Thanksgiving at my sister's house in Kansas. 8 grandkids, 2 dogs and a mountain of food.

Aug 13, 2005. The most beautiful wedding ever. I should know, I spent a million hours planning it. Events since then: Cancer, chemotherapy, radiation, a dui, sobriety, lawyers, bills, bills, bills, a teenager graduated and gone, more house remodeling. Dave looks exactly the same. I look a hundred years older.

Unhappiness ruins everything.

I was having coffee with my friend Katy the other day when she said, “You have the perfect life.” My first reaction was, “Oh, poor baby, you are sadder than I thought.” I had the grace (for once) to keep those thoughts to myself and only say, “You think so?”

In the car on the way home, I tried to take an honest assessment and realized I do have everything I’ve always wanted.

Yes, there are plenty of things I haven't gotten yet (see previous post) but I have my little house with a garden, an amazing husband who adores me, two cats, some great friendships. The bills are being paid on time, I have an enjoyable part time job where I am appreciated and I have time to write.

So when do I start being happy?

I know for a fact that I am not happy because I took The Happiness Test. You can take it too on the BBC Happiness page. No kidding, here’s the link. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/happiness_formula/.

The question is, if even the best outside circumstances don't bring happiness, what does?

There has been much research done lately on the recipe for happiness. The consensus for the basic ingredients seems to be: Religion or spirituality, a good marriage, friendships and meaningful work (paid or otherwise).

Which doesn’t explain my current unhappiness. Here’s my theory: it doesn’t matter what you have if you don't get rid of some of the blocks to happiness.

Think of a happy life as a batch of chocolate chip cookies. (I get happy just thinking about chocolate chip cookies). You've got flour, eggs, butter, sugar, chocolate chips and vinegar. The face you just made sums it up exactly. No matter what you do, cookies with vinegar in them will taste like vinegar. The perfect life with added bitterness, anger, hatred, fear or anxiety will be sour.

As an added bonus, any of these bad ingredients will cast out the good. How long can you have good friends, a loving spouse etc. if you are anxious, bitter or angry?

It's a catch 22. You are angry because you don't have the perfect life. You can't have the perfect life because you are angry. (No worries, you wouldn't be able to enjoy it if you did).

The solution? As with everything else, it seems to start from the inside out. Lucky us.


Unhappiness is like the flu; we get so wrapped up in our own misery it is impossible to enjoy anything. On a cold, gray February day we dream of the chance to lie around home and watch movies in our bathrobe. The day comes that you have a fever and a bad cough and -bam – sitting home watching tv isn’t as much fun as you thought.

Prayer for the day: Dear God, show me how let go of the vinegar in my life.

To-do lists

What is your motivation?

True confessions: I have spent my life motivated by guilt, shame, fear, and anxiety. I am hear to testify that many unpleasant tasks can be crossed off a to-do list using these motivators.

What I cannot truthfully say, is that I have accomplished anything of lasting value this way. I have made and completed thousands of to-do lists and yet I have arrived at 42 with none of the credentials my college self envisioned. So I have to ask:

WHAT HAVE I DONE WITH THE LAST 20 YEARS?

To be fair to myself, I am not homeless, dead, loveless or addicted to prescription drugs. I am not without a certain wisdom that comes from having paid my own way for 23 years. I have read much, watched a fair number of good and bad movies (2 of which I can quote verbatim) and can hold my own at Trivial Pursuit.

Still, I wish at 23 I had put the following items on my to-do list:

Get doctorate
Be a commentator for NPR
Write and publish a novel
Publish articles for The New Republic and the New Yorker
Live on the East Coast for 1 year
Travel Europe
Put money away every month
Have a child
Stay single until I find eligible father for said child
Live in Mexico for at least a month

How do we handle regrets? I have spent two years using regrets as a weapon against myself. What a loser I am. What's wrong with me?

Enough!

Still, everything must serve some purpose. What purpose can regrets have?

Here's what I think: regrets tell us where to start in reshaping our life. They are a clue to re-igniting the passions we have forgotten.

The hardest truth of middle life is that we cannot get time back. All those hours and tears I devoted to anxiety, alcohol, bad men and bad jobs are gone forever. I cannot change a thing.

I can, however, stop wasting any further time.

Ok, 42-year old self, listen up. Here is my to-do list for the next 20 years:

Get more education
Get my voice on NPR
Publish as many articles as I can for anyone who will have me
Travel the East Coast with my beloved husband
Travel Europe
Put money away every month
Lavish much love on any children that come my way
Learn how to banish anxiety, shame, depression, guilt and fear from my life
Cherish my friends
Laugh a lot
Find a way to make money at what I love

Got it?

Serendipity

"Serendipity: The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident."

Being in the right place at the right time.

In the article titled "Your Best Life is Waiting," posted on Oprah.com, Martha Beck writes:

"...recall the coincidences, strokes of 'luck,' generosity from other people or inspired ideas that helped you fulfill that desire."

In other words, recall the times that serendipity worked for you.

I made a list today and found an astounding connection in my life.

The story:

Not too many months after my last marriage ended, I became very motivated to improve my income. Sending my resume out, I gathered all my chutzpah and aimed high.

Weeks went by. I made the requisite follow up calls but nothing happened. Finally, at a moment when I was at the end of my psychic rope, I landed the job of my heart's desire with the one company I most wanted to work for. Elation.

18 months later I left that dream job exhausted, unhappy and sure that I had made a terrible mistake. Another entry on my long list of screw ups. Further proof that I could not be trusted to make decisions for myself. My inner voice was warped, retarded or just crazy.

Fast-forward to today, 6 years later and my list of wonderful things that have happened in the last 5 years.

The astonishing revelation: 7 out of 10 things on my list can be directly traced to people I met at that job or decisions I made based on that job. 7 of those things would not have happened if it weren't for that job.

That is the damned truth and I am shocked and pleased to discover it.

Today's prayer:

Dear God,

Sorry I doubted that bit of Divine wisdom. I'll start paying more attention to that inner voice (you). Thanks for everything.

Promises, commitments and vows I won 't keep

Things I have vowed not to do over the years:

Drink coffee
Eat sugar
Drink vodka
Drink beer
Drink any alcohol
Wait for my husband
Nag at my husband for being late
Get mad at customers
Get angry at my mother
Sleep too much
Leave my shoes (or books) lying around

Things I have vowed to do:

Exercise daily
Write daily
Eat well
Keep my house clean
Make x number of phone calls every day
Call my mother
Read self-help books
Chant or pray daily

I am a miserable failure. I have broken every one of those promises many times. The only thing on those lists that I have accomplished is to stay away from vodka for this last year. And who's to say I won't drink vodka again someday if the moment is right?

Today I vow not to make any more promises to myself. I won't put myself on a housecleaning schedule that I pay no attention to. I will not promise to lay my clothes out the night before work. I will not guarantee that I will write anything. I don't know if I will ever go to the gym again (although I suspect I will). I will not promise to avoid sugar or coffee. I might take a nap this afternoon.

Instead I vow to listen to that inner voice - the Voice of the Divine. Am I hungry? Do I need another cup of coffee? Is a 15-minute nap going to be as refreshing as an hour?

Maybe I am hungry, another cup of coffee would be just the thing or I'm tired enough to sleep for 2 hours.

There are promises I must make and plan to keep.

I committed to my husband which (in our case) means I promise to: live here daily, avoid inappropriate relationships with other men, not take a job out of state, not make big financial decisions without consulting him, spend some time building our relationship daily. These are spoken and unspoken promises between us that I love to keep.

I have also committed to my house. There is mortgage and taxes of course; promises to the bank and the government. There are small, unspoken commitments to my neighbors about keeping the lawn down and the garbage off the front gravel.

These promises I find easy to keep because they give so much in return. For the cost of a mortgage I have this wonderful little place to live for which I am daily grateful. In return for my small sacrifices in marriage, I have a wonderful, loving relationship and a security and safety in my life that was missing before.

Could a commitment to an income-producing activity (i.e. a job or a career) be such a thing? Is there something I could enjoy doing so much that the sacrifice of time and energy seem like a small sum to pay for the return in income and satisfaction?

Today's prayer:

God show me the path that will bring me financial security, the joy of doing work I love and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Letting the Divine in (and out)

Ok.

Keyboard and screen, full coffee cup, a couple of scented candles, a rainy day. My hair pulled back, glasses polished, I am ready for work.

If you call this work.

The voices protest, "You are not getting paid for this 'work.' No one will read this 'work.' But work I must. A writer must write.

I am learning that the voices in my head are not necessarily accurate. Actually, the voices in MY head are full of crap. These voices torment me, lead me astray, put me down and stomp on the Divine that is trying to creep through.

The Divine.

There is much to learn about this new Christianity. I call it new, but it is not. It is ancient and in its most recent form, this school of thought is still over 100 years old. Older than current Evangelical thought.

I could write about the evolution of modern Christianity, but more important is to understand the Divine within me, within you. I must understand how to manifest beauty, love, truth in my life. I must begin to practice the laws of attraction.

Here is an Eric Butterworth quote,

"I keep my thoughts centered upon only those things that I want to see manifest in my life."

This is actually his version of the beatitude, "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy."

Mercy. That is something I need for myself. I torture myself with what I should or should not be doing all day. I torture myself with my own lack. I torture myself with the idea of my own uselessness.

No MORE! No more, I say. Blessed are the merciful.

"I am open and receptive to the inflow and the outpouring of all there is in God."

Manifest is a word that comes up a lot in this kinder Christianity. Manifest: to prove; put beyond doubt or question.

How does God's love manifest? How do I manifest a better salary, a nicer house? Manifest blessings, people will say. Clear, distinct, unmistakable. To reveal, to disclose, to make evident.

How do I know the difference between the voices within me? How can I sort the Divine from the Ego, the darkness, that which is trying to drag me down?

James 3:17

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

It seems one could spend a lifetime sorting out that single verse.

Here is what I fear; here is the danger I see in this sort of thinking:

Self blame. If I don't manifest good in my life, it is all my fault. Sickness, poverty, lack - all my fault. I am afraid of that line of thinking. But is it better to believe that everything is beyond my power, thrown at me by random luck, a loving God, fate or Karma from past lifetimes?

We must all explain poverty, sickness and death.

The laws of attraction are so clear when one is looking at someone else's life. I seldom think of someone as having bad luck any longer. One attracts romantic partners, jobs, business ventures, money or lack thereof. I see it in other people.

What can I see in me? Only that I need to keep my mind on things above. By denying my own worthiness and Divinity I have manifested some very bad things into my life. I must believe that I deserve to have a life filled with goodness, mercy, beauty, prosperity, good health, good friends.
This life is good, but what if it could be great? What if all my striving stopped and I lived only poise and grace? What if the next thing should come to me easily, money would flow and I would spend it wisely, the right people would come into my life when they should and I would not mourn or berate myself when it was their time to leave my life.

What if I stopped comparing myself to others and was the very best that Liz Elliott could be? What if I took one day at a time and did what this day required with my very best heart? What if I forgave myself for the past and resolved that from this day forward I would only believe the best about myself, do the best of whatever tasks were put before me and trust the future to be great?

What if?

Is it possible that someday I will make a great living writing and teaching? Could we actually have a second house on a river, I drive a CRV and, most importantly, LOVE what I do for money?

Is all this possible? What if I believe that it is? Would it be worse than not believing? Or is it better to not believe and therefore not be disappointed? Because of course this is what I am REALLY afraid of. I am afraid of disillusionment, disappointment, let down. I am afraid to find I am not talented or capable, that riches do not come to me, that I am mediocre and unworthy. I am afraid there is no Divine spirit and especially not within me.

Ah trust. But what if I just tried a little? What if I just tried for a little while? It works for others. I see it in others.

Trust. This comes down to trust. I see that now. I am afraid to trust. I am afraid to be disappointed. Fear vs. belief. Fear vs trust.

It's the heart
Afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the dream
Afraid of waking
That never takes the chance
It's the one
Who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul
Afraid of dying
That never learns to live

I can't believe I'm quoting "The Rose" but it seems apt. I am so afraid. Am I alone? No. So many of us are afraid.

I know my fear is literally killing me. If I cannot learn to reach out in trust, I will die.

Dear God, be with me. Hold my hand. Cover my eyes while I jump.
Here I go. Into the Great Unknown.
Air is rushing past me.
I feel Divine.