I really liked the quick breakdown of this article. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. From Contributor's Corner on experiencelife.com (magazine)
Most of us experience moments of feeling overwhelmed by life. When our daily demands far exceed our capacity. We quicken our pace, draw upon our reserves and, somehow, summon the energy we need to push through another day.
If we're not careful, feeling overwhelmed can become a pattern that keeps us stuck. When our energy is depleted, even small challenges push us into crisis mode. We react without thinking. We make expedient choices. And we drain our remaining energy until we're completely tapped.
Without a daily practice that keeps us feeling positive, inspired and energized we severely limit our potential. We compromise our health. We flood our bodies with toxic emotions. And we make it far more difficult to achieve the goals that connect us to the happiness, meaning and satisfaction we crave in our lives.
Clearly, renewing and sustaining our energy is critical to our success. It requires we slow down and invest in ourselves. It means reflecting and learning from our experiences, so we can see what restores us and what drains us. And it means we put ourselves on To-Do lists each day.
It's amazing how a few simple changes can boost our energy and transform our experiences.
When we consistently recharge our energy - physical, emotional, mental and spiritual - we create the reserves we need for life's unexpected turns. We gain the strength, happiness, clarity and connection that fuels passion and productivity.
Make it a habit to invest in your energy every day. Start by putting one restorative idea into action and build from there. No matter how small the change, every investment adds up!
Here are a few daily practice ideas to help you get started:
Physical Energy
• Exercise for 30 minutes and lift your mood for 12 hours
• Sleep for 7-8 hours each night
• Eat a healthy breakfast and pack nutritious snacks
• Drink 8-10 glasses of water each day
• Limit exposure to EMFs - cellphone, Wi-Fi, screens
Emotional Energy
• Write down five things you are grateful for each day
• Share the day's highlights with your family and friends
• Volunteer in some way that inspires you
• Spend time outdoors soaking up nature's energy
• Create more beauty in your environment
Mental Energy
• Meditate and quiet your mind (5-15 minutes)
• Unplug from technology each day
• Reduce the clutter in your environment
• Practice mindfulness and being present
• Set positive expectations and visualize things working out
Spiritual Energy
• Align your actions with your values
• Commit random acts of kindness
• Set positive, daily intentions
• Read something that inspires you
• Count your blessings every day - write them down
Get good at living™!
Maryanne
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Intro Con't
I first had to take a look at marriage liscenses. From that initial research I gathered necessary information which allowed me to start following the "tracks" as it were. I took notes from all the files I looked into, i.e. divorce, custody, restraining orders etc. Low and behold, as I'm flipping through the files....The woman at the adoption agency was an angel! She sent me in the right direction in order for me to find out my half-brother was adopted by his step-father, the one she married a few months after she killed our father. Which means he no longer has the Keller name. As I continue reading I learn, my half-brother has another half-sister, on his mothers side (of course). Both kids were in custody of the step-father, after the wife shot her new husband in the leg, only 9months after she got "off" and clear of charges for the murder of Anthony Keller.
Before I left Michigan I wanted to go to my fathers grave site, something I'd never done. When I got there I was in shock and then the tears came and running. I felt a sence of closure, closure that I didn't even dream I needed. I squated low to the plaque to touch the words, as if I could touch his skin or his face. I had my sister take a picture of me and my dad as really the only picture I have with my dad. For that moment I was daddy's little girl, and then I was all grown up.
I did further research when I returned home from my trip. Looks like at one point they had all moved out of Michigan and moved to Florida and North Carolina. Flordia, possibly with the mother and North Carolina for my half-brother due to military training/station. I can't be sure, I didn't complete cross referencing and after a few calls got nervous again and haven't picked up the desire to pursue it at this point. (whats your opinion? leave me a comment, I'm curious)
In the end, who knows what his mother explained to her son about our father and IF she even mentioned there was a "me". I did meet my brother a few times. I can't remember much at all, wonder if he does. He is a little older than me. Amazingly enough, I somehow recall at least one time meeting my father, Anthony Keller, at a park with him, my brother. That vivid picture stays with me, tall, thin, blonde, narrow, soft but sharp features in his face. He picked me up. My brother really didn't seem interested, he played on the playground. I don't have a clear image. I know at one point my mom stood to my right and my father to my left and my brother in the center but playing in the background on the toys. Thats' it.
My mom saved my fathers obiturary for me, I had it for years, it got lost in the shuffle of life (loop back to this, lost in storage)
I don't know and will never know how my life would have been differnet with having a father, active in my life, one who I phyically "belonged" to. I imagine it sometimes and dream it up in my mind, I would want him to be proud of me, daddy's only little girl. He produced a good seed in me and that to me means something special. He lives with me everyday, inside me, my heart and all my fibers of my being. His life was taken, cut short, way too short. I will, as my mission, one belended into many missions, live life for both of us. His life will not be in vain nor his "error."
Both parents were in terrible relationships. My mom couldn't get a divorce based on the laws at the time. He, my moms first husband (of four), used to beat her to a pulp. Slamming her on the stair-railing watching as she slid down on her arched back. He burned all her pictures. Not only of her love, Anthony, but of her mother who dies of cancer when she was only 17years old. By the way she gave birth to me at age 20. She married this guy, because it was "better" of the two evils. She wanted to get out of her house once her mother passed, because she had been molested and raped by her step-father from the time her little mind could remember. So thise guy seemed like prince charming. This is how I ended up with a last name on my birth certificate that I abhor. I cringe every single time I hear people say it or call me by it. Its a constant reminder of this guy, Kieth Bennett.
And well, Anthony, the one that would actually have the facts IF he himself was truly a "nice" guy. I certainly hope so. I have nothing to base it on from my own experience, only that my mom loved him and has told me time after time how he treated her. He would pick her up and toss her in play, she was a little thing. He would carry her, they were very playful together she expressed. They were friends. She reflects with deep gazing and a warm smile. He, on the other hand, could have been dealing with a looney as well. They both, perhaps, escaped to one another. Not passing judgement or condoning, just stating some possibilities.
Some people have a fasination by the fact that I am a product of this love affair, a real "love child, created in passion and love, they say. Whatever that means, and so we'll move on.
In the world around us, in our map of the world, we experience life as a child without much control. Our little precious lives are in the hands of the ones who made it possible for two "seeds" to come together and make a being, a life. It's not until we get older and begin learning, we can create our path for our future. Our past doesn't make us who we are. We hold all the resouses within us and all the potential, without end, to propel us to make phenominal choices to shape our vision, our purpose into whatever it is that we deeply desire.
Thank you for reading.
Next: Finally a Divorce and A Place to Call Home
{please feel free to make edit suggestions and please please do give feedback. I might think I'm conveying my thought but I might have left a detail or 2 in my head}
Before I left Michigan I wanted to go to my fathers grave site, something I'd never done. When I got there I was in shock and then the tears came and running. I felt a sence of closure, closure that I didn't even dream I needed. I squated low to the plaque to touch the words, as if I could touch his skin or his face. I had my sister take a picture of me and my dad as really the only picture I have with my dad. For that moment I was daddy's little girl, and then I was all grown up.
I did further research when I returned home from my trip. Looks like at one point they had all moved out of Michigan and moved to Florida and North Carolina. Flordia, possibly with the mother and North Carolina for my half-brother due to military training/station. I can't be sure, I didn't complete cross referencing and after a few calls got nervous again and haven't picked up the desire to pursue it at this point. (whats your opinion? leave me a comment, I'm curious)
In the end, who knows what his mother explained to her son about our father and IF she even mentioned there was a "me". I did meet my brother a few times. I can't remember much at all, wonder if he does. He is a little older than me. Amazingly enough, I somehow recall at least one time meeting my father, Anthony Keller, at a park with him, my brother. That vivid picture stays with me, tall, thin, blonde, narrow, soft but sharp features in his face. He picked me up. My brother really didn't seem interested, he played on the playground. I don't have a clear image. I know at one point my mom stood to my right and my father to my left and my brother in the center but playing in the background on the toys. Thats' it.
My mom saved my fathers obiturary for me, I had it for years, it got lost in the shuffle of life (loop back to this, lost in storage)
I don't know and will never know how my life would have been differnet with having a father, active in my life, one who I phyically "belonged" to. I imagine it sometimes and dream it up in my mind, I would want him to be proud of me, daddy's only little girl. He produced a good seed in me and that to me means something special. He lives with me everyday, inside me, my heart and all my fibers of my being. His life was taken, cut short, way too short. I will, as my mission, one belended into many missions, live life for both of us. His life will not be in vain nor his "error."
Both parents were in terrible relationships. My mom couldn't get a divorce based on the laws at the time. He, my moms first husband (of four), used to beat her to a pulp. Slamming her on the stair-railing watching as she slid down on her arched back. He burned all her pictures. Not only of her love, Anthony, but of her mother who dies of cancer when she was only 17years old. By the way she gave birth to me at age 20. She married this guy, because it was "better" of the two evils. She wanted to get out of her house once her mother passed, because she had been molested and raped by her step-father from the time her little mind could remember. So thise guy seemed like prince charming. This is how I ended up with a last name on my birth certificate that I abhor. I cringe every single time I hear people say it or call me by it. Its a constant reminder of this guy, Kieth Bennett.
And well, Anthony, the one that would actually have the facts IF he himself was truly a "nice" guy. I certainly hope so. I have nothing to base it on from my own experience, only that my mom loved him and has told me time after time how he treated her. He would pick her up and toss her in play, she was a little thing. He would carry her, they were very playful together she expressed. They were friends. She reflects with deep gazing and a warm smile. He, on the other hand, could have been dealing with a looney as well. They both, perhaps, escaped to one another. Not passing judgement or condoning, just stating some possibilities.
Some people have a fasination by the fact that I am a product of this love affair, a real "love child, created in passion and love, they say. Whatever that means, and so we'll move on.
In the world around us, in our map of the world, we experience life as a child without much control. Our little precious lives are in the hands of the ones who made it possible for two "seeds" to come together and make a being, a life. It's not until we get older and begin learning, we can create our path for our future. Our past doesn't make us who we are. We hold all the resouses within us and all the potential, without end, to propel us to make phenominal choices to shape our vision, our purpose into whatever it is that we deeply desire.
Thank you for reading.
Next: Finally a Divorce and A Place to Call Home
{please feel free to make edit suggestions and please please do give feedback. I might think I'm conveying my thought but I might have left a detail or 2 in my head}
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
A Passion to Write My Autobiography- Intro
I was born a bastard child on September 26, 1969 in Flint, Michigan. I am what some call, a "love-child," concieved by two cheating parties. The problem, obviously, isn't the birth, it's the story behind it. I'll never know the whole story, because my sperm-donar, Anthony Keller, didn't live to tell me his side. In fact, his wife shot him, fatally. Some might call it karma, I don't know what to call it.
It happened in the Winter of 1972, in the brand new year of 1972. Not even 2 and a half years old, my biological fathers life was taken. (She got off, perhaps on self-defense, unsure-no research as of yet) Not just from himself but his other child with his wife and me the "love-child." I will say, for many years I was told, by my mom, that Anthony's wife was "crazy". She said Anthony used to tell her stories/about situations between the two of them.
Sidebar:
Now a little about my mom...I love her dearly and somehow I think my mom is just a tiny bit "off" herself. Perhaps, thats why, or part of the reason, my father was attracted to her (heehee) Anyway, she's isn't the best at, as most of us, at telling both sides of a story. That's difficult for anyone, because it can only come from our personal perspective. Even though I understand this, I grew up with the thought of this story has some dramatization to this ending.
About 7-years ago, which puts me at about 34/35 years of age, I decided I wanted to investigate. Lord knows that this could open up a whole can of worms, espically becasue I also had a half brother out there.
To start this journey, I took a trip back home, to Flint, Michigan. My sister was in school there, my daddy's there (the father I refer as daddy, I was raised by him- considered adoption-more on that later), my moms entire family was pretty much there as well. So I figured, I could get a lot accomplished, even IF I chickened out of during the research once I arrived.
I had spoken to my Aunt, before coming, about what I planned to do once I got there. She was very supported and decided she would extend that support by going along with me and taking me around to where ever I may have needed to visit to gather my facts. As I did that leg work, she being there, proved to be a greater support, more than I expected I needed.
I had remembered my mom telling me, Anthonys wife, had given their son up for adoption after his death. First stop, was the agency for adoption. I went in extremely nervious and sweaty palms, either it was going to be able to get the information from an open adoption or orphanage, or not, I just didn't know. I waited in line, got to the counter and I struck out, it seemed, just that quickly. The woman couldn't give me any information. She extended an additonal peice of information, which didn't seem to help at all. She said he was not adopted to any other agency in Flint. At that point, I was completely overwhelmed. Where was I going to begin my search now. My eyes watered up and I could hardly speak. I sat there and took a deep breath and began to give her my reason for being there and what it all means to me. She, then took a breath, spoke very low. She widened her eyes and told me to read between the lines and I should go research his mothers marriages and the files pertaining to custody. I wanted to hug her, clearly I couldn't there was a counter between us. As soon as my butt left the seat I went did just that!
To be continued.....
It happened in the Winter of 1972, in the brand new year of 1972. Not even 2 and a half years old, my biological fathers life was taken. (She got off, perhaps on self-defense, unsure-no research as of yet) Not just from himself but his other child with his wife and me the "love-child." I will say, for many years I was told, by my mom, that Anthony's wife was "crazy". She said Anthony used to tell her stories/about situations between the two of them.
Sidebar:
Now a little about my mom...I love her dearly and somehow I think my mom is just a tiny bit "off" herself. Perhaps, thats why, or part of the reason, my father was attracted to her (heehee) Anyway, she's isn't the best at, as most of us, at telling both sides of a story. That's difficult for anyone, because it can only come from our personal perspective. Even though I understand this, I grew up with the thought of this story has some dramatization to this ending.
About 7-years ago, which puts me at about 34/35 years of age, I decided I wanted to investigate. Lord knows that this could open up a whole can of worms, espically becasue I also had a half brother out there.
To start this journey, I took a trip back home, to Flint, Michigan. My sister was in school there, my daddy's there (the father I refer as daddy, I was raised by him- considered adoption-more on that later), my moms entire family was pretty much there as well. So I figured, I could get a lot accomplished, even IF I chickened out of during the research once I arrived.
I had spoken to my Aunt, before coming, about what I planned to do once I got there. She was very supported and decided she would extend that support by going along with me and taking me around to where ever I may have needed to visit to gather my facts. As I did that leg work, she being there, proved to be a greater support, more than I expected I needed.
I had remembered my mom telling me, Anthonys wife, had given their son up for adoption after his death. First stop, was the agency for adoption. I went in extremely nervious and sweaty palms, either it was going to be able to get the information from an open adoption or orphanage, or not, I just didn't know. I waited in line, got to the counter and I struck out, it seemed, just that quickly. The woman couldn't give me any information. She extended an additonal peice of information, which didn't seem to help at all. She said he was not adopted to any other agency in Flint. At that point, I was completely overwhelmed. Where was I going to begin my search now. My eyes watered up and I could hardly speak. I sat there and took a deep breath and began to give her my reason for being there and what it all means to me. She, then took a breath, spoke very low. She widened her eyes and told me to read between the lines and I should go research his mothers marriages and the files pertaining to custody. I wanted to hug her, clearly I couldn't there was a counter between us. As soon as my butt left the seat I went did just that!
To be continued.....
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