"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on." ~Henry Elli Take some slow, deep breaths ....  Things that help when life gets tough ...  Animals are extremely healing for me ... Taking time and making time to read a good book...  Getting lost in a book or in learning something new gives me a rush ... Faces that make me smile ...  Once again .. the healing powers of animals ...by Betsy Seeton Remembering good times like the children in a Nepal orphanage who were so strong ....  I let a child use my camera to take this pic of George and me with the kids This photo of the adorable little orphan always makes me smile; his spirit was/is so inspiring...  Nepal orphan - by Betsy Seeton I was lucky. I had a happy childhood with parents who stayed together and loved me very much.  My dad took this when I was three .. I'm glad for my time with wild 'pets' ....  This is Rachel (wild gray jay) - by B.Seeton Meditating is life-saving these days; it helps me let go. And letting go of what I cannot change is needed throughout each and every day. Sometimes I get very tired of the amount o f 'letting go' I must do. It seems never ending. But I can't change that either! One thing I'll share here, that is number one in my top ten of life's immediate challenges, is that my dear, dear daughter needs a liver transplant. She was on the list but was removed recently because she's too sick to make it through surgery. We're trying to get her nourished enough and strong enough to get back on the list. Add to that, some dark hearted souls around me (this is the gentlest way I can put it), who are so un-evolved and unaware. Their actions are hurting those I love, as well as me, yet circumstances prevent me from stopping them. Sigh... I cannot change others, but I can change how I react to unjust behavior and unfair circumstances. Attitude is a powerful tool. The basics are key too. Getting enough sleep. Eating the right things with a focus on getting all the needed nutrition and not seeking comfort through eating. But it's not the time for deprivation either. I make room for the occasional ice cream treat or something special in small amounts. It's just especially important to work on creating and maintaining balance at this time. Some days are better than others. A hot bath does wonders. And massages! Oh, wow! How I would love one every single day! I did my first ever chair massage at Wild Oats the other day. It was entirely impromptu. I could only afford 15 minutes, but OMGosh ... it was so good. I let myself get lost as the knots were untangled. Do yourself a big favor and go! It also helps to hear from family and friends. And knowing tomorrow is another day, another chance for things to change, is helpful. I will not allow anger to become a part of my life. It takes way too much energy and it doesn't do any good. I just go straight to the pain and try working through it. The sooner I do, the better. It's not a cake walk, but it keeps me moving. I think I'm moving forward.  One last thing, and it's a biggie, is how important my passions are in helping me push through these tough times. I indulge in one or more of my passions almost daily. For the past few months, I've been getting out most days (weather permitting) to walk and capture life through a lens. It's very soul feeding to me and I sure need a healthy soul to give me the strength to endure as my beautiful daughter struggles to live. I also need a tremendous amount of strength to accept the waves of injustice that constantly flow in my direction from a couple of seriously damaged people. (Sometimes I can go a couple days without the tears flowing.) Another passion is this website and the vehicle it is for my activism. It gives me a sense of purpose when so much around me doesn't make sense and seems to have no rhyme or reason. I'm sending peace and acceptance out into the world today. Email me if you're going through some turbulent times and need encouragement: betsy at livehonestly dot com or if you want to send some positive thoughts my way, I would welcome that. Add Comment WORDS TO LIVE BY 03/28/2010
Shake it off. Easy to say, not so easy to do. But it's key to inner peace, which is key to happiness. So much is out of our control. So much doesn't make sense. And a lot of injustice and unfairness surrounds us. Accepting that and learning to let go, truly and deeply let go, will help you through the rough times. I speak from experience. Lots and lots of experience. My hard earned letting go skills serve me on a daily basis. And yet there are still times I fail. It's something I find must be worked on constantly and quite consciously.  Here's something to practice on a daily basis. Begin by being aware of your thought process. How many times do you allow your thoughts to be negative? How many times do you go over something you said or that was said to you and allow the pain to wrap around you? How often are you judging and feeling anger, resentment, and frustration? Start to be aware of how your thoughts are linked to the emotions you're feeling throughout your day. Self awareness is the first step. The mind is very powerful. If you begin to rein in your thoughts when they go dark and negative, and stop them at the door, you'll also stop the rush of negative emotions. I'm not talking about creating a state of denial. But if the thoughts have no purpose other than reinforcing your feelings of being a victim, or of injustice and insanity, then why continue allowing them into your mind? Why entertain these thoughts?  A Good Attitude Goes A Long Way - by Betsy Seeton Accept the negative and focus on good thoughts. Your energy will change. Your energy will strengthen you. If something CAN be done about the negative things going on in your life, it will come from being positive and concentrating on what you can control and on things that feed your soul versus things that feed your pain and anger. BALANCE IS KEY 03/16/2010
 From Goose Yoga series - by Betsy Seeton It may sound cliche to say that balance is key, but in my experience, the importance of finding balance in my life is central to establishing inner peace. I make time for meditation on a daily basis. I also make sure that as I wake each morning I don't allow my thoughts to land on anything negative. It's getting easier now that I've been practicing positive thinking for six or more months. I don't look too far ahead and I don't do a lot of "what if" thinking. I stay more in the moment and try to take each day as it comes without dwelling on a theoretical future. Starting a new day free of worry and dread gives me a fresh start and the needed energy to face the things in life that demand strength and positive thinking. Understanding that the human race is strange and on many levels "not get-able" is helpful. Letting go is something I do every single day.... I also make time for my creative outlet (photography & art) and the non profit work that feeds me, such as writing and researching for this website. It keeps my mind healthily busy and moving forward with a sense of purpose and value. It also helps me restore balance if I'm off kilter.  The Stretch (from the Goose Yoga series) - by Betsy Seeton Life is full of things that don't make sense; things that are unfair and unjust. I can't control much, but I can, to a large extent, control how I react and how I respond to what I can't change. I do a lot of letting go to achieve that. There's a very mean spirited person in my life who seems to feed on creating drama and pain for some of the people I love in my life. Her husband claims she's not ill intended, but rather that she's dumb and that she's simply a ... bitch. (Those are his words - not mine.) I see her as manipulative and redefining what it means to be controlling in a destructive way. She must be a very tortured, unhappy soul to need to lie and feed on the misery she causes others. She's a puppet master of the worst kind. She has some people fooled, but I'm certain many people see through her. I suspect a lot of people have someone like her in their lives. Dealing with this person takes immense letting go. She's not worth engaging. She can't be trusted. I believe karma will come her way one day. She has woven quite a deceptive and dishonorable life. One day maybe I'll have the choice to not have her in my life, but that day is not here yet. So I let go of her evil doing and her mean ways. Or I try to. I try to let go of how unjust she has been. I focus on maintaining good thoughts, healing thoughts and pray that the universe will do what is right. All of these techniques and thought patterns help me restore balance. I find time for nature, for laughing, for being in the company of good hearted people and staying in touch with those I love. ON ANGER 09/13/2009
 I love these colors Whew...I had a rough morning.... but I'm doing better as the sun begins its descent.... On a meditative, but quite "being present" drive, I took some photos of birds along the way.  Sept 13 When someone treats us rudely or incorrectly judges us, we feel disrespected. Lack of respect makes us feel unappreciated. Lack of appreciation boils down to feeling undervalued. Peel one more layer back and what we have is feeling misunderstood. No one likes that. Being misunderstood is wholly contrary to the core of being human. Even if we don’t agree with one another, we want to feel understood and we want to understand. The desire and need to communicate are both inherent in our nature. And at the center of successful communication is establishing mutual understanding. So when something happens or something is said that dismantles, distorts, or disrupts “mutual understanding” the result is pain, often first experienced as anger. Anger may be the mind’s defense mechanism to stave off impending pain the way adrenaline will strengthen the body and put it on high alert preparing for a fight or flight response. A healthy mind and body will let go of the anger and the adrenaline will subside in order to resume functioning in normal range versus a sustained ‘heightened ability’ range. Anger is fed when emotions are ignored and by avoiding rational thought. Anger actually shuts down some of our brain’s ability to correctly process information, so rational thought isn’t an option in the heat of anger. In a healthy person, anger is typically short lived. But some people intentionally buffer themselves from pain by focusing on their anger. (You might experience passive aggressive behavior versus outright anger, but anger is central to what they feel.) Others keep the pain continually at bay through a relentlessly tight grip on anger. This persistent anger is actually unprocessed pain. This is key. It’s key to understanding angry people and it’s the key point I want to make. So let me repeat that. “Persistent anger is actually unprocessed pain.” I encountered an angry person today. I know him well. He is someone who has a lifetime of unprocessed pain. He has been a broken soul since childhood. When he unleashed his anger on me this morning, I did not feel a need to reciprocate. I immediately recognized that I was being “misunderstood” and misjudged and knew that his own brokenness was manifesting his anger. He has been an angry person most of his life, yet to the public eye, he has kept his anger often hidden. It correlated into being an unhappy person, but he also hid that through other emotional plays. He has a tragic past. He grew up in poverty. He was sexually abused by an uncle for years from the age of six. He was also a Vietnam vet who was on the front lines for a solid year. He had post traumatic stress disorder in later years, but never accepted counseling for it for fear of discovering some abyss from which he thought he’d never return; nor did he ever seek help for the sexual abuse. When he lashed out at me today, my reaction was to bypass anger and go straight to my pain. I was momentarily stunned as he sped off in his car. We’d been at a gas station. I was standing next to my parked car when he yelled at me. At one point, he actually puffed up physically and got nose to nose with me, poised to strike, like I’d seen him do when he wanted the other guy to know he was prepared to make his point with his fist. I didn’t flinch because he’d never raised a hand to me. I just knew he was over the top with anger. A witness to all this stood near my side as completely confused as I, knowing that I’d done nothing to provoke such a reaction and even tried to offer words in my defense but was also quickly shut down by his spewing wrath. Amidst the proverbial dust left by his speeding tires, I began to tremble. Tears rushed like a flood, so quickly in fact, that they simply fell from my eyes without the normal roll down my cheeks. I’d collapsed into the driver’s seat, and sat engine off, eyes blurry trying to figure out what triggered his outburst and to make sense of what felt like a stopover in the Twilight Zone. A thousand and one things flew through my mind flashing like poorly edited movie trailers. I took a few deep breaths and exhaled with some loud guttural sighs and somewhere between the stream of consciousness and analysis, I found some composure and then came the strength. I never once felt anger. It never occurred to me to cuss him out. I never thought of vengeance. It was a crazy display of misplaced emotions. It doesn't excuse it... only half way explains it.... When I realized his anger was not my problem or I should say, I wasn’t going to let it become my problem, my pain subsided. Those thoughts aroused an inner strength and I stopped dissolving. I wasn’t going to let his dysfunction take me down. All this came in the first fifteen minutes following the explosive scene. I drove a couple of hours back to my home and even took a long route that I hadn’t taken in years and photographed some birds along the way and enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery. I don’t have a tendency to be an angry person at all. I certainly get angry, feel anger, but I don't hold onto it, nor does it leave me feeling out of control. For the most part, I don’t hold onto to negative thoughts or the unfair, unjust actions of others. I try letting it all go. It's not easy sometimes. The pain seeps in here and there, but I keep trying. I try to understand myself and understand my place in the lives of others. I try to take responsibility for my mistakes. I continually work at processing my feelings.... it's a way of life...  September 13, 2009 - What a face! | "Turning indifference into making a difference."
I'm an artist, writer, photographer, and private investigator. I'm also an activist in small ways.
by Betsy Seeton
 June 29, 2011 
MY PHOTO BOOK
MY P H O T O G R A P H Y
  GETTING IN TOUCH WITH NATURE is my new website devoted to my photography, books, and art. Loading
Use the search engine for any word or topic on this website.
 Jasper is kissing bear. Jasper loves all animals. Visit Jasper's Blog about animal welfare/rights and all life.  My LADYBUG book is filled with beautiful images & inspiring quotes. Click here for more info.
 All photos are for sale at Betsy's Art Gallery "Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other
than itself." Khalil Gibran  Email Betsy  Click for INSECT PHOTO JOURNAL  Inspired Beeing - Catherine Jaffee studying honey bees in Turkey  Amely-James KOH BELA is fighting child trafficking in Africa and throughout several continents. Read my interview with her.  CLICK FOR BEE PHOTOGRAPHY  Mahoot Elephant training in Thailand with Kaew, my wonderful elephant.JOIN LIVE HONESTLY ON FACEBOOK!  Adorable French girl growing up in Africa with wildlife photography parents - more pictures of Tippi Degre  I visited the Tiger Temple in Thailand & later found out it is under investigation for tiger trafficking and animal abuse. Read full story   Click to read Jasper's Blog for the animal lover - photos by Betsy Seeton  Click to read about bees and see honeybees in their natural environment  Click to read about life in the mountains with Chippy, Jasper, Albert (pictured) and the crew C L I C K I M A G E
T O E N T E R A R T G A L L E R Y  photos for sale as greeting cards and framed prints or posters. Click to go to my online Art Gallery  FOR SALE 2011 Chippy Calendar - All photography by Betsy Seeton - All rights reserved. Email me for permission to reprint. WATCH CUTE
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even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself." ~ Henry Miller ~  FREETHEBEARS.ORG - Learn about bear farming and bear paw soup. This torture must end!   Connect with Jasper, The World Ambassador of Animal Rights & Welfare on Facebook! Also read about life in
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