Change Yourself, Change The World

“Your soul is a compass.  Change one coordinate in your spiritual compass and you change your entire life’s direction”– Caroline Myss

You are here to discover what your work in this world is to be, and once you’ve found it, to pursue it with passion.

Every night in your dreams, your imagination and creativity go to work to find what answers you are looking for. You need to ask yourself some powerful questions to put that time to good use.  I highly recommend a dream journal.

Every night take just a few moments to center.  Review your day.  Now ask your soul for the perfect question to dream about.  Then write that question down in your journal.  Go to sleep with that question in your thoughts.  Record any dreams that you can remember upon awakening.

If you make this a practice every night, you will start dreaming the answers.  It might take a little while for your subconscious to get what you are doing.  But if you are consistent, answers will start happening.

It is up to you when you wake up, to bring those dreams into reality. Following your passions is critical, because it is the key to unlocking the hidden door to your purpose. 

“With one kind gesture you can change a life.  One person at a time, you can change the world.  One day at a time, we can change everything”  –  Dr. Steve Maraboli

Be passionate about seeking for the truth, instead of assuming you already know it. Everything you know about life is constantly changing. If you become dogmatic about a definition or interpretation of what your life is about, you will get stuck in a falsehood.

Think of all of the inventions that are commonplace around you, that were considered at one time to be impossible. Men walking on the moon, spaceships, submarines, airplanes, cell phones, computers, etc… 

Blaze your own trail with the understanding that if you come to a dead end; a road closed sign; if you see that the bridge is out; or a mudslide or avalanche has blocked your passage, it isn’t because you chose the wrong way.  You didn’t fail, and you don’t have to just stop right there and refuse to move.  You don’t whine and moan about how unfair life is, and how you should just give up. 

“When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose  You know that you are alive”  – Chief Seattle

There is a purpose and meaning in everything that you do. Along that road to your destiny, you gathered up items that you will need for your continued journey.  You may not yet recognize why they are required. What seems like the “end of the road”, is just a sign for you to continue your journey blazing your own path.  

Recognize that it has always been a small group of thoughtful people that change the world. 

Think of Florence Nightingale; Martin Luther King Jr; Mother Teresa; Gandhi; Malala; Jane Goodall; Nelson Mandela and so on.  All people who impacted the world not by an invention or making it rich, but by how they lived their lives to a passionate calling.  I call these world changers, LemonadeMakers.

Your profession or calling is what you’re put here on earth to do. So do it with such passion and intensity that it becomes spiritual in its calling. This is how you find the “great work” that Steve Jobs spoke about. The only way to do great work, is to love what you do.

Don’t settle by believing in the naysayers that say it can’t be done.  Some of you reading this right now are meant to change the world.  To spark the brains of others to help you do so.  Some of you reading this right now, are meant to hold everything together for those who do.  Trust your instincts and do the very thing that they say can’t be done.

Don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid to not even try.  It is how you find out who you really are.

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way” – Unknown

You have been placed on this earth to discover your own path.  You will never be happy, living someone else’s idea of life. Unless you are a little madly insanely passionate about it, it’s a waste of time, and a waste of your abilities and gifts. Never stop believing that you can do what the divine put you here to do.

Risk comes from the uncertainty of not knowing what you are doing, but at the same time knowing that you have to try anyway. Take risks, because that kind of action is what changes the world. The people who didn’t know it couldn’t be done are the people who do it. Then everyone does it.

It all starts with one voice calling out of the wilderness.  Small acts performed by many people, can change the world.

“The most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself freedom to do it later”  – Unknown

And most of all choose to listen to that inner voice, and not the random opinions of others. That whisper from the heart that tells you that you are not to be one of the mediocre things in life. That whispering voice that says to chase curiosity. Chase your passion.

Live a life worth living. A life that says, “I am a certified, bona fide, being of light, capable of transcending all fears and manifesting all dreams.” (words in quotes adapted from Notes From the Universe).  Talk with people who will make you see the world differently.  People from different lifestyles and cultures.  People from all kinds of backgrounds. 

It helps you to understand yourself from a different perspective.  It grows and shifts you into a better human being.  It helps you to uncover what kind of difference you want to make in the world.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”  –  Steve Jobs

Or as Spock always said, “Live long and prosper” – so go out and change the world!

I Can Because I Am Limitless. I Am Because I Know No Boundaries

Have you ever had a healing crisis? A healing crisis isn’t just a health related crisis. It can be healing any part of our life that just isn’t working out the way we know that it should.

Nothing has transformed my life more than listening to what needed to be heard.

  – Jeffrey Shaw 

Years ago, when I was first working in the financial industry I had just received a huge promotion. I was really working hard, and for some reason, the different aspects of the job were just not working out right. I finally had a long talk with my boss, and following her advice I turned things around. I knew that I was perfectly capable of doing the job, but I just couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I think that at different shifting points in our lives we run up against this road block. We need a different set of eyes to see what needs to be seen. To see what needs to be transformed.

If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks.  I’ve had them; everybody has had them.  But obstacles don’t  have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

  – Michael Jordan

Do you know why Michael Jordan was so successful?  This quote gives us a clue.  He didn’t reach a roadblock and say, “oh well, I guess I am not talented enough to do this”; or “oh well, I guess this dream was just too big for me to accomplish”.  No, he practiced until he was able to break it down.   He worked with coaches who were able to help him see what he couldn’t see.

Remember that your greatest talent is so much more powerful than your biggest fear.

  – Unknown

There comes a time when we need to take a calculated risk. If you look at the game of baseball it really speaks to calculated risk. The player who is on first base, will watch the pitcher, the batter, and outfielders to gauge how far off the base he can go without getting caught. If he gauges it correctly, he can steal a base, or even make it to 3rd base with an infield hit from the batter because of getting the head start.

I think sometimes you forget that you were born to be awesome.  (here’s your reminder)

  – Unknown

In our lives, if we risk nothing, we get nothing. In personal transformation, we need to take calculated risks. In our life of personal growth, in order to grow we have to take our foot off the safe “base” we are on. We need to risk opening the chrysalis with the hope that we have finished our transformation, and the wings are ready to fly.

Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.

   – Ronnie Max Oldham

This really is the only way to live your life. Not putting off things until we think it is safe. Really opening our hearts completely in how we care about others. To understand that the reality is that almost anything is possible. Whatever is currently stumping you, just means that you are not asking the right questions, or the right people for help.

Our thoughts are very powerful. When we focus on what we lack, we create blockages and limitations. We become imprisoned by the vibration of our negative energy.

  – Randi G Fine

In other words if we think that we can’t we will be a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you think you can or you think you can’t you are right.

  – Henry Ford

I find myself doing this sometimes. I stress about not having enough time and sure enough, unforeseen stuff starts filling up my life. Then I catch myself, and unlock the door to that cage, freeing myself and all of a sudden, the stuff just starts going away and I have my time back to do what needs to be done.

Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.

  – Hal Elrod

So if you find yourself in any sort of “healing crisis” at the moment, just take some time to meditate as to how you just lost yourself in the woods. Transform the path by backing up or regrouping. Get back on the path that you were traveling.

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive.  You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over.  But one thing is certain.  When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.  That’s what the storm’s all about.

  – Haruki Murakami

This is another critical piece of the transformation puzzle, in really getting to know oneself. 

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Believe In Your Potential For Greatness, It Is Your Gift To The World

Do you believe that you are destined for greatness? It took me quite a bit of time to believe that about myself. Compliments have always been hard for me to accept. It always felt like I wasn’t truly worthy. Like you were just being nice to me, but didn’t really mean it.

It is safe to feel like you are an “ok” type of person, but greatness feels like I am being mistaken for someone else. It carries with it the undertone of responsibility, and the potential of being weighed and found wanting. It has the danger of being found to be a fraud, not being as advertised.  That there are those waiting for the mistake so that they can pounce on it and say, “I knew she wasn’t that great.”

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:  The fear of failure.

  – Paulo Coelho

I’ve always accepted the compliment that I was “smart”, because I worked hard for the good grades. Writing about things that I have experienced in my life, and what I have learned about life is really easy. Not that I don’t spend time putting these posts together, because I do. It can take hours sometimes, but it isn’t the “chore” that it is for so many people. It is a gift that just flows. So because of that, it is harder to accept the compliments, because it doesn’t feel like I have earned them with hard work.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

  – Marianne Williamson

At some point in our life, we say “enough” to the doubter voice inside of us. That voice that says we have to make ourselves small so that we are not noticed; that voice that whispers no one else feels or thinks like we do, so don’t voice your opinions or let anyone know how you think or feel (you don’t want to be the outcast).

The fears that we don’t face becomes our limits.

  – Robin Sharma

Then there is the distraction button that gets pulled every time you sit down to figure out your destiny. It convinces you to clean up something – the kitchen floors need to be mopped. To watch that TV show, after all you deserve to sit down and relax, you worked hard all day. The phone rings and it is that friend or relative that talks for hours about nothing. Or you get attacked by the shiny objects that glistens and gleams until you pay attention to it, or as my dog used to say “squirrel!”.

If an egg is broken from the outside, life ends. If an egg is broken from the inside, life begins. Greats things always begin from the inside.

  –  Unknown

How do we begin from the inside to crack that shell of protection that we have built around ourselves?

Instead of being distracted, we can instead begin the conversation with the doubter to bring them in to support us. That is when we are ready to ascend another level in our consciousness. We are ready and because of that, doors appear and begin to open to us. We are ready once again to enter into the chrysalis and transform from our current being into a new one.

This advancement is transforming us from being a crawler towards our dreams and life purpose, into a flier. We are transforming from following a leader, to becoming a leader. We strike out on fulfilling our life purpose through the work that we are doing.

Set a goal so big you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can.

  – Unknown

We are beginning the path to greatness, with the spiritual joy of choosing our own adventure. Did you ever read the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid, or to your kids? Each chapter gave you choices as to where you would go next. We become co-creators of our life path, designing the way our divine purpose is fulfilled in the world.

I am not here to change the world.  I am changing the world because I am here.

  – Lisa Wilson

We are free not only to dream of a better life, we are free to “make it so”. Like a phoenix, we die to our old way of living by hiding you we are. We are reborn as we rise from the ashes, a newly made creation that passes through the gates of greatness.

Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self preservation.

  – J.R.R. Tolkien

As we leave the chrysalis, we leave behind all of the old stories. We are vulnerable, because we are opening ourselves up to take new risks – which means we don’t know the answers anymore. This landscape is completely new.

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz we will have adventures. Some of them will be scary. We might end up asleep again in the field of poppies. We might have adversity chasing after us like the flying monkeys. We might discover that the people we thought would have all of the answers don’t. We might even discover the truth, that the one with the answers lives inside of our hearts and has been directing us the entire journey.

We have greatness within us; innovative, giving, determined.  It’s time for the best in us to come out.

  – Unknown

We begin to see our own unrealized potential. Becoming both awake and aware, we learn how to discern the correct paths to take, the best actions to make. We learn to raise our vibrational energy to attract what we need in our lives. We learn the secrets of manifestation. We understand for the first time, the truth of how we can design our own life. That we really do have that kind of power.

It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.

  – J.R.R. Tolkien

Magic comes into our lives because we are listening to the voice of the divine. Even before we can voice what we need, the door opens and there is exactly what we just realized we need. This doesn’t mean that we won’t be mesmerized by the voices calling out in fear. It doesn’t mean that we won’t be distracted or derailed again and again. But because we have awakened and become more aware, we recognize them for what they are sooner, and they delay us less and less. We recover faster.

The truth about you is that you are easily capable of greatness.

  – Fabienne Fredrickson

It is time for each of us to recognize our divine gifts. To answer the calling to greatness. To summon the abilities, we each have within us. It is time to rise up and live a life that is on purpose. To live a passionate life. To answer the call, instead of putting it on hold or pressing the mute button. It is time to stretch ourselves. To push the internal boundaries. To leap up and be true to who we really are.

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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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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. 

Choices, Chances, Changes, and The Courage To Make Them

An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.”
The boy thought about it, and asked, “Grandfather, which wolf wins?”
The old man quietly replied, “The one you feed.”

I have always loved this story because it is so on point. You have choices on how you interpret things. You have choices on how you feel. You can go down the positive, optimistic road.  Or you can go down the negative, pessimistic road. I try very hard to go down the positive road. 

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.  –  Nelson Mandela

You can change your life by having the courage to bring into your life something that was never fostered or nurtured in you as a child.  All of the good wolfs qualities, joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth come from having a positive self-worth. Just because you were not raised as a positive person seeking joy, peace, love, hope in your life, doesn’t mean that you can’t live your life from that place.

The pathway here of the good wolf is the same one as Robert Frost’s less traveled road. Many people feed the “evil” wolf’s feelings of drama – anger, jealousy, greed – they blame all of their problems on someone else. Nothing is their fault. They just have bad luck. Can’t get ahead, and so on, and so on. The “evil” wolfs path is paved with bad choices made in the past, and excuses for what is happening in the present. 

You have two choices,

accept conditions as they exist,

or accept the responsibility to change them.

 

If you find that you have strayed into feeding the “evil” wolf, you can stop feeding him. We all have times that we make poor decisions. You have the power to change circumstances immediately by accepting responsibility for where you are.  For all of the choices you have made.  To not make any more excuses for your mistakes.  As the saying goes, “the buck stops here”.  Just start making better choices.

Sometimes you think you are making a good choice, only to discover you didn’t.  How can you tell which road to choose? You can tell the difference in how the energy or vibrations make you feel in your body as you contemplate your decisions.

When you are compromising your spirit, it feels wrong. You might get a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. But every time you make a good choice, a positive choice, even if it has negative consequences, you feel lighter, cleaner in your spirit.

Picking a path with heart – Carlos Castaneda

Choose the path that takes you where you need to go. It is the path of growth.

Do what you are afraid to do.

It is how good character is developed. 

 

Embrace, accept and celebrate each choice you make that keeps you walking your own path in life.  Embrace it and own it when the bad wolf wins. Stop feeding it and start feeding the good wolf again.

It is easy to wander off the path.  To get distracted.  Each minute gives you a new chance to get back on your own path, making better choices.

You have the choice every day to be just like the crowd, asleep at the wheel, and just existing in life.  To get distracted by the bright shiny lights.  To get so busy with life’s distractions that you fall back asleep.  

You can always choose again, to wake up and to be different.  Every choice you make, makes you who you are.  You can choose to be distinct.  To be what only you can be. 

I choose to live by choice not by chance,

To be motivated, not manipulated,

To be useful, not used,

To make change, not excuses,

To excel, not compete,

I choose self-esteem, not self-pity,

I choose to listen to my inner voice,

Not to listed to the random opinions of others . . .

   – InspirationBoost.com

When I think of this, I immediately think of the photos of the little old ladies in New York City.  They dress up in wild colors.  They wear outrageous hats.  They have style.  They are saying “Look at me, that’s right, take a second or third look”.  They crack me up, because they don’t care if you are judging them, because they are having too much fun being an original distinctive wild woman.  Their life viewpoint, have fun and give people something to talk about.

Let Your Inner Child Whisper In Your Ear

At some point in your life, you were told to grow up. Stop acting like a child. Hide your feelings. Be an adult. Be more serious, and so on. You lose a vital part of who you are when you listen to that. You bury it so deep that you forget it is even there. You begin to sleepwalk through your entire life.

“Are you feeling a bit shaken, maybe stirred, maybe fearful and doubtful and completely utterly wildly terrified?  Good.  Keep going”  – Victoria Erickson

You “release the Kraken”, the Inner Queen of your life.  You stop the drama.  You stop being so sad, or angry.  You stop trying to be all things for all people.  You just let all of that stuff go.  You are no longer afraid of who you are.  You realize that you have always been more than enough.  You finally get that caring for yourself is an act of love, and the only way you can survive.

“You can’t give up on something that your heart is still rooting for, no matter how hard the fall is.  Your heart is the ultimate master.  It knows the things the mind doesn’t yet have an answer for.  It leads the way out of your darkest moments.  It’s your one and only Chief of Staff. You have the power to thrive under any circumstances, as long as you use your heart as the compass”– Andrea Balt

This inner child has so much imagination. They have such enthusiasm for life. They don’t see what is, they see what might be. The possibilities of endless wonder. It is having fun today, instead of planning for it on your yearly vacation. Picture in your mind a steep hill.  You are at the top the hill looking down.  You are on your bike, and you are about to start down the hill, to break a world speed record.  You can see everyone you know at the bottom of the hill cheering you on.  Your best friends, your brothers and sisters, even your mom and dad. 

Imagine the story you will be telling ten years from now.  Is it the story about the wild ride down the hill, or how you carefully rode down the hill with the brakes on all the way to play it safe?  Celebrate your inner child and fly down that hill!

“The most potent muse of all is your own inner child” – Stephen Nachmanovitch

That inner child doesn’t wallow in disappointment. If the idea fails to work as planned, they simply dust themselves off and start a new plan. If the child has a fight with their best friend, five minutes later it is forgiven and forgotten. They don’t just run down the street; they leap down it.

Every minute is to be filled with a sense of wonder and joy.  That inner child is waiting to take your hand and dance with you through the fields of flowers, to laugh rolling down the hillside.

If you still have that child locked up and buried deep inside, I encourage you to set it free. Let it explore and come up with fun plans for your life. It’s magical looking at your life through the kaleidoscope and spinning the designs. Imagination will get you everywhere.  Answer the toy phone and see who is calling you. 

Give that spirit of the child over to your personal genius. See what you can discover about your purpose that you didn’t know.  You will be amazed by how wonderful and fun life can be when you aren’t supervised by your inner critic.

“So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us” – Gaston Bachelard

When you have big dreams, you become a person of vision.  When you follow that vision, you have the passion, strength and patience to change the world.  You are living in a time right now, where men and women of vision are about to make huge changes in the world.  When a “new normal” is about to be created.

Don’t let your mind or anyone else tell you that you can’t be a big part of bringing those changes into reality.  Your dreams are valid.

“Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”  – Steve Jobs

Today realize that you are old enough to start reading fairy tales again.  Holding the hand of your inner child, step through the mirror and see what Wonderland has in store for you. Visit Neverland and see if you can fly. Go looking for treasures on Treasure Island. Explore the deep oceans with Captain Nemo.  

All of these stories have such vital life lessons in them. They can help you understand deep things about yourself. People may think that you are crazy for doing so, but I have it on the best authority that “all of the best people are”.

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