I love my brothers.   They are so amazing.  They have always been such good big brothers.  Today was a busy day at the clinic and I ran to the front desk to get something and saw the most gentle face in our waiting room.  I thought for a moment how at ease I was in the chaos of a busy clinic day and realized it was my oldest brother.   I didn’t know he was in town.  He has always been a bit of a free spirit.  Just comes and goes like the wind.  He lives about four hours away and I don’t get to see him that often.  I ran to hug him.  I wanted to catch up but had much too much left in my day.  I finished clinic and went to my mom’s assisted living where I knew he would be.  We laughed and teased my mom.  We teased her that with her Alzheimer’s that she wouldn’t remember how ornery we had been with her that night.

I followed my brother over to my middle brother’s house where he was staying.  We laughed and reminisced.  That’s what the holidays are about.  Just being with family and remembering.  We laughed about things from our past that we could not have possibly laughed at when they were happening.  Now they are funny and with retrospect we can look back and laugh.  If only we could do that in the moment now and just think, “in ten years, I’ll be laughing about this….”  How much more relaxed we could be.

Interesting story.  My brother told me about a story of his vision board.  I love vision boards.  They are so powerful.  It’s amazing when you make one, how fast the things you put on it will come.  So he was telling me that he had put pictures of his family on it and things he wanted to come true.  Everything on the board came true within a few months.  EVERYTHING!  And what I’m about to tell you next gave me goose bumps and still does just thinking about it as I’m writing this.  He told me that the creepy, eerie thing is that he couldn’t find the perfect picture of his son that he wanted on the board to represent an ideal and loving relationship and so he just put a blank picture frame with the words “my son”.  He meant to find a fitting picture but just didn’t get around to it.  Then he told me the most amazing thing.  He is now estranged from his son.  The vision board came true and there was a black hole in the frame that now represents their relationship.  He told me that he doesn’t believe in coincidence.  He admitted that maybe ego or pride or unknown forces had developed but I truly believe that “thoughts become things” and just leaving that blank space was opening up his mind and thoughts to the void that now is.  I can’t explain it but this vision board thing is VERY powerful.  Everything that I have ever put on my vision board has come true within a pretty short period of time and the more I focus my attention to my vision board the quicker the manifestation of my thoughts materialize.

I know that God wants amazing wonderful things for us.  I know that the “secret” to having all that we desire is to “ask and it shall be given”.  My other brother was telling me that faith is the evidence of things not seen and that faith can move mountains.  When we create visions and focus clearly we are placing our faith in the idea that God wants us to be happy and at peace.

I was thinking about where I have been on my journey lately.  I believe in the power of positive thinking and focus.  I have been thinking a lot lately about what “Happiness” truly is.  Am I happy?  I think so most of the time but then I know that I am never satisfied with anything.  Does that make me unhappy?  Does that make me driven?  Motivated?  A high achiever?  Or just unhappy?

My husband asked me what would make me happy.  I started listing off  “things”.  And then I realized I have had a lot of “things” and that didn’t make me happy.   So where was my happy?  I thought about the last time I could remember being really happy.  Joyful and at peace.  My thoughts took me back to about 5^th grade.  That’s when my dad fell off a tower and broke his hip.  He was an electrician and working on a TV tower when he fell.  My dad was a genius.  He invented the first remote control car starter.  He invented and car without a carburetor that what get almost 70 miles to a gallon.  He invented the first mini satellite dish and cracked the code to cold fusion.  I always thought that he would invent and sell something that would rescue us.  He dreamed of being rich and buying us everything we could dream of.  And when he fell off that tower, it was the beginning of his slow demise to death and the beginning of me being a caretaker, as my mom had to go to work to pay the bills and I was the only one at home to change urinals and shift his leg in traction in the hospital bed in our living room.  He didn’t have health insurance so after the surgery, they just sent him home.  The beginning of my medical caretaker career in the 5^th grade also meant the end of my childhood, but more than that it was the end of “hope” for me.  He would never carry out that big invention or bring to fruition his dreams of “being big”.  I realized that my happy was tied to hope.  And when my hope died, my happy died.

I read an experiment of a German scientist over 40 years ago that worked with mice and when he put them in a bucket of water with the lights out they swam about 15 minutes before giving up and drowning.  But when he turned the lights on and put them in the bucket they would swim on average about 3 days!  Hope is an amazing thing.  It drives us to keep striving and working and dreaming.

You see my dad set the standard very high for hope.  That was my programming.  Do something big and change the world.  Most people have ordinary parents.  That go to work and just say “get an education and good job”.  Not my dad.  He didn’t even finish the eighth grade and he could build or repair anything.  He read physics book for fun.  He bragged when he built his first computer that took up our whole upstairs living room which by the way, my brother pointed out tonight was a whopping 6 megabytes… and he cajoled that he gets emails that are 6 megabytes on his phone now! LOL…  I always said if an alien ship landed in our backyard and was in need of repair they would be in the right yard, because my dad was probably perfectly able to do the job.  So, not my dad.  He said “use your thoughts, Tammy.  Your thoughts can change the world…”  And though I believed him and had faith, the day he fell from the tower I lost hope and I lost a part of me.

I realize now that my ability to change the world is through my thoughts.  That changing my own thoughts will change the world, because the world is only the way I see it.  My dad gave me the greatest gift.  Not genius or a sprawling estate, but the truth that I am my world.  And my thoughts can change my world.

So tonight I think of him and his legacy of thought.  He was an amazing thinker and his spirit lives through me.  The big thing that I am meant to do is yet to be seen.  In fact it’s interesting.  I heard a comedian at church, MichaelJR say that, “you can’t possibly know the grand things that God has planned for your life and in fact if you think you know it or can see it now, that’s most likely not it because he has such big things for our life that we can’t possibly see it now.”  That’s faith.  Believing that I have purpose.  I know that loving my patients and helping them on their journey is big, but I can see that, so I know there is something else even bigger coming even if I can’t see it.  We are all destined for bigness.  We just have to have a little faith.  Mustard seed faith.

So my happiness is not elusive as I thought it was and it is ok to believe that is anchored in my hope.  The illusion was that hope was gone.  It is just dormant when we don’t embrace it or believe it.  I see the light in my patient’s eyes when I help them see the hope they are searching for.  Why was it right there in front of me and I didn’t see it?

I hope that you are moved to your bigness and that you always remember that no matter what comes your way, God is Bigger!  And his plans for us are very big.  Even my dad, that seemed to die bankrupt from his medical bills never gave up hope and in fact that hope is very much alive in me.

Embrace your hope.  Be still and know that God is in control and let him bring the big things he has for you and remember that sometimes we have to get out of our own way before he can bring them to us.  We focus on negative and the lack or what we can’t see or don’t have and this just keeps the faith meter on empty.

Go buy a bulletin board tomorrow and get those positive visions going and don’t leave any blanks or black holes.  Be clear and let me know when your thoughts start becoming things so I can say, “pretty cool, huh?”

Dr Tammy Stress around the holidays

Dr Tammy Stress and Addictions

Project Wellness Testimonial: Gail Lambert

Embarrassing Art

Have you had an experience in your life that embarrassed you?  Embarrassment can have long lasting effects on our psyche and even unconscious ramifications.  Especially when they occur at a young age.  I want to invite you on a journey with me to one of those times.

If you have ever felt confused or conflicted, you are not alone.

I was born into an extremely artistic family.  My mother and brother were extremely talented as painters and artists.  I remember watching them and so wanting to share in that blissful state I would witness them enter.  I too was born with the artist gene and loved to draw and paint.

When I was about five years old I remember and incident that changed my life.  Forever left it’s mark.  It’s difficult to this day to talk about it.  I was drawing one night with crayons and markers and somewhere came the thought to draw “naked people”.  Maybe I had seen my brother’s encyclopedias with human anatomy or a National Geographic… I don’t really know where the inspiration came from.  My family was very private about nudity.  I don’t think I ever saw anyone in my family in the nude.  EVER!

So, I began to draw what I knew in the most anatomically correct version my mind could construct several naked people.  I was so proud.  It was beautiful to me and quite detailed.  I ran to show my mother.  Beaming with possibility of how she would rave over my talent. 

I was wrong!  So wrong!  She totally flipped out and then ran and showed my father.  I don’t remember what all they said to me that night but the energy was flowing with shame and guilt.  They were terrified of how I knew what people looked like naked and worse yet that I would think it was okay to draw them.  I trembled and cried.  My mother tore up the drawing and shrieked.

I had no idea what I had done wrong but I never drew ever again.  Oh, I would do my duty at school and when I had to do art, did only what I was told.  I was so scared of disappointing anyone and ever facing that guilt or shame.

I was so conflicted.  Art was in my soul.  My light had been dimmed that night and I never pursued art again until just the past few years and I am in my late 40’s now.  I realize how much art is meditation to me and how important it is.  It took me years to face the guilt and shame that blocked my true inner passion.

I regret that I did not recognize the impact of that moment and what it cheated me out of all these years.

Now I realize that the human body is beautiful and art in motion in and of itself.  I value the amazing grace that God made each and every one of us in likeness.  And now I paint and love the process.  I have come full circle.

If you have a really embarrassing event in your past that has you in a place where it is difficult to even relive it in your memory or think about, I challenge you to go there.  Sit with it.  Think about it’s impact and where you are in your life today.  Has it kept you from something beautiful and powerful.  Is it continuing to limit you in any way? Honor those feelings and then find beauty in the ashes.

This was a painting I did to break my fears.  Naked people.