Category: Relationships

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In infidelity, who’s responsible?

All of Dallas — and much of the world — has been riveted by the murder trial of former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger. She was arrested and charged with murdering a man who she thought had broken into her apartment late one night in September 2018. It turns out that she was at the wrong apartment. 

Early in the trial, it came out that she was having a sexual affair with her police partner who was a married man. Even though I rarely allow myself to watch the news anymore because it makes me feel so negatively, I just happened to watch her testimony in which Guyger said that she had ended the relationship because, “I knew it was morally wrong, and I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

When it comes to infidelity — in a marriage or committed relationship — who is responsible? I have always said that it is the person in the marriage or committed relationship because that person is the one who made legal/spiritual/emotional vows and promises to another person. If they are unhappy in that relationship, then it is their responsibility to end that relationship before entering another one. We don’t often see that happen anymore, however.

While I heard each of them try to distance themselves from each other during this trial, this is a good time to take a look at signs of a healthy relationship. So, how do you know if your relationship is full of real love or if you may be in an unhealthy, enmeshed relationship? Dr. Tim Clinton offers these 10 Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship. Do you …

  1. Close your eyes to irresponsible behavior?
  2. Keep secrets or tolerate abuse?
  3. Sacrifice to cover up someone else’s mistakes?
  4. Cater to a lazy person’s whims?
  5. Cave in to an angry person’s demands?
  6. Make excuses?
  7. Justify bad behavior?
  8. Accept the blame for something you never did?
  9. Enable an addiction?
  10. Lie to yourself or others?

“If you answered ‘yes’ to many of these statements, it’s likely that you may be stuck in an enmeshed relationship,” he wrote. “These relationships leave a legacy of heartbreak and manipulation. But that legacy can be changed if we are willing to open our eyes and take an honest look at ourselves and our relationships.”

Maybe it’s the Mental Health Professional in me, but it appeared by Guyger’s statement about her relationship with her partner that she was taking the blame which is No. 8 on this list. I can understand this behavior because I used to display it all the time in my relationships. I’m a natural peacemaker, and I wanted peace in my relationships. So, I often took the blame when I was not to blame. A person who truly loves themselves first (the topic of the next book I’m releasing available for preorder on my website) sets and enforces healthy boundaries and doesn’t accept blame that is not theirs.

Cheating on a partner or spouse is classically and purely ego — or Edging God Out, as Dr. Wayne Dyer often said. The key to overcoming the ego is love — pure, true, real love. It makes sense with the Bible informing us that God is love.

“Lovingness is a feature of your natural state, and your ego isn’t part of that state,” Dr. Dyer wrote in his book Being in Balance. “Ego dominates because you’ve separated yourself from your God-self, the loving self that came here from a place of perfectly Divine unconditional love. You’ve carried this ego idea of your own self-importance, your need to be right, for so long that you’ve deluded yourself into believing that the ego-self is who you are … By allowing this illusion to be the dominant force, you’ve created, through your ego-centered self, a heavy imbalance in your life.”

I have to keep going back to our responsibility in our lives — we are co-creators with God and can manifest anything we become focused on. I love what Dr. Sue Morter has to say about this, “Your life is YOUR movie. You are writing the story, playing the part of the main character, and have the power to decide and direct how everything will go.”

I’m so excited to tell you about her new eBook The Top 3 Mistakes That Keep You from Fulfillment & Flow, where she shares her proven system that heals lives on every level — mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.

The Princess Guide Senee Seale

If you’ve been seeking a life where you feel complete freedom, total fulfillment and the joy of living in the flow, then this is eBook is for you.

In case you don’t know her, Dr. Sue is a renowned international speaker and founder of the Morter Institute for Bio-Energetics, an organization committed to teaching individuals self-healing techniques and a new approach to life based on Quantum Science. She is the host of Healing Matrix on Gaia TV. She has also been featured in several documentary films, including The Opus, The Cure Is…, Discover the Gift, and Femme. Dr. Sue is the author of The Energy Codes ®: A 7-Step System to Awaken Your Spirit, Heal Your Body, and Live Your Best Life.

Being in a broken or unbalanced relationship can affect every aspect of your life … I know because I wrote my first book about it! Dr. Sue’s eBook will help you begin the healing process, and it’s only free for a limited time. So, make sure you get your copy now and learn the Top 3 Mistakes That Keep You From Fulfillment & Flow. 

If you enjoy this content and would like to read Senée’s books for free, get on the Royal Team. For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the bookstore today!

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Seasons change: Don’t worry, be happy

Autumn has arrived on the calendar, but here in Texas, it’s still Summer … I saw pumpkins outside my grocery store today literally getting sunburned! I feel like Rapunzel needing to let down my long hair, but it’s just too hot to do that.  

The Princess Guide Senee Seale

This is my favorite time of year because now until the end of the year, it’s full of football, festivals (Oktoberfest, the State Fair of Texas, pumpkin patches, art festivals, etc.), celebrations (homecomings, my birthday, Halloween/Harvest, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s) and the temperature loses its oppressive heat and eventually, slowly becomes comfortable. Waiting for that to happen is the hard part. (I wrote on social media recently that I was having trouble waiting for things to happen.)

I love seasons because when one becomes too much to deal with or boring, you know a change will most definitely be coming (unless you live in a place like Southern California where it’s hot year-round, or at least it was the semester I was in graduate school there … I was rummaging through my closet on Thanksgiving Day to find a sleeveless shirt to wear in the 90-degree heat while eating my turkey dinner — not fun for me!)

My pastor outside Nashville once said, “Some people are seasonal people, and some people are meant to be in your life for the long-term.” At the time, that statement hurt me. I realize now, almost two decades later, that I wasn’t hurt. I was offended — that’s much worse in my book because being offended is a choice we each make. In the last almost 20 years, I’ve watched the revolving door of people walk in and out of my life. Some of them were supposed to be forever friends and family. I had to learn the hard lesson that even those you love the most and are closest to can choose to leave. When this happens, your season changes.

These changes can be difficult, but they don’t have to be. It’s all in our perception. We can choose how we view events in our lives. I believe three of the most important tools for dealing with change and new seasons are optimism, joy and gratitude.

The glass is half FULL

William James put it best, “It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.”

You’ll get what you look for. If you’re looking for misery, you will find it. If you are looking for beauty, you will find that, too. The great thing about it is that YOU get to decide what you want to look for. Yes, change can be crappy. It can — and usually is — full of difficult moments, but it can also have beautiful moments, too. I think the reason we don’t see or focus on the beauty is because there are typically more negatives in a situation to take our attention away from the positives.

When I was studying Marriage & Family Therapy in graduate school, I came across a quote from Gary Zukav in our textbook Culturally Competent Counseling, “Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality.”

Think about the gold miners during the gold rush. Did they dip their pans in the water and pull them out full of gold? No! They were lucky to find a small nugget, but that small nugget was worth a ton of money and all the trouble it took to find it.

We create our reality, and reframing negative events to see the good in them is a great practice to put into action so that, over time, it becomes automatic. When you catch yourself having negative thoughts, redirect them and encourage yourself. Look for the beauty in the change, even if it’s tiny.

“When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so, he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, ‘You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!’” Romans 4:18 (MSG).

CHOOSING joy/happiness

This year, I’ve seen an explosion of online personalities talking about happiness. It became a buzzword a few months ago with CEO of VaynerMedia, Gary Vee (Vaynerchuk) talking about it on social media. Then all these other content creators followed suit bombarding my inbox and social media feeds with their pitches on why I needed to buy their online courses to learn to be happy.

While Gary Vee is usually the trendsetter, it was ME who began talking about joy and happiness with blog posts in 2014, and I wrote a newspaper article about it in 2006. There’s a lot of scientific research to show that being happy and having joy in your life will not only make you feel better, but it can enhance your health and longevity.

Here’s the thing: Happiness is an inside job. It isn’t something you find externally. It’s taken me more than four decades to realize this. (I’m working on a book about being happy in which I take you on my journey of regaining my joy/happiness … Stay tuned for information on that!)

This meme really sums it up, “I am in charge of how I feel, and today I am choosing happiness.” You have the power to be happy or miserable. The choice is up to you.

Being grateful for EVERYTHING

I’ve said it many times before, and I’ll continue to say it: I believe that one of the greatest traits of a princess (anyone resonating on a higher frequency) is gratitude. What is gratitude? Webster Illustrated Contemporary Dictionary defines gratitude and grateful as “A feeling of thankfulness; having or expressing gratitude, thankful; affording gratification (the act of gratitude or the state of being gratified).”

“Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will],” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (Amplified Bible).

The bad things will all work out for your good — maybe not immediately, but eventually you will see that what looked like a devastating storm actually gave you the chance to rebuild your life into the dream house you’ve always wanted.

I was watching one of my favorite movies The Lake House recently and was reminded of a song I loved as a little girl by Carole King called It’s too late. I really love the lines of the last verse:

There will be good times again for me and you, but we just can’t stay together. Can’t you feel it too? Still I’m glad for what we had and how I once loved you. But it’s too late baby. Now it’s too late. Though we really did try to make it. Something inside has died and I can’t hide and I just can’t fake it. No, no, no …

Even though she’s singing about the ending of a relationship, I love how she focuses on the gratitude she has for the experience. There is beauty in every experience — even the bad ones that devastate us and bring us to our knees. We have to look for it.

“When something ends it seems like the end of something. Consider that the ending of it was actually part of the process of something new beginning,” wrote Hemal Radi.

How can you put optimism, joy/happiness and gratitude into practice during the changing seasons in your own life?

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the bookstore today!

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Rebuilding your life after the hurricane

There was a song I used to sing in my 20s called After the hurricane. It was about rebuilding your life after tragedy. I had no idea then how many times I would experience tragic loss in my life — with jobs, love, friends, you name it. 

When I was studying Substance Abuse Counseling, everyone in the college system was required to read a book called 1 Dead in Attic. I don’t have the book with me as I’m writing this on the road, but I was told the author visited the college the semester before I started. The book was fascinating to me because it was written by a journalist chronicling the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He wrote about how people would go to closed convenience stores just to get toothpaste and deodorant. If I remember correctly, he said he left an IOU note when he went. He said people put their refrigerators on the front porches because of the rotten food smells inside. He also said people would sit on their porches at night and drink alcohol to cope with the disaster.

The title of the book came from houses in the city being spray painted on the front “1 dead in attic” after each house was inspected and deceased people were found inside. I was told by faculty members in the counseling program that the author was still clearly dealing with the psychological and emotional effects of the event years later.

When I was working as a reporter and editor at a newspaper in North Carolina, we were trained by the National Weather Service to cover hurricanes. We were told that the media focuses on the wrong thing — they focus on the eye of the storm instead of the bands. The flooding from the rain bands kills and causes the damage.

To me, it’s the aftermath of an event and how we handle it that is more important than the event itself. As I wrote in The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart, no one can determine how long your healing process will take. Think about it like this: the bigger the hurricane in your life, the longer the recovery, clean-up and rebuilding process will take. We often rush our recovery to please everyone around us and say we’re fine and over it. But it literally can take years for us to begin feeling like ourselves again after a psychological hurricane hits our lives. That’s alright! Do the internal work, and let the process take as long as it takes. Tell anyone around you to either get a hammer and help you rebuild, or shut up about your healing process.

I was recently staying at a hotel, and they played a song from the 60s called Undun by The Guess Who. The lyrics caught my attention:

She’s come undone. She wanted truth, but all she got was lies, came the time to realize, and it was too late. She’s come undone. She didn’t know what she was headed for, and when I found what she was headed for it was too late. It’s too late. She’s gone too far. She lost the sun. She’s come undone.

Granted, they’re probably singing about substance use since it was written in the 60s, but these lyrics could describe any tragedy — especially relationship loss.

I’ve come to realize that when tragedy strikes, it’s an opportunity to rebuild and reinvent your life. Madonna has often said that she’s had to reinvent herself many times. I think that’s part of this existence. Some of us make it look easy, but it isn’t. The process is hard, uncomfortable and very unsure. It’s like me being in a car that flipped five times in 2005 — you think you know where you’re headed, but you really have no idea of what’s actually happening in that moment or how it will turn out. Do the internal work. Trust the process, and have faith that everything will work out for your good.

As hard as it is to fathom in the moment, let the process run it’s course like a hurricane, tornado or car accident. When you survive to tell the story, you will have the opportunity to rebuild your life in a way that works better for you.

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. For more information on how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, check out the bookstore today!

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How to give thoughtful gifts

We’re entering gift giving season, and I want to try and help you out. I love receiving gifts! I’m surprised that didn’t end up being one of my top three Love Languages, but what I’m about to reveal to you may be the reason why it didn’t.

I once received a bouquet of red and white carnations – I hate, I mean the deepest form of HATE – carnations and baby’s breath (which I think should be called “baby’s bottom” because they smell just like a dirty diaper to me). If someone can’t afford pale pink, hot pink or yellow roses for me, I would rather have them pick bluebonnets, sunflowers, pink tulips or pink or blue hydrangeas out of someone’s yard than to give me carnations or baby’s breath.

I know the person was trying to do something nice for me, but it just made me feel very conflicted inside because I wanted to feel happy and grateful, but instead I felt disgusted and like an ungrateful brat. On top of that, I felt like I was being given something I thought was crappy because that’s what this person thought I deserved.

I had a husband who would always take out the baby’s breath before he gave me a bouquet of roses. Maybe he did it just so I wouldn’t gripe, but in my opinion, he loved me enough to keep me from feeling that internal conflict. That small action on his part allowed me to feel the love, joy and gratitude his gift brought to me.

We give gifts to others to show them our love and to make them happy because their happiness makes us feel happy. I received for Christmas last year Neiman Marcus gift cards and bath bombs – this person not only knows me so well, but honored me and showed me they believe I’m a person of value and class … It made me feel so much gratitude and love.

You don’t have to have a lot of money and buy expensive gifts to give thoughtful gifts. You just need to know the person and what they value. When I am invited to someone’s home, I never go empty handed. My grandmother taught me when I was young that you always take a gift. It can be something as simple as grocery store roses, a candle or a dish you prepared. When I was in graduate school in California, I was invited to a cohort’s home for a girl’s night, and I took a candle. A couple of weeks later, she stopped me after class one day and told me that she and her husband were really enjoying burning the candle because it brought the Autumn colors and smell into their home. It made me feel good that I did something to bring joy to them.

People register for gifts so that you can avoid creating that conflict within them and so they can get gifts that will help them build their homes together. I once received a wedding gift of purplish and white placemats. I hate the color purple almost as much as I hate carnations and baby’s breath. To make matters worse, there was no way to know where they were purchased, so I couldn’t exchange them for something we could use. Honestly, it felt like this person was re-gifting or pawning off on us something they didn’t want. I felt that internal conflict again, but still sent a thank you note to the person … I wouldn’t have been able to do it the same day that I opened it, but a couple of weeks later I had enough time and emotional energy to be able to do it.

The point I’m trying to get across to you is that it is not the thought that counts when giving gifts because of this internal conflict the recipient feels.

A scientific study published in 2015 in The Journal of Cognition and Emotion found that people who are more independent may experience less gratitude and feel less positively when others do something for them. I’m not sure if this is because they feel more positively when they can achieve things on their own, or if they are so self-aware and know exactly what they want that when they are given something they don’t want they feel that internal conflict I described because they hate the gift but love the giver and want to show gratitude without lying about their feelings toward the gift.

So, how do you know what to give someone? You have to know some things about the person and their values. If someone gave me a $1,000 bottle of wine, I would have to decline the gift because I don’t drink alcohol and loathe the affects it has on the brain, body and the lives of those around the drinker. I would try to be gracious while explaining my reasoning for rejecting the gift. But why even put a person in that uncomfortable situation in the first place? If you know a few things about someone, you can find something they might like:

  • What’s the person’s favorite color? What colors do that hate/never wear/carry/use?
  • What is the person’s style? What types of clothes and colors do they usually wear?
  • What is the person’s lifestyle? Do they have children? Married? Single and an active traveler? Religious? Fisherman? Works with their hands? Makes crafts/goods? Knowing how a person spends his or her free time (or how they want to spend their free time) will help guide you into a good gift idea.
  • How does a person usually smell? Musky? Floral? Fruity?
  • What problems do a person need solved?
  • When in doubt, gift cards are always appreciated … coffee, nail salons, spas, hardware stores, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. can always make a person’s life easier, and isn’t that the real purpose of a gift?

In the second The Hunger Games movie, Pita told Katniss that the only way they could be friends was to get to know things about each other like their favorite colors. He’s right. You will never be able to give an appreciated gift if you don’t take time to pay attention to a person.

I had a cohort in graduate school in Texas bring me a book because I mentioned once or twice that I liked the concepts of certain therapy types because the Bible tells us that we can control our thinking which will affect our actions … That was a very thoughtful gesture I greatly appreciated and used in research for my book The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart.

I know I’ve missed the mark and given bad gifts unknowingly. (I’ve also knocked it out of the park and given gifts that the recipient absolutely loved.) When you’re in doubt, don’t spend much money and don’t push a person for a response to a gift … If they don’t immediately contact you to thank you and show their gratitude, then they are more than likely experiencing that internal conflict because you gave a crappy gift. That’s totally your responsibility … Don’t expect to put the blame on the recipient because you didn’t pay attention to their likes and dislikes, or you gave something you thought they deserved instead of what they actually deserved.

There’s a cheesy Lifetime Christmas movie I watched last year about a personal shopper who was the best at giving gifts people deeply appreciated. What made her better at gift giving than most of us? She admitted that she researched the person before choosing a gift. Her method was so effective that it gained her client favor and business deals he could have never gotten on his own. Use her example and get to know the people in your life.

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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Choosing a running mate

The midterm elections are coming up next week, so it’s an appropriate time to revisit this post from 2016 …

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With all the talk lately about who Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will pick to be their vice presidential running mates, it’s had me thinking about choosing a spouse.

Trump said he wanted to pick someone who was strong in areas where he was weak. I believe that should be one of the top priorities when picking a life mate, as well. Dr. Wayne Dyer often said, “You shouldn’t marry a mirror.” What he meant was, you shouldn’t marry someone who is exactly like you and who likes all the things in life that you do. Yes, it’s important to have big things in common like religious beliefs, common goals for you as a couple and as a family. However, in my opinion and observation throughout more than four decades on this planet, the true strength of a couple is only realized when trouble strikes (and it always does). When there is at least one person who is strong in that area, he or she can cover for the both of them and show the weaker one how to rise up and become stronger.

I learned while studying Social Psychology and working as a Research Assistant studying couples in relationships that opposites do not, in fact, attract. Their differences are so great that they appear to be all an outsider can see, but they actually have many things in common which bring them together and keeps them together.

So, how do you know if you’re choosing a good “running mate?”

In their book Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend recommend looking for these traits in your relationships:

  • Are they living up to their commitments to me?
  • Are they here for me only when I’m here? (Do they disappear? Do you know how and where they are spending their time when they’re not physically with you?)
  • Do they tell me “no” when they don’t have time? (Do they make time for you even when their time is limited, or do they tell you to “just get in line behind everyone else in my life?”)
  • Do they make promises they can’t (or won’t) keep?
  • Am I the last in a string of broken relationships?
  • Do others warn me about their patterns of relating? (Have you been warned that they promise to marry someone then run off with her sister or his best friend? Have you been told he or she runs from their responsibility in relationships, be them unexpected children or financial?)

It takes time to find out most of these things about a person. That is why I like the advice of being with someone for four seasons or about nine months to a year. I will further refine that by saying, you should DATE someone for four seasons, not be engaged for four seasons (nor living together). Once you enter the engagement phase, it can feel harder to get out of the relationship after you’ve announced the wedding date, paid deposits and promised to marry someone. It is also harder to process and accept negative information about someone after you have already fallen in love with them — even if their family member tells you they have a pattern of being a “runaway bride or groom,” it can be harder to accept the information then make an informed decision of what is best for YOU in the situation. This is where having close family and friends to vet your perspective “running mates” is crucial.

Every single person up for serious consideration of the job for vice presidential candidates must fill out a long, involved background form, go through a background check, have their friends, family and coworkers interviewed and interview with multiple people. If this process is this important for a four-year job, why shouldn’t it apply to a lifetime position?

I was telling a girlfriend going through a serious breakup the other day that I really understand why it was so important for a man to get a girl’s parents permission to date and marry her — having people outside the relationship with her best interests at heart is critical to making an informed decision.

Consider getting some of your closest friends and family on your advisory team to start vetting the next people who come into your life.

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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Are there zombies among us?

I was on my way to work recently and stopped second in line at a red light in a busy intersection. I was listening to the Breakfast Beat Mix on First Wave when I felt a croooooosh from behind …. A pickup truck had hit and defiled my Princess Mobile!

I got out of the car, and the 20-something guy inside didn’t bother to ask if I was alright. He didn’t say he was sorry. He didn’t even get out of the car. He appeared to be high on pot, and when I pointed out what he did, his only response was, “My bad.”

He showed no remorse. No sense of responsibility. No human kindness … NOTHING!

He had no insurance or driver’s license. He seemed to have no life in him. He was like a zombie.

In the truther community, it is said that there are people without souls walking among us like zombies. While I could believe that in theory, it wasn’t until this experience that I started to believe it might be fact.

My motto in raising children and in life has always been, “You mess up, you clean up!”

I’ve written about this in The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart … When you make a mistake, it’s your responsibility to make things right. You have to do whatever you can to fix the issue — be that in love or life. Self medicating, being selfish and zoning out are not options. Taking positive action is the only way.

Don’t be a zombie, and don’t enable them either!

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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People behaving badly in public need home training

We’re on the topic of common public behavior this week, and it’s fitting that I remind you of a post I wrote exactly a year ago in April 2017 (totally a coincidence). I had forgotten the details of the incidents I recount in this post, but after reading it again, I realize this is the same behavior being reported in the news lately, and it obviously hasn’t gotten any better. Please share these posts with your contacts on social media, and let’s get the word out that we don’t have to act in such vile, inhumane ways. Let’s rise to a higher level. Let’s be the type of royal, kindhearted, peace-minded people we so desperately need to see in this world …

What I’m about to tell you has been a month in the making, and now I understand why I didn’t write about it when I first started crafting the story in my head last month. (I am seriously writing a book about this and related topics!)

I walked into my nail salon about a month ago. It’s always been my place of relaxation where I get recharged and beautified. When I walked in, I immediately noticed two or three women and a man sitting at the first tables talking about someone — gossiping about this person, actually. I couldn’t help but notice them because they we extremely loud. I also noticed a couple of other women, who were not with that group, getting their fingernails done.

After I sat down, I heard the group of women say something about how people needed to stay out of their business, and they said that they didn’t talk about other people and other people shouldn’t talk about them — I immediately thought, “Totally not true by the words you just spoke a couple of minutes ago.”

My nail tech turned on the massage chair for me, and I closed my eyes and went into relaxation mode … That was until my peaceful world was shattered by a bunch of loud commotion from the group of people near the entrance of the salon. When I opened my eyes, I saw two police officers standing next to the man asking him if the car outside was his and asking to see his identification. He answered “No,” to both questions, then when they asked him to speak with them outside, he refused. So they proceeded to tell him that they found drugs in the car they asked him about. All of a sudden, the women with him got really loud — I’m not talking happy, friendly loud, I’m talking threatening, peace shattering loud — screaming racism and calling several people on their phones giving them the play-by-play. They completely changed the atmosphere in the salon in seconds!

It got so bad that I didn’t feel safe being in the same room with these people, and I wasn’t the only one. One lady refused to wait for her nails to dry in spite of the salon owner practically begging her to stay. She ran out of there like her hair was on fire. I wanted to do the same thing, but I wasn’t physically in a position to leave.

My nail tech was talking to another one in a different language. I looked at him and asked if the owner could ask the disruptive people to leave. He said yes, but it didn’t happen immediately. I was feeling so unsafe that I started praying quietly, but out loud, asking God to send His warring angels to protect us innocent bystanders, bring peace and safety into that salon, and I rebuked the demonic, dangerous spirits operating there. I’m not joking … Within two minutes or less they left! Oh, they came back inside once for just a few seconds, and we could hear them screaming at the police in the parking lot for several minutes, but before my nail tech was finished with me, I was back in the tranquil setting in which I was so familiar.

People behaving badly

You’ll never believe this, but just two weeks later it happened again — this time in a restaurant. It was a group of different colored people probably from a different Socioeconomic Status, but disruptive and frightening all the same — my point being it doesn’t matter what color skin, how much money they have or what religion they claim to profess, they are behaving badly in public all the same. They were sitting at a table in the section next to mine not directly near me, but near the entrance/exit. A guy walked in wanting to talk to the daughter at the table, and the mother got up and in his face telling him to leave. It was so loud that I stopped eating. I asked for the check and waited a few minutes hoping the scene would be over and I wouldn’t have to walk past them to get out of the restaurant. I even went to the ladies room to give it enough time to be over. When I walked out the door, there were three large police SUVs parked in front of the door, but the officers were standing around smiling and joking. So, I guess everything was resolved.

Why am I telling you these stories? Because it has become apparent to me that in today’s society, people have either forgotten or were never taught how to act in public. (And, yes, I am serious about writing a book on this topic. I’ve already started on it even before I finish The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart.)

When you are in the privacy of your own home, you can act any way you wish to —a s long as you aren’t hurting anyone else. However, I nor anyone else want to see you fight with another person, tell another person off, scream at someone, beat your kids or throw a fit. We don’t want to see it or hear it! And another thing, we do not want to hear your phone conversations — EVER! We don’t want to hear them trapped on a train or bus, in an airplane, car or shopping mall.

Hear me when I say this: YOU HAVE A HOUSE/APARTMENT/HOME … THAT IS THE PLACE WHERE YOU HAVE YOUR DISAGREEMENTS AND RESOLVE THEM! THAT IS WHERE YOU HAVE YOUR PHONE CONVERSATIONS, NOT IN PUBLIC!!!

Your home is your oasis. It should be a place of comfort and safety — if it isn’t, you have the power to change that. Your home is where you do all this unacceptable public behavior. Just because you CAN do something does not mean that you SHOULD do it. This is basic home teaching. You do not impose your bad behavior or your will on other people — especially strangers who do not deserve your negative energy!

The right thing to do is always take it outside. Watch some older movies. Men always took their disagreements outside. If people wanted to know what was going on, they followed them outside. The people who wanted to live in peace stayed inside.

If you are witnessing something like this, you should do whatever you can safely do to intervene and diffuse the situation — yes, I said get involved and not turn a blind eye to misbehavior that is affecting everyone in the room. I did say out loud in the salon that they needed to take it outside. Then I asked the nail tech if the salon owner could ask them to leave.

If you can’t do anything safely to intervene, you need to call the police. I expected the establishment owners to do so. That is their job to protect their customers. While our rights seem to be eroding, business owners still have the right to refuse service in most states, and should ask disrupters to pay and leave.

We MUST stop being bullied by people who are throwing up their bad behavior all over everyone in the immediate area. They must be taught by our actions, that their behavior is NOT acceptable in public.

I’m old school … I’ll admit it. I have no problem admitting that I’m old-fashioned and admire and deeply appreciate manners and respect of others. I don’t want to live in a spaceship world like the one in the movie Wall-E. In that world, people rode around on the equivalent of a Rascal or Hovaround like the old folks ride on, talking only to people on video phones and eating processed foods. They were fat, diseased, lazy to the point of not being able to walk on their own two legs, and they had no social skills or awareness of the literal world around them.

I don’t want to live in that world. I want to live in a friendly, peaceful, real world. Yes, there will be conflict, but you use communication to resolve conflict and treat people in a kind, caring way — the way you want to be treated deep, down inside.

In the movie, Royal Winter, the queen told her son that his father stopped going dancing every Friday night after he became king “because he realized it was unseemly for a king to just be one of the guys. The people expect us to be different, separate.” We are all unique and different, and if we’re Christians we are called to be set apart. “Everything that belongs to the world — what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of — none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world. The world and everything in it that people desire is passing away; but those who do the will of God live forever,” 1 John 2:16‭-‬17

Let’s commit ourselves to live a royal life — a life of a higher standard that respects ourselves and others.

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart”by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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You are not the sun & the solar system does not revolve around you

There was a recent story in the news about a couple of black men who went to a Philadelphia Starbucks and refused to buy anything or leave when asked by store employees. When the police arrived, they refused to leave then too and were arrested. Starbucks corporate office declined to press charges, and they were released. This entitlement attitude is becoming an epidemic and has to stop.

I can’t get into my car – in the city or country side – without someone riding my back bumper, passing me illegally on two-lane highways or cutting me off nearly hitting my car when there is plenty of room for them to drive behind me. (And no, I don’t drive like an old lady. I have a car that wants to drive over 100 miles per hour that I have to hold back … I’ll admit that I go the speed limit and sometimes five miles over.) There is no excuse for such reckless, self-absorbed behavior.

If you’re running late, that’s your own fault for not getting up earlier and leaving at an appropriate time. You don’t deserve to drive in front of anyone else. You don’t deserve to use a business wifi for free without buying something either. Those perks are there for paying customers.

There were several times when I was in undergrad and graduate school when I moved apartments or had people working on my complex electricity, and I had to go to McDonald’s or Starbucks and use their internet service. I always bought something and told the employees and managers that I needed to camp out for a little while and use their internet and/or electricity. More than once, I had the manager be very gracious toward me and invite me back any time I wanted.

You are not the sun & the solar system doesn't revolve around you

For those of you participating such bad behavior, I’m really sorry to have to break this news to many of you, but you are not the sun. You do not provide sustaining light, vitamin D and plasma/gravity to keep the planets in orbit around you and sustain life on planet earth.

As I wrote about in my book The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart (and I’m currently writing about in a new book on the topic of being royal), Narcissism has become an epidemic in our society. I blame it on Baby Boomers and Helicopter Parents. Instead of teaching the younger generations how to be humble, gracious, self-reliant and of service to others, you have taught them through behavior modeling and enabling that they are entitled to anything they want from people – and it’s wrong!

The psychological diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is derived from this story. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), “The essential features of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy that begins by early adulthood and is present in a variety of contexts.

“Individuals with this disorder have a grandiose sense of self-importance (Criterion 1). They routinely overestimate their abilities and inflate their accomplishments, often appearing boastful and pretentious. They may bitterly assume the same value to their efforts and may be surprised when the praise they expect and feel they deserve is not forthcoming … Individuals with (NPD) are often preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love (Criterion 2) … Individuals with (NPD) believe that they are superior, special, or unique, and expect others to recognize them as such (Criterion 3) … Individuals with this disorder generally require excessive admiration (Criterion 4) … A sense of entitlement is evident in these individuals’ unreasonable expectation of especially favorable treatment (Criterion 5) … This sense of entitlement, combined with a lack of sensitivity to the wants and needs of others, may result in the conscious or unwriting exploitation of others (Criterion 6) … Individuals with (NPD) generally have a lack of empathy and have difficulty recognizing the desires, subjective experiences, and feelings of others (Criterion 7) … These individuals are often envious of others or believe that others are envious of them (Criterion 8).”

Five or more of these features will qualify someone for the disorder. “Of those diagnosed with (NPD), 50-75% are male,” according to the DSM-5. The manual also stated that up to 6.2% of the population has been diagnosed with the disorder.

I am speaking the TRUTH to you in LOVE.

We have to get back to basics, y’all. Jesus said in Matthew 7:12, “Do for others what you want them to do for you; this is the meaning of the Law of Moses and of the teachings of the prophets.” President John F. Kennedy said, “So my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together what we can do for the freedom of man.”

I’m seeing people behaving badly almost on a daily basis. They are not treating others the way they want to be treated. They are acting like their wants and needs are above all others and more important. This is not the proper way to act. The royal, Kingdom of Heaven way to treat others is to follow the instructions of Jesus.

Your parents, spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, children, acquaintances, etc. may tell you that you are the best thing since sliced bread. I sincerely hope that you are loved unconditionally by at least one person in your life – I truly want that for you more than anything – but these people are doing you a disservice if they are enabling your bad behavior. A society cannot be sustained and prosper when it is full of selfish, self-absorbed, entitled people.

It isn’t healthy self-esteem to treat others badly. That actually proves that you have low self-esteem because you don’t respect yourself enough to treat others the way you want them to treat you. Gretchen Ruben puts it quite well in the art for this blog post. Humans don’t respect people who constantly hurt and demean others – especially if they have experienced it for themselves from that person or have seen that behavior in action from that person.

Today is a great day to change! It’s a new opportunity to truly show love and compassion for everyone you come into contact with, and I deeply hope you decide to be the better, royal person you were created to be!

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart”by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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How to trust again

We’re on the topic of trust issues this week, and as I wrote about in the previous post, this issue isn’t just one for personal relationships … It can spill over into business and every other area of your life. Learning to trust others after you’ve been hurt takes time, but can be very beneficial. Here’s today’s Flashback Friday post from 2014 …

Often, people who have been in relationships with substance users or physical and psychological abusers find it hard to trust. Repeated times of trusting people who have proven to be less than trustworthy makes it hard to believe in others or even ourselves.

The first step to trusting again is forgiveness.

“Forgiveness is a powerful friend … It simply means to drop the charges,” wrote Rev. Mark T. Barclay in his book How to Survive a Betrayal. “To forgive is to put it in God’s hands, and not seek personal vengeance. If you don’t forgive, you will become bitter, hurting only yourself.”

You’ll often hear that you have to forgive and forget. I believe forgetting is a mistake that leads to being duped again. But I’ve found, over time, when you become healthier you let go of the pain and forget much of the wrongs that have been done to you.

“You must find a way to forgive. ‘Forget’ will come even harder and much slower. Even so, for your own sake, you must deal with this deep wound, ” Barclay wrote.

In her book The Language of Letting Go, Melody Beattie said the key to trusting others is to trust yourself first.

“The most important trust issue we face is learning to trust ourselves. The most detrimental thing that’s happened to us is that we came to believe we couldn’t trust ourselves,” she explained.

Psychology Today offers these expert tips on how to trust others again:

  • Give it time. Over a period of time, your trust can be rebuilt with repeated positive experiences … when a man consistently demonstrates his reliability, despite your more critical evaluation of his actions, he might earn your trust.
  • Acknowledge and evaluate. To trust a partner again, betrayal must be acknowledged. The wrongdoer must admit that he or she has inflicted a deep hurt, and the victim must look at what he or she could have done to make things different.
  • Look for the good. Trust yourself to stop damning people as a whole, no matter how badly they now behave. Then you may help them to become more trustworthy.
  • Go inside. The way back to trust is counterintuitive: The issue is whether we can trust ourselves to make wise decisions.

Beattie agreed, “Self-trust is a healing gift we can give ourselves. How do we acquire it? We learn it. What do we do about our mistakes, about those times we thought we could trust ourselves but were wrong? We accept them, and trust ourselves anyway.

“Trust ourselves, and we will know whom to trust. Trust ourselves, and we will know what to do. When we feel we absolutely cannot trust ourselves, trust that God will guide us into truth,” Beattie advised.

How have you learned to trust again?

You can find these Flashback Friday blogs posted every Friday. If you want to know more how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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Do you have trust issues?

I’m constantly educating myself and trying to learn how to do things better. I was listening to a very successful entrepreneur the other day taking questions from audience members at one of his talks, and when he asked a woman if she had considered getting a business partner who had more experience in business than she did, her response was, “I have trust issues!” Can you relate? I admired her self-awareness and honesty.

The next day I ran across this quote from Rev. Mike Murdoch, “Trust God. Love people. God never commanded you to trust people. God commanded you to love people and trust Him. Know the difference. Your joy and victory depend on it …”

I spent some time writing about trust in my book The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart because it’s a big issue for many people. Since publishing the book, I’ve been thinking a lot about something, “After your broken heart has healed, how do you know if it’s safe to let someone back into your life? How do you know if you can trust the person who broke your heart?”

Now, I know a lot of people will say you can never trust someone who hurt you. You most definitely need to exhibit caution in these circumstances, but I don’t believe you should write someone off altogether. People can change … It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

Do you have trust issues

When thinking about this topic, I went to my tried and true source – Hallmark Channel movies. Yes, go ahead and laugh because I am giggling as I’m writing this post! But hear me out because there is some wisdom to gleam from these cheesy movies.

One of the new Spring 2018 movies dealt with the return of an old boyfriend who had promised to marry the lead character 14 years earlier after he completed medical school. He broke it off instead, and she was, understandably, skittish about being in a relationship with anyone much less dating. (This is a theme my recently divorced girlfriends and I have been discussing lately. When you make the ultimate commitment of marriage and the man still leaves or mistreats you or you have to ask him to leave, how can you trust your own judgment of someone new or even allow the same person back Into your life since you were the one who allowed him into your life in the first place to reek havoc on you?)

Back to the movie … As I was watching the story unfold, I found myself saying out loud to myself so my ears could hear it, “Pay attention! He came back trying to help her succeed in her business because it was the most valuable thing to her at that moment. He didn’t come back wanting anything from her accept her permission to help her and her friendship. He didn’t come back demanding she do anything for him or give him anything.” This is how you know someone is true. By paying attention to their actions over time, you will see their real intentions. Unfortunately, you have to take a gamble and allow that person into your life – at least on a limited basis – before you can obtain any of this information.

It was a Hallmark movie, and a happy ending is always guaranteed and love always wins out – That’s why I watch them. That’s Hollywood, though. Is there a way to ensure your own happy ending if you have trust issues?

In the movie, the lead character asked her best friend, “Do you think I’m crazy for giving him another chance? I don’t know how it’s going to go.” The best friend’s response was, “Hey, are you happy?” She said, “I am.” And the best friend said, “Then trust in that.”

Just before publishing this post, I was reminded of the lyrics of a song I used to sing as a teenager, “I see Jesus in your eyes and it makes me love you. I feel Jesus in your touch and I know He cares. I hear Jesus in your voice and it makes me listen. And I trust you with my love because you’re His. I see Him in you.” Maybe that’s all we need to look for, but instead of manufacturing it or using a magnifying glass to see what isn’t there, we need to be real with ourselves and see people for who they actually are and not for who they tell us they are or who we want them to be.

I hear people say all the time, “Trust is earned” or “Trust but verify.” Both are true and words of wisdom, but sometimes we just have to trust ourselves enough to give people a chance. It’s our job to give the chance and the other person’s job to prove themselves worthy of being in our lives.

We can trust the process. We can also trust that no matter how much people hurt us, there is a greater plan for our lives. Part of that plan may be to learn the lesson this terrible experience is trying to teach us so that we can help others through similar situations and get to the good part of our lives.

If you want some practical advice on how to go about trusting again, check out the upcoming blog post this Friday.

Catch these first-run Write About It Wednesday blogs every Wednesday. If you want to know how to have successful relationships and peace of mind, you can get a free PDF sample chapter of “The Princess Guide to Healing a Broken Heart” by filling out the form in the sidebar on this page.

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The Princess Guide Senee Seale
The Princess Guide
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PrincessGuide@BecomingPublishing.com