Chatter noise bothers me. This coming from an olympic-level talker carries with it a certain shaking of the head, I confess. But my own constant mind chatter, along with the pesky ringing in my ears, takes up the space that would normally be filled by the words of other people. Maybe that’s why I love solitary activities so well, the prime one being writing. I get to grab words, thoughts, concepts, music, and mold them into a hopefully cohesive offering that will tickle the mind of another person. How cool is that! (I say with the lack of humility every silver hair on my head affords.) I own every word I speak, every mistake I’ve made, a few “wow” accomplishments, and a ton of “what in the world was I thinking!” My life is my own, and I don’t place blame on others who negatively impacted me. I choose to move forward, move past hurtful words that can hang in the mind like stuck dark matter, and look for the next great idea. But I still am really bothered by the noise of empty chatter.

Good conversation, however, is a thing of beauty. The exchange between two people of ideas, experiences, or the why’s of deeply held beliefs, are endlessly fascinating to me. How a person gets from six to sixty years old is a story that deserves to be listened to. And in those stories are nuggets of why’s for the rest of us.

No life happens in a vacuum. And no perspective is objective. In the intuitive healing work I do, I see every life as a swirl of events. The tentacles growing from each event too often end up in a tangled ball of yarn too difficult to even follow how the beginning resulted in the person I’m speaking with. It takes heart-centered conversation to ferret out unhelpful underlying beliefs, then identifying and assisting in releasing those that don’t serve the soul. Humans are emotionally complicated beings, exceedingly powerful at holding onto low level dark beliefs. We don’t like surrendering to the idea of forgiveness or gratitude if revenge has not been properly exacted in specific amounts. So we stew in our anger and pitifulness until we either pass on to the next realm, or cry ‘uncle.’ Lordy, we’re stubborn!

At some point in life though, a few of us emerge magically into the light. It’s often an unexpected event that creates an opportunity to pivot to a new path. Our brain gets busy making new friendships among new neurons, allowing the old neural connections to die. Then the newbies begin to travel down new pathways so that the next positive thought has an easier go of it. Pretty soon, those positive thoughts outweigh the ones that kept us stuck in neutral or worse, in reverse, and we can once again move forward with a nice little tail wind. Sounds easy. Is it? Actually, it’s much easier and lots more fun than holding onto the crap. Just sayin’…

I speak of what I have personally experienced. Have I completely healed from decades of chronic health challenges stemming from personal and career-related stress, multiple surgeries (including an emergency heart bypass), years of unnecessary prescribed drugs, bad marriages, enough alcohol to disinfect a few hospitals, and monumental disappointments? No, I haven’t. Have I moved forward into better health, inner peace, and happiness that was so elusive during previous years? Absolutely, 100% yes!

You may judge my present life as somehow physically restricted. But I have the power of the spoken and written word at my disposal, as well as music waiting to be notated and played. All I have to do is snatch them out of the eternal realm where all information and ideas are ready to be revealed once again. And how cool is that!

Sherry writes music, true stories with humor, fictional novels, and how-to guides to help clients move past illness to health and beyond. Her website: Re-Group