Where is Olivia Pope When You Need Her?

My October 2014 article for the Capital City Hues newspaper.

My theme for 2014 was and still is is “manifest”.  I selected this attribute with the intention of manifesting lots of health, wealth and love. However, to-date 2014 has bought two maybe three personal scandals into my life.  I could not, still can not believe the twists and turns involved in my life and these stories.  One is out right fiction and the other two are unique personal situations that only exhibit very few facts or truths and hindsight reveals that yes I could have handled these situations better.

My initial reaction was shock that rumors and scandals were circulating about me and disbelief that people, who I thought I knew well, believed and repeated these stories. Emotionally, each event felt like a gut punch to my self-confidence, increasing my self-doubt, depression. I have also experienced sadness, fear, anger and so on.  My behaviors included leaving my job and move to another state with just what would fit in my car.  The move provided deep insights and understanding into the statement “where ever you go, there you are”.  As if that were not enough, I  moved back to Madison.  I will not go into a lot of detail, but needless to say this was not my intention for 2014.

I was experiencing what is called the “dark night of the soul”, an experience that is apparently cleansing and that must occur before I can live within the NOW of my life. This soul event is when you go through your daily life being fully aware of what you are doing wrong, aware of your fear, aware of your anger, aware of your pain. To truly see yourself and to find true self insight you must be aware of what you are thinking, what you are saying, what you are doing and WHY. Why are you thinking that? Why are you saying that? Why are you doing that?”

We like to give the appearance that our communities are made up of perfect people who live scandal free and undamaged lives. However, my friends, if we’re honest, our communities are actually filled with people who’ve had to deal with difficult situations that have threatened their very livelihood, reputation, dignity, and respect. Whether it is the scandal of a divorce, tax evasion, home foreclosure, bankruptcy, employment termination, unwed pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, or some general failure in life, most of us will face situations in our private and public lives that require us to know how to handle our scandal.

Nearly everyone has something in his or her past that they wish wasn’t there,  I am taking a play from what I think Scandal’s Olivia Pope would do to handle a scandal:

Lightly

I am busy wrapping up other projects to share with you in the new year and that leaves only limited time for creating the type of posts I would like.  However, I do have a couple of photos that I have not shown before.

Enjoy

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GRATITUDE

Here are my top 5 things I am grateful for.

Thanks to my grandchildren for their hands.

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What’s going on with Art of Presentations

Here are the latest projects  I have worked on for my Art of Presentations business.

Brouchure — before & after

Ad

I heard the phrase “to get a head you need to work smarter not harder”.  The following is the first project that meets this criteria for me.  The ad that follows, with just a little modification can be used for the ad, flyer & save the date cards ….. FYI I will also be attending the Bootcamp ….

Website (To soon to show)

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MIA new art.

Here are some of my artful creations done during my MIA period.  Still a busy & it’s a good thing.

Enjoy

Is it about the journey or lost in Cleveland

I am home and boy do I have “vacation head”.  You know your body is home but your head and your heart are still on vacation.  Driving around Madison does not look familiar and I keep having to tell myself that I live here.  However it was great to sleep in my own bed again. I did not realize how much I missed it until I got home.

Do you realize that most of our time is spent on the process, or being on the path to, or striving to achieve a goal, rather than the amount of time spent on a peak moments of actualization.  So I am trying to enjoy process more than the end result.  Enjoying the process was even one of the goals of this trip.

Ok, I bet you see where this is going.  You ask for something and life will provide you with tests to see if you really mean it. So during my drive to and from Charlotte I encountered many of my personal obstacles, such as my fear of heights (I learned you can not break down when the bridge is just a few blocks ahead and you can not turn around), I can’t see in the dark well (ok I promise I will get new glasses), construction –all the way through Illinois except miraculously not at the toll booths, rain for three states (need I say more), traffic jams (I have little patience for this) and getting lost (yep I missed a turn in Akron and ended up in Cleveland).  I conquered each obstacle with self encouragement, by not letting my fears conquer me and lots of prayer. Driving to and from Charlotte has opened my eyes to some of my personal strengths and provided me with keys that can be used in other areas of my life.

More next week.  Todays photos are from my trip.  Enjoy the 4th and I will see you Tuesday.

A few times when driving through the mountains I would look over the edge into a valley and I would be filled with fear of the heights and awed by the beauty.