OH YOU ARE JUST TOO EXCITED

I have the privilege of helping people birth books. I call it a privilege because I learn so many wonderful and amazing things from these authors. What I have found is that what is intended to be a simple literary coaching session often becomes times of empowerment and therapy for them and for me. That is so cool! I am also privileged to be able to be on the perimeter watching the dreams of people touch the rising sun. That is something to behold.

I will say that with some of the my clients, I am often overwhelmed with their excitement. To answer a phone call and a voice has risen two octaves higher or a speech pattern that is normally very deliberate is suddenly fast paced throws me. I get distracted by the excitement and I get so intrigued in it, that the reasons for the excitement are sometimes lost on me.

I realized that I get a kick out of that adrenalin and emotion that pulsates through people when they are genuinely and wonderfully excited about something that is happening in their life. That thing is so absolutely amazing. Life can be so very enchanting and embracing that it urges a typically slightly tenor voice to become more alto-soprano; and a normally mousy personality is suddenly giggling loudly like a school girl on the merry-go-round.


I think it is okay to not focus on the reason for the excitement - instead focus on the joy. It is the thing that tickles your spirit - that emotion of contentment - that will hit the ears of someone who has been crying all day and softly dry away their sorrow or discouragement. The reminder of what tears of joy sound like, brings a smile to a temporary dark moment and now there is the thought that I can reach for some of that excitement too. There is sweetness in the belly laugh of achievement that a friend shares with you and I am appreciating the blessing of someone sharing it with me.

There are times when I am sitting in a waiting room at a doctor’s office or even in a meeting and I feel a little excitement tickling that spot right behind my navel and right next to my heart. Yes, I’m sure it’s not gas. When it happens, I cleverly move my hand over my mouth to refrain from just losing it in laughter. I believe that God tickles me from time to time, just to remind me that He wants me to be happy, He wants me to smile and He wants me to be excited about everything that is me. He wants me to laugh at my joy and at my pain; because in both things I am yet alive and able to feel and able to wait for Him to tickle me so I can smile.

God tickles you too. Tell me today in your writing, when was the last time you felt God tickle you? Your tickle may come when you suddenly find a candy bar you haven’t seen since you were five (for me recently it was finding a box of Boston Baked Beans - OMG!). Or your tickle may be in a silly joke that keeps playing over and over in your head. Sometimes a tickle can come in those most unusual things that kids say - like when my four year old niece told me that she would not push the skateboard beyond the fence, because "we don't to have a situation, right auntie?" (Well okay then!)

There are little tickles that happen in our lives that say you have the right to laugh, to dance, to giggle until you have to run to the bathroom, to cry at the touch of a little ones hand on your face. Write about the tickles you have encountered, smile about them, laught about them and then rest your head on the Father’s chest and tell Him thanks I sure needed that.

I MAY NOT BE A FIST-TO-FIST FIGHTER, BUT I SURE THINK LIKE ONE

I am not a street fighter. The more accurate statement for me is I really am not a fighting type of person; though I do have a fighter’s personality. While in my high temper days I would quickly grab someone – actually hitting them was never necessary. It is all in the way you grab and look! Aside from childhood tussles with my sister, I think I have actually only been in maybe three school-aged fights and none as an adult. I mean after all you do have to grow up at some point.


One fight sticks out in my mind. This girl, who had been a friend since elementary school, decided one day in eighth grade that we needed to fight. To this day I do not know why and I do not know if she even offered a reason. Well, the bell rang, my sister our usual crew and I headed home. This trip however we were accompanied by my sudden and new rival, who was taunting me to no end. I ignored her and kept walking. This I assumed enraged her even more because out of nowhere she produced a knife and told me if I would not fight her she would cut me. THAT WAS IT!

Books hit the ground. My oversized purse hit the ground. I started beating her like a crazy woman. Then everyone encircled us and our normal walking crew was trying to pull me off of her. There is a certain point though in rage that makes pulling back difficult if not impossible. My sister was yelling for me to get off of her. Everyone was yelling for me to stop. I do not remember asking myself if I was really inflicting that much damage or if somehow she had in fact managed to cut me and I was bleeding horribly over every crack in the sidewalk.


I do remember my sister finally yelling something about the truck. I had seen the truck heading towards us but still in the distance. In fact, I remember pulling my opponent into the street so that the truck would help me stop her from ever taunting and tormenting me again. My sister was yelling for me to let her go and move, because if the truck hit her it would hit me too. Well, that was not the plan. If I wasn’t going to let her cut me, I certainly wasn’t going to let her make me get hit by a truck. So I instead slung her to the other side of the street and when the truck passed, I picked up my purse and my books and went home.

Like I said, physical fights are not my thing. But I do have a fighter’s personality. Even when an opponent comes on them suddenly, that personality will move into a course of action: face the opponent, size them up quickly and do your very best to get on the offensive not the defense – if you take control of the attack you can determine the outcome or at least force the attack into a more positive outcome for yourself. A true fighter approaches each and every opponent with a winning mindset; being defeated - even if they have never one a bout - is not a possibility.

My life has presented enough battles for me to hone my fighter’s personality and has taught me to do whatever I can to strategically and purposely keep my life on the offensive. It takes losing some fights to learn those lessons. It takes getting some foul punches. It takes you initiating some fights that never should have been. It takes you jumping into some fights that were none of your business. It takes you getting a knock out here and there. But developing that fighter’s personality also means you condition yourself, you train yourself for the fight. That for me has meant re-aligning my spiritual, emotional and mental thought and behavior patterns. Talk about some tough conditioning and training! Yet, I have had to realize that the tangible things that happen in my life could not be purposely designed for my success until I believed with everything in me that they could.

You know I think this kind of training is even harder than the bag, rope and running drills that championship boxers undergo. This is the kind of training that makes you beat down some inside stuff that keeps allowing the outside stuff to knock your behind out. This is the kind of training that will make you stagger but not fall and most importantly keep punching.

I am KID EC, the HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION of my battles. What are you? Who are you? Today, define your fighter. Is he BEATSTREET PAUL or SHANTE THE BRUISER JONES? What is the inside stuff that you finally have to condition and train yourself to defeat and what do you know about these opponents? Study them and then get on the offensive, so you can move in victorious circles around the enemy and no matter the attack you will be okay. By the way, I am not putting on any of those shiny shorts – oh boy!

I AM NOT A CIGARETTE, SO PLEASE DON'T DRAG ON ME

Don’t waste your time arguing with people who just want to argue, talk and pontificate - the D & D Committee. I personally can’t do it. The more they talk the more characters and story lines I build in my head. Really, I do. I develop story lines based on what I feel their underlying and intrinsic issues are; or, on anything that distracts me from their la la la wah wah wah can't ain't won't dialogue.

I am occasionally in the presence of someone who often relays stories of people in her life. The thing that strikes me most about these people is their presence in her sphere of being has been long-standing. The second thing that tickles my curiosity is that these people are part of what I call the DRAG and DESPAIR COMMITTEE. This is the committee of people that will drag on you with consistent negativity about your life, about what you want to do, about suggestions to have fun, about ANY and EVERY thing.

For me, the blocking out of the blah blah blah and wah wah wah of such unproductive and dragging dialogue is my defense mechanism for that immediate moment. It is the way I teach myself patience and not to speak in what might be considered a rude or sarcastic manner. In a medium range and more permanent nature, I will eventually sit down and ask myself some questions?

Am I now dragging on other people by relaying stories of the drag and despair committee member?

If there is nothing that I can lend positively and constructively to Miss or Mr. Drag, should I consider whether or not their season of importance in my life has changed?

Do I imply that there is an open invitation to drag me down with the practices of the committee, by never saying - I would like to talk to you about why your words and conversations are always such a drag?

Is my life going to be negatively or positively impacted if I close the door on this perpetual negative energy and instead replace it with life, hope and power?

In the interim, until you finally get to the point where you are either going to pull every single strand of hair from your head one at a time; or have the conversation above with yourself -try these things. First and foremost - be quiet. Stop giving the drag and despair committee information about your circumstances. Second - separate. One of the most profound statements I have ever read in the Bible says simply, remove thyself from the accursed thing. OH BOY! If it is dragging, it is pretty safe to say it is a curse. There is entirely too much bitterness, negativity and demoting of one's spirit for there not to be. Third - get out of familiar territory. You may just need to get a new group of positive people to enjoy and do life with; who can impart wisdom, promote your vision and just hang out with you in love. Fourth - interrogate yourself based on the questions above and be serious. Just because he or she has been a friend for 20 years; does not mean their impact on your life needs to be as great as it is.

Here is what I want you to do while you are still highly interactive with the drag and despair committee member; as they talk, write a note to yourself, advising you to cease from pointless conversations, not to waste others time with mindless words of confusion. Write a reason to say something productive to everyone you encounter. Productivity breeds productivity.

The other thing I have found about the D & D committee members is they are the people in the first line of my thoughts today. They want to argue, they always want to talk about why you are wrong and they are right, they always want to tell someone else what they think you said and what they feel about what they really did not hear. Tragically, before you know it, you will mimic them in the words you speak and the spirit you emanate. You have unwittingly become the newest member of the DRAG and DESPAIR COMMITTEE. So, write a little note to the arguer, saying something as simply as – "I appreciate your energy, maybe next time it won’t interfere with my understanding of what you were trying to relay or on my invitation for you to enjoy living and life."

Above all remember this, you are not a cigarette so do not allow these people to drag on you - otherwise you will end up mashed up and squeezed down into the bottom of an ashtray. Are you not so much more than that?