Recently my friend asked this question in a Facebook post.   What would you have told yourself in your 30’s? 

For some reason, I really contemplated this question and wrote and wrote and wrote.  I would love to know what you would have told your younger, 45-year-old self. 

I am in a weird stage where some of my friends’ kids are going to college–my kids are way younger.   There are some things I regret about the way I have done life, but moving closer to 50, I am enjoying being me more.  I am enjoying living life more.  I am enjoying just where God has me. 

Here is my message to my 30 year old self.  

From ages 25 to 35 I was like a workaholic, self-centered and didn’t take care of myself really well.

I would have told myself to:

• Slow down 🛑

• Start being regimented with nutrition, supplements, exercise, and relaxation techniques

• Rely on God way more than you do your own talents

• Stop thinking 💭 about yourself so much

• Get off the co-dependent wagon

• Accept who you are and love yourself more

• Let go of the past

• Forgive, forgive, forgive 🙏🏻

• Treat your parents 👪 better

• Spend more time with loved ones

• Don’t judge everyone–pull the plank out of your own eye

• You don’t have to impress anyone, you’re good enough, you’re strong enough

• Strengthen up–get endurance and put on your spiritual armor 🛡️ because the storms will come

• Wake up, prepare your heart that not everyone is good–there is evil in the world, oh and even “good people” do lie, cheat, steal and do bad things, but understand God loves all His children

• Have mercy, forgiveness, and humility in all situations,

• Understand perspective and capacity

• Give more honor and respect

• Smile, 😊 smile, 😊 smile

• Guard your ❤️ heart, but let down the walls–you can only do that with Jesus’s help, you don’t have to do this all by yourself, understand God gave us Jesus but He also left the Holy Spirit, use the 🔥 Holy Spirit’s help more, like all the time

• Grow intimacy with The Big Three and I don’t mean This is Us,

• Don’t get hung up understanding all the details they weren’t meant for you to understand right now,

• Love, 💖 love, 💖 love

• Live, live, live, but live a life of gratitude–most of all, understand your blessings aren’t all about what He is doing for you

• Stop feeling guilty about your blessings, understand your Favor comes from above.

• Yes, do good works, but don’t strive for Favor from above or from the world. 

• Delegate rather than procrastinate 

• Let go of the busy work, reevaluate, self reflect, be ready to not be good at everything and that parenting, marriage, and many things will have a learning curve

• Use more sun protection 🧴

• Care for your face more–try facials sooner

• Set aside time and budget for self care 💆🏻‍♀️

• Stop spending 💸 all you make

• Value all people and all ages

• Understand, learn, grow

• Read and learn more principals of the Bible.  Soak in the Word and let His supernatural, amazing Bread of Life feed you–fill up on it daily and life will flow better.

Are you counting your blessings?  Did your mom ever say that to you?  Well, right now more than ever, we need to be looking for those blessings.  If we focus just on the negative in our own lives and or the news, we will only see the bad.

So let’s start counting our blessings.  In fact, I think there is a science to focusing on the blessings in our lives.  What we focus on magnifies.  Have you ever heard that saying?  I won’t go into all the reticular brain activation science, but in a nutshell, have you ever been excited owning maybe a new car?

For me, back in the day, it was a Saturn Vue.  I loved that car, but as soon as I got one it seemed like everyone had one.  Did they all of a sudden just have Saturn Vue’s or did my brain now focus on the things I had put my focus on.  I am sure you can think of examples now too.

So it appears that those around me doing the best emotionally, and even financially, are the ones focusing on their blessings.  They are not filling their days with television and news reports which prior to COVID was already mostly negative, but focusing on their blessings and how to make each day count!

So you may or may not believe me on this, but I see it in my own life.  The tension, arguments,  stress, and tears were high when my focus was on the news or negative, but now for the past 60 days I have been choosing what I watch, listen to and let into my life very carefully.

It’s brought a lot of peace and harmony into my home.  It’s doesn’t mean I am not aware, but it does mean I am focused and grateful most days.

And to top all that off WE WON ANOTHER MOTORCYCLE!!!!!!!!!  Crazy, amazing, and so awesome for my husband right now.   But again I know this is God’s Favor and I feel pretty strongly why this happened.  I go into it in this video.

Over the past couple of weeks I have asked you to help me.   I am back to work part-time and I needed your feedback on a version of the presentation we are doing.  Thank you for your help.  It allowed for 12 people to get started with us and generated $120 to feed the extreme poor in Uganda.

In fact, so many biz associates stepped up and went to work sharing the program, we have more than $4,000 raised with $2,000 going to help finish a home for sex trafficked victims here in the US while $2,000 went for the medical needs at our Orphanage we support www.uoccusa.org to help feed starving villagers surrounding our orphanage.

You were part of that!  Your help, your time, your work did this!

The Director at the Orphanage, Daniel Kanu, has a special message for you here.

I admit when all this started to happen I “freaked out” and started buying supplies, and in some things, I went a little overboard.  Especially once we got the “Shelter in Place” March 14th and were told we could no longer safely go out in public.

My usual Instacart orders came to a halt because everyone was buying out all the groceries in my little healthy market.   So I had to resort to online ordering.  That’s when I started making mistakes…expensive mistakes.

Watch my video to see my biggest “Money Mistakes” during the CRISIS.

So see FEAR can allow us to make mistakes.  FEAR can also wake us up to some of the areas in our lives where we need a KICK IN THE BUTT!

The WAKE UP call I am talking about is that our finances might be FRAGILE.  We might have been woken up to the fact that “all our income eggs” are in ONE basket, that we are living paycheck to paycheck and didn’t even realize it, or that we don’t have financial security.

I am sorry friend if that is you.  The good news is, hopefully you are awake and ready to do something about it.  If you feel like your finances are out of control, you are drowning in debt, or were put on a roller coaster with the Stock Market crash, then you need to invest in learning what you DON’T KNOW.

My wealth mentor, Hans Johnson, and his wife has been helping my husband and me since 2007.  They have taught hundreds of our friends and family members “what they didn’t know” about their money.  How to make, keep, and grow money.   I am so grateful that we had a wake up call all those years ago.  We stopped being told what to do with our money and how to spend it and starting learning HOW.

Today, right now, you have that same opportunity to learn what we learned.  You have the opportunity to learn how to break free from the financial prison you are in.  Check our our mentor, Hans Johnson’s, book for super cheap on Amazon right now.  If you are Kindle, user it’s a super deal right now.

He also has an excellent free app ranked one of the top Money apps on Google Play and iTunes called Wealth Builder.

I know some of my friends reading will tell me, “I don’t have debt,” “I have plenty in my retirement,” or “We all set financially,”  and I would say that is great, but you are a rarity, and much of the world wouldn’t be able to go 3 months without a paycheck.

Think beyond yourself.  Who do you know who needs this information?  Who do you know who wants to leave a legacy for their children’s children?   Who do you know who wants to help change the world?

Pass this Wealth Building Book and information on please.    I appreciate you!

Mary Starr Carter

The Total Wellness Doc and Mom

Today I want to share something personal about two of my closest friends here in California. See I judged them.

I judged them for being too religious. 

See both of these friends are very strict with their kids in terms of what they watch on television and the activities they participate in.

I thought I was strict. In fact, my oldest didn’t even use screens or have any television except an occasional movie or Sesame Street on DVD until he was 4 years old.  (Did you read that study about children’s brain development and they didn’t recommend screens until they were four?)

But these friends will not even let their kids watch PBS kids channel unless they have watched the show first or are right there with them watching.

I also thought I was strict because I don’t let my kids watch stupid shows like Sponge Bob or Nickelodeon-type shows.  I thought I was strict because I don’t let them just watch whatever they want on Netflix.  But these friends, if there is a ghost or some sort of goblin type character in a show or song…IT’s a NO!

One weekend, I was away and my husband had let them watch a show called Bunked on Netflix.  It seemed innocent enough, so I would occasionally let them watch it, too.  But then my son started saying some of the lines from the show at inappropriate times. 

I know he embarrassed a few tween girls. Not cool.  My son loves to make people laugh. He just doesn’t know what is appropriate. So we cut that show out and Captain Underpants…I shouldn’t have to explain that one.

Although I thought I was strict, my son was still getting his programming from innocent kids shows.

My husband and I grew up on a lot of TV. I bet many kids in my generations with working parents did. TV was like our babysitter, and even when we were really little, our babysitters were letting us watch soap operas.  So we knew we didn’t want our kids being raised around sex and violence, but we didn’t think that kids could be affected by cartoons and kids TV programming.

So back to judging my friends.  I really thought they were a bit over the top and too religious, but what I didn’t see is their TRUTH…until I watched this.

👉👉 Out of Shadows 👈👈

In a nutshell, it’s a documentary that will make you rethink what you watch on television, what you listen to, and how you take in media. That’s the first half. The second half will make you aware of some things you didn’t know were happening in the world.

But it’s important for you to do your own research on all facts. So I made my husband watch it too because he is very analytical and researches everything.  He even said there was a lot of truth he already knew in this documentary.  WOW!

So, I encourage you to take the time to watch. Have an open mind and do your own research to determine if what you see here is true.

Finally, I will repent for judging my two good friends and ask for their forgiveness.  They weren’t being over religious–they were making sure what was fed to their children’s minds would benefit them, protect them, and grow them into healthy adults who can think for themselves and are not just programmed.

There is no one else I’d rather be stuck in the house with for 50 plus days.

But friends that wasn’t always the case. 12 years ago, we could not go 3 days without a fighting/crying match. We had no kids, decent paying work, family and friends but we couldn’t get along. We were drowning in debt, and on track to be another statistic to divorce.

Then we learned some really, really, really important things about each other, specifically how we were each wired differently, how we each communicated differently, so much so, it was like speaking different languages. We learned and we implemented what we learned and we healed and grew a stronger marriage.

A marriage that has been able to get through some really difficult times, including 6 miscarriages, 2 major moves, job transitions, poor money decisions and the loss of a lot of money, kids, addiction, workaholism, narcissism, and the list goes on.

I take responsibility for the majority of the stressors in our marriage. I do my best not to blame my spouse, but look at my part and what I can do to change me and my heart. I don’t mean be a door mat.  I mean the only person I can change is me. I learned that through training, too. I learned that a successful marriage has more to do with my own personal growth and development than it does with how many marriage conferences we go to together.

Although I am super grateful my spouse learned these skills too, I don’t put my happiness on his actions. I put my happiness most days on a God who is with me every moment of everyday.  That helps my marriage way more than anything else. It frees a spouse from fulfilling your every desire and being responsible for your happiness.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love when my hubby speaks my love language of “getting me flowers” by fixing the bed everyday. It makes me happy, but my joy, that deep rooted connection, comes from Above.

I understand I just went off on a lot of tracks and have ultimately written a blog. But here is my point.

Yesterday, I really messed up. A mess up that might have taken any other couple without our learned marriage skills down a bad path. Instead we communicated.  I listened and when I started to get defensive and make excuses and divert things back on him and his actions, I stopped. I listened some more. I heard his heart.  I saw his point of view.  I understood.  Then, I asked for forgiveness.

And my great amazing husband gave me forgiveness.

Forgiveness–the greatest gift God gave us and the greatest gift we can give others, yet so many marriages and relationships will end because of unforgiveness.

Friend, forgiveness can change your life and your marriage. It doesn’t get rid of the consequences of our actions, but it does free us and others. Look deep into your heart where are you holding unforgiveness. Where is there bitterness, anger, frustration, or even shame?I encourage you to root that stuff out. I have a list of tools and resources that can help you walk a path to forgiveness, heal marriages, and help you get whole again.

Here are the tools I have used:

Books

The Grief Recovery Handbook   (although this is a book it is a step by step program to overcome most traumas big and small in our lives)

Overcoming Shame by Mark Baker

Trainings

Dani Johnson’s GEMS

Solutions for an Abundant Life

Solutions for an Abundant Life Orientation

Dani Johnson’s First Steps to Success