Year: 2017

X-Plan: Giving your kids a way out (#xplan)

/ Bert Fulks / 804 Comments

(As seen on The Today Show, Good Housekeeping, HerViewFromHome, ScaryMommy, The Huffington Post, Mamamia, MomsEveryday, and numerous social and news media outlets. UPDATED – 3/3/2017)

Friends, as most of you know, I get to spend an hour each week with a group of young people going through addiction recovery.  Yes.  Young people.  I’m talking teenagers who are locked away for at least six months as they learn to overcome their addictions.  I’m always humbled and honored to get this time with these beautiful young souls that have been so incredibly assaulted by a world they have yet to understand.  This also comes with the bittersweet knowledge that these kids still have a fighting chance while several of my friends have already had to bury their own children.

Recently I asked these kids a simple question:  “How many of you have found yourself in situations where things started happening that you weren’t comfortable with, but you stuck around, mainly because you felt like you didn’t have a way out?”

They all raised their hands.

Every single one of them. Continue reading →

Why You (don’t) Suck

/ Bert Fulks / 6 Comments

We know that art imitates life.  Life also imitates art.  And somewhere in between, we explore nature’s blueprint as we each try to figure out who—and what—we really are.

Sitting here in my writing sanctuary, I’ve become distracted by movement in the woods just beyond my window.  A woodpecker is making his way up a long, slender birch tree, stopping ever so often for some investigative pecks.  He visits our woods regularly.  I frequently hear his rhythmic knocking, and when I do, I always stop to look for the handsome fellow.  He’s a delight to behold.  Slender, coal-black body.  Fiery red head.  Power and grace that would shame most ballerinas.  I’m mesmerized by his existence.  And I wonder how a bird that can be so beautiful and naturally gifted at locating insects in a tree still can’t retrieve tennis balls like Cleveland and Bruce, our golden retrievers.

Our woodpecker is the worst retriever I’ve ever seen.  In fact (pardon the phrase, but there’s no better way to say it), he flat-out sucks.

Continue reading →