Stepping thru the veil in 2012

Happy New Year! I’m excited to finally see 2012, the year it’s all supposed to change. What is supposed to change, no one knows for sure, but … whatever it is … I’m starting off the year with a new Shape Shifter’s Daily Diary.*

Yes, that’s a shameless plug, but it’s still true. After I wrote Shape Shifting–reclaiming YOUR perfect body, many readers  asked if there was a workbook. So I created the Daily Diary for them, and it really works! There have been times that I’ve had to put my Daily Diary aside for a while because things were manifesting too quickly for me to keep up with. (The cover art is of an androgynous person “stepping through the veil of consciousness” into a lighter way of being.)

Anyway,  because Jeff and I are moving from Florida to Arizona in just a few days, and I have so many things to keep track of and try to accomplish, I cracked open a brand new Diary to keep track of my Goals, Challenges, Intentions, etc (see * for explanation).

My primary goals for the next few months are (in no particular order, and starting after we arrive in Arizona):

1. Buy a house;
2. Finish writing Sink or Swim
3. Get Amnesty for Abuse off the ground
4. Start shopping my next book;
5. Get back in shape! (The past few months–with my dad’s death, the holidays and the move–have created havoc with my weight.)

And those are just the BIG goals! I didn’t even mention the everyday life stuff. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me. I hope you all will be my cheerleaders!

Here are today’s Challenges and Intentions from my Diary:

Challenges: We’re in limbo. It’s New Year’s Day (our third wedding anniversary), the house is packed and needs to be cleaned. We’re having a “happy hour” in the yard to say goodbye to our neighbors. We have lots of crap food and are both pretty frazzled. I’m having a hard time being excited about the future. I’m very tired of living like this.

Intentions: Only three more days and we’ll be in the truck. Our new life is beginning so I intend to focus on how exciting that is! Until then, I’m not going to worry about food too much. I intend that I enjoy Florida while I’m still here and have a great day today!

I’ll keep ya posted as the story unfolds!

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* FROM THE SHAPE SHIFTING WEBSITE: Using five powerful creation components—Triumphs, Makeovers, Challenges, Intentions & Epiphanies—this Diary will help you to not only create and keep track of accomplishments (one of the most important parts of manifesting … feeling grateful for the good things in life), but to also recognize and reframe any roadblocks.

The Law of Attraction states that, “Like attracts like.” In other words, we can’t have what we want in our physical reality until we feel we already have it. You can not be rich if you feel poor. You can not be thin if you feel fat. You can not win if you feel like a loser. So how do you feel like you are what you are not? It is a frustrating paradox.

The Shape Shifter’s Daily Diary is not just a journal, it is a creation tool. While using it, you flow into a new “You,” in the same way that river currents reshape boulders. Every entry reshapes the contours of your life. By becoming conscious of who you are becoming, on a daily basis, you have more deliberate say in what your contours will eventually look like.

Tater Mitts!!!

Maybe you’ve seen the Tater Mitts commercial. I have, and I immediately knew that our home had to have a pair. So guess what Jeff got for Christmas, in addition to the Swiney’s Irish Pub t-shirt and propeller beanie! (That’s our Christmas Tree, behind him–a string of lights tacked to the wall, because we’re moving and didn’t have the time or energy to put up and decorate a tree.)

It wasn’t just the ad that sold me.

It was the fact that I cannot even think of Tater Mitts without being flashed back to this scene from That 70s Show. As you read the headline of this blog, you must say it as though you are Laurie, yelling “Tater Nuts!!! Tater Nuts!!!” because that’s how I’m hearing it in my head: “Tater Mitts!!! Tater Mitts!!!”

So, yeah, Jeff got this goofy gift simply because I wanted to indulge my sophomoric sense of humor.

Anyway, I didn’t realize when I picked up the box that it comes with a “free” French fry slicer! A Bonus Slicer! This was a boon from a kind and beneficent Universe, because our Christmas dinner was supposed to include baked potatoes, but we won’t have oven space and we were trying to figure out what to have instead. Enter the Tater Mitts and the Bonus Slicer. We’re having French Fries!

Now, one thing that ad doesn’t mention is that you have to boil the potatoes for six minutes first. What this does is cook the skin and just the layer of potato below the skin, so the skin will–theoretically–just come off when you rub it with the Tater Mitts.

Well, here’s how it worked:

After what was waaaay more than eight seconds, as claimed in the commercial, Jeff finally stopped trying. In case you’d like to know how this adventure ends, I suggest that you read an old, old blog post of mine:

Ode to a potato peeler

Lest you think I forgot to end this blog with a dog, here is the That 70s Show gang, “dogging” on Kelso, in one of Ashton Kutcher’s better scenes.

A Vision Board come true …

From time to time I’ll make up a vision board (usually after the stack of magazines I’m saving for the project gets too tall to stand alone). A couple months ago, I finally got out my scissors and glue stick and made this:

The fun part of a vision board is watching for clues that the things you placed on the board are beginning to manifest. So far, there have been some interesting “coincidences,” like all of the houses I put on there. Jeff and I are moving to the Phoenix, AZ area next week, and are for the first time planning to buy our own house and not rent anymore. That was not in our plans when I made this board.

There is also a reference to Archangel Michael on the bottom, in the center. My son-in-law, Michael, who also moved to the Phoenix area recently with my daughter, is nicknamed Michael Archangel.

I could go on, but what caused me to actually sit down and write this blog is this little piece of humor that I added to the board, just for fun. I wanted 2012 to be when I get back to work on my novel series, so this tiny picture of a t-shirt is supposed to represent my desire to do that. Plus, I thought at the time, it was rather ironic that the first novel in that series is entitled “Be Careful What You Witch For!” and the shirt starts out with the phrase “Be Careful …” You can see this in the upper, right quadrant of the board, just above the shiny bubble.

Sooooo, imagine my surprise when I opened one of my Christmas presents, this one from Jeff’s brother’s family, and found this! Isn’t life fun?

Christmas in Florida

Friends up North, while able to appreciate the tropical paradise that is Florida the rest of the winter, wonder how on earth we deal with not having a White Christmas. Here is how we do it …

I found some fun places around the neighborhood. They’re not great photos because I took them with my phone, often while Jeff was driving by.

Next to the pool at the local nudist resort (no, there is no one at the pool, so don't bother looking.)

Those folks apparently got their gift early and straight from the Birthday Boy himself!

An egret does some last minute shopping at Best Buy.

This is how Santa delivers his stuff in swampy Florida. Make sure you leave your lanai unlocked for him!

And because we're moving and our house looks like this ...

... this is our Christmas Tree. Merry Christmas from Lisa and Jeff!

 

And, of course, here's Yule a dog.

The end of an era

When Jeff and I moved to Florida (nine years ago this January) we had a plan. Yes, it was a half-assed plan, but a plan nonetheless. We moved here to sell wire-wrapped crystals on Clearwater Beach. That’s the idea that got us moved from Point A to Point B.

At the time, I had just finished writing my first book and we were done with living in the snowbelt (Fort Wayne, IN). We were looking for some way to move nearer a tropical beach, and I “just happened” to meet someone in Fort Wayne who told me about the daily Sunset Festival on Clearwater Pier. I had been making jewelry for a couple years and selling it on eBay and at art fairs, but a daily festival was a way to make a living!

What I wanted, more than anything else, was to find a publisher for what was eventually titled Shape Shifting–reclaiming your perfect body, and to make a living as a writer. Making jewelry was a hobby that I loved, and I would enjoy doing this as a way to make money while I wrote. So I quit my job in the newsroom, cashed in my 401K and we started making plans.

One thing I learned from doing art fairs is that presentation is everything … it’s how you get customers to even look at your wares. So Jeff’s dad made me a sturdy vendor’s cart, from scratch, and my good friend Linda, an incredibly talented artist, painted it for me. She even made the Carnivale mask that hangs from the front. It was, truly, a work of art and it was a wonderful gift from two people who really cared about us.

We put most of our stuff in storage and headed south in this tiny little camper, where we lived for the first several months until we moved into a (slightly larger) fifth-wheel camper, and then eventually into the house we’re in now, which Jeff has dubbed his “Monkee’s Beach House.”

Unfortunately, selling jewelry on the pier didn’t work out, for many reasons, and that gorgeous cart became a lawn ornament. Meantime, I published three books and have now signed with Berkley to write my fourth. I strongly believe that “the Universe” brought us here, to this specific place in Florida, so I would meet and become friends with my co-author, Stacey Kananen. And now that my work in Florida is done, Jeff and I are being pulled elsewhere, out to Arizona, in much the same way we were pulled here … it’s just flowing like it’s “meant to be.” And today, we gave that gorgeous, old weather-beaten jewelry cart to our neighbor Terre, who is just hippie enough to love it almost as much as we do.

It’s heartbreaking to see the empty space in the yard where the cart used to be, but Jeff and I both know that it simply marks the end of this chapter, this era, in our lives. It’s as if the door has now officially closed on our Florida years and the cowboy call of the Old West is getting louder. I have a very strong feeling that our first Amnesty for Abuse House is waiting for me to arrive in AZ and roll up my sleeves.

I love moving!

No, I don’t like the manual labor, but I do love a fresh start in a new house. Talk about spring cleaning! The big difference is that the question changes from, “Is this worth hanging onto just in case I might need it someday?” to “Is this worth packing and moving across the country?”

Jeff and I spent the weekend trying to get some prep work done. We’re not leaving until January, but we’re not going to wait until the last minute to get to work. We needed boxes and a place to stack them as we pack. So the shed needed to be cleaned and boxes gathered. We usually get all of our boxes behind the Dollar General store because they always have mountains of empty heavy-duty, perfectly-sized laundry soap and cleaning supply boxes. Those boxes have to be very strong and just the right size because those bottles are heavy.

They make perfect book-packing boxes, and I have tons of books, much to Jeff’s chagrin. He keeps trying to get me to throw them all away because he doesn’t want to have to be the one to lug them, but I told him that we’ll get along just fine as long as he takes care of throwing away his own things, and leaves me to throw out my own.  Believe me, I’ll be throwing puhlenty of stuff away, so back off from my treasures! Otherwise we’ll be having a chat about all of those video games just gathering dust over there …

I digress. We found out, the hard way, that Dollar General now has a deal with a local recycler and sells their boxes to them. So today, after we cleaned out the shed, we tried the Family Dollar store to see if they had any boxes. Paydirt!!!

Before ...

... and after!

Now my house reeks of cardboard–not necessarily an unpleasant smell, but it’s a little overpowering. Or is that the task ahead of us that’s overpowering? Either way, I’ve done enough for today. We still have over a month to go, so no point in rushing it, right?

By the way, my co-author Stacey Kananen and I finally got our finalized, completed contract from Penquin/Berkley books! Yay!!!

Stacey Kananen and me, holding our publishing contract from Berkley Books.

Westward, ho!

The fact that I’m posting these words as a blog makes it irreversible. No backing out now. Jeff and I are moving to Arizona. And if you enjoyed my blogs about our “Here’s yew a dawg” trip, you’re gonna want to keep your eyes on this space because it promises to be fraught with typical Jeff and Lisa brand “good times and clusterfucks.”

There’s some sad stuff up front. My dad just died. What a horrible thing. I’ve had nightmares about this moment for years. I’d wake up from vivid dreams that my dad was DEAD and it was so real that I’d sit up in bed, wretching from crying so hard, and wracked with sobs for long minutes after I woke up because it was such an intense and horrific sense of loss. But when it actually happened, it didn’t hit me that hard. I was so relieved to stop seeing his body in that condition that I was blissfully relieved when we finally got that 2:20 AM phone call. That doesn’t mean I don’t fall apart in the grocery store or other inconvenient places, especially when they play Christmas music (which is starting insanely early this year). It does mean, however, that I’m able to be a lot more philosophical and Zen about his death than I thought I would be.

I have some pretty comforting spiritual views on this, which help. I’m sort of a “New Ager/Lightworker” type, but I don’t take myself as seriously as some of them do. Believe me, there are whacked out fundamentalist New Agers, just like there are in any other belief system. Some of us actually have our shit together and cringe when the fringe shows up in the news to make us all look crazy. Those spiritual views include the concept that death isn’t the end of life overall, just the end of life in the physical form. Life, free from the body, seems like a pretty groovy thing so death is only bad for those of us who are still alive and missing our dead folks.

Anyway, I have developed a pretty strong connection with my Dad, now that he’s on the other side. I didn’t expect that because I’ve never been very “lucky” communicating with the other side, even though I’ve tried for decades. Dad, on the other hand, thought psychic stuff was all “horseshit” so it’s surprising to see him so strongly reaching out from over there. But I know I’m getting messages from Dad, because less than a month after his death, I’m moving across the country to live near my mom because I think he’d really like it if I did. (I’d like it, too, or I wouldn’t be doing it, I’m just sayin’ … Dad is the one who nudged me into action).

I’ll maybe share a little about those messages in future blogs, but for now I don’t want to make this too long. It’s Thanksgiving Day and Jeff and I are relishing our last Thanksgiving in our Florida “Monkees’ Beach House.” (Jeff has, since he was a boy, wanted to live like the Monkees, in their groovy beach house. We have spent the last nine years living like that, in our own fashion, and it’s VERY hard to say goodbye to because it’s been delicious.)

But now that it’s been said aloud, let it be done. Here we go on another amazing journey! I hope you enjoy the trip as much as we will!

The Winds of Change bring big news!

Once of my favorite scenes from the movie Monster’s Inc. is when Mike Wazowski and his arch-nemesis Randall talk about the Winds of Change.

Last week Jeff and I were drawn outside by the sight of a brilliantly lit double rainbow. (Cameras never do a rainbow justice, do they?) We stood there, gazing in awe at its beauty when the wind kicked up and almost knocked us off our pins. I said, “Do you hear that? It’s the winds of change.” Jeff responded, appropriately, with his line from the script (this wasn’t our first time quoting this scene).

They really were the winds of change. This week in particular has been filled with transitions—BIG ones! Check this out. All in one week:

1. My job ended because the company that Stacey (my co-author, Stacey M. Kananen) and I work for is being “restructured,” for lack of a better word.
2. Jeff started a new job, after being one of the unemployed multitudes for way too long.
3. The BBC documentary on child abuse which featured an interview with Stacey is completed and part of it is viewable online. (This is the documentary I talked about in a previous blog, when we traveled to Washington DC for the interview with BBC reporter Natalia Antelava.)
4. Last, but definitely not least, I can finally make the big announcement I started teasing about a month ago. Stacey and I have been offered a publishing contract with Berkley Books, publisher of such authors as Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Dean Koontz and many others!

There are a few more changes that I won’t mention here, but suffice to say that all of us are breathless with how everything has come to head at once. Stacey and I are now free to work on the book and building the Amnesty for Abuse program! All it took was for the winds to shift, to blow away the clouds which were behind us as we grinned at the rainbows!

Onward and upward!

Let’s make 9/11 a day of hope

On 9/11/01, I was working in a TV newsroom and, when the first plane hit, we all assumed that it was just a horrible plane wreck. But when we watched the second plane hit the other tower—on the network’s raw news feed, as it was actually happening—I realized that this was deliberate. Some fresh hell was unfolding, and life would never be the same.

I was afraid that day, afraid that “Oh, shit, it’s really happening, the Doomsday that we’ve all been warned about that I didn’t take very seriously, it’s beginning.” Fearful thoughts tumbled through my mind, like dominoes falling on a path lined up toward devastation and destruction. I wondered how long it would take to reach the Midwest, where I was, and when the food rationing would begin. I worried about my kids and the world I had borne them into.

That day carried a very weird vibe. I went outside to have a cigarette, and noticed there were no cars, no birds, no squirrels—no life. It felt as though all of the energy, both positive and negative, had been sucked from the Isness and we were flat-lined: there was nothing … a void … not good or bad, just … a void.

But as I sat and smoked, I felt a small glimmer of hope. I hoped that this would finally be the last straw. I hoped that we, as a race, would finally see the futility of hate. I felt like Betsy Lou Who, from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, not allowing someone else’s nastiness to drain my heart of joy.

I felt a swell of gratitude for those generous souls who gave up their physical forms in this horrific event to illustrate where the path of hatred takes us. I hoped that this would be the straw that finally taught humanity that we can’t ever win a war against ourselves.

Unfortunately, that is not the path we took. We ended up in a war that included torture and videotaped decapitations. Man’s inhumanity to man was everywhere we looked, for years and years, goaded on by a fearful global population and government leaders who insisted that fighting hatred with hatred was the way to go.

It feels to me like the sacrifice made by thousands of souls was in vain. You know that song we sing in church, “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me …”? Can we do that yet? Can we honor that sacrifice by knocking this shit off and trying to get along?

That’s what I intend to do. On this day of remembrance, I thank and bless all of those who died in the attacks, the military troops and civilians who have died since then in battle and, yes, even the hijackers, for the most powerful message any soul can deliver—Do unto others, damn it, because you ARE doing unto yourself.

While so many mourn this day, others celebrate new life. My nephew and his wife just welcomed a new addition to the family this weekend. The cycle of life goes on. Welcome to the world, Liam. We hope to make it a better place for your generation.

From victim to victor

We’ve all heard the expression “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Well, I know someone who was pelted with lemons her whole life and is now making lemon meringue pie. Her name is Stacey Kananen and I am in awe of her.

Stacey was in second grade when her abusive father left her on a floating deck at a local lake to swim ashore or drown. For him, it was a win-win: either his kid learned to swim, or he had one less mouth to feed and a convenient excuse for her demise. Six-year-old Stacey had to make a deliberate choice: sink or swim. She defiantly chose to survive.

Richard Kananen violently and sexually abused his wife and three children for decades. In constant fear for their lives, the family endured his unpredictable whims by ducking bullets, knives and fists, walking on eggshells to avoid sadistic “learning lessons,” as he called the abuse. When he vanished in 1988, they were so relieved by his absence that no one reported “The Monster” missing.

Fifteen years after Richard’s disappearance, Stacey’s mother Marilyn went missing and an investigation led police to suspect her brother, Rickie, of foul play. Rickie confessed to police that he buried his father’s body under the cement floor of his mother’s garage, and Marilyn’s body in Stacey’s back yard.

Rickie eventually agreed to a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty and told police that Stacey—who angered him by cooperating as a witness for the State—helped him murder their parents. She was arrested and charged. Her murder trial aired on CNN’s In Session, as dueling attorneys verbally danced around inadmissible evidence, e.g., Rickie’s own admissions that he had killed their father, his half-written novel about a severely abused boy who grows up to join a secret organization that kills abusive parents, his deposed statement that Stacey was innocent, and much more.

Stacey and Diana Tennis

Miraculously—after years of preparation and in a flawless, Matlock moment—Stacey’s defense attorney, Diana Tennis, finally unearthed a missing piece of evidence that conflicted with Rickie’s story and proved that Stacey had been railroaded. She was found not guilty, but her relief was short lived. Now she had to rebuild her devastated life.

Finally in therapy, she struggled to make sense of what had happened to her. She felt an all-consuming urge to become an advocate for abused kids. She asked me to co-author a book because I—her friend and neighbor—witnessed the seven year process from murder to verdict and had attended her trial. She trusted my background as a writer for MSNBC and knew that I could be completely objective and non-judgmental. The writing of that book is now underway.

But writing a book wasn’t enough. Stacey knew that her calling was bigger than that. Visions of creating a kids’ camp or some sort of advocacy program haunted her and wouldn’t let her go. We brainstormed and researched, and discovered that there is an infinite number of programs already in existence. We wondered: if so many advocacies are already in place, why does this problem still exist? Apparently what society is doing isn’t working. We knew we had to come up with a new idea.

And so, we developed our own program, a new concept called Amnesty for Abuse, to extend a non-judgmental olive branch to those who wish to quit the cycle of abuse. The premise is that the majority of abusers were once abused themselves: abuse is usually learned behavior—victims victimizing victims. Part of that learned behavior is shame. Both the abused and the abuser feel shame for the role they are playing. When one feels ashamed, one is not likely to ask for help to get out of their abusive situation. In addition, admissions made in therapy are often subject to mandatory reporting to authorities. Amnesty for Abuse recognizes the courage that it takes to ask for help and offers amnesty for those admissions as long as the abuser stays in and sincerely works the program.

The format is a compassionate holistic, body/mind/spirit method of therapy that addresses all facets of the human condition and family dynamics in order to help all family members to heal and be healed. The family works together to stay together, if at all possible. The program works as an alternative to the legal and CPS systems, in order to keep people out of the courts and in their homes.

We realize that this could be perceived as Pollyannaism. After all, so many laws make it impossible to offer abusers anything other than harsh punishment, in the “eye for an eye” vein. But as Bill Clinton—who knows a thing or two about judgment and forgiveness—once said, “…  the anger, the resentment, the bitterness, the desire for recrimination against people you believe have wronged you — they harden the heart and deaden the spirit and lead to self-inflicted wounds.”

So if Stacey Kananen—a woman who has endured the most horrific things that can be inflicted upon a child—can see the value in a program like this, then why not give it a try? As I said, nothing else seems to be working. Various therapists and healers have expressed amazement that something like this isn’t already in place and recognize the value in this approach.

Stacey with Natalia Antelava

The program is in its infancy, but we’re already gaining support and interest from experts in the field. We have sent out information packages to some pretty powerful people and, as a result, Natalia Antelava–a reporter for the BBC–heard about Stacey’s story. Stacey and I just returned home from a trip to Washington DC where Natalia interviewed her for a documentary about child abuse that will air on the BBC in September, and on PBS here in the States.

Stacey and me in front of the BBC building in Washington

We’re on an exciting road, Stacey and I, and we can’t wait to see what happens next. We’re actively searching for the next logical step in the progression and growth of the book and the program. Are you one of the missing links between now and then? If you feel that you would like to be a part of this cutting edge approach to an age-old problem, drop us an email at info@amnestyforabuse.com!

Stacey’s own blog can be found here.