Back story Post Sept 3rd

I’m up before the crack of dawn. Its pitch dark outside and very still accept for the occasional car that rolls down Wilshire Blvd. I did go to sleep at 9PM so I guess getting up a t 5AM is not so bad. Most nights I’m exhausted from long hours of working. I need to stay focused and also need to implement a strong sense of self discipline. This is not something new. My life has always demanded self discipline in order to survive.

There was always money issues, children, work and responsibilities that demanded I be very self disciplined. Persistence is a mark of self discipline or may-be it is just plain stubbornness and an inability to accept defeat. Whatever it is I know how to super impose a sense of discipline upon myself. However there have been times in my life where the self discipline exhausted me and I went in the opposite direction. It’s sort of like denying yourself certain pleasures and then becoming a glutton of self indulgences. I think we’ve all gone there from time to time. The key is to find balance. To find a place where discipline is grounded and at the same time you can take time to laugh and play. Of course that is easy to say when you are not in a survival mode. Poverty and lack of support can be mighty forces in your life.

However I must find that balance point between the extremes. But a little more discipline is needed. I live a privileged life. It wasn’t always this way. I have struggled and gone without. Now I live a very upper middle class life, have money in the bank, travel, have clothes, jewelry and the ability to do what I want without a worry about money. I’ve never had this opportunity in my life.

When I was younger I watched other women who had supportive husbands, money, vacations, clothes, jewelry and all the accouterments of wealth take a position of entitlement without appreciation. It takes going without to learn to appreciate. And if I had to say the one thing that predominates in me these days it is appreciation for what I have because I remember all too clearly those days of struggle.

Character is a bi-product of discipline, struggle and hard work. Do I wish I had been born rich and had everything handed to me? You bet I do…but it would not be my life and I would not have an appreciation for things that most people take for granted.

So here I am about to launch my new classes, finish my book, finish the new DVD in my lovely condo, with money in the bank and an African vacation just on the horizon, appreciating the opportunity to be creative at a wonderful time in my life without the pressure of making money. What I appreciate the most is that at the end of the day I can put down my tools and laugh and enjoy the simple things in life.

Poverty, ill health and loneliness when turned around to become a comfortable, healthy and fulfilled life are a major feat. As I struggled to overcome each issue I remain constantly aware that at any moment poverty, ill health and loneliness can reappear. So for the moment and in the moment it is best to live life to its fullest.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com

Back story Post Aug 26

I am now working long hours editing, organizing and trying to bring all the pieces together while I teach and try to manage a personal life. Staying focused and to task is essential if I am to meet my deadlines. I do have a habit of setting very high goals for myself and then challenge myself to meet these goals sometimes with unrealistic expectations. I realize that I am not going to make my goal of September 1st . The book will still be in the editing stage and the video will not be done. But I need to do it right and it is better to take longer. Everything in life takes longer and cost more.


On top of all of this my back and knees are giving me a bit of a twinge. I’m now seeing a physical therapist two days a week. Just as I’m seeing the goal in view my body is beginning to rebel. Next week I have to have surgery on my teeth so I will be out for about three days.

Underneath my focused self I am feeling a bit depressed. I feel the aging of my body and the lack of energy that was so prevalent in my youth. Now I’m not old…or at least I don’t think I am..but I’m beginning to feel the slowing down that comes with approaching a certain age.

I still think of myself as thirty-five. I think I arrested at that age and never thought of myself as growing older. Now as I approach a new era my body lets me know that it does not have the energy or the ability that it had many years ago.

Here in lies a contradiction. I’ve exercised my whole life and my body shows it. I’m as fit as most twenty year olds. I’ve eaten relatively healthy over the years. However my body is beginning to show the signs of over use. And I hear this story from other active and fitness minded people. If you don’t exercise you negatively affect your health but if you are really active like me you also end up with back, knee, shoulder and hip issues!

So I need to change my routine. That is why I developed my exercise video. I want to stay sexy and energetic but realize that I can’t keep up the pace of cycling every day. Did you know that exercise enhances your sexuality? Cycling, yoga and aerobics it appears enhances sex for it’s participants more than for those who are inactive. So I developed Doctor Lynn’s Xercise for a Sexy Body-Mind which is combination yoga for flexibility and balance and low impact aerobics for cardiovascular strength and body toning. All good for sex!

And guess what? It really makes you sweat and feel good. So here I am about to embark on this venture and my back and knees are yelling at me to give it a break…oh yah and I’m sleeping a tremendous amount. So it’s physical therapy, rest and positive thinking and once again I will prevail. Remember in life there will always be set backs and obstacles to overcome. It is the person who pushes on even when the going gets rough that wins the game.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story Post Aug 25th

A practical plan: If you want to make something come to fruition you need a workable plan. You can desire something but if you don’t have an organized plan it will never happen. Now remember desire is a tricky thing. You can say you want something but doubt you will get it or be afraid that you will get it and sabotage your dream. Most people don’t believe they deserve to get what they want in life so they sit on the side lines depressed and sad. They also are ready to give up at the first sign of defeat. To realize a dream you must be persistent with absolute faith.


When I was single I knew exactly the type of man I wanted to meet and decide that I would not marry again until I met him. Over the years I dated, lived with and got engaged to several men. None of which filled the bill. Each time I moved on. I did get discouraged. But something inside me kept pushing onward. I was not going to settle for less than what I desired.

Through perseverance and a carefully crafted plan I finally met and married the man I was destined to meet. But it did not happen without faith and an organized plan. Yesterday I was talking to one of my students who is single and lonely. She would like to get married. She has no plan and believes that there is nobody out there for her. I told her to get a plan and to have faith. If I could do it – anyone can do it.

Now back to my project. I started with a book and then the book became a video and then the video became a class and then the class became a platform and then the platform became my voice. To implement my project I needed a plan. But I also needed to be flexible and ready to adjust the plan as needed. Remember this is all about what it takes to be successful at any endeavor.

Here’s how to build a plan:

Ally yourself with as many people as possible to help you carry out your plan. You need someone to support you, someone to encourage you, someone to help you with the tasks you cannot do. Napoleon Hill calls this the “Master Mind Principle”. It simply means that you ally yourself with others who work with you in harmony towards the same end goal. You must all be on the same page.

Second you must decide what you can offer these individuals. No one will work for nothing. If you can offer them some kind of compensation ( and it need not be money) people will come together in a cooperative effort to reach a goal. When I wanted to shoot my video and my budget was nil I ran an ad offering experience, credit and fun. The response was overwhelming with people willing to work for no pay in exchange for experience and credit.

Once you’ve organized the group set up meetings. Keep the communications flowing to perfect the plans and then finally maintain harmony between yourself and the members of the group. No one wants to be dictated to or spoken down to. With encouragement and respect people will work in harmony.

Keep in mind that you are undertaking a project that is extremely important to you. Your plans must be faultless so therefore you must take advantage of the expertise and experience of those around you. Working in harmony with respect for all will ultimately bring you success.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story post Aug 24

I narrowed my search down to about five people and then asked each one to give me a price. Now if you search hard enough you can find people who will do work for free. They want experience and credit but my experience tells me that you get what you pay for and that I needed someone who knows what they are doing and can get the job done. However the economy is tight so everyone is negotiating. Also any time you are looking for someone to hire – get a few prices because they will surely be different. The prices I got were from $5000 to $300! Quite a range for the same job. So I wrote back to the three high priced guys and said they were far beyond my range. Suddenly they were all in a bidding war to get me the best price. They all settled somewhere around $500.00 which is what I expected to pay.


Now this all brings me up to present day. I’m leaving tomorrow for Cleveland Ohio for a wedding and then onto Maine for a week. We’ve rented a cottage on a lake for the week. No internet service and no town nearby. We’re in the boondocks. I’m unplugging but not before I frantically finish all the details of this project.

For the last few months I’ve been working long days. Putting in about 12 hours a day for 6 days a week. I’m exhausted. Everything goes live in September so I’m a bit overwhelmed with details. To top it all off I found out I need to have teeth surgery the end of August, I have a cyst on my liver that is getting bigger and now needs to be watched, I have tendentious in my knees and my back is beginning to ache. Oh and there is a good chance I’ve been walking around with pneumonia! Just as I’m climbing up a long hill I have to struggle to hang on. But I’ve got a plan – like Napoleon Hill I’m following a prescribed set of steps that are major attributes of great leadership which is what is takes to accomplish a goal;

1. Unwavering courage, 2. Self control 3. A keen sense of justice, 4.Definiteness of decision, 5. Definiteness of plans, 6. The habit of doing more than paid for, 7.A pleasing personality, 8. Sympathy and understanding, 9. Mastery of details, 10. Willingness to assume full responsibility, 11. Cooperation

However if you are weak in any one of these areas, a smart leader hires people to fill the void. Over the years I have assessed my strength and my weaknesses. Wisdom teaches you to not be a “know it all” and get help when needed. Constructive criticism can be the best advice of all. Most people in life fail, it seems, because they don’t have the “stick to it-ness” that is needed to overcome hurdles and finally reach your goal. They give up at the first sign of resistance.

I’m exhausted and in need of some rest and although I will be editing my book and working on my new exercise class while in Maine, I won’t be teaching or have any deadlines to meet. I’m going to unplug and enjoy the beauty of nature. Balance after all is found when you get focused, centered, quiet and still. And what I need is to bring a little balance back into my life.



Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

A successful Life Aug 30

To find and experience true love; to be in love; passionately love. Of all of life’s experiences to fall passionately in love is top of the list. When I was younger I fell passionately in love. It was and is to this day the love experience of my life. He broke my heart and moved on. It took me a long time to realize that I had been successful. Many people go through life without ever feeling or experiencing true passionate love. We cannot simply choose to fall in love and often times fall in with the wrong person but the experience is something I am glad I had in my life. Even though the departure hurt I felt deep in my soul the depths of love and to me that is one of the ingredients to a successful life.


Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story Post Aug 20th

Laura is a lovely young woman. Her studio was very professionally run. I was very impressed with her approach and she told me she had a good feeling about me. The location is on a nice street in Beverly Hills. There is plenty of parking although you need to park about a block away in a parking garage.


Laura wanted me to use one room and teach both a cycle class and a yoga class. I wanted a studio space where I could teach my new class as well as a yoga and cycle class. This seemed ideal but there was a catch.

The studio was designed to be a Pilate’s studio. Laura had three rooms full of Pilate’s equipment. The bikes she had purchased for the cycle class were crammed in the corner behind the reformers. She thought I could drag out the bikes and place them around the room between the Pilates equipment and for yoga I could place the mats between the reformers. She was trying very hard to make something more out of something that did not have the capacity.

I explained to her that the classes needed their own space. We needed a separate room. She told me there was some empty space downstairs that she would consider co-leasing with me. We looked at the place. It needed to be fitted out as a studio. It was ground level so it would be costly and I only wanted to rent studio space for a couple of hours a week. This just was not going to work out. I really liked Laura and was sad that we couldn’t make it work.

So I began the hunt for studio space. I told all my students I was looking for space. Several students brought me leads of space that would be available. Either the times available didn’t work or the location didn’t work. I drove around looking for possibilities. It was beginning to seem futile. Then I ran into one of my cycle students, Nikos. I told him I was looking for studio space and he said he knew just the right spot. He had been looking for some space to start a project and found a great yoga space that was empty. He heard that the guy who leased it was never there and that he might be giving it up.

I left and immediately went to see the studio. It is located in the Village of Westwood near UCLA. Across the street is a parking garage with free two hour parking. This was starting to look good. It was in a court yard just off the street. I walked into the courtyard that was tiled, with plants, very quiet and with a water fountain that created a sense of tranquility. The studio was empty. I peered into the window and there it was – Eureka another find! The studio was open with natural light. It had lovely wood floors and bamboo sheets across the extra tall ceilings. I fell in love with the space.

Determined I went to the directory but could not find the studio owners name or phone number. Seemed they were going out of business just as Nikos had said. So I wrote down the number for the leasing office. I went home and searched Google for the name of the yoga studio and found a phone number. Isn’t the internet great! I called and left a message. I also called the leasing office and left a message. The next day the leasing office called.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story Post Aug 19th

A video! Now my budget was limited but I really wanted to take the exercises in the chapter and make them into a simple video that could be downloaded from my website. So I posted an ad on Craig’s list about looking for interns who wanted to help me with a fifteen minute video project. I would give them credit, pay expenses and give them experience. I live in LA. The economy is bad in LA and there are a lot of out of work movie people. I was inundated with emails from people who wanted to be paid, to people who just wanted to get involved. John a director and camera man sent me an email and told me that he was between jobs and would be happy to help me for the credit. It’s good to be working even when not getting paid and who knows..One lead might lead to another. I met with John and he was perfect. He had all the equipment and could shoot it in one day. I would hire a couple of interns to help, I had access to the function room at our condominium complex free of charge and easily lined up three interns to come by and help.


We set a date. I wrote and practiced the script. I made sure we had lunch, snacks, drinks and free parking. It all started to come together. Rebecca my intern agreed to make a cover for the DVD, Ann Marie had shot pictures of me to match the DVD, John had all the equipment, I had the script but I needed music. I could not use any music that I did not have the right to use. So I contacted Daniel my first intern and asked him if he had any music he would like to contribute for credit and promotion of his music and his band. He replied back and immediately sent me about 6 songs. Three of which worked perfectly. The whole project came together in a flash. It was like everything had finally lined up and was positioned to work synergistically.

So we shot the DVD. Then I got an email from a company that was starting an online live exercise gym and asked me if I would like to teach a class or two. Eureka! I now had platform as well as a product. The problem was that this was a start up and it would take a while to make it happen. But that was ok because I had a team that would help me launch this whole thing.

Now the DVD was only 1/3 of the Doctor Lynn’s Xercise for a Sexy Body-Mind. There was part two and three. About a year ago I had tried to teach a freestyle class combination of yoga and dance. The idea was readily accepted by my students but the freestyle was beyond their reach. They wanted something choreographed and easy to follow. So that class failed but the feedback was invaluable. I knew what they wanted and quickly began to choreograph the second and third part to the new exercise class.

Using my IPod I made a playlist, put time aside and practiced at perfecting my routine. I made it simple, easy, low impact while using all the right moves to make you sweat and work all the right muscles and body parts. In my mind’s eye I envisioned the whole class. Now I wanted to teach it in person and perfect it before I went live on the internet. So I decide to try and find some studio space.

I went out to dinner with my step son and his wife and mentioned to them I was looking for studio space. A week later Emily sent me an email and told me she was at a party where she met a woman who owned a Pilates studio and she was looking for someone to teach yoga and cycle…Eureka!

Another Eureka moment where the solution to a problem suddenly out of nowhere appears. So I went to meet Laura, the Pilates studio owner.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story post 26 August 18

I hired Boris to set up my Face book and Twitter accounts and to teach me how to tweet. I started getting up at 5:30 AM so I could blog, post, Face book and tweet before I went to teach classes and then worked on the book. Suddenly I was working 12 hour days and dreaming and analyzing my project through the night.


Boris had some big ideas for me and told me he really believed in my projects and in me. He felt I had a strong image that he could help me create. I needed a presence in the social media arena. So after the initial project I hired him for a fee to help me take it to the next level. He suggested I needed some new pictures for my website, face book and twitter that better reflected me. The pictures on my site were about three years old so I agreed. He had a friend who would do the job for a nominal fee. He assured me I would love her.

He introduced me to a red headed Irish girl named Anne Marie who had an infectious laugh and a creative style that I knew would reflect the image I wanted to portray. I wanted the pictures to reflect me and what I was doing. She got it. She shot it and the pictures got posted. Being an Irish girl from back East but originally from Ireland she immediately got my approach to life. Herbs, folk medicine and the magic, that was not too far reaching for her. She just got it. Wow how did this person fall into my life at this time? But as I said this was only one of a number of significant meetings in my life.

Here is one thing I have learned. One of the secrets of success in any endeavor is to have significant meeting happen in the juncture of your creativity.

Now this would be a good time to back up and tell you that I had been at this for a long time and I had either come up short or failed at making this all come together on several attempts. But something in me kept persisting. Reflecting back I remember reading and rereading my favorite book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In the book there is a story about a little poor girl who would show up each day outside the office building of a rich man. She would ask him each day for a penny. This of course was when a penny was worth something. Each day he would shoo her away. The next day she would show up, same time and same place and ask for a penny. This went on for weeks. Finally the man realized that the only this little girl would go away was if he gave her a penny. So he did and the girl got what she wanted. Persistence paid off. I’ve never forgotten that story and each time I did not get what I wanted I tried again. Sometimes I would retreat and re-evaluable my plan and then I would march forward with determination. Always taking the time to reflect on the things that I allowed to stand in my way of success. I would then work on removing negatives and replacing them with a little magic.

There are no failures, just ill conceived plans and an inability to reorganize and persist. The basis of persistence is will power and will power is a might force. From sheer will power anything is possible. But it need not be cold and forceful. When I was young I thought it to be true. However as I have aged I have realized that you can will things in a gentle way. In fact the simple release of your desires backed by a gently will to succeed, and wishing for only good, turns the tide and allows things to flow to you. This is exactly what happened to me and I did it by also employing a little magic.

At the time I met Boris I was about 125 pages into the book I was writing, which can be found on my website. http://www.doctorlynn.com The book is titled Sex Matters and Pleasure Delights. It’s a book about natural sexual health. Why? Because your sexuality is the very first thing you are when you come in this world and the very last thing you take with you. It defines your life so a close examination of the natural aspects of having good sex seemed like a good topic. Being a Naturopath, aroma therapist, herbalist, yoga and fitness instructor; the essence of the book seemed a creative endeavor. But this is a story about writing the book and making this major project I have undertaken work.

I was about to write the chapter on Xercise for a Sexy Body-Mind when it dawned on me that this chapter needed…

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story Post 25 Aug 17

Here is where the story gets really interesting. I was about 125 pages into writing my book. I knew it would take another two months to finish and then another month to edit. My focus was on the book. I had just finished writing a chapter on Xercise for a Sexy Body-Mind. Rebecca my summer intern was going to start in about two weeks. Social media was a buzz word that meant nothing to me.


The doorbell rang and in walked Boris and Natasha.

Not really Boris and Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show but standing in my doorway they looked just like them and it appeared they were on a mission. And I mean this is such a positive way. Both had character, were strong and connected. Now I call them Boris and Natasha ,not because they reminded me of Russian spies but because well Boris was a lot shorter than Natasha who was extremely tall and thin. She wore over the knee wedge boots with probably a 4 to 5 heel and tight black jeans and top. He was very intellectual looking. Boris wore glasses, a jacket and jeans. He’s was carrying his laptop. Natasha has long beautiful brown hair. Boris has this persona that is intriguing. Natasha is lovely with a beautiful smile. They were on a mission.

Boris introduced me to Natasha his girlfriend and asked if it was ok that she came along for the meeting. He assured me that she would have some good input. After sharing a few niceties about each other, I shared with them my mission and what I needed. Boris wanted to take on the mission. He began to explain to me the details and importance of social media and why he thought I should hire him. Like I said he was very intelligent and made a good case. He offered to do some work setting up my face Book and twitter accounts for a nominal fee. If I liked what he did we could continue.

I immediately had an anxiety attack. First I’m a techno-phobic and second I was so swamped with trying to write the book, organize a plan and teaching classes – how could I take on blogging, face booking and tweeting every day? Besides I knew nothing about doing it. I wasn’t a kid and not very computer savvy. It was a new thing to learn and learning takes time. Boris convinced me that I needed to get my social media up and running long before the book was ready. I needed to start now so when the book comes out, I’ll have some fans. He wanted to help me create a presence and an image. He would do the work and walk me through this. Natasha assured me that he could do it and I would learn quickly.

Sometimes people come into your life in mysterious ways. I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that I could meet someone who would become significant in my life who just a moment ago never existed in my reality. This was not the first significant meeting but it was a significant meeting.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story post 22 Aug 5

On the fifth day in the hospital I got up, got dressed and waited for the Doctor to come by and release me. He did not want to let me go because – well its a long story about a catheter that I won’t share with you because some things are too boring to write. Let’s just say I got my way and I went home. I called my husband and was waiting downstairs at the pick up when he arrived. I could not wait to get home. If you have ever stayed in a hospital for an extended amount of time – let’s say even for overnight, you know what I mean.


It was so painful going home. To get in and out of the car and to ride feeling every little bump in the road. But I was going home to 6 weeks of recovery with nothing to do but rest. I could not drive for three weeks so I was housebound. But it did not matter because the pain and exhaustion were over whelming.

It’s strange how some things remain so vivid in your memory. Once home I collapsed on the couch. For the next week all I did was move from the couch to the bathroom. Taking a shower and getting dressed completely exhausted me. I could not go up and down stairs or lift anything. I lay on the couch in a narcotic stupor and stared into space for hours. I realized for the first time in my life what it was like to not be able to move, run, bend and lift. I was housebound and basically bed bound.

One day as I lay in bed feeling depression setting in upon me like a morning fog rolls in over the coast line, I began to think about yoga. I missed teaching it and I missed doing it. I wondered if my body would ever be able to move again. It was then that I realized that I could still practice yoga even if I could not bend or get off the couch. In my mind I began to practice the basics of yoga. Breathe and surrender and find peace and serenity. I visualized the poses in my head and as I took myself through the imaginary practice I felt my body come alive. I would do this again. I would get up and teach again.

I began to take daily walks and each day my gait became a little stronger. Slowly I began to do simple yoga poses. I was determined to go back to teaching both yoga and cycle in 6 weeks. I cried most every day. My hormones were up and down and my body hurt. My mind was foggy and the narcotics had really made my digestive system into a total twisted mess of extreme Irritable bowel syndrome. My stomach was swollen, scarred and protruding while my body was frail and emaciated. I had lost a lot of weight. It would be a long battle back to health but I was determined to make it.

This was the longest 6 weeks of my life. Biopsies came back clean but the year ahead was constant monitoring for any sign that the cancer would reemerge. At six weeks I went back to gym and taught my yoga and cycle classes. I am a good teacher. I’ve been doing it for years and yet that first day back I was petrified. I was so afraid that I could not do it. I was afraid my energy level would not hold up. With trepidation I returned and to my surprise I did quite well.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back story Post 21 Aug 4

The surgery went well or so I was told as I awoke into a deep fog. All around me nurses were whirling, machines were pumping but I did not care. In my hand was a button which I was told was morphine for the pain. All I needed to do was squeeze the button when I felt pain and I would get immediate relief for about an hour. The pain was excruciating. My legs were wrapped in a machine that was pumping and massaging them. This I was told was so that no blood clogs could move up my body. I was numbed, drugged and helpless. It was about 3:30 PM. The surgery had been finished for about an hour. I was told that I would use the morphine button to get me through the night. I could not have any food, just juice for the next 12 hours. I could not get out of bed and every four hours I would receive a shot to keep my blood thin so I would not clot.


The pain was unbearable and every hour I would squeeze the button in my hand for relief. I held onto that button as if it was my only lifeline. The night was long with spurts of drifting in and out of consciousness. The pain would wake me every hour and I would squeeze the button for relief.

The next morning the nurse gave me pain killers (narcotics) antibiotics, prescription strength ibuprofen, something for the indigestion and stool softeners and then they took away the button! The narcotics did not kill the pain. The next day was the worse pain I have ever felt. With over 100 stitches inside the cavity of my pelvis I cried in pain. But the real pain was ahead of me. I had to get out of bed attached to an IV and a catheter. I still rammer the pain of just lifting my legs and swinging them to the side of the bed. I stepped down and fell into the chair next to the bed. The nurse who helped me told me that was a good job and now I could get back in bed. That was equally as painful. We would do that a couple of times that day and then in the afternoon she would help me take a few steps.

I was so fit. I was a fitness instructor. I was strong and here I was not even able to get out of bed! I lay in bed alone crying into the pillow. I was exhausted and as the next night began to creep in the pain and the exhaustion over took me.

I could not sleep. I lay awake taking my meds at 8 PM. The shift was changing and the night crew arrived. I large woman with a mean attitude came into my room and announced that she was the nurse for the night shift. She was so different than the other nurses who had been kind and caring. She had an attitude and obviously was an angry person. Now this part of the story is something I think needs to be told. Patient abuse does happen. I was unable to fend for myself. I was so vulnerable and so dependent upon the nursing staff. The pain intensified as the night wore on. The last traces of the morphine wore off. At about midnight I rang the nurse’s station and asked for the nurse. No one answered. It was time for my medication and the pain was intensifying. I called again at 12:30 AM. I was to receive the pain medication every 4 hours. It was now almost five hours. I called again and this time the nurse came into my room. She asked me what I wanted. I told her I needed the medication. She told me she was busy and would get it when she had the time. She left me in the bed in pain for another hour. When she arrived with the meds she threw them down on the table, kicked the bed and left.

I had a roommate who heard me crying and moaning in pain and assured me that she would be witness to me telling the doctors the next day about the abuse. I did report her. Abuse of patients does happen. I swore I would never be that vulnerable again. I would get out of bed and march right up to the nurses’ station and demand care.

So I said to myself – if you give into the pain and give into the fear you’ll never get through this – you need to move forward one step at a time and make a comeback. And so I did. Each day for the next five days, I got out of bed every 2 hours and I walked the length of the hall way in unbelievable pain as I shuffled one foot in front to the other but I was determined and each day I did a little more until on the fifth day I could walk three times back and forth the length of the hospital ward. I was determined. I was going home.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlyn.com

Back story post 20 Aug 2

My husband sat beside me holding my hand as I called the Doctor. As if I was in some kind of a suspended space and time I heard the words none of us ever want to hear – you have cancer and we need to operate. I went silent. I didn’t cry. I didn’t move. After I spoke with the doctor and hung up the phone. I looked at my husband and asked him if the doctor told me I had cancer? I could not believe I just heard those words. Three years into an unstable marriage and I had cancer, would undergo a radical hysterectomy and be suddenly thrown into menopause. I went numb and then I got angry and then I cried and cried. My husband held me and told me he would take care of me. He assured me that he would be there for me but I must say I did not trust him. I was afraid and our life was so unstable but I had no choice but to surrender and accept whatever lay ahead of me.


I did not sleep that night. The next morning I began the horrible task of telling my family and close friends. I waited a week to tell my students and the gym coordinators. There were lots of tears and lots of fear in the faces of those I told. I understood. Everyone backed away as if I could give the cancer to them.

I was fit, healthy and energetic. How could I – a fitness and health nut get cancer? Everyone was shocked. If it could happen to me, well then it could happen to them. And what if I died? No one wants to be close to a person who is dying of cancer. It’s something we don’t like to talk about or face. It is very difficult to ask someone how they are feeling or about their health as they are going through this nightmare.

I remembered a few years back when a lovely woman from the gym was diagnosed with cancer. I did not know her very well so I avoided asking her about her disease, afraid that I would upset her. So I knew how others felt about approaching me. But also knew the loneliness and the isolation. I did not want to be alone with the horrible disease. Although I understood the avoidances because no one knew what to say, I felt the distance. It was as if they could void me out the fear of their own mortality would disappear. We don’t like to look at sickness and death. It reminds us that we are all subject to finality. However, there were those who hugged me and supported me. And those hugs were the dearest and most memorable part of the whole experience.

My family rallied around. It’s amazing how much support and love comers through when you can’t give any back because all you can do is hang on and pray for survival. Your body and your mind are consumed with fear, anxiety and exhaustion. There is nothing in you that can give and yet in the process of surrender and recovery there is so much more you have to give.

I had to face this head on with no choice but to accept and surrender to whatever fate handed me.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

Back story post 19 July 30

I did continue to teach yoga and once again yoga had been the one thing that had kept me sane. It had saved me again. My spirit, although wounded continued to hang on. But I must say my teaching did suffer in those early days of our relationship. I would go to class distracted and depressed. My students knew it and some even lent me an ear and a shoulder to lean on. I cried a lot. I was lost. I was so disappointed. This was supposed to be the relationship that lasted the rest of my life. I had told myself I would not get married again until I found the person I could settle down with and grow old. I thought my husband was the one. I made a mistake.


By outward appearances I had everything. We had a beautiful home, nice cars, great vacations, I had clothes, jewelry, opportunities but no stability. We would vacillate between intense fighting and love making. Our passion was extreme. It was exhausting and killing both of us. We tried counseling. That didn’t help. We were desperately trying to hang onto the last threads of our relationship and I was falling into an emotional hole filled with fear, anger and sadness.

Over the second year of our marriage I started to experience health issues. The doctor’s told me it was the beginning of menopause. I was in pain and bled sporadically between periods. And then I began to bleed all the time. I started losing weight and became extremely tired. Tests were done. Nothing was found. I went for an MRI.

The weekend after the MRI was a good one for us. We seemed to break through something. We had stumbled across a book by Terrence Real, The New Rules of Marriage. It had been the first book we had read that really seemed like it had a workable solution to marriage. What it told us was that our problems were not unique. We just needed tools to handle our marriage in a mature way. Everyone and especially people in older second, third or fourth time around marriages suffer from basically the same issues – inability to acknowledge and understand the other persons point of view. This was a working tool for us. We were both so happy believing that we may have found something that would help us make our marriage work.

We came home from dinner. I had a message on my voice mail. It was from My doctor asking me to call him at home that evening. I sat frozen. I knew this was not good. I went into shock. I went to my husband and told him the doctor wanted me to call him immediately. This was not good.

With shaking hands I dialed the number.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back Story post 18 July 29

I do need to back up and tell another part to this story. When I met Dan, my now husband, he told me that he did not like scents and that he was not very spiritual. He was ok with yoga but he was into business and making money and had little time for the spiritual path. He did not believe in God or anything beyond the present life. This was all so contradictory to my beliefs and my path in life. I am a very spiritual person although I do not believe in organized religion or a great god sitting in the sky passing judgment and handing out punishments. What I do believe is the human spirit. I believe we are more than simply the body-mind and that this is not all there is to the energy of the soul. I believe in the laws of thermodynamics – energy is never lost it simply changes form and we are simply energy packets in this form and subject to constant change. But he did send me an email that I have kept all these years and I will share it with you.


Good morning (or whenever you get the computer working),



If there is a purpose to our meeting (and I am beginning to believe that there is), it is that;



-- You will bring more spiritual awareness to my life; and



-- I will bring financial stability to yours.



Dan

So although I would put my work on the back burner and make the relationship a priority, I hung onto this email and somehow knew inside that we would give something more to each other than appeared on the surface. Sadly I tucked away my work. The nectars, the aromatherapy and my writing all went dormant as I moved in with Dan and began to establish what I believed as the most important thing in my life…love. I wanted to be loved and to love and that took precedent over everything else. So I put aside my work and started the work of being married. Now I told you earlier that it was tumultuous. It almost ended in divorce. I was so lonely and so disappointed in those first few years. This is not what I had bargained for. I tried to write but the emotional instability and the struggle to survive killed all creativity. I survived but a part of me began to die. I had made a mistake. I did not want to go through another divorce. I did not want to fail so I hung on and continued to try. I should not have married this man.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back Story Post 17 July 28

Let’s just say the first three years were tumultuous. Those close to me know how very difficult this marriage was from the get go. There were so many obstacles to navigate. I had been married very young and when you get married the first time you have no baggage. You simply get married (totally unaware of what you are doing) and blindly try to make a relationship work. No one prepares you for the hard work of being married. And believe me anyone who tells you it isn’t hard work has never been married or doesn’t have much of a marriage. A second, third or fourth marriage is even more difficult. No one prepares you for marriage at any level.


It all starts off with a grand party (the wedding) and a getaway honey moon. Life is bliss and you’re in love. But soon reality sets in. You begin to get on each other’s nerves and you fight. Now it is normal to argue but fighting is quite another thing. We fought. We did not know how to argue constructively. You see we both wanted to be in love and to live happily ever after. We have both been through many relationships and had been searching for the one love that would make it all work. We were both at cross roads in or lives and this was supposed to be the relationship that took us happily into old age together.

Even me approaching midlife and he in the beginning of his senior years, were both so naïve. We thought it would be simple. We were in love (or so we thought), we both wanted the same things, we had a lot in common and the sex was great. What could be the problem? Personalities, ex’s, children, insecurities, disappointments, fears and emotions; just to mention a few problems. We had to deal with each and every one of these.



We were both disappointed. Although the first three years were so difficult what held us together was the sex, the desire to make it work and not wanting to fail again. But we were failing miserably. Neither of us was happy. We were heading for a divorce.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back story Post 16 July 27

As I flew across the country from LA to New York I could not get this man out of my mind. The chemistry between us was so strong. All I knew about him was that he was a lawyer with a business and going through a divorce. Now experience had taught me that you do not get involved with someone going through a divorce. They are unstable and on the rebound so the relationship is doomed. In fact the rule of thumb in the single world had always been – don’t get involved with anyone until they are at least one year post divorce. This guy was 8 months separated and probably a year away from a divorce – if in fact he actually got one at all.


I had a great weekend with Art. He is such a nice man. Grounded and stable but the chemistry was definitely missing for me. He was far more interested than I was. We had fun as we always did and talked way into the late nights. We saw the movie Unfaithful which made Art and most men cringe and made most women say – it’s about time there was a movie where the husband is the victim. It’s always the man cheating on the wife – women are tempted and cheat too!

Throughout the whole weekend I kept thinking about my internet date. I knew I would call him when I returned even though I knew in my rational mind I should let it go.

So I returned on Monday and called him Tuesday afternoon. We met for lunch on Wednesday. He asked me what I was looking for and I told him the love of my life. Someone I could grow old with in a loving and intense relationship. I wanted to travel and find my love, my best friend and my soul mate. I had been searching for years. It was the driving force in my life. His face lit up with joy. He had the same dream and had failed to find it in his life. He felt he had one more chance to find it so at the age of 62 filed for divorce after 20 years of a cold and loveless marriage to venture out and find the one person he would love and would love him without strife and for ever more.

He was hungry for love and hungry for companionship. He was lonely and sad. But the chemistry between us was addicting and we both knew it. So even though we both knew it was not the right time and there were barriers we possibly could not overcome we continued onward. The ride was less than ideal but the passion and the chemistry kept us connected.

Now I should fill you in on a few details. No not the details of our passion. That would be to kiss and tell and like I said some things are better left unwritten. Let’s just say we had a very strong sexual relationship. However the emotional part was tumultuous. The details – he was 13 years older than me. Now that may not seem like a lot but more than 10 years is a generation. Although he is a very contemporary man as time has gone on the differences in movies, music, outlook, energy, health issues and interest have appeared. This however is the least of the issues. He was going through his third divorce. There would now be two ex-wives with children in the picture and the soon to be next ex-wife and he had a son that was 14! I did not want to get involved with someone with a young child. The first ex-wife and he did not have any children. Six months into the marriage she ran off with an Argentine. The marriage was quickly ended without fanfare. But the second produced two children and the third one child and both ex-wives and all the children lived within a 10 mile radius of West LA. And the big surprise was that he was in business with the wife he was divorcing. The business was very successful and the division of it could be disastrous for everyone. He was being advised to stay in the business. They would bring in a partner to run the business and then each of them would stay involved at a distance. Didn’t happen! They stayed involved! But it was too late because by the time the divorce was final and all the dust settled into what I thought would be our life we were engaged to be married. I was caught up in bliss and wedding plans and did not look closely enough at the underlying issues. Issues never disappear. As soon as the honey moon is over and reality sets in – life looks different. I should not have married this man.



Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back story Post 15 July26

I am purposely leaving out a lot of the fine details because well, some things are better left unwritten. In life one should not kiss and tell. But let’s just say I had many years of dating. I was divorced for 25 years. I had been engaged three times, lived with a man for 7 years and had various boyfriends in-between. There were not too many relationship types I had not experienced.


I was about to go off internet dating for a while because it was exhausting. Anyone who has tried this form of meeting people knows that it takes time and after 100 emails from people who are not a match there is a feeling of needing a break. You just don’t want to tell your story one more time or hear another story from a potential date again. 80percent of the people on dating sites don’t know what they want or are playing games. It’s heady to date someone new every night and to keep several people going at the same time. We become like kids in a candy store and with each new meeting wonder if there is someone better, richer, better looking…what are we missing if we stop here?

So an email from a man who wants to meet me only signifies another round of the games. Here we go again – an email form match.com. He said in his email,” I know I’m out of your age range. I’m more than ten years older than you. But only by three years. I would like to meet you for lunch.” His picture was cute but I was sure it must be ten years old because of his age. But he told me he was 13 years older than me? Either he was actually 25 years older, he was being upfront and honest or he was naïve and new to the game. Could this be? An honest soul on match.com? So I agreed to meet him for lunch but not with a lot of hesitation. I picked a place that was convenient for me. I was not going out of my way to meet someone who probably would be older than he said and looked it!

I asked him to meet me at a local bar and grill in Belair. Might as well make it a nice lunch although the last time I met a man there, he told me he was a consultant who lived in Belair. He sent me a picture which was in fact about twenty years old. He was twenty-five years older than me and had suffered a stroke which he neglected to tell me. So when I showed up, I met a man who was limping and drooping, old and could not longer drive. He had someone drop him off at the restaurant and then asked me to drive him home. So I was not too optimistic about this new lunch date.

I called my best friend and told her I had another internet date. It would probably be quick and I’d call her in about 2 hours and give the gory details. I arrived at the restaurant and walked towards the door. Leaning against the wall was a tall good looking man dressed in a very nice suit. It was him. I recognized him from his picture. I was a bit shocked. He looked like his picture and he was waiting for me. He had reserved a table. This was a gentleman. We ordered lunch. The same thing for both of us…salad and poached salmon. We chatted and then we began to flirt. He asked me what I was looking for and I said, “someone who can take the lead.” That’s all it took. Before I knew it he moved around the table and was sitting next to me with his arm around me. He leaned over and kissed me. The chemistry went wild! We both knew it! We talked and kissed for another two hours. When we parted he asked me out for the next night for dinner. I agreed.

He called me later that day. We met for dinner the next night. He was waiting with a bouquet of flowers. Same thing. We ate dinner, kissed and parted with him asking me out for all of the next weekend. I told him I could see him one more time for dinner but then I was leaving for New York for the weekend. I would not be back until Tuesday. So we met again and when we parted he asked me to call him when I got back from New York.

I left for New York on Friday to spend the weekend with Art.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back Story Post 14 July 23

I was considering moving back East. Boston or New York seemed the likely places to go. My family was in Maine and either one would be closer and easier for me to visit but still keep me in the cosmopolitan atmosphere that I needed. I also thought I might have better luck finding a nice man in the North East. Los Angles can be so shallow and superficial. The only drawback was the weather. As anyone in Southern California will tell you – it’s the weather that keeps us here. After years of fighting the long cold winters of the Northeast, southern California had been so welcoming. The weather is not a consideration here. We don’t plan our events around the weather like back east. Instead we plan our events around the freeways and traffic. If you can avoid the freeways and commuting, Southern California is a great place to live. But I did find it lonely here. Everyone was from somewhere else and everyone and everything seemed very transient. It was very difficult to make close and endearing friends.


So I joined a dating site and posted my profile in New York and Boston. I immediately met a lot of men. But to my surprise the same BS was prevalent no matter where you went looking. It was the nature of internet dating. Put on a false front in hopes that when you meet the person they will look past the fact that your picture on your post was ten years old, or it wasn’t you at all, or you weighed 20 pounds more than you said or you really were unemployed, still married, had young children or whatever secrets one felt had to be hidden all came out on the internet dating sites.

Art answered my post. He was my age – good, a lawyer-educated – good, divorced for 6 years – not on the rebound- good, had one child in college-no young children- good and he was smart, witty and a nice guy. We exchanged photos and although he was not handsome there was something sincere and trustworthy about him. He lived just outside Greenwich Connecticut. He owned a home, was gainfully employed, a WASP from a good family and very down to earth. We had a lot in common. We spent hours on the phone talking and getting to know each other. Then he announced that he would like to come to LA and meet me. He would get a hotel room and fly in for one night and one day just to meet me.

He flew to LA and I drove to his hotel and we spent a day wandering around LA. I took him to Venice beach and to the Getty museum, we had dinner and he left the next day. We really liked each other. He was very attracted to me. He was everything I was looking for accept the spark was missing. He would make a great friend but the sexual chemical spark was not there. He seemed awkward and a bit nervous around me. However we continued to talk and over the next month got to know each other better.

We then made a plan for him to come to LA and we would go away to Santa Barbara for the weekend. WE had fun but the spark was missing. I asked myself if I could settle for a nice guy who was very low maintenance but without the spark. I debated this over and over. Art was smitten and let me know his intentions were to make this more than casual dating. He was so honest and so easy to talk with. He was like an old friend. I had been in this situation before where the man was smitten and I was not. They were to me good friends but to them they wanted more. I could not go there.

We made another plan. I would come to Connecticut and see if I liked it. We would talk about taking our relationship to the next level. I really liked him. It was so frustrating that the spark was missing. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I fall in love with a nice guy?

I continued to keep my post on the internet and continued to date the occasional guy. My daughter got married and she and her husband- to be, fixed me up with a date for the wedding. Sam was a dentist, alcoholic, cigarette smoker, nice guy but emotionally very immature. 50 and never been married or lived with a woman and he drank very heavily. Not a great prospect. So I moved on.

Back from the wedding I was scheduled to go and visit Art in about two weeks.

I checked my emails and there was one from a guy on match.com wanting to meet me.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com
http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back story Post 13 July 22

He told me he missed me but he understood that I was trying to launch a career, teaching classes and looking for someone closer to my own age. He was an old man. I had my life ahead of me and should try and find someone to love me and for me to love that I could grow old with. He thought he might stay in Greece. If I needed anything to send him an email and he would get back in touch with me.


I let it drop. I knew in my heart that I would be sorry if I gave away the next ten years of my life to be the companion to an old man. The money was not the issue. I had never been one to seek out money. That’s probably why I did not have any money. Love, passion and adventure had always been the driving force behind my actions. I could not marry an old man for his money even though it would certainly solve a lot of my financial problems. But like anything in life; things come with a price. At the time, ten years into the future; making me 58 looked like I would be old and alone. At 48, 58 seemed over the hill. I’m nearly 58 now and I can tell you I am not over the hill. I still think I’m 35 an have the energy of someone half my age. But all I could see was that I was on a quest to find my lover/soul mate and if I gave up now it would never happen.

I should have married Frank. Today I would be almost 58 and a rich woman. He was kind and loving and I would have made an old man happy in the later years of his life. I lost touch with Frank because something inside of me said not to lead him on or use him in any way. If I had married Frank I would not be writing this story. May-be I would be writing a different story. I do regret from time to time not marrying Frank. I would have an independence now that would carry me the rest of my life. I guess I was insecure about what people would say. They would talk and no one would believe that I truly cared for Frank. I would be labeled a gold digger and that is most likely what I would have been. So I walked away and although today I do have some regrets I know that I made the right decision, with my heart and not with my head and that has both been my downfall in life and my greatest asset.

I should have married Frank. A few months after I returned from the cruise I met a man from New York on an internet dating site. This was the early days of internet dating. I had been using the internet to meet men for about 2 years. I heard every story and met some pretty strange men. Most lied about their age and their looks. Some were nice but not for me and some were outright liars and thieves. The internet dating sites were the new social outlet for single people and for married people looking to have affairs. Yes I met a lot of married men looking to cheat on their wives. Long before social media, internet dating was a vehicle that would plunge you instantly into meeting people you would never ever meet in your life. Some of it was good and some of it was bad; that’s the internet!

Anyway after two exhausting years I met Art.

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com

http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back Story Post 12 July 21

Frank asked me if I would like to see the ports with him away from the crowd and the guided tours. He had been to these ports before and would get a taxi and show me parts of the cities that the rest of the passengers would not see. I am not one for crowds and tours so this sounded like fun to me. In every stop we had one adventure after another. In Portugal we stumbled into a local restaurant for lunch. Frank asked the local business men if the cod was fresh. Before we knew it they were ordering for us and started sharing their wine with us. In broken English we all laughed and enjoyed a lunch of fresh cod and good Portugal wine. In Gibraltar Frank and I climbed to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar and looked out across the Mediterranean to Morocco. The next day we were in Morocco where Frank hired a driver. He took me to a rug store where we haggled and drank mint tea. I bought a beautiful old rug that I still have and love to this day.


Every night we would have dinner and then go dancing. Frank was an excellent dancer. He made me laugh. He held my hand and gave me sweet hugs and soft kisses on the forehead but never asked me for more. He was very satisfied to have my company. We had so much fun and well we did grow to love each other. We became an item on the ship as we spent the rest of the cruise together.

Three nights before the cruise was to end Frank told me over dinner that he wanted to ask me something. He told me that he was alone with no ex-wife or children. He had a few good friends but no one to leave his money. He was worth about 10 million – give or take depending upon the stock market. He asked me to be his companion. He said he had a condo in Fort Lauderdale with a private room and bath for me. But first he needed to tell me something. He asked me how old I was. I told him I was 47 and then he dropped a bomb shell. He was 86!

I did love Frank but not tin the romantic way that I had dreamed. I was in search of the second love of my life. Frank was an old man who wanted a companion. He wanted me to give up my life in California and move in with him and take care of him. He wanted a pretty young woman by his side and nothing more. Frank was in great shape for 86 and I knew he would easily live another 10 years. I tossed the proposition around in my head. To give up the next ten years of my life to take care of an old man – all be it I did really care for Frank and I loved him in the way you love a old friend but it meant giving up the last end of my youth and the prospects of finding a man closer to my age that I could grow old with.

In three days we would land in Barcelona where I would depart and head back to Los Angeles. Frank would continue on to Greece. I had work commitments, my children and my future to think about. Frank did not push me for an answer but said he would call me. He told me that I was young and beautiful and deserved to find a man close to my own age but if I wanted to be taken care of he would do it. He also said if that if I found another man, he understood. In Barcelona we hugged good bye as tears rolled down both of our cheeks. I boarded the bus that would take me to the airport. I missed Frank but somehow knew I would never see him again.

Frank called me from Greece.

Doctor Lynn
http://www.doctorlynn.com/
http:bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back story post 11

Breakfast was served in the ship’s cafeteria buffet style. It was casual and available from 7 to 10 AM. I went for coffee and some fruit. I found a chair near the window and sat down looking out across the vast Atlantic Ocean. There was no land to be seen. We were truly at sea. I thought about how tough it must have been to cross the Atlantic in a wooden ship without any of the convenience of modern life. I had a lovely cabin complete with a full bath and closet. We dined on the best of food and drank the best of wine. We were totally entertained and every detail was taken care of by the staff. There was a fitness center, a spa, a shop, a bar, a formal dining room and a beautiful pool top side. It would take us five days before we would see land. In the early settlers days it would take months under far less than comfortable conditions. For the next five days all we had to do was party and enjoy the luxury of the ship. The total passenger load was 600. This made it small but very private. It was easy to begin to recognize most all the passengers and after a few days everyone was very friendly. Being a single woman, I decided this was a great way to travel. Simply unpack and let the crew do all the work. You simply floated from port to port without a care in the world. I thought; I could get used to this.


As I was finishing my coffee I saw Frank approaching my table. He said good morning and asked if he could join me. He sat down and we began to chat. He told me he was on his way to visit his friend Nanos who lived just outside Athens. Because he was Greek he had already made friends with the captain and the crew who were all Greek. They had given him a private table for dinner and an invite to the Captain’s private party to be held that evening. He asked me if I would like to have dinner with him and then go to the party which would be in the captain’s quarters. I jumped at the chance. I would meet Frank in the dining room at 7PM.

Now dinner with frank was an event. As I approached the dining room the staff quickly escorted me to his table. It was a quiet table in the corner of the dining room set for only two. Frank looked so cute in his suit. He was sharp and witty. We looked over the menu and Frank made the wine selection. He turned to me and said that he would order for me. The staff loves to speak Greek. Frank explained there was an art to ordering Greek style. He explained that first you must ask about the salad. Was the lettuce fresh? Where did the tomatoes comes from? What about the cheese and the lamb? It was a lengthy debate back and forth. Both Frank and the waiter seemed to enjoy the exchange. Frank explained to me that it was the way Greeks interacted. They don’t just order. They discuss the meal.

For the rest of the trip I had dinner with Frank every night with the same debate and the same end result of getting our food specially prepared for us. Frank took great care of me. He ordered great wine and always knew from the waiter what was best to eat that night.

But there is more to this story….

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com
http://bit.ly/DoctorLynnFB

Back story Post 10 July 19

Love, true deep, lasting love… I began the quest to find true love. In the search I discovered the nectar of love and the secret to a sensual, loving and sexual life. There was something compelling that kept me in Los Angeles. I had the feeling for a long time that I was meant to be in LA because this is where I would find love. However I had been here about 10 years and had dated steadily for the last 4 years without much luck. Yes I met e few nice guys and yes I met a lot of BS artist but for some reason I could not leave.


I was asked to do a lecture on a cruise ship, all expenses paid to Europe. It did not take me long to agree to the trip. I had never done a cruise before although I had traveled alone and really enjoyed the adventure. All I had to do was lecture three times about natural health and yoga and the rest of the time I was on my own. We left out of Miami, Trans Atlantic to Madeira Portugal, to Lisbon, around Spain to Gibraltar, across to Tangier Morocco with a stop in Mallorca and on to Barcelona. The whole trip was about three weeks. In those days you could carry a lot of clothes. I took two suit cases full of dresses, shoes and evening attire. Where else can you get to dress up and attend an evening ball?

Once in Miami I took the bus to the ship and boarded. Everyone was happy. Drinks were served and we all mingled waiting for the departure. Five days at sea with nothing to do but relax and attend various lectures on a variety of subjects. I would speak three times as we crossed the Atlantic and then I was on my own to explore the ports of call. Now I know you’re wondering what this has to do with love. I’m getting to that.

The second night we had a captains’ ball. I got all dressed up and went to the ball room where there was a line waiting to be greeted by the captain and the staff. Everyone was dressed in gowns and tuxedos. The crew knew I was alone (they know everything) so they arranged for me to meet a man about my age( well a little younger) who was also alone. I was to meet him inside. As I stood in line a gentleman, I guessed to be about 20 years older than me approached me and introduced himself. His name was Frank. He said he saw me board the ship. We chatted as we moved through the line. He was short and stout with a balding head but there was something very cute about him, especially dressed in his tuxedo. He was very smart and very sophisticated. He was a retired American lawyer who had been born and raised Greece. The ship’s final port of call was Greece and he was going to Greece to spend a few months with some friends.

Once inside the ball room we said good-bye and I was escorted by the staff to meet my date for the evening. He was handsome, young, tall and lean. I could tell he liked me immediately. Although he was nice he lacked the masculine take charge energy that so attracted me to certain men. All the attributes of an eligible and good looking man were present but the chemistry was lacking.

I enjoyed the evening but wasn’t sure I wanted to be his date for ht entire cruise. The next morning everything about the trip changed…

Doctor Lynn

http://www.doctorlynn.com/
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Back Story Post 9 July 16

It was at this time that I found the secret to completing my nectars. There had been one thing missing from the formula. It’s funny how life works. You open one door and like Alice through the rabbit hole you encounter one adventure after another. I had the formula for my nectars tucked away with the mother tincture. But I had not found the missing ingredient that would give it taste and delivery. I also needed someone to produce it for me.


One day I read an article in a magazine by a local Doctor who was combining allopathic medicine with alternative medicine. He was here in LA. So I found his address and phone number and contacted him. I told him about my background and he agreed to see me. He suggested I get in touch with an organization that was spearheading alternative movement and get on their advisory broads. With his recommendation I became a board member.

I became friends with one of the staff. I told her about my nectars and my desire to get them made. She sent me to the man who was manufacturing their products and suggested he might know someone. I met him and he did know someone who could put my formulas together and create my Doctor Lynn’s Nectars. The missing ingredient (a secret) came to me in a dream. I contacted the company and they knew exactly how to produce my nectars and the rest is history. You can read more about the nectars in my new e-book at www.doctorlynn.com. 0r go to the products section at www.doctorlynn.com.

I sold the nectars to my clients and through my lectures. I wrote, got a few books and article published, taught yoga, saw clients and spent time deeply absorbed into the world of natural medicine. But there was something missing from my life. Something that had been missing for a long time. It was…

Doctor Lynn

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Back Story – Post 8 July 15th

You all know the story of Peter Pan? Well after one year in LA I met my real life Peter Pan. Every woman has met a Peter Pan. He’s the guy that is playful and fun but never wants to grow up. You get caught up in the adventure and fun but at a cost to responsibility. I am a very responsible person. I had to be in order to survive. Peter built a life based upon irresponsible behavior. He could lose everything and in a flash something would happen to pull him through and then he would lose it all again. But I learned so much from him. He taught me affection and caring and made me extremely street wise. I was very naïve when I met him. I was book smart and street stupid. He was not so book smart but very street wise. We traveled explored different cultures and went into business together developing a garment line that we sold nationally. We had a third partner. He and Peter clashed and the business went south! Peter exposed me to the bowels of the garment business and the bowels of a big city. He exposed me to the finer things in life. Peter could travel anywhere and always knew where to find adventure and fun. He was addicting for those reasons. However you can only play for so long before you realize that time is slipping away and the reality of responsibility and your future demands that you grow up. Peter is still playing. He never grew up. In some ways his life appeared fun and in some ways in appeared a disaster. It’s all in how you looked at it. I had to move on.


This was when I decide to finish my Ph.D. ND. While writing my dissertation I met Amanda the woman who taught me how to make potions. I was studying herbal medicine and she helped me to take the little potions I was making to a higher level. The story is in my book, Sex Matters and Pleasure Delights. I also met Marcel. He owned an aromatherapy company. He was a Frenchman with a long ponytail and the most paranoid person I had ever met. He hired me to be the corporate educator. I flew around the country lecturing on aromatherapy. My dissertation combined the two disciplines; herbal medicine and aromatherapy. Marcel was from Provence. He was a chemist turned aromatherapist. He was brilliant and created a beautiful line of products but he was cheap and paranoid. He alienated everyone he met. I was very good at selling and teaching and this became a problem for him. He was afraid I would steal his trade secrets and start my own company. We parted company. I could not work under such a paranoid person who treated other people with total disrespect. The last I heard he stashed away several millions in Europe and then jumped ship and left the company in nearly bankrupt.

So for the next four years I wrote, started a small practice, taught yoga and lived a quiet and peaceful existence. For the first time in my life I lived by myself. My children were grown and independent and I was on my own to do as I pleased. Without the responsibility of children I took the time to get to know me. This led me to…

Doctor Lynn

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Back story – Post 7 July 14

About two weeks later I got a call from this woman. To this day I can’t remember her name or even what she looked like accept she was tall and pleasant looking. Her son had been offered a job from a company based in Boston to relocate to Los Angeles. They were looking for people and if I wanted to go to Los Angeles I should give the company a call. She put me in touch with the hiring person and told me to use her son’s name. I called and after a brief interview was hired. They would move me and set me up in Los Angeles after I went through two weeks of training in Boston. I should just briefly mention that the main reason I wanted to leave Maine was that the love of my life had broken my heart. We had been the “it” couple of Portland Maine, a small city of 60,000 people. The pain of seeing him and losing him was too much for me to bare so I wanted to get as far away as possible. LA seemed like a good choice.


I rented out my house, packed up everything I owned and my daughter and I left for Los Angles, where we knew no one and where I would need to learn to navigate the freeways of which I had never driven on in my life. I was a country girl with not much of a great sense of direction heading for Loa Angeles where driving will make you crazy. I had a five gear standard Saab, which was great for Maine winters and horrible on the freeway in stop and go traffic. I had two Thomas Guides that a friend had so kindly told me to buy, no cell phone and no sense of how this network of roadways works. The 405 and the 101 were like a nightmare to me. I would avoid them and soon learned how to navigate the back roads of the San Fernando Valley. I left behind a Maine woman and became a Valley Girl.

That first year was so stressful. The constant sound of traffic and the overload of people and building, no green foliage and the lack of space made me very tired and stressed. I never really understood how noise overload can bring on stress until that first year in LA. I never really understood loneliness until I moved to LA. But the weather! It was heaven! On the weekends in January, we would go to the beach. No shoveling snow and soldiering through zero and below temperatures. My daughter and I clung to each other and explored the many personalities of LA. After a year we settled in and decide to stay another year. This was the turning point…

Doctor Lynn

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Back story –post 6 July 13

Now I won’t bore you with all the details of my early life but let’s just say we were way too young to be married and to become parents; two times over. I knew nothing about myself, life or what it meant to be in love and have a good marriage. We moved onto the mainland of the town which was part of the Island I grew up on. It is a large peninsula which is the official and actual town. The islands (one of which I grew up on) are owned by the town. (I found myself back where I started, in a small town trying to conform and fit in like a fish out of water. (no pun intended)


At a young age with two small children I decide I could no longer be married to a young guy who was not a bad guy; I just did not love him and could not see myself spending the rest of my life with him in this town and living this lifestyle. So I asked for a divorce, which was by itself a major issue, let alone the children and the fact that I announced I was moving to the city and going back to school at the university. I was told that I had gone mad and that it was impossible. I would fail. Now I am not one to be told “no”. No is just another word for, “oh yea, just watch me!” So I returned to school and reemerged three years later with a degree in Communication and a 3.8 GPA! I went to work, bought a house, raised my children, went to school at night and dreamed of leaving Maine.

While in school I took a course in health and fitness. It was an elective. I loved it and soon began to devour books and classes that had to do with fitness and health. I took a class that I was told was just a fad – it was called aerobic dance. I loved it. I took a yoga class. I loved it. And so I began to take classes and then decided that I too could teach a class. I drove to Boston and sat for a four hour exam to get American Council of Exercise certified. I started teaching classes part-time after work and have continued to teach exercise classes for twenty-years. Now along the way I acquired a PhD in health and a Doctorate of Naturopathy. Diet, exercise and the natural science became my background; however in the early days it was nearly impossible to support a family in this field of endeavor. So I worked at jobs that were tough and dreamed of a time when I could do what I wanted and express my creative self.

I remember vividly sitting at my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and dreaming of leaving Maine, creating a product, writing a book and finding love. But here I was in Maine with no way out or so it appeared. And no great plan but I still held onto my desire.

I would read and reread Think and grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It was my inspirations. I would read over and over – even if you don’t have a firm plan get started and hold onto your dreams. About ten years prior a guy I met asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told him make a million dollars. He gave me the book and told me to read and reread it. I still have the book today, almost thirty years later and I did read it and reread it until the pages are nearly falling out of the book. It inspired me to seek my dreams. One day I mentioned to a woman I barely knew that I wanted to leave Maine and go to Los Angles. How I was going to do it, I did not know. Little did I know that she would …

Doctor Lynn

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Back-story – 5 July 12th

My ex-husband turned himself in the US Navy and was immediately arrested and put into shackles. I will never forget seeing a young scared man being shackled and forced into the back of a paddy wagon. He was detained for about a week and then sent to Boston to the Naval Brigg to await trial. We were about to face together a Court Marshal. The military is very rigid and has its rules and procedures. A trial was set, our attorney coached us. I wrote a letter to our Senator and told her how we were two scared young adults just trying to rectify a mistake. She wrote me back a letter to give to the presiding judge. She asked him to be lenient because after all, we did return on our own volition.


I took a bus to Boston the day of the trial. We sat together with our attorney holding hands, pale and afraid. I had never been in a court room in my life and here I was in a military court room watching my husband go through a court marshal. And on top of it I would need to testify.

The judge came in the room, dressed in full military uniform. We presented our case. He sentenced my husband to six months hard labor in the Boston military brig. He would still receive his military pay and I would receive a wife’s benefit. If he behaved he would be released in six months from the military with an honorable discharge. We smiled, hugged and he was taken away.

Each week I would board a bus and make the trip to Boston to visit my husband. Hard labor consisted of a cell with a bathroom which he need to be locked into at night. In the morning he got up the door was unlocked, he went to work and then in his free time all the men in the brig had a center room with cable TV, games, music, books and good food. They could take classes. My husband spent his leisure time playing guitar with some other guys. Someone inside was capping mescaline and someone was dealing joints hidden in packages of cigarettes. I was allowed to visit, although I had to empty my purse and pockets (checking for drugs). After the first month when I came to visit my husband was allowed to leave the building and go about the grounds as long as he returned on time. We both played by all the rules. He was a model prisoner and I was the dutiful wife. He was released a month early on good behavior with an honorable discharge.

Doctor Lynn

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Back-story –post 4 July 9

Rochdale was a free college located in downtown Toronto. The classes were free to anyone who wanted to attend. You just wandered in, found a class and attended. Now that was the premise; however once inside it was a different story. At the entrance to the college gate stood two burly biker/bouncer looking guys. To get past these guys you had to know someone inside. We happened to get a name from a friend who got it from a friend and so on. Once inside you would wander the hallways stopping in certain rooms where you could buy any recreational drug you desired. Marijuana of course was the big “hit” as well as other harder drugs. In other words it was the place to buy drugs. You would sit down in the dorm room, try the pot and if you liked it buy it and leave. Nobody seemed to care what was happening within the gates of Rochdale. It was a peaceful self regulated place, where you could take classes and yes they had a cafeteria and a garden as well as a library and all the things that make up a University.


I had my first cup of yogurt in the Rochdale cafeteria. I had my first tastes of Indian food while living in Toronto. I learned the bus and subway system and could travel all over the city. It was clean and safe but a long ways from home. After two years we got homesick and realized that to make a difference one needs to become absorbed in the system. Rebelling and fighting the system has never worked. To work from within, get involved, and vote although seemingly to conform was better than living in exile and rebelling against something we could not change from far away.

The problem was my then boy-friend and now my ex-husband was a deserter from the US navy, wanted by the US government. We could not just go back. So we contacted our families. My ex-husbands father was a career man in the Navy and still active. Although he was extremely upset at what we had done, he arrange for a military lawyer to speak with us. The lawyer told my ex-husband that we should get married and then return to the US. He should turn himself in peacefully. Our defense would be that I had thought I was pregnant and we did not know what to do so we ran away to Toronto.

So on July 25th of that year we stood before a justice of the peace, with two witnesses in Toronto Canada and got hitched. The next morning we boarded a bus for Maine. When came to the boarder we had papers which allowed us to cross into the U.S. without any interference. I remember the border guards’ looking at everyone’s papers and being so afraid that they would catch us. You see it would be in our favor to come back and turn ourselves in rather than be arrested by the border guards. We passed the test, re-boarded the bus and continued the almost 12 hour journey home. Once home…

Doctor Lynn

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Back story – post 3

Ever heard the phrase, “the black sheep of the family,”? That was me. I was different than the other children on the island. They all were happy to conform and wanted nothing more than to live the simple life. They would grow up, get married, stay and work in the community and many die without ever leaving the state of Maine. Not me…I wanted to travel, dance, be a writer, get an education and live as far away from that tiny island as possible. I was a dreamer, an artist and a rebellious child. You see my father left when I was very young. I look exactly like him and as far as I can figure out I am a lot like him. He was a dreamer and an artist and had a very hard time settling down to a small town life with a family. I wanted to see the world, experience life and create. I could not conform, which frustrated my family and labeled me the black sheep. I was not ostracized or banished to some far corner of the island but I did spend a lot of time by myself day dreaming about leaving the Island and seeing the world. This was frond upon. I was told I did not have options other than to stray and become part of the clan. When you take options away from a dreamer, you kill something in their soul. But I was determined and could not be bridled in. I was a spirited child.


The summer I turned fourteen. I fell in love for the first time, wrote a book of poetry and smoked my first joint. The summer kids arrived and along with them came my Uncle who was four years older than me ( my Grandmother was a school teacher and came to the island for summer vacation). My Uncle befriended the other summer kids and one of them was a young boy three years my senior. It was love at first sight. He was romantic, funny and from Philadelphia! He was my touchstone to the outside world. He really understood my romantic nature and truly cared for me, even though his father disapproved of him seeing an Island girl. This was the summer of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. My uncle and the summer kids had discovered marijuana, music and hippiedom . My uncle got me high and so began my journey into becoming a rebellious hippie.

Two summer’s later I went to Woodstock and two years later I met my ex-husband and we ran off to Toronto to join the American Deserted Movement in protest of the Vietnam War. We lived in Toronto in a commune and worked for the underground, bringing draft dodgers and deserters across the border and helping them get landed immigrant papers. We did a lot of drugs, roamed the streets of Toronto and were fugitives from the law. My ex husband was a deserter and wanted by the US government. I was investigated by the FBI who went to my parent’s house and told them they were investigating me as a possible militant. We were neither. We were just two lonely kids in search of a dream. We both just wanted out of our family situations for different reasons but with a common cause.

Toronto was a very exciting city in those days. I remember the day I walked into my first Communist party meeting; a group of very radical people with very radical ideas. Now to me growing up, communism was bad and since these people seemed so radical I wasted no time moving on. There was some talk about linking up with the black panthers and storming the border with guns. This seemed a bit foolish to me and since I am not a violent person I never went near the communist party again.

We were very young and naïve. But almost two years in the city living amongst the anti-war movement groups certainly gave me perspective on life. And all the drugs…let me tell you about Rochdale the free college…

Doctor Lynn

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Back-story

Although my book is on Natural Sexual Health it’s also about magic, love and the tenacity to make dreams come true. My first exposure to folk medicine was in my youth. Without a doctor or hospital close by there was always someone with something that could be used for fever, aches, colds, cuts, flues, infections and any other maladies that might be fixable with a little touch of caring hands. For example: I can remember being given a little elderberry wine from the root cellar where my grandmother kept her canned and bottled preserves. Elderberries grew wildly all over the island. The berries have been used since ancient times as a medicine. They are rich in vitamin c and a strong tonic for strengthening a weak system. This is where I got my basic recipe for my Pep Berry Rob Nectar which is an immune boosting nectar of elderberries, other herbs, berry flavoring and honey. We would help my mother pick wild rose hips form the wild roses that grew along the shoreline. She would make a rose hip jelly that was wonderful in the winter on toast and provided us with vitamin c through the long winter months when fruit was hard to come by. Another example would be using burdock as a poultice (bandage to cover a wound) to draw out infection from a wound. As children we ran wildly and played freely in the coves and on the ledges of the ocean; always barefoot. As we ran along the ledges near the shoreline, we would sometimes cut our feet on barnacles. The first thing you did was soak your feet in the salt water from the ocean. It would clean and heal like an antiseptic. We used hot tea bags full of warm herbs for eye infections and smoke from herbs blown into the ears for earaches. But mostly it was healthy local foods and lots of fresh air.


I never liked going to the Doctor or taking allopathic medicines. There have been times when I had to see a doctor and take medicine. My belief and my background teaches me that a balance between the two; allopathic and holistic medicine is best. It is good to stabilize and eradiate pain but then it is best to look at diet and other natural causative practices.

My childhood had many tough times, as well as being rich with folklore, the simple life and a feeling of community that seems so secure. Nobody locked their doors or took the keys out of their cars. If you needed a car and yours wasn’t available you just used your neighbors. If you need an egg or flour you just went across the street and helped yourself. We had barn raisings, community dinners, skating parties, sledding parties, made homemade ice cream, ran freely through the woods and shore line of the island. We all had little boats, places to swim and lots of time to play. But we also had to work.

We all had to help with the chores and everyone did something to contribute to the family. The boys would help their fathers on the fishing boats and the girls would help the mothers with canning, cooking and domestic chores. In the summertime the “summer people” would come to vacation. So e worked in the little motels, restaurants and curiosity shops that dotted the island. We always had money, boats, cars and fun. I grew up with a strong sense of the Protestant work ethic. And a Yankee thrift point of view. I learned to make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

My early childhood was easy even though to most people we probably lived a poor and difficult life. It was not easy to grow up in a very rural and isolate part of the world. But it was easy, safe and carefree. You didn’t have one mother and father; you had Aunts Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents, siblings and a host of neighbors all looking out for each other. It was truly a community. But I was an odd child and given to spending a lot of time by myself contemplating the world…

Doctor Lynn

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The Back Story -July , 2010

You would have to know where I’m coming from to understand the nature of what I am doing. There is a back story to my book, my videos and my nectars. The pieces of a long held dream are materializing like some kind of portal that opened up in the universe and suddenly let me step through. It’s been a lifetime trying to get here; overcoming obstacles and disappointments.


My parents divorced when I was very young. My mother remarried and we moved onto a small Island off the coast of Maine. I’m going back fifty-three years. Maine by itself was very rural and isolated fifty plus years ago. The Island was even more isolated. The population was about 500. It was a small rural fishing village. We had two small general stores, a local crank phone at the post office for emergency use only, one barely paved road, a community hall and a volunteer fire department. That pretty much made up the town. It was like living in a fish bowl. Everyone knew everyone’s business.

Fishing and summer tourism were the only industries. Women sewed, knitted, cleaned, cooked, raised the children, canned and foraged for wild berries and native vegetables and fruits. The women also worked alongside the men repairing fishing gear and occasionally giving a helping hand as a deck hand on the fishing boats. Life was simple and at the same time very harsh. The winters were long and cold with little contact from or into the outside world.

I grew up eating organic before it even had a name. We ate fresh what was in season. The women would can and freeze the fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh fish, for the long winter ahead. In the fall the men would hunt for game and this game would be frozen, again, for the long winter ahead. Often times this was the only meat we would eat throughout the winter. Everything was natural with no preservatives. Fast food and junk food did not exist accept for the penny candy and donuts that could be bought at Sidney Watson’s general store. The general store was the place to buy provisions such as bread, flour, baking goods, coffee and, yes donuts. The fisherman loved donuts. Donuts and coffee was a staple in the morning on the fishing boats. They came in a cardboard box with a plastic see through window. There were only two kinds. Chocolate or vanilla with white powdery sugar or chocolate and vanilla covered with shredded coconut. Otherwise any kind of treat came from your mother’s or grandmother’s kitchen.

As a young child the only thing that existed outside this tiny village was the town about an hour by car north of the island. The town had a few banks, a real grocery store and a small main street with a Woolworths, a hardware store, a pharmacy, a pizza parlous, a donut store and a couple of clothing stores. In the summer we would go to town once a week but in the winter because of weather and road conditions it might be only once a month.

My mother was a very good seamstress so she made most of my clothes. I have to say she dressed me well. She also gave me advantages that others did not get. She loved the ballet and the theater so she enrolled me in dance classes, theatre, music and ice skating. She made me little costumes and entered me in competitions. I was a natural and loved to dance and act. She also insisted I be a lady. She would put a book on my head and make me walk around the house balancing the book. This she assured me would give me good posture and teach me to walk like lady. Manners were strongly enforced and cleanliness was promoted as next to godliness.

I went to a two room school house. We walked to school. Everyone had a dog and so the dogs walked to school with us. There was no running water, indoor plumbing or central heat in the little school house. For water we used large ceramic jugs with a spout and paper cups that slid out of a neatly packed container. They weren’t cups but rather looked like small envelopes or small funnels that would fit over your fingers. Besides using them for drinking we would color faces on them and use them as hand puppets.

The outhouses were outside just around the corner from the school. There were the boys and the girl’s outhouses. Each had two stalls. However the boys had holes poked through the inside so they could peak into the girl’s outhouse. It would be reported, plugged up and new holes would appear. You had to put on your boots and coat and run like mad through the cold winter wind to the outhouse where you wasted no time doing what you had to do and then would run quickly back inside to warm yourself over the wood stove that warmed the tiny school house. The dogs would come inside on really cold days and lay beside the stove while we attended school. We each took turns feeding wood into the stove.

Life was simple and uncomplicated. It was a million miles away from what someday would become my home the city of Los Angeles.

When it came to ill health, folk medicine was employed. And this is the foundation of my roots which lay buried and hidden for many years under a shroud of embarrassment. You see by the town folk’s standards we were called “clam diggers” or a derogatory term for rural fisherman. I understand what it’s like to be poor and rural and at the same time proud and rich. The town folk’s saw us as pagans who often used folk medicine. There was and still is something odd and at the same time magical about paganism.

It’s part of my heritage. It’s the back story…

Doctor Lynn

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