Tag: motherhood

YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

An unlikely celebrity caught my attention the other night during the Icon Generation Award at the 2019 MTV Movie & TV Awards Monday night. He offered a bit of information that I give out every week.

“Here’s the thing that I want to share with you guys – Because there’s another side to being your authentic self, your true self – and that’s the side that the magic is on. That’s the side that’s gold. While yes, it’s important to be yourself – you’ve got to recognize the joy and the responsibility of bringing everybody with you. And you do that by being kind, by being compassionate, by being inclusive and straight up just being good to people because that matters.” The Rock

Truer words were never spoken. Being your authentic self and being proud of that self. That’s where the magic lies. That is what has always been the most important. So many of us women over sixty sometimes lose our way once the children leave the nest or we retire from our careers. We can feel lost at sea without a rudder.

The beauty industry hasn’t helped. It has capitalized on selling us dreams of products that will keep us young. Fortifying that if we don’t look young we are worthless and undesirable. Not a word about the most important part of who we genuinely are – our inner selves. That is exactly where our beauty has always come from.

Years ago my husband kept talking about a famous race car friend of his who constantly had so many women running after him. In my mind, I envisioned a wildly handsome man. Instead, when I finally met him, my initial reaction was shock in how unattractive I thought he was.

At the time, I was guilty of only superficially reacting to his outer appeal. As I got to know him better, he became more and more attractive and actually quite sexy. His inner beauty was so strong, it radiated and translated into one very handsome and successful man.

That is how strong our inner authentic self – our true self is. We have to believe we are worthy and that we deserve all that life will bring us. Once you find that pot of gold within yourself it’s your responsibility to share it with others. We should not leave anyone behind.

I have often been asked why at my age would I want to be a life coach, or take the time and responsibility of sharing my years of living on Youtube. My answer was given by Dwayne Johnson, I don’t want to leave anyone behind. Everyone deserves to live the best possible life over sixty.

Copyright©️Sandra Hart 2019

All Rights Reserved

NASHVILLE NIGHTS | MEET MY SON EMERSON HART

When we have children we hope for the best for them, but truly, even with a crystal ball, we don’t know what lies ahead for them.

Once they leave the nest, they are on their own to chart their own path. We, as parents, just hope their journey is smooth without too many downdrafts and that their flight will lead them to a fulfilling life.

In this blog I am sharing with you a recent conversation I had with my singer/ songwriter son, Emerson Hart, lead singer of the 2x nominated and Platinum awarded alternative rock band, Tonic.

His first album, LEMON PARADE, had 5 top ten BILLBOARD HITS, one of which stayed on the top of the charts and became the most played song on rock radio that year, “If You Could Only See The Way She Loves Me.”

We talk about his beginnings and what it is like to be a a songwriter/singer and musician. I can’t use his music in my videos because of publishing and record company rights shared with him. I have posted below the video he speak’s about and that he filmed in London when Princess Diana died.

Join my conversation with a singer and songwriter on his creative process, his solo career vs Tonic and what is in store for 2019.

Copyright Sandra Hart ©️2018

All Rights Reserved

THE SHADOW OF MOTHERHOOD 

As mothers, especially a single mother, as was dealt to me with the death of my husband, we sacrifice, nurture and work selflessly with both the heavy weight of parental responsibility and at the same time struggle to embrace the joys that come from raising humans we love like no other then, now and into eternity. Did I ever dream that when they were ready to leave the nest, it would be so far away? 

Diaspora. How times have changed in just one generation. I often envy those families whose children are able to settle near them. It would be so nice to have family gatherings on the spur of the moment. Sunday dinners around the table with grandchildren and extended family members is but a dream for me. Sometimes that is a hard reality to face. 

Fortunately for them, my children have had to move to where their interesting work took them. Unfortunately for me, they are all a long, long drive, or a winged trip away. It’s doable now, but the older I get I think about when it will not be so easy to hop a flight to be near those that I love so dearly.

I moved away from home when I went to college and never called my parents home mine again. I had dreams of my own that couldn’t be realized there. But, honestly, I never thought of how it must have affected my mother. Until lately. The shoe is on the other foot now for me and It doesn’t feel good at all. Isn’t the saying ‘just walk a mile in my shoes’? I now know how my mother must have felt when both of her children never permanently returned to her warm nest. 

They say a good mother raises her children to be able to fly from the nest and spread their wings. Even though we know that is true and the unbridled happiness for our young is real, our mother-wing feathers are plucked bare, knowing life will never be the same. 

In the end I have comfort in knowing that I have been blessed, that part of the way,  they were to walk with me. 

https://youtu.be/K7hMJ8Xvyf4

Music by Emerson Hart and Tonic©

 Life and thoughts and just about everything under the sun. The only order to it is life itself as lived. Natural chaos! I am married and have three grown children who are interested in breeding horses, flying and creating. My youngest is the lead singer/songwriter of the Grammy nominated band, Tonic, Emerson Hart. So here I am, wanting to read about you and at the same time bringing you along with me to mine. I hope you will find me just as interesting as I do you! Hop aboard.

Find me here:

https://sandrashart.com (blog)

http://sandrahart.net

@screenactor on Poshmark

@sandrashart/ twitter 

@sandrashart on Instagram

https://Pinterest.com/SandraHart

amazon.com for Sandra Hart books
Copyright©Sandra Hart 2017 All rights reserved
Find me here:

Life Over Sixty With Sandra YouTube Channel

https://sandrashart.com (blog)

http://sandrahart.net

@screenactor on Poshmark

@sandrashart/ twitter 

@sandrashart on Instagram

https://Pinterest.com/SandraHart

amazon.com for Sandra Hart books

To The Moon Alice!

Selling a house is combined with the good and the bad. The good would be all of the memories that are stored where you live and the bad is going through everything and sorting out what to keep and what not keep. 

Somehow keeping all of this stuff also helps to keep everyone alive, especially my parents who have passed on, getting rid of their birth certificates and old love letters is very difficult. Even though I know I can’t keep carrying them around in boxes up in the attic – letters that I, sadly, have never made enough time to sit in the corner and read throughly. 

I guess, like  most mothers, including my own, I probably have kept every kindergarten handprint and handmade clothespin Christmas ornament everyone of my children has ever made. 

I just now had quite a chuckle when I looked at the Mother’s Day card my young son Lee made for me. It must’ve been during the PAC man craze because he says he loves me and I’m the best Pac Mom there is.

Inside there was a sweet little poem the future Grammy winning songwriter composed.

Mom you’re great

Mom your true 

Mom I will always love you 

Your son 

Lee 

That probably was one of his first compositions that necessarily was not meant to be a song. Plenty others about truck drivers moving down the road and elementary school crushes started when he was around seven, but this might be his very first and last serious attempt at rhyme for his mother. 

I have to say though I was a little mystified when I noticed the drawing of a space ship at the bottom of his card. 

My son was born in 1969 on the morning the USA landed on the moon, so I am hoping the reference to the rocket ship blasting through space is just that and not a subliminal message that he wanted to send me to the moon! 

Our children are the best reasons to live a long life. Don’t you just love them in spite of rockets sending you into space. I think this card is a keeper. 

Copyright©Sandra Hart 2016. All Rights Reserved

WHAT DOES MOTHERHOOD MEAN TO YOU?

  

Someone asked me recently what are the things important to you about being a mother. I never really thought about it. It just is. I’m just a mother and that’s part of my DNA once I had children. When the nurse placed my first child in my arms I became a different person – a mother first and foremost. My children’s welfare has always come before mine and no matter how old they are now, I still think about them. I share their joy’s and their burdens and I am forever subservient to their happiness.

That doesn’t mean that I had selfish desires and wants that I followed through within my life as a mother, but basically my mind is always with them. Motherhood has always been such a strong scope of identity for me. 

My husband was killed when the children were very small, so basically my family depended upon me as the sole provider for many years. Until I got back on my feet after the shock of losing my husband, sometimes we had to exist on my children’s paper routes money. We shopped at thrift shops for clothes and did without the luxury snacks that normal homes had in their cupboards. Salted carrots were a treat for my children.

This sounds so unrealistic for the successful anchor person and television personality that I had been most of my adult life. Until I relocated to New Jersey to be with my husband and his career, money was no option. When I had to return to work I quickly, very quickly, found out that once you step off of the carousel it’s very difficult to get back into a regular 9-to-5 job versus one in television. 

Why would an anchor woman want a regular job? Because I love my children and I want to be with them as much as I can. That answer didn’t seem to muster with any of my potential employers. 

For a solid year I sent out thousands of resumes without one successful result. As time droned by I was forced to ask my aging parents for a small loan just to survive. It was my worst nightmare having to do that because my parents were not wealthy people and were outliving their own resources.

Finally, in the depths of my darkest days through an employment agency, I went on a job to be a secretary. After all I did graduate from Katherine Gibbs, so at least I knew I could type. I was lousy at shorthand, but I could type. The job was an hour’s drive on the Garden State Parkway from my home, but I went praying all the way. I was at the end of my emotional and financial line. 

When the human resources person held my resume in her hands, she looked at me and said she didn’t think I was right for the secretarial job. My heart sank. Another dead end.  I couldn’t believe my life.   Then she said I would be a perfect fit for the assistant marketing manager position. 

Well, my life began again because of that smart woman. Within two years I was VP of marketing and used my television skills and celebrity contacts to travel the country promoting our company until they relocated to Los Angeles.

Because of my love for my children, my life went in another mysterious direction that eventually led me to my second husband and to my children having advantages of furthering their lives and careers that perhaps they would not have had. 

For me, letting go and letting God, is no joke. The circuitous road traveled was the right one for me and my children. 

What has motherhood done for you and what does it mean to you ?

Copyright Sandra Hart 2016 ©

 All Rights Reserved