{"id":1373,"date":"2018-04-09T06:58:08","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T10:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2018-04-08T22:03:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T02:03:28","slug":"what-shapes-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/what-shapes-you\/","title":{"rendered":"What Shapes You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mary-poppins.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1376\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mary-poppins-300x175.jpg\" alt=\"mary-poppins\" width=\"300\" height=\"175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mary-poppins-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/mary-poppins.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Recently my wife and I discussed the movie, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saving_Mr._Banks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saving Mr. Banks<\/a>. I was reminded of how surprised I was by the story and the film itself. It really got me to thinking about what shapes you as a person, over a lifetime. If you are not familiar with the story behind <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/P._L._Travers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">P.L. Travers<\/a> and her character Mary Poppins, you can read this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/10483126\/Saving-Mr-Banks-The-true-story-of-PL-Travers.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">article<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Much of who I am was shaped by my childhood.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During my childhood, I had a father who drank to excess, suffered the neglect that goes with substance abuse, saw things that today are still difficult to write about, and witnessed an <a title=\"An Early Morning in June\" href=\"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/an-early-morning-in-june\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">event<\/a> that left a permanent mark. I know many of you have your own stories as well.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s most important here, though, is how Ms. Travers was shaped and how it produced such great work. It&#8217;s ironic how her great pain produced such great work. I found myself, as I watched the film, feeling like I was watching my own movie.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Much of what I have created, has been born from my pain and wounds.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In my one-on-one work with people, I use a process designed to help them look over their lives to find the pain and the wounds. This can be difficult work. Many are the walking wounded, and they&#8217;ve taken the path of &#8220;medicating&#8221; or just looking to escape. My great mission is to help people deal with what often they would prefer to ignore. I understand this and carry empathy for the great struggle many are facing. American culture has not helped. Our ever-increasing desire for entertainment, medication, and status are fierce animals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Much of what I do is motivated by mission.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>PL Travers found an outlet for some of what hurt. Her work has made a lot of children and adults happy. In the end, that counts for much. I don&#8217;t know if she was truly whole before the race was over, but maybe that happens on the eternity side.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know what shapes you?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently my wife and I discussed the movie, Saving Mr. Banks. I was reminded of how surprised I was by the story and the film itself. It really got me to thinking about what shapes you as a person, over a lifetime. If you are not familiar with the story behind P.L. Travers and her&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,54,1,1907],"tags":[1634,1635,76,30,1633,325,1631,823,180,1629,71,1630,93,1628,1627,1626],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coaching","category-life-perspectives","category-uncategorized","category-well-being","tag-alcohol","tag-alcohol-abuse","tag-art","tag-books-2","tag-childhood","tag-children","tag-disney","tag-epic-living","tag-eric-pennington","tag-mary-poppins","tag-movies","tag-pl-travers","tag-relationships-2","tag-saving-mr-banks","tag-shaping","tag-what-shapes-you"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2081,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions\/2081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}