Soulshine

“I’m never afraid. I Never look down. I always look up. That’s why I’m a very remarkable fellow! It’s wonderful the things I feel… Sometimes I could reach out and touch a star!” Chico, 7 th Heaven (1927) Positive thinking makes a tremendous difference in our lives. It’s all about perspective. And growing up in an alcoholic household didn’t allow me the chance to develop much in the way of a positive perspective. I spent most of my childhood feeling pretty hopeless. And the older I got, the less hope I had that things were going to get better. My teen-age years were far worse than my preteen years. Certainly, I learned to look down a lot, and if I felt remarkable in any way, it was remarkably worthless. I had learned to give all of my power away to my parents and that started a trend. Likewise, I gave my power away to mean-spirited teachers, peers and even complete strangers. I had learned to be the perpetual victim, who freely gave his power away because he felt ...

“You never lost Mary Hale. You lost yourself.” Herman to Jimmy , Broadway Serenade Many of us think we know what it’s like to “lose” someone else from our lives. Someone stops calling us, or someone de-friends us on Facebook, or someone simply picks up and walks out of our lives. Then there are those situations where someone is simply tolerating us, and we know it. What we may not know, however, is that they are tolerating us despite ourselves. We never “lost” them, but we did a heck of a good job of alienating them and forcing them as far out of our lives as possible—much to our own regret. In the 1939 film Broadway Serenade , Jeanette MacDonald plays Mary Hale. She’s an up-and-coming singer who’s teamed with her piano playing/composer husband, Jimmy Seymour (played by Lew Ayres). Both are talented. Mary has a great voice and Jimmy has real song-writing skills. But Mary is on her way up because she believes in herself. She’s grounded in good self-love and appreciation,...