I want to feel good. All the time. I want to feel empowered, happy, joyful, inspired.

I know that’s what will make everything work out for me. I wholeheartedly believe that I create my own reality and that I can choose to make my life wonderful. But last week a cold came on and it was enough to knock me out of my own well being and send me careening into a funky place. Not acceptable.

 

I had spent all day on the couch and gave into the “reality” of the cold. I was feeling sorry for myself and kept thinking about things that were not going as I wanted them to go. I knew this wasn’t good to do, but I couldn’t help it. The old tapes about fear and lack kept creeping in. I took note of that and made an effort to push them aside and replace those thoughts with things that made me happy. But they were hard to find in my brain.

 

As a kid, the very favorite album I owned was the original cast album to Peter Pan. Now buried in there were some pieces of wisdom that I suddenly thought about in relation to what I was feeling. When Peter is teaching the Darling children to fly, he gives them the secret. “Just think lovely thoughts…” Perfect. I would just lie here and think some very lovely thoughts. But I couldn’t come up with them. I thought I would go over what the Darling children said. “Fishing. Hopscotch. Candy.” Okay, those really didn’t apply, but the message was solid. “If you think of lovely things, then your heart will fly on wings,” Peter had said. Peter Pan was an oracle! He was channeling the Law of Attraction long before any of us knew anything about it.

 

I was trying to move myself into a better place, but I was putting up resistance. I had committed to go to an early evening meeting, though at that moment it felt like a huge leap. I plodded through getting dressed, made myself get in the car, and started toward my destination in the heart of Hollywood. Poor me. Everything I felt great about a few days ago had completely left my mind. Those old thoughts of lack and fear had taken me over and I could not shake them.

 

As I pulled off the freeway at the Hollywood Boulevard exit, there was a man, probably in his forties, standing with a sign. “Navy vet. Please help if you can.” Nicely printed. He was a bit more together than most of these guys. His hair was cut. He clothes weren’t disheveled. His eyes were sad, but clear. He had a sweetness about him. I was glad that I make a point of keeping dollar bills in my wallet so that I can give a dollar here and there when I’m inspired to. At that moment, I wanted to give this man a dollar.

 

I reached into my purse to take out a buck, but found that I only had $20’s. Damn. I wish I could give him a dollar, but twenty dollars? That seemed like a lot. Then a strange sensation took over. It was as if my hand was moving on it’s own without me telling it what to do. I took out a twenty dollar bill and called the man over to my car. At first he said thank you, but then he looked at the bill. His eyes teared up and his mouth opened with surprise. He looked at me deeply. “Thank you. Thank you.”

 

“No,” I said. “Thank you.” The joy of that moment was worth so much more than twenty dollars. I was instantly back in the stream. What he gave me was an opportunity to connect and to share hope for a brief moment. It is my hope that he knows that it was his gift to me that had the most value.images-9

RAMEY WARREN

“I’ve always been fascinated by how celebrity weaves its magic spell on us all. Turning the chemistry of talent into a positive media personality is an art form.”

A native of Texas, Ramey Warrenwas destined to think big. Her career in the realm of celebrity began on a grand scale working with the parade of entertainers and stars that passed through The Tonight Show during Johnny Carson’s reign. Her experience there introduced her to practically every celebrity on the planet and drummed into every cell the importance of media exposure – “the right kind of media exposure” – in moving a performer’s career forward.

Ramey moved forward herself, to talk and lifestyle series on Fox and ABC, and created and produced shows for Paramount, NBC, Universal and Twentieth Television. She also developed series for Fine Living, HGTV and Style.