How To Stop Wasting Time Worrying

I come from a long line of worriers. Part genetic (my mother) and part cultural (being Greek). I grew up surrounded by people who considered it an art form, complete with a set of worry beads to hold while performing their craft. My grandfather would sit in his recliner for hours, his thumb moving the beads back and forth while the strand was draped around his hand doing nothing but worrying. I have no idea about what. Like most men of his generation he was not a man of many words. 

My mother inherited his obsession. She tells me that she was born with two worry birds, one sitting on each shoulder. Lucky for her she married my father, who didn't worry about very much. It was a good balance. He tried to get her to stop. He would tell her not to worry so much. She would tell him she couldn't help herself. It was a dance they did their entire marriage. 

I had a front row seat to see how much time could be wasted worrying. The evidence was right in front of me that worrying would not change a thing. You can't stop anything from happening by worrying. Nor can you make anything happen you are worried won't.  You would have thought I would have learned not to worry at all. To be more like my father.

Some days I am. But as I said, this worrying thing is in my blood. It can sneak up when I'm least suspecting. And if it gets me in its claws, well, I can lose a whole day.

So I'm always looking for tools to help when that happens. 

Tools like The God Box.

The God Box is the title of a memoir in which the author shares her mother's gift of faith, love and letting go.  Mary Lou Quinlan's mother kept a God Box for years, a collection of notes to God on behalf of family, friends and strangers in which she would ask for help without expectation. Instead of worrying, she would write it down, drop it in the box and let it go. Or as I like to say surrender to a power greater than herself.

When her mother died, Mary Lou uncovered ten God Boxes stuffed with little pieces of paper that spanned the last twenty years of her mothers life, offering a wealth of insight into her mother as well as herself. It's a wonderful story I highly recommend,  as long as you have a big box of tissues next to you and no where to go until the puffiness from all the crying subsides. 

I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Lou speak the other week. The God Box, it seems, has taken on a life of its own. There is a website, The God Box Project, a play, and yes, even an App if you want to create your own God Box and don't want to kill a tree in the process.

It doesn't surprise me how this has caught on. Whatever your image of a higher power is, God, Goddess, Buddha or Allah, surrendering your worries to them by writing on a slip of paper, asking please and thank you, is a wonderful symbolization of release. By doing this, you feel like you've done something when really all you've done is delegate it. The worry bird is off your shoulder and in the hands of someone who might actually be able to do something about it. I think that's pretty efficient business and what I consider a true time saver. 

Yes, if you are wondering, I have started a God Box of mine own only I call mine my God and Goddess Box. I believe they work better together than alone.


For more about Mary Lou Quinlan and The God Box Project go to:
www.The GodBoxProject.com 

PS. The God Box, like most books, mine included, make great holiday gifts!

A Dose Of Agapi

I am biased. No doubt. You'll find most Greeks are. There is an affinity we hold for each other. Meet someone and find out they too share your heritage and you are already friends. As a child it drove me crazy. My father would point out this person and that person who had achieved some notoriety and add with great pride, a wink and a smile, "You know, Joanne, he's Greek." As if no matter what they had to say, whether I agreed with their view or not, it didn't matter, because now we were bound.

I didn't understand it. I found it lacking in judgment. Shouldn't we know more about the person than just that their last name is equally difficult to pronounce much less spell for the average person? But now I get it. In these last months since I released my novel, I have reached out to Greeks as far and wide as Australia and have felt that bond and connection that I chastised my father about.  As an adult, I too have fallen into his rhythm. I meet someone who I discover has genetic ties to Greece and I do as my friend Agapi would say, unbind my heart a little more easily.

I'm not sure the reason, because in all honesty, just being Greek is not enough to want to call someone your friend. But I do think there is something different for Greeks. Maybe it goes back to the long illustrious history, the philosophers and astronomers and great mathematicians of ancient Greece or my favorite, the Greek Gods and Goddesses. It is different to be Greek. A flavor that is more unique than just the combination of nuts and honey and cinnamon that create a baklava. It's a different brand of wisdom influenced by a culture that has stood the test of time.

Which brings me back to my friend Agapi Stassinopoulous. I met Agapi  this past summer in San Diego at a conference I attended where Agapi spoke. I liked her immediately. Not just because she was Greek, although there is no doubt that was our immediate point of connection, but because it was obvious from how she spoke and her energy that this was a woman who lived authentically and joyously and with an open heart. I learned of her new book which would soon be published and was honored when she asked me to read a galley copy.

When you read another's writing, whether it is fiction, or in the case of Unbinding the Heart, A Dose of Greek Wisdom, Generosity and Unconditional Love,  a memoir, you learn a lot about the person. You can tell authentic writing from pretending to be authentic. You can tell the difference from someone who walks from what they speak or who prefers to merely point you on the path they think you should travel.

Agapi in Greek means unconditional love, and that is what you will feel when you read this memoir. Her love for life, and for helping others jumps off the pages as she entertains and enlightens with her insight and subtle humor. Agapi is the real deal.  She writes of living with an open heart and she demonstrates it, never negating how the world wants to make that difficult. Reading this memoir you will feel like she has invited you to sit with her awhile under the shade of an umbrella at one of those beautiful outdoor cafes in Santorini, nibbling on fresh feta and tomatoes, sipping a glass of wine, with that magical blue of the Aegean as a backdrop for the stories she shares of her journey thus far.

So yes, if this sounds biased it is. But my bias is supported by this captivating read.  Unbinding The Heart, A Dose of Greek Wisdom, Generosity and Love,  is now available for sale. I encourage you to pick up a copy. You will not be disappointed.