This Self-Help Junkie Just Got a ReFUNd of $200 for Speaking Up (and that wasn't easy but helps out on many fronts..)

Well I was Going to share the good news that I signed up to take a program about self-esteem and relationships after a free phone call with a coach. The problem is I had felt pressured to take the 200 dollar program after hearing about one that ran for a year and cost $6K. The coach is good and I've been hearing many people pour money into such things with good results.

That was out of my league. The coach had given me Free Consults over the past year for a couple of hours (instead of the 20 min) ones. I felt she made many good points and before I knew she offered a program for six weeks for $197, I told her I felt she was Worth  Paying that amount. She assured me the calls so far had been free, but then offered me the 200 dollar program. I felt pressured to hop on board, and she'd said it would really help me and I imagined it would. In a moment she was saying 'so what credit card will you be putting that on?'

By then she'd given me the better part of an hour and hadn't I just said she was worth a couple of hundred bucks (if I had if to spend...) Well, there seemed no turning back and I'd have to just Be Careful about getting Free Phone Consults or have someone with me to hand the phone over if I felt I was getting in over my head. I went over the situation with a couple of people One said the typical sales pitch to offer a high price item then get you to buy the lower one is standard.

Another said that if a professional coach pressures someone like that it could be cause to lose the license. She is not from this country and I was not thinking she had an ill intent but was 'doing business' and kind of 'got me.' I had said at the end that when someone says money is tight it might make sense to slow down and check in with them about if that is really something they feel they can afford and want. Well a week later I decided to ask for A Full Refund.

That took courage and self-esteem on part, I took my own dare and risked a sense of friendship with this person I very much admire and appreciate. She even said I could visit her socially if I got to her part of the world. Okay, so she called me today in response and told me she would give me the refund. We talked for a half hour, and she wanted to know what she did that made me feel pressured since that was Not Her Intent! I explained the points I just shared with you, and she refunded me while we were on the call. I did tell her I appreciated the first two calls and realize it likely would be helpful but I also had signed up for other programs I had not listened to, including one she offered that had many guests.

She invited me to set a goal and tell her what that would be. I decided I'd have hear those talks by Feb and would send her an email when I was done (that's about 40 hours of talks on relationships with oneself and others..so maybe I can share some highlights...) Okay, so before I wrote this first section, I started in with the idea of spending money on myself and that is covered in the following and landed with some heavier aspects of my life...just how it rolls sometimes. 

Most of the programs I take are Free! That's the Good News. Somewhere about 35 years ago I was interested in spending money to see a Real Wolf, at the Sharon Audubon Festival in Sharon CT. Back then, say in the 1980s if my memory is in the ball park, it was called the North East Audubon Center. Now everything is Audubon with the state and town (or the other way round) after it, so it's Audubon Sharon (CT). They have a nice array of programs and do a lot of school outreach with injured birds of prey such as red tail hawks, saw whet owls (which are small and of course Cute), and barred owls (which have horizontal bar patterns generally amidst their feathers, kind of cool).

Those are different from Barn Owls. But I can tell you the price of $10 or thereabouts to go to the Nature Festival was a stretch for me. I was super practical and worked hard for my money. Still, there was Something About Seeing a Real Wolf that told me I could splurge. And of course it was worth it for the day of an array of amazing nature talks, displays, live animals and So Much More. I will write up the whole story sometime (maybe as part of a book...) to review how amazing my life turned out in terms of being able to Live at that center for many years as a mom rearing four kids for almost two decades.

Being a parent meant putting Anything Extra on the back burner for me in terms of spending money. I didn't hear anything about the Value of Investing in myself unless it was about going to counseling to get some support through the 1990s and through 2010.  Of course reading dozens of parenting books, living in a small town and going to churches, gatherings of all sorts for fundraisers (carnivals, nature events and plays and folk festivals as well as family, school and community parties) kind of kept me busy. Eventually I landed a "Mom's night out" (when I got lost trying to train up to lead Girl Scouts for dwindling numbers of girls in my town and area.)

So I Found myself going to The Warner Theatre to see Joan Baez. I used my gift money for a real ticket and someone said it was strange that I was going alone. I felt connected to the thousand other people there so hardly felt 'alone' but being free to choose what to do as an independent person (for that night) turned into my Cinderella moment. I felt like I'd found my castle and I was going to find a way to go back enough to call it a second home.

That's what happened when I heard I could be an Usher...with no special training or applications, just a willingness to show up and help seat folks. I was So There with that idea that I even went to usher when there'd been a blizzard and the trees were covered in ice. When I got there and asked in disbelief if the theatre were really closed, the person told me, The Whole Town of Torrington Ct is Closed.

I had to be reminded a few times that 'This was Not a Job, and there was no penalty if I could not make a show I has signed up for.' Now they are very lenient but at one point I feel I was told to do 'two shows a month, or more when it came spring and time for dance recitals and graduations or smaller events. they've kept a record of every show I've ushered so hopefully that will jog my memory. It factored into a main scene in my life with my kids as well which helps me anchor having a strong connection to my kids not long before our teen son Kaelan passed in the summer of 2009. Strangely he was in a mood of not cooperating  even though he got along great with everyone in general at about age 15. We had had a big family party in southern CT, and had spent the night down there.

The next day was Very Hot and our car did not have Air Conditioning. We managed to get to Torrington Ct. I wanted to buy one of the girls shorts at KMart after we had gone to a place I could pick up some picnic food I had paid for as a volunteer at the Warner. That was only done occassionally, to  have a big picnic for the volunteers. Kaelan fussed so much about my making that detour which took about 20 minutes total that he got my attention by pounding on the car or beeping the horn. I told him I was not going to allow him to get his license before he would take a class in learning to handle disappointment and his emotions better,especially in front of his younger sisters.

Then I wanted to get one of them shorts. We drove there against his will, but I told him he didn't have to come in, and we'd hurry in and out. I was hoping he'd watch his youngest sister so we'd go fast. But instead he headed off to a gas station a block away when we were trying to go into the store. I turned around and saw that his younger sister who was about 8 was following after him. She told me she was worried he'd get lost in the city. So the girls and I drove up to the corner gas station to see he was there, making a phone call it turns out to his grandfather Sandy to come pick him up. I told him it was very unfair to make Sandy drive 45 minutes on such a hot day (even though he did have A/C). Kaelan stayed in the sandwich shop at a table with his sisters and let me buy them some food but would not sit with me. Then he went outside and waited for Sandy who arrived before too long. I tried to explain things to Sandy but he said he was ready to take Kaelan and the girls back to his home where Caroline their grandmother would help watch them as well. I let them all go with him since they wanted to.

I drove to Falls Village and stopped at the new pool to find my family there, including some who were visiting from MN and had come to cool off  there after the other party as well. I got to eat my picnic food and swim and accept that I cannot control everything my kids do and who was willing to go out of their way to help them. As 'personal' as that is, it is also a universal 'heads up' that teens and really anyone can 'act up' and one needs to be ready to 'distance oneself emotionally, as in Not Take It Personally, or fuel the conflict with forcing things to go a certain way. I could have foregone the picnic and trying to get the shorts. We could have gotten back to Sharon and gone to the lake which was often a first choice to cool off in Sharon, even if we had hoped to get to the Beach in Southern CT. That happened once in a while mostly to walk on the sand After a family party or sometimes before if that was the only time, being careful to not track sand into the pool area at the party.

The place we could use diving boards were a big hit and Kaelan could do dives and flips. Thankfully he got better at understanding the need to jump out away from the side of a cement pool (or the board) and not only up when doing a flip. He had some close calls and I'd made it clear that if he wanted to do something like that he needed to take time to learn the safety protocol so he'd not knock himself out or break something. That was the case with his interest in whitewater canoeing, kayaking, and what I informed him a few times was a Water Rescue Sport. One should get clear with some Red Cross or other basic water safety trainging about Throwing a Rope, before Going in for a person. Life Vests should be warn if there's any risk of falling in or in dangerous water. That is a point that was not highlighted after Kaelan passed when trying to save friends from dangerous waters, which he himself had already jumped in from high rocks prior to his friends deciding to go for it. There are many points of That Set of Events that many people could think through (and review points I've made on other posts) so that we All Learn to Slow Down and Pay Attention to What the Big Agreements are, the Medium and the smaller ones are and actually Follow through with a Team Effort to keep them.