For 2026 — Empower Yourself With Awareness

Awareness is power, the power to make your best life decisions that would positively or negatively impact your generation. — Annelise Lords

For more than forty years, Gretela was Sandy’s therapist, counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, and friend, listening to her complain about the hell she was enduring from her children and grandchildren. Today, she didn’t feel well, and her instincts took control away and asked when she was finished, “How did your life get to this point?”

“I don’t know,” Sandy said, looking at her in unconscious shock. “I am tired of it all.”

“Your son is married and is in law enforcement. His girlfriend has to take him to family court for child support. Does that remind you of anyone?” Gretela’s instincts demand as she struggles with the kinder part of her.

Sandy stared at her, pouting, furling and unfurling her brows, while her instincts were wondering what the hell was going on. She used to listen, encourage, and motivate.

“He got the cheating and disrespectful behavior from you, and how he saw you cheat on Steven, your husband and father of four of your children, and all of the other men you were involved with. He and his brother respect no women and live how you teach him to live, by living how you did,” Gretela piles on more.

Her eyes expanded rapidly, and she kept blinking to ease the shock.

Gretela insists, “You were a party animal, and giving birth to seven children didn’t stop you from living as if you were put here on earth for pleasure and entertainment.”

“You don’t think I should enjoy my life!” Sandy’s anger fought back.

“You are a mother of seven, yet you live as if you have none. Your second son has two kids, two different mothers, like the first son. He cheats on his girlfriend and gets his side chick pregnant. His girlfriend ran like a tornado was after her. You became the mother and father to your grandchild. He got another girl pregnant. She threw him out before that son was two. Now he lives with you and his son, and he has to babysit his other son. Now you are still raising your son and grandsons at your age. All of what they do, they got from you. None of your boys did well in school either, and they aren’t interested in getting more from life. So, like you, they will become servants, not Masters. Can’t you see the pain you are adding to our world through your children? Now it’s the grandchildren who will inherit the hell you start. Your pain will never stop, even after you are gone,” Gretela counsels.

She swallowed her shock, which got stuck in her throat. She began coughing.

Gretela stared at her, nodding. “It’s not going to come out that way.”

“I am the reason their lives are hell, and they keep failing in all areas of their lives?” She had the nerve to ask.

“Their lives and how they live them don’t seem familiar to you?” Gretela demands in awe.

She gulped down the truth’s reality, and it added pain to her heart, as she kept gasping for air, breathing in and out.

After reality, understanding, and the truth won, she inquired, tears slowly cascading down, “Do you think life will forgive me?”

“If you change, yes, life will. Your grandchildren are going in the same direction you went because that’s what they got from their parents, who got it from you, and how you lived your life. You send their parents to the same hell you live in, and they will continue adding pain to our world by living how you live. You allow hell to grow and bear fruit. Your sons treat women like dirt because of how you lived. But change will uproot that tree. You owe our world better. You owe your generation better!” Gretela enlightens her.

In tears, she swayed her head, then demanded from life, “Four of my seven children hate me. The other three are using me to take care of them and their children. I am not in good health, and I have daughters who won’t come to see me. The one who talks to me lives with me because she spends her money on parties and looking good, and can’t afford rent. My sons are adding hell to the lives of all the women who loved them, destroying good relationships. How could you not notify me that my lifestyle was harming and hindering, instead of healing and helping?”

Suddenly, lightning flashed, and thunder roared, and Gretela spoke as it died down, “Life, I, pain, disappointment, families, other friends, all of the problems your children had, etc, kept telling you many times, but you were too busy having fun to listen.”

“I wasn’t aware,” she wept. “I swear to you I wasn’t!”

“Awareness is power, girlfriend. Power to make our best life decision,” Gretela preached.

“And you were, so you ensure you live better, so your generation wouldn’t be in the kind of pain mine is in?” Sandy’s conscience realized.

“For the New Year, be aware of the life you are living, or your life will get worse,” Gretela warned.

“It can’t get worse than this!” she tests life.

Many humans are really living as if their purpose on earth were pleasure and entertainment. Their lifestyle choices contribute to the pain they keep inflicting on the planet and on every life they touch. The pain will continue in their generation, long after they are gone.

For 2026, empower yourself with awareness and give yourself the right resources to live better.

Thank you fro reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.