Seize The Opportunities, Make Life Happen For You, Not To You

 It is our attitude about the “opportunities” that can enlighten us, or limit us.  When we approach what we see with an open mind, what we often find is that we make exciting new discoveries.  Sometimes we might feel that we are in a good place.  That the risk of something greater means you leave behind something good enough.  If we are not willing to take the risks, we will fall short of what we are capable of.  Taking risks is how we learn something new.  The woman in this picture is obviously taking a huge risk.  I would venture to guess that she is about to experience a huge growth spurt.

Opportunity often comes in disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

  –  Napoleon Hill

She appears to be in the middle of the ocean, with sharks swimming around her.  No oars or sails for the boat can be seen.  No engine to move the boat and herself out of danger.  No life jacket, no weapons to fight off the sharks.  Just an evening dress and an umbrella. Whatever she started with, whatever her plans were, everything seems to have failed her.  It would appear that she was willing to risk the “usual” for the unusual.  That she was tired of the “ordinary” and went far outside the box of the comfort zone.

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.  Failure is delay, not defeat.  It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.

  –  Denis Waitley

When you look at her though, you don’t see any signs of defeat.  She appears to be looking around her, taking stock of the situation.  She doesn’t appear to have the body language of defeat, but rather someone who is looking for an opportunity to be successful in her journey, to arrive at the destination she left the shore for.  This experience is going to be a great story one day.  This reminds me of a situation for a McGyver T.V. show, the situation appears hopeless, but she doesn’t.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis”.  One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.  In a crisis, be aware of the danger, but recognize the opportunity.

  –  John F Kennedy

What she is, is ready for whatever opportunity presents itself.  You can see her looking around, not at the sharks, but what is further off in the distance.  Sometimes we need to seize the opportunity, no matter what the risk.  Sometimes in getting lost to make your dreams come true, you find a better dream than you started with.  She is on an amazing journey with no one to rely on but herself and her faith that everything will turn out right.  If it is never needed, it won’t be called.  Sometimes the journey has to be travelled alone in order to bring up the strengths that lie deep within us. 

When one door closes another opens.  But often we look so long, so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.

  –  Helen Keller

Looking backwards, blaming others or ourselves does not create the momentum that is needed for change. 

A Wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

  –  Francis Bacon

It is up to her, just like it is up to us, to keep looking forward, for something that can be used to our advantage.  Even though the odds do not appear to be in her favor, it is important that she keep a positive attitude and keep looking for where opportunity is hiding.  It is her forward looking vision that is going to find what she needs to be successful.

Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.

  –  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

It is when we are in the most challenging times, that we discover what we are made off.  We discover the power within us.  Power that we didn’t know, or dare to believe that we have.  This is the part of us that realizes sometimes failure is just not going to work for us, because what we are facing is way beyond that door.  It is finding that brave person hidden deep inside of us, that person that says, screw this.  That person who kicks the lock off the door, rips it open, and says here I am, so what are you going to do about it? 

There is no such thing as failure, there’s just giving up too soon.

  – Jonas Salk

Opportunity is everywhere.  The ocean constantly changes.  The winds of change both blow and calm the seas.  When we lose sight of our dreams, we just need to wait for the clouds to blow away, and let the moonlight reveal what we have been looking for.  We just need to adjust our vision to see it.  What we can’t see, is what she sees off in the distance.  She is looking forward.  She can see that just beyond her current reach, is a new opportunity to reach her destination.

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Don’t Wait, Do It Now

Hopefully I am not the only one that this happens to.  On my commute to work and back to home, my brain is so busy detailing everything I have to do – both at work and at home.  The minute I step into my office or my home, that list magically hides itself.  I forgot most of what I have to do, being busy doing so many other things.  Then the minute my head hits the pillow, the list reappears as a list of everything that I didn’t get done.  Does anyone else go through this?

Why is taking action so hard?  We have these dreams, passions around our life.  The space between a dream and reality is where all of the action has to take place.  We want whatever the dream is.  We talk about it all of the time.  “Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action.  Take the actions and your feelings will change”  Barbara Baron. 

We tend to put off the hard parts.  The parts where we aren’t sure what to do.  I do it everyday.  Put off the conversation I don’t want to have with a friend, relative or co-worker.  Put off studying for a test because I am afraid of failing it.  Not asking for what I want, because what if they say no?  I am sure that this list could go on forever.  The key is to just take a first step, then one more.  Don’t look at the whole mountain that needs to be climbed, just look at the next few steps.

I always think about physical workouts here.  If you are on a treadmill, and your goal is five miles.  You start to get worn out and out of breath on mile three.  Those next two miles seems like impossible.  Seems like forever.  Seems like Mount Everest.  Seems like you can’t do it.  But here is where a little stubbornness comes in handy.  You just tell yourself five more minutes, and you take the next step and the next step, and before you know it, that fifth mile is done.  Be proud of every next step, not just the one that puts you over the goal.

“We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  Aristotle.  It is important that these lists are not just a grocery list or a laundry list.  Things that take up time and space, but are not really taking a step.  That is the first step of procrastination.  What I call the shiny object or squirrel.  Have you seen the cartoon, where the dog is doing or saying something, then shouts squirrel and takes off right in the middle of it?  That is a squirrel.  I come into my office to write this blog post.  Then I see some mail that I forgot to take care of yesterday and so I do that.  Then an email comes in, so I read that.  Then I think of something I wanted to research and I do that.  Two hours later, I haven’t written a single word of the post I came in to write.  That is chasing the squirrel.  I didn’t really take a single step toward writing that post, and now my time is gone.

The best that we can do is to promise ourselves to be better and do better.  The best that we can do is to keep trying, putting one foot in front of the other.  To ask ourselves, what is the most important thing I can do right this moment to take that next step, and then just take it.  Don’t wait for permission.  Don’t wait for the perfect moment.  Don’t wait for anything, just take that next step.  We might fall down.  We might get hurt or do what we later judge to be the wrong thing.  It doesn’t in the big picture matter.  What matters is that we took what we saw to be the next step.  The funny thing about life, is that those steps that we judged to be wrong, are usually the steps that give us what we need for a future step.  So that, in the long run, none of the steps were really wrong.

“I promise myself,

To be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.

To make all my friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To give so much time to improving myself that I have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of myself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, but in great deeds.

To live in the faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me”

Christian D. Larson

Perspective Is A Powerful Gift

” If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it” ~Mary Engelbreit

It is really all about the words and the meanings that you assign to them. That is because words tell the story, and the story is what is perceived to be the truth. When in fact the truth is always just your perspective, “your” side of the story.

The only way to have the “whole truth”, is to be able to tell the story from multiple points of view. The marriage of those points of view is probably the closest that you can ever come to the “whole truth”. 

Does your story say that roses have thorns, or that thorns have roses?  It all depends on your perspective.  Both statements are true, even though it might seem contradictory.

“We don’t see things are they are.  We see them as we are” – Anis Nin

Perspective is from Latin perspectus “clearly perceived,” and is a way of regarding situations, facts, etc… and judging their relative importance.  It is something that changes in our lives as your lives change.  The perspective you have about something gets altered by life, by your own changes.  It gets altered by time. 

Have you ever had something happen to you, that at the time you viewed as the end of your world?  Something that you defined as “the worst day of your life”.  Then as the occurrence plays out over time, you do a 180-degree shift on your interpretation of the event. 

Say that you have planned the ultimate vacation, going on a cruise ship across the ocean.  Then at the last second you couldn’t go.  You are devastated. 

What if your once in a lifetime vacation was on the Titanic?  Now, whatever happened to keep you from your vacation possibly saved your life.  Now it might have shifted from the worst day.  It might now be the luckiest day.

“What you see depends not only on what you look at, but also, on where you look from” – James Deacon

You have this habit of judging yourself and others by how you respond to things in life.  You have this idea that emotions have some sort of timetable to them.  That things such as a death in the family should have a mourning time of no more than one year.  A job loss, a week or two.  A divorce should be over in six months.  And so on.  If you process it quicker, you must not have depth of feelings.  Longer, then you need to learn to let it go.  These are all just arbitrary perspectives.

I was reading a story about a mom that had lost her daughter to sudden infant death syndrome.  She was currently working with her third therapist in seven months.  She wanted to know what was wrong with her, that even though she was wearing a mask to the outside world that she was moving on in her life, she felt that she must be doing the “grief” wrong because inside she was still hurting so much.

The therapist used words that transformed how she was viewing her grief. She said you are just very sad.  The depth of your sadness is simply a measure of how much you loved your daughter.

This viewpoint of “how deeply she loved her daughter” allowed her to express the overwhelming grief, instead of bottling it all up because “seven months” had passed.  In fact, it was the bottling it up, that was not allowing the emotions to pass through.

“You have the capability to change your life all with a simple shift in perspective” – Demi Lovato

You shouldn’t be embarrassed or ashamed of expressing your genuine feelings.   Stories allow you the space to heal the pain.  Once you have healed the pain, perspective helps you to stop being a victim.

Life isn’t always fair, and no one should lose a child, no matter their age. But it happens.  Sometimes the best thing you can do, is to not obsess about how things are.  Instead take a deep breath in faith, that everything will work itself out for the best.

“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for” – To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Every day if you look for it, you can see evidence of injustice happening all over the world. It is easy to get lost in the emotions created when it happens to you or to someone you love. You see evidence of it in the news, when the world erupts in moral outrage over terrorists’ bombings, the use of a truck to run down crowds of people, or the kidnapping of the schoolgirls in Nigeria. 

Between 276 – 329 girls were kidnapped (depending on news sources) in 2014 and even though many years have passed and some of them have been released, many are still missing.  Yet the world went largely silent two years later.

You have large and small things that happen to you personally.  Your friends and family can negatively impact on your life. But hidden in the heartache and challenges are golden nuggets that are the gift of the trials and tribulations that you experience. It is all about perspective. 

It is about not only what you look at with the experience, but also where you are looking from, a point of view. Every experience has something to offer you. When my nephew was murdered, and my sister’s nonprofit that she started failed, that could have been the end of it.

But I didn’t want that to be the end of my nephew’s story. So, I created LemonadeMakers.  I want to help the small community nonprofits be more successful. I want to help encourage people to use transformation to make positive changes in their lives.  I use my writing to do this, and I am constantly looking for ways to take it one more step.

I believe with all of my heart that this is what my life has been leading me to. To this moment, to create this business to help everyone who wants to make a difference in their lives and in the world to do so.  Out of the pain of injustice, loss, and deep mourning came something good.

“My desire is to stand by the fire that burns inside of you” –Martina McBride

The smallest change in perspective can change a life. See life with new eyes and look for the gift. Pull out the telescope (big picture) or binoculars (detailed picture) and peer deep inside yourself. Dig deep and find the gold of the experience. Change the story and realize just how blessed you are.  Do your roses have thorns, or your thorns have roses?   Do you see weeds or wishes? 

“Don’t think that you’ve lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is the right time” – Asha Tyson

Now is the right time to let go of what can’t be changed and live the life that the divine has put before us, with happiness, gratitude and grace. 

Serenity Prayer For Laughter

“Through humor you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers.  And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be you can survive it.”  Unknown.  Humor is definitely a survival tool.  But it can also be a thriving tool.  I love finding the humor of a situation.

20+ years ago, my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  A nine centimeter tumor was attached to one lung, wrapped around her main aorta and attached to the other lung.  No operations could help her.  The radiation was able to slow it down, and buy her one year.  The last two and one-half months, my aunt, her best friend and myself formed a team of taking care of her 24/7 because she had become bedridden.  We are a funny bunch and so we found these t-shirts at the Hallmark store and wore them all of the time.  Our reason was to break up the tension that would form when our friends and relative came by to visit and basically pay their last respects. 

When they would visit they never knew what to say, so they would ask her how she was doing.  She was dying of cancer, how do you answer that question?  My mom didn’t want to talk about her pain, as she didn’t want to bring the energy down.  She wanted to share fun memories, and find something to laugh about.  So that is what we did, we found the humor in dying of lung cancer.  I am sure that some thought that we were strange, but what it did was to give me a wonderful gift.  I had the privilege of making my mom happy, right up to the end.  I discovered the true meaning of finding the gold in any situation.  I really was fine.

Every time you find humor in a situation, you win at life.  Reality has unintended humor laced throughout it.  It is up to us to find the thread and pull it.  “I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.”  Frank A Clark.  Life is really made up of small things, tiny moments.  That was my big discovery in taking care of my mom.  Those tiny moments can be saved.  Then you pull them out when you need them.  A touch, a smile, laughter.  Laughter that is so hard that it actually hurts your stomach.  The kind of memories that even now you giggle over.

Think of those movies that make you laugh.  Martin Short in Pure Luck.  The Pink Panther movies.  T.V shows like Fawlty Towers with John Cleese.  The kind of shows that you have watched so many times, that you start laughing before the scene actually starts.  Don Knotts and Tim Conway in any movie they made.  The Carol Burnett Show.  These are all my list.  What’s on yours?

So  my encouragement to everyone is to look for the humor, laugh at life.  Laugh at yourself.  Experience life as it is meant to be lived.  Write your own story like Martin Short, Bill Murray, or Steve Martin is going to be producing and acting in your life as a movie.  Live your life like it is your favorite story from childhood – the one that you read over and over again.  I have read The Lord of The Rings series so many times.  I am riding across the plains with Gandalf, fighting the battles and winning the victory.  I mourn the losses and I get right back on the horse to ride forth again and again.  It is the journey that tells me who I am and who I am becoming.

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

“Your life is your life

Don’t let it be clubbed into dark submission

Be on the watch

There are ways out

There is a light somewhere

It may not be much light but

It beats the darkness

Be on the watch

The gods will offer you chances

Know them

Take them

You can’t beat death but

You can beat death in life.  Sometimes

And the more often you learn to do it

The more light there will be

Your life is your life

Know it while you have it

Your are marvelous

The gods wait to delight

In you” 

In closing, I invite you to check out our free 2017 LemonadeMakers calendar.  Just click home on this webpage and you will see our free offer.  It is made up of our audiences favorite graphics from our blog posts.  Have a Happy Holiday and wishing all of your an Amazing New Year. 

Celebrate Life – Life Gets Better With Change, Not Chance

Once upon a time, there was a wicked stepmother who tried to poison her stepdaughter with a poisoned apple. She was afraid of what Snow White was becoming.

Life is full of surprises.  Not all these surprises are pleasant, so you need to be ready for what life brings you.

  – Unknown

Deep inside of us is a protector that is afraid of us changing. Like the wicked stepmother, this protector uses fear to try and manipulate us into remaining the same. When Snow White took a bite of the apple, it put her into a deep sleep like state. Everyone thought she was dead. But she wasn’t. She was frozen in time, so that she couldn’t change.

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid.  Courage means you don’t let fear stop you.

  – Bethany Hamilton

Have you ever felt like that? So afraid of change, that you are frozen in time? Too many choices so you can’t make one? Or maybe you feel that there are no choices? 

What if I told you that 10 years from now, your life would be exactly the same?  I doubt you’d be happy.  So, why are you so afraid of change?

  –  Karen Salmansohn

Are you hiding under the bed because it suddenly occurred to you, that the monster under the bed was you? What if everything you are hiding from is just “all in your head”?  Change will not come about by waiting for some outside, unseen force to step in and make everything perfect.  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek.  We are the only ones who can create the change we so long for. 

The fears we don’t face become our  limits.

  – Robin Sharma

I am a big Sci-Fi fan and one of my favorite lines from the movie “Dune” is:

Fear is the mind-killer. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

  – Frank Herbert, Dune

Everything we want is on the other side of what fear is making us believe. It is all an illusion, and if we can let it pass through us and out the other side, we see the truth. It isn’t real. Only you are real.  Never be afraid to be someone new.  To try something new.  When we are bored, it is because we are staying within the limits of what we already know.  Break out of those limits. 

Only you know when you are giving maximum effort towards your goals.  Only you know who you really are, and if you truly believe in yourself.

  – Nav-Vii

That doesn’t mean that sometimes the truth behind the illusion won’t be hard to deal with. There are things in our past that we have buried, and when fear digs them up, we need to shine the light of truth on them. What we need to realize however, is that it is all buried treasure. It may be disguised as worthless junk. It might be tarnished, covered in dust and cobwebs, but if we clean it up, we can see it for what it really is.

May we ever choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong.

  – Thomas S. Monson

Our child’s mind didn’t understand the value it has. It only felt the hurt upon receiving it, and so it was buried deep. But when fear sees us moving to change, it grabs those forgotten things we buried, and brings them up out of the dungeon to scare us back into submission. When we confront what fear brings us, and shine it up, we can see what the treasure really is. The illusion fades and only we remain.

Fear is an opportunity.  It is a fuel for courage to transform us into a finer human being.

  – Unknown

And that is when the real adventure begins. Once upon a time, . . .  I remembered that limits only exist in my mind.  Like Luke Skywalker I gathered my courage and went into the cave to face my biggest fear.  And like Luke, I discovered it was me.  I was afraid of being who I am.  I was afraid of what my full potential would require of me.  All of my life, I have been the responsible one.  The one that everyone turns to when they have a problem.  The one who can handle anything.  This gave me a feeling of worth and value. 

Our true identity is to love without fear and insecurity.  Our higher potential finds us when we set our course in that direction.  The power of love and compassion transforms insecurity.

  – Doc Childre

What the cave showed me is that I was using this as a cover.  It kept me busy.  It made me look good.  But it wasn’t growing me.  I came to the realization that while I was doing “good”, I could do better by living my true purpose in life.  By using the divine gifts I could write about myself, about the things I had experienced, about the things I had seen, and the things I had studied about for years.  To encourage not just my own personal circle of family and friends, but to gather a worldwide community through LemonadeMakers.

The key to change . . .  is to let go of fear.

  – Rosanne Cash

I had allowed the wicked stepmother to put me to sleep, but now I had to wake up.  Now I had to help others to wake up.  To help them discover for themselves what they have hidden in the cave.  To discover their own life purpose and divine gifts.  To help see that what they have been looking for is within them.  I can’t tell you what it is, but I can help you to ask the right questions, to help you get curious and set out on your own personal transformation journey.  I can applaud when you find it and walk on your true life path for your souls journey.  Cheering you on for letting go of fear and setting yourself free to be who you really are.

I alone cannot change society for the better.  But I can radically transform my own Consciousness, overturning the conditioning that limits my potential.  We can all do this, one by one.  Over time we can change ourselves to the degree that society changes from the inside out.  Giving birth to a new way of being.  Manifesting our birthright of living in a peaceful and abundant world.  Have no fear.  Trust yourself.  Live your full potential.

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Love Is A Superpower

 Admit it, as some point in your life, you wanted to have super powers.  Wonder Woman, Super Girl, Super Man, Batman or Robin, Spiderman?  What super power did you want to have?  What Super Hero do you want to be?

One of my favorite stories of my children is when my middle son Seth was around 5 years old.  We were having a costume party and he wanted to be Superman.  It wasn’t around Halloween, so I made the costume myself.  I made a cape and the Superman S was made out of felt and was on the cape, and on the leotard on his chest.  I found these wonderful red knee socks that were fuzzy and looked a lot like boots.  The costume was perfect and when he put it on the night before the party he was so excited. 

He climbed up on the back of our couch, leaped into the air, and came crashing down to the floor.  He was so mad.  He thought that if he had the costume he would be able to fly.  It took all of my ingenuity to talk him into wearing the costume for his party, because if he couldn’t fly he didn’t want to attend his own party.  I am so thankful that he chose the couch and not a high tree to jump out of – lol.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them.  They went out and happened to things.

  –  Leonardo da Vinci

I think that a great super power is this very thing, going out and making things happen.  As women we handle many roles.  We are a mother (giving life, nurturing and believing in our children), a daughter (giving love, respect and gratitude to our parents), a wife (life sustaining devotion, inner beauty, and immense power) a sister (who will fight for you and always love you no matter what).  And many of us become care givers for our elderly parents.  All immensely challenging roles.

You laugh, cry and work harder than you ever thought you could.  Some days you’re trying to change the world and some days it’s just diapers.  Some days you love your life, and some days you wonder if you can just take one more step.  Some days like Old Mother Hubbard there is nothing in the cupboard and your wallet is empty.  But your heart is full and you have faith.  So you make it through to the next day and the next day after that.  Your heart is full, sometimes of laughter and sometimes of tears.  You have memories of your family as you grew up, and memories of raising your own.  You may not think it, but you’ve changed the world just by being in it.  On those days when one more step seems too long, remember you are a super hero.

We are strong, smart and crafty in creating a “home” and a “refuge” in the middle of a chaotic world.  We can open and close car doors, front doors, and refrigerator doors, while holding onto both children, bags of groceries, purses and a diaper bag.  We bring a new definition to multitasking as one of our super powers.

Each of us is a wonder.  We are unique, in an unrepeatable way.  The real you, is unique and the only one of you that will ever be on this earth.  Never before and never again, will there be someone just like you.  It such an amazing thing to let sink in.  You didn’t just happen to be here now.  You are here for a reason, a purpose.  A purpose that can only be accomplished, if you let the real you be up front and center.  Your super power is so needed in our world. 

We all have angels guiding us . . . , they look after us.  They heal us, touch us, comfort us with invisible warm hands . . . , what will bring their help?  Asking.  Giving,  Thanks.

  –   Sophy Burnha

We are all given the opportunity to be one of those angels among us.  Super Heroes are ordinary people who have extraordinary hearts.  If you have the power to make someone happy, that is a super power that the world needs more of. 

I think a hero is any person really intent on making this a better place for all people.

  -Maya Angelou

A kind word to a stranger.  Calling a friend when they cross your mind and not putting it off until later (when you forget).  Everyone walking today encounters a dark road at times in their life.  When they get lost in the woods and are looking for the breadcrumbs to find their way back home.  What we all need at that time is someone who is lighting the way with just a single ray of hope.  Be that ray of hope.  It just takes a smile, a listening ear, to take the time to acknowledge that you have been in that dark place too.  That is why we give, because we have all known what it feels like to be lonely, depressed, to have nothing.

I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. 

  – Christopher Reeves

Christopher Reeves not only played a hero in the movies, he was a hero in real life.  When life’s lemons took away his ability to walk, he did not give up, feel sorry for himself.  I am sure he felt like it at times, but he remained steadfast in speaking out for all of us about what really being a hero was all about.  He knew that it wasn’t important how others saw him, what was important was how he saw himself.  Because of that he continued to make a difference.

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you.  What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

  – Jane Goodall

We all have the super power to make a difference.  Most of the time we won’t even know what kind of difference we have made.  But if you were to line up 50 adults and go down the line, every single one of them would have more than one person that had made a difference in their life.  A special teacher, an Aunt or Uncle, a best friend, a stranger on the street who simply smiled at them when they needed one the most.  Probably most of the stories they would tell would surprise you.  You probably didn’t realize that what you said or did had an impact.

You want to make a difference in the world?  It starts with how you walk into a room.  Instead of saying, “Here I am” begin with “There you are”.

  – unknown

You might not know it, but you have made a difference to someone.  It may not be huge, but it matters just the same.  The really cool thing is that your influence never needs to stop.  We can affect eternity with our super powers of love.  Love can heal us.  Love can help us to grow into who we came here to be.  Love can grant us forgiveness for ourselves and others.  Love can help us to move on when it is time to let go.  Love moves us forward when it is time to return to the journey of discovering just how great we really are.  And love can inspire us to be even more than we ever dreamed.

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When You Are On Your Souls Path, There Is No Such Thing As A Real Obstacle

 We have this idea in life that there are people “out there” who have no problems. That if you have enough money, power, fame, the perfect soul mate – whatever label we put to it, then magically everything in our life would be perfect.

Wanting something is not enough.  You must hunger for it.  Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.

  – Les Brown

The Power Of Pause

 

You are all so busy, that even in the moments when you aren’t crossing something off your list, you fill in the space with something that still doesn’t allow the space to “JUST BE”. When I am resting I am usually still doing something that I call relaxing, like reading a book or solving a word puzzle. And while those things are relaxing for me, I am still in “doing mode” – beat the puzzle or learn something new from the book.

“Learn to pause or nothing worthwhile will catch up to you”  – Doug King

Why is it so hard to “just be”? I love this photo because cats are excellent “just be” creatures. What is the difference between us and the cat in this example? The cats isn’t afraid of:

• I will be irrelevant if I can’t prove you need me every moment
• I won’t measure up to the “super woman” who is the best friend, wife and mother, and corporate executive
• I won’t get everything done
• I am what I do, so I have to be doing every moment

If something isn’t on this list, I am sure that you could add 100 more things that you are afraid of missing, or doing, or being – that stands in your way of “just being”.  They even have an acronym for it “FOMO” – fear of missing out.  You had it even as a child – it’s the reason why you didn’t want to go to bed.  You were sure you were going to miss out on something important.

“Too many people go through life without pausing to enjoy what they have”  – David Gemmell

What is just pausing? Being disconnected from the world for just a few minutes. Check into what you are feeling. Quiet your mind. Look around you at the beauty of your surroundings.  Ignore just for moment, if the windows need cleaning, that you just spotted a spider web, or there is dust on the piano.  It is taking the time to replenish, to give yourself permission to rest and truly relax.

“Something precious is lost if we rush headlong into the details of life without pausing for a moment to pay homage to the mystery of life and the gift of another day”  – Kent Nexbum

Why is this so important?

“Taking time to do nothing often brings everything into perspective”  –   Doe Zantamata

What I find for myself personally, is that when I am avoiding something, I get really busy, usually deep cleaning, which means I take the entire room apart and clean everywhere.  I move all of the furniture, I decide that the bookcase needs to go into another room, which means that all of the books get removed, etc….

“Don’t mistake movement for achievement.  It’s easy to get faked out by being busy.  The question is:  “Busy doing what?”  – Jim Rohn

You get busy to avoid the thing you don’t want to do.  You get busy to avoid the thing you don’t want to face.  You get busy and stay busy and ignore the calling of your soul.  You don’t want to face this thing, and so you get so busy that you forget it for just a little while.

At any moment you can say enough…, You am not going to avoid this any longer.  You can radically change the course of your life, your purpose, your destiny.  You have the power, the faith, and the courage to follow your hearts calling.  You have the ability to pause, to pray, and to stop and practice deep listening to what your soul is calling you to do.  You can pause and just listen.

 “Pause and remember – Change will happen the moment you have the courage to change”  –  Jennifer Young

The courage to change is folded into the realization that every change in your life has been meaningful.  Some were life’s lemons and they tore you asunder.  You may have thought that they were going to be the end of you.  But instead they made you smarter, stronger, and wiser than you were before they blew through your life.

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory”  – Unknown

Other changes were easy and like a light summer breeze came and went without too much commotion.  Even so, they changed you in a very meaningful matter.  It revived you.

Introspection, reflection, relaxation, they all mean that you have to take a moment, a pause to let your mind wrap around the changes and accept them in a way that moves you forward in progress.

“When things get too messed up, life seems too stressed, and  you feel trapped in circumstantial webs.  Take a pause, take a breath, break free from all the thoughts and then march ahead”  – shrawanidas

So, pause and practice being a cat and JUST BE.

“Your inner child gets It all, believes it all, hopes for it all and is the only guardian worthy of your heart. That child knows that life – which runs on love and feasts on creativity – is on your side, and that the universe conspires with you, not against you, to help you spread that wild, crazy, messy love through your own story. Please, don’t grow up…” – Andrea Belt

 

Become That Kind Of Woman

 

Dreamers, Just Do It

Dreamers make wishes when they blow out the birthday candles with complete confidence they will come true. They blow on the dandelions seeds and spread their wishes all over the world. They wish on the first star they see each night. The secret they know is — we are all just dreamers in an endless universe.

Judith Thurman said, “Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than familiar ground.”

Doers take the dreamers up a notch. They believe in the magic, but they also know that it takes a little bit of elbow grease to make the machines run. They know that to take the dream into reality we must put it in writing. We must plant the seeds, water and fertilize them, weed when needed, and watch in amazement as the miracle of growth happens. Doers know that the energy goes when the attention flows, so rather than giving their energy to their fears, they focus their energy on their dreams. They know that action needs to follow the dream.

Sarah Ban Breathnach said, “The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.”

Thinkers know that they can put the dream on steroids because they realize the power of thought and attitude. It is like strapping a rocket onto the doers goals, when the doer has the right thinking to get the dream off the paper and into reality. The trick is the right amount of thinking, in combination with action.

Creative thinking outside the box produces inspiring ideas that can change the world. Plato said, “Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.” When we go deep inside ourselves and draw up the dream, enhance it by stripping away all of the negativity about the dream that we have, we become free thinkers who can see without prejudice what the destiny of the dream is. We talk with our souls and see possibilities for the dream everywhere we look. This helps the doer to pick the best door to open to the best opportunities.

That brings us to possibilities. Thomas Edison said, “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.” Since his most famous quote is “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”, I think that this quote is certainly made by someone who knows it to be absolutely true. If he had not continued his work, then his numerous inventions, most famous being the light bulb would not have been invented. He founded General Electric, had a motion picture and record company in addition to others. All because failure to him was just more information to think about. A part of the process, and not something to be avoided. 

I also love the quote by Audrey Hepburn “I M Possible” instead of impossible. Inside each of us is the space where we know. We know, that we know, that we know, that anything that comes into our heart and soul for us to do, is for us to do. And most important, that it is completely possible for us to do.

So greet your dream with open arms, know that the doer and the thinker will show you the endless possibilities for you to bring that dream into reality – then go do it.

 

Challenges Change Everything

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge – Eckhart Tolle

In 1885 the first practical auto was driven down the road.  The horse and buggy industry didn’t take notice.  They felt that this new fangled invention was just a temporary fad.  A few years later this industry discovered they were wrong, as the auto took over the roadways and became the common mode of transportation.

In March of 2009 Uber was founded and it is doing the same thing to the taxi industry.  In a few years the same thing will happen with the long-haul trucking industry as driver-less trucks will become the norm.

One of the constants in our world is change.  If you aren’t paying attention your industry could be impacted, and you might no longer have an occupation.

Just like these examples, most industries that we know and recognize in a certain way today, will at some point in our future totally change.  Most will be caught unaware when it happens.

In our personal lives, the same thing is true.  Everyday in some way, you are a new person.  In the past 24 hours you have probably learned something new.  You have probably changed your mind about something.  You realized, due to getting more information, or looking at it in a new way, that maybe what you thought about it wasn’t 100% true.

You outgrew a belief.  You adopted a new belief.  You released an old belief.

There are moments which mark your life.  Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts, before this, and after this – N. Kazan

Change builds resilience in you.  Resilience isn’t being numb to the changes.  It means that even though the change you experience may have felt like you are a failure, or hurt you in some way, that you kept going.

It takes courage to let go of what can’t be changed.  Sometimes this means that you have to learn a new job skill.  Sometimes you have lost an arm, a leg, went blind or deaf.  It takes courage to find a new and different way to still be able to live the dreams you have for yourself.

When I was growing up, I realized through hard life lessons that my parents were not, and could not be the foundation of my world.

When I married my husband, I thought that he would be the foundation of my world, and through a hard life lesson, I learned that this was also not true.

Then I thought that God would be the foundation of my world and discovered that this also was not true.

I had to be the foundation of my world.  Then on that foundation, I could build my spirituality, my family, my friends, my career, and everything else in my life.  But I had to build them upon me, as my own true foundation.

The reason this is true for me, is I had to accept responsibility for just me.  I had to accept reality, and not try to push decisions or the results of those decisions on anyone else, including blaming God for what was happening.

I had to be the one.  I had to be the “hot coal”.  If you have ever had to heat your home with wood or coal, then you know that if you bank the fire at night, it is easy to get going in the morning.  This is because underneath the cold looking ashes, lies a hot coal.  It is easy to get the fire going again with those hot coals.

There is no way for me to be a perfect woman, but there are a million ways I have can be a good wife, mother, sister, aunt, niece, and friend.

Look around you. Everything changes.  Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing . . . , changing.  You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant –  Dr. Steve Maraboli

You need to be like the hot coal.  You don’t want to be like a burning match.  When the winds of change blow into your life, if you are the match, you will burn out quickly and die.  But the winds of change blowing on the hot coals will cause you to burst into flames of light, and not burn out.

What you believe defines you.  What you tell yourself about who you are, how you react to change, is all a part of this definition of who you are.

In the cover photo you see the same tree.  The same field.  But each section presents a different season, time of day,

When you try to remain safe inside of the box, and resist change, you inhibit the natural growth that is supposed to happen in your life.  You in essence become a desert deep inside of yourself.   You stop living your life.  You stop loving yourself. That is the real tragedy in life.  You just stop living and just keep existing.

All you can change is yourself, but sometimes that changes everything –   Gary W. Goldstein

It really is up to you how you live your life.  You can’t blame anyone else – not your parents, or your spouse, your boss or God.  You can choose the green grass – a beautiful life; or you can choose to walk through the dried up dusty abandoned land of blame and abdication of change and the responsibility that it entails.

What’s In Your Backpack?

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Sometimes you don’t realize the weight of a burden you’ve been carrying until you feel the weight of its release.

 – Unknown

Have you ever had several inches of your hair cut off?  For many years I would grow my hair long enough to cut and donate to “Locks of Love”.  When they would cut off that much hair, my head would feel so light, like it was floating.  It only lasted for a day or two and then the new normal would kick in.  The weightlessness feeling would disappear. 

Have you ever felt that same way when you left a bad employer?  Ended a bad relationship?  Walked away from something that was consuming your life in a bad way, like an addiction?  Did you feel free?  Like a heavy weight had been lifted?

A smile can hide so any feelings; fear, sadness, heartbreak . .  but it also shows one other thing:  strength.

 – qutoesforbros.com

We all of us sometimes smile, and pretend our world is perfect.  When really deep inside, our world is being carried on our backs, and we can see it tipping us over.  We can see that we are about to lose it all.  We can see it, slipping off our shoulders.  It’s like the weight is crushing us to the ground.  Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why do we take on too much?  We don’t ask for help.  We don’t want to fail.  We don’t want to be seen as needy.  We tell ourselves we must be perfect 24/7. 

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. 

 – Bernice Johnson Reagan

Maybe what the life challenge is all about, is to teach us that this idea of perfection or not needing any help, will never work long term.  It might get you through a challenge or two.  But eventually it will become too heavy, and we will fall down.  We need to learn to receive as well as give.  We need to learn how to unpack our bags.  To let go of the things that no longer serve us.  We need to look at each item in the bag.  Are these socks really ours or do they belong to someone else?  What about that ugly top that we hide in the closet, who does that belong to?

We all have baggage, find someone who loves you enough to help you unpack.

  – Unknown

I think of the example of going grocery shopping with either a hungry spouse or your children.  You are walking down the aisle and getting the items on your list.  When you are not looking, they sneak things into the cart.  They hide it underneath something already in the cart, so you can’t say no. Then when you get to the check out line, you discover five things in your cart that you didn’t put into it.  We are like this in our personal lives.  We not only cart around other peoples items in our bags, we pay for them too.  That is the best reason to have someone help you unpack.  They can help you figure out who those socks and ugly tops actually belong to. They can help you release them back to their true owners.

Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light.

  – Tea Bag Quote

We do this unconsciously for the most part.  Part of it comes from the initial wounding experience that you had as a young child, sometime before the age of 8.  For some reason so many people I know, including myself, it is age 4.  You experienced a childhood trauma, which impacted how you view the world.  What also happens is that you take on some of the problems as your own, that came from the other person involved in your wounding. 

If you want to fly, you’ve got to give up the things that weighs you down.

 – Savannah Smith

For example, in my own case, I walked in on my mom having an affair.  As an adult I had a problem with trust.  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust others so much as I didn’t trust myself.  This caused me to attract untrustworthy people into my life.  I finally through years of transformational work discovered that this issue wasn’t about me at all. It was about my mother.  When I released this baggage everything in my life shifted, because I finally knew that I could trust myself.  I was carrying around a mountain that didn’t even belong to me.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light.  Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.

  – Glenn Clark

We all do this.  When you go camping, they tell you to put your food up in the air between trees so that wild animals can’t get to it.  In our backpacks, we have these items that attract the “wild animals”.  We attract these experiences into our lives over and over again.  We have a pattern of the kind of friends we attract; the kinds of significant others; the kinds of jobs; etc……  Why does the same thing keep happening to us? 

Keeping baggage from the past will leave no room for happiness in the future.

  – Wayne L Misner

We are attracting it into our life, it is our “wild animal”.  What the transformation process does, is it helps us to unpack our backpack.  To see what is really inside.  What are we carrying that no longer serves us?  What are we carrying that belongs to someone else?  What grudges, slights, hurts, and painful mountain heavy experiences are we carrying in our backpack?

It’s not the heavy load that breaks you, it’s the way you carry it.

 – Lena Horne

We are only meant to carry the load for a short time.  The time of the experience happening.  Not months and years later.  The weight of the past must be released.  You are meant to find the gold, and let go of the rest of the boulder.  Refocus on where you are headed.

Even the boulder that you are currently carrying, that you are trying to find the gold in.  The weight of that boulder can be lessened if you confine it to the lesson itself.  Sometimes we take the lesson to mean that we can’t do anything right.  That our whole life has been one failure after another.  That we are doomed.  That our existence itself is a burden.  None of those things are ever true.  It is our mind pressing down from the weight of every single burden we have ever carried, into one gigantic mountain.

When I accept myself, I am freed from the burden of needing you to accept me.

 – Healrhyplace.com

You need to give yourself the gift of forgiveness.  The gift of compassion.  The gift of redemption.  The gift of letting go.  Get a piece of paper and start unpacking your backpack.  Write down every untold story that you have inside of your heart.  For years I blamed myself for my parents divorce.  If only I hadn’t opened her bedroom door, I wouldn’t have uncovered her dark secrets, and my parents would still be married.  But the truth is that had nothing to do with me, and was the result of their bad decisions and choices over which I had no power.  We all have these stories inside of us that must be released.  That must be unpacked and let go of.

So stop carrying the mountain.  Unpack your backpack.  Release the weight of the past. 

Always pray to have eyes that see the best, a heart that forgives the worst, a mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith.  

– Unknown 

Give yourself the gift of seeing the best things in your backpack.  Of forgiving the worst things that you blame yourself for.  Of forgiving the bad things that happened to you, so that you don’t carry the weight of other peoples sins inside of you.  And never lose faith that everything in your life can serve you, if you give yourself the gift of love and forgiveness.

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