I’m sharing my Part 4 in my angel series in about spiritual awareness at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine. In this edition, I’m discussing sequential numbers that often show up in our lives and how to interpret them.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Spiritual Awareness – Decoding Sequenced Angel Messages in Numbers by D.G. Kaye
Explore the spiritual side of our natures as D.G. Kaye shares her experiences and research into this element of our lives.
Welcome back to Part 4 in my Angel Messages series. In today’s post I’m bringing awareness to repetitive numbers we may come across and their meanings.
Are you noticing patterns of sequence numbers around you? When you look at the clock are you regularly seeing sequence numbers such as 1:11, 11:11, 2:22, etc.? Are you seeing these sequences around you in public places, at home, on license plates, ads, or anywhere else that may be trying to get your attention? These are divine sequence numbers where the angels are sending you messages by trying to get your attention. And all these numbers have numerological and vibrational meanings. These numbers that continue to show up around us are messages, letting us know something divine or magical is in the works, wanting us to pay attention and to take note of these numbers. Different numbers indicate different meanings.
Angels don’t barge into our lives to tell us things, they have their own way of letting us know things through messages using methods like numbers, nature, and divine messaging. Angels are bound by the laws of God and exist in a higher vibrational frequency than humans. They don’t invade our space unless we request their help or presence. It’s up to us to become aware of their messages and learn how to interpret them. But they can send us hints to beware through messaging, and by using number sequences it’s one of the popular methods they use to gain our attention – something like a nudge from an unforeseen force to pay attention. So, the angels communicate with us through our minds, often these repetitive numbers will occur frequent enough to call our attention to them. They can be warnings as well as magical numbers of the divine.
For example:
You may have noticed your last glance at the clock when heading to bed may have shown 11:11.
You may have woken up for a bathroom break and looked at the clock to find it showing 1:11, 2:22, etc.
The next day you might have purchased something with a receipt showing $11.11.
You get my drift?
This sequence may show up for a day or a few until it grabs our attention, making us curious enough to look up the meaning. Often these repetitive signs are also from our spirit guides or lost loved ones signaling an answer to confirm a nagging thought we have niggling at our minds to confirm our feeling. Angel numbers that repeat to us are thought to be sent through angelic vibrations. Also, pay attention to numbers that include your birthdate number… Please continue reading at Sally’s blog.
Today I’d like to welcome artist, Jerry Rubin to my blog with the first Q & A of 2022. I met Jerry this year in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Jerry is a fun guy. His humor just clicked with mine. Even his logo signature on his email says, ‘Ciao for now’, one of my favorite goodbye slogans. He’s a casual guy with a kind heart and has the perfect relationship with his other half, Wendy.
We all met in the pool. Jerry is an interesting guy with lots of talents and when I saw his art I was really taken in with his painting style of which I call somewhere between Warhol and Picasso -ish with elaborate colors, which attracts my eye. So one day in one of our afternoon group visits in the pool, I asked Jerry if he’d like to come over to my blog to be featured and he was happy to.
Jerry has done a lot of different entrepeneurial things in his career and was successful at them all, while having fun at what he was doing. To name a few, Jerry sent me this in an email, I wasn’t sure if he was telling me this stuff or wanted me to put it in his bio. And since he’s told me many stories about his glory days, this doesn’t surprise me:
About Jerry Rubin:
I have been virtually everything in my life except a “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and my journey is not over. For the last 10 years the evolution has been to full time artist, with many artistic and stylistic digressions along the way. My paintings now have a more graphic arts look, while maintaining my signature “bold and brighter than bright” colour palette. I intend for every one of them to make a statement, to be eye catching, and to be conversation pieces. My latest series titled “Animalia” captures the fun and joy I had painting them… and that the viewer hopefully shares.
I am a lifelong proud Winnipegger with paintings hanging in homes and offices worldwide. I have exhibited in galleries in Canada, the USA, and Mexico and am overjoyed to have been “The Artist in Residence” at “The International Gallery” in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for the past 7 years; sweet gig eh?
Jerry Rubin
A Bit more About Jerry:
I always had 2 or 3 businesses going while teaching: food manufacturing company, ice cream parlour owner, acrylic shelving manufacturer, sold 3,500 new items a year in the early eBay years, food concession for 17 years at the local fair (think PNE), day camp director, home renovation company, jewelry importer, author, and more. A college text book called “Small Business Entrepreneurship” had a chapter about my ventures. When I retired from teaching I took the little jewelry biz and pushed it… maybe too hard. It became a national coast to coast company with approximately 1,700 retail outlets that carried my products. I did about 30 wholesale trade shows yearly only for retailers two or three times a year in each of Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto (I had dozens of retailers in Toronto with the ROM being one of the biggies), Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax. During my business career, due to my experience in marketing my jewelry biz, I was recruited by a division of K-Tel to be their marketing consultant. Turned to art only after I sold the business. So, while I loved teaching it’s just a fraction of who I am.
.At 18 I entered the Faculty of Fine Arts but after 2 weeks I said, “Someday I’d like to eat for a living!” and switched to the Faculty of Education. Taught for 35 years while entrepreneuring, then full time biz once I “retired”. I loved and worked hard at teaching but loved business and probably worked harder then. Took up art only once I sold my business, about 10 years ago.
~ ~ ~
Jerry the artist has a quote he mentioned to me a few times in one of our pool chats: “I’d rather write than paint.” And I said, he can do both!
Jerry has done lots of writing for national business trade magazines in Canada and the US, always with a sense of humour/fun. He did a biweekly full page article for the PV Mirror at one time. Book reviews for the newspaper and a few articles for them. Articles for teacher magazines, etc.
“Honestly I think now that I’m busy messaging and texting people 8 hours a day on social media it has filled that need!” ~ Jerry Rubin.
Below are just some of the beautiful artworks of Jerry Rubin:
I do lots of dogs and cats… cuz dogs and cats sell; also fun to do. This shows some of my signature colours and kinda out-of-box squiggles, lines, shapes and forms that make my stuff unique. – Man, Woman and Children’s best friend.Let Sleeping Bears Lie – OK, besides dogs and cats, bears, lions and tigers are always in demand. The lettering add distinctiveness to this piece, but I also create that through the lines, squiggles, shapes, etc.Rhino – This guy (these guys) could have sold 3 times in 10 minutes. It was in a prominent gallery here in Winnipeg and the gallery sent out this image to their email list. The phone rang immediately and someone from Calgary bought it. In a few minutes another call, this time from Regina from someone who wanted it, then a good customer of the shop walked in wanting it. I was there at the time and we were all hooting and hollering. – Oxpecker on Dinner.A painting commission I did for a big Buddy Guy fan in Chicago who saw Guy perform in many clubs there. He took this painting to a club and between sets had Buddy sign it; I have the pic somewhere. – “I’ma Look Around and I’m Gonna Find Me A Mojo Hand.”
This one is my favorite because something about the color and especially the title draws me in. My husband used to call me, The Lady in Red.
The Lady in Red
Now, I’ll welcome to Jerry to my blog. I hope you enjoyed just some of his artwork. Now we’ll get into some Q & A and get to know more about Jerry.
Do some of your own character traits or personal experiences spill into your art?
“I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam”… OK so I’m not Popeye The Sailor Man but I yam irreverent, outspoken, colourful, creative, and with much enthusiasm uncurbed. Trust me I’m a whole hell of a lot nicer/kinder person than he is, but some of my friends call me “Jerry David” and I can see it.
DG – Lol Jer, you are a doppelganger for Larry David!
What type of art do you create and what is your favorite medium for painting, and why?
I have coined the phrase “Art That Pops” to describe my style cuz it’s sorta pop art and sorta not pop, but it definitely pops. Colour and lots of it is typically my trademark, in fact the depth of colour that I aim for is not available in a commercial form so I generally recoat each colour 4 times to achieve what I want. That’s painstaking and very labour intensive (nuts also comes to mind): the first coat is fun, the second coat not so much, the third coat is drudgery, and by the fourth coat I just wanna shoot myself in the head. I did a painting with an umbrella in it which had 17 different colours, so 17×4+=68 coats with drying time in between!!! Crazy.
DG – Wow, that is fascinating Jer. Who knew how much goes into a painting!
I love how you title your art. If feels as though you so effortlessly come up with appropriate titles. Am I right, or do you struggle with captions?
I have more fun thinking up the titles than actually doing the paintings, and once the title hits me the painting somehow gets better! A painting is much joy mixed with struggle, stress, frustration, and more brain power than anyone, other than an artist, can ever imagine. I go to sleep working things out in my mind and wake up the same way. I have occasionally solved an issue in my sleep; a subconscious “Eureka” moment. As Picasso famously said, “If the painting doesn’t give you trouble it’s no damn good.”
DG – I love that!
What spurs your creativity to paint?
Excitement is the stir stick. When I finally arrive at what I want to paint and have juggled the logistics around in my mind so I can pretty well picture it, I get almost (strike out almost!) giddy with excitement and can’t wait to begin. The fun never lasts through the entire work but it always begins and ends with that.
DG – I would have to add, just like writing. 😊
Is there an overall theme your collective art presents, or do you paint on a whim?
I go in themes and for the past year I’ve been doing a very unique form of Animalia art which has taken on a life of its own. By that I mean a few things:
1. I love every piece; before, during, and after
2. They are incredible fun to do
3. Everyone has a favourite animal so the appeal is broad and instant
4. They sell faster than anything I’ve ever done (how’s that for incentive?)
5. They are well priced; more expensive pieces require decisions but at their price range they can be impulse sales
6. I have been in galleries and shot the lights out with them
7. I even sold a piece to someone in Tehran! Tehran of all places!!!
DG – Seems to me you are a great marketing man too!
If you had a redo chance, would you have put art ahead of teaching?
Let me tell you about my teaching career and then you can decide. Usually I taught either grade 4 or 5 and my technique of hooking kids on learning was to tell stories, dance, sing, laugh, entertain… make the day a blast that they’d want to come back to. The kids thought I was God and it worked cuz I didn’t tell them I wasn’t.
DG – Lol Jer, you are so funny, but I don’t doubt for a moment how much the kids enjoyed you.
How do you promote your work? Do you find marketing overwhelming like many of us writers do?
Are you kidding? I’m a self promoter and believe that success in art isn’t necessarily based on talent but on “A Cult of Personality” ie: Andy Warhol, Dali, Picasso. There are millions of artists more talented than I but I’m much more successful than most because I market myself and my art through who I am. Sure I was a teacher but I had a huge success after teaching in creating a national company with 1,700 retail outlets and I did that the same way. That success led to a career as a marketing consultant for a division of the telemarketing industry giant K-Tel ,the the formation of my own marketing company BizBuilderCanada.
DG – You are definitely a ‘cult of personality’, and like I pegged your art when I first saw photos, Warhol/Picasso, and yes, definitely some Dali!
Thanks so much for visiting with us today Jer. Your artwork is so inspiring and I’m thrilled to be able to share it here with many readers and writing friends. I also hope they will visit your website and get more inspired.
Realms of Relationships – Wrapping up the Year and Covid Lingering Effects
Welcome to my Realms of Relationships post finale for 2021. I hope you all have been enjoying my articles where I share some of own experiences about different types of relationships. Next year I’ll be back with my travel columns and later in the year I’ll be back with more relationship talk, and maybe even something new! Today I’m sharing this post here I originally wrote for my monthly column over at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine.
In this edition, I want to talk about relationships that have been altered or have taken on new awakenings through the global pandemic we’ve all been living through for almost two years now.
Once all the lockdowns began, life as everyone knew it changed. Suddenly, moms and dads are working at home, trying to get their jobs done as they had to adapt to helping school their kids digitally – a feat in itself for the technically challenged.
How we’re affected by the ages:
Many couples forced to spend more time together during lockdown discovered they loved and missed going to work to get out of the house to avoid 24/7 with a partner, while some other relationships were strengthened in that time as many re-discovered, reconnected, and re-evaluated their relationships. Some friendships were strengthened, while some others were let go of as realizations and evaluations of our lives took place when we were restricted from seeing anyone. So many were affected from quarantine conditions from unemployment adding financial strains, dealing with sick and dying loved ones, disrupted homelife, home schooling and growing mental illnesses because of forced conditions having created havoc in so many people’s lives. Many statistics have been cited about the increase of divorce enquiries and proceedings. I also must make mention of the many stranded at home stuck in abusive relationships with no escape.
Young children are equally affected at differing crucial stages of their learning, as well as hampered social skills while not being able to play or interact in person with others. Many young children and toddlers missing crucial interacting at nursery schools and play dates spending two of their earliest years either missing social interaction – where they learn to socialize by playing and learning together with other children, while others too young to realize the way they are growing up in their earliest years at home isn’t situation normal.
Middle-grade and teenaged kids were desperately missing social interaction. As they craved their usual activities with friends at a time of exploration of the world at their curious ages, suddenly having their ‘regular’ lives ripped out from them stuck at home with family in their new constricted lives, have had to find ways to adapt. How many suicides do we even imagine have occurred because of the mental disruption of their lives?
The elderly have had to endure not only extra lonely times with aching hearts as their loved ones ached with the worry for them, but many of the elderly who rely on the help and visits from others were devastatingly left out in the cold. The long, lonely hours of being alone became so much more profound for both the sick and the agile – those that require daily visits for care, and those denied the ability for visitations from loved ones. Yes, digital apps helped to connect some and not others, became the backup for visual virtual visits, but there is no substitute for a real human visit where we can look into someone’s eyes and feel the love, a touch, a hug, and human physical compassion, and this missing of human interaction left a gaping hole in the hearts of too many.
The sick who couldn’t get proper medical attention and consequently dying before their time – like my husband, who died BECAUSE of the Covid epidemic halting regular doctor visits and no way to get into a hospital unless there was an evident and immediate emergency. Those that actually feared going to a hospital for serious ailments because they were afraid they’d catch the Covid inside the hospital. The undiagnosed cancers, deeming treatment too late – LIKE my husband. The strokes and heart attacks people died from because they refused to go to hospitals during Covid. The delayed testing for the so many with yet to have diagnosis that did and will ultimately end these people’s lives earlier than would have pre-pandemic. And the list goes on and on.
I know what I write of is merely touching on the tip of the icebergs as so many in the world have suffered losses – loss of lives, sickness, and financial draining. These devastations in all our lives in some way or another have become the rude awakenings for us, and worse for many more.
Realizations. This pandemic gave us all a time for reflection and reckoning, a look around, and insight as to who’s caring about us? I know I’ve certainly had startling revelations myself after losing my husband seven months ago and discovering that my own family (save for two) doesn’t have the time of day for me, as well as discovering that my husband’s family were just that – my husband’s family. This rude awakening for me just brought me back to Maya Angelou’s famous quote: “When people show you who they are, believe them.”
What I’ve learned during this pandemic: Keep your circles small and tight. It’s all about the quality of the people in our lives, not the quantity. And friends are the family we choose.
If anyone here would like to share some of your own awakenings and discoveries you’ve had through these trying times, please feel free to share.
Let us all pray for a better year globally, the sick to heal, the virus to die, and peace, love, and brotherhood to return to mankind.
Below are links to just a few articles on how the pandemic has wreaked havoc on many relationships:
This month’s Realms of Relationships column is about going ‘No Contact’. Sometimes in life we’re faced with becoming stuck in unhealthy relationships and that can mean anything from enduring an abuser or narcissist, but it can also relate to any unhealthy relationship we allow with someone in our life who demeans us, belittles, demands of us, or shows no interest or compassion for us, yet remain a part of our lives.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships – October 2021 – No Contact – The Breaking Point
No Contact – The Breaking Point
I write a lot here about difficult relationships, the challenges about them, the symptoms, and I share my experience and my resolutions about handling some of these conflicts. In this issue, I’m going to talk about the No Contact rule.
This method is usually a last resort to ending a relationship after several other remedies have been applied without success.
When we have struggled with people who hurt, ignore, or harm us, either mentally or physically, and there is no solution left for handling these people, other than continuing to put up with them or creating distance from them wherever we can, sometimes all we can do is go full-blown No Contact. Yes, you can read 100 books on psychology about these issues, but when we reach the last end of the rope where we can no longer endure a toxic relationship, this may become the only option we’re left with to seek peace.
So, what is no contact exactly?
No Contact means taking a firm stance to remove ourselves from another person’s life or situation. It can often be a difficult process, especially when feelings of guilt intervene, but this is sometimes necessary to bring back sanity and peace. And despite our decision to go through with the process, it can still be difficult. And sometimes, despite our decision to break free, we may still get swept back into that person’s drama. Friend or family, sometimes we just have to let go to save ourselves. No Contact means the relationship is over. This is a self-protective measure we should take when a relationship isn’t just not fulfilling us, but becomes bad for our mental health. It’s a measure that will often entail grieving the loss of that relationship despite our choosing to sever ties with that person.
So what is the process for No Contact?
First, we should set our internal boundaries. Once we decide to go No Contact, we must stop filling our minds with the situation and playing the hurt hits over and over in our heads. If we’re at this point in a relationship, it’s time to stop thinking about them, the hurt, the words, the guilt and the pain they’ve caused us, and think about ourselves. When we’ve exhausted every avenue of trying to discuss and fix, and they either don’t see the problem or aren’t interested in repairing anything, it may be time to banish them. Going No Contact is not only a physical action, but a mental one too.
Going No Contact means: no phoning, no texting, no engagement on social media or otherwise, no talking, no partaking in events around them. It means staying strong when confronted by those we’ve walked away from and remembering the many reasons why we chose to delete that person from our lives. The object is to remove our presence from their life.
Like any loss in life, we may well go through some of the grieving stages, similar to how we do when we lose a loved one. During this process, we may experience mixed emotions such as: I’m a bad person for doing this, I don’t want to make bad blood, I don’t want people to be angry at me. I know this ritual through my own experience. I lived it when I finally had to use it with my mother. And since my husband’s passing, I’ve realized a lot about the people who’ve been a part of my life with ‘new eyes’. One thing I know from experience is that a deep loss of a loved one will forever change you.
What can help when we’re weighing the scales about a certain relationship is to write out our feelings. Make a list of the pros and cons of the relationship in question. Look at the good parts and the painful parts. If the painful parts far outweigh the good and you’ve already given the relationship many chances with the same outcome, it may be time to consider this method.
Toxic people are manipulative people. They have an inherent knack for knowing how to overpower others. It’s important not to allow these people to define us by manipulating us into feeling obligation or guilt when we attempt to distance ourselves mentally and physically from that person. Going No Contact is often akin to abstaining from a harmful substance like drugs or booze. And just like going through any detox program, we will undoubtedly go through some withdrawal symptoms after removing a person from our lives. And yes, second thoughts, guilt, and remembering some of the better times, may all pop into our heads during the cleansing, but the idea is to remain strong in our resolution for a greater good. In essence, creating No Contact is self-love and for self- preservation. . . Please continue reading at Sally’s Smorgasbord
Welcome to my September edition of Realms of Relationships at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine that I contribute to monthly. There are many kinds of relatioships, but often, we forget about the one with ourselves.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships – September 2021 – The Relationship with Ourselves -Self-Care
Relationships with ourselves – Self-Care
Welcome to my Realms of Relationships column at Smorgasbord Blog Magazine. Today I want to talk about the most important relationship we can have, and that’s the one we have with ourselves. It’s often easy to overlook ourselves, especially when times are tense, fast, and frazzled with life’s daily grind. And if we have loved ones to care for on top of daily living, often, the last person being served is usually ourselves.
I’m a living testament of what self-neglect can leave behind as resulting damage. Often, we get so wrapped up in our lives and lose track of time – the time we let ourselves go. So yes, self-compassion and self-care are just as essential for us to live in good health – not just to survive.
Sometimes, some of the most nurturing people forget that taking care of others requires us to be in good health in order to care of someone else. But often in the middle of trauma, our focus often falls on the loved one we’re caring for – both young and old, without giving a second thought for our own well-being. I know this because I lived it.
Self- care encompasses the daily things we do for ourselves to keep our health in check – hygiene, eating properly, taking meds and required vitamins, and getting in exercise and enough sleep. Most importantly, any ailments we feel coming on should be dealt with as soon as possible once we notice things aren’t running as smoothly with our bodies, and not left to fester until such time we decide to stop pushing aside things a doctor needs to have a look at. And then there is emotional health.
If we are living through a stressful time, not just our physical health needs tending to, but, we need an outlet to relieve some of the mental angst that can sometimes translate to more physical ailments. Trust me, it’s not a myth, stress and worry have the ability to do great damage within us. Just like a health regimen followed daily creates cumulative benefits that add up daily, not following one will most certainly chip away at all the goodness we’ve already accrued through time as we continue to neglect ourselves.
Taking care of ourselves is vital for us to function optimally, but especially when someone else is relying on us to take care of them. When chaos or trauma strike, it shouldn’t mean that we abandon what’s important for us to remain in good health, but so often we’ll sacrifice what’s good for us and put others before us. Here’s what we need to know about taking care of ourselves:
Make sure to get enough sleep – not getting enough sleep can initiate other health problems.
Make mealtime a routine at least twice a day if you can’t manage three squares. If you eat a good breakfast it can sustain you through the day in case you do happen to miss out on lunch. But even more important to eat a healthy dinner, especially if we’re missing that lunch.
Don’t stop taking important vitamins and supplements, especially if you’re deficient in them. Not eating properly during stressful times, then not taking supplementation, doubles the drain on our bodies leaving us without efficient fuel or nutrients.
Take a timeout and go for a walk, read a chapter, listen to music – whatever you enjoy for a mental health break from high stressed life. If you’re caring for someone 24/7, arrange for someone to come by and give you a break for some down time and time to get household essentials looked after, and maybe even to eke out some personal time.
How I can attest to this advice? Because I became one of those self-neglecters.
During my husband’s illness when I was caring for him 24/7, the last thing on my mind was about what I needed. While my world was spiraling out of sense, I didn’t care about eating properly, sometimes not eating at all. I had no appetite. I’d sneak in a shower when my husband would sleep, or if one of his personal support workers were bathing him.
I was full of preliminary grief and anxiety, and I wasn’t hungry. . . Please continue reading at Sally’s Smorgasbord to learn the repercussions after we forget to take care of ourselves.
Today I’m sharing my recent article for my Realms of Relationship series at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – The topic is People Pleasers.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships -November 2020 – People Pleasers. Do you know one? Are you one?
Realms of Relationships: People Pleasers. Do you know one? Are you one?
People Pleasers are those who live perpetually by appeasing others—despite whether they’re happy doing so. And sadly, for some, the practice often becomes a programmable setting after so much time passes. People pleasing goes beyond the act of being kind, it means one who always puts the wants and needs of someone ahead of their own even when there’s no joy in it.
Let’s clarify. I’m not talking about something we may do with joy in our hearts for a loved one.
I’m referring to those who’ve somehow made themselves feel obligated to the point they’re taken for granted. So where do we draw the line with our urge to please others, to stop it from becoming a damaging regular occurrence to the point we become a doormat? And what is it that makes us so afraid to disappoint to the point we can’t say no? Mostly, these urges to be so accommodating have a lot to do with acceptance issues, low self-esteem, loneliness, and the possibilities are endless, because we worry we’ll be judged or unloved, unliked, ignored—you get the picture.
Let’s stop pretending, where does it get us? It gets us in a place we aren’t happy being, and it’s being inauthentic to ourselves. If we constantly agree to people’s whims and demands, putting others before our own needs, we need to learn how to draw a line for self-preservation.
Why do some of us feel compelled to bite our tongues while trying to avoid saying how we really feel about someone who takes advantage of our good nature? Why do some of us repeatedly get sucked into people’s drama, leaving us with a constant need to appease?
Think about it, if we aren’t comfortable around someone or have to walk on eggshells when in their presence, WHY ARE WE THERE?
~ ~ ~
How much courage do we need before we’re propelled to remove ourselves from situations that aren’t healthy or enriching, or maybe not even interesting to us? Okay, sure, there are just some things in life we must endure even if we don’t enjoy doing them, like having to go to the dentist or any other matter we must attend to, but that is a different conversation. I’m talking about repeatedly subjecting ourselves to things or people we don’t wish to serve, or going to places we don’t want to be, because it’s not productive for us or the other party when we do things without putting our hearts into them. Feigning interest isn’t fun and will eventually take its toll whether that be in the form of depression, anxiety, unease, boredom, and that’s not even counting our loss of happiness time.
But one thing is certain in life, we have free will. So why do we stay somewhere we’re uncomfortable staying, or go somewhere we don’t want to go, or do things for people who impose on us? We allow ego to take over our heart’s desire.
It’s one thing to feign we’re having fun when we’re not, but going somewhere we don’t want to be just to show good faith, respect, or whatever the endgame may be for going, is essentially accommodating someone else’s needs and inconveniencing ourselves. We need time to take a pause and assess. . .please continue reading at Sally’s Smorgasbord.
Welcome to my August edition of Realms of Relationships, my monthly column I write for Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Invitation. In this edition, I’m discussing Intuition and tips to learn how to learn to trust your own intuition.
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – D. G. Kaye Explores the Realms of Relationships – August 2020 – #Intuition – Do you trust your gut instincts?
Welcome to my August edition of Realms of Relationships. Today I’m going to talk about our intuition, how to trust it, and how to sharpen our own intuitive skills.
Intuition
What is intuition? There are a plethora of descriptions and explanations for intuition. But the basic mechanics of how it works is with our natural instinctual reaction – memories usually trigger something from a past lesson, which the mind often overlooks. In the same way we know when there’s danger around, intuition or our 6th sense, is automatically activated within us.
The term ‘gut instinct’ is often associated with intuition. But did you know there is a physical connection between the brain and the gut? This is no myth. Deep within the tissue of our guts is what’s called the enteric system. There is a scientific explanation for the correlation of things we feel internally, which are connected from the brain to the gut. When my intuition is trying to get my attention, it feels like an intestinal tug in the stomach is how I explain it. Thus, the said correlation between the brain and the intestines is a sign for me.
We’ve all had that ‘familiar’ feeling, often labeled as a déjà vu moment when our instincts pick up on a remembered moment from the past – which doesn’t necessarily mean the triggered sense of familiarity occurred in our present life, but perhaps from a past life? Déjà vu translates to ‘already seen’ from French. It’s a common term we all use when we come upon a moment that feels so familiar, having us feeling as though we’ve already been in or experienced that precise moment, quite possibly from another place and time, as it’s an inexplicable feeling without an exact recollection of where the experience was first felt.
Intuition is often referred to as ‘non-conscious emotional information’. Einstein had referred to it as a gift. It’s a sense of knowing without a rational and sometimes inexplicable fact. Many say that only psychics and mediums are guided by intuition, but intuition is a culmination of all things we’ve learned in our experiences that are stored in the archives of our minds, which quite possibly become the catalyst for our heightened alert system, ignited by a situation that feels remembered. Material retained is deeply buried within us, although we’re unaware of the influence the sum of our memories have on us. . . please hop over to Sally’s blog to continue reading.
Welcome to my Q & A today. I’m delighted to have one of my favorite historical fiction authors over here today, Paulette Mahurin.
As many of you who read my Sunday Book Reviews know, historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read in; and I was hooked on Paulette’s writing ever since reading her gripping book – The Seven Year Dress – the story of one woman who survived WWII and lived to tell. Recently, I reviewed her latest book – Irma’s Endgame, a medical mystery/thriller, which I enjoyed too. But today Paulette is introducing us to her book – The Old Gilt Clock. Paulette’s royalty profits are donated to save dogs from kill shelters.
About Paulette:
Paulette Mahurin lives with her husband Terry and two dogs, Max and Bella, in Ventura County, California. She grew up in West Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Science. While in college, she won awards and was published for her short-story writing. One of these stories, Something Wonderful, was based on the couple presented in His Name Was Ben, which she expanded into a fictionalized novel in 2014.
Her first novel, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, made it to Amazon bestseller lists and won awards, including best historical fiction of the year 2012 in Turning the Pages Magazine. Her third novel, To Live Out Loud, won international critical acclaim and made it to multiple sites as favorite read book of 2015.
Semi-retired, she continues to work part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in Ventura County. When she’s not writing, she does pro-bono consultation work with women with cancer, works in the Westminster Free Clinic as a volunteer provider, volunteers as a mediator in the Ventura County Courthouse for small claims cases, and involves herself, along with her husband, in dog rescue. Profits from her books go to help rescue dogs from kill shelters.
Thanks for being here today Paulette, I’m excited to learn more about your latest book too! Let’s get into some questions!
Where do your book ideas grow from?
As glib as this may sound, the tree of life and what spouts organically, what comes to me with spontaneous interest is where my ideas come from. I have a fascination and passion, naturally, about hard topics. Anti-Semitism, homophobia, women’s abuse, racism, to name a few and am drawn to these topics. Ideas come to me and if they hold an interest I research the subjects. For example, when I read of a little known man, a heroic historical resistance fighter whose last words were, “let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards,” I was instantly intrigued. What was this person’s life that brought him to these final words? That became the topic of my last novel, The Old Gilt Clock. The man, William Arondéus, was a World War II underground resistance fighter in the Netherlands who along with his collaborators managed to save the lives of close to a million Jewish people.
D.G. – It’s no secret I love your books, and it’s fascinating to learn what inspires you. I am drawn to same hard topics, and am always mesmerized by learning people’s actions and the whys of behavior, so no wonder I enjoy your books.
Do you have any advice you can share for new writers?
The best advice I think any writer can ever receive is what defines a writer is sitting down in the chair and writing. Like the Nike commercial, just do it, it’s the same with writing. Everyone has something to say. We all live stories. Our days have a beginning, middle, and ending. The same is true for all aspects of our lives.
We communicate to friends in stories, usually snapshots of events with personal judgments and narrative commentary thrown in. It’s no different for anyone who wants to write. You just sit down in a chair, put your hands on the keys, and punch in; vomit out what you want to say. Vomit out what you don’t want to say. Don’t hold back. And when the inaccurate critic inside your head starts complaining, you say to that critic, “Shut up!” It doesn’t matter if you sit for a minute or ten hours, typing your ideas down makes you a writer. Period. If you want to write a novel, a novella, etc. then that also is about sitting down and doing it. Tell what comes to you organically and don’t worry about editing, grammar, how flowery it sounds, and for Pete’s sake don’t listen to the inside of your head when it tells you that’s crap and you have no talent. We all have those voices, not a human being alive (with the exception perhaps of a malignant narcissist) who doesn’t have doubts, anti-creative thoughts, feeling it could be better, etc. you name it. Leave all that for after you finish writing what you want to. Then hand it over to an editor.
Writing is a process, the more time you put in the stronger your writing muscle becomes. Some of the greats hated their own work. Millions disagreed. We just can’t know how something we write will be received but if you never sit down and just do it then you miss the opportunity to find out.
D.G. – I love your advice. And I’m sure I speak for many writers when I say, we are our own worst critics.
Share with us a book that moved you so much it stays with you.
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. It is one of the most profound books I’ve read. A non-fiction account of Frankl’s imprisonment and experience in an concentration camp where he lost the love of his life, his wife, and parents. His entire family was wiped out and yet this incredible man watched others and observed the resilience of the human spirit shine through the worst of circumstances. A Viennese psychiatrist by profession, in the most unthinkable situation he saw other dance, sing, and go to their deaths laughing. With everything lost to him, he gained an insight:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl. I’ve never forgotten this. When dark times happen, I remember this and like a ray of sunbeam shining through a rainy cloud it lifts me.
Frankl made it out of the camps and went back to his psychiatric profession in Vienna, and was subsequently a visiting professor at Harvard. What a teacher he must have been. He certainly changed my life for the better—to me there is no better educator.
D.G. – Wow, I just got goosebumps Paulette. We both read a lot about the atrocities of mankind. I’m sometimes asked from some, why I want to read those sad war stories of evil and sadness. Because I can’t help myself from reading about the human spirit and how some people manage, despite almost zero odds, to overcome despite the heinous world they live through. And Frankl said it so succinctly. I will definitely be looking up that book. Thank you for sharing this. ♥
Blurb:
During one of the darkest times in human history when millions of innocent Jews and others deemed “undesirables” were being sent to concentration camps to be brutality worked to death or slaughtered, a group of Dutch resistance workers rose up against the atrocities. Their resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands created a vast counterintelligence, domestic sabotage, and communications network to help hide Jewish people from German authorities. The Old Gilt Clock is the story of how one Dutch resistance member, Willem Arondéus, risked his life to defy the Nazis’ plans to identify and deport hundreds of thousands of Dutch Jews. Arondéus’ courage is largely forgotten by history, but not by the Jewish and Dutch people. Written by the award-winning international Amazon bestselling author of The Seven Year Dress, comes a story of Arondéus’ courageous struggle to stand up to the unimaginable evil designs of Hitler. Inclusive is Arondéus’ battle to come out to his homophobic father, who hated his son’s homosexuality. It is also a story about friendships formed in the Dutch resistance movement, their joys and sorrows, their wins and losses, their loves and betrayals, and ultimately their resilience to oppose tyranny and oppression when millions stood silent condoning heinous behavior. Thousands are alive today because of these brave, compassionate men and women.
The Old Gilt Clock Excerpt:
Across the ocean in America, where Birgit now lived with her new husband and a baby girl, the Roaring Twenties were reaching an end. It had been a time when blues and jazz bled into the culture, a time of rags-to-riches for black entertainers when the American prosperity was a way of life. But as the end of 1929 approached, it all came to a sudden end with the stock market crash. Not limited to North America, the Great Depression created a worldwide economic desperation that would last well into the 1930s, impacting the Netherlands. It led to political instability and riots. Hit hard was Germany. Already in political turmoil with the rise of brutality in the form of the Nazi and communist movements and the economic destruction levied on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles’ imposition of reparations in the sum of 50 billion gold marks, opportunity was provided for the rise of Hitler.
The end of the roaring twenties took on a new roar. At first, it was a low rumble but by the end of the thirties heading into the forties, it was deafening. The earsplitting grandiose contra-life outcry included talks of plans to create murdering machines. Sane ears discounted the oppressive rumors as madness. Just the talk of idle idiots. Sadly, as ears became unwaxed and able to hear, it became clear they weren’t just listening to rumors.
“There’s no such thing as a gas to kill people.”
“Oh, there isn’t? What of the poisonous asphyxiant gas used in the United States to
execute condemned prisoners?”
Soon it would not be a far stretch from the talk of one criminal being put to death to a
vast number of undesirables. Undesirables! They are not human, according to the proponents, remembered Willem, as electric ripples moved up his spine.
Review:
Fifty Sheds of Books
5.0 out of 5 stars The Old Gilt Clock
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 5, 2020
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
During these troubling times when fascism is on the rise, it is good to see quality authors like Paulette Mahurin tackling serious issues. In turns, I found this story gripping, sad and uplifting. There appears to be two sides to the human coin: people of evil and their acolytes, basically bullies and cowards, against people who demonstrate amazing bravery and courage. This is a story of incredible bravery and courage, a story that young people in particular should read so that they do not make the mistakes of past generations and our generation.
I found the setting intriguing, the story impeccably researched and the storyline engrossing. The men and women of the Resistance were a breed apart displaying the best of humanity, and the author captures their special qualities in this wonderful book. Paulette Mahurin has created a back catalogue of impressive quality and this book sits with the others as one of her best. Without doubt, she is one of the most impressive novelists writing today.
Well, between the blurb, excerpt and this rave review, you know I can’t wait to sink my eyes into this book! Thank you for joining us here today, it was fabulous having you over Paulette. ♥
DGKayewriter.com 