The Blind Spot Remover

After being a teacher and counselor for decades, I can’t help myself.  Every song I write and every presentation has some therapeutic intent.  I call my songs Thera-tunes because they all have some therapeutic, often light-hearted, message.

My husband bought me a button that says, “Must you be so relentlessly uplifting?”  The answer is:  Yes, I must.  I must.

I am legally blind.  This means I am a professional.  When I got my License to cane, I got a handicap parking permit, which makes me very popular with all the people who drive me, not so popular with people circling the streets for an empty parking spot. Along with the greatest challenges of my life, blindness gave me the greatest gifts – patience, gratitude and the ability to find the funny in any situation.

Any situation, you may ask?  Yes, I find it funny either immediately or in time.  My mother dying was not the most comic event of my life, of course, but when my husband Murray lay on her bed, holding her hand and said, “Shirley, you will always be in my heart.”  And when she answered, a bit querulously, “I’ll always be in your yard?”, we all laughed, including my dying mother.

The reason angels are able to fly, they say, is because they take themselves so lightly.  My intention is to embrace all that life has to offer, the grand sunsets as well as the flight delays and the death of beloved friends, with grace, gratitude, and humility.

I want to be present in the moment as long as I am present on this planet.  I want to enjoy and listen and cry and laugh and ponder and wonder, and be ready to let go of any cherished belief.  I know I have blind spots, as we all do, and I am always ready to find a new one, shine a loving light on it, and then mine the gold that has been hidden there.

Helping people shine a loving light on their blind spots and set themselves free is a delicious way to live.

A Brief Personal History

The accomplishment that I’m most proud of is breaking the cycle of addiction in my family.  Having been born into a family with addiction on both sides and no one else in recovery, this is no small accomplishment.  My children have their challenges as all humans do, but they aren’t addicts or married to addicts.  They are loving and loved, socially responsible, and hardworking successful professionals.

My second proudest achievement is that I have a Master’s degree in counseling.  My mother and sister both dropped out of high school.  I made a vow when I was ten that I would not recreate my family, and that included getting an education so I could support myself. I never wanted to feel that I had no choice except to stay with a man who put me in the hospital and slept with other women.  That vow has served me well.  I never even considered dropping out of college.

This is my third biggest achievement.  I grew up anxious, afraid of conflict, with a very small idea of what was possible for me. Never could I have imagined being paid to travel all over the world to train and inspire teachers when I was twenty, even though I had miraculously gotten myself to Germany for a year of college abroad.

Never could I have imagined that an internationally known guitarist like Freebo, who played bass with Bonnie Raitt, would take me seriously as a singer, songwriter, and musician.  Never.

As I shine like a loving light on more of my blind spots, my world opens and unfurls magically.  I am meeting more and more fabulous humans, getting more opportunities to share my gifts with the world, and make the world a little bit better place because I have lived in it.