My son Ron is a special man. He is by no means perfect. Both his wife and I certainly know his shortcomings and overly sensitive, creative, quick to react nature. We know when he is in a sensitive tenor and we notice when he is loving us with all his protective heart. Passionate, as an artist and loyal to his word, he is serious about being a thoughtful husband, a good friend and an exceptional father. 

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
African Proverb                                             

Six months ago, we celebrated my 50th anniversary in the beauty industry. I throw the number ‘50’ around as if it was just a number. The truth is, it’s a life-time of building ‘together’. 
And the best way to appreciate what we have is to have it taken away. Whether losing a job or a loved one, planned events canceled, church services suspended, or unable to grocery shop, most of us depend on others to experience our satisfying lives. The liberty to unite, travel and congregate is a birth right, at least in most countries, especially the United States, where we were founded on the principles of freedom. People find each other and form relations big and small, as varied as book clubs, meetups, AA Meetings, hiking groups and bible studies. There is no question about it, we need each other to survive, grow and flourish.

​My nature is optimistic. Like everyone, not all goes my way every time. Yet, not only do I push through, I dig deeper within myself to rediscover my strength of hope and reconnect with my friend, confidence. This is something I have worked long and hard to develop over the years of bouncing back and regaining my footing when things go sideways or down a slippery slope.

Hope is the word and emotion that comes to me when I think of waiting. Afterall, we are always waiting and hoping things will work out; someone will change, new doors will open, problems will be resolved and the list of hopeful waiting is as long as our optimistic thoughts of eventually arriving at the perfect outcome. 

Perhaps we become what we love. 

In her book, Find your Courage, 12 Acts for Becoming Fearless at Work and in Life, Margie Warrell writes, "Love, what a mighty word. What a daunting task to find words to wrap around it. Yet love is the essence of what it means to live with an open heart; indeed, love is the essence of what it is to be a human being. Without love, we are shells living vacant lives in a hostile and barren world. But love goes far beyond the edict of ‘love they neighbor as thyself'; how can we ever truly open our heart to one another if we are afraid to first open it to our self.” She goes on to write, "Without hearts open to love, our spirits are closed to life."

We are built to love. Biologically, emotionally, culturally, and spiritually, our existence depends on love to attract us and keep us together. No one goes through life without experiencing disappointments and painful consequences in relationships but, eventually, we can allow ourselves to forgive and love again. Cultivating connections and relationships is natural and, ultimately, we all want to love and be loved. We have come to know, as Helen Keller wrote, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” 

So here it is! We become the story we tell ourselves and become what we love. If it is natural to love, why do we have to be brave to love? In the introduction to our latest book, Living Brave. . . Finishing Strong, Stories of Women Becoming, I wrote, “At the foundation of a person’s life are two questions: who are you and what do you want? Of course, the answers will change many times over. It’s the ongoing cycle of life. All the while, day by day, thought by thought, and choice by choice, we are in the process of continually becoming who we are and getting what we want, until the next level of desire meets up with us. We are created to want and desire more.  It’s who we are as humans. Desires lead the way as we persist in becoming, evolving, and expanding ourselves as we yearn for more of what we want. Mostly, and naturally, we desire to know more.
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"Change! Some love it and others fear it. Most protest and eventually accept its outcome. However, change is constant and touches every area of our lives. Our desires will progress through the four quarters of our lives, and who we are and what we want becomes an endless process of discovery, dreaming, transitioning, and contributing. We can form meaningful relationships, expand our thinking to cooperate with changes, support others along their paths, and we can be a positive influence in our communities.  Most importantly, we need to be brave to allow the process of change to direct and grow us individually into our next best self.”

On this month of celebrating Valentines Day, let yourself love all you want. Keep on loving and enjoy the love that comes your way. Whether through acts of kindness, forgiveness, volunteering, holding hands, giving flowers, girls' night out, a box of candy, or simply saying, "I love you" - and mean it. Fill the world with your love. 

Will you be my valentine?

I love you,

Hilda 

• Seek joy
• Stay Curious 
• Stop Complaining
• Release the weight 
• Court creativity 
• Laugh everyday 
• Earn your self-love
• Say thank you and mean it
• Talk nice to yourself…it’s the longest verbal relationship you will have 
• Perfection is not a virtue or a badge of honor, it’s fear wearing high heels….give it a rest
• Love the one you’re with, no one lives forever
• Stop searching for your passion, its’ already found you
• Believe deeply in something or you will fall for anything 
• Find something every day to appreciate
• Say I love you and really mean it 
• Be the gift you want to receive 
• Unburden yourself from worry
• Say yes as often as possible to opened doors 
• Fear less, live more, cultivate courage 
• Simplify, organize, get more accomplished
• Reality check…be honest 
• Who are you and what do you want now
• Better a trickster, than a martyr be
• Live brave…finish strong

Choose a couple of the above strategies. Commit to exploring and expanding them into your new year. No one loses for trying, only for not. Take 2020 as if your life depends on it. It does!

Donna, a client at the salon, during a recent appointment made a fascinating observation. She made the comment that we are like our smart phones. “There is so much more to us, but just like with our smart phones we don’t take the time to explore how much more we are capable of doing.” 
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Admittedly, not growing up with a smart phone at our fingertips, mastering the enormous introduction to a hand held computer has been a major transition for the Baby Boomers.   Of course, it has made life easier in a variety of ways: instant connection to family and friends, photo ready and memory storage, internet links to the entire world and an upgraded version of the World Almanac and Book of Facts, the data bank of current information.  And the fact that our cell phones are a million times more powerful than all the NASA’s combined computing in 1969, the year man first set foot on the moon, makes it even more astonishing. 

Alchemy is defined as the process of taking something ordinary and turning it into something extraordinary, sometimes in a way that cannot be explained. 

Years ago, in my thirties, while attending a seven-day intensive workshop led by the late Dr. Sidney Simon, Professor Emeritus from the University of Massachusetts (an authority in the areas of values clarification and self-esteem), I learned a secret about the alchemy of becoming.                                               

Like most people, I have made mistakes in my life and I have made some good choices as well. On this my 50th anniversary of having made a very good choice by entering the beauty industry at the age of 18, I will only share what has brought me joy and has given me the confidence to say: I am finishing strong! Although I can assure you, I am not yet finished. 

Our fourth offering in the living brave series of books,  Living Brave…Finishing Strong,  is scheduled for publication in the Spring of 2020. We have crafted six questions to be answered by thirty-plus women who share their stories of living brave lives. Although we have identified these women as brave, not one has claimed being courageous; they were just doing what they had to do next to get through life circumstances. Yet, when the question is asked,  “What fears come up for you and how do you manage them,” every woman writes that she has fears and self-doubts, yet they manage to get through and are finishing strong.