Born Abandoned
Posted by admin on Jul 1, 2011 in Human Interest, Other Stories of Inspiration | 0 comments
By Tim Gomes
Anyone who has felt abandoned may find some solace in my experience of abandonment and redemption.
Last year I learned that I was abandoned at birth.
For the last 60 years I have always known that I was adopted. My parents (adopted) had always introduced my younger brother (natural) and me as “Timmy, our adopted son, and our son Ronnie.” There was never any distinction between my brother and me, or our older sister from our father’s first marriage, within our very large family. I was at all times numb and dumb about my adoption. It meant nothing to me.
My parents divorced when I was six, and my father never had anything bad to say about my mother. My mother never had anything good to say about him. Ronnie and I spent every other weekend and two weeks in summer with our father. Once I turned 14 conflicts with my mother grew so frequent and intense that I chose to live with my father. When he married his longtime girlfriend I returned to mom.
A Blueprint for Life After Divorce: Pittsburgh Author’s Book Inspires and Empowers Others to Find their “New Normal”
Posted by admin on Feb 25, 2011 in Divorce, Human Interest, Other Success Stories, Related Self-Improvement Articles | 0 comments
Gina Mazza
By Daniel Casciato
Pittsburgh-based journalist, author, editor, and publishing consultant Gina Mazza lives by the philosophy that everything happens for a reason, and as she writes in her book, “Everything Matters, Nothing Matters,” it’s not about what happens to us in life—it’s our response to it and, more importantly, who we are going through it. Her book is the story of her inward journey to fully embracing creativity and higher consciousness. It offers principles for finding balance, embracing the sacredness of every day and living an intention-based life with gratitude.
It’s not lost on her that the book launched just a couple of months after Mazza and her husband of nearly 20 years separated. It was “a supreme opportunity to road test the veracity of my life philosophy,” Mazza says. “Our core beliefs are most profoundly tested when a crisis or moment of truth arrives—that’s where the rubber meets the road. The book’s principles served as a continual blueprint towards my own self-realization through the divorce process. It helped me through it immensely.”
The most challenging part of the whole divorce process for her was dealing with ongoing betrayal and dishonesty; that was an affront to her emotional sensibilities and, being an emotion-based person who feels things deeply, she says that it was no walk in the park.
“In spite of that, my goal was to go through the experience with as much grace, dignity and integrity as possible,” she says. “Ultimately, I reached a point where I wouldn’t accept being bullied anymore—that was my lesson to learn. After I made that decision and took action in that direction, everything shifted.”
There is Life After Loss: Widow Helps Others Along their Healing Journeys
Posted by admin on Feb 23, 2011 in Human Interest, Other Stories of Inspiration, Widow | 0 comments
Carole Brody Fleet
By Daniel Casciato
After caring for her husband Mike (a national record-holding police officer) through his over-two-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; or what is more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), Carole Brody Fleet became a widow on December 19, 2000. For her, it was a journey that culminated in physical and emotional shambles for the two of them as well as complete financial ruin.
Fleet, who has one daughter, Kendall, was married to her late husband for five and a half years, and were the best of friends for almost 20 years. She learned to cope with her husband’s loss by coming to understand two fundamentally important facts.
“Going into the fetal position and staying in a place of pain and grief was not going to be an option,” says Fleet. “Also, that just by being here, my daughter and I were still entitled to a life of happiness and abundance – and that it was up to me to show my daughter the path(s) to doing just that.”
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