Tonight, I want to ask you about fear.Does it keep you in a job you hate? In a loveless marriage? In the wrong career? Miserable, lost and hopeless? Why is fear such a powerful emotion?  How can’t we overcome it?  I would love to hear your stories about fear and how it paralyzed you and how you eventually got through it and moved on.

In the dark hour of my soul. I heard a voice telling me. Hang in there. It’s going to be okay and I believed it!

What I learned this week:

Sometimes you need time to see the trees in the forest so you don’t keep running into them!

Life is a gift. I have a lease on it. I will do everything in my power to pay my life mortgage, but I have to be very smart about it. I certainly will not get a second lease on it!

What I am Grateful For

The ability for the body and soul to repair itself when it rests.

For the next few months Teen Living Smart will introduce us to the point of view of teens on Living Smart Topics. We’ll start with the meaning of intimacy. Stay Tuned and tell us what you think. Only if you are a teen!

To view past shows go to:

http://houstontx.city.swagit.com/Series/Latina_Voices/

all past Latina Voices Show

www.latinavoices.com

www.facebook.com/latinavoices

Latina Voices airs on Sundays at 2:30 pm on HoustonPBS and HTV Ch. 16 Comcast on Wednesdays and Sundays at 8 am and 8pm.

What I am grateful for

My production interns and being cancer free for a year!

What I learned this week

How to try to stay positive by breathing deeply.

The elections are over. I am truly glad about that. I cared very little for the latest Supreme Court decision that allowed big moneyed interests to give money to political campaigns on both sides with little oversight. The ads were ridiculous and the truth as always was the first casualty.  Here is the bottom line. The elections were not about the tea party or how awful the Democrats were or how badly Obama blew it the first two years in office, or how wonderful the Republicans are going to be, in my humble opinion. The elections were about anger over the econonomy and the little  progress politicians in power were making to fix it.   We are Americans and we want it fixed now! Whose fault is it? My view is that politicians on both sides of the aisle don’t have the guts to tell us the truth. Here is the truth. The economy is in a very bad state.  It took years to be where we are today and it is going to take years to get it fixed. It will not happen conveniently during election cycles, or when Obama or the Republicans or the Democrats decide. It is much more complicated than that.

Now, I believe in miracles. I don’t believe in magic. This folks, is the big recession, worse than anything we have seen since world war 2. This can’t be fixed by the Feds raising or lowering rates. Why is that? the nature of this recession is  based on a financial meltdown created by lack of proper banking regulation, bad lending practices, greed, careless borrowing and just plain stupidity. This means the fed can’t just fix it overnight because this problem is not just cyclical and the Feds don’t have the power to fix it quickly, not when the value of our most important asset, home equity has fallen by 50 percent in the last 4 years. That’s 6.5 trillion dollars. Then there is the loss of millions of jobs along with trillions of dollars.  So do you want to be more realistic as to when we will really get out of this financial trauma? Many experts say 7 years,  but guess what. They are not running for office. So if you hear the Republicans can save us by cutting taxes or the Democrats can save us by stimulating and government spending they are not telling you the truth. That’s because no one can save us but ourselves. If we want to live smart, we need to live within our means, become more creative with money, expect less from politicians  and if we are unemployed keep looking and believing things will get better. They will, I believe, but it will take some time. That’s the truth in my humble opinion.