Life’s Brilliance…the actual struggle…

There’s a lot of that going around.

Covid has only more sharply defined that which has been slowly gnawing away at our society…the devastation of a plague of loneliness, isolation and depression. We lived with it prior to covid…we just looked through it, past it, over it…we didn’t live in it ourselves so it was easy to pretend it wasn’t a big deal.

That has changed.

It’s in our faces now. And in a lot more places within us, too. We have all been touched by it now. We can’t ignore it.

Wanna know how I know this?

This is the hardest thing…overcoming ego and vanity to say that…

I, Heidi Happiness Laughter Love Heyns, (haha the irony) put in my first call in to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. That, in itself, isn’t how I know that there’s more of that out there….

How I know is…I felt like I needed to talk to someone RIGHT AWAY…and I felt like my friends would not be comforatble with that conversation. AND I didn’t REALLY want to DIE….but I was considering what I would need to do if I did lean that way…and that scared me….So, I called the Crisis Hotline.

…and I was put on HOLD!

THAT is how I know that there is a lot of that going around.

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald

So, now I’ve confessed to something that’s been living inside of me for a LONG time. WHILE I’ve also been this Happiness Joy and Laughter Queen, I’ve ended up institutionalized twice. Both times I managed to easily talk my way out after one night.

If you have never stayed in a mental institution overnight, honestly, I promise, do your BEST and KEEP yourself as balanced and healthy as possible. Talk to friends. Find a therapist. Write. Dance. Take long meditative walks. Meditate. And there is always going to be a person there, at the end of the line, on the Crisis Hotline. And it’s worth it to wait a few minutes, if you get put on hold.

Seriously! WORTH IT!

When the woman at the Crisis Center finally answered the phone, all I could think about was what If I had been sitting in this room with a bottle of pills spilling over into my hand, or worse…and I was put on hold! Right??

I spent 20 minutes with her, me talking and her listening and every few minutes she would stop me and ask me a few leading questions to get me talking again.

Photo by Vijay Sadasivuni on Pexels.com

It was a good call.

But, tonight, well…that quote above, from F. Scott Fitzgerald above, really resonates with me.

Maybe I’ve become crisis level suicidal because I’ve lived my entire life without ever once choosing one of my abilities over another, to focus on…to make a living doing…not once. I’m a writer who doesn’t write. I’m an actor who doesn’t act. I’m a DJ who quit DJ-ing. I’m a voice actor who doesn’t work. The one that kills me the most, that drives the anger bug in me up to the surface the MOST often is the Writer. That piece of me screams at me and flails her arms with a knife at me. “Why the HELL aren’t you WRITING, you STUPID BITCH!”

I’m pretty abusive towards myself. I did some stupid stuff during this time, too…like signing up for a coach who charges $96/month when I have no steady income. Totally stupid!

AND then I get angry that I’m so abusive and Stupid.

Oh yes! It’s a shit show of OneUpManShip, Heidi vs Heidi. Oh boy!

I am ok today. It’s a day to day reality check-in for me…I really just wanted to check in honestly. No smokescreen today.

Just LOVE for the real you aching to be expressed. I know that this little bit of writing has helped. I will probably be able to sleep now.

Thanks for listening.

Feeling Frustrated. Is it pandemic?

Life goes on. the pandemic goes on. We learn and we grow and we adapt. or what? We get left behind, we moulder, we shrink and we drink and we get lost?

Ew!

Right?

We always have choices to make. We have the choice to accept what is and to adapt or to resist what is and fight it forever. Neither is perfect but one is more perfect than the other and you will only know which is which when you commit to one.

For me, I’m writing this post to unravel some realities. I’m frustrated with my own lack of forward momentum, my past choices, my potential future choices and the stupidity of worrying about those. Ok. Honestly I’m not thinking about my future stupid choices.

1. I would never label future choices as stupid and…
2. This will guide me in making better choices in the future.

Deal with frustration. Get beyond it. Frustration is only there because you think you’ve lost touch with what really matters.

You haven’t. You only think you have.

So, change your mind.

We get to do that. As often as we need to, want to, get to.

And make a new choice…choose differently. Rename it.

You’re not frustrated! You’re growing. You’re learning. You’re accepting new ideas, new boundaries, a new definition of yourself.

See?

Wasn’t that easy!?

Now GO! Embrace your redefined self. Learn the new steps. Read the new rules. Hell! SET the new rules! and then erase them and start over. Whenever you want to…whenever you need to.

YOU make the rules of you.

YESterday I said NO

• 

This monster inside doesn’t just go away…it has to be forcibly pushed…or, (eye roll) trained…yup…sadly that (pardon my French) Mutthafucka needs to be trained out.

It’s actually a thing.

Training your psyche to believe you’re worthy…that you want to stick around…that there is something worth sticking around for. (Believe me, I know THAT is not always easy. I know how it feels to think that your shit is crazy stupid and no one else would want to even know you…and that no one ever really WANTS to know you, anyway.. Why would they! Right? We go there automatically. I’m well-familiar, stupidly so, with that automatic crap.

So, sometimes, like now especially, and super sadly, the suicide prevention lines, I think, are inundated with people who are at the end of their ropes. Where do you go when there’s no more rope! But that’s an awful lot of extra rope for them to come up with at the hotlines…feel me?

What THAT means is that we may have to be left up to our own devices to add some rope.

Yes, yesterday I did say no. I wasn’t driving my own car. I took a pretty picture of a cliff and the way the long and short distance perspective is so beautiful in places around the world, like where I am now, New Mexico. When I was leaving the little gravel area off the National Forest area where I was appreciating the beauty, I drove a little close to the cliff edge where there was no guard rail.

“Nope.. this isn’t your car!”

“Shit!”, my monster replied testily.

I am still here.

I went and looked up Cognitive Behavior Therapy. I found a video on YouTube. It felt not too bad to do the five minute thing she was recommending. If you want it, I’ll add it at the bottom.

We may have to find more rope ourselves.

And to that, I have one thing to add…I know I don’t know you, but if you have eyes on this right now and you have thought about any of this and you know what I am talking about because there was no more rope and coming to the end of your rope during this pandemic kinda feels repetitive and tired to share with others..I feel that pain…and I love you! I do!

Maybe we can face this dragon. Maybe we have the Fucking tools. You know? Maybe we’ve GOT to! Maybe that is the choice we have to make. To DO this.

And I have a feeling it’s one that we are going to have to make OVER and OVER again. We will have to KEEP making that choice. I’m thinking that maybe it will be worth it to see if we can do it.

Am I fucked up for saying any of this?

PROBABLY!

Is that going to stop me?

NO EFFING WAY!

Especially if there is just YOU and me…just one person who is reading this who’s in it with me.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.”

– Alexandre Dumas

yep. Fuck it! Dragon, you are DONE! I am in charge of my own life, NOT YOU, you asshole-driving-too-close-to-the-cliff-FUCKING-edge-YOU!!

Here is the link: https://youtu.be/oo5caGP5dAE

What Dad Said

Once upon a time, there was a young sister, daughter, a girl who thought she would grow up into an amazing woman. She had no doubt. She would be a writer and an actor. She would be an artist. 

Nothing would stop her. 

She would be everything she ever wanted to be. 

As she grew up she learned that if she didn’t like something, she didn’t have to do it. She decided she didn’t like a lot of things. She quit numerous things. 

Also, it felt All Good. It felt normal. It felt fine. 

She decided it was absolutely okay to change your mind about things and not finish and that’s how she decided to live her life. 

What began to happen was that pretty much anything that she’d start out doing with excitement, she’d decide shortly after that, that it wasn’t fun..it wasn’t good and she didn’t like doing something that wasn’t good, so she would quit. 

She didn’t realize until much later that this left a trail of unfinished and incomplete projects, artwork, writing and other things that started out as AMAZING. 

She wasn’t the first one to see this. 

Her father was the first one to take notice of this.  He had a unique plan to help his daughter to see that she was starting a lot of plans and ideas and projects and then dropping them before they were finished. He waited until one day as she was getting her bike to go out for her daily ride, when he lost his temper for whatever reason…a long day at work or frustrations of his own of some kind, and he shouted at her that she would NEVER finish ANYTHING. 

Well, that girl idolized her father and believed pretty much everything her father said. She had thought she might try out for the University Cycling Team. She had been taking her bike out for many months, every day, rain or shine, for a 20 mile trek around the city. 

That would be the last day she took her bike out for a twenty mile workout. She didn’t use her bike at all after that day.  It stood neglected after that. 

When the girl was older, she still heard those words echoing in her thoughts. She would never finish anything. 

She managed to finish a few things. Those things, looking back from half a century later, stand out in relief. She acted in two plays. One in college and one as a professional. She had thought she might be an actress, but when she did one play, she stopped. She’d never finish anything. 

She did a movie. She was the lead. The director even took a moment away from all the other actors, when no one could hear, and quietly said, “You’re really good at this! You should be acting!” 

That was enough for the girl who never would finish anything. 

That girl had turned into a woman who still believed what her father had prophesied that day. She didn’t want to make him right. She couldn’t stand the idea of making him wrong. If she made him wrong then maybe, just maybe it would have meant that he said things to her that belittled her and he meant them. And he believed them. 

It still hurt. After 40 years, it still hurts. 

But that doesn’t mean it has to keep hurting. It doesn’t have to keep hurting and it doesn’t have to be true to her – still. A little girl turned woman in her fifties could decide to learn from something her father said so long before. She could take it as a motivator. She could stretch herself beyond the limitations she had set for her entire life because of something that man said in anger one afternoon. She could let it go. She could grow past it, or through it, or over it. She could even grow AROUND it. 

But, she knew that she must OUTGROW it. 

As she wrote that, she began to see a future different from her past. She smiled as she realized her future could be one of completion..of finishing what she starts. 

Her future could be one of starting things that she only wanted to finish…and if she couldn’t see the project in her mind as a completed project she wouldn’t start that project or that writing or that anything. 

This would be the girl with the hurt becoming the woman she had always pictured she would become. 

Completing the things that made her heart sing. 

She liked it when her heart sang. 

She set out to find things that would make her heart sing. She would look at them until she could see them completed in her mind. She would build a stage for it if it was a play. And she would wait to see if she could see actors (or herself) on stage going through the entire play and then accepting the applause and the curtain going down at the end. 

Maybe going forward, If she couldn’t see that, she wouldn’t start writing it at all Maybe that’s how finished novelists do what they do. Playwrights, too. And screenwriters. Directors, too, I bet. And songwriters. 

Perhaps I should ask them. That would be an interesting conversation. 

Getting Ready for my Atlantic PopOver: Craziness!

Questions be bangin’ on my head..but…now this!

But might as well enjoy my FAVORITE CHRISTMAS VIDEO!! (and the song which makes it!) Thanks to The Drifters! Brilliant voices and music!!

It’s so easy to distract myself from the things I need to do, with the things I love doing. Right? Do ya feel me? Don’t you love watching and listening to this video? I mean, RIGHT?

Meanwhile, as a housesitter heading to the UK for six months TOMORROW…I still don’t know how I’m going to have a phone for the entire time I’m over there…and whether I’ll be able to hold onto my own number…and, Man! What happens to my texting and WhatsApp if I no longer have the Verizon phone number I now have? And what about my Google number? Doesn’t that also go away if I lose my Verizon number?

You see what I mean? Oy Veh!

If you have a handle on all of this, you’d be a HUGE help to me and to anyone reading this who hits the same snag-a-roonies.

BUT, the best thing is that I’ve got the Labradoodles happy at my feet…one of them is dreaming now and she’s cycling her paws like she’s running. Sweet girl!

First Day on my New Housesitting Blog! Hi!

This is Bazzy, from my housesit in NW Portland in October. Beautiful boy! Watch for fun videos with his soooo cute little brother the Scottie pupperoo, Jake

Their Human, Kimberly couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw the video. 

She said he would spot a phone coming out and immediately stop playing, so this is a One Time Anomaly! Lucky Me! Lucky You!! 

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Hello world! Heidi here…plus my love buddies, Harley The Dog & Louie and Lola The Cats in D.C., Zelda the Cat in Portland, OR. followed by Arya, Oreo, Juneybug, Riley, Parker (just some of the pets on the farm in Brush Prairie, WA and and so many more…in fact, A WHOLE bunch of other amazing BELOVED pets in my heart!

Heidi and her world, now opened to you! Housesitting Heidi, the blogger, and voice talent, the actress and the writer…and the LOVER of animals. SOOOO Much room in my heart for animals AND People!

It’s funny…you know…is there a LIMIT ON LOVE?

No. Emphatically, No. There is no limit on the amount of love in our hearts.

No limit. Imagine that. We can love EVERYONE we meet. Every animal. Every Person! and Still have room for MORE LOVE!

It’s a good thing. SUCH a good thing!

Aren’t you in love with this thing Called Love? I know I am!

just moments…After watching Oscar Nominated, “Green Book”…

It’s nearly 10pm. I’m sitting at my desk, in front of my computer, with headphones plugged into my ears, all orifices trickling, lower lip quivering. Truly. Beautiful. Acting AND Writing. Thank you

Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, remarkably, are those for whom I lay the immediate blame for my tears. And, I swear, as I write this, I am LISTENING AGAIN to the final scene, when Ali’s character, piano virtuoso, Dr. Don Shirley, demonstrates his magnificent virtuosity in front of an unsuspecting juke joint crowd in Birmingham, Alabama. Five minutes later, Viggo’s character, Tony “Lip”, as they walk out to the car, whips out his pistol and fires several shots straight into the air, sending the robbers ducked down on the other side of a nearby car, scattering.

Yes, it’s a powerful message of friendship, brotherhood, love, acceptance and, well…love. Yeah, Why Not! It’s truly a story about loving one another better! Love one another better, I could say that this is indeed the message of the movie..of the writers, of Tony Lip, of his son who was inspired by his father’s own life journey as a result of his eight week journey with this black musician…

If you haven’t seen it yet, and you’re aware that it’s up for a number of nominations for the Academy Awards and you’re wondering what the big deal is…see this movie.

“Green Book”

But, the real reason I started writing this post…wanna know? It’s because I’m personally torn…I see this AMAZING story told about our past…our past as Americans, our past as humans, our past as a largely racially biased species…I see this movie, and for me, I see actors who have honed their craft for years, through struggles and hardship. I see writers who have also honed their own skills and their craft through all kinds of punishment, meager earnings and rejection. The life of an artist…rejection and growing a thick skin in order to attain the heights of achievement.

I see this and, being honest, the reason for the leaking of tears becomes less clear. Of course it is the story. But, it’s also my own regrets hastening those painful tears, painting them heavier than the lessons of the movie, stinging just a bit more than those caused by a simple lesson might.

Honesty bites. I hate exposing my weakness, my failures! But, maybe pushing them brutally into the glaring light of day will initiate some ferocious courage in me, like that of the good Dr. Shirley of the story, facing the racism of the South head-on, with undaunted courage. Maybe, just…!

Doubt curls its surly lip at me and I cower, but….maybe just…

Tears, stinging honest raging tears, grinding teeth, head shaking, lips pucker forward, obstinate posers.

If one is a writer, one simply writes. Isn’t that the truth? Isn’t that Aaron Sorkin? Isn’t that Nick Vallelonga? If you’re going to write, you just Do It.

I’m writing now, right? So, Write! Write! Right?

Lessons. Who the hell wanted a lesson?? I wanted to watch another of the Oscar Nominated Movies. I did. And now…I got…. A LESSON.

And actually, I have somehow twisted it into two lessons for the price of one.

Lucky me.

Write, dummy.

and ... See this movie.

Do you know about the NEW “Heidi & Co.” Gratitude & Upliftment Podcast, yet?

Let’s start with setting the mood…the environment…the atmosphere…

Ok?

So…Would you say…Are you feeling
A. Mostly Happy with your life? (if so, I’d LOVE to have you on as a guest!)
B. Mostly Satisfied with your life.
C. Somewhat Happy and Satisfied with my life.
D. Somewhat Dissatisfied with my life
E. Somewhat Unhappy with my life?
F. Demoralized and Paralyzed by my Current Life?

 

Yea, it’s kinda hard to put a fine point on such a personal, hard-to-rationalize, justify, clarify or define kind of question, isn’t it?
Doesn’t it often depend on the day or the time of day that someone asks you such a question?
I’d say so.
So, this podcasts visits all that…the doubts, the insecurities, the knowledge, the insights, the questions, the answers, the wonder and…
the POSITIVE LIFE-AFFIRMING ACTIVITIES

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

we often JUST STUMBLE ON while we consider these points.

Didn’t plan it.
Starting to plan it now.

Come in for UPLIFTMENT and NEW Ideas about how to life a Happy or maybe a Happier life.

Come listen or watch on Facebook Live for ideas about living a more fulfilled life….or find out how being super GRATEFUL has added tremendously to the lives of some of our most SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PEOPLE, CEOs, LEADERS, ACTORS, WRITERS…etc, etc, etc,

How does UPLIFTMENT add to our lives?…grow our prosperity?…fill out our spiritual emptiness?  or that quell that VAGUE NAGGING FEELING we have that there MUST be MORE?

Wanna explore ALONG WITH Me?

Join me and SOMETIMES some PRETTY COOL guests as we explore these and MORE questions about Happiness, Gratitude, Upliftment, Prosperity, Well-Being…etc etc etc…

Who’s in?

Weekdays at “Heidi & Co. at 5pm CENTRAL TIME US

on Facebook Live and Spreaker,

and FOREVER afterwards on Spotify, iTunes, I Heart Radio and YouTube! 

 

This is Us; Season 2, Episode 6 Randall and the Sikh guy and the ceiling fan.

Cruising through saved episodes, I land on this one. The series has given me some moments…you know…moments when I tear up. I tear up, maybe because the moment is so…close to the ultimate moment you’d ever want to have in that particular situation. Or..maybe..because it clarifies a thought you’ve been wanting to have…trying to have for a LIFETIME….an they just blurt it out and POOF! There it is! Said just the way you’d imagine you’d have thought of saying it if you could be smart and prescient and hella instrumental in writing astonishing and incredibly timely material for television. Sikh guy scene

Would you be there, too?!! Right??!

I know I would!

So, AGAIN, blindsided.

Sitting here in the quiet of my room, with my cat snoring nearby…and this scene lands at my feet, as it were. Boom! Tears! Again!

This show! Tear central! Is it the same in your house?

Randall, the show’s adopted brother, unlike the bio kids in that he’s a bit on the anxious side. He’s extremely intelligent and considerate and thoughtful…but he’s an anxious child and grows up to be an anxious adult….but, he’s an adult with a lovely wife and three amazing kids.

We begin to learn – as the show winds artfully through their collective lives, (father, mother, kids from all the various perspectives, as well) that Randall had a tough time growing up ‘the adopted kid’…and when he goes shopping for a ceiling fan that’s already been hung and taken down because it doesn’t seem to work.

We know it’s either faulty or it actually works but Randall installed it wrong…but we will never know…So Randall takes it down and goes to the store to replace it…and this Sikh man is helping him. He’s on the staff at this Home Depot type store, apron etc…And when he approaches poor Randall, and asks if he can help, Randall lets loose ALL of his self-doubts at being a new dad.

Lo! At first, we’re pretty sure that the Sikh guy would do what any one of us would do in a moment with a customer when a stream of highly emotional content along with quavering voice and a look for desperation comes right at you in your nine dollars an hour apron. But, this guy is different…this Sikh guy.

After Randall’s avalanche of psychological pain and -about-to-be-a-new-father angst, the Sikh guy does NOT back away and offer to give the guy his space. Nope! Not this hometown Home Depot superhero. Nope. This guy steps up in all his wonderfully full-bearded heroism and directly faces Randall’s fear and starts sharing with him his knowledge from having raised FIVE kids.

I began, immediately upon knowing what this Sikh guy was about to do, to weep. This show! I swear to god! This show takes what we always wanted to be and what we always hoped and prayed we were as humans and turns it around and says, “This IS what we are! And don’t you forget it!”

Dammit! I CRY every time I watch this show for THAT VERY REASON.

This show shows us what we CAN be. This show says “THIS….THIS….this is us!” …not all the other stuff…not STUFF..Not accomplishment…not careers…not possessions, not money…THIS is US…we are about sincere, honest caring for our fellow human beings.

This show rocks my world. And it shows me just how much we can rock the world, each and every one of us…once we FINALLY REALIZE that THAT is what matters.

WHOOSH! “This is Us” Awesome show!

Next time, when you’re walking through a store and you wonder, even for a second, if someone in that store would really just open their heart and ‘get you’ in a moment…this show says, and this moment in the show, in particular, says it does… and we have to listen because the writers ARE humans just like us and their creation of this moment is pure evidence that this kind of thing LIVES in the LIVES of ALL of us!

This is US.