Candid Canda

  We had an interesting class last night.  We are speaking about mental disorders that can alter the journey of one's path.  Are they really mental illness or the attempt at being a coward? I have always wondered about the mind of the coward, though. Here are some of my thoughts: Cowards are pretty consistent in their cowardice. I’ve never seen a coward doing something brave. If you put a courageous person next to a coward, the coward will become less scared; or more brutal! However, it is possible that she (the coward) is just acting brave because she is afraid of the consequences of having a braver person witnessing her cowardice. Short: the coward becomes braver because she’s afraid of being called out. Never blame a coward! It’s not her fault; or is it?! Never trust a coward! Bravery is the most inconsistent virtue of all. Alcohol makes people brave while a hangover can turn you into a coward. Once a person has committed an act of cowardice, it’s very difficult for th...

  I was gazing out the window of my office and watching the fluffy white thunderheads roll by. I am fascinated by their sizes, sizes, and dimensions. I read the email this morning that noted good news; another dream is coming into being. One that will take care of my husband and I for the years to come. I am grateful for the person that inspired this wonderful event. A dream is described “an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.” Five common reasons people have trouble identifying their dreams include: (1) Some people have been discouraged from dreaming by others, (2) Some people are hindered by past disappointments and hurts, (3) Some people get in the habit of settling for average, (4) Some people lack the confidence needed to pursue their dreams, and (5) Some people lack the imagination to dream. I love passion and passion is the starting point for achieving my dreams. It includ...

  I had a relative of my stalker who sent me a public post written by her. I know she is referring to me and I am not embarassed in the slightest. I have developed great courage, perseverence, and faith in her actions and how I do not want to be. I am taking care of a disabled husband and work hard to care for him and our properties. I love that she inspires me to be a better person today than yesterday. Her hatefulness, her mental illness (proclaimed by her), and her fake persona is easily seen through and through. "If you run up a bill with an attorney, and then file bankruptcy against the attorney!!!! So you don’t have to pay him/her!!!! Is he/she still your attorney? Asking for a “sister in Christ”. Let's set the story straight; how I pay my bills is my business. She has no idea what happened to us during the time my husband was in hospice because she did not make an attempt to care for her dying husband. She did not work two and three jobs to care for him because she was ...

  I read the funniest statement ... It happened to come through on my LinkedIn profile that I was updating. I am sure everyone is aware that it is easy to see who has looked at your profile. Lo and BEHOLD, there she was! My woman stalker! I didn't see it at first; a friend that was with me did and she was laughing so hard, she could barely point it out to me! ... AND JOHNNY SAYS HELLO ... On a professional page! How tacky is that! Little does she know that my husband was investigating Johnny long before her delusional interference. I am sure she would be surprised on the outcome was of the investigation. Some time ago, a woman who lives in her area mentioned how she posted everything about her lovers, how many she had, and how they still adored her! We laughed over supper! If she was so adored, why isn't she with anyone of them, living alone in shabby conditions! Where is her man that loves her so deeply that he would care for her, be a spiritual helpmate, and make h...

  During this pandemic, I’ve read many ridiculous articles about how resilience means “bouncing through” our obstacles as though riding out a pandemic is life on a trampoline. These 'Band-Aids' of advice do nothing to encourage people to look for the deep healing they will need if they truly want to be resilient. To say we bounce back from adversity implies we 'ping back and forth' until we return to the person we were before. But once we find ourselves on solid ground after experiencing a crisis, we know that we are different. We have been through something significant; we’ve seen battle and have survived. We have the scars to prove it. We don’t bounce back; we move through. For me, and in my situation, moving through is the best I can do at times. Resilience is the ability to adapt to our circumstances. When creatures adapt to their environment, it’s because they can leave something behind as well as learn something new. In short, they change. We’ve seen a lot of ...

  The dictionary defines self-worth as “the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person.” However, there are many ways for a person to value themselves and assess their worth as a human being, and some of these are more psychologically beneficial than others. We all have a “critical inner voice,” which acts like a cruel coach inside our heads that tells us we are worthless or undeserving of happiness. This coach is shaped from painful childhood experiences and critical attitudes we were exposed to early in life as well as feelings our parents had about themselves. While these attitudes can be hurtful, over time, they have become engrained in us. As adults, we may fail to see them as an enemy, instead accepting their destructive point of view as our own. However, we can challenge the inner critic and begin to see ourselves for who we really are, rather than taking on its negative point of view about ourselves. We can differentiate from the ways we were seen in our family of origi...

  Let anyone who comes to you go away feeling better and happier. Everyone should see goodness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile. Joy shows from the eyes. It appears when we speak and walk. It cannot be kept closed inside us. It reacts outside. Joy is very infectious. (St. Teresa of Calcutta) Do we find our joy merely a response to events beyond us where we are tossed about to and fro, circumstance dependent, or is there a deeper well we draw from? As St. Teresa of Calcutta so aptly notes, life-sustaining joy comes from within. It is so deep and brimming that it cannot help but overflow outside ourselves. So much so that even in the "midst of a very severe trial" and suffering it can be seen spilling out and soaking all those around with unprecedented actions of generosity and love (2 Corinthians 8:2). This we have witnessed throughout this pandemic, seemingly unprompted selfless caring acts of delivering food, making masks, and donating hard to find items to those mo...

 It could have been a difficult day filled with end of month and year end reports.  At first glance of my desk and surrounding, my mind wanted to shut down.  In my quest to work on peacefulness in my life, I decided to stack all of it in a pile on my credenza.  No particular order and definitely not a neat stack! I would walk over to the pile and picked off the top paper.  I walked back to my desk and concentrated on the simple desk, the only task on my desk.  It became my priority from start to finish.  When finished, I took the copies I needed to and filed it appropriately.  On to the next ... How comforting it was to get more than halfway through the pile before the end of the day.  When I thought back, I felt a sense of accomplishment.  I didn't complete the entire pile; but there was peace in prioritizing one paper, one project at a time. Inner peace is so important.  It improves our ability to focus our mind.  In today's ...

  Kanye West wrote, “ My power is my ability to not be influenced ”. We all struggle at some level with living up to the expectations of others. It begins from the time we are born. First, our parents establish rules for how we should behave. When we go to school, we have educational standards and goals to live up to, and we can only advance to the next grade when we meet them. When we get a job, our employers expect certain things of us. Eventually, we learn to develop our  own  expectations of how others should behave. We take these expectations into our relationships with our spouses, we impose them on our children and the cycle continues.  Expectations aren’t bad in and of themselves; we all have them. They are a natural part of life. The problem arises when we place   too much weight   on the expectations of others, to the point that we start living for their approval. We get lost somewhere between the way others see us and who we really are.  I a...