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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The Power Of Pause

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why is this so important?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Become That Kind Of Woman

Dreamers, Just Do It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Deepest Fear About Ourself Is Our Deepest Treasure

 How can a fear that eats us alive, also be a great treasure?  Marianne Williamson has the best answer I have ever heard to this question.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  You’re playing small does not serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

  – Marianne Williamson 

As children we freely express ourselves.  Our emotions flow through us, one minute we are crying like the world has ended, and the next minute we are smiling and serenely happy with the smallest thing that has grabbed our attention.  As we grow older we somehow come under this trance of fearing to be different than everyone else.  We feel like we are not good enough, unworthy in some way and we start striving to earn a place at the table. 

The human longings that are deep inside of us never go away.  They exist across cultures; they exist throughout life . . . , our deepest longing was to know and be known . . . , it’s now also our deepest fear.

  –  John Ortberg

The great thing is that at any moment we can begin to awaken to the truth of who we are.  We can stop pushing our true selves into the dark corner.  Instead we can be setting fire to every thought and feeling, burning it up with dragon fire.  We can set it free to soar high into the night sky to light up the darkness inside of us.  We can free ourselves of thinking that we are not good enough. not pretty enough, not talented enough, or not smart enough.  Instead of fearing the bright lights that we are, we can illuminate the night sky, and help those around us realize that they too can set themselves free.

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.  Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

  – Rainer Maria Rilke

It takes a lot of courage to risk being alive without self imposed limits.  To express who we are.  When I think back to my biggest fears in life, I can see where those fears at times both served to protect me, and at others times caused tremendous harm in my life.  The real trick is to discern when the fear is protecting us, and when it is limiting us.  Every fear in our life has the potential to become a shadow. A shadow is in every folded up place.  It is in those folded up places, that we are not living our life as who we truly are.

I want to unfold.  I don’t want to stay folded anywhere, because where I am folded, there I am a lie.

  – Rainer Maria Rilke

As we have journeyed down life’s paths, we have all experienced someone putting us down for something we said or did.  I remember being ashamed of being an “A” student.  All of my friends were making fun of me, saying I thought I was too good to be hanging out with them.  I remember getting “B’s” on purpose, so that I could fit in better with my friends. 

In every heart there is an inner room, where we can hold our greatest treasures and our deepest pain.

  – Marianne Williamson

So for a lot of years as an adult, I would give my ideas at work to someone else, so they could get the credit for it, because I was afraid to be judged as thinking that I was smarter than my fellow employees.  This created what is termed a shadow – it was created by my pretending to be someone different than I really was.  I thought I was protecting myself.  In reality I was hurting myself, because it held me back from being recognized as a valued employee.

Fear is an idea-crippling, experience-crushing, success-stalling inhibitor inflicted only by yourself.

  – Stephanie Melish

We all have these gifts or talents that we bury.  Our light scares us.  So rather than risk being seen, being noticed, letting everyone know how powerful we are – we hide in just existing.  The moment that you stop being afraid of being different in some way from everyone else is when you experience true freedom.  We don’t realize what a weight that we carry around, hiding from who we really are, until you release it and let it go. 

Draw a map.  Find a path.  Take a breath, and run.

  – Unknown

For years I would grow my hair really long, and then I would go get it cut shoulder length and donate it to Locks of Love to make wigs for children with cancer.  I always remember how light my head would feel, when I got my long hair cut.  It always surprised me how much weight it felt like on my head, but how when I would hold the braid it was so light. 

As our fears grown within us, it is like that long hair.  We don’t notice the weight we are carrying around.  Because it grew slowly, the fear slowly weighted us down.  When we release the fear, like the long hair getting cut, we become lighter.  The way to release the fear is with love. 

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.  Fear of the unknown is our greatest fear.  Many of us would enter a tiger’s lair before we would enter a dark cave.  While caution is a useful instinct, we lose many opportunities and much of the adventure of life if we fail to support the curious explorer within us.

  –  Joseph Campbell

When we are consciously living a life of love for ourselves and others, then we shine our lights brightly because we realize it is our purpose to help others shine their bright lights.  The meaning of life is not expressed by the size of our bank accounts, the title we achieve at a job; the fame and fortune that we seek out.  The meaning of life lies within us living our lives from that place of love.  Letting our lights shine out so that we can share the true treasure of who we are. 

Who am I, you ask?

I am made from all the people I’ve encountered and all the things I have experienced.

Inside, I hold the laughter of my friends, the arguments with my parents, the chattering of your children, and the warmth from kind strangers.

Inside, there are stitching’s from cracked hearts, bitter words from heated arguments, music that gets me through, and emotions I cannot convey.

I am made from all these people and moments.

That is who I am.

  – Ming D Liu

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Self Confidence Is The Best Outfit, Rock It, Own It

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.

  – Rumi

As I learned to love myself, my relationship with everyone changed. 

People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours.  Live your truth and don’t EVER stop!

  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Loving myself leads 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. 

Love yourself enough to take the actions required for your happiness…, Love yourself enough to cut yourself loose from the ties of the drama-filled-past…, Love yourself enough to  move on.

  –  Dr. Steve Maraboli

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.

Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of their heart.

  – Rumi

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.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

  – Maya Angelou

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.

Confidence is the ability to feel beautiful, without needing someone to tell you.

  – Mandy Hale

There is a voice that comes from deep inside of you.  Sometimes it doesn’t even use words.  Instead you feel something in your heart, or in your gut.  You just have a knowing about something.  Listen to that voice.  The voice of intuition is your souls voice.  It knows who you really are, without the self judgment, the limiting beliefs, the lies that you have told yourself for years.  Instead, look into the mirror, looking into your own eyes, and saying the words below.  For me it was the hardest thing I have ever done.  It was harder than giving birth without drugs (lol) after nineteen hours of labor.

I am pretty enough (beauty comes in all shapes and sizes)

I am smart enough (I can learn whatever I need to know)

I am talented enough (everyone has their own unique qualities of divine genius, mine is writing) 

I am loud enough (my voice is worth being heard)

I am tall enough (3″ heels work wonders)

I am “normal” enough (what is normal anyway?)

I am strong enough ( I know my weaknesses and move forward through them)

I am experienced enough ( I have learned from my mistakes)

I am more than “ENOUGH” for anything and anyone just by being myself

Your heart is the size of an ocean.  Go find yourself in its hidden depths.

  – Rumi

Life is a journey of first learning to love yourself, and then extending that love to everyone you encounter.  It is putting the best possible explanation to every situation.  When we truly love ourselves, it tells others how to treat us.  While there will be those few people who are so dysfunctional as to take advantage of us, we will receive way more in blessings than we would ever lose. 

Once you reunite with your clarity, let it lubricate your parched soul, be the wave you glide on and the energy you give your body to.  Allow it to be the friend you become powerfully fearless with, and the very medicine you need to dissolve your empty parts.  Let it halt your restless yearning and lead your beautiful heart.

  – Victoria Erickson of Rebelle Society

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Challenges Change Everything

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s In Your Backpack?

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

 – Unknown

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

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

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

 – qutoesforbros.com

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

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

 – Bernice Johnson Reagan

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

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

  – Unknown

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

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

  – Tea Bag Quote

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

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

 – Savannah Smith

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

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

  – Glenn Clark

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

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

  – Wayne L Misner

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

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

 – Lena Horne

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

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

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

 – Healrhyplace.com

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

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

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

– Unknown 

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

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Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for becoming part of our community.  Thank you for taking the time to read our posts.  For commenting and liking them and most of all for sharing them with others.

I wanted to let you know that you have all become special to me, because through you I have realized that I am not the only one who thinks about what I write.  Thanks to you I have realized that there are many people in this world who see the possibilities that our world can become a better place.

I also wanted to take this day for helping me to be able to receive the love that you have shown to me, in encouraging me to continue to write my heart out on this page.  I always dreamed of being a writer, since I was a very small girl.  But I didn’t think that I had any talent.  I didn’t think that what I wanted to talk about, was anything that anyone would want to read.  You have no idea of the joy you have brought into my life.

Thank you!  You are a blessing in my life.  We are a blessing to each other.

Will You Answer Destiny’s Call?

Dare To Believe In Your Dreams

When I look at this picture, I see a little boy with big dreams. But when he looks out over the city in the moonlight, I think that he is overwhelmed by the vastness of the city. The moon is large and full and seems to be almost overpowering.