When was the last time you rode your bike?

My friends know all about me and my bike riding. They know I'm all about the BIKE. They know it's my passion. So it was with great pleasure when I read that a writer friend of mine started riding her bike today.

I mean, I was absolutely thrilled for her.

It sounds crazy, I know, to care that much. And I know I say this mental BIKE isn't about a bicycle or exercise, for that matter. But that's where my work with BIKE originated. I'll continue to be a true believer for as long as I live in the healing qualities of bike-riding and the importance of giving yourself the time it allows for meditation and introspection--even if I'm not riding myself. I know that there is power in the pedaling. I know there is power in the rides. I know there is much to be discovered about oneself when given the time and opportunity to do that. I know there is growth waiting for my friend from the seat of her bike. So, yes, I'm thrilled.

I may have mentioned this before, but I remember some of my earlier rides, about a year into it. I'd lost something like 40 pounds (probably more) and had gone from a size 12 to a size 2 because of my rides. I was in the best shape of my life in all aspects: physically, mentally, spiritually and sexually. I had never felt better about who I am as a woman. And there I was riding around this loop in a city park at the end of the path I rode daily. I always added a few extra miles there. And as I rode, I'd watch other women walk around the loop. At one point, I remember literally stopping to chat with one of them.

"You should try bike riding," I told her, sharing with her my weight loss success.

"Yeah, yeah, I've done that before," she said, and kept on walking.

I think she may have been bothered that I disturbed her, but I wanted to spread the word. I wanted other women to feel how I felt. I still do. I had never been more comfortable inside of my body than at that time. I was at the beginning stages of learning to love myself. And like any love affair, it was hot and heavy in the beginning. It's that feeling that keeps me motivated to continue with some form of exercise program still today, whether it's bike-riding, jogging, walking, or anything else. I know what it feels like to feel my best. And I never want to lose that for long.

Oh, I have had my moments where I've lost that good feeling for a while. You know, the challenges of the day affect me just like anyone else. I get caught up with work and off-balance from time to time. Life happens. But I never stray too far from those good feelings about myself, even though sometimes I may have to fight for it. But part of the reason that I can stay focused like that is the exercise. Part of it is the bike-riding or whatever other physical activity I can fit into my day. I remember all too well how good I felt, and I just won't allow myself to get too far from that. It would be a real shame if I did.

Yes, I am thrilled for my friend who, today, just got on her bike for the first time in a long time. She reported she only rode a little more than 10 mintues. But I could tell she was proud of herself. I told her that's exactly how I started. And those first ten minutes or so changed my life.

So...when was the last time you rode your bike?

(I took the photo above of that painting I mentioned a few posts back. It now hangs in my office. Painted by an artist who goes by the name of JoJo, you can find more of his work at his gallery called Lola in Jerome, Ariz.)

How Brinkley can avoid the "victim" role

Christie Brinkley, who is divorcing her husband of 10 years because of his affair with a teenager, is in for a long healing process.

She's been criticized, I've read in the news, by her husband Peter Cook's attorney for being angry and perhaps using that anger to get back at Cook. But it's good to see that she can respond to that criticism fairly. Of course, she's angry. She has a right to be angry. Her husband cheated on her. It's a classic case. There's nothing new here. And it's typical that her husband and his lawyer are trying to paint her as somehow wrong for feeling that anger, that it's a detriment to her children.

I'm sure she's handling this in the best way she can, given the circumstances. And I hope she stands her ground. No, she doesn't want to stay in a place of anger for long. Of course not. But she's still right in the middle of a really devastating experience. If you haven't been the "woman scorned," if you don't know what it's like to feel so discarded, then you probably won't understand her anger. But I know from my own similar experience that she has to allow herself to feel that anger. For too long now, I bet she's felt nothing but numb. There was testimony that after she learned of her husband's affair that she felt sick to her stomach, that she couldn't eat for days, that her friend found her on the street, hunched over--almost in a catatonic state.

I felt that exact same way. You can't believe what you're hearing, you don't want to believe it, but you know it's true. How are you suppposed to deal with this kind of betrayal. We don't get involved in long-term relationships, bringing with us our manuals that describe what to do in circumstances like this. We don't do that. We don't expect we'll ever need to know how to deal with this ultimate betrayal.

It makes sense then, that when it occurs, it's difficult to absorb such a difficult truth.

Oh, Brinkley will want to temper her anger as best she can, but it's ridiculous to think she shouldn't be feeling it. To deny her true feelings would be like pretending that what happened was simply a mistake. Adultery is not a mistake. It's a choice. Cook made that choice, and he may, in fact, be sorry about it. But it's not something that you can just apologize for, as his lawyer is insinuating, and move on.

The betrayal, the many lies it takes to continue living an affair, the person you become when you're in the middle of it, how you treat the woman you're supposed to love, honor and cherish, the guilt that you block out--all of that has an effect on the spouse who's being cheated on...and on the children as well. Brinkley's just now learning and realizing all of this. When you have to come to terms that your whole life with a spouse who cheated on you repeatedly is lie, you question everything you've ever said, thought or believed about him--and yourself as well. Your whole mindset is one big chaotic mess, and you don't know for sure if you'll ever survive it and be whole again. You don't know what you know anymore. It takes more than a few years to absorb that, understand that, get to the point where you can move past it--To even start, you have to have the whole experience behind you first. These people are not there yet.

There is no way to fully understand the depth of the pain this kind of situation can cause. Her husband really did, as it's been reported she said, destroy her life as she knew it. And maybe that life wasn't as perfect as she thought it was, maybe it wasn't as perfect as she wanted to believe it was. Remember what I posted about yesterday, that sometimes we aren't well trained to pay attention to our gut instincts. Maybe this is true in Brinkley's case. I don't know. But for whatever reason, she was drawn to a man who felt less than he is. That could be why he cheated. That could be why he turned to pornography. That could be why he led the secret life he did. My guess is that he had a history of some of this even before meeting Brinkley. Maybe he thought with her things would be different. We do that sometimes, don't we? We do that when we're not being honest with ourselves.

But now she's facing the deeper truth, and it's just not going to be that easy to overcome. She will overcome it, I'm sure of that, but it won't be when someone else expects it of her. If we can learn anything from spectacles like these, it's that. You can't push someone into "getting over it." Some may never do that. Some may not want to. But most of us, I'd like to think, will get there when we get there. If we can learn to have that kind of undertanding about human behavior, we'd be so much better off.

Whatever decision the court comes up with as to the custody issue of their children, well, that's not going to end the pain, either. No matter if she gets full custody, or if they share custody, it doesn't end the pain. In some cases, it could be the beginning of a whole new kind of pain.

I feel for her. It's hard for me to feel for Cook, of course. But I do feel for her. She's being criticized for causing this trial to be made public. But I don't know if that's the entire story. Of course her husband would want it kept private. He's admitted to behavior no father should want his children to know about, and certainly not his mother to read about in the papers or see on TV. For Brinkley's sake, I hope she's not involved in a public trial to get back at her husband. That won't serve her well in the long run. I doubt that she is; I think she's doing exactly what she feels is best for her children. It just may not look that way to outsiders who don't have access to all the information and may not be able to understand what this family is going through.

What will serve her well in the long run, however, is if she can come to terms with what he did, realize it was his issue and not hers. And it will take daily, conscious effort to let go of what he did and just focus on what she needs to do to move forward. That takes a really strong sense of self, courage, trust and faith. In my life, that's called BIKE.

I'd love to teach her how to ride.

All my best,
Jackie

Speak now...or forever hold your peace

My former pastor used this line the day I married the man I'd divorce ten years later.

"Speak now...," he told our family and friends sitting in the wooden pew of our church. But to whom was he really saying those words, do you think? Was he really saying them to the audience, or was he giving the couple before him one last chance to be honest before making what is expected to be a lifelong commitment. Wasn't he really making the point hit home that wedding vows are more than just words and signatures on a piece of linen paper? Wedding vows involve trust and faith and honesty--to yourself and others. Wasn't he really talking to me and my former spouse?

On that day, I married a man I had an inkling I shouldn't. I'd even postponed the wedding once. But I eventually married him, anyway. I was committed. How was I supposed to know he really wasn't? I had an "inkling," that's why. I recently had a conversation with a girlfriend who'd once done the same thing. And I even have a male friend who'd done this also. Not surprisingly, not one of us are still married to those spouses.

We did a few things wrong when we said our "I do's." For one thing, we didn't listen to our gut. Each of us had more than just the pre-wedding jitters. We were each having conversations in our heads about the mates we were about to marry. Maybe those inner thoughts came early on in the relationship--most do--or maybe they came later. Maybe they even occured at the time of engagement, when I said "yes" but meant to say, "No, it's too soon. I'm not sure." No matter. Whenever that internal dialogue arrived, we chose not to listen to it. The words were the warnings that could have kept us from making a mistake, but we chose to ignore them, to push them away, to believe they involved false fear. We chose not to listen to them. I say chose with good reason. Hopefully, all three of us can look back on the decision made on our wedding days and realize the choice really was ours to make, mistake or not. We did it. We have to own it.

The second thing we did wrong was refuse to "speak now." Not only did we not listen to our gut (our natural and internal security system), but we refused to talk about it out loud. Once again, we chose not to speak out, speak up, or "speak now." We forever held our peace, as the phrase goes.

Why do we do that to ourselves? Ignoring gut instinct, not speaking out loud to someone about our fears or concerns, it's not something that only happens at weddings. It happens daily. It happens to many of us. It gets us in trouble. So, why do we do it?

We do it for several reasons, one of which involves the family of origin. We learn early in our lifetimes whether or not to pay attention to those warning signals. If you grew up in an openly peaceful atmosphere, where you were listened to and loved unconditionally, where you could express yourself without fear of being reprimanded, you probably learned to pay attention to your gut. You learned to trust what your body was telling you. You learned how to be honest with yourself and others. If, on the other hand, you grew up in a household of uncertainty and insecurity, where there was addiction, where the authority figures in your life were unhappy. If you worried about making too much noise as a child, or, worse, if you took on the job as people pleaser because you just wanted everyone to be happy, you probably learned to ignore what you really felt. You probably learned to turn off the gut instinct. You learned that you couldn't trust your feelings. They might reveal too much, and then you'd have to deal.

As a child, you don't know any of this. You don't understand it. It's not until you begin making mistakes as an adult, and the mistakes start adding up, that you have to finally begin paying attention. If you don't, you're doomed to continue failing or not living up to your potential.

As I've said many times here, it was the wake-up call that tuned me in to my gut instinct.

If I hadn't had that, if my then-husband hadn't come home to tell me about his sexual addiction, I might not ever have known I even had a tune-in problem. I would have gone on ignoring my feelings. After all, I didn't have anything to go on other than "feelings," and what are they?! So what if he wasn't a very emotional guy, if he kept his feelings to himself, if he couldn't seem to relate to me on an emotional level? So what if I felt alone when I was with him? He was still here, wasn't he? Wasn't he? I didn't understand the full significance of what I was even thinking back then, let alone the feelings. But his revelation woke something up in me that forced me to pay closer attention. It was his truth. He finally chose to be honest with me, and I could finally admit there was a problem. He stopped hiding behind his, and I could stop hiding behind mine.

To this day, I don't know why he did that. But I'm grateful. It forced me to see the error of my ways, that I'd known something was wrong all along, that I'd been right to question myself.

If you are experiencing internal dialogue that you've chosen thus far to ignore--because, maybe, you don't like the message it's suggesting--my challenge to you today is to chose to listen to it. I've said this before, but I'll say it again (because some messages are worth repeating), your gut instinct is sometimes the only way you have to know if you're on the right track...or not. If you've been questioning a decision you need to make, if you've been stalling, if you're unsure, then I urge you to pay attention to that uncertainty, especially if this uncertainty comes with headaches or muscle spasms or a skin rash. Journal about it. It could be that your mind-body connection is trying to tell you something.

Then, when you can muster up the courage, decide to be vulnerable enough to have the conversation with the person your uncertainty involves. I call this your Expressive voice--it's the E in BIKE--and the voice needs to be expressed.

Speak now. There's no better time.

All my best,
Jackie

An unexpected memorial

I just received one of those calls you just never want to recieve. It's one where you know immediately the news is not going to be good. You can hear it in the tone of voice. Sadness cannot shield itself from the ears, if you're listening, if you're aware. If I were present with this person, I would have seen it in her eyes. I wish it were not so.

This person was the daughter of a good friend of mine from when I first moved to Phoenix back in 1987, as a college student, finishing up my last semester with an internship. This woman was one of the first neighbors I met at our apartment complex. We quickly grew close, as close as a person will let you. Her daughter played with my daughter. We became companions and friends who kept in contact with each other off an on throughout these past years--except for in the last three or four. We lost touch, as friends sometimes do. I never stopped thinking about her, but I lost touch. And I never reconnected, even though I thought about it many times.

Now I won't have the opportunity. That opportunity is lost. My friend's daughter called to tell me her mom had committed suicide. She'd been hurting, she'd been in pain, she was bi-polar, my friend's daughter said. After all these years, I never knew that. I knew she'd lived with an illness for many years that kept her with very little energy. I knew she was in pain most of the time. And I knew she'd survived breast cancer. I knew all of that. But I never knew she was bi-polar. It wouldn't have made a difference. She was a woman with a big heart, just not big enough for herself. She is the woman I'll remember as being there for me as best she could. I knew that. She is the woman I'll remember as being the person who always was the first to send out her holiday greeting cards. For nearly 20 years, hers was always the first to arrive in my mailbox. Believe me, I noticed when they stopped. But, you know, I didn't call. I just accepted that she needed a break. She's also the woman I knew couldn't accept what she gave. There was a hesitancy when you reached out to hug her, and she didn't know how to ask you for anything. Maybe she thought you'd say no, but you wouldn't have, if given the chance.

There are a lot of should'ves I could be reciting right now. Her daughter and I spoke on the phone for as long as she could. It was hard. I'm numb. My friend kept a lot to herself. She revealed things that were painful, but only on the surface. She couldn't go deep enough. I know now that's because she didn't know herself well enough. She didn't trust herself well enough. She didn't have the strength, at least she wasn't aware that she did. Because she had all of what I speak about here at the BIKE blog. She was capable. She just didn't know. My friend is a good example of what happens when we're not aware of our gifts. We get lost. We get lost in the pain.

I've missed my friend these past years. But more importantly, like her daughter, I'm sorry I didn't know she needed more than just to be missed. A hug wouldn't have cured her depression, I know. Letting her talk wouldn't have been enough. She had issues with her parents that were never resolved. I couldn't have helped her with that. How do you reach a person to help them find a way to help themselves, to become whole, to fill the soul with the inner peace and love we all deserve. My BIKE helped me, of course, but I wasn't lost in the sense that I could never be found.

I feel like that's exactly what my friend was. She was lost and never had the chance to find herself. She never knew she could have found herself. If you know what it's like to feel like that even for an instant--and I do--but then to think what it would be like to feel this way all the time, with no end in sight, because you can't see it, that's the kind of pain I now realize my friend suffered daily.

If you believe in heaven, as I do, then you know that's where my friend is now, getting that love she never quite felt here. Not because the people around her were incapable of giving it, but because she was incapable of receiving it. Not because she didn't want to, but just because she didn't know how. Now, I can understand why she was so free to give me advice and to praise me. She did that all the time. I didn't need the praise, but she was free to give it. What she really needed, though, was to turn that praise around and bestow it on herself. I'd like to believe she's doing that now, that she's getting the love she's always deserved.

For us here on earth, that's something we'll have to believe. I don't want to think anything else.

So this is for you, Micki. I'm proud to have been your friend. I wish I could have been more.

There is love,
Jackie

Blogathon: Take 2

Thanks to Michelle Rafter and her idea for the Blogathon I participated in May with a group of writer friends from Freelance Success, Michelle included, I decided to approach the idea with a group of speaker friends from NSA Arizona. They thought it would be a great idea, so here we are. For the month of July, we plan to post at least once a day on our individual blogs. Take a few minutes to see who we all are and what we're all about:

Jackie Dishner, that's me. I have this blog, BIKE WITH JACKIE. And I'm just this week launching my new travel blog, The Phoenix Traveler.

Susan Ratliff is a trade show expert and a great motivator to others. She's got great ideas for increasing your visibility at Bling My Booth.

Andrea Beaulieu is a highly creative woman who teaches you how to find your authentic voice. She also encourages you to live your life at its best at Conspiracy of Love.

Mimi Meredith inspires you to create better lives, workplaces and communities. The Blooming Blog helps spread her message.

Beth Terry shares her commonsense solutions to everyday work and life issues at Corporate Cowgirl. She's also an inspiration to her fellow friends and colleagues.

Vickie Mullins creates things: your office collateral, your newsletters, and really special books. She talks about it all at her two blogs: Mullins Creative and Vickie Mullins.

Michelle May, a physician and author helps you eat for the right reason--because you're hungry. She talks about diet and food and how consumed we are about all it at at her blog in the East Valley Tribune newspaper.

Arlene Rosenberg helps her clients achieve personal and professional rewards. Her blog, Leading Achievers, shares inspirational stories behind her work.

Stanley Bronstein is a motivational speaker who helps businesses perform at their best. Click on his name to check out his words of wisdom.

Suzanne Holman is the million dollar productive coach. She helps you achieve the millions that you deserve. Learn more at Lessons for Your Million Dollar Life.

And these other four individuals from Arizona will join us shortly:

Suzy Allegra
Suzy Graven
Maggie Hunts
Barbara Kaplan

Be sure to visit regularly. I'll keep you updated on what my friends are doing with their blogs. We'll work at scheduling interviews and guest blogs, and we'll try to keep it interesting for you.

Till tomorrow,
~Jackie