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 

The Powerful But Difficult Task of Forgiveness

Recently I ran into an old neighbor of mine, someone that at one time I spent a lot of time with talking and reviewing our respective lives and often our divorces. This woman is quite a bit older than me and at first I had seen her as a kind of second mother to me since my own mother had passed away, but as I got to know her I realized that in many ways she was not a nurturing person as she had too much venom hiding just beneath the surface of her smiling demeanor. She was angry, bitter and often depressed by how her life had turned out. She held a major grudge against her ex husband who had cheated on her and treated her in ways that made her feel hurt and wounded.

When I saw her this time I asked her how she was doing. She told me that she was “Bad, bad, bad” – her way of telling me that she was depressed again. I talked to her a little bit about this and tried to give her some encouraging words. As we chatted she asked me what I had been up to and I told her about writing my book and how recently my ex husband and his significant other had given me a party to celebrate the publication of it. He had invited our children, their spouses and the grand children. I told her it was a wonderful party and how I felt loved and valued by them.

Her response to this at first was that she thought this was great but then she said that my situation was very unusual and then went on about how most people could not and would not have the kind of relationship we had, that this just was not possible for most divorced people. At this point she began talking about her ex husband, who by the way has been gone to the great beyond for at least 30 years – this woman is in her late 80’s – and how she simply could not forgive him for what he had done to her.

Forgiveness Is Not Condoning 

I then talked to her about forgiveness and how it was not a condoning of the person’s actions but a letting go of the anger, hurt and bitterness. I let her know that I knew this was not easy and often took some time – several years in many cases, but that eventually, if you do not forgive, that is, let go of the pain and bitterness and move on, this lack of forgiveness will both run and ruin your life and not only will you be a victim of whoever hurt you, but now you will be a victim of your own thoughts and feelings - a double whammy if there ever was one.

What I saw with this woman, and I would like for you to think about this in relation to your own life, is that her anger and resentment about her ex husband was part of her story and she regaled in telling it. She often used it to garner sympathy and used it as Carolyn Myss in her book Why People Don’t Heal, called a type of currency. She used it to get attention and to feel validated. She became a martyr. But now in the late stages of her life she was no longer getting much from telling this story, everyone had heard it and most of us, me included, had a kind of so what attitude. Since almost everyone has been hurt in one way or another by someone or some thing, who wants to hear the same old story, over and over and over again – not only was she getting older and moving into despair, her story had grown old and stale as well. She needed to forgive him and let go or she would leave this earth a miserable and angry person.

Integrity Vs. Despair

Erikson in his stages of growth and development calls this last stage of life Integrity vs. Despair. He says you have two choices in each stage of human development – the positive life affirming choice or the one that will cause you to live a dysfunctional life. But don’t wait until you are at the tail end of your life like this woman is, instead begin today to forgive and let go of what has hurt you in your past. You can take your time with it, but your goal needs to be to get to a place of forgiveness. So sit down and write out a letter to whoever has wronged you. Spell in out in as much detail as you want – use cuss words if that makes you feel better and then burn that letter. Or keep it for a little while longer – but don’t mail it, and then at some point burn or destroy it.

Put Them on Trial and Then Pardon Them

Another way to go through the process of forgiveness is to put the person on trial, metaphorically speaking. As Scott Peck has said “You can not pardon someone for a crime he has not committed. Only after a guilty verdict can there be a pardon.” This process involves making sure the person actually committed this crime against you. But do this on your own – don’t involve others, except for one witness or possibly a therapist or minister. Write out their offense, gather evidence and then do your own sort of mock trail of them. Once you feel certain they are guilty – let some time pass and then when you feel ready, burn or otherwise destroy all the evidence in a ceremony of forgiveness – if you want to, you can invite a witness to the ceremony, but then once you have done this make a point to consciously move on.

Don't Forget to Forgive Yourself

One other important thing - make sure to forgive yourself as well, particularly in cases where you had a choice to either stay or leave the person or situation.  We often need to forgive ourselves for our part in what happened since many of us have reasons for staying and not seeing what we could have seen had we wanted to or were willing to take the risk to leave.  This is sometimes more difficult than forgiving someone else, if you need help with this you might consider a therapist or a minister.  

The Four Stages of Forgiveness 

Sometimes when something bad happens to us, particularly a hurtful thing done by someone close to us, we want to get over it as quickly as we can and so we rush to forgive them since the conventional wisdom is to do this, just as I am suggesting here.  But it's important to spend some time in grieving what happened and not go too quickly into saying you forgive them - let some time pass, let yourself feel hurt and upset.  This is normal - but then get on with what I have written here.  As Estes said in her book Women Who Run With the Wolves we should, "... Forgo - leave it alone...Forebear...abstain from punishing...Forget - to aver from memory, refuse to dwell and last to Forgive - to abandon the debt."
If you do the things I've talked about above and the ideas of these other writers, then  I guarantee you that your life will begin to feel powerful and energized. 

Blessings, Lorraine

Remember to check out Lorraine’s new book, Second Act Soul Calls – Your Guide for the Re-Invention of your life at Midlife and Beyond with Passion, Purpose and Possibilities – available now on Amazon. 

Ten Signs You’re either a Perennial or Late Bloomer

I saw on my Internet home page a few months ago that Davy Jones, of the 60’s band the Monkey’s, died of a heart attack – he was 66.  That’s a good twenty to thirty years earlier than the average baby boomer.  The 66 year old's I know are in excellent health and are very interested and involved in life.  What happened to Jones?  That’s a good question and one that I probably will never know, but what I do know is that being a late bloomer, that is someone who continues to grow and develop and yes bloom late in life, or those who are perennial bloomers, the ones who have been blooming all along, are the ones who have the last laugh and enjoy life well into their 80’s, 90’s and beyond.  I have identified ten things that separate the early bloomers who die young and the perennial and late bloomers who live long soulful lives. 

1. They move into new things and new challenges as they move along in life and don’t hang on to their youthful exploits and accomplishments.
2. They value and respect their age but do not deny it or focus on it.
3. They make sure they continue to learn and grow throughout life and do not allow thinking about “getting old” to enter into their belief system or their self-talk. They do not engage in jokes about this. 
4. They take care of their bodies, their minds and their spirits by eating right, exercising, being optimistic and having faith in their abilities to negotiate the course of their lives, no matter where it takes them. 
5. They have identified their gifts and talents and are using them in service to something bigger than their own comfort and pleasure.
6. They avoid negative thinkers and those who accept aging as a slow slide into oblivion by by remaining engaged in the mainstream of life.   
7. They know that making a contribution to the greater good is what’s really important to a well-lived life and they are busy doing that.
8. If they have unfinished business from the past they make a point of attending to it and learning and growing from what has happened to them along the way. 
9. They forgive those who have hurt them and ask for forgiveness from those they have hurt and then they let go, disengaging from any on-going conflict, chaos or old resentments. 
10. They are grateful and reverent about life whether they do this via a religion spiritual path or simply by living each day feeling blessed.   

My guess about Davy Jones is he tried to hang on to his rock star status and this is simply not possible for the long haul.  He needed to move on from that into something that allowed him to grow and develop and also to give back what he had been given.  I see this, at least, at this time, with Steven Tyler, now in his early 60’s, who became a judge on American Idol last year.  He’s still holding on to his rock star image, but is also moving into a more mentoring stage of life.  Of course, the jury is still out on him. It will be interesting to see if he can truly transition into a musical sage rather than someone who still wants to perform with the twenty year old's. 

But that is what he will need to do or do what Bob Dylan has done, continue to perform but get into art or something else as well.  Dylan has authored three books of his drawings and his artwork is now on display in a prestigious gallery in NYC. 

So, whether you are a perennial or a late bloomer, rejoice in your life, it’s better to bloom late than never to have bloomed at all. 

Blessings, Lorraine

Five Steps to Becoming Authentically Powerful

Most people think of power as something they have rather than something they are.  They see power as residing in some thing, this thing resides outside themselves such as a large bank account, a prestigious job or a position within an organization or group.  But this is power of position, status, money or rank.  People who have this kind of power can lose it in a heartbeat.  They lose their job, they lose the election, the stock market crashes, they go bankrupt, the people they have power over outgrow or out distance them in some way and no longer see them as powerful as they once were, or they grow older and are no longer seen as significant or important.  There are many, many ways of losing external power. Authentic power, on the other hand, comes from within and cannot be taken from you.  People with authentic power emanate this power by who they are and not from what they own or what position in life they hold.  They feel confident and in charge of their lives and have influential power where other people are concerned, but they never try to have power over anyone but themselves.  Below are five ways of developing authentic power: 

Step One – Value yourself and the gifts you have been given.  We are all gifted – figure out what your gifts are and begin to use them today in your work and personal life.     

Step Two – Develop emotional boundaries. People with authentic power have solid emotional boundaries and understand when to say no and when to say yes.  They don’t expect other people to take care of them emotionally or do their emotional work for them, nor do they do this for others.  They set their own boundaries and they enforce them.  If they say no, they mean it and if they say yes, they follow through.    

Step Three– Reprogram your inner dialog.  People with authentic power have an internal dialog with themselves that is positive and proactive.  If you want authentic power then change your internal dialog from evaluations of yourself and others – both negative and positive  – to thoughts about how beautiful and challenging life is and what you can do to make the world a better place.      

Step Four – Be a person of integrity.  Develop your character by never lying, cheating or stealing by being very conscious of the insidious ways we can do these things by using denial.  Not telling yourself the truth of your own culpability in life's problems is one of these forms of denial.  Also connect the dots in your life and take full responsibility for the state of your life.  Learn from your mistakes and do not blame others or circumstances for the failures or messes in your life.   

Step Five – Work hard and commit yourself to accomplishing what you can with the gifts and talents you have been given.  If you are a writer, then write, if you are an artist then make beautiful pictures, if you are an engineer then build something, if you are a teacher, then teach someone, if you are a doctor then heal someone, if you are a lawyer then defend someone or some thing, if you are a mother then nurture your children, if you are a chef then make a delicious meal, if you are a business person then make or sell something, if you are a technician then fix something, if you are a grocery clerk then ring up that sale and smile at your customer.  In other words, no matter what you are gifted to do – get busy doing it.  Accomplishments build self-esteem and self-esteem builds authentic power. 

If you do these five things you will become a person with authentic power and any loss of the other kinds of power will only produce a temporary sense of unease but in the long run won’t affect your sense of well being since you have built a foundation of internal power which can’t be taken away from you via external events or situations. 

Blessings, Lorraine