Where Your Road Leads…

Got the very sad news the other day that a family who we’d been friendly with in our youth lost a brother/son. As if loss isn’t enough, it was due to a self inflicted gun shot wound. There’s some talk of it being accidental v. suicide. Like they’re not dealing with enough. Some of you may shake your head and be thinking…but Kitt, how could a self inflicted GSW be accidental? Well, I’m not privy to the details. I don’t know where he was shot, nor do I care. After having known of someone who accidentally shot himself cleaning his gun…in a major artery, I’m not going to go there. That guy lived because someone happened to be there who knew what to do and got an ambulance to him on time.

What struck me was that it had been a long time since I’d even talked to this family. In fact, as I sat here thinking about them I realized it had been nearly 14 years. The beauty in humanity is that even through all that time and distance we’re still able to feel empathy and wish to comfort. It also occurred to me that things change. I’ll be keeping that family in my thoughts and prayers. Loss is never easy. It is one of the few constants in life, though.

Instead of more maudlin thoughts, though, I’d like to share a few things with you that have inspired me….

One of the women in my writers group is a lady named Susan Davis. I find her to be very daring and exciting. This summer she took a bicycle trip from Florida up to Maine, then on to Canada! Can you imagine? She also introduced me to a process commonly known as “Tapping”. The technical name is EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques). At it’s simplest it’s a combination of acupuncture points and verbal affirmations that help create positive change and growth in people. I found the whole process fascinating. She’s new to blogging and has documented her trip and how EFT impacted her personally. I’d really love it if you’d check her out… It really is pretty awesome and I know she’d love to hear from you. Her goal is to help change lives by helping people overcome the stumbling blocks to chasing their dreams through this method. Check out her post Tapping’s Not Just A Song and Dance and give her some love!

I also have to give a shout out to my awesome friend, Ande Lyons from Bring Back Desire because she launched her new book, Loving And Lasting yesterday on Amazon to amazing results!

Yup! In Hot New Releases under the Marriage category, it hit #1. But that’s not all! It also hit #25 in Best Sellers under the Marriage category AND #79 in Best Sellers under the Love and Romance category. Just goes to show people ARE interested in how to make relationships last and keep things hot and spicy in the bedroom! Anything that helps perpetrate change positively gets my two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

Another example of humor and embracing change was a guest post on LeAnne Shirtliffe’s Ironic Mom blog. If you’re not left laughing and shaking your head a little, you’ve forgotten how important a sense of adventure is when change heads your way. I love the parenting advice, too, by the way. I truly believe that a sense of adventure helps people adjust better to change and helps them develop coaching skills when things go awry (something that seems to be significantly lacking in many people these days).

Finally, you have to check out Renee Schuls-Jacobson’s post where she selects a winner to the “send my son a letter while he’s at camp” contest. Yeah, I know that wasn’t the actual name of the contest, but I’d been following this one because there were such sweet, funny, thoughtful posts made on Renee’s behalf so she wouldn’t feel bad for not having time to write daily letters to her 14 year old son while he was away. And then there was Don Of All Trades’ letter. His won…no surprise once you read it… It was definitely different than what everyone else came up with. You guys just have to check it for yourself. If you don’t find yourself thinking back to your youth with a bit of nostalgia and realizing how much things have changed, I’d be surprised.

Although so many of you have inspired me in so many ways…these are the folks who’ve impacted me this week and helped make me laugh. I’d love for you to check these folks out and tell me which of the blog posts I shared was your favorite or touched you most and why….

Please, I’m beggin’ here….Leave comments…make me smile…or share the blogs that have made your week this week!