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!!!