We jumped off houses...

Last December I started listening to The Listening Program. I had heard about all kinds of things that shifted for people, like kids stop wetting the bed and people's sleep patterns improve, as do speech, communication, balance, coordination, creativity and such. Since I have multiple traumatic brain and other injuries, and who doesn't, I hoped to get missing chunks of memories back and relief from chronic knee pain.

Here's my theory: If you were ever a child, you have a traumatic brain injury!

In previous posts I've shared all kinds of benefits I have personally experienced and will continue to do that. I completed the 20 week protocol a few months ago. Having been through TLP as instructed, it was now okay for me, as a Certified TLP Provider with Bone Conduction, to intuitively use TLP on myself as I saw fit. For 7 weeks I listened to the first 4 albums. Full Spectrum, which is generally organizing in effect and to Sensory Integration, (SI,) which, mainly for me, makes my body feel better.

I believe listening to SI has helped my brain heal my body parts that have been injured so many times in my life.

I have scars from when I was a child. Some I remember, others I do not. I fell off a bike around 6 years old and still have a scar on my hand from that. I have burn scars on my hands, arms and the back of one leg, from injuries before memory. I flew off the front of a bike again at 19 landing on payment and slid to a stop, becoming one with embedded rocks. At 13 I was knocked out cold twice from head injuries and at 8 broke 3 ribs, the how of which, is still a mystery. I've fallen off the back of a dirt bike twice landing on the base of my spine hard! I slid down a rock slide about 100 feet at 20 years old and have been in 3 rear-end collisions, (none of them my fault).

In sports and dance I did all kinds of other things to myself. If you run your thumb down the length of either shin you will know I played field hockey at Rich East High School. When I smile, you may notice 3 small chips in my front teeth from marching while playing a French Horn. I have sprained both ankles and wrists and learned to type as a HS sophomore with casts on both thumbs, don't ask. I don't even know where to start with gymnastics, volleyball and modern dance.

I had 40 x-rays shots, with the old cone style x-ray machine, of my knees in college from preventing a 6' man from spiking a volleyball in my zone, which put me on crutches for months. Lots of rehabilative therapy for that one. Once, during a dance routine I was dropped to a hardwood floor from an overhead position. That hurt.

I do not recall ever getting hurt in ballet, but that discipline is brutal.

I know I have left out things, like my brothers and I used to climb and jump off of everything. Houses, elementary schools, swings, jungle gyms, trees, bicycles, culverts. We were pretty much indestructible. (This picture is my brother, Adam States caught in the act of jumping off things!)

I'm pretty sure my brain knew what it was doing when it directed me to do a lot of listening to Sensory Integration and still does! My brain is using TLP to heal my body and rewire my systems to a more correct way of living and performing. And did I mention I physically feel much better than I did last year? Much, much better.

New home

Sometimes heart, mind and soul require complete change in abode for healing. I now live on the Ogden River, which feeds my soul deeply. I hear the wind in the trees and the river running. I am drawn to peaceful people with peaceful ways. I feel grounded and centered. I am letting go of people and things that no longer serve my life. And I am quite happy about it.

There are many paths to healing. Take one!

Listening as Therapy

This may have occurred to you already, dear listener, but I've had a bit of an 'Ah Ha' moment in the last 2 weeks. Since I started listening to The Listening Program®, I have listened on some kind of schedule. I listen in the mornings or I listen at lunch time or I listen in the evening after work. I made a point to 'do my listening' as I knew I was getting various benefits from doing so. Then life got crazier and I noticed something new.

I made some impactful shifts in my life, like moving my children and myself to a new place. Before, when I have moved, I had all kinds of help. This time I had Adam, 17, Danica, 14 and myself doing all the work. Most of the heavy stuff naturally fell to Adam and then he got the flu. Throwing up jalapeños is not conducive to the activities of moving, so there, my little girl and I were. Everyone I hoped would come by to help, went camping, hiking, were working and other things. I had rented a truck and the clock was ticking.

Really, the moving hassles and costs were not the main cause of stress at the time, by I'll just focus on it, as you get my point. Undo stress, 2 weeks after spending the weekend in the hospital for a non-heart attack and I was not in the best place mentally, physically or emotionally. Then Monday comes along and it's back to attempting to be amazing at work, on top of everything else. And here comes the 'Ah Ha' part. When I started to really feel overwhelmed and my heart rate started going up and the headache started to kick in I reached for my headphones.

I played album 3 of TLP for a few minutes and had to take a call. Not wanting to be left hanging in the middle of a 15 listening segment, I put my headphones back on and listened some more. I drank some water and got back to work. In the middle of a project, my worries snuck back in and I started to feel a bit nauseated. I sipped more water and put my headphones back on. Later that night, when the stress crowded in at home, I put my bone conduction headphones on and listened to some of album 4.

For 2 weeks, this became the pattern. I listened when I needed it, not on a set schedule. When tears welled up in my eyes after a tough personal call I reached for my headphones again and it hit me! TLP had become my stress relieving therapy! I reached for headphones instead of headache medication or something else. I listened to The Listening Program to calm, ground and center myself in the bumpy waters of my life. I found the music in Sensory Integration albums to help me get through a very tough couple of weeks. And I'm very grateful this program and this company came into my life and has such benefit to it.

Now I'm back on schedule, listening to album 5, Speech and Language and back to using TLP in a condensed schedule for its designed purposes! But if things get bumpy again, it is no big deal to switch to the SI albums to get through another tough time.

Nightmares

I can not remember a time growing up when I did not have nightmares. When I was little I saw the train on a younger siblings crib come off the crib and run over me. I used to have dreams of trying to driving my granddaddy's 1950 Chrysler Imperial, with all my siblings in the back seat. I was trying to get away from the bad men in black suits and hats, who I could see coming in the rear view mirror. I was 11 when those dreams started.

Then I used to have the falling dreams, where I was falling out of all kinds of things and would wake up with my heart pounding and a hissing sound in my ears. It was very traumatic and I don't remember telling my parents, but I would think I did. Probably I told them. That is what would happen normally, isn't it?

So then the driving dreams progressed to driving the big green beast of a car, with siblings in the back across Wyoming. Wyoming where it is a straight road over hills and more hills. And the low parts had rising water in them, which would surprise the locals. I eventually stopped on the top of a hill, as I knew it was certain destruction to drive into the water, with these children, I was responsible for. I had the rising water nightmares for years and the bad men chasing me dreams, too.

And in all these dreams, I never was fending for only my own life. I always had the responsibility of protecting my sibs.

Later I had dreams of not being able to get out of a house. No matter what door I opened, I was still inside the building and it felt like I spent all night trying to get away from some unnamed horror to non avail.

And when I went 1700 miles away to college, I had dreams in the night that Jennifer, my baby sister was in danger. I would want to wake my mom up to go check on Jennifish and a few times I did wake her. Jennifish was always fine and asleep.

When I got pregnant with my first child, I had nightmares that all manner of things were wrong with him. He had Down Syndrome or other serious problems, I don't remember now, but I would worry all day and be afraid to sleep at night. This went on until November 28th, 1976 when he was born. Fine. Healthy. No problems. No more bad dreams about that. Until I got pregnant with Trevor and then David and Stephan and Alex. And then I had other bad dreams.

I would dream I was driving somewhere with my children and the door would fall off and we didn't use seat belts back then and the kids would tumble out and I would stop and try to find them in the underbrush while wild animals slinkered near the kids I left in the vehicle, exposed, with no doors. It was horrible.

Sometimes my bad dreams would wake me up and I would not be able to shake the fears. I would lay there in my bed afraid. Afraid in the dark, like I had been my whole life. It didn't matter a big husband person was happily sleeping in the same bed. I was still terrified and did not want to go back to sleep.

There is a lot more to the nightmare/bad dream thing in my long life, but I realize a couple of things. One is I never slept well in my whole, very long life until I had listened to The Listening Program for 13 weeks straight. Then I started sleeping 7 hours every night for weeks. The last few have been bumpy as I've had a lot of stress in my life. I am sleeping better than before, regardless.

The other thing I realize is that since I started listening to TLP, I have been remembering so many things from my super long life... stories of my childhood and things that happened and tough times I've had as an adult. The memories have flooded in allowing me to see them from the perspective of a 55 year old grown woman and deal with them. It is a very grounding and structurally solid place to be.

I thought I would feel safe with an allegedly loving man beside me, but it took years to realize, he was another source of my fears, keeping me awake and sleepless. And I repeated that pattern in other relationships and hopefully have learned that ugly lesson!

It now feels safe to sleep at night. I don't wake up fearful and in a panic with emotions running rampant. Even with tremendous stress, I'm waking up rested and rejuvenated. It's a process I will continue with. TLP makes me feel good physically. It helps me get and stay balanced. It frees those things I no longer need in my life, creating space for that which is new, fresh, healing and correct for me.

Gaia, Mother Earth, nature and back to it!

When body, mind and spirit are on overload, the brain, heart and soul react. Mine have gathered resources and said, 'basta, enough, fini.' When life isn't working, one option is change. It is generally my default choice!

It is time to move. So we move. It is time to be closer to earth, to be more grounded and to relax and calm.

The last 2 years have been calming in some ways. We have been living on 3/4 of an acre with 62 trees, in a little bungalow. We have had parties and people living with us and bbq's and thousands of flowering and food plants in baskets and planters. And we have had places to hang a lot of windchimes!

But now we trade the over-sized yard for no yard, but proximity to the Ogden River. We trade a house we share for a place of our own. We trade lots of room for entertaining for just the right amount of space for Adam, Danica and I. Now we walk barefoot in the grass and the river...

Maybe we have needed this for some time, but it is right now that I can make the change. It is now that my brain can adjust for the changes of a move. It is now that I feel confident, grounded and personally empowered to move.

So this weekend we move and next week Adam & Danica start album 1 of The Listening Program and I move to album 2 of my second full time through. Good things are happening for my little family, here at home and we welcome the changes and the opportunity to get closer to Gaia, Mother Earth and nature.

I am happy. I am at peace. I am ready for what is next.

One of the toughest things I've done in my life-Stand-up Comedy

When I first moved to Salt Lake City UT in December of 2003, I really didn't know anybody. Well a couple of family members, a bit too busy to hang out with, so I had to find something fun to do, alone. One of the patient's in the office where I worked gave me a coupon to go to a comedy club, called Wiseguys. Sitting in the audience laughing with the rest of the crowd, was better than therapy.

I really enjoyed the local comics the best! They made fun of living in UT, which I began to understand, the longer I lived here. Local comedians always warmed up the crowd for the 'headliner' and I grew to love the local guys best. It didn't take too long to hear the same jokes, over and over, sometimes with subtle changes. I laughed everytime, even if I'd heard jokes before!

It was interesting to observe, how comedians worked to fine-tune a joke until it worked,, getting the maximum laugh-age every time.

Now I have entertained crowds and listeners and viewers, live and on television and radio for years. I understand what it takes to warm an audience up, get them riled up, excited and listening to every gem or brilliance that drips out of my mouth. but stand-up? That is serious, tough business there.

After some time of living in SLC, a brief relationship of mine, ended abruptly and uuuugily and I was pissed about older men. Really pissed. So pissed, I cracked people up when I vented. I talked about hair sprouting out of the oddest places and the balding men growing their thin hair out, putting it in a pony tail and sporting a 'skullet.' Funny stuff, right!?!

Someone said, 'you should do this at Wiseguys,' and I made the decision to combine venting about stupid things men did, in my life, while crafting something humorous, to try something I had never done before. Stand-up comedy!

I did perform several times and found that women thought I was hiiilll-air-eeeeee-ous. Men, not so much!!! One time I was ready to do my whole 'Dating Older Men' diatribe, with some new material, donated by other dissatisfied women, when I realized I just couldn't this night. I looked around the place, at a roomful of older men. They would not think I was as funny as I thought I was, so I had a few minutes to come up with something different to entertain this audience.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8kNtZj4N3g&NR=1

Diction

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2979895296/tt0058385 "The Rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain..." is a line from a movie that came out when I was in the 4th grade! Professor Higgins does his best to get the guttersnipe Eliza to become a lady.

Being in television and/or radio was always a dream of mine. Never afraid of the stage, nor a sufferer of 'mike fright', I majored in Broadcast/Journalism in college, right out of high school. http://920kvel.com/index.php

Years later I realized my dream, by working first for a mid-sized market TV station. I had a weekly interview show, which was a blast for me! After that stint I went to work as on-air talent for the sister stations KVEL and KLCY in Vernal UT. I am a big deal there, just so you know!!! http://klcy.com/ I still have fans!

I was live on the air 4 hours every weekday and did 8 newscasts a day. I also introduced concerts, emceed events and was the queen of live remotes!

Then I relocated to Tucson AZ to take a position as the Business Development Director for 4 radio stations in that market and my on-air presence was minimal.

During all this experience a couple of things happened. I lost much of my 'Chicago dialect', developing a smart-ass, smooth (in my opinion)persona with lazy language peppered with slang and made-up words! It has stood me well for nigh onto 10-15 years!

Now an odd thing happened with my language skills recently that I didn't notice right away. My diction has sharpened. Where I used to slur and accent my words for effect, I find I am unconsciously speaking more clearly. My consonants are becoming crisp. In a state known for lazy speech, mine is snapping to attention! If you listen to me, give you our toll-free number, for instance, you will hear me pronounce the 't' on the end of every 8, in 888.228.1798. That's a lot of '8's'!

As I start The Listening Program for the 2nd time through, I am seeing my speech and language skills improving and I'm wondering what effects will be evident in the next weeks from repeating TLP at a higher level of functionality this time...

Stay tuned!!!

So I didn't have a Heart Attack or 2?

So here is how a stress test works. I got an EKG and they took more blood to check blood oxygen levels. Mine were still fine.

Because I showed up for this party in pink striped jammies, turquoise tank top and leather sandals, my wardrobe needed augmentation. cute top was replaced with non-descript hospital gown and lovely blue socks with rubbery grip stuff on the tops and bottoms. It's those little sock things I wore on the, soon to be mentioned, tread mill.

They moved me into a cardiac area. I should mention by now, my chest pains were minimal but my headache was quite noticable. And my blood pressure was still too high. Mike injected radioactive isotopes into my IV. I asked him, if I sneezed, would I blow up. He just looked at me. I explained it was on an old school Twilight Zone episode, from when I was a kid, or a 1950's movie. He was unmoved.

Then he put me into a Gamma Ray Transmorger or something like that. Took s'more pictures of my chest. After that tedious moment in my life, laying on something the width of a butter knife, he wheeled me into the stress test room. I wasn't allowed to walk anywhere but to the bathroom. Apparently going potty posed no risk to my heart.

In my non-cute hospital socks I did 12% grade fast walking at 2.5 mph for 10 minutes getting my heart rate up to 160. Now this was awesome! Seriously! It was the highlight of my weekend adventure because I have not been able to exercise like that for nearly 6 years! A car wreck and subsequent knee injury has prevented it. I did 3 micro-current treatments on each knee 2 months ago and they have been improving. This experience showed me I could get back to it! Yay! (Silver lining.)

Another trip to the Gamma Ray Transmorger and I was back to my observation room, where Adam was sucking on a delicious smelling coffee drink from Starbucks.

I only had to wait about an hour for my Egyptian cardiologist to tell the new doc, on shift that my heart was absolutely fine but I needed blood pressure medication. Fine. I did not have 1 or 2 heart attacts the night before. Yay! Good to know. This doctor recommended I take Kapadex for acid reflux and go get checked out by an MD, a surgeon to see if my gall bladder needs evicted and a gastroentomologist or something to see if my esophagus is okay. Huh..

Someone is going to have to do a lot of talking to get me on blood pressure medication. This is the 3rd time my blood pressure has jacked up like this. Normally my blood pressure is low. If I go use medication how will I ever know what is causing this to happen? What if it is something I should be watching and changing my diet or something for? How will I know. So I start somewhere. I pulled up akaline foods off of Google. If I stop eating acidic foods, perhaps my innards will calm the heck down. I'll have less discomfort and my blood pressure will stay where it should. And if I start walking on my treadmill at home I will drop a few pounds raising my level of health that way.

And through this all, I'm fairly sure my listening to The Listening Program helped my brain filter all this confusing activity and handle the weekend adventures with some intelligence and lack of out of balance emotion. I know I need to do something different to improve my health. I also know it has to make sense and not be some medical protocol without reason and logic behind it.

Heart attack protocols

My son, Adam drove me to the hospital late at night. No one asked us why we were there for 25 minutes. If I had really been worried I would have put up a stink. They took my info and description of what was happening and moved me right into the cardiac bay in the ER.

I was having chest pains that went all the way through to my back and radiated across the middle of my torso, under my chest. Then I had a numbness in my right ring finger, little finger and hand and a vasculare headache in my forhead. I know most heart attacks involve the left side of the body but I also know that women have different sympoms from men. Given my family history, I didn't mess around.

The 2 previous times I went through this, I got an EKG and blood oxygen tests which always looked fine. This time, they did those tests and more, but first I have to share Adam's experience watching Barbara put my gi-freakin-normous IV in the inside of my right elbow. It hurt and I told her so! I also felt something warm running down my arm and he back of my hand. Was pretty sure I was bleeding.

Adam said, he saw blood spurting out of my arm, spraying the side of the bed while forming a pool on the floor. The solution? Throw a towel on the floor!!! EKG came back fine. So the did more tests this time. They did a CAT Scan of my chest and abdomen and then another one with contrast. Iodine injected into my IV created one of the weirdest experiences of my life! My hands got hot then it felt like my pajama pants caught on fire, then the rest of me, then I got cold and it went away. About that fast.

Later they did an ultrasound of my gall bladder in case that was having an attack.

Six hours after the first EGK, they came in and did another one and took more blood. Apparently the blood on the floor couldn't be used.

All this time Adam is trying to sleep in a chair. Poor kid doesn't have his license yet. He only has a permit, so he can't drive without me in the vehicle. He was stuck, witnessing all this. Kindof rough for a 17 year old, but he handled it very well. He had to leave the building to get phone reception to pass on to his sibs the updates. And while he was doing that, Danica, 14, was home watching 2 year old Matthew, my grandson, with no adult there to help her, as she worried about her mom. Remember we thought I was having a heart attack or 2...

I have always like taking tests as I seem to do well on them, but these tests, even though I kept passing them, were not my favorites!

The next tests were glow in the dark. Since they would not let me drink water all night long, graham crackers were impossible to eat! They made me drink whole milk, Gross. When you don't drink milk it tastes like drinking meat while smelling wet fur. Gross. However, at that point, liquid was good. They said the milk and crackers would help my body assimilate the radioactive isotopes they were going to put in my IV. WHAT?

Not one but 2 heart attacks?

If you are the oldest person in your entire family because of heart disease and you have serious chest pains and things like unto that, you are not messing about, wasting time, but getting to a hospital. That would be my weekend. Lovely. My blood pressure is normally about 125/70, nice and low. But a few times in the last 2 years, my blood pressure shoots up and gives me a run for my money. I had no idea why until I mentioned to a physician's assistant that my orthopedic surgeon said he had no problem with me taking 3-800mg Ibuprophen a day for knee pain. Huh. I had a problem with that! I kind of like my liver and my kidneys just the way they are. The PA, calmly said taking the Ibuprophen is probably what jacked up my blood pressure, so I stopped taking it all together months ago. It's okay, my knee is doing much better now anyway.

So what caused my blood pressure to jack up this weekend? Maybe stress? Are ya paying attention here? Life is a bit crazy! I also think it has something to do with how I eat. People think I eat pretty well. I make my own savory olive oil with herbs I grow and things like that. But more and more lately, I'm afraid to eat most everything. Everything gives me heartburn. Everything makes me feel distress after eating. I was at a loss.

I should at this juncture explain the picture on this blog! The tape around the IV really wrinkled up the inside of my right elbow to give me an idea of what I'll look like in a few years when I hit 100. That IV is the most painful thing I've had in my arm. The gauge they use in ER is way bigger than the surgical needles. I squawked like crazy when Barbara stuck me. I like her otherwise, but that was seriously not pleasant for the next 24 hours I spent in ER.

Depression and time

Depression is the kind of thing you may not even know you have. It can sneak up on you. It can just be. It may be part of your identity if you let it.

Suffering with depression you may say things like, 'Life sucks,' 'nobody understands,' 'nobody loves me,'and you just may not ever see silver linings or light at the end of the dark, dark tunnel.

When I started listening to The Listening Program, I had every expectation I would get gain. I had no idea what to expect. I had hopes the sensory integration component would help with chronic pain, other than that, I really had no idea what to expect.

I got help with sleeping a bit more deeply in the second week and I was feeling better generally in the first 4 weeks.

Weeks 5 and 6 I crashed emotionally and cried for 2 weeks. it was like I couldn't hold the hurt and pain and unhappiness in any more and it fell out in little riverettes down my cheeks. (I made that word up.) It also felt like a dam burst in my heart and I unleashed the pent up sadnesses I held so tightly all those years.

For awhile I was afraid it would never stop! That I was so old and so full of black emotions they would never end.

But in 2 weeks total they ended.

I listened to the other albums in TLP for 8 more weeks and was, quite frankly afraid to go back to the speech and language albums for fear I would lose another couple weeks to tears and prepared by buying boxes of tissues and putting them everywhere!

They weren't needed. Whatever filtering and coping mechanisms I seemed to be missing appeared to have resolved the first time through listening. I really wondered at that. How amazingly miraculous was that experience?!!

I still am listening to TLP. I know every time I do another cycle of listening I will get new gains. And depression is a bitch. Sorry, but it just is. Nasty, insidious, sneaking and debilitating. It makes you someone you are not. And I know so many of us suffer in varying degrees to this bitch of a condition. I really want others to see the hope I see... that listening to this amazing music can change your brain and change your life for the better and for good.

Now if I can just keep from getting any more head injuries!!!

Hope for Depression

For someone who has suffered from depression for any length of time, for whatever combinations of causes, life can look pretty bleak. It tends to surprise others, on the outside looking in, that this outwardly happy, yet tired person, really wants to die.

You probably know someone who killed themself, committed suicide, took their own life. Maybe someone close to you. Maybe you have considered or even tried to do it. I'm betting a lot more people contemplate it, than you think. There is a saying religious-types like to spout, that God will not give you more trouble then you can handle. And I'm going to call bullshit on that one. IF that were true and it's BIG IF why are so many people so self destructive? Why do they do things to try to feel better, only to have said things not make them feel better? And why do people die by their own hands. I say they reek of so much sadness it reaches an intolerable saturation point and they go. Life is way too much for their ability to cope, sleep and ever feel good, they can not take one more minute and they leave.

I thought about it one day. I was so tired of having no control over my own life, feeling trapped until I could not breathe and feeling invisible to those I loved, that I sat in my truck, holding my new little daughter and thought about knocking it out of gear, rolling down the hill into the swiftly moving river. I just wanted to leave the planet. I loved my children as much as I could at 33 years old, handicapped by debilitating depression. I looked at her and shoved the thoughts aside. Who would love and take care of my children if I left the planet. Noone, I was fairly sure.

I remembered standing all night long, as a teenager, staring out the frosty window, as the giant snowflakes fell past the street lamp, wishing somewhere out there was someone who would love me. Somewhere was someone who would see how special I was and appreciate those things that made me, me. I just wanted to feel loved. I thought love was not lonely, sad or invisible.

Years went by. I read nearly a bazillion books searching for answers. I was ridiculously devoted to organized religion in the hope that's where the answers would be. I didn't waste time or money on drugs, alcohol or some of the easy fixes. I do appreciate the immediate reward of retail therapy, but then I'm kindof a girlie girl! But even chocolate, shopping, or the UT favorite pasttime, getting large, from eating ice cream, are fleeting and don't keep you warm at night in your bed. And there is no lonliness like being completely alone while living with someone.

My TLP provider warned me, going into the listening process, I should have someone I could talk to. He made that very clear. I had a great friend I felt I could depend on and went on my way to start my 30 minutes a day of listening. By week 5, I knew I was in trouble. Emotions very close to the surface, exploded at will. Everything and nothing set me off. I pretty much cried for 2 weeks. My friend, by then, was in her own crisis, so I went to a licensed social worker, who taught me to recognize where my emotions were coming from, so I could deal better with them. In my second visit, he blew me off, so I never went back.

Still really needing some help I found another counselor, who had personal understanding of my position. She was quite helpful in my now, weekly, visits. Which was great because the next 2 weeks I really wanted to rip someone's head off or punch someone. If you know me, that is ridiculous. I'm not violent, I oppose all war and to be in that situation was repugnant and made me even angrier.

By week 9 of listening, I was no longer tearful or angry. I felt calm and energized. The shift seemed abrupt and final. By week 13 several things resolved, the best was I had my first nights sleep. You may think I am kidding. I do not remember in my whole long life of EVER sleeping through the night. Ever.

Everything woke me up. A skunk in the neighborhood and train going by, traffic, cats, dogs, a rattle in the heat vent, being hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, bad dreams, babies, kids, husbands... I have even been awakened twice by pilot lights going out on a stove. Crazy, but true and then one morning I woke up and something was different. I had slept all night long, in one continuous period of time, without waking. Asleep. Sleeping. All night long. For 7 straight hours without interruption and I was amazed.

The next night I did it again and again the night after that and all week long, I slept all night long. And the next week and the next month and somewhere along the way, I became a believer. I understood that the life I had known was on it's way out and a new, healthier life had been ushered in and maybe, just maybe, there was a light at the end of this tunnel of sadness.

a light at the end of the tunnel of Depression

Twice a doctor has recommended medication, for managing my depression. I refused the first time and the second time I gave in. I took antidepressants for 3 days. Not long enough to do anything except prove to me, this was not my path. I had a reaction, the doctor said could not be from the drugs. But as they were the only change to what went in my mouth, that was ridiculous and killed her credibility. She retired that month anyway, but there ya go. Weird.

So what path could I choose that would indeed make the difference I had needed for so many years, then decades?

In December of 2009, I started listening to The Listening Program from Advanced Brain Technologies. I had no idea the impact this activity would have, partly because I didn't realize all the issues I dealt with daily in various ways. Typically when things don't work right in our lives we have a few choices. We can ignore them. We can complain or vent, which is not the same thing in my mind. We can look for solutions to the cause of the issues. Or, what most of us do, we look for how to work around it, assuming there is nothing to be done.

The system in the human body of taking in sound, is not only hearing. Your hearing may be fine physically and yet it may be impossible for you to process what you hear, for one thing. These are 2 different things and it isn't a simple situation, at all.

The auditory system, of taking in sound frequencies, effects your whole body. It effects your physical ability to be balanced, coordinated and have rhythm, know right from left, recognize sounds in the space around you and which direction they came from and your accuracy in performing large and small motor skills.

The auditory system and it's ability to work with your brain,is key to everything about you. It can effect whether you understand people talking to you and whether or not you can string a sentence together that truly expresses how you feel. It can cause you to wet the bed. Or not wet the bed. It can filter out the irritants in life, like high pitched sounds, repetitive sounds, motions and something's touch on your skin. It can define whether you like to be touched or not and whether you will venture to touch or not. This is the tiniest tip of the iceberg that can, below the surface of your life, make you miserable in everyway conceivable. Yet people go on their merry ways oblivious to a fairly simple, worth the effort and expense solution.

This isn't magic, smoke and mirrors or snake oil. TLP isn't a cure all, but having your auditory system function efficiently with your brain is life changing and The Listening Program, used as designed, can do that for anyone. I have no hesitation in saying, from my personal perspective, everyone gets gain from listening to TLP. Everyone. And those of us shifting and morphing into people we can live with are changed in positive ways by functioning brains that support us, make us feel safer in our environments and deal with the indubitable stresses in life.

Depression Continued...

Knowing how depression feels, personally, the last thing I wanted was for my oldest son to suffer with it too. At 15 he couldn't have the coping skills or the experience to handle the tough life we were leading. In rural UT where we lived, teen suicide seemed like a hobby. Kids died from shooting themselves, overdosing on drugs and/or alcohol and disappeared. (Uintah County) Not my kid. Not if I could help it.

When everything in your life sucks except your vacuum, something has to give. I looked around my life and realized much of it was out of my control, due to the circumstances of it. So, what was in my control was my question. So pregnant with little kids, getting my own job wasn't a good option, to improve my financial control. Finances control freedom and opportunity. I didn't have a vehicle or a phone and lived miles from town. The closest neighbors were 1/2 a mile away and I had nothing in common with anyone I met. Living below the poverty level will do that. I couldn't call my parents, living in Texas and what would I tell them anyway? They were affluent.

How do I explain where my life went after marrying? How do I tell them the daughter who grew up in an upper middle class suburb had to drive through the river in 3 places to get to her ranch? That I cooked on a propane run Coleman stove and over a fire. That I learned how to cook in Dutch Ovens for greater meal choices. Or that my family used a 2-seater outhouse and hauled water and heated water on a stove for bathing and cleaning. How bout that I fought Kangeroo rats that run across the tops of hanging clothes so my shoulders often smelled like urine? That I had no friends and no support system and how do I explain how my life came to be that way.

So no support system, money, transportation or communication, what could I control?

How I handled it. I could control how things effected me. I could read books, so I did. I read everyone of the 20 books I could check out from the library at one time from the Santa Clara UT library, where I lived then. I read every book by Wayne Dyer and Napoleon Hill and Andrew Carnegie and self help after self help book. I read other peoples journeys from the edge of their personal abysses and slowly began to feel better.

I looked for other things I could change in my life and I cut my waist length hair to my shoulders. When my husband had a fit, I cut it one inch long all over my head and dyed it dark ash brown. I wore less layers of clothes, spent time outside and started to get a tan. I started flowers from seed and planted them. I pulled trees right out of the ground as the untended yard was over grown with them. I painted a bridge on the property and read more books. I spent time with my children, when they wanted me to and tried harder to make our home life better and easier on them.

All those things helped as I am naturally a pretty upbeat person. But they didn't solve the problem or the root of the problem or even the symptoms of the problem. I knew there had to be a solution to my depression. I didn't know what it would be in 1993, or 1994 or 2004 or 2009. A lifetime of dealing with a saturation of sadness, running under the surface, while maintaining an outer appearance of everything being just swell and Hunky Dorry and my personal favorite, "Peachy!" (If you ever here me use that word in response to how things are going, just know it's a lie and I'm covering my true feelings.)

(Still more on this subject of depression coming...)

Depression

The curious thing about depression is, when I have so much to be grateful for, why I can get so miserably unhappy. But that is depression. There are arguments for chemical imbalance, who wouldn't that effect? Or environmental factors, genetics or maybe life just sucks, and I repeat, who wouldn't that effect? But no matter the cause, depression is debilitating. It makes you non-functional. You can't think or you think too much and worry over everything and see no light at the end of the tunnel, no silver lining and no clever metaphors about anything.

In 1993, was in a Clarke County library in Henderson NV, perusing bookshelves, when I happened, kismetly, upon books about depression and women and depression. I read 10 books that week, finding recognition of my mother's life and my own. At 38 years old, knowing medication and therapy were not choices for me, one for millions of reasons and one for lack of money, I decided something. I decided if I was unhappy, I would change everything about my life, that I possibly could, that was making me unhappy.

I started the list. I had no control over my finances. I loved a man who did not love me back. I had no personal passion for anything other than my children. My family sharing a home with my brother's family while our house was vacant in UT. My house in UT did not have hot running water and was heated by a wood/coal stove. It was old and had been empty for 10 years before us. We had to replace rotted floors and I did so many things to try to make that house an acceptable place for my children to live to no avail. As I recognized the symptoms of depression in myself and that my mother had suffered from it, I thought of my children.

Starting at the top of the list, there was Jason. Jason at 15 refused to share a room with any of his younger brothers and made a closet into his sleeping space. It had no light and he put his bed in there, hung a few black posters and called it good. He was so surly, I put a poster on the outside of his door that read, 'Some mornings I wake up grouchy and some mornings I let him sleep in.' In anticipation of my children falling down the depression domino path, I had greater resolve to stop the sadness madness. (More to come...)

Moving through Crisis

My son Trevor has cracked ribs, bruising and undoubtedly a brain injury from the accident that caused this 2010 Yukon to be totaled. Thank heavens it wasn't worse as hitting the back of a semi truck could be way worse. Trev was transported via ambulance, receiving all kinds of tests and care and is still dealing with all manner of aches and pains. It brought back to me, all the things I went through and still go through because of the Jeep Cherokee that rear-ended my Toyota Tundra, nearly 6 years ago.

I was stopped, southbound, at the 45th South light, on 9th East in Salt Lake City. The Jeep plowed into the back of me 40-50 mph, according to the officer. The driver came up to my window, after hitting me, and apologized, saying he didn't see me because he was looking for McDonald's. Sheesh! It's a mid-size pick up truck at a big intersection with lights, traffic and everything. (I believe I saved his life as I hit the brakes hard after impact, keeping us from going into the east-west traffic flow.)

The officer who responded, had us both move into a parking lot, after he checked us out and surveyed the damage. I got out of my vehicle, leaning against it as my head was hissing and I was shocky. When the cop said I could go, I really did not want to drive. I knew I was shocky and I was not myself and completely afraid to drive. I drove the half mile home and called my niece to help me know what to do. I didn't even have a good relationship with her, so that was proof I wasn't quite right.

Lots to this story, but one point is how trauma to the brain can effect parts of memory and all kinds of abilities and skills and how you feel and, anything, pretty much, that has to do with brain function. I lost chunks of memory. I can recognize people from a specific time of my life, when I lived in Vernal UT. Their faces are familiar to me, but their names and where I talked to them is gone. I also lost the ability to process sequential numbers like phone numbers, addresses, dates and credit cards.

I struggled with the sequential number thing as I needed that skill so many times every single day! If you left me a voice mail message, with a phone number, I had to listen to your message 3 times, until I was sure I got it right. If you rattled off a number quickly to me, there was no way I would remember even half the numbers and they would absolutely not be remembered in correct order. It was so frustrating, when I knew I was smart and I was able to do it before my car accident and then, I just couldn't. (And idiots around blamed it on aging! Aging is a choice. If you take care of yourself, really take care of yourself, you won't 'age' like people think.)

So, just on the sequential number processing topic, in the 13th week of listening to The Listening Program, that ability to process 16 digit credit cards the first time, every time, correctly, came back. Unbelievable! And I took a couple of voice message phone numbers, correctly the first time and I cried. My heart was so touched and amazed to get this back, after suffering for nearly 6 years.

I'm telling ya, TLP has changed my life and I'll share more of the ways how in future posts.

Catch up!

So much has happened in the last few weeks that shoved me into overload! Even good stress is still stress! My middle son, Alex and his wife, Emily had a beautiful son, Jameson Atlas Cross. He is a doll and I've really enjoyed my time with him! We even napped together one night. They are quite a drive from my home, but that is okay. I just have to drive through so much construction in the 'state of never-ending road funds-UT!' That really should be the state slogan!

WY's state slogan should be, "Where you can drive for hours and still be nowhere." But I digress.

So good things are wonderful when they happen in our lives! I checked my messages when I left work one day to hear Alex's voice, saying, 'Mom, Emily is a week and a half past her due date and you are not taking my call? Sheesh!'

I got to Sandy UT, where they live around 9pm that night, with an overnight bag, towels, wash cloths and other birthing goodies. As my son, Adam says, 'This ain't ma first rodeo!' I had 2 of my kids in birthing centers and 4 at home. The rest were hospitals and do not get me started on that subject!

Emily was a rockstar at giving birth. 8 hours for her first. Holy Cow that is awesome. My first was 23 hours! I think Jameson was born about 3am or 4am or 5am. Not sure without checking. When everything was cleaned up and the midwife left, I crashed with my daughter, Tegan. When I finally woke up to go to work, my clothes were messed up so I wore my extra pajama pants to work! Now before you think they had coffee cups or sunflowers or the words 'Juicy' on the butt or mooses or something, I'll just let you know they were black knit with chunky lace at the bottom and probably look like stuff I normally wear.

The point is, at my age, all-nighters get tough to do! And then work another day before getting any real sleep.

And then there was the icky other stress of the month and the really hideous stress, too. And I'd have to say, I'm handling things better with the foundation of TLP for over 20 weeks under my belt... Stay tuned!

TLP Certification

With all the noise, toxins and clutter and confusion in ‘normal’ lives in the US, we need all the good help available to us! With all the experiences I have had listening to TLP, I have many questions myself and comments, but I’ll attempt to stick to answering some questions you may have.

If you have the background to become certified, the training for The Listening Program will probably be the most enjoyable course you have ever taken! It is how I became certified and I have also taken the live training and both have their benefits. Both do cover the exact same information and give you the same certification. I found training fascinating, informative and very interesting. Here is the link to the training choices: http://www.advancedbrain.com/the-listening-program/training-and-registration-options.html . Same training, just different methods of getting it!

Your training will cover all the ABT solutions and how and why they are used. When you are ready to order you have many choices. The best thing to do is call for help 888-228-1798 in the US, 801-622-5676 outside the US. We are all certified providers with various backgrounds to help you implement TLP in your practices.

There are a few things I’ve learned that are universal:

Everyone is different.

Everything is normal.

Nothing is the same.

I am very wise.

The auditory system effects everything, body, mind and I believe spirit. Listening to music-based frequencies the way TLP is done change the brain for good in so many ways. This isn’t just my training talking. I am finishing week 20 of listening myself and have benefitted in ways I didn’t expect. I blog about my experiences here at www.roxysjourney.blogspot.com and am fairly transparent but not entirely…

Tegan Elizabeth Cross

When my 6th child was born they told me it was a girl and I thought they were cruel to tease me. After 5 boys I did not believe I got a girl! This pretty little blonde baldy headed creature was a new adventure right from the start! Me, being the athletic/dancer chick, told everyone I would never put my daughter in frilly girlie things and lied like crazy! Because when I got a little girl, everything I put on her had lace and ruffles and it was so much fun! I even made mother-daughter outfits for us and it was pretty pathetic probably!
By the time she was a headstrong 6 year old, her father said to me, what are you going to do with her when she is 14? I said, 'what do you mean, what am I going to do with her?' not realizing by the time Tegan was 10 I would be raising her on my own. Everytime her strong will, stubborn and pushy side came out, I told myself, there must be a reason she is like this. Having no idea what life would do to her, I believed she would have to be strong for some reason.
I had no idea.
Tegan Elizabeth Cross, the divorced mother of Matthew will be 22 years old this Monday. She is a warm-hearted woman who does not see color or gender. She generously welcomes all into her circle. I cannot believe all the things she has been through in her short life, especially in the last month or so. She was in a car wreck that was not her fault at all, which involved at least 3 head injuries and required stitches, since her vehicle was totalled, being hit by 2 other drivers. That incident started a stream of some of the worst things that can happen to a person.
Tegan is strong for a reason; lots of reasons. I am so proud of her and how she is making good decisions for herself and others. My hope is that her life will calm down and give her a moment to recouperate. She is an inspiration to all who know her.

Families of Origin and stuffed emotions

I'm nearly at the end of my first TLP listening cycle of 20 weeks and am looking back at the things I have learned and the benefits and gains I have seen. There is a great book I've never read called, 'Feeling Buried Alive Never Die.' I've been told to read this by all kinds of people in the last 10 years and haven't. I did finally buy it 6 months ago, but have not gotten into it. I totally agree that you shouldn't stuff your feelings and that people probably get cancer and heart disease and other stress related things, like wrinkles, hair loss and bad breath from holding back what they are really thinking, but I still haven't read the book.

One of the most impactful results from my listening to a frequency basic music listening program is the repressed memories that have bubbled up to the surface for me to deal with. Doesn't 'bubbled up' sound lovely?! In the 5th and 6th weeks of listening I was flooded with memories of my childhood; some I remembered and some I definitely did not.

I grew up in an over achieving household full of religious, bigots, beyond their thresholds of comfort, with perfected abilities to act like nothing was awry. People at church thought we were the perfect family. We looked good, sounded good and smelled good, but behind the front door of our house, things were not good. Dad ruled the house with an iron fist, literally.

He had been an only child with parents who did not want him. As a child he was bounced around from his grandparents to an orphanage to a sweet family in his town growing up. His mother was a concert pianist and had several husbands at a time when that wasn't done. Dad worked hard to be a perfect student with perfect grades who sang, played trombone and danced like nobody's business.

Mom grew up on a farm in Missouri, the show me state, went to college in MO, then to design school at Ray Vogue Art Schools in Chicago, where my parents first met. Mom had a vision of becoming the next Edith Head and designing fabulous gowns for glamorous women and modeled for extra money while going through school. She was one term from her degree when she got married and Dad told her to quit as no wife of his was going to work.

It was a time when women did what their husbands told them to do. It is also how I was raised. Both my parents are gone now and I appreciate, ,so much, how hard they worked to take care of their large family as best as they knew how. Neither of them had been around babies and yet eventually, they had 11 of them. I was the oldest and the smallest of the bunch. There was a lot of trouble inside our home, but I always loved my family and did my best to take care of them.

The frequencies effecting speech and language also effect memory. Memories are tied to emotions and when emotions get stuffed; say when things happen to a child or in the field of vision of a child, and said child cannot handle them, they do hunker down inside causing damage. This is the type of thing that 'bubbled up' to the surface and is why, going into TLP, my provider asked me point blank, 'Do you have a therapist or someone you can talk to?' And I can tell you I surely do and I had to as even at my age, I could not have handled the emotional devastation this could have caused. Between TLP and therapy, I am very glad I am going through this as those feelings I buried so long ago can be free to leave. I'm grateful for the process where I can deal, grieve and heal from these invisible wounds.

TLP Providers

The optimal method for The Listening Program to work maximum benefit, is to listen 30 minutes/day, 5 days/week, 2 days off, 1 album/week, in order, 1-10 and 10-1. The 30 minutes can be split into 2-15 minute segments, too. From there you can do 15 minutes/day in the same pattern which takes the entire cycle from 20 weeks to 40 weeks. This is the most gentle, yet effective, method of listening.

TLP Providers should be certified in bone conduction so they can provide all the products Advanced Brain Technologies has to offer or will offer in the near future.

From my experience, listening to providers all over the world, TLP should be used as directed. Even when someone is having difficulty in one area, that could be the area of greatest need. If left out, how will they retrain their brains on their own? There are ways to slow down the process, augment the process and give it the time needed for the brain to learn to filter and process.

It is very important for providers to listen to TLP themselves. Everyone gets gain and they deserve to do this for themselves! Then they will also understand better, what others go through listening, and realize listening to music, can be difficult. So difficult, and a big enough challenge, it requires a trained professional to monitor. Then providers have their own experience to draw from and stories to share.

For instance, I am in week 18 of listening to TLP myself. In weeks 5 and 6 I had all kinds of emotional upheaval as Speech and Language frequencies effect memory and therefore emotions. I’m older. I have a lot of memories; some cause distress. As I went through that experience I can understand why kids act out in those weeks, especially if they don’t have clear language skills!

In weeks 7 and 8 I thought I would hurt people; I was so irritated! The high frequency sounds activated my tinnitus to the point it was so loud and never shut off, even when sleeping! I looked ahead to 6 more weeks of it and thought I didn’t know how I would survive 8 weeks of torture. But in week 9 it stopped and I was fine for the rest of the high spectrum listening. Now I definitely understand how simply listening to music can really upset people. I also know by experience, if people will stick with it, their brains will learn, adapt and filter and process better. I have more stories but you get the point.

It really is important for TLP providers to do their own consistent listening to TLP, to do an excellent job, with this frequency based program for those they help.

Bye Mom...

My mother was a beautiful, classy, gracious lady, who was also a model and award-winning fashion designer, was married to my physician father, who was very well known internationally, in his field, and she happened to have 11 children. I am the oldest and smallest of the bunch and prone to run-on sentences. Since Mom had so many kids and I was the oldest, I was there beside her taking care of my sibs until I left home for college, got married and had my own family.

From then on my relationship with my mom was spotty. My husband moved a lot and I went with him caring for our kids. She didn't like my lifestyle and I did the best with what I had. She wanted my life to be nicer and not hard like she remembered her grandmother's life.

You see I've lived in places you have to drive through the river 3 times to get to our place. And our place consisted of 2 camp trailers and a wall tent. Or tents and a house that was condemned after we moved out because the electrical was original, when electricity, was first invented. Wires ran across the ceilings and down the walls. I've taken care of my family with no running water, or only running cold water I had to heat for everything; cleaning, laundry, bathing, washing my waist length hair, etc.

Then at times of extreme camping, we used a two seater outhouse, or the like, as we didn't have indoor plumbing. Then we lived, at times, 7 to 30 miles from the closest traffic light and even paved road.

I always acted like it was a big adventure, but it was hard.

I came from money and prestige and a well-educated background, full of talent and opportunity. Thinking I married the same, for all time and eternity, I might add, the gypsy life, of living under the poverty level, was nothing I was prepared for. It took the intelligence to learn new skills, and the perseverance to keep going, and the constant check on my attitude to keep my shifting household positive.

I have never owned my own home and only this last year was I able to own a vehicle free and clear.

I'll get back to the part where we were at least, finally able to stay in one spot for 5 years. When my husband wanted to move once again, after 60 moves I said, 'No, ' and sunk roots down in eastern Utah.

So he left and I began my own adventure of raising 7, then 6, then 5, then 4 kids. It gets creative at this point as my older kids came and went with and without their families, friends and pets. In 2007 I supported 17 people, mostly related. Now I have my 2 youngest, of 9 children, at home.

Fairly soon life could be easier. Danica starts sophomore year of high school next fall, Adam graduates in a year, Josh just finished his 2nd year at Westminster College with a 3.92 GPA. And all my other grown children are in 3 states working and following passions and have interesting interpersonal relationships with each other.

So why this post?

Mom died before I came anywhere near getting my life in any kind of even occasional peace and she knew it. I was still married when she left and struggling greatly. She said things to me like, 'a child who was never loved, will grow up to be an adult with no capacity to love,' to explain my loveless marriage. She said in an abusive marriage, the better of a wife I was, the more I would be punished. That people who hate themselves, despise those who love them, or at least will disrespect them.

I thought I could love my husband enough and surround him with amazing loving children, and it would melt his chilled heart, and open it to love us back. To their credit, my kids are loving and reach out to others, which is a huge gift to me to watch. But the marriage ended and badly and it has been a long road to regain self esteem and some modicum of periods of feeling safe.

But Mom left 12 years ago today and I miss her. I go to call her and she isn't on the other end of the phone, and I need her and she isn't there. I have never in all these years, had the time to mourn her passing. I didn't even get to go to her funeral. My own mother's funeral. I never got to say goodbye. I still don't have the life she wanted for me; living in my own home, with a loving husband, kids and grandkids gathered around and actively participating in the church she loved so dearly.

What I do have today is, I am surrounded by my kids and their kids, even through social media and phones. And I have amazing women friends of all ages all over the country. I've reconnected with my school chums who remember me fondly and I have a great love for things that flower fabulously and growing food plants in hanging baskets with food. (See www.youtube.com/roxycrossdesigns)

I also have a burgeoning ability to process things that bubble up to the surface. It may take a bit, but things do resolve better for me now. I am able to sort info and handle crisis at the time. And I really hope this continues to improve because it doesn't look like my life will be difficulty free just yet. I will keep listening to The Listening Program as it is helping and I've added weekly therapy sessions for professional guidance to sort through all these years of stuffed stress, trauma and emotions.

Nigh Night...

Everyday I am telling people about the benefits I have gotten through listening to The Listening Program. And I tell them everyone is different with different needs and they will get different benefits. But here, I am sharing the things this program has changed for me.

I sleep through the night.

That is a big deal. I have chronic knee pain that makes sleeping difficult for the last few years, but now I sleep through the night. And everything used to wake me up and once awake I could not get back to sleep. I would doze in and out of this quasi-sleep mode and finally get up to face the day without feeling rested or rejuvenated. But now I sleep through the night.

The sound of the television in the other room, or talking or doors being opened and closed, music being played in far off bedrooms, the heater/air conditioner coming on, vibrations in the heat vents, babies crying, trains going by down the road, the smell of a skunk, just about anything used to wake me up.

Now there are times t when, that was cool and may even have saved out lives. Twice I have been awakened in my life because the pilot light went out on the stove. Could have been intuition but my nose works amazingly well.

So sounds, vibrations, movement, smells, dreams, pain and other things; all kept me from sleeping deeply or well ,and from waking up refreshed for my whole life.

In week 2 of The Listening Program, I started sleeping more deeply although things still woke me up. I should also mention that things would wake me up and then my brain would kick on and it would keep me up. It never shut down! So even deeper sleep was wonderful!!!

By the time I started week 13 of The Listening Program, I was sleeping through the night. I woke up one morning at 6:30 because my alarm went off! The big surprise there is I never hear my alarm! I'm always awake by then and just shut if off. Now I sleep for hours and am not disturbed by all the little things that used to wake me and keep me up. I know it is listening to TLP that has made this monumental change in my life. Listening to music produced on purpose to effect change has worked for me.

I am now in week 16 and am still sleeping for 7-ish hours a night! I went to sleep at 11-ish last night and woke up at 6. Went to bed one night at 9:30 and woke up at 4:30 but I went back to sleep and slept until 6. This is amazing for me! And we all know sleeping helps your body heal and rejuvenate. My Dad the doctor used to say when we are sleeping is when we grow. Maybe I'll get taller now. I'll let you know.

Creative Thinking

As an aquarian mountain goat, by western and eastern astrology, nothing binds me to the planet. If you follow such things, I have the sign of aquarius in 5 or 6 areas of my chart and aquarius and goat are ostensibly the same sign, a gifted iconoclast!

I have mostly air signs, which makes me a great creative thinker, years ahead of my time generally. I see things far down the road and strategize accordingly. It's a gift, as I see things before they happen, am very intuitive and aware. It's a curse because few others see what I see and can not see such things becoming reality.

I mention astrology as its discovery for me and blending of the two signs, helped me put names to how I think and make choices. I jokingly say I can't think in a box if you pay me. Wise people have paid me well for thinking way out of the box. My work is one small part of my life, it's choices and lessons.

It may be timing and other factors, but I seem to find myself at yet another crossroad in life, deciding which road to go down. Rarely have I chosen a path other than one, "no leaves had trodden black." And I doubt I will now, either. Do what you love, the money will follow, is a career book I've read many times, searching for an elusive choice.

My friends are leaving homes, hometowns, businesses, friends and starting anew somewhere unknown to them. My children and grandchildren are scattering. Others, like me, are looking over their lives and thinking it's all going by too fast and something key to the heart may be missed. Are we walking away at substanial loss? Is it? What is of value really? When it is all accounted for, in retrospect, what was truly important?

Today it is my time, that is precious. And how I choose to spend my time and with whom, doing what, is the question.

No Pix

There are no pix in this post. No clever visual to connect to the missive contained herein. Just words.

But can't words convey a greater, deeper, personal meaning? Can't the theater of the mind transport faster and more effectively than pictures, video or movies? How often is the film as good as the book? I can only think of one example. Hunt for the Red October. The movie was as good as the book. The music helped. The rich, haunting minor movements of soul-touching Soviet orchestrations...

Music helps me. I'm sure it helps you. What do you listen to and when? How many times did you play the same song over and over after a break up? What song did you choose? Or did the song choose you? How often do you repeat the same piece when looking for clarity in a tough time? What do you play and how loudly, on a roadtrip?

Music touches emotion. This week, my friends and I seem to have been in a similar emotional space. Music did help. It kept one of us, among us a little longer. It helped a couple get through a grueling work week. For me, music helped ground me to the earth.

A nod to the The Listening Program and the wisdom to see it through no matter the hurdles. Doubt the hurdles are even near over, but the value is in the listening. I continue to sleep better unless outside disturbances occur. I am calmer and more grounded and I am able to deal with the memories continuing to bubble up to the surface.

It has not been pretty, that memory part, but allowing them to reappear, then grieve is helping me to heal. What would have flattened me not so long ago, still flattens but I am able to process through the grieving steps more quickly. And I come out on the other side with a tremendous gratitude for those who are dear in my life, music and the lessons learned.

Musings on Troubles...

Back when I was a kid we didn't use seatbelts if we had them. I would lay in the back window of my Granddaddy Coy's Chrysler Imperial where it was warm and I could see where we were going and where we had been. We put metal skates on our shoes and tightened them with a metal key. Then we went as fast as we could everywhere. I even got in trouble for wearing them in the halls of Homewood-Flossmoor High School my senior year of high school! So skating was a big thing for at least 10 years of my life. I don't remember falling while skating but I do remember Mom brushing gravel out of my hands, knees and arms. I do remember hitting ice hard when ice skating on the pond down the street, across from Algonquin Elementary. Ice hurts when you are going fast and hit it hard. It shreads gloves, clothes and skin.

The most fun we had in the winter time was taking sleds and boxes and anything that would slide on snow and ice to 'Frankensteins Hill.' We called it that but in retrospect it was probably a utility building for the neighborhood. We just told the littler kids that's where Frankenstein lived. We lived on a little neighborhood street called Algonquin, like the school. Not a lot of traffic used it, but whatever cars did come down that street, were big ones. This was the late 1960's and compact car weren't invented other than the VW bug, that we knew of.

Now in suburban Chicago, in an 'All American Town' like Park Forest IL, when it snowed it dumped feet of the stuff which was super fun for kids! Snow, a hill and things to sit on that would slide, kept us busy for hours, days, weeks and months! The snow plows would push the street snow and ice onto the sidewalks creating a wall to keep us from flying into the street. Or it would have, if we genius types hadn't brought shovels to carve breaks in the wall. That way you could slide all the way down Frankenstein's Hill, through the snow wall and across the street. Way better adventure! We were wise enough 4th graders to post sentries at the bottom to warn of cars coming, in which case we would wait for the danger to pass then tear down the hill again. Super fun! Don't know how many times we missed the break in the wall and collided with said wall or how often we hit the break at enough of an angle to toss us from our sleds, dumping us onto the icy asphalt.

Then, there were bikes we rode, dares we took, and sports we played with no protections that are common now like helmets, knee and elbow pads. Just surveying the residual damage I can see in scarring and shin dents I am pretty sure this active kid took more than her share of normal daily kid activity abuse. That and the fact my brother Derek and I are on every page of Dad's x-ray log book for years. One or the other of us were always getting phalanges, joints and various bones x-rayed to see what we had done that time.

I spent most of the summer after 4th grade in a crabapple tree reading books, eating crabapples and throwing them at people and passing cars. I was a rabid tree climber. I used to play in Mike Furr's willow tree and even some poplar trees in our yard and all kinds of things by the elementary school. And we lived for the Aqua Center and swimming in the hot, sticky summer time! Have no idea how many times we fell running on the wet concrete, or hit our heads on the bottom, diving in too shallow of water.

It was a fun, carefree time, full of adventures. I didn't even mention the railroad tracks, concrete culverts and such we weren't supposed to be playing on... My brothers and I were very active kids. We left in the morning and were gone til dinner and Mom had no idea where we were, doing what!

But now, decades later, when I deal with chronic pain and loss of mobility and the effects of multiple brain injuries I have a couple of theories you can quote.

If you were ever a kid, you have a brain injury.

If you are awake you have ADD.

Who in this crazy, complicated, perpetually moving world isn't highly distracted by everything around them? It has to be the ambient cause of unlimited daily stress. Judging by the things we do to ourselves to try to feel better, it's out of control. I have found a few things that help without side effects. Saying NO. Getting chiropractic care, massages, acupunture and many other healthy modalities. Eating less of nasty things and more of 'good for me' things. Growing flowers, herbs and food plants. Spending time with the people I like to be with. Being creative. Consistently listening to The Listening Program and other ABT music. Getting outside and away from the computer. The last is a tough one, since I work 40 hours a week in front of one, then come home to do school work on another one and keep in touch with friends all over the world through it too.

Would love to read your comments about what you did as a kid and what you do to get rid of stress and chronic pain and the like...

High pitched noise... Argh!

So this blog has nothing to do with the beauty of flowers or the joy I get in designing fabulous flower baskets. I put this picture in here to give me moments of zen when talking about how irritated I get sometimes with noise and commotion and too many things happening at once and stuff like that.

Because when I hit week 7 of The Listening Program my nerves started to unravel and by week 8 I wanted to hurt people. Why in the world would listening to classical music, recorded in high definition by amazing professional musicians do that to me, you might ask? Well I'll tell you. It's pretty simple. I have spent the last few decades avoiding high pitched noise. All of it that I possibly can.

My children will tell you that is the fastest way to get me to bark at someone is to play high pitched music loudly or squeal or scream even in fun. I hate it. I don't like sopranos, snare drums or piccollos. I don't like picollos so much I can't spell piccolo. Well, yes I can, but the sound of one, makes me crazy. Or violins, oboes and clarinets.

I have a low voice. It's nice and melodic and I played French Horn, absolutely beautiful instrument and I love classical Spanish guitar, but low tones everywhere is my preference. I grew up in the 70's and we cranked the bass and turned the treble off. OFF!!!

So now, I get the weeks, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, & 14... all high spectrum music, in my headphones and holy crap I don't like it! I'm using bone conduction to listen because at least I was wise enough to get the bone conduction system in the first place. Now I can use the amplifier to turn the bone conduction up to 8 and the volume down to 4 and almost tolerate it. Mozart was a young man when he wrote this stuff. If he had been over 50 he would never have done this to himself.

Now, oddly enough, perhaps because I adjusted the volume and possibly because I broke my listening into 15 minute segments instead of 30 minutes straight through and maybe because I supplemented with kinder gentler music like De-Stress and Peaceful Baby and the Full Spectrum Prelude and because I love run-on sentences, (Breathe Here!) I made it through weeks 8, 9 and 10 and didn't implode. I can listen to 30 minutes straight through as a go back through CD 10, in week 11 and not hurt people or even want to for the most part.

If you would like to know the science behind The Listening Program and why I appear to be torturing myself with it, just ask!

More with my little friend listening to music...

As an intuitive I sense energy constantly around me and this little girls energy was like none I had ever experienced before. I'll try to put it into words as it was magnificent. It was as if the little girl on my lap was not there but tethered and far away. Connected but only physically. All the rest of her was elsewhere and very intense, intelligent and powerful. I have sensed some interesting energy in people before but never anything quite like her.
I sensed she would love the music I liked to listen to from The Listening Program and knew I had it handy in my bag. I've heard that people say autistic kids won't tolerate headphones but knew that wasn't true with her. I put a pair of headphones on my head. She pushed her head into my face unbothered by the headphones touching her face. I plugged another set of headphones, bone conduction headphones into my CD player with Classic 1 in it and turned it on. Holding the headphones near her right ear she leaned it to them to hear better and I set the headphones on her head adjusting them so the ear speakers were over her ears while the bone conduction headphone sat on the top of her head. She still rubbed my wrist and played with my necklace. While she listened to the first musical piece I turned an iPod on, with all The Listening Program choices on it and turned it to the first session with nature sounds. Gently I unplugged her headphones from my CD player and into the iPod.
We were all watching her now as this was all new to her and she was accepting the experience!
Then she jerked her head to the left and almost immediately to the right! "She's following the birds," I said as TLP is recorded in spacial surround and music and nature sounds will move through your head from 5 different areas while listening! Her mother and her 2 occupational therapists got up and moved so they could see her face as they had not seen her do this type of thing before!
She was no longer fidgity but totally focused on her listening. She was leaning forward on my lap, looking forward with a new expression on her face. "She's smiling!" her mother noticed!
As the music session moved from the gentle beginning 'A' portion to the active 'B' portion, she slipped off my lap and started walking away with the headphones still on. I had to grab the equipment to follow her! It is not uncommon for her to walk around exploring, her mother mentioned. Then she ran into the next room and I had to run after her still holding the equipment. Now there was another miracle as I have had 2 knee surgeries and even have trouble walking some days!
By the time I knew the first 15 minute session was in the 'C' phase and ending I pulled out another chair to sit down. My little friend immediately moved to me, motioning to sit on my lap again. She didn't even try to take the headphones off when the music ended, so I played a piece of music off of Cheerful Baby from the Music for Babies library and then ended with a lullaby from Sleepy Babay for her. Setting the equipment down on the table, I took the headphones off her head and placed them there too. She sat on my lap a while longer then got up to explore.
I witnessed what felt like a miracle yesterday and yet I know break-throughs happen to kids and adults all over the world every day because of the magic of music and the bodies systems. I am touched and have a greater resolve to share what I know so as to make a difference in the lives of everyone I can touch.

Autism, Music And Energetic Connections

Yesterday I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my life which showed me how the work I'm doing truly effects people personally. I've worked with all kinds of busy professionals and parents all over the world, many, many of them dealing with issues of Autism. All my research and efforts were nothing compared to the real life experience of being the catalyst to helping someone who is on the Autism Spectrum!
Susan Snee and I met with Occupational Therapists for a school district yesterday afternoon. They had questions about The Listening Program from Advanced Brain Technologies. It was exciting to share my knowledge of this effective music based program with people who could help so many! But talking about it and actually seeing it work are completely different things!
Part way through our meeting a young mom came in with a very busy toddler and a little girl who didn't look at us; she looked up and to the right of us. She wore a bib although I'm guessing she was about 7 years old. She wondered the large room, touching the heat vents and chairs and tables.
Within minutes I sensed her behind me and turned to see her standing near but with no easy way to get through the tables and chairs to me. I sensed getting to me was exactly her intent so I reached my right hand out to her, palm up. She immediately put her hand in mine. I turned and put my left hand on the back of her right arm and she sipped through the small space making a motion to get on my lap. She snuggled in a bit, constantly touching my hand, running her fingers under my jacket cuff, for that skin to skin contact. With her other hand she felt the contours of my face and seemed to really like the pearl necklace I was wearing. She put her fingers in my mouth and I played with that, the way I would nibble on my grandkids. She pushed her head into my head and knowing head-pushing is a strong indication of bonding, I intuitively felt this was a special moment. Looking up to her mother's face I knew it was. (more to come)

Climbing the Walls s'more

And in Week 8 of listening to The Listening Program, the effort is making me climb the walls. It is high energy, high spectrum Mozart and I have reached a saturation place. Every time the heater kicked on in the office today I about went nuts! I had to go outside and get some air. Then I had to put closed headphones on, listening to nothing, just to drown out irritating sounds. I will keep listening because I have had significant things improve in the last 7 1/2 weeks. I sleep deeply and through the night. I go to bed and wake up at 6:19am. Don't know why 6:19am, but there ya go. And here's the kicker, I wake up rested and refreshed. That right there is worth the time and money to do TLP. And I'm thinking I should call it a night so I'm rested to deal with the annoyance of high spectrum music tomorrow. I knew this wouldn't be easy, but I still believe it will be worth it.

TLP Hitting the wall

So the first 4 weeks of listening to The Listening Program went by fast and were quite enjoyable. I noticed an improvement in sleeping. I still don't sleep through the night, but when I fall asleep, I sleep in a deeper state. I also noticed I am calmer and that is a huge bonus.
The problem is sometime in week 5 or 6 I came unglued at the seams. My provider warned me he thought I would have things rise up to the surface and asked me if I had someone I could talk to when they did. I assured him I did, as I had a great friend in mind. However, she hit a rough patch in life herself and I didn't want to add to her current burdens and knew I couldn't chat with her. So what then?
I went to a counselor. Then I went to another counselor and I like her alot. She is a no nonsense type which is perfect for an intelligent woman of my age. First visit I broke down and cried, as I have been doing for 3weeks now. Tears are always just under the surface and errupting at the least little thing. Can not believe the big and little memories bubbling up.
There is a big hole in my memory. I'm missing people's names and my connections to them from when I lived in Vernal UT years ago. Now they are flooding back along with stuff I forgot for good reasons! Like getting punched by my husband in my sleep. Nice one to deal with. Like myriads of ridiculous living situations I allowed myself and my children to live in. So as these things come up I'm also looking at my current life conditions and finding many of them unexceptable too. This has thrown me into a huge life evaluation mode and perhaps it was about time. I have not stopped listening though. I will do this for myself, as after all the things I have been through in my life, I deserve to have some peace and enjoy consistent happiness. Doesn't everyone?!