People Archives - Page 47 of 107 - Sonia Marsh

“My Gutsy Story®” Dorit Sasson

March 25, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 15 Comments

“The Best Time to Get in My Way”

I’d like to think that teaching English to Israeli schoolchildren was the ultimate cultural journey, but my life coach saw it as one that would allow me to connect all the dots of my life purpose and help guide me forward.

It all began in March of 2011, when she asked in an email: “Where do you think your life story could lead you – if you allowed it to lead the way? What do you think you could gain, both personally and professionally, if you came out fully with your life story?”

After years of living on a kibbutz and teaching English to Israeli schoolchildren, both my husband and I felt we needed a professional change. We decided to try our luck in a Jewish community in Pittsburgh. Unlike other newcomers from Israel we met, we didn’t have friends, family, or a job waiting.

Even though I was a returning American who spoke fluent English, I felt everyone around me was speaking another language. I had left the US in 1988 as a teenager, and came back a mom and a wife almost twenty years later. “What’s an SUV?” I would ask. “What’s Target?” But what I was really looking for was a deeper connection to family and friends. Coming back to live permanently in the US after all those years in Israel had triggered deep and painful memories from my childhood home in New York City – mainly of social and emotional isolation.

In Pittsburgh, I didn’t have the support system that most women my age with young children had, and I had another problem – I felt like an outsider. I was uprooted. At times it seemed that the strangers sitting next to me on a bus were my only family. Perhaps they could even understand me at that moment. Maybe because they looked lonely too. I didn’t know how to react to this new environment at first, so I started a journal to help me cope with the social and emotional isolation I felt from sacrificing my own home, family, and friends. I recorded what people said and how they looked – no matter how painful the scenario – in order to get perspective. Sometimes the small-town mentality of Pittsburgh was too friendly and it unnerved me. Other times it was too unsettling. The theme of “finding a connection in a world of darkness” very quickly emerged in my writing.

Flashbacks were everywhere. If I heard a chopper, I would immediately flash back to the news of a terrorist attack. When I stood in front of twenty quiet, motivated, and eager ESL (English as a Second Language) adult learners, I kept waiting for that Israeli high school student to speak with chutzpah, as they say, with audacity.

During that first year, I said to my adult ESL students, “We share a global language. I know what it’s like to live in a foreign country and be misunderstood, alone, and isolated. I know what it’s like to give up everything for the sake of something new and unfamiliar.” They smiled. Like a bowl of hot chicken soup, my words warmed them.

Up to that point, no one had ever “heard” or “seen” me in my writing, but in the program I had the chance to finally strip myself down. I shared some of my snippets of writing with other professional women. They loved the imagery and the feelings they evoked, and how I tapped in to my “now guidance” to help me step into my own light.

One day, I got this email from my life coach: “My very strong sense is – there’s a whole new path waiting for you. It will make use of your talents as a storyteller, your training as a teacher, your very natural gifts for connecting with those who feel like they ‘don’t fit in,’ and your brilliant gifts as a writer.”

This really spoke to me. Could this be the big break I was looking for?

Being heard and seen gave me a reason to let my soul shine for myself and for others. There was a certain magic that happened in the following months, when I felt recognized and valuable.

How many times had I wanted to say something and didn’t? How many times had I tried to transform the silence into something creative? When I was surrounded by other English teachers in Israel, I felt like a foreigner because everyone came from different worlds. When I was among native Israeli-born teachers, I stayed silent because I knew I was “the English-speaking American” who wasn’t taken seriously.

I created a blog called “The Voice of My Life Story” that allowed me to experiment and let people see my “pain stories.” For example, in the post “Finding My Tribe: From Israel to Pittsburgh,” I describe the process of hearing two different voices from two different linguistic settings, always trying to remember where I came from.

I got comments like:

“I like what you shared about acculturation.”
“Very personal and heartfelt. You have found yourself and you know where you are going. Good for you.”
“This is eye opening and should make every reader who is native to the United States have some empathy for those who have chosen to come here. Thanks for sharing your insight.”
“Wow, love this post, all the tribes we have joined, and continue to join daily!”

People were actually reading and commenting on my writing. Wow! In creation mode, my enthusiasm about my new direction jumped. The new blog made it real.

I take this as a sign that my purpose is slowly aligning with the universe.

And so each morning, I gracefully welcome in my tribe and all possibilities of who I can be.

Dorit Sasson Bio: Dorit Sasson, The Story Mentor, is founder of Giving Voice to Your Story and Market Your Compelling Story with Passion System that shows you exactly how to attract more clients using your compelling story. To get your F.R.E.E. 2 part MP3 teleseminar series and receive her bimonthly marketing & story success articles on attracting ideal clients, visit http://www.GivingVoicetoVoicelessBook.com

Please visit Dorit’s website, and join her on Twitter @DiversityCoach1
and on Facebook.

Here is where you can get a copy of Dorit’s book.

Sonia Marsh Says: I am intrigued by your concept of “looking for was a deeper connection to family and friends.” I can relate to what you said about not belonging or perhaps the word is being “accepted” in any one particular country. You made me realize through your writing, that this may be the reason why you, and I, look for those meaningful connections. I also admire that you have a natural gift for connecting with those who feel like they ‘don’t fit in.’

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Please vote for my “Ticket to Give” so I can give TOMS shoes to poor kids in need. See more about it here.

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Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

NOW is the time to submit your “My Gutsy Story®.” Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

Please read and share our other March 2013 “My Gutsy Story®” by Bonnie Kassel, Owen Jones, and Linda Lochridge Hoenisberg

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

I Used to Hate Public Speaking Until…

March 21, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 15 Comments

Public speaking is something we all fear, but guess what?

You may discover something about yourself you never knew.

For me, this happened the other evening at the Costa Mesa library.

Just like anything else in life, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get. It’s the anticipation that causes anxiety, but once you get going, things seem to flow.

So what changed within me the other evening at the library?

No one showed up.

Yes, you heard me. No one except the librarian, a nice guy named Chris, and his assistant.

Chris said, “We’d like to hear your story, so why don’t you start.”

As soon as I started my power point presentation, three people joined us. I connected with this small group and realized, I am having a wonderful time motivating others to take risks in life, and follow their passions. I am helping people realize that we can always find excuses to not pursue our dreams, and so we postpone them.

I realized that I have a powerful story and message to share, and while looking at my small audience, these people were entertained and totally focused on what I had to say. I felt a rush of adrenaline, and came to the realization that:

Motivating others to stop postponing their dreams causes a reaction I never expected:

While motivating others, I discovered that I also motivate myself to keep going.

It all started in 9th grade when fellow classmates made fun of me during my first speech. I have made it my mission to be “gutsy” and overcome this fear.

Here are some tips that work for me.

Don’t let pretentious people make you feel inferior.
Be yourself
Connect
Talk about something you love
Smile
Don’t act pretentious or superior towards others
Make fun of yourself.
Relax
Have a message to share

It feels so good when you can make a difference and motivate one person to follow their dream.

Here is an example of a presentation I made at Malibu Bank of Books indie bookstore on 2-9-13

So I plan to make it my goal to be just like Oprah, who wrote in the April 2013 “O” Magazine:

“When it comes to matters of the heart, emotion, connection, and speaking in front of large audiences, I thrive.”

What about you? Do you enjoy public speaking?

Please vote for my “Ticket to Give” so I can give TOMS shoes to poor kids in need. See more about it here.

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I wish to thank Bonnie Kassel who wrote a “My Gutsy Story®” and introduced me to Ionia, a book reviewer on Amazon. She gave me an amazing 5 star review and I am so grateful to her. Here is Ionia’s bio:

Ionia Martin is a book reviewer, mother of four and a Ph.D. student in the field of brain and cognitive Science. She has a passion for books, music and photography. When she doesn’t have her nose buried in a book, she likes to spend time working on her charity, dedicated to animal welfare, which should be in full operation late this year. You can find her at http://readfulthingsblog.com or at Twitter via @readfulthings

Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

NOW is the time to submit your “My Gutsy Story®.” Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

Please read and share our other March 2013 “My Gutsy Story®” by Bonnie Kassel, Owen Jones, and Linda Lochridge Hoenisberg

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

“My Gutsy Story®”Linda Lochridge Hoenigsberg

March 18, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 14 Comments

My brother, sister, and I were raised alongside a Chihuahua, a hamster, and a lizard in Los Angeles, California. The lizard’s name was Fluffy. The hamster and Fluffy were eventually buried in the backyard alongside various goldfish. I considered them lucky. My parent’s raging alcoholism did not affect them at all.

My sister and I reacted to our upbringing by landing ourselves in juvenile hall. My brother lied about his age and took off for Viet Nam soon afterwards.

The background of our lives paved the way for each of us, the entire family, to experience mental illness first hand. My mother’s anxiety caused her to quit leaving the house for much more than food or drink by the time I entered my twenties. I was on my way to serious panic disorder by then. I never left my apartment at all, preferring instead to feel like I was having a heart attack from the comfort of my own home. My brother, suffering from major depression, took his own life when I was twenty-four, and three years later, my father followed suit.

But I was determined to make it in this world, and with three children in tow, I worked hard to build a life for us. It worked for quite awhile, although it had that “by the skin of my teeth” feel to it.

As I encountered life, death and unrelenting grief, divorce, and single motherhood, I tried to remember just one thing: “Love your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27).” No matter what I experienced, I made sure my children knew I loved them more than life itself.

I held various jobs over these years. I talked a dentist into training me to be his assistant. This worked out well until, losing a husband to divorce and a mother to cancer, I began to forget when to hand him the rubber dam and when he wanted the root elevator. Then I worked at Superior Court of Santa Barbara County as a commissioner of civil marriages. One sunny Saturday morning I waited for the happy couple to arrive at the courthouse. When they arrived naked and wrapped in nothing but sheets I almost called the police. Then I noticed the grape-leaf garlands on their heads and a small sign with an arrow pointing to my office: “Toga wedding this way.”

But there was one job I really wanted and couldn’t have. I wanted to become a psychotherapist and help other hurting people who had also lost their way. The trouble was, something like that took many years of college, and I had gotten kicked out right after the tenth grade, right along with my 1.0 grade point average.

Then something happened that would change my life forever. Right before my fiftieth birthday, I fell down an entire flight of stairs. Instead of tumbling, like you see in the movies, I bounced down the stairs upright and kept landing on my feet. It may have worked out all right if I hadn’t been going 40 miles per hour. About four steps from the bottom, I pitched forward and broke my neck on a doorframe. I lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, alone in the house. Perfect, no more sitting behind a computer or answering phones.

So, after a year of recovery, I started college, using my injury as a catalyst for fulfilling my dreams. Four years later I graduated Maxima cum Laude at one of the top private colleges in the Western United States. I also got accepted into a competitive masters program the following Fall semester. Unfortunately, there was a slight delay.

Late that summer I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Two neurosurgeons apologetically told me it was inoperable because it was situated at the base of my skull. I had about a year to live. I decided to use the research skills I had just developed and got onto an online forum, which led me to a famous neurosurgeon in Los Angeles. He agreed to help.

After a six-hour extremely risky brain surgery, I was sent home in a wheelchair. I couldn’t walk; I had double vision; I lost half my hearing, and my perception was off. I also had a loud buzzing sound in my head that woke me between ten to fifteen times a night and I suffered terrible fatigue. But lying in bed again, I hatched a plan. What would it hurt if I got my masters degree anyway? Possibly, I would recover enough to use it, and if not, no harm, no foul. My wonderful husband backed me all the way.

Soon I was reading textbooks by holding them a few inches from my face and writing papers on a laptop I placed on a pillow on my legs. By the end of the first year, I had enough energy to attend a weeklong residency out of state by using an electric scooter to get around. By the end of the second year I attended my second residency without using the scooter at all. Soon I was able to do a 10-hour-a-week practicum, then a 30-hour-a-week internship. Finally, I pushed myself to work a full time job at an agency serving abused and neglected children in order to fulfill my licensure requirements.

I am now a psychotherapist in a thriving private practice. I work with teenagers and adults who are hurting, scared, and stuck. I teach them skills to navigate life. And I’m not done yet. I’m a writer, a speaker, a grandmother of ten and a great-grandmother of a sweet little boy. A great-granddaughter is soon to arrive. I’ve become the matriarch of a large, happy family. My favorite quote is “It’s never too late to become what you might have been,” by George Eliot.

Linda Lochridge Hoenisberg Bio: Linda Lochridge Hoenigsberg is a writer, speaker, and a psychotherapist in private practice. She is a strong believer in the fact that no matter what life has handed us, it’s never too late to become what we might have been. She is married and the mother of three, grandmother of ten, and great-grandmother to one, with her second great-grandchild arriving soon. She lives in the beauty of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and their golden doodle, Emma.

Please check out Linda’s website and follow her on Twitter: @lhoenigsberg

Sonia Marsh Says: Linda, you have conquered so many obstacles in your life and all I can say is how you deserve a medal for your courage and determination, and for not giving up. What a message for all of us to read.

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I am asking you to please vote for my “Ticket to Give” so I can give TOMS shoes to poor kids in need. See more about it here.

Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

NOW is the time to submit your “My Gutsy Story®.” Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

Please read and share our other March 2013 “My Gutsy Story®” by Bonnie Kassel, and our second by Owen Jones.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

Winner of the February “My Gutsy Story®” Contest

March 14, 2013 by Sonia Marsh Leave a Comment

Congratulations to Sandra Bornstein, the winner of the 2013 February with an amazing 304 votes, more than 50%. I think this may be a record # of votes since the contest started.

Sandra, I love reading about adventures abroad, and admire your teaching in India. Good luck with your memoir.

Sandra, a quick request: Can you send your fans over to vote for my “Ticket to Give” so I can give TOMS shoes to poor kids in need?

In 2nd Place with another 222 votes, amazing, is Anne Loney with her story of courage and how she is now helping other women who are in abusive relationships.

In 3rd Place, Diane Danvers-Simons. She has overcome fears in life and is now starting her own workshops called, “Own it, Feel it, Live it.”

In fourth place with a heart-warming true story of long-lasting love, is Douglas Cooper

Thank you so much to all four of you. You are all winners.

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Please help me out and vote for my “Ticket to Give” so I can give TOMS shoes to poor kids in need? See more about it here.

Do you have a “My Gutsy Story®” you’d like to share?

NOW is the time to submit your “My Gutsy Story®.” Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

Please read and share our first March’s 2013 story by Bonnie Kassel,and our second by Owen Jones.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

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“My Gutsy Story®” Owen Jones

March 11, 2013 by Sonia Marsh 15 Comments

“The Russian Dissident Viktor Fainberg and Me.”

I studied Russian Language and Soviet Studies at Portsmouth University (UK) between 1972 and 1976. Never having studied Russian before, I had to do the Russian ‘A’ Level in the first of the four years.

Part of my course was the history of the Soviet Union, which obviously included Russia. The Russian history lecturer was Dr. Pavloff, who had studied at Berkeley University, California.

Dr. Pavloff was no fan of the Soviet Union and was heavily involved in the Russian dissident movement. In our second and third years, we were allowed to go to the Soviet Union for six weeks a year to improve our language skills.

The trips were always accompanied by a lecturer and my first trip was to be led by Dr. Pavloff. However, the Soviets refused to grant him a visa, so he couldn’t go.

He and I got on very well and a few weeks before we were to go, Dr. Pavloff asked me if I would meet a friend of his Viktor Fainberg, who was a famous Russian dissident (see Wikipedia for details).

Mr. Fainberg had become famous for demonstrating on the Red Square with Larisa Bogoraz, Konstantin Babitsky, Vadim Delaunay, Vladimir Dremliuga, Pavel Litvinov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Tatiana Baeva in 1968 against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Mr. Fainberg had spent years in corrective camps and psychiatric wards for dissent against anti-Semitism and dictatorship. Anyway, I met Viktor with Dr. Pavloff in the Wiltshire Lamb public house in Portsmouth in the summer of 1974 when I was 19.

We talked in a mixture of Russian and English, partly because my Russian was not good enough and nor was his English and partly to discourage eavesdroppers overhearing our conversation. Dr. Pavloff translated both ways for us too.

We talked about this and that for about an hour then Viktor asked me if I would do a favour for him when I went to the Soviet Union. I agreed, so he gave me a sealed envelope within an open envelope. He said that the inner envelope contained a letter to his son, who was still trapped in Leningrad.

The inner envelope carried no address for security reasons, but the outer one bore contact details. I was to memorize them and destroy it before boarding the plane. He described his son in some detail and told me about his background so that I might better recognize him as he was shy and retiring.

He also asked me to distribute a dozen Russian Bibles for him, which he would get to me later. I knew that Bibles were banned in the USSR. Dr. Pavloff would supply them just before we set off for Leningrad.

One day, about two weeks into the trip, I met a girl on the Nevsky Prospekt. That happened several times a day, because foreigners stood out by their clothing. She asked me if I would like to go back to her parent’s flat for a meal and help her with her English homework. She was about 21, so I supposed she was a university student too.

I went with her and while she cooked, I talked to her father. We got on well, but that is another story. Just before leaving, I had a brainwave. Public phones were traced, so I asked if I could use his. I rang Viktor’s son and arranged to meet him outside our hotel in 30 minutes.

I stood on the corner about five minutes early and saw a very nervous-looking young man walking towards me. His eyes flicked from side to side and at me. He fitted the description, so I took a step towards him when he was about four feet away.

Suddenly, I was tapped on the shoulder and the nervous man changed direction sharply and walked away. I turned to see a well-dressed man with the looks and physique of a film star standing there beaming at me. He held out his hand:

“Hello”, he said, “I am Viktor’s son. How is my Dad? You just rang, so I dropped everything to meet you. Let’s go in here and you can tell me everything over a cold beer”.

This man spoke with an American accent, but the man on the phone only spoke Russian. This man was confident. The man on the phone had been frightened and this man was leading me into a valuta bar, a foreign currency only bar, where Russians were not allowed to go.

We talked for an hour and he kept ordering more beer for us. He wanted to know where ‘his father’ was; what he was doing; was he still insane; did he still hate the USSR etc, etc, but all in a jovial off-hand way as if he were talking about a wayward, silly child.

I told him a few things that I made up but did not give him the letter. I shook his hand and took his contact details which I said that I would pass on to Viktor, which I did do.

He paid the bar bill and we left the hotel bar. A car pulled up immediately and he jumped in. He was waving as it sped off.

I was left on the pavement, thinking about what had just happened. Viktor’s son’s phone must have been tapped – I hadn’t thought of that.

I was thinking that it might be better to ponder it over another beer, when I saw the first man across the road. He was walking up and down a 10 foot stretch very quickly, turning on his heels to walk back and forth, but his gaze never left me.

I ran across the road and as he turned to run off, I grabbed him, said in Russian ‘Your father is thinking of you’ and stuffed the envelope into his hand. He looked at me from a few inches with tears in his eyes and he took off without looking back.

I don’t know whether the nervous man was Viktor’s son or not, but I know that the film star definitely wasn’t.

Owen Jones Bio: Owen Jones was born in Barry, South Wales, where he lived until going to Portsmouth to study Russian at 18. After finishing his degree, he moved to s’Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands where he lived for ten years.

At 32, Owen moved back to Barry to work within his family’s construction company, first as a painter and then as a director, or, as the bank once corrected him, a painter and decorator. He was also office manager for ten years.

At the age of 50 Owen moved to Thailand to live with a Thai girl that he met while there on holiday. He married the woman and now lives in her village of birth in remote northern Thailand.

Owen Jones published ‘’Behind the Smile’’ and you can visit his website here.

Sonia Marsh Says: This is an intriguing “spy” story. Your life seems to be full of “gutsy” adventures. I know you live in a small village in northern Thailand today which sounds interesting to someone who lives in a crowded city.

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VOTE NOW for your favorite February “My Gutsy Story®” submissions.

Please vote for your favorite story. You have until March 13th to vote, and the winner will be announced on March 14^th. Good luck to all your great stories.