Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
As human beings, equipped with marvelous intelligence and the potential for developing a warm heart, each of us can become a force for good. Dalai Lama
Suzanne Somers died last Sunday and I didn’t hear about it until my husband told me. When Three’s Company was on TV my roommate and I were looking for a third roommate. A young man answered the advertisement in the newspaper, and we agreed he could be our new roommate. I was away one of the first weekends after he moved in. The police knocked on our door in the middle of the night and my female roommate was awakened from her sleep. Our male roommate – his words, “Inadvertently tossed the contents of the refrigerator onto the main street.” We lived on the fourteenth floor and luckily no one was hurt. We were again on the hunt for a new roommate and over the next few years I shared the apartment with male and female roommates.
Does everyone remember the thigh master? I remember something called the Gut Buster but can’t find any reference to it. I bought one and was diligently doing sit-ups when the bottom part of the machine separated and hit the wall like a bullet. Someone could have been hurt, and maybe that is why I couldn’t find a reference to this product on the internet.
For many of us exercise gadgets have been part of our life. We were always looking for the perfect exercise aid that would give us results. If a gadget helps us exercise it’s important to know it’s the exercise and not the gadget that made the difference.
Years later Suzanne Somers popped into my life again. I was listening to the radio and she was talking about one of her diet books on food-combining. How separating fat and carbohydrates in our diet keeps us from gaining weight. How many women has she encouraged over the years to take control of our diet and our lives? She maintained a marriage of fifty-five years, fought breast cancer for 23 years, published books, and has remained relevant all these years. She has been a force for good.
I want to be the force which is truly for good. John Coltrane
She became a force for encouraging women to take control of their bodies and their health. Not to be intimidated by the experts, but to question and learn. If we can live until we die that is a goal to aim for, and I think everything I see about Suzanne Somers, she did just that, she was a role model to the end.
We can’t change what we can’t change but perhaps our attitude on how we deal with what life throws at us is what we can control. Living a life with cancer might look quite different from waiting to die of cancer. In the end, the amount of life might be the same but what if it isn’t the amount of years in our life, it is the amount of life in our years that counts.
We are being reminded every day it seems, that if there is something out there we want to do we better get to it. I wonder if Suzanne Somers ever said to herself, who am I, to talk about diet, hormones, and exercising, and then did it anyway. I remember talking about yeast overgrowth to my Doctor and it was a foreign concept at the time, but everyone is talking about gut health now.
We are sharing parts of our lives in podcasts, blogs, books, etc and some of it might be oversharing, but even that might help people learn things they need to know. None of us are getting out of this life alive, but if we share the lessons we’ve learned along the way, even if they are hard lessons, maybe especially if they are hard lessons we might help someone. Some people are sharing things that don’t put them in the best light, but perhaps they believe they may help someone else make better choices and avoid the mistakes they’ve made.
Life is messy, and they say confession is good for the soul. Perhaps when people can say, “Accept me warts and all, or don’t accept me at all,” they are strong. Strong people aren’t pretending they’ve never made mistakes; they acknowledge their mistakes and go forward better, not bitter.
Are we going forward better, not bitter? Are we learning the lessons others are trying to teach us?
The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation – a force for construction and destruction. Jonathan Haidt
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James
When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back. Yoda
Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
