Writing to Your Soul - Class - In Denver or Online

Hello my faithful blog readers:

I am teaching a class both online and in Denver on Writing to Your Soul.  It's for women at midlife and beyond.  Below is the info on it.  It will be fun, enlightening and inspiring!  Come join me and other women in a class that may just change your life!

Evening or Saturday 
or OnLine



Writing to Your Soul 

A six Week Class For Women at Midlife and Beyond

Writing as a way of accessing your soul

Writing as way of hearing the voice of your soul

Writing as a means of talking to your soul

Writing as a soulful experience

Writing as a way of finding your passion and purpose in the second half of life

Tuesday September 17 – October 22 - 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Or Saturday September 21- October 26 - 1-3 pm

Or Online - Beginning September 17 or when you sign up

Special Price of Only  $260 - Central Denver location near I-25 and Hampden  (Location will be email to you when you sign-up).  Please email me at lorrainbanfield@msn.com or call me at 303-273-5589 to register.  You may use the PayPal button on my website to pay for this class at www.lorrainebanfield.com. or I will send you my mailing address via email if you want to write a check.  

On-Line Class - For those not in Denver or who want to do the work on-line.  On-line class will have same content and will include email discussions and support.  This class also begins mid-September.  Please call or email Lorraine to register. 

Become a Rainbow Mother and Wise Father to Yourself

When people ask me what kind of mother I was to my kids growing up I tell them I was a rainbow mother.  Of course. most people look at me with a quizzical look on their faces and then I explain what I mean.  A rainbow mother is a mother who gives her children roots and wings.  She teaches them by her example that certain things are important like telling the truth, being true to yourself and who you are at a deep level, being generous to others, doing your homework, both in school and in life, working hard, but working smart, being creative, taking risks, but not taking foolish ones, going outside your comfort zone from time to time and simply being the best person you can be given the cards you were dealt. A rainbow mother spends her time trusting that her children will do the right thing rather than worrying about what might happen.  She shows them by her actions that she believes in them, loves them the way they are, and she has faith that they will find their own way. She is there for them when trouble shows up but she does not cripple them by taking over and solving the problem herself.  Of course, I was not always perfect at this, but this was my goal.  I read books on parenting and I remember my own mother when I had a problem with my children, but mostly I trusted my instincts and tried not to get too caught up in the parenting style of the moment.  Now my children are grown and both are doing great - I am proud of them, not for what I did but for what they did themselves - they are both awesome and terrific. By the way, they also made great choices in husbands too.

Allowing the Dark and Rainy Days Their Due

But today, what I want to talk to you about is being a rainbow mother and a wise father to yourself, not to brag about myself or my kids.  Here's what I know - one of the things a rainbow mother does is allow her child's bad days, rainy days, dreary days to be just that - a time to be nurtured and a time to take a break from the "doing" of life.  If you're a parent, whether your children are still in the nest or have flown out on their own, or if you will think about yourself when you were a child, you know or will remember that children have their bad days, their sick days, their mad days and their just plain awful days.  What a rainbow mother does in these situations is remember the idea of roots and wings.  She wants to give her children the roots of good values, of fine character and to demonstrate generosity of spirit to her child.  We can do this for ourselves as well, when we have a dark and dreary day.  When we allow ourselves this time to not do anything, to not make any decisions, to not try and figure anything out, we are being a rainbow mother to ourselves.  By the way, you can be a rainbow mother to yourself whether you are male or female, as we all have access to both male and female energies within our psyche.

Nurture the Spirit - Give the Ego Something Else to Do 

In my book, Second Act Soul Calls, I talk about the dance of the ego and the soul, but what I want to talk about here is how the ego, when you have a bad day, a rainy day, a dark and dreary day, can interfere in the process of getting to the rainbow.  Let's go back to the idea of the rainbow mother.  The rainbow mother knows that you have to have the rain so you can have the rainbow, the flowers and every other good thing on earth.  The rainbow mother is in touch with her soul, but she also has a strong ego.  If you, as an adult ask yourself what's wrong, why are you having a bad day, what's the deal here?  The ego as the house manager of the psyche will get busy giving you an answer.  One of the answers may be that you just don't have time to be sick, in a bad mood, or pandering to your soft side.  The ego is the task master, the Master Sargent, the man in charge of you, at least that's how it feels.  But think about what that rainbow mother would do with a sick child - she would put him or her to bed with a favorite book, bring up some chicken soup, maybe a can of 7-up to sooth his upset stomach and let him watch his favorite video.   She would tuck him into bed and maybe even read him a story or tell him about a time when he did something awesome and cool. She would nurture him and let the bad day have it's due.  She will tell the ego to go do something else.

The Something Else the Ego Can Do - Become a Wise Father

Remember the roots and wings idea?  Well, that's what the ego needs to do when you as an adult have a rainy/dark day, it needs to bring forth the roots you have in life and review them, so that when the rainy day is done and the sun comes back out you can fly into that rainbow and do your thing.  The ego then becomes like a wise father - he will remind you of what you believe in, what you value, who you value and what really is important to you in your life - in other words, the roots of your life.  The rainbow mother is busy nurturing you and the wise father is reminding you of who you really are and what matters to you.  In a way, he's like Yoda from Star Wars - he reminds you of what's important and in this way, when the rain stops, that is, your dark day is over, you can get back to the things that matter to you.

So the next time you have a rainy, dark and dreary day, let your rainbow mother nurture you and your spirit back to health, but also let your wise father remind you of who you really are and what you believe in so that when the dawn comes the next day, you will feel refreshed and ready to tackle whatever is up for you.  

Blessings, Lorraine 

Take a Risk Today and Bring Out the Fearless, Brave and Resilient You!

I'm busy this week sending out my book to newspapers, magazines and churches for reviews and for possible sponsorship.  I'm excited about the possibilities but I'm also a little bit scared of getting rejected or told my work is not up to par or some sort of negative feedback.  But then I happened onto this picture and it inspired me to think of myself as fearless, brave and resilient like I was when I was a little girl.  I also remembered this poem I wrote once in a writing class. When I was a little girl I was like the girl on the tire swing - full of energy and with a fearless desire to see and do everything I could, even the scary things.  That little girl or the spirit of her still resides deep inside me - so she is busy helping me mail out my books.  Meanwhile I have a wish for you.  

Today I wish that you remember yourself as a child, especially those times when you were fearless and brave.  We all have that same fearlessness within us - all we have to do is remember it and take some risk we have been avoiding.  Even if you get a rejection or don't win or get what you were after in this fearless act, you will gain self confidence and the next time you risk something, it will be a lot less scary.  As one of the great philosophers, Nietzsche, once said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  So go out and do something you are just a little bit afraid to do - don't risk your life, of course, but do something that takes some bravery, some willingness to fail or be rejected and I'll bet you'll come out stronger, in fact, if you don't feel stronger, call me and I'll  help you find that within your heart because, I know it's there - you just have to learn how to access it.  Okay here's my poem:

 Wounded Flowers

Strolling along a wide boulevard, a young family

enjoys the dappled sunlight streaming through

the branches of magnificent old magnolia trees

There are stately mansions in the plantation style along the street 

and a black wrought iron fence protects the manicured lawns

and flower beds of what the little girl's daddy calls, "Rich people’s houses"

Mama pushes the baby stroller while daddy tells her stories and

makes her laugh.  He leans in to kiss her but she flaps her hands at him

and says, “Stop that, I told you no I don’t like that in public”   “Oh come on

Sugar, you know you like it” Daddy says and smiles the smile that

always gets him what he wants

The little girl a mere four and a half, is skipping along feeling like a princess

in her lovely yellow dotted Swiss sundress with the big white bow in the back

Every now and then she looks down and admires the shine of her new black 

patten leather Sunday shoes. She stops now and then to check out a ladybug 

or to pick a dandelion

Her brother, two years older runs ahead but keeps dashing

back to tell them what he has seen.  He tells his sister to be

careful, he saw a bulldog behind one of those fences just now

and reminds her that she better not be picking any

flowers from inside the fence," cause mama said"

Suddenly she spies a fallen magnolia blossom and picks it up and

shows it to her mother who tells her to be very careful, that

they are very fragile and will turn black if you touch the petals.

“Oh, I will be careful, Mama”, she says and cradles the branch with

the blossom in the crook of her arm like a baby.  When she

gets home she puts the beautiful blossom in a tall vase and makes sure

no one touches its delicate, velvety petals. 

Years later, when the little girl becomes a woman she wonders why

some people, like the magnolia are so beautiful, and yet so fragile and 

easily wounded, while others, like the sunflower are so resilient. She only

hopes that she is like the sunflower and not like her mother a beautiful

but wounded flower turning dark and wilted from the touch of those she loves

  

Blessings, Lorraine 

Lorraine is an author, speaker and Rainmaker whose book Second Act Soul Calls – Your Guide for the Re-Invention of Your Life at Midlife and Beyond with Passion, Purpose and Possibilities is available now online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.    

Carrying On Where Your Mother or Father Left Off

My father was a country music songwriter but he was never able to be successful at it for many reasons, mostly because of the times he lived in, the commitments and obligations to a family of eight children he and my mother produced and because, in truth, he had too many demons in his psyche to ever truly be able to do what his soul called him to do.  But he left this legacy for me to take up in his stead.  I’m not a songwriter but I am a writer and even though it took me many years to allow my soul to have its way, I am now a full-fledged writer. 

In another case, a friend of mine’s dad contracted TB as young man and was sent off to a sanatorium to live in an iron lung until he recovered.  He did recover and marry and have two children but worked his whole life at something that was never even close to being a call of his soul – it was just a job.  But when he retired he outfitted his basement workroom with all the tools of the trade of a wood working genius.  He started making furniture and other things out of wood and his soul began to express itself in a way that it had never done before.  Now, his son is a video producer, who also had many jobs he hated before he found his niche and now spends his time in his studio making beautiful visual objects for others to see and enjoy.

A woman I know recently told me about her mother, who back in the 40’s and 50’s wrote poetry in her spare time, mostly in secret, and sent them out to magazines and newspapers.  She had a few of them published but was never able to fully engage in her passion due to commitments, obligations and from societies ideas of what a woman should and should not do with her time.  Now, her daughter, a woman who did go out into the world and earned a Ph.D and had a successful career in academia.  Now in her late sixties she has written a novel and is contemplating writing others, taking up where her mother left off.   

Turning Trials and Tribulations into Art

What I see with each of these stories is that often we take up where our parents left off.  Maybe they were not able to answer their soul’s call fully and died with their music only half heard or expressed but we, the baby boomer generation, who are often called the deviant generation, can deviate from this norm and take up with where they left off.

Of course, it does not have to be a direct connection such as song writing and other kinds of writing or creating beautiful objects; it could be an unfulfilled dream of another sort.  Maybe your mother always wanted to go to college but was not able to or your father, as in Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle, wanted to create this beautiful home made of glass but was never able to do that.  But now, his daughter has created a beautiful life for herself out of the experiences of that childhood.  Rather than lament the circumstances of her life as a child or even the circumstances of her mother’s life now – her mother often lives on the street as a homeless person - she took her life experience and made art out of it. If you have not read this book I highly recommend it as a way of re-painting the picture of an experience in a way that shows the beauty of it and not simply the trials and struggles of it.  If you would like to hear Walls talk about her mother and father and the life her and her siblings endured with them, then go to YouTube and put in Jeanette Walls. 

Carrying On from Undeveloped to Well Developed   

But maybe it’s not a particular accomplishment in the conventional sense but maybe something else they were unable or unwilling to do.  My own mother was very shy and felt uncomfortable around people she did not know.  She did not express herself and what she believed in to anyone but family and even then she was reticent.  She had little confidence in herself except as a mother.  She did not go out into the world and allow herself to be seen, so now here I am a woman who, as one of my friends said, could talk to a chair.  I am not shy at all – well, not too much, sometimes Mama does show up and I get tongue tied, but not often.  I saw my mother feeling embarrassed and fearful when she was put on the spot by others, so I decided early on to fight that tendency in myself. 

It could be something else as well, maybe your father or mother was just a bit too big for their britches – maybe they were arrogant, narcissist and uncaring and now, what you see in yourself is a bit of that same thing.  So begin there to carry on where they left off by becoming more conscious of others and their needs and not always just looking at and paying attention to your own.  A narcissistic person is someone who leaves off developing themselves – we are all narcissistic to begin with but around puberty we are given the chance to see someone else’s point of view, but some of us choose to remain narcissist and arrogant.  If you had a parent who was like this then it might be a good idea to check out how you relate to others to see if you too might be like them as well and decide to carry on in a different way than how they did it.  

Regardless of what your parents accomplished or did not accomplish or how they were as people, there is always a way you can carry on, in a positive, life affirming way where they left off.  Think about it and I’ll bet you can find something you can do now that will not only carry on where they left off but give homage to their life as well. 

Blessings, Lorraine