Achievements

I was born to a really good woman. It was one of my best decisions.

In my first 3 years of life, my best friend was my cousin, Joe, who lived downstairs in the Tetreault family home. Mom and I lived in the apartment upstairs. Behind me is my beloved Weeping Willow Tree which protected me from the sun on hot summer days. The Weeping Willow Tree also foreshadowed the weeping I would soon do, when I was physically abused by the husband of a woman in the next town. I share this account in MY RED BAG OF COURAGE, subtitled, SURVIVAL WISDOM. You, too, can also recover.

I remember this day. Mom is taking the picture just before she left me for the week with Memere and Pepere. You can see my face is not so happy to leave my mother. But I did love my grandparents. Although Mom was the 13^th of 14 of her 3 brothers and 9 sisters (twin boys died when a cow kicked my grandmother in the stomach when she was almost full-term, so I grew up with 11 sets of aunts, uncles, and cousins), they did not help with my childcare needs. Women often chose to stay in unhealthy relationships, seeing few other options. My mother decided not to stay with my biological father since he seemed to love all women way too much. He left. I do not remember him as a child.

Joe and I are waiting for Santa Claus one Christmas Eve. We heard Santa’s footsteps on the roof, then he knocked on the door with a red bag of toys over his shoulder. I was perplexed by this.

Joe was such a good sport that he came to a Tea Party I had with the dancing Bride Doll that I got for Christmas the year Santa Claus came to the house. I told him that his eyes looked just like Uncle Jackie’s eyes (Joe’s father). Santa chuckled.

Mom and new Dad were married August 11, 1961. They gave me a baby sister, Sandy, when I was 7 years old. I was so happy to have a sister. My new father adopted me just as much as I agreed to adopt him as my new father. I finally had a father! Not having a father was a conundrum for me when classmates asked where my father was. Mom always told me he was working, so that is what I told my classmates who asked. I agreed to be adopted by the man I was introduced to as “Uncle Moe” when Mom dated him. This was a legal adoption which changed my last name from Nolet to Jennings. When Sandy was born, we lived in the Jennings grandmother’s home in Pleasant Grove, Mississippi. To me it felt like a mansion. The large white house in the movie, The Help, looked exactly like it.

I made my First Holy Communion in Mississippi. I thought I knew all about God. Read IN THEIR IMAGE AND LIKENESS, subtitled, UNIVERSAL WISDOM to discover the treasury of knowledge which I did not know then. Just know there is so much more to know.

F. Louis Tetreault, my maternal grandfather who I called Pepere, was on the cover of LOOK MAGAZINE for being the top seller of Lifetime Cookware in the United States. How could he not be a top seller of stainless-steel pots and pans? He and Memere had 12 adult children and their families. Even I, one of several grandchildren, had a set of these pots and pans. This was the picture they used.

Memere, my maternal grandmother, and her children worked on the family farm. Mom picked blueberries and helped with the laundry, washing, ironing and mending, since she was the second youngest. Her older siblings already had farm duties. Memere milked the cows. Memere spoke mostly French to her children and broken English to me. I would sit on Memere’s knee or on the 2-seater green swing in Vermont while she prayed the rosary. I also enjoyed her flowers in the yard and the bubbling brook in the backyard. Memere and Pepere came to Mississippi to bring us all back to the red house on the hill. Mom was only 85 pounds and not thriving in the prejudice of the south. Plus, my adopted father’s grandmother hated Mom and me because we were “Damn Yankees.” This woman was spry and chased me outside trying to hit me with a metal rake. Mom saved me. There is so much more to know in MY RED BAG OF COURAGE.

This is a picture of Memere and Pepere’s Vermont home as I remember it. Deer prints are all around the house.

Back in Mendon, this picture was taken on Easter Sunday 1965 with me and Sandy, Mom and my new Dad, and Pepere and Memere in front of the red house on the hill across from Lake Nipmuc. I was 10 years old in this picture. Sandy was 3 years old.

Sandy and I shared a bedroom. Mom enrolled me in arts and crafts. I painted the ceramic Madonna on the wall and enjoyed learning geography, history and science in monthly kits including the globe and the map on the wall.

I was a head majorette in grades 6-9, and in grade 10 was drum majorette, and that isn’t all. You would have to read MY RED BAG OF COURAGE to understand what no one understood then.

My sister also had a baton which I tried to teach her how to twirl. She was also so cute, full of energy and the happiest little sister. Mom made my red skirt. She also knitted Sandy’s sweater and made Sandy’s and my clothes without using patterns. This was also my roller-skating skirt. I have always loved Sandy. I never recognized the sibling rivalry between us until we were long into adulthood. It was painful to discover later in life that you cannot make another person love you if they have other perceptions of you, and your life.

I received this roller-skating pin when I started taking roller skating lessons at Joyland in Woonsocket, RI, about an hour from our house. We went twice a week, once for midweek skating lessons and the other time for Sunday practice before the skating rink burned down.

I received my first two skating bars when I passed 2 roller skating dance tests. I was going for my Bronze Medal, which I was expected to earn. One day when I was practicing, Mom, Dad, and Sandy left me there so they could get coffee and donuts. I was skating a lot, was tired and sitting with a boy who I had been skating with. Dad came in, immediately pulled me up, demanded that I take the skates off. “I told you to keep skating!” He bellowed. In the car he said, “That will be the last time you will ever be skating!” I cried all the way home and never roller skated again. I was depressed for years.

My adopted father made unasked for sexual advances to me after I drove home alone with him from the Department of Motor Vehicles with him in the car when I first got my learner’s permit. I was 15 years old. Evidently, he thought I should not sit and talk with a boy, but in his mind, it was alright with him to make unasked for sexual advances to me. For how I handled it, read my book, MY RED BAG OF COURAGE.

I attended the very first Pro-Life meeting in 1972 in the Worcester Diocese with Bishop Flanagan, on my birthday, January 22. It seemed like a calling for me to stand up for all human life, both born and unborn, to save the most human life of all women and children in a complicated decision.

Here are my 5 beautiful and treasured children (Michelle, Keith, Marie, Kevin, and baby Katie) in front of the Christmas tree many moons ago. Today they are all adults, most with children of their own.

I treasure this keepsake and keep it in my wallet, so it is with me wherever I go. For reasons known only to her, Michelle has not spoken to me in nearly 28 years. I can’t help but notice how much she looks like me in her picture above and my picture below.

I helped the Mendon Lions Club begin their Mendon Country Fair since I was the Mendon town reporter for the Milford Daily News. I wrote feature story articles to help drum up business for them. I volunteered to be in the dunk tank, giving the Board of Selectmen and other town officials the chance to dunk me by throwing baseballs to the dunking target. I was taunting them, but they managed to dunk me many times.

We had a backyard party to celebrate Michelle’s First Holy Communion. What is not pictured here is the phone call I received from my mother right after this picture was taken. Mom hated crowds and found reasons not to attend such large gatherings. She was threatening to commit suicide. I spent the remainder of the party on the telephone with her trying to coax her not to kill herself. Guests finally left when I was still on the phone. I contacted my spiritual director, then the late Fr. George Rueger, who later became a bishop in the Worcester Diocese. He advised me, knowing the family dynamics, that my mother was just seeking attention. It turns out that this was true. However, what the in-laws- and other guests, and my immediate family saw, was that I “chose” to take a phone call from my mother rather than share the celebration with them. I didn’t think it was anyone else’s business to gossip about my mother.

Mom worked doing alterations for people out of the red house on the hill. She was so good at clothing alterations that the dry cleaners in Milford told Mom they wanted to advertise her by giving her a place to work in the front window. Mom’s shy personality turned that offer down. Instead, Mom taught me how to mend and make alterations to my clothes and how to cut out patterns and sew clothes together without patterns also. The most complicated job I took on was a bride’s maid dress that had nine ruffles from her waist to the floor. I had just learned how to make ruffles. It came out great.

Because of the love I still feel for my mother, who went through traumas of her own, I dedicated my award-winning, 3-book series: IN THEIR IMAGE AND LIKENESS; MY RED BAG OF COURAGE; and NATURE SPIRIT WISDOM, subtitled, LIGHT WITHIN THE ANGEL, MINERAL, PLANT AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS to her. I have Mom’s Aloe house plants, and her Red Sedum, and Myrtle (Periwinkle) plants in my outside gardens. If you love nature, you will appreciate NATURE SPIRIT WISDOM.

This picture is of Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Holliston, MA. On one of the many paved paths, is a large memorial tribute stone listing some of the deceased parishioners sponsored by their family and friends. My dear friend, Mary Ghelli, her oldest son, Chadd, and her husband, Joseph, are listed on a plaque there. I share more about our relationship and the dramatic telling of a psychic medium after her death in my book, MY RED BAG OF COURAGE.

I immediately sought help from the local priest. I felt a surreal feeling of helplessness. In the end he told me that if I had gone to help her, she would have killed me, too. It seemed she wanted to take the people she loved with her. It was difficult to hear and more difficult to process. I not only had to heal my own heart, but this was also my son’s friend who got murdered. It seemed to affect my entire family.

Mary’s husband evidently internalized the energy of the horrific death of his wife and son. He got cancer and died a few years later.

What did I do to heal my broken heart? I used, and continue to use empathy, compassion, and love as the best remedy. Anything less than that will keep you sick. Anything less than empathy, compassion and love in this life comes from an evil and dark source, regardless of if that occurs in politics, religion, or any social setting. I decided to heal my heart. Using empathy, compassion and love is how I overcame unimaginable grief and depression.

I got a phone call from my biological father on my 18^th birthday, when he no longer had to pay for child support. He never paid one dime to my mother for me or her. He offered to fly me and my first husband out to see him and his wife, his adopted son, Eddie, and my two half-brothers, Freddie and Willie. I did want to meet him. I used to stand and stare at his picture in a military uniform on the wall of my paternal grandmother’s apartment, who lived next door to my maternal grandparents at the Sunrise Apartments in Mendon. He was so handsome in that Army picture. It turns out that most of his kids, including me, look a lot like him.

I used to have nightmares before I met him and stopped immediately after I met him. I lived in that red house on the hill across from Lake Nipmuc. There were 77 huge cement steps and stairs that wound from the driveway at the bottom, up the steep hill and up to the back door. I used to run up and down them every day and carried grocery bags up them. In my nightmare, there was a war taking place on Lake Nipmuc, with one side of fighters in red coats, and the other in blue coats. Lake Nipmuc’s water’s edge came right up to our front porch windows. Suddenly they would start coming in through the row of windows at the front of the house that overlooked the lake. In the dream, I ran out the back door on dry land. Then I would wake up.

Years later, John and I flew out to visit Hank and his family again. In this picture, my biological father is on the right, Willie is in the center, and his third wife, Mary, is on the left. I never knew that my former red house on the hill was also the past home of my mother and my biological father!

The red house on the hill was later to become the same house of my mother, adopted father and me and my sister. This is also the same house where my adopted father inappropriately pressed me up against the kitchen sink late at night and threatened me that I would not be able to practice driving to get my driver’s license if I didn’t give him some “special loving.”

I responded, “Then I will never drive the car again.” He answered, “No, you will not.” I lost all my past respect and allegiance for him in that single moment. After he went to work the next morning and before I went to school, I told my mother what happened. She believed me. But I knew I was not safe in that house after that. That “father” lied and denied what he had said and done.

John later told me that he also had a bad dream about that red house on the hill shortly after John and I visited with my mother and adopted father there. I now feel that there was serious foul energy that also lived in that house. I am so very glad I chose to leave it when I was 16 years old. This is all covered in MY RED BAG OF COURAGE.

In John’s dream, there was also a war taking place on Lake Nipmuc, and fighting soldiers in red coats and blue coats got pushed into the house. They came out from under the baseboards inside the house and grew to a large size. John was in the house and had to go out the back door, like I did for safety. Then he woke up. I think that house was possessed.

Here is Freddie on the left and Mary on the right. I felt the need to meet my biological father with the driving force of a million chariots in a dramatic and earth-pounding race, and his family. I called him Hank for the longest time, because I thought he did not deserve to be called “Dad,” but then again, neither did my other “Dad.” Ultimately, considering all that had taken place, I did finally end up calling Hank, “Dad.”

On one trip to California, Hank got tickets to the TV show, The Price Is Right, when Bob Barker was the host, and had dark hair. We had to get there early because they only allowed the first 400 people in. This was during the Thanksgiving holiday, but in Hollywood, California, it was blazing hot for me. We were told we would be interviewed by the producer, but that we could not speak until we were spoken to and then we could only answer the questions asked of us. We could not reach out and touch him. They said nothing about jumping up and down, so I did and got on the show. Johnny Olson called my name. I won prizes and got into the big showcase. My books, IN THEIR IMAGE AND LIKENESS, MY RED BAG OF COURAGE, NATURE SPIRIT WISDOM, TRANSITIONING INTO THE AGE OF AQUARIUS, and WISDOM: FOR A HURTING WORLD, all include dramatic parts of my life like this.

After finally meeting Hank’s third family in California, I decided to visit his second family. It seemed Hank had a habit of loving all women way too much. In his second family, he adopted the three children of his second wife, then had two more children, Kenny and Julie. They lived in Wisconsin. As it turns out, had I been born a boy, Mom told me that my name would be Kenny. But life being life, Hank divorced that wife also. After a while, he met Mary, fell in love again, married her, adopted Eddie, then had Freddie and Willie. I had more brothers and sisters across the United States than I knew what to do with.

The airplane taking me to Wisconsin was the first plane to land at O’Hare Airport after tornadoes devastated the area amid olive green skies. I flew alone. I felt like the plane was a bucking bronco, rocking and rolling. It felt surreal. The nightmare was only beginning. Julie met me at the gate and drove us to her house. Huge trees were uprooted and lying on their sides everywhere. I felt like I was in a horror movie. When we got to her house, dead birds were all over her house, having crashed through the windows. Julie called the police and told me to stay inside. Julie thought her soon-to-be ex-husband placed dead birds all throughout their house. I felt immobilized by the trauma and waited for the police to arrive. I did enjoy meeting her mother and went with her other half siblings and her mother to the Milwaukee Zoo while Julie had to work.

I think Kenny, Julie and I all resemble Hank a lot. That military picture of Hank looked just like Kenny.

God finally heard and answered my prayers. I married the man of my dreams, John Hourihan, a second marriage for both of us. When I was 13 years old, I was across the street from my house talking with my friend who lived on the other side of the lake. Two older guys came by and spoke with us. The guy I was speaking with asked where I lived. I pointed to the house across the street, the red house on the hill.

At 15 years old, I was walking to the Town Beach to teach swimming lessons. I was in my bathing suit and beach cover when a guy stopped to give me a ride. I told him “No,” because I thought Mom was watching and I didn’t want to get into trouble, nor did I know this handsome man. It turns out this man was John and was to be my husband many years later. When it was time for him to meet my parents before we got married, I took him to my parents’ home, that red house on the hill. It was only then that he knew I was the same girl he had stopped to talk to one day and offered a ride to the beach another day. It turned out that my adopted father used to buy John beer at Carol’s Hamburg Stand in Woonsocket when John came home on leave from his tours in Vietnam, since he was not yet 21, which was the legal drinking age. John was considered old enough to fight in a war, yet not old enough to buy beer. John and I now have 13 grandchildren.

Prior to taking a job at the Laconia Daily Sun in Laconia, John worked at the Milford Daily News for 25 years as Copy Editor and Opinion Columnist in his popular column, COFFEE: MAKE MINE REGULAR’ Later his columns won local, state, regional awards, and national awards. When they wanted to boost sales at the Milford Daily News, John began writing his column on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which worked. I wrote for the Milford Daily News for 20 years covering the town of Mendon, taking pictures, town government and writing feature articles where I grew up and either knew or was related to everyone. When the Milford Daily News got bought out, our jobs were lost. Finding another newspaper job at a time when newspapers were being bought up by larger ones was almost impossible. At the very last minute, John got a job interview for the Laconia Daily Sun. I also attended the interview and offered to be a feature writer and sell ads. They accepted both of us. We started so quickly that we lived in a studio apartment on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee while we worked before we found a condo at the upper level of the Paugus Bay Racquette Club to live in on the shores of Paugus Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee.

John was the editor of the very first Laconia Daily Sun, while I sold ads, interviewed businesses and students alike and wrote their feature articles. The ratio for this innovative free daily pick-up paper was 60% ads and 40% news articles. This was successful in the first newspaper published. Simultaneously, when I was not selling ads and writing feature articles, I also attended DoveStar Institute for a career change in holistic health and wellness.

The Laconia Daily Sun was founded by Edward J. Engler. Ed served as publisher, John Hourihan was the editor, and I was the ads representative and feature article writer. The newspaper began with an initial press run of 2,000 copies. It was established as a free daily newspaper in Laconia, New Hampshire, and quickly became a competitor to the long‑running The (Laconia) Citizen, which ceased publication in October 2016.

We were so successful at starting The Laconia Daily Sun that it seemed to run itself. The powers to be assumed the roles we birthed. Next John began his job at The Connecticut Post newspaper in Connecticut while I put together the fundamentals of beginning my fledgling business, The Massage Clinic. We bought a house in the same block as Griffin Hospital so I could get doctor referrals. I made business cards, flyers for my services, and came up with my business name, The Massage Clinic, and my motto, “Because You Deserve To Feel Better.” I got a massage from the therapist down the street. I thought I was making a friend. Little did I know that her aunt was on the Zoning Board which denied my request to have a business in the large home we had bought.

Now my mission in life is the driving force to soften the hard edges of society, harsh judgements, fueling the fires of fear and destruction everywhere people forget to find forgiveness and use empathy, compassion, and love. This is what my blog, my books, and my life are all about. I began the Massage Clinic with four offices in Stratford, Milford, Orange, and West Haven Connecticut. I chose a business name that described exactly what I and the nine other therapists I hired as independent contractors were offering. We all dressed in white medical scrubs to make that point.

I never gave up on my dream to own my own massage therapy and holistic counseling business. This is a picture of me preparing for an energy class, New Paradigm Multidimensional Transformation™ (NPMDT™) in Orange, CT. All people are crystalline in nature, including all the sacred geometries within our blood, tissues, skin, and extending out into the human aura. This is how energy works, with no beginning and no end. All energy workers know this. So do the people who have come to them for energy healing and who have felt the benefit of relief.

When my business began in New Hampshire and before we moved to Connecticut, a woman came to me for Reiki, since I was also a Reiki therapist. This woman had breast cancer in her left breast. She could only come for a 30-minute session and could only be faced down due to the pain she had. When I got to her left lung area about six inches above her body, it felt like my hands felt a very dense and heavy energy, so heavy in fact that it felt as if I could hardly lift it. I felt my hands shake from the heaviness of lifting it and tossed it out the window for Archangel Michael to transmute. When the woman sat up, she said, “I do not know what you did, but I came in with a lot of pain. It was like it just lifted straight up off me. Now it is gone!”

I became an international, interfaith Universal Life Church Minister during my massage therapy training so that I could hold Reiki and energy work sessions and complete therapy hours in a chiropractor’s office. Reiki and energy work is usually hands-off therapy, but I find that sometimes clients do like that gentle affirming touch. While I can perform Weddings, Renewal of Vows, Dedications, Blessings, House Blessings, Crystal Gridding, and the complete array of ministerial roles, I choose to focus on writing books to help so many others also.

I have read scriptures in church services.

I am published in the Universal Life Church Seminary Minister’s Handbook.

John and I participated in the 2024 Central Mass Conference For Women in Worcester, MA. We sold many books we wrote. We share what has been hidden from humanity by past censorship both in political history and religious dogma. When hidden information comes to light, a new and positive vision is revealed. Truth matters.

I was a Virtual AI Speaker at the 21^st Century Leadership, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, AI & Wellness Conference in Porto, Portugal September 26-27, 2025. Again, my Lymphatic injury I sustained from a fall down a flight of stairs prohibited me from flying to this conference. Here was a wonderful benefit of the use of AI which allowed me to reach a larger audience.

My talk was titled, “Healing Political, Religious and Social Indoctrinations.” It was a virtual AI presentation shining a light on hidden information throughout history, religions, and social structures, giving examples of each in enlightening examples affecting you as you make decisions in your life. Most people today have no idea how indoctrinated they are and how this affects their public and personal lives. You can listen to this talk for free at: Audio Meditations – Universal Wisdom Enlightenment Mastery

Each of my meditations are $10 each, or $50 for the professionally mastered set which gets downloaded to your email. They are each between 18 and 45 minutes long. You can make your own retreat listening to all of them in less than 4 hours, making a stress-free break in your workday, or your own personal retreat anytime you need to bolster your personal power and self-esteem. Audio Meditations – Universal Wisdom Enlightenment Mastery

I helped my fifth child, my baby, deliver her baby. I was there for moral support.

I am a member of Women In Business, which held a meeting at the Castle Cantina Tapas Bar and Restaurant where I was the featured speaker.

After dinner and my presentation, I also sold my books.

Here are some of the members and the owner of Castle Cantina sharing this event.

This is the Kirlian photograph of myself taken when John and I were in Sedona, Arizona at the Center for the New Age. My aura at that moment shows red, orange, orange-yellow, gold, yellow, and magenta. According to the Center for the New Age chart they shared with me, red means: activity, extroversion, movement, vitality, health, emotionality, hands-on healer, joy. Orange means: active intelligence, self-confidence, joy, happiness, warmth. Orange-yellow means: sharp intellect, self-confidence, industriousness. Gold means: transformation, dynamic energy, inspiration, devotion. Yellow means: intellect and mind, talent for organization, discipline, ego. Magenta means: spiritually perceptive.

This is a typical sunset we got to see most every night from our Condo in Hawaii when we lived there.

When we retired in the western Massachusetts woods, my neighbor in the back yard had Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and was depressed in the winter, so I painted the back of our shed with the sun in a blue sky, a red Cardinal in a white birch tree and very tall flowers that would show even if a lot of snow covered the ground, to make her smile.

One day 2 of our grandsons were visiting and said they also wanted to paint a side of the shed, so we let them.

After helping humanity heal in mind, body, and spirit at The Massage Clinic, I continued holistic counseling and healing in my blog when John and I retired. www.LindaHourihan.Wordpress.com now has over 135,000 views. It is still read in all 203 countries, territories, and protectorates all over the world. This picture shows 74,221 views in the USA alone from years ago.

John and I celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary in September 2024 with friends and family and had a memory poster in the Unitarian Church of the following picture of the some people in our lives. I made the heart-shaped wreath on the podium for our marriage in the same church in 1998. For this ceremony, I refreshed the wild red roses, since this wreath has adorned the outside of our house since we were married.

John spoke at the 25 Year Renewal of Marriage Vows and said: “So, what have Lin and I been doing for the past 27 years that we have been together? Who have we been? Why are we renewing our vows? People ask me how we can live in such a small house together, 400 square feet, 2 rooms, constantly, 24 hours a day, for so many years and still love each other. Since we were married in September ‘98 we have lived in six places, bought five of them: Milford 1 year, Hopedale 2years, Laconia 2 years, Derby 7 years, Hawaii 2 years, and Holland 13 years. That’s 27 years. It felt like minutes. In that time, we have also visited the Caribbean twice, California three times, Oregon, Indiana, Florida twice, Lived there for the winter once the Bahamas, Bermuda, Maine, New York, Vermont, Canada Newport, New Hampshire, Cape Cod, Virginia Sedona Phoenix Dallas The Grand Canyon We would have gotten there twice but when we tried to get the pilot in Sedona to fly us to the canyon he said there was a bad snowstorm and he couldn’t, but after Lin called him a coward he did give us a free flight all over Sedona. And we drove across the country in a Prius C with all our belongings, 13 states. In that time, we took in and supported two kids, one of them three times. We paid to relocate across the country two families who were having a difficult time. Took in parents for eight years, and subsidized other relatives who were having a hard time. We bought ten cars, three of them for other people. Lin went to school driving an hour each way every day while writing stories for the paper and selling ads. We built a newspaper from scratch, at the same time she studied and became a certified massage therapist then built the Massage Clinic, a business that had multiple locations where she hired about 10 or 12 people and the business made money until we retired, and helped pay for our current home. We tried vegetarian living, Jehovah’s Witness, Catholicism, Protestantism, Gnosticism, atheism, then still having questions, studied metaphysics, theology, philosophy, and politics, and now having finished several bibles, all the ancient scriptures found at nag Hamadi, the Dead Sea scrolls, and the books of Enoch, we are now deep into the study of the most ancient manuscripts of philosophy, religion, and history, the earliest Sumerian and Akadian texts as explained in the 1880s by Madam Helena Blavatsky, Russian spiritualist, author, and cofounder of the Theosophical Society. Lin and I are still learning every single day, not just by happenstance but on purpose in an attempt to find who we are, where we came from, and where we are going, and people in 203 countries, territories and protectorates listen to Lin’s interpretations of those early writings. Lin has taken courses and earned certification in nearly every holistic and energy work discipline in the world, and she has earned the titles of Doctor of Divinity, Doctor of Spiritual Awareness and Doctor of Universal Order. She is also a Reiki master teacher. She is also an interfaith minister in the Universal Life Church, has earned a Masters in Chaplaincy and spent a year comforting the sick and dying in Harrington Hospital in Southbridge. She is a member in good standing of the British Complimentary Medicine Association, is an authorized crystal practitioner, and a teacher of the New Paradigm Multidimensional Transformation™ and she is an authorized 13D™ teacher of esoteric sciences. Together, at the same time, we have also published 16 books and three more are under contract while we are each writing another now. We also volunteered at the senior center in Holland and donated to dozens of charities each year. Lin’s blog is followed religiously by more than a hundred and thirty-five thousand people worldwide, and in the meantime, she has become a certified holistic counselor and is known worldwide for her position in energy work, while I have won dozens of state, regional and national awards for my column against columnists from some of the largest newspapers in the country. All my awards were for work in the past 27 years while I was married to Lin. As a matter of fact, everything I have accomplished in the past 27 years was accomplished with the help and support of this incredible woman while she was also doing all those other things that she accomplished herself. So, when people ask me how Lin and I can live together in a 400 square foot house in the middle of the woods and still love each other I say to them, “Have you met Lin? “Do you really know who she is? “If you really knew her you would never ask that question.” “Everything I have done of importance in the past 27 years was because of her. “Lin, I would ask you to marry me every single day of the year, over and over and over and be thankful every time that you said yes. You are a force of nature, you are special. You are one of a kind, and I am just thankful to be married to you and that you would still want to be married to me. Why? Because I see who you are. And you are wonderful.”

I was asked to go to Hollywood, California in October 2025 and walk across the Red Carpet by the 2025 International Impact Author of the Year committee for my book in consideration, TRANSITIONING INTO THE AGE OF AQUARIUS. However, I expressed my concern to fly due to my Lymphatic system injury which caused my early retirement from my holistic counseling and massage therapy career. My doctor agreed with my decision not to fly due to airplane cabin pressure changes. They gave the award to the next author who could attend the prestigious evening. Instead, I chose to celebrate with family and friends at the Alicante Restaurant in Mendon, Massachusetts, diagonally across the street from my childhood home and where John first met me on Lake Nipmuc many years earlier.

John gave the following talk to our table of guests, as well as to the neighboring tables of customers who were also listening in. I handed out copies of my books to all who wanted them.

The following is what John said in honor of me earning this award:

“Welcome,

“We are here tonight to celebrate a milestone for my wife Linda Hourihan.

“In Linda’s first life, she got married when she was a sophomore in high school, and for the reason why you would need to read her book, My Red Bag of Courage. She raised five children, took in six foster children, became a Master Catechist in the Catholic Church, worked as a reporter for the Milford Daily News, taught Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in St Michael’s in Mendon and, from a book she wrote, she taught CCD in Hopedale’s Sacred Heart Church, and became a supernumerary in Opus Dei, which she ultimately left. She also helped begin Girl Scouts in town, was director of the town’s softball league, and in her spare time she was one of two people in town elected to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993.

“And to the Nipmuc Regional High school guidance department who believed she wasn’t honorable enough to be on the National Honor Society, hundreds of thousands of people now believe you are wrong.

“In her next life, when she turned 42, she built a thriving business with four locations, became an internationally licensed Holistic Health Counsellor Practitioner, a Reiki Master Teacher known worldwide for her energy work. She has earned a Masters of Chaplaincy and has become a Doctor of Universal Order and a Doctor of Spiritual Awareness. Linda then spent a year visiting and consoling the sick and dying at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge, Mass.

“She is also an international Universal Life Church minister. She wrote articles and sold ads for the nascent Laconia Daily Sun, in Laconia, New Hampshire while graduating from The Dovestar Institute an hour’s drive away in Hookset, NH. Then she spent more than 14 years studying various religions from Baptist to Jehovah’s witness and everything in between. Lin has a blog that has been read by hundreds of thousands of people in 203 countries, territories, and protectorates around the world.

“Then she wrote five more books, and these books are the reason we are here tonight.

“In 2024 Lin’s three book series was the winner of the International Book Awards for its impact on worldwide Social Change, based on a way for us to get from our current worldwide state of chaos to a future peaceful existence.

“She is also currently a finalist for 2025 author of the year award for her new book Transitioning into the Age of Aquarius: An Enlightening Journey. Of this book, Barnes and Noble has said, “Step into a new era of enlightenment with Transition into the Age of Aquarius: An Enlightening Journey. This thought-provoking book explores the spiritual, philosophical, and cosmic significance of humanity’s shift into the Age of Aquarius.

“Author Linda Hourihan, HHCP, delves deep into astrological cycles, metaphysical concepts, and universal truths that define this transformation. With a blend of historical insights, religious perspectives, and modern interpretations, the book offers guidance for embracing higher consciousness, fostering virtues, and navigating the transition from the Age of Pisces.

For seekers of wisdom, spiritual growth, and self-discovery, this book serves as an illuminating roadmap toward balance, love, and a higher vibrational way of life.”

“Last month Linda was also a featured online speaker at the 21^st Century Leadership, Innovative Entrepreneurship, AI, and Wellness Conference based out of Porto, Portugal on Sept. 26 and 27 and in Chicago on Dec. 1 and 2. She has also offered the same talk in 2026 in Dubai, Sydney Australia, Venice, Toronto, and Oman.

“She has also been asked to join the board of directors of the Universal Journal of 21st Century Women’s Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Technology and Publishing (UJWEL).

“Instead of doing what she was invited to do during the past two years, walk the red carpet in Hollywood to receive her literary award, she chose to have the award sent here so she could celebrate this accomplishment here, across the street from her childhood home with her friends and family at the exact same day and time that she would have been in California receiving the award.

“So, I am going to now present Lin with her trophy for her award-winning books earned in the International Book Awards for social change. The books that won are “In Their Image and Likeness: Universal Wisdom, My Red Bag Of Courage: Survival Wisdom, and Nature, Spirit, Wisdom: Light Within the Angel, Mineral, Plant and Animal Kingdoms. I would also like to congratulate her for her finalist status as author of the year for her new book Transitioning Into the Age of Aquarius.

“So, congratulations Linda for these outstanding accomplishments. I am so proud of you.”

This is my 2024 International Impact Book Awards trophy. It is engraved with my name on it. I decided my mantra when I was just 16 years old was that I can make anything I want out of this life. I can choose to only look at the bad things of life with a negative attitude, constantly hitting the constant drumbeat of fear, obligation, and guilt while constantly complaining and giving myself self-induced migraine headaches and/or panic attacks; or I can choose to let the Light of inspiration and wonder in, and look at the positive things in my life and count my blessings. I can do all these things in the midst of turmoil, grief and the reality of every single day.

Have you ever noticed what you focus on grows?

Life has both sides of Light and dark. You cannot have one without the other. I choose to take in the wonder and the joys of life, looking for surprises in unlikely places, with the ability to do the best I can do in whatever situation comes my way. That is all anyone can ever do. You’ve got this.

One of the 9 massage therapists I hired presented me with this Tigger Mug when she moved away as a nice memento.

Life is what you make it, so make it beautiful.