GMT20230426-215338_Recording (1) Cheryl describes herself & podcast

The speaker, Cheryl Jennings, introduces herself and her new program called Heartfelt Perspectives. She believes that in today's world, there is a lot of negativity and people are feeling down and out. She expresses concern over the rise in suicides, the lack of hope in children, and the lack of respect and care for one another. She reminisces about a time when people looked out for each other and respected authority. She emphasizes the importance of valuing life and treating each other with love and respect. She believes that happiness is a state of mind and not dependent on external circumstances. She encourages listeners to make a difference by changing their mindset and focusing on happiness. She also invites listeners to connect with her on LinkedIn to share stories and make a positive impact together. Hi, this is Cheryl Jennings. I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that I am starting a new program and it's called Heartfelt Perspectives. And the reason I'm doing this is because in our world today, it just seems like everywhere you turn, people are being negative. They feel negative. And that's true because we see how crime is on the rise, how many people are feeling very down and out, conversations that you hear, if it's just listening to someone next to you or if it's someone that is in your family. Many times those conversations are negative. And I am seeing the rise in the number of suicides, the number of children who've given up hope, who feel like there is no hope out in this world, that no one cares, no one's listening, and no one's watching. And therefore, we have children who are growing up and they are being raised without understanding the difference in good and evil, the difference in right and wrong, the difference in being a friend or watching somebody be bullied and not do a thing about it. I'm watching people treat others in a horrible way. When you turn on television, you see how people are destroying other people's property. They're turning on older people, kicking them down the ground, down the steps, wherever they are, just because they're standing there. This is not the kind of world that most of us grew up in, where we had a respect for each other, respect for our families, a respect for our neighbors, a respect for teachers, a respect for police, because they were the authority in our lives. And if we didn't understand that, when we got home from school, we found out. Our parents believed in authority. If you got a spanking at school, believe me, you got another one at home. It was a world where people were really looking after each other. You know, years ago, Hillary Clinton used the phrase, it takes a village to raise the kids, and now we've got a village that's turning a blind eye. We don't have that kind of care for one another's children. And there were times when, if we got in problems, got into trouble, when we were away from home, it wasn't long before our parents found out about it. In fact, they might have known about it before we even got home. Because everybody cared. They wanted the best for us. They wanted the best for everybody else's children. It wasn't just to try to get ahead of somebody else, but rather to help everybody become better people, become responsible, to feel like they had a very important role in our society, and that we were all out there to take care of each other. I can remember when I was very young and we were on a little trip with a group of people going out to a national park. But it was in Tennessee where the mountains were high and there were drop-offs. And I remember a little boy that just didn't know how to follow instructions. And his parents weren't very good at understanding that love really meant making sure he obeyed. And so they just turned a blind eye. Well, this little boy, just like you might imagine, walked to the edge of that little cliff where there were no barriers to stop him. And all of the people there, except the parents, were watching and began screaming, stop, stop, stop, because they didn't want this child to drop off. Even though the parents were not watching as carefully as they should have, everybody else was. And everybody felt an obligation to say, stop, because they didn't want anything to happen to someone else's child. It didn't matter whose child it was. And you see, that's the kind of care and concern that many of us grew up with. And now we don't see that. We see children who are being used by friends, by family, being treated as sex slaves in some instances. And it's really hard to imagine that a family could even do that to their own child. I know the world has always had its problems. In fact, you can read in the Bible back in, there were times that there were people who did those things, who even sacrificed their children to God. And they were doing it wrong. And thankfully, our God who created us is the one that said, don't have anything to do with people that are doing those kind of things. That's wrong. That's evil. And then when you get to the New Testament and you're looking at Hebrews, it says that we learn good from evil by practice, by teaching, by understanding what is right, what is wrong, and making sure we follow those principles. So in this little time that we have together, I just want you to understand that my heartfelt perspective is that I believe in people. I believe in the goodness that people can change, that our world can be better, and it should be better. That we just need to turn around and say, we're not going to listen to people who are taking away our rights, our freedoms, freedom to speak, freedom of religion, freedom to be who we are, and then to take away our police because they don't honor them. It's time to stand up and say, oh, yes, we do believe in authority. We do believe in the police being there to secure us, to make sure we're safe, our families are safe, and when we're in problems of some sort and we can't get ourselves out of it, we know who we can call, and we know they will come to rescue us. I don't know that we have that kind of society right now, and it's time to go back and find it. It's time to go back and see what it is that has changed that we can turn back the clock and say it's time for us to make sure that if our world needs help at any time, we have people ready and willing to get out there. You know, I believe in our military. They have always been there to protect our world, and I grew up at a time that people had a lot of respect for the military. We still do. I live in a town that has a lot of military people. I love them. I respect them. I know why they're there. They're there to protect our freedoms, and if we don't treasure that, they won't be there to take care of us because they are going the extra mile in life saying, I'm willing to lay down my life for someone I do not know. Now, do you think when you look around your world, the people that you are spending a lot of time with, do you believe that those people would say to you, I would lay down my life for you, for your friends, to make sure that everything was right for you? That's the kind of world I'd like to live in. So imagine, if you would, that this is the time now. We've turned back the clock, and we can see that when we have an accident, we know who we can call, and we know for sure that they will show up and they will do their best to rescue us and to make sure that we're safe again. I am imagining a world where the crime is on the decline instead of the incline, that we can say, you know, it's time that we take care of each other, that we respect each other's property, that we respect each other as a person, the families, and that we can also see that happiness is there when we have that security. We're not happy when we don't have security. We're happy when we know for sure that when things get out of control, it's going to change. Someone's going to make sure that things are changed. If it's the law, if it's because the teachers have to take a stand and say what you're doing is not right, we're not going to tolerate that kind of behavior on our property. For whatever reason, the people who are in control, in authority above us, whoever they are, and everybody's under somebody's authority, that we begin to respect each other for the authority that they have, that we begin to say, you know, it's important to have layers of authority. You know, as our children are growing up, so many times, I believe we may be overindulged in providing too much for our children. Our firstborn had cerebral palsy. He couldn't hold his head up. He couldn't sit up. We had to hold him most of the time, and when we did, it was really easy to hug on him, to kiss him, and to make sure that, you know, we were there for him. He was protected because he was in our arms. And as we watched him begin to develop, and yet he didn't grow in developing his body strength like he should, and his mental capacity did not develop like it should, we still loved him. We loved him still. And yet I see people who make judgments about others because the way they look. We have a lot of people that are always demanding that we pay attention because of race, and yet it's not every race they want to protect. I see people who are more concerned about the color of the skin than they might be for someone who is walking with a walker, who is walking with canes, with braces, or being pushed in a wheelchair. How concerned are the same people that would be saying you can't treat somebody like that because the color of their skin is something that they're born with, they didn't do anything that deserves extra help like that, and yet we see that people who are born without the ability to be on their own to take care of themselves are often treated with disrespect, disregard, as if they're not important. I know that for sure. Let me just tell you, it wasn't but a couple of weeks ago that I got a letter from somebody. You know, I like to write for Quora, and I answer questions about what is it like to be in a family that has a child with some kind of disability or handicap. This person wrote me and he said, wouldn't it be better if at the time of birth, when a child is born with any kind of disability, we just killed them all right there instead of letting them suffer in the world? It was hard for me to understand how anybody could come to a conclusion like that, because they're missing something in life. They're missing love. They don't understand what true love is. And I wrote him back and I said, that's the most horrible thing I've ever heard of. That's exactly what happened in Germany when Hitler began taking the people because they were of one race, of the Jewish race, and taking them and putting them to death simply because they were of a Jewish race. And then he began to take older people. And then he was taking people who were disabled mentally or physically. And then he just took children because he wanted to experiment. What would happen if we did this to their bodies or that without any regard to pain, to suffering, or for whatever reason? And you see, once you start that, you're on a downhill slope where the next person is going to be you. That is a world I don't want to live in. I don't love the fact that people even think in a way that they would believe that was a good answer to a problem. Because they're missing the fact that our children, even when they have any kind of disabilities, they're still our children. We love them. We want to take care of them. We want to protect them. We want them to have the best life that they can. And it's not going to be possible unless we as parents and as friends and as Americans and people of the world, if we don't begin to respect and love each other because we respect life. I believe people have lost their love of life. They don't mind if people are euthanized. And when do we get to this point that people can just believe that it's okay to take a life? I don't understand why people believe that if you don't want to have a baby, you can't just do something about protecting yourself from sex or abstaining from sex instead of taking the life of an innocent person that has nothing to do with being born. They have no say-so and yet you want to take their life because you wanted to have a moment of pleasure. You see, we're not thinking straight. We don't understand how valuable each other can be in our lives. We don't see the value of life when we have children who give up at the age of six, even teenagers, or whatever age they are, to say, I have no reason to live again. I might as well just die. No one sees me. No one hears me. No one's listening. No one's looking for me. We need to change that perspective. This is my heartfelt perspective of life, that we need to see life is valuable and to begin by saying things that will encourage one another, to lift each other up, and to quit thinking in terms of somehow our happiness is based on what's going on in the world around us because it's not. You see, no matter where you are, if you're unhappy, you're going to be unhappy anywhere. If you're happy, you can be happy anywhere. And we've seen that to be true with people who have little to nothing. If you look on some of these little YouTubes or Facebook little videos, and probably on TikTok, you'll see the happiest little kids singing and dancing as they go get an empty plate about to go have a little bit of rice put on it in a place that has nothing to offer them except a little bit of rice. And yet they'll be singing and happy as they can be. It's not that they have a family that loves and cares. They have a mental attitude of I'm going to love life. I'm going to make a difference. I'm going to be happy. You see, happiness is a state of mind and not circumstances. No matter what you have now, if it was taken away from you, would you still be happy? Could you be happy? Absolutely. I believe you could be happy if it was all taken away from you. But somehow we've gotten into the idea that I can't be happy if you don't agree with me, if you don't say that whatever I believe is right, if you don't agree with me that people in history did something wrong, they should be punished. We can't change history. History is history. History is what we should learn from. So if you and I want to do something to change our world, we begin with us. We begin with who we are. We begin with what makes us happy. What keeps us from being happy is inside of us. It is not something that we can say if all these circumstances were true, then I would be happy. You know, when we're kids, we think that way, don't we? We start off thinking, oh, if I could just go to school, oh, I would be so happy. If I could just ride my bike, I would be so happy. Oh, I can't wait for my birthday. Oh, I'm so excited I can't wait for Christmas. It just seems like it's forever getting here. Oh, I can't wait till I get to school and I can date. I can have my first kiss. Or when we get older, when we're out of school, when we're driving, when we can do all these things, then we think we'll be happy. But what if you never got to do those things? Could you still be happy? I believe you could. But you see, that's because I understand that happiness is within me and not you in control of me. Because if I say I can't be happy until you do something, we've given all our control to someone else. Our mindset has to be that we can be happy and we can make our world a different world by changing the way we feel about happiness. Our minds must focus on the fact that we can be happy no matter what. Eric Tole once said, the primary cause of unhappiness is never about the situation, but it's your thoughts about it. And you know, that's true. So many things that we learn by reading the scriptures, we can see that these problems were answered a long time ago. Listen to this scripture. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. And another one. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil. Fear the Lord and shun evil. Imagine this will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Once again, it's fear the Lord and shun evil. Doesn't mean that you have to be scared to death of the Lord. It means that you have a respect for the Lord and what he's done for you and what he promises if you're obedient to him, how he's making plans for you to have a better way of life that will be forever. You know, the way that people have lost hope in our world has caused us to feel hopeless about our law, to feel hopeless about the crime rates, and to feel hopeless about what's in the future for our society. And for this reason, I want to make a difference by the things that I can say to give you hope, uplift your spirits, because my heartfelt perspective is we can make a difference. You can make a difference in your life. I can make a difference in mine. And the way we treat people, we can make a difference together. I know that this is not going to be a very long discussion today, but I do know that it's a way of explaining to you who I am, that I'm a mother, that I'm a coach. I've done so many things in my life, and yet, what does it matter? I'm here because I feel that God has blessed my life, and he's brought me to a situation of understanding that we have a way to have our voices heard on the Internet in a way that can inspire others to raise their level of happiness and to raise the hope, that hope in a better life, hope in each other, and hope that we can make a difference by the decisions that we make one at a time. We don't have to be unhappy permanently. We can say I'm changing. This is something that we can begin today to say I'm going to make a difference. Let me make a suggestion to you. Why don't you get a notebook? It doesn't have to be expensive. Just get a notebook and write down each day for a while and say, how did you feel today? And what was happening at that time? And then look at what you've written and go back and say, was that my mind saying that or was that my false belief that somebody out there in the world has more control over me than I want them to have? And take back the control of your happiness. Take it back and see that whatever it takes, you can change your mind and what you think about is who you become. So let's become happier people because we can think happier thoughts and that we know, you and I know, that we can make a difference in this world. I can't wait to talk to you again. So be watching. I'm on LinkedIn. I wish you'd connect with me on there. I love to write newsletters and introduce people that you probably don't know that I'd like for you to meet. And I also love to just share stories. And when I see something that is fun or really cute on there, I like to share the stories again about people who've made a difference in life. So join me on LinkedIn at Cheryl Jennings. G-I-N-N-I-N-G-S. What's the old cotton gin? G-I-N-N-I-N-G-S. Cheryl Jennings. I'm looking forward to connecting with you and having you as my friend where you and I can make a difference in our world. And that together we can say we are happier because we know we've made up our minds. We are going to be happier and we're going to be filled with happiness that we can share with other people. Take care and I'll see you next time.