Author Gloria Loring On Tour With Memoir

Many of you may recognize my guest today as Liz Chandler from the hit soap opera Days of Our Lives. I’d like to welcome Gloria Loring here today as the author of the inspiring memoir, Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous: Reflections on Daytime Dramas and Divine Intervention.

Gloria has been on a virtual book tour through WOW (Women On Writing) Tours. As part of that tour, Gloria is offering one lucky visitor to Thoughts a copy of her memoir. Please see the end of the post for the giveaway guidelines.

Gloria joins us today to discuss a subject many of us have encountered at one time or another in our lives - lousy boyfriends. But first, let me share a brief synopsis of Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous.

    Ten million daily viewers loved her as Liz Chandler on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. Yet while the cameras rolled and the fictional plotline for Days unfolded each day, Loring was quietly wrestling with her own real-life dramas—the diagnosis of her young son's diabetes, the unraveling of her marriage, and a nagging inner voice from childhood that told her something was wrong.
    Coincidence Is God's Way of Remaining Anonymous is Loring's spiritual exploration of how coincidence helped her make sense of life's challenges and uncertainties.  Coincidence helped her raise $1 million for diabetes research; it arrived in the form of mysterious letters during her separation and eventual divorce from actor-writer Alan Thicke; and it helped her discover and then heal from the trauma of long-forgotten childhood sexual abuse. It also brought her a chance encounter with the man she is married to today.
    With eloquence and humor, Loring takes readers on a quest for a deeper understanding of life's journey and the role coincidence plays in all of our lives, revealing that even the most difficult circumstances can be beneficial. Her experiences may be just the evidence readers need to begin watching more closely what they are attracting and what they are running from in their own lives.
    While coincidences may appear to come out of the blue, Loring suggests that we can all play a starring role in their appearance. "For years, I'd been waiting for someone else to make (my life) better. You'd have thought I was starring in "The Perils of Pauline." In truth, I wasn't a victim, I was a volunteer. . . . Coincidence gave me an experience of the lesson I needed to learn: You don't have to wait for someone to save you." 

Now Gloria, also a singer, says, ‘Let’s Talk About Lousy Boyfriends.’

He showed up really late for our date even though I had told him I had to be home at a certain time for my children. No phone call, no apology. He sauntered up my driveway as if I had nothing better to do than wait for the honor of his arrival. When I reminded him of my time constraints, he tossed off a quick, So? 

In that moment I saw I had done it again: chosen someone who didn’t treat me with respect. Yet this time I didn’t try to get him to understand my needs or attempt to manage his disrespect. I sent him home.

Lousy boyfriends. We’ve heard about them, experienced them. The kind that don’t return calls, don’t show up on time, don’t know how to listen. The ones who cheat or lie or worse.

My friend’s therapist asked her, “What’s the one common factor that links all your lousy, betraying boyfriends?” Suddenly my friend saw her life clearly. “Me!” she answered. She realized it wasn’t an unfathomable coincidence that she had lousy boyfriends. She was “creating” lousy boyfriends by choosing men who demonstrated her subconscious idea of how her life should be, i.e. filled with betrayal and abandonment. (A perfect reenactment of her childhood with two alcoholic parents.)

A woman I counseled, who had a child with her boyfriend, was complaining to me about who he was and how he acted. I noted, “Complaining about him is not very productive. He is who he is. After all, you chose him.”

She retorted, “I did not!”

“Wait a second,” I countered, “did he kidnap you and force you to become pregnant and bear his child?”

“Well, no....”

“So the truth is that you noticed him, were attracted to him, and agreed to sleep with him, correct? In other words, you chose him.”

She reluctantly agreed, “Yes, I guess I did.”

Erica Jong said, “Take your life in your own hands and what happens? Something terrible: no one to blame.”

Rats! You mean I don’t get to blame them for being incapable of fulfilling my needs? Not if I want to avoid having more of them. 

So now I think of those long ago lousy boyfriends, along with any currently difficult people in my sphere, as “the angels of adversity.” I know they serve a purpose: They reflect back to me issues that are buried so that I may clean my own face instead of blaming the mirror.

This blog is drawn from Gloria’s book, Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous: Reflections on Daytime Dramas and Divine Intervention.

Gloria, thanks so much for sharing this insight with us. We do tend to want to blame others rather than ourselves for the problems we create.

For those not familiar with Gloria, here’s a bit of background. When not starring on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, Gloria expresses herself with music. She is the recording artist of the #1 hit song Friends and Lovers, as well co-composer of television theme songs Diff’rent Strokes and Facts Of Life. 

Gloria’s new musical show TV Tunez, a celebration of television’s best theme songs that earned standing ovations, is in development for a Las Vegas run. She is currently in the studio with producer Ted Perlman and songwriting legends Burt Bacharach and Desmond Child.

After her four-year-old son was diagnosed with diabetes, she created and self-published two volumes of the Days Of Our Lives Celebrity Cookbook which raised more than $1 million for diabetes research. She has also written Kids, Food and Diabetes, Parenting a Child with Diabetes, The Kids, Food & Diabetes Family Cookbook, and Living With Type 2 Diabetes: Moving Past the Fear.

Gloria was honored by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation with the Lifetime Commitment Award and the Founders Award from the National Disease Research Interchange. The Miss America Organization gave her the Woman of Achievement Award, an honor she shares with past recipients Barbara Bush, Roslyn Carter, and Hillary Clinton. She is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Women.

For more on Gloria, visit her website at www.glorialoring.com or find her on Facebook and Twitter. 

Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous: Reflections on Daytime Dramas and Divine Intervention is available at Amazon.

Now here are the giveaway guidelines. To enter this giveaway, send me an e-mail (mcbookshelf@gmail.com) with the subject line, “Win Coincidence Is God‘s Way.” Your message should include your name and mailing address. The contest is open to residents of the U.S. and Canada only and no post office box addresses can be accepted. And, just so you know, I don’t share this information with anyone other than the publisher nor use it for any other purpose. The deadline to enter this giveaway for a chance at a copy of Coincidence Is God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous: Reflections on Daytime Dramas and Divine Intervention is 8 p.m. (EST) on Saturday, April 13.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. What are your thoughts on coincidence?