Month: February 2016

Adult Children That Love and Respect Their Parents

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Adult Children That Love and Respect Their Parents
By Bernadette A. Moyer

adult children

In just this week on social media sites I witnessed adult children that declare their love and respect for their parents. I say Amen to that! These kids just look so much more attractive than the ones who constantly and consistently find fault with the very people that gave them life and raised them, their own parents.

Whether you like Donald Trump or not, his adult children are by his side and working hard for him as they support him. All of his adult children are up to their eyeballs in supporting their father. And clearly with three marriages, much scandal and who knows what else, they could find fault with dear old dad if that was what they wanted to do. I love seeing his adult children supporting him. It makes him look good but also makes them look good too.

I witness my dearest friends that are caretaking for their aging and ailing parents and I see their loving hearts in their caring actions. Again it makes them look good but also credits their parents.

During this same week a post of a newspaper clipping was shared with me of an ailing mother who took to newsprint to post an ad letting her adult son know that he was forgiven, that she was ill and hopeful someone somewhere would see it and encourage him to call his mother before she dies. It’s heartbreaking to see such an ad. Mom is trying to die in peace and her adult son is nowhere to be found.

Other friends share their broken hearts over 1, 2, 3 and even more of their children that want nothing to do with them. They have been dismissed. Through the years I have communicated with thousands of parents and all of them express their broken hearts over their adult children who have chosen to estrange. These kids need and want to make mom and dad look badly so they can justify their actions and their decision to estrange.

I don’t think they factor in just how badly it makes them look to speak so poorly about the mother and father who gave them life and who raised them to then turn around and treat their parents so badly.

When adult kids are successful and appreciate their parents as a result it seems like a natural transition of appreciation and love, and others who are successful and don’t appreciate their mom and dad, it’s hard not to respond with, “so you became a success all by yourself?”

Then there are the adult kids who are failing and struggling and want to blame mom and dad? Either way it just doesn’t add up. At some stage in life you take responsibility for the choices that you make and you grow up enough to stop placing blame on your parents.

We learn from the Ten Commandments; “Honor your father and mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

Adult children who have loving relationships with their parents tend to have loving relationships period. Each one of us can love just as each one of us can make the decision to withhold our love. Being on the side of love and gratitude is by far the most attractive and healthy side to be associated with. Everyone wears love well and I don’t know of anyone that looks good wearing an angry and unforgiving heart.

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

New books Along The Way and Another Way on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

A Time for Reinvesting in Ourselves

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A Time for Reinvesting in Ourselves
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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It is becoming clear to me that our 50’s are a time of reinvesting in ourselves. For years we were living in the “sandwich” years between supporting ailing parents and raising our children. With two high demand careers, very little in the past ten years was about investing in ourselves. We spent our time and our energy on parents and on our children and we were happy to do it.

Between my husband and myself there is just one remaining parent and he is being well taken care of in an assisted living center. For so many years my husband was running him to the doctors, to the pharmacy and the food store. He literally was his father’s lifeline to the outside world until severe dementia made it impossible for us to continue to support him. He needed 24-hour care. It was a hard decision but a necessary one. (Update John passed in December of 2014) Today all our parents have passed away.

Our three kids have all been raised and no longer need us to support them. It took some getting used to when you have supported children physically, emotionally and financially for decades. But like everything in life there is a beginning, middle and an ending. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

We are still young and investment worthy as both my husband and I are gearing up for what is ahead for us. At this moment in time we have both turned to education and wellness as to where we are putting our energy and support. Brian is studying and securing a Maryland State license that will allow him to further his career. I am taking an updated business class and learning more and more about marketing and social media and blogging.

In 2015 two new books were published and my blogs continue to attract thousands of readers, many who write to me and some who connect in person.

For our health many of the procedures we have put off are being addressed. At this time we are eating healthier and more organic fresh foods. We see the value in laughing more and pacing ourselves as we get through our work weeks and our off time. There is a new balance in our lives of both production and fun. We no longer have to put ailing parents and our children ahead of our own needs. No one told us that this would be the “all about us years.” My husband loves having me all to himself.

Years ago I read that men never really “get their nicest or come into their own until their 50’s” for us this seems to ring true. Going out with my husband is like going on a really great date. This past year we travelled and attended so many functions and events, when he treated us to an Orioles baseball game we had the best time. He secured really great seats on the first base line looking directly into the dugout. We sat just a few feet from all the professional ballplayers. Brian held my hand as we walked through the city streets. And he walked to bring me bottled water and was really tuned into whatever I needed or wanted to enjoy the experience.

There is something so sweet and so nice about being appreciated by a man you have loved and lived with for 24 years. He expresses his gratitude for all the many sacrifices I made, and those that I wanted to make in helping him to raise his twin children. We survived and even thrived in spite of many challenges throughout all these years together.

What we have right now is yet another opportunity to reinvest in ourselves and in our marriage. It is a great feeling to be afforded this opportunity and at this time in our lives. This is a period of time that we never talked about or one that I never even thought about but now that we are here, I am thrilled. I hope that all our friends and family members also get this same special time in their life. All I can say is isn’t being in our 50’s great? We are worth it. We have worked hard and now it really is all about us. And who knows what our 60’s will bring but for now it is all about enjoying life, enjoying the simple pleasure of everyday life.

These are the reinvestment years and what greater cause for making an investment than in our own health and happiness!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

New books Along The Way and Another Way are available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

What I Learned About Socialism

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What I Learned About Socialism
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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I learned about socialism when I was in the third grade and I learned it from twin boys that were my own age. Van and Yar along with their parents had fled from Yugoslavia to the United States of America. The word “fled” was their word and not mine. According to them, they came here for a better life and more opportunities.

The twins not only went to my school but they lived in my neighborhood, I am sure this was why I was asked to tutor them in English. They didn’t know our language but they were eager to learn it and I was happy to teach them.

They explained to me that if you had a loaf of bread and your neighbor had none, you were expected to give half that loaf to the neighbor. Their culture in Yugoslavia didn’t allow them free choice. Kids were tested and told what school and ultimately what career would be assigned to them. The government chose for the people. The people did not have the many freedoms that we are afforded here in the United States of America.

It didn’t take long for Van and Yar to integrate into our culture. It has been many decades now but the last time I saw them we were in high school and they were both popular and excelling in school. Their futures were bright and according to them a lot better than anything they would have had back home in Yugoslavia.

This family was willing to leave everything in Yugoslavia behind them and that meant socialism. They knew they could do better here in our country.
As we are into the process to elect our next President of the United States, I can’t help but be struck by the popularity of Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist. He makes no bones about wanted the rich to pick up the slack of the poor. He makes no bones about a desire to re-distribute wealth.

What also strikes me is how popular he appears to be with so many college aged students. They hear the word “free” like in “free college” for everyone and they are beating the drums for him. “Feeling the Bern” is the new high for a generation of young people that have yet to work for anything. They don’t yet know what it is like to get a job, work hard, set goals, buy a car, purchase a home and raise children. Most students are still living on mommy and daddy’s dime. I can’t help but wonder how they will feel when it is their paycheck that is reduced by 50, 60, 70% or more in taxes to pay for all that “free” college and “free” healthcare.

Seems to me that in order to understand socialism you would want to research the countries that adhere to this way of life and ask yourself are they living a better quality of life? Ask the people that literally “fled” from both socialism and communism and listen to what they know about living this way.

Most educated people know that nothing is “free” somewhere someone along the way is paying. Should the cost of education and the cost of healthcare be so high? Probably not. But expecting a government or expecting other people to pay for our education and/or our healthcare isn’t what our country was ever built upon.

Our country is a melting pot and a country of immigrants. People that came here not because we gave “free” anything but rather because they wanted the American way. They wanted to come to the United States because they knew that if they worked hard that their dreams would be realized.

What bothers me most about today’s young person and their expectations of “free” isn’t as much as their desire for everything to be given to them but their lack of any desire or willingness to work hard.

I don’t know of anyone who is successful and who has a good life where you can’t trace it back to a desire to work towards goals and toward achieving them. It scares me to think that a burning desire for success could be replaced with the apathy that comes from sitting back and expecting everything to just be handed to you.

What I learned about socialism I learned way back in the third grade when a family “fled” their native Yugoslavia to come to the “land of opportunity” also known as The United States of America.

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

New books Along The Way and Another Way available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Sit and Smile

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Sit and Smile
By Bernadette A. Moyer

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Prayer and meditation doesn’t have to be so complicated, just sit and smile!

Sit and smile through your eyes, your ears, your nose, your heart, your throat and all your being. Smile, smile again and again and sit with that smile.

We get so caught up in the ugly stuff, the deaths and the destruction in life then we look outward to our friends, our families and our churches and therapists for all our own answers. I myself have been caught up in that.

Looking to a clergy person, a friend or a family member to help “fix” me, then when I look really closely at them, I think, they can hardly help themselves, how on earth are they going to “fix” me. And why would they even be motivated to do so even if they could?

Every search I’ve been on has ultimately led me back to my own core. I’ve worked with clergy, I’ve worked with a few life coaches and I’ve worked with many counselors both in group and one on one. My path has always brought me back to my own personal relationship with God, to my core being.

My recent prayers have been coming from a positive place and not a desperate one. My most recent answer came as simply as, “sit and smile.” Just sit, relax and smile. A smile immediately brings relief and can elevate our mood.

In an article by Mark Stibich, Ph.D., and his Top 10 Reason to Smile, he writes; “Smiling changes our mood, next time you are down, try putting on a smile. There is a good chance your mood will change for the better.”

And “Smiling releases endorphins, natural pain killers and serotonin. Together these make us make us feel good. Smiling is a natural drug.”

What have we got to lose? Just sit and smile! So here is to more smiles, more laughter, more sitting and more levity …

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

New Books! Along The Way and Another Way available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble

Regret

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Regret
By Bernadette A. Moyer

fear_and_regret_by_deathtopanic

One of my professors was famous for saying that “regret is the hardest pill to swallow.” That phrase has stayed with me for decades now and I do my very best to try and live a life that is free of regrets.

Yet most of us probably look back on a time when we may have made decisions that we later live to regret. Bold decisions made in youth and/or in haste seldom hold up over the test of time.

“Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse and regret.” Don Miguel Ruiz

We can’t change our past but we can learn from it and when possible we can make amends. To live a life without regrets is to live a life of peace.

No Regrets by Gary Allan (Songwriters: Jon Randall, Jamie Hanna and Gary Allan)
Well time and fate can’t be controlled
You play the hand that you’re dealt
And the dice that you rolled
And who am I to question God anyway

I remember so clearly way back in 1983 when I was leaving the gravesite where my first husband was just buried and I remember thinking; I would rather do and say something I may live to regret rather that regretting that I never did it or said it. I was so fortunate that when Randy died everything that needed to be said and done was so.

There is tremendous peace that comes from knowing we did and we said all that we could during any given life experience.

Simply doing our best is surely the best way to live without regrets!

Bernadette on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/bernadetteamoyer

New books! Another Way and Along The Way are a sold on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble