Author: Karen

I am an RN, Author, Coach, and Speaker. I write novels about relationships to help people find insight into their own. I guide people to create comfort, clarity, and connection in their lives. By combining metaphysical tools with over twenty-five years of nursing experience, I infuse the 'art of nursing' into my practice by providing partnership and resources help people compassionately honor their health.

The BRAVE Interview #18 January 2018: Carrie Frail

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, Catching women being brave, Clarity, The BRAVE Interviews

My name is Carrie Frail. I’m 37 years old but I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes.

I was a teenage rebel, who rushed headfirst into any and everything.

I went to college, dropped out, and then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force by age 18. I was married by 19, a mother by 20 and bought an idyllic family home by age 23.

Everything seemed to be great on the outside, but internally I struggled daily.

Later diagnosed with a slew of mental illnesses from Bipolar Disorder to anxiety, I was also an addict. Since I had to maintain a security clearance for the government, I pursued my addictions legally…alcohol, prescription pills, attention from men, bad relationships, shopping…anything I could do to not feel so empty and broken.

It didn’t work.

Years later, I was no longer married. I had lost my job and my health insurance and couldn’t afford my daily medications. I had turned to drugs to self-medicate and I was spiraling down. I had been trying (and failing) to get clean for a year. My house was in foreclosure and there were warrants out for my arrest for driving my illegal, unregistered car.  I had just gone through yet another devastating heartbreaking breakup and I wanted to die.

I had taken a large bottle of pills with some alcohol and I was laying on the couch, waiting to die.

 As I closed my eyes, I thought of my daughter coming home and finding my corpse on the couch.

In this, my one brave moment, I decided to live. To die then would have been the easiest thing in the world. To live meant getting back up. Admitting my life was screwed up and putting in the work to fix it and most of all, to learn to love and forgive myself.

I decided to live and I got back up. I ended up in the hospital, then to the psych ward at the VA, then to an inpatient rehab program. There were lots of ups and downs after that. I lost my house and my ex-husband moved several states away with our kids. I got a job, then had health issues and left it. I still struggle with mental illness, and some days are better than others but overall, my life is worth living today because I appreciate it. I have had a lot in my life. Some was given to me and some I earned. Most of it I’ve lost and none of it really mattered in the end.

In the end, what really matters is doing that One Brave Thing day after day.

Making the decision to get up and live.

Carrie, thank you so much for sharing your brave story with us. We are honored and humbled by your words.

Read the other BRAVE interviews here: https://kwrites.com/?s=The+BRAVE+Interview

If YOU would like to be interviewed for this series about something brave you have done in your own life, send me an email here: kmcwrites@gmail.com

 

BOOK REVIEW: The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty

by Karen, posted in author, book reviews, books, love and marriage

I loved this book The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty.
It’s about husbands and wives and mothers and daughters and sisters and any practically any other relationships you can think of, including one’s relationship with oneself. Boom.

Real, messy, honest relationships.

One note: Pay attention at the beginning of the book because you will be introduced to several characters and you don’t want to be distracted or multitasking and get confused.

Like I did. 

No problem, though. I just referred to the drawing at the beginning of the book and it straightened me right out.

The best quote from the book is on page 128, a wife thinking about her husband:

“She’d hated him for a while over that. Really hated him. But then she just got tired of hating him and started loving him again. It was easier.”

This book has a twist at the end that I never saw coming. Totally worth reading. I had a hard time putting it down once I started reading it. I had the characters dancing around in my head at the oddest moments.

And is one of the marks of a truly great book?

Get it here: The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty. I highly recommend this book and any of her other books (I wrote about one of them  in the past, What Alice Forgot.

BOOK REVIEW: The Story Of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

by Karen, posted in books, Life's too short to read bad books, relationships

I just closed this book and I have tears streaming down my face. Usually, I wouldn’t care for a book that left me in this emotional state. This book was different, however.

This is one of the best books I have ever read, maybe in my whole life.

I was looking forward to this new book by Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv for months. I have read all of Berg’s books, but I can’t remember when the last one was. It has been a while, that’s for sure.

It was so worth the wait!

This book is a love story, but not a typical one. You will be drawn into the lives of these people immediately. This is a book you will not be able to put down, and yet you must, because you are going to want to go slowly and savor the characters and the story, to make it last as long as you can.

You will truly love this book. The characters will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Read this book!

Pairing a crystal with your “One Word”

by Karen, posted in Clarity, Crystals, my one word

Once I have chosen My One Word,  I like to have some fun with it.

This year is no different.

Once you’ve settled on your word, the first thing to do is to start noticing anything that catches your attention when you are out living your life. Since I love rocks and crystals, I was very alert to a talk that I was listening to online that mentioned my word (CLARITY) in the discussion of the crystal. As soon as it was over, I looked it up.

Tanzanite!

Three tanzanite: the blue stones atop the chunk of pink rose quartz.

I found this online about Tanzanite from Healing Crystals for You:

“Tanzanite is a deep blue and purple zoisite crystal. It is known as one of the most valuable stones for metaphysical healing. 

They are strong stones to assist you to develop psychic power, so this aspect may help you if you are considering entering psychic employment.

They are high crystal energy stones. These crystals have a quite high vibration and are known as stones of transformation.”

So, you can’t make this stuff up, right? The Metaphysical Nurse is my alter ego. All of the points I just listed above are things I will be working on in 2018. I love having the support of the crystals as I create my best life in the coming year for the highest good of all.

And so it is!

 

The BRAVE Interview #17 December 2017: Amy B. Wells RN

by Karen, posted in author, Being BRAVE, books, Brave books, Catching women being brave, Interviews, The BRAVE Interviews

This month’s interview is with Amy B. Wells, RN!

I am an author and nurse anesthetist.

I’ve had many phases in my life. I was an accountant for a long time (hated it with a passion). I stayed at home with my children for about five years, then went to nursing school when I was in my late thirties. After that, I worked in the ICU for three years before going to anesthesia school. I’ve been a nurse anesthetist for a little over six years. I am married with two teenagers and a grumpy old tom cat and currently live in the suburbs of Houston.

My latest endeavor is writing. I’ve self-published four novels and I have started blogging on my website https://amywellspublishing.com/

WHAT is your One Brave Thing?  Many people might think the bravest thing I’ve done is attending nursing school or working in the ICU and or going to anesthesia school all at an older age while raising two young children, but the bravest thing I’ve done is to publish these novels.

It took me a long time to work up the nerve to publish them. I’ve always been rather introverted. Publishing and writing a blog has meant exposing myself to others. I might as well be naked! Most things I’ve done have been planned and controlled rather than creative or artistic.

WHEN did you do it? I wrote my novels over a period of about five years, but never was brave enough to put them out there.

When my fiftieth birthday approached, I decided it was now or never.

Time is marching on, I told myself!

I self-published my first book on my fiftieth birthday (this year)! Eeek! I can’t believe I’m fifty! How is that possible?

Then I wondered why the heck I waited so long! Not long after, I published the other three. I’ve gotten nothing but support and enthusiasm from those around me.

I’ve met numerous new friends both on social media and in writer’s associations I’ve joined. A whole new world has been opened to me. I had no idea how many nurses and other great people are writing just like I am!

Now, I’m in the process of rewriting them, coming up with new covers and a relaunch next year, hopefully to sell my books to a wider audience, and I am writing a fifth novel and have plans for more. It’s so much fun!

WHERE did it occur? The great thing about self-publishing is you can do it from anywhere you have an internet connection. I wrote and published from my arm-chair.

HOW did you make it happen? Lots and lots of screen time with hands on keyboard. I was obsessed with my books and I still am. I love thinking up new books; coming up with ideas is never a problem. Execution, on the other hand, is more difficult. I credit the discipline of anesthesia school and nursing school for teaching me how to be dedicated to a goal.

For me the first stage in writing a novel is to develop my main characters, which so far have been nurses because I think nurses make perfect protagonists. They are strong-willed, funny, caring and dedicated with lots of interesting quirks thrown in. And the situations they get involved in make for great stories.

After coming up with my protagonist and an alpha hero (I’m a sucker for romance and love to include it in my books) I then think of the worst possible thing that could happen to the protagonist. This is the “dark moment.” This is when the reader thinks the protagonist can’t possibly be saved and the reader wonders how it will all end. And then, the protagonist finds a way to save herself. In my books, I want the heroine to be responsible for solving the problem and saving herself even though I have a strong hero, too.

I then think of an inciting incident, the event that starts the story and several tension-building incidents until I hit that dark moment. From there I build the rest of my tale. Sometimes I get stuck and go around in circles, but that’s part of the process.

I’m still learning about the craft of writing and marketing fiction. It’s a never-ending learning process, but I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it.

WHY did you do it? I’ve always been an avid reader of fiction and dabbled in writing over the years although I also love sciences and nursing. Giving anesthesia is a technical job, although there is an art to it, but I find writing provides a creative outlet that I don’t get in the operating room.

When you create fiction, you are responsible for the interactions of your characters and what happens to them.

I love being immersed in a book and even more so being immersed in creating one. I find I grow quite attached to my characters and miss them when I finish a novel. Sometimes I want to write a sequel just so I can see them again.

You can click on the image to find them on Amazon. You can also go to my website to click through to Nook, Apple and other distributors.

https://amywellspublishing.com/

Read the other BRAVE interviews here: https://kwrites.com/?s=The+BRAVE+Interview

If YOU would like to be interviewed for this series about something brave you have done in your own life, email me at kmcwrites@gmail.com!

BOOK REVIEW: Unipreneur by Laura Stewart Shortridge

by Karen, posted in author, book reviews, books, Brave books, family

This is my friend Laura’s new book:

Unipreneur: How to Live Your Passion in a House Full of Dream-Killers

I loved reading this book!

There were so many concepts that were introduced that resonated with me that I felt like I was having coffee and discussing my own life with my BFF.

I loved also all the quotes she chose to begin the chapters.

Like Laura, I struggle with my “monkey mind”. Here’s my trick for dealing with it: I have learned to feed it a banana to get it to settle down so that I can think. You’re welcome.

I had a similar experience to the author’s with regard to biking with her husband. My husband was an athlete all his life and I was, well, I was not. Biking was something that he thought we could maybe do together and I manned up to be his partner. He got the short end of the deal though, when we were biking miles from home and I lost my balance and steered my front tire through—yes, through—his. I think we walked back to the cars with him carrying both bikes, and probably me, too, on his shoulders. Not pretty.

One of my hero is quoted in the book, Eleanor Roosevelet. “All the water in the world can’t drown you unless it gets inside of you.” BOOM.

Buy this great book!

Unipreneur: How to Live Your Passion in a House Full of Dream-Killers by Laura S. Shortridge

You’ll love it!

Want to watch and listen to me talk about Laura’s book? See below!

A wrinkle in time

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Adult children, family

I was with my little son last night, a toddler in his stroller.

I packed him up and we headed out to McDonald’s for a treat.

I went up to the register, placed and received our order, and then pushed the stroller up to a table. I left him strapped in and turned my seat to face him. I opened up the bag with our food in it and extracted a french fry.

He reached for it and started munching.  I only gave him one at a time, because mothers of toddlers know this truth:

A typical toddler will take fistfuls of whatever food he loves and shove it into his mouth over and over without bothering pausing for breath.

Now, this was just a little treat for us in a typical day when I was a young mother, taking my little one out for lunch between errands. The only thing is that I am no longer a young mother. I am a midlife mother.

And my son is no longer a toddler. He is a twenty-six year old man.

The thing is, in the dream last night, I was that young mother again, and he was that toddler.

It felt every bit as real to me as if it did just happen yesterday, and not twenty-three years ago.

I believe that we are all every age we have ever been at any given time.

The experience of this dream is one of the reasons that I believe it.

What a wonderful gift this was to me, this dream.

 

My One Word 2018 Preview

by Karen, posted in Clarity, Meditation

It’s that time yet again. An exciting and sometimes confusing time.

Time to choose my one word for the coming year.

According to MyOneWord.org, this is a “simple process”. I beg to differ! After many years of engaging in the practice, i can say with authority that–for me, at least– this is rarely an easy or simple process. If I think too hard about it, I have quite a bit of not-simpleness.

This year, my word for the upcoming year came to me very early on.

I would say that I’ve known for weeks and weeks already what my word is to be. “Clarity”. Done deal. Ready to go. Got my engraved rock already and everything!

However, in the back of my mind, I’ve had a little niggling of something else, that maybe not all was said and done on this matter yet.

And then I had a dream.

I only remembered it because my daughter woke me up in the middle of it.  I decided to thank her instead of yell at her (as is sometimes my way when I am awakened before I am ready).

In the dream, someone was saying this to me: “It’s okay to choose career as your one word.” At the time I was awakened, I was at a point in the dream where I was looking for the page in my notebook (the very notebook I carry around with me every day!) where I had started the list of candidates for the 2017 word so that I could add “career” to the list.

SERIOUSLY!

So since I am always alert and watchful for signs, I have a feeling that I need to take this under advisement.

What would YOU do?

Working the Thanksgiving Holiday

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Holidays, Karen's Kitchen, Party for one

Every so often, I work on Thanksgiving. This is one of those years.

I am a nurse. It happens.

This year, I had plans to get my go-to working-on-Thanksgiving-quick-and-easy-dinner menu items, but then I got sick with the worst head cold of my life. I didn’t feel like going anywhere to buy anything for any reason. Even food. (I know! I was really sick!)

I had a Plan B: Make turkey soup in the crock pot.

I had some of what I needed, by my delivery of the rest of the ingredients I expected last night fell through.

Like any good nurse–and like any good Italian!–I made the most of what I found in the refrigerator.

Ladies and gentlemen! May I present, Italiano Thanksgiving Dinner for One:

Chicken Parm Sub

Buon appetito!!

The Black and White FB Challenge

by Karen, posted in Photography

Recently, I’ve been watching people put up posts on Facebook with the title:

Seven days. B&W picture challenge. No People. No explanation. Day # (whatever)

As part of the challenge, the person would tag another person who would then have to participate and do it as well.

I held my breath each time I saw this, hoping no one would tag me.

I mean, OMG, I had enough to do! I sure didn’t need one more thing to think about, worry about, have to do every day! I liked looking at the photos people were posting, though, and many of them were very interesting. Anyway, as the days went by and I remained untagged, I started to let out my breath a little.

And then it happened.

Someone tagged me! I thought, of course, it’s not mandatory! I don’t HAVE to do it! But somehow I didn’t decline. I decided to just start and see what happened.

What happened was this: I discovered that I was enjoying it. I was looking forward to it. Even though my dance card was so full it felt like a straight-jacket some days, this did not.
So, thank you to the brave person who tagged me to do this challenge!

It turned out to be a gift.

Because “When you change the things you look at, the things you look at change.”–Wayne Dyer

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