Jan Marquart's Blog, page 6

Ever have trouble getting to sleep? Are you angry at someone who just won't confess to his/her part of a problem? Afraid of what you have to do to solve a problem at work?

Sometimes our lives are full of incidences that take over our minds. We find our days split between what we are doing and what we are feeling. When these two elements get too separate from each other we suffer.

Did you know that ninety percent of primary care physician office visits are due to stress related illnesses? Doesn't that just make you stunned?

When we get stressed emotional toxins take root in our bodies and that can mean all sorts of complications. So how do you fix that? Do you take a pill for the physical problem or begin to explore the underlying root cause? Well, here is my suggestion.

Write. Yes, the simple act of moving a pen or tapping your fingers like rain drops over computer keys can help you acknowledge, own, and resolve the stressful issues keeping you awake at night and preoccupying you during the day.

In my book Write to Heal, 78 pages, which can only be ordered on my site: www.JanMarquart.com for $8.99, I quote scientific studies, provide writing prompts, and offer guidance to express these underlying matters with writing techniques.

The written word is powerful. Given the fact that cliches derive from the truths of life the cliche: the pen is mightier than the sword holds a significant amount of weight.

My suggestion for this new year is to take up your pen and write out all those matters that are slowly eating you alive. I suggest the pen rather than the computer because it seems to have a much more intimate connection to the heart matters. I don't know why that is but you can try it out. Write something from the heart using a pen and then write it again on the computer. For me there is a distinct difference. But it might be different for you.

The point is to write. Write deeply.
Write until you can't write another word. Watch, listen, and let everything pent up inside find its way to the page.

Don't worry about someone finding it. Burn it, shred it, bury it. Just -- do it.

Here's to a clean start for the new year.
Until next time,
Jan

My essay Old Friends just came out in the new publication http://www.ladyinkmagazine.com/

Check it out.

Happy New Year,
Jan

Why wait until New Year? Why not start right now to become the quality person you want to be. Isn't there too much needless suffering due to resentment, confusion, lack of forgiveness, and understanding of some of the painful situations we live?

At the end of three decades, after trying everything I could imagine, I sat with my distress and tried to figure out how I could save myself from more needless and confusing suffering. I picked up my pen and began writing and the rest is history.

What came out of this exercise to exorcise was my book The Basket Weaver.

Here is an excerpt. (In this scene Alana is trying to enter a past life experience in Tulum to do some healing with her sister. Molo is the healer.)

“Listen carefully: you will not die. Now is the time to use your strong will.”
Hot tears slide down my cheeks. I can’t drop into Tulum, but something has happened because I can’t get back to Molo either.
“Do as I say, don’t get lost in a fake reality. Your emotions are real, but they belong to an illusion. Find the strength from your dream and nourish yourself. Call up that strength and let it take you to Tulum.”
Everything feels dark and ominous. I am lost, lost in space, lost inside myself, lost from all sense of worlds. I feel turned inside out.
Molo’s voice comes through like strong wind. “Accept and acknowledge the present moment. Allow it to be. Embrace it.”
I allow the feeling of nothingness, become one with it, and then suddenly I drop into Tulum’s meadow. Kikuat is near a tree and catches my eye, smiles, and walks away. My sister comes near, giggling with her friends. I describe the scene to Molo.
“See? See how as soon as you stop fighting yourself, reality is more available? Now, stay mindful of each moment no matter how it feels. Then you will find your way back to yourself. Whatever you are feeling, let yourself claim it. Know this: your sister is not your source for love. No human being is your source. If you don’t see this, you’ll never overcome the power you give others over you.”
I turn to face my sister and tell her I am not her enemy. I let her know that I really want to be her friend. She pulls back to get more distance. I know this moment is crucial. I stop, unsure of what to do next.
Molo’s voice instructs me to find a quiet place. I walk to a large banana tree and sit.
“Good. Now is the time to realize that you are not what others say you are. So, tell me, what makes other’s judgments about you true?”
“Well, I must have done something wrong, or they wouldn’t have these judgments.” My heart squeezes tight.
“No, listen to my question. Tell me, what about you makes their judgments true?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” I respond.
“Alana, even if you did something horrible to your sister, why wouldn’t she bring it to you for resolution instead of holding it against you? That is what healthy people do. Think beyond this. There are two possibilities: one, she has an inability to solve her own distress without rage, and two, there is no problem except her own interpretation which she is not willing to re-assess. Neither option says anything about you; they say something about her.”
Surprisingly, I can smell the vanilla fragrance wafting up from the lit candles in Molo’s living room. I laugh. For the first time I see my sister as a stranger, unattached to me, and it tickles. I have two bodies now, the one on the moist grass in Tulum and the one on a chair in Molo’s living room.
“Good. You have become light, laugh more.”
I laugh again.
“Stay there and laugh for a while.”
I giggle for a few moments, uncontrollably. I see love emanating from me.
“Good,” Molo says again. “Now look over at your sister. Do you see her?”
I nod.
“Ask yourself why you seek her love if she isn’t good to you.”
“She’s my sister. I love her. Why wouldn’t I want her to love me in return?”
“I understand. We each want love from those we love. However, she isn’t giving you love. She isn’t giving you respect or kindness or any of the other qualities that comprise love. What are you going to do about that?”
“I guess I can try harder.”
“You think that will work?”
I stop, pick up a dry banana leaf off the ground, and snap it in half. “No,” I say sadly. “But…I have to do something.”
“Why?”
“To be loved back.”
“That’s not good enough.”
A slight wind blows my hair; the salty wind cools my hot tears. I take a deep breath.
“Yes, your soul wants you to let in some fresh air.”
“I feel light now, but when I think of my relationship with my sister, I feel a sickening struggle.”
“Yes, what if you stayed in the lightness?”
“It’s painful; I’m getting angry.”
“Why?”
I get an urge to run as fast as I can.
“Why?”
“I don’t like the price of the lightness.”
“Stay in the moment.”
“I feel a little stronger,” I announce.
“Good. You have given your body back its strength.”
Just then my sister interrupts, and I stand to face her.
“You aren’t getting your baskets; they are mine. Do not ask me for anything anymore because I will never help you. I don’t like you.” Her veins push out of her neck, and her eyes are venomous.
Within seconds the strength drains out of me. I fall to my knees from the impact of her words; they steal my breath. I try to find the strength to stand. My knees buckle.
“I am coming in to get you,” Molo calls. She appears on the grass in front of my sister. “You are angry with her?” she asks my sister.
“Yes.”
“Why is that?”
“She is always telling me what to do. I hate her.”
“Do you need guidance for what to do?”
My sister glares at Molo out of the corner of her eyes. “No. I can make my own decisions,” she bristles.
Molo turns towards me. “Tell your sister that from now on you will let her make her own decisions. Tell her that it is you who doesn’t want to have a relationship with her anymore. Tell her she can keep the baskets, but each time she uses any one of them, she will be reminded of how much you love her. Love and let go. Love her in your heart if you must, and let go of her. Turn this over to God, your true source of love. You must do this or a part of you will die while it’s waiting for her to love you in return.”
Molo turns me around to face my sister. “Tell her when she learns to be kind to you, you will be there for her. Until she finds a place of kindness for you, you will remain distant.”
I turn to my sister and say what Molo wants me to say. Molo’s hands are pressing my shoulders. We wait for my sister to respond. Arrogantly, my sister turns and walks away. Molo walks me to the banana tree and pushes me to sit.
“It is better for your sister if you stop sending her love. Send it to healthier places. Make space between you two so you can move fully into the present moments of your own life. No one ever knows what someone will do when they are given the space they think they want.”
“So making space between us is good for her?”
“Yes, it is good for her, and for you too.”
“Really?”
“There is no other way.”
She takes my hand, and together we reenter her living room. I feel the chair under my legs and my feet on her velvet carpet. When I open my eyes, she is sitting in front of me holding out a glass of water. I take it and drink fast. All thoughts and emotions evaporate. My body goes limp.
“How do you feel?”
“I feel…I feel…empty.”
“Good,” she nods in approval, “feeling empty is a form of peace. It is a place of great space. Emptiness is a place of great beginnings.”

end of quote. I do hope that this passage gives you food for thought so in this new year 2012 you will have healthier relationships with everyone you know and yourself.

The Basket Weaver can be ordered at:
www.createspace.com/3553668 or www.JanMarquart.com

Happy New Year!
Until next time,
Jan

I just reviewed my friend Maxine Davenport's new book Saturday Matinee. You can read it on my blog:

http://freethepen.wordpress.com/2011/...

Until next time,
Jan

Every woman is a daughter and every daughter knows the powerful and enigmatic facets of her relationship with her mother. It is unlike any relationship she will ever have. It doesn't matter if daughters were raised by their mothers or not. Not being raised by their mothers is just as powerful for daughters as having been.

I wrote Echoes from the Womb, a Book for Daughters www.createspace.com/3546083 in order to help me understand myself better and what I had gone through with my mother. I wrote for a decade before I was able to assimilate the many kinds of experiences I had as a daughter. At first I had tried to understand my mother and her mother before her. Although that was interesting it wasn't very helpful in changing my pain into wisdom or a healing experience.

In order to do that I had to write about me, what was it like to be my mother's daughter, and what was it going to take to step into my own life without her and heal.

As a psychotherapist, I counseled too many women crying in my office about their relationships with their mothers. It was heartbreaking. I added some of these stories into the book.

I didn't want my book to be something women read and then slipped back on the shelf. I wanted it to be a book women used to guide them through their own experiences. In order to create that kind of book I thought it best to include writing tasks that would lead daughters into the depths of how their identities as women were formed and what the relationship with their mothers meant for them.

This book has dulled the pain I carried for most of my life in relationship to being my mother's daughter. It brought new revelations about who I am and who she was as a woman in her own skin. It showed me that my mother did the best she could and that I, too, did the best I could as her daughter. It showed me that my healing had nothing to do with her, where we were the same, and where we separated into our own identities.

I hope every teenage girl learns this point of difference. I hope every daughter knows where her own glory stands.

Writing is visionary. Do you believe that? Good. Because it is. When we read anything, be it a novel, essay, poem, we get a glimpse of the vision held in the mind and soul of the writer.

For those of you who have written something from your heart, you had a vision beforehand of what you wanted to say and what you wanted the reader to see, feel, know, understand, or experience. The vision was clear.

Looking back on every one of the eight books and two booklets I've written, I had a vision, each time, before I started moving my fingers so nimbly over the keys. I might not have known exactly how I was going to construct my sentences, what the last sentence would be, or even what some of the text would be like. But what I did have was a vision of the book in my mind and soul of the total project. Then, and only then, could the final editing for the tiny details begin. The energy of the book was important. It represented my vision.

I think this is where many writers get blindsided. From what I have noticed with many of the men, women, and teens who worked with me on manuscripts and in my workshops, when their vision changed, their project stopped dead in its tract.

For example, one woman started to write a memoir about her relationship with her mother. Her vision was to tell the truth about what it was like to be her mother's daughter. (This was the workshop I did out of my book Echoes From the Womb, a Book for Daughters (www.createspace.com/3546083 and on Amazon.)) The vision for the book was strong and clear. It was to tell about her pain in making decisions in relationships with men and her career in order to please her mother. She painstakingly revealed the consequential guilt and shame she held for marrying a man she knew would become violent to her and her children but did so anyway to please her mother who just wanted her daughter to be married to a doctor. The worst part of this story was that she had forsaken the man she really loved in order to satisfy her mother. She had lived a broken heart for almost four decades. Her story and the vision she had for telling it was powerful. I helped her with the manuscript for most of the way and then it fell flat because her vision changed when she realized it would hurt her son. She didn't want him to see his grandmother or father in a negative light. She tried to continue the project but her own vision had deviated from the truth and she couldn't do it. The honest motivation for the book that came from her own soul - had crumbled.

To this day, from what I've heard, this woman has put her manuscript away even though the desire to write her story burns inside her. This story, if she had taken the courage to write it, would have been one that could have helped young women all over the world in communicating with their mothers.

Keep on track with your vision for that is where good writing comes from. Remember, your vision is connected to your soul. There is nothing more powerful than writing from that sacred place.

In 1988 I had a series of dreams in which my thigh-length hair had been cut while I slept. Clairvoyant? Perhaps. Psychic? Maybe. It's really anyone's guess. In the mornings, I'd awaken and reach for my hair-then sigh a deep breath of relief as I felt my hair still there. But weeks later events changed. Here is an excerpt from The Breath of Dawn, a Journey of Everyday Blessings. www.createspace.com/3546000

I awakened to an attractive woman bending over the bed examining the area below the mattress.
“I like my patients to be raised a little when they have a feeding tube,” she said. Still feeling lost in space like John Glenn’s worse nightmare, I stared at her as if one of us were seemingly out of place.
“My name is Susan, I’m your day nurse,” she said smiling. Susan’s appearance made me feel secure and protected.
I tried to take a deep breath, my chest spasmed. My breath remained shallow. My exhalations froze like being punched in the stomach preventing my next inhalation.
I had a tube hanging from my nose. I couldn’t see where it went but it hung from a silver pole on my right. A hose came out of my urethra and ran to a clear plastic bag. Saliva trickled down my chin. I leaned my head back on the pillow somehow managing to let the saliva drool down my throat, as if shell-shocked.
Every waking moment seemed focused on problem solving to meet my momentary needs but the biggest problem was that my mind didn’t fully grasp that a bigger problem existed.

...it was my purpose to know
what was going on within myself.
Carl Jung
(end of quote)

Recovering from a near death illness often sounds sad but for the person who lives to tell the story, it is nothing short of a miraculous inspiration.

Ready my story. What a perfect gift for Christmas: a story of restoration and rebirth.

Happy holidays. Until next time,

Winter is a great time to read snuggled in a comforter with a cup of tea by your side. The experience of a good book can transform your world. Stories entertain by taking us into another world-sometimes a different world and sometimes a world like our own but with different outcomes.

From now until January 1, 2012, only through my email [email protected] can you buy any one of my books and get Write to Heal for only $1.99 (sells for $8.99) plus $3 postage. (ebooks excluded) That is a $7 savings. This offer is not good through Amazon or createspace.com nor my site as orders from my website go through paypal. This sale is only good by contacting me directly through my email [email protected]. Money orders only. Books will be shipped out the next day.

Take advantage of this great sale -- WHILE SUPPLIES LAST. I am excited to share Write to Heal with you for such a low price. Write to Heal speaks to research studies that reveal the power of writing and wellness; it gives writing prompts and more. It is a 78 page book that will change the way you think about taking charge of your well-being.

May your Thanksgiving be filled with blessings.
Until next time,

Randy and Alana head out to the Yucatan to, hopefully, enjoy another environment, relax, and get their relationship back on track. Here is an excerpt of the beginning of their vacation in the Yucatan written in my book, The Basket Weaver.

In the morning we board a badly dented bus headed for the ancient ruins of Tulum. The bus is filled with local people and a handful of tourists and starts down the road negotiating around
large potholes in the dusty road. I stare into the bronze faces of
passengers squeezed into a humid and muggy bus that smells of sweaty skin and hot food from plastic grocery bags that pull their bodies over from their weight. A young boy tries to hold
himself up as the bus jerks back and forth by gripping onto his mother’s skirt. She holds two chickens by the neck; their freshly dead bodies dance to the bus’s movement. A small man clutches a rooster in his arms, like an infant, relying upon the closeness of other passengers to hold him up.
We have been on the bus almost an hour without any grocery stores or houses in sight. But tourists rarely know where
the locals do their daily shopping, and I have a travel book about the Tulum ruins on my lap that I intend to read during the ride. But, as yet, I haven’t opened it. I am more interested
in the faces of the local passengers. Without warning, the bus stops in the middle of seemingly nowhere and steals my attention. I look around, check the time; we have another hour to go before we reach our destination. Randy asks me why we have stopped; I have no idea and simply shrug my shoulders.
No one gets off and no one gets on. The bus remains caught in the heat with its doors open, waiting; there is no movement
from anyone. My first thought is that there is something wrong with the bus, and I wonder what we will do in the middle of the jungle with no public anything in sight. My imagination
goes wild. Perhaps this is a holdup by terrorists. I look around. There is nothing happening; no one moves. Foreign countries raise my paranoia. We sit and wait in the daunting heat. A few minutes later, a small Mexican man walks towards
the bus holding the hand of a thin, petite woman. They are both smiling into the thick air. Then it becomes obvious that we were waiting for them. She is as pretty as he is handsome, and I try to understand where they might have come from and how the driver knew to pick them up. The couple boards the bus and squeezes the already closely knit passengers closer together while the driver hits the gas pedal and forces everyone to sway forward, then back to stay upright. Black smoke spews out the tailpipe leaving a black cloud behind, evidence of where we had just been. I move my head from side to side and try to get a better look at the couple.
I feel called to watch them. They stare into each other’s eyes. It doesn’t seem to matter that her shoes are worn and slightly ripped along the sides or that his shirt has tattered seams with
the third button from the top missing. No, they look deeply in love with all the warmth and sexual tension of first-time lovers. Their clothes are old but clean and neat. Seams are pressed,
and there are no wrinkles on the old cotton. They reek with the hopeful effort of new lovers. I can’t take my eyes off them because they have pulled me into their energy and it renews me.
(end of quote) P.15,16

Ever go on a vacation to heal a relationship? Although this is a novel, this scene actually happened when I went to the Yucatan years ago with a boyfriend. Much of this book is true although I have put it in fiction form to add creativity to the story. I do hope you enjoy it.

If you want to read more about the way Alana finds forgiveness, resolution, and her own healing powers through sessions in which she explored past life experiences with a Mayan healer, you can order it at www.createspace.com/3553668
For anyone trying to sort out pain and unresolved issues about relationships, this book offers a process to consider.

Here is an excerpt from my book Voices from the Land, now an ebook on Amazon. If you like the feel of a paper copy in your hand (as I do when I sit in bed snuggled with my comforter and a cup of warm tea) then you can order it here: www.createspace.com/3552509

No one’s life story is about just one person because try as
we might, we have to connect with people somewhere along our
road through life.
The people who speak here are simply trying to live their lives
as best they can. And as much as we are all here to take care of
our families, we have to take care of each other or we will all die
because these are challenging times.
I promise you, without each and every one of these people,
we would have no town. Something happens when you have to
learn how to live with a variety of people, some you like some you
don’t, and that is the way it is. Each person plays a part because
each person is under God’s law and has value.
This town was not formed by a group of eager, willing
participants. It was formed little by little because most people
couldn’t go any farther on their travels.
But the human spirit is strong, and the heart can hold passion
and compassion just when you think it can’t do it anymore.
When my wife and daughter were slaughtered, the townspeople
came together working in unified, unexpected, and noble
ways. My clarity brought out the best in everyone, and it was
touching to see everyone bring out their goodness all at once.
So in a little way, this is about the differences in people. In a
huge way, it is about our similarities.
We all need help, compassion, and kindness some time in
our lives.

As many of you know from previous posts Voices from the Land was the strangest book I'd ever written. It was channeled on my five acres in Lamy, NM. According to my reviews on amazon http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Land-1-J... and phone calls from friends, Voices inspired them to rethink personal beliefs and helped them renew forgotten dreams.

Buy this book and be inspired to watch you life closer.

Until next time,