Launch Yourself on Every Wave

Life, like surfing, is all about wave selection and balance. Never let the best waves in life pass you by. Ride it now before it’s too late – Kiteboardstuff.com

I believe that your dreams, your true dreams, are given to you at birth.  That you are designed to grow and stretch beyond what you think you are capable of.

That you were given heroes journeys to push you to accomplish the dreams.  That those dreams are what make you passionate and give you a life of purpose.

I think of people who are adventurers and broke open new journeys you didn’t even know you could go on.  People like the Wright Brothers, who pioneered the ability to fly.  Pilots like Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart who created and broke records in pioneering flight.  Amelia Earhart said, “What do dreams know of boundaries?”

She had true unfaltering determination and pushed her limits.  She said, “when you fail, your failure must be but a challenge to others”.  I love the concept of my failures actually serving as something positive – to challenge others to succeed in their own dreams.

You don’t get into something to test the waters.  You get into things to make waves – Rituals

Every year there are new tech companies that are creating a new cutting-edge business or disrupting an industry.  Right now, someone is launching themselves in trying to fulfill a dream they never thought they could accomplish.  The really critical thing is to not give up on your dream as being too far beyond your capability to accomplish.

When someone decided one day that they wanted to be a mountain climber, they didn’t just walk out the door and climb a mountain.

• They got training in how to use the equipment
• They got training both in the body and the mind, to equip them for the journey.
• They started with small mountains and worked their way up to the bigger ones.
• They joined a club with others who like that sport, becoming a member of a team.
• They fell down, got back up and fell down again and again, until they started reaching mastery.

It is done step by step, day by day, year by year.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance – Alan Watts

You have to grow and expand your comfort zone again and again.  You have to have the trust that you deserve to fulfill the dream.  You work hard to get the skills that are necessary to make it happen.  You learn to trust yourself and your team.

Change is part of the dance of your life.  You learn to trust the dream as it shifts, changes and transforms too.

Sometimes as you are moving towards the dream, it is like driving through fog.  All you can see is the next 10 feet in front of you.  You travel towards what you see and as you travel, you see farther and farther.  You might see what you thought was a mailbox on the side of road shift into something else as you get clearer eyesight.

This is because your brains will take what little you can see or decipher, and basically guess at what you are seeing based on past knowledge. But as you get more clarity by pursuing the dream it seems to shift its shape into something totally different.

It’s not so much that the dream is changing as it is that you are getting a better understanding about what the dream really is.  Each problem that you encounter and solve changes you.  Each change brings the dream into more clarity.

You begin to realize that there are 50 different ways you can achieve your dream.  That your expectations around the dream are what is really changing, not the dream itself.  You begin to truly imagine the possibilities of the dream.

The big waves in life might come from outside of you, but the ability to ride them comes from inside of you – from your character strengths – Fatima Doman

Over and over again you can see the concept of “as above, so below”.

The teaching of the tree of your life reaching high into the heavens and deep below the surface with the roots.  Life is not lived in one direction only.  If you are reaching only for the sky and neglect your roots, the imbalance in your life may create temporary success, but will inevitably fall over.  And if you only feed the roots and neglect reaching for the heavens, then you won’t produce anything positive in your life.

It is the combination of inner and outer growth that leads to true lasting success.

I love the concept of “together we are an ocean”.  If you are interested, I can help you learn how to create your own personalized dream map, claim your own unique goals of change and transformation; refine them into goal crushing gremlins; and finally, to truly understand what your motivation around those goals is all about.

It’s not just about writing some words on a piece of paper that says in 30 days I will . . . ,   It’s not just about creating a vision board with pretty pictures of our dream house, vacations, our dream body or $1M in our bank account, and then waiting for the “magic” to draw in what we want in our lives.

You need to brainstorm your way to make your dreams a reality.  To map out your detours around your own unique self-sabotaging obstacles, and finally be able to fully implement your plan.

What I know for sure is that you will hit walls of failure, fatigue.  At some point you will get that feeling that “Life happens to you”, when it really is happening for you.  It will feel like when you are getting hit with a sledgehammer.  It helps to have a few tricks up your sleeves to handle those times, so that they just create slowdowns.  Just don’t give up and stop completely.

As a kid did you ever play the game Red Light/Green Light?  You had someone who called out Red Light for Stop and Green Light for Go.  The goal was to reach the finish line first.  Let’s change that game just a little. 

On The Journey Of Self Transformation, You Need A Map

Imagining what we want next year is a far more powerful way to face the future than imaging what we fear – Marianne Williamson

Part of the process of planning out your dreams, goals, and visions of a better life is looking back to see what you have done so far.

Where is your comfort zone today?

What growth to it happened last year?

Part of my own growth for this coming year is taking the pilot program I created and turning it into a teachable course.  I have a card deck that I created that needs to be completed so that it can be sold to help support the cost of this website.  I know what needs to be done, but there is this underlying fear that it isn’t something that you will value as my readers.  I also believe that this is my year to break free of that fear.

I believe that you already know what needs to be done for your life in this year – that the questions you ask yourself, already have answers deep inside of you.  That those answers have been waiting for you to be able to accept them as truths, and that timing is everything.  If you are reading this then I believe that the time for you is now.

I believe that sometimes you need someone else to ask the questions that will send you searching for your own personal truths. The door is waiting for you to open it, and sometimes you just need to hear the invitation one more time.  That time is now.

Part of the process of self-transformation is learning more about who you are.  That person deep down inside of you.

• How many times have you created limitations about what you are capable of?

• How many times have those limiting beliefs created self-sabotage in your life?

• How many times have you been pulled back from transforming your life by the chains of your comfort zone?

• How many times has something that seemed to be what you wanted, pulled you out of growth and transformation?  Like the caterpillar that keeps finding the perfect leaf to consume, and delays making that chrysalis to become the butterfly?

• It all comes back to you and your beliefs around the possibilities – take the leap of faith.

In order to think or live differently, you need to understand your own life patterns.

When I received the scholarship application answers for the pilot program I ran, it revealed some common patterns.

• Almost everyone had thought in the past twelve months about making big life changes – such as moving some place new to them; finding a different job. This indicated that they were unhappy enough in their life to contemplate changing everything.
• A vast majority wanted a better life in order to give back something good to the world.  I loved this, because even though they had some pretty big issues they were dealing with in their lives, they wanted something better not only for themselves, but to help others too.
• They wanted to be better spouses, parents, better people.  These are all roles that we play in our lives.
• Some of the applicants had just completed or were going through a divorce.  When you have a major transition take place in your life, like a death, divorce, or job loss, it becomes a time to take stock of who you are and where you are going.  Many times, these transitions take away the thing you thought you were.  When the kids leave for college, how do you transition to an empty nester?  When you retire from your job, who are you now?
• Around 50% of those who responded had problems in the past or were working towards sobriety and ending addictions.  That is not only living with the label of addict, but also a load of personal issues to work through because most who have some sort of addiction used it as a coping mechanism for their life.

The answers to the questions told me that most of us are looking to make big changes in our lives.  We just need a little help to get started, and a little motivation to keep going so that fears stop us.

Life presents you with so many decisions.

A lot of times,

the answers are right in front of you.  

It’s not just about writing some words on a piece of paper.  It’s not just about creating a vision board and then waiting for the “magic” to draw in what you want in your life.  You need to brainstorm your way, map out the detours around the obstacles, and fully implement your plan.

What I know for sure is that you will hit walls of failure, fatigue.  Life happens not to you, but for you.  I know that sometimes it feels like you are getting hit with a sledgehammer.  It helps to have a few tricks up your sleeves.  To be able to handle them so that they just create slowdowns when the rain or snow is coming down so hard and fast, you can’t see.  And maybe a few detours around washed out roads or bridges.

Just don’t give up and stop completely.   In the movie Star Man with Jeff Bridges there is a line about yellow lights when they are driving down the road.  “Starman: I watched you very carefully. Red light, stop; green light, go; yellow light, go very fast.”

Message me if you want to “yellow light” your own life map, or just need help with a roadblock or how to find the right detour.

It’s Not Just About Chasing A Dream, It’s About Catching It Too – Part One

Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.

– Sumner Redstone

If you have been following our posts for some time, you probably know the story of why I started writing my blog.  My nephew Carl was murdered in a random act of gang violence, literally walking through the park at the wrong time.  As you can imagine, this took a toll on our family.  In addition to grieving over his death, I was concerned about my sister making it through this tragedy.  I started writing through my own grief for both of them on my personal Facebook page and it took on a life of its own.

Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.

– Matt Biondi

After a couple of years I created LemonadeMakers – because when life gives you lemons, you need to make lemonade.  At least I did.   Every part of life is full of choices.  You can choose to hide in the negative or dig for the positive.  Sometimes it seems like we don’t have a choice, but we always do.  It feels like we are so sunk down into the mud, that mud is all we can see.  We then miss the dry ground, the doors that we could open.  The chance for a different choice or response, to what is happening.

All I knew was that I had to bring something good and positive and life affirming to the table for myself and my family.  Then as I cleaned the mud off of me, I saw the need to bring this to others, because we are all going through something.  Maybe not as tragic or violent as my nephews murder, or maybe something even more so.  So a dream was born that just maybe I could help others, inspire them to make their own brand of lemonade.

Love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort and keep on learning.

– Carol Dweck

As LemonadeMakers has grown, so have I.  It has challenged me to work on my writing skills.  Believe me, I have heard from many readers when the grammar is incorrect, or the misspelling made it through spellcheck.  I think I have proof read something 10 times, and then I am reading an old post and see something that I missed.  It has helped me grow a thicker skin, and let go of the need for perfection and so many other lessons.

Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

– Joshua J. Marine

2019 has come to an end and I wanted to talk about how you keep going, growing, and expanding your comfort zone from day to day.  In 2019 my birth father died and I had to let go of the dream I have had for over 55 years – that some day he would call me and tell me how much he loved me and wanted to be a part of my life.

I have been caring for my bonus father (I don’t like the step part of any label, as though it is less than the real thing) and his health has been steadily deteriorating this year and he has been in and out of the hospital.  He is starting to lose brain function and it breaks my heart.

This August we found out that my husband of 46 years has prostrate cancer.  It is outside of the prostrate and so surgery isn’t an option and he is starting radiation therapy.  He was a long haul truck driver, so he had to retire a little sooner than we were planning on.

The entire year I have been working month to month, each month waiting to hear if this is the month I get laid off work.  I have worked for the bank for 15 years and they keep extending the lay off, and they also keep telling me it is coming.

Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.

– Arianna Huffington

When you add this year up, it has pretty much sucked.  I am sharing this with all of you for a couple of reasons.  I know that I am not the only one that had things go sideways in her life this year.  I think it helps when you know you are not alone in walking and sometimes crawling through life’s storms.  I also wanted to share with all of you some of the great things that happened this year, the times when the storm clouds parted and the sun shined for a brief moment reminding me that storms don’t last forever.

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. But it is the ability to resist or use failure that often leads to greater success.

– J.K. Rowling

I stepped out and made a video about “Catching the Perfect Wave”.  I tried to do a couple of webinars, which failed dramatically with no one or only a couple of people attending.  I discovered my own way of doing things, rather than just following in someone else’s steps of how things should be done.  I learned a lot and really expanded my comfort zone around talking and teaching with groups of people.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; It is the courage to continue that counts.

– Winston Churchill

I created a pilot program about transforming your life.  It centered on the first ring of the Transformational Life Compass, which is all about the labels we live our lives around, the archetypes in our personalities and how to see how we are sometimes our own worst enemy in self sabotaging our life.  We granted scholarships to 22 people and while everyone didn’t show up and some didn’t finish – I think it was a great success.  The full program will start in February and I am really excited about the life transformations it is going to create to those brave enough to come and join us.

Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning.

– Carol Dweck

I think  that 2020 is going to be a turning point year for a lot of us.  I love the thought of 20/20 vision, focus that is crisp and clear.  The ability to see both near and far without fog distorting the images.  So how do we take all of the lessons of 2019, the good, bad and ugly experiences and build on that foundation something even better?

The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

– Michelle Obama

For the start of the year, to give us all 20/20 insight and vision of what we can accomplish in this brand new year, I am designing a workshop.  It will give all of us working together the tools of how to plan out the new year.  What to do when the lemons start falling off the tree and hitting us in the head.

There is a military proverb that says something like “in war the battle plans only survive until the battle begins”.  Every year we make goals or resolutions to make changes in our life.  It might be for health, or education, a better job, working on our marriage, raising children, buying our first home and so on.  Those goals or dreams seem to survive the first month or two of the year and then they morph into something unachievable and unrecognizable.

There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.

– Brian Tracy

With everything going on with my job, my husband, and my dad, I could put my dreams for the next step for LemonadeMakers on hold.  I could put my entire 20/20 focus on these very important personal things in my life.  I could just let LemonadeMakers struggle along until my personal life got easier.  I put my writing on hold for too many years.  I refused to do that in 2019, and I won’t do that in 2020.  I am in a marathon and there comes a point in running where if you keep going, you break through into a new level.  I want to share with you how I did this in 2019 and how I plan on it in 2020.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

  – Eleanor Roosevelt

So stay tuned tomorrow for Part Two, to read about some of the tools I use and that you can use too – I can’t wait to share everything with you!

Pursuing Life’s Dreams, Second Star to the Right and Straight On With No Distractions

And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, “This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this! And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, “No. This is what’s important.”

– Ian Thomas

What we all need to realize, is that the lights of the passing ships are mere distractions preventing you from living your life to the fullest.  They are the battles that you fight each day, but which do not lead us anywhere.  When we honestly realize how asleep we are in our lives, those are the moments when you can begin to challenge the ongoing distractions and bring focus back to the stars – the lights of our true destination.

In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.

  – Yuval Noah Harari

It’s like someone has set up a circus tent in front of us.  You hear the chaos of the music and the shouting barkers telling you about what’s happening in their tents.  You hear the shouts and screams of people as they spin and circle and go up and down on the rides.  You smell the funnel cakes and cotton candy and popcorn.  Bright lights spin on the games as they encourage you to step up and try your luck.  So many distractions that you can’t hear yourself think.  All of the bright shiny objects promising you the moon, if you just come nearer and pay attention to them.  It is a constant battle for your attention.  Who wins?  The one you pay attention to.

It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.

– Og Mandino

I love to ride the roller coaster.  To watch the performers with the animals.  To see the daring artist high up on the trapeze dancing across the wire.  There are lots of fun and exciting things that we can do in our life.  What we have to decide is are they part of our goals and dreams, or are they just fun distractions that keep us occupied, distracted.  Are they keeping us occupied so that we are not making the changes and transformations that we need to make in order to achieve the life of our dreams?  Are they fun things that we should be saying “no” to?

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

– Bruce Lee

Are we living our life with laser-like focus?  I always think of Bruce Lee when he is in his stance about to engage with someone in battle.  He doesn’t hear the sounds around him.  He doesn’t see the bright shiny objects trying to distract him.  He see’s only one thing – the man in front of him that he’s about to engage in battle with.

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

– Marcel Proust

Remember the movie City Slickers?  Remember Curly, Jack Palance’s character?  I love his famous line –

“Curly : Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly : This.
Mitch : Your finger?
Curly : One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.
Mitch : But, what is the “one thing?”
Curly : [smiles] That’s what *you* have to find out.”

When you are pursuit of the “that one thing”, then the rest of the world fades away.  We don’t see the lights of the passing ships – we are laser focused on that star – that bright shining light in the night sky.  We no longer wander through the circus seeking distractions.  Now we are traveling for fulfillment.  We are seeing the world with new eyes.  New eyes that are open for the first time to the many doors of potential and opportunity that we missed when we were being distracted by the circus.

But I’ll tell you what hermits realize.  If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything 

  – Alan Watts

That is kind of what the movie City Slickers was about – those men had gone asleep to what was important in their lives.  They were living by distraction, not laser-like focus.  The meaning of life can be found in many things if we are awake and looking for it.  It tends to show up when we are out of our normal element.  Going off on a day trip to the mountains, the beach, the desert.  Away from the day to day of our life.  Away from the distractions that follow us around.

Be addicted to your passions, not your distractions.  

  – Unknown

It is when we can get quiet that a connection is possible.  We finally see the truths we have been avoiding with the distractions.  We discover that the thread of destiny in our life, is where the laser-like focus really begins to take shape.  That “thing” that we not so much latch on to, as it latches on to us.  We are pushed, pulled, and prodded until finally we realize that we have no choice – we have to live the life that brings our destiny into fulfillment.

Tomorrow becomes never.  No matter how small the task, take the first step now!

  – Tim Ferriss

If like the character in City Slickers you don’t know what that “one thing” is, go find it.  Go somewhere quiet without any of the normal distractions in your life.  Sit and think about your life.  Dig up all of your old dreams that you abandoned as not being possible when you failed the first time.  Reconnect with your passion, the thing that liberates your energy and your spirit.  The thing that inspires hope in you again.  When you find it, do everything in your power to stay connected.

In life, people tend to wait for the good things to come to them.  And by waiting, they miss out.

  – Neil Strauss

Let the circus roll on by.  Don’t stop for the Carmel Corn or the Hot Dog.  Don’t go on the rides, or play the games, or watch the circus clowns climb in and out of the clown car.  Keep your eyes on the stars, and not the passing ships lights.  Clarity, focus, making things happen.  That’s how you keep your  eyes on your stars.  Ignore the circus as it shouts to you about what it thinks is so important.  Once you understand your own destiny, your secret of life, don’t let that connection go.  Remember that the best view comes after the hardest climb.

Ripples – The Small Changes That Can Have An Enormous Impact

So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.  Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes a universe exist.  Be curious.  And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.  It matters that you don’t just give up.

  – Stephen Hawking

If every morning we wrote out this simple sentence starter “I have no limitations, so I am going to . . . ,” just imagine what you might accomplish in a year.  Everything you do is connected to something.  Every choice you make impacts others.  You just have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

When you make a difference in someone’s life you make ripples. You’re not only impacting their life, but the lives of everyone they touch. Remember – even the smallest drop of water effects the entire pond. One small act of kindness, makes a world of difference.

– KLove

I was reading a book where the writer was talking about having to make 30 sales calls in a day when he was going door to door selling encyclopedia’s.  He in turn used that same concept when he was in business promoting an entertainer.  How he would contact different venues to hire his client.  He said that if you really did 30 calls you would get mostly “no’s”, but you would also by laws of average get some yes’s.  I thought about this concept in regards to failures.  What if we said that for every new thing we tried to learn how to do, we expected to have to try 30 times to be successful?  What if every failure was celebrated to being that much closer to success?

The universe responds to our inner yearnings by mysteriously bringing people into our life to answer our questions and help quell our conflicts.  Every time you follow your intuition, your personal vibration intensifies.  This can be likened to turning up the volume on a stereo.  The more your personal vibration is intensified, the more you will pull people into your life who carry messages for you.  It is a universal law.

  – Denise Linn

What kind of difference would it make in your life, if you viewed failure as the path to success? Not just lip service, repeating a mindless mantra – but truly walking down that path. Can you feel the stones under your feet as you are walking? Can you smell the clean scent of the air after it has rained? Can you feel the warmth of the morning sun as it heats up the day? Are your hands touching the flowers as their fragrance is released by the afternoon breeze? When you are in this space of manifestation, that is when the doors of opportunity start showing up in your life. People come into your life and mysteriously provide you with the exact thing that you need as you are walking down this path. You see a book that answers your questions. You dream about something and then the next day you are walking down the street and there it is.

Always be like water.  Float in the times of pain or dance like waves along the wind which touches its surface.

  – Suntosh Kalwar

Faith is trusting without knowing. When you trust without knowing you make the world alive with possibilities. Creativity comes from curiosity. It is living in the moment. It is not getting overwhelmed by the millions of steps between where you are and where you are going. It is not letting the enormity of your vision scare you into not even starting the journey. Your vision might take you over Niagara Falls in a barrel. It might have you traipsing through the jungle looking for Dr Livingstone. Or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Going into the ocean depths, deeper than anyone has even gone before.

The mind is like water.  When it’s turbulent, it’s difficult to see.  When it’s calm, everything becomes clear.

  – Samreen Zaidi

Our actions have far reaching effects.  The shifts we make in our own personal lives, the transformations and changes we implement successfully ripple out into the world.  We show what is possible.  Our example gives someone else permission to do their own shifts in transformations.  They begin to see how they in turn impact the world.  A few years ago Oprah had a few shows that talked about kindness.  It started with paying for someone’s coffee behind them in line.  There were reports of “random acts of kindness” that ran on for hours because each person in turn would do the same for the person behind them.

Every tidal wave begins with a ripple…, make sure the ripples you create in your life are what you want coming back to you; because eventually…, they will return.

  – Unknown

I love movies that demonstrate this and I think that is why they end up on everyone’s favorite list.  Princess Bride, demonstrates to all of the characters that your actions come back to you. That if you persevere through the hardships it all comes right in the end.  The classic heroes journey of the Star Wars Saga; The Butterfly Effect, how every action creates another and another as we chase after what we want in our life.  How unforeseen reactions alter our journey time and time again.  Groundhog Day, where reliving life over and over finally gets the main character to recognize that he needs to make changes in his own life.

When we focus our energy towards constructing a passionate meaningful life, we are tossing a pebble into the world, creating a beautiful ripple effect of inspiration.  when one person follows a dream, tries something new or takes a daring leap, everyone nearby feels that energy and before too long they are making their own daring leaps and inspiring yet another circle.

– Christine Mason Miller

Each of us in born to express our own inner truth.  When we live a life congruent with that truth, we are part of the larger plan, the grand design.  The more that we seek to expand, to grow into that design, the more we are living out the life God designed for us.  Each of us has an inner compass, and when we are living a life that matches our inner values, then that compass is pointing to true north.  A life of purpose being fulfilled.

I have accepted fear as a part of life – specifically the fear of change . . .  I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says turn back

  – Erica Jong

Take a pen in hand.  Write out this sentence and complete it – If it weren’t so risky I would try ___________________________.  Write this out with five different answers.  Now contemplate this list.  As they said in the old Mission Impossible series on the tape recorder – Your mission should you choose to accept it is . . .  take the first step in making one of those five things happen in your life.  Be a ripple that shifts the world.

Life’s Storms Compose the Music of Our Souls

Keep Going

No Matter how bad things are right now

No Matter how stuck you feel

No Matter how many days you’ve spent crying

No Matter how many days you’ve spent wishing things were different

No Matter how hopeless and depressed you feel

I promise you won’t feel this way forever

Keep Going

I don’t know about you but I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan.  I read the books when I was a kid.  I was excited when the cartoon versions came out in the 70’s and over the moon when the movies were made.  The composer of the music did a fantastic job.  It really moves the emotions inside of you.  I can listen to the music and see in my minds eye the scene as it unfolds.  I know when something bad is happening, when they are triumphant in battle, when someone has died or when hope is being born again – it’s all there.

“There’s a ripple effect of new thoughts. A tidal wave of new feelings. the demons are being tied up and gagged. I’m just not sure how to handle the new. I thought the old was here forever. I don’t recognize that woman in the mirror, she smiles more than I, laughs more than me” – Swedreams12xx

Music frees you in a way that nothing else does.  It encompasses all parts of life.  So it is no surprise that there is music for the storms that hit you in life.  Music for going to war; for peace accords being signed.  Music for giving birth and for saying goodbye to a loved one.  Music to study by, and music to get your groove on.

Music reminds us that there is a time for everything.  A time for it to feel like your soul is being ripped from you body, to be torn apart so that you can come back together in an even more spectacular way.  A time to heal the broken bits into a new whole that is bigger and better than you were before.

“Even now, as broken as you feel, you are still so strong. There’s something to be said for how you hold yourself together and keep moving, even though you feel like shattering. Don’t stop. This is your healing. It doesn’t have to be pretty, or graceful. You just have to keep going.” – Maxwell Diawuoh

In the middle of a storm you can’t control what’s happening, but you can challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what’s happening.  That’s where your power is.  That’s the true meaning of courage.  The quality of your life, your legacy is how long the ripples continue that you made while you lived.

• What kind of music are you composing?
• Are you pushing outside the comfort zone?
• Are you daring yourself to try something just a little bit scary everyday?

When the storm is battering us to bits, it’s important to just breathe.  Don’t lash back out at the storm, it’s ineffectual and doesn’t stop the storm from swamping your boat.  Just breathe.  Breathe deeply in, holding it for a moment.  Then breathe out, holding it for a moment.  Just keep breathing.  Listen for the music of your own wind chimes.  They will remind you that no matter how much it feels like life is beating you, you are creating beautiful music.

“Doing good holds the power to transform us on the inside, and then ripple out in every-expanding circles that positively impact the world at large” – Shari Arison

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t do it alone.  It means that you realize that you aren’t meant to.  When you are in pain and allow others in, it creates connections.  Connections are vital to creating the beautiful music.  Music is filled with bridges that connect the story and flow of the piece.  The harmony of the music is created by bridging together different instruments, different voices.  Sing out your song courageously, and don’t allow the fear to overwhelm your song.

“There are two basic motivating forces, fear and love.  When we are afraid, we pull back from life.  When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.  We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections.  If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.  Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life”  – John Lennon

Your sense of self acceptance is demonstrated by your levels of connections.  The more connections you have, the more self love and self trust you have.  So keep taking deep breaths to settle your emotional responses.  Allow your heart and soul to reconnect to your brain.  Allow yourself to release the fear and take in the love – love of yourself first and foremost, which makes room to love others.

The depth of love you have for yourself and others can be measured by the depth of authenticity that you show up with in your life.  I believe that every day you have miracles show up in your life that you don’t see or don’t acknowledge.  By showing up with gratitude for what life is revealing to you and about you, you can turn rain storms into rain showers.

“Every time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and . . , those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance” – Robert F Kennedy

You have stories worth telling.  When you hold back from telling your story you degenerate the experience it gave you.  This is true both for yourself, and the value it could provide by helping others weather their own storms.  When you present the perfect face to the world; the perfect family, “no problems here” kind of picture, you are not allowing the rain storms to be seen.

You create a false dome of protection from the rain so that it doesn’t appear to fall on you.  You are in effect saying to others that “you don’t get wet”.  You are in denial.  You are contraction mode.  You are not allowing for new growth to happen.

You need to not only allow for the rain, you need to express gratitude:

• For how it clears the air.
• How it waters the plants.
• How it fills the streams, lakes and oceans as part of the natural cycle of life.

In order to create the ripples that change both yourself and others, you need to show up and be seen.  You need to show up fully in your life, allowing for the growth that comes from being watered.  Allow the expansion of creativity in your life.  Contribute from a place of love, which is the birthplace of creativity and change.

“Just as ripple spread out when a single pebble is dropped into the water, the actions of individuals can have far reaching effects” – Dalai Lama

To show up fully, you must never let fears stop you from pursuing your dreams. Don’t let your fears of what might happen, mean that you don’t make ripples happen. Come join us for our next Zoom call. Bring all of those creative “hope” juices to the table and let’s see what we can make.

Create a Ripple of Inspiration and Meaning In Your Life

“No matter how happy someone may seem, they have moments when they question if they can go on.  No matter how confident someone may look, there are times when they feel insecure and unsure.  And no matter how strong someone may appear, they have days when they feel like they’re falling apart.  Never think for a moment you’re alone with your struggles.  You’re not a mess.  You’re human.”  – Lori Deschene

Most of my friends and relatives consider me a very positive person.  Someone who can handle whatever life throws my way.  A person who will look and look until she finds the silver in the silver lining of the cloud.  But there are days when I think that I am not capable of helping myself, let alone others.  There are days when I feel like I am not having a positive impact on anyone.  There are days when I look at everything I am trying to accomplish with my life and wonder why I am bothering – when it feels like I am working so hard and getting nowhere fast.

“To attract loving and connected relationships, we must first embody the love and connection we seek” – Dr. Debra Reble

Those days will happen to you, no matter how strong you think or others think you are.  When they do happen, I have a story that I pull out to remind myself that I am creating ripples, even when I don’t know who those ripples are helping.

A couple of years after my mother had passed away, a friend that used to babysit my kids when they were little and she was a teenager, lost her daughter (a senior in high school) in a bus accident.  She was having a really hard time and we were talking about her loss.  I really don’t remember what I told her, but I know that it had to do with something I had brought out of the loss of my mom on how to deal with grief and heartbreak.

Years later she was at my mother in-laws funeral and she came up to me to thank me for those words.  She remembered them all.  They helped her through the dark tunnel of her grief.  I had no idea that anything I said could be that impactful.  I know that with her own experience, she also was able to give those words to others when they were dealing with overwhelming grief.  What I don’t know is how many ripples those words have made, and how many more they will impact.

To be truly happy, you must have connection in your life.  First the connection must be to you.  To your life purpose.  To personal growth.  To being the best possible you, that you can be.  Self love, self trust, being honest with yourself.  Then connection to friends, family, to a mission, vision or cause is vital to live a life that brings you satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness.

It’s also about the way you think about things that are happening – are they happening “to you” or “for you”?  Do you look for the silver lining?  Do you assign the best possible meanings to what you see and hear around you?  Or does that negative mind talk take over and make you feel unwanted?

• You are a mistake
• All you do is make mistakes
• You know that everyone is judging you

“Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Things may not be perfect but be grateful for the opportunity to experience each day. Live each day like it could be your last” – Joel Osteen

When your only seeing yourself through the lens of your past mistakes, your regrets and failures – you need to remind yourself that you are so much more.  There is a beautiful person hiding inside of you that is vulnerable and afraid.  Fears of not being worthy, not enough.  Fears of being hurt because someone hurt you in the past.  Whenever this beauty seeks to emerge you push it back because fear tells you it isn’t safe.

Think of the caterpillar all wrapped up in the chrysalis.  He has transformed into a beautiful butterfly.  It is time to break open the lining, to unfold the wings to dry, and take flight.  But in fear he keeps grabbing the sides of the lining to try and stay hidden.  It’s a scary world out there.

• What if he is the one butterfly that can’t fly?
• What if he falls out of the chrysalis and goes smashing down on the ground?
• What if a passing bird eats him?

All these fears overwhelm him and he tries to hide himself to keep him safe.  Yet the real danger is in staying hidden.

Just like this butterfly, you might think that you are providing safety, by hiding behind a mountain of buried pain.  It is time to tear down that mountain.  To remove every single brick of the walls that you have built up.  To put down the suitcase of your past failures and disappointments, and walk burden free into your future.  It is time to spread your wings.  It is time to fly into the future you are meant to have.  Yes there will be new failures as you learn to soar.  Remember that you have potential.  That you have gifts that enable you to live a life full of possibilities.  You can make your dreams a reality.  But nothing will happen, until you try.

“Resolutions for the Soul – No more what if’s…, no more wondering what if I tried that, started that, said that, told that person how I really feel, went on that adventure.  No more wondering what if.  Starting now, we do it, try it, step out, start, take the risk, make the leap.  We make a vow to stop living wondering, what if…,?”  – Rob Bell

Quit collecting every painful word that has even been spoken to you or about you.  Quit putting meaning to thoughtless words and actions of both yourself and others.   Since every experience is seen through your minds eye, change your mind and start collecting hope. Start putting the best meaning possible into what you hear. Start viewing your world through the lens of compassion, both for yourself and for others.

When you focus on leading a creative, positive, inspirational life fear is going to raise it’s head.  Fear is always triggered when you pursue change.  Change is growth and growth is something to be happy about.  Do you remember as a child standing against the wall and measuring how tall you were?  How you would measure yourself against your friends and family members who were taller than you to see if you had grown to the same height or gotten taller?  You couldn’t wait to grow.  Instill that same feeling into your own personal growth.  Fear hates it when it doesn’t know for absolutely positively how something is going to turn out.  Uncertainty is something that fear can’t stand.  But you can change your relationship with both fear and uncertainty.

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self acceptance”  – Brene Brown,  PHD, LMSW

Never let fears stop you from pursuing your dreams. Don’t let your fears of what might happen, mean that you don’t make anything happen. Come join us for our next Zoom call. Bring all of those creative “hope” juices to the table and let’s see what we can make.

Imagination Takes Me Everywhere

Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere.

  – Albert Einstein

Imagination is directly or indirectly where our expectations of life originate.  We take a goal and make a plan.  We see into the future possibilities.  We attach meaning and purpose to a particular way we “see” the goal being accomplished.  Imagination is how we come up with the plans in the first place.  It is what enables us to make anything possible, anything happen.

The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere.

  – Terence McKenna

One of the danger signs on the road of our imagination is that we project meaning into everything that happens.  Now if we are projecting good, positive meanings to what is happening, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  However, many times what we are projecting is suffering into what is happening.  If someone sent you a text message that said, “boy, what a day I am having”.  What’s the first thought that comes into your head?  Without the emotion in the voice or cues from body language, where does your mind go first – to something great is happening in their day or something horrible is happening to their day?

Reality is something you rise above.

  – Liza Minnelli

We need to constantly ask ourselves, what am I busy painting onto the canvas of my imagination?  There are no rules to what I decide to paint.  If I think that I can only be successful if my view of my current reality is matching to what I imagined my life would look like, then I am going to be doomed to disappointment.  How many times have I whined in my head, “but this isn’t how it’s supposed to be?”  How can I rise above what I perceive to be my reality, to what I am trying to create in my life?

Imagination is the most marvelous, miraculous, inconceivably powerful force the world has ever known.

  – Napoleon Hill

Imagination is what leads to creation.  Think of all of the great science fiction writers and their imaginations.  Deep sea diving, submarines with Jules Verne.  Star Trek and their recorders to our cell phones.  Isaac Asimov and self driving cars and the stun gun (taser).  H.G. Wells and atomic power.  We are so close to being able to print and replace body parts, organ transplants, tricorders for medical diagnosis.  To travel to the stars and go beyond our galaxy.  All things that have happened and will happen in our futures, because someones imagination said, “what if . . , “.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

  – Albert Einstein

Imagination is what you need to see that although there may be problems in your life that need to be solved, they are also realities to be lived through.  It is the meaning I give to my life that enables me to perceive that I am successful, that I am happy.  How I perceive my life to be, is the reality I am creating for myself.  The meaning comes from my feelings about what is happening.  I can get lost in the maze of what it should be.  I can also choose to see life as it truly is and acknowledge that most of the times when I have really grown have been when I was in the middle of some sort of failure.  Taking the risk of failing, is really taking the risk that the growth that comes out of that failure is worth the cost of failing.

The world is a canvas for your imagination.  You are the painter.  There are no rules.  Get to work.

  – Fearlessmotivation.com

There is a beach collage in the movie “The Man of the House” which the mom Sandy, (played by Farrah Fawcett) adds to every time she goes to the beach with the family.  All through the movie she is adding a piece to it, until finally she sets a final piece in it and declares it is done.   It is highly likely that this collage in her head when she first imagined it and what she actually created are not the same.  But who makes the rule that it has to be the same?  We do.  We are the ones painting on our canvas.  We decide what stays there and what gets scraped off and repainted with something new.  The rules are created by us and we can change them.  Our imagination can reshape the rules, can reshape what is on the canvas, can reshape anything to mirror what we desire to achieve in our life.  My perception of my life is what makes up the reality of my life.

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

  – John Muir

So what am I focusing on?  Is it something that brings my imagination into reality?  Because if my reality and my imagination are not even close to being the same, then I need to refocus to make it so.  It’s funny how sometimes the way to make that adjustment is to learn to lose how I thought it had to be, in order to find out a better way to live it.  It’s a matter of holding onto the vision that imagination has created and trusting the process of trying, failing, learning and trying again.

Live out your imagination, not your history.

  – Stephen R. Covey

Raise your eyes to see the possibilities everywhere around you.  They are always there.  An endless hallway filled with doors waiting for you to step through.  As you go through a new door, remember – nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood.  To be perceived in such a way that it creates the reality that you are searching for.  So don’t just sit there.  Get up and get busy!

Follow Your Dreams, They Know The Way

Revised 2/01/2019

“Consult not your fears, but your hopes and dreams.  Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.  Concern yourself not with what you have tried and failed in, but with what is still possible to do” – Pope John XXIII

Everyone has dreams.  How many times have you said the words, “I thought of that idea, but didn’t know how to accomplish it” – or “that could have been me being rich and famous, I thought of that idea years ago”?  I believe that the universe downloads great ideas to many, because most of us will never chase the dream into a reality.

When you are a dream chaser you realize that the person who you are, has just been constructed out of the myths you have told yourself since you were a child.  That this person who was created out of ideas, beliefs and images – is not really who you are.

Those myths don’t define you, and they are not who you are deep inside your soul.  The dream is your soul’s way of clearing out all of the things that no longer serve you.  It draws out of the center of our soul, who we really are.

“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground” – Wilfred Peterson

When you decide to become a dream chaser, it changes your life forever.  This is because this decision means that you have decided to become someone different than you have been.  You realize that in order to bring your dream into reality, you have to become who the dream is calling you to be.

• Someone who is brave enough to follow her own wild and crazy ideas.
• Someone who has the courage to put as much effort into doubting the fears that come up, as you put into doubting your dreams.
• Someone who puts her visions of what is possible onto the world stage.

You realize as a dream chaser,

that your dreams are a verb.

This means that action needs to take place.

You need to serenade your dreams.  Ranging from a simple love ballad to the romantic symphony.  Music that reflects the intensity of your love of the dream you are chasing.  You bleed the words of your soul’s poetry onto the page of your dreams.  You spill out your heart’s desires, creating a flood of emotions.  You float across the dance floor of your dreams, stamping your feet with the intensity of the Paso Doble.  You paint out your dreams in swirls across the canvas, blending in the colors of your life as you paint it into existence.  As the conductor of the orchestra, with the baton leading the intensity of the music, you create a tapestry of tones and colors across the mind.

“Dreams are valuable commodities.  They propel us forward.  They give us energy” – John C. Maxwell

All of this art creates the souls wishes from deep inside of you, out onto the world stage.  The distance between your dream and reality is bridged by action.  Small steps become long distances, when you just keep walking.

Remember the joy of the babies first step?  You would hold out your hands and walk backwards one step, to encourage them to take another step.  The next thing you know they are running across the room, the yard, and the world.  Small steps become long distances, when you just keep walking towards the souls wishes.

What is most needed at this moment, is for all of us to let lose our passions and come alive.  Come alive and go out and do what you see needs to be done.  Don’t wait for someone else to solve your problems, or your neighborhoods problems or the world’s problems.  Come alive and do something.  Join an organization to help others; get involved in volunteering, in politics, in raising your hand and saying, “I can do that”.

Refuse to let the fears and nightmares of other people’s lives distort your dreams.  Don’t apologize for having dreams.  Don’t stop chasing them because others don’t want you to try to bring them into reality.

• Realize that chasing your dreams is hard work.
• Realize that chasing your dreams will change your life
• Realize that chasing your dreams will impact the life of every person you know.

Once you’ve started chasing your dreams, your spirit won’t let you stop because your dreams excite your spirit.  You develop a deep hunger that can’t be satisfied in any other way.  It is your road, your dreams, your life.

Don’t follow your dreams; chase them . . .  – Kunal Patel

Dreams are all about transforming.  When you listen to your soul’s voice, you see your dreams play out in your imagination.  Your imagination is the illustrator to the book that your soul has written out on your heart.  It is up to you to read the blueprint designs and go out into the world and build them into reality.

Negative people are like termites.  If you let them into your dreams, they will destroy what you are building.  Don’t let them get in even a first bite.  You are far too smart, to let the negativity of your own mind or that of others stand in your way.

Remember that God put that dream into your heart.  He whispers to your soul what the next step is to bring it into reality.  You just need to listen, believe and go out and do what you can do.  God will make sure the right doors open, but you have to step through them.

What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose? Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them? Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you? Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

Stand In The Light to Be Seen As You Are

Updated 11/24/2021

You are probably like me, and you want to be liked and accepted.  This internal need that you have to be loved, sometimes causes you to put on a mask of who you think that someone wants you to be.  The perfect little girl.  The shy teenager.  The princess, the joker or the nerd.  The smile pasted on your face, that life is wonderful, when inside you are screaming in frustration.

You can see this for example when you go back home for the holidays.  You fall into the childhood role or character you have for your family, even if it no longer fits.

“Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world.  Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form.  Risk being seen in all of your glory” –  Jim Carey

It is hard to show up without any masks, but it is vitally important for you to be true to who you are.  These masks are the cause of so much unhappiness.  You meet someone you like, but if you are both wearing masks, then neither of you is communicating who you really are.  So you fall in love with the mask, and not the person.  You communicate to the mask, and what the person deep inside is trying to say never gets heard.  You create so much drama and trauma to yourself and others that way.

If you just say what you really mean, life gets so much easier.  The truth is that you may not be who you want to be yet.  But you have come a long way from where you used to be.

It takes great courage to be vulnerable enough to remove the mask.  It takes great courage to stick to your values and not allow others to sway you into actions you don’t want to take.  It takes great courage to trust others with who you are at a soul level.  It takes great courage to be persistent enough to keep removing the masks.  So continue remove mask after mask.  Burn them up, so that who you show up as the real you.

Embrace your imperfections.  Be authentic.

“Loving ourselves through the process of owning our story is the bravest thing we’ll ever do”  – Brene’ Brown

What I loved about the main photo for this blog, is that they people in it are being crazy. They are playing at being stupid, silly and weird.  But when you look at each face you see that they are also having fun.  How many times do you catch your face in the mirror or a reflection on a window and see that kind of happy expression on your face?  On others faces that you love?

You need to be who you are and find those happy faces more often.  When you let the world’s conflicts and tragedy’s be the things you focus on, you lose that happiness.  The news focuses on hyping the negative, and giving you very little of the positive things that happen every day.

• Every day a new mom and dad have this miracle of a new baby come into their lives and change them forever.
• Every day a child does something wonderful, like riding a bike for the first time, or winning a race, or making a home run.  And they celebrate with their loved ones what they achieved.
• Every day a police man or a fire man or the driver of an ambulance saves a loved ones life, and they celebrate they have another day with their loved ones.
• Every day someone is doing something wonderful, brave, heroic, and we lose sight the of the miracles of life.

You need to celebrate all of the wonderful things that happen in your life and the lives of those you love.  Don’t let those who are still sleep walking through their lives stand in the way of your awakening.

Closing with this quote, because “I see you” needs to be something that happens to you and you need to see others.

You need to stop being invisible.  You need to let those who are trying to become a better person, know that you see them as a human being deserving of love and respect.

You don’t have to agree with everything that they have done in their life, to still give them love and respect.  How many people in nursing homes, living in the street, eating their lunch alone in the café – how many people do you pass by that are not being seen?  How many just need a hug, and someone to say, I See You?  I SEE YOU!

Scars Tell The Best Stories, And You Are Brave, Wise and Strong Enough To Tell Them

Updated 1/28/2019

“You are capable of far more than you know.  Don’t be afraid to unleash your greatness” – Unknown

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not” – Unknown

Can you think of at least one dream,

that you have put on the “someday” list?

“Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve” – J.K. Rowling

“When life gives you something that makes you feel afraid, that’s when life gives you a chance to be brave” – Lupytha Marmin

“There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current.  And wouldn’t you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become.  This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers.  Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day” – Jodie Foster

• The next step happened when Facebook took away the word limit and what I wrote grew a little longer.
• The next step was when I created this LemonadeMaker page. 
• The next step was when I started creating my quotes on a photo to create these memes.
• The next step was when I expanded the writing into a full blog. 

I started believing in myself,

because you helped me

to build the confidence to believe in myself

“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God” – Leo Buscaglia

“Don’t be the reason someone feels insecure. Be the reason someone feels seen, heard, and supported by the whole universe” – Cleo Wade

Overcome Fear, Behold Wonder!

Updated 12/27/2018

There comes a time when the desire for transformation demands action.  Never let your fears be the deciding factor, of taking that action.

“Obstacles are like wild animals.  They are cowards, but they will bluff you if they can.  If they see you are afraid of them, they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight”  – Orison Swett Marsden

Action is required when the change comes from within you.  When you are facing the choice to enter through the gates of greatness, it is an internal change that is initiated by your desire to live a fully engaged life.  This change requires of you, just a touch of insanity because it means that you will no longer live a life of conformity.  It requires from you that you recognize and let go of beliefs that no longer serve you.  You begin by setting intentions and making conscious designs of how you want to change your life.  Something new is birthed into existence when this happens.  Like the caterpillar you emerge from the chrysalis a new creation.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing”  – Theodore Roosevelt

There comes a time when the caterpillar has to make the chrysalis.  He has to overcome the fear of what is going to happen when he closes it off with himself all wrapped up inside of it.  He has to let go of the fear of how will he be able to breathe?  How will he eat?  What happens if it something goes wrong?  How will he get out?

“It is when I struggle that I strengthen.  It is when I am challenged to my core, that I learn the depth of who I am” –   Dr. Steve Marboli

It is the struggle of the transformed butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis, that the wings become fully functional.  If you “help” it to escape, it will deform the wings and it will never be able to fly.

“Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid.  Having courage and showing courage means we face our fears.  We are able to say, “I have fallen, but I will get up”  – Maya Angelou

There is an analogy that tells of how an arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward.  When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something great.  So just focus, and keep your aim true.  I have always loved this story, because it is by the action of pulling back the arrow that it launches you through the gates of greatness.  It is such a great analogy of understanding that struggle is part of advancement.

“Fear, to a great extent is born of a story that we tell ourselves”  – Cheryl Strayed

I don’t know how many of you remember back to the late 70’s, but there was a gas crisis. We had lines around the block to get gas, and you could only get it on even or odd days depending on your license plate number.  It was around this time that all but two states, decided that we had to pump our own gas, it was all self service.

Now I had never had to pump gas.  I told myself this big fear story about how I was going to do it wrong, blow up the service station or something equally horrible.  For quite a while I got away with leaving my husband with the almost empty tank, until one day it happened.  The tank was on empty and I had to pump my own gas.  Well as you can guess it was simple and easy.  I didn’t pour gas all over the station, I didn’t implode, nothing caught on fire.  I laughed about my fears when I drove away – it was just a made up story, by my fear of the unknown.

“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life:  Overcome fear, behold wonder”  – Richard Bach

That is what I learned from that experience.  99% of your fears are just like mine.  They are a story of “what if’s”. What if this or that happens.  And they are just as silly as mine was.  Fear isn’t meant to shut you down – it is meant to wake you up to wonder.  I had let this fear limit how far I could drive.  I had let it stop me from filling up my car with gas.  I have always pulled that memory out when fears start getting in my way.  Fear was making me a prisoner, and overcoming that fear set me free. Behold wonder!

“You gain strength and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You must do the thing you think you cannot do”  – Eleanor Roosevelt

Free to go have adventures, to embrace transformation and change in your life. To take actions, which is to take risks.  Risk is always present when you are doing something that you don’t know how to do.  This is what bravery and courage is, not the absence of fear, but the ability to push through the fear and by taking action, to do it anyway.  There is nothing more liberating that doing something you didn’t think that you could do.  No matter how simple or easy it actually turns out to be.

“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will”  –  W. Clement Stone

It is the actions that move you forward. Actions say who you are, whereas the words, or talking about something, simply say who you want to be.  What you have to remember is that your lives are a message to all of those around you.  They see the actions that you take, how you go forward in the world, and that is how they see you.

Think of the iconic movie characters.  Rocky who fights against the odds and wins.  Indiana Jones who will find the treasure, then have to fight the bad guys and win against impossible odds.  John Wayne; The Lone Ranger; Darth Vader; Luke Skywalker; Bilbo Baggins; Gandalf; the Mandalorian; James T Kirk; Khan – when you say the names, you see the characters that they represent.  The reputations that the characters earned, by the actions that they each took – both good and bad.  Each one has a message to the world.  They have become archetypes of certain attributes.  Each name invokes a certain feeling in you.

“Adversity introduces a man to himself” –  Albert Einstein

Think about Luke Skywalker and how when he was training with Yoda and entered the cave. He asked what he would find inside and Yoda said, “whatever you take in with you”.  He took into the cave his fears of Darth Vader, but what did he see when he took the mask off of Darth Vader?  His own face.  His own fears that he would become what he hated.  That somehow he would fail and become evil too.  That is the story of his fear.  When he faced that fear, he saved not only himself, but also his father Darth Vader.  He inspired his father to change back from his evil ways.

“Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival”  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Your souls dreams lead you into transformation.  This transformation requires that you change.  Change requires that you initiate some sort of action to make everything happen.  When you are inspired by your purpose to seek change and transformation, your mind transcends the limitations or bonds that have kept you prisoner, held in place.  The whole world opens up to you.  You see things that you missed, because of the blinders your fear had in place.

“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to help you grow”  – Caroline Myss

Your talents and gifts come alive and expand to fill in the void created by facing your fears.  These gifts are that which is needed for transformation.  The caterpillar builds the chrysalis.  Then the divine takes over, as the caterpillar physically changes into the butterfly. The action of the caterpillar has to happen first.  So it is for us.

“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 Tumino

You feel the need to transform.  You take the needed action to start the process.  Then you transcend your limitations.  Your gifts come alive and you begin to see the divine purpose you have in being  here.  You discover that you are a greater person than you ever dreamed you could be.

Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside of you that the world is waiting for.  That the gifts you have been given are required in this time and place.  That these gifts can help you to overcome any obstacle.  Life has a habit of pulling out of you what is needed.  So don’t just dream about the life you wish you had.  Go out and make that life real.  Let your faith be bigger than your fears.

“What you fear will  not go away by constantly thinking about it.  It will go away when you see it for exactly what it is”  – Unknown

Just remember how silly I was to let the fear of pumping gas stop me from having adventures by limiting how far I could travel.  Every time you face a fear, you can laugh with me at how silly we are to let fear stop us for even 5 minutes.