Take Every Chance, Drop Every Fear.

“Today I close the door to my past, open the door to my future, take a deep breath and step through to a new life”  – Unknown

You actually do this every single morning.  You may not realize it most mornings.  It is only special mornings that you truly see what is happening.  The first day to a new job.  Your wedding day.  The day a divorce is final.  The day you bury someone you loved.  They are all days when you truly see the door to the past shutting behind you.  And although you may only have a glimpse through this door to the future, you know that everything will be forever changed.

“Your teacher can open the door, but you must enter by yourself” – Chinese Proverb

If you are lucky you have teachers, mentors or coaches throughout your life.  You have them as children, and if you continue to all of secondary education you have them as adults.  But there comes a time when you leave school behind you.  I am mostly self taught.  I dropped out of high school to get married.  My parents never encouraged us to go to college.  They felt that it would take us away from God.  What I did have in my favor was I was smart and I loved learning.  Since I started reading I have read several books a week.  I would alternate between books that took me to a fantasy world where I could solve the murder; or have an adventure in space; or fight the barbarians in medieval times.  And then I would read a book that would teach me something I didn’t know.  I’ve been that way my whole life.

I knew my lack of an education was perceived as a liability (even to my subconscious), so I had to kick open doors to get them to let me show them what I could do.  I also equipped myself by taking a lot of classes online and job related adult education courses, that taught me what I needed to advance in my career.  I started out as a bookkeepers assistant.  I move up to accounting.  I switched over to mortgage financing.  My career has always a series of doors opening to advance up the ladder.  My original goal in school was to be an administrative assistant to someone important.  I went much further than that, I became someone important who had the administrative assistant.

I discovered I had a knack for knowing what to look for in loan applications.  I could see the missing pieces in the story it told.  I could see the incongruencies.  It was almost like a spot light shined on the issue.  I got to where I could almost tell when I picked up a file that there was fraud involved or not.  My gift in seeing where the patterns were broken, has served me well.

“Your life is a result of the choices you make . . .  If you don’t like your life it is time to start making better choices” – Michelle Pennel

When my mother died my whole world fell apart.  All of her lies came spilling out of the closet containing her skeletons.  I found myself in a broken world where I didn’t trust anyone, not even God.  It took me years to close all of those doors to the past.  Years to see that the doors to the future still contained wonderful things for my life.  Years of reading books to explore the possibilities.  Years of  getting certified in Herbal Medicine, as a Reiki Practitioner, and then as a Aroma therapist.  I was looking at a second career in these fields when my nephew was murdered.  Another couple of years went by.  This time I wasn’t mad at the whole world, and I wasn’t even mad at the killer.  I was saddened by our loss, saddened that this world had lost such a special young man, who only wanted to help others have a better life.

“Deep within your soul is a door that opens into a world of wonder.  Open the door and let the magic in” – Unknown

This time I was trying to figure out what was beyond the door that my nephew had opened to me.  I knew from experience that it would require facing fears of the unknown, because every door requires something new and different from you.  Expanding your comfort zone.  Learning that you have so much more potential than you have ever given yourself credit for.  I knew that I would self create obstacles that I would find along the way.  That is how fears work.  But this door was different.  It wasn’t a small round hobbit sized door.  No this door was like the door to the giants house in Jack and the Beanstalk.  When I looked through this door I could barely figure out the table and chairs let alone what else it might contain.  This door was truly scary.

“Follow your bliss . . . , and the universe will open doors where there were only walls”  – Connie Hanks

I knew that creating LemonadeMakers was part of going through this door.  I knew that everything in my life that I had learned, experienced, literally everything I have acquired would be necessary if I walked through this door.  I had a ragged life as a child, I have had some horrible experiences as an adult.  I knew that courage would be required to use and share all of it without exception.  So I wanted to make sure before I walked through, that I wasn’t going to turn tail and run away from this opportunity.  I know from the depths of my soul, that Carl’s death opened this door.  I wanted to make sure that I had the courage and conviction that would be necessary to give to LemonadeMakers.  That I wasn’t going to try, fail, and quit LemonadeMakers.  It felt like I would be dishonoring Carl’s memory in some way if I wasn’t able to be “all in”.

“Most people will go their whole lives and never understand this feeling” – Unknown

So I started writing.  Something that my inner saboteur had kept me from doing all of my life.  I was convinced I didn’t know enough.  That I would only embarrass myself.  I was a high school drop out – that is one of my saboteurs favorite weapons.  I would like to introduce my saboteur Kami to all of you.  She knows all of my weaknesses and pokes holes in the road I travel on.  She has blown up train tracks and bridges.  She has created massive road blocks.  Sometimes it seems like it takes forever to figure out that once again, I have my foot on the gas and brakes at the same time.

When I look back on the very first things I did, it was no more than sharing a quote and a couple of sentences.  But I kept expanding what I was doing.  Then I learned how to work a couple of software programs to create the quotes with the photos.  I created a Facebook page.  My writing kept improving.  I discovered a new gift in finding the perfect photos and quotes to go together.  People started liking things.  They started commenting, then sharing.  Some people told me that my grammar and punctuation wasn’t all that great.  But I kept preserving.  I proofread over and over, but some mistakes still come through.  I learned to believe that it was ok if everything wouldn’t pass an English teachers red pen.  It was my thoughts I was trying to share, and I think that is what is most important.

“Don’t just dream of success; create a plan and act upon it!  Your momentum creates the door upon which opportunity knocks”  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Join some of your fellow LemonadeMakers as we go through the door of new opportunities.  We have been meeting up once a month with a live Zoom call. It is a huge door of possibility.  The kind of doorway that just keeps growing wider and wider so that all of you can step inside.  When you open doors, you will find all of your fears waiting for you – but you will also find the keys to the treasures of your heart and soul.  I can promise that it will lead you to somewhere you didn’t even know existed.  The real you!

It is a free call where we open doors to discuss whatever is top of mind.  If you have been encouraged by any of my posts – If you have been moved to make a change or transform something in your life, I hope that you will attend.  Everyone is contributing with some great groundbreaking thoughts and ideas.  When we have created a good foundation, we will look at new and deeper ways that you will be able to work with us directly in your own growth.

This will be a  door that no one can shut on you – only you can shut this door.  I hope you will walk through this door with us, because we have some transformations to get done!

It’s Not The Mountain We Conquer, It’s Ourselves

Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps.  The sleeper must awaken.

  – Frank Herbert

It is kind of funny that when we at a certain stage of our journey on life’s path, we have a pat answer for what the life of your dreams is.  We would have the house in that certain neighborhood.  The beach house.  Or maybe we are a big dreamer and we wanted to own an island.  We would have that certain kind of convertible sports car.  The decked out pickup truck.  Maybe we would want a farm with race horses.  What ever the list has on it, it would all be summed up with material possessions.

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.

  – Unknown

Then something happens.  It could be the loss of everything from a flood.  It could be that our soul partner in life dies from cancer.  It could be our son or daughter is killed by a drunk driver.  Something dreadful happens and we realize that all of those “things” are not us living the life of our dreams. 

Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl, the one who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn’t need a man; be that girl who never backed down.

  – Taylor Swift

My own story comes from the murder of my nephew.  What the wake up call did for me was to realize that the life of my dreams was to contribute in some way.  I thought I would make a small change with creating LemonadeMakers.  That might contribute towards helping society shift away from the hatred and violence.  To shift away from living in fear.  To transform their lives in helping them to wake up to the truth of their own lives.

The magic recipe for living out your boldest dreams:  A pinch of delusion, a dash of audacity and a shot of courage.

  – Kirsty Spraggon

My own recipe would be to say that there really is no big secret on how to live the life of your dreams.  You just need to breathe.  Let go.  And know that this one single moment in time, is the only thing promised.  So I thought up my own magical dream bold recipe::

Dream Ingredients are like the eggs, oil and milk in a recipe that help to bind the ingredients together. Put Imagination; Inspiration; faith In a bowl and mix well.

Active Action Ingredients are like the yeast, or baking powder that cause the mixture to rise and grow outside the comfort zone.  Put Self confidence; Implementation; Determination; Action; Perseverance; Patience into another bowl and mix well.

Magical ingredients are what create the taste and flavor that is special only to you.  Put all of your time, talents, gifts, your personal genius and your inspired passion into a bowl and mix well.

Now mix all of the ingredients together whipping with clarity where needed.  Taste and add additional seasoning as needed – shots of courage – a dash of daring – a pinch of adventure – a spoonful of risk – several spoonful’s of laughter – if it doesn’t add zest to the recipe it doesn’t belong in the recipe. 

Put the mixture into the “never stop believing” pan.

Bake until the impossible has become the reality.  Share your “Never Stop Believing Dreams” with everyone you meet.  Taste their dreams. Share your best secret ingredients.  Experiment with theirs.

 The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.

  – Paulo Coelho

If you are a baker you know that timing is critical.  Solid even heating is important.  And sometimes even with the best ingredients, a soufflé falls flat.  Sometimes you realize halfway through the baking cycle, that you forgot some important ingredient.  Sometimes life just happens.  Just because the recipe didn’t work out as planned doesn’t mean that your dreams have forever fallen apart.  You can always bake a new cake or soufflé.  Your dream doesn’t need rescuing.  You just need to try again.  You can always bake a new reality.

Between your dreams and your reality, there is no distance.  There is no time.  Wake up to your dreams.  Live them as the reality that they are.

  – Unknown

What that meant for me personally was to wake up myself and realize that I wasn’t really living the life of my dreams.  I was just working to pay for stuff.  I realized that I could help others to wake up too.  To imagine a new story for all of us.  While the story is different for each of us, it begins the same.  Discover and uncover who you really are at the soul level.  It is a journey to remember who I was, before the world told me who I had to be.  To let that person come out and create your new story.  For me it has meant stepping out of my comfort zone again and again.  Following the vision, I am as surprised at who I have become.  I am amazed at who I am still becoming. 

So – follow your instincts.  Be curious.  Dream Big!  Love what you do.  Love learning.  Keep an OPEN HEART and a STRONG SPIRIT.  And Most of All – HAVE FUN!

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Each Brushstroke Is Another Goal Put Into Action – Turning The Invisible, Visible.

“Make your life a masterpiece; imagine no limitations on what you can be, have or do”  – Brian Tracy

As you go through life, you are given glimpses through open doors of opportunities.  Most of the time you pass them by.  But once in awhile there is a door that grabs you.  It stirs your curiosity.  What would it be like to accomplish this dream, you wonder?  Like a blank canvas, with a range of colors on the palette it calls to use to use this color.  Try this one next.  What is critical at this point is to not overthink it.  That will ruin the painting.  You will get stuck with writers block if you question what the soul is whispering to you.  Instead you just need to challenge yourself to step into the room.  One step at a time you slowly step over to the easel.  You pick up the paint brush and start painting with the one color that grabs your attention.

“Make your life a masterpiece:  Step beyond the demands of the moment and begin right now to design and live the life you deserve”  – Tony Robbins

As you look at the canvas you might decide that you want a color that has a pinkish purple flavor to it.  When you look at your palette, you find two colors that sort of call out to you.  Two competing dreams as it were.  Which one do you pick?  Pick the one that is bolder in color.  The one that scares you a little to use it.  What will people think when they look at your painting?  Will they say it is too wild?  Too garish looking?  Pick the one that scares you.  It is the one that is going to grow you.  Always go for the scary colors.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream”  – C.S. Lewis

Now how are you approaching this canvas?  I always think of the eccentric Frenchman artist type.  All wild colors, nothing matching.  All flair and panache.  When you step into a dream which is going to challenge you, you will need that flair of enthusiasm.  Think of the Martin Short character in “Father of the Bride”.  He was so enthusiastic that he could talk you into saying yes to something that you would have never tried.  And the amazing part of it, is that his taste was perfect.  You might have thought it was too much, but in fact it is just right.

“Some people will always throw stones in your path.  It depends on you what you make with them.  Wall or Bridge?  Remember you are the architect of your life . . . ”  – Unknown

“Live life fully while you’re here.  Experience everything.  Take care of yourself and your friends.  Have fun, be crazy, be weird.  Go out and screw up!  You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process.  Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes:  find the cause of your problem and eliminate it.  Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human”  – Anthony Robbins

“I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve.  This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent.  As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret”  – Anthony Robbins

Visualization Is Key To Communicate With The Soul

“Hope is the thing with feathers – that perches in the soul – and sings the tune without the words – and never stops – at all” – Emily Dickenson

Hope is perching on your soul and sings to you every day. It tells you these wonderful stories of what you can accomplish in your life. Visualization is critical to hope, as it draws in everything you want in your lives. Hope is what keeps you going when you seem to be failing in bringing your vision into reality.

“I always think it’s important to constantly visualize success, but to consider failure, even for a second, so you can be prepared if things don’t work out just as planned” – Jen Gotch

3M was trying to create super strong adhesives when they accidentally created the glue on “Post it Notes”.  For years they couldn’t figure out how to use this glue in a commercial way. 

Then came a second accident.  One of their employees who sang in a church choir put the glue on a piece of paper so that he wouldn’t lose his place in the hymnal for the songs they were singing.  He discovered it could be removed and put back on without destroying the paper. 

Then employees used it for over 3 years experimenting with it before they started to market it.  Today it is one of their top selling products.  So just because you might fail at what you are trying to bring into reality, doesn’t mean it really is a failure – sometimes it is even better than what you were trying to create.

In the movie “The Secret” and the book that followed it, they talked about visualization. Many people will tell you that they have a hard time visualizing. 

If I tell you not to picture “your kitchen”, 99% of you immediately see your kitchen in your minds eye. It is a little harder to build a visualization of something that you have never seen, but block by block, with practice it can be done.

“By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map.  And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful” – David McCandless

A good question to ask yourself when you’re lost is – “What is the task I now face in my journey?”

It seems easy to get lost in the search for meaning in your life.  Having meaning in your life isn’t some grand purpose of changing the world around you.  It’s about being in right relationship with the world around you.

A different question to ask, is “what is my soul wanting to express through me?”

This gets to the heart of your belief of what your destiny or purpose in life is.  Visualization is key to unlocking that door of opportunity.  Taking the time daily to meditate and allow your soul the space to talk to you is critical to obtaining the key to the deeper questions in your life.

This really helped me to connect deeper to my imagination. When I read books, I now see the story in my mind. The sun shining on the ocean as it flashes bright lights along the cresting waves.  I hear the waves crashing on the shoreline.  I feel the wind blowing and as I dig my toes down into the cool part of the sand, I smell the salt air, the tangy taste of it in the wind.  As I described this did you enter into my visualization?

I can totally enter the world being created by the author. When I am in this space, I see connections and possibilities that I have never thought of before.

This is how I learn from everything that I read, because I enter into a world I have no experience of. I love it when a really good movie or book brings you totally into the world they have created. You forget what you’re experiencing isn’t real.

“If you want to reach a goal, you must see the reaching in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal” – Zig Ziglar

I am sure that you heard the joke of the man who was on his rooftop during a flood.  The water was cresting higher and higher, as it inched up towards the top of the roof he had climbed.  He was sitting there waiting for rescue. He prayed to God for help. 

So, God sends him three chances for help.  The first one was some people with a canoe telling him to come down and get in the canoe.  “No thanks, God is sending me help” he tells them. Then God sends him some people with a motorboat telling him to climb on board and be saved.  “No thanks, God is sending me help” he tells them.  Then God sends him a helicopter and they lower down a ladder, and for the third time he says to his potential rescuers, “no thanks, God is sending me help”.

As the flood waters come higher, they eventually swamp the roof, and the man drowns. Upon entering heaven, he asks God, “why didn’t you save me?” God says, I sent a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter, but you refused to get in.  We don’t know with the joke what sort of help he was expecting.  We just know that he kept declining the opportunity to save his life.  Maybe he had no idea, and so with no real visualization he didn’t recognize the opportunities.

Visualization is how you can attract the things you need, to bring your goals and dreams into reality. You have to remember that part of your journey, is the lessons you learn along the way.  By visualizing how you can grow and change, you speed toward our destination. By visualizing into the space, the gratitude of already having it, and using all of the senses in the visualization – you make it so real, that the divine opens doors of opportunity for you to receive it.

Synchronicity will bring it into your life. You have to take the risk; you have to grab the opportunity.  If you won’t get into the boat – then it goes past you and is gone.

The most important thing for you is to look for the doors and opportunities and grab them. Go through those doors, no matter how scared you are. Take the leap of faith that this is your answer.  Climb the ladder being presented.  Get into the helicopter.

Don’t Just Color Within The Lines, Draw New Lines And Make New Colors

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.  – Kurt Vonnegut

• Do you remember when you were little and you felt free to experiment?
• When you didn’t comprehend failure?
• How you lived in the moment, and it was enough to just be?
• Before you were made to conform and color inside the lines?
• Can you remember when you could see things that other people didn’t see?

To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind, amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.  –  Jill Botte Taylor

 Her life improved dramatically, when she decided to break the rules and find beauty where she’d been told there was none.  – Ashlin Nawel Habes

Sometimes Brokenness Gives Birth To Transformation And Wisdom

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and strong, and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears”  – Mark Anthony

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”  – Socrates

“Ruin is a gift.  Ruin is the road to transformation”  – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Experience isn’t what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you” – Aldous Huxley

“We are so afraid to change careers, to end relationships, to outgrown people or places – and that’s just growth.  To me, choosing to go toward the cracking in order to keep expanding is the only way.  The only way to get out of pain is to go through it.  Pain is information”  – Sophia Bush

“This very moment, if you are living totally, all concern for the future disappears” –  Osho 

“There is no other greater ecstasy, than to know who you are”  – Osho

“The only limits you have are the limits you believe”  – Wayne Dyer

Stand In The Light, Risk Being Seen As You Are

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light” – Brene Brown

“I, for one, am actually still incredibly idealistic, and I still can credibly or very strongly believe that you have to keep fighting for what you believe in, because it’s only when you stop that you’ve truly lost” – Vanessa Kerry

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” – Martin Luther King Jr

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness” – Desmond Tutu

Freedom Is Found By Listening To The Heart

Have the courage to follow your heart & intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become . . . , almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.  Remembering that you are going to die, is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  You are already naked.  There is no reason not to follow your heart.

  – Steve Jobs

I think that one of the hardest things for me to do is to take the time to just be.  To sit in prayer or meditation and just allow my heart to have its say.  I am so filled with doing and avoiding what really needs to be done.  The doing of things does need to happen – I have to pay my bills, read and respond to emails, write posts such as this.  I have to cook, clean and garden.  I work fulltime, so there are the hours spent there and commuting back and forth.  My elderly dad lives with me and I have to care for him.  So when I am avoiding something, like right now proof reading the final copy of my book, I am doing something like this that my mind says also needs to be done.  So allocating time to just sit and be like this photo, is hard for me.

I will persist until I succeed.  I was not delivered into this world into defeat, nor does failure course my veins.  I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd.  I am a lion, and I refuse to talk, walk, and to sleep with the sheep.  I will persist until I succeed.

  – Og Mandino

We think that it is selfish.  That it is not high on the list of necessary things to do for this day.  So when Mastin Kipp sent me an email with a version of this, I was inspired to write a post of my own. Because taking the time to find the freedom to do these things is just as important as your day job.  It is just as important as eating, and more important than cleaning the house and doing laundry.  We are not really living if we don’t take the time to do these things, we are just existing.  We are asleep when we neglect these things.  If we are truly awake, conscious and aware, then this has to be a daily part of our life.

The truth is like a lion.  You don’t have to defend it.  Let it loose and it will defend itself.

  – St. Augustine

If you want more happiness, more joy in your life, check the list to see what is missing in your daily routine.  Trust in the whispers of your heart, for it is leading you intuitively to this practice.  Follow through on your highest intentions, changing them from wishes to commitments.  Voice what matters, because if you remain silent, you are holding back from your life purpose.  Pursue your dreams.  Run after them, putting them into action.  Step by step the pursuit of your dreams leads you to have confidence that what you are bringing to the world matters.  If you have that confidence, then it doesn’t matter what other people say or do, you will stay in pursuit of accomplishing your dreams.  Fulfilling your destiny becomes a primary focus in life.

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others.  And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion.  A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. 

  – Osho

Forgiveness for yourself and others is necessary because we all make mistakes.  We all fall short of perfection.  Some of our friends and family may say or do something that discourages us from the pursuit of our dreams.  They don’t see or feel what you do.  So they put up road blocks thinking that they are protecting us from being hurt, when in reality they are the ones hurting us.  Try saying something like this to them that expresses compassion with what they are feeling, “What I hear is that you are in fear for me, and for yourself, in how these dreams are going to be fulfilled.  How it will impact my life, your life and our relationship.”  If we exercise empathy, we can look beyond their fears to see that they do love us.  This allows us to reconcile their actions with their intentions, and grants the space for forgiveness for any hurt we may be feeling.  Opening up the space for their heart to talk to our heart, so that they can not only hear you, but begin to understand.

Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person.  You can call it compassionate listening.  You listen with only one purpose, to help him or her to empty his heart.

  – Thich Nhat Hanh

We must do the same thing for ourselves.  Our shadows present a whole dictionary of negative comments on how our dreams are not going to happen.  They put up brick walls to protect us from ourselves.  We need to take down each brick understanding the motivation.  To exercise self love and self trust, help these gremlin shadows to see how important these dreams are.  Enlist their help for ideas on how we can safely walk the path of fulfilling these dreams, presenting a win/win for ourselves.

You will never be able to escape from your heart.  So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.

  –  Paulo Coelho

Each morning is a new day.  Each morning spend a few minutes in prayer and meditation.  Listen to the whisper of your heart.  Do today what matters most.  Breathe.  Love.  Trust.  Follow the freedom of your heart.  Use your voice boldly.  Live in freedom the life you have always imagined.

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Do Not Let Fear Hold You Back

Never let your fears hold you back from pursuing your hopes – John F. Kennedy

• How does one become fearless?
• Can you really be totally fearless?
• Would you want to?

When I think that fear is standing in the way of something that I want to do, then I need to do something to break up that fear into smaller pieces.  My own experience in life so far, has been that some measure of fear is healthy.  It helps me to not be stupid and hurt myself.  It also feeds into my spirit of victory when I accomplish something by growing through the fear and doing it anyway.

• So how do you control fear in your life?
• How do you control your life at all?
• How do you figure out what is within your control and what isn’t?

Part of it starts with understanding what is and is not under your control.  When you accept responsibility for and control over, such things as your judgments, impulses, and desires, then your life changes completely.  These are things that are within your ability to control.

If you try to control other things beyond your control, that is when you just get weighed down. It is like trying to swim with cement shoes, it isn’t going to end well.

Here’s the truth about big life changes:  some people won’t come with you.  and that’s okay – Early Mama

You can’t control our reputation because it is based on exterior things that are beyond our control.  We can’t control the spin that other people put upon what we say or do.  We can however, chose to take the high road and not get mired down in the drama.  How many times have things you have said or done been taken out of context and used against you?  You will be driven crazy trying to control stuff like that.

Your anxiety or getting angry about it doesn’t make it go away.  It doesn’t suddenly become something that you can control.  All it does is make you unhappy and destroy your peace of mind.  You have the choice of continuing to self-inflict injuries upon yourself by trying to control it, or you can let it go.  Realize that in the end, people will either recognize you for who you really are, or they won’t.  It is not something within your control.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid? – Thegoodvibe.co

The realization that what other people do is not your job to control, and you can’t make them change, will shift your world completely.  You begin to focus on walking your own path.  You are no longer trying to control another person’s journey.  With your focus on your journey, the ups and downs of life even out.  Your path becomes more serene.  You aren’t trying to avoid drama; you are just not drawing it into your world.  If something comes into your space, you just take a few deep breaths, let go of any desire to change someone’s else’s journey and keep walking drama free.

What is amazing is that we also have the ability to shift the memories we have into ones that don’t create a negative emotional response inside of us.  Our brain allows us to recall memories and reconsolidate them.  This means that we can take a childhood memory and add new information that wasn’t available to us as children.  We can turn fearful memories into fearless ones.

Everything we want is on the other side of fear – Jack Canfield

My sister Julie for example is a real scaredy cat.  She jumps at anything.  When she was a teenager, there was a movie that came out with a ventriloquist dummy that was a horror show.  She was watching T.V. alone late at night and the commercial came on for the movie.  She was terrified that it was coming after her.  So, she went to my parents’ bedroom door, opened it and called for my mom.  My parents’ bedroom was up some stairs, and their bed was against the railing of the stairs.  So, my mom leaned over the railing to tell my sister to be quiet, so she didn’t wake up our dad.  When my sister saw a head looming down the staircase she screamed and fell over backwards, falling down the couple of stairs that she had started up.  Needless to say, my dad was woken up – lol.

My sister as an adult can laugh at this story and it is no longer scary, because she has new information available to her, that her teenage self didn’t have.  We can do this with any scary memory that we have.  Update our memory with new information.

Life is like a game.  You can play it safe and be good, or you can take a chance and be great – iliketoquote.com

With visualization we can do the same thing to our future.  We can see into our future regarding something that we are scared of.  We can go through the experience step by step over and over again in our mind.  We can cross over from being fearful of the situation to being confident of it.  This is exactly what Olympic Athlete’s do.  They see themselves performing their routines perfectly over and over again.  They have hooked up machines to them and discovered that the muscles of the athletes are actually firing just like they were physically doing the routine when they are just using visualization.  The more they do this, the better their skills become.

So, with visualization, we can preview anything coming up in our lives that we have intense fears over.  We can practice what we would say or do over and over again.  This will give us some confidence that we can accomplish the thing that we are afraid to do.  When a rock climber wants to solo a difficult climb without ropes, they start out with ropes.  They climb it several times to learn where to put their hands and feet.  They then replay the climb over and over again in their minds.  They lose a lot of the fear over the climb this way because they have gained confidence in their ability to do it by the repetition.

I am the master of my habits – #Goalgetter

So, break down the walls of fear that you built to keep you safe.  Start believing and visualizing your dreams coming true.  Take a practice run to see what you can do with the ropes of safety.  Then expand that with visualization.  Then go for the life you have been dreaming of living.  Don’t let fear hold you back.  Go become the person that you have never been, but wished you were.

Daring To Be Great

“Nothing can dim the light that shines within”  – Maya Angelou

It takes considerable strength to dare to dream.  To dare to be the one chosen to bring something special and wonderful to the world.  It means that you’ve taken the step of defining who you are at a soul level.  You are daring yourself to live up to that soul destiny.  When you dare to step out on the ledge, you realize that you are making yourself vulnerable.  Those who dare greatly, can fail greatly.  In fact, failures are a given.  You can’t step outside your comfort zone and not have some failures in your life.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”  – Robert Kennedy

When you reach up to touch the sky, you will almost always find that there are those who want to knock you down.  You can’t listen to the bullies of the world.  You can’t let fear run your life. Your assignment, your commitment, your intentions are all too valuable to be derailed by the lies and hatred of those who can’t stand in your light.

“Advice is like snow.  The softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind”  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Some poems have so much learning in them, that it blows your mind.  Some truths are so universal and so grounded in absolute truth, that they define all cultures and times.  I think that the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling is one of those poems.  It was brought to my attention again when I read a blog that I subscribe to.  There is such a depth to it that I am only talking about a small part of it.  The part that relates to the courage you need to rise above all the drama that tries to attach itself, when you are daring greatly.  I will print the entire poem at the end.

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad.  Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too”  – Will  Smith

I am only talking about the first stanza because we have seen so many people lately get caught up in violence, both with terrorism and workplace violence.  They fight against those that have different beliefs than themselves, as though having a difference of opinion makes theirs less valid.  They don’t understand that you can hold opposing viewpoints and not have to label one as right and one as wrong.

“You don’t have to disrespect and insult others simply to hold your own ground.  If you do, that shows how shaky your own position is”  – Red Haircrow

True warriors know that they don’t need to resort to fighting to be strong, to dare greatly and face the wind.  They can face the wind because they know what it takes to be different, and still be grounded in a fullness and ease of spirit and grace.  When you face the wind, you lift yourself up above the opinions of others.  You step into a space of knowing that what you are creating, manufacturing and generating is your own successful life.  You are fulfilling your destiny by daring to touch the sky.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain.  It takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving” – Dale Carnegie

One of the hardest things to learn as you mature, is that while people can say or do nasty things to you, you don’t have to get down in the mud with them.  Politicians in general (there are some who don’t feel it is necessary to degenerate their opponents to make a valid point) seem to get into name calling wars.  As an adult you will be disappointed by those who in order to build up their own egos begin tearing down someone else.  Sadly, you will see this kind of behavior not only in politics, but also in your jobs, in your families, and among your friends.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too”  – If by Rudyard Kipling

Bullies and cyberbullies are becoming way too common.  I think that the leaders of all of the countries around the world need to understand, that when they act badly, it sets the tone for others to do so.  I can remember trying so hard to teach my children that people who bully others have a very low opinion of themselves.  They usually are being bullied themselves, or were bullied when they were younger.  They attack without reason, because in their minds they believe that if they hit first and hit hard enough, they are in fact protecting themselves.  They are hurting so badly that they need to hurt others.  I wanted them to be able to understand why someone would be mean, spiteful and say things that they knew were not true.

“Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating”  – If by Rudyard Kipling

How does a person listen to the lies that someone else tells or feel the pain of being hated, and not go down the same road in displaying that behavior back to the person who is hurting them?  Remember the childhood rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?  Or the “I’m rubber your glue, bounces off me and sticks to you?”  You may have tried to pretend as a child that whatever mean hurtful thing was being said, it didn’t effect you.  But it did.  You may have tried walking away, but usually they just followed you. So you became small, withdrawn and tried to take up as little space as possible.  You wrapped yourself up in silence and disappeared.

“Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself” – Tim Fields

How do you go from that child who tried to disappear, to the adult who steps out on the ledge and says, “Look at me – I am daring to stand up and touch the sky, to make a difference in the world.”  You could kill them with kindness.  Or deflect it saying that their energy or vibration was way below yours.  Or you could pretend that all their negative remarks did not even phase you, hoping eventually it would be true.

It isn’t just about surviving something.  Because if you are only surviving then you are still being a victim of the bullying, even if it happened years ago.  It is about forgiving and letting it go.  It is about having being free of the drama and leaving it behind you.  It is about living a thriving lifestyle.

If it is still happening in your life now, then think about this – what in your case is “the ball”, and how can you take it and “go home”?

“The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home.  First time, every time.  When there’s no ball, there’s no game.  Bullies hate that.  So they’ll either behave so they can play with you, or they’ll go bully someone else”  – Seth Godin

Put another way, don’t add fuel to the fire.  Without your fuel, the fire will go out.  How do you get into this frame of mind?  How do you not feel that you have defend yourself, defend your reputation, defend that your rights?  You stay in your own lane.  You keep dancing to your own rhythm.  Yes, it might be that some people who don’t know you well enough will listen to what the bully is saying and repeat it.  What is done in the dark will come to light.  Time has a way of showing people’s true colors.  Eventually if you stay in your lane, and keep your own internal rhythm strong, people will recognize who is living the good life, and who is the one trying to tear others lives apart.

“Dance and make the song you sing your prayer.  Sing it courageously, and with each step strengthen yourself with the knowledge and wisdom of your elders.  So whatever next happens you can survive and not lose your rhythm”  – Red Haircrow

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Clarity, Conviction And Taking Action Bring About Transformation

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit.  Genius hits a target no one else can see” – Arthur Schopenhauer

What stands in the way of you hitting your target?  Your Dreams?  Your big hairy audacious goals?  How many excuses have you made up for why you are not trusting your soul to lead you in the right direction?  How many times are you going to use your family, your job, other people’s problems, as excuses to block access to the door of your own dreams?

“Creativity comes from trust.  Trust your instincts” – Rita Mae Brown

I am not yet ready.  As soon as I have everything organized, I will be ready.  As soon as I have my ducks in a row, I will be ready.  As soon as I . . . fill in the blank. (Finish?  Learn more? Buy a house?  Get the kids through college? etc. . . .).  There will always be something new to stick in that blank, that lets you stand in the way of your destiny.

The problem has to do with time.  There comes a time when you have used it all up.  Then all you have left is an unfulfilled life.

Not today, but later.  Tomorrow I will do it.  Too busy today.  Later I will . . .   Tomorrow I will . . . fill in the blank.  Like time is a blank check that you can write any amount you need into it.  The reality is “Someday” is never coming.

I used to tell myself that as soon as the kids were all in school, I would have time to write.  Then it was as soon as the kids were out of the house.  Then it was as soon as I wasn’t working so much overtime.  It was always, “as soon as” – that “Someday” just kept moving further and further down the timeline.  I could never catch up to it, until I decided I wasn’t playing the game anymore.  Then everything changed.

“It’s your road, and yours alone.  Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you”   – Rumi

Or maybe your excuses are you don’t know what you should be aiming for.  You don’t know what your life purpose is; you don’t know what your personal genius is.  Are you even trying to find the answers?

What sets your soul on fire?  What is it that you can see that sends your mind down the rabbit hole of possibilities?  What is it that so wraps up your heart and soul, that you don’t even hear the objections of everyone around you saying it can’t be done?

Your soul has all of the answers, you just have to ask the right questions.  Your personal genius sees what no one else can see, and if you aim your heart and mind to what it tells you, there isn’t a target that you can’t hit.

Or maybe your subconscious patterns have you stuck and asleep at the wheel of life.  You’re the dreamer in a dream dreaming, and you think that you are awake.  It reminds me of the movie, “The Matrix”.  Will you take the blue pill and stay in your dream or the red pill and follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole? (Side note:  did you know that Keanu Reeves donated approximately $50M which was almost all of his earnings from this movie to the special effects team, making them all millionaires?  I think he took the red pill in real life too.)

There is a big difference between knowing what you should do, and actually doing it.  It all comes down to the blue pill of knowing or the red pill of doing.  Doing requires you to initiate your life.

“The easiest thing is to react.  The second easiest thing is to respond.  But the hardest thing is to initiate” – Seth Godin

Or it could be that your resiliency has lost all of its bounce.  You used to be like Tigger and bounce everywhere and somehow, you’ve turned into Eeyore.  Now you have a dark cloud over your head shutting out all light.  Don’t let your mind enslave you.  Let go of the illusions created from failure or disappointment.  Free yourself from the chains of your own making.  Don’t make yourself an undiscovered genius.

The hardest part of hitting the target is the decision to let go of the arrow.  To take fear and doubt out of the equation.  To cast time out the window.  Passion unchains your creativity.  It removes the fear of change, the fear of success or failure.

“As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning” – Barbara Sher

Reflections Of The Heart Liberate The Soul

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, show me who I really am. Many fairy tales tell of magic mirrors. Mirrors that can tell the future. Mirrors that show you your loved ones.  Mirrors that twist everything to mean something different than it really means. And mirrors that reflect back the truth to you. How do you know that the reflection back to you is the truth?

“The more reflective that you are at a soul level, the more of the real you comes into reality”  – Sheryl Silbaugh

A fun house mirror with some twisting of reality, changes how you really look. One mirror shows you a reflection of being short and fat. Another mirror reflects back to you the image of a really tall, skinny girl. Because of the shape of the mirror, the reflections are changed and altered from the truth of what you look like in reality.

Mirrors reverse everything.  Look at how her hand is touching the mirror. The mirror image touching back to her. It looks like the left hand is touching the left hand.  But in reality, it is her left hand touching the reflections right hand. So even mirrors that are true, still change what you see reflected back to you. The reflection back to you is in fact, backwards to reality. It isn’t the real you.

“In a mirror is where we find a reflection of our appearances, but in a heart is where we find a reflection of our soul”  – Unknown

Mirrors are obstacles to light.  Fun house mirrors distort what you see, creating illusions.  What if there were all different kinds of mirrors, each reflecting a different “you” based on what path we took?  Shards of reality based on different life decisions.  How would you pick which reality you wanted?

Based on a multitude of small decisions, how would you be changed? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in real life you could be like Alice?  Just step through the looking glass to see what would happen if you chose this job or that job? Should you leave your bad situation now, or wait another year?

“Life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see”  – Unknown

The movie “Sliding Doors” is all about the thought of what if you made the train or missed it – how does something so small and simple change or not change your life. I love the concept of how a reflection actually bends back from the surface and allows one to think seriously or ponder what is being shown.

It takes some consciousness and understanding to start seeing who and what you really are. To see beyond the surface reflection, deep into the soul within the body. To understand why you make the choices you do? How much of what happens to you is really within your choices, and not fate or destiny driving you towards some unseen future.

“Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself”  – Paul TP Wong

The reflection you see in a mirror, is bent back from the surface.  It allows you to examine what you see from different angles.  You can bend the metaphorical light of your experiences, to see what is underneath.  It serves as a bridge between learning and experience.  You can remove the barrier of your feelings, thoughts, emotions from the experience.  You then see more of the truth, and less of the story that you tell yourself.

This internal dialogue stripped of the emotional charge, is what enables you to move from victim, past survivor, to a totally new space of thriving.  The depth to which you take these reflections, determines the kind of attitude and actions you take moving forward in life.

“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul.  to do this, you need to experience solitudes, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions”  – Deepak Chopra

Reflection provides an opportunity for you to open your heart and mind to your experiences. To see your wisdom and your foolishness. To see your strengths and weaknesses. It also allows you to delve in the possibilities of looking at those experiences through the viewpoints of others involved.

“Facing you, loving you and accepting you as you are can be painfully challenging, but it’s so necessary”  – Dau Voire

Recently my granddaughter got into a bit of drama with one of her friends. They had been out somewhere and my granddaughter borrowed some money from her friend. They didn’t discuss when it would be paid back. My granddaughter didn’t have a way to pay it back, since she didn’t have a job. She did some babysitting, but nothing on a regular basis. So this debt created some friction. Her friend asked her to pay it back, which upset my granddaughter because she didn’t have it. But they didn’t discuss their feelings, they both just pushed it inside.

“Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made.  If you want a different result, make a different choice”   – blog.zerodean

When my granddaughter had a new babysitting job, she paid back the debt. But instead of apologizing for taking so long, she said, “here’s your money, now you can stop bugging me about it.” Of course, her friend was really hurt by those words. So, it escalated into a huge fight. Both girls had a party to the misunderstanding.  Neither girl was able to see how their own lack of communication created a mountain out a molehill.  Neither so far has made it to the point of realizing they were both in the wrong and owning their own part in the debacle.

“It’s unfair to yourself to justify why you’re holding on to toxicity.  There are lessons in letting go and moving on”  – Alex Elle

It is times like this that I wish we could hit a replay button, and see how the story that you internalize is not the true story. Both girls think that they we totally right, and the other is wrong. You too hide behind this gate of reality. You see a distorted image of what happened, of yourself.  You don’t want to be the victim. You don’t want to be the perpetrator.  In most situations in life you are one or the other, and sometimes even both at the same time. So, you create a story and you create drama where there shouldn’t be any.

“Self reflection is a humbling process.  It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things . . . then better yourself”  – Sonya Teclai

No one else can unlock that gate for you. It can only be unlocked by you. You can’t open anyone else’s gate either by argument or emotional appeal. I’ve had talked to my granddaughter and so far, she hasn’t been able to open that gate. My granddaughter has a saying when we talk, that I am judging her. And she is both right and wrong at the same time. Anytime you want to fix someone or something, you are in fact judging it or them. You are saying that something is broken or disconnected. So in that sense I am judging her, because I can see what is broken. But I am not judging her as being bad, or unworthy or less than she is.

“If you are still searching for that one person who will change your life, look in the mirror”  – Unknown

You do that to yourself all the time. You judge the actions or inactions that you take. You beat yourself up.  You should have done a better job. You shouldn’t have forgotten that important thing. What you need to learn is to take the take for reflection. See what is broken or disconnected.  Ask what you can do to alter the outcome. What can be altered and connection restored?  What is beyond your ability to reconnect? Release the judgement. Accept them as they are, or let them go.

“Be a reflection of what you’d like to receive.  If you want love, give love.  If you want truth, be truthful.  What you give out will always return”  – Unknown

Look into the mirror.  Dig beneath the surface.  Love and accept what you find.  Reconnect with your soul, with your life purpose.  Get back onto the right path for you.  Transform what can be changed and release what can’t.