Coach Elliott

I have been on a bit of a roll about the notion of aging and my own belief that we are ageless.  Some might look upon this idea of mine as being in denial when in fact even if that is true I am completely OK with that.  Denial can be a lovely thing and can serve us in wondrous ways.  I say that because like my with health opportunity (referred to some as cancer) denial has served me just great.  Age is a topic that most of us would rather not talk about in mixed company and unfortunately a topic that I might even say is a "hot topic" as the ladies on "The View" might call it.  It is a topic that is only hot because we make it uncomfortable for people who are "aging" and don't respect the wisdom and the beauty that comes with living longer and we are living longer that's for sure. As I continue to dialog around this topic in my blogs I realize that I have more and more to say about it the more I ponder it.  Age?  What does that mean?  Why is it s...

Just yesterday I was chatting with a family of four and shared that I was sixty.  The daughter who was sixteen told me she could not believe I was sixty to which I recited my birthday and year I was born.   She went further to say that I looked like I was around forty and I of course thanked her and wanted to buy her a new car.  The truth about age is that we are ageless really.  We are ageless because we decide it so not because we are not aging but because I think we can be ageless.  We have all heard it before: "we are as old as we feel".  That is so true and in each individual case you are as old as you think or like me you are ageless and timeless.  No one has an expiration date nor must we either be a certain way, dress a particular way or act in a certain manner because now we are sixty versus when we were forty.  Staying young looking is really not about how we are but rather how we behave.  Behaving like we are sixty or as though we ...

It is like everyone says: "the old fifty is the new sixty and the new fifty is the old forty.  After this sentence you won't hear the word "old" because that word is not in my vocabulary.  I ask myself and I ask others the same question: "What does old  mean?".  For me this word is obsolete and it means nothing but a way to insult someone who is over forty and often times by someone who is 26, someone who has not lived long enough to understand that old is as old is and as old gets.  In fact what I know now is that there is no such thing as old.   Old is when a piece of furniture is broken and we need to replace it with a new piece.  We don't need to replace people as if they were an old car that needed to be towed to the junk yard.  Hence I have decided that the word old does not apply to human beings.  Old applies to objects but never human beings, especially not ones like me.  Let me explain. I have lived on this planet for sixty ye...

As life would have it there are many of us having this nagging feeling of revenge.  Someone got us angry enough that we would like to exact some revenge upon them wouldn't we?  Let's just be honest we have all been there and wanted it.  The only problem is that  we seem to be stuck in the revenge and not sufficiently in the joy of getting back at the person.  In order to become proficient at revenge we must not resort to the typical "bust the windows out your car" method.  In the song by Jazmine Sullivan she adds: "cause you had to learn you can't just play with people's feelings".  I highly recommend the legal way of getting even rather than the simple assault or cyber insults.  I want to remind everyone of this: Happiness and success are the best revenge: Be the happiest person you can by counting your blessings, lifting you big panties up and going out and dancing.  Do the happiest things you can possibly do and do them often.  M...

Today is Monday and like many Mondays one wonders how this week can be different from the last one.  For those of us who work a nine to five every day it is hard to figure out how to start over each week and find ways to make it a better week but more than that a week that is more fruitful and enjoyable, maybe even more productive.  There are ways to purposely enjoy this week in a way that you did not enjoy it last week or to do this week in a different way: 1.  Leave the Day behind you: Have a plan to enjoy the evening.  After a hard day at work it is best to leave the work behind you and not think about it anymore.  Do your best not to talk about work related issues and instead spend your time playing a game with your family or going out to dinner with friends.  Take the focus off of work and make it a point to not be that person who is always talking about work.  Once you have completed your work day make a motion that indicates that you are plac...

There are several ways someone can abuse another in a very subtle but not so emotionally healthy manner.  In fact these types of abuses are outright damaging to a person and the relationship with a friend or spouse. These subtle abuses take the form of: Put Downs: Constantly putting a person down is a form of abuse.  Putting them down for their inability to do something that you can do or the clothing they are wearing are but two examples of put downs that are abusive and eventually get worse and more frequent.  Put downs about your family or friends are another soft core way to abuse someone.  Put downs include bullying and shaming and blaming the other person for a lot of things often over the period of years.  Accumulated put downs have a serious effect. Criticism about Everything: Criticism is abusive.  When we find fault in the things others do like making a tablescape or sweeping a floor.  Criticizing is one of the subtle ways to abuse an...

We all know the signs when things are going poorly in a relationship or we all should.  More than anything I would like to share that like me many of us ignore the signs.  First the yellow flag, then the red flag and then the flag that suddenly stops waving.  We go from one sign the next each time ignoring the inevitable.  We can't. The signs of an end of a relationship are may but there are some key ones: The relationship is sexless or without intimacy: It is bad enough there may not be any sex in the relationship but much more importantly there is no intimacy.  We all know that sex fades and that as we age it may diminish completely but intimacy should never be completely gone from any loving realtionship.  A friend of mine has a great relationship with her partner of many years.  From the start there was little to no sex involved in the relationship for a variety of reasons.  Today they remain in a loving relationship where they both agre...

This is what ET said to Elliott in the movie by the same title "ET" "You could be happy here we could be happy together" Thankfully we are not that gulable nor do we believe everything others tell us or so we think.  The truth is that we are gulagble and we fall for these kinds of lines all the time knowing fully that no one can or will make us happy.  If you think so I would invite you to keep trying until you find that person or relationship that will access the joy that you need to get for yourself. Happiness does not happen to us, we invite it with intention and our actions.  We do so by making the right choices for our selves.  We get it by ceasing it and knowing that there is not a shortage of joy.  We don't get it from someone else even though there could be those who will make us smile and even laugh loudly.  Our happiness is our own and we obtain it pretty much on our own. Collaboration is one of the most simple ways to be happy.  Coll...

"Don't let one act of evil damper the good from the rest of the world". I am often inspired by shows on TV and things people say on TV shows and in quotes.  There is so much wisdom all around us every single day from so many different sources.  This one was about the pain of a young girl who was a abused  and beaten by two other girls who left her for dead and about her survival.  It is also about yet another negative act on the part of someone I use to be with, done with hatred and with a complete lack of compassion or empathy.  We think we will never have to see a dark moment for all the darkness that we create for others without regard for feeling a little ownership around these mean acts. My grandmother said it over and over again.  "We pay for everything we do here now".  So many people believe that they will not need to answer to the higher being or their own karma but the truth is that they will and that it is just a matter of time.  Ev...

I truly want to begin this blog by saying that until I moved to Chicago I did not know what racist meant.  I was after all 11 years old and was raised in a small suburb of Ohio.  Next door to me there lived a Pentecostal family, down the street my friend who was African American would come by my house to pick me up to walk to school.  Across the street I could hear my friend's dad speaking Polish with a bit of an angry tone when his son got home too late or his daughter drove into the driveway and nicked his car.  My Polish friend had to sneak me into the back yard because his dad was so negative he preferred I not come into contact with him, but I never equated that with his skin color or race.  Down the street lived a Black family who owned the largest house and car in the area.  I recall thinking them quite glamorous and pretty.  On the corner across the street from this family lived a Cuban American family.  I had a terrible crush on the one a...

In a world where we are trying harder than ever to validate ourselves finding what is important in us and in our life is harder than ever to pinpoint.  What makes me important?  This is the question that people ask me all the time.  What validates me?  This of course is just another way to ask the same question.   The first things that comes to us might be income and maybe in second place we might feel like it is education or our profession.  While many of us may go so far as to wonder if it is not the make of our car. The answer to this question is simple.  We make ourselves important.  Nothing and no one make us important but our self.  No income, no car, no house and no amount of bravado will make you important.  The single thing that validates you and your value is you.  For some there is a Source outside of us that helps us to see how valuable we are, but even then we are the driver of our life like we are the driver of our o...

"The bear inside him was sleeping". This line is from the movie: I could not help but to take this line and run like hell with it.  I am no stranger to utilizing other people's lines and creating a blog from it, why not?  This time around I am thinking deeply about whether this line relates to the darkness or the light in my life.  The darkest  part of my life feels like it is behind me now yet there are times when I fight to see the light. What I know is that darkness is an illusion and light is the reality.  It is like the cancer being a fact and not the truth of who I am or my two friends with cancer are.  We are not our cancer.  We are our dreams, our hopes and our light.  We are the "bucket list" of things we will do before we retire from life.  We are the sunlight that shines on our faces even in the winter days.  What I know is that we are the part that is sleeping.  The bear inside of us.  The bear inside the peop...

In the movie that I saw with a friend on Netflix (suggested by her as "an old but good movie) there was a line "they looked over their brother like he was a treasure"  as two boys past their little brother from one to the other over a stream with care.  I could only think how my little Isabella is a treasure to her sister who is eight years older than her, she 13 and her sister 5.  IN the movie the people are Americans who have been raised aound American indians, in many ways adopting the ways and customs of the Indians.  If we could only adopt the ways of people before us like Indians who lived with such simple premises of love and honor, courage and patience.  If only we could honor each other in that way, the way that the old school inhabitants of our United States did, the ones we stold their land from.  If we could live off the land and enjoy the beauty of the rivers like the Indians did.  The irony of this movie is that in part this is what this ...

Each morning I inevitably turn on The View and this morning is no exception.  I love me some Whoopie and Rosie Perez the best, although everyone in the show are great.  I like the light hearted content and the laughter that always happens on the show, a great way to start the day.  With so many dark shows on TV it is nice to watch something that is light and happy.  The View gives me a chance to immediately be playful and fun which brings me to the point of my blog today. When we are going through difficult times in our life it is best  to stay on the light side.  Yesterday in my "Course in Miracles" book reading group we talked about how light is our reality and that darkness is an illusion.  We discussed how we bring darkness in by thinking ourselves into dark places, that  darkness is around us and how much it effects our spirit.  There are many ways that darkness seems to creep into our lives and many more ways to bring the light into o...

Today I would like to share an update on myself and give information about how I am feeling.  One of the things about Wednesdays is that it has become my favorite day of the week. In the past,  my sister was visiting me every Wednesday and staying with me until Thursday.  I was fed and loved to pieces every week when she and her husband spent the day with me.  Now Wednesdays have a new life and in that I am attending readings and discussions on "A Course in Miracles" a book that I love and speaks to life lessons, God (as we understand it) and the spirit.  Immediately after the book study I am attending an hour and a half meditation with Tibetan bowls being played by the person who leads this divine and sacred activity. I have been feeling better and have been working out  the upper body cycling when possible three days a week.  I feel much better when I work out and it is like taking a chill pill.  There is nothing better than a good workout for...

I am so convinced that I have figured out a truly simple way to one's day.  I like to think there are four steps to a great day that define each of the parts of your day before you retire to sleep, hopefully in peace and with ease and love.  The four steps are: Gratitude Awakening:  Get up each day with a thankful heart.  List those things that you are grateful for including the fact that you awoke to another day.  Before you open your eyes begin to think of the reasons that you are grateful to be alive and some of the beautiful things that you have been gifted with: your life, your children, your beating heart, your breath, your ability to see and your being given another day.  Instead of waking up miserable and feeling like this is just another work day and that life is a chore, think about love and the great things that you have in your life.  Thank Source for the job you have.  Thank Source for the bed you have and the warm home you live in...

I feel like a lot of you will laugh when I tell you that the way that I cease my day most times is when I am feeling it.  I prepare myself at least two hours ahead of time to make sure I a acutely ready and that I am wide awake.  So if I have an appointment at 2pm I get up at 11am or so giving myself one hour for coffee and eats and one to just ponder my next move and then one to get ready and leave to my appointment.  I guess that makes three hours, OK, three.  The point is I take as much time as I need by getting up way before I am expected to be functioning. A typical day for me might be getting up at about 9-10am, making my bed first and hurrying to make coffee while I click the TV to see The View.  By 11am when The View finishes I have had about three cups of coffee.  After that I make myself a smoothie which usually includes a bananas, pineapple, apple, coconut milk, raspberries and ice.  I drink that and then I do a short meditation of about 1...

"They desire you.  Of course they desire you.  The way that I did before you were mine.  They desire you when you sing, when you dance, when you cross the street.  If you knew that you are much more than the fire.  They desire you from north to south, from your head to your toes.  I know you noticed it.  That they love you, that I love you.  They don't look at you they devour you.  If you knew that you are much more.  It 's a dream to be in your waves.  We desire each other my love of my life." This is a small scale translation of a song by Luis Miguel called "Te Desean".  It is one of the most romantic songs I have ever heard and if you know Spanish it is impeccable.  The lyrics will make you melt an the feeling will embrace you like a beautiful embrace.  I was raised listening to songs like these that are second nature to me.  I feel them with every fiber of my being.  Sometimes they elicit pain and othe...

Some of us are not just running from one thing to the next, we even have the nerve to have scissors in our hands.  It would be fine to have scissors in our hands if it were not for the fact that we are running.  We live frantically from one appointment to the next and one activity to the next so we don't have to think.  We don't have to think about the horrible mental state we are in, that we hate our job and that our relationship sucks.  We live so quickly as to forget that we are married to a bully or that our boss is really an asshole we dislike.  We go to the same job each day but we want more and we allow that job to deplete us.  We complain about what is wrong with our life but we don't take the time to breathe fully or kneel down and surrender our spirit. I have been shocked at how many people live like this.  Their husband is having an affair with their best friend and they are working ten hours a day.  The children are snorting coke and...

One day in all of our lives we might have to choose between living or dying.  Dying comes in many forms and death by body is not the only one.  We die emotionally, spiritually ,creatively, not just physically.  There will be many times when we will be asked or we will ask ourselves if we would like to live or we would rather die.  Dying should not be an option yet we entertain it all the time.  I know I have. Since the beginning of my journey with a health opportunity as I like to call it I have wanted to die several times.  In some cases the trigger was a single event and in others a person or persons.  I was rejected, then I was left alone, then I was asked if I loved someone, then a person tells me she can't talk to me anymore, then the doctors told me I had about two days to live if I was not operated on again, then someone threatened my livelihood, my well being and then I was bullied for a time and finally I came out of the other end of it want...

Today is the day after Valentine's Day and frankly I am a little relieved even though I had a nice time with my friend and mother of my kids Lucy.  Dinner and the flowing conversation about our kids and life flowed, even a little talk about the future. I woke up grateful to have her in my life, a truly loving person.  A rock in my life and a person who has always accepted me exactly as I am.  Either way it is nice to leave this commercial day behind me and know that Hallmark invented it whereas my family and I have Love days all the time: our intention.  We pick times to be together and do things that are loving all the time, all year round and I write love letters and send cards to my children year round.  Love is not limited to holidays or Hallmark created days, although those can be fun too. Today I made a date with an old friend and realized I had March 15 as my nearest Sunday where I could see her.  She and I both were a little taken aback by this ...

On a day like today when we are bombarded by the media about being in love and "that special someone" it will be very important for us to know that the love we have for our selves is usually more enduring, although at times harder to achieve.  Valentine's day hearts are everywhere and we cannot go anywhere to escape them.  The fact is you will need to love yourself more today!  How will you do that? Stay in your soft pajamas or under your favorite throw and watch and old comedy.  Get yourself to laugh and lighten up that feeling that might be falsely dictating that because you are not in a relationship you cannot enjoy the day as much as anyone else.  Pamper yourself with a nice cup of hot chocolate and stay in and enjoy your own company.  After all is said and done you are the only company you have, your very own. If you want to venture out go see a movie and take yourself to an informal dinner at a place where  they have seating at the bar. ...

I would like to reach out to every person out there who does not have an intimate relationship with one person: wife, husband, loving husband or wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, life partner, soul mate or...  I want to wish us a Happy Love Day on what others call Valentine's Day.  Here are some loving things you could do for yourself.  I will share my plan first: Today I am going to take my children's mother to a Valentine dinner at my favorite restaurant.  Before I leave my home I intend to make a loving gratitude list and the things I love about Elliott.  I will write my assets down and they will be things that I love about me.  After dinner I am planning to go see a movie.  I have purchased an outfit for myself and bought beautiful flowers for myself.  I lit candles in the living area and watched "You've Got Mail" one of my favorite movies.  It is romantic but moreover it is about friendship and people who went from one level of love ...

What and how our joy gets stolen or affected in some way are so numerous we could never go over them all in one blog yet I am anxious to share with you some of the things we allow to steal our joy and how to get it back.  Here is some of the long, long, long, very long list of things or situations or people who can rob you of your joy: After a negative "Friend":  There is really nothing quite as much a downer as a friend who is constantly negative.  They call, they message and they text their woes to you for as long as we will listen.  Soon we are adopting their dark attitude and they have rubbed their sad attitude on to you. I had one of these friends in my life for over ten years before I finally referred her to about three free counseling services, their phone numbers and their addresses.  It was then that I was liberated from getting my joy stolen with my permission.  That day I got my joy back in the same manner that anyone can in an up front, dir...

For many years of my adult life in the last thirty years I have been in relationships that have been abusive in one way or the other.  I believe that many of us are less aware of the fact that verbal abuse and people simply taking and not giving back is a profound and deep way to abuse ourselves.  Even people in our life that take and give little are abusers in my book.  These are the ones who live or are married to people who do all the work in the home and where the relationship is inequitable.  Being with a person who is a taker is similar to being abused verbally without the words.  The taker has you doing all the dirty work and does so little that they might as well not be there.  They sometimes expect you to pick up their undies off the floor and their towel that they throw in a bundle on the floor in the bathroom.  When we allow this kind of taking and so little giving we become resentful instead of demanding respect and staying the issue to the...