More Gorgeous Oregon by Train!

Gorgeous Northwest Fall by Train: We all need more Me-Time, rest time, self-care time. Here's a way to get it!

So why do I love to travel by train? Well, lotsa leg room, bathrooms when you want them, snacks and full meals ditto. Trains go as fast as traffic in the flat portions of the country. Slow down in the mountains; trade off is spectacular views as you hug the side of a very big rock. Stretch your legs stops every 4 hours.

SO - let me SHOW you what I mean.... I will take you along on a recent trip home from Seattle to southern Oregon.

Starting with the spacious interior in Business Class. Quite empty and only adults. The families (and crying babies) stay in cheaper Coach. Business is wonderful. It's quiet, you have an attendant to pamper you, you get $ off meals. I only pay $30 more on the Coast Starlight on this 400 mile trip. It's even cheaper on the short-haul Cascades. Everyone is banging away on laptops or watching the scenery with headphones. Did I mention the Observation Car? But Business seat is much quieter and almost as scenic. Bliss. Me Time or work time. WiFi in Business. In my photo below, I am alternating photos with working on my first novel.

And my ever-present crochet, in this case creating warm clothing for low-income families in my community. [If you want to learn to make things with your own hands - what a thrill of power! - just ask.]

The next series of shots are Puget Sound.... In coming days, follow my trip south!

Next time: glorious central/west Washington, from south South to the mighty Columbia River!

www.soaringdragon.biz

Need a "Win" to Cheer Up Your Day? Learn about some warriors for the planet....

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/destinations/africa/south-africa/black-mambas-anti-poaching-wildlife-rhino-team/



www.soaringdragon.biz

Do Insurance Companies have more impact on how long you live than the drug companies? Some new data to think about!

Publications aimed at doctors are where I get a lot of my health information. This article on the role of health insurance companies in not only the opioid epidemic, but the overall cost and effectiveness of medicine - and the reason why we as Americans DON'T live as long as Europeans, Canadians and others is chillingly logical.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/revolutionandrevelation/68935

The Real Reason to Not "Ghost" People - it's not altruism!

One of the most demoralizing experiences in modern life is being unemployed when you want to work. Anything that makes that process more onerous is something that you, as an employer, should think very, very carefully about. The article attached is about ghosting (you stop responding to emails when you lose interest in a candidate), a choice that more and more organizations are making.

As a job-seeker, you know how demoralizing this is.

But let me speak to the companies who are doing this, because ghosting is a choice that will harm you, both short and long-term.

As this author says, more and more angry people will let the world know how you behave. The really good candidates will give you the heave-ho, because a toxic work culture shows up in how the company disrespects potential employees.

There's a more important and immediate reason to cut this out, though, guys: People NEVER forget an insult. Never.

So many times, when I was an employee, a company that blew me off for one opportunity later wanted me for another. In one case in particular, they recruited me vigorously from my then-employer. Three years later. I had the immense joy of telling them of my previous experience and that I wouldn't work for them under any circumstances - and would make sure that they didn't recruit anyone else at my company either. SWEET.

Three thousand years ago, a very wise man said that winning a victory and crushing your enemies (ghosting your unwanted candidates) leads you only to sorrow because the crushed may lie down in defeat, but their hearts are burning for revenge. Increasing the number of people who hate your guts, will tell the world, and will thwart you when YOU want something - and you will, my dears, you will - later on is never a good business policy.

Courtesy is not just the ethical path. It is the long-term self-interest path. I'd walk it, if I were you. Create a kindly and generous "no, thanks" email, make a macro and send to everyone you don't have a need for right now, and sow the good will that you will need later on.

https://onlinecareertips.com/2017/10/respond-youre-victim-ghosting/

Trauma caused by hearing truth from your doctor; Is this a real problem?

Have you heard?  A new type of trauma, caused by medical doctors who tell you the truth about likely effects of your disease, and the pros and cons of various treatment plans.

Truth has now become the enemy.

I thought I must have misheard it, so I listened to the lecture twice.  Timothy Trujillo, in an AHA class on hypnosis for the cure of immune system problems, actually denounced doctors who show you pictures of your hair falling out as a result of chemotherapy, saying that the reason your hair falls out is that doctors tell you that it will.  If doctors lie to you and tell you that the treatment will be completely symptom-free, then your hair won’t fall out, you won’t have any nausea, the cancer will magically and entirely disappear and you’ll all live happily ever after in Neverland.

Mr. Trujillo is not alone.  The alternative health field is riddled with this nonsense – and then we wonder why licensed and competent healers despise us!  And why doctors won't give us a straight answer to a simple question! 

In case you were wondering, I am a practitioner of hypnotherapy and the mind’s ability to change water into wine is truly, truly remarkable.  However – and please pay attention to this! – that truth does NOT mean that all the laws of biology and physics can be changed by wanted it to be so.  My beloved, but sadly deluded, sister kept saying “It’s nothing, it’s just fibroids,” believing that saying it over and over again would make it true.  The cancer that was growing inside her killed her, because she refused to consider that repeating a sentence a thousand times does not make it a fact.

Chemotherapy kills cancer cells by targeting cells that are dividing rapidly.  That’s why you get gut problems and your hair falls out.  It also targets your cancer, you doofus.  If your hair follicles aren’t impacted, neither will the cancer cells be.  [Immunotherapy is very different, a targeted attack on just the cancer.  But it does not yet work on every kind of cancer, in every human body.  You need Star Trek and Dr. Mc Coy’s Sickbay to get that level of miracle.] 

The real medical communication problem is not the doctors who give you complete and accurate information about potential illnesses and potential cures and treatment – it’s the doctors who DON’T.  The doctors who have been too traumatized by terrified patients and their families, who are horrified that you actually talked about death or gave someone an accurate and responsible answer to “how long am I likely to live?”  

Another sister of my heart is 3 months into an estimate of 6 months to live and the honesty of her doctor gave her the ability to make honest and accurate plans for herself.  She took a cruise with her grand-daughters during which everyone could speak from the heart, with no one so terrified of loss that they ran away from the chance to speak their love. She did that, instead of the perennial "I can't afford it, maybe later," because she knows that she doesn't have "later" as an excuse any more. She is spending quality time with her husband and her friends and her beloved dog.  And me, at the 9,000-mile-distance that we have managed to surmount in spirit as well as occasionally in body over the course of 35 wonderful years.

With truth, you can take back real power, the power to choose how to spend the time you have, and let go of the phony power that denial gives you.  And I put all the “it’s NOT going to happen to ME!” that Trujillo et al. promotes into the denial category.  Try like hell to avoid as much pain as possible.  Try like hell to stretch 6 months to 6+.  But accept that it might be 5, and the pain can’t be avoided, and your best-loved goals and dreams will not be achieved.

You really want truth too, my friends, no matter how seductive denial is and no matter how terrified out of your mind you are.  Truth is the only possession you truly have, the only real power no one can take from you.  Truth is the only place where you are truly free.

Make a vow to yourself, today, renewable every day for the rest of your life:  In small issues as well as life and death, I choose Truth, no matter how messy or frightening or not-what-I-want-to-hear.  I choose Truth.  I have the courage to face Truth, and I will use Truth to lead me in all my decisions.

[This doesn’t preclude spirituality….. don’t raise that red herring, darlings]

And remember that the reason why I want you to choose Truth, is that Truth is also the only reliable road to lifetime joy.  The exact mechanism of that road is the subject for another day.  For now, just acclimate yourself to your own courageous soul, and let that butterfly called Truth get used to alighting gently on your shoulder and whispering into your ear.  Truth is the sweetest music of all.

Read the We’re #1 chapter in my new memoir Red State, Blue Heart to understand how denial kills thousands of black women in the USA every year, who should and would live, if they stopped believing that they can dodge reality by refusing to Claim it.  Can’t blame this one on racism, friends!  Our refusal to insist that we live our lives in accordance with facts has to end… before it ends more and more of us.

https://www.amazon.com/Red-State-Blue-Heart-Victoria/dp/1974032272/

5 Minutes to Better Sleep, Better Income, Clever Problem-Solving - and it's great fun, too!

The launch party for Red State, Blue Heart was a great success - lots of new and returned faces, big discounts and prizes. The book is still on sale at Bloomsbury Books, and of course Amazon and all the usual places.

Early reviewers were in stitches over the humor and the travelog aspects - 5 stars from everyone on that!

The calls to action are calls to think over the ideas. You don't have to agree with everything. All I ask - and with all the life in my soul - is that you really, really be open to hearing what is being said, and not shut down into ideology immediately.

I encourage everyone to write about their lives, and to do it constantly. Write out the funny things your dog or kid did, the goofy thing your husband said that made you laugh. When you re-read it 6 months or 6 years from now, you'll laugh again.

My newest book Red State, Blue Heart grew out of the stories i wrote down when I was living in the South - not intending or expecting to "make" anything of it.

In the same way, you need to create every day, not because it's part of a grand plan, but because it ISN'T part of a grand plan, other than the plan to have a graceful and powerful life. Reading the funny times allows you to see a life of joy. Seeing the anger, sadness, grief on pages allows you to be proud of all that you have accomplished. Yes, it was hard but you got through it, day by day, tear by tear.

You can be as Real as real gets in the privacy of a journal. There's no fool to call you weak because you cry or call you any other insult because you're angry. No one to mock you because you admit to some other "unacceptable" emotion, like the desire for revenge.

Your life matters. Your life deserves remembrance. And your mind and soul deserve to have the emotions of the day dumped. [This tool is Dump the Garbage, part of the 5 Tools in 5 Minutes/Day class and also explained in 101 Stress Busters for Energy, Joy & Healthy Longevity.]

When you write every day, pouring out the pratfalls and delights to be remembered, and the hurt and sadness to be purged from your body, mind and soul...... then you can start soaring with dragons!

Yours FREE:

https://blastthruthosebarriers.thinkific.com/courses/106742