Real Pain, Real Peace: A Journey from Pain to Peace

by Jillian Lambert MS

Overview

Real Pain, Real Peace is an inspirational true story of a fifty-year-old woman in Texas who experiences a life-changing breakdown on every level. Her journey ranges from creation of a dream to financial devastation; excellent health to physical illness; a life of passion to praying for death; a healthy mind to mental illness; and a beautiful, five-acre home to bottomed-out homelessness. Life goes from complete destruction to total reconstruction, wavering faith to renewed spirit.

The physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual challenges transform in ways that will wrench your soul, yet warm your heart. The author tells her riveting story in an inspirational, spiritual way while sharing valuable life lessons. Learn from her transforming challenges and discover how to bring peace to your own body, mind, and spirit. Overall, Real Pain, Real Peace shows you how courage, determination, and faith can turn real pain into real peace.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504334242
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	06/24/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jillian Lambert, MS, is a wellness expert and author of Real Health, Real Life, as well as the stretch/yoga/meditation video Real Serenity. She has an MS in holistic nutrition, a BS in psychology, and various certifications in fitness, living/raw foods, and feng shui. Jillian currently lives on the Texas coast near Mother Ocean. Visit her at www.RealHealthRealLife.com or www.RealHealthRealLife.net

Read an Excerpt

Real Pain, Real Peace

A Journey from Pain to Peace

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By Jillian Lambert

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2015 Jillian Lambert
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-3422-8

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CHAPTER 1

Bugs Coming Out of My Skin

Bugs coming out of the pores of my skin. Pinprick sensations, as if something were biting me. Crawling sensations throughout my body. Sores that heal slowly. Coarse, black-pepper particles, off-white plastic pieces, plant particles, and little black fibers, all coming out of my skin. What was going on with my body?

I was fifty years old and one of the healthiest people I knew. I had practiced fitness, holistic nutrition, and wellness for twenty-five years. Like most people, I did not always practice perfect health every day of my life, but I have been pretty disciplined for the most part. So why was my body freaking out?

Stress. Stress can manifest from so many different things. Chronic stress can be dangerous if experienced long term. What is stress? Fear. I've been told the letters stand for False Evidence Appearing Real. Or is it? What is real? If something is not real, then is it imagined? I had experienced stress in many forms over the years, but nothing like this.

A Dream

It started with a dream. Passion, risk, courage, and a dream. For twelve years, I dreamed of creating a nature retreat where people could escape the external voices of life. You know, familiar voices like your husband, wife, kids, family, friends, and, of course, your boss. Then there are the external voices of the world, like the TV, radio, computer, etc. People sometimes need a place to escape, whether they're going through a divorce, at a crossroads in life, healing from the loss of a loved one, or need a break from their stressful job.

After twenty-five years in the fitness, nutrition, and wellness industry, I decided to take action on my dream. I quit the job I loved and invested my savings in a healing nature retreat on my five-acre property. We built it from the ground up. It took about a year and a half to complete. Not knowing what I was doing, I knew it would be okay because God was backing it, or so I thought.

Every day I woke up asking God, "What would you have me do today?" Months went by; challenges were overcome, structures were built, and money was spent. Money, the sweet currency that many of us have a love/hate relationship with. Money can bring joy. Money can also bring pain.

In the beginning, there was joy. A lot of hard work, but joy. Passion brings joy. I was in my passion while creating the nature retreat. It was a longtime dream, and it was being built to help people. Who wouldn't feel joy about that? It was incredible to see structures going up before my eyes and to experience a dream come true — all because of a vision, action, and money.

Money

Now let me explain my history with money. I was never a big spender. I was not the type of person who liked to shop or overextended myself financially. In fact, I felt safer when I was saving. (Notice the word safer.) I was the type of person who would let my 401K plan grow until retirement, right?

When I turned forty-nine, something shifted. The idea of approaching fifty made me reevaluate my life, what I had accomplished and what I had not. My accomplishments to that point included a degree in psychology, a master's in holistic nutrition, certification in feng shui, and many other personal training and fitness certifications. I had also written and published a wellness book, Real Health, Real Life, and created a stretch and meditation video called Real Serenity. My most important accomplishment to date, with the help of my ex-husband, was our incredible daughter, Brooke, of whom I am extremely proud.

Aside from that, there was my dream of creating a nature retreat — a dream that for twelve years had not been given life. I visited with a couple of people who had the facility I needed for the wellness ranch I wanted to create, yet neither seemed to be moving forward. One person decided to sell the ranch, and the other had nothing solid to stand on. After four or five years of trying to make it happen with potential partners, nothing was moving forward, and I felt I was getting the runaround.

The deathbed test kept popping into my mind. The deathbed test is when you imagine being on your deathbed and ask yourself if you have any regrets. I asked myself, "Would I regret not creating this long-time dream of a nature retreat?" The answer was yes. So I embarked on a dream. I decided to use my own money and my own land and make it happen. I was forty-nine. It was time to embark on the dream. It was time to give it life, real life.

Fear

As I said before, the creation of the retreat had its challenges, but the joy and passion overrode any hurdles that popped up. After a year of working, building, and spending, the money started to run out. Two voices went back and forth inside my head. One voice was full of love and light; the other voice was fear.

Fear? I could handle that. I would just say positive affirmations. Or write them down. Or do visualizations. Or create a vision board to put positive energy out into the universe. Well, I did all of that, many times. So why were they not working? Fear had a mind of its own — my mind.

When faced with a situation you have never experienced before, you deal with it, right? Or you freak out and let fear run wild. I couldn't understand why the ship was sinking. I wasn't spending irresponsibly. For many years, I had a very high credit rating and paid all my bills in full, every month. If I spent a thousand dollars on a credit card, then I paid it off that month. I never carried a balance on my credit cards. I always paid in full, on time.

Maybe I'd paid too much for materials? No, I was very efficient when buying materials. So what happened? Fear. Fear crept in and kept on going. The more time went by, the more anxious I felt. The more anxious I felt, the more fear grew. It got to the point where fear took hold of my mind and my life. It took hold of my mind because I allowed it.

Sometimes we feel like life is happening to us, but what some of us don't realize is that we have a choice every minute, every hour, every day. We have a choice to run on negative, fearful thoughts or we have a choice to change them to positive thoughts of light. The key to doing so is to be aware. Being aware of our thoughts is the same thing as being conscious of what we are thinking, doing, and saying. Easier said than done, but possible. It just takes practice, like anything else.

Part of the fear was that I had never been in this situation before. I'd always had savings, a cushion to fall back on. I had never taken a big risk like this before, but I felt everything would work out. I always had enough money over the years to do what I needed to do in life, so why wouldn't I this time?

Facing a situation never before experienced tends to be very stressful. I had no past experience or wisdom to draw from to resolve the situation. So why didn't I ask for help? I did. I prayed to God and asked for help. All of a sudden, I had an overwhelming amount of help, at a price, of course. It ranged from bookkeepers, insurance agents, and tax preparers to business plan, marketing plan, branding, and business managers. The funny thing about fear is, people can smell it. Animals are not the only ones who can smell fear. People can too. When you exude fear, need help, and don't know what you are doing, plenty of people out there are willing to take your money. Whether they help you succeed or not is not their concern. It's yours and yours only.

Don't get me wrong; angels helped me and wanted to see me succeed. The problem was that either I didn't have enough of those angels or I allowed fear to get the best of me.

Fear reared its ugly head and turned into debt. I had never experienced that monster before. I had always had an excellent credit rating and was proud of it. Not knowing what to do, I put off payment of the debt to the following year, with zero percent interest. The money would be rolling in for sure by next year, right? The problem was that when I'd locked in that zero percent interest rate, an outstanding credit card bill for construction materials had not yet been processed. And it was a large one. The outstanding bill had not been locked in at the zero percent rate. It surfaced a few days after I locked in the zero percent interest rate.

Could it get worse? It did. Next I owed the IRS. In forty-nine years, I had never owed the IRS. I'd always received a refund. Every year I made sure that I completed my W-2 form so I would be sure to receive money rather than pay in.

During this new venture, I'd requested that my financial advisor take out more than enough for taxes. In fact, I asked him four or five different times, just to ensure I would be okay come tax time. Owing money at tax time was not something I was interested in, and I reiterated that concern to my financial advisor month after month, just to make sure. I feared having to pay in, so I emphasized my fear to my advisor. Well, fear won that battle. My advisor miscalculated the percentage to be deducted. Now I owed the IRS and the bookkeeper, of course. Not to mention the fees to the financial advisor.

Could it get worse? Yes. Bills were being paid late. Being as creative as I could about paying bills, they were still being paid late, and my credit rating was dropping. So was my optimism.

CHAPTER 2

Bare Necessities

As money got tight, I learned to prioritize. Only the bare necessities were to be bought. Ha! What are the bare necessities? They are different things to different people. For a while my bare necessities were the mortgage payment, electricity, phone, Internet service, water, and food. We pretty much all agree on the bare necessities: water, shelter, and food.

Poor Man's Diet

My poor man's diet during that financial depression consisted of healthy but inexpensive foods. Apples, oranges, or grapefruit were for breakfast. Fruit was healthy yet inexpensive. Eggs were for lunch. Eggs were also inexpensive, and I could get a lot of meal mileage out of them. One carton of eggs provided six meals for three dollars. Dinner consisted of peanut butter and celery. This meal, too, was filling and inexpensive, with a high meal mileage. One jar of peanut butter also gave me five or six meals for three dollars.

Fruit for breakfast was no big deal. I had been eating fruit for breakfast for the past twenty-three years. Eggs got a bit tiresome, but I did whatever I could to be creative so I wouldn't get tired of them. The peanut butter and celery for dinner was quick, easy, and inexpensive. I ate that same menu every day for many months.

Spammin' It

While eating my peanut butter and celery dinner night after night, I would think of the movie stars that spoke of their Spam days. "Spamming it" referred to the days when they had very little money and lived on a diet of Spam. It referred to a time when they were paying their dues.

Boy, did I feel like I was paying my dues. Many extras were deleted from my life, not that I had a whole lot of luxuries to begin with. I stopped buying higher-priced foods like salmon and the vitamin/ mineral supplements that were boosting my health. I sold all of my furniture and any jewelry I had.

There were days when I wondered where my next dollar was coming from. At times I wondered how this could be happening to a responsibly spending, good-hearted spiritual person who was creating a dream to help people? Lack of experience, lack of knowledge, lack of wisdom, lack of faith, which is basically fear.

To make myself feel better, I visualized myself enjoying great wealth and telling my rags-to-riches story to large groups of people. I told myself, "All those rich and famous people went through tough times and survived it. They were poor at one time and still became successful. I can too. Going through all of this just makes a better story to tell when I am rich and famous." Anything to pull myself up.

It's tough going through hard times by yourself. It's tough not having a safe place to fall at the end of the day. It's tough not having a significant other to talk to, to hug you, lift you up, support and encourage you. It's tough not having someone to help redirect you when you get off track. It's tough not having someone around to tell you, "Everything is going to be all right."

Humility

The worse it got, the harder it was to ask for help. It was humiliating and humbling. My pride kept me from asking for real help. I kept thinking I could pull myself out of it. Or that God would swoop in and save me. Nope. Obviously, I was experiencing this for a reason. To gain wisdom, to grow, to learn to ask for help? Ha! Not Little Miss Independent! I decided to sell the retreat. Even though people were calling to book retreats, it didn't interest me.

Life had become extremely stressful and unbelievably heavy. The dream I had created felt overwhelming. I had stressed myself out so badly by then that I didn't have the energy or the desire to run the business, nor did I care. I was totally and completely depleted, exhausted, and done — totally and completely burned out.

On top of being burned out, internally things had shifted. Ever since I'd turned fifty, life looked different. My values changed; all I cared about was being light, happy, and free. My new dream was to have low stress and high peace. I decided to sell my place and get out of debt.

The retreat didn't sell as soon as I thought it would. Two or three months went by with no showings. I had priced it too high. My heart had priced the property at a level that would not sell. Once again, fear. Fear of losing my dream and all I had worked for. I had mixed feelings. Part of me wanted to sell the place and get it off my shoulders; another part of me wanted to hang on to the dream and all the hard work. The blood, sweat, tears, emotion, and money that had been invested in the dream were now going to be sold. It would be a loss I don't think I had yet processed.

Months went by. Bills piled up. There were no calls for property showings. I lowered the price; no calls. I lowered it again, and again. My property was unique; there were no comps to gauge an appropriate asking price. Looking back, price probably wouldn't have mattered, because I was still emotionally attached to the property. Although trying to find the sweet-spot price, I still had bills to pay.

Not only did I lower the price of the property, but I also lowered my pride.

I kicked my ego and pride to the curb and asked to borrow money. Humility was not a fun feeling. I had never asked for money, except the bank when I bought my property. I'd never needed to ask for money before. I had always saved enough for that rainy day or emergency. Not this time. Asking for money felt horrible, defeating, and humiliating. I would rather give people money than ask for it. It felt as if it went against my nature, but I gathered the inner strength to ask my father and friends for financial help.

Another thing I learned while going through this was that you find out who your true friends are, not just those who are willing to help financially but also the ones who are there for you emotionally. For me, finances became intertwined with emotions. I was blessed to have friends help me both financially and emotionally.

Instead of asking, "Why is this happening to me?", I have learned to asked, "What am I to learn from this experience?" The first question leads you down the road to victimhood; the second leads you to self-growth and self-empowerment.

Was I to gain wisdom? Increase faith? Maybe this was a test of my faith in God. Maybe this was an opportunity to get closer to God. Maybe it was a lesson to not give in to fear but to trust in God. I could say I trusted God, but when it comes down to the wire, did I really? My words said I trusted God, but my thoughts said otherwise. God and I were very close, or so I thought.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Real Pain, Real Peace by Jillian Lambert. Copyright © 2015 Jillian Lambert. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments, xi,
Introduction, xv,
Section 1 - Demolition, 1,
Section 2 - Clean Up, 85,
Section 3 - Reconstruction, 123,
Afterword, 201,