Tym’s Metamophosis

Today, Tym Moss finds himself metamorphosed into a whole new person. He says, “Within the past 3 years I’ve succeeded to crawl out of a 20 year dark hole to emerge and discover the beauty, wonder and blessings that each precious day and moment holds. I've allowed the light within to guide me and reveal to me what I need to do and what I need to release. It has and is showing me balance, peace and joy. I am humbled and eternally grateful.”

Tym Moss enjoys and celebrates his life as an entertainer through many different venues these days. He hosts a weekly Internet radio show, “Artists Exposed with Tym Moss” at TalkRadioX.com along with other performances such as singing and acting. He can be reached at ArtistsExposedWithTymMoss@gmail.com

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YJ: Hi Tym! Good to see you again and thanks for giving me this time to get to know you better. When I first met you, you told me that you were a recovering real estate person and I found that quite amusing. Now, can you elaborate that further starting from where you came from and what sort of things happened along the way that made you say what you said?

Tym: I was born in the Midwest in Indiana, which is completely different than New York City. I’d say New York City is a universe of its own. I grew up in Middle America and in a very sheltered family with a very sheltered life.

Through a few years of therapy, I’ve come to realize that I had learned in early age not to be myself because I was a little more feminine and girly than a boy; boys are supposed to act this way and girls are supposed to act that way. When I was growing up in 70’s, there were no role models as far as for gay; I didn’t even know what the word was. There was no one publicly gay. I didn’t know anyone and I started having these feelings; I thought I was insane; I thought there was something wrong with me for years. It really troubled me and I’m still working out issues on that to this day. So, I learned it in early age to not allow the true self to come out and learned how to block it to please everybody else and what everybody else wanted.

I love to entertain, sing, dance and act. I was in all the shows as I was growing up. After I got into college, I got into some professional groups and I’ve toured the eastern half of the United States but it was always as a lead person for a group or band. So I’ve decided, “Well, I’ll come out to New York City by myself and start my solo career.”

When I moved to NYC, I found it to be just huge and in 80’s it was one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. I ended up moving in to one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in one of the most dangerous cities on the planet at the time in Washington Heights; it was like the drug capital of the city at the time. [Not anymore. It’s very nice now.] So I learned the street real quick; I was forced into that – learning the street mentality. And at the same time, I went in looking for an apartment to the small agency that kind of catered to actors, dancers and singers. The guy who was running it at the time asked me, “Would you mind coming in and answering the phones and helping us out?” I said, “Well, yes I will do it but I really want to get into the entertainment business.”

This is before the panel phones and voicemail so we had literally three phones sitting on the desk and I was going, “Hello. Yes. Can I help you? Just a moment please.” “Hello, can I help you?” put this phone down and grab the third one, “Just a minute. What? You need to come in at 2 o’clock this afternoon? That’s fine. We’ll see you then. OK. Good bye.” “Hello. Yes, Can I help you? One moment, please.” “Please hold.” And that was my life everyday. It was just maddening. I knew I didn’t like it and I didn’t’ want it. He was a master manipulator and he manipulated me into going to get my sales person’s license which I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to do real estate and I didn’t want to get stuck in it. A year later, he took me kicking and screaming to get my broker’s license. Then, one day I woke up and I realized that the company was now on my name. I owned the place; everything had switched over and I am stuck; I am stuck doing real estate, which I hated and I never asked for. It just really drained my energy and who I was.

He used to be in public relations for Madison Square Garden and worked with Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra and all of the big entertainers back in the day so I thought if I helped him then maybe he would help me with my entertainment career. However, he was just looking for somebody to dump this business on and found the sucker here. So, for 20 years, I did what I did not want to do and I was absolutely miserable. Living in a very heavily drug populated area, I started into drugs and I didn’t care. I got to a point where I didn’t care if I lived or died because there was no happiness at all in my life, none what so ever! With that frame of mind, I wasn’t in any shape to have any healthy relationships and it just kept downward, downward and downward… Then, September 11 happened, and everything became magnified and got much worse. It got so bad that I became amnesiac. I had forgotten and lost all my memories. I remembered my name and that was about it.

Once I realized this and I committed myself to changing, I was willing to start to change, the universe started putting (and I could see these little things of light) exactly what I needed or who I needed in front of me and I could tell that was the path I needed to follow because I was so lost I didn’t know which way was up or down or which was right or wrong. But the universe kept putting just the right person and the right people right in front of me to help me to push myself up, and pull myself up and out of that frame of mind to turn my thinking around which changes everything. It changed my behavior; it changed my attitude; it changed my outlook; it changed everything. As my memory started to return, I remembered I am an entertainer. That’s why came to New York in the first place. So I had 20 years where I went to sleep but now I have woke up and I’m awakened.

There are so many things I will be eternally grateful for, and people who had helped me and pointed me in the right direction. One of them is a therapist who had recommended Unity, the church, because she knew how spiritually deep I was. I had been looking for 25 years for a church and I pondered existence, God and Jesus because I grew up in a Northern Baptist family. When I contemplated on all of the religions of the world, Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha, it seemed to me that they were basically all trying to get to the same place but had different rule-books on how they thought to get there. So, I kind of created my own religion or my own beliefs and theories, and whenever anybody would ask me, “What’s your religion?” I would say, “It’s Tym’s religion.” So after she’s recommended that I go to Unity, I went but with doubts and skepticism thinking that it wouldn’t have the spiritual resonance I was looking for. Then, the minister got up and started preaching Tym’s religion! I thought, “Oh my gosh all these people think the way I do? This is wonderful!” And that has been a very large part of my rehabilitation, my growth and expansion right now.

YJ: WOW, Tym, this is not exactly a run of the mill story people encounter on a day to day basis! I am wondering how you managed to get yourself into therapy in the sate you were in with memory loss and confusion.

Tym: After 2001, the real estate business went completely out of control because the majority of our business was from people relocating from outside of the city. After 2001, nobody moved to the city and it came to the grinding halt. There was no income what so ever, but the bills did keep coming in. Since this was the first and the only time America has ever been through this, nobody knew how long it was going to take. Is it going to be a couple of months or a couple of years? So what I did was I started using my personal credit cards to pay off my bills for the month to get us to the next month to see if it was any better which it wasn’t. Basically, I maxed out my credit cards.

After 9-11, I lost my footing with reality. I would go to the office where everything is just extreme extreme extreme; then I would go home and shut the door so I could listen to music or whatever it is that I wanted. Well, the devil himself ended up moving into my apartment and oddly enough his name was Jesus; there were drugs and alcohol everyday. I was still functioning or trying to function in the office but the sun would come up and go down, and it would come up and go down again; and it got to the point I had no idea what day of the week, the month or the year I was in.

I always liked the bad boys. I don’t know why; I always had a thing for bad boys. He had just gotten out of doing 4-1/2 of hard time in NJ and came to see his brother who was in the building at the time, and that same night his brother brought him up to introduce him to me. He saw my apartment, saw my life and liked it; and moved himself in. I was in such a weakened state of mind that I couldn’t think clearly or rationally. I said, “Yeah, whatever, come on in.” It was 2-1/2 years of literal hell; it was truly horrible. But he got locked back up again, which was the best thing that happened to both of us, and that freed me to start to help myself.

In the beginning of 2004, I had a total collapse – a complete breakdown mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was hospitalized for stomach problems. I couldn’t afford health insurance; I couldn’t afford my rent. There was no money coming in for the office to pay the rent; I was down in court trying to keep the business alive because business always came first. I will sacrifice my home life to keep the business alive. So I was running down to court constantly and that was so emotionally draining. I still don’t know how I did it. After 9-11 the phone calls started; I would get literally between 25-35 phone calls a day everyday saying, “You owe me $2000,” “You owe me $800,” “You owe me $1500.” Just creditors coming out of everywhere 25 -35 calls a day and that’s pretty much all I’ve got done, talking to creditors and putting them off day after day for 2-1/2 years. When I got those 25-35 calls down to 3 in February of 2004 is when I shut down. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was out of the office more than I was in at that time because physically I was too sick. I didn’t have health insurance so I was afraid of going to a hospital because I didn’t’ know if they could take care of me or not. But after the second day of vomiting where I couldn’t keep anything down and vomiting blood and when it got a point where I couldn’t’ stand up on my own, I knew I had to go to a hospital. They said it was all stress related and told me to stay away from stress and released me from the hospital. But after dealing with the court scenes for the office and my apartment, I ended up right back in the hospital a few weeks later. By then, I signed everything over to my office manager; I gave him total power of attorney because I didn’t trust myself for one thing and couldn’t handle anything at the time.

I was recommended Medicaid and the doctor told me to find a primary physician and get back within two weeks so they can start the treatments for my stomach conditions, Colitis, Diverticulitis and Gastritis, which all stemmed from the prolonged exposure to extreme amount of stress I was under. So I left the hospital and applied for Medicaid. They asked me if I had an income coming and I told them no because real estate is commission based I didn’t have any income coming in at the time. Then, they said, “We will put you down for a Public Assistant as well.” Oh, more hell broke loose there. They had me running and jumping through hoops. I was sick as a dog and I knew something was the matter with me emotionally and mentally. But I didn’t know at the time I was suffering from extreme depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder. It was discovered later that there was post-traumatic stress just from all of these stress I’ve been enduring for 20 years of doing what I didn’t want to do. Also I had extremely high blood pressure. I was still doing drugs at the time. Public Assistants, after a couple of months of rigermarole, turned me down. They almost killed me. The doctors said that I needed to start treatments in a couple of weeks, but by the time I finally got Public Assistants and Medicaid approved, it was eight months later. For eight months, I was walking around crawling through what just felt like this endless dark tunnel with no light at the end. For eight months I had no idea if I was going to eat the next day. It was just horrifying. But once I got Medicaid that saved my life. I went to the doctor and the first thing I told him was that there was something wrong with my mind and that I was too far into drugs that I didn’t’ know how to get out of it. So they referred me over to the mental health center, the place that has helped me out tremendously and where I still go for regular therapy.

I did therapy for a year while I was still using drugs. It took me a year but I finally got off drugs, alcohol and everything and have been ever since. Then, a year after that after 30 years of very heavy smoking, I stopped smoking as well. I thought, “Since I’m quitting all these bad habits, throw that one in too!” I’ve been living a healthy and clean life ever since.

YJ: Which played the key roles in your success with overcoming drug additions and regaining health and sanity?

Tym: The thing, whether it’s spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally, is you have to be willing. The whole key is the person has to willing to do whatever it takes to change and learn how to change. And it’s scary; it’s so scary when you’re used to a certain way for a long time and all of a sudden you have to try something different or try something new. But it is a necessity; it’s totally necessary!

Since then, I realized that I am an entertainer. In the past for about eight months, I’ve done film roles, gotten back in the acting and singing. I’m in the choir at church and that’s really helped stretch my voice; I’ve done solo with them. I’ve just been having a ball. I’ve also been doing the Internet radio show and they offered me my own Internet radio show. It’s really interesting that I’m walking through a different life right now where I’m totally open to experiences. Last Sunday, I went down to the Gay and Lesbian Center in New York to see a young lady, whom I absolutely sing but when I got there and they said she was at the Javits Center. I was thinking, “That’s a huge place what’s going on over there?” So I went over there and found an expo that was going on and she happened to be one of the entertainers. I noticed the half the people on the roster were people I either interviewed or I’m going to be interviewing and that was great because that’s where I want to put myself, in that circle. It was kind of an eye opener for me without even realizing it. I thought I was going down to a small thing and ended up at this huge place where I was meeting so many people, wonderful entertainers, and managers and it opened so many more doors for me that day. So when I wake up in the morning now, I have no idea where I’m going to be by the time close my eyes at night.

YJ: That’s so amazing!

Tym: It’s wonderful! I’m really enjoying life!

YJ: I watched one of your short films called iCan and it was very funny and you were really good!

Tym: Thank you. That was too much fun!!

YJ: After 20 years of what you called “sleeping” what’s the difference between Tym the entertainer then and Tym the entertainer now?

Tym: Wisdom. All of the life experiences, good or bad that I’ve had over those 20 years have affected me. I was running my own business since I was 25 years old, my first business in Manhattan and it’s still running today, and I learned a lot of harsh and tough lessons in business.

Everybody always says how rough, ruthless and cut-throat the entertainment business is and that you’ve got to be careful of people because they are ruthless, but so far I’ve had a ball and I’ve met some of the most wonderful people. Everybody is very open, warm and caring.

YJ: That may have something to do with your approach to it compared to other people. I think that you went in to entertainment business with an open door policy and with an open-ended book approach, and with such an enthusiasm and gratitude. What do you think?

Tym: Yes. It’s also my observation that we’re moving away from that selfish 80’s & 90’s mentality of “me, me, me, it’s always me.” Before it was just one individual biting and scratching and doing whatever it takes to get ahead. For instance, say your career is a sofa. If you try to pick it up and move it by yourself, it will be very tough and difficult. But if you get a group of people and all of you work together to do the same thing, you all grab a part of the sofa and lift it up and move it. It’s much easier to do as a group. It seems to be the consciousness, not just the entertainment industry but the consciousness around, is shifting in that direction which is absolutely beautiful! It seems to be more of a caring and opening of unification of people.

YJ: That reminds me of a publisher’s note I read several years ago. I usually don’t pay attention to publishers’ notes in books but this one just grabbed my attention and really struck a chord inside of me. I can’t recall exact words but it basically said that they believed in the society based on cooperation rather than competition. Then, very recently I found out about Ubuntu which is a community developed, Linux-based operating system. It’s free for anyone and it’s basically open for any developers in the world from age 0 to whatever to put their best talent in there to develop the best operating system for everyone to use. And it’s amazing!

Tym: Wow, I love that!

YJ: That’s how much power you could generate by being open for people to participate. When people know it’s not a competition and everyone wants to participate by putting their talents in and making whatever it is better.

Tym: Yes, a lot of times when people contribute, because they want to and they have a desire to do this thing or add this thing to it, it’s usually much better.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that firstly, I don’t want to do real estate so I will never do it again! Haha! I love to entertain and since I love to do that, that’s what I’m going to do; that’s what I’m meant to do. And I tell that to people all the time.

I had an interview with a young DJ the other day. He was 25 years old and he had come to New York and even slept in Central Park. It was an interesting story what his journey has been and he has the passion to do that. He sacrificed to be able to experience and do what he wants to do. My advice to him was to keep doing that because if that’s what brings joy, that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. And that’s my recommendation to everybody. If you’re at a job and doing something you don’t like to do, it is WORK. If you’re doing something you enjoy doing, it’s not work; it’s ENJOYMENT. In my opinion, that’s what we are put on this earth for. Weird things happen and negative things happen all the time but fine, it’s done; move on! Now get back to the joy. Enjoy things. Find what you enjoy doing and do it!

YJ: What if people don’t know what it is they enjoy doing?

Tym: I recommend meditation. Go inside. The answers are inside. Also, it’s different for everybody. What may bring you happiness may not bring me happiness and joy. Nobody outside of you can tell you what you enjoy either. People will be saying, “you gotta do this and do it this way.” No you don’t!

YJ: So wisdom is what makes the difference?

Tym: Yes, simply because of my life’s experience. Another interesting thing was that once my memory started returning and I started realizing where I was coming out of and how deeply I’ve gotten into it, the songs started to coming out of me. I didn’t realize until later they all had a spiritual theme to them. Eventually, I realized they were all very Unity teaching oriented, and I didn’t discover Unity until a year after I’ve written these concepts down.

So, it’s all in alignment. I know when something comes my way that is meant to be. I’m attuning myself and opening myself up to good things to enter my life and to take me to the next level, to the higher level of consciousness.

YJ: That’s fascinating! Do you think that’s why people say the answer, the truth, is within you and when people find that truth, they realize how similar it is between theirs, yours and mine?

Tym; Yes, exactly! They are all different; yet they are all the same. It’s different for everyone. Each person’s truth is different; but they are all the same. If that makes any sense..

YJ: It makes a complete sense to me but it may not for some people. I understand exactly what you mean so I guess we’re on the same wavelength here, haha.

Can you share some of the challenges and inspirations that you’ve experienced as you were coming up and out of this pit you have fallen into for 20 years? I’m sure there were many things that happened along the way. Maybe small miraculous moments?

Tym: Gosh, that’s the thing! What’s so beautiful too is miracles are almost becoming a normal part of my life now because I’ve had so many of them!

YJ: That’s beautiful you’ve said that!

You’ve described earlier that you’ve fallen off and you had no direction; you couldn’t tell which way was up or down, or whether it was a day or night. Then, you said small little things came in front of you and they gave you something to focus. That is living moment by moment. Just to see that and something else after that. I was curious to know what were some of those little things that were put in front of you?

Tym: I would say people. The mental health center that I went to that I was referred to originally from my doctor is Metropolitan uptown in Washington Heights. I went through four therapists there. The first therapist was young and new, and I had never been in a therapy before. So her role was for me to learn how therapy worked. To be able to go in and open up and to talk about what’s going on. Then, she went to California and I was switched over to a woman who led one of my groups. She was a Buddhist and she taught me how to meditate. When she got her doctorate’s degree, she left for a better job. The next one was a little more flighty but more spiritual. Shortly after that, I got my last therapist. When she walked in the door, it just lit up. She was very deeply spiritual and has helped me greatly.

After a year of being with Metropolitan, I finally got myself clean. That first year was quite bizarre because I had to learn how to think again. I felt like I was back in the First Grade of the basics of how to think. What one of my therapists had said is that our minds are turned completely around at that point so we have to do exactly the opposite of what our brain is telling us to do for awhile. For example, police were our enemies. That’s where I was because we were doing illegal substances and we had to always be on the lookout for the cops. So, cops became our enemy. Our minds were completely turned around and looking in the opposite direction. My drug of choice was cocaine and there were times when I actually heard a voice, a loud voice in my head. When I shared this at one point in one of the groups, one of the girls said it’s like you’re possessed by a demon. You have absolutely no control over it and this voice in your head tells you to life your right arm, lift your left arm, do this or do that. You have no control; it has the complete control of your every being and everything you do. I do not recommend it because I felt like Linda Blair in Exorcist, hahaha!

YJ: You mean you were aware of the fact that you were not in control while you were doing drugs?

Tym: Yes. The voice crept in over the twenty-year period because I remember when the craving started in. I used to hang out with friends on the weekends and we would always do cocaine on the weekends. Then, I remember when I was at work and miserable, thinking in the middle of the week, “Oh God, I can’t wait till the weekend so I can do some coke!” I remember thinking that. A few weeks or a month after that, in the middle of the week, I thought, “I will just do one night during the week and do it on the weekends.” And then, I would do two nights during the week, three nights during the week and then every night. Before I knew it, it was every night year after year after year. And I would tell myself for years, “I will stop tomorrow. I gotta stop this tomorrow.” And tomorrow never got here.

I had been clean for a month then the public assistant said that I had to go to this relapse prevention for a year, five days a week, three hours a day; it’s like a part time job. I was so furious at that time. But a year before that I would not have been able to succeed with it because they are very strict that you cannot use drugs during this. So one place helped get me off of the drugs and the relapse prevention helped stay off the drugs. I don’t know if I could’ve done without both of those working together.

YJ: Why were you angry?

Tym: Because I thought I had it under control and didn’t need the relapse prevention. Once I started it and looked back at it, I knew I really needed it.

YJ: …because it creeps up when we feel overconfident?

Tym: Yes, exactly. Exactly!

YJ: As you were going through this cleansing and purifying yourself, what were some of challenges you had faced?

Tym: I had to change everything. I had to change my home. I had to change my friends, and I had to change the way I thought. I am very grateful to my family which I’ve always been very close with because I had chucked them out for twenty years and never mentioned any of this to them. The first year that I was with Metropolitan, it got to a point where I would stop for three days then I would say to myself, “Oh well, it’s just me, what the hell, it doesn’t matter” and I would go back on for three days doing it. Then, I would say to myself, “No, I gotta stop” but I didn’t have a concrete reason to stop. Then, a very dear friend of mine had come out to visit and she saw the condition that I was in. She knew I had been doing cocaine for several years. She had gone back and called my brother crying and told him that she was coming back out the following year and she didn’t know if I were still going to be here. It was Easter at that time and when I called them to wish a Happy Easter, my sister-in-law, whom I absolutely adore, got on the phone and said, “We know you are doing coke and you’re in a very bad situation right now. We told your sister and her family. All of your nieces and nephews know too.” Everybody knew! The embarrassment and shame of that was what I needed. I knew then I was done with it. That was enough for me. But they have been so supportive and my friends have been amazing. Friends, who didn’t need to open their arms and home to me, did and showed me trust. I will never forget that.

Of course, the challenges are daily. Just trying to get through a day without using drugs.

YJ: Let’s hear your lessons. What have you got to share with the world from all that you’ve gone through?

Tym: Live for the moment. Just be happy. Do what you want. Whatever brings you joy is what you’re supposed to be doing. I’m talking about going within yourself, inside of yourself; letting your spirit inside, the real truth within. It can be very scary. I’ve been down through some scary tunnels in my soul. Hallways of shame and guilt, just to name a few. Some of the things I would do at 3 o’clock in the morning just so I could get another hit; just so I could get some more. That’s not happiness. It takes a lot and it goes all the way back to what I said in the beginning you’ve got to be willing. It’s all a matter of willing to change. Break the habit; break the cycle. These all sound so cliché now, haha, but they are all very true.

YJ: Right, first you really have to want to change but nothing really happens if there’s no follow through so what comes after willing to change?

Tym: What worked for me was I was willing to change and the universe started giving me the tools to allow me to change but it was up to me to pick up those tools and use them. It takes a lot of work. I am not saying just come off of drugs; it could be to get out of an abusive relationship or some other challenges. It takes a lot of work but you’ve got to listen to that voice inside.

Everybody has that voice inside. When you’re faced with something, know what’s the right thing to do. You hear somewhere inside, “This is the right thing to do but this might be a little easier.” If you always do the right thing, you don’t have anything to worry about. Everybody, I would hope, knows what I’m talking about with that; that little voice in your stomach or inside when you’re face with the choice, you know what you’re supposed to do. Do that.

YJ: Before we began the interview, you briefly mentioned your butterfly analogy. Can you tell us what it is?

Tym: I was talking to a real dear friend of mine about this yesterday. It’s like a symbol of life. When the caterpillar goes into the cocoon, the actual worm starts breaking down and nourishes the new metamorphic creature. We were referring to an analogy Anderson who was speaking at church one time and had mentioned this and it’s something that’s always carried with me. His granddaughter had gotten a cocoon and was nursing it. She could see the little movement inside. She could see the wings, stuff moving and all of a sudden it started to break free. The little thing is out there with its one wing out and it’s trying really hard to get the other one out. She thought she would give a little hand so she peeled it off and helped with the second wing that was still stuck in there. That second wing never worked. It never developed properly because it’s part of the process. It has to go through that pain; has to go through working the muscles up so it can free itself completely. Otherwise, it won’t fully develop. In a way that is the way with struggles in life. No matter what’s going on, it’s the wings till we breakthrough and fly.

From suffering, I’ve learned a lot, and now I appreciate every day. I do remember one big change of my thinking that happened. I used to wake up for years, everyday, and my first thought was, “How am I going to get some coke tonight?” That was my first conscious thought everyday for years. Now, every morning my first thought is, “Oh thank you God for this perfect day!” That’s the first thought that comes to my mind.

YJ: That’s a beautiful way to end this interview! Thank you very much for sharing your experience wholeheartedly. God bless you and all of us for this perfect day!

Our Upcoming Spotlights...

Tym Moss
Entertainer, Singer, Actor, Internet Radio Host
talkRaioX.com
Artists Exposed on Sundays at 9 PM EST
RadioMeatxause on Sundays @ 10 PM EST

Carolyn D. Townes, S.F.O.
Spiritual Life and Leadership Coach
Spirit Women Coaching - Equipping and Empowering Women Leaders
Becoming a Woman of Purpose - Blog and Ezine

Mark Schwimmer
Assoc. Facilitator MythoGenic Self (tm) Process
NGH Certified Consulting Hypnotist and Instructor
Master Practitioner of NLP, Society of NLP
Member of International Coaching Federation (ICF)
www.ReadyForAChangeNow.com
www.NewYorkAwareness.com/WhatDoYouWant.asp
www.blogtalkradio.com

Roger Anthony Mapes
Musician, Singer, Song Writer, Artist
www.rogeranthonymapes.com - main art gallery
www.myspace.com/rogermapesmusic - listen to music

Jesse Garza
Enlightened Image Consulting Through Self Awareness
Visual-therapy.com

An Interview with Martha Randolph Carr

Martha Randolph Carr is a syndicated columnist at the Cagle Cartoons, Inc., an author of three books, A Place to Call Home, The Sitting Sisters and Wired, and a sought after speaker on the topics of race & politics, change, celebrating your children and spiritual growth. Carr is also the founder of the Family Tree Project, an online orphan registry to reunite the more than 200,000 older alumni of U.S. orphanages and the New Voice Movement. She resides in New York City and can be reached at martha@martharandolphcarr.com.

YJ: Martha, thank you so much for meeting with me today. I know you wear quite a few hats. How about we start with your published author hat. Tell me a little bit about your books.

Martha: My very first book was, Wired, the thriller. When you write your first book, you’re not sure if anyone else will like it because until anyone else sees it, it’s just theory. You like it but you might be alone. And it was the easiest book to write of any of them and probably always will be.

It’s a simple little thriller and after it came out strange things started to happen. I was just hoping people would like it. When the book came out it was the old days before the Internet was so big, so book tours were still popular. And everywhere I went, at least once at every store a woman would come up clutching the book, and I could tell she read it a million times, the pages were all bent, and she would start to say she could really see the main character and she would describe herself! Nothing like the main character, Mary Elizabeth was described. I never corrected them but I just thought that was so cool that they had absorbed it so much they didn’t realize they were describing themselves.

They would lean in and tell me some deep dark secret they have been keeping that had been holding them back and Wired had set them free. I started getting letters from people saying the same thing. It was really strange. Even somebody serving a life sentence in prison wrote to me and said they never understood how the victim’s family felt till after he read Wired.

So, Wired got this cool following of people and this is what I’ve learned from writing it. You write more of your deepest layers than you intend to.

Maybe other writers are different but I find I don’t know what the books are about until the readers tell me. And they bond with the work like glue and it’s no longer my book. They don’t see me as the author. They just see me as the one to go and tell what they got out of it and it becomes their book. It was very cool.

The first time I saw library numbers on the spine of the book was also cool. The Library Journal, which is big on the publishing world, gave it the best review so libraries across the country bought it. You never know with a thriller, you can’t be sure if your red herrings are good enough or not. So I was curious to see if people in Wired would get right away what was going on and they don’t so that’s fun too. I’m writing a political thriller now, The List and I think I’m better at it than I was the first time.

YJ: What made you write a thriller?

Martha: I’ve always liked intrigue; always naturally gravitated towards a puzzle. It’s the way I think and figure things out; puzzles fascinate me. And writing a thriller, you have to subtly lay ground work that the reader will remember but not pick up on so that it’s fun to read. Plus, you get to bump people off.

Then there’s the part about being a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, two Virginia governors, Lord Delaware. I was raised my entire life saying you don’t want to embarrass the family so we were very silent people. And writing was a way to finally talk.

YJ: That’s a pretty big chip on your shoulders. How did that affect you?

Martha: It probably made me the writer I am because I was so reluctant in those days to say anything of substance. I was much more likely to get you to talk because it was a safer ground but it meant that I never talked. There was this whole story that I never commented personally. I felt like nobody knew me, and writing was my way saying what I really wanted to say. Writing was the way I got the chip off of my shoulder.

YJ: Did you keep a journal since you were little?

Martha: No. I didn’t. It wasn’t until I grew up and started writing. Actually, I didn’t start with a novel. I weirdly started with a big article in the Washington Post.

YJ: Wow, how did you get that?

Martha: I grew up just outside of D.C. so I didn’t see the Washington Post as the ‘Washington Post’. I saw it as my local paper so I just sent it to them. I was okay if they turned me down but instead they loved it and they printed it. But I didn’t get that that was a big deal. I thought my local paper printed my article.

YJ: Was it a more personal story?

Martha: Yes, it was a personal account of surviving an abusive marriage and taking up running. It was a long article and they said, “Do you mind if we put it out on the wire?” I said, “No, I don’t’ mind.” It ran all over that country and suddenly people I hadn’t heard from in years started writing me letters saying this has helped them. So here’s a person who’s never talked about anything and now I tell some deep dark something to the whole world and they respond with compassion and questions. Then I was hooked because I survived it. I didn’t turn to dust!

YJ: So that was the beginning, the turning point in your life as a writer?

Martha: Yes, that was the beginning. I remember when the article came out I opened the paper very slowly like the words themselves could knock me over. And no one in my family thought it was a good idea. They were shocked until their friends started saying how much they loved that article. We are talking hundreds of people started writing in saying how much that article meant to them. Suddenly, I realized that I had a voice! It was the first time I really felt that way.

YJ: How did you start that? What prompted you to write that article?

Martha: My entire life, I’ve done what everyone else was saying what I ought to be doing. I was not very good at saying “No, I want to do this,” and I ended up with a small child, divorced and miserable. For whatever reason at 29 or 30 I said, “Enough of this!” and that’s how long it took me to do the one thing that I had always wanted to do.

Everyone thought I should be something else but I said, “No, I’m going to write.” The family thought I was crazy and they all thought my son and I would starve. Who knows why I chose that moment but nothing was going to sway me.

I had a cousin, Virginius Dabney, who was a Pulitzer prize winning author in the 60's for his columns on civil rights while writing for a Virginia paper and considered a family patriarch. He was in his late 80’s, didn’t tolerate fools very well and I loved him.

He took one of his books and wrote in it, “To a successful writer” to me! That made the rest of the family back off a little, giving me just enough room and made me think, “Well, someone believes in me.” So I just had to start talking but I wasn’t brave enough to actually talk. If I didn’t start to write I was going to bust wide open. That’s how I thought of the Washington Post, my local paper.

YJ: So your cousin wrote in one of his books addressing it to you as a successful writer about your article?

Martha: No, he autographed it “to a successful writer” but that was when I hadn’t written a word yet. It was just amazing. I remember hearing my father and other family members saying, “I don’t know why he did it.”

YJ: Do you think he intuitively knew there was something about you as a writer?

Martha: He knew I needed it. He just knew I needed it and was willing to give me a chance. And frankly, it wasn’t until I moved to New York and I’d been here for a little while away from my family that I understood that everybody should take a chance. And that’s what he was saying, “Go do it!”

YJ: That was my next question. What brought you here to New York?

Martha: I don’t think it could’ve been a bigger change if I decided to go to the moon. I came from a small town where everyone knew each other. If you were in an elevator in Richmond, you had to say hello to whoever came on the elevator even if you’ve never seen them before and you’ll never see them again. You wave at everybody. You don’t know them but you’re waving everywhere.

Everything is different here. There was not one thing that was the same. Plus, I live in the South Bronx where almost everyone speaks Spanish, and some people only Spanish and I don’t speak the language. And I’m 5’9” and blond, so people are constantly saying, “Are you here for the Yankees game?” It was almost as if their brain didn’t know what to do with that for a second.

YJ: South Bronx! How’s that for a change?

Martha: It’s very nice, all grandmothers and children. In Richmond everyone knew something about me just from hearing my name. If I went to an emergency room, just said my name, I would get more tests than I needed. People would get really worried because people knew what family I was connected to. I wanted to find out if I lived in a town where no one knew me, would I be okay? I had to know so I sold everything on Craigslist, stuffed the rest in a U-Haul and came up I-95.

YJ: That is brave! Gotta hand it to you! Now tell me about your most recent book, “A Place To Call Home”.

Martha: It’s a memoir about the reemergence of U.S. orphanages and how well they are doing.

YJ: What made you want to write about US orphanages?

Martha: I wrote an editorial about an orphanage in Rwanda called Imbabazi and that translates to ‘mother’s love’. I was writing the editorial because a lot of the people who contributed to the massacre in Rwanda in ‘94 were pushed out to the Sudan and were doing that same thing there. I was really trying to comment on that because the U.S. once again was doing nothing. We swore we wouldn’t do it again and here we were repeating the same mistake. And somebody said to me, “Would you be interested in writing a book about US orphanages?”

I went to look up the topic and I expected to see a long list of books. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just treading on something that has already been done. No book, not one! In 60 years no one had written about the state of US orphanages today. There were only books about individual homes. That was weird in the age of the Internet. You’d think we’d write about everything. Most people don’t even think that they still exist.

And in Richmond, there was a children’s home over a hundred years old, beautiful campus right behind the main street. I didn’t know it was there and I’d driven past it everyday. It was set back behind a strip mall. When I first started researching the book, I would say to lots of friends, “Did you know there’s an orphanage on Broad Street?” No one knew. We went to the movies right in front of this and never knew it was right behind us. That was interesting. Then, when I started doing the research I found out that more children go to college from US orphanages than from the general population.

YJ: That’s interesting… How do they do manage that?

Martha: The orphanages are doing a better job of inspiring kids that they can do it. And then to find out that the same kids who come from social services, if they end up in foster care instead they have less than a 50% chance of graduating from high school. Then I was hooked!

YJ: So you’re saying it’s better to stay in an orphanage?

Martha: Yes, it’s absolutely better. There are great foster care families out there but there aren’t enough of them to take in the 600,000 children who need a home and there are also too many families who aren’t doing a good job at it.

A U.S. orphanage is now called a residential education facility or REF and they resemble upscale boarding schools. Everyone remembers Lil’ Orphan Annie in an orphanage. It was actually not an orphanage, that’s a group home and fictional. To be called an REF it has services that make it look like an upscale boarding school. It has sports, usually a school on-site, dances, band. All the stuff you’d expect but they also have social services and they work at creating a loving family. So, if you go off to college, at spring break or at Christmas, you need somewhere to go. You go home to your family at the home where you grew up. And when an alum gets married a lot of people have their weddings on the campus because this is their family.

YJ: Sounds like a very bonded and loving one…

Martha: And very sane and a lack of drama. These are not only trained people but they love these children equally. Also, the other cool thing was, I think a lot of us have this idea that if you have a 15 year old who’s very angry, been in trouble a little with the law, it might be too late. They take those kids everyday and they become confident, sane adults who go on to college, get married and have children. They do what we thought was impossible. It was the coolest adventure and it changed my life forever.

YJ: Then how’s this a memoir?

Martha: That’s a very good question. When I signed the contracts, I remember thinking I have to do this but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it because the advance wasn’t really big enough. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be able to do the research. I was thinking either I was the worst mother in the world or there’s something here, I don’t know. The next week, my father died and we were in his house and my siblings sold the house out from under us in one day. Then, I found out that my son was a full-blown alcoholic, so my whole life was quickly unraveling. For the entire summer if someone would say, “How are you?” all I said was, “It is what it is.” I didn’t know what to say beyond that. There was nothing else to say. Why bother describing anything. It is what it is.

So now I’m doing this research and in the midst of the research at Mercy Home in Chicago they mentioned that they had this program for older young men 18 to 20 something who had missed the basics of life like how to cook, how to do anything. It’s one unit, 8-bed program, which is tiny. They called it a cottage but it’s a floor of a beautiful tall building with a gorgeous view of Chicago. I took notes and went on. My son, Louie in the meantime, is spiraling out of control, flunks out of college. I fortunately have been going to AL-ANON, which is for family and friends of alcoholics to learn to let go and take care of ourselves. It’s not to cure the other person but learn to take care of ourselves. You can find it in any town no matter how tiny all across the world. It’s in every language and Braille. It’s the coolest thing. Plus, the beginning and the ending of any AL-ANON meeting is always the same no matter where you go. So I learned not to rescue Louie. I learned to say to him, “I will not rescue you anymore. You cannot come home. However, this place might help you.”

Mercy had one bed available, which is the first miracle, out of eight beds. They had never taken someone as far away as Louie. The fact that they took him at all was a miracle. They are not rehab so they paid for rehab for him. They paid for college. They paid for medical. And they put up with him till he finally gave in because he was so angry. Now he still lives there and moved up to the top unit, which is an apartment and he pays them rent but when he leaves he gets it all back. So he’s learning to budget but when he leaves he has this big fat savings. Right now, everyone else is worried and running around and Louie is making money and they helped him find a job. And now he is also getting close to being able to take the test to become an alcohol and drug rehab counselor.

The other thing I got out of this was, my whole life now is undefined, like you had said, “I don’t know who I am.” That’s what I suddenly realized. I didn’t know what I like to eat. I didn’t know how I would really like to dress. I had spent so many years taking care of my ill father and my son and whomever else; I just never had time to define it. Doing the book I found myself standing on campuses, staying with the kids, and seeing adults and children who had given up what they knew in order for something better. Not only what they knew but the way they dressed, the way they spoke. A lot of the alumni would tell me, you could never go back to your own neighborhood once you’ve done this, once you’ve grown up at a home because of the education, and the way you dress now. It doesn’t match anymore. There’s just no place for you. So you are out in the world and the only roots you have is the home where you grew up, the orphanage. That’s hard. I got it that I was being given this gift exactly when I needed it so I would know how to let go. I went back and wove Louie’s and my story through the book because Mercy saved him and saved me as well.

YJ: What part (of you) did you let go?

Martha: I let go of the family members who are a little bit toxic. I let go of hating them. I let go of the stuff. When you come from an old family, you not only have the stuff that you bought but you have all the stuff people have given you and you can become imprisoned by it. I gave up this idea that I had to be a perfect mother or Louie had to be a certain way, and I gave up the idea that anything had to look like anything. I gave up the idea that I even knew what that might look like.

YJ: Awesome! What life lessons! Now as a speaker, you have several suggested topics on your website. Can you tell me a little bit about each of them?

Martha: Sure. The 3x5 Game happened because some of my friends were complaining all the time about things that they hadn’t done yet. Like, for example, a friend had had a mother and a sister die of breast cancer, and she’d never gone to get a mammogram. And the reason she didn’t do was because she was convinced they would say, “You have cancer and you’re going to die.” If that had been true that meant she also wasn’t getting treated. Plus that whole story was right here on her brain constantly worrying her everyday.

One day we were sitting in a restaurant and I was getting tired of listening to them. We all got out napkins and I had them write down the top 3 things right off the top that they were always talking about. It could be as simple as get the car fixed, it could be as deep as get a mammogram, or sell the house, divorce that guy - whatever it was, the 3 things. Then they wrote down 5 things they can do that move them in the direction, not solve it because solving it is what stops us. But what 5 things that you can write down quickly that you could do to move in that direction. So out of that they started doing these 5 things. Because they were starting to have these tiny little successes toward things that were annoying them, they also started to see that instead of talking about what couldn’t be done, they started to talk about what could be done and started to open up their lives. Out of that, I started to write down how to play the 3x5 Game. I went and started giving speeches about it and corporations and civic groups started to take it on as a group and started saying “Game on!” It just grew into this thing! If you’re not spiritually based, if you’re really stuck, if you don’t have much time and if you’re terribly afraid, it’s a good way to start. That’s the 3x5 Game.

YJ: I like that game. It’s very playable.

Martha: Yes it’s very playable.

YJ: What about Embracing Change?

Martha: That’s what you’re doing…

YJ: Yes and the whole nation is doing and the whole world…

Martha: Yes but not everyone is embracing this. Everyone is being offered the chance to let go of the labels. Embracing Change is about the idea that you are not labels. I used to think and I’m sure a lot of people think this: if I can pay all my bills then I’m a good responsible person, and if I can’t then I’m not. Sometimes there are circumstances beyond our control and you can’t do that. Does that mean you are irresponsible? In other words, I thought you had to be this label or that but it never occurred to me there were no labels. I finally realized the problem wasn’t the good or the bad. It was the label. I’m not the label.

That’s actually part of surrendering. It’s letting go of labels. It’s very hard to surrender to embrace change if you’re determined to prove you’re something. Then it’s a contest. It’s always a contest that requires winners and losers, better or worse. There’s always this judgment. Rather than judgment, why not head for mercy. In mercy there’s no better than, less than. Sometimes people say to you that you are better off than children in India and I don’t like that because I don’t like thinking that the only way I can feel good is if there’s someone who’s miserable. It’s so sad. It’s a contest where someone else has to be miserable so I can feel better.

The thing I discovered was happiness is a choice, not controlled by circumstance. Therefore, in any moment, I can choose to feel anything ‐ happy, joyful, and abundant. Well, that seemed revolutionary.

I wrote a note to myself when Dad died and the house was sold and I didn’t even remember writing the note. Then when I moved here, someone found the note and sent it to me. I’d written, “Just remember Martha, there’s more to be lost by standing still than there ever was from risking it all.” I must have been so wrapped up in all the loss. That’s what I was telling an audience when a woman wrote it down, went home and sold everything and found a new job, a new home that fit her vision of herself. She ended her note to me with ‘Carpe diem!’

YJ: What is Primer?

Martha: Primer is this exercise I do with people because I’m assuming generally the crowd in front of me is not spiritually based. So the idea of surrender to them is stop doing stuff you love. A lot of people have gotten the idea that God would like you to have nothing. So in Primer, we list all the “I should” and we list all the “I want”, and we sort out our guilt from the voice within. So it’s a primer on seeing that actually the things you most desire to do are the very things God is trying to help you do. Therefore, what you’re surrendering to is not what you can’t do but what you can do. Most people are more afraid of trying to fully become themselves than they ever are of losing everything. It’s much scarier to wonder if you really can live up to your expectations. So that’s the primer. It helps people to set out on their paths.

YJ: That is awesome! Fostering Community Growth. You’re helping public gain knowledge about themselves… you foster self-growth. And you promote the value of family and community. I completely agree with you because we are social animals…

Martha: Also powerful animals if we just come together.

YJ: There’s a lot of talk about following your bliss and that’s great. But there’s no definition they’re being given… and that bliss might become too self-absorbed and self-serving. What are your thoughts on that?

Maratha: It’s also a more immature version of authenticity. You got this far but you never took that final leap. Once you’re surrendering, you’ve learned what it is you love to do and you get on your path. But there’s another element and that’s called ‘service’ where you come together and you take everything you’ve learned and you learn now how to be a piece of your community where you can set your boundaries so you know how to say no. It doesn’t mean suddenly you’re a doormat. And you know how to say yes when you want to and you find balance. If you don’t return to your community, in my opinion, you haven’t found balance because we’re social animals.

Also in a time like this, if you lost your job and things aren’t going well, being of service to others reminds you that you’re still valuable, that you still have things that other people are very grateful for. So it gets you out of your own skin and reminds you that there’s a good reason you’re here. Lots of times when people get very depressed that’s because they no longer believe that they have anything of value to offer and that’s always wrong. Human contact, giving of yourself to others reminds us of our true selves. There’s somebody who would think you are the best thing that has ever showed up.

YJ: That’s great! Fostering Community Growth is the missing piece in finding balance.

Martha: There’s actually something going on now called “2009 America Challenge.” I was asked to come and speak in Wilmington Ohio. Wilmington Ohio has the highest unemployment rate in the country. They lost an industry that almost employed the whole town and it just devastated the area. I was speaking at the United Way annual dinner and I knew these people needed somebody to say something really positive. The first line I said was, “Faith is only useful when we put it to work.” I challenged them and I said, “Anybody who wants to raise money for a local charity where the dollars stay local by pulling people together, I will come back and teach you The 3x5 Game. Three areas are taking the challenge and have to raise at least $5000. I want people to understand even if you don’t have anything there are still things you can do, and it will help others and people will come together. So it’s called the “2009 America Challenge”.

YJ: I’m going to make a note of that. What is Celebrating Child?

Martha: Louie has special needs so I wrote for years and year about children with special needs and that one of the main mistakes people make when you have a child with special needs is you focus on that need and you forget to celebrate the child. So I’ve spoken a lot about understanding we are not trying to fix the child, we are trying to give the child access. The child is not broken. Reading is not the end goal but the knowledge you gain from reading is. You’re really driving your child into the ground if you’re focused on they have to read. You miss the point! So that’s what it’s about; to remember that your child is not broken.

YJ: How true! It’s only broken if you see it that way… and you miss the true gift! Race, Politics and DNA… that sounds interesting!

Martha: That’s the Jefferson element. My cousin who is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and the slave Sally Hemmings, we often speak together because people like to see there are a black cousin and a white cousin who get along. The entire press world shows up. It gives us an opportunity to show that we can get along. It’s a choice. When we spoke, that was a speech in June and I said to him before we went on the stage because the whole world was there, one of us whoever goes last needs to say, “If Jefferson were alive, he’d vote for Obama.” But what was funny was if you stop thinking about it, how would we know? But I knew the press would just eat it up and the headline the next day was, “Jefferson would vote for Obama”. That wasn’t what the speech was about. That was just one sentence at the end and that’s what they printed.

YJ: Brilliant! You’ve handed it to the press so they could lap it up!

YJ: What kind of challenges did you face, and what satisfaction, some kind of personal rewards did you get through your process?

Martha: The challenges have been letting go of anyone with addictions in my life and loving them anyway. Letting go of fixing them. Or being told constantly, “you will never get syndicated, you will never get published, you will never get whatever...” And it happens anyway and the opportunities always found me. And then I find out later they didn’t normally do that. The publishing house that published the second novel, I found out later they don’t normally do fiction but I didn’t know it then. The publisher for the third book, they don’t normally do that kind of book but I didn’t know it then.

YJ: Seems like there was a lot of trust and faith…

Martha: Right. You just put one foot in front of the other and it doesn’t matter if everybody says it can’t be done. Who cares? Do it anyway. They personally don’t know anyone who’s done it. That does not mean it can’t be done. I have a bigger power I’m dealing with. I feel I’m supposed to be doing it. The journey is what I’m on, not the destination. I’m going for it.

YJ: That’s great! And while you’re on this journey, you’ve founded a couple of foundations. What made you start these foundations?

Martha: I was interviewing a lot of alumni of US orphanages who are 60, 70 and 80 in age and I was stuck by no matter where they were in the country they referred to the people they grew up with, the other children, as brother and sister with no biological connections. And they had a profound loss because there was no Internet site that could connect them. So I finally said, “Well, I can create a website and if you send me your pictures, I can upload them.” And we managed to unite a few people but we’re trying to raise money right now for the Family Tree project so that we can do a Facebook-like site so people could upload their own photos because we found out that there’s an estimated 200,000 people hunting for each other who can’t find each other. Again, it’s odd that no one has done a website before… but it is a little expensive. So I’m going to do it. When I reconnected these few people, they acted as if I’ve reunited mother and child. Their gratitude for my little posting was unbelievable! Then I understood… I don’t get it but I don’t need to get it. I don’t need to understand, it just needs to be done.

YJ: The New Voice Movement?

Martha: Funny you should ask this because we’re thinking of combining Family Tree Project and The New Voice Movement, and hold events with speakers that benefit the Family Tree Project. I grew up in D.C. on a seminary so I was used to democrats and republicans having to learn to get along and people of different faiths having to learn to get along. And lately it had seemed like everybody was more interested in calling each other names and really vicious names too, and nothing was getting done. So I started The New Voice Movement to give people who have different ideas, there are people on the New Voice Movement who are very conservative Christians and new thought who are learning to talk to each other. Not necessarily agree but at least respect that the other person has a right to feel the way they feel. That’s why I started it.

YJ: Do you have some long-term visions for yourself?

Martha: One of the benefits of all of these is that I do but I’m not as attached to it as I used to be. I’m much more in the moment and I’m much happier just staying in the moment. I would like to become a best selling author and see my name on the list.

YJ: Can you define what best selling means to you?

Martha: My ego would love to see just once one of my books with my name on the New York Times Best Seller list. I would love that! And I would frame it! I would love to be financially secure…I would love to own a place rather than rent…and I’d love to travel. But none of those are like, you have to. I’m okay with today.

YJ: What are you working on currently?

Martha: I’m working on a book, a true story about a house that is possessed in Pittsburg and the family refuses to leave the house. The Catholic Church calls it the best documented case ever. Blood coming down the walls, furniture moving… the whole thing.

YJ: Do you have the title?

Martha: Suburban Haunting. Because the house is in the suburbs and I think that’s great. Wait till the neighbors find out. They have caught evidence on film. Have you ever heard of Paranormal State on A&E? Paranormal State, the show, came and filmed there and half of their crew quit after it was over. On film, they were doing a shot where they were just standing around the room talking about what they would be doing and three deep scratches appear on one of their faces. Nobody’s hands were nearby and he quit. He quit his job.

YJ: That’s pretty spooky… I wouldn’t want to be the neighbor… Keep me posted on the progress. Do you have any advices for the folks?

Martha: Here’s some advice my spiritual friends and I remind each other of sometimes and laugh. There’s a saying that once you’ve learned the lesson, the will opportunity stop appearing. So if you’re in the middle of a tough time, you might want to stop and pay attention so you don’t keep getting that opportunity in front of you. It’s a reminder to not be afraid of it and embrace the change. Otherwise, you will get it again. If you don’t want to keep facing it then stop and ask yourself, why, what is it that I’m doing, what is it that I’m trying to learn here? Try to not take it personally. Try not to think you have to be right or this is a judgment about your worth. Ask yourself, “What is it that’s going on that has to do with me?”

I have sponsees in AL-ANON and I don’t let any of them tell me what anyone else has done. They can only talk about what they’ve done. They can only tell “I” stories instead of “he did this or she did that…” They struggle with it but after a while without even noticing it, they were starting to talk about what they could do to change it because now they believe that they could. You say, “I, I felt this way, this was my part in it…” and that’s how you learn the lesson so it goes away.

YJ: Right. We always have too much focus on other people, what they are thinking, what they are doing… which we have no control over. So, instead we need to spend that time introspectively?

Martha: And say “I”. It does help to talk to somebody else so you can hear it, “I did this and I did that,” because suddenly you can see the illogic of it or you see the things you did right. Suddenly you get it!

YJ: How do you not take things personally…because it’s not about you all the time?

Martha: It’s not that it’s not about you because it is. Everything happening around you is about you. It’s just that it’s not meant to harm you. Life is happening but not happening to you. So when your car breaks down, that wasn’t a personal thing against you. It’s just a car breaking down. So you’re now aware that the car has broken down and you’ve accepted it has and go deal with it. But there’s no personal universe haunting you. It’s just that the car broke down.

YJ: But that could be hard to follow when you are all wrapped up in your own world…

Martha: When you don’t believe that the universe has a plan for you then you believe that you have to take control and it never works. And you have to second guess what might come next. Therefore, you’re only doing things that might lead you here and when that doesn’t, you get so crushed.

YJ: So you feel like you’ve done everything possible…

Martha: And it didn’t work out.

YJ: Because you don’t give it the chances of all the possibilities?

Martha: In order to give it the chances, you have to be willing to walk in faith, not knowing where you’re headed. That sounds counter-intuitive and yet, everyone I know including myself who’s done that ended up in these fabulous places we could never have done on our own.
What I always tell people is, “If you become willing, like you’re doing YJ, even if you’re fearful, jealous, angry, happy, greedy… every good and bad thing you can think of, as long as willingness is truly in there, it’s still going to work. Who you are today is all it took and the only ingredient you need to add in everyday is willingness. Don’t wait for all conditions to be perfect before you start. Just start.

YJ: That’s perfect! Just start! Thank you so much, Martha!

This is my first step...

I just wanted to write a bit about how this blog came about.

It's been some time since I've been looking for a more traditional job with no success. Then, a week ago, a few seemingly unrelated events occurred in one day that stirred something in my heart...

On Wednesday, March 11, 2009, I received an email from Aquent containing links to useful information for job seekers and one of them led me to quintcareers.com where I learned about "informational intervews". Later that afternoon, Tom Capshew, a dear friend of mine who is an author of "Divine Warrior Training" and one of the most compassionate and brilliant healers/teachers I know, mentioned to me that the best approach to job search was through networking. That same evening I went to Tom's farewell gathering and met a guy named Tym Moss who told me about his upcoming internet radio show debut of "Artist Exposed" at TalkRadioX.com where he would interview different artists every sunday at 9 pm.

So what about them?

First, they all have a common theme, meeting people. But what came to my mind was meeting people individually through an interview and spending a more intimate time to get to know them rather than in frenzied networking group settings where people are busy handing out their business cards, trying to get to as many people as they can in a short time with their pre-rehearsed sales pitch.

The next logical step would be then to start interviewing people. This is where the twist came. Rather than focusing on job-search related so called informational interviews, I've decided to start interviewing inspirational people. Why? Because what truly is in my heart and keeps me going is my healing work, and helping and inspiring people in my own small ways. So I've decided to reach out and search people who have consciously chosen to contribute to the community and inspire others through their work leaving trails that I can find. Then my little bewildered voice said...

"but I've never interviewed important people before and I feel rather uncomfortable with the idea because I am still very self-conscious about my English... Well, my English may not be perfect but it's pretty good. Besides, every journey starts with the first step! I already know people in my circle so I will start there. I am sure they know others whom I can meet too. Well that sounds like networking to me! It's rather exciting!"

The first person came to my mind was Martha Randolph Carr, the founder of the New Voice Movement. I've met her once a couple of years ago at the Morgulet Christmas party. I've been passively tracking what she's been upto since and felt like she would be the perfect person to begin with... and boy, was I right!

Martha graced me with her presence and her insight last Saturday, March 14, 2009, and here's what she told me before our interview:

I hope your first blog entry is why you’re inspired to write this. Because of the fact that you’re willing to start where you are and you’re counting up your assets instead of blaring at what you might see as your deficits, is exactly what everyone needs to hear. It’s how biggest adventures start. Because instead of saying, "Woe’s me", you’ve said, "Something new must be on the way so I’m heading out there to meet it. Never done this before but I’ll figure it out. Where do I start?" That’s the best thing you could’ve possibly done. You also have said inside, "What I have inside is enough, for whatever is coming, it’s already enough." That makes you different too from what a lot of your readers may be feeling so that’s you shining the light. That’s the best place you could possibly start from. Right where you are. It also says you’re enough that you don’t have to become enough, that in every constant moment you’re enough. That’s great! The best thing you’ve said was, “I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m starting.”

My next blog will be the interview with Martha so stay tuned!

Thanks everyone for reading my blog and I'm really looking forward to meeting some of you and sharing your light here. You can also help me by spreading the words...

Namaste.

(It seems that my job search has led me back on track to my soul search in a way... interesting... this thought didn't cross my mind until just now)