Finding Light At The End Of Every Tunnel

 

‘If You’re Grateful Every Day, You Can’t Help But Be Positive,’ Says Author Kerry Cartelli

By Shannon Hicks

Kerri Cartelli is celebrating this month the release of her first book, called What A Difference A Day Makes: A Survival Guide for Women. The book is available through Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com as well as directly from the publisher, PublishAmerica. The 68-page softcover book (June 2006; ISBN 1-4241-4556-2) sells for $9.95.

The book actually started as a pamphlet writing experience for the Newtown resident, who wanted to offer a seminar for women and decided she needed to be able to give them something to describe her ideas and principles. Once she started writing, however, she couldn’t stop and What A Difference… was born.

Live every day to the fullest. Let go of everyday issues that cloud your life.

Life does not have to be a struggle. Live a balanced and peaceful life.

Each of us have heard all of these ideas — and probably plenty of others that offer guidance on being happy in general — but how do you go about actually living happily when bills, power struggles, or unhappiness surround many of us from the moment we awake each morning?

Ask Kerri Cartelli and she’ll tell you it’s easy.

“As human beings, it is our nature to constantly second-guess ourselves,” she wrote in her Introduction to What A Difference A Day Makes, a quick read that offers simple ideas that can allow almost anyone to find the positive in today’s strongly negative world. The book includes many anecdotes from the author’s life and plenty of suggestions to follow each idea. “Letting go of sadness, pain, self doubt, low self-esteem, and learning how to laugh at ourselves and have fun is the key to a positive and empowering life,” the Introduction continues.

The book is Mrs Cartelli’s way of sharing the ideas of living a happy, positive life through the practices and beliefs she has adopted in order to do just that. She is quick to point out that she is not a professional psychologist or marriage counselor. She is, instead, a woman who has found a way to make her marriage work, her family strong, and her life happy after going through a period of her own self-doubt and loss of identity.

“Being a mother is great, don’t get me wrong. But a lot of women feel stuck in this ‘role,’ even though you’re still an adult and need to be recognized as more than So-and-So’s Mommy or even So-and-So’s Wife,” she said. “There is a time to devote to your marriage, and your children if you have them, but there is also time for yourself and it’s important to have your own time, without guilt.

“You need to remember that it’s OK to make time to read a book, or have coffee… something without your kids,” she continued.

Mrs Cartelli addresses this issue in her book, as well.

“Loving my family is imperitive, but loving myself is essential,” she wrote in the Introduction. “The advice contained in this material may not be suitable for everyone. …Should the reader need psychologial or marital advice, he or she must seek services from a competent professional.”

While Mrs Cartelli does hold a bachelor’s degree in psychology, she doesn’t rely on that in offering her words of wisdom.

“This book is coming from a real voice,” Mrs Cartelli said recently. “I’m not a PhD, or a talk show host. I’m a mother, a real person, who has experienced a lot. People can relate to me.

“Also, this book isn’t 400 pages long,” she continued, offering a take on how her book is different from other self-help, positive-outlook books already on the market. “You can start his right away — it’s immediate. It isn’t loaded down with medical jargon and graphics; there’s nothing confusing here.

“For most people, we’re all into immediate gratification. You don’t have to buy new jogging shoes to become happy, or subscribe to a yoga magazine. The first step is to smile, and accept yourself.

“My book can benefit anyone who would like to change their lives from negativity and sometimes despair, to living in the path of love and light. Take the path and you will clearly find your way and begin to love yourself as we all should.”

Her advice is simple: Watch your children play. Sing out loud, and loudly. Dance. Laugh. Meditate, and not necessarily in the traditional sense. Mrs Cartelli says it doesn’t have to mean making or finding a perfect setting.

“It’s not a religious thing,” she said. “You don’t have to be Buddha. It’s just making a connection with who you talk to, whoever that is. Talk out loud — just get it out of yourself.”

Mrs Cartelli looks at meditation as simply a time to sit still and clear your head. In Chapter 4, “Meditate for Wisdom,” she shares a story about an afternoon when her daughters were playing on a trampoline. She went outside to keep an eye on them, just to make sure they were safe. Then she climbed up on that trampoline and started bouncing along with her girls. After that the three Cartellis laid down on the ground and looked up, staring at the trees, leaves and clouds.

The next time she looked at a watch, she and her daughters had spent an hour together and she was completely relaxed.

“It was unintentional and not planned, but it was a wonderful release,” she wrote. “I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and continued my day with a different feeling.”

As with most chapters, Mrs Cartelli offers reasons why readers should try this particular suggestion, how to put the suggestion into practice, and the benefits of this exercise. Meditation, she says, can reduce stress, improve health, increase awareness and creativity among its benefits.

Another of Mrs Cartelli’s suggestions concerns looking back over each day and finding something good about every one of them. Called “The Secret of My Success List,” the book’s tenth (and final) chapter encourages readers to see what they’ve done right and what could have been done differently.

The exercise, writing a My Success List, involves writing down five things that were done during the day that were successful. These listings could be as simple as “read a book alone” or as seemingly mundane as “kept the house clean.” The listings do not have to be huge accomplishments, she says.

“This is one of the most important things,” she said recently. “Going to sleep having written down five good things allows you to see that there is something good in each day. It also stops your mind from dwelling on the negative.

“You took your daughter to the library? That’s one good thing!” she exclaimed. “Look at how good that is for her, and her future. It’s important for you to recognize that.”

Mrs Cartelli began blogging on July 12, offering daily pick-me-ups and excerpts from her book.

Her book is a self-help/life and lifestyle book that is suitable for men and woman, regardless of its title. She discusses this during one of her early blogs.

“It was brought to my attention yesterday that although my book is geared toward women, that there are many men who could also benefit from the book since they are also often isolated and alone, raising families, etc,” Mrs Cartelli wrote on July 14. “I don’t want to ignore those men in this universe who feel the way I and many women do.”

The blog has also become more than a sales tool, Mrs Cartelli said in one of her recent postings.

“In the short time that I’ve been posting, it has become something else,” she wrote on July 26. “It has become a part of my morning routine.”

Routines, especially the ones she does first thing each morning, are very important to Mrs Cartelli. In addition to the new act of daily blogging by 6:30 am, Mrs Cartelli makes sure she calls one of her close female friends — part of her Sisterline, she calls it — to just talk.

“Establishing a Sisterline is one of the most important things I’ve done,” she said. “You’ve got to have someone you can trust and be honest with and not worry about the chatter. You need to be able to have someone who will call you on your junk, who will tell you when you’re wrong, not just someone who will tell you what you want to hear.”

So whatever happened to those seminars Mrs Cartelli was going to present? They’re still in the master game plan, but not in the immediate future.

“I still want to do seminars, but I’m not on any timetable. Once I started writing this book I also realized that I could get more credibility by having a published book,” Mrs Cartelli said. “People look for credibility, they want to know what the people presenting seminars have already done before they sign up for a seminar.

“Which sounds better? ‘Kerri Cartelli — mother, daughter, sister and teacher’ or ‘Kerri Cartelli — mother, daughter, sister, teacher and published author’?” she said.

Mrs Cartelli and her family have lived in Newtown for five years, having moved here from the Bronx. She was a kindergarten teacher for one year at PS 97 and then a fifth grade teacher at a Catholic school for one year. Then she became a computer tech teacher, dividing her time between each of the schools.

She became pregnant with her first child, Anna, while teaching at PS 97; was pregnant with Domenic while teaching kindergarten; and pregnant with Charlotte during her third teaching job. Her book is dedicated to her husband and their three children.

“It all has to do with gratitude,” said Mrs Cartelli. “If you’re grateful every day, your outlook can’t help but be positive.”