My father always seemed to delight in annoying my sister and me when we were children. He would take us someplace wonderful, such as a carnival or amusement park, send us on the ride of our choice, and at the end of the ride, never failed to ask, “Are you having fun?”

With much eye-rolling, we would answer, “Yes, Dad.”

He’d laugh and retort, “Tell your faces!”

I never fully understood this then.

My husband and one of his best friends have a game they like to play, which involves the two of them walking down the street and smiling at people – No big deal, no words, just simple smiles. The first one to get a smile in return wins. They claim they have never won.

This always struck me as odd, because I felt that people always smiled at me. Recently, however, I have become aware of the many people who don’t return my near-permanent expression of greeting. At first, I felt frustrated and sad about not getting smiles, but now, I feel bad for the people who can’t even manage to tell their faces to cheer up a bit. Every time I see a dour expression, I am reminded that not everyone knows how to find joy in their lives, and am thankful for the happiness I have in mine.

This feeling was driven home by a horrible man who recently assaulted one of our writers at an LA charity event. After several days of thought, our writer decided not to burden herself with the stress pressing charges would entail, and instead will just let the unfortunate incident fade away to a distant memory.

I really have to wonder, though, how bad this man’s life must be, that he would attack a woman in full view of cameras and other recording equipment. How removed from himself and his ability to find happiness must he be for this to happen?

Reminding myself that I have found a greater happiness than he currently knows exists helps my anger to dissipate, and a tip I told my husband years ago has also come in handy for me here. I picture the man shrinking down to a tiny speck on the palm of my hand, and blow him away. Not only does this help me to feel better, but, in the past, this trick has been routinely followed up by “coincidences” such as irksome co-workers’ office departments relocating to other floors.

One of my friends, a mother of three, was joking with me about the Burnt Toast Syndrome a while back. This is the drive which leads loving mothers to eat the burnt toast themselves, as they want their families to have only the best. I suspect every dedicated parent understands this theory, and many are probably living “Burnt Toast” lives.

Yes, it is important to care for your family. You don’t want them to get sick, or feel a lack of support. And you want them to live happy, peaceful lives – without stress. So, you run around everywhere, spending every ounce of your own energy taking care of your loved ones.

I want to offer every part of my being to caring for my family, and definitely find myself suddenly hustling to prepare dinner without having had time to even eat my own lunch yet; but I always hear that little voice telling me not to forget about myself. At first, this made me feel terribly selfish – How could I think about myself when I have two little ones who need me? Then, after a few bouts of illness, and publishing an interview with Leeza Gibbons, everything became crystal clear.

If I get sick, my family suffers. My husband has to fill in for me as Mommy, and my children are left to bare-minimum daytime attention. This is just in the case of a short-term illness, from pushing myself too hard, and sacrificing too much of my own health in just a matter of weeks or months. What happens over years of such self-neglect?

I watched my own parents suffer over the decline of their parents, with the years of smoking and poor diet having had an obvious effect. What parent wants to do that to their children, no matter how old they are? So, it is with this in mind that I ask myself, ‘Did I eat well today?’ as I head off to bed before I am too tired to sleep.

Do you wonder sometimes what you are manifesting, and what you are just foreseeing? Both skills have a ‘feeling’ to them that tell you they are real. But if you see a cat running across a road, and you ‘feel’ that it is going to be hit by a car, how can you tell if you are creating it or if you are just seeing it happen, seconds before it does?

Sometimes I get the feeling that something is going to happen, such as my husband is going to cut himself while chopping veg, and am able to avert the situation by giving a warning. Often, if I don’t say anything he is holding his hand under the tap several seconds later. (I do think that I sometimes give “Mommy warnings”, though – These are the seemingly unending warnings about the dangers mommies see everywhere.)

The good thing is, if I don’t sense any danger, things tend to flow smoothly.

I didn’t realize how much I tend to rely on this sense, until recently when one of my daughter’s toys broke. She had mentioned this toy out of the blue during the afternoon, and that evening it was bumped, fell off the table and broke. Aside from being crushed that one of her cherished toys had broken, I was truly distressed that I hadn’t picked up on any hints that it was going to happen.

Still, how can one tell if the ‘feeling’ is coming from premonition, or manifestation? Or does it even matter?

Here is something to try when you do sense an oncoming disaster: Instantly ‘create’ a positive situation when you sense a negative one coming. Just mentally erase the unwanted scenario, and replace it with your desired outcome. Of course, the key here is to stay completely calm and centered. If panic sets in, it is nearly impossible manage much of anything useful!

People have asked me about my thoughts on Steve Pavlina’s How To Be A Man – in particular, his views on how a man should relate to his family in relation to his personal goals. While I am pretty sure he didn’t mean to make the ideal man sound like a Dead-Beat Dad, that is how it came across to me and, apparently, many others. Steve’s text is in italics below, with my thoughts afterwards.

1. Make real decisions.

A man understands and respects the power of choice. He lives a life of his own creation. He knows that life stagnates when he fails to decide and flourishes when he chooses a clear path.

When a man makes a decision, he opens the door he wants and closes the doors he doesn’t want. He locks onto his target like a guided missile. There’s no guarantee he’ll reach his target, and he knows this, but he doesn’t need such guarantees. He simply enjoys the sense of inevitability that comes from pushing the launch button.

A man doesn’t require the approval of others. He’s willing to follow his heart wherever it leads him. When a man is following his heart-centered path, it’s of little consequence if the entire world is against him.

I agree that making decisions in an extremely important step for individuals to live full lives. However, the way it was written on Steve’s blog could easily describe a typical absent father, who just runs out on his family because the door he wants to go through doesn’t involve them.

Life should flow, much like water does. Feel the most natural direction and go with it, unafraid of conditions ahead. Too much worry over choices will leave your life nothing more than a stagnant pond. But, just as a healthy stream carries life, a man will carry his family, nourishing them and introducing them to new adventures along the way.

2. Put your relationships second.

A man who claims his #1 commitment in life is his relationship partner (or his family) is either too dishonest or too weak to be trusted. His loyalties are misplaced. A man who values individuals above his own integrity is a wretch, not a free thinker.

A man knows he must commit to something greater than satisfying the needs of a few people. He’s not willing to be domesticated, but he is willing to accept the responsibility that comes with greater challenges. He knows that when he shirks that duty, he becomes something less than a man. When others observe that the man is unyieldingly committed to his values and ideals, he gains their trust and respect, even when he cannot gain their direct support. The surest way for a man to lose the respect of others (as well as his self-respect) is to violate his own values.

Life will test the man to see if he’s willing to put loyalty to others ahead of loyalty to his principles. The man will be offered many temptations to expose his true loyalties. A man’s greatest reward is to live with integrity, and his greatest punishment is what he inflicts upon himself for placing anything above his integrity. Whenever the man sacrifices his integrity, he loses his freedom… and himself as well. He becomes an object of pity.

Put your relationships second?? If a man is in a relationship that isn’t going to allow him to stick to what he believes, he needs to find a different partner. A strong, loving partnership will only add to his integrity, and a loving spouse who knows that she comes first in his life will only add her strength to his, rather than create weaknesses with her insecurity over their relationship.

This doesn’t just go for men, either. A healthy partnership will work together for a mutual goal in a complimentary fashion. I am truly surprised by his answer here, as it seems to me that Steve and his wife have a very supportive partnership, and that without her support, he wouldn’t have achieved what he has. The man he is describing is a very lonely one, who, at the end of his life, has a large fortune but no one to organize his funeral.

In response to Steve Pavlina’s How To Be A Man:

1. Be Strong – It seems too obvious to even mention, but here it is. Man or woman, strength is a key ingredient to a good life. Stand up for yourself, and you won’t regret it. If you let people intimidate you, or make your choices for you, you will travel on a downward path towards bitterness and low-self esteem. You are the best person to know your own mind and stand up for what you feel is best.

2. Choose the Right Friends – Time spent with friends should be an energizing time of self-discovery and mutual support. If you aren’t getting that from your friends, ask yourself why. Do you have a cycle of negativity with them? If so, perhaps it is time to stir things up a bit.

3. Choose the Right Partner – Regardless of whether or not you plan to have children, ask yourself, ‘Would this person be good enough to raise my children?’ If the answer is no, then why is he/she good enough for you? Which brings us to number 4:

4. Love Yourself – Treat yourself with the same love and respect you would wish for your children. Once you reach adulthood, you are your own child, after all. You are the one responsible for your own health and happiness, so don’t leave yourself alone and abandoned by the only one able to see you through every moment of your life. You are the most special person in your life. Without this love, you cannot properly care for anyone else.

5. Channel Your Inner Mother – You are female, and therefore, something inside you is made to be a mother in some sense. Embrace this part of you, and speak out against people who are doing bad things, congratulate those who are doing good things and support those who could use a little more strength in what they are doing. Be a mother to your family, neighborhood and the world.

6. Live Gracefully – Much of coming across as a real woman is about grace. Don’t overdo make-up or worry about your hair and clothes every moment of the day. You are who you are, accept it and live gracefully. Being a woman is about knowing who you are, and being comfortable with it. In the end, do you want to be a Tammy Faye or a Jane Seymour?

7. Keep Learning – For all the woman driver and dumb blonde jokes, one of the greatest things about being a woman is the ability to multitask and find clothing items that are folded up in the drawer, right where they should be, despite the assertions to the contrary made by her life partner. These abilities aren’t always recognized as signs of intelligence, but they are. A happy woman will continue to exercise her mind, keeping her wit quick, and adding to her ability to entertain and offer the correct words of encouragement to others, as well as protect herself. The more active she keeps her mind, the more able she will be to stay strong and aware, and make the right decisions.

8. Take Care of Yourself – In the world as it is today, many of us are guilty of skimping on the time we take to rest, feed ourselves proper food and relax. A woman should remember that her health is all-important. Without good health, she will not be able to accomplish her goals.

9 Laugh and Play – Don’t worry about what people think – have fun! Chase your children through the play-scape tunnel, get grass stains on your clothing. Life isn’t all about being proper and serious. Enjoy the time you have, and those around you will enjoy themselves, too, providing an energizing circle of joy.

10. Don’t be afraid to turn into your mother – Sure, she’s not perfect, and you don’t want to be just like her. But you won’t be; you have had your own experiences, and should feel secure enough in this knowledge to embrace the family resemblance that you cannot escape. Be who you want to be, but honor those who helped you become that person.

Before my husband and I ‘discovered’ each other, we were good friends. One day, while he was hurting over the unavoidable end of a long-term relationship, he asked me if I believed in Love At First Sight. I told him that I did believe in it, much the way I believe in déjà vu.

When you experience a feeling that something has happened before, or you are so sure about a certain thing, like love at first sight, that you can’t help but throw yourself headfirst into a situation, it is a sign from the universe that you are on the right path.

We each have a road map, if you will, which we are meant to follow. When we are on the ‘right’ path, we experience moments like these. The more we follow our destined road, the more ‘signs’ we will see. Many will be in the form of familiar signs, like in déjà vu, and many will be in easy-to-overlook signs. For example, my obsession right now is our website, Look to the Stars. When all is going well, I see stars everywhere I look, and it reaffirms that I am on the right path.

Of course, just because you experience Love At First Sight, or any other such intense feeling, doesn’t mean that that situation is a permanent one. It just means that you are in exactly the right place at the right time.

Do you have any stories to share?

Manifestation. An amazing power? Yes, it can be. It can be an extremely useful tool, assuming it is used correctly. The trick, really, is using it correctly.

I used to do a meditation to help me with manifestation (I’ll cover this in another post), until I realized I could manifest things like a restaurant serving my favorite type of food without too much thought. Larger “wishes” still require some work, but the key thing I learned is that you have to truly, deeply ‘feel’ what it is that you are manifesting. Not ‘want’, but ‘feel’.

This is where the trouble comes in.

Say you are driving down the street, and you ‘feel’ that the light is about to change, and it does. You hear someone coughing, and you ‘feel’ that you are going to get sick, so you do. And it gets worse.

My three-year-old is very willful, and though I try my best to keep her safe, the brave little soul just has to reach out and explore the world around her. Sometimes, however, she goes too far. At those times, I tell her what is likely to happen, but she ignores me, and sure enough, my warning comes true.

Such as one day, when pushing our newborn baby in her buggy, my tiny-terror ran ahead to the subway escalators trying to catch up with her best friend. I called to her to wait for me, but she didn’t. As I was just about to reach her, I warned her not to go on the escalators (a very steep, long set) without me, or she was likely to fall down. I was really frustrated with her disobedience, and wanted her to understand the danger. Then, without consciously trying, I ‘felt’ it. Within seconds she had tumbled down two stairs. She was okay, but scared, as we all were.

I realized, as we were traveling down the second set of escalators (with my daughter right next to me holding the handle of the buggy), that I had manifested that situation, and many more like it, without trying, and without wanting to.

I understand now why we are not all born with the ability to manifest. The act of manifesting is something to be carefully learned and used, much like the use of power tools. While much can be achieved and gained, if you are not truly aware of your thoughts and actions, you can create some enormous problems.

I recently read that Barack Obama said this on the topic of deficits:

”...There’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit — the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through those who are different from us — the child who’s hungry, the laid-off steelworker, the immigrant woman cleaning your dorm room.”

Thank goodness! When my husband and I first started our Look To The Stars project, we sent letters off to celebrities asking what they thought was the biggest problem in the world. I realized that I should have some sort of answer to the question as well, and after much detailed thought, realized that the answer was so simple… the biggest problem in the world is a lack of empathy.

If a genie were to appear before me and offer one wish, I would wish, without any changes to the way I am, to be the third least empathic person in the world. I don’t cry upon seeing adverts about the poor children in Africa (unless I am pregnant, that is), but I do go out of my way to help people who look lost, try to make sure I am not inconveniencing anyone around me and I would never dream of causing anyone harm or pain. This is partly because my parents raised me well, and partly because I clearly feel what others are feeling.

If everyone felt at least the level of empathy as you, the readers of this post, and I feel, so many of the world’s problems would just disappear. How can you rob someone if you feel the loss that you are causing, or rape someone if you feel the pain and desolation it causes?

When you are in disagreement with someone, it is so much easier to come to a happy level of compromise if you can feel and understand their side of the issue, and they can feel and understand yours. With truly empathic leaders around the world, there would be no need for senseless wars. With truly empathic people, everyone who needs help would get it, and we would enter a cycle of growing joy across the planet.

So, how do we go about raising the levels of empathy in the world? Any ideas?