David Nelson, Author & Cowboy Poet | PALS: "Farwood for Sell"

David Nelson, Author & Cowboy Poet | PALS: "Farwood for Sell": “Farwood for Sell” Corn, cottonseed or sunflower oils, lactose, salt, sodium diacetate, maltodextrin, malic acid, partially hydrogena...

"Farwood for Sell"

“Farwood for Sell”

Corn, cottonseed or sunflower oils, lactose, salt, sodium diacetate, maltodextrin, malic acid, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and sodium citrate were listed as some of the ingredients in Lay’s potato chips in the article I read on the internet while standing in line. My curiosity peaked about the ingredients when I watched the fella in front of me shovel them into his mouth. Well, most went into his mouth. Several fell to the tiled floor and were quickly smashed under the weight of his work boot. Poor fella must have been hungry. He couldn’t wait to pay for them, I guess. It was 9:08 A.M.

I had watched him snag the bag from the aisle by the beer cooler in the back of the store when I took my place in line to pay for my twenty-ounce coffee. Ten minutes earlier when I puled into the “Gas & Go” combination convenience store, gas station and diner, I knew this wasn’t going to go well. All I wanted was a cup of house blend, dark roast coffee. Then it was off to the gym for my workout.

There was not an empty place to be had in the parking lot. I parked next to one of the gas pumps behind a pickup and trailer filled with lawn mowers, gas cans and weed eaters. I nodded to the five guys standing outside the store smoking when I approached the door. To their left was a stack of bundled firewood and a sign. The sign read Farwood for Sell. Yep, not firewood – farwood; and not sale but sell. One guy was wearing a sweatshirt with the University of Tennessee logo on the front. I wondered if he wrote the sign.

My smile ran away when I opened the door. There was a line of patrons that started at the counter and snaked down one aisle, across another and ended at the beer cooler in the back. That was where my adventure began next to the potato chip fella.

I lifted my head to take a swig of coffee and noticed the “Chip Master” must have been in a hurry to get his breakfast. He apparently wore his little brother’s T-shirt to the store. The bottom of his shirt ended some five inches above what should have been a waistline. His hairy belly slopped over his blue jeans that wiped the floor with each shuffle he took toward the counter. I refused to stare at the crack of his butt directly in front of me. I turned my body to look away.

Patrons in front of me carried armloads of foodstuffs. I saw one guy cradling two bags of donuts, three bottles of water and two cans of Red Bull. I noticed people holding bottles of soft drinks, chips of all kinds, candy bars, crackers with cheese, and one apple. I stood so long I read the headline on the Knoxville Sentinel held by the woman two people in front of me.

My coffee cup was half-filled when I glanced at the lady’s butt. It was more pleasing to see than the fella directly in front of me. I smiled and wondered if stretch pants were back in style. They were gold in color and snug against her rump. She turned her head toward me to fix her hair and caught my stare.

I noticed every finger had a ring on it as did each of her toes. At first I was embarrassed that she caught me. But when she smiled and exposed her three teeth I knew she didn’t mind. My eyes dropped to her hand and wondered why she had a wad of bills in her grasp. The tattoo on the web of her hand read Mama.

There were sounds of distress from all of us standing in line and not seeming to move. There was throat clearing, heavy exhaling, coughing and grunting. People were shifting their weight from one foot to another. Some even starting shaking their heads. Yes, when I saw eye contact and shaking of heads I knew all the other folks were getting ticked at the only worker behind the counter.

Finally, I made the turn and swallowed the last from my twenty-ounce coffee cup. I tapped it against my thigh and watched. Suddenly, there was a unanimous “Oh” from those who saw the receipt machine run out of paper. The worker obviously felt the pressure from irate customers because she fumbled with the new roll of paper trying to insert it into the machine.

She snapped the lid closed and attempted to scan some fella’s package of “Goody Powder” and a coffee. The scanner broke. People burst into loud complaints. I smiled. A person can’t make-up this stuff. I had a grin exposing a full set of teeth and felt my ears move when I smiled. The employee smacked, slapped and tapped the scanner and finally it worked again. When she ended the transaction and attempted to print the receipt, the machine jammed. It was wadded up and stuck.

I thought at first it was a Sunday because I heard people talking out loud to God and Jesus. I quickly realized my error when I listened to the words after the deity comments. I laughed out loud. Indeed, I truly did. This was way too funny not to see the event in a comical way. And then it happened.

A guy three in front of me handed a lottery ticket to the employee. I have to tell you, that I don’t like waiting in lines for people who turn in lottery tickets. I no longer laughed. I said something under my breath, thinking it was Sunday.

The employee gave the ticket back to the guy and said she couldn’t scan it. Apparently, he didn’t scratch off the ticket properly. He reached into one pocket for a coin to finish removing the gray gum. He reached into the other pocket for a coin. Both times he came up empty. He slid his hand under the number twelve-gauge chain that connected his huge billfold to his belt loop. The leather case was stamped with a NASCAR emblem and he opened it looking for a coin. I ground my teeth. I wondered what the lady ahead of me would do because of her tooth loss. Bless her heart.

The employee opened the cash drawer and handed him a quarter. He scratched away with great intent. When asked if he wanted two dollars cash or another ticket, he crossed his arms and placed his hand over his lips to ponder such an important decision. My thigh was getting red from the empty cup slapping against it and my jaws were a bit tender.

“Oh, my God,” I said out loud when the guy walked around the other end of the counter. He was trying to decide which lottery ticket he wanted from the thirty-seven different types offered.

The employee handed him a ticket that read “Winners Never Quit”. He began scratching it with his fingernail before he reached the door. Finally, I was third in line and it was “Ms. Spandex’s” turn.

“Well, how much gas do ya want, Honey,” I heard the clerk ask.

“I rightly don’t know for sure. Last time it cost me forty-dollars to fill-up. But that was when gas was more. What do ya think I should do,” she asked through her tooth-less grin.

The employee shrugged her shoulders. The fella in front of me said out loud that he was twenty-minutes late for work. My right jaw hurt. The lady with the golden pants and rounded rump set the wad of one-dollar bills on the counter and began removing change from a tiny coin purse.

“Thirty-eight, thirty-nine and your dollar change makes forty-dollars for gas, Darlin’.”

I shuffled two steps forward and watched the guy in front of me set an empty potato chip bag and three bottles of water on the counter. He handed the cashier a one hundred dollar bill. I swear he truly did. 

Holding the bill over her head she asked the guy, “Is this the smallest thing you have? I can’t make change. Hang on a minute.”

She locked the register and disappeared. Over in the diner was another employee who was obviously taking a break. Our employee bent over and spoke to the guy. His lips were pursed and his eyebrows frowned when he walked behind the counter. He moaned loudly when he bent over to open the safe.

While the male employee was opening the safe, the female slurped the last of her drink through a straw and returned the empty container to the counter. She faced me and gave me a look of frustration.

The fella in front me had his arm resting on the counter. I reached over it and held out my empty cup. “How much is coffee?”

I was told it cost a dollar, thirty-five cents. I handed her two, one-dollar bills. “Keep the change. Just keep the change.”

I tossed my empty cup in the trashcan outside when I left and overheard the guy wearing the University of Tennessee sweatshirt. “Hey Bubba, look at this. Somebody spelled sale wrong on this here farwood sign.”

I shook my head.

David Nelson, Author & Cowboy Poet | PALS: How I Lost My Sanity Assembling a Shed

David Nelson, Author & Cowboy Poet | PALS: How I Lost My Sanity Assembling a Shed: The following story is from my book PALS: Part Two. Have you ever been frustrated trying to assemble various items? You’ll relate to...

How I Lost My Sanity Assembling a Shed

The following story is from my book PALS: Part Two.

Have you ever been frustrated trying to assemble various items? You’ll relate to my story.

“The Open Door Policy”

“Whoosh” went the airbrakes from the semi tractor-trailer that was now parked in front of my house. I saw the driver walk towards my front door. Oh boy, I was excited. He was from Roadway Express and here to deliver my metal shed. A shed I intended to put to good use as storage in the pool area. But first I had to put it together.

“Where do you want this thing?” the driver asked.

I walked a fast pace in front of him, and pointed. “ Here, I’ll show you. Can you get it up here under the carport?”

He scratched his head and looked puzzled. “There’s no way my forklift will make it under here. But I’ll try to get it as close as I can.”

And the next thing I knew, the noise of the forklift starting, the loud tailgate dropping, and the racket from him loading my shed, brought out a couple neighbors and then kids on bicycles. Cars were lined up behind the semi because there was not enough room to pass. I just realized that it was 5:30 P.M. and the neighbors were coming home from work.

I felt the heavy thud on the cement as he dropped the back half of the palate and shed. The closest he could get to being under my carport was halfway. I signed the papers and turned to look at what lay in front of me. Cautious optimism fell over me and I swallowed a big gulp. I can do this thing, I said to myself. How difficult can it be?

Having been out of graduate school for three years, my thinking was still in the scientific mode. I learned to think that way because of my didactic training. I took the 147-page manual into the house, sat at the table, and began using my yellow highlighter leftover from my biostatistics class.

The first step was to take an inventory. Great. I thought. That makes perfect sense. That is logical. I could not contain my excitement, and after I finished supper, I decided to start my new project. It was only after I headed out the door that I remembered it was 7:10 P.M.

Earlier, I had skimmed the first forty-three pages of the manual and my highlighter was dry from everything I’d underlined. But that didn’t matter because the seven pages of inventory were cut and dried. Any idiot could follow those directions. Using a steak knife I sliced into the taped carton on all sides. I lifted the five-foot by seven-foot cover off and set it out of my way on the far side of the carport. That cover reminded me of a larger version of the donut boxes outside The Milk House in Dubuque. Those stolen donuts sure tasted great.

I turned on the porch lights and found the bags of screws, nuts, bolts, washers, miscellaneous parts, and unknown plastic pieces. I squatted with both knees bent, tightened my stomach, and lifted the first thirty-pound bag of fasteners out of the box. The second bag was not nearly as heavy.

I used the lid for a collection surface for all the pieces. I marked each lettered item on the lid and then placed the corresponding pieces next to it. I placed a check mark by each item in the manual. I was up to the stock letters AAAA when I finished inventorying the first bag. Thankfully, I had a piece of plywood leaning against the pool fence. I lugged the sap-soaked board under the carport to use as a collection surface for the second bag of fasteners. Weeks before I learned how well gasoline removes tree sap. After washing my hands in gas and wiping them dry, I lit a cigar and marveled at the project I would complete in a day. It was now 9:25 P.M.

Heat lightening, I thought as I opened my back door to go inside and get a cold beer. I stood in amazement and gulped a few swigs of beer. I wiped sweat from my face. I had never seen so many pieces to one single unit. And those were just the small pieces. I didn’t inventory the main parts. I used my cap to wipe the sweat from my bald head and went back inside to get a dry cap. The heat lightening continued.

The humidity was so heavy it actually felt moveable, like a person could move it with their hands and arms. Within moments my new cap and my shirt were soaked. Having a second beer and still looking at what lay in front of me, I decided the only thing to do was to attack. Something nudged at me though and I remembered thinking how impressive the frequent heat lightening was that night.

It was about an hour later when the flashlight quit for the first time. I looked everywhere for size D batteries in the house and found none. I found that when I banged the flashlight against the cement it would glow just long enough to find a piece or a part. The process slowed my progress but not my enthusiasm. I was sort-of having fun. I was no longer soaked from the humidity or heat. As a matter of fact, I remembered being somewhat cool from the drop in temperature and slight breeze. That felt nice.

Somewhere around 1 A.M., I felt a little puff of wind. I was reading the manual on or around page seventy-six. I had three sides of the shed assembled. It became quite difficult to balance those sides, hold a broken flashlight and to read instructions at the same time. The wind began to increase and I noticed how the sides made warbling sounds. As the wind increased so did the tin melody. I saw the illumination of a porch light being turned on at one of the neighbor’s houses. And then I realized: I was trapped in a three-sided metal snarl.

I used what little common sense I had and shimmied and shoved the contraption across the driveway. It sure did make a lot of noise scraping against that cement. I made it to the side of the house and propped one end against the house. Two more neighbors’ lights helped illuminate my work area. I went inside and returned with a mop. I used the mop to balance the other sides. The music from the sides whipping in the wind stopped.

When the first pine cone fell, but didn’t hit the ground because of heavy winds, I suspected I could be in trouble. I was reading the manual when I noticed a red stop sign around a boxed-in information piece. It read: ”Caution. Do NOT assemble in High Winds.”

The rains came whipping sideways, pine needles were flying through the air like darts in a tournament, and the entire packing crate was soaked from the downpour. The box top skimmed across the cement like a magic carpet. I chased it down my driveway after tripping on that damn flashlight. All the hardware was scattered throughout the box lid. Most of my lettering was bleeding beyond distinction from the rain.

I pulled the box back under the carport and secured it with the corner of the plywood. In doing so, I slid all the hardware off the wood. I went into the house to make a pot of coffee. It was 1:30 A.M. The storm passed about forty-five minutes later and I was blowing on my cup of coffee looking at the mess. I brought out an extension cord and adapters. I took three table lamps from the living room and plugged them into the outlets. Presto! It looked like Yankee Stadium lit up for a night game. I felt like telling my thoughtful neighbors I didn’t need their lights anymore. There were now five houses lit up and a few dogs barking somewhere.

I re-inventoried the pieces I could find and sat on a lawn chair trying to figure what to do. I analyzed, synthesized, and hypothesized. My next goal was to get that fourth side up and screwed down so the unit was secured. I then noticed a cartoon of someone smiling in the manual.

The caption read: “Congratulations. You have completed Part One. You only have four more parts to go. This should have taken a total of two hours to complete.” It took me eight hours. Eight hours. I am trying to make this story acceptable for all ages – so I will not write what I said. I went to bed. It was 3 A.M.

In our family, whenever we screw something up or go about an activity the wrong way, we refer to that as the Rick Factor. The term is named in honor of my brother Richard. He can go off like a rocket with any mechanical failure or any time things don’t go quite right. One time I saw him throw rocks at his car when it wouldn’t start. I watched him bend the new oven burner in two parts because he could not get it anchored correctly and smacked and cut his head on the oven door. As I lay in bed evaluating the previous eight hours or so, I smiled and called my project the Rick Factor. I promised myself that my next attempt to finish the project would be much better. I drifted off to sleep thinking of that damn flashlight.

7 A.M. came early for me, way too early. I had a fitful four hours of sleep and I dreamt I was on a magic carpet made of cardboard. During the ride, I avoided asteroids that looked like screws, bolts and pinecones. After waking, I made coffee and went back to my project. I stood under the carport evaluating all the pieces remaining to connect while I enjoyed my morning brew. I turned to go back into the house and noticed something odd. I saw five houses with their outside lights still burning. Wasting electricity, I thought.

I scraped the four-walled structure across the cement. It had been propped near the house and I needed it to be in the center of the carport. I heard a dog howl somewhere nearby. There was no wind like last night, so the structure stayed in place. I connected cross-brace AABC to its counterpart on the side at the hole marked JJKY. Using washer NNOP, I balanced the bolt, labeled GOGD and used nut labeled POOP to secure the brace. One down and seven to go, I thought.

A couple hours later I had the bracing complete and was ready for the roof panels. The next and last thing would be the installation of the doors. I noticed quite a bit of fine print on each page, but didn’t slow down to read all of it. I could see where everything was really going and was on a roll now.

It took two more hours before I finished the top and while the doors were confusing, I connected them without difficulty. I remember one place in which there was no hole drilled for my bolt. I almost drilled a new hole, but decided to step back a minute and I’m glad I did. I was trying to put the door on upside down. That would indeed have been a Rick Factor.

Now, I only had three pages left go. I was excited, happy, and having fun – right up to the point where I fell off the ladder and into the metal roof. I had been on the top rung of my ladder anchoring the panels. I had just one more panel to go and it was quite a stretch. I felt the ladder wobbling. I lost my balance and put a huge dent in the left roof panel (item number WWOW) with my elbow.

Now another part of the Rick Factor is the loss of patience when things don’t go quite like they’re supposed to go. We cuss! We throw things! We scream! We may even break stuff. I calmly dropped to the cement, walked into the shed, and with my fist, I hit that roof with all my strength. One factor about metal is that it’s near impossible to return it to its original shape after being bent. I learned that in summer school in physics class.

I climbed back to the top of the ladder and didn’t need to look far to see the damage. That panel had a pretty good-sized bubble projecting out. Ah, nobody will see it anyway, I thought. I covered every nut with special tape on the inside of the shed. This was to keep it from leaking. I was pretty proud of myself and celebrated by getting a beer and lighting a cigar.

Moments later I was blowing smoke rings across the carport and into the shed. I bit down on my cigar with my teeth and stood facing my masterpiece and closed the doors. “Son-of-a-Bitch!” I yelled. The doors did not meet!

 There was a three-inch gap. I bit my cigar in half and kicked the nearly full can of beer onto my plywood work surface. I threw a pair of vice grips, two screwdrivers, and a ratchet into the front yard. I let loose with a litany of cuss words that would have made a sailor blush. Have you ever noticed how many parts there are to a flashlight? I separated all of them with a few direct smashes against the driveway. All of them.

The neighborhood kids who were using my pool at that moment slammed into me, and sprinted out the gate towards their homes. My tantrum must have frightened them. They scattered in different directions like a nest of cockroaches when a light is lit in a dark room. I had forgotten they were using my pool. That same dog from the night before howled from all the commotion coming from under my carport. I yelled, I punched my fists into the air and finally screamed. THAT, my friends, is the Rick Factor!

It was two days later that I was calm enough to re-read the instruction book. I returned to the section about the doors. In the fine print appeared a stop sign logo that mentioned the exact way to connect the door panels. When I attempted to hang the door panel upside down, I had read the identifying letters incorrectly. All the M’s looked like W’s. As fate would have it, the door panel marked W was to be placed on the opposite site.

I gave some kid a dollar to look for tools in my yard while I removed the roof panel tape. Yep, I had to remove the entire roof, change the doors, and re-apply the roof - again. I finished just in time as several of my buddies began to arrive. They came to help carry the storage shed and place it along the fence inside the pool area.

We were all enjoying a beer except for Dan. He had not touched his. He was too busy inspecting the shed. He laughed. “Hey, Nelson why is there a bubble in the roof? Does that have something to do with physics also?”

PALS: Part Two is available with my other works at www.davidnelsonauthor.com

Be sure to check out my book about child abuse. It’s called The Shade Tree Choir

http://youtu.be/y3EWghb6qnU

David Nelson, Author & Cowboy Poet | PALS: Abandonment and Child Abuse

David Nelson, Author & Cowboy Poet | PALS: Abandonment and Child Abuse: Abandonment & Child Abuse Part of My Story Three types of child abuse include sexual, physical and emotional. I was neve...

Abandonment and Child Abuse

Abandonment & Child Abuse

Part of My Story

Three types of child abuse include sexual, physical and emotional. I was never abused sexually and am unable to speak to that issue. Statistics gathered by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System in 2012, revealed 78% of reported cases of child abuse were from neglect, 18% from physical abuse and 9% from sexual abuse. 1640 children died in 2012 from physical abuse in America. Physical abuse is defined as punching, kicking, and beating, biting and burning.

I was a victim of physical and emotional abuse. Those two forms of abuse happened to me from age eight until age seventeen – at which point I graduated from high school and left the house immediately. You can read about my abuse in my book, The Shade Tree Choir. My web site is www.davidnelsonauthor.com.

Here is the prologue from The Shade Tree Choir. “I struggled for air and could only whimper for him to stop hurting me. I could feel my ribs being crushed against the floor by his heavy weight on my upper back. The sheer force of his hand stung my wrist as he pulled my arm behind my back and yanked sharply upward. I thought he was going to break it off. The shag carpet ground against my face like sandpaper and I could feel the tearing of my skin. My nose pushed into the fibers and I could barely breathe through the burning sensation of pain. I gagged at the smell of the filthy tattered carpet, at the stench of a decade’s worth of dog waste and urine. As I struggled weakly against his grip, I choked on the odor of unwashed feet, mud, grime, and ground-in food. My stomach heaved at the sickly scent of bourbon and beer and hopelessly, my tears and sweat mingled into the carpet beneath me.

Why was my dad doing this awful thing to me? What had I done to deserve such treatment?

I was eight years old.” 

My mother was mentally ill and both parents were alcoholics. Those factors and their abusive personalities were the causes for my childhood maltreatment. Readers here from similar backgrounds will nod in agreement about today’s subject. Abandonment by parents who are alcoholics causes a lifetime fear that begins in childhood.

In my case, I had no maternal nurturing - none, whatsoever. I never heard the words, “I love you” from my mother. There were no questions from her about how I felt, what I might have done on any certain day or what opinions I might have had.

That sterile relationship is a form of abandonment. The child is left to fend for himself and tries to develop trust on his own. The trust or belief system is: “How do I know you too won’t abandon me?” Children in situations like mine have no skills or knowledge about how to trust others. Consequently, the child struggles seeking a method to develop such. That child learns quickly to become self-reliant dealing with issues of trust.

The child develops both insulation and isolation techniques. One technique tends to become more dominant. As the child ages, he/she will then follow primarily one of those techniques because it worked better as a survival tool when the child was small.

Some examples of insulation might include shutting down or becoming numb emotionally in order to feel no pain. Often this person is referred to as having a wall or a barrier around his inner self. The child shuts others out, has difficulty with interpersonal relationships because he/she won’t share feelings. There is that deep-seated lack of trust that if someone enters into their heart, they will cause great pain.

The older the person becomes, the better they are at insulating themselves. The person who follows this path does attempt to become involved emotionally with others – such as with the opposite sex. However, the relationship is limited in how far it can grow because of the lack of trust issue. Insulating personality types tend to be self-reliant strong-willed and are comfortable up to a certain level of attachment.

Isolating is when the individual totally refuses to become attached. This person uses that wall for protection and never lowers it. Trusting in all relationships is miniscule at best. This individual may have difficulty in all social environments.

It is not unusual with physical abuse situations to experience what I call the yo-yo syndrome. There were times, as a kid, when I was beaten and punched with a fist, kicked with steel-toed work boots or whipped with a belt. Before I could even recuperate from that pain, my dad’s personality changed and all of us might pile into the car and go get ice cream cones. This inconsistent behavior taught me to expect something negative was going to happen with every positive event. I learned not to trust those positive events - because surely something bad would follow. This began early on from the feelings of, “Come here I love you. Now, get the hell out of my face because I hate your guts.”

I constantly analyze every word spoken to me by others to gain a sense of their loyalty. I can be someone’s best friend if I feel they will not harm me. I will run away emotionally and physically as well, from anyone who presents any sign of that yo-yo syndrome. I had to take it as a helpless child, but I don’t have to accept it as an adult.

The constant analyzing for over six decades has brought with it significant anxiety. I suspect it may be an underlying cause of some of my health issues because of stress. I live with constant fear of abandonment. Again, after all, if my own parents abandoned me, then others surely will.

What I described are two examples of emotional and physical abandonment. That type of sterile and yo-yo behavior occurred every day in my life while living at home. I am no different than all the other people who had alcoholic parents. It’s a common practice and it’s a common character flaw we adults of alcoholic parents carry with us.

I know of people who actually sabotage their employment and/or their personal relationships just to “prove” that things will fall apart. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy that reinforces the belief process that they will be abandoned. The person lives under constant anxiety wondering when things will fall apart.

He/she can live life, as a pessimist feeling bad events will be coming their way. Consequently, the stress they experience can lead to actual physical ailments. Stress can maim and it can kill us. The individual becomes a person who has to be in control. Because with control comes safety that there will be no harm done to them.

Here is a practical example. Imagine two people have a long distance relationship of more than 800 miles (for an example) and are planning to unite in the future. Let’s say the man is a victim of abuse and has serious deficiency issues with trust and fear of being abandoned. He has absolutely no control over the behavior of his lady friend. He cannot see her to communicate any feelings and all he has is her spoken or written word. That man will revert to the skills he learned as a child wondering when he will be abandoned. The relationship will fail – 100% guaranteed, because he has no control. Now imagine the woman has the same childhood issues. Their relationship is caustic.

I have worked on my fear of abandonment for thirty-five years. 99% of the time it is in check and hidden deep inside. I feel control. When I fail, I experience a terrible reaction. I feel sick to my stomach like I did at age eight when I was about to be beaten. I then have to react to rid myself of the emotional pain.

Techniques I use include the wall (in times of emergency), meditation, physical exercise, sleep, writing and visualization. The wall is an emotional barrier where I shut down and do not share my inner feelings or myself. I realize that using the wall is not healthy in my relationship, but it’s an old, dear friend. Shutting down can last a couple of hours, a day or up to a week. I use meditation to help get rid of my physical symptoms. That is my best form of treatment.

I will work hard at the gym and the adrenaline and other chemical releases help eliminate physical reactions to my fears. I may also try long hours of deep sleep. This too, can reduce stress. I love to write and can escape the overwhelming sense of sadness that comes when fear of being abandoned is present. I visualize myself as being in control of situations.

I also use laughter. When we experience deep laughter there are chemical releases that occur in the body known as “happy hormones”. This creates a sense of euphoria and reduces stress. I may watch a comedy, make up stories that are funny or see comical moments in everyday life.

Another powerful tool I use is called a Treasure Map. I think about the goals in life that I wish to achieve. I find pictures that remind me of those goals. The pictures are taped to a board and placed in my bathroom. Every night and every evening I touch the pictures and tell myself I will meet the goals. I don’t ask when or how. I just know they will be met. I am on my third Treasure Map in my adult life. I met every single goal posted on my previous Treasure Maps.

All of the techniques I described can be healthy tools for managing daily stress. Using the wall to shut out others is the least accepted.