Tears Soothe, Love Heals, The Soul Thrives Once Again

Bad things happen. We lose a loved one to a disease, suicide, an accident, or a murder. We get a divorce, and question if we have ever really been loved. We lose our job and our identify in one fell swoop. We loose a dream that meant everything to us.  While none of these things define who we really are, it also does not define who we will become. It can still knock us down.

Bad things happen turning the world upside down, bringing us to our knees. We doubt that we will ever recover, that we will ever be truly happy again. That our laughter will ever escape in unbridled joy again.

Bad things make us feel that we will never be healed of the pain. That it will follow us around coloring the world a bleak gray. Bad things can do all of these things. It might not seem like we have any choices left to us, but it isn’t true. A bad thing happened that took someone or something from us that we loved, but It doesn’t have to take your life too.

If you don’t let it out, the grief becomes a scream trapped inside your soul, a constant cry in the dark, a sob you can never release.  So scream, shout, cry, the way the sky does with thunder and lightning and rain . . .  for it knows it is being cleansed, it knows that it’s storm is the only way to release the pain.

  – Nikita Gill

I remember how people would come over to say goodbye when my mom was ill, and then again after my nephews murder. They didn’t really know what to say. Sometimes they meant well with cures and remedies, or advice such as “just snap out of it”.  “

A thousand times we die in one life.  We crumble, break and tear apart until the layers of illusion are burned away and all that is left, is the truth of who and what we really are.

 –  Teal Scott

Sometimes even with good intentions, what they say breaks off another piece of your spirit, as though it wasn’t already damaged enough. You may be damaged, but your will is fighting back. You are not broken.

Grief has a way of making everything that was once black and white seem like a million shades of grey. And grief upon grief upon grief, has a way of making you question if colors exist at all.

 – undercovermothers

Healing begins with a choice. It will take as long as it takes. This is one thing that we should not rush through. It has been eight years since my nephew was murdered, and my sister still has bad days.  We have the support of others who have suffered a similar loss. They understand what we are going through. Let these loved ones comfort you, knowing that it brings up for them additional healing from their old losses.  Isn’t it funny how helping someone else to heal, can in turn help us to heal?

Listen to your own voice, you own soul, too many people listen to the noise of the world, instead of themselves.

  – Leon Brown

During difficult times, turn to those who will breathe belief back into your soul. The belief that this too shall pass, and the gray world we are living in, will gradually shift back into living color. The belief that one by one we can pick up the shattered pieces of who we thought we were, and put our identity back together again. 

Grief is a matter of the heart and soul.  Grieve your loss, allow it in, and spend time with it.  Suffering is the optional part.  Love never dies, and spirit knows no loss.  Keep in mind that a broken heart, is an open heart. 

 – Louse Hay

Spend time with those special “brothers or sisters” who will help you gather up the pieces of you that were thrown to the ground. Who will just sit with you, with a glass of wine in blessed silence and companionship. Who know how to let the silence between you, lap in and out like the waves caress the shoreline. Sharing memories, pain and laughter will be evoked. It all blends into releasing some of the darkness that is so difficult to deal with alone.

This is what a real teacher does:  she opens the gates of our minds to the possibilities of the soul.

  – Vironika Tugaleva

Don’t question your right to have a bright future, to live a life of happiness. Just know that the light will shine in your life again. Happiness, laughter, and hope will enter back into your heart and soul. It will not hurt forever. New possibilities are just waiting for your space to open up, to let the winds of change blow away the dust and cobwebs.

Once you realize that the road is the goal, that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task, and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy . . .

  – Sri Nisaragadatta Maharaj

This is all a part of life’s journey. New people enter our lives, others leave our lives. And the journey continues ever onward.

May your eye go to the sun, to the wind your soul…, you are all the colors in one at full brightness.

 –  From All The Bright Places

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1] [lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

Reflect What You Desire, Mirror What You Admire

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it” – Ernest Holmes

This is a great time to reflect back on what transpired for the past few months of your life. What happened to the goals or resolutions that you set for the year? Did you achieve them? Did you give up on them? Did you rise up or fall down?

If you look at your reflection in the water, you see the outer surface of you, looking back at you. But if you put your hand through the reflection, you can see what lies beneath.

The question I always ask myself is “why am I doing this to myself? How can I do better?”

It’s in the looking at what’s beneath the fears of self-sabotage that you can see what is holding you back.  Then you can pierce the illusion(s) to find the real truth.

“When someone tells you it can’t be done, it’s more a reflection of their limitations, not yours” – Thegoodquote

Looking back helps you to see what you want to bring into your life.

• I trust that I deserve unconditional love.
• I trust that I can have happiness and success every day in my life.
• I trust my wings and fly. 
• I trust that I am right were I need to be, and that this year is going to be an amazing year.

It is not the things that happened in your life that define you, but how you coped and adjusted through them, that made you who you are today.

• Release this fear that became a protection. 
• Release that will power alone can make a transformation.
• Release the self destructive way of thinking.

“You can be stunned, awakened, and changed by what happens to you, but choose to grow from it, and refuse to be reduced by it”– Unknown

2022 is a year for deep self-reflection.  The past few months new things have been brought up from the depths beneath the surface and released.  Wars, a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter, Police brutality, a personal loss of income, stay at home orders, teaching children from home, working from home, and on and on.

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

You are working on being a better person, and that includes your body, mind and soul.  So the reflection that you see right now, is showing you who you were. So reflect back to it, who you want to be.

“The ability to honestly and quietly reflect on one’s life is one of the most powerful tools for personal growth” – Richard Carlson

I saw a photo years ago of Carrie Fischer and Harrison Ford.  The article asked why it was ok for Harrison Ford to have aged, but not ok for Carrie Fischer – they were talking about 40 years ago when they filmed the first Star Wars movie to the start of the new Star Wars movie series how much she had aged. It is really sad that someone feel the need to say negative things about how someone looks.   Harrison Ford had aged too, but no one was commenting about that.   

Speaking in this way didn’t help anyone. I think Carrie Fischer was an amazing woman, who had her struggles, just like all of us. She was courageous because she did it in the public eye, and said what she thought. The way she was upfront about mental illness puts her in the category of being a hero in my book.  

“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy.  This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small.  My judgment called it disloyal.  Now I see it as self-loving” – Kim McMillen

It means that you can say this to your own reflection:  “I love you” means that I accept you for the person that you are, and that I do not wish to change you into someone else.  It means that I will love you and stand by you even through the worst of times.  It means loving you even when you’re in a bad mood, or too tired to do the things I want to do.  It means loving you when you’re down, not just when you’re fun to be with. 

“I love you, means that I know your deepest secrets and do not judge you for them”  – Jonathan Safran Foer

So what do I do when I see someone extremely gorgeous? I stare, I smile, and when I get tired of holding up the mirror, I put it down.  🙂

Rise Above The Storm

Sometimes it feels like the bad guys are winning.  Like there is no justice.  That we have been abandoned by our friends, our family, and by God.  It seems like we are burning alive and everyone just stares at us.  You can see them talking to each other about the tragedy.  No hero is showing up to save the day. That moment of tribulation, of complete annihilation of who we are, is a turning point.  All of us go through it at some point in our lives.  Some of us visit this place more than once.

I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.

  –  Joshua Graham

I always think of the old show, “The Six Million Dollar Man”, Steven Austin.  The line in the show, “we can rebuild him, better than before”.  Sometimes we have to die to who we currently are, in order to be reborn as the person that we are meant to be.  We can rise again.  God did not abandon us.

If you’re not okay, that’s okay.  It will happen sometimes.  But you have to tell yourself that things will be better tomorrow. Even if they’re not better tomorrow, keep telling yourself they will be.  Because eventually, tomorrow will be better.

  – Sam Miller

What we discover in life and in relationships, is that we are not really in control of anything.  Things will happen that we don’t want to happen.  When my mom kicked our 1st stepfather out, my siblings and I were devastated.  We loved him at that moment more than her.  He was the one that really stepped in and took care of us.  He was crying, we were crying, and my mom was standing at the door with a new stepfather asking “our dad” to leave.  We had to accept that he wasn’t going to be in our lives any longer.  We had to let him go, because to continue to cry and beg our mother to bring him back only created trouble for us.

She’s been through hell and came out an angel.  You didn’t break her, darling.  You don’t own that kind of power.

  – BMM Poetry

Then there are the things that we don’t want to know, but have to learn.  One of my best friends in high school had an alcoholic stepmother.  Sometimes she would pass out in the bathroom and we would have to drag her into the bedroom and on to the bed.  We should never have had to experience that, but we had to learn how to clean up after her or she would be horribly mean to my best friend.

Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.

  – Nelson Mandela

This was a man who certainly had experience to speak from.  He grew up in apartheid Africa, becoming a lawyer and speaking out against the injustices in his country.  He was arrested for treason and sentenced to life in prison.  He served 27 years in prison and was released in 1990.  He negotiated an end to apartheid and became the first black democratically elected president of his country.  He didn’t come out of prison preaching violence as a way to end the injustices of racism.  He helped to create a new constitution, and emphasized reconciliation.  He received a Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it.  You surround yourself with people who make you laugh.  Forget the bad, and focus on the good.  Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don’t.  Life is too short to be anything but happy.  Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.

  – Jose N. Harris

Deep within you is the power to rise above any situation or struggle.  Within you is the power to transform the brokenness that you are feeling into a strong foundation.  Do not lose who and what you are.  Move forward, not building a fortress or wall of protection, but instead building a firm foundation of a new life.

Three things you cannot recover in life:  the word after its said, the moment after its missed and time after its gone.  So choose your words wisely, embrace every moment you have with those you love, and never waste time arguing over things that will not matter in the last 5 minutes of your life.

  – happywivesclub.come

The sun will continue to rise up every morning, and sunset will continue every evening.

The light may feel like it goes out, but it continues on it’s journey.

Feel the burning rage wash through you,

Watch the smoke of injustice as it incinerates your life.

Feel the winds of change, watch the storm surge roll away taking all of your beliefs with it.

Feel the death of a reputation, of knowing the taste of ashes as everything you have worked for blows away.

Now at the end of everything that you knew, that you thought was yours.

Now is when you stand at the crossroads, and choose.

Do you stay in this smoke and desolation of a past life?

Do you stand up, shake it off, and walk down a new path?

Forgiveness is the gift that we can give ourselves, because the haters can only hate by first hating themselves.

A person may break your heart and damage your pride, but never ever give them the power to break your spirit.

  -Susan Gale

Journey Wisely.

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1] [lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

I Rise Up

I Rise Up

The drum beats echo in the night,

calling my heart to wake up,

Whirlwinds suck up the ashes of my abandoned dreams,

I rise up,

Sparks catch the ashes and burst into flames,

igniting my souls dream to wake up,

Surging through the blood,

inflaming the passions of my heart, I rise up.

Dreams are the warriors of my soul,

stirring me to action, I wake up,

Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes ,

I rise up,

Dreams arise from the ashes remade,

even as I slide back into slumber, I wake up,

Rising from the ashes,

I again take flight, I rise up.

My heart rhythm matches the beats of the drum,

echoing in the heart of darkness, I wake up,

The roots imprisoning my feet stir at my souls fire,

heat rises up through my body, I rise up,

My soul breaks free of the restraints put upon it,

to slumber and sleep, I wake up

My soul rising up to take flight to the heavens,

chasing after the sun, I rise up

An eternal flame, a comet, I blaze across the heavens,

I have woke up,

The comet tail blazes across the sky,

it flares as I rise up,

Fully awake to my souls purpose,

once again I battle to fulfill it,

to wake the sleepers up,

For they too were conquered,

reduced to ashes they feel asleep, but now awakening,

WE RISE UP!

You remember what God’s destiny is for you when you are little. You have these hopes and dreams of what you will be when you grow up. Then you start school and like most of us, you lost sight of the those dreams. They got buried and forgotten.  Like tumbleweeds you were blown away by the dust devils across the fields, your dreams broken and unseen.

Then something happens that knocks the wind out of you. Everything that you thought was important in your life, is shown to be fools gold. You stumbled and fell down. You grieved your loss in sackcloth and ashes. And because you are really lucky, you are remembered or are remembering what you are here to do.

So grab your pillows and shake last nights dreams loose from the feathers that you bound them up in.  RISE UP.  Those abandoned dreams are not truly cold and dead.  They lay buried in the dream caverns, waiting for you to bring them back to life.  To blow upon them the breath of life, igniting them once again into a steady flame.

“We always have the potential to rise. Rise out of our slump. Rise out of our negative thoughts. Rise out of our comfort zone. Rise out of our complaints, GET UP AND RISE…, Rising is a choice that’s one powerful thought away” – Kris Carr

What will defines you, is the RISE UP part. Everyone will fall down.  You fall asleep because the going was so hard.  You told yourself that you deserved to take it easy just for a little while.  And so you fell asleep.  It is part of the human experience. There is a spark of divinity in you still, and it is in the RISE UP part.  It is how to become the person you were meant to be. The importance of this, is that the world is waiting for you and your gifts. It needs you to RISE UP, one more time and reenter the ring of life and fight the battle you were sent to fight.  Something happens, these small occurrences, these coincidences.  They start these sparks, that shine brightly .  They will draw you in, they will stoke up those hidden fires.  You will wake up.

“Coincidences are glimpses in to the creative mind of the universe”  – Deepak Chopra

Each time you are reborn like the phoenix, you are just a little bit wiser from life’s experiences. You are stronger because even though you got knocked down, you got back up one more time. As long as you don’t quit, the “fat lady hasn’t sang”. It isn’t over, and you can still be a winner, fulfilling your destiny.  Breathe your dreams to life, by taking one small step.  Listen to the whispers of your soul.  Enter the cave of your dreams and release them from their shackles of limitations, because in truth you have no limits.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”  – Joseph Campbell

So if you are feeling a little sore, like a semi truck ran over you, backed up, and ran over you again, remember – remember you are like the Phoenix and can rise up from the ashes. Remember that the spark is always buried in the ashes, and just needs you to blow on it to re-ignite the flames.  The dream doesn’t really die.  It doesn’t expire.  Look inside and awaken.  Undergo a radical transformation and like the Phoenix RISE UP. Listen to your heart and RISE UP.  RISE UP and follow your soul to the stars and beyond.

Remember that when life throws you to the wolves, you can come back leading the pack!

Come join us on March 7th for our next monthly free webinar on how to live your life with 20/20 focus. How to face the fears that are keeping you locked out of your destiny. How to unlock your cages and use those divine gifts with purpose to not only shift and change your world, but the entire world. Come and renew yourself. Find your voice and RISE UP!

Your Real Strength Is In Your Greatest Weakness

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  You have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world – Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman certainly walked her talk.  She escaped slavery going to the North.  But she didn’t stay there.  Instead, she made 13 missions to rescue other slaves using the Underground Railroad.  She rescued over 70 families.

When the Civil War broke out, she worked as a scout and spy.  One of the raids that she was part of saved 700 slaves.  She is such a great example of not letting anyone break her soul.  She not only stood firm for her beliefs, but helped hundreds escape slavery.

Harriet had dreams and trusted her intuition.  There are stories of how she would lead the slaves down different paths, because her dreams told her the normal way was not safe, and she was right every time.

We all have had hard times come upon us.  Times when you feel hopeless and helpless, that you cannot take another step.  Days when you feel that the whole world is against you.  Times of loss, of betrayal.  A death in the family, a divorce, a loss of income and status.

People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

It is in these times that you have the choice of your greatest pain becoming your greatest source of strength.  In that moment of surrender, you find the spark to go on.

Derek Rydell tells a story of how he was diving in a coral reef in his book “Emergence”.  Not paying attention, he found himself trapped in a coral bed of fire coral.  Fire coral is poisonous.  Try as he might, he couldn’t see the way out.

He talks about the conversation in his head.  First, he was pleading with God to save his life.  It was let’s make a deal.  Then his imagination was running wild on being found dead from the poison of the coral.  What his friends and relatives would say at his funeral and so on.

Finally, exhausted and seeing the sand sharks swimming towards him in the coral he accepted that he was going to die.  At this moment of complete surrender, no longer fighting, a huge wave came through the coral and swept him up on the only piece of coral that was safe.  He was able to stand and see the only pathway safely out of the coral and return to shore.

This was his moment of waking up.  This was his moment of divine consciousness coming both from within and into him.  It was his “Kairos” moment.  The definition of Kairos is the perfect, delicate, crucial moment, that fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportunity for action, words, or movement.

In that space of complete surrender, something inside of him finally released who and what he came to earth to be.  He realized his purpose, his divine mission in life.

When Derek stood up on the one safe place, he was standing in God’s time.  He was outside of time.  For that one moment he was completely in the present moment.  He wasn’t seeing his death in the future.  He wasn’t full of regrets for things he did or didn’t do in his past.  He was in a “Kairos moment”, a time when God takes action moment.  Kairos takes you through time because you are standing outside of linear time.

Now it took time to integrate everything that came to him at that moment, but it was the moment that transformed him completely.  He had to seize that moment, in order to save his life.

Difficult times that challenge you are not meant to destroy you.  They are meant to wake you up to your life’s purpose.  It is up to you to accept it or deny it.

When you accept it, you find strength in overcoming the trial.  You have a clear purpose.

It doesn’t mean that you find an easy life.  It means that you realize why you are here, and you start learning how to accomplish it.

The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become.  That’s what you will take into eternity.  You are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny on God’s great universe – Dallas Willard

Those who refuse to accept their destiny, choose to remain asleep in life.  They become bitter, negative souls, hopeless against life’s challenges.

Like the butterfly whose chrysalis gets opened from an outside source, their wings are weak and not capable of flight.

It is in the struggle to break out of the chrysalis, that the butterfly’s wings grow the strength to take flight.

Discover the path that you are meant to walk.  Celebrate the miles you have come and keep going. Believe in yourself and see yourself as the wonderful inspiring person you really are becoming.

Hello Beautiful!

We tend to live our lives based on what we believe about ourselves, our world, our capabilities and our limits.  Where do those beliefs come from?  More often than not they come from what other people have told us, history, science, religion, culture, family.  What if they’re wrong? – Gregg Braden

Growing up in my family we were assigned these roles.  I was the smart one.  My younger sister was the pretty one.  The Twins were just the twins – mirror images in looks but opposites in actions.  My fourth sister was blond and so different.  My youngest sister was the pest, and my baby brother was the spoiled boy.  I went through most of my life believing that I couldn’t be both pretty and smart – it was one or the other, so because I was smart according to everyone else, I couldn’t possibly be pretty too.

Since I also had the belief that it wasn’t safe to be seen, I didn’t mind not being pretty.

It is interesting how I have always reacted to compliments that are not about my being smart.  If someone comments on my photo for example it makes me uncomfortable because it went against an unconscious belief from my childhood.  I always felt like they were not being honest, they were just being nice.

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future – Deepak Chopra

It is kind of funny, but Facebook has actually helped me to release most of this belief.  It has happened in a strange way, because a lot of men try to use Facebook to meet women.  I am sure that this has happened to most of you.  Complete strangers want to be your Facebook friend.  It never occurred to me that this would happen because they were interested in me, I thought it was because they read my posts and liked them.

So, when I would get personal messages that indicated what they were really after I was shocked.  Now while I now screen my friends’ invitations, it did help me to release this belief.  These men and one woman (lol) didn’t know me, so they weren’t just being “nice”.  They saw something that attracted them.

It is kind of funny how your perceptions can literally change things.  They did this study years ago they called Pygmalion in which they were going to give this class an IQ test.  The researchers told the teacher that 5 students who would perform the best.  The teacher wasn’t told that these 5 children were just randomly picked.

From the teacher’s perception these were the 5 brightest students.  The test confirmed that these 5 students were the best in the class.  The teacher’s viewpoint impacted those students.  Something in the way she taught, the feedback she gave, something she did, made those five students “smarter”.

What we are told as children, from our parents, our teachers, our friends and relatives – what the expectations are for our behavior – subconsciously they motivate us to make them true.  Whatever negative beliefs you have about you, you filter through life’s experiences to make them come true for you.  You get what you expect.

The mind and the body are like parallel universes.  Anything that happens in the mental universe must leave tracks in the physical one – Deepak Chopra

The great news is that once you recognize what these unconscious beliefs are, you can change them.  This morning I had to wait for the Microsoft upgrades to finish before I could finish this post.  Every month or so, your computer gets program upgrades.  In this same way, you have the ability to give yourself a program upgrade.  You can change your reality by changing your beliefs.  By creating new expectations.

When you heal damaging beliefs about yourself, you remove limitations which are restricting your personal growth.

If you feel like you are pushing the boulder up a hill about anything in your life right now, examine what your beliefs are around what you are trying to accomplish.  Realize that this belief is not true.  That it probably came from a childhood experience that you then spent every year since proving was true.  And now you have the opportunity to release that belief and upgrade to a new program or belief.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate – Carl Jung

It is amazing how everything changes when you do this.  It is like the hose was turned on full blast, but because you had a kink in the hose, you were only getting a drop or two at a time.  Releasing the false belief, unkinks the hose, and your life rushes forward in the direction you were trying to go.  That boulder you were pushing uphill turns into a sled sliding down the hill at top speed.

So, I encourage you to find one limiting belief you have, release it as a misunderstanding, and upgrade that belief into something that serves you.

Watering Concrete Will Never Grow A Garden

“You should not have to rip yourself into pieces to make others feel whole”  – Unknown

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind didn’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind”  –  Dr. Seuss

“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it”  – Henry Ford

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”  – Margaret Mead

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done.  Life’s too short to think small”  – Tim Ferris

“The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning, but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it. Until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the Light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel”  – Bruce Lee

What would you be if the people around you refused to let you fail?

Burn brightly and never, ever, ever, let anyone convince you to be less than the brightly shining star that you are.

When You Are Lost, You Finally Have The Chance To Find Yourself

As with a heavy fog on a road, what lies ahead on the path of life is never completely clear, but the choices we make can help shape out the shadows  – Bryson Staley

If you’re feeling frightened about what comes next, don’t be.  Embrace the uncertainty.  Allow it to lead you places.  Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path toward happiness; don’t waste time with regret.  Spin wildly into your next action.  Enjoy the present, each moment as it comes, because you’ll never get another one quite like it.  And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over.  Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart . . .  where your hope lives.  You’ll find your way again  – Everwood

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves –  Henry David Thoreau

Trust Without Reservation And Take A Leap Of Faith

Updated 7/30/2018

Adventures are how we grow and realize the hidden strengths that are inside each of us. Each day we have the opportunity to start a new adventure.  We can go on this adventure solo, or we can have partners that join us.  It can be a business adventure or a personal journey to explore who we are now and who we can grow into.  The choice of destination can be a fixed point, or it can be left open for divine guidance to take us to where the most growth can happen.  The trust in the first case is that we did our homework and prepared for everything possible, and are ready for the impossible to show up.  In the latter case, the trust is that whatever the divine throws at us to stimulate the growth is something that we can not only handle, but conquer and be victorious over.

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.

  – Henry Miller

Martha Beck in her book, “Finding Your Way in a Wild New World” speaks about leaps of faith. She says that the term for a collective (like herd of cows) for leopards is a “leap”. A leopard will leap up into the branches of a tree with an antelope carcass in its mouth that outweighs it. Each time the leopard leaps, it is an act of faith that it will make it up onto a branch 10 feet above it. If the leopard doesn’t make it, it could mean it’s death, as it would most likely land on its back with the weight of the antelope on top of it.  Put yourself in that space and ask yourself – have you have truly ever taken such a leap of faith?

Everyone needs someone who will call and say, “get dressed, we’re going on an adventure”. 

  – Whisper

She goes on to say that each time we face an unknown, with creativity instead of grasping at known quantities, we leap. Each time we dare to think that our art (I insert here whatever your personal genius is) can sustain us financially we leap. She reflects that each time we surrender to the way things want to happen (not under our control), we leap.  When was the last time that you truly surrendered to the divine guidance?  That you truly followed the saying , “let go and let God”?  It is the acknowledgement that we don’t have the answers.  That we want to continue the adventure.  That we are letting go of expectations.  That we are letting go of our own brains “ideas” of how things should be.  That we are letting go of the safety nets.  That we are stepping out onto the tightrope,and one step at a time we are walking across,.  That we are trusting our inner guidance to be the balance we need to get to the other side – whatever and wherever that is.

I highly recommend any of Martha Beck’s books and especially this book – I bookmarked it for you to check out. http://amzn.to/1Xbnz56

What we discover when we leap, is what we are really made of. Do we shrink back at the challenges or opportunities that present themselves to us? Do we pass by the aid of angelic guides, because we think that what we see isn’t the answer we were looking for? That one is too easy, this one is too hard? Then when we find what we think is the perfect one, we get scared off by a family of bears?

The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are.  The second greatest is being happy with what you find.

  – Picturequotes.com

Today I took a leap. trusting in the magic of my soul. Today was the day that I took a deep breath, let go of certainty, trusted my heart, and leaped into “seeing what happens next.”

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.

  – D Elton Trueblood

So today we traded in all of our fears for faith and trust without reservation in divine guidance.  Those who are curious have the best adventures, just ask Alice about her adventures in Wonderland. In traveling, we think that we are losing ourselves.  Leaving behind the world that we know with all of its limitations and obligations.  Instead, when we travel we find ourselves.  We rediscover who we are and what is important.  We open ourselves to the infinite stream of possibilities and wonder.  Adventure fills your soul.

Only those who will risk going to far can possibly find out how far they can go.

  – T.S. Eliot

I think of Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz. She learned so much about herself with her adventures. She had her companions with her, just as I do today. I don’t know the “how” part of this decision. But I listened to my heart, which said that it is the right decision. Dorothy didn’t know the “how” of getting home, but she listened to Glenda and set out on the journey.

It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end.

  – Ursula K. LeGuin

Glenda the Good Witch tells her at the end, “you had the power to go home from the very beginning”, so Dorothy of course asks, “why didn’t you tell me?” Because Glenda said, “you would not have believed it. You had to learn it by yourself.”

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you have always imagined.

  – Henry David Thoreau

The same is true for me, and you. Adventures is how we learn what are powers are, and what we are capable of creating together. 

Faith is the daring of the soul to go further than it can see.

  –  (from Godfruits.com)

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

A Heroes Journey Begins With A Call Or A Fall – What Will You Choose?

Most of us are in what Joseph Campbell calls “Sleepy Land”. We get so bound up in the day to day details of living, that we fall asleep to our purpose.

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, “Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there, and so it starts.

  – Joseph Campbell

Then one day it happens. We notice that we are missing something. We want more. We wake up to the fact that “more” is not more money.  It is not a better job.  It is not a bigger house.  It is not a more luxurious car. It is elusive, and we may not know what “it” is.  But we begin to figure out what “it” isn’t. It is our birthright,.  It is what takes our life from “normal” to “greatness”.

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.

  – Carol Pearson

Men like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson figured out what that was for them. And while they had all of the things that people think will make them happy, it was the “more” that actually brought them to greatness.  The dragons we must confront are all the lies that we told ourselves.  If I rise up in the ranks at work, I will be happy.  If I make six or seven figures, then I will be happy.  If only I had a sports car I would be so happy.  What we must discover is what “it” is.

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

  – Martin Buber

They may have started out after all of the material things, but they ended up with the “more”.  There is a Billy Crystal movie from years ago.  It was called City Slickers.  Billy Crystal’s character meets up with this cowboy who asks him if he knows the secret of life.  “One thing.  Just one thing.  You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.”  Billy Crystals character asks him what that one thing is, and the cowboy replies, “that’s what you have to find out.”  It isn’t things and stuff.  It is something more.  It is something that demands more of you than you think that you have to give.  And if you find it, and follow it where it leads, you will lead a life you never thought would be possible.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

  – Joseph Campbell

This something else is transcendence. Transcendence happens when we “reclaim the visionary, the utopian, the dream of the better or happier world”  – when everything that we touch becomes a prayer. 

The genuine exploration of one’s self as an individual is the greatest contribution you can make toward humanity and all life.  Ironically, inner self-reliance is what makes the whole of humanity stronger.

  – Unknown

So how do we discover what it is? We have to walk out the door of the safe comfortable space we have created for ourselves.  We have to walk down that path to the unknown. We have to enter the dark forest. You have to embark on the Hero’s journey. It is how you discover the vast resources that reside within you. A hero’s journey – finding the edge of your unknown forest, and entering into the heart of darkness.

What do you find there? You explore the caves of the past and you wake up to the dreams of the future. You let go of the life of existence, of “go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed and repeat over and over again”.  The journey is an individual one, and each persons journey is different.  We have to go within and listen to what our own truth is.  Some walks you have to take alone.  Otherwise your truth, your inner voice gets drowned out by others.

The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of your self.

 –   Joseph Campbell

Traveling down into the depths of the abyss we recover treasures of life. We recover the dreams we let die.  Se see that the stories that we have told ourselves about past hurts are not entirely true. We become excavator’s and dig up the bones of the past.  We let the past blow away like dust on the winds of healing. We see that most of the problems in our life have been mirrors being held up to us.  Most of the time, we were too blind or too scared to acknowledge the truth. By exploring the darkness we become enlightened.

The fatal mistake is waiting for life’s circumstances to be right before we begin.  Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel.  Practice knowing and you will know.

  – Hugh Prather

We become curious, our mind opens up to new ideas. Changes begin as we see new worlds to explore that have lain beneath the normalcy of our past life. We see possibilities instead of complications. We wonder. We release. We transform. We heal and become whole for the first time.  We have to enter the forest and break away, to walk the hero’s path.

We realize that although we were damaged, we survived and that makes us dangerous. Because we now know how to not only survive, we know how to become whole again. We become both a mentor and a teacher for ourselves.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

  – Rumi

Being a mentor to oneself with love, light, grace, and compassion. Being a teacher to yourself with rage, darkness, fear, and judgment. We are both.  Both are required for the heroes journey. Speaking love to overcome rage,.  Speaking light to overcome darkness.  Speaking grace to overcome fear.  Speaking compassion to overcome judgment.

I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.

  – Kami Garcia

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

What Barriers To Love Are Inside Of Me?

Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” As I learned to love myself, my relationship with everyone changed. 

Loving myself lead to a clarity of my mind and heart. It gave me the courage to say “no more” hiding behind the masks. To say “no more” living in fear of what others will think of me. To say “yes” to me! The heavy armor I had built around me to protect me was in fact made of fear and stress. As I dropped it all behind me, I was left floating free in joy and freedom.  I learned that I must be the ultimate believer in myself first.

I knew in my bones why I was here on earth. I may not always be clear on what to do next, but I am clear as crystal as to where I am going. Clarity of mind is how you find purpose in life. It in turn is linked to clarity of passion, which is the fire of your soul to fulfill your purpose.

I believe that when we tear down the barriers we have built against loving ourselves, that we dispel the veils of illusion that obscure the direction of our life path. Love is an energy that engages us in life in a whole new way. Maya Angelou said, “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

Life is about breaking our own limitations. It is about outgrowing who we were. It is about living our lives, by outgrowing ourselves over and over. It is about being curious and opening doors and finding new paths to explore.

Do You Have The Courage To Break Those Chains And Redefine Your Life?

When we are at the airport and getting ready to check our luggage, they always ask, “Has anyone asked you to carry something for them in your luggage?  Has anyone else packed your bags?”  Have you ever wondered how much of what weighs you down is not yours to carry?  What beliefs do you carry around in your baggage that don’t really belong to you?  When we unpack the stories in our luggage, what we find is that we are carrying around stories that belong to our parents, our grandparents, our family, culture, tribe.  Most of those stories are not ours.  They are not who we are.  They belong to others and need to be unpacked, they need to be left with those that they really belong to.  That is the luggage that needs to be checked.  Release it.

“I can’t”. . . , “it’s not possible”. . . , “I’m not good enough”. . . , These are the lies the demons of your past use to scare away the possibilities of the present.

  –  Dr. Steve Maraboli

There is a movie that Lucille Ball made with her husband about a trip they were making in a car that was towing a big trailer.  Along the trip the character Lucille was playing kept putting in these large stones or rocks of everyplace they stopped.  Finally the weight was so much, they couldn’t tow the trailer up over the mountains.  This is the same for us. 

How many of us walk around being weighed down by the baggage of our journey?  You can’t possibly embrace that new relationship, that new companion, that new career, that new friendship, or that new life you want while you’re still holding on to the baggage of the last one.  Let go . . . , and allow yourself to embrace what is waiting for you right at your feet.

  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Our mind has these filters.  They sort through everything that we see and do, looking for proof of our beliefs.  We carry with us all of these heavy stones, which are stories of our past.  At some point the weight of the stories will pull us down, if they are weighted with negativity.  We need to unpack all of the “I should of’s” and “I shouldn’t have’s” and leave those stones at the side of the road you are traveling on.  We need to lighten the load, by releasing everything negative.

I am like a book, with pages that have stuck together for want of use.  My mind needs unpacking and the truths stored within must be turned over from time to time, to be ready when occasion demands.

  –  Seneca

The problem with our stories, is that they are usually one sided.  This is because our “truth” is never the entire truth.  It takes courage to break those chains and redefine your own life.  What we need to do is examine all of those stories.  We need to unpack the stories and ask, why they are important?  What about our true values do they reflect?  What about them brings us joy and happiness?  What do they tell us from a space of self love and trust? When we focus our light on the things that build us up, the things that were dragging us down will disappear on their own.  They can’t exist in our authentic light of love and truth.

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

  – powerofpositivity.com

Our minds do not know the difference between actual events and our imagination.  Most of us carry these unconscious beliefs formed as a small child before we really understood what was really happening.  For example, when I was around four years old, I walked in on my mom having an affair.  Shortly thereafter my mom and dad divorced.  As a four year old, I assumed the responsibility of breaking up the marriage.  I felt that I wasn’t to be trusted, and that it wasn’t safe to be seen. 

That program ran my life all of my childhood and most of my adult life.  When I figured out what was creating the pattern of “my foot on the brake and gas at the same time”, I released that story.  I had nothing to do with the breakup of my parents marriage.  Now this pattern no longer shows up in my life.  Most of us have patterns created by a small child, that were made up by our imagination to explain something that we didn’t understand..

The things you want are always possible; it is just that the way to get them is not always apparent.  The only real obstacle in your path to a fulfilling life is you, and that can be a considerable obstacle because you carry the baggage of insecurities and past experience.

  –  Les Brown

So take a few moments and ask yourselves the questions we talked about.  Loosen up the load; put down the bags; unlock the chains and let them fall to the ground; unpack those bags.  Set yourself free.  Reminds me of the lyrics from 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover – Just slip out the back Jack and set yourself free.

Sometimes the most difficult part of any journey is believing that you’re worthy of the destination.  The one where you see that goal, that dream or what it is that you have always longed for.  You are brave enough to face the challenges and strong enough to see it through the end.  Never be afraid to take that first step.  With each new step, bringing you closer to it.  Believe it!  You can do it.

  – Brigitte Nicole

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]