I have decided to use each of my 6 blogs to catalog relating links for the following main categories. Each post will be about a specific aspect of each of the following categories:

(1)  Changemaker: Reinventing Yourself— Link lists for spiritual/religion/spiritual practices

(2)  Answers By Email: Changemaker Personality Test—Link lists for finding your passion/career/work/employment

(3)  Changemaker Groups—Link lists for social networks/facebook/twitter/myspace

(4)  Changemaker Library—Link lists for social issues/causes

(5)  Healing for You–Link lists for lifestyle choices/voluntary simplicity/sustainable living/homeschooling

(6)  High Energy Goals—Link lists for health/wellness/fitness/food/diet/exercise

I am beginning this new adventure of being a blog indexer today, Jan. 19, 2009. I hope that my service may be an aid to your life online.

My main complaint about ebooks is that I still have to manually enter the websites that are generally recommended in the ebook.

For this purpose, I have taken all the information in the Changemaker ebook and put it on another blog, Changemaker Sampler, which is for sale. The new blog allows me to put all the extensive links in the ebook in an interactive format for quick use of the links.

My inspiration for the Changemaker products has come from having read many books over 50 years. What I’ve realized about our life today is that we have become accustomed to “sound bites”. To me this means that we can benefit from short directives instead of trying to absorb all the information in a book.

While I was researching for the Changemaker products, I found hundreds of books which were each filled with good direction. The problem is that we have less and less time to devote to even our own improvement. So I knew that short, to-the-point, easy-to-reference health information of all types would be a time-saver and motivator to even the busiest person.

Changemaker is creating password-protected blogs that are for sale for $9.95 through Pay Pal. You don’t have to belong to Pay Pal to use it. Each of the blogs will be around one theme only. They will be for sale on www.kathyberman.com.

Email me with any questions at changemaker.kathy@gmail.com.

When I got up and walked outside, everything was different—trees, cars, the street—I saw everything with new eyes. It took me much searching to find out what had happened to me. In a book by William James entitled The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), I found that I had had a radical conversion.

Did I answer a calling? I don’t know what happened to me except I knew that God had given me that compassion and love that I felt that day. I know that someone with an experience is never at the mercy of someone with an argument.

From that day until today, I have tried to accept the guidance that God gives me and it has been the most amazing journey. I don’t believe that God does more for me now than He did before that day. The difference is that I now can see the daily miracles. “Once I was blind and now I see.”

I had decided during the first few months of blogging that I didn’t have the time to write about all I’ve learned in thirty years of recovery and answer comments. So I decided to not allow comments.

Knowing that I would be in for a long, lonely road without comments didn’t deter me from the decision to exclude them. I have had several people contact me by email so I do have some readers. I have always posted my email address and posted several times about new directions the blog was entering. Of course, my choice brought me not much traffic. Although I have been consistently and continually online since Nov. 2004, I continue to have little traffic.

I always try to return emotionally to the point of service. How can I get my message out? I don’t have the definitive answers because it is an open-ended question.

But I do have a few clues. We live in a world that loves sound bites. The information highway of yesterday is bumper to bumper traffic.

Many solutions exist for capturing a small part of all the information. We can pick and choose what we add to our “readers”. We can choose favorites to revisit regularly. I have found that I have to be brutal in my selection of what sites I receive by RSS or I have so much information that I get nothing else done.

So—back to my question—how do I get traffic? Over the past two years, I have invested many, many hours studying that question by downloading most of the really great help that is online in blogs and is free (if you don’t count the time invested).

Did any of my reading lead to more traffic? The answer is obviously no because I decided to go in another direction than the ways the heavily trafficked blogs went. Most of the guidance I read was for those bloggers who chose to do things the regular way—allow comments, read and comment on the comments, post to sites to get noticed, join with other bloggers in some sort of network, and/or write articles with link back to the personal blog.

How to package my information in a “sound bite” society? During that time, I had written several ebooks that I offered for sale. My reservations about ebooks are: (1) the customer has to do all the download, (2) most ebooks are too long to read online, and (3) my main complaint, all the links in ebooks aren’t interactive. After I have paid or not paid for the ebook, I still have to type in the links that I want to visit from the ebook.

So, I decided to go another way. I do need to produce some income since I have no pensions. So I have elected to put the information from my ebooks and from my main blog as well as new material on several password-protected blogs. Each blog will have a separate theme from the main body of my work.

The Changemaker family of blogs will be offered for sale at our main site, Changemaker: Change Your Life. The blogs for sale will be: (1) The Changemaker Library, (2) The Changemaker Test, (3) The High Energy Life Plan, (4) Find Your Life Passion, and (5) Recovery/Twelve Steps/ Spiritual Direction.

1) The brown sugar is 15 calories per teaspoon so I am generous with it because it is so delicious. When evaluating calories, you will be doing yourself a big favor if you increase the calories rather than decreasing them on your vegetable. This has to be the most satisfying food you eat all day. If you’ve chosen well, it will hold you until supper.

2) My chewing need in met by my apples and my Greek Salad. For this salad I use seedless cucumbers from Canada, small grape tomatoes, red peppers, crumbled low fat feta cheese, and red onion. I sometimes add Greek pepperoncini. I count this as 100 calories for a small bowl and have it several times a day. The salad dressing I make is ¼ cup of balsamic vinegar, ½ tsp. of lemon juice, ½ salt, 1 glove garlic minced very fine, ½ tsp. Dijon mustard, and ½ tsp. of dried oregano.

3) My husband and I are unusual about eating out—we rarely do so I cook a main meal at least once a day and sometimes twice. I eat my portion on a small dish. I allow 200-400 calories for this. Sometimes I eat my own food. I don’t want to ever feel deprived (except for those days I deliberately have a modified fast).

4) A hot beverage or soup will help you over a desire for something and the ones I use have few calories. The hot beverages I use to satisfy by emotional hunger are:

Café Bustelo Cappuccino Sugar Free 1 envelope 45 calories

Nestlé’s Hot Chocolate Sugar Free 1 envelope 60 calories

I add Splenda for extra sweetness which is 0 calories

Progresso Soups—many of them are 100 or less calories per serving. Some of the flavors available are:

• Beef & Mushroom
• Beef Vegetable
• Carb Monitor Chicken Vegetable
• Chicken & Wild Rice
• Chicken Noodle
• Chicken Noodle 99% Fat Free
• Chicken Rice with Vegetables
• Escarole in Chicken Broth
• French Onion
• Garden Vegetable
• Hearty Chicken & Rotini
• Hearty Penne in Chicken Broth
• Homestyle Chicken with Vegetables & Pearl Pasta
• Roasted Chicken Garden Herb
• Roasted Chicken Italian

• Roasted Chicken Rotini
• Roasted Chicken with Wild Rice 99% Fat Free

• Roasted Garlic Chicken with Vegetables & Penne
• Turkey Noodle
• Vegetable
• Vegetable Italian
• Vegetarian Vegetable with Barley

You can buy Progresso soups by the case at Amazon.

5) For my sweet potato and Greek Salad, I use the following:

Land ‘o Lakes Fresh Buttery Taste spread 80 calories per

tablespoon Dark brown sugar 15 calories per teaspoon

Sweet potato—I like the large ones—which is 150-200 calories. I count it as 300 once I’ve added the brown sugar and margarine

Maple Grove Farm Fat Free Greek Dressing

2 tablespoons 15 calories

(Any Maple Grove Fat Free Dressing is good.)

Feta cheese ¼ cup 70 or 90 calories

Red Peppers (without stem and seeds) 20 calories

Small grape tomatoes 1 pound=100 calories

Seedless cucumbers 8 ounces+32 calories

For easy protein, StarKist has tuna in a flavor fresh pouch. I like herb and garlic, zesty lemon and the spicy mix.

6) My Treat List:

Smuckers Cherry Jam 50 calories per tablespoon

Sun chips (especially Garden Salsa) 15 chips 140 calories

Pepperidge Farm bread 12 or 15-grain bread 150 calories per slice

White bread with thick crust from bakers-I eat the two ends because I love the crust and count this as 200 calories.

Fudge bars—110 calories

Walden Farms has several great no carbs and sugar free products. I especially love the chocolate syrup. I put a little in a bowl and cut up my apple and dip it into the syrup for a 100 calorie treat.

I had decided during the first few months of blogging that I didn’t have the time to write about all I’ve learned in thirty years of recovery and answer comments. So I decided to not allow comments.

Knowing that I would be in for a long, lonely road without comments didn’t deter me from the decision to exclude them. I have had several people contact me by email so I do have some readers. I have always posted my email address and posted several times about new directions the blog was entering. Of course, my choice brought me not much traffic. Although I have been consistently and continually online for over two years, I continue to have little traffic.

I always try to return emotionally to the point of service. How can I get my message out in a world of 55,000,000 blogs and counting (Technorati—12/03/06)? I don’t have the definitive answers because it is an open-ended question.

But I do have a few clues. We live in a world that loves sound bites. The information highway of yesterday is bumper to bumper traffic.

Many solutions exist for capturing a small part of all the information. We can pick and choose what we add to our “readers”. We can choose favorites to revisit regularly. I have found that I have to be brutal in my selection of what sites I receive by RSS or I have so much information that I get nothing else done.

So—back to my question—how do I get traffic? Over the past two years, I have invested many, many hours studying that question by downloading most of the really great help that is online in blogs and is free (if you don’t count the time invested).

Did any of my reading lead to more traffic? The answer is obviously no because I decided to go in another direction than the ways the heavily trafficked blogs went. Most of the guidance I read was for those bloggers who chose to do things the regular way—allow comments, read and comment on the comments, post to sites to get noticed, join with other bloggers in some sort of network, and/or write articles with link back to the personal blog.

After two years, I still don’t believe that is the way for me to get traffic. I am a hard head and a slow learner, but it still doesn’t feel like me.

Thanksgiving is my sobriety date and this past year, 2006, I began my 30^th year of sobriety. I was also 66 years old in 2006 so I felt that my time needed to be spend on writing what I’ve accumulated inside myself and on paper through all these years. I had never been able to find an avenue for all this flow until I started my blog.

I read blogs for several years before I started mine. I didn’t know when I started that I would be writing for 10-12 hours most days for over 2 years (started Nov. 2004) and still writing. However, last Thanksgiving 2006,I felt a need to reevaluate how I spend my energy. I also believe that there are many great blogs as well as mine with too much information on them.

How to package my information in a “sound bite” society? During that time, I also had written several ebooks that I offered for sale. My reservations about ebooks are: (1) the customer has to do all the download, (2) most ebooks are too long to read online, and (3) my main complaint, all the links in ebooks aren’t interactive. After I have paid or not paid for the ebook, I still have to type in the links that I want to visit from the ebook.

So, I decided to go another way. I do need to produce some income since I have no pensions. So I have elected to put the information from my ebooks and from my main blog as well as new material on several password-protected blogs. Each blog will have a separate theme from the main body of my work.

Three things happened that helped me to see my alcoholism. The first was that my father (who was a periodic alcoholic) had long periods of being dry. Yet when he returned to drinking, he was always in worse shape.

One night, he had a really bad night from drinking and I stayed up to try to help him. I now know that he was having the DTs. The next day, I knew that I never wanted to go through what he had.

The second thing happened when Jonathan Winters was on Johnny Carson’s show. Jonathan had quit drinking. Johnny insisted that Jonathan could have a little wine on Thanksgiving. Jonathan said, “No. You don’t understand. I’d have a little wine and then a little scotch, and suddenly it’s Tuesday.”

The third experience was one fall day, my husband and I had taken our daughter to a park. The two of them were having a great time on the swings. I was miserable–it was too hot for me–I was tired–We had been there too long–I was thirsty. Suddenly, I looked at them and realized that they had something that I didn’t have. I didn’t know what it was–but I wanted it.

Several excellent sites offer guidance in finding your life work. The best advice I could give someone looking for career fulfillment is to do the job/career you would do for free. That job is your heart’s desire.
To help begin collecting data about our likes and dislikes. List the 10 aspects you feel comfortable with on a job. on’t be afraid to change or modify your list. Put it in a conspictuous place and check it over every day. Check out here for finding your life mission.
I have been reading Valerie Young’s site for 4 years now and still believe it to be one of the superior places to find your inner desires for career.
Another great resource helps us to look into the possibility of career counseling. Although I believe this inner search to find one’s heart desire is better done alone, I understand that someone may have the ability to motivate us on the search.

A. NLP (neurolinguistic programming)–I am auditory. Only 10% of people tested are auditory. We are the ones who are always making you wait for certain words in a song. When I used to be dating, my poor friends had to hear the whole conversation of my current guy and me–”I said and then he said”–blah, blah, blah.

B. Birth order–First born. The first born believe that we were born to straighten everyone else out. So we do ruffle a few feathers. We are well-organized and reliable, but tend to be moody and perfectionistic.

C. My 2 family roles are: (1) the doing role (what I appear to be to the rest of the world)–family hero. Family heros are hard workers, successful, leaders but feel inadequate because nothing is ever good enough.

My second role–( 2) the being role (the role I choose when I am in trouble emotionally–scapegoat. Scapegoats are rebels who have a hard time learning conflict resolution. We tend to pin any trouble on someone else.

D. The two energies I use the most are: creative and logic.Logic people are organized, set goals and have a plan of action. Creative people are flexible in problem-solving and use a lot of imagination.

E. MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator). I am INTP. I am an introvert–intuitive–thinking–perceiving person. The main focus in my life is understanding and learning. “INTPs are logical, analytical and detached in their approach to life” according to Charles Martin at CAPT. Whole books have been written about each of these 16 types so more information is very available.

I don’t think that we can try to attain the awakening of our soul in any other way than by choosing to put ourselves in the presence of the God of our understanding. Many centuries ago, a wonderful monk lived and wrote Practice in the Presence of God.

He taught me, centuries later, that all I had to do was practice presenting myself to my God. I didn’t have to do anything else but put myself in a place where the God of my understanding could communicate with me.

Prayer is when I communicate with my God and meditation is the practice of listening to God. Although I have tried many times to maintain the principles of meditation to my life, I have never been able to do meditation in the recommended ways

Instead I set aside time several times a day to “check in” with Him. When I present myself to God for His answers, I come in a spirit of peace and quiet. I rarely “hear” anything. Instead I sense directions or guidances from Him. If my direction is God’s will for my life, the going will be easy. If I am trying to force something to happen, I will become stressed about it.

The difficulty is in getting out of God’s way. If I think that I know exactly the direction of God’s guidance, I have learned that it is probably my ego answering me. Another way that I use to understand God’s direction is to not do anything to force the outcome. I do the footwork and leave the outcome to Him. This is especially hard when all that maybe needed is a phone call.

If I don’t receive some kind of guidance, I realize that the answer may not be no, but rather may be later. This letting go releases great energy and feelings of belonging. “Let go and let God.”

How do you know that someone–regardless of age–is spiritual? Certainly not because they say they are. The best evaluation is to see the fruits of the Spirit manifested by them. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, kindness, self-control, patience, faithfulness, goodness, longsuffering and gentleness as listed in Galatians 5:22-23.

Wikipedia identifies mindfulness as “the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally”. Although my faith is based in Jesus Christ, I am thankful that He has given me the gift of openness to explore and implement practices from other faiths.

In 1976, when I began implementing breathing exercise with meditation practices, I immediately knew that finding my center and focusing on my breath in and breath out enabled calm and peace to flow through my body. Being human, I learned in a moment what has taken a lifetime to implement. Transcendental meditation has been found to decrease heart rate and blood pressure because the mind-body connection prospers when one experiences peace and calm.

Tags: change, spirituality, breathing, mindfulness, Spirit, energy, prayer, meditation

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