My Baby Sister turned 50 years old this week, bringing up the rear. For at least this year, my brother, my two sisters and I are all in our 50’s. It’s hard to believe the 4 of us have had 50 fabulous years together. Time has flown by. Wow!!

I smile inside and my heart feels full as I remember our summers at the beach together, hunting Easter eggs in the back yard, walking down the stairs on Christmas morning, fighting and making up, laughing and crying, weddings, babies, grandbabies and burying our parents. OMG…. I am crying now.

I am truly grateful for each of my siblings and am blessed to have them in my life. Even now we still get together each summer at our favorite place, the beach, to celebrate with family.

Thank you Hunt, Maggie and Paige for the memories. Life with you truly rocks!!

Okay, so here I go again. My Little Buddha, that would be my daughter Jamie, called me last night with an issue. A good friend and co-worker of hers confided in her that their boss offered Jamie’s job to him. The job was offered to him because it is more in alignment with his career path than Jamie’s. Jamie works this particular job full time to assist with her living expenses.

Now “my little Buddha” is a very hard worker, someone who takes her job responsibilities seriously. She has been honest with her employer as to how this job fits into her “career and life purpose” plan. This was made clear to him when he initially offered her the position.

Here’s the rub. Jamie’s boss frequently tells her what a fabulous job she is doing. He tells her she is the best ever in performing the duties of the current position. So, to hear that he offered her job position to someone else, without the respect of letting her know got her juices flowing. She felt betrayed.

However, after her initial emotional flow about the situation, Jamie called back and said:

“You know mom, I’m going to be okay. The Universe is going to take care of me. It always has. I just need to believe in myself, and that the Universe will uphold me like always. I’m awesome, right? Yes, I’m awesome. In fact, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to put a note on my mirror in my bedroom and bathroom with I’m Awesome on it, because I am. I’m awesome. I am frick’n awesome!!”

Do you want to know how pumped I get when I hear “my little Buddha” talk like this? I think it’s awesome! I love that at the age of 23, Jamie has the tools to shift her thinking. She knows the truth. She does her work.

Oh, that I had known what she knows at her age. But then, I wouldn’t be who I am today….someone who gets to be enormously blessed and inspired by “my little Buddha”!!

Family Portrait!

A few days ago, I shared a family portrait from 1976. (You can see this photo in the previous blog entry.) First, I’d like to give a BIG thanks to all who responded with their stories. It was fun reading the different and sometimes creative interpretations.

I resurrected this picture first because it made me laugh, and secondly because it brought back memories. As I was going through my photo albums and came across this photo, I was reminded of the intensity of this day, at least from my perspective.

My mom, my sisters Maggie and Paige, and I visited my brother Hunt and his wife, Linda, while they were stationed by the Army in Belgium. What a memory!

Look at us, a picture-perfect family representing joy and happiness… NOT! We had been sight-seeing all day. We were hot, tired and beginning to get on each other’s nerves. True to form in my family, when we are in close quarters, family and sibling issues begin to surface. This day was no different.

Each of us had our own ideas of how we wanted to enjoy the day, none of which were having our picture taken. Whose idea was this, anyway?

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One day, my life came to a screeching halt! (Now you must have the visual of someone who is running on 8 cylinders FULL OUT.) I remember looking at my life, all of it – how I dressed, how I decorated my house, where I worked, how I lived, how I raised my kids – I came to a screeching halt, and I said to myself:

“Oh My God - I’ve finally become my mother!”

I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t upset or frustrated. I was just dumbfounded, like I was looking back over the past few years of my life and asking, “What the hell was that?”

I’m laughing about it now, but truly I was stunned.

Then I began to ask myself the next obvious question, “Well, if I’m not my mother, then WHO AM I?” And, folks: This is the greatest question I have ever pondered.

This one question changed the course of my life forever. It set me on a journey of self awareness and self discovery that I am still on today. I now have enormous clarity about who I am, what my truest essence is and how to access and live from that power and strength rather than from the patterns and roles I thought were me.

How? By discovering life purpose! Asking myself a few simple yet powerful questions about who I am and what I love to do.

Is any of this familiar to you? Do you ever wonder which of the roles you’ve played is the real you? Did you ever feel like you became your mother?

Not to worry. I think we’ve all had roles modeled for us. And, taking on roles without questioning whether they are authentic to who we truly are, or not, is normal. So, are you asking the question, “Who am I?”

Got Purpose? If you are asking or if you’re simply at a place in life where you’re looking to crank it up a notch, I’m here to help. Take a moment to answer a few questions and fill in the Rebel Belle Life Purpose Sheet. Have fun and enjoy the process of expressing you!!

By the way, I thought I’d share these pictures with you. Uncanny resemblance don’t you think in how we dressed “the children?” Is this conditioning? Like mother, like daughter!!!

I recently completed a program (Book Yourself Solid) with a business professional named Michael Port – a fabulously stimulating course and in Lesson 14 “Writing Strategies”, Michael stimulated my thinking (what’s new right?). As the author of his new book, Book Yourself Solid, Michael shared that he never considered himself to be a writer. Like Michael, I have never considered myself to be a writer. However, what he did say was anyone can write if they write from what they know, what they’re passionate about and from life experiences. So, I asked myself, what do I know? What am I passionate about? What could I write about from my experiences that would make a difference for others? My answer: personal growth and transformation.

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Maggie and Tuck are celebrating their birthdays this month and want to share their joy with you (and obviously their sense of humor).

As we celebrate our “50″ years we find ourselves reflecting, laughing and crying about how we were raised and, the many patterns ingrained into our psyche. Part of our healing and evolving includes sharing our “mother” stories and laughing with our girlfriends about the many ways we were instructed and molded into being “the women we are today”.

I don’t know about you guys but my instructions were to be quiet, polite, sit still and not embarrass my family. Thank God my mom wasn’t stuck on my being prissy or frilly. That really might have put me over the edge. She was, however definitely insistent on Southern Social Graces. What saved me I say was that she was also a fiercely independent Southern woman. That was probably the first crack in the “Self Woman” mold.

So… here we are… me and Maggie. Aren’t we cute? (No frills or priss here… just charm and grace?!?) This was actually one of the trillion of times that we were dressed in exactly the same clothes. We still find that we do it today!! And, poor Paige…she didn’t have a chance. The minute she came along we became triplets. And, then there was Hunt…he was basically just suppose to stand there, look charming and act “as if” he loved his 3 sisters.

I mean…look at this….would you be able to find your individual sense of identity always “being” like your sisters? (Check out just how excited Maggie and I are in the 2nd photo). All in all I wouldn’t trade my 53 years with this family for anything in the world. I love my life and I love my “mother stories”. We all have them, right? Do any of those pictures bring back memories for you? How about any of these statements? Do they sound familiar to you or maybe you have your own?

“Remember who you are and what you do reflects on your brother and sisters.”
“As long as you live under my roof, you’ll do it my way.”
“You don’t just date one of them. Keep them all guessing. Play the field. Lead them on.”
“You cannot go out of the house looking like that. Who do you think you are?”
(Great questions –huh?)

What is the most outrageous thing you remember being told by your mother that was suppose to mold you into the “perfect, graceful, social, charming, proper and polite woman of today. And, more importantly did it work for you? Are you sharing these “timeless tips” with your children and with your daughters? Or did you break out of that mold? Did you find your own identity and leave the stereotypes in the dust ?

Surely we can’t be the only women who had to wear anklets, bobby socks and crinolines through the sixth and seventh grade…or can we?“

I invite you to post your comments and your own story here.