Getting onto the Right Path
One of my favorite stories comes from Love, Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Seigal. A young man wanted to become a violinist. His parents said no, become a lawyer. He went to law school and started practicing law. He then developed what was diagnosed as terminal cancer. Thinking he was going to die, he got a job playing violin for an orchestra. Years later, he was still alive because he realized he was on the wrong path. He had to live his life, not the life of his parents.
Knowing when to walk away is wisdom, being able to do so is courage.
Isn’t it amazing that cancer is what gave him courage enough to walk away? He demonstrated how true the maxim is that every cloud has a silver lining. Can you think of examples when you went through a dark time only to find at the end that it gave you what you had always dreamed and wanted?
Your body knows when you are not living your authentic life, and you will receive a wake-up call.
- It is important, that you listen. That you look within and examine your life.
- It is vital, that you create the courage to make the change.
- It is critical, that you realize that just because you are walking down the right path, doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles.
- Your need of courage includes being courageous enough to face the fact that you will still make mistakes, experience disappointments and despair.
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is perspective, not the truth” – Marcus Aurelius
This is where the ability to both look around you, and within yourself becomes important. It doesn’t mean that you are on the wrong path just because something goes wrong. It just means that you need to grow more, to be able to continue the journey.
In every journey something in your life will become complete. It will have played out its purpose. That road map will no longer lead you in the right direction. You need to wake up to follow a new direction and not just blindly continue down a road that no longer leads you in the right direction.
Every year roads change. New maps are made. If your car has a GPS unit it will need to become updated. The road that used to go through that small town, now bypasses it. Internally your GPS has updated itself and you need to follow a new path.
U-Turns don’t take you all the way back. They just take you back far enough that you can take the turn you missed. Life’s road twists and turns. There are no two directions that are ever the same. So, when you complete a U-turn, it is just like taking a right-hand turn.
You can’t truly go backwards, although it seems like it some days. Trying to, is very disappointing, as you can’t recreate what we left behind. You changed and so did everyone else.
Don’t allow yourself to become the boulder blocking the path. This is what happens when you try to go backwards.
- You block our own path.
- You recreate similar patterns of self-destruction.
If you do, that is when you know that it is time to listen to the heart. Your heart and soul are like the magnetic needle on the compass. Always go to “true north” and you will be on the right path.
I have always maintained that U-turns are part of every journey to some place that I don’t know. I expect them, I laugh when they happen. U-Turns can be really interesting.
What I have learned in my life is that every single experience has something important in it that I needed to learn. I may only understand later, why that piece of knowledge was required.
I have been in the mortgage industry for over 40 years. So I have lived through good and bad cycles in the financial industry. Years ago I had a good job, but the owner of another company kept calling me to come and work for him. Finally after months of getting his phone calls, I gave notice and went to work for him. This job would end up being a U-turn for me.
He had hired a free lance writer to create a manual for the mortgage brokers he worked with, and she seemed unable to finish the project, so as part of my job I took that project to completion.
Then two weeks later I was laid off, when the interest rates hiked up and his business slowed down. I really yelled at myself, because I felt I had made a wrong decision in taking that job. I felt I should have stayed where I was, safe in my comfort zone.
We ended up having to move out of state in order for me to find work. But what happened next, was really interesting.
The Savings and Loan I went to work for needed manuals written for their servicing department, and because I had that experience I got the job of being both an underwriter and a trainer. I created several training programs for them, as well as the servicing manual.
Then I got a second part time job teaching at South Seattle Community College for an adult education class for loan processors and loan officers. I ended up creating new manuals for this position too, because their manuals were so bad. Both of these jobs would not have been available to me, if I hadn’t taken that earlier job and got the experience of creating a manual.
“Move on. It’s just a chapter in your life. Don’t close the book, just turn the page for a new chapter” – Unknown
So you will fall down. You may even get lost. U-Turns are a given. But as long as you take out that compass, listen to your heart, and keep creating the courage in your soul, you will be on the right path. As long as you tune into true north, you can take that step into the unknown, knowing that this is the right path.
New Wonders Will Be Revealed
1Years ago, when I was young, I had opinions on what would I do, if “such and such” happened in my life. I think that when most of us hear of an experience that someone has, we think “well if that happened to me, this is what I would do”. We sometimes don’t agree with the decision that another has made, when that same thing happened to them. When life does hand us lemons, and we are the one trying to make lemonade out of it, many times we come to a totally different decision. There are many reasons for this. Each of life’s lemons come to us wrapped up in a different series of circumstances. You could look at multiple experiences of someone losing a loved one to violence, and you would find that each instance was handled in a different way. This is because although the label may be the same “man killed by random shooting”, the circumstances in each case tell their own unique story. In 1995 Tariq a pizza delivery man was shot and killed by a 14 year old gang member. Initially Azim, Tariq’s father could barely function. But he came to understand that the 14 yr old boy named Tony who killed his son, was also a victim. He felt called to forgive Tony, and became friends with Tony’s grandfather and guardian. He started a foundation to help kids stop killing other kids. He began talking with kids in schools about the realities of that lifestyle and the importance of making right choices. He made lemonade out of his lemons. This foundation (http://tkf.org/) has grown into an organization of 13 full time staff members and 30 volunteers that mentor over 20,000 students each year. In the article I read, in 13 years they had touched eight million kids (the foundation is now over 20 years old). But I would bet that if you have asked him if this is the road he would take if someone killed his son, this is not the answer he would have given. His unknown road that he journeyed on revealed what kind of man he truly was. This is forgiveness in action. We are all on a road, a journey to discover who we really are. What we are capable of becoming. Buddha says “No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” Azim saved himself by walking the path of true forgiveness. He wanted to not only prevent other innocents from being killed, he wanted to save those other victims “kids” becoming killers themselves. His difficult road has lead to a beautiful destination – saving others. What I have learned in life, is to hope that I can emulate the grace I see in others lives, as they grapple with life’s lemons. That until I find myself in that same hard place, I don’t really know what my decision will be. I do know that there is no turning back. So each decision needs to be made in prayer and meditation, with that understanding. What I have learned from the lemons in my own life, is that I no longer allow someone to make me swallow up my soul, and dam up the words in my heart. That I don’t have to apologize for my imperfections, and allow the darkness of others to cover up my light. This is who I am, a woman of deep strength who keeps walking the path, knowing that new wonders are going to be revealed right around the next bend.
Doing the Impossible
In 2013, in Oregon, teenage sisters Hanna (age 16) & Haylee (age 14) lifted a tractor to save their father pinned underneath. In 2015, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Nick Williams lifted a four-wheel-drive vehicle to save a young boy pinned beneath its tire. In 2015, in Vienna, Virginia, Charlotte Heffelmire was able to momentarily use incredible strength to free her dad from a GMC pick-up truck. What do these three things have in common? They are what we call miracles, extreme feats of strength. Adrenaline on overload. What they demonstrate is that the rules, boundaries and limitations don’t exist. Why? Because we can blast through them, when we don’t stop to think about it. These examples show people that did something their mind’s would have told them was impossible. But because someone they loved was in danger, they did the impossible. Hilary Swank said “I don’t think people should have boundaries put on them, by themselves or society or another gender, because it is our birthright to experience life in whatever way we feel best suits us.” There was a commercial at Super Bowl XLIX for Always #LikeAGirl. In the video they have a woman show them what it was like to run like a girl, then a young teen, and preteen and little girl. The older girls ran in an unreal way that was weak and ineffective. The younger girls ran as fast as they could. The commercial highlighted the fact that women especially, when they hit puberty take in limitations to what they can do and be. All of us continue to allow limitations to rule our lives as adults. Some limiting beliefs are conscious and some unconscious. What we need to realize is that they are all just a belief of our imagination. At one time, the saying was man will never fly. If god had meant for man to fly he would have been given wings. But people like the Wright Brothers refused to allow that limiting belief hold them back from their dream “Boundaries are for those who are too afraid to take the leap” quoted from @Business Beware. What wall have you built over the door of opportunity that you are ready to blast into bits? What limiting belief are you ready to let go of? Share with us your limiting belief that you are letting go of. Your share will help all of us to do the same.
Impossible really means I’m Possible
When you look across the ocean with the sunrise or the sunset, you see the colors mirrored on the surface. This is like our appearance, beautiful when calm and serene. But if you dive down deep, into the depths, that is where the true beauty of a person lies, in their soul. This is the beauty that we miss, when we make surface judgments about someone. Rumi says, “Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.” Self knowledge is the place to start. We need to dig down deep within us, and question all of the stories we have told ourselves about our life. What do we know to be 100% totally true? If we seriously ask and listen to the answer to this question, most of us would have to acknowledge that most of our stories about life are made up. We make them up to make sense of the things we have seen, done, and experienced. John Lennon said, “The more I see, the less I know for sure.” This is because the more that we learn about life, the more we see that most of our knowledge is surface knowledge. The deeper we dive, the more we see how much more complicated and interconnected our understanding of life is. “Knowledge is knowing the depths of the ocean. Wisdom is knowing where to swim” Saleem Sharma. Sometimes life can be hard to navigate. When the storms come in, the waves churn up from the bottom of the sea bed. Things come to the surface that have been long buried. We are like this when the storms of life blow in. All those things that we stuff down inside of us, because we either can’t, or don’t know how to deal with them, come churning up to the surface. Instead of being afraid of what we have buried, we need to rise up and calm the waters. Be still. Breathe. Be at peace. Realize that God never brings anything into our lives that we can’t handle. Wake up to your dreams. Live them out in your reality. Lean on the divine, and on those who love us. Change what can be changed, release the rest. See the hope of a new day, the beauty that lies within each of us, and the love that never dies. Remember that you can do anything you “think” you can do, and impossible really means “I m possible”.
Boarding Pass Tickets
I learned something today that I wanted to share with everyone. I always assumed that the boarding pass just had my name and flight information on it. But according to this article the bar code contains a lot of personal information on it – basically everything that you type in when you purchase your ticket is contained in the boarding pass.
After landing, most travelers usually throw away their boarding pass print-outs, or even leave them stuffed in the seat pocket in front of them. Flight’s over — who needs the flimsy document?
The bar code on your ticket alone, if hacked, can reveal:
Your name
Phone number
Email id
Personal address
Frequent flier number
Flight information
So make sure that you safely dispose of the boarding pass after your flight.
See More: Here’s the Frightening Reason Why You Should Never Throw Away Your Boarding Pass
Happiness is the Truth
Our feelings and emotions can at times be overwhelming. I remember when my mom passed away, that in the evenings I would get deluged with emotions of missing her, being mad at her for dying, hurting so much that I just crawled into a ball and cried until I couldn’t breathe. Like a person surfing the waves, we can learn to ride these overwhelming emotions. We may crash and fall off our board, but we can choose to get right back on and ride the next wave. To me riding the wave is allowing the emotion to flow right through us, just as the wave reaches the shore and dissipates into nothing. I think the reason that grief or anger can get us stuck in these emotions, is because we don’t allow the emotions to flow through. It then gets caught in a rip tide that we fight until we are exhausted. When we battle or wallow in the emotions, they will keep circling around us, until we are so exhausted that it beats us into the sand. Allowing the emotions to pass through helps us to heal from the hurt. We recover much faster, and we can begin choosing good memories to dwell on. We can progress into appreciation for the time that we had with what we have lost. The truth is that we haven’t really lost anything. People and things come into our lives, serve their purpose or reason for being there, and then move on to the next thing. The important thing is that we had them in our lives for the time they were with us. When we have a bad memory come up, we can just ride the wave to the shore and then consciously allow it to fade into foam. As the last bubble of the foam pops, then it is time to let it go. Then we can consciously decide that we want to raise our vibrations up into higher levels out from the sadness, grief, or anger. We can start attracting good feelings into our space. We always have a choice, even when we think that we don’t. Taking a few deep belly breaths, placing our hands on our heart, and consciously reaching for something that will help us raise our awareness into something positive. I always think of the laughing baby when the dad tears the paper video or cute kittens and puppies, or a favorite song like Pharrell Williams “Happy” song. It’s a great idea to have some images, songs, poems, movies, etc…, in your tool box so that when you need to raise your vibration, you know how to do it quick and easy. As the “Happy” songs says, “happiness is the truth”.
Thank you
We don’t choose tragedy but we do chose how we respond to it. Kellie created this short film as part of her “thank you” project, to go back years later and thank all of the emergency and medical workers that saved her son. What really touched my heart was when one nurse said that no one had ever thanked her before.
So here is a thank you to all those medical professionals that work tirelessly to save lives. I know that everyone who you (medical professionals) have helped thought that they had expressed their thanks, and that sometimes in the emotional turmoil of what they are going through it might get forgotten.
I love that she threw them a thank you project and that all of them were able to see 10 years later, the young man that they saved as a baby after the tragic car accident that killed his father.
See Kellie’s website, she is a musician. http://www.kelliehaddock.com/
The Thank You Project – A Mother Finds The People Who Saved Her Son’s Life
Hero in Real Life
Stuntman? Jamie Foxx shows stuntman not required, as he played the hero in real life. A car slid on the slick roadway outside of the gate to Jamie Foxx’s home and flipped over. Hearing the crash he called for help, and went to render assistance. Fearing that the car might catch on fire, he unbuckled the mans seat belt and helped him get safely away from the overturned vehicle.
The cops and firefighters arrived and transported the victim to a hospital with major injuries, including burns.
On Monday night, Brad Kyle was able to thank Foxx in person for pulling his son, 32-year-old Brett Kyle, out of a burning wreck after his pickup truck flipped into a ditch in Ventura County, California, the AP reports.
Keep Praying
This is a heart warming video in which a family that was having an extremely hard time financially was “adopted” by a couple in an Atlanta Church. As part of helping them they had started a GoFundMe account to raise funds as they were being evicted from a slum home and had no where to go. 2 Chainz found out about their situation through his TRU Foundation and stepped in to help.
So many rappers have the negative reputation of drugs, violence and the over the top opulent lifestyle (expensive cars, flashy jewelry, mansions, etc). I love it when people break out of the box to show that they are not just all about the money, but want to pay it forward, helping those who need it.
The 38-year-old rapper created the “Dabbin’ Santa’ sweater; a screen-printed cartoon Santa Claus doing the dab with snowflakes falling which was highly demanded last Christmas. He made a whopping $2 million in sales and he decided to use the money to give back to the society in collaboration with his TRU foundation. The house the family with 9 kids lived in before now was a rat-infested apartment with no heat and mold growing all over. 2 Chainz discovered their situation through a fundraising website set up by Atlanta’s Progression Church and bought the new home for them.
He shared the surprise on Youtube. “I’m looking forward to seeing their smiles,” he said before the big reveal. “I’m looking forward to the kids growing up knowing that Uncle 2 Chainz came through. […] All you gotta do is pray. Keep praying. You gotta have faith. You gotta believe.”
This isn’t the first time he has given back to his community. There are YouTube videos where he paid the rent for 1 year for a disabled veteran. He has also given a mini van to a family so that they could transport their brain damaged son back and forth to the hospital. He also paid the rent for a year for another family.
Heart of Gold: Rapper 2 Chainz buys a new house for a family of 11
Follow Your Own Road
Rumi said, “It’s your road and yours alone, others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”
When we try to walk down another persons road, it leads to disillusionment and disappointment. It isn’t “our” road. In the book “The Pilgrimage”, Paulo Coelho said that “it is our decision to walk, that creates the road ahead of us”.
It is both being courageous and having curiosity, that keeps us forging ahead on the path. It is the journey itself, that grows us as a person. It has been said that it’s never about obtaining the “goal”. It is rather about who you need to become, to achieve the goal. Marianne Williamson said, “you must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.”
I have always loved the saying, “It’s not the destination,… it’s the journey”. This is because the path isn’t the destination. The path is where we live our life. It is all of life’s experiences. The good, bad, and the ugly. The messy pieces as well as the glorious adventures. The destination is simply a road sign. A sign that we made it to “X”. Then we begin planning a new destination or goal. It’s all about the road we choose, the path we forge.
So cast off the bowlines. Sail out of the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds and see where they take you.
J.K. Rowling
This past week the Powerball was at an all time high. Many people talked about what they would do with so much money. Here is an example of someone who through hard work made that kind of money. And what is amazing is that J.K. Rowling has given away an estimated $160m – which is worth around £112m today, to charities which help women and children.
In 2005, she co-founded Children’s High Level Group (CHLG) with Baroness Emma Nicholson MEP, after reading an article about children sleeping in cages in institutions in the Czech Republic. In 2010 the charity was renamed Lumos, and works to end the systematic institutionalisation of children across Europe.
A special edition of J.K. Rowling’s book The Tales of Beedle the Bard was auctioned for CHLG in 2007, raising £1.95 million, and the following year this title was published in aid of the charity, quickly becoming the fastest-selling book of the year.
Also in 2010, the author also donated £10m to a new clinic at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland which leads research into Multiple Sclerosis. It was named Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic after her mother, who died of Multiple Sclerosis aged 45.
Her charitable trust, Volant. Supports a number of projects, mainly those which alleviate social deprivation and supports work on women’s and children’s issues.
In 2012, she was knocked off Forbes list of World’s Billionaires with the publisher claiming her “high tax rates and charitable giving” had depleted her wealth enough to push her out the league.
Very Happy
This makes me so happy. Intolerance and hatred get too much news time. I love it when someone posts about the good things that happen. Goes to my favorite quote, “we don’t have to agree on anything to be kind to one another.”
Directly quoted from Eslam S. Mohamed’s facebook post below.
“Yesterday i went to Olive Garden restaurant to have dinner with nice families. We were a group of 7 adults and 5 children. Everyone in the restaurant was knowing that we were Arabs Muslims on the table coz of the language and the ladies were having scarves over their head ( Hijab ). After finishing we asked for the receipts and the waitress came to us with that receipt in the picture. Yes, someone paid for us and wrote those wonderful words on the receipt. I can’t express how this act touched our hearts. Among all the bad things happening to Muslims and the hate speech that the presidential candidate had made lately , there is still light in the dark, there is still hope within the frustration. All what i can say to who did that, Merry Christmas to you too and God bless such a beautiful heart you have (smiley face).
See More: Muslim Family Apprehensive About Visiting Restaurant in the Deep South. Then They Got the Bill…