Everyday Heroes
Stories to inspire courageous living -- Intro and Excerpts

Welcome to a TRULY exciting venture -- a clickable database, with story after story, spotlighting one thing: inner JOY through life's struggles.

Here's my question: How can we learn from the inspiring people in this world who face adversity with class and creativity, and come out better, not bitter?

Some enviable people sing, dance and even laugh away their troubles -- three powerful coping tools, by the way, for our toughest days! My daughter and her downtown Minneapolis high school choir (above), led by artist-in-resident J.D. Steele, caught that bounce-back spirit through overcoming songs African-Americans developed to survive the weight of oppression.

But if we're stuck in that rampant habit of whining, complaining or blaming someone else for our troubles, can we change our emotional responses, re-learn better thought patterns, and somehow absorb this buoyant character? Brain science shows, most definitely YES!

But here's a huge clue. Life Model founder Dr. James Wilder is clear that only our high-enough JOY levels in a hope-filled relationship give us the capacity and desire to face the pain of previous despair and trauma in our lives.

In order to change, then, we need to switch up who our friends are, so we can:

-- watch someone who is offended forgive, rather than fight back,
-- see someone treat an opponent with honor instead of demonizing,
-- surround ourselves with those who handle stress with patience, calm or rest, rather than anger, gossip and blame.

STORIES OF CHANGE AHEAD - By life seasons!

For easy access and to give investors in my project a clear idea where it's headed, I've categorized 13 EXCERPTS from "stories to inspire courageous living" in topical areas representing the harder life seasons most of us go through: Love Relationships, Purposeful Adolescence, Cross-Cultural Relationships, Resilient Parenting, Retirement/Giving Back, and Aging Well. 

You can click to see these at the very bottom of the page. But first... one more illustration, and video clip of more of my heroes.

How do you handle change and loss? In this case, aging or the loss of youth. Enjoy!