“20 Choices to Transform Your Life” with Naomi Judd

IT'S THE NEW YEAR and the time is ripe for change. Time for you to live life on your own terms. Wondering how? These two powerhouse women can guide you toward the life of your dreams. It might just be easier than you think!

Most people know her as the fiery redhead who speaks her mind and belts out songs from the heart. Her face, it seems, is everywhere. On television, she’s found in the kitchen (“Naomi’s Family Table” on the Food Network), or hosting an infommercial for her new makeup line, Esteem, or being interviewed by a famous anchorperson. She’s larger than life, yet a brief conversation with her confirms what we’ve heard all along: Naomi Judd is one of the most open and caring people you’ll ever meet. And she’s passionate to a fault about personal growth.

“I’m a communicator,” says Naomi Judd, “whether I’m expressing myself through writing a song or a book or I am singing, acting, speaking at an engagement or even chatting one-on-one with a stranger on the street. Finding a way to share our common experiences is my grand passion.”

Her story is a commonly told one: pregnant teen, welfare mom, abused wife, struggling nurse and aspiring country singer, who rose from the ashes through sheer determination and a bit of luck to become one of the most famous voices of country music. An almost deadly encounter with Hepatitis C in the late 80’s, took her to previously unexplored vistas, with a “clock is ticking” exploration of holistic health when traditional medicine could provide no cure for her disease. The picture of vibrant health today, she sits on Dr. Andrew Weil’s Board of Directors and continues to be a vocal proponent of alternative medicine.

Though hobnobbing with the rich and famous has its appeal, it’s the “Wal Mart crowd—standard issue folks,” as she calls them, that occupies Naomi’s thoughts and heart. Our conversation with her took place just minutes after she returned from a trip to her local car wash where, waiting in line, she pulled copies of her new book, Naomi’s Breakthrough Guide: 20 Choices to Transform Your Life, from the trunk of her car and handed them out to other waiting customers. “Everywhere I go I try to remind people that you can choose your thoughts and recreate yourself to not just survive, but thrive.”

Naomi goes on to give us the spiel she loves to deliver: “You don’t have to have a college education to understand this. It’s all about the choices you make. You see, the brain is an organ, a three pound organ, just like your lungs, your kidney, your heart. The mind is the information pathway, the control tower. With the brain there are essentially three lobes. The temporal lobe is the seed of your instincts; it’s the oldest part of the brain. It’s where your deep emotions lie—it’s where your knee-jerk thoughts come from. In the frontal lobe behind your forehead is the part of the brain that has logic and reason, rationalizing. And then the upper part of the brain, the cerebral cortex is really the traffic controller. That’s the part that tells you how to have balance between the two and is really good about judgment making.

“And a lot of people who have weight issues,” she continues, “who can’t control cravings for drugs, or inappropriate behavior, they don’t realize that their temporal lobe doesn’t allow their thoughts to go on to the frontal lobe. The temporal lobe is the modus operandi for people who can’t delay gratification. They have to have instant fulfillment, they’re impulsive, they choose people that aren’t suited for them, they do stuff that they regret, they get themselves in all sorts of binds.

“But the solution to all this,” Naomi maintains, “is awareness. It’s the magic answer, because when you have awareness of how this process works, you can stand in that gap and catch yourself before you head for the refrigerator or a fix or the bottle or whatever. You can make a better choice for yourself.”

Throughout her book, Naomi continues to dish out earthy wisdom with a one-two punch and just the right blend of humor and compassion. Her “20 Choices” include “You Can Be Anything You Want, but First You Have to Understand What’s Standing in Your Way,” “Worry and Fear are Dispensable Parasites on Your Brain,” and “Resign as General Manager of the Universe.” Central to the truths Naomi extols throughout the Guide is “It’s not what happens to us that matters as much as what we do with it.”

She goes on to explain. “When the first big milestone in my life came, it launched a catastrophic life change. I was seventeen and I was on my own. Nobody knew that I was pregnant. I felt like I had to hide it because my family was going through chaos with my brother Brian’s death, and Mom and Dad were heading for divorce. Anytime that we’re staring down the barrel of a forty-five we really need to just be with ourselves. Nobody else has walked in our shoes, nobody else knows the entire picture, and what I understood was that whether I liked it or not, I was alone with God. But really not alone because at that time I realized “alone” could instead mean, “All One.”

“And later when I was diagnosed with Hepatitis C, because I’m an RN, I was absolutely desperate for medications, the treatments, the modalities, and finding the experts to contact. But nobody really had any answers. So I just had to get clear that I was on my own, that it was me and God, and that I was a spiritual being having a human experience. After I accepted it—could say, okay this is where I am, this is my starting point—I started reading. I called the 1-800 number for the Liver Foundation and found out they didn’t even have a spokesperson! I volunteered over the phone to become their spokesperson, which is pretty preposterous, because at that time I couldn’t even brush my own teeth or get out of bed. That was the first baby step for me. And it was a very painful, a slow process.”

Claiming to be nobody special, Naomi reminds us that any one of us can do the same as she’s done. We can all learn more about our potential and make choices to thrive, to be happy, healthy and content. Upon request, she offers us one last bit of down home, but lofty wisdom, for a new year. “In the end, it truly is about doing the best with what you’ve been given. You get only one go-around in life, so let’s get it right! Don’t waste another single drop of your potential for happiness. Open your eyes now to the truth all around you. This is your wake-up call.”