The Original You

WHY I WRITE My soul whispers to me of a time when I can be me. A time when the opinions and judgments of others become completely irrelevant. A time when mistakes are not judged as wrong. A time when my soul is allowed to express freely. A time when a thought becomes as important as an action. A time when my love for myself is as important as the love I receive from others. My soul is begging for this time. It is craving this. It is asking me on a daily basis to allow this part of myself out. This is my writing. This is why I write. It is this unwinding and unfolding of all of the years of feeling pent up. It is the allowing of this part of me that feels like it was held back. It is the allowing of this beautiful part of my soul to finally come out and play. ALLOWING ME TO BE ME There is nothing more freeing than allowing me to be me. For years, I felt I had to be somebody else. Whatever was coming out of me was not acceptable. Now, I know this is false. What was trying to...

USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR GOOD I love social media. I think it is an amazing creation. It gives all of us the ability to deliver our message to a larger audience. I made a decision in 2018 that I was going to use social media to spread a message of love, inclusion, and positive energy. While I appreciate that there are those in the world who call out the negative aspects of life, my decision to promote only positive messages has been good for me. CONTRIBUTING TO THE POSITIVE ENERGY Some might call me naive, and that I ignore the pain in the world. Not true. I believe that my emphasis on promoting love in the world stems from me knowing that there is a lot of pain in the world. I want to be part of the solution. I do not wish to contribute any more pain into the conversation. There is too much already. I believe that when a person has been given power, it is their responsibility to use that power for good. That's how I see my social media use.   It is my chance to ...

The Delay Delays. I don’t like them. Nobody does. Who wants to wait in a traffic jam. How about in a line at a store. How about waiting for a check to come in the mail. Being delayed can be aggravating. Last Saturday my cell phone died. I was going to work. I had to cancel work. Again, I was delayed. Waiting teaches me patience. It teaches me that everything is not going to go my way. In fact, most things will not go my way. It’s just a fact of life. The Blessing Creates an Opportunity Yesterday, I was driving back from Miami. It was Sunday. The day when I have time to catch up on my bills and other emails. Here I was going about 4 mph when I wanted to be going 60. I wanted to pull my hair out. If I had more hair I would have. It was a waste of time in my mind. Nothing good was coming from sitting in Miami traffic. My next thought was from the Divine. “John, why don’t you listen to a podcast you have wanted to listen to for a while?” Don’t know exact...

THE THINGS WE TELL OURSELVES I am not a fraud. Say those words out loud to yourself. I am not a fraud. How does that feel to say that? What part of your body relaxes when you say that? It is a gut feeling. It is that truth that will relax the tension in our body. You deserve this. You earned this. No matter when your mom, dad, brother, well meaning (or not well meaning) teacher said, you are not a fraud. A DAILY WRESTLING MATCH The feeling of being of fraud is something that I have to wrestle with on a daily basis. When I was younger, I wrote things down in a little notebooks. When I wrote them down, I would never share them with anyone. I didn't think that my thoughts had any merit, or that anyone would relate to them. So, away they would go into the already overstuffed drawer, never to be seen again. After all, they were just my thoughts. Why would anyone else care about them? A TIME FOR CHANGE Fast forward to 2018. In March, I was sitting in my ca...

MY JOURNEY BACK TO WRITING   I began writing again in March 2018. This rediscovery of my passion for writing was the direct result of another tragic shooting in a school. This time, it was close enough to home (literally) that I needed to find a way to create some good in the world. I felt completely powerless to do anything about it. The only thing I knew that I had some control over was my ability to write. I have been writing my entire life, but never thought that my skills would be able to help anyone.   I made a silent vow to myself that I was going to allow the thoughts and feelings that were stored inside to be let out into the world. This was going to be my way of effecting positive change in the world. And, that's how my writing career started. Now, I am on the verge of having a book published. The book is not about school shootings. It is about my vision of hope for the world, and why I still believe that good things can still come from the human race. ...