Ha! You jumped back in,
or so you thought.
Too late, too little my “friend.”
Your efforts are for naught.

I left your tricks behind –
no more mind games for me.
Your mental claws were never kind.
Empty rings your empathy.

So take your narcissistic lust
and the card hid up your sleeve
– don’t bother with a trumped up fuss –
just take your lies and leave.

—-

Someone mentioned a poem a day in December, so my juices got flowing again, and here’s a little poem about users.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

UNTOLD STORY

Touched and untouched; parted, and never apart,
Slumbering within an inner earth.
Protectively cradled in an ancient union
Awaiting the dawn of birth.

Hands unseen shape this form,
Forever to be the mirror’s reflection.
What will those eyes someday see
In a lifetime of self-inspection?

Will the mirror show Mother’s smile
and reflect a stretching length?
Will this child be a daring one
Or one of quiet strength?

What will be those early dreams?
What color of youthful vision?
How will mind and memory grow
As experience brings revision?

For now the mystery remains concealed,
But soon the inner shaping will end.
Amazement will be wrapped in joy
As all the answers begin.

—-

I wrote this in 1986 as a greeting card and congrats for my oldest niece when she became pregnant with her first child.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

This is one of the fictional stories I wrote for Think Like a Black Belt, Take Charge of Your Own Safety – my e-book on self defense for everyone.

Meg vs. the Giant

Meg’s cheerleading practice had been over for an hour, but her brother still hadn’t arrived to pick her up.

“Jerk” she said to herself, “probably sucking face with that girlfriend of his…”

Meg was the only one left on the school’s darkening football field. She quickly realized she couldn’t Avoid the Vulnerability Factor, so she remained in code yellow as her parents and that book by the female black belt taught her. She wanted to call her brother, but her battery was dead from too much texting.

Moving toward the parking lot, Meg witnessed a car approaching her slowly. Observing her exits strategies, she paused a moment to see if she recognized the driver. It was one of the football players, a huge linebacker named Vince.

The huge teenager drove up close, smiled, and offered her a ride.

Meg declined.

Not put off, Vince spread an even more charming smile. “Why don’t I stick around to keep you safe from the bad guys?”

Meg was torn between knowing the guy and understanding that most rapes are acquaintance rapes. In her moment of slight indecision, he hopped out of his vehicle, sidled up closer and joked about her jumpiness. He kept eyeing the road into the parking lot as if scouting for anyone who might see.

He started to get too close, and she Set a Boundary: “Vince, I don’t feel comfortable with you here,” she said. “Leave now.”

Vince laughed mockingly.

With strong body language, she said, “Vince, back off. Get in your car and go home.”

She saw the flicker of a controlling, wicked leer cross his face. Grabbing her wrist with a cruel grip, his leer turned into a wolfish smile. “Looks like I need to teach Pretty Girl here a few niceness lessons.”

Fear started to swallow Meg with the realization that he must weigh 280 pounds.

Meg then realized the Media and Movie Myths aren’t always true and Vince must surely have some vulnerable spots.

She Chose to Fight instead of Comply and faked a knee shot to the groin, knowing he would probably block with a thigh. As soon as he did, she brought an arcing elbow down on his nose, shattering cartilage against facial bone. Vince let go in agony, holding his nose.

Meg figured the pain wouldn’t last long on such a big football player and decided to Toss Out Niceness and Rules. Knowing a few pounds of pressure can break smaller bones, she raised her knee high and stomped downward with her heel into his left foot.

As his body arched forward from the pain in his foot, Meg brought her knee up into his face. With Vince’s body suddenly brought upright again, Meg finished him off with a final kick to the now fully vulnerable groin.

As Vince collapsed into a pile of dust and defeat, Meg’s jerk brother pulled into the parking lot with disbelief etched into his face…..

—–

For information on self defense visit my site on physical, mental and emotional self defense:  Think Like a Black Belt.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Photo Credit: litelover

Hey, I’m officially an author now!

My first book is an e-book – Think Like a Black Belt – Take Charge of Your Own Safety.

And check out some reviews:

This one is from Betsy Wuebker, written on her blog Passing Thru:

“Think Like a Black Belt – Take Charge of Your Own Safety is a comprehensive guide to mental toughness and personal safety.  Written from the perspective of enabling parents to pass along personal safety and awareness tips to children and teens, Lori’s e-book goes beyond to a more universally valuable approach.  This e-book is for everyone – because everyone at one time or another finds themself in an unsafe situation.

“The Bonus Section is worth the price of the e-book alone. This is an activity set designed to fine tune your senses in your personal daily environment.  This D-I-Y workshop that will have you looking at your world in a fresh way while creating a strong anticipatory mode that will keep you more safe.

“Make no mistake – Lori doesn’t pull any punches.  She is not out to sugar-coat her message.  She is matter of fact, encouraging and ultimately, very convincing.  We can defend ourselves from the bad guys and we can teach our children how to recognize and deal with them, too.”

And this review is from Janice Hunter on her blog Sharing the Journey:

“Please check out Think Like a Black Belt for mental, physical and emotional self defense lessons, especially if you’re a woman or have children …

“Who can benefit? Anyone who walks in public, parks a car, has children, works with others, goes out in the evenings… in short, everyone! We’re talking some of the most practical life skills that can be applied to any situation where you need to be sharp, alert, aware and informed. I let my teenage kids read these posts. I’m anxious by nature, but the tips they’ll learn from the  Think Like a Black Belt ebook and blog will help me breathe a little easier. I bought the book the day it came out!  It covers many topics such as strengthening your inner radar and your psychological and physical defense mechanisms, and teaches us to layer all the skills for greater effect.”

For more information on the book click here.

I also wrote about the e-book on the companion blog, where I write on physical, mental, and emotional self defense. Some recent articles include:

• How intuition helps keep you safe in self defense  part one and two.
• Emotionally abusive predators and their ways: signs and traits and the blame game emotional predators play.
• Basic self defense moves: how to use keys for self defense and how to do a heel palm strike.

——

It’s all fascinating and practical information that can keep you safer — and your children, too!

—-

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Toxic Dance

Dance with the devil and feel the burn.
Make every word hurt with each twist and turn.
Put up the walls and never give in.
Put on the glare; stick out the chin.

Think only negative and never be nice.
Make him hurt deep, as he pays the price.
Keep the remarks cutting, right down to the core.
Never let real love get a foot in the door.

Give up patience and kindness, too,
And any gentleness you ever knew.
Cloak your soul in The Selfish Me;
Sacrifice nothing for warmth or civility.

And when the walls are fully built,
Mortared well with hate and guilt,
Then dance within your heart of stone,
Dance with the devil as you dance alone.

—-

__

This poem was first published in the Newlywed News — a (snail mail) newsletter my husband and I sent out to family and friends in our first few years of marriage. I wrote it based on a couple’s relationship we’d witnessed during our honeymoon. They tore at each other like harpies. We swore we’d never take that path!

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

I Fail at Twitter

Oh how fickle the Twitter fates be –
as they say, “Follow me, my friend!”
And yet I can’t unfail my whale
and know what words to send.

I read all the tips that go floating by,
like “be kindly and never be spammy.”
But try as I may, my tweets die fast –
are they stupid or just plain crappy?

Funny thing is I always feel beat,
By big names like “Mr Million aplusk,”
I feel like a small fish in a very big sea,
Swimming upstream from dawn until dusk.

I’ve found it’s true: Twitter never sleeps.
It’s impossible to keep up with the flow.
By the time I’ve RT’ed the latest and greatest,
a thousand others have stolen the show!

And now the media has finally awoken –
with Iran’s Twitter-green revolution.
Millions more will push the 140 limit,
and I’ll be even more Lilliputian!

—-

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

I also blog at: Think Like a Black Belt

Deception

The body and words spoke promise,
confirming this one could be trusted.
Lures sparkled in the eyes and smile.
Seduction of the uninstructed.

It seemed so easy, so natural,
a hand-in-glove fit soul to soul.
I never saw the spider’s web
that would someday take its toll.

It all seemed perfect and exciting,
the sweet dance of conversation.
I never knew it was just a harvest
– a smoothly slow initiation.

But then came a first awakening –
the bite and strike came fast.
I was left dazed, confused;
the easy smiles forever past.

It seemed so awkward, so wrong,
and constantly my own fault.
I was a horse led by reins,
someone else choosing go or halt.

I walked on eggshells lightly
with constant uncertainty squared.
Denial was my other self,
as I finally paid the fare.

Somehow, some way came sanity.
I walked away … and fast.
The scars are faded now,
and my heart is free at last.

—-

—-

For information on emotional self defense and how to deal with Dark Hearts, visit my other website, Think Like a Black Belt — especially for these short articles: “Defense Against the Dark Hearts” and “Signs and Traits of Emotional Predators.”

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Hear ye; hear ye!

My new blog is up and running at Think Like a Black Belt! I finally combine three passions of mine — the martial arts, teaching, and blogging. Articles and posts help readers discover tips, tricks, and techniques for physical, mental, and emotional self defense.

The latest posts are:

• How would you face danger or disaster?

• Self Defense with ‘Heel Palm Strike’

• Defense Against the Dark Hearts

• No one wants this kind of relationship!

• Think like a Black Belt? Yes you can!

To help start the blog off with a kick, Barbara Swafford of Blogging Without a Blog showcased Think Like a Black Belt in a review called Kicking It. Barbara’s awesome community of readers and fellow bloggers responded wonderfully! What can I say, the lady rocks!

Thank you to all who dropped by:

Davina — Shades of Crimson

Janice — Sharing the Journey

Jan — WritingToExhale

Sean — Writer Dad (and Ghostwriter Dad)

Caroline — The Zen in You

Tricia –Shout

Betsy – PassingThru.com

Vered — Momgrind

Joanna Young — Confident Writing

Floreta — The Solitary Panda

Sara — the sharing connection

Cindy — CindyPlatt.com

Thank you everyone for a great kick-off!

“I’m sure you don’t want to do that,” he said. “It really wouldn’t be helpful to the company.”

The parental tone rang subtle, but commanding, from a superior to a subordinate. But this time the fatherly smile he put on his face like makeup didn’t ring as true.

Damn, she thought, this was going to be a long discussion.

Well, not discussion. He rarely let others listen or get a word in edgewise.

As her immediate boss in the company’s marketing department, he was automatically dealt the better and upper hand, and damn if he didn’t know how to use it to his best advantage.

She knew it would fall on deaf ears, but she had to say it anyway. “Actually I was trying to help the company with this new online idea.”

“Sarah,” he always used her name when he felt threatened and insecure, “you know what I’ve said about this. I love that you have enthusiasm and want to help, but I’ve been down this road before, and it never works.”

With hardly a pause he continued, “When I first joined this company, I took pride in how it stood on solid standards and ideas. We’ve never wavered from those. To do something new just to do something new is not good business.”

“But I’ve seen this work elsewhere with great success. I read an article in the main trade magazine that backs up how well it can help us.”

“Have I ever steered you wrong, Sarah?”

There it was — his switch-up in the conversation to avoid having to listen to her defend her ideas.

And what other reply did she have for the person who approved her paycheck? With the smallest of sighs, she bit off the word, “No.”

“Well then, you know I mean what I say when I’ve tried things like this before. When I first headed up sales, a man by the name of Jack Johnson came up with something similar …”

At that point her nods came diligently, but her mind ran long and hard from this twice-heard story he used to prove to the world why “things are they way they are and are going to stay that way.”

Each of his hand gestures and well-rehearsed emotional stage play weighted down her heart and shoulders. Why did I stick around for more of this? I left home years ago. I don’t need a Daddy-figure or school principal to keep make me feel like I don’t measure up so I keep trying harder to please.

Her self-loathing jumped a notch, but never bubbled up to her face. She’d learned a long time ago to peer through well-made masks. Otherwise, the conversations grew longer.

Somewhere inside her, as the drone of words played on, a sharp blade cut into her, slicing something old and moldy from her mind. The once quiet and dead-still inner sea moved as if whipped by a strong wind. Waves slowly rolled higher and higher as long-held indignation roared across the seascape.

With a new clarity crashing against the shore of her selfhood, she naturally sat up taller in her chair. The new body language commanded notice.

Sarah heard his words trail off as he noticed the change. His kind spent a lifetime controlling the small and large things of power.

She now she noticed them, too.

Leaping into the gap between the torrents of words, she said, “I understand your vast experience with this company carries a lot of weight for you, but I see stories like these as unhelpful. I value quality, standards, and making this company great, too, and those things don’t disappear when innovation and new ideas are tried.”

Before he could summon another gush of words, she plodded on.

“There is no harm in my suggestion. I’m the one taking the responsibility here. I’m willing to try it and if it fails, then I’m the one who fails. I’m not cowed by other people’s past attempts. Sure maybe they did fail, but maybe they just didn’t have the abilities I do. I own my successes and my failures, and I won’t let Jack’s story be a gravestone to innovation or to my creativity.”

Standing up, she added, “If you want to back me on my idea, fine. If not, there’s nothing more to say.”

Turning to leave, a power and a freedom raced through her body, a feeling that had eluded her a long time. Smiling broadly, she realized no one would take a parental role over her again.

—-

—-

For information on emotional self defense and how to deal with such controlling parental figures, visit my other website, Think Like a Black Belt — especially this short article: “Defense Against the Dark Hearts.”

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck

Dust floated, blew, or blasted into the house, depending on the wind strength. It filled the air with a choking dryness, a desert in every breath.

After fifteen years of high plains living, Margie longed every spring for the little green that would fill the sparse trees and wild grasses. Her friends in the city sighed at her lack of lawn or flowers, but her small well could never be allowed to run dry.

No, the water could never be wasted on a lawn or a rose garden. The few farm animals and chickens needed it, as did her vegetable garden.

She’d learned the ways of scarcity from her grandparents, who’d owned the farm for years. Grandma and Grandpa took her in after her own parents had died in a car wreck when she was ten. Now they’d both passed on within a year of each other, leaving Margie the farm.

Life on the harsh, wind-swept plains meant “doin’ without” and Margie had learned her lessons well.

“Waste not; want not,” Grandma always said.

“Fancy things are for fancy-pants people who don’t know nuthin’ but how to spend money,” Grandpa said whenever she wanted something new.

Taking these words to heart instead of as advice, Margie shied away from fancy things all her life: going to college, accepting a marriage proposal from a wealthy land owner, and her dream of becoming a writer in the big city.

One early summer day, as Margie dutifully dusted the house, she noticed a difference in the wind, the kind of thing a farmer notices, because so much rides on the weather. Walking outside to the porch, she looked to the west and saw a huge thunderhead building in the sky.

From years of watching storms come and go, she knew this one was a freight train headed straight at the farm. Keeping a wary eye on the storm, she shooed the chickens back into their pen, covered her still small tomato plants with buckets to prevent hail damage, and put the car in the old shed for the same reason.

In the house, she visited the storage closet to pull out emergency candles and the extra flashlights and batteries too see if they were all set to go, just in case the electricity went out.

Back outside, she looked up and gasped. Never before had she seen a storm’s cloud wall so menacing and swift or the color so green, the latter a sure sign of hail.

As she watched mesmerized, a small white cloud spun itself into a downward pointing arrow that stretched quickly toward the ground. Rising from the ground to meet it came the dust. They met fifty feet in the air and formed a now dark, twisting, writhing funnel of death headed straight for her.

Her feet would not move. Planted in the dust, she remained awed at the raw power in front of her. The tornado’s thousand-demon roar filled her ears and heart with a surge her scarcity-driven life had never known.

Before the swirling debris field hit, she dropped to her knees.  Without thinking, she raised her hands at the same time. Not in prayer, not in surrender, but in an embrace.

In that moment, the funnel danced up and over her, carrying its ripping and tearing winds a few yards away, where the tornado once again tore open the earth with its fury.

Margie jumped up and turned to follow the destroyer with her eyes. She lost view of it as the storm let loose with ice-cold rain. Fortunately for her and the farm, the hail would wait and drop a mile east.

Drenched, Margie walked to the farmhouse. Just inside the door, she paused. Something odd tickled at her mind. It took her a full minute to realize the house was somehow smaller and less of a home than a house. In the next few hours, as the storm raged with lightning and rain, the house began to feel like a sweater two sizes too small, the collar gripping the neck uncomfortably.

Finally the clouds broke and the setting sun lit up the back of the departing storm. Margie decided to put away her extra flashlights and candles, glad the electricity still worked. As she opened the storage closet and placed them on a shelf, her elbow knocked a box to the floor. Picking the box up, she noticed they contained her notebooks from high school, including her once much-treasured writing journal. As she put the box back in place, she grabbed the journal, blew off the dust, and took it back to the kitchen table.

With the smell of fresh rain still filling the air, she found a pen, pulled up a seat, and let the words flow.

—-

—-

I grew up in the Tornado Alley area of the country in Oklahoma. Storms still fascinate me, and I would be a storm chaser running down tornadoes with a camera if I could.

Thank you for visiting,
Lori Hoeck