In This Moment

What’s In A Moment

If you set out to do anything for a year you will find out that a year is a very long time.

Writing this blog every day for one year has been a tremendous experience. I am grateful to those faithful readers who got up each day looking for a post, often emailing me when a new one was not yet there.

I am grateful to those who shared these posts with friends, family and colleagues near and far.

I am also grateful to those who read occasionally but wrote back to tell me thank-you; that they had been inspired.

Every lesson was from my heart and has helped to heal me. Each word of thanks and correction came from your hearts and I am grateful.

The list of folks who encouraged me along the way is too long and I’m sure I’d forget something or someone so in a way of appreciation, I will share this:

·         As requested, I will continue to write, but not daily, I will do so on a weekly basis.

·         Next week, I will begin a series called the Art of Living; The Practice

Every moment is filled with a world of possibilities. We go through life, complaining, whining and expecting someone else to be responsible for our own happiness.

The only person you can change is you. The only way you can do that is by taking a long hard look at yourself and doing it. It takes time, but time is on your side.

In one moment, you can change your mind. In three you can reflect and in 60 you can start the practice of doing the work.

Wellness is not about your body; it is about your spirit mind and body.

Unless all three are working in alignment, you are not well. Stop seeking a way to be pretty and start looking to be well; therein your pretty lies.

As we strive to be whole and complete, we illuminate a pathway for others to follow.

Every moment of every day, I am filled with love, simply because I dared to work on me.

When I did, the love that I desired enveloped me and carried me through.

Thank you for this moment, this year of reflection.

I will remember and love you forever.

Be You, BE well, Be Whole

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Better Day

Better Day: Getting Stronger Everyday

So Yesterday, I got several, okay a bunch of email from folks informing me that there are only 365 days in the year.

I realized somewhere in the 200s I had added a few days, but I didn’t know where, so I decided to just roll with it and do as my mother said, “let in come out in the wash.”

I laughed at the friendly corrections and knew that this year had done for me what I needed it to do.

I am better. In the past, I may have been upset with myself for the error. I would have wallowed in the insecurity that came with having dyslexia---it was diagnosed in my college years.

I might have stopped writing for fear of making more mistakes, or just spent an additional hour going over the post.

This week I’ve been working long hours, so I overslept today; in the past I would have said, just don’t write, you’ve had your 365 days.

Instead though, I laughed, got out of bed and got to writing, still laughing about what to do.

I know that I’m better because correction is no longer a jab at an insecurity.

I weigh the correction next to all of the compliments. I say thank you for over 70,000 folks who love these post; typos and all.

And I am thankful to life, love, the Universe, God for enabling me to get up and write.

So there is no number on the top of the post.

It is the Better Day.

Be you, be well, be better.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 365: Always Wanting More

Always Wanting More

I’m on a week-long retreat working with a group of incredibly smart and compassionate people. Yesterday, we took a break and together we all cooked a fantastic meal. We sat down to eat and collectively enjoyed the symphony that played in our mouths.

Somewhere between the umms and ahhs we started planning the breakfast for the next day.

We hadn’t finished the food in front of us and we were already trying to eat another meal.

I pointed it out and we all laughed at how easy it is to step outside of a moment.

So today, I’d like you to be where you are.

Savor the moment you are in.

Love your children as they are because they were born loving you.

Be present in your now and think about tomorrow then.

Don’t worry about the fact that you have to go back to work, relax right now.

Be grateful for this year; it has not yet ended and don’t wait to be healthy tomorrow.

DO IT NOW.

It’s fine to want more, but as my mother used to say, “Learn to leave well enough alone.”

Be you, be well, be enough.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 364: 5 Ways to Be New

5 Ways To Be New

It’s that time of year when folks look back at how tragic and difficult the year has been. It’s also a time when we look at our highpoints.

Today, I’d like you to examine your heart to find ways to start out new. Here are 5 ways to get there.

·         Instead of thinking about your looks, think about your outlook. How do you see the world? Do you think everything is evil and headed for destruction or do you see life’s beauty and goodness? What you see in the world is a direct reflection of what you hold in your own heart.

·         Instead of setting goals for having more, set a goal for doing more for others. We all know that you can’t take it with you; but you should also know that your true wealth and legacy lies in the way you treat others.

·         We all want love in our lives and we have it, so instead of setting a goal to find a mate, set a goal to build the relationships you already have. Strive to mend, improve and repair the ones that are broken. If you have children, strive to love them more and to be more loving.

·         If you want a new home, maintain and repair the one you have.

·         Be grateful each and every day and you will see through a new lens.

We are embarking on a new year, so seek and cultivate a new you.

Be you, be well, be new.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 363: Rebooting Your System

Rebooting Your System

This year I had the wonderful opportunity to reboot my brain. It happened as the result of a head injury. I’ve had frequent migraines and a headache that never went away, a  siren in my left ear that just didn’t stop, neck and back pains and virtigo. On some days I couldn’t move; still, I knew that I was better than I had ever been.

The beautiful and simple truth is that the brain heals itself; but it takes a year or more to do so. When the specialist told me that my brain had to reboot, I told him that I would use the time to delete old files.

While the physical and emotional pain was at times excruciating, it’s been a most beautiful journey because instead of processing everything so thoroughly in my head, I’ve had to live in my heart.

I had been living a life of compassion, but this just kicked it up a notch.

 Once when I was watching a young girl perform a lyrical dance, I noticed water running down my face, I actually looked to the ceiling to find the source. It was me; I was crying tears of joy from the beauty of this young woman’s dedication. The connection was so clear that I could almost see her rehearsals.

Afterwards, I spoke with the young woman and her mother and learned that she has suffered from several concussions and had been depressed. We shared the same symptoms but she had not been fortunate enough to have the same incredible doctor that I’d had; so she struggled in school, dance and just with being. I shared information with her mother and the young woman smiled in relief.

I hadn’t planned to write about this, I wanted to share a lesson without the pain; but I have come to see that my greatest lessons have also been the most painful.

You don’t have to hit your head; unless you want to and that’s another blog written by another person.

When your phone does not work, the blender stops blending and your computer has the blue screen of death, we somehow know what to do; we shut them down. The plug comes out and we have that moment of silence where we pray that everything will be fine.

This is what you must do. Please do not wait until things don’t work, unplug today. Turn off the TV, the computer and the not-so-smart phone at least an hour before going to bed and leave them off until you get up the next morning.

Reboot your system from the inside out. You have been taking on the stuff of someone else’s emergency, the late night infomercials that tell you you’re not good enough and the emails that just keep on coming.

Shut down and reboot your system before you crash because if you do, the healing process is so much longer, more painful and a little humiliating.

Experience is the best teacher, so please; learn from mine.

Be you, be well, reboot.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 362: Reset Your Life

Reset Your Life

Several year ago while in Hawaii at a week-long retreat with wellness practitioners from around the globe, I learned a most important lesson.

The participants had all met early one morning for a baptismal ceremony lead by one of the local teachers.

He told us a story about our lives. He said that we were born like an empty bowel but every act of jealousy, envy and strife added more and more stones to our bowel. The bowel becomes heavy with grief and pain and change seems impossible.

He said that we could try to take each stone out one by one, but when we do, it feels as if another stone takes it place.

“The solution is simple,” he told us, “just flip over and empty yourself out.”

After this powerful teaching I swam out and did as I often do when I’m in the ocean; I forgot myself and kept swimming further and further. I am accustomed to being called back to shore, but this time, people were yelling to tell me that I was being followed by a group of large sea turtles.

After I reluctantly came back to shore, I learned that sea turtles brought a most wonderful sign of good fortune.

Today, commit your heart and head to renewal—just for today, then do it again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. As you change, so will your fortune.

Flip yourself over and be renewed.

Be you, be well, be reset.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 361:Merry Christmas? / Live What You Believe

Merry Christmas?

So I’m going to just jump right into this because I have a new juicer and I’ve created something that will make me smile all day. It’s got beets, celery, parsley, cilantro, flax and chia seeds. There’s apple and blueberries, whey protein and ginger. I’ve given it a name, but I’m keeping it to myself.

Anyway, it’s Christmas morning and yesterday I got a note from a friend who wanted me to make sure that I kept Christ in Christmas and another wishing me Merry Mithramas after the Persian sun God born on December 25^th. The date was used by Christian leaders as the birth of Christ to appease the pagans.

Someone else called and said “bahumbug” and I tried my best to ignore all of the forwarded messages on my cellphone from folks I only hear from on holidays.

So what does it all mean Corky? What do we do when we no longer believe that a guy in a red suit is coming down the fake chimney?

You can join me, or stay as you are; I take what I need to be better, do better, love more and reach my highest potential. Like the amazing beverage I’m having it has all kinds of things in it, and it’s good for me.

I am cut from the rock of Christianity and even though some scholars believe that the birth of Christ is somewhere closer to April 6---why I don’t know; I have chosen to live everyday as if it is the re-birth of my salvation.

Each day is new and so is my thinking. So Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Boxing Day, Happy You.

Live your beliefs so well, that others see the fruit and not your disagreement with the tree.

Be you, be well, be your beliefs.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 360; Have No Regrets

No Regrets

When I look back over my life, I find that there are very few of those things I wish I had done. True, I should have learned to play golf at Sawgrass when I had the offer in college, but I still can.

There are a few guys I should have been nicer to and if I wanted to I probably still could (if you catch my drift.)

We all wish we had known then what we know now, but the truth is, we know now what we will need to know today.

A hospice nurse named Bonnie Ware from Australia made observations of the regrets of people who were dying. In her book Top Five Regrets of the Dying, she found that last regrets had little to do with the bucket lists we create and much more to do with living.

·         People regretted not living a life true to themselves instead of what someone else expected. (A life of Purpose.)

·         They wished they hadn’t worked so hard.

·         They wished they had expressed their true feelings.

·         They wished they had stayed in touch with friends.

·         They wished they had allowed themselves to be happier.

Today, take a moment to talk yourself into living more fully, and then do it again and again and again.

Tell your loved ones that you love them and show them that you do.

Tell yourself that you love you and show yourself that you do.

Show kindness to someone you don’t know.

Hold yourself true to your own wishes and dreams.

Be responsible for your own way in the world and your own happiness and you will have no regrets.

Be you, be well, be free.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 359; Getting Everything You Want

Getting is easy, maintenance is something else.

How to Get Everything You Want

In my family we have a tradition where we at the end of the year, we do a big cleaning before the New Year begins. My mother did it; her mother did it and so did hers.

I love this tradition. Throughout the year, my sister Chris does the cleaning. We keep our rooms tidy and clean up after ourselves, but when it comes to really cleaning, that’s Chris’ forte. She actually volunteers and cleans for small community businesses and smiles the whole time.

 

Anyway, yesterday while I was cleaning chandeliers and windows, looking closely at how everything had been put together I began to give thanks for lights and windows, bookcases and doors. I said thank you for the crown molding that had been cut by hand. I looked out to the bird feeders and water bowel and gave another word of gratitude.

In the midst of my reverie (which may have been brought on by the smell of Pine Sol,) I realized that at some point I wanted these items and then I got them. So I had exactly what I had longed for.

As my children made it out of their beds and down to where I was cleaning, I remembered hoping that they would grow up into decent folks, finding and living their purpose. They are on their way, so I said thank you again.

I gave thanks for my sister, family, colleagues and wonderful friends and I said thank you for me.

When I did, I knew that everything I have and hold dear is exactly what I had previously wanted and then at some point I started wanting some more.

So it occurred to me that if you want something, you should be grateful for what you already possess.

Maybe you’ll get it and maybe not, but you will still have what you once desired and when you are grateful, you are complete.

Be you, be well, Be complete.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 358: Are You A Fault Finder?

I can choose to see the beauty in my eyes
or the bags under them

Are You A Fault-Finder?

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; prepare to be unleashed. If you go about looking for what’s wrong in a room, a statement or even the way someone is looking; you will find it.

But if you look for the beauty; you will find that.

A fault finder is someone who gets up in the morning thinking about all the things they know will need to be set right. They think about the wrong that needs correction in their sleep. No one and nothing can ever do or be enough for them because at the end of the day, they don't measure up to themselves.

You can buy flowers for them, but then you learn that they don’t like roses. You can take them out to dinner, but the waitress keeps looking at them funny and their food has to be sent back twice.

You can never do enough for a fault-finder because they are not satisfied with themselves.

My question is not about knowing a fault-finder; my question is about being one.

As a parent, I am constantly trying to catch myself when I get into fault-finding mode. I want my children to do and be well; consequently, my loving correction can often go too far.

I use a simple tool for this self-correction; I tell myself that whatever I am saying to my children, God is saying to me. OUCH!

“Don’t ask for something when you haven’t been grateful for what you have,” I say to my children and then I say okay, I know that’s got to be for me also.

The fault you find in others is the fault you see in your own self. It may not be the same action, but it is most surely the area of your own insecurity.

You find fault in someone’s looks----you probably don’t like your own.

If you are constantly finding fault in the relationships of others; be mindful of your own.

If you don’t care for someone’s beliefs, try living up to the ones you profess.

This is a hard lesson at a hard time of year, and I have to apply it when I think it, write it and share it. It’s rough, I know---so just flip it over.

 The goodness you see is the goodness you see in yourself.

Be you, be well, be looking for the good.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

Day 357: Apocalypse; Unveiling of the truth

Let The Apocalypse Begin

The word apocalypse means the uncovering or disclosure of knowledge that has been hidden from humanity in an era dominated by falsehood and deception. We have come to see it as having to do with the end of time or times as we know it; but the Apocalypse is about the revelation of truth.

So why then, when I heard the wind howling at midnight did I think maybe the misinterpretation of the Mayan prophesy was true?

Here’s the quick and clean; (it’s a new day, so I’m done with the dirty) in the past era, we learned to gravitate to what was sleazy, gossipy, critical, and negative. Now, we have the opportunity to do something different.

The choice is yours, so choose well, because Time elevates its own.

 This is an era where there greater truths will be revealed. People who thought they were on opposites sides of an issue will realize that they are one and the same. More importantly, those who thought they had an ally will see that they have been duped into falling for the hype.

Yes, I’m being deliberately vague, because you get to choose what you want your own new dawn to look like.

Be you, be well, be brand new.

Bertice Berry, PhD

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Day 356: Are You Numb to Your Truth

Numb to The Truth

Throughout a year of pain and healing (which I’ve learned go hand-in-hand) I have done my best to avoid too much pain medication. I know that it can be helpful and in many cases, a life saver, but I feel that we have become numb to things we need to pay attention to.

Too much pain medication is like taking the battery out of a smoke alarm. “I fixed it,” we say joyfully; all the while our house is on fire.

There is another kind of pain medication we often use to avoid our truth and we all know our own; for some it’s eating, some it’s alcohol and drugs, some take it to the Lord and leave it there-- over and over again.

I’d like you to take a moment out of the day to search your own heart and mind to see where you have avoided the pain of your own truth. Admitting that you have a problem is the first step.

Look closely and then ask your own self for forgiveness; for ignoring the warnings, for turning from truth and for muffling the cries for help.

Then I want you to dedicate yourself to doing the work that is required to be well. The commitment is only for today; tomorrow we get to renew our minds all over again.

Doing the work step by step, day by day in small bites is easy, committing to doing it over and over and over again is where that work begins.

Be you, be well, be renewed.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 355: What's Named After You?

What’s Named After You?

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you must reflect on the legacy that you might leave. My children call it whole-life; and they are only half kidding.

When I speak of a legacy, I don’t mean something you leave when you die; I mean something that remains when you leave a room. What impression of you remains?

Yesterday, I was reminded of several things that have been named after me. One of them is a suite of classrooms at Savannah Technical College.

When I first laid eyes on this honor I wept like a baby. The Bertice Berry Change and Transformation Classrooms bring me to tears every time I see them. (I stop by quite a bit and each time I do some student catches me and reports that “Some lady is looking in here crying.”)

A friend named a smoothie after me. "It's got everything you need and nothing you don't want," he says. I smile when I hear that he’s having a “Bad A—Bertice.”

Still one of the most amazing honors came rather spontaneously from a little boy. His mom and I are second sisters (not sisters by blood, but by spirit and choice.)

I was visiting her home and we’d gone to get her son Talyor from his school. Taylor is very shy, so I allowed him to take his time warming up to his new auntie. We got back to the house and he ran inside and began playing with balloons and so much to my sister Adri’s dismay, I decided to fill one with water. Her eyes grew wide and she asked what I had planned and I used my prerogative as an auntie to say, “Don’t worry about it.”

I took Taylor outside and showed him the texture, and unique bounce of the water balloon. At first, he played timidly, but he didn’t like it when I squirted water from the balloon onto the ground by their pool. So I dropped the balloon suddenly and Taylor squealed with delight as the water shot straight up in the air.

Taylor could not get enough of the fun and filled as many balloons as he possibly could.

I flew back home and the next day I was rewarded with a video of Taylor playing with what he now calls his berticeberry balloons. Adri says it’s the first thing he wants when he wakes up in the morning.

I’d like you to think about what and who has been named after you? What creation have you inspired?

Live your life so fully that when you leave, you still linger.

Be you, be well, be named.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 354: Why Bad Thoughts Stick

Why Bad Thoughts Stick

Yesterday, I was on a high. I attended the National Diversity Women’s Business Leadership Conference in Washington D.C---if you haven’t been, plan to be there next year.

The morning was full of brilliant passionate speakers who touched my head and my heart. I saw people I hadn’t seen in years and some who had heard me speak more than a decade ago. By the afternoon before speaking, I actually had requests from people to tell this story or that one which they’d heard years before.

I smiled and told them “no,” but I kept getting the same requests. My mamma didn’t raise no fool. So I gave in.

When it was time to speak, I delivered a message from my heart and was rewarded with a thunderous ovation. I could barely get out of the room to catch my flight. People kept stopping me with tears in their eyes telling me that I had moved them at their foundation.

One woman told me a story that I will take to my grave. She told me that 10 years ago, I had spoken at AOL and a guy she worked with had been very difficult to deal with. At the close of my lecture, I had sang a song by Sweet Honey that says:

 “There’s God like and war like and strong like only some show, there are sad like and mad like and half like we know, but by my life, be I spirit.”

She told me that as I sang the man began to cry, releasing the pain that had plagued him and everyone in his path. He thanked her for bringing me there and, as she reported he was changed.

When I got home, exhausted yet high, I read a note of a different tone; it said that it was amazing that I could be amazing while telling the same jokes I’d told ten years before.

So which thought do you think I dwelled on?

Fortunately for me, while on the plane, I had been reading the book Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness and Love by Hanson and Mendius.

From it I learned that the brain detects negative information faster than positive. “Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones—even though most of your experiences are probably neutral or positive,” they write.

I read that the negative really does have more impact than the positive and that it takes about 5 positive events to outweigh the negative one.

We are wired to feel the negativity, therefore we learn to avoid it, but this wiring can also bring us down.

So when I was brought low after being so high I did what I do; I looked for the truth in this woman’s statement---yes I had told stories that she had heard, but I had also told much more new. Her brain was looking for what was familiar. She also said that “I rocked”, and while we often say negative things that are couched in something sweet; the sting is still there, but I decided to look to the good.

Then I went back to my heart. I realized that my head injury was healing because I was once again attuned to judgment and negativity; in my heart, I lived by compassion.

When negativity happens, realize that much more positive has occurred. Move to your heart and shine love, share your power and do as Sweet Honey and that beautiful sweet sister reminded me to do; BE SPIRIT.

Be you, be well, be spirit.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 353: We Are Not Well if Our Elders are Not Well

Woven portrait of my mother by Youn Woo Chaa

Taking Real Care of Our Elders

Yesterday, while talking with a dear friend, he expressed his heart’s desire of making sure that his parents were okay.

He talked about their physical well-being and the need to check on them regularly, assuring that they have not had any injuries, are eating well and getting the sleep they need.

I told him that I was proud of him but taking care of his physically able mother and father who were both in their 80’s, but thier "real" care required a great deal more.

“When is the last time you asked them for their advice?” I said. He was silent and I could feel his discomfort.

Then I told him about my mother’s journals. I found them 6 months after she passed away. During the last 5 years of her life, unbeknownst to me, my mother had been writing these life letters which all began with "Dear Bertice."

In them held wisdom that has been one of my greatest inheritances.

Among other things, like stories from her childhood, she wrote about the need to not feel like a burden. My mother took care of herself and helped me to take care of my children; she was 87 when she passed away. She had been sick and in a great deal of pain, but she had a great deal of dignity and never showed it.

My mother had worked all of her life. She took care of her own money and needs and raised 7 children on her own. When she said she didn’t want to be a burden, she meant financially. There was very little that I could say that would have assured her that this could never be the case.

There was one simple thing that I could do; I constantly asked for my mother’s advice.

This was not lip service, or an attempt to make her feel wanted. Our elders have wisdom that we can never pay for. Additionally, they sit closer to the end than to the beginning and have a spiritual insight that spans decades.

My mother's journals were filled with the details of the answers to my constant questions and the work she did to research and find her answers. She also wrote that it made her feel useful and wanted.

We are being foolish when we don’t count on what the elders know.

·          Don’t talk around them or about them in their presence; speak to them.

·         Ask about their youth and learn what they were too busy to tell you when you were young.

·         Include them in any conversation about their well-being, but also about your own.

·         Ask them to shop with you and watch how much money you save.

·         While many elders do not use OUR technology, they have their own---tap into that wisdom.

·         If you don’t have elders in your life, you are incomplete; borrow some---the nursing homes are filled with brilliant folks waiting to be asked for help.

Elders are not children who need our care, they are the elders and we need their wisdom.

Be you, be well, become wise.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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Day 352: I love you

I Love You

Several years ago, I met a woman named Rita who was the CEO of a large company. We met by phone on a conference call and I was moved by her energy and intelligence. What struck me like a bolt of lightning was how she ended the call. After talking to me and a group of executives, she ended the call by saying, I love you.

I was silent, but then everyone who had been working with her responded in kind, “Okay, love you too Rita.”

After she exited the call, I asked one of her senior VP’s if this was the norm. She told me yes, saying that Rita expressed love in every act and word.

From that moment on, I decided to be less stingy with this phrase. I had been told that being too demonstrative with love was not a good thing in a world that just didn’t understand.

I know this to be true. Even when I try to text it to someone, my “smart” phone corrects me. My children and friends all know that, “I live them.”

What Rita taught me in that one brief call is that we can never say “I love you” enough. We need more love. We need to show it, say it, express it and give it.

I grew up fighting poverty and a bunch of other crap---yes I wrote that. My mother was dealing with her own demons and struggling to make a way for her 7 children. Rarely did we hear “I love you,” but as she grew older, she never let a day go by without saying it.

In fact, she’d never said goodbye, instead, she said “I love you.”

I know that these are just words; but words are powerful and these are some of the most life changing words we have. Use them more often and change the world we live in.

Be you, be well, express love.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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