Unexplored Possibilities Are Waiting For You To Release Them

“Limitations live only in our minds.  But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless” – Jamie Paolinetti

Possibilities are like rabbits.  The more you think about them, the more they multiply.  Pretty soon you have a field full of them.  The trick is to turn them into probabilities.  Probabilities are a guide to enlightenment, in the journey of life.

It is the secret of how the Phoenix arises from the ashes and is reborn.  The Phoenix has coded in its DNA the belief of triumph over impossible odds.  So even when defeated, it rises once more from the ashes to achieve the impossible.

Imagination is like turning on the faucet.  When you start imagining the possibilities, the water gets turned on and you start getting ideas.

The trick is to just start writing them down.  No judgement or editing or being critical.  Just put them down on paper, idea after idea.  Possibility after possibility.

Once you have wrung every last drop out of your faucet, then you start looking at each possibility and see how many of them can grow into a probability.

That is how the miracles are born.  It is looking for the one thing that leaps off the page, no matter how impossible it seems.  That is the one, the one that your inner guidance is calling out for.  That is the one that causes the Phoenix to rise up from the ashes.  Do not allow the critical, judgmental thinking to chain it from taking flight.

“Possibilities and miracles mean the same thing” – Prentice Mulford

So where does that critical judgmental thinking come from?  It comes from your own insecurities.  From every unkind word you have heard.   From every well-meaning person who said, “Oh no honey, you can’t do that”, girls aren’t good at sports, math, or science.  Or boys don’t playhouse or with dolls.  From every time you tried something, failed and walked away.  From every time you said you would do something and didn’t.

All of those negative experiences pile up in your mind and become these critical judgmental thinking machines.  They promise you safety, that you won’t get hurt if you listen to them, but in reality, they are the bars of a prison of your own making.

The trick is to not believe the magician with his sleight of hand tricks. Not becoming attached to those negative beliefs.  They can become chains linked to an anchor that you drag around.  Your imaginations can’t take flight with chains connected to an anchor keeping you bound to the earth.  You need to release all of those negative, judgmental thoughts, as they do not serve you.

They are limitations, illusions of the magician.  He tells you that if you leave his stage, you will be in darkness, no longer in the protection of his light.  If you build barricades from his illusions of danger, they will leave you exposed to having lived an “unlived” life.  A life lived without passion and purpose.  A life that doesn’t fulfill your divine destiny.

“Breathe in the sweet air of limitless possibility, and make life as rich as you know it can be” – Ralph Marston

 

Probability of Success

I won’t – 0%

I can’t – 10%

I don’t know how – 20%

I wish I could – 30%

I want to – 40%

I think I might – 50%

I might – 60%

I think I can – 70%

I can – 80%

I am – 90%

I did – 100%

Increase your chances of success by saying “I can, I am, and I did”.  What if you stopped saying, “I wish I could” and instead said, “Guess what I did today?”

We at LemonadeMakers would love to hear your stories.  Drop us an IM and share both your successes and not so successful stories.  And as always, let us know if we can assist you in burning those insecurities.  We love a good bonfire!

Live Your Truth, And Don’t Let Any Obstacle Get In Your Way

Years ago I was a loan processor for a company in Seattle.  I worked for a branch in an area called South Center, which was next to a shopping mall.  Most of the people there smoked and they would be out front every hour smoking a cigarette.  It worked out that they spent 10-15 minutes of every hour, out front smoking.  I didn’t smoke, and I didn’t feel right about spending “working” hours I got paid for, standing out front while everyone else smoked.

They gave me a bad time for the first few months I worked there and then gave up trying to convince me to be part of the crowd.  You have a moral code, you may have a very strict code, or not so strict.  To be other than average, you need to work hard to excel and be a master of your craft.  Spending 15 minutes of every hour for 8 hours means that you are working  only 6 hours.  A lot of work can be accomplished in those two hours.  Or you could just sit back and be average standing out front with the smokers – the choice is always yours to make.

“The only way to discover our true potential, is to clear out the clutter and focus on what matters”  – Unknown

Thinking back to that rock climber, each hand hold and each foot hold gets her closer to the top.  Her focus is solely on getting her to the top.  She isn’t thinking about the climb down, or the ride home, or going to work on Monday.  Every decision you make should be all about moving you one step closer to just today’s goals.  You don’t focus on the past or the future, just the next move for today.

“Each day, focus your attention on what you want.  Each day, take one step that will bring your closer to it.  All things are possible!  The key is to identify it, claim it for yourself, and believe that you are worthy to have it” – Iyanla Vanzant

The Best Things In Life Are The Moments When We See The Little Things Clearly

 Such a profound question – what is life?

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, that hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.  Delicious Ambiguity.  

  – Gilda Radner

When you look around at your friends and family, how many people do you know that “just exist”? They are here. They wake up each day. They take in the breath of life, they eat, they go to work or school, they come home and watch a movie, TV, play video games. They are here, but what else is there in life, besides just being here?

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. 

   – Marcel Proust

There is something about asking questions that opens life up.  About being curious.  Asking yourself the questions that you are afraid to ask, afraid of how the answers might change your life.  Questions like, “Why am I not happy with who I am”?

Be not afraid of life.  Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

  – William James 

I think that there is more to life, than just existing. I think of some of the stories that I love best. They are made up of characters that progress down a timeline, the hero’s journey. They are walking along a path and something happens. Things go wrong, they change to meet the challenges and come out the other end a different person than the one we met in the beginning of the story.

Time is like a river, you cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.  Enjoy every moment of life . . . ,

  – Unknown

They discover things about themselves during the journey. They discover the “fire in the belly”, passion. They learn to speak up and speak out. They learn that they have courage to fight for truth, justice, life and liberty. We root for them to beat the odds and win. Take the first “Rocky” movie.  He is employed in a sketchy business as a collector for a loan shark..  He boxes and  is made fun of, nothing but a loser and a bum.  He dreams of a better life and thinks that fighting in the ring, could be his ticket to be somebody. He gets a one in a million shot at it, wins against the heavyweight champion, falls in love.

Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. 

  – Unknown

Boxing was his passion.  He learned to have self confidence in his talent.  He learned that we can all be somebody if we are willing to pay the price of hard work to make it happen.  If we are willing to not give up when it looks hopeless.  As the rest of the series of movies show, transformation is an ongoing process.  We will learn valuable and painful lessons when we don’t remain conscious of who we are and where we are going in life.

Most of us have been through some sort of personal hero’s journey in our life.

Someday everything will make perfect sense. So, for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears and keep reminding yourself that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. 

  – Unknown 

What did we discover about ourselves? Brendon Buchard tells a story about his own personal journey when he was in college. He had a bad breakup with his girlfriend.  She was the one he was going to spend the rest of his life with.  So to try and get out of his depression he went on a trip with a college friend to South America.  They were driving in a rural mountainous area on a narrow road.  The road turned out to be a hairpin curve.  His friend lost control of the car, and they went tumbling off the mountain.  When he came to he was bleeding.  They had fallen down a ravine.  He thought that he was dying.  In despair he asked himself three questions – Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?

Thankfully they didn’t die.  They both got medical attention, and when he returned to the United States he was a different person.  He is an international bestseller with multiple  books; he is the founder of Experts Academy and High Performance Academy and is a sought after motivational speaker.  How was his life impacted from getting a broken heart?  From an auto accident that could have ended his life?  We never know how the painful experiences of our life, will be positively used for the rest of our lives.

Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen at once. 

  – Paulo Coelho

I think that we all want to live a life that results in great friends and family that love us.  That results in us being happy and passionate about what we do with our days and nights.  That results in knowing that we had a positive impact in the world. But sometimes we fall asleep to those dreams.  Sometimes we get so beaten down by our hero’s journey, that we give the dream up as being impossible.  What I have discovered in life is that we tend to do one of two things.  We act without thinking our decision all of the way through and so we end up paying the bill of “unintended  consequences”.  Or we think about it, and think about it, and do nothing about it.  Why?  Because we can’t face our fears about “what if?”.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.  Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow.  Let reality be reality.  Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they life. 

  – Lao Tzo

So each morning, what if the first question we ask ourselves is:

If my life is a story, what can I do today to make it a New York Times Bestseller?

What could I do today, that a movie producer would want to make my life into an inspirational movie?

What can I do today that uses up all the best parts of me (my talents), to inspire the world around me to be a better place?

What can I do today that makes people laugh, smile and be more joyful?

Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live. 

  – Norman Cousins

They have a saying, that the best stories are in the graveyard.  There are books that never got written; apologies and forgiveness that were said in their heart, but never left their lips.  Millions of secret recipes that never got passed on.  Don’t wait for the end to ask, “Did I live, love and matter”, but instead ask it each night.  Ask if you showed love, and gave love to others each night. Ask if you were able to do one small thing today that mattered to someone. If you can say yes, to these questions each night, you have a wonderful life. You inspire me to try harder, to be better, to live fully in the present. To lose myself in the sunset.

Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun. 

  – Randy Pausch

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Passion Changes Everything

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

  – Mark Twain

Finding your passion isn’t just about a dream job for your career, or about being wealthy.  It is about finding your authentic self.  It is about having a meaningful life, with both spirituality and community weaved together.  This authentic life is your life propose.  The surest way to find your life purpose is to follow where your passion leads you.  When you find it and align everything in your life with it, that is when your eyes light up, and your heart sings with joy.  You literally fill up your soul with light and shine brightly from within. This is your calling, given to you by the divine. It is the difference between really living and just existing.

Always go with your passions.  Never ask yourself if it is realistic or not. 

  – Deepak Chopra

When you are in alignment with your purpose, passion creates a calmness within the heart, so that no matter what the madness and chaos that is happening around us, we are at peace.  When you embrace your authentic self, you have no competition.  When you focus on your passion and fulfilling your purpose, the doors of opportunity swing wide open.  Creativity seems to pour out of your soul.  Ideas pop into your head.  You see so many possibilities that your like a kid in a candy store and you can’t decide which one to taste first.

Have the courage to follow the things that you are naturally drawn to. Pupose is the reason you journey, walking the path towards insight pulls you forward.  Passion is the fire that lights the way, and keeps you going on the dark and stormy nights.   I think of Jane Goodall, who has lived her whole life for monkeys.  I don’t understand her passion for them, but you can see it.  What I can understand,  is having that kind of passion.  I have it, for LemonadeMakers.  It is your job, your responsibility, your calling, to let the world know why you are here.  The world needs people who have come alive with passion.

Curiosity only does one thing, and that is to give.  And what it gives you are clues on the incredible scavenger hunt of your life.

  – Elizabeth Gilbert

We find happiness by being driven by this curiosity, because it causes us to ask questions that we would never think to ask.  It causes us to look in strange places for answers to the questions and make connections.  The connections might seem strange, yet they fit perfectly to what is happening in our lives. Each one a clue to the next place to look, the next discovery to make.  We get so excited about what we are discovering that our friends and relatives look at us as though we have gone over the deep end of the pool.

One of the oldest and most generous tricks that the universe plays on human beings is to bury strange jewels within us all. And then stand back to see if we can ever find them. 

–   Elizabeth Gilbert

It is looking in the strange places that we find clues to what we are capable of in our lives.  We see how everything in our past is connected.  We can see the dots being connected.  The main path we are walking, with all of the side roads winding through the woods.  We see how each  served a purpose, even though we did not connect the dots until years later.  But each jewel we discover is required to have the complete set of our string of pearls, which is our life.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smiling, non-apologetically – to say “no” to other things.  And the way to do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. 

  – Stephen Covey

You have to peel off the masks of social conditioning that say you must meet the needs of others, before your own.  That what you need and desire, is as important.  In fact, will be fatal to your soul if you don’t pursue it. You must become what you are seeking.  It needs to seep deep into your pores, become part of your cells.  Live and breathe your dream.

Do you remember having a favorite article of clothing that you loved to wear?  It might have been when you were a child, and you wanted to wear it every day, and your mom would argue with you to choose something different.  But you only wanted to wear that particular outfit.  So you would pitch a fit until she gave in, or maybe you snuck it out of the house and changed and wore it anyway.  Wear your passion like that.  Be a rebel.

You’ll learn as you get older that rules are made to be broken.  Be bold enough to live life on your own terms, and never ever apologize for it.  Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well beaten path.  Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look.  Dance as though everyone is watching.  March to the beat of your own drummer.  And stubbornly refuse to fit it. 

  – Mandy Hale

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Your Struggle Today, Gives You Strength For Tomorrow

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It is human to be scared of taking risks.  If I was on this rock wall, I would be terrified.  Being scared is recognition of a choice.  A choice to stay safe on the safe ground called your “Comfort Zone”, or to do something really, really brave.  Comfort Zone’s create boundaries . . . , essentially prison walls where you feel enclosed and safe.  But here is the thing about the boundaries and walls – they don’t let the fresh air in.  They stifle life and smother you. 

The thing about being BRAVE is it doesn’t come with the absence of fear and hurt.  Bravery is the ability to look fear and hurt in the face and say move aside, you are in the way. 

  – Melissa Tumine

Inspiration is the breath of God.  Being inspired, is life giving . . . , breathing Gods spirit deep into your soul.  When we cross those boundaries of the comfort zone we soar . . . , flying we chase the wind, and touch the sky.  This happens because our soul feels the prison bars bend and break when we courageously break out of the comfort zone.  Can you remember the “first” times in your life?  Your first step?  Your first graded “A+” paper?  When you road your bike without training wheels for the first time?  Your first kiss?  The first day at your first job?  Your first child being born?  Your first grandchild?  Think about how your heart swells and bursts wide open.  How you want to shout out to the world “Look at me!  I did it!”.  You don’t walk on the floor, you float.  That is the feeling of inspiration, the breath of God.  When was the last time you felt that?  If it has been awhile, what could you do now, today, this week – what could you do for the first time that would make your heart beat fearlessly? 

Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage and something good will come of it. 

  – Benjamin Mee

To put that into perspective, Bull Riding Championships are called an “8 second ride”.  So 20 seconds can seem like forever, where you are doing something like that, it makes your heart pound.  Have you ever did something and then said, “Oh my God what did I just say yes to?”  Your destiny is deep within you.  You have hidden it.  You have to be brave enough to set it free.  You hid it because it scared you. It meant that you were different.  That you would be judged.  That some people would walk away from you.  Most of us don’t even see the full extent of our destiny.  We got scared just by seeing the outline of it.  You put limitations around it to cage it so that it didn’t escape.  Don’t do that to yourself.  Take the risk of letting it expand to its full glory. 

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become. 

 – Steve Jobs

Another kind of courage is not allowing anyone else to control who you are . . . , what you believe . . . , and what actions you choose to take in your life. 

Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and résistance.

  – Robert Kennedy

Taking a stand for yourself, for someone else is always scary.  But what is so interesting is that if you were to see into the minds of a crowd watching a bully, most of the crowd will not agree with what is happening.  They are all waiting for someone to take a stand.  And once someone does take a stand, others in the crowd will join with them.  They are just not brave enough to be the first person. 

A totally different kind of courage is standing up to your own friends, your family, your tribe. 

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends. 

  – Dumbledore, Harry Potter

These are people who you want to accept you, to love you.  When you take a risk, that they are all telling you not to take, it feels like they are no longer your friends.  You counted on their support and they withdrew it.  As you travel down the path from who you are now, to who you think you can be, what you discover is that some friends will be left behind.  Some friends may not understand, but they will still love and support you.  You will also make some new friends who will join you on your journey.  When you accept the responsibility for what is in your life currently, you are granted the power to change your life.  Courage is letting go of what can’t be changed . . . , and the waking up to what can be.

The brave men did not kill the dragons.  The brave men rode them. 

  – Game of Thrones

I love this!  First of all I have always had an affinity with dragons.  My personal dragons were imprisoned when I was young, because when I would get mad, my words would flame out of my mouth and burn people up.  So I pushed the dragon deep down, so that no one would get hurt.  When I finally released the dragon, I realized it was just protecting me from harm.  So we learned together what was really harmful, and what wasn’t.  We tamed the dragon flames.  My dragon gives me both the freedom to be me, and the bravery to fight when I need to . 

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. 

  – Ambrose Redmoon

I always hated how fairy tales painted dragons as the bad thing that must be destroyed.  Fear most of the time is a story that we tell ourselves.  So to have courage, to be brave, we just have to tell ourselves a different story. That crossing the boundaries doesn’t have to be scary.  That the feeling we get in our stomach doesn’t have to be fear, it can be anticipation.

At the edges of ancient maps they had “Beyond this place there be dragons” as a warning to not cross out of the boundary of the known world.  The best part of any journey is all of the wild stuff that happens along our path, as we strike out past the boundaries.  Be brave and go past the edge of the map, find the dragons and ride them.. 

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You Were Born With Wings…, Use Them And Fly

“Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right” – Charles Spurgeon

This is such an interesting quote.  It is easy to tell what is right and wrong in most cases.  So many things are literally black and white morally or ethically.  It is the right, and the almost right – that tricky gray area that gets you into predicaments. 

The mix-up that you may have seen at the academy awards is a small example of this principle.  Warren Beatty saw the card, read it a couple of times, and in his gut knew that something wasn’t right.  But he let his head override his intuition.  And the result was a mix up that certainly wasn’t his fault, but which he contributed to because he felt that he couldn’t interrupt the show to confirm his suspicions. 

How many times in your life, have you second guessed something?  Knew that something wasn’t quite right, but allowed your mind to convince you to go ahead?

One of the hardest things to do, is to identify the true nature of your spirit . . ., to know when you are losing your center and how to find it again. When the whole world seems to be literally falling apart, it is so easy to let the chaos around you take you off center. 

“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way” – Paulo Coelho

When you are trying to live a conscious life; to live to your full potential, you have to exercise extreme caution.  It is imperative to have those little alarm bells ringing, when you go off course. 

“So, it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last works of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains” – Lucretius

You could be moving along, with everything in life going perfectly.  You are in the flow or zone, and it almost feels like life is finally going right where you want it to go.  You got the new job or promotion . . ., family life is moving smoothly . . ., your home is finally decorated perfectly . . ., then a ball drops.  It could be a health issue, or your spouse could ask for a divorce out of the blue, something strikes out at you and turns you off center. 

It is the flash point of wisdom to see things from the viewpoint of the heart and soul . . ., to be able to see what is both true and lasting, from what is not.  With every season in your life, there is a shift and a change.  A moving forward in your journey along the path you have chosen.  To transforming in line with what has been shifting and changing around you.  

“The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path”– Jim Rohn

It takes discernment to see what direction your life path is taking you.  You will need to constantly re-determine what is still valid in your life.  It becomes time to do some interior house cleaning.  To release what no longer fits in your life – things you have outgrown and no longer serve any useful benefit. What items shift with you, versus what you have moved beyond.  What needs to be left behind?

“We have to be the women we want our daughters to be” – Brene Brown

Just remember, as you are taking stock of your life – you will never have to sacrifice your dignity, for your destiny.  Whenever someone or something makes you feel that way, it is time to leave that mess behind you too.  Walk away . . ., breathe and let it go . . ., and reconnect to your center. 

Discernment refreshes your soul.  Discernment helps you to understand the deeper reasons of why things happen.  The power of spiritual perception into deeper meanings, the ability to tell what is actually going on.  Don’t let fear choose your destiny.  There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.  Recognize inconsistencies, the half-truths, the misapplied truths, or false truths – what is genuine versus self-deception. 

Playing chess teaches you discernment.  You learn how to plan out your moves ahead of time.  See how each possible move affects your game.  You learn to sift and identify what appears to be a good move, but in reality, is a bad move.  To see when a move will put you into a possible trap later in the game. 

You have the innate power to shape and change your life by tearing off the mask of half-truths and self-deception.  To draw down into the depths of your heart, to who you are meant to be.  Your life has immeasurable potentiality for greatness.

“Discernment is a light of protection and direction in a world that grows increasingly dark” – Elder Bednar

Discernment is saying the right thing in the perfect moment and biting your tongue to not say the wrong thing at this most tempting moment.  To realize that sarcasm and scathing remarks do not serve your purpose, no matter how much you want to put someone in their place.  Instead of feeding the fire, you learn how to use it to your advantage. 

“Align yourself with people that you can learn from, people who want more out of life, people who are stretching and searching and seeking higher ground in life” – Les Brown

It doesn’t mean that you are not going to make mistakes.  We are all imperfect.  But you can look at your imperfections and know that true wisdom is the acknowledgement of them. You can live a life of integrity. 

Let people be inspired by that fact that even though you don’t have all of the answers, you are still willing to get up every morning and do the best job you can.  Instead of saying “I can’t because . . ., ” say, “there are endless possibilities in front of me and if this path doesn’t take me where I want to go, I know that another one will show up that will”. 

Show your social circle that living a life of integrity is how you find the right path to accomplish your dreams.   

It is an interesting fact of life, that when you raise up others, you rise too.  On this path what you discover is that when you have the courage to risk making mistakes, your life becomes a series of miracles. 

The problem is that when you are busy fighting the chaos, you forget to take a moment to notice the miracles.  You don’t see your own value shining in the eyes of those that know and love you.  You forget to be grateful for the many daily miracles in your life. 

You don’t see how you are modeling for your daughters and your sisters, that they can be successful without being in competition with other women. 

“Your life does not get better by chance; it gets better by change” – Jim Rohn

It goes along with the saying, that if it is important, you will find a way to do it, and if it isn’t you will find an excuse as to why you can’t do it.  “I know” is different from “I can” . . ., because “I can” has the energy of action contained within it.  You can intellectually know something, like you know how to make homemade bread, because you watched some cooking show telling you how.  To “I can” make homemade bread, because I have done it before. 

Put your journey on the “express train”, otherwise you will find yourself on the slow boat to nowhere. 

“May every word that is ever spoken by our mouths or typed by our fingers be words that lift up, and never words that tear down” – BraveGirlsClub

Talent Can Happen, Genius (Vocation) Must Happen

Doing what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible with talent is genius.

  – Henri Frederic Amiel

What is the difference between your talents and your vocation?  Your talent is the thing that you spend the 10,000 hours training for to become a master.  In the old days, you were apprenticed to a master craftman and you learned at the masters feet to grow your talent, your skills.  You have worked hard to become the best in your field of endeavor – you may have gone to school to learn to be a doctor, an accountant, a teacher.  Or you may have learned on the job how to be a plumber, an electrician etc…Your vocation is what you were made to do, it is a divine calling, a divine purpose. 

A Man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.

  –  Thomas Merton

Your vocation in life comes from where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.

   –  Frederick Buechner 

I firmly believe that all of us have a vocation, a calling.  That we are an individual puzzle piece that completes Gods plan for what is happening in our lifetime.  If we walk away from that, then that piece of the puzzle is missing, it is incomplete.  We might still be able to see what the puzzle is supposed to look like, but the hole is still there.  It is sometimes really scary and daunting to realize what our talents and vocation truly are meant to be.  We look at that and we get scared of failing to complete the picture.  We get scared of getting called up on stage to sing in front of an audience.  We get scared that if we truly shine, people will judge us as imperfect.  They will throw judgment or hatred for where we demonstrate that we are not perfect.  Of being called a fraud.  Of being laughed at. 

If you’re not the hero of your talent story, you simply become a player in one you didn’t choose.”

  –  Jermainne Perry

Sometimes walking away has nothing to do with weakness, and everything to do with strength.  We walk away not because we want others to realize our worth and value, but because we finally realize our own. 

  – Robert Tew

What we don’t realize is that true failure happens when we walk away.  When we plug our ears and ignore the calling.  When we deny who we are.  When we walk past that door of opportunity and say, “Oh no, I am not talented enough, capable enough, you have the wrong person”.  When we do that we end up living an unsatisfying life.  We drag ourselves to work everyday at a job we hate, doing boring work.  We numb ourselves at home with liquor, drugs, or being a couch potato, watching movies and T.V. and doing nothing with our life.

Everyone has talent, what is rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.

  –   Erica Jong

Everyone has a purpose in life . . , a unique gift or special talent to give to others.  And when we blend this unique talent with service to others we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.

  –  Deepak Chopra

Part of the journey of the intersection of talent and vocation, is that we have to go back in our lives and pull the vocation out of the deep hole that we buried it in.  How many times have you watched one of the many shows on T.V. for talent contests – whether singing, dancing, or being a comedian.  You hear person after person say that at some point in their life, people discouraged them.  Told them they weren’t good enough.  Not enough talent.  Rejected for auditions. 

Every man has his vocation.  The talent is the call.  There is one  direction in which all space is open to him.

  –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because the editor said, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas”.  It wasn’t true, he was just in the wrong job, not his vocation.  Oprah same thing.  She was fired because she couldn’t sever her emotions from her stories.  That is exactly what made her so good at her T.V. Show.  It was part of her vocation to follow the emotions of the stories being told.  Elvis after performing at “The Grand Ole Opry was told that he should return to being a truck driver.  It wasn’t that Elvis couldn’t perform, sing, or play his guitar.  It was that Country Western music wasn’t his vocation.    So don’t let rejections around your vocation stop you.  It may just be that you  haven’t yet found how your talent and vocation intersect. 

Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

  –   St. Francis of Assisi

Vocations usually start out as something small.  Maybe as a child you would draw pictures in crayon.  Your mom thought you were a genius.  As you grew older, you started drawing fashion designs for your dolls.  Then when you got into Junior High or High School you started taking art classes.  Your talents were nurtured and they grew.  Then one day, you discovered sculpture.  It took over your life.  You felt incomplete when you were not working with metal, stone, or marble.  

Entrusted with the task of crafting, to create a work of art, a masterpiece, your vocation sheds light on the path, so that you will know which way to go.  The vocation is built into you.  You literally have no choice. It is the air you breathe. 

If you are what you should be, then you will set the world on fire.

 –  St. Catherine of Seina

David was Michelangelo’s masterpiece.  He saw him in the marble and released him, a symbol of beauty and strength.  Look at what the world would have missed had his talent and vocation not intersected.  If he had walked away from his vocation, saying it was too much pressure.   

We must realize our own talents and, having realized, accept them; and play on them like a symphony in which all other instruments are harmonized to make a better universe.

  –  Jeane Dixon

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It Is A Magical World, Be True To You

“Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be.  Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.”  – Tom Head

When you approach each moment with fresh eyes and an open heart, you are no longer defined by your past pain or your fears for the future.  This is because you are not using that past pain or fear, as a filter to color every future experience.

Just because someone broke your heart doesn’t mean that everyone else will do so.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t trust yourself with anyone ever again.  Everything you experience is always a different experience.  You are not the same person you were prior to that experience.  The person you are currently having an experience with is not that person who hurt you.

Sometimes you just need to realize that just because you have had a bad day, doesn’t mean you have a bad life.  Just breathe, let it go.  Begin again.

“Magic is believing in yourself.  If you can do that, you can make anything happen” – Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe

Everything in life is temporary.  Both the good things and the bad things.  Nothing lasts forever, as moment by moment life changes you.  Most of what you term a bad experience, was simply judged as being bad by you.

You got a “D” or an “F” on an assignment.  You could judge that as being a bad experience.  Or it could be judged as a good experience because it served as a wakeup call, to pay attention to your studies.  Now you can graduate with honors and be successful in your chosen career.

Or it could even be the “stop” what you are doing call.  The call that says this isn’t what you want to do with your life.  That you need to stop going through the motions of making someone else happy.

If you find yourself in the wrong fairy tale,

either rewrite the story or leave it.

It could be the moment that you go after our dreams.

At a Hay House Event I attended; I enjoyed a seminar with Sonia Choquette.  I have been a fan of her books for years.  She is an intuitive spiritual teacher.  She told the story of how her marriage ended a couple of years ago, a total surprise to her.  She spoke about the falling apart, the recovery.  Then he came back and wanted to make it work, and then he left her again.  The second falling apart was not as bad.  She spoke about what all she learned about herself.   How much her daily practices saved her so much in recovery time.

It is funny about the good things being around the corner – you can look down the street, and you don’t see them.  It is physically impossible to know what is around a corner.  It is not until you walk around the corner that you see it.  So, the good thing surprises you just as much as the devastation does, because it catches you unaware.

“She believed in dreams all right, but she also believed in doing something about them…, When Prince Charming didn’t come along, she went over to the palace and got him. ” – Walt Disney

Even in the fairy tales you had to fight to get what you wanted.  It wasn’t all stardust and lollipops.  Bad things happened and had to be overcome.

Many times, just as you thought everything was going to end up perfect, another bad thing happened.  You somehow think that life will just roll everything perfectly to your door, without any effort on your part.  Or you think that if you just follow all the rules, life will repay you with what you want – that was me.  I believed if I followed all of the rule’s life would be perfect.

Life brings you lessons to build character.  It opens many doors, but most of them you pass by because you are not conscious and paying attention.  Then you complain that your dreams are not happening, and they must not be true.

• You need to work to make your dream come true.
• You need to realize that when you hit roadblocks it doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path.
• You need to fight for the fairytale, because it does exist…,
• Just remember that you are the Queen of your kingdom and only you know how to rule it.

There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind”   – C.S. Lewis

• It means that you believe in six impossible things before breakfast.
• That you dream improbable dreams and then create them.
• That you are a little crazy, because all of the best people are.
• That your dreams are entrenched in your soul, and the only way to release them is to make them come true.

Nothing is safe and everything changes.

So, reach out and touch the dragonflies and butterfly’s as you take flight.

Reach for the stars.

Dance with the fairies.

Howl at the moon.

Be a shapeshifter.

Life is a treasure hunt with a shifting map.  Find the chocolate.

Be happy, have fun, and enjoy the beauty of life.

 

Something To Get Us To The Weekend

Laugh out loud.  Smile just a little.  Share with a friend.

 

The Secrets Of The Universe Are Imprinted Within Your Soul

 The signs and guidance that you seek are all around you.  The Universe works through people and if you stop to pay attention, there’s a theme that emerges from interactions, blog posts, quotes on social media and even the movies or shows you watch.  Get out of your head and start paying attention.

  –  Stephenie Zamora. 

So many times what we want is for the limo to arrive at our doorstop, to drop us off at the Academy Awards, to just have to walk up on stage and accept the Best Actress Award.  Forget the 10,000 hours to master the craft.  Forget the lumps and bumps of lessons along the way.  Forget the time it takes to make the right connections, to promote ourselves, to find an agent, to go on casting call after casting call, hearing “sorry, but your not what we are looking for”. 

The universe is not outside of you.  Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.

  – Rumi

The thought that we have to do something perfectly the first time is such a lie.  If you love music and you want to be a concert pianist, the first time you sit at a piano or a keyboard, you are not going to play Chopin perfectly.  Never abandon your dreams, just because they will take time and lots of practice to transform you into who you dream of being. 

You are more than your thoughts, your body or your feelings.  You are a swirling vortex of limitless potential who is here to shake things up and create something new that the universe has never seen.

  –  Dr. Richard Barlett

The universe doesn’t give you what you ask for with your thoughts; it gives you what you demand with your actions.

  –   Dr. Steve Maraboli

It is making choices by taking the scary actions that make our heart beat so loud that everyone can hear it.  It is taking action, stepping on the stage of real life with the possible rejections, that will bring the universe into concerted action on our behalf.  We might feel that we should just want to hold the dream in the safe mode, where no one can poke holes in it, or damage and dent it.  But what is required in our actions, is to dig deep within us.  To find that place of strength and conviction in our dreams.  To mine for the gold, polish it up and display it for all to see.  To keep walking across that stage even if our heart stops.  Even if our entire body goes numb.  Even if we don’t think we can take another breath, we inhale a deep breath and we keep walking. 

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.

  –  Elizabeth Gilbert

The universe has shaken you, to awaken you.  

 –  Mastin Kipp

A couple of weeks ago I had this dream.  I was driving down the 101 Freeway.  I was exactly in the middle lane, with two lanes on either side of me.  All of a sudden there was a car in my lane coming straight towards me, driving the wrong way.  I jerked awake as I heard these words, “Wake Up”.  I have thought a lot about this dream.  I sometimes have these dreams where I know that my soul is speaking to me.  That the divine is leading me.  I know they have an impact and meaning in my life, although I am not always sure what.  But they set me to looking for signs to their meaning.  What I took from this dream is that a big change is coming into my life – but I will only see it if I am awake and ready to take advantage of it.  As the weeks have passed, I think that I am seeing some possibilities of what it all means.  Some possibilities that profoundly scare me, because they are such a leap from where I am at, and that is usually a good sign. 

She knows it’s time to make a change.  She feels it on an energetic level that she can’t quite describe and maybe doesn’t even want to put into words.  It is a personal and sacred language, an inner message between her and her soul.

  – Molly McChord

Rarely do we realize that we are in the midst of the extraordinary.  Miracles occur all around us, signs from God show us the way, angels plead to be heard, but we pay little attention to them because we have been taught that we must follow certain formulas and rules if we want to find God.  We do not realize that God is wherever we allow him/her to enter.”

  –  Paulo Coelho

Relax.  Let go of the expectations,  Stop pushing what you want to happen, and release all anxiety.  Trust in your dreams.  Trust in the Divine.  Know in your heart that sometimes impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.  It happens when we let go of how we think it should work and just let it happen in the biggest, fastest way possible. 

Your best life is achieved by listening to the wisest part of you – what you know to be true.

  –  Cheryl Richardson

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Seasons Change, People Change; A Year Changes You A Lot

The distance between your dreams and reality is called action.  Desire to transform is what gets us started.  The secret to action is doing just one small thing each day to further the dream into reality.  The secret to success in found in having a daily routine in which you insert those small steps.  Determination is what helps us build momentum, to keep going as the path takes us up a steep hill.  Sometimes that means we let go of less important things. 

The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

  –  Socrates

Remember the wagon train days.  They loaded their wagons with all of the belongings they couldn’t bear to let go of.  Along the trail to Oregon, you found the landscape littered with such items that became too heavy of a load to continue to carry.  Sometimes it means we learn to do something differently.  We all have good intentions.  We set intentions to accomplish our dreams.  But many times hoping and setting those intentions isn’t enough.  You need to be committed to bringing those dreams into reality.  You need to be faithful with your actions to back up that commitment.  Dedication is how we continue.  

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. 

  –  Steve Prefontaine

What is currently happening in our life, is a reflection of our past choices.  Releasing and letting go of what no longer serves us, is like cleaning up the gutters on our roof.  If we want the water to drain correctly, then the gutters need to be cleaned of all of the debris that has been deposited into them.  If we don’t, they won’t work correctly, and the water collected from the rain will drip all over, instead of being channeled down the drain spout.  Everything in your life currently is a result of choices.  The people in our lives, our career, the home we live in, the car we drive.., they were once a choice of something that we wanted, needed, or desired to have. 

Seeing things from a higher perspective causes you to experience sudden bouts of stunning clarity – you understand that everything that’s ever happened in your life played out exactly as it was supposed to.

  –  Stephen J. Hopson

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.

  –  Anthisthenes

For years I told myself that I would write when the kids were in school; then it was when the kids were out of the house; then it was when I would retire – then I would have the time to write.  I kept putting off my dreams, not because there wasn’t time.  That was the lie that I told myself.  It was because I was afraid that what I wrote wouldn’t be worth reading.  Who was I to think that I had some kind of talent?  Publishers would reject my stories.  No one would want to read what I put on paper.  I had to realize for myself that at some point, later would never happen. 

 Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.

  –  Maya Angelou

I had to realize for myself that the words in my head telling me I would be a failure, were not true.  That the voice in my heart telling me I could do this, was the one that I should listen to.  That my personal transformation started with a transformation of my inner voice.  I would no longer allow it, to make me feel small and unworthy.   I might have a learning curve, it might take time to go from a beginner to a master, but if I kept putting myself into action, I could do this. 

Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

  –  Helen Keller

There are no limits.  There are only plateaus and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

  –  Bruce Lee

It is our fears that create limitations in our lives.  My fear of failure and being laughed at, created the limitation of not enough time.  Everything that happens for us, can be transformed into something of value.  Now my fear of success has me dragging my heels, because I know if I am as successful with writing as I think that I can be, that once again everything in my life will shift and change.  Some of those changes I may not like, and I can’t see how all of the moving parts of my life will continue to fit in that new space.  What will it require me to give up? 

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.

  –  Joseph Campbell

There just comes a time when those thoughts of holding on tightly to everything in your life, are just too heavy.  When there is no other choice but to let go, and let God.  When the compass points in only one direction, the cave you are afraid to enter, because you know what you will find in there.  You will be laid bare with no more excuses; and you will have to own who you are. and do something about it.  That time is now.  If not now, then when?  When the time is all spent, and there is none left? 

Let today be the day you love yourself enough to no longer just dream of a better life; let it be the day you act upon it.

  –  Steve Maraboli

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

  –  Sir Edmund Hillary

Focus on the good that will be gained. Be around the light bringers, the magic makers, the world shifters, the game shakers.  They challenge you, break you open, uplift and expand you.  They don’t let you play small with your life.  These heartbeats are your people.  These people are your tribe.  This is the tribe of LemonadeMakers. 

There is more in us than we know.  If we can be made to believe it, perhaps for the rest of our lives we will be unwilling to settle for less.

  –  Kurt Hahn

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The Journey Is Mandatory; Traveling With Baggage Is Not

If you are unhappy with anything…, whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it.  Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.

  – Tina Turner

When you let go of whatever the negative thing is, you are not agreeing that the situation was acceptable.  You are walking away because whatever is going on is not worth destroying you.  You release the anger, the frustration of trying to get someone else to see your truth; or trying to fix something that isn’t your business to fix.  You wall away, and you do not walk back and reclaim it, because someone promises that this time things will be different.  You walk away, leaving that baggage on the ground, and you climb up onto that plane and you fly far, far away.  Never settle.

You can’t reach for anything new, if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk.

  –   Louise Smith

Regrets are heavy baggage.  Whatever we walk away from or whatever we feel we have lost in our lives, usually have regrets attached to it.  What we said or didn’t say, what we should have done or did do.  Whatever didn’t turn out perfectly sits on the scale of our judgment against ourselves or others.  Forgive both yourself and others, wipe the scale clean of all debris.  Recycle those regrets, let go of the past, so that you can truly move on.

We are all responsible for the energy we have around us.  Drama Queens can’t exist without an audience.  Stop being one, and they will find someone else.  This creates space in your life for the right kind of people.  Those who see the real you, that you’ve buried deep within.  They hold up the mirror to you, so that you can see your potential.  The endless possibilities of who you really are.  They believe in you, because they love who you are, not who they want you to be.  These are once in a lifetime kinds of people.  Find them and keep them in your life.

We all fit together to create this experience we call life.  None of us can see the part we play or the way it all turns out.  Maybe the miracles that we see are just the tip of the iceberg.  And maybe we just don’t recognize the blessings that come as a result of terrible things.

  –  Making Faces, Amy Harmon. 

When my granddaughter and I saw the movie “Passengers”, I thought that quote really is the story line of the movie. 

A computer malfunction in the sleeping pod of the main male character happens and he gets woken up around 30 years into a flight of around 120 years.  During first year he goes crazy being alone.

important encounters are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

  –  Paulo Coelho

Then one day he finds a sleeping pod of a beautiful woman and starts obsessing about waking her up.  Even though he knows he shouldn’t one day he does it.  At first she thinks that like him, it was a computer malfunction.  Then she discovers the truth, and her anger at what he has done to her life drives her crazy.  Then a third person, a ship employee is awakened due to continuing computer malfunctions.  They discover with his help that the ship is failing due to damage received from asteroids.  The ship employee dies from health complications created by his pod leaving them to try and save the ship of over 5,000 fellow passengers and the crew. 

In the process of doing this they almost die several times.  They discover that their being together is the miracle and blessing of their being able to save everyone else.  In saving them, they save themselves.  

I entered the after-loss broken and shattered.  It’s like I had this big bag of fragments I once called life and dumped them in the middle of this new world and said, “Here.  this is all I’ve got left.  What can I do with this?”

  –  Benjamin Allen

They come to peace with living out their lives together alone on the ship, knowing that they won’t reach their destination in their lifetime.  She learned to let go of the baggage of what he did to her.  He let go of the baggage of what he did.  They realized that without everything that happened to them, the entire ship would have been destroyed.  They let go of what they planned for their lives by taken this journey, and lived the journey they instead found with each other.  They realized that blessings can come as a result of terrible things.

We all have some sort of emotional baggage in our lives.  One bag is filled with things that people said to us, situations where our character was unfairly tarnished.  This bag is waiting for apologies that will most likely never happen.  Then there is this other bag of regrets where we lied to someone; promises we broke; things we said to others because our pain was so great that we needed to hurt someone else just as much as we were hurting.  The items contained in the bags could be listed down long pages.  They are not unique to us.  What we have to come to realize, is that we need to let them go.  All of them. 

I always liked the story of Noah’s Ark and the idea of starting anew by rescuing the things you like and leaving the rest behind.

  –  Zach Braff

In order to release yourself of this baggage you need to enter sacred space.  Go down into your heart and the soul of who you are.  Keep what builds you up.  Release everything negative.  When you find yourself, and release what is not yours to keep, you make space for your life to transform once again.  You start moving forward in your life once more.  Reach for what is in front of you.  When you know what you want next in life, you wake up excited about life.  If you aren’t excited about your life, this is a sign that it is time to give yourself healing.  Time to once again enter the chrysalis and transform your life. 

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