Let’s say we’re diagnosed with a severe illness—“Sickness X.”
Sickness X is a serious illness, to be sure, yet it can be cured by following a prescription that includes taking medicine and changing some specific habits. We trust our physician to know what he’s doing, so we get the prescription filled, begin taking the medicine, and follow the doctor’s orders so we’ll get better. Some medications are short term, some are long term, and others are for life. Some medicines have a bitter taste; others have no taste.  Many have side effects; others do not.

But if the medicine will cure us, we gladly suffer the bitterness, the side effects, and even endure the long road to recovery. We know that treatment is better than leaving the disease in its present state.

Consider the “Six Steps to SANITY,” outlined below, as our medication to help cure our illness of enabling. One dose won’t do it; we’ll need to stay on this prescription for quite some time until we return to full health. Just as our adult children may slip back and forth into their dependency on us, so, too, we may slip back and forth into our habit of coming to their rescue. Therefore, we must pray for the strength to remain firm in our resolve to make changes. Backsliding at this point is very dangerous, as we will lose not only our credibility but any momentum we may have gained as a result of the changes we are making. It is vital to continue on this prescribed course of “medication” for the duration of the treatment—no matter how difficult it may be.

I must caution you, however, that there is a possibility of a long-term side effect in following this course of treatment. In time we will begin to regain our SANITY, and we will begin to feel a sense of self-respect and peace despite any crisis.

Exactly What Is SANITY?
SANITY is what we gain when we stop focusing on our adult children and begin to focus on changing our own attitudes and behaviors.

How do we get SANITY? By recognizing and identifying the false conceptions we believe about ourselves and our adult children and replacing worldly lies with spiritually empowering truths.

In what situations will SANITY work? We can implement the six steps to SANITY to help an adult child grow up who:

• Has never left our home
• Has returned home (with or without mate/children)
• Considers our home a revolving door
• Lives on his own (or with others/roommates)
• Is a full- or part-time college student

I trust you’ve begun to realize the part you’ve played in this ongoing drama of enabling, as well as the enemy’s tactics in using these negative feelings against you. I pray you have realized the futility of harboring the negative feelings of guilt, frustration, anger, fear, and inadequacy—and that you are ready to develop new strengths to begin living a life of freedom from bondage. It’s time for healing—emotionally, spiritually, financially, and psychologically. So let’s look at the six steps to SANITY so you can begin to implement them into your life at last.

Six Steps to SANITY

S = Stop our own negative behaviors (especially stop the flow of money!). One of the critical first things we must immediately stop is the flow of money to our adult child.  We must stop being the First Bank of Mom and Dad or the Community Bank of Grandpa and Grandma.

A = Assemble a support group. Stop by our SANITY support group website (visit www.SettingBoundaries.com and follow the links) and consider getting involved. Remember, there is strength in numbers!

N = Nip excuses in the bud. You must no longer accept excuses. Period. Make it evident early on that you have no intention of being swayed by clichés or con games or lame excuses.

I = Implement rules and boundaries. These rules and boundaries must be well thought-out and non-negotiable, with firm but reasonable consequences and timeframes. And they must be written down and included in your action plan.

T = Trust your instincts. Nowhere does the need to trust our instincts hold truer than when we suspect our adult children are on drugs, have alcohol problems, or are involved in illegal activity. Intuition is a powerful tool. However, that still small voice will eventually stop talking altogether if we continue to ignore it.

Y = Yield everything to God (let go and let God). For some parents perhaps religious faith hasn’t been much of an issue as you brought up your child. But that’s one thing about being a parent in pain—you realize the help you need is going to have to come from some source other than self.

As we begin to follow the six steps to SANITY, we often discover that one of the benefits could be that our adult child may actually become the person we’ve been pretending they were or dreaming they could be all along. Now, wouldn’t that make all the tough-love pain worthwhile?

It doesn’t matter where you are in your journey of enabling an adult child. What matters is that you can stop the insanity right now—today—this very minute. You can gain SANITY, and in doing so, begin an amazing adventure of self-discovery.

I have walked in your shoes, and I have discovered the secret of SANITY, that no matter what happens, I am never alone. God is in control. So please join me—and thousands of other parents who are finding SANITY—by visiting www.SettingBoundaries.com. Then drop me a note occasionally and let me know how you’re doing, will you?

If you’re a hurting parent who dearly loves your adult child but longs to see him at last take responsibility for his life, please take a moment to watch the videos on the audio/video page of our web site. It could save your sanity—and maybe even your adult child’s life.

Video clip at: SettingBoundaries.com

# # #

Adapted from Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children, Six Steps to Hope and Healing by Allison Bottke © 2008. Harvest House Publishers. All rights reserved.
Visit www.SettingBoundaries.com

Johnny’s basically a good kid—just trying to get it together.

If only I had a dollar for every parent who has said that to me!

The only trouble is that for Johnny, “getting it together” doesn’t happen until he wakes up, usually well into the day, at which time he eats (leaving the dirty dishes in the sink), then spends time playing video games or surfing My Space on the Internet, or wondering why his mother didn’t get around to washing his clothes yet.

It’s hard for some parents in pain to recognize and admit that who and what our children used to be is not who and what they are now. Many of our adult children are emotionally, intellectually, psychologically, socially, and spiritually stunted. Many are so rebellious our hearts repeatedly break, and still others are dangerously fragile, hanging on by a thread. Some have gone from smoking pot to selling it; from destroying their own lives, to taking others with them. Many of these adult children have cost their parents their marriages, their jobs, their financial health, their sanity… and in some cases even their faith in God.

We must come to grips with reality: our children’s radical “rebellious streak” isn’t just a phase that will go away. However, that doesn’t mean they are lost causes. As long as our adult children are alive, there is still hope for their redemption, salvation, and return. Restoring ruined dreams and reclaiming wasted years is what God does best, as Joel 2:25 so lovingly promises: “For I will restore to you the years the locust has eaten.”

We do not parent as people who have no hope. We have a God who watches after our children—if we’ll just get out of his way and let him do the restoring. But to get to restoration, we must start with the truth of where we are: Those once innocent children grew into the jaded and unmotivated adults they are today under our parental watch.

For many enabling parents in pain, the decline of character in our adult child did not occur overnight. The progression has been happening for many years, in many instances right under our noses. The view many of us have of our adult child is often of the precious son or daughter we raised—an innocent babe filled with potential, eager to please. This distorted view is not helping him to become the adult God wants him to be. To get past this, we must become objective while retaining an ability to love. Being able to see our situation clearly is critical as we move forward.

The following might be a painful exercise. Carefully read the list of personality traits and ask yourself this question: “Does my adult child possess any of these traits?” Be honest. You are doing no one, least of all your adult child, any favors by sugar-coating the painful reality. Is your adult child really “a good kid?” If you are unable to be objective, ask someone close to the situation to help. However, don’t get angry if that person tells you things you don’t want to hear.

1. Irresponsibility—repeated failure to fulfill or honor obligations and commitments: not paying bills, defaulting on loans, performing sloppy work, being absent or late to work, failing to honor contractual agreements.

2. Failure to accept responsibility for actions—reflected in low conscientiousness, an absence of dutifulness, antagonistic manipulation, denial of responsibility, efforts to manipulate others through denial.

3. Lack of realistic, long-term goals—an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals; a nomadic existence, aimless, lacking direction in life.

4. Impulsivity—the occurrence of behaviors that are unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation, frustrations, and urges; a lack of deliberation or considering consequences; foolhardy, rash, unpredictable, erratic, and reckless.

5. Superficial charm—the tendency to be smooth, engaging, charming, and slick; not in the least shy, self-conscious, or afraid to say anything; never gets tongue-tied and has freed himself from the social conventions about taking turns in talking, for example; often very articulate and can be extremely well-mannered when he wants to be.

6. Grandiose self-worth—a grossly inflated view of one’s abilities and self-worth, self-assured, opinionated, cocky, a braggart; an arrogant person who believes he’s a superior human being.

7. Parasitic lifestyle—an intentional, manipulative, selfish, and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation, low self-discipline, and inability to begin or complete responsibilities.

8. Poor behavioral controls—expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper; acting hastily.

9. Need for stimulation (prone to boredom)—an excessive need for novel, thrilling, and exciting stimulation; taking chances and doing things that are risky; often has low self-discipline in carrying tasks through to completion because he gets bored easily.

10. Pathological lying—can be moderate or high; in moderate form, he will be shrewd, crafty, cunning, sly, and clever (in extreme form, he will be deceptive, deceitful, underhanded, unscrupulous, manipulative, and dishonest).

11. Conning and manipulative—the use of deceit and deception to cheat, con, or defraud others for personal gain; distinguished from impulsivity (item 4) in the degree to which exploitation and callous ruthlessness is present, as reflected in a lack of concern for the feelings and suffering of others.

12. Lack of remorse or guilt—a lack of feelings or concern for the losses, pain, and suffering of others; a tendency to be unconcerned, dispassionate, coldhearted, non-empathetic. This item is usually demonstrated by a disdain for one’s victims (i.e., parents).

13. Shallow effect—emotional poverty or a limited range or depth of feelings; interpersonal coldness in spite of signs of open gregariousness.

14. Callousness and lack of empathy—a lack of feelings toward people in general; cold, contemptuous, inconsiderate, tactless.

15. Promiscuous sexual behavior—a variety of brief, superficial relations, numerous affairs, and indiscriminate selection of sexual partners; the maintenance of several relationships at the same time; if a son, he may have fathered numerous children; if a daughter, multiple unplanned and unwanted pregnancies and using abortion as birth control.

16. Many short-term relationships—a lack of commitment to a long-term relationship reflected in inconsistent, undependable, and unreliable commitments in life, including marital.

17. Juvenile delinquency—behavior problems between the ages of thirteen and eighteen; mostly behaviors that are crimes or clearly involve aspects of antagonism, exploitation, aggression, manipulation, or a callous, ruthless tough-mindedness.

18. Criminal versatility—a diversity of types of criminal offenses (regardless of whether he has been arrested or convicted for them); sometimes taking great pride at getting away with crimes.

Okay, brace yourself, Mom and Dad. If you answered yes to several of these, you may be surprised to learn that all eighteen traits are actually the “clinical traits” of someone possessing what professionals now refer to as an “antisocial personality disorder,” formerly known as sociopathic behavior.

A sociopath has something wrong with his conscience—either he doesn’t have one or it’s severely fragmented or corrupt. Today, politically correct psychologists often call this a “character disorder,” defined typically as people who don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions and lives. As with any psychological disorder, there are varying degrees to which a person is affected. Yet regardless of the degree to which our adult children possess these alarming traits, they are not beyond our prayers. On the contrary, now is the time we must pray all the harder. Pray and plan.

Yes, by setting in motion a plan whereby we cut the cord of enablement, we are releasing them into a world where they can sink or swim, but we are also releasing them into a world where we can all, parents and children alike, fully realize the power of God to work in miraculous ways to bring his children out of bondage and into a life of utter freedom and peace.

Only God can erase the bitter and painful memories our adult children carry in their mind and heart…and I am not God. Neither are you. We must get out of the way and let God do what only he can. We must temper compassion for our children with wisdom, and we must not confuse compassion with sentimentality.

Although it’s often too late for prevention when it comes to our adult children, it’s never too late for redemption. Our only refuge is in God’s grace and mercy. Restoration and blessing will come after judgment and repentance. He might not be a “good kid” at this point in time, but he is still “God’s kid.” Though the devil may seem to have won a skirmish or two, the battle is still the Lord’s.

If you’re a hurting parent who dearly loves your adult child but longs to see him at last take responsibility for his life, please take a moment to watch the video “But he’s a Good Kid” (Episode 11) on the audio/video page of our web site. It could save your sanity—and maybe even your adult child’s life.

Video clip at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKmt8CcgFmw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBv7AVQEvs4

# # #

Adapted from Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children, Six Steps to Hope and Healing by Allison Bottke © 2008. Harvest House Publishers. All rights reserved.
Visit www.SettingBoundaries.com

Have you ever heard any of these lines from your adult child?

• I’m just too tired
• But Mom, things are different today
• You just don’t understand
• I’ll start on Monday—I promise
• Things will be different this time
• It’s not my fault

When you make the decision to stop enabling your adult child, you will have to be firm in not listening to these common excuses. Real healing begins when a parent stops believing the excuses and lies, and insists on truth. As we develop our action plan for dealing with our adult child, there must be no room for excuses. Our boundaries must be firm. There is a right and a wrong….and we are going to choose to do what’s right. Period.

After years of enabling, I was getting older and wiser—but not wise enough. The subtle ways I continued to enable were becoming clearer to me, but it took a comment from my son to shake me into a reality I had never before experienced—a reality that forever removed the blinders from my eyes, giving me an empowered strength of purpose.

It started as I sat in court—not for the first time—watching my son, who waited in handcuffs and shackles to hear his fate. A long list of charges was read, my son was assigned a public defender, a court date was set, and he was given a $10,000 bail—of which ten percent would be needed for him to leave jail that day.

A stranger tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m your son’s bail bondsman.”

My son had his own bail bondsman. How convenient.

“If you can pay the $1,000, we’ll have him out of here in no time.”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s correct.”

He looked at me as though I’d grown a third eye and then turned shook his head at my son, who scowled in return.

The tears came again. I tried to hold them back, swallowing hard, quickly wiping my already puffy eyes with a handkerchief. My pain was so great, expressed in a seemingly nonstop flow of tears, but I was determined to remain firm.

Somehow my son managed on his own to come up with the money and with someone to guarantee the $10,000 bail in the event he didn’t show up at his hearing. He was out of jail by that afternoon, spouting a list of excuses for what he called a “bogus bust.”

A few days later I was on the phone with a close friend who had talked to my son.

“He said you refused to help him get out of jail.”

“That’s right; I did.”

“Is it true it was only $1,000?”

Only? Clearly, she didn’t understand.

“It’s not about the money anymore,” I said. “I can’t keep doing this.” Once again the tears came. I was so bone-tired from the tears, pain, anguish, and fear for his life.
“His landlord evicted him,” my friend continued. “He has to move, and it’s stressing him out. He says they haven’t got a case. There weren’t any drugs in the house.”

I wasn’t about to get into an argument with my friend; she had no idea the long list of items the SWAT team had removed from his home. She didn’t understand how many times I had sat in a courtroom listening to charges brought against my son. She had no concept of the pain I felt every time I saw my only child in handcuffs and leg chains—or the feeling of talking to him on a prison phone through thick, plate-glass panels. She hadn’t experienced the never-ending list of excuses.

Then came the pivotal situation that helped remove the blinders from my eyes—the final step in my freedom from bondage.

“Allison,” my friend went on, “he said you put on quite a show in the courtroom. That you cried so everyone would feel sorry for you.”

I’ve never been stabbed, but I imagine the pain I felt in my heart at that moment was close to what it would feel like.

“What?” I stammered.

“He said you were crying so people would feel sorry for you.”

I got off the phone as quickly as possible before my friend could discern that I was crying once again, this time going from anguish to anger as her words sank in.

He thought I was crying to gain sympathy?

Clearly, my son was unaware of the depth of my pain—and therefore, I also assumed, the depth of my love. All the years I had come to his rescue out of love for him, out of a desire to keep him safe, to help during his trials and tribulation, all for naught. He didn’t get it. He never got it. Not only didn’t he get it, but he didn’t appreciate it. And at that moment I suddenly realized with crystal clarity that instead of helping him, my actions had hindered him. He had no idea how to feel remorse, empathy, or shame. In fact, I feared he had no idea how to feel at all, and I doubted he knew his behavior was wrong.

Gaining this new level of understanding was like giving sight to a blind man. The remembrance of the raw pain that had coursed through my weary body in that courtroom came back in waves as I weighed the reality of my feelings with my son’s twisted perception of them.
Sympathy? Dear Lord, help me to understand this.
I’d stopped the flow of money long before, yet I still supplied him with “things” that cost me money, so in reality I hadn’t stopped the flow of money at all. I still listened to his never-ending litany of excuses for his circumstances, wanting so much to believe. I showed up yet again in a courtroom to lend my support, to offer my unconditional love, to show him that no matter what he did I still loved him and would be there for him.

The time had come to stop being there for him—at least in this way.

I needed to adopt a different response to my son’s choices. It was time to nip his excuses in the bud, as well as my own excuses for continuing to enable—no matter how subtle. No more would I lay my heart on the chopping block of his uncaring life. It was time for a new set of boundaries, with geographic distance being a key factor.

My son was a fallen human, yet so was I. I had fallen back into old habits of enabling—subtle, yet nonetheless negative and damaging. No longer would I accept the excuses. It was time to go back to the drawing table and revamp the action plan I had developed years before, starting with revised boundaries.

“Lord,” I prayed, “I don’t want to harden my heart, but desire instead to protect it. Please help me to love my son in a way that is also loving to myself. I can’t take this pain anymore. Enough is enough. Please help me to heal my broken heart.”

I was ready to fully address the conflict and the consequences.

I was ready to draw the line in the sand.

I was ready to apply the “N” step in gaining SANITY…”Nip” excuses in the bud.

Are you?

Until next month, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

Allison Bottke
www.SettingBoundaries.com
www.BoomerBabesRock.com

If you’re a hurting parent who dearly loves your adult child but longs to see him at last take responsibility for his life, please take a moment to watch the video “But Mom, I’ve Been Busy” (Episode 5) and “Smoke Rises” (Episode Eight) on the audio/video page of our web site. It could save your sanity—and maybe even your adult child’s life.

Video clip at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZCrrP70BMk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoWna2Oxm9Q

# # #
Adapted from Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children, Six Steps to Hope and Healing by Allison Bottke © 2008. Harvest House Publishers. All rights reserved.
Visit www.SettingBoundaries.com

Let’s face it, dear Boomer Babes, not all adult children are dysfunctional, any more than all parents are enablers. Many adult children have been raised to have deep respect for their parents and themselves. For these children, the thought of taking advantage of anyone, let alone the parents who raised them, is abhorrent. Let’s call these children functioning adult children.

However, for many of us, that term does not describe our adult children. Instead, we “parents in pain” dream about seeing our adult children live as independent, functioning adults instead of the dependent, dysfunctional adult children they have become. And no doubt many enabling parents would argue that their adult children are incapable of taking care of themselves. That may be true. However, is this because of a real physical handicap, a viable developmental disability, or have years of enabling crippled your adult child?  And if crippled, is this disability temporary or permanent?  If temporary, what can we parents do to help reverse the disability and see our adult children take responsibility for themselves?

The first step is for us to accept any part we may have played in making our adult children whom—and what—they’ve become. We also need a better understanding of the difference between helping and enabling, and the wisdom and willingness to make the necessary changes in our own lives when at last we truly recognize the difference.

What Is the Difference Between Helping and Enabling?

Helping is doing something for someone that he is not capable of doing himself.

Enabling is doing for someone things that he could and should be doing himself.

An enabler is a person who recognizes that a negative circumstance is occurring on a regular basis and yet continues to enable the person with the problem to persist with his detrimental behaviors. Simply, enabling creates an atmosphere in which our adult children can comfortably continue their unacceptable behavior.

When we continue to allow these behaviors to occur, we are setting a pattern of behavior in our children that will be hard to change. We are enabling their repeated inappropriate behavior.  Then we repeat the enabling pattern with the result of instilling bad habits and accepting what should be unacceptable behavior for so many years that it eventually becomes as natural to many of us as breathing. Yet all the while, a nagging feeling deep in our heart and soul tells us something is very wrong.

Are You an Enabling Parent?
Here are a few questions that might help you determine if you are an enabling parent.

1. Have you loaned him money repeatedly, seldom (if ever) being repaid?
2. Have you paid for education and/or job training in more than one field?
3. Have you finished a job or project that he failed to complete himself because it was easier than arguing with him?
4. Have you paid bills he was supposed to have paid himself?
5. Have you accepted part of the blame for his addictions or behavior?
6. Have you avoided talking about negative issues because you feared his response?
7. Have you bailed him out of jail or paid for his legal fees?
8. Have you given him “one more chance” and then another and another?
9. Have you ever returned home at lunchtime (or called) and found him still in bed sleeping?
10. Have you wondered how he gets money to buy cigarettes, video games, new clothes, and such but can’t afford to pay his own bills?

If you answered yes to several of these questions, chances are at some point in time you have enabled your adult child to avoid his own responsibilities—to escape the consequences of his actions. Rather than help your child grow into a productive and responsible adult, you have made it easier for him to get worse.

To put it simply, your helping is hurting—and it’s time to stop. Although it’s high time many of our adult children begin to accept the consequences of their choices, the plain truth is we must first accept the responsibility for our own choices—past, present, and future. We must stop doing what we’ve been doing.

Our biggest problem isn’t about our adult child’s inability to wake up when their alarm clock rings, or their inability to keep a schedule, or their inability to hold down a job or pay their bills. It’s not about their drug use or alcohol addictions. It’s not about the mess they’re making of their life.  The main problem is about the part we’re playing in stepping in to soften the blow of the consequences that come from the choices they make.

The main problem is us.

Ending Enabling Behavior
From my experience, I’ve come to learn four life-saving truths about changing enabling behavior.

• We can pray for the power to change ourselves.
• We can help (not enable) adult children of any age develop wings to fly on their own.
• We can find comfort in knowing we are not alone on this journey.
• We can take back our life!

However, it’s going to take time—dear Boomer Babes. We didn’t get this way overnight—but we can change. We can learn the difference between helping and enabling.

If you’re a hurting parent who dearly loves your adult child but longs to see him at last take responsibility for his life, please take a moment to watch the video “When Helping Hurts” (Episode 6) on the audio/video page of my web site. It could save your sanity—and maybe even your adult child’s life.

Video clip at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B514OfAUQ1g

http://www.settingboundaries.com/audio-and-video/

Until next month, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

Allison Bottke
www.SettingBoundaries.com
www.BoomerBabesRock.com

This is month two in our twelve month series on Setting Boundaries and Gaining SANITY. Last month, we discussed the importance of learning how to rest…to be still and know God in a more intimate way. In order to do that, many boomer babes must learn how and when to say, “No.” God does not require us to be everything to everyone. His desire is for us to have an intimate and meaningful relationship with His Son. In order to do that, we must spend quiet time in the Word of God. This isn’t always easy for us boomer babes, is it? By the time we’ve reached this point in life, many of us have habits that are hard to break. Hard—but not impossible, SANITY is possible.

It’s no secret that our country is experiencing a financial crisis. Depending on who you consult, the reasons for this situation are varied, and the outcome is unknown. However, if we look to the Word of God, we can clearly see an historic pattern from which we can learn. Whenever people put money and social status before God, the walls of pseudo safety eventually crumbled on top of them.

Matthew 6:20-22 (NIV)

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

This passage takes on new meaning when all around us the destruction of financial decay is evident. Many baby boomers have suddenly found themselves in positions they could never have envisioned. Struggling financially, and losing more than just money. Many boomers are losing jobs, homes, marriages, and stability. They are being rocked to the core. Yet through the ashes we can see people of faith and vision rise up. We can see, first hand, what it means to actually walk the talk of someone who believes that God will make a way when there truly seems to be no way.

Quite simply, it’s not about how much money we have or don’t have. It’s about how willing we are to place our trust in God. We’ve grown uncontrollably in ways that are spiritually unhealthy, and we are no longer bearing the kind of fruit needed to further the kingdom. It’s time for considerable pruning. The Master Gardner is at work and I am trusting that the season will come again when we experience the lush crop of God’s glory. Our challenge during this time of divine pruning is to sink our roots deeper, and to grow in relationship with Him.

Pruning is painful but profitable. James tells us this in James 1:2-4.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Until next month, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

©2009, Allison Bottke

Allison Bottke
www.SettingBoundaries.com
www.BoomerBabesRock.com

In the publishing world, January is the month of New Year resolution stories and weight loss programs. It’s the introduction to a season of slimming and exercise that begins with zeal, but so often ends with resignation.

This year, instead of a focus on weight and body image, the publishing focus seems to have shifted to finding financial peace and emotional balance. Everywhere we look people are hunkering down to weather the storm of a recession that has “officially” arrived. Magazine and newspaper articles are exploring what it means to live simply, be thrifty, cut back and make changes.

I’ve always been a thrifty Boomer Babe. I was raised in the projects of Cleveland, and I learned the value of shopping at the Goodwill store at a very early age. Consignment shops are so much a part of my life that I’ve set my next boomer babe novel inside of one. But I digress. We were talking about the shift in focus. Even Oprah has had an “ah ha moment” about reassessing this recurring theme of weight in her own life.

 “If you’re looking for an excuse to fall off the wagon, the universe will provide one. That’s what I’ve learned. It’s not enough to simply claim to care about yourself, when you believe that you are worthy of the space you occupy on the planet, you demonstrate that by insisting that every last one of your choices—from the food you put in your mouth to the commitments you place on your calendar—moves you toward the life you want. This past year, I completely took myself off my own priority list. I wasn’t just low on the list, I wasn’t even on the list. What I’ve realized is that no self-care means no self-love. We all need to make 2009 the year we give ourselves as much love and support as we give others.”

While some may think this is incredibly selfish, the simple fact of the matter is that we won’t be worth a hill of beans if we kill ourselves by always saying yes to others and putting our own needs last. We must gain SANITY and learn the difference between helping and enabling. Like Oprah says, we need to give ourselves love and support as well as others. 

Yes, Scripture tells us it is better to give than to receive. But it also tells us that we must take the time to recover our own life, to rest. In essence, a healthy dose of self love.

In her newest book, Rest – Living in Sabbath Simplicity (Zondervan Publishing), author and fellow Boomer Babe Keri Wyatt Kent opens with Scripture from Matthew 11:28.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. (The Message Version)

Let 2009 be the year we not only get in shape physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well. The year we gain SANITY by understanding that giving love and support is not always saying “yes,” it’s not always “coming to the rescue.” It’s time we learn how to rest…to be still and know God in a more intimate way.

The 6 Steps to SANITY as outlined in my newest book start with the most important step when we decide to make any change in our life. We must “S = STOP.” Stop the negative behavior that keeps us running like gerbils on a wheel.
 
It’s not about how many times we try and fail. It’s about having the willpower to stop what isn’t working and try something new. Bob Greene, Oprah’s trainer, says, “Each new effort brings us closer to the one that might really work.” Joel Osteen, Pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston says that we can’t ever give up trying to be the best we can be, because we just don’t know if we “might be on the edge of a breakthrough blessing that will change our life.”

Let 2009 be the year we set healthy boundaries in all areas of our life. The year we claim our breakthrough blessing! The year we take responsibility for the choices we make. The year we really make a U-Turn toward God, and start the journey that will bring us closer to actually being a new creation in God. The year we learn how to say no to choices that keep us in bondage and yes to the things that truly bring us SANITY.

Join me next month as we continue our new 12-month series on Setting Boundaries and Gaining SANITY. We’ll explore what it means to make choices that will change the story of our life. I’d also like to invite you to visit our new revised web site and come see me LIVE as I tour the country and offer online LIVE webcasts. It’s time for us Boomer Babes to live the sane life God wants us to live.

Until next month, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

Allison Bottke
www.SettingBoundaries.com
www.BoomerBabesRock.com

If there’s one thing Boomer Babes have in common, it’s the realization that time flies more quickly the older we get. Although other generations may echo this sentiment, it seems to me that boomers tend to be more acutely aware not only of the speed with which time passes, but also of the inherent value of time itself.

When I decided the theme for my 2008 CWO column would be FREEDOM, I had no idea how God would use our time together throughout the course of the year. As 2008 began, I wasn’t certain how I was going to come up with new stories to share every month, centered on freedom to be all God intends us to be. I knew only that it was a theme placed on my heart, and that God would make a way.

And make a way He most assuredly did. Your emails about the FREEDOM theme touched my heart. Thank you for reading and for responding. Yet even though Scripture teaches us in John 8:32 that, “…the truth will set you free,” it seems many of us still struggle with issues of bondage in some form or another. We are not living lives of freedom. Many of my Boomer Babe sisters tell me they believe freedom from bondage is possible through what Jesus Christ did for us on the Calvary cross, yet in many ways, they still live as captives in chains. Many of my Boomer Babe sisters are in bondage to people, places, things, behaviors, attitudes, habits, and choices. We are letting time pass us by, never fully experiencing the true joy of life.

This past year Harvest House Publishers released my newest non-fiction book focused on finding hope and healing for those of us struggling with dysfunctional adult children. Although I suspected it was an epidemic issue when I conducted the research for the book and wrote it, I had no way to predict how readers would respond to Setting Boundaries with Your Adult Children. After eleven months of availability at bookstores around the country, the sales figures continue to climb. It seems the 6 Steps to SANITY have struck a chord with readers.

I speak to fellow Boomer Babes every day who share the sheer frustration of so many out-of-control life situations. I call it living on “the gerbil wheel of a dizzy life,” when we continue to go ‘round and ‘round and ‘round, with no end in sight. Many call it INSANITY, when we repeat the same actions and behaviors and expect different results.

Are you ready to STOP THE INSANITY? If another year has flown by and you find yourself still … (fill in the blank) I’m inviting you to join me throughout the next twelve months as we take the concept of freedom to a higher level. Let’s work together to find SANITY!

I want to let you in on a little known secret that I personally discovered as I applied the 6 Steps to SANITY to my relationship with my adult son. I discovered that the same 6 Steps to SANITY apply to just about every area of life! I’ve learned so many amazing lessons this past year as I have journeyed on the road to SANITY. Please join me in 2009 as I share SANITY with you. What it means, why we don’t have it, why Satan wants to keep us from acquiring it, and most vital, how we can get it!

That said, I’m going to leave you with my list of the top ten things I learned this past year. Here’s to a blessed Holy Season and to a beautiful New Year!

The Top Ten Things I Learned in 2008

10. We can apply the 6 Steps to SANITY in all areas of life, not just in relationships with our adult children.

9. We enable far more people in life than our adult children.

8. Everyone has been placed here for such a time as this. We all have a story to tell.

7. Whether that story is for one, one hundred, one thousand, or more, it’s a story that must be told.

6. If we don’t pursue the dreams of our heart, no one will.

5. Living a life of FREEDOM in Christ is not passive. It requires ongoing active choices.

4. The most important things in life are not things.

3. The choices we make change the story of our life.

2. God will always make a way where there seems to be no way.

…and the drum roll please….the Number One thing I learned in 2008…

1. God is in control. Always has been and always will be.

Until next year, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

Allison Bottke

www.AllisonBottke.com

www.BoomerBabesRock.com

www.SettingBoundaries.com

How appropriate that our CWO theme this month is change. As the leaves begin to turn and the air takes on a cooler complexion, it’s clear that seasonal change is upon us. Yet, these weather changes are reasonably predictable. After all, as boomer babes we’ve seen several decades of climate changes—right? We know what’s coming down the pike.

However, it is life changes that I’d like to talk about today. The changes that often take us by surprise, the changes we can’t predict. The changes we survive only through fervent prayer and by the sheer grace of God.

This past week I received two complimentary books in the mail from two different publicists. Publicists often send me things to share with my fellow boomer babes. A benefit of writing this column, mind you, which I appreciate (and love) very much! Receiving both of these books at this particular time seemed more than a coincidence—since they both focus on change.

Staging Your Comeback – A Complete Beauty Revival for Women Over 45
By Christopher Hopkins, The Makeover Guy

and

Starting from Scratch When You’re Single Again
By Sharon M. Knudson and Mary Fran Heitzman

Both books address the topic of change in two very different ways. The first encourages us to look at our outer appearance and to assess what needs changing. Not a bad thing to do at any age, but particularly important when we’re over fifty and still wearing little plastic butterfly barrettes in our hair. (After getting rid of said barrettes, I also cleaned out my closet, dressing table, and jewelry box.) This was a very good exercise and I must say the book opened my eyes to things I never considered concerning my body type and coloring. As the season changes, I look forward to changing my style as well. I’m ready. How about you?

As for the second book, the changes it addresses are far more serious—far more life transforming than any closet culling. Starting from Scratch When You’re Single Again carries the voices of twenty-three women who have, through divorce or death of a loved one, survived a horrific blow to their dreams of happiness and security. Their experiences resound with the message that you can get through the grief, and not only survive; but also thrive.

Filled with page after page of hope and healing—the authors discuss change in a way that any boomer babe who is experiencing this time in life will more than appreciate. Run, don’t walk to your bookstore if your journey of change has taken this unexpected path.

I’d like to leave you with a guiding principle directly from the book. For any boomer babe who is going through the painful change of starting over again, take heed. God will always make a way where there seems to be no way.

“Choose your fear and conquer it. Walk through your pain, and you will eventually see the other side. If you step out in faith, you will overcome the very thing that paralyzes you. If you don’t, you can get stuck in your past and forfeit your future.

Remember this: God designed us to overcome, and the God we cling to is our only strength. Surrender your fear of failing to Him, and let Him take you across your hurdles. It is not about trust.”

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.
—Hebrews 10:35-36

If more than seasonal change is in the air for you, trust what Scripture teaches us in Jeremiah 31:3-4

I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt.

Until next month, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

©2008, Allison Bottke
www.AllisonBottke.com

Allison Bottke, September 2008

My dear friend, Eva Marie Everson, grew up in a rural southern town in Georgia just outside of Savannah. She is married, has four children and five grandchildren, and lives in Central Florida. She taught Old Testament theology for six years at Life Training Center in Longwood, Florida and has written numerous articles for Crosswalk.com, including the acclaimed Falling Into The Bible series. She’s had articles featured in numerous publications, and radio, television, newspaper, and Internet media outlets have interviewed her.

Eva Marie is a graduate and student of Andersonville Theological Seminary, past-president of AWSA’s (Advanced Writers & Speakers Association) steering committee and the recipient of their Member of the Year Award for 2002, past president of Word Weavers, a graduate of CLASS, a mentor with Jerry B. Jenkins’s Christian Writers Guild, and a member of a number of organizations for writers. She speaks nationally and internationally. Many of you may also know Eva Marie as one of my regular columnists for the Boomer Babes Rock Blog.

After reading that long list of credentials, most folks would say Eva Marie Everson has a very impressive resume—that the girl has “done some livin’!” I would have to agree. That she has. Most of us Boomer Babes have done a powerful lot ‘o livin!

But Eva Marie doesn’t just live—she shares what she’s lived in such a way as to shed light on people, places and things many of us will never see this side of heaven. She’s been given a rare gift from God to interpret what she experiences and filter it through a process that eventually makes its way into lessons, stories, journals, columns, and books. She shares what she lives and we can become better people—wiser people—because of her journey. I like that about my friend. I like that God uses her to help me be a better person, a smarter person, a godlier person. We all need an Eva Marie in our life. I’d like to share her with you today.

In 2002 Eva Marie was one of six Christian journalists sent to Israel for a special ten-day press tour. During those ten days, she was forever changed when she “fell into the Bible” in such a profound way, she would never again view the Holy Land the same. Personally, I feel God reached down and picked her up with his mighty hands, intentionally filling her with insight and wisdom He intended her to share with contemporary men and women today. He gave her a mission, and she has been a good and faithful servant.

I’ve never been to Israel. Frankly, I’m one of those Boomer Babes who has a very hard time understanding and remembering Biblical history, or keeping people and places straight in my mind. But, I love the Bible. My faith gets stronger every year I’m alive and I never doubt that God is doing amazing things in my life. I trust He is in control.

Yet still, I have a tough time understanding the Holy Land. This month, I think that may change.

This month, Eva Marie’s newest book releases. It has been in development for over six years. I’ve been blessed to travel this creative journey with my friend and I feel as though in some small way, I, too, am giving birth to a new project. It’s not my baby, per say, but I’m just as excited to see it born.

Reflections of God’s Holy Land: A Personal Journey Through Israel will help us to understand as never before the origin of the Word of God, and the Land of His Heartbeat. One way it does this is by combining Eva Marie’s talents with those of Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, a Jewish best-selling author who holds a Masters in Archeology and Heritage.

Billed as a “unique armchair tour of Israel,” the beautiful hardcover book includes four-color photographs, related scriptures, historical and archaeological information about each of the sites, and a description of what it looks and feels like to be there today and even in years past. Providing more than a coffee table book of slick photographs, Eva Marie and Miriam enlighten us with a deeper understanding of the land of Israel—the land that holds not only God’s story but also the story of His people.

Beautiful photographs with cross-referenced scriptures of 44 significant biblical locations and historical and archaeological comment and present-day perspective, make this an even more exciting addition to our personal library. Published by Thomas Nelson and releasing September 2, 2008 I encourage my Boomer Babe sisters to get your copy today.

I don’t usually spend an entire column pitching someone’s newest book. However, I think Reflections of God’s Holy Land is more than just a book. As faithful Boomer Babes, I know we want to grow our relationship with God.

Understanding where He came from, where His Son walked, and where the Holy Spirit was made known—is key to growing our faith. With this months’ column, I’m hoping to introduce a new resource that will strengthen our faith.

I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. Moreover, I would like to invite my Boomer Babe sisters to discover this treasure with me. After you pick up your copy, write to me at Allison@allisonbotttke.com and tell me what you think of it. I encourage you to stop by Eva Marie Everson’s web site and tell her what you think of her new baby. Make sure to tell her that Allison sent you.

Oh! You simply must watch the short video clip of Eva Marie talking about her new book on God Tube. Click here

Until next month, dear Boomer Babes who Rock, may the good Lord bless and keep you all!

©2008, Allison Bottke

Greetings fellow Boomer Babes! You know the theme for my Boomer Babes Rock column this year has been “Freedom.” Because I am on a series of crazy deadlines, I decided to exercise this freedom. “The Freedom to Recycle a Previously Published Freelance Article.”

Someone asked me recently about my time as a Plus Size model with the Wilhelmina Agency in California. I found an article that was published years ago and am sharing it with you this month. Warning, this is a long article, but hopefully you will enjoy it. Have a blessed August!

All I could see were ribs and bones—sharp angles jutting out from skin stretched thin like plastic wrap over leftovers. Except these weren’t leftovers. Throughout the dressing room in various stages of undress were some of the countries most well known fashion models, with me in the center, like the puffy cream filling of an éclair.

“Ladies, this is Allison Gappa, our plus-size model. She’ll be representing Alfred Angelo’s new wedding dress line for the full figured woman.”

The stares were cold, the greetings mumbled. As though fat women never got married.

“Hi, my name is Sharri,” said a lovely woman, holding out her hand. “Welcome to the hive, be careful of the stingers.” And off she went.

Thus began my career as a Wilhelmina model beginning with a televised fashion show on the A.M. Los Angeles Show. It was late in the 1970’s and I was the second plus-size model the prestigious world-renowned agency had ever hired. Filling a niche category that had begun to blossom, I stuck out like a thorn among roses.

At over 200 pounds, I was a size 18-20. The women I would work with over the next few years on runway fashion shows, in print ads for catalogs, on television commercials and on various women’s programs, were all one-digit sizes like threes and sixes. Most weighed less than 110 pounds. I felt like a Sumo wrestler among a cast of delicate ballerinas.

“Where are these women’s breasts?” I remember thinking that first day, looking at my own bosoms as though I’d somehow grown grotesque foreign objects from my chest. My bones were carefully protected beneath layers of skin and fat—as was my heart and soul.

As a young single mom in my early twenties, I had moved to southern California from Cleveland, Ohio to pursue my lifelong dream of acting and screenwriting. Assuring my young eight-year-old son that living near Disneyland would be heaven on earth for us, it was the start of an adventure that over the next several decades would turn into a nightmare of epic proportions as I searched for peace, making one wrong turn after another, taking frequent road trips from chaos to contentment and back again.

That two-year adventure into the world of plus-size modeling came unexpectedly, and full-page ads for Levi-Strauss, Pendleton Knitwear, and Gloria Vanderbilt followed. Runway shows, commercials, and an agent on Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, were quite heady experiences for a girl from the projects of Cleveland, Ohio.

I traveled with a wild Hollywood crowd, living on coffee, booze, and speed—and as you might expect, I began to lose weight. My modeling career ended when I lost too much weight to qualify as a full-figure model. However, that lost weight didn’t stay lost, and I would lose and gain and lose and gain hundreds of pounds during this decade.

I remarried and divorced again, and over the years would become engaged to and live with four different men. All those broken engagements and frequent extreme weight gains and losses left me even more emotionally crippled. More than one abortion left additional scar tissue on my body, heart, and soul. Moving more than a dozen times, uprooting my son from every school and every friend he had during his formative years, I was always searching for something more, something different, and something better. I now know I wasn’t searching, I was running. Peace eluded me. I hit one dead end after another, never understanding what I lacked was a Navigator who could help me chart a new course and stay on track. I lacked the spiritual balance that brings personal peace.

For a long time I did not believe in God. How blessed I am that He never stopped believing in me. Not only did I not believe in God, but also I was without hope, and I trusted no one. Without God, I was truly lost.

It had not always been that way. As a little girl, during summer vacation, I loved attending Vacation Bible School at a church in Cleveland, Ohio. We did not attend church on a regular basis. Ours was not a Christian home in the sense that God was an active part of our upbringing. But we knew the Ten Commandments, and Mom exhibited the values of a Christian woman by the example she set for her three children.

Yet we were children confused by the divorce of their parents and the accompanying difficulties of living as welfare recipients on the edge of poverty.

As a teenager, I felt distant from girls my own age, and I rebelled strongly against all authority. It was no surprise that I would choose to run away and get married when I met “Mr. Right.” Except he wasn’t. The horrific year I spent married to a man whose physical and emotional abuse almost killed me dispelled any remaining vestiges of my belief in a higher power watching over me.

For most of my adult life, I could not move toward forgiveness and healing, a key factor in my eventual battle with weight. I was angry and hurt, and I couldn’t forgive my husband. I blamed myself, then him, then my childhood, then back to my husband. My feelings were all over the playing board, and during my pregnancy at the age of sixteen, I began to stuff that painful emptiness and hopelessness with food. After my son’s birth, I added drugs, alcohol, and empty relationships to the mix. Gaining one hundred pounds with my pregnancy was the start of a battle with weight that would last for more than thirty years.

A pattern had developed over the years concerning my weight. Using various “extreme deprivation diets,” including diet pills, shots, and liquid protein fasts, I would drop significant amounts of weight in short periods of time. I just knew I could find peace and contentment if I could only lose weight. Over the years, my weight would go from 150 to 190 to 230 to 130 to 180 to 200 to 175—up and down and up and down. My highest weight was 280 pounds.

Far more damaging than excess weight was my total entrenchment in New Age theology and my unequivocal stance on Christianity. “There is no God other than the god-like power we carry within ourselves,” I spouted. A teaching I believed and preached over and over to my young son from the time he was a baby.

For the next decade, I floated aimlessly, charting my own course. Throwing myself whole-heartedly into everything I did from work to play, on the surface folks thought I had it all together. Internally, I was a pressure cooker waiting to explode.

After my brief foray into modeling ended, I began what would become a twenty-plus-year career as a professional fundraiser and special event planner for non-profit organizations. My freelance writing career was moving along, and I had been published in Cosmopolitan and Ladies Home Journal magazines. I also spent several years as the playwright-in-residence at a small theatre where three of my full-length plays were produced.

I filled my days with busy take-charge tasks, always on the move, always on a schedule, always following a list. I filled my nights with alcohol, drugs, and self-destruction. I filled my soul with empty promises and emptier pursuits. On the outside, folks thought I had it all together, on the inside I was dying.

My life caromed out of control as I continually reinvented myself over the years. By the time I reached my late twenties, a time when many of us are just beginning our families and settling down, I had a teenage son who had, in his turn, become the out-of-control rebel, causing me to slip further into an abyss of guilt, self-blame, and hopelessness.

Why couldn’t I find happiness? Why did it seem as though nothing I did worked out? Why did I feel so worthless, so insecure? The feelings of utter helplessness and hopelessness, of unrealized dreams, broken promises, and dead-end streets overwhelmed me. How we come through times of struggle often depends on our level of faith and hope, and at that time I had neither. As a non-believer, there was no room in my life for a higher power greater than myself. It took years to discover that I was attempting to fill the empty hole in my soul with everything except faith, hope, love, and joy. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought to find comfort, direction and peace in faith. I now know there is a place in our heart only God can fill. I now know I had to leave the past behind and make a life-changing turn in another direction.

Jesus Christ took my broken spirit and my lost soul, filled with guilt and pain, and turned me around, setting me on a new course. He filled that empty place in my soul I was trying so desperately to fill with drugs, alcohol, relationships, material goods, work, and empty pursuits. He forgave me the sins that weighed heavy on my heart, showing me I no longer had to carry the burden alone. He brought peace into my life. He can do the same for you.

I did not “get religion.” I made a spiritual connection that turned my life around. I “got a relationship”— a relationship with Jesus Christ. I know in my heart that no matter what we have done, no matter where we have been, it is never too late to fill that empty place in our heart and soul. It is never too late to change direction, because GOD ALLOWS U-TURNS!

Yet even with God as my Navigator, my issues with weight still loomed heavy on my heart, no pun intended, and while the peace I felt in knowing God transformed my life, there was still work to be done.

I will never forget the day I first heard the words “Morbidly Obese” associated with my weight. It was late 1995; I was living in Minnesota and had been married to Kevin a short six months. I was forty years old and had stopped running the diet treadmill years before, resigned to being “overweight.” I seldom got on the scale, oblivious to the numbers that for decades had ruled my life. I was happily married to a man who loved me for who I was, not how much I weighed. I took care of myself, ate healthy foods, and took vitamins and nutritional supplements. My emotional health was the best it had ever been, my spiritual walk was strong and focused, and my writing career was moving forward. Essentially my life was really very good. My road trip to peace had become a successful journey.

Physically, however, my body was a wreck; I could barely walk up a flight of stairs without passing out. Now, my heart stuck in my throat as I looked down at my medical chart to see the words “morbidly obese” written next to my name. Tears stung my eyes as I tried to comprehend what the doctor had written before being called away, leaving my chart open on the desk.

“Morbidly obese? How dare he!”

My initial anger gave way to a deep, incomprehensible pain as the truth of his words sunk in. Yes, sometimes truth is painful. As though nothing had happened, I tried valiantly to maintain my composure when the doctor returned; yet, my heart was breaking.

“Oh, God,” I cried out when I got to my car. “What is wrong with me? Why after all of these years, why after coming so far on my faith journey am I still battling this demon of weight?” Crying, I rested my head on the steering wheel, as “morbidly obese” played across my mind’s eye like words on an electronic ticker-tape message board. I was so weary of the weight loss dance, lose a few pounds, gain a few more, lose some, gain it back, and ’round and ’round I went like the little plastic ballerina that spun on the jewelry box I had as a girl. Sitting there sobbing, I prayed to God for the roller coaster ride to end.

And end it did. In October of 2000, tipping the scales at 280 pounds, I had finally reached a place in life where my physical co-morbidities were becoming life threatening. Having gastric bypass weight loss surgery seemed a viable alternative to enable me to stay alive.

Today, thanks to life-saving surgery, I’m 120 pounds lighter and I’ve kept it off for almost eight years. My life journey has been rocky to say the least, but I’ve found a peace and contentment I had never dreamed was possible, and it’s not because I got thin. It’s because I got God. God brought me peace of heart and mind—and a miraculous medical procedure brought me peace of body.

Knowing that God must come before all else brought me the wisdom to make choices that would change the story of my life.

©2008, Allison Bottke

End Note: To see more of Allison’s Before and After photographs visit her web site here:

http://www.allisonbottke.com/weight_loss.htm