Discover Your Unique Voice

As I have shared in previous blogs music fulfills me. In honor of my dad on this Father’s Day I am so thankful to him for giving me my first guitar when I was just 9 years old. That has resulted in a lifelong Source of joy and fulfillment in my life. And thankfully through the years of trial and error I have found my unique voice expression.

As a singer and songwriter, I have tried many different styles of music in the quest to find my own “personal sound.” As with most people just starting out in their creative pursuits, I originally found myself imitating the styles of others, hoping to find my own niche in the process. Seals and Crofts, John Denver, The Eagles, America, and Bread were some of the early influences on my taste in music. (Can you tell how old I am?!)

However, as helpful as it may be to learn the style of others, I have concluded that even the best imitation is not as good as the original. So, be yourself! Anything else is a sure prescription for more loose ends.

When I was recording the song “Hide Me in the Shadow” on my Carry Me CD, (found on I-Tunes) I felt as if I finally had “found my voice.” Although there were many other good songs on the CD, something special happened in the recording studio when I sang that song. It tapped into my bloodline going back generations. In that magic moment, it was as if I had a taste of my destiny. I found myself thinking, this is the kind of music I was born to sing! It felt as though I had finally “come home” to my true self.

What style of music is this song? It’s hard to categorize. It could be described as contemporary, folksy, alternative or Irish/Celtic. Even though the style may seem a conglomeration of genres, it is the real me! I am almost three-fourths Irish.

. “By the way, I recently found out that I have a famous song writer in my family, James Francis McHugh. He wrote music for Broadway and Movies in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Wow!”

When we “find our voice”—something we really enjoy doing—it’s likely that others will enjoy it, too. “Hide Me in the Shadow” has been one of my CD’s most popular songs on radio stations across the country. Some of the other tracks on the project are arguably better songs, but “Hide Me in the Shadow” has had an extraordinary impact because of the way it resonates with who I am.

What about you? Have you found your voice in life and discovered what you were designed for? I love this quote from Olympic gold medalist, Eric Liddell, whose story is chronicled in the movie “Chariots of Fire”: “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Eric had found his place in this world, and as a result, he experienced God’s favor.

As my friend Kathrine Lee likes to say, “Live YOUR life—not someone else’s! The more you get to know your Designer, the more you’ll discover your design.” Doesn’t this make sense? Your Creator is your Designer, and you should let your Designer also be your Definer!

What about you?

Describe a time in your life when you felt truly alive and able to fully express who the Designer created you to be.

Don't Let The Marching Band Stop Your Concert

Don’t Let the Marching Band Stop Your Music

As I thought about June’s Life area of focus in The Source, Balance & Fulfillment I wanted to write about music which brings great fulfillment to my life. I love it even when there are mishaps.

I have had the wonderful privilege of performing in concerts from the east coast to the west coast and even as far as the nations of Haiti and New Zealand. But I’ve never experienced such a fiasco as the day my daughter and I were doing a concert at Freedom Park, near where we live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.

There had been heavy rains for days, and the stage was surrounded by mud. We had no time for a sound check, and it probably wouldn’t have done much good anyway, for the sound man seemed to have no clue about how to work the sound board. Two other volunteer soundmen tried to help him throughout the concert, but all this did was make the sound levels change during every song. For half the concert, the only sound was coming out of the monitors, not the main speakers.

I should have known we were in for a bad afternoon when a marching band strutted right past our stage during one of the first songs, completely drowning out our performance. If this wasn’t bad enough, they marched back the other direction toward the end of our concert. I’ve seen concerts with annoying distractions like crying babies humming amplifiers, but I’ve never before had to compete with a marching band.

That wasn’t all. When it seemed that we were finally gaining some momentum with our songs, the electricity suddenly went out. We had to sing a capella for a while, and when the electricity returned, our CD player had switched to the next song on the sound track! What could we do? We rolled with the punches, and started singing the next song. Later we learned that the electricity went out when a man from the booth next to us got angry and started switching the circuit breakers on and off.

This terrible experience was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that one of my daughter’s best friends had come to watch our concert. Finally, when I broke a string on my guitar, my daughter had seen enough. She walked off the stage and vowed never to sing in public again. After a minute or two, she had cooled down enough to come back on the stage—but it was a concert neither of us will ever forget.

What lessons can be learned from our disastrous concert? We had practiced. We had good songs. We came to perform our best and connect with those who came to the concert. Yet everything seemed to unravel.

If you’re anything like me, your pride gets hurt when things don’t go your way. You want to succeed…to look good…to impress people! But I love what Winston Churchill discovered about the pathway to true success: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm…Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Sometimes a marching band—or some other distraction—can mess up your day and spoil your “success.”  

But the next time your success gets interrupted, take my advice: Keep right on singing, and soon the distraction will march away.

What about you?

•             Share an experience in your life when uncontrollable events conspired to interrupt or change your plans. How did you respond?

Hatfields & McCoys a Family Feud

The History Channel’s "Hatfields & McCoys" miniseries has been a launching pad for my cinema therapy this summer. I have found myself haunted by the 3-part series, which I have already watched 3 times this week. Starring Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton and Tom Berenger, the three-episode show marks the History Channel's first scripted miniseries.

The Hatfield-McCoy saga (1863-1891) involves two feuding families along the West Virginia-Kentucky border along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by "Devil Anse" Hatfield (Kevin Costner) while the McCoys of Kentucky were under the leadership of Randolph "Ole Ran" McCoy (Bill Paxton). These men were close friends until near the end of the Civil War, when they returned to their neighboring homes—Hatfield to West Virginia and McCoy across the Tug River in Kentucky. But a number of events lead to increasing tensions and resentments that soon explode into all-out warfare between their families—from land disputes to kidnappings and murder.

Those involved in the feud were descended from Ephraim Hatfield (born c. 1765) and William McCoy (born c. 1750). The feud has entered the American folklore lexicon as a metaphor for any bitterly feuding rival parties. More than a century later, the story has become a modern metaphor for the perils of misplaced family honor, unforgiveness and vengeance.

Starring Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton and Tom Berenger, the three-episode show marks the History Channel's first scripted miniseries.

As I replay scenes in my mind, I can’t help but ask "why"? How did it come to this senseless hostility and bloodshed? Couldn’t something have been done to avert the savagery?

Monday's premiere episode introduced viewers to the main characters and showed the incidents that initially sparked the feud. It also chronicled the love story between Roseanna McCoy (Lindsay Pulsipher) and Johnse Hatfield (Matt Barr).

A series of random events caused the conflict to steadily intensify. Asa Harmon McCoy was murdered in January 1865 by one of the Hatfield relatives. At another point, the Hatfields and McCoys went to court because of disputed ownership of a pig. Along the way, numerous family members were killed or disabled by the growing violence. The legal system was virtually powerless to bring order or justice.

The feud provides us with important lessons as we deal with the prickly people in our lives today. The anger between the Hatfields and McCoys seems crazy…ridiculous. Fighting over a pig? You’ve got to be kidding. Killing just to uphold your family’s "honor"? Get over it.

But offenses are bound to happen in any of our lives. How are we to handle them? It sure helps if we forgive "early and often." The longer an offense is allowed to fester, the more irrational and irreversible it becomes.

Who has offended you, my friend? Who do you need to forgive? How can you sow love and blessing where there has been hurt and cursing?

Tomorrow can be different because of the choices and steps you take today.

　

　

Beat the Blues by Changing Your Colors

I always found it surprising that a number of doctors referred patients to my wellness center because of symptoms of depression. I’m not a doctor, a licensed counselor or even a psych nurse, so how can I play a role in helping these folks who are battling the blues?

Some of these depressed patients clearly had needs beyond the scope of my expertise. They needed long-term counseling, psychotherapy, or medication—none of which are things I could provide. However, I was amazed by how some simple tools could often bring dramatic improvements in people’s emotional health. I’ve seen people’s depression lift when they took action to identify their purpose, connect with God, engage in healthy social interactions, and change their diet and exercise patterns.

One such transformation took place in the life of “Lynn,” a middle-aged woman who participated in my cancer support group. Although Lynn’s cancer was in remission, she had been seriously depressed ever since her battle with the disease first began. She changed her diet, started exercising and having a daily quiet time. Lynn made new friends in the support group, and started gardening, which was one of her life long passions. She was a graphic example of someone who was now healthy in body, mind and spirit.

Our Source Theme for this month is Attitude & Gratitude. Lynn provides a great example of someone who adjusted her attitude when faced with the challenge of dealing with cancer. She could have withdrawn from society and just curled up in a fetal position the rest of her life. She had been through a lot, and it must have been tempting to wallow in self-pity. Yet she didn’t do that. Her cloud of depression lifted, primarily because she discovered some positive attitudes and activities to replace the blues.

So what does it take to “beat the blues”? Depression is a multibillion-dollar industry in our country today. But while the pharmaceutical companies and therapists are getting wealthy, lots of people are still feeling depressed!

The mindset we need when we’re feeling “blue” is to actually fairly simple: We must “change our colors” by changing our attitudes and actions. Instead of complaining that our surroundings need to change, we need to start with changing ourselves!

However, many people dealing with depression waste their time trying to change everything else. They change their hair styles, therapists, medications, houses, jobs, or even their spouses—yet their depression remains. While they’ve worked hard to rearrange the external things in their lives, the internal root issues are left unaddressed.

As author M. Scott Peck points out, “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

I don’t claim it’s always quick or easy, but you can overcome the blues. So pack your bags and get ready to leave the valley of depression behind. It’s time for an internal makeover. 

What about you?

•             Think about a time in your life when you experienced “the blues.” What factors triggered your depression, and what happened to help you recover your peace and joy?

Quit Being an Adrenaline Addict

One summer day when I was about 10 years old, I decided to climb a tree. A BIG tree!

It wasn’t actually my idea, but a friend dared me to do it. Has that kind of thing ever happened to you?

Well, instead of settling for the lower branches, I decided to go all the way to the tippy top. It was one of the tallest trees in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and I could see the whole city from my lofty vantage point.

What a view! The rush of adrenaline was incredible.

However, my euphoria was abruptly shattered when my mom saw me and freaked out at the danger I had put myself in. You see, the branches at the top were pretty thin and brittle. But I was so caught up in the thrill and emotion that I had hardly noticed.

So there I was, clinging to fragile branches that seemed a mile off the ground. My mom stood at the base of the tree, screamed that she would tan my hide if I didn’t come down that instant.

I was stuck. And suddenly the adrenaline was gone, no help to me at all. Somehow I managed to find my way down, branch by fragile branch.

I wish I could say that was the last of my adrenaline-induced adventures, but it wasn’t. As a teen, I loved the thrill of riding roller coasters. Being scared out of my wits was my idea of a good time.

And some of my adrenaline escapades simply aren’t appropriate to write about in this blog.

You see, rather than sitting at home and being bored, I’ve always loved to live “on the edge,” facing challenges and transitions that most people are happy to avoid.

You might say I’m an adrenaline addict.

There are lots of us out there—people who have a “wild and crazy” side and want to live life to the fullest. Like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, we typically are looking for mountains to climb, even if that also means quite a few valleys along the way.

I was shocked, though I guess I shouldn’t have been, when my doctor told me several years ago that I was suffering from “adrenal exhaustion.” Too many thrills and chills, I guess. Being a little on the hyper side, I thought I could live on adrenaline forever. The rush of adrenaline was exhilarating, but as they say, “What goes up, must come down.”

Addiction to adrenaline is not a healthy way to live, either physically or emotionally. Although some people view their roller-coaster existence as normal, but in all likelihood they are just suffering from a bad case of adrenal addiction. So great is their attachment to adrenaline that they now cannot separate even their emotional experiences from the rush they get from overexerting their adrenal glands.

Adventure is one of the life areas we focus on in the Source, the coaching system I teach. Kathrine Lee defines adventure as an exciting or very unusual experience.

My life changed and my adrenaline glands were healed when I began to schedule adventure into my life.   Learning the art of participating in exciting, unusual experiences or activities that take us out of our comfort zones can be fun and exhilarating. It helps us deal with the mundane parts of life and gives us something to look forward to. Playing it safe is easy but I want to live a life with no regrets. Having said this, I want to make sure I am taking good care of my health and the safety not only of myself but of those around me.

Making adventure a part of your life is a rush that has nothing to do with adrenal glands.   And this is a lift that lasts!

What about you?

How can you become an adventurer? What are you looking forward to? How can you press past what you think you cannot do?

Stop Being A Mrs. Fix-it

On the way home from the gym, I was listening to a home improvement show. A woman called the radio station, wanting to know how to caulk her bathtub. She told the host of the program that her husband wasn’t much of a handyman, so she was going to become “Mrs. Fix-It.”
A flash of insight struck me when she called herself “Mrs. Fix-It.” I thought to myself, Wow! I’ve always tried to be a Mrs. Fix-It, too—just in a different way.
I’ve always loved to problem-solve, analyze and figure things out. As I constantly search for ways to make things better for myself and others, my mind finds it hard to shut down. I see problems everywhere, and want to fix them all!
As you can imagine, being a Mrs. Fix-It is an exhausting job. There is never any shortage of situations that require help. And the busier I get trying to fix them, the more they seem to multiply. Like some sort of sadistic video game, no sooner do I shoot down one problem, when ten more appear.
Once someone has been a Mrs. Fix-It for many years, it isn’t very easy to change. After all, it’s pretty addicting to fix things. We gain a smug satisfaction from being able to point out all the situations we have valiantly remedied. Pretty soon our whole self-image gets wrapped up in our ability to fix the unfixable.
Yet some things simply can’t be fixed by human effort, no matter how noble the effort. The world is woefully imperfect. This is hard for fix-it people like me to accept, for we would like to believe we can fix anything we set our minds to.
I’ve had to face a hard reality: If I could fix and control everything, I would be God! Gradually I’ve had to concede that He’s the ultimate “Handyman,” the only one who can reverse all the effects of fallen humanity.
What about you?

• Make a list of some troubling areas of your life you are frequently tempted to “fix”—even though they can only be fixed by God or other people.

If Surrounded by Lightning Bolts, Look Up

Tornadoes hardly ever strike Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. So that was the last thing we expected when we decided to spend the Fourth of July weekend there in 2001, along with nearly 400,000 other unsuspecting vacationers.
My son Ben, 9 years old at the time, was on the beach with some neighbor friends who were vacationing with us. Feeling safe in the family-friendly atmosphere, we lost sight of the boys, who ended up a considerable distance away by the time we saw the lightning.
Everyone assumed this would be a brief afternoon thunderstorm. No big deal, we thought.
But then the sky became eerily grey. And the winds intensified. Dust and debris swirled all around us. Beach chairs spun in the air. Lifeguards quickly evacuated the beach.
But there was still no sign of Ben or his friends.
Meanwhile, this vicious funnel of destruction ravaged a two-mile path along the beach, knocking over buses and utility poles, damaging roofs, and blowing out windows in buildings and vehicles. I later learned that 400,000 Myrtle Beach homes were left without power in the aftermath of its 157 mile-an-hour winds.
Just as the danger reached its pinnacle, some lifeguards arrived in their pickup truck with Ben’s friends—but without Ben. When I learned the boys had been separated and had no idea what happened to my son, I screamed at the top of my lungs, fearing the worst.
But to my great relief, I discovered later that Ben had found his way back to our room, completely unharmed. He had taken cover right before the tornado winds reach their destructive climax. His safety seemed a miracle, to say the least.
I had been on the fringe of powerful storms before, but this time my family was in the epicenter. The worst damage occurred at the Myrtle Beach Pavilion, right where we had been enjoying our peaceful vacation. I found out later that our minivan had been totaled by the high winds and debris. But that was OK. I just was grateful we all were safe and unharmed.
Storms can be scary, particularly when they come without warning.
This event taught me some important lessons about the storms of life. First, I saw that storms aren’t entirely bad. They have a way of showing us what’s really important. As the Myrtle Beach tornado brought its swirling destruction my way, I realized my van and belongings were of little value in comparison to the safety of my precious son Ben.
I also saw that life’s storms often seem to come “out of nowhere,” when we least expect them. Without warning, blue skies and sunny days can be replaced by dark clouds and torrential rains. So when the storms of life converge against you on every side, look UP! That’s where your help will come from.
What about you?
• Life’s storms can help us see what is truly important in our lives. If you faced a serious tornado, hurricane, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster, what person or possession would be most important for you to keep safe?