I’ve always been a seizer, of opportunities that is.  However, since 2002, I’ve become a mindful and intentional seizer. 

In July 2002 my middle daughter,Nava, miraculously alive and basically recovered, walked out of her rehab hospital after a year-long medical crisis.

I felt a strong need to honor her miraculous survival and recovery.  And so for the next few years I struggled with the what and how – what to do and how to live differently having witnessed this most incredible miracle.  People grow and change out of their pain; I needed to create something new and different from the awesomeness of watching a life be returned from near death and be literally rebuilt limb by limb, muscle by muscle, function by function.

There was no going back to life as before, although in concrete ways, that’s exactly what I did, what we all did.  There lied my immense angst and frustration.  It didn’t seem right to just ‘resume’ .  We had all been through something huge, and hugely defining.  There was a tugging force screaming out to do something with this miracle I was blessed with.    

To date, I haven’t Done That Something.  I haven’t started an organization or foundation or created that something out of nothing.  But now, 10 years later, I recognize that I am living with more intention, fervor and passion; I am actively engaged in the familiar but more so, seeking out the new and unknown.  I feel I’m living better than Before.    You could say I have taken life on with a vengeance.

My ‘seizing moments’ have come about by living intentionally with two basic principles as my guiding forces:

Finding ways ‘to do’ and stepping outside my comfort zone.

I live with these mottos.

Finding Ways To Do:    A ‘To Do’ mindset affords us wonderful opportunities.  It’s up to us to bring into our lives what we want and what we choose to go after.  …

As many of you know, I do monthly interviews with inspirational people who have ‘successfully’  risen above their personal challenges to rebuild their lives with meaning, purpose and joy. 

I have been given a wonderful opportunity here – the chance to interview a most inspirational blogger who has just published his first book.  I am honored to be a part of Alex Blackwell’s promotional tour for Saying Yes to Change: 10 Timeless Life Lessons for Creating Positive Change. 

Change is a scary concept for most of us and one that we tend to resist.  Heck, it’s hard and requires a lot of work.  Most of us are content, or so we think, just maintaining the status quo and plugging on. 

But in Alex Blackwell’s tender and heart-reaching style, he has written a book that makes it so doable.  Simply put, he draws you into his life-affirming guide for change in a most authentic, strong and yet vulnerable way.   

He doesn’t just ‘write the walk’, he ‘walks the walk’.  As you will see in this interview, he takes  responsibility – a pre-requisite for change – for his difficulties and works at self-improvement; thereby creating change in himself and as an extension in his most important relationships.

1. What personal qualities have helped you carry on and move in a positive direction?

I think the quality that has sustained me most is my reliance on faith. No matter how tough the journey has been, I know there is a purpose, and a plan, that is moving me in a positive direction.

My faith has made me stronger when I saw the relationships with my children improve and my marriage with Mary Beth begin to heal. These glimpses provided the motivation to stay on the path to positive change; and these glimpses fueled my faith to keep moving forward because I believed something beautiful was waiting.

 2. Did you go through a period of self-pity? …

We all deal with grief very differently.  Some don’t talk, some desperately need to .  Some withdraw into themselves,  others can’t be alone and need to be around people. 

When people go through a loss or an extremely difficult situation, the problem can be compounded by one another’s differences in coping and grieving style.  That in and of itself can cause feelings of loneliness and isolation, which further exacerbates the loss. 

What attracted me to my last interviewee, Cheryl Strayed, was her way of dealing with her grief and her need to find her way back to her life.  She went on a solo hike for three months.  That takes guts and courage, tough skin (literally and figuratively) and a very adventuresome spirit.   But she needed to do something big and bold in order to rediscover and recreate herself as a motherless daughter.   By feeling  the earth she eventually got grounded. 

Most of us don’t take such a huge leap into the unknown in order to come upon the known.   Many of us struggle and work things out within our own everyday lives.   

I for one grieved intensely for a year after receiving my daughter’s diagnosis and finding out she had developmental disabilities.  I railed inside with every toxic emotion available.  I had no clue how I was going to come back to a grounding point where I could feel good again. 

It’s a very scary place to be, not knowing if you’re going to feel good again, if things will become O.K. again, albeit in a new way. 

Last night I attended an author’s talk where a woman asked a most poignant question to the author and moderator during the Q&A.   She asked how and what can help her feel happy again in life after the death of her son.  A hush came over the audience and after a long silence and deep sigh, the author answered by acknowledging her loss in a most compassionate way. …

I’m stepping out and embarking on something new – a teleconference class.   Since I love doing parenting workshops, I figured I’d expand my repertoire and start offering some online classes.  Another avenue, another way of reaching people and another way of expanding myself.   

This first class will be about helping children deal with their feelings.  It’s based upon the techniques written by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish in their book, How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk.

I’ve written a guest post on the subject over at the Raising Small Souls website.  You can read it here.

I may be going out on a limb by saying this but parenting almost seems to becoming a lost art.  We are becoming overshadowed and overpowered by all the pulls of societal technology.  We’re running on a perpetual treadmill of trying to keep up with it all.  And we’re losing something vastly important along the way.  We’re losing ourselves and what’s important to us and our families.   We have a lose grip on our values and priorities.  The competition is huge and we are falling into that competitive market with our kids.  We’re finding it hard to maintain our own grounding and stance.  We’re therefore doing all too much For our kids with the rationale of, ’I can’t let my kids fall behind or not give them what everyone else has.’

We’re losing a lot here and our children are losing even more.  They’re losing the ability to stand on their own feet and be responsible and competent young adults.  Perhaps I should qualify this by saying, they’re not really Losing anything, it’s that they’re not being given what they need to become responsible for themselves, accountable and competent people.  But more on this in another piece. 

Let’s get back to some basics in parenting;  to skills needed to help our children grow into emotionally healthy  and resilient people. …

I have always loved reading books about people’s struggles and how they are able to overcome them.   That’s why my favorite genre of books is memoirs.  I love the real thing.  I know fiction certainly portrays this theme, but I want to read about the real person with the real situation and the real human condition being played out.  And truth be told, truth can be stranger than fiction. 

I get inspired, empowered, motivated and hopeful when I read redemptive and transformational stories.  That’s what people who ‘successfully’ rise above their challenges do; they become better (not bitter), they transform their lives with new meaning, new purpose and develop a richness where joy springs forth from the sadness, from the struggle.  Usually a keener sense of appreciation and a humbling sense of gratitude arise for the ‘smaller’ things and for the beauty of the ‘everydayness’ of life.

I learn coping skills, inner reflection and awareness, new ways of viewing concepts and ideas, new ways of thinking and overall attitude adjustments.    

Frailties surface and then inner resources of strength and resilience come through. 

There are people with incredible odds stacked against them who are living incredible lives by pushing through their challenges and not allowing the ‘misfortunes’ to define their lives.   They present lessons for living a rich and satisfying life; for living a good life.   For we all know it’s not in having the least amount of issues that presents us with the good life.  It’s rather what we do with what we have, and how we take what we get and make it into a good life; how we incorporate the difficulties into our lives. 

We all know people who appear to ‘have’ everything, but yet are running on empty inside.   Not that we ever want to have difficulties and/or losses, but it does seem that oftentimes, real substance and meaning comes out of the unasked for challenges that come our way. …