Introducing The Attention Factor Tee Shirt!

I just wanted to take a brief moment to announce something I'm very excited about: the launch of my Attention Factor Tee Shirt on eBay!

Proudly proclaim your love of positive attention with this snuggly 100% cotton shirt, available in sizes S-XL. Isn't it cute? Click here:

The Attention Factor Tee Shirt on eBay

Order yours today, and send me your thoughts!

Connection Is Worth Everything

I saw the movie The Vow the other night and could see it over and over. The movie tells the true story of a couple who wrote a book about their vow and loved each other enough to live through uncharted medical territory to recoup their lives.

Why do I say I could watch it over and over? I say this because the energetic connection between the two stars was palpable, and that is welcome in a time when more and more people are disconnecting from each other, spending more time on their cell phones and computers than with each other.

I see people show up at dinner, put their cell phones on the table and not say a word to each other. The other night, there was a family - mother, father, and teenage son - across from me at a restaurant, and the only words they spoke the whole time were when they ordered their food. What a pathetic situation. The space around them was so heavy!

I think about the concept of connection a lot, because it means so much to me and it feels so good.

I also think about the state of  'not knowing,' or not being completely connected to someone, and how that feels. I first encountered that with my mother. When my Mom did not know where I was or what I was doing, she felt so out of control, she could barely handle it. I watched and absorbed this. She actually told me that she was going to call the police once, when she felt this way. That was the era before cell phones, but I was an adult and had only stopped at the grocery store, making me a little later than usual in arriving at her home.

So, somehow, I've picked up that energy in my own life and am working to let it go...that energy that makes me uncomfortable when I don't know what's happening in a situation that I'm in, when I don't have all the answers. Even writing about it makes me feel better.

Feelings are feelings, we all have them, and when we're healthy, we honor them. Best of all, we learn to communicate them, so we don't have to stuff them down and drown them with drugs, alcohol or other destructive behaviors. This is all part of my work with The Attention Factor: learning to pay attention to how we feel, how we act and how we call attention to our need for a solution.

If only Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger and so many others could have discovered what kind of attention they needed and learned how to ask for it - wouldn't they be alive today? Do you know what kind of attention you need, and how to get it?

Let's welcome our feelings and get this all-important conversation started.

www.TheAttentionFactor.com

I Love to Go to The Garbage !!!

I've  discovered two places where I really enjoy going as part of some of my daily routine.

Over the years people have laughed at me when I've said, " I'm going to the Post Office." They've asked me why, when there's a Mail Box on the corner or I could stick it in my door to be picked up.  I go because I know that I'm completing a task; I have finished something. This just plain feels good to me.

So, when I go to the garbage location down the hall, I have also finished cleaning up, cleaning out and/or straightening up. That also feels good.

I had a friend once who loved to iron, because she could finish something. I totally understand that and I do not iron.

There is always so much to do every day and more always keeps arriving: e-mails, internet 'duty', creative writing, videoing, texting, reading newspapers and magazines, making phone calls, running errands, social living, family living, personal living, shopping, eating, etc.

I don't wonder at all about my need to feel that I am completing some thing every day. I'm not alone, for most people I talk to these days are expressing their over-whelm with all they have to do. I sometimes wonder if there are any commercials, yet, advertising a medication to get rid of our feeling we have to do it all.

I am recommending consciously balancing our lives these days by paying attention to the choices we make.
I'm practicing this more and more;  I don't know if I'll ever be perfect.

For more, visit www.theattentionfactor.com!

We've All Got to Learn to Say "NO!"

I have been saddened by Whitney Houston’s recent death. I’ve listened to commentators, family remarks and read statements she herself  made over the years.

It seems that this gifted, famous, successful woman wanted to quit the life she’d created for herself. She wanted to be “normal,” hang out with her daughter, escape the throngs, and settle down to be a Mom.

She had issues like so many others have, like not feeling ‘good enough’ or feeling insecure about where we are in life. These feelings can creep into us even when we’re appearing to be very financially successful, with a worldwide reputation and followers who adore us and send our songs to the top of the music charts.

Only we know our personal pain, and often we can’t tolerate how we feel. Evidently that’s what happened to Whitney, driving her to take all the drugs she felt she had to take. I wonder why she couldn’t ask for help from those around her, the kind of attention she really she needed and why she couldn’t say ‘no more.’ She wanted to stop; she’d planned a new routine to clean herself out and up. She needed a very special kind of attention, which unfortunately she couldn’t or didn’t get.

While she poisoned her body with all the chemicals she took, I think she died of a broken heart.

For more on the power of Attention, visit www.theattentionfactor.com.