May 2022


Greetings and good morning, my friend!   I am so glad you could make it here today!  Give me a hug and don’t let go until I tell ya.  Stepping over the threshold into my home today on this beautiful Bitterroot sunny day, I’m sure it smells heavenly in here.  I have three loaves of the BEST BANANA BREAD in the oven, just awaiting your arrival.  The recipe comes from Cindy K. Lund, whom I met in Arizona when I taught a workshop and had the pleasure of meeting her.  I don’t have her approval to pass the recipe on to the world today, but hopefully, she would be in approval.

¾ cup soft butter

1 package soft cream cheese (8 oz.)

2 cups sugar, 2 eggs, 1 ½ cup mashed bananas, ½ tsp. Vanilla,

Mix wet ingredients….

Then add dry ingredients:  3 cups flour, ½ tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. salt, 2 cups chopped pecans.

Grease and flour the pan(s).  I use 3 4 x 8 pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes and ENJOY!

            Let me take your jacket and set it over here.  Let’s get you comfortable here at my new dining room table.  Coffee, tea, or juice?  It’s time for you to relax and I promise I am going to let you talk this morning and I’m more than happy to hear everything you want to say.  But, would you mind if I just speak first and tell you what’s on my mind that I feel is so important to share with you today?

            It would just feel good to tell you about a transformation I’ve had recently.  My housemate Coco left almost two weeks ago.  (Man!  Is that all it has been?  It feels like FOREVER!)  If you recall, her father passed away in December, but the “Celebration of his life” was delayed until now.  The morning she left; I fell deeply into depression.  I could have just sat and cried.  I am sure the trauma began the day that my husband Kirk died in 23 minutes and I have been affected ever since.  Even knowing where it began, life triggers these events and it sucks.

            When you have someone in your life every moment and then they are gone, it leaves a cavity the size of a Grand Canyon in you.  I know Coco is returning.  That is all great, but for now, she is not here and I went lower than a snake’s belly.  It happens every time I have someone here for any length of time … a few days, weeks, or months.  When they walk out – Gloria drops.  It isn’t that I don’t enjoy my own company or that “I need” someone living here to be fulfilled.  It means that I enjoy the life it brings to my home, the activity, the sharing –having someone to go for a walk with, watch a movie and discuss world events.

            People come and go through my home all the time, but having that daily companion that is a comfortable fit, that extension of yourself.  I’m sure “you get it.”  I happened to mention to my two bestest local friends Nancy and Leslie that I’ve spoken of to you before, that “I just didn’t know if I wanted to be here any more on this planet.”  I think they took that to mean I was considering suicide, which I wasn’t — I WOULDN’T DO THAT – but, like many people, I have been so disheartened by individual relationships and the world situation, I just didn’t care if I stayed any longer.  I don’t “like the movie” with “bad actors” that I’m watching and would like to walk out of the theater.  But I paid good money for this “entertainment” and being prepared for such a time as this, I am going to see it to the end.

            Sorry.  I got long-winded.  The point being, I think Nancy and Leslie were worried about me and invited me to come stay with them a few days and get some nurturing for Gloria.  They said they wanted to pour some love into me to replace all the love I had poured out getting my kitchen restored and taking care of others.  Aren’t they lovely people?  God “kissed me on the forehead” when He put these two women in my life!

            Phew!  Having their loving attention and delicious food made with loving hands brought me back up to surface level so I can do what I do best, which only means “being the best version of myself for others that I can muster up.”  I felt guilty that I wrote such a “Grumpy Smurfbutt column” last month.  After all, aren’t I here to be an inspiration to you and not lay human griping into said column? 

            Returning home, sad to say, I brought my deeply-packed resentments I’d taken in my “baggage” to their home.  At bedtime on my first night back, I closed my eyes and a vision opened.  I “saw me telling God about my anger towards a friend who had insulted me.”  Tattling, with my finger pointed at the friend in judgment, I related to God what this guy had said that hurt my feelings.  His response was so loud in my head that I literally laughed aloud!  Clearly, as if He was speaking aloud in the room and not in thought, He said, “And with that finger pointed towards your friend, how many fingers are pointing back at you?”  In the dark room, I made the actual movement TO ZIP MY LIP.  I got the spiritual message loud and clear!

            I didn’t feel guilty or ashamed of myself for whining Directly to God.  Trust me, I had shared plenty of my aggravation with good listeners in Nancy and Leslie.  But, telling someone with skin on, whether it sounds like gossip or spilling the beans negatively didn’t heal my hurt heart in the slightest.  As soon as I got the resounding Direct Impulse from Holy Spirit from WITHIN, ALL THE HURT SUBSIDED.  It had melted away like butter on a hot biscuit.  Big difference!

            But, the miraculous part of this entire simple story with a few words from God . . . here is the BONUS.  ALL the hurt from past hurts melted away at once.  Even an emotional injustice from five years ago that I carried like a baton, handing it from one person-to-another dissolved.  All the ragged energies, hurt feelings of injustice (even back to being raped) was GONE in an instant.  I had just “gotten to collect $200 and not pass GO” in the Monopoly Game.  A complete do-over without emotional wounding packed deeply inside me.

            After this revelation . . . me, who has a memory like an elephant, and who could quote every time someone hurt my feelings and quoting directly . . . it was GONE.  Okay, well, not gone cuz I can still quote them.  But I don’t have the emotional charge of energy attached any longer.

            Which, brings me to the point of what I do daily for humanity.  I will sit and listen for HOURS, if need be and never offer an unsolicited comment.  After they have emptied themselves out of everything they just need to say to someone, I wait for the impulse from within before I speak.  Nothing I could say will fix/heal/redeem anyone from guilt, shame, anger, or resentments.  But if I wait and listen to the “within” – the individual in need always gets what they need.

            If I had a nickel for every time someone said, “Gloria, you are the one who wrote “Go Within or Go Without,” perhaps you should read your own book…I would be a wealthy woman.  And, as usual, they are right.  On that eve, I went within to gripe to God and an instantaneous miracle followed.

            A woman who unknowingly hurt my feelings five years ago got released from my heart’s hurt, as well.  She is no longer bound to me in a hurtful way.  Although I was always doing everything to overcome my hurt by looking harder for a gift to give her, something uniquely done to show her how special she was to me even if she didn’t appear to love me as much as I loved her, I was always trying to express unconditional love for her.  (Breathe, Gloria, breathe!  Let the reader breathe, too with that long run-on-sentence.  Here are some periods …. Put ‘em where you think you need them.)

            I tell you these things that I encounter every day just like all of you.  I may be a spiritual healer and have a Living/Breathing relationship with the Christ within me.  But I am still dealing with everything you deal with in your journey.  I never wanted people to see me as “more enlightened” or “favored” because I can do what I do to watch miracles happen in my life.  It has always been my goal to state clearly that YOU can do the same thing if you just have the awareness of how to do it.

            I get extremely uncomfortable when people put me on a pedestal.  My days are filled with what you would perceive as compliments.  However, I, too, am growing and know how “raw” Gloria can get, lighting a cigarette or having a glass of wine.  Not to mention acting like an ass from time to time (and enjoying it) . . . I blush.  I feel icky when someone across the miles calls to ask for a “three-way conversation between God and them.  What?!  Are you serious?   I mean, “Yeah, I could do it because He is closer than hands and breath, but are you seriously asking for that aloud?!!!  Yes, I can do it – but so can everyone else!  No one needs a “middle man.”

            Here’s an average call I get.  A 96-year-old man in California called a week ago.  He and his wife attended the first workshop I taught in L.A. in 1996.  He was dying when he arrived at the event, given a death sentence by the medical world.  He experienced the Presence of God that day and is still living today.  In fact, he and his wife just celebrated their 61st anniversary together.

            Lou called me a Saint and an Angel that day, reminding me of his miracle.  He mentioned that nary a day goes by that my name isn’t mentioned in their home to themselves, their children, and grandchildren.  He invited me to come see them and renew our friendship with skin on.

            I happened to say, “Lou, I live on a different planet than you.  California has mandates for the mask and vaccinations – which we don’t have here in Montana.  I would love it if you and your wife came to Montana to visit me, however, I just have no need to travel to California right now.

            Lou comforted my concerns by saying, “Gloria, I never once wore a mask out here!”  He explained, “I would go into a store and an employee would walk up to me saying, “Sir!  Sir!  You don’t have a mask on, Sir!”  He said, “I would just smile and say, ‘And I’m not wearing underwear either, what’s your point’?!”  I laughed so hard, it made my abdomen cramp and replied, “I am going to quote you to everyone I know!  (Who’s going to argue with a 96-year-old character saying something like that?!  They probably think he’s senile . . . but I assure you – he is as sharp as a tack.)

            We are each here to serve one another, but some of us are here to serve the masses.  Along with that responsibility, we find ourselves ULTRA-SENSITIVE.  That sensitivity serves us well in doing our healing work or engaging in the supernatural.  But, on the human level, living with a foot in both worlds:  the spiritual and the material realm – we find our feelings injured much easier than most.

            Today, I have gifted you with awareness of how to deal with these hurts you carry.  Go Direct.  Go Within.  Unload all the baggage of wounds before that Infinite Invisible inside you.  I am not trying to help make you a better human, I am just reminding you of your spiritual nature and reality that awaits you to walk freely and enjoy the journey a little easier.

            I hope you are ready to have a second re-fill on your drink and a slice of that banana nut bread.  It has the potential to become your new favorite recipe to serve for your loved ones!  If you feel like hanging around for dinner, I’m making red cheese enchiladas and tossed salad tonight.  A few home-fried chips and home-made salsa, as well . . .

            I’ve never been a “spiritual beggar,” but today I am going to pass a collection plate.  I’m not asking for money.  As that plate comes before you, I am asking you to put your hurts, resentments, fears, and anxieties into it.  Don’t let it pass you by before you contribute the garbage you are needlessly carrying around.  I will take those tithings from you Directly to God and hand them over to someone who can heal you from the inside out.  Remember?  We are here “to serve one another.”  The first time is on me.  With awareness, as you accumulate more (and you will,) you know that the only true healing comes from within.

            It is so hard to be a human.  I get it!  For more helpful hints, stay tuned . . . and take care, I care . . .

Always,

Gloria D. Benish, Ph.D.

(Alias:  Dr. Glo-bug – Just here “to lighten things up”)

For a FREE COPY of “GUTS & GLORI(A) From Fear…to Eternity,” Go To:

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406-777-5632

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P.S.  I just had one more thought about today’s column and issue.  I don’t know about you, but in the past, I always used to tell myself that I wanted to never forget how someone had hurt me.  Somehow, like remembering it . . . it would keep me from allowing them do it all over again.  Able to remember the hurt to use it as a shield from future hurts is not advisable.  We attract our loves, hates, and fears when they are united in emotion.  Please use today’s lesson to heal the pain you carry.  The memory of the words, alone, will not be an attraction to draw a repeat performance back into your life.