Coach Elliott

All I could think of when my friend was talking to me in the hosptial was that "it was as though I was not there, like I happened to be an incidental party in her conversation about herself.  It reminds me of when I was younger and did not know better.  I would rattle on and on about myself not even taking notice that I had not allowed the other person to share a word about themself.  I have been  running into that a lot lately and I recall living in it for a long long time.  I was this person in this person's life who happened to be there every morning and every night.  Try as I might to get my point across there was simply no way that was going to happen.  After a time I realized that there was not any point in sharing and would keep things to myself.  After all I was not going to be heard and it was not going to make a fucking bit of difference.  I as spinning my wheels with people who never learned how to listen and respond accordingly. So admittedly tonight there were a

I was speaking to a friend on the phone and as is usual both her and I learn something from one another.  She expresses such gratitude for my input in her life and attributes some of her successes to the talks we have had long distance.  I come away each time with something of a good feeling and in all honesty feel like I have more of a purpose in life.  It is hard for me to say who gets the most benefit her or I.  All I know is that this last time she made this statement to me that stuck with me and that I wanted to make sense of and to see how it was aligned with my work and my writing.  She said: "break down or break open".  I thought about what that could mean after I'd shared with her that the alternative to giving up and cashing it all in was just not an option for me.  She then complimented me and asked me if I was always that confident to which I had to be honest and say NO.  The truth is that I struggled with my confidence but moreover what was the right thing f

In the scheme of things I have nothing to complain about.  As I look around me, even briefly, I see others who have a larger daily struggle.  People who are homeless and hungry and ones who are fighting addictions.  People who don't have a family member to lift their spirits or hold their hands when they are battling sickness or depression.  Children in every part of the world who are cyring and are literally numb because they are starving to death.  Death knocking at their door when they should be playing on a swing with their friends.   Elderly men and women who are in their bed who are in a retirement home wishing someone were coming to visit. We think ourselves the worse and the poorest yet there are so many much worse off.  Today I spent the day volunteering at a day shelter.  I actually did not think so much about folks in this situation.  Men and women come here to eat, shower and at the same time they receive spiritual healing.  My job was to serve food and at the same ti

Last Saturday friends came by with a buffet of lunch for me, a wonderful couple who have been together for 22 years.  At one point in our conversation one of the men in the relationship mentioned that he is always asked what their secret to longevity in relationship is?  He began by stating that there is no secret and that in a word it's just about "committment".  He proceeded to elaborate that committment means you both want to be here and you agree that you both want to be in the relaitonship.  Of course, that makes perfect sense! As I started to write his response down he added that each person has to ask themselves at least once a week what they are doing to fulfill their partner's needs.  Don't take it for granted that this person is having their needs met but really intentionally focusing on that person's needs.  I added that one might ask once a week: "How can I best meet your needs in this relaitonship"?  Asking will ensure that there is no

This evening I set some boundaries for Elliott, something that I have some work to do on.  I claimed my space in my home and allowed myself the right to claim it because I nurtured this home and have kept it beautiful and clean.  When we claim something it is not about the material part that matters but rather the spiritual aura of our home.  This home is a home where I have been living on my own and where every peice of every room is set just right and looks beautiful and crisp. For a long time I was in fear about making that statement about my home but the fact is, as one friend put it: "this was always reflecting of you".  It made me so proud that there are people who know the truth and who see my work and the love I put into a home.  I get such pleasure from my home and all that surrounds me and at night I light tea lights in certain areas just for my own pleasure.  I have become enamored with making a santuary for myself and not worried about what others might want.  T

It feels like it is time to thank everyone out there for their role in my life and for their loving support, kindness, prayers and loving me. To my daughter Camille: I want to thank you Camille for being there during some really rough times when I was in a lot of pain and sobbing from emotional and physical pain.  I want to thank you for being there on days when you took your work lunch to be in the office with the doctors and care enough to hear it all first hand.  It took a lot of courage for you to do this for me.  Thanks for listening to me during all those times when I needed an ear.  I think of all the people in the family you have seen the most because you have had the courage to not turn your face and look at this situation with me head on.  I think that your faith is what has helped me face the next phase of my battle with cancer.  I feel like your faith ad committment and your compassion really has built me up and allowed me the room to just feel my feelings without any ju

Today is a glorious day of total and utter forgiveness.  I want to share this event with others and make my forgiveness statements: I forgive you Elliott for anything you have said or done that has not been aligned with God's plan for you. I forgive you Elliott for believing you are not worthy of love and compassion. I forgive you for thinking that you were at fault for the end of any and all realtionships with others in your life. I forgive myself for allowing myself to be motivated by pain medications or anger or both. I fogive myself for believing that I was abandoned by others because I was a bad person. The truth: The truth is that I have been emotionally and physcially ill and not always in control of my voice. The truth is that I am worthy of love, compassion and forgiveness. The truth is that I have always given much more than I have gotten and giving is a who I am. The truth is that I am not always angry and that most of the time I am a loving and kind man

I have been plowing through the book "Miracle Prayer" and today was a hard one for me because of the emphasis on we get what we ask for and manifest each and everything that happens to us.  Although to a large degree I do believe this to be true it makes me crazy to think that all that has happened to me I manifested, thought it and made it happen, evcen the minor car acccident not to long ago that I had.  I remember being angry when it happened and then feeling later that if I had managed that anger I would not have hit that car when I went to park my car.  I created that sitaution and I hate to think I made this happen just burns me. When I get up in the morning and the first feeling is a good one the day seems to go beautifully.  I go from one experience to the other with this happy face and this happy attitude.  Everything seems to go really nicely and everyone I come into contact with smiles at me and seems ready to serve me in any way I would need or like, while on th

I conitnue to write about this idea of being joyous where we are.  So much of the time we spend is spent wishing we were elsewhere and hoping we had more.  The thing is that we have and are where we are and there is nothing more blessed than to accept where we are and work on things we can change in our life, accepting the things we cannot.  If we have health issues then we do.  If we are not speaking to our brother than we are.  If we are angry about the state of the world then we should go ahead and feel that and be where we are. As the fragrance of the Casa Blanca flowers next to me hit my nose I feel like I am living where I am and now.  I smell the scent and I rejoice in it because it is so beautiful and such a miracle.  That flower is a lily and it is one of the most potent one can by.  It reminds me to be where I am and I enjoy it right here and now.  I am not thinking about the leisons in my body or the ache in one of my ears but rather the smell of something so pleasant that

I draw inspiration from many things: books I am reading, people I speak to and my own pain.  We all draw inspiration from our experiences and others around us.  Today it is Mark Nepo.  I absolutely relate to him because like me he fought cancer and I am still fighting it.  I am proud of him and I am proud of little Elliott who thinks himself deserving of life and breath.  Of course doing this alone would be much harder and having all of you makes the big difference. Here is the quote today: "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there's nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you" Lao Tzu Many a quote is translated and it is harder to decode what the person may have meant just as my Spanish sayings are difficult to translate to English and have the same impact.  It is like the saying "we are born along and we die alone" or "some people drown in a glass of water".  " They ate the cake before the w

"It is done unto you as you believe" What a simplistic way of seeing life.  How simple an equation we wield power over.  Whatever you believe is exactly what will happen.  We did not get those beliefs from mid air but rather from all types of places and sources and experiences.  I think we start to formulate them as soon as we are born.  I especially feel that children who are born under stressful circumstances already have a fight on their hands to become a believer that they are unworthy or they were not wanted.  Of course the extreme of it is the child who is born of an addict and who in turn is born addicted.  How in God's name does a child like that make it and feel good about themselves?  How does he or she get through that kind of trauma that is so immediate as they come to the world?  Of course anything is possible and yet so many times we don't ever recover from the messages of our teachers, the painful way we were born or the conditional love of a parent.

As I continue to read and ponder what I am consuming from Miracle Prayer I learn more each time.  This time I affirmed what I have known for many years and some of those experiences we have all tried so hard to shake off.  I wish that it were easier to shake off the awfully limiting beliefs that we learn in school, in church and from other people. One of the beliefs that I grew up with was that the church I attended which happened to be Catholic was the only church and the only one that could provide salvation much like many others.  I believed that their opinion of gay men was accurate and that if I was ever revealed as gay I would likely rot in hell and there would be a horrible emotional pain to pay.  I would confess to a priest inside a booth that was dark and mysterious in hope that I would be freed of my sins and awful weird attraction to men.  Religion became painful for me and so one day I came home and asked my grandmother if I had to attend to which she said, thank god, NO.

"You can either do things that make you happy or do things that make you suffer". From: Mircacle Prayers by Susan Shumsky I want to add to this: And you can "shine bright like a diamond" (Rihanna) or you can dim your light so that others feel comfortable or you are more "consumable". This is how it went today for me.  I woke up thinking that yesterday I'd been given my death sentence for my usual sixty seconds.  Then I decided that just because one doctor thinks me cancerous and not curable that there is always the hope and the dream that I could become a healthy flourishing man, the one I am suppose to be.  I can shine bright like a diamond and do things that make me happy like making myself a green smoothy and going to the gym to do the best workout possible in my beautifully limited way. There is this revelation that you come to when you are with cancer and sixty and your husband walks out on you emotionally then physically.  The revelation c

Every year the salmon jump over the currents of the river and somehow are able to survive.  They fight it with such skill by jumping into it and towards that strong current or waves.  Time after time they get hit and they are able to get a little further in spite of the impact.  These fish are like no other fish, most of which are gliding through the water effortlessly.  Most fish don't have to work this hard to move about and feed, but not the salmon. Like the salmon I have been asked to jump the current and with all the things that have hit me I keep jumping over each circumstance and each thing that comes at me.  Now I am being asked to face lung cancer after leaping over two other types of cancer.  I am being asked to decide what is in my highest good and although I have been OK with facing the things that have been presented to me I have become a bit weary.  I have become a little confused and resentful.  I swam over the strong wave and now here it is again.  I ask myself wh

This afternoon I received the results to my chest CT scan and unfortunately the doctor has stated that it is likely cancer.  Still to me the test seems odd because while one spot got larger there was one that disappeared.  The explanation is that it depended on the angle I was laying and other variables.  I asked that there be another CT scan and it is scheduled for November 24, however, I am thinking of canceling it until a bit later after the holidays.  My body does not seem to feel like going through more chemo and an even stronger form of it.  Then to finish me off I was told there is not cure for this type of cancer.  At best it is kept at bay.  It has given me pause and I feel my body and spirit saying not yet and not now, not quite so fast. So tonight I read from Miracle Prayer and it talks about Who we think we are vs who we really are.  At the end of the chapter it asks the reader to make a list of who we think we are and who we really are.  It gives examples like: Who I th

"How is it that we can write all the books on relaionships but we do not have time to listen to the heart of our lover" Molly Vass Of course a woman by the name of Molly would have been the source of this quote.  So many times it is a woman who is longing to be heard, longing to be loved and longing to be told "I love you".  We have thousands of books about love yet we fail so many times to read them and to learn a lesson or two about love and loving.  We fail to listen to our loves and hear what they have to say.  We listen to our co=workers and what they say but we don't listen to our partner, our wife or husband and hear them out.  Such a simple thing to listen yet such a difficult task for many who have likely listened to the same thing over and over again and cannot find a response.  In fact some may even have a curt response. And I come to my own story and that of a movie I just saw last night alone in  theater with three others.  This movie was about

Being alone and lonely is not the same as being with someone and being lonely.  Being lonely when you are alone makes sense and is much more bearable as I see it.  Being lonely when you are married or living with someone is a much more intense feeling.  You or I should not be lonely when we are with someone yet some partners are so emotionally absent that being with them is the loneliest feeling ever.  It just does not make sense to feel lonely when you are in a relationship with someone you love and who claims to love you. When we are alone for a long period of time we will feel lonely.  It is part of life when you are alone and not partnered.  The up side is that this makes sense.  Being lonely when there is no one there to hear you speak, share your feelings or laugh with is normal.  Being lonely when you are all alone is a part of life.  That kind of loneliness makes perfect sense.  After all there is no one there.  We can learn to be less lonely or mostly not alone.  We can beco

Today at UCC Epiphany Pastor Kevin held the blessing of the animals.  All of the congregants who like bring their animal to the church basement to attend this blessing.  It is such a beautiful event and so very sweet to see how many peoplle attend.  The pastor begins with a story about how some of us first experience death in the form of a pet.  Then a story about the compassion for animals that are not always offered to humans.  On the other hand the compassion for animals is an indicator of our compassion for others. "Love of anmials is a gateway to the world and not an escape from it" Is quoted at one point in the short but loving sermon.  When I ponder this quote I think it true yet I see where there are people who use their pet to be anti-social and hide behind them, perhaps a way to feel safe.  I have no judgement of this yet my heart wants ask for some healing when there are those who find it hard to open their heart beyond the boundaries where they feel safe. As I

Everyone who knows me are well aware of the rather difficult relationship we have had, not speaking to each other for years at a time.  There were times when I thought that she was the worse person and I have a feeling she may have thought something similar.  Over the years there has been an on and off again relatonship.  As much as we would want it to work it just did not seem to be in the cards for us to be a mom and son who were close.  In fact we were not close at all.  I recall as a teen leaving home and going from Chicago to Ohio to get away from the tremendously stressful situation between us, but what I know today is that my mom had some mental health issues that she struggled with and I was not very forgiving.  I knew there was something terribly wrong but felt helpless to do anything about it.  I wanted to fix it but could not and should not have been expected to. Since my cancer diagnosis my mother has been more attentive and very compassionate. She has been calling me mor

This evening I indulged in my former addiction, "Snapped", a show about women who commit crimes.  This episode was about Selena a Mexican singer who was at the hieght of her career.  A woman who stsrted her fan club, an opportunist type, killed her by shooting her in the back.  She had extorted money prior to killing her and was fired by Selena's manager and father.  The woman could not accept the fact that she went from a really great gig and beiing friends with Selena to nothing.  She was so shrued that she was able to get Selena to meet with her at her hotel only to end up in her death.  I think it was Selena's good hearted nature, of which she was famous for, that made it possible for this person to kill her.  Anyone who followed Selena's career knew how freindly and almost naive she was as a very young star. When I see these crime shows played out I think about how many of us fall for people's little stories and lies.  I think about all the women who be

As I start this beautiful day looking out at the small lake like water feature peering throught the windows and the sliding doors I feel a little pain on my leg.  I have what is called lymphedema and not of the most serious I understand.  Still it's a little painful.  I feel the aches as I walk down the stairs from the bedroom and up the stairs at night.  I tell myself "Elliott, you are not your pain".  I begin this day helping my mom get down the stairs from the guest bedroom who stayed overnight.  Now she is in a hell of a lot more pain than I.  I want to share with her that she is not her pain either. We are not our pain.  We cannot go around telling everyone of how much pain we are in.  It does absolutely no godly good to share it so constantely.  Whenever I call my mom she immediately tells me that she is in pain.  I feel for her don't get me wrong but she has truly made her pain a part of who she is.  I on the other hand refuse to make my pain so prevelant.  I

"Please remember, it is  what you are that heals, not what you know". Carl Jung We struggle to be successful and many of us have degrees.  Some of us think we knnow the meaning of life because after all we have a degree in counseling or we have studied Buhdist principles.  We are made to believe by a system that are non believers that we can heal ouselves from what we know.  We can learn all that we need to know to heal ourselves.  We have it together and we can fix it.  But all the knowledge, especially book knowledge, cannot cure our woes nor will it make us into a healthier persona. Jung is saying that it is not what you know but rather what you are that heals you.  It is who you are that heals you.  How we live our lives heals us.  The honesty in our hearts is what heals us.  Living a life of truth and allowing ourselves a voice heals us.  I think that it is out actions that heal our hurt us. The manner in which we comport ourselves with others heals us.  It is the w

The movie "When Mary Met Sally" is about two people who started out as friends and once they consumate the relationship realize it to be a mistake, but in the end as it turns out it's not a mistake and they end up with each other.  I personally like happy endings.  I am a real ham for a love story that has some bad times in it but then the people end up together and in love.  It is that Cinderella story that is played out in different ways where the shoe or the person fits perfectly after all.  Once the male character sees clearly that he loves her h runs to her.  She is at a New Year's eve party and purposely starts to leave before midnight when he walks in.  He blurts out "I love you".  Then he recites the reasons he loves her like: "you're the last peron I want to talk to at night".  She responds with: "You make it impossible for me to hate you" and then they kiss and it is all lovely and good.  What started out as friendship ends

"Our deepest unconcious beleifs determines what we get." Susan Slumsky It may be the on a concious level I want to feel joy and be a happy person or have a new Mercedes but my unconcious beliefs could trump that dream.  The thing is that many of us, including me were told that we would not get that far or that we don't deserve to be happy or that we are an unhappy person and we believe that unconciously.  This blocks what we conciously want, need, desire of dream of.  The unconcious beliefs we grew up with block the concious desire to do this or to have that.  This is what author of "Miracle Prayer" is sharing with us.  She is diferentiating between the concious mind and the unconcious mind.  The concious mind is the one that has me writing this blog word for word whereas the unconcious mind might be saying: "Elliott, people are not that intested in what you have to say in your blogs and not many people read the anyway. I got up this morning (sounds li

I happened one evening to come across a documentary about a New York photographer who was likely over sixty who rode his bike all over New York taking pictures.  His focus was on street fashion, what he felt were interestingly dressed women and men in the street.  At one time the editor of Vogue stated that he would take a picture of a woman in the street and the following year what she was wearing became vogue.  There were times when he would be invited to parties just because his pictures were published so frequently that actors and famous folks would invite him to their parties.  He rarely attended any of the parties (Cunningham was his last name) because he was completely not interested in the recognition or fame and found the parties to be boring and not something that benefitted his work.  All he wanted to do was take the pictures and talk about fashion.  He was also a gay man in an era when it was completely unacceptable.  There was not so much as a mention of any lover or love

I have decided to watch a movie with Pee Wee Herman.  Something about a circus.  I use to just love him and the whole incident with him did has not detered me or my adult daughters from thinking him a funny guy, likely one of the best.  Not everyone likes his brand of humor but we love it.  When we saw the movie where they stold his bike we roared laughing about it.  Of course getting ones bike stolen is not so funny but in the movie it was aprapo. My motto as of today is goig to be "you gotta laugh".  I have not beend doing enough laughing although I smiled a lot and I do mean a lot.  Despite the challenges about me and around me I have made it my goal to laugh and to even sing in the car on the way home from the grocery store.  I was telling someone on the phone today "What's the alternative?"  and yes what is the alternative?  It is OK with me to cry but I think that stage advanced to laughter and fogiveness and more laughter.  Now my biggest goal is to lau

I must be on a roll today.  Getting ready to leave for my physical therapy but needing to share this idea of "making something out of nothing".  To be clear we, I am constantly making something out of nothing.  I think something bad is going to happen if I do this or say that and nothing happens.  In fact if I am honest I get the best results.  But then there are these people who make something out of nothing knowing good and well that the person did not intentionally hurt them like the ones who sue people for tapping them with their car when they were crossing the street, even though they don't so much as have a bruise on them. I remember this woman who received a few texts from her girlfriend who as mad about something she said in an email.  Not only did she make something out of it, she literally wanted the woman to go to jail.  Granted she sent her to hell in a basket but must we react so severely?  This person called the police, filed a report and turned it into a

Taylor Swift has a song out called "shake it off" which by the way I consulted with my grandchild and she does not like.  Of course I love it and fankly ever since that one rapper person got up when she received an award and sabotaged her spotlight I love her more.  She did not react to this person who in my opinion was so rude to her and apparently felt that "Beyonce should have been up here".  Since then he has done some additionsl "dumb shit".  But I digress once again.  The song like many of her songs are based on her life and the crap written in the tabloids.  In the song she sings: I stay out too late and got nothing in my brain, that's what people say" and adds: "the players are gonna play play play and the haters are gonna hate hate hate hate.  I go on too many dates and I can't make them stay, but I keep on cruisin and  won't sotp moving moving, it's like I have this music in my mind saying it's gonna be alright, I