Have you ever been too tired or depressed or broke or hopeless to find value in trying? Do you have a family member that is physically or mentally or emotionally challenged and you see no point in asking them to reach for more because that seems too hard? Probably at least one of those statements fits, right? In fact something in those two lines fits all of us. That is why I spend a lot of time, money and resources trying to reach people and lift them up: Because lifting them up lifts me up and we all get to have lives filled with joy and success.

I have seen many miracles in my life and for this I am blessed.

I often want to write these ‘Miracle’ (http://www.amazon.com/MIRACLES-ARE-MADE-Real-Life-Autism/dp/193475949X) stories I observe and occasionally I do manage to put fingers to keyboards but usually I am too busy helping to tell about it. This story though… (http://www.amazon.com/Wingmaker-Lynette-Louise/dp/1628650567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386191318&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wingmaker) this one haunted me. I knew I had to write it and share it and uplift via telling it but I was just too busy.

Then a mom, speaking of her child, said, “I just prefer to think of her as too retarded because then I don’t ask much of her and that means I don’t get frustrated and that makes me nicer.”

In that moment the need to write the miraculous story of The WingMaker (http://www.amazon.com/Wingmaker-Lynette-Louise/dp/1628650567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386191318&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wingmaker) about a beautiful – very similar -girl I played with became paramount. In that moment I knew that the parents of the world needed to hear her story.

I looked at this mom knowing I could help her, knowing I had the therapy and the play approach to make an enormous difference in her life and decided to write The WingMaker (http://www.amazon.com/Wingmaker-Lynette-Louise/dp/1628650567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386191318&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wingmaker) I wrote because I knew that a story was one way to get her to listen, and try, something new.

That something new was attitude and biofeedback. When I discovered biofeedback it was something I had heard of many times before but, despite searching to help my five challenged children, I had never thought of it as having any relevance in my life. That all changed the day I read an article that described the science behind the concept. This science matched my already successful existing attitudinal approach using positive rewards to teach challenged children, mine included.

Today many years later having seen many children healed into lives of independence I find myself fully dedicated to creating unique ways to shout the possibilities created by biofeedback mingle with happy attitudes. Why? Because people like that mom, can’t always hear what is said without knowing that someone else has lived it before.

Fact is, in my field amazing stories happen, often. But in order to be scientifically viable we are constrained from sharing these stories in the fear that we will never be more than anecdotal. Meanwhile constraints of this type create lies of omission. My solution is to bring creative works into the world that reach the heart and open otherwise closed doors. And yes I shared the story with that mom. And yes it has already uplifted and inspired her to help her child in a new yet beautiful way. The cascading effect is: everybody heals.

On Friday Dec 5th, my new book The WingMaker (http://www.amazon.com/Wingmaker-Lynette-Louise/dp/1628650567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1386191318&sr=1-1&keywords=the+wingmaker) will be launched. It’s based on a true story about a young girl with CP. It’s an amazing story. And buried subtly within … just enough to tickle a person’s curiosity… biofeedback shares the credit. This story is great for any family and can go where our science documents cannot. Please help me share it.  Buy one for yourself, one for your loved ones and an anonymous one for someone you barely know.

At what point am I a success? When my income reaches a certain level? When I stop getting money back from but instead start paying to the IRS? When I have more employees than family members? When? Well, for me the answer to that question is: When I get my why .

Let me explain by taking us back to my first business endeavor of the early nineties. I was new to the world of stand-up comedy. I was also old to be entering any field and the sole source of support for eight hungry children. There was no time to fail yet I had barely begun to learn. Rather than spend the usual four years performing on open mic stages for short five minute spurts at a time hoping to eventually share the stage with bigger names whom I could learn a polished comedic style from, I chose to hire myself. I decided to find bars that needed a boost in their traffic and create my own shows. I would advertise those “big name’ comedians, borrow from their popularity and experience in order to draw a crowd and improve my skills. Initially I struck door-deals with the managers of failing bars. In this arrangement I passed most of the door money to the “name’ the increased liquor sales went to the club leaving a grand total of $25.00 dollars an evening for myself. That money covered my gas and I supported the kids by adding a pay to sing karaoke component.

These Lynette created comedy Karaoke nights were unique back then. They were surprisingly popular. And before long I was working for more than gas money and groceries. Eventually all the comedians had gone from treating me with that new kid on the block disdain to a more she might give me work respect. The problem with that was since they now wanted me to give them work they no longer gave me honest criticism.

I remember walking into a competitor’s club and having all the heads turn as I looked around for someone fresh to hire. And — like an old black and white movie – the someone’s came out of the wood work: Someone lit my cigarette, someone got me a drink, someone gave me a chair, someone took my sweater, and another someone introduced themselves and asked me to watch their set. As the club lights dimmed and the show began I did a mental check on the upcoming gigs I still needed talent for and realized just how much of my time was being spent running this new business. I also realized how much of my time was not being spent on stage. That is when I knew it was time to quit. So though I had just gotten the business on its feet, I was about to close its doors. For most people a decision such as this is a mistake.

True, I was buying groceries with greater ease. In fact one might think that supporting the kids was my main goal so I should keep the business growing and increasing our variety of food choices. BUT, in fact, though caring for my kids was the main driver in my life it was not the main driver in my chosen careers. Lots of jobs buy groceries, I was “running rooms’ to improve my own stage skills. And the minute my business impeded that process by making me both an administrator and a person other comics mislead with ass kissing job seeking lies, well, it had ceased to serve its desired function. This new person that I was becoming was not the person I wanted to be. I considered teaching someone else how to do the administrative part of the business and get back on stage with greater regularity but I knew that wouldn’t work. Teaching the business to someone while raising eight children, four on the spectrum of autism, would take more of my time than performing would allow.

I have spent my career as a mom making quick decision to ensure food on the table and my career as a performer making quick decisions to ensure I kept my eye on the why of whatever I have chosen to do. I was lucky to have so much need at home force me to learn so quickly. I believe that it was due to the simultaneous tugging of both home and career development that I was able in both arenas to recognize success by my own criteria.

Its easy to look at someone’s life and choose based on our own why’s if they were or weren’t successful. It’s a little harder to remember that we are actually playing a game of “if I had your life with my why’s I’d call your life a failure.’

Thus, if you use your why’s while looking over the history of my entrepreneurial life, I may or may not seem successful to you. After all I grew many businesses till they had legs and then walked away. I tried my hand at birthday party entertainment, radio call in shows, jingle writing, freelance writing, speaking, singing, play writing, authoring spiritually driven novels sized self help books, renovating homes, indoor outdoor painting, furniture refinishing etc. Each and every choice had something to do with me paying bills, while simultaneously gaining skills and not having an employer who could fire me for bringing my adopted autistic kids to work.

For me running a business has been a necessity that solved my problem of under education and became income-generating apprenticeship styled school. Sometimes I even managed a grant for the formal version of learning. I gained unusual out of the box very effective techniques that raised most of my adopted autistic children out of their autism.

People began to find me. I began to help. Another business was born. But I know me ” I know my why. So though I now travel Internationally helping autism and families, though I am highly sought after, though I have a book that teaches from experience and brings people to me in droves, though I satisfy my need to share from the stage by speaking and doing a one-woman show on the brain and its ability to heal I will surely retire this job when I get my why.

Today that why is helping Dar (my still disabled son) to become independent. I teach to learn. And staying abreast of changes and doing research enables me to help others while helping him accomplish that.

So when I quit you’ll know I made it! That is always the case.

Once upon a time, back when I first began working with other people’s autistic children, I found myself in a family’s living room surrounded by people hungry for advice.

It was the moment I excel at: Q & A. When it comes to autism, I just get it. The kids make sense to me so I find creating ways to help them reach desired goals relatively easy.

Someone said something about a neighbor being judgmental. I responded with, “They are just ignorant! It is up to us to teach them. They simply don’t know.” I was of course using the word as it was originally intended, before society recreated it and made it into slang. To be ignorant is to be uninformed. Apparently, the people I was talking to were ignorant of this definition of ignorant. As for me, I was so busy teaching that I was ignorant of their ignorance. My use of the word created quite a stir within the minds of these moms, who unfortunately chose not to bring it to my attention at the time, and the rest of my words were suspect. That is, if they were even heard at all.

The reason I bring this up is because the world of autism is presently fraught with Definition Wars. Quite honestly, I think all this worry over words is important, but misdirected. Most often it simply becomes the bullfighters cape; a distraction from the real threat. The fact is, in the living room that day, I was sharing something important. Onlookers are ignorant. They don’t know enough about the situation. That’s what makes them onlookers. It is up to those of us engaged in the world of autism to help them understand. Too many parents (my past self included) spend too many years avoiding the onlookers’ eyes, afraid of the scornful expression we might see in them as they look at our child. Too many parents feel angry and embarrassed when all they have to do is embrace the ignorance and then lead the way into knowing. Most often onlookers are in search of an opinion. Lets give them one, intentionally. Lets teach them how to be with our kids. They don’t know, and they likely grew up hearing it’s rude to ask. Thus the onlookers’ recourse is to create an opinion out of what they know about “normal’ kids, while we avoid their eyes and end up in a self-created world of persecution and judgment.

I have a well rounded understanding of this issue because I’ve lived and learned while raising my boys out of their autism. That day with the many moms, I had something important to share. Unfortunately, the group I was addressing was too distracted by the word ignorant to hear the message. I call this the “law of distraction” and families of autism adhere to this law as if it were as irrefutable as gravity. For me, when my kids were little the word retarded — which simply means slow — felt hurtful. My being hurt by these words was especially silly because my sons actually were officially retarded. It was also shortsighted of me because my sons didn’t mind the word. At least, as long as I didn’t. The problem came from the believed intent behind any word that could also be used as slang. After all, I was never hurt by their other labels– autistic, fetal alcohol syndrome (Now, now, don’t jump to conclusions, I adopted them.) and ADHD.

At some point (likely when I started doing stand up comedy) I came to understand the utilitarian purpose behind words. Body function humor, strategically placed ‘ef’ words, and bedroom observations had them rolling in the aisles. It occurred to me that they loved these indiscretions because I was comfortable, so they could have fun watching me say what they wouldn’t dare. Little by little I learned to strip away the punitive power of any possible word and search for the meaning in the sentence instead. Thus, I cared about the content while the words themselves lost all ability to inflict pain.

That is when we started using the word retarded at home. It was brilliant!

This comfort with the word retarded helped all of my sons. Especially my youngest. In fact, it led to him using it in a most descriptive way: He called himself “Reality Retarded’ in an attempt to explain how naà -ve he had truly been. Ignorant of the “R’ campaign in autism (campaign to stamp out the word retarded) I proudly shared the story, going so far as to write a blog about it. I was pegged as ignorant (the other definition).

Right about then I started looking around at all the Stamp Out Labels Definition War campaigns for autism. Its truly inspiring how so many people can spend so much time worrying about whether to say autists or autistics, aspergers or high functioning, hyperlexic or good at reading, retarded or “I don’t mean to imply any insult but your child is learning slower than most people in a somewhat retarded fashion’ J Problem is — while everyone is arguing about all these labels, the feeling of arguing is in the air. Our energy-comprehending-children-on-the- autism-spectrum are learning to be hurt by all these words they can barely say, or even understand, with their unique little auditory processing systems.

The whole Definition Wars thing reminded me of that time back in 1999 when David Howard (DC Mayor Anthony Williams top aide) had to resign from the office of the Public Advocate for using the word niggardly in its economic context which has no racial connotations at all.

Unfortunately, the people ignorant of the word niggardly created a stir and a man’s career (and likely his family’s bread and butter) spent a fair amount of time in jeopardy. The word itself and what that might mean became a hot bed for political media attention, even though the actual political issues were buried in the economic paper itself. Surely, Howard’s reporting that the coffers were so thin there wasn’t enough money to adequately support residents, was more important than his use of the word niggardly (which means miserly) in describing how he would have to be in order to get it all done. But no, his choice of words gained more attention than the substance of his economic predictions and solutions. In fact, as I check my opinions on this by asking around if any one remembers the incident, many do. Though none seems to recall anything about the paper he was presenting within which the un-offensive offending word lay. So David Howard retired, not because he was gay (which also means happy) which he was (at least one of these) but because he was too literate for the people he represented. Fortunately, his dictionary endowed supporters made enough of a fuss to have him — at least offered – a reinstatement.

So in my attempt to offer autism awareness and educate the onlooker, I present Rye Shelton, my son. A (used to be) retarded, autistic, fetal alcohol syndromed, touretted and obsessive-compulsive disordered boy, grown into a man. He is an amazing guy who has been busy with the job of healing, blissfully ignorant of the war on words.

I would like to report that when I refer to “prevention” I mean prevention against illness. But I don’t mean that at all. I mean prevention against prevention.

Unfortunately, in its effort to separate itself from Holistic Medicine, Mainstream Medicine – or more simply, government supported by Pharma – has declared prevention eventually illegal.

Eventually illegal. It’s an absurd thought, but it happens a lot in our society.

For example, here in California – where I often reside – it was illegal to talk on a handheld cell phone while driving, but not to text on one. Of course, everyone knew that eventually texting and driving would not be legal. But for a few months anyway, it was not likely to kill anybody because it was only eventually illegal.

Most likely this abject silliness in societal belief systems was an offshoot of some authoritative strategic planning: People riot when asked to change too quickly.

Fortunately, as every good scientist knows, incremental change is adaptive and can therefore make any kind of horrific event increasingly tolerable. This is because the adjusted comparatives shift the proverbial bar of acceptability. In other words… we get used to it.

So, whenever the powers that be want to enforce major changes, they know enough to “get us used to” one legislation before introducing another.

Applying this to the texting analogy, since it wasn’t illegal, we could pretend to have faith in the law and believe that texting wasn’t likely to actually kill anybody. But alas! Eventually illegal, eventually, came about. And then, remarkable, as our toys were taken away and we returned our eyes to the road it was hard to believe that anyone had dared to text while driving in the first place.

I know there are probably loads of people still texting and even more who knew it was dangerous before it was illegal. But my eventual point has more to do with the politics of prevention, than safety and prevention themselves.

You see, I am in the unique position of working with autism using the therapy (or stress reduction training modality) of neurofeedback world-wide.

Those of us working with this very exciting brain teaching tool are board certified under either the natural therapy spiritual healer model or the mainstream medical model.

As for me, I am board certified in both. This should mean that I’m double knowledgeable in the art and science of my chosen profession. In fact, it doesn’t mean that at all. What it means is that I’m better prepared than the next gal to not be sued. Either that or because of the clash in concepts of the legal and professional ethics within the two boards, I’m more likely to be sued. I’m not sure which. Unfortunately, there is no real way to discern the correct answer to that question.

When I first began working within the mental health field I was naïve enough to believe that the rules and laws pertaining to patients and clients were based upon what was right and/or wrong for said patients and clients.

However, it occurred to me that if such a thing were true, both Holistic Medicine and Mainstream Medicine would have the same rules to follow.

Instead, the rules for ethical operation are opposite in each. To correctly follow one is to break the rules of the other.

One says I MUST ask intake questions, while the other says I am NOT allowed to.

A little incongruence is one thing, but when government hides a global conspiracy to make Holistic Health Care eventually illegal and it’s hidden right under our noses in the form of public records, well, that’s a whole other kettle of political pollution.

So, in case the hiding spot was effective and you aren’t in the know, here it is: There is something called the Codex Alimentarius Treaty (http://www.codexalimentarius.net/web/index_en.jsp) and it hides under the premise of good work and a verbose ambiguity in its presentation of the facts. At least on this website, anyway.

The problem with such a written presentation is that it’s too boring to maintain one’s attention long enough to not fall asleep while reading.

Thus, instead of the uninitiated eventually coming to understand what the Codex intends on making eventually come to pass, only those who are already educated on the subject will take the time to comprehend the Treaty’s objective.

This leaves the entire subject either obscure or open to interpretation of others, whom we then accept as experts simply because they seem to have read the damn thing. Thus, we endorse their opinion on the matter in order to have one and seem informed.

According to one of the boards that certified me (effectively becoming my expert on the subject), various governments gathered together and collectively agreed upon a plan of action whose intention is to eventually close down the alternative health care field. I have no idea if this interpretation (http://www.ntew.net/codex/treaty.html) is true or not, as the Codex documentation is too dry to discern. But it certainly is unnerving.

Though I can’t be sure of the truth, I do know that global governments wanting to prevent prevention in order to protect prescripting so that they can enrich the pharmaceutical industry, thereby eventually lining the pockets of their political campaigns is plausible, probable, and even extremely likely.

Fact is, the alternative healthcare field is harder to control than mainstream medicine with its tightly fisted licensing boards. And, historically, groups who are harder to control are seen as enemies by any government body trying to control them.

Thus, I suppose it is logical that my expert’s view of the situation is correct. Global governments will most likely want to make alternative and unlicensed healthcare eventually illegal: As soon as we get used to the idea!

Originally, the timing for “illegal” was set at 2005. However, the date has since been pushed back. Perhaps all that ambiguity is to blame. Ambiguity often leads to failure.

Normally, I’m very non-political and don’t write or talk about things like this. I focus on what I can do rather than what I can’t, and go about the business of helping rather than complaining.

But this issue is closer to home than I might like it to be. A few years ago I had a staph infection which led to lung surgery. It was Mainstream Medicine that saved my life.

However, staph infections are contagious and when my whole family began suffering with abscess after abscess, Mainstream Medicine could offer nothing outside of lancing (surgical) and thousands of dollars of gut wrenching antibiotics.

We spent the money. We took all the time and the advised precautions, but still we continued to grapple with infection upon infection over a two year period. Finally, I researched the problem on the internet only to find that mega doses of garlic and a five-dollar contraption (make from a nine volt battery, alligator clips and a piece of copper pipe) could cure us, every one of us, in five days—for good. I tried it. And it WORKED!

My family and I have had many such occasions to discover that health lies in the hands of alternative approaches to medicine. Nowadays, just as in my business, I am certified in both arenas of medicine.

So, in my home do I embrace the two?

I use Holistic Medicine for health maintenance, Mainstream for emergencies, and the internet for diagnosis and alternative solutions.

I, and you, are able to access these solutions due to the laws about freedom of shared information given to us in the past. With these laws intact, the internet, magazines, newspapers, television and books have been birthed.

Though I don’t normally “go political,” I felt remiss to not bring the problem to light somewhere. This is a new era with too much for any one person to know. I’ve come to believe that healing myself is my responsibility. My provider is simply one of the tools I use to do that with. But if some of those tools are removed, I may not be able to do my job.

So prevention has politics. And those politics are preventing us from preventing our own ill health or possibly demise. That is something we should prevent from happening.

I am engaged in the cause of preventing global misinformation from leading to an increase in maladaptive behaviors within the autistic community. I am busy. Therefore, I am going to delegate this objective to you.

Eventually illegal doesn’t always prevent eventual problems, illness and death. Sometimes it causes them.

When my children were young (eight kids aged 19-9) and my grandson was a newborn I took the entire family (plus a sound man) on a magical mystery tour of the penal system in North America. At that time four of my six adopted children were autistic.

Now you may think that traveling through Canada and the United States entertaining in prisons, jails and half way houses is a peculiar choice for a mom to make but then I am a bit peculiar, so I guess that makes it, in a peculiar sort of way. At the time I needed to create a more bonded family unit (Two of the adopted six were new arrivals — teenagers with biological families tugging at their sense of loyalty.) while still making a living in order to feed and cloth the brood that barely knew each other. I also needed to put some adventurous new thing in every single day in order to stimulate interest in external reality and encourage mental flexibility in my autistic sons (This was my own idea and counter to everything I was being taught but seemed peculiarlarly logical to me. And since three of the four autistic kids eventually came off the spectrum maybe peculiar logic is the answer to autism.).

I was looking around for ideas when I noticed that my teenagers had become enamored of the idea that they might be “bad girls’ destined to write books while serving time in solitary confinement. (It was a period when movies were romanticizing prison, my children were not outside the influence of Hollywood.). Knowing that a captive audience was a good thing for me I decided to hone my family’s performance skills by creating a show and then donating our time while traveling from correctional facility to correctional facility. I made the bookings. Since it was costing them nothing they were happy to have us.

I wrote, directed, produced and starred in the play whose inflated intention it was to save prisoners lives by teaching them that you can always make something good out of something bad. I also wrote, produced and sang on a CD in order to have product to sell. We would need gas (hence we often convinced truckers at truck stops that they couldn’t live without my music) and money for hotel fees and groceries. I would use my credit card for the hotels and packed up the CD’s for everything else. Away we went.

This story deserves to be a book, perhaps it will be someday but for now I want to share some highlights:

We were robbed of our sound equipment in New York.

We were late to Sing Sing and almost caused a riot.

We were taped for National TV in Stony Mountain.

We broke down in Houston missed our show in Dallas.

No Dallas meant no CD sales so our sound man left.

We were saved by truckers in New Mexico.

We were stars in Phoenix.

We were robbed once more, this time in Vegas.

We did our last American shows without shoes.

We were redressed in Calgary.

On the final leg home — after four months of travel – all the children were sleeping in the back of the van. I was driving down the highway in Northern Ontario when the sky lit up with a beautiful display of Aurora Borealis. Everything danced in muted greens, golds, pinks and yellows.

I pulled over on the side of the road and crawled onto the roof of my vehicle to watch. It was as if the universe were setting off spiritual fireworks in celebration of our return. I was breathless with awe and happy to be appreciated. One by one the kids woke up and joined me. Our own personal sky dance went on for hours. We watched until well after sunrise.

As we did this we were mostly silent and worn out with wonder. Then, as the sun began to glow and drown out the Northern Lights, conversation poured from us in unison. Even the autistic kids shared, in their own peculiar fashion. We were verbally tumbling over each other transported by the joy of all that we had survived and become privy to, each of us was excited to add our own personal vision to the pot of personal epiphanies.

It was then that I finally heard it: a bonded family composed of rag tags and misfits, happy to be alive.