Coach Elliott

In the SGI sector of the Buddhist practice you can visit the gift shop where they have among other artifacts and books, T-shirts that say "Never Give Up".  In fact I got a red one with lack letters.  I then put it on when I got home, took a selfie and sent it to my friend in California a picture of me in the shirt that she had requested of me.  She is the reason I am practicing Buddhism since she invited me to attend a couple of sessions when I was visiting her.  When I saw that T-shirt I thought about why I wanted it so badly and now I understand that with all that has happened in the last year the one thing I needed to recall is to not give up.  There were so many times when I wanted to give up.  So many times I wished I would not be on this earth due to the pain of being treated for cancer and then being left by my partner because I was angry about how he and his family treated me.  But to give the latter any more lip service would be to give it power.  I took my power bac

I have gone from having very little money to a six digit income and then back to less money now that I am retired.  For many years my life I was motivated and enslaved by this desire to make and have more money.  Most of the time it seemed to me that there was never enough even when it was plentiful.  I would make more and automatically spend more, saving very little of what I made when I had so much access money.  I made sure to spend all of it and could deduce the reasons why but would rather not bore anyone with the details. Many people around me are worried about money and the reasons vary: A: They really don't have enough of it to make ends meet. B:  They spend money on things they should not like cigarettes, expensive clothing or other things they don't need and then end up short the money for paying their bills. C:  They don't know how to manage money. D:   They worry about money constantly and focus on how much they don't have. I want to begin by address

As is usual someone or something elicits a blog about something that needs to be said and something that is likely to help others out there struggling with something in their life, like being happy.  Although many may say that happiness is a natural and easy feeling, most of  us struggle with being happy.  We have trouble being happy with what we have, being joyous and grateful for our family and friends and especially struggle when we are experiencing the many challenges in life.  And there are many! Here are some keys that will help you find more happiness in your life:  1. Don't make your happiness contingent on this or that happening:  I will be happy when I lose twenty pounds or I will be happy when I change jobs or make more money.  These kinds of thoughts make your joy contingent on something else happening when in reality these things are not what makes you happy.  It is living in the now that makes you happy.  It is enjoying what you have now and where you are now in

There are times when I regret being on FB.  The types of things I have read are usually not very intellectually stimulating or humorous to me.  It is like people just have to say something so they do.  That something that they say often times has no real value to anyone.  I try to not post things unless I am moved to say something that might help others or it is a joyous event I want to share.  When I get on FB I become bored almost instantly and get off, feeling as though I will be wasting my time and energy.  But nothing gets to me more than the people who don't call me, email me or send me a card who only communicate via the social media.  It worries me that we are becoming a group of people who share ourselves only on the surface and in a venue that does not require us to see anyone face to face.  Not their pain, not their sorrow or their joyful smiles.  We are satisfied with communicating in a way that I find more and more impersonal. Recently I "friended: a person who

Avoiding doing something or saying something when we know it is important is called procrastination.  We do this in our life with things like ending relationships, quitting a job we are not happy and it is making us ill, doing household cleaning, washing our clothes and a numerous amount of other matters we avoid and do not take action on because we are either scared, overwhelmed, overloaded or simply lazy. It is the things that are not exciting to do that we avoid.  In fact these things are usually things we are scared of or find boring.  We avoid them because we are not ready to deal with them or we are simply the type of person that waits and waits until something hits us or something bad happens.  It is like when we avoid a hospital bill and it gets turned over to a collection agency or when we avoid washing the slipcovers on our sofa and they get to dirty the stains cannot be removed.  Many times we literally wait until it is too late.  The fear or the feeling of being overwhelm

I am so pleased to say that I have met yet another person in my life whom I like very much already.  Today I sent her the message "Today do something that pleases you".  It rolled out of my mouth as naturally as I am a writer and as naturally as I have been taught to motivate others.  I know that this message will be received by her at the very moment that she needs it.  The timing is not mine and I am not the giver of good, however the timing is Spirit's time and behind that timing is a force that I have nothing to do with other than the fact that I am the messenger.  I feel honored to be that person who shares the message.  I am happy to pass the message along. Today and every day we must do something that pleases us.  I would also say that this thing that you do, whatever you decide to do to please yourself be something special to you in that moment.  Sometimes you have to sit in silence and think about what that special something is.  At other times it will come to

Yesterday I went out with a sweet friend and she shared with me that her only daughter was leaving to college.  She said that she would be crying often and that she will need to go out at least twice a week.  When we completed our evening I walked her to her car.  There she repeated how bad it was going to feel for her to have her daughter leave home to college.  I then looked at her and said that what she thinks about most will happen.  It was something that perhaps she did not want to hear at the time and in the back of my mind I thought that it was simply too hard to accept. It brought me back to thinking about the way we get more of what we want and less of what we don't.  Thinking more deeply about what I want and don't makes me dig deeper into my own life and how I have been able to get more of what I want so for what it is worth here it is. Getting more of what we want requires us to: Keep what you want at the forefront of your mind, thinking more about what it is

Today I was discussing some relationship related things with a wonderful woman I just met not long ago.  Her candid and open manner impressed me and motivated me to dedicate a blog related to what she shared and what we co-created.  She loves her husband and at the same time she is feeling stressed about doing too much.  She works and then she comes home to do more work.  She has children, at least one who is a teen.  She mentioned the word divorce but in reality she is far from certain that this is what she wants to do.  Like many mothers she is concerned about her teen child and feels like a divorce would be hard on her child.  As many woman have done, she is staying in the relationship for reasons of her own and it matters not what we think.  I for one stayed in an abusive relationship for over 10 years.  It is nothing new nor does it mean we are flawed.  It just means we needed to be in the situation to learn our lessons well. Some of her challenges in her relationship is that th

There are characteristics of a high functioning person and one that is low functioning. A high functioning person is: 1. Life smart 2. Able to handle situations well 3. Does their part in ANY relationship of ANY kind 4. Is independent and able to do things on their own 5. Has ideas and can contribute to any social situation A low functioning person is: 1. Life dumb (I think I coined this phrase) 2. Does not handle situations well that come up 3. Does not do their part in ANY kind of relationship (expects others to do everything) 4. Is lazy about ideas and rides on the coat tail of others ideas, expecting them to do all the work 5. Is dependent and weighs others down by taking too much and expecting too much Allow me to expound on life smart people: 1. Life smart people do well in day to day living.  They know how to handle situations and surpass the people who are book smart because many of the people with degrees cannot handle daily life situations or issues that com

When we are going through something we think: "this will never go away"" and we feel as though we might not ever find our joy again.  Yet time after time we do and not only do we find it, the new joy is better than ever. My own pain even to this day is nothing compared to what it can be and compared to what I have overcome.  I know with such sureness that I will see the light once again.  That I will know love once again and that I will be free once again.  Free to be who I am and free of pain of every kind: emotional, physical, spiritual or financial.  I seem to always end up landing on two feet. The trick to leaving the pain  behind me is to not hold on so tight.  The trick to life is to not hold onto anything as if it might be forever.  The trick to my life is to forget that happened and to pray for the people I hold up as an enemy, not to take things personal. Pain is really temporary.  It cannot last forever because sooner or later whether in life or in death

I hardly dare to attempt to define love yet in my years on this earth I have uncovered some form of defining love for myself.  I have most of all figured out what love is not and in this way I believe I am more clear on what love is.   I guess I will be bold  and share what I think love is and what love means.  I do this with humility and with the notion that I am likely not even close to being an expert on love.   This is what I think:  Love is when someone sticks by you and rallies for you no matter what.  Love means that even when we are wrong someone who loves us can share that with us in a way that is loving and not shaming.   Love means we stay no matter what.  Someone who loves us is loyal to us and will not leave when we need them.  Love means that the person that you are with will stay by your side in times of need, especially when you are ill and in need of being nurtured and cared for.  People who love you won't leave when you most need them.   Love me

Whitney Houston is a singer whom I have always admired.  Her life was to some "tragic" but to me it was what it was meant to be.  I have no judgements about how she died nor how she lived her life.  What I prefer is to remember her contributions as a wonderful singer and a smile that could knock the socks off anyone.  She was truly a force to be reckoned with and she had the voice of an angel.  Even her very last album was a lovely tribute to the kind of person she was, a loving and kind soul who happened to be involved with a man who did not love himself enough and who she might have loved too much.  But then who has not?  I say let the person who has lived a perfect life throw the first stone.  I doubt there is one person who has not made at least one bad decision in life and strayed from love even just for a moment in time. "Love will save the day" was one of my favorite songs of Whitney's.  She sang that song with what seemed to be every fiber of her body.

Fear is really an illusion when you think about it long enough.  Fear is not what we were born to feel, love is.  Yet the reality is that we do feel fear for a variety of reasons both warranted and not warranted.  Fear can have a life of it's own in our mind.  At times we feel fear and then find that we were worried and fearful for nothing.  In fact more often than not our fears are unfounded.  The triggers for fear are as varied as we are as people with so many different personalities.  What we need to eventually face is the effects of fear so that we understand that it is crucial to find peace and courage to unveil fear and to counteract it.  First we must acknowledge how fear affects our lives in different ways: 1. Fear stops us from our journey: Fear impedes our journey and stops us from staying on the right path, the one that will be of the most value to us and the one that is the most rewarding for our spirit, body and mind.  Fear stops us from taking the journey most ali

There are many people who stay in relationships much to long.  To their dismay when they do end it often times it is unpleasant and other times with a lot of resentments.  Staying in a bad relationship is more likely the longer you are in the relationship but there are many clues, some key ones, that will tell you that it is time to walk away and end  it. These are some early signs of a relationship that will likely end poorly: 1.  Being Cheap: People who are cheap and insist on making you pay half of everything is a sure sign of someone who you may not want to pursue.  If on the first date when someone invites you out to eat or have coffee they don't pay the bill it is an early sign that they are cheap.  People who are cheap with their money often times are cheap with their feelings, often times not very giving or not forthright in sharing their love.  They are cheap in other areas as well. 2.  Not Being Romantic: If from the start a person you are seeing or dating is not

Today I spent several hours decluttering and staging my home.  I started with my closet taking all the clothing out that no longer fits me as I have gained weight.  In part I am very grateful that I have gained some pounds as I was very thin and did not look well.  In other ways it's a bit of a bummer because some of my small clothing is really nice and some of it costly.  Yet what stands out for me is that some days are going to be rough and today feels like one of those days for me.  In spite of it I have managed to clear out my closet and stage it with some women's clothing so that when it is up for sale people will notice that there is a couple with children in my home.  Ironically there is no wife or small children but with my grandchildren's room and the women's clothes it is staged perfectly for a family. There is sadness and joy because this home was one I lived in most of the time alone.  It was my home really because I put all the love and nurturing into it

If you truly believe then it will be.  What you believe in is what you will get more of whether it is negative or positive.  This is why it is important to believe in good and that good will happen to you at every turn.  When you are in fatal mode you will attract bad and it will be just like fatal attraction.  In no time you will attract horrible things to yourself.  Fatal and negative thinking will bring fatal and negative occurrences to your life. The beauty of life is that you can attract great things to your life by keeping your head up and by giving the positive things in your life even more attention and nurturing.  When we focus on what is good in our life it inevitably attracts more of the same good into our life.  This of course needs to be with intention. For most of us there are going to be hard times.  It is how we react to the hard times that makes the real difference.  If we react with the thought that this is what happens to us because we deserve it of because our l

In life healing ourselves is a life long journey.  We may not want to hear this truth yet what we learn in living is that life is a constant journey as is our healing.  Perhaps if we were to be healed immediately we'd not have a purpose for living. In my own life and in my mentoring of others I have learned some basic healing methods: 1. Forgiveness: The only way to heal from the hurt and the pain is to be in a place of forgiveness.  Once we forgive others who we deem have wronged us we heal ourselves immensely. 2. Release anger: Release your anger about everything and anything you have experienced that has made you feel angry.  As I have shared on many occassions, "Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.  Anger is poison and this is the very basis of why we must let it go.  Releasing the anger begins with forgiving others and it also means that we must just let it go.  Anger can only be replaced with peace and serenity and peace can only c

Love yourself or you will be sorry.  It is the most important when you are with another person in a relationship.  We seem to lose ourselves easily when we get involved with someone else.  Why does this happen?  The answer is simply that we don't love ourselves going in.  We take all the love we have and we give it rather than to save some for ourselves.  We lack self love so we go from one person to the next person in one relationship after another with people who we give love to not knowing how to love ourselves.  We don't keep love for our self because we don't know how to do that.  We did not learn how to do self-love but we did learn how to give our love away to others. It is so important to love yourself or you will always be a target for those people out there that can see it and that will take what you have to give selfishly.  If you don't love yourself the other person will take the love from you and over time you will begin to feel resentment because you are

It may seem easy to fall in love and at times it truly is.  It amazes me how fast people fall in love.  What it harder to achieve is staying in love and keeping love interesting and new.  In order for this to be realized we must be familiar with the love language.  Love language and love actions are the words and things we do to keep love going strong.  Although many people stay married for many years without ever knowing of or using love language or love actions their relationships are truly as boring as they appear to be.  Exciting and truly wonderful love relationships are ones that we work on and ones where love is practiced in a way that both parties are happy. Love language means using words that you have uncovered are meaningful to your partner or that your partner has shared he or she responds best to.  The best way to develop a love language with someone you love is by paying attention to the words that they respond well to and on the converse those words they respond negati

I am exhausted from seeing ads and magazines depicting beauty in what I will call a "standard" manner, usually as blond and blue eyed, Caucasian and almost anorexic.  This ideal of beauty is not only not true it is dangerously false.  Many girls are starving themselves to look like the skinny girls in one the makeup package or in the latest fashion issue.  To add insult to injury these so called beautiful women are often not Latinas or Asian or any other women of color.  I cannot ever forget that as a child I hardly ever if ever saw a Latino male in an ad, commercial or mainstream store ad.  The entire notion that beauty is so limited is fighting to me and remains one of the most important thing needing to be healed in America. I love Lisa Ling so I am going to  just put it out there that she do a documentary that will address this issue with honestly and dignity like the ones she has focused on in the past.  But until she or someone decides to bring this forward I will do

I have been in this body for 61 years and although I am a male I think a lot like a woman and have been around women all my life who are strong minded and believe in beautification.  My grandmother was a seamstress and my grandfather was a carpenter.  Every beautiful thing in my home was either created by my grandmother or my grandfather.  We lived a life that looked rich but was really a middle class situation.  We had a five bedroom home with an immaculate basement where we could play when we wanted to ride our bike inside in the winter and when there was a strong storm outdoors.  But I digress.  The fact is that I learned about beauty and beautiful things at a very early age.  I learned to distinguish between silk and tropical weight wool early in my life and saw my grandmother sew up a dress for church in a day that looked like an Ungaro dress today in gray with beading and twisted ribbon.  Beauty did not seem to me to have an age because my grandmother put on lipstick almost every

In the movie "Mermaids" Cher plays a mother who has an edge and who has a daughter who is just the opposite of her, shy and reserved, while Cher is bold, loud and out there.  At one point in the movie Cher who dresses with tight clothing that would seem more like outfits a young lady would wear puts on a tight pink dress for a date.  Her daughter looks at her and says "Don't you think your a little too old for that?" (referring to the tight pink polka dot dress).  Cher turns and looks at her and responds with "Don't be silly Charlotte, a woman is never too old". Today I am watching Super Soul Sunday with Oprah and she is interviewing an author who wrote a book called "A Goddess is Never Old".  In her book she points out that we place women in a category or box based on their age.  Women also believe that if they are this age or that age they cannot do this or that of which they would like to do, feeling they are too old.  I recalled the

Most of us know the book "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz.  His book has been translated into many languages and the four agreements make perfect sense. 1. Don't take anything personal 2. Do your very best 3. Be impeccable with  your word 4. Don't make assumptions Each of the four agreements asks of us to become familiar with the very things that we battle with daily and that once we master them our life will become fuller and more complete.  Each of the agreements reminds us that there  are things in life that interrupt a life that could be happier if we just follow the four agreements. 1. We take things  personally and in doing so we make ourselves upset and even miserable.  People will have opinions of us and about who we are and we must know who we are otherwise each person's opinion of us effects our life.  We can literally go crazy if we listen to what others think of us and take it personally.  Allowing people to  bring us down with their p

Today I received this from a friend I love very much: "Surround Yourself with People Who Get You".  She is one of those people who gets me and the primary reason she does is because she listens.  It inspired me to write this blog on this beautiful morning and to feel gratitude to have a friend like her and others who get me after having lost so much in my life including people who professed to be a friend to me. Many years ago I met someone who I spent a long time with, too long in my opinion however long enough to figure out that this person did not bother to know me because he/she had not listening skills.  In turn the family was exactly the same, insular and full of themselves.  Not only did they not listen, they did not bother to ask any questions about me, my feelings or my upbringing.  What came to me was that this was a group of people who also did not speak of anything deep or profound and in fact almost never talked about their feelings deep inside.  They stayed on

Some may say that being verbally abused by someone they love, trust or both is worse than being beat up.  Others would say that it is equally painful whether it is verbal or physical assaults.  I say that both are unacceptable and that many times we don't even know we are being abused because it is so subtle and the person abusing us is so expert at it.  I might also add that abusive people learn their skills from abusive parents much of the time and have learned a skill they believe will keep others in line and them in control.  Like their parents they are usually in deep denial about their abuse because somewhere inside them they do believe it to be a necessary evil.  Soft core abuse is so mysterious and at times unknown to us that we practically cannot see or feel it until it accumulates over the years, at times many years. These are some soft core kinds of abuse you may not be noticing: 1. My Way or the Highway: This is a form of abuse whereby your partner or spouse either