss to f**k off.  You promised your husband you would come straight home from work,  but you didn't make it home until three in the morning.  The dishes in the sink haven't been washed in a week.   You lost your house keys again.   You forgot your anniversary.  You made a huge spectacle of yourself in public.  You made a pass at your boss's wife.  You fell down and badly injured yourself.  You haven't slept in three days.  You promised your son you would help him with his homework,  but then you got distracted by something else.  You took an overdose of sleeping pills.  You slit your wrists.  You had a heart attack, a stroke or some other serious medical crisis.

These are the type of things that go on happening when It doesn't have a name. It is the mystery ailment that sets you apart from others and wreaks havoc in your life without leaving its calling card.

True, we all know,  denial is not just a river in Egypt.  Denial can be a major or the largest factor in going without help for long periods.  Shame, feelings of self-hatred, low-self esteem, feelings of failure, dishonest thinking hiding out and covering up as a way of life can be factors.  Not being willing to even look into what it might be for fear you'll get an answer that will require a major lifestyle change is another.

What typically forces a person in this predicament to go looking for the answer?  Sometimes a separation or divorce will jar someone into taking action.  A death of a family member or friend can motivate a person to find out what exactly is wrong with their life.  A child expressing fear, disappointment or disrespect can get through the fog and trigger a reaction in a parent.  A major medical crisis or a suicide attempt is sometimes enough to send someone looking for real help.

Where Do You Go First?  What Do You Do?'

You begin with self-honesty.  You face the man the man or woman in the mirror and get as honest as you still know how to be.   It may be that you really don't know and you aren't in denial. Then if you go to a doctor, a psychiatrist or therapist, look up your symptoms on the Internet, call a crisis phone line, or just talk to somebody and be open about what has been going on with you. 

My Undiagnosed Years:  Sometimes we're the last to know.


I had know idea that my inability to get out of bed and take an interest in life was clinical depression.  I was waiting for it to go away on its own.  As if  I really was just in one long bad mood or having an attack of self-pity,  as the people around me seemed to suggest with their "snap out of it" themed remarks.

And I love the title of the self-help book You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid? because that was sure how I felt when I learned I had adult attention deficit disorder (A.D.D.).   I also learned I had not lived up to my potential since childhood because of A.D.D.

I really thought I had to be losing my mind when I had bipolar disorder and didn't know it.  (I wasn't though, thank God.  It's not a psychosis.)   I called that thing that was out off center in my life in a big way "severe, chronic and terminal PMS" to my friends and husband, and I sought help from gynecologists. 

When my drinking progressed to daily binges,  I got creative.  I knew I couldn't be an alcoholic.  My parents were alcoholics,  and I knew what they were like:  a couple of out of it drunks who staggered around and slurred when they spoke.   No, I was special.  I had a rare mental illness which might look for all the world  like alcoholism,  but was really a neurological illness of some kind that caused a person to have to drink every day.   They emotionally and mentally had to drink because  they were entirely too sensitive for the crassness of this world.  I was an artiste--a writer--and I was unique. Yeah, and then I got better and told people how "terminal uniquitis" almost killed me.  Because if no one has a diagnosis for you, that means help isn't forthcoming.  

Drugs?  I rationalized to any "straight" person that would listen that I "mostly" just smoked marijuana and everybody knew that should be legal because it was harmless.

The problem with my thinking, my denial,  was that I didn't include psychedelics, which everyone knew were a sacred consciousness-raising drug.  Nor did I feel like including all the bottles of codeine cough syrup I drank, the many, many bottles of barbiturates, amphetamines and  pain killers;  cocaine, hash, and many more,  including the odd pills I found on the ground and then later looked up in the Physician's Desk Reference to see if they were worth taking or not.

So that covers my mysterious thing that took control of my life at various ages and caused it to become something I didn't recognize as my own.

 How About You?  Are You Ready To Call It By Name?

How about you?  Are you ready to cut through the denial and admit what earthquake is causing the aftershocks that have altered your life for the worse?

Things You Can Do:

 Write out all the symptoms your experiencing and see how many are branches of a common tree.  Go talk to your minister, priest or rabbi; employee assistance program person, counselor, doctor, or spouse/significant other.  Listen to their feedback and let it in before you discount it.  Are a number of people close to you all telling you the same things?   You could try an open meeting of a self-help group where you don't have to be a member to attend.  You also don't have to participate, but you will be able to listen and see if you belong there.

To get you started I'm going to include links to some simple quizzes to check yourself for signs and symptoms of these conditions.   The rest is up to you.  How long do you want to stay miserable?  Isn't it time to make a break a break for wellness? 

Remember, you only need to make the change in your life for one day.  You can do anything for one day.  You can build a house all by yourself.  You just have to do it brick by brick.

I hope this is your first brick.

1.  Are You Bipolar?

2.  Are you an addict?

3. Are you an alcoholic?

4.  Do I have adult attention deficit disorder (A.D.D.)?

5.  Do you have depression?

I FOUND A NEW BLOG AND A NEW FRIEND: SYNCHRONICITIES

It has been an extraordinary day.  I had a major epiphany about how I need to get really authentic in thought, word, writing and all interactions if I am to fulfill my life's purpose.  I took a risk and came out of the closet on all my blogs about the fact that I am recovering from bipolar disorder, A.D.D., alcoholism, addiction, depression and am a former non-custodial mother.  It felt good, but I didn't feel like getting into my whole complex web of stories about each.  Soon though.

I made a wonderful, life-altering new friend, Deanna.  She sent me a link for her blog after I listed mine with network blogs under the category spiritual on FB. It blew me away.  I am linking to her post on synchronicities now.  She is a healing survivor out to help others who are incest victims.  She shares the most amazingly honest spiritual and personal insights.  Many of her views are the same or similiar to my own. 

She travels the world and I read a post tonight about an amazing adventure in Israel.  Everyone must see that is unique and special.  People intuit that she is a sensitive, compassionate and probably psychic person who is healing and wants to help heal others.

She is my new FB friends for the little that that has come to mean.  More important, I plan to make her friendship and keep her and her remarkable blog in my life for some time. 

Read this post on synchronicities and see if she isn't a very amazing, unusual and extremely honest and spiritually awakened woman.

"ONE THING YOU CAN'T HIDE..."

ONE THING YOU CAN'T HIDE...

I had a huge epiphany today.  It was the result of reading a chapter titled "Learning to Follow" in my current favorite book:  Life's Companion:  Journal Writing As A Spiritual Quest by Christina Baldwin.   This chapter begins, "Our primary task in life is to discover and define our life purpose and then to accomplish it to the best of our ability." (p 257)

I finally figured out my purpose in life this year.  It is to use my God-given talent of writing to touch minds and hearts and serve others. Today the how-to's appeared in my journal writing and reflections.

Please ignore my crazy talk, once again, about becoming an expert in your niche and building a strong platform.  It grows like dandelions just from contact with the Internet.  Yesterday, before I had my inner awakening, I was planning to write an e-book on becoming an expert in your niche writing area.  I Googled it and discovered there are hundreds of such e-books, pamphlets and articles, many costing over $50 by the way.  The world does not need another.

That's neither here nor there.  The wake-up call I had today was the result of a journaling exercise from the book that helped me look at the conditions I set on my willingness to be led.  And remember,  I have written about this in my blogs--I set out each and every day praying to do God's will.   That is what I mean to follow.

The exercise then asks what are your conditions for being led to fulfill your life's purpose?  Okay, I want to reach out and touch people and help them.  I want to learn compassion.  I want to evolve and become enlightened.  Here are a few conditions I place on doing God's will and fulfilling my purpose in life though: 

       1.  It must result in fame and abundance. 
       2.  It must involve publication of my writing and money.      
       3.  It must make me an authority figure and important ("expert" "go-to
            person.)
       4. It must make me respected and looked up to by others.     
       5. It must make me wealthy.  (What happened to the Law of
           Abundance?  I must have been afraid it wouldn't be generous enough with            me in the manifestation department.)          
       6. It must involve my being a prolific writer with many publications including
           national print magazine articles, e-books and books.     
       7. It should involve spiritual beliefs--for show or for real?      
       8. It should give me a sense of accomplishment, achievement, and  fulfillment            (Not "Look what I was able to do by God's grace, but look  what the great
            I did--me--Maryellen Grady.
     9. It should not involve any one-to-one meetings with individuals.   
   10. It should keep me in the limelight--teaching, speaking, publishing, writing,
         and consulting.

How's that for hubris to start chopping through to get to the authentic person and work on getting some humility?  Because I know one thing:  No one, no matter how bad they're hurting, wants to be helped by a know-it-all pompous ass.  You can only reach others with humility and honesty.   I am not going to complete my mission in life if I don't put my gigantic ego aside and allow myself to be led by God's will for me.  It's that simple.

Here's the closet I am stepping out of in order to begin to live authentically:  I am recovering from and living with treated bipolar disorder, adult attention deficit (A.D.D.), alcoholism, addiction, depression and being a non-custodial parent for most of my children's lives.   And wham bang out come the labels:  Insane, a drunk, a druggie, crazy, fruitcake, flaky, spacey, not all there, a downer, an unfit mother... I'm sure I've been called them all and worse.   I am happy to say that I have gotten and am getting help.  I see a psychiatrist regularly, take medication for A.D.D., depression,  and bipolar disorder;  go to A.A. meetings and try to work the program;  and have some kind of relationships with my grown children today.

That wasn't so hard to confess.  Of course it will be when people start commenting that as an addict and alcoholic alone I deserved to lose my children.   I don't feel like sharing the whole long story right now.  It might sound like I was just making excuses.  So I can come out now and be who I really am.  I am not an ugly duckling but a swan that was in hiding and not owning up to its true self.  Now I can re-join my people who speak my language and understand without being told.  This insight has motivated me to look again for local A.D.D. and bipolar support groups.

I know many, many people struggle with the illnesses and disorders I have survived by the grace of God.  If I am allowed to share my experience, strength, and hope,  and it helps even one person, I can say I fulfilled my life's purpose.   I will share more about these illnesses from a personal viewpoint in future blog posts unless people let me know they don't want to hear it.  The heartbreak to all of them is that you're sometimes the last person to find out that you have them.   No one wants to be an alcoholic, addict or say they are chronically depressed in this society which urges us all to put on a happy face and fake it until we make it.  We don't want to label ourselves with something like adult attention deficit even when we live in chaos, clutter, and can't focus or get organized to save our lives.  We blank it out as working too hard or stress.  The non-custodial mother rarely discloses her status if it can be helped.  She knows the criticisms she will feel as well as hear.

This is another step in building my self-esteem and accepting myself.  I know if I don't love myself I can't love others.  I must stop the self-blame and shame game and love myself unconditionally whether others accept me as I am or not.   "One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside."  --John Lennon, Crippled Inside

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

i am reading a wonderful book.  It was, I believe, Divinely selected by the Cosmic Librarian herself just for me.  It has taught me so much.  Among other things, it has enabled me to finally forgive the man who has been hacking my computer for the past three years and several operating systems.  I really feel free of the albatross of resentment towards him although he is still using my computer/operating system illegally and still taking control. 

The title is Life's Companion:  Journal Writing As A Spiritual Quest.  The author is Christina Baldwin.  I love to journal.  I journal and read something uplifting, inspirational like this book for around three hours some mornings.  I accomplish so much.  I set goals, list my intentions and make sure they are pure, build my flagging self-esteem up by listing my achievements, accomplishments and challenges I have overcome, and so on.  It saves me a whole lot on therapy which I simply don't have the patience for, although I continue to see a psychiatrist for my bipolar disorder once a month. 

This book is full of original, creative and extremely meaningful journaling exercises.  I love doing them.  Let me tell you about a few I did today and what I learned from them. 

The first one called for a timed writing of 20 minutes to list everything you're waiting for.  I discovered there's very little for me in the NOW, because I am busy waiting for everything from getting my act together, to signing up for classes, to creating sacred space in my home out of chaos, to go on a writing/spiritual retreat, to see the ocean again, to wash my clothes (I hate doing laundry), to find my insurance card, to live in abundance, to write another novel, to write from my soul, to quit smoking, to ride my bike this Fall, to learn to write in meter, to start doing yoga again, to weigh 115 pounds, to learn source code, to volunteer at something I love, to get involved with Wiki, for my real life to begin. 

Why do I act as if I am only in the dress rehearsal stage of my life and that it hasn't officially begun yet?  I am sixty years old for crying out loud.  I still am working out what I want to be when I grow up, and I'm not wild about growing up. 

"Your daily life is nothing but the expression of your spiritual condition."
                                        --Thaddeus Golas, The Lazy Man's Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

After doing this exercise and seeing the length of my list and the breadth from small things like having pretty fingernails to more important things like establishing myself in my career,  I believe I should stop waiting for my cue and just jump in anywhere and begin.  

What stops me is a lack of spiritual discipline.  I don't even like the word. 

In an attempt to get at my absolute rebellion and defiance, I did another exercise.  You were to write down five things you do with a peaceful, happy attitude.  Write down five things you dislike doing.  Then ask yourself what makes you happy doing the first list?  What makes you unhappy doing the second list?

Surprise! Surprise!  I hate repetitious work, time-wasters like cleaning, anything that makes my back hurt, work, anything that keeps me a prisoner trapped in one place (like up against the kitchen sink), and I feel myself tugging at the reins when the task makes  me feel downright claustrophobic. 

Here's what I learned about spiritual discipling, p. 245:

"Spiritual discipline is a process of claiming our own authority, deciding to train ourselves, to align our lives with purpose.  We practice it by developing a new relationship to everything:  a relationship based on focus and choice rather than on compliance or rebellion.

"To use discipline successfully, we need to define our goals in relationship to our values, our life purpose, our spiritual imperatives."

"The true beginning of wisdom is the desire for discipline and the care of discipline is love."      --The Apocrypha

The author knows me too well.  I believe she added this sentence just for me:  "We choose the path even if it doesn't offer immediate escape or gratification."

Then I did an exercise about choice making.  Obviously I do not make good choices since, like a big yellow cat,  I allow myself to be distracted by every shiny object that moves across my line of vision. 

Exercise:

What are little choices that influence your day?  How do you handle them?  What choices do you want to make differently?  What choices do you celebrate?

The "little choices" that sabotage my plans for accomplishing anything everyday are my giving in to every Internet shiny object and following it to its source whether it's an article on building a writer's platform, a new book review, checking my e-mail for the tenth time in a day, or hanging out on Facebook writing to people I went to high school with over 30 years ago.  Those are the foolish little choices that keep from getting published in magazines, writing and publishing an e-book, writing another novel, writing more articles, bidding on more freelance jobs, becoming an expert in my niche areas of writing and building a platform for my career.  I am never going to accomplish my life's purpose of reaching others through my writing at this rate.  I must make discipline my friend and stop hating it.


So the next journaling exercise I did was a dialogue with discipline.  Here is an example of how it went:

Me:  Hello Discipline?
Discipline:  Yes, Maryellen Theresa Grady.  You don't much like me do you?
Me:  Well I haven't for most of my life, but I want to start liking you now because I very much need you in my life 
D: And it only took you 60 years to come to that truth?

Me:  I'm slow.  And I'm compulsive, rebellious and lazy and undisciplined.  I live only by what feels good and has my attention this second.  But I want to learn to change all that.  Can you help me?

D: You can learn to help yourself through me if you work--oh yes, there's that word you hate---to stay mindful, clear, and committed to your goals  You must always keep in mind you are not a leaf to be blown about by every chance wind, not if you have a destination to reach.

Me:  I have a destination.  I have a mission in life and I want to focus on working towards accomplishing it.

Preview

 And so on.  

 I made a list of daily goals I would like to achieve to complete my overall goals.  There are ten of them, and they are doable if I make the right choices and focus.

I have gotten a few done today but not without interference of distractions.  I will need to work at this every day.  I will pretend I am Rocky Balboa getting ready for the big fight and running up those stairs in preparation.  I can only live in the NOW.  I can't look behind me or ahead. 

 

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IT'S SEPTEMBER: FOR WRITERS THAT MEANS TIME TO GO BECOME AN EXPERT

And if you're not an expert, maybe you'd like to take a free or low-cost online course in something you're just interested in or to get certification or just to learn something new.

I read the most inspiring article in Women'sMemoirs about free and low-cost memoir writing classes.  I am interested in that as I am in any kind of writing, but when I was checking out Universal Classes my world shifted.  There are every kind of class you can think of from Home Business and Feng Shui to Become A Private Investigator and Energy Healing.  Click on that link in the article and you will see that most run between $55 and $75 maximum.  Of course, there's books to buy too.

Okay, in case you want totally free or lower cost courses here's some options:

Poynter News University is a mixed bag. Some courses are absolutely free, and some are expensive.  You have to look carefully through the "self-directed" courses.  Some of these are free, and you can enroll anytime and complete them at your own speed.

From Wikiversity is this link for online courses by subject.

Another from Wikiversity offers free classes at Hippo Campus.  Classes are for self-improvement and not for certification or any kind of credit.

Elearners is a directory of 6,270 online college courses and training.  Prices vary.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)  is one of over 200 open source free universities.  Here is a listing of their online courses.

Many online choices at WorldWideLearn.


And there's more you can Google.

Writers, if your niche is writing about business, take more business classes, current ones.  If it's health, why not take some alternative health or Reiki courses?

For all of you, it's a great time to increase your worldview and knowledge.  We are learners all of our lives if we live right.  Never let your curiousity wither.

And you don't even have to bring your lunch bucket.

YES, WE ARE EVOLVING.

"There are many thoughtful people who believe that our time is one of accelerated social and individual transformation.  Fundamental world views, paradigms of reality, conceptions of human nature are being questioned and challenged.  There are even suggestions from some observers that humanity as a whole species is undergoing a collective transformation.  We have no precedent in our experience for this kind of evolutionary change.  We are being challenged to examine our understanding of evolution itself."  -- Ralph Metzner, Opening to Inner Light




And we've got to get back to the garden.  Tell someone you love them today, and have it not be someone who you've said it to before or whom you feel romantic feelings towards.  How about the postal carrier who comes rain, snow, sleet or shine?   Or the patient waitstaff person who brings your coffee with a smile each morning whether you are gruff with her or not?  Give her a hug too while you're at it.  People, lonely people, people who are alone in this world, go to the doctor just to be touched.  That's not only sad, but when you think of how many loving people are in the world it is so shameful and senseless.  Do something to change your world where you are standing today.

Why not put that boring old job you hate like the devil himself out of your life and break free today?  You never thought it was your soul's mission or your true mission  in life did you?  Don't you have better things to do with your time?

We must be willing to make the changes necessary to follow our highest path--the one that brings us joy and uses our God-given talents and gifts.  Today is the day to wake up to your destiny, even if it means giving up the corner office and the dental insurance.  They don't really bring you bliss now do they?

What are you passionate about?  What have you remained passionate about for most of your life?  Follow that star.  The sales team will manage without you.  The store will stay open when you're gone.   People will still pay tolls long after you leave that booth.

Sure you've got medical bills, credit card debt, debt from a period of unemployment or disability, a high mortgage, kids to put through college, and a car that needs replacing now.   Commit.  Stay open.  Watch for signs and synchronicities.  Coincidences are just miracles that God doesn't sign her name to.

Once we make the decision to fulfill our soul's mission on earth over all else doors open and opportunities present themselves.  Go with the flow.  Things fall in place and have a way of working out better than you could have ever imagined.  No one is saying you will win the state lottery, but you may discover that you really can start a home business around some skill or talent that you think of as only a hobby.   Many have found success doing so.


You will never be alone in your quest.  Before you were born you chose the people and circumstances that waited for you here on earth to help you find your way to fulfill your purpose.  You have spirit guides as well.  Spiritual teachers, mentors and guides made up of departed loved ones, angels and other caring souls gather around a soul on a mission.  Help will come from the spiritual dimension and you will recognize it.

But you must ask for this support.  When you do ask, expect the most amazing "coincidences" to start happening.  You will happen to sit next to somebody on a train or a plane who has a business selling exactly what it is you are doing in your basement as a hobby and is interested to see your work.  You might pick up a book at exactly the right time in your journey that guides you to your next destination.  There are many guides and signals along the path with a heart.  Just be willing to be humble and to ask for help.

Pray and meditate.  Don't let fear trap you and make you its captive.  Then you will second guess all your growth and progress and be tempted to run back and see if they still need drivers down at the truck company or sales clerks at the store.  Don't let fear drive you back after you have taken a big step forward.  Trust the universe.  Trust your intuition.  Trust your abilities.  If you can't have self-confidence, have God-confidence.  "Ask and it shall be given to you."

The Dalai Lama says our purpose in life is to live in joy.  Of course there will be joy when we all live in love.  "All you need is love," those wise lads sang to us and changed our lives. 

When we settle for less than joy, less than excitement about getting up in the morning to see what the day has in store, we aren't loving ourselves.  "Follow your bliss," Joseph Campbell advised "and doors will open."

You can live with integrity, be your authentic self and never have to play any games, and speak only with your true voice.    You won't be society's nine-to-five robot any longer.  You will be a free spirit.  We are all meant to be free.  We are all meant to be creative.  Everyone is creative and has gifts if they accept them and open themselves up to them.

We unlearn creativity as we go through life.  Most people don't believe they are creative.  We have more inhibitions.  We ask fewer questions.  We make less assumptions.  We don't play or explore.

When was the last time you went with a child to look at the clouds?  Did you see monkeys juggling pineapples?  Walruses playing trombones?  Elephants riding bicycles and wearing tiny hats?  Or did it just look like rain?

We are born creative beings.  Being creative is our nature.

Creativity's worst enemy is fear. 

The universe is creative.

Forget every criticism you ever received.  No longer give any importance to thoughtless remarks made over the years by parents, teachers and other adults when you were young and vulnerable.  You may have been told that you should sing only in the shower by someone who was just trying to show how clever they were.    Perhaps you really can be a fantastic singer if you let yourself sing from the heart.

Choices that come from our truth feel good.  That's how we can tell when we are being authentic.   When we are just going along, trying not to make waves or not offend anyone, keeping a low profile and our opinions and beliefs to ourselves, we are play-acting and just faking it, not really making it (Simon & Garfunkle).

Practice letting go.  Get yourself some fingerpaints for starters and pretend you're four and no one has ever told you about colors clashing, going out of the lines, or making a mess.   Just go wild and experiment and have fun with it.  It's an exercise in freeing the creativity you have bottled up inside you because you didn't believe it was there.

Be playful.  Be childlike.  Don't play by the rules.  You still have a sense of wonder.  Use it.  Right now look up at any object in the room.  Now gaze at it and feel a sense of wonder about it.   Then after a few minutes switch to another object.  Try doing it to your hand or arm.  Go outside and wonder at a flower or a tree. 

Laugh a lot.  Tell yourself jokes that only you would get.  Laugh like crazy.

Be passionate in all things:  eating, making love, gardening, washing dishes.  Do it with gusto and verve.

Be mindful.  Ask during the day, "Is this what I'm supposed to be doing?"  Then wait for a reply.   You'll lose interest and energy if you're not supposed to be doing what you're doing.  You'll get them renewed if you are.

If you really dislike being creative and living in bliss, there are steps you can take to stop them:

1.  Become a perfectionist.
2.  Sell out and make your creations more palatable to the general public.
3.  Imitate others.
4.  Compare yourself to others.
5.  Become inauthentic.
6.  Most important, listen to that inner critic.

We all have an inner critic.  The trick is learning to ignore it.  Imagine it as your seventh grade English teacher, the one who gave you low grades on all your papers for spelling and grammar despite the fact that you wrote your little heart out.  Think of knocking her block right off, horn-rimmed glasses and bun and fake pearl necklace and all.   See her sitting on the floor with her face red from embarrassment.  Bet she won't criticize your spelling again on what should have been an A paper.

So give yourself a real chance at this life. Do what it is that you were meant to do and find bliss, fulfillment,  peace and love.  Begin today.

ABOUT ME

I believe that the only thing that can save humans and the planets, including this one, oh this precious Earth and all that we have put her through, is to find compassion in our universal heart.  That will bring the insanity to a close. .  We will be "back to the garden", as Joni Mitchell used to sing for all of us and many of us believed her.

This is a blog not meant for five-sensory humans after today, September 14, 2010.  Some of the posts on here from before that date are meant for multisensory humans too, and you'll be able to clearly tell which ones.  Multisensory humans is not my original concept.  It's from a book that did a great deal to influence the positive spiritual view I take today of human beings and their future on this planet.  The book is Seat of The Soul, by Gary Zukav, and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to believe in the evolution of our species to keep from going mad.

This book gave me hope that lasted years.  I began to notice that our species was becoming multisensory and not just limited to five senses.  People were trusting their intuitions, synchronicities and visions over rational, logical thinking.  They were also becoming more concerned about their fellow passengers on this journey.  We are starting to live in a more loving universe.   Here's what the book says it is about:

"This is a book about authentic empowerment--the alignment of the personality with the soul--what that involves, how it happens, and what it creates.  To understand these things requires an understanding of things that appear unusual to the five-sensory human, but they become natural once you understand evolution--that five-sensory perception is a journey leading to multisensory perception--and that you are not always meant to be five-sensory." (p.32)

I write this blog in the hope that it will add to our evolution, add to universal love, add to the love in your life.  I pray you find enjoyment, refreshment, new avenues to explore, wonders to contemplate, organizations and people to lend a hand to, help with your writing and publishing, direction and guidance with life choices and decisions.   I will do my very best to have it live up to this strong endorsement.  I hope to get some multisensory guest host bloggers too.  Or maybe one of you would like to switch from reader to writer.  Let me know at:

msrefusenik@gmail.com.  Let me know in the comments what you were glad to see in here, and what you could have done without.    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  About Me:  I have been a freelance writer and researcher for many years.  I have been a writer since I was old enough to write cursive it seems to me. It is my gift, and I know it was given to me as part of my soul's mission on this planet.  I call this place "Planet Earth:  Bootcamp for Souls."  Doesn't it seem that you're always learning some new lessons the hard way?  I figured out that whatever character weaknesses, ego problems, negative fear-based traits I was suffering from, sure enough I would find myself landed in a Bootcamp class designed to help me work on it.

I'll give you an idea of how it worked for me.   I used to have an Irish-descent, red-haired, too much beer and too many drugs, tot through forty-something bad temper.  I could not keep from going into rants, fits, rages, throwing frenzies, name-calling and even on one occasion trying to choke the life out of an ex.  I was a pistol and I was due any day to be locked up in the nuthouse, prison, jail or the undertaker's parlor.  I took on bikers, men three times my size, packs of pitbulls, the arresting officers and the judge about to sentence me.

Then I began to notice it was putting me in a lot of shame, embarrassment and pain.  I didn't feel good about me.  I prayed to have it removed.  I wrote about it in my journal.  And you know what happened?  I was drafted by Bootcamp for Souls into an advanced class on Anger Management.  Suddenly the opportunities to go into white hot, frothing at the mouth rages multiplied instead of disappearing.  I had to begin to learn to exercise self-control, an entire concept that was totally foreign to me.  "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," was my motto.  I didn't usually care what people thought or felt, and now I was trying to rein myself in and not show my shadow self. 

The more I worked at it, with some successes here and there, the more challenges fell right into my path.   Why did the AT&T operator have to take out her PMS on me when I was trying so hard?  Then teller down at the bank could have broken the news politely instead of snottily announcing to half the bank that she wasn't going to be giving any money back on my deposit because of overdrafts.  The doctor's office had no right to expect me to sit in that waiting room for over an hour.  Every day new challenges, some new growth areas, and a few failures.

There were only open book tests, thank God.  I knew what the answers should be.  I had been taught them by frustrated adults all my untamed life.  Now I had to crack the whip on myself. 

Long story short. I miraculously succeeded thanks to that course.  Today I don't know what it would take for me to fly into a death-hold choking manuever, or to tell a sweet, old librarian to go fuck herself because she couldn't find the book I reserved.  I don't even know what would make me lose my temper at all and my computer has been hacked by the same 29-year-old ex-computer programmer who knows five code languages for the past 2-1/2 years.  Right now, in fact, he has me locked out of my operating system.  Fortunately, I can use Knoppix Linux Live CD.  He is brutal in the way he hassels me, interferes with what I'm doing, gets me fired from jobs because he destroys my manuscripts, won't let me go online, etc., but the worst I do is write him nasty notes complete with some words I wouldn't want to send home to Mama.   But I don't get into a victim role, throw the computer out a window, or scream at anybody convenient.  I am the tamed shrew.    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Here are some of the things I have written:
Unofficial, incomplete:   portfolio

Fiction & Poetry  FanStory.com: Portfolio
Alternative Health Articles:  AlignLife.com:  AlignLife articles

My Other Blog:  MsRefusenik Tells It All:  Blog

Articles On An Online Writing Magazine: Suite 101.com

That's plenty for now. If you want to know how long I've been kicking around the Cyberland and what I've been up to just Google my name: MsRefusenik.  There's plenty of information there that I wish no one had access to, but I did it and I should live with it.

TODAY IT BEGINS WITH ME, HOW ABOUT YOU?

"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? Isaiah


Just Say Yes!

I am planning on starting my own writing business and starting a new Web site to go with it. You're looking at the new Web site.   I am getting bored freelancing writing projects for clients even though I try to only take on those that are spiritually uplifting and beneficial to others.  Sometimes I slip and take on projects just to make money,  and I end up bored and frustrated that I am just typing and wasting my time.   I want to write about things that will make a difference in the world.   Don't get me wrong.  I'm not totally full of arrogance and I don't think that what I do, say or write is world altering, but I do believe in the maxim, "Let it begin with me."  The world can't evolve to pure love and higher consciousness, which is what is intended by its creator, if each of us isn't evolving.

So I am starting my new business, if you want to call it that.   I don't care if it makes a profit or any money at all.  I do care if people read it because I want word to get out there about the things I plan to write about.  But before I give you an idea of what those things will be, I have a confession to make.

I must fight pride, greed and grandiosity every day like they are crabgrass in my well-manicured lawn.  I think I have seen the end of those nasty things sprouting up,  and look what just grew right before my eyes.   I took hold of this inspiration  to start a new career, and the next thing I knew I was spending hours online researching social media networking,  marketing, e-mail marketing, logos, branding, domain registration, target audience, increasing traffic,..  On and on I went with the small business details that had never occurred to me when I first thought I was meant to write about some new things that would help others save the world.

I acted on many of them too.  I joined  so many social media I couldn't keep passwords straight and got locked out of LinkedIn not once but twice.  I let LinkedIn use my personal address contacts to invite strangers and acquaintances to connect with me.  It was pretty awkward.  I don't know what some of those people were doing in my address book.

I networked like a Avon Lady on crack.    I joined so many groups I couldn't remember what I had joined.  I didn't get much done on my new business because I was spending half of my days trying to learn the ins and outs of Twitter for business including lesser important things like how to decorate my Twitter page.

On and on it went.  And every morning I would wake up realizing that I was no closer to starting anything new no less a business.

I was reading Deepak Chopra's The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire at the time and came across this:  "What we put our attention on blossoms.  What we withdraw our attention from withers."

I asked myself if I really aspired to becoming a Twitter star.

I did some self-reflecting, journal writing, praying and meditating.  I also re-read some of my old journals to look for past errors in judgment and found plenty of places where pride, greed and grandiosity had been my downfall.   I also saw where doing my will instead of God's will had nearly destroyed me several times.

There are no coincidences, only miracles to which God doesn't sign his/her name.  I read a quote from Marianne Williamson (Gift of Change) in one of my old journals that got me where I needed to be hit:

"All we need to remember is this:   If God has given us a job to do, He will provide for us the means by which to accomplish it.   All we have to do is ask Him what He wants us to do and then be willing to do it." 

"All we have to do..."  That certainly does keep it simple, doesn't it?   It didn't say anything about web hosting, marketing, social media, networking, traffic building, polls and surveys, analytics or any of the other garbage I'd been taking crash courses on to get rich and famous, or at least to become moderately successful,  which is dangerous enough for someone with my character defects.

And worse yet, I had been figuring that in order to be moderately successful I would have to sacrifice my one true voice. and not be 100 percent authentic in my writing.  I would have to play the game to be popular.  I would have to write about topics that people expected on a writer's site and that would help sell my services.   I would have to keep my personal opinions and beliefs to myself.  I would have to do as all the writing newsletters and blogs I was studying were tell me ad infinitum  and produce a Web site that sold my writing services by writing about writing.

Personally, I thought these sort of Web sites were a dime a dozen.  I had read about 30 of them just since I started researching for the new business/Web site.  You read one, you read 'em all, I had been thinking, but I know that's not really true.  I was burned out on them.    I even prepared myself to spend some time writing about that most boring facet of writing of all, the one that even many writers detest--grammar.   I would do it too if it would help Alexa to show me good page rank.  I would offer it up to the suffering blog writers with little traffic and no AdSense income.   I wanted to sell more articles.

Hell, what kind of articles would I end up writing?  Probably much the same as the non-spiritual, non-beneficial ones I occasionally slipped up and took on Elance.com occasionally.  Talk about from the frying pan to the fire!   And I couldn't just change my mind once I took a job.  I would have overhead to think of, maybe employees to pay.   I would have to write for every project that came my way.   I would be as trapped as I would if I were putting on pantyhose every morning and sitting in a cubicle from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Sweat ran from my pits down to my knees at the thought,  and my stomach rolled over like I was on Space Mountain.

Greed doesn't pay.   Pride does indeed go before the fall. 

Finally I calmed down enough to get in conscious contact with God,  or whatever you prefer to call  the divine force within,  and then I asked myself what I truly wanted.  Where did my passion lie?  What would I really truly like to write about and would it make a difference?

The topics started flowing so quickly I couldn't get to my yellow legal pad fast enough. I simply wanted to help others to make a difference.  I always want to make a difference, but usually can't find a pen, a stamp or an envelope to write my Senator.   I want to make a difference but lose the Web site address with the street address of where to go to sign up to volunteer,  and can't exactly remember the name of the organization.   I have adult deficient disorder (A.D.D.) and every task is a monumental production for me. 

Parents of small children must think their job for the day is done if they can find their car keys and get all of their kids collected and home safely after school one way or another.  Or as I once heard on a TV show, I think it was Roseanne, "If those kids are still alive at the end of the day, I've done my job as far as I'm concerned."

How well I remember the days when a note from the teacher requesting something didn't surface until breakfast time on the day she wanted it.  Panic would go through the house like wildfire.  God forbid she would think I was a bad mother.  I didn't expect any breaks just because I worked and had two small children.

And what about the disabled person who sometimes must depend on others to take care of getting certain things done like typing a letter when you don't have hand movement?

Or what if you have no reason in the world, but you are just more likely to pitch in and help out when everything is right in front of you and all you have to do is point and click?   I liked the idea.  I believe God likes it too.

So what kinds of things will I write about?  Here is some of the topics that came to me like gangbusters when I asked myself what I really wanted to write about:

1. On July 12, 2010 Veterans in this country won a long fought battle to simplify access to health care and benefits for those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  We have come a long way from the  Bush days and many Vets will finally get the help they need.  One in five veterans returning from Iraq reported a mental health problem and combat exposure is an important contributing factor.

Does this new legislation mean that all Vets will finally be receiving the Veteran benefits they and their families are entitled to?  Or will we still be reading impossible to grasp stories of Vets who are denied benefits for loopholes beyond reason,  or Vets who finally received benefits after their death that they never knew in life they had coming?

I believe one of the best Web sites by Veterans for Veterans on benefit entitlement and some unbelievable injustice by the VA is  VAWatchdog.
You can also get a free complete 95-page of the Veterans 2010 benefits on this Web site.

Sign up to volunteer to help this and other Vet organizations that help Vets get justice.  Another good one asking for help with this is VetVoice.    Or buy some tickets to entertainment and sports venues that specific Vets have requested at Veterans Tickets.

I tell you I read some pitiful stories about Vets going without after proudly serving this country.  It is a shame I hope we can recover from someday.

I also plan to write about how parents who work year round, like most of us, can start a day care co-op since sitters and day care costs are astronomical.  I'd like to let parents know where to get cheap or free cloth diapers, as the disposable ones are a terrible pollution problem for Mother Earth.  How and where to get free tuition, scholarship and e-courses for every level from non-credit through graduate.  Where to get free software,  e-books,  magazines, newspapers and newsletters. Where to go to get help if you're a victim of domestic violence.  How to really get free or sliding scale legal help.  How and where to get free everything decent and worth having I can find.  How to find the purpose of your life. Where to go and what to if your hacked,  and how to prevent it in the first place.  What you can do for the whales, dolphins, rain forest, poor, homeless, unemployed, disabled, overwhelmed and confused among others.  Where and how to write and make phone calls to get real action and what kinds of action we need now, and many more too lengthy to list here.

I hope you will continue to join me here, and be ready to create some change in our world. 

And I'll also  still be writing about spirituality and writing and giving my personal opinions on whatnot as usual at MsRefusenik Tells It All.MsRefusenik Tells It All.

TODAY IT BEGINS WITH ME, HOW ABOUT YOU?

"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? Isaiah


Just Say Yes!

I am planning on starting my own writing business and starting a new Web site to go with it. You're looking at the new Web site.   I am getting bored freelancing writing projects for clients even though I try to only take on those that are spiritually uplifting and beneficial to others.  Sometimes I slip and take on projects just to make money,  and I end up bored and frustrated that I am just typing and wasting my time.   I want to write about things that will make a difference in the world.   Don't get me wrong.  I'm not totally full of arrogance and I don't think that what I do, say or write is world altering, but I do believe in the maxim, "Let it begin with me."  The world can't evolve to pure love and higher consciousness, which is what is intended by its creator, if each of us isn't evolving.

So I am starting my new business, if you want to call it that.   I don't care if it makes a profit or any money at all.  I do care if people read it because I want word to get out there about the things I plan to write about.  But before I give you an idea of what those things will be, I have a confession to make.

I must fight pride, greed and grandiosity every day like they are crabgrass in my well-manicured lawn.  I think I have seen the end of those nasty things sprouting up,  and look what just grew right before my eyes.   I took hold of this inspiration  to start a new career, and the next thing I knew I was spending hours online researching social media networking,  marketing, e-mail marketing, logos, branding, domain registration, target audience, increasing traffic,..  On and on I went with the small business details that had never occurred to me when I first thought I was meant to write about some new things that would help others save the world.

I acted on many of them too.  I joined  so many social media I couldn't keep passwords straight and got locked out of LinkedIn not once but twice.  I let LinkedIn use my personal address contacts to invite strangers and acquaintances to connect with me.  It was pretty awkward.  I don't know what some of those people were doing in my address book.

I networked like a Avon Lady on crack.    I joined so many groups I couldn't remember what I had joined.  I didn't get much done on my new business because I was spending half of my days trying to learn the ins and outs of Twitter for business including lesser important things like how to decorate my Twitter page.

On and on it went.  And every morning I would wake up realizing that I was no closer to starting anything new no less a business.

I was reading Deepak Chopra's The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire at the time and came across this:  "What we put our attention on blossoms.  What we withdraw our attention from withers."

I asked myself if I really aspired to becoming a Twitter star.

I did some self-reflecting, journal writing, praying and meditating.  I also re-read some of my old journals to look for past errors in judgment and found plenty of places where pride, greed and grandiosity had been my downfall.   I also saw where doing my will instead of God's will had nearly destroyed me several times.

There are no coincidences, only miracles to which God doesn't sign his/her name.  I read a quote from Marianne Williamson (Gift of Change) in one of my old journals that got me where I needed to be hit:

"All we need to remember is this:   If God has given us a job to do, He will provide for us the means by which to accomplish it.   All we have to do is ask Him what He wants us to do and then be willing to do it." 

"All we have to do..."  That certainly does keep it simple, doesn't it?   It didn't say anything about web hosting, marketing, social media, networking, traffic building, polls and surveys, analytics or any of the other garbage I'd been taking crash courses on to get rich and famous, or at least to become moderately successful,  which is dangerous enough for someone with my character defects.

And worse yet, I had been figuring that in order to be moderately successful I would have to sacrifice my one true voice. and not be 100 percent authentic in my writing.  I would have to play the game to be popular.  I would have to write about topics that people expected on a writer's site and that would help sell my services.   I would have to keep my personal opinions and beliefs to myself.  I would have to do as all the writing newsletters and blogs I was studying were tell me ad infinitum  and produce a Web site that sold my writing services by writing about writing.

Personally, I thought these sort of Web sites were a dime a dozen.  I had read about 30 of them just since I started researching for the new business/Web site.  You read one, you read 'em all, I had been thinking, but I know that's not really true.  I was burned out on them.    I even prepared myself to spend some time writing about that most boring facet of writing of all, the one that even many writers detest--grammar.   I would do it too if it would help Alexa to show me good page rank.  I would offer it up to the suffering blog writers with little traffic and no AdSense income.   I wanted to sell more articles.

Hell, what kind of articles would I end up writing?  Probably much the same as the non-spiritual, non-beneficial ones I occasionally slipped up and took on Elance.com occasionally.  Talk about from the frying pan to the fire!   And I couldn't just change my mind once I took a job.  I would have overhead to think of, maybe employees to pay.   I would have to write for every project that came my way.   I would be as trapped as I would if I were putting on pantyhose every morning and sitting in a cubicle from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Sweat ran from my pits down to my knees at the thought,  and my stomach rolled over like I was on Space Mountain.

Greed doesn't pay.   Pride does indeed go before the fall. 

Finally I calmed down enough to get in conscious contact with God,  or whatever you prefer to call  the divine force within,  and then I asked myself what I truly wanted.  Where did my passion lie?  What would I really truly like to write about and would it make a difference?

The topics started flowing so quickly I couldn't get to my yellow legal pad fast enough. I simply wanted to help others to make a difference.  I always want to make a difference, but usually can't find a pen, a stamp or an envelope to write my Senator.   I want to make a difference but lose the Web site address with the street address of where to go to sign up to volunteer,  and can't exactly remember the name of the organization.   I have adult deficient disorder (A.D.D.) and every task is a monumental production for me. 

Parents of small children must think their job for the day is done if they can find their car keys and get all of their kids collected and home safely after school one way or another.  Or as I once heard on a TV show, I think it was Roseanne, "If those kids are still alive at the end of the day, I've done my job as far as I'm concerned."

How well I remember the days when a note from the teacher requesting something didn't surface until breakfast time on the day she wanted it.  Panic would go through the house like wildfire.  God forbid she would think I was a bad mother.  I didn't expect any breaks just because I worked and had two small children.

And what about the disabled person who sometimes must depend on others to take care of getting certain things done like typing a letter when you don't have hand movement?

Or what if you have no reason in the world, but you are just more likely to pitch in and help out when everything is right in front of you and all you have to do is point and click?   I liked the idea.  I believe God likes it too.

So what kinds of things will I write about?  Here is some of the topics that came to me like gangbusters when I asked myself what I really wanted to write about:

1. On July 12, 2010 Veterans in this country won a long fought battle to simplify access to health care and benefits for those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  We have come a long way from the  Bush days and many Vets will finally get the help they need.  One in five veterans returning from Iraq reported a mental health problem and combat exposure is an important contributing factor.

Does this new legislation mean that all Vets will finally be receiving the Veteran benefits they and their families are entitled to?  Or will we still be reading impossible to grasp stories of Vets who are denied benefits for loopholes beyond reason,  or Vets who finally received benefits after their death that they never knew in life they had coming?

I believe one of the best Web sites by Veterans for Veterans on benefit entitlement and some unbelievable injustice by the VA is VA is
You can also get a free complete 95-page of the Veterans 2010 benefits on this Web site.

Sign up to volunteer to help this and other Vet organizations that help Vets get justice.  Another good one asking for help with this is with this     Or buy some tickets to entertainment and sports venues that specific Vets have requested at requested at

I tell you I read some pitiful stories about Vets going without after proudly serving this country.  It is a shame I hope we can recover from someday.

I also plan to write about how parents who work year round, like most of us, can start a day care co-op since sitters and day care costs are astronomical.  I'd like to let parents know where to get cheap or free cloth diapers, as the disposable ones are a terrible pollution problem for Mother Earth.  How and where to get free tuition, scholarship and e-courses for every level from non-credit through graduate.  Where to get free software,  e-books,  magazines, newspapers and newsletters. Where to go to get help if you're a victim of domestic violence.  How to really get free or sliding scale legal help.  How and where to get free everything decent and worth having I can find.  How to find the purpose of your life. Where to go and what to if your hacked,  and how to prevent it in the first place.  What you can do for the whales, dolphins, rain forest, poor, homeless, unemployed, disabled, overwhelmed and confused among others.  Where and how to write and make phone calls to get real action and what kinds of action we need now, and many more too lengthy to list here.

I hope you will continue to join me here, and be ready to create some change in our world. 

I'll still be here writing about spirituality and writing and giving my personal opinions on whatnot as usual at usual at