A Brief Examination of Victim/Offender Mentalities in Relation to Restorative Justice

Like recovery from diseases of perception requires the honesty to admit a condition exists, the Restoration of Justice must recognize that justice needs repair.  But where does one start restoring justice?  Start anywhere, but just start.  Is justice ‘broken’? 

In the Justice System, we usually have the elements of the victim/offender adversarial dynamics with which to contend, but we need to break this down into manageable chunks for the productive exchange of ideas.

Liker racism, the construction of victimhood involves instruments of inclusion and exclusion, creating “us/them” dichotomies. Communes of victimhood and vicarious victimhood gangs with retaliation or prerequisites for revenge at their center are embedded and endlessly strengthened until they deconstruct their freedom for self-governing. 

Fudging of free agency and reality are not unique to group identities, but inherently reinforces groups' tendencies of self-sustaining myth-making and irresponsibility.

Among victimhood’s more harmful effects, vicarious victimhood obscures the realities of power and forecloses meaningful culpability to those outside the group. It is arguable that every perpetrator started out as a victim, which sets in place trains of misfortune, vicious cycles, whereby the group ensconces stubborn incentives to harm others in the name of self-protection—and thereby kills itself by staying stuck in unforgiveness.

Self-injurious systems only strengthen the group's self-anointed status as a victim: as always done by, but never doing to.  “I’m the victim here” is the war-cry of every person or patriot hell-bent on destroying the free agency of “them.”  How does take one’s power back?  Maybe Restorative Justice can help.

Restorative Justice identifies the marginality of injustice, strips the paradox of power down to its core components to avoid the victimhood/offender narrative, and replaces it with a mediated Healing Circle of material respect between victims and offenders.  Everyone gets to be real, but no one gets to be mean.  Truth without compassion is cruelty.  Victims expound upon the effects of any given offense, as do the perpetrators.  But victims and offenders have names, not labels, and dialogs move along lines without blamethrowers.  Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean.  Vulnerability and strength are in requisite balance, and accountability is a mutually determined in a Healing Circle.  After everyone talks about how the offense impacted their lives and what lead up to it, both sides agree upon a proposed ‘sentence.' 

Then, a judge renders the judgment based upon the work done in a Healing Circle, ‘justice served.'

Bertrand Russell said, "To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."  Bertrand Russell

Live and Learn.

Love is never wrong. But what we do for love is sometimes crazy. Me, I would rather love than WORRY about being duped, fooled, or otherwise, find myself in a WHAT/IF quandary, wondering WTF WERE YOU THINKING? In other words, live, and then figure it out later.

QUOTE CITY:  Soren Kierkegaard had a few ideas that might be of service here: “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forwards.  Once you label me you negate me.  Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.  Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. Face the facts of being what you are, for that, is what changes what you are.”  Lastly, Sartre said, “We are condemned to be free.” 

Intellectuals live in their minds, overthinking everything, and contaminate any chance love might have of completely enveloping their experience. The mind is to serve the heart, for love is the central commandment of all scripture.  "Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.” ee cummings, and Satan asked us to eat from the tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil (judgment).

 

But back to this world.  I used to have a serious problem. I could walk into a room of 500 women and fall in love with the sickest one in the room. THAT one is exciting, smart, sexy, artistic, poetic, and I would feel drawn like a moth to a light.  After several “bad” experiences, someone told me my "Picker" was broken (you can pick 'em, Timothy). But our spirit knows what we need intuitively, even if logically it seems totally stupid and bound for failure. We empathically connect to the Messengers we need in life.  In God’s Economy, nothing is wasted.

I would rather crash and burn in Innocent Ecstasy than end up living a life in fear, which is a living death, really.

If you love someone, you will not hurt them, at least not on purpose. If you love yourself, you will not place yourself in harm's way, either. Life is all about love or it's nothing real at all because the only thing REAL is LOVE.

There are two poems that changed my life: Since Feeling is First, by ee cummings https://youtu.be/GdrM5u5e_UM, and The More Loving One, by WH Auden. https://youtu.be/RhtrXdirXk4

So, listen to your heart. Trust it and she/he will lead you well. Doubt it and you'll live in a semi-dark corner spelling checking carbon copies, a life where we never make mistakes and learn from them.

As long as we are pure of heart, we'll be free of the thinking hell that so many are self-contaminated by. CS Lewis said, "The door to hell is only opened from the inside."

Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. I used to go to romance movies ALONE, just me and my popcorn. Couples would come in and occasionally a woman would look at me quizzically, wondering what a man was doing there alone, I guess. I did it to enjoy love alone as much as I did when I was in a relationship. Embrace each moment sweetly, even the painful ones, for they will purify your heart if you let it.

So live. Pray. Seek wisdom. Dance. Quit walking with the enemy. Forgive yourself and everyone else, too.

"A ton of head ain't worth an ounce of heart".  Earnie Larsen

https://youtu.be/RNQqTvvSUw4

 

 

Drug Dealers & Doctors; Trust and Reason. Procuring Freedom through Inner Dialog.

I have a strong tendency to default into skepticism or suspicion when I see commercials, YouTube videos, or hear about someone selling some product that 'supposedly' has health benefits.  Why the suspicion? Is someone 'selling' their own product a cause for putting them in a line-up?  I quickly suspend my judgment and listen for the information, then research it myself to see if it has substance.  

Doctors and dentists, pharmacists, nurses, nursing assistants, orderlies, clerks, nursing homes, medical record departments, ambulance drivers, police, and others people involved in health matters...drum roll...get paid (sell their services)!

Dr. Joel Wallach is in his 70's now, I do believe, and he sells a line of health products. He looks pretty healthy, but looks can be deceiving.  I don't sell his products, so I have no interest in making money off of you. I DO care about people generally so I would hope people would listen to everyone with an open mind. Being teachable is an effective trait for learning new information. The intelligent student asks questions and conclusions are forthcoming as a temporary password to future questions to bridge the shore of reason to the path of faith.  Suspicion, in other words, is a lack of faith.  

With Surrendered Thinking, I don't have to trust anyone or anything, because I trust that my life is aligned in the perfect place for the greatest good at all times and in all places.  My relationship to any given message in space and time is a choice I call "mine".  I am free, therefore, I can accept everything in my life is there for a purpose, right down to the smallest circumstances which most people have desensitized themselves to even notice.  These smallest circumstances, when focused upon, are just holograms of the bigger picture, and vice-versa.  If my reaction is free of assumption, then I am free to act.

The Prayer Effect, AKA the Placebo Effect, is as true for "Modern Medicine" as it is for Ancient Medicine.  Faith works, even if faith without works is dead.  The Placebo Prayer administered to the unbeliever is as effective as it is to the Believer.  But the Believers who had the Prayer Effect administered are more likely to heal than the Believers who are given a Prayer Placebo.  

One Man's Breakthrough & the Wounded Healer

Today's speeches went well. After the MADD Impact Panel, a man (let's call him "Tim") and I talked for a while. He said he just prayed for an answer to a deep dilemma (being an Atheist for years, praying was not typical for him) and in my speech he found exactly the answer he was just asking about, that of loving and forgiving oneself.  I believe I am in charge of what I say, but others are in charge of what they hear.  But when our thinking and hearing, seeing, feeling, etc, is surrendered, it changes everything.  No one holds a universal skeleton key which can free the mind from itself.  As Einstein pointed out, the mind which created the problem can't remedy the problem.  I don't buy that idea, but entertaining the idea leads one closer to release of the restrictions of belief.

He was wondering if he should give up, feeling utterly worthless and unloved by himself (before the Panel). He reported feeling a newfound hope (the light in his eye evidenced his sincerity) and had a breakthrough. But he wanted to know the process I used to accept the love of myself.

I explained the Mirror Therapy exercise that I did for 8 years, and how I experienced self-healing. I proposed that we spend a lifetime repeating messages which either free us or that keep us trapped, resulting in the hypnotic maintenance of a trapped, self-made condition.

But the hypnogogic condition is not itself only problematic, but rather serves as the way out, too. If we convinced ourselves that we are not innocent, then we can convince ourselves that we are innocent.  It's another way of viewing "Recovery".  We recover what we were before the "Fall" if you will.  

Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repeat a new message, and eventually, we hypnotize ourselves and recover the image we were born to be.

It's related to the limited scientific idea which Joe Dispenza talks about: "Neurons which fire together, wire together." But thought precedes the brain's firing of electricity and are visible as neural pathways and networks are observable, while thought from the mind is non-energetic and therefore invisible. Maybe it's the space or nothingness between molecular structures, holding everything in place.  

Guy Finley teaches about the folly of thinking about things we don't want or don't like because it leads to obtaining what we don't want or like. Oddly enough, even if we have every beautiful thing in the world, if we are thinking of something else, then we get the 'something else' in our consciousness and the visible becomes irrelevant.  Rich people who seem to have every benefit have committed suicide.  What they had didn't kill them, but what they thought, did.

There's no such thing as reality; there's only perception. Maybe perception is just so-called knowledge and even creates the condition we desire to evade.

So we covered these ideas and more, and he walked away with gratitude lighting his path.  

Prayer is the Distant Mental or Spiritual Influence that exists in all times and places.

Snippet of Forgiveness

Life, like self-forgiveness, is not about 'self' in my world. I took a life and I'll spend the rest of my life doing something about it. If I continued to endure the deep, intense remorse as I did for the first 8 years of speaking, I would have committed suicide. The problem with that is, if I'm dead, I can't help anyone. It's wayyyyy harder to live than die after killing someone if you have a heart, that is. Dying would be the easy way out. It takes courage and support to endure. When someone wants to get well, we gotta let them. That's what a MADD Mother taught me. "If they ask for help, we give it", she said. In 1977, as I approached two pedestrian women and a baby in his stroller, I said a prayer, "God, please don't let me hit them." But the prayer came too late. A minute later, one mother injured and one baby, in her arms, dead. The mother's sister ran out of the way of the car that I drove under the influence of alcohol (3 1/2 beers), but the memories are lasting. So many people say, "I'm so glad I never killed anyone when I drove drunk." I would rather hear them say, 'I'm sop glad I never drove drunk'. If we keep reaching out to offenders and shift their hearts, we can beat this thing. People forget what you said or did, but they remember how you made them feel. Forgive them, they know not what they do, but don't fail to raise the warning flag.

Blog Interview

I've gone to great trouble to erase unwillingness to listen to all points of view. Agreeing is not the point, but finding peace in the midst of any given proposition is an imperative in my life. I OCCASIONALLY actually succeed in my goal! LOL! Quick to listen, slow to speak.

Suspend judgment, listen, think and once in a while, speak. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I pray before I think and pray before I pray.  That is, I ask that my prayers be directed, then trust that every thought in prayer thereafter is blessed, because I surrendered my thinking.  My HP God answers prayers.  When I give it up, God shows up.  Ain't no three-day waiting period, either.  

I did an interview yesterday with a Blog Radio Show Hostess with the Mostest, Anne Carlson. http://onethingwecanagreeon.podbean.com/ I'll post it when she finishes the editing process. It covered a lot of areas in my life that I rarely talk about, like prison staff having inmates killed. But mostly, I talk about healing and love.

Herding Higher Humans

The means to herding higher humans is betrayal. Betray them into believing they are unheardable, then wait until they they sink to the bottom of their well, watch them float back up, then steal what they reveal from down under. Effective magic is the grim certainty of a smothered delusion that death lived an affectatious union. The Collective Consciousness Egg of Irony cracks from the inside-out. The organs of the Invisible Mind have a gravity that darkens the skin below the eyes, makes them look sunken, but reveals tragedy at its finest and final hours. Years of journals go in the dumpsters of this life because they take up too much space in this world. Emily Dickinson was wise to secretly soulcraft her Hermit her Wisdom. The freed ego of social order is its own prison.

Solution: the Gravity of Mind, 1) requiring the presence of 2) a problem to explain its 3) orbit.

Forgiveness: the state of mind that needs an offense to forgive. Who told you you're naked?

If I'm not upset in the first place, there is nothing to forgive.  Give thanks for everything.

And We Quit Fighting Everything and Everybody.

'The world is addicted to judgment', from his book, Repenting of Religion, by Greg Boyd.  

"Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines." ~Seneca (Divine Fire)

"Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes homines." ~Seneca (fire tries gold and Trials by Fire purifies humans).

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired of life being stressful with all the negativity flying around with politics, religions, wars and rumors of wars, animals being hurt, abuse, etc.?  As Gandhi said, “BE THE CHANGE” YOU WANT TO SEE IN THIS WORLD.  Let’s quit thinking about what we don’t want or don’t like, and focus on changing the world positively.  Be part of the solution!

Here’s the secret to affecting world peace in an IF/THEN scenario: “If you don’t tell at least three people a day that you love them, then you’ve probably wasted a day of your life.” 

Try telling three people a day that you love them.  Do this for one year, daily.  Your life doesn’t change immensely, AND you might change someone else’s life through this assignment.  There are many ways to say “I love you,” so be Creative.  A smile might change someone’s world.  Passing on a motivational quote or giving a long overdue hug.  Being kind to an animal.  Buying a meal who whoever needs it (person, animal or plant).  Love paints many portraits, so paint your life into a personal permanent picture for the greater good.  After all, what we do for ourselves is temporal, but what we do for others, it goes on.  Make every day count.

Here are a few ideas to ‘pass on’ to help make the world a better place:

"You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to." 

"Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk." 

"Quit walking with the enemy." 

"Show me your friends, and I'll show you your future." 

“Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean." 

“Truth without compassion is cruelty." 

“Make your wounds your wisdom.”

“We don’t forgive the ones who wronged us because they deserve forgiveness, but because we deserve peace.”

Look up Phoenix 490 on Facebook.  PHOENIX 490 is for people who have or are turning coal into diamonds, lead into gold, and for some of us transforming tragedy into triumph. No matter how far down the scale we may have gone in life, our experiences can benefit others. Be the change. In God's Economy, nothing is wasted.

 

But sometimes we make mistakes and say things we shouldn’t, no matter how long we've been in Earth School, ‘stuff happens.'  Saying I LOVE YOU in the mirror counts, too, especially on the bad days.

Poem: The Repentant Philosopher

I remember the last time I cried
how I watched silent laughter swirl around at my embarrassed feet
I gave all these lessons away with an elegant irony of a pre-winter thaw,
despaired not at the maintenance of sweet pain and patience, but of innocence regained.
forgivers blanket pavement o'saltwater tears that shape
mosaics of lost minds,
that knew too much of what people can do to hurt each other.


apples & oranges,
lemons & limes,
who care about truth,
so long as it rhymes?


Did you hear that?
It’s the lyrics of evaporation ascending;
distrust dissolves beneath the cover of clouds making love,
gratitude never drinking from the foundations of needless pain.
dissemination of negativity lore is a rent veil rummaging around inside of me;
never meant for hearts to endure a single beat
without soul.

A quieter savor of free,
never was meant to be.
"How beautifully tragic is the written poem of love
that dries its ink in thee ice-cold well
of what once and always
was me”
has an irregular address
undelivered mail
describing my love frees others from their chains
open smile harmonics,
don’t change for me the neighborhood you don’t jog through.
these stairway days of care for me,
i’m not Carl Jung’s = Client Science.
sun pours down like water,
gratitude of surprise society of brains
conformed to the rule of breaking rules
silentnights for violent types demanded I crawl into
clouds that I “fit” in, made sounds for me to sit in, nodding my head to music,
get in a plane to get the dough from the world that makes little sense of a Clement
and whose quilt was sewn with a picture and words,
“too gentle to live among wolves”, yet was never their victim

he never forgot himself as he loved others,
never morphed the long night to forget that their and his own pain are equal.
Primitive religion is redundant,
so is the Repentant Philosopher.

Random Rules of "OH WELL!"

Whether our experiences clarify our perceptions or defy them, it also lends us a loss of misperceptions. Yes, like a banker, it lends us experiences and the ripple effects therefrom.  If we forget where we came from, we re-experience change. As we allow ambiguity to pass, we lose our illusions, as well. When we think we've arrived at clarity, which invites creativity, it creates change and our clarity surrenders to a beautiful mystery. Our struggle is our servant; we define it, not vice-versa.  Freedom of choice is strongest in the mystery. Certainty is the Mind Killer.

DAY JAW VUE or déjà vu

HAPPY SPRING! 

In 2015, my friend Rae Jacob posted this from her book, ACUPUNCTURE FOR YOUR SOUL: ‘Etheric spring cleaning.  IMAGINE having colorful acupuncture treatments travel through all your energy bodies, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc. imagine all no longer wanted or needed obstacles, wounds being vaporized into a puff of cosmic colors! IMAGINE this clearing traveling through your life's personal timeline. Be discerning as this also vaporizes our excuses for not listening to or not following our Soul's True Path! To Quote Dr. Hazel Pacells," is it time to trade in your wishbone for a backbone?" "

FYI, I capped IMAGINE. I know some people poo-poo imagination as a pathway to success or healing, but Einstein said imagination is more important that knowledge. Some people also poo-poo prayer and ironically, some faith-based people poo-poo scientific explanations of why prayer works. The overlapping area between science and religion is a constricted domain, indeed, maybe even strait and narrow, but I see it as the biggest small place in the world. Both religion and science speak the same language at some juncture, some place where synchronicity convergences with observation.

Evidence-based philosophies and perceptions are the wellsprings of lifelessness, for they rely on what was rather than from whence it is; like a co-occurring order or disorder, we see what we are. But let the dead bury the dead and scoop up the nutritious soil their carcasses fed for future generations. Everything we think today will be rightfully poo-pooed by generations to come, but without our erroneous perception, they would not exist. Our dead ideas are the nutritious soil of remembering who we were as part of who we are? 

Fortunately, existence might precede understanding. As Kierkegaard pointed out, it is understood backward but lived forward.  Existence is the Eternal Now, living in all places and at all times, now. Were it not so we would never have Deja Vue, a place where the future and the past meet in the now (now is the past of the future).

My friend, John Littlewolf, wrote a poem he published in “SEND” that in its unique way might address some of these ideas:


 

THE RIVERS CREST

"Whisper the reason

for the spring to me,

on the banks of the fatted river.
 

As you take my precious breath,

whisper to me,

the reason for my death,

drown me in your excess,

and rejoice,

in this wonderful rebirth at my expense."

 

If anything is right beyond time and space, it will be co-signed and consigned by both Creator and Created.

https://www.amazon.com/Acupuncture-Your-Soul-Collection-Life-Changing/dp/1627873406

https://www.amazon.com/Send-John-Littlewolf/dp/1634137515

 

 

“I’ll give of your love in me. I’ll be strong and lift up those who are weak.”

A friend of mine's son was killed in Minneapolis by an impaired driver on Oct. 27th, 2012.  His son was a loving, caring human being, as is his dad.  In his backpack was found a written commitment that governed his life:  "“I’ll give of your love in me,” he had scribbled in pencil. “I’ll be strong and lift up those who are weak.”  His dad and I will eventually speak together to stop impaired driving and turn lives around.  I've spoken with so many mothers and fathers through the years, whether it be in MADD or Minnesotans for Safe Driving and in other venues, who have lost loved ones.  This is a preventable problem, with many schools of thought as to how it needs rectification.  I have faith that expressing and receiving love is our true strength.  Strength through vulnerability.  “I’ll give of your love in me. I’ll be strong and lift up those who are weak.”

Here's the article:  http://www.startribune.com/driver-in-fatal-minneapolis-hit-and-run-gets-3-years/204119161/

There's Nothing New Under the Sun, Politics Included

The 2016 election has had zero effect on my perception of the truth. Same shit, different day.  While I believe that most Americans believe in their respective parties for legitimate reasons, a great many Americans are willing to subjugate intellectual integrity to "win" an election for their party of choice. Party loyalty is mutating into a carcinogenic mass. Republicans said that Bill Clinton was not their president after he was elected. Democrats are saying Trump is not their president.  

There is no such thing as reality; there's only perception. Caesar said, "What is truth?" He must've been close to the political pulse of Rome for that question to even occur to him. Truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The same applies to politics.

A house divided cannot stand, and dividing Americans into either the political Democratic or Republican party, or to utilize the Adversarial System in a court of law, is to take a Poison Pawn and expect to win a competitive game of indivisibility for the greater good.  If only it worked. Politicians have been known throughout the ages to embrace dishonesty or war as a means of acquiring or holding power and riches. I perceive that very little has changed in today's world. Yes, there are some honest politicians in our Democratic Republic. But in a democracy, as it exists today, the good ones always get voted out of the public trough, and if said politicians become Loose Cannons, they will find a bullet in their head like JFK.  

When I was young, my foster mother stated that voting always boils down to picking the lesser of two evils. The truth is that like Sartre told us, "We are condemned to be free." Christ said, "The truth will set you free." Neither neglected to mention that the facts would probably piss us off first.  My spiritual advisor told me that I don't have to attend every fight him invited to and to never get into a passing contest with a skunk.

Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean. Truth without compassion is cruelty. I respectfully submit that in a country where someone can get ten years in the penitentiary for punching someone in the nose, and someone who rips off hundreds of thousands of Americans for their life savings and only serves a small amount of time in a plush penitentiary, we should ask ourselves why is this the case? I think it's because people with money can get away with almost anything, and these are the ones who can secure political power in this country. They are the same lawmakers who send the poor to prison, and so unlike Christ, set the rich free.

Since I can't seem to get a real job, maybe I'll run for office.

Bill Moyers Documentary about Riker's Island is a Must See.

"Rikers" has had a scary reputation for a long time.  While I strive to be positively focused and look for the good, I have noticed through the years that people only get better in this country (?) after everyone has milked the every problem for every cent he or she can steal from taxpayers.  Maybe this is meant when saying that 'the love of money is the root of all evil.'  Whether it's roads or prisons, health care or other types of social reform, change is discouraged by the status quo, but a revolution is always imminent.  It begins in the hearts and minds of the person and then migrates to the people.  

To avoid the future's nationwide carnage, I strongly suggest we make the next one a Revolution of Love.  LOVE ONE ANOTHER is not a new precept, except concerning practicing it.  If you love someone, you will not hurt them.  If you love yourself, you will not throw oneself in harms' way, either.  People typically take action only when they have to.  It is called hitting one's bottom.  We can push that moment into existence a little sooner, but that does not mean sitting on our hands or our laurels.  

When we get honest and drop our fear-based, knee-jerk reactions to the issues defacing our Constitution and Bill of Rights, then we will address problems before they grow unmanageable. The Declaration of Indepence was drafted in part as a response to oppression and taxation without representation.   Well, if EX-convicts are disenfranchised from voting yet pay taxes, where's the representation?  Representation is not a mindless yielding to the pipedream idea that persons "they" cannot vote for will respond to "their" needs because politically, THEIR voice is just noise.  

Me, I am done yielding to politicians telling me I am damaged goods.  My last crime was June 30th of 1984.  The person I was has long since disappeared from planet earth.  Yet, securing employment in the helping professions is ILLEGAL.  Since I cannot get a real job, I guess I will run for office.  :-)  Yes, tongue in cheek humor, as I know, politicians work very hard sometimes, but you know what I am saying.

SALUTE to Kathy Morse!  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-m-8b3b9794/

Call to Empathic Realists: Fellow Right-Brainers of the World, UNITE!

At an Artist's Way Meetup a few years ago, I purchased a book, titled, "The Right-Brain Business Plan, A Creative Visual Map for Success", by Jennifer Lee.  I am reviewing this book since I'm finally taking classes on drafting a business plan. NOW is the time to get the energy flowing.  I'm also conducting a class on Vision Boards for MN-DEED on April 6th for the Job Club and taking ideas from this book for teaching aids.  I have done Vision Board classes with Ex-convicts at 180 Degrees, knowing that if we change our vision, we change our future.  Karen Casey wrote a book that I referred to with clients on probation, titled, "Change Your Mind, Change Your Life."  http://www.womens-spirituality.com/

I saw so-called Offenders walking away with a spark in their eye that shone with hopefulness long-since dampened by life's' circumstances.  But we are more than what happened to us and more than what we've done.  I AM MORE THAN MY MUGSHOT.     

After my release from Stillwater Prison, I acquired tools in Lakewood Community College on how to study effectively.  It must have helped because I was a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the Honor Society.   One of those tools was to write down what I learned and then to teach it to someone else.  It aligns with the idea in recovery, that, "If you wanna keep it, you gotta give it away".  Therefore, I am telling you about this book and touching on Vision Boards for your edification.  

If you are a Left-Brain thinker, this book and the idea behind Vision Boards might seem childish, but to Right-Brained Intuitives like me who swim in creative compassionate ecstasy, aka Empathic Realists, this book might be exactly what you are looking for!  So check it out!  Jennifer Lee has the eBook version if you want it, though I Old Schooled it by getting the paperback version.

Rock On!  Oh, if you are interested in attending our Artist's Way Twin Cities Meetup group, here's the link:  https://www.meetup.com/Artists-Way-Meetup/

Change Your Mind and Your Allergies Will Follow

I remember the day I decided I am not allergic to pollens. I reduced my reactions to it significantly. It's AMAZING what the mind does to us. They've shown through studies that people with Multiple Personality Disorder can be allergic to a thing in one personality, like nylon, and have a severe reaction to it. But in another personality, have ZERO reaction to it. Some people have breakthroughs with hypnosis, too, with fears, allergies, and more. The way we talk to ourselves is critical to healing, big and small. Studies in the Spontaneous Remission of Incurable Diseases (Chapter 2, Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dispenza) approaches the ART of Healing if you will. The Quantum Art of Healing might be a better phrase. Anyway, THINK about it less if it's negative. Quit thinking about things you don't like or don't want. Fake it until you make it.