On the contrary! I was so sick of thinking about Multiple Sclerosis, I had learned more than I ever wanted to know! And I was totally bored with my condition!

As long as my visitors shared their stories, I was able to be distracted. I enjoyed listening to all of the experiences others were going through.

It was then that I started to see that just as Deepak Chopra taught, every experience has a purpose. Even though I recognize Deepak’s eternal truth, I believe in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

I’m sure that God could delete all pain and suffering in the blink of an eye. And He has allowed adversity in each person’s life. The trials are different, all for the same purpose. To get us back to Him.

This is one of the first great lessons that I learned on my MS journey. We all have adversity “God allowed trials”. All trials are Personal Growth Opportunities. Our job is to say to the Lord, AS YOU WISH!

I would love to hear your stories; the experiences you’ve had and the lessons you’ve learned.

Recipe for a Healthy Self-Esteem:

Start with one part connection Liberally sprinkle with large doses of unique identity Season with a bit of power Stir in positive role models Mix all ingredients together and let self-esteem rise.

This recipe is best if consumed as a regular part of daily life.

After many years of research, Clemes and Bean found that only four basic conditions are necessary for maintaining a high self-esteem: connectiveness, uniqueness, power and role models.

Over the course of the next few blog entries, I will discuss each of these vital conditions with you in detail. Let’s start with Connectiveness.

Connectiveness. The satisfaction a person experiences when he/she feels part of or belongs to something larger (group, family, etc.) than themselves, and when they feel they’re important to those people with whom they “belong”.

 No man is an island. This is more than a clique. It’s the truth. We need each other.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow concluded that the need to belong is one of the five basic needs a human being has, and is only lower than psychological (food, water, shelter) and safety (security, stability, freedom from fear) needs. It’s no wonder that you can belong to almost ANY kind of group in our society, sports, school and church groups, peer, critique, and hobby groups. The list goes on and on.

Take a look at your connections. How connected do you feel? What groups do you belong to? What kind of social framework does your life rest upon? How connected to your family and friends are you?

If the answers to these questions feel a bit sparse, look into ways you can build up that connection in your life.

Connectiveness is an essential ingredient for living a healthy, balanced life and will help ensure that your self-esteem is right where it should be. In

In contrast to how a child belongs in the world, adult belonging is never as natural, innocent, or playful. Adult belonging has to be chosen, received, and renewed. It is a lifetime’s work. –John O’Donahue

Nick Vujicic – People are his passion. Sharing with them a message of hope is what he’s passionate about. At 25 years old, he is realizing his dream of sharing his message with everyone. He has spoken in over 15 countries to 2 million people face to face.

Nick shares his message of gratitude for what he has. He says it’s a lie to think that we’re not good enough. It’s a lie to think we’re not worth anything. My story is not nearly as extreme, but I learned from my experiences too!

Nick understands how people go through their storms.

He tells us to be patient, recognizing it’s hard. He realizes that right now he can’t do things as simple as holding his wife’s hand, but has faith that someday he’ll be able to. Nick teaches that we have the strength to conquer all that comes before us.

Nick’s new fresh perspective in life to Be Thankful, Dream Big, and to Never Give Up.

You can see Nick’s webste: Attitude is Altitude. Nick’s story has influenced me greatly. Tell me how it has affected you.

“Good Morning, Today is Thursday March 18 – Matanuska telephone time is 5:56am. The current temperature is 25 degrees. Now Palmer’s only official forecast. Partly sunny today, highs in the mid 30′s to the lower 40′s. Mostly cloudy tonight, chance of snow after midnight, lows in the 20′s. Mostly cloudy on Friday, a chance of rain or snow, highs around 40.
We’ll have 12 hours and 3 minutes of daylight.
Thanks for calling the weather phone, another service of Matanuska Telephone Association.”

5 years ago, we did get a surprise. On May 5, as soon as I had gotten the kids snow gear all packed up and put away for the summer, we got over a foot of snow! The kids were in elementary school so we had to get them all back out again! I’ll trust what the ‘ol timer said for this year!!

It’s time to put away the snow gear!

You might be an Alaskan if:
1. A snowmachine is something you ride, not something that makes snow.
2. You don’t understand what’s so exciting about seeing a moose wandering through the middle of town.
3. Texas seems awfully small and crowded.
4. You need an air conditioner when the temperature soars into the 60′s.
5. You cannot imagine life without duct tape. (they say we are the duct tape capital of the united states! Duct tape is used for everything up here! If a jacket has a rip in it, duct tape. If the car has a broken bumper, duct tape. Fix anything: eye glasses, tools, gardening equipment, building supplies, shoes, all with duct tape. The high school kids have theme days to dress up for fun during homecoming week: school colors- blue & white day, 50′s day, Harley Davis day, Hawaiian day and Duct tape and tarp day (the kids literally create outfits out of tarps and duct tape!) It was a crack up when Wal-Mart ran out of duct tape one time (people were jokingly saying it was a state emergency!)

Ever had that thought? If so, you’re not alone. Even professional artists struggle with their creative ability from time to time.

What might surprise you, however, is that studies show that a person’s self-esteem is connected to their creativity. Yep, here we go again – we have to take another look at our self-worth!

It goes something like this: To be creative requires risk. To take risks requires self-confidence. To gain self-confidence requires trusting that people important to us will accept us regardless of whether we fail or succeed.

If we thrive on the approval and praise of others, we experience stunted imagination and seek to conform rather than take unnecessary risks. If we’re self-confident, the sky’s the limit! We are free to soar, stretching our creative wings.

You might think, “So what?? I didn’t want to be an artist anyway!”

You don’t have to be an artist to benefit from a boost in your creative-self-esteem. Enhanced creativity gives you better problem-solving skills. It helps you see multiple possibilities and solutions to life’s daily events. And yes, it even helps with the “art” of daily life how to make a pleasing dinner for your family or color-coordinate your child’s clothing before he leaves for school. It gives you ideas on unique ways to connect and love the people around you and how to save money on the household budget without feeling the bite. The list is as endless as creativity itself.

If you’re itching for more creativity in your life, the first thing you might want to gauge is the heartiness of your self-esteem. Water it with lots of permission and positive thoughts. Pull up some of those stubborn negative-word weeds. Over time, your creative garden is sure to start growing. Eventually, you’ll see the effect of it woven all throughout your life.

Sara, one of Emily’s classmates, works hard for her grades. Although not nearly as bright as Emily, Sara knows she is loved. Her close-knit family instills in Sara that she’s valuable and can do anything she sets her mind to.

Which girl do you think does better in school?

Multiple studies show over and over that a child with average intelligence and healthy self-esteem will out-score and out-perform a child with much higher intelligence and lower self-esteem.

Why is this? For one, a low self-esteem child is easily distracted, more anxious and fearful, and feels more pressure than children with a healthy view of themselves. They simply don’t have enough energy leftover to concentrate on learning.

As children grow, so do the pressures facing them. In the face of adolescence, with it’s own set of uncertainties, body image becomes increasingly important. Teaching a child how to feed their bodies is important, but even more important is teaching a child what to feed her mind.

Nielsen Co. conducted a survey about the television viewing habits of Americans. They concluded that the average American watches four hours of TV daily. While the typical American youth spends 900 hours a year in school, they spend 1500 hours a year in front of the television.

This translates into viewing, roughly, 20,000 commercials per year. Commercials filled with models that are thinner than 95% of the population. And this becomes part of the ‘standard’ our children look to for acceptance and worth.

Loving on our children and helping them know they are wonderful just how they are, does more for them than we can imagine. They’ll get better grades. They will have a better view of themselves and their bodies. They will have healthier relationships with others. And they’ll grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted adults that aren’t victim to the skewed views of the world around them.

You’ve probably heard the saying GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT, but why not put a positive spin on it? Fill your children with good and good will eventually find it’s way back out! Good in, Good Out! GIGO!!

Dog owners read that and smile. Ah, yes unconditional love lavished upon us regardless of our faults. It doesn’t matter if we’re fat or old or forgot to make snacks for our children’s youth function. We are perfect in the eyes of our dog.

A person struggling with self-esteem issues often spends her whole life listening to what other’s think about her. And it’s never as glamorous as the dog’s opinion! How well we “measure up” to expectations of others (and ourselves) often becomes our measurement of success.

Our self-esteem is, essentially, a measuring stick of how we view ourselves. It’s my evaluation of me; you’re evaluation of you. It’s a self-appraisal based on what we feel (and what we imagine other people must think) about our life performance how capable, lovely, worthy, successful, appreciated, beautiful and flawless we are.

The problem with this is that we have a wacky set of measuring tools that tell us what the standard is. We are constantly bombarded by our culture, media, relationships, work, friends, commercials, newspaper, Internet, our feelings at any given moment, and our health. Much of what we hear (or sometimes perceive we hear) is not realistic. Yet, we embrace it as TRUTH and feverishly try to live this impossible standard. And when we fail, we use it as ammunition against our value as a person.

Having healthy self-esteem requires turning a deaf ear to the stuff flying at us that’s out of balance. It’s learning to rest in the truth that we are lovable, regardless of how we look, what kind of mood we’re in, how we clean our house, or how much money we make.

You are valuable. You are important. Period. There are NO qualifiers to this. There are no performance tests. You can set the ruler down. You measure up.

One of the first steps in boosting your self-esteem is to give yourself permission to be you: Unique, wonderful, interesting, glorious YOU. There is no one exactly like YOU. (And, believe it or not, it’s meant to be that way!)

Another crucial step is giving yourself permission to set realistic standards for yourself. Not the perceived standards of Hollywood, family, friends or co-workers. The key here is REALISTIC standards ones that fit YOU.

And if you have a dog, you just might want to thank him. Maybe he’s smarter than you’ve given him credit for. He loves you just for you. He doesn’t have anything he’s measuring you against. And just YOU is enough.

I spent my life blazing down the road, never slowing down even around the curves~As early as I can remember, (probably as a result of watching Bambi as a kid), I was wanting to save the animals. I didn’t want to cage them, wear them, or eat them. (OK, I did have a guinea pig ”Duke” – as a kid) But I couldn’t stand animal abuse on any level. I was involved in the National Anti Vivisection Society which focused on advancing science without harming animals. I didn’t want to add to the abuse that was inflicted on animals at the beef farms. I have an activist tendency – I didn’t want to add to the abuse that I thought was being inflicted on the beef population in the American farms that provided the beef in our freezers. I had always been interested in health and nutrition. As a high school student I wanted to be a vegetarian. My mom finally relented, recognizing me as old enough to take responsibility for my eating. I spent my senior year as a Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian. I didn’t work with the Anti Vivisection Society for long, I moved across the country, and didn’t pick it up as I settled in Michigan, with my dad. I was a young, high school graduate, enjoying the dating scene.

I was dating a young man, Tom, who shared the same attitudes about eating that I did. He gave with me the book, Sugar Blues by William Dufty, which described the negative effects of sugar. I stopped eating cookies, cakes and candies. Tom and I were eating mostly fresh vegetables, whole grain breads and delicious pastas. That lasted as long as our relationship did.

I broke Tom’s heart and Married Robby. Robby was a selective eater, eating and averge American diet, too much deep-fried foods and not enough vegetables – . Being the very young bride, wanting only to be a stay-at-home mom, I buckled. I learned to cook what my husband enjoyed. You need to know that he never insisted that I cook and eat what he enjoyed, I just wanted to please him! I enjoyed the foods that Robby loved, so I ate them! (realizing that I just enjoyed eating anything) Big Macs, Potato Chips, Soda, and candy bars. When the kids started coming, I became a “milk and cookies mom”. Almost everyday afterschool, I had fresh baked cookies or rice crispie treats or apples and peanut butter ready for them. I have always been thin, it’s in my genes, so I never had to count calories. Of course I would limit my children’s cookie quantity, watching out for their health, but as for me…

As a grazer by nature, with the cookies were already made and convenient to eat, I ate too many! Over the years, I truly became a junk food junkie! But I never got sick! The kids would bring home sniffles from school, I didn’t catch it ~ I mean I never got sick! I can remember one time in my whole adult life that I actually got the flu and threw up! I believed since my college years that all illness is created mentally/emotionally and that we have power to get over anything! You can imagine my surprise! In September, 1995….
My movie tells the story from here…

I am grateful for more years of feeling good! I am realizing the blessings of this experience! I’m anxious to tell you! You’ll read it here at LindaGraceonline!

When I graduated high school, I decided it was time to be honest.  I committed to myself and to God, to tell the truth.  The (true) story I tell my children to teach them about being honest happened in college:  I had an appointment to see a church leader after a public meeting.  We were planning to meet in the foyer as soon as the meeting ended.  I totally forgot, and went straight home.  It wasn’t until the next day, when I saw him that I remembered!  My first and usual reaction was, “I looked everywhere for you!  I waited for about 15 minutes, then decided I’d just catch up with you at church.”  Remembering my commitment to be honest, I said, I’m sorry, I forgot.”  His response was, “Don’t worry, Linda, I saw you leave!”

  Can you imagine?

Thursday, October 1, 2009 I’ve made the decision! The MS is in remission, the only thing holding me back from walking is ME! I’ve always said that if the disease was stopped, I’d be able to re-learn to walk. Now, I’ll prove it! I will continue to eat a predominantly alkaline diet, take my supplements, sleep enough, and fill my life with positive thoughts, feelings and actions! Check back in a month to see how I’m doing!