From the Inside Out

“A lot of people say they want to get out of pain, and I'm sure that's true, but they aren't willing to make healing a high priority. They aren't willing to look inside to see the source of their pain in order to deal with it.” ~ Lindsay Wagner


About a week ago, my oldest son got hurt playing basketball. What initially appeared as a red, slightly swollen bump, changed color over time, and became a silver-dollar-sized brown and yellow bruise covering the inside of his wrist.

The other night, he reached out to pick up something while I was cooking dinner, and I asked if his arm still hurt. He shook his head and looked at the bruise; “look mom,” he said, “the bruise looks like a doughnut now.” And it really did. What used to be a solid blue mark finally faded to a rusty brown circle encrusting a small area of healed skin.

To my surprise, he said: “Isn’t it strange how so many things that happen on the outside seem to relate to experiences inside of ourselves?”

When I asked what he meant, he replied: “People think that you heal from the outside and you have to treat your body, but even this bruise shows how things truly heal from the inside out.”

I was stunned at his ability to embrace such a philosophical view of things at such a young age, and became quite curious about his theory. The way he explained it was simple, yet it was probably more powerful than most complicated versions I’ve heard before. Adults can make a mess of things when they try to inflate their ideas with big words to impress, desperate to appear erudite and wise; kids have no time for garnishes, and go straight to the heart of things.

With the perception of a fifteen-year-old naturally fascinated by electronics, he sees the outer body as a machine fed by a central “life engine”. The energy received from the central source is then distributed through an intricate wiring to reach all areas of the body and mind, all filaments connected to one another. If one bulb burns out, a whole section shuts off, and doesn’t receive energy.

The central supply is continually fed by our daily experiences and it runs freely at the center; if something happens to it, or if it slows its flow to a trickle, all the filaments depending on its power gradually turn off.

I thought about this theory long after my son went on his way. When our flow of life energy is slowed down or interrupted, a compromised sense of wellness is the natural consequence. The most important question at this point would be whether wellbeing can be restored if the flow is once again regulated. Would the secondary channels be irreversibly damaged after not being fed for a long period of time, or could they fill up with a new supply of life energy and resume their work?

Personally, I believe that some of them – those that have completely dried out over time – are probably irreparable, but I also think that a new network can be created once the flow reaches new, consistent strength.

Our work doesn’t revolve around producing the energy itself, as it is self-renewing; all we need to focus on is the removal of blocks that prevent it from moving freely.
Guilt is often the mother of all blocks, followed closely by anxiety and fear. We can easily picture our blocks like sandbags we place around the source of energy to block its flow; if we remove the sandbags, nothing can stop the energy from radiating out from the core.

If we can learn to heal from within, just as Stephen’s bruise is doing, we can hope that when the process is complete, full power will once again be restored.

The Book I Never Wrote - First Edition Misprint

Last night was a bit of a rollercoaster. After reaching the top when I received the copies of Housekeeping for the Soul I had ordered two weeks ago, I took a fast dip when one of my contacts sent me a message and told me that the advance copy she received today for review was misprinted – right jacket and wrong book inside of it!

I am of firm belief that people’s paths cross for a reason, but this unexpected merging of literary children created sheer panic. Within a matter of hours, I went from being elated that books were already on the way to Amazon and other retailers to being utterly terrified thinking that the one copy was not the only hybrid.

I opened the carton of forty books I received along with the advanced copies, and I held my breath while I opened each book. I found thirty-three legitimate books, and seven misprints. Now, every author wants to hope that misprints of their book’s first edition will be worth something some day, but for the time being, I can only shudder at the thought of unsuspecting readers opening their packages and finding a book they didn’t order.

My hope is that only those eight books got mixed up at the printer, but I have no way of knowing that. I immediately sent messages to the publisher and to the distributor, and they will hopefully correct the problem before the books go out to people who pre-ordered them. Quite nerve-wrecking…

The thing that fascinated most is that the author of the books I accidentally “embraced” into my jacket and I seem to be birds of the same feather. Here is a small excerpt from his biography on Amazon: "We Are All One. When we allow ourselves to become aware of this statement in its purest form, we open the doors to reveal the oneness of being.”

Most people who are used to the concepts I consistently discuss will probably recognize the similarity between my message and the other author’s; I, for one, was pretty impressed by their twin-like nature.

I suppose time will unveil why our books connected at this point of our literary journey, so I’m just going to sit back and see where the road will lead. I hope the powers that be will be able to correct the problem, and that nobody will receive the wrong book, but at this point I can only cross my fingers, hope that everything will work out and that, if a reason indeed exists for the mix-up, it will be revealed to me in due time.

And of course, the real dreamer in me wants to believe that if one or two misprints remain out there, some day they will be popular enough to be auctioned for charity. Now, wouldn’t that be fun?

Heaven on Earth

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” ~ Henry D. Thoreau


Although I’ve heard the expression ‘Heaven on earth’ many times, it was only yesterday that I realized how easily we misinterpret its meaning.

While I buy into the concept that to get to the light at the end of the tunnel one must first go through the tunnel, the cold tunnel we have gone through this year has felt endless – with sub-freezing temperatures almost everyday, and a pale sun too timid to overpower the icy grip of Old Man Winter, spring has felt like a fleeting dream which would never manifest. And instead, yesterday we finally poked our heads out to emerge into a meteorological paradise, one of those days one wants to mark on the calendar with a pink crayon. It was an amazing day – temperatures in the high sixties and bright sunshine to magically erase the gloom of the cold days gone by.

When my children got home from school, we decided to go to the park for a couple of hours. We packed a quick picnic and hopped in the car. When we pulled into the parking lot, I couldn’t believe the number of cars already there; the scene reminded me somehow of a Disney film – when Bambi was born in the spring, all the animals in the forest came out to see the new prince; Raleigh residents all came out to see if anything was new at the playground.

The kids ate and then ran off to play, while I sat on one of the benches and fished a book out of my purse. My phone rang a short while later, it was my husband calling to see what we were doing; my reply was a simple one: “We are in Heaven,” I said, “it’s amazing out here.”

After I hung up, I thought of what I said and what made me say it. Was it just the beautiful weather that had affected my perception of an ordinary day, or could it be that gradually I have come to a place in my life where I have learned to appreciate the small joys of a day playing in the sunshine? I looked around – everywhere were beautiful, smiling children and relaxed mothers, squirrels were scurrying about, and birds were making the most of a warm day in late winter. I felt like I was one with all the energy around, and the joy of it wasn’t really coming from the outside as much as it was originating within.

We can’t have a spring-like day in the winter all the time for, as my mother always said, it can’t be Christmas every day; but, maybe, we can “bottle-up” the joy of those moments and use it as a blueprint to create a slice of our own heaven on earth every day, the way children do. As I watched my kids squeal with joy on the way down the slide, drunk from a potion of youth and timeless oneness with their world in that moment, I understood the true meaning of Heaven on heart. A verse in the Bible perfectly reflects this powerful message: “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Granted, it’s much easier to feel good on a beautiful day when everything seems to go the right way, but if we can appreciate being in the present moment, the light at the end of the tunnel instantly becomes closer and easier to reach, whether the sun is shining or a powerful storm is raging over us.

While happiness sometimes comes with a price tag, joy is a free ride we can get on over and over, if we just allow ourselves to see with our hearts and read between the lines of our daily chapters.