What Does The Term, “The sky’s the limit” Mean To You?

What does the term, “the sky’s the limit” mean to you?  For me, it is where the comfort zone meets “what else is possible?”

What is stopping you is the unwillingness to live beyond this reality.

  – Unknown

It is an extension of “what is possible”, that is beyond what “normal” is for me. It is where all of the magic is, approaching life from that attitude.  All our of limitations are self installed.  We choose them either by accepting them from someone else, or our own inner critic forming them after a failure. The sky is not the limitation, we are. We see these limitations in our professional life, our personal life and our spiritual life. Some of these limitations come from our culture, through the “roles” we play with our friends and family.

Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness.  But it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.

  – Unknown

When we go on a hero’s journey, the walls that we have built around us, to limit us, get torn down. When you take any really great story, you find within it what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey. My two favorite stories are “Star Wars” (the first three with Luke) and “Lord of The Rings”. 

The main character (Luke or Frodo) is going through a “normal” or boring life. Nothing much is happening. Then there is a call to adventure (Luke has R2D2 show up and Frodo has Gandalf), something new is introduced into the characters life.  This alters the hero’s destiny. At first the hero refuses the call to adventure – this isn’t for me. I can’t get involved. This can sometimes be because the hero knows that the role that you play within your family, or tribe will be forever changed once you cross the threshold.

Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace.  And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

  –  Jerry Bridges

Then the hero encounters the mentor – someone who gives advice and gets him ready. It could be someone supernatural, mystical or angelic. The hero crosses the threshold – leaves home and enters into the adventure. There are tests, allies and enemies are encountered in the journey which teach the hero a lot about him or herself. Plan A and possibly Plans B and C fail, as the hero experiences setbacks and has to rethink how to proceed.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

  – Nhat Hanh

The hero has faith which leads them to access higher levels of knowledge and abilities to meet the tests with. The hero sees their limitations and ultimately has to defy and defeat them in order to pull through. The setbacks all lead to the ultimate crisis of life or death, where the hero struggles to complete their destiny (Luke battling the evil emperor and Frodo himself and the ring). Now the hero gets the reward – they have won out over the enemies. Many times the loses are mourned even as the victory is celebrated. The hero begins the journey back home, forever changed by the journey. The old limitations of what the hero thought they were capable of have changed. They have been forever transformed.

The reason people awaken, is because they have finally stopped agreeing to things that insult their soul.

  –  Unknown

I believe that we all take numerous hero’s journeys. We take them in our personal lives, our professional lives and our spiritual lives. We take small journeys and we take “dark night of the soul” journeys. Each time we need to transform our lives, we take a hero’s journey. We reinvent ourselves, we improvise, adapt and overcome our self made limitations. We get creative, we become flexible and adjust as we experience paradigm shifts.

There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

  – Bruce Lee

So don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon. Use your imagination and creativity, to discover that the possibilities of your world are limitless.

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

In order to stand out, one must be different

In order to stand out, one must be different. I have always loved the saying “why fit in when you were born to stand out?” by Dr. Seuss. For me it was really hard to make this change, as I had spent most of my life being invisible. I love the analogy of a rainbow. It isn’t just made up of red, yellow, blue, green, pink, and purple. It is made up of 100 of shades of every color, and every mix of color imaginable. Take just the 1,000’s of shade combinations of purple in the rainbow. While you might think that no one will notice if one shade is not shining brightly, the rainbow is diminished in its beauty when that happens. It requires every single shade to be there, in order to be the beautiful promise of God. We require every one of you to shine brightly to deliver the promise of God, which he made when he sent you to this earth. Being a leader is an interesting subject for women. I was listening to a part of Sheryl Sandberg’s Ted Talk today, and she was talking about how when she was in school she was told to not raise her hand so much. I remember the same thing happening to me. That I was bossy, a know-it-all, too smart for myself. So I shut down and started being even more invisible. I started waiting for someone to pick me instead of volunteering, and this carried over into my adult life. I turned down promotions saying that I didn’t want the responsibility, when what I really wanted to say was I didn’t want to risk being told to once again become invisible. I continually pushed down the answers I had for senior management and let others steal the ideas and promote themselves. I finally had enough and became what I called an agent of change for my own self. I started listening and following my intuition. I stepped out of my comfort zone, stood up and voiced my opinions. And I have kept expanding my comfort zone. Every mistake I have made is like compost in the garden. It may feel and smell like manure when it happens, but if I compost those failures into my life, I can learn and grow from them. I learned that I can fail and my life isn’t over. I learned that the person who judges me the most has been me, and so I gave the judge permission to cheer me on instead. I love this quote I found today, “when you dance to your own rhythm, people may not understand you; they may even hate you. But mostly they’ll wish they had the courage to do the same.” I am going to hang it over my desk. I have spent too much of my life wishing I had the courage to do what I see others doing. Instead I am going to “dance to my own rhythm” and let someone else be inspired to do the same. The Lion is released from the cage, and ready for the grand adventure!

Your Dreams Are Calling You…

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable. – Seth Godin – Author and Speaker

Our dreams are calling us. Are we answering them or putting them to voice mail, because we don’t want to have that inner conversation with ourselves. What causes us to put things on hold? How many of your dreams do you have in voice mail waiting for a return call?

We all do this in some way. I know that if someone compliments me the first thought in my mind is discounting what they said. When I was growing up my sister closest in age to me was always the pretty one, the beautiful one. She is 18 months younger and her body matured faster than mine. She is several inches taller than my 5’3″. I was the smart one. This comparison ran through our childhood. She to this day carries that role of not being smart, even though it isn’t true, and I carry the role of not being pretty.

A lot of people when they first meet me online will say they like my smile and how my eyes light up my face – I immediately think something negative like that’s because you don’t see the rest of me.

Why do we do that? What is it that causes us to turn away from a compliment about our looks, the quality of our work – anything that seems personal? People could compliment me about my children or grandchildren and I don’t turn away from that. Only if it is personal about me.

There was a commercial video I saw a few months back talking about the phrase “sorry” when we mean “excuse me”. We are apologizing when we didn’t do anything wrong. It was by Pantene the shampoo company, and it really reflected how many times we use “sorry” when we really mean something else.

We open a office door to talk to someone and say “sorry” as we pop our head around the corner and peak in. We brush by someone and say “sorry”. The list goes on. Look for it in the next few weeks, how many times you or another women says “sorry” when what should be said is “excuse me”. The suggestion is that we feel undeserving, and so say “I’m Sorry” for taking up your time, for taking up space, for thinking that I might have something to contribute.

Sheryl Sandberg was really talking about this when she said “we’ve got to get women to sit at the table.” She talked about how when she went into a conference room for a meeting, the women were not sitting at the conference table,instead they were sitting in the extra chairs against the wall. They were doing this even though there were empty seats at the conference table.

She felt that a big piece of why we don’t take a seat at the table is because we don’t want the label of “bossy” and the other “B” word when we take the lead. We shouldn’t be afraid to be as ambitious as men. We should ask for what we want – the raise, the promotion, to take the lead. We shouldn’t be afraid to be told we have a beautiful smile.

So I am ending this with my most favorite quote by Marianne Williamson because – How dare any of us settle for less when the world is waiting for us to be remarkable!

“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. Your 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, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

 

Be Fearless in the Pursuit of What Sets Your Soul on Fire

What sets your soul on fire? For me it is LemonadeMakers. This is a dream that I will bring into reality, no matter what the cost. Every year you can see examples in the CNN Hero Awards every year, of men and women who sacrifice everything that they have to make a difference in the lives of others.

“One of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face is choosing whether to walk away or try harder”  – Unknown

What are you willing to do to bring your dream into reality? Will you walk through fire again and again to make it happen? I have a story to share from a cousin of one of my best friends. Her and her husband have certainly walked through that fire again and again to bring their dream home.

“Success is not final.  Failure in not fatal.  It is the courage to continue that counts”  – Sir Winston Churchill

It started as all good stories start. There was a friendship that became love and then marriage. And then they had the good news that she was pregnant and the children they so desired to have was beginning. Then tragedy struck and she lost the baby. Determined they tried again and again, but they couldn’t get pregnant. They went through multiple doctors and all the treatments, and still no pregnancy.

This couple was not one to let their dream die. They were fearless in the pursuit of the souls dream of having children, and so they went to attorneys to adopt. They were encouraged to become foster parents to increase their chances, since adoptions are very hard to do. They became certified as foster parents and then the good news came. Their attorney had been contacted by a pregnant woman who wanted to give up her baby for adoption. They applied and they were CHOSEN!

But as all good stories go, that was not the end of the story. As the day arrived when the birth would happen, even though the mother had legally signed over her baby, she changed her mind. Devastated they applied to the courts to uphold the agreement, and then the mother disappeared with their daughter.

Time passed and they started to believe that their dream would never happen. They had lost their daughter. They began to resign to live their life without their daughter. They just prayed that she would go to a good family, and be loved as they would have loved her.

But of course our story hasn’t ended yet. The mother had gotten into some sort of trouble, and the baby was now in the foster care system. So once again, armed with lawyers and legal contracts they went to court. But the wheels of justice don’t always turn in the right direction. They had to battle, lose, and re-battle over a couple of years. They would get their hopes up only to be dashed on the rocks again and again.

Someone would give them new hope and every single time they were asked, “do you want to proceed?” and they would scream yes!!!, even though it might mean getting devastated one more time. Burned again and again, they still would not let go of the hope that their daughter would finally come home.

“I love you” means that I care enough to fight for what we have and that I love you enough not to let go  . . ,”  –  Unknown

So at the end of three years of riding the emotional roller coaster of fighting, losing, and fighting again to bring their daughter home, they finally won. The pursuit of their dream, their daughter had cost them a lot money in attorney fees, years of sleepless nights and heartache. The pursuit of they daughter had caused so much hope rising and fears falling in their hearts, but through it all, they kept the belief that they were going to be bringing their daughter home.

“My wish for you is that you continue.  Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. . ,”  – Maya Angelou

When you have a dream that sets your soul on fire, you don’t let fears wash it away. You don’t let the winds of adversity blow it out. You don’t let anyone or anything, including your own doubts and fears cause the embers to cool. You blow on those coals until they are white hot and you fight for your dream with every ounce of power you can scrape by with. You will let nothing cause you to quit pursuing “the dream”. You have been CHOSEN. Your soul has been set on fire and you pursue it, until it flies into your reality. You bring your dream home.

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire”  – WOCAOO.com

One of my favorite movies is “Under The Tuscan Sun” and it tells the story of a woman who sets out to bring her dreams of family into reality. At the end of the movie, she has everything she dreamed of – funny thing though, it wasn’t how or what she expected it to be. So just remember when you have this dream that sets your soul on fire, be open to the reality it might take to be fulfilled.

“Don’t tell a girl with fire in her veins and hurricane bones what she should and shouldn’t do.  In the blink of an eye, she will shatter that ridiculous cage you attempted to build around her beautiful bohemian spirit”  – Melody Lee

See more at my friends blog about her story:https://diamondstodiapersblog.wordpress.com/…/good-things-…/

If Light is in Your Heart, You Will Find Your Way Home

“Love is the bridge between you and everything that you desire.” Rumi. We all came into this world to learn, to experience what life is about, and leave a legacy.

Tonight I saw the new Tom Hanks movie, Bridge of Spies. I found it very interesting how he was able to stick to what he knew to be right, even when it endangered his life and that of his family. He didn’t take anyone’s word for “you did what you could, cut your losses and accept what is left”.

Because he was a man of high integrity and morals, he was able to do what no one else could do. While he couldn’t prevent the guilty verdict for his client (he was guilty), he was able to maneuver the judge into a prison sentence instead of the death penalty. Then when his prediction came true about needing him for a future hostage negotiation, he was able to negotiate the return of an American pilot. And when destiny threw in a twist, he negotiated a second hostage return – a two for one, thereby freeing the innocent college student who got caught behind the Berlin Wall.

Because he was so driven to make the negotiations work, and stuck with it to force what he felt was the right thing to do, he ended up becoming a hostage negotiator with President Kennedy. He was able to free over 1,900 hostages from Cuba, during the Cuban missile crisis and Bay of Pigs.

We are all here for a purpose, some small purposes and others world changing. HIs, was a world changing purpose, as he was able to impact hundreds of lives. Our purpose may or may not impact so many lives, but I believe that each one of us has that possibility. The possibility to ask the divine why we are here. To listen to the whispers of our heart, and the calling of our soul. To hear in our dreams the secrets that tell us why we are here.

That is what the light in our heart is. It is the seed that is waiting for us to plant it. To water and nurture it as it grows into our reason for being here. To dig down into the roots of what we are growing and see the unfolding truth of our own myth,

Each morning is an opportunity to become that which you have been looking for. Stop looking and start becoming. Allow your legacy to shine out, no matter the cost. Shine the light of your heart, on the pathway of love. That is the true bridge to help both ourselves and those around us find our way home.

The Only Limits You Have are the Limits You Believe

For years I have had this recurring nightmare that I was a fraud, and not as smart as I think I am. That everyone will see it and point fingers at me and say “you are not that smart”. I was living my life inside of my perceived limitations.

I didn’t go to college and I left school my senior year to get married. I took a few community college courses and loved it, just never had the time and money to get a college degree.

Despite the lack of formal education I have risen to a Senior Vice President position with one of the worlds largest banks. You would think that as hard as I have worked to achieve this, I would not have this fear of being found a fraud. Yet, I have looked at what I can do, and think to myself, “If I can do this, it can’t be that hard” and so I discount and belittle the talents I do have. If I do it first, then it won’t hurt so much if you also do it.

Have you ever said any of these things to yourself? Expressed the fear of being “found out” about who you really are? In what ways could you be limiting yourself?

“I don’t deserve this”

“I’m only here because I was lucky”

“Someone must have made a mistake”

“I feel like a fraud”

“It’s only a matter of time before I’m found out”

“I’m not up to this”

I was watching a new show called “Code Black” and it reminded me of these fears that we all have – of being a fraud for something in our lives. These self doubts that we have, if not addressed can ruin our lives as they will act as an agent of sabotage. What if instead of using this fear as a reason to hold back and second guess ourselves, we instead used it as a measuring stick for our own personal growth?

What if the fear of being a fraud was instead a positive sign, about the goals we have set for ourselves in our personal, work, and spiritual growth. The positive question being, “in what areas do I not feel like a fraud, and how can I stretch myself and reach farther to create that feeling?” The measuring stick being if I don’t feel like a fraud, then I am giving myself limitations in this area.

One of the characters on the TV show “Code Black” who is an intern in the ER didn’t trust his intuition about a probable diagnosis for an emergency room patient. So he went with what the other intern wanted to do with tests, and they almost lost the patient. In talking it over later with one the main doctors running the ER, he was told that the intuitive feeling he was getting was critical to being a good doctor and he had to learn to trust it. Later in the same show he confessed to another intern, that he wasn’t confident in his knowledge and felt like a fraud. The other intern told him, “we all are afraid of being found out that we are frauds”.

When I realized that everyone has the same fear of “not being enough of something” and that we all think that we are frauds from trying to be the perfect person, it released something inside of me. It was like when you twist the swing on the swing set around and around until it won’t twist anymore and then let it spin you around and around. I unwound all the twists I had made inside of me. I realized that I don’t have to be perfect to share something that will help someone else.

It released the frustration of having everything be perfect. I stopped being so exhausted and drained from trying to hide the imperfections I have. I started instead to let people see who I really am. I am perfectly imperfect. I have scars of victory and I can be proud of them. You can be better than I am, and I can celebrate your perfect imperfections too. Your beauty does not diminish mine. I can be free to to know that “I have no limits”.

Like the Butterfly, I have the strength and hope that I will Emerge from my cocoon… transformed.

How can you tell if you still might be in a caterpillar stage of growth? Some questions to think about –
Do I hide my value or discount the gifts that I have for this world?
Am I tightly guarded, afraid?
Do I feel like I am stuck in the mud, unable to move?
Can I see my potential, but don’t know how to unlock it?
Do I feel vulnerable, tossed about with no control?

How long will you allow yourself to remain in this caterpillar stage? Unlike the real caterpillar, we have different phases of transformation. It isn’t a one time thing, go into the cocoon and come out a butterfly for us. We have a mind, body, and soul, which is continually growing and expanding. Which means that we have different levels of transformation and growth.

Each time we feel stuck, we need to enter the cocoon and undergo another change. Each time we realize that we have greater potential than we are using, we need to enter the cocoon and undergo another change.

Taking the caterpillar to butterfly analogy one step further, the caterpillar exists by eating up the foliage of the plants it crawls across. It feeds the caterpillar, but does nothing positive for the plants themselves. Once the caterpillar transforms into the butterfly it now flies from plant to plant and helps to pollinate the plants to bring about new life. It helps in the creation of new life, a truly positive purpose.

In this same way, when we get stuck, hide our value, and become tightly guarded, we are not producing anything positive in the world, but rather we are just using up the resources around us. We are not giving back. We are not contributing.

But when we change, transform and grow, we are then in a space our being open, and sharing our values with the world around us. We pay it forward, because we delight in the joy of giving. We focus on how we can contribute to make the world a better place. We unfurl our wings to move freely in the expanded space of our transformation. We become a new creation, with a worthy cause fulfilling our divine purpose.

This cocoon is the place to enter when we need a breakthrough. Were we excercise the patience to grow and transform. The persistence to follow the breakdown through to the breakthrough. Knowing that the surrender is what leads to the life transformation will produce a new happiness of “we did it”. Bob Dylan said “behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”

So like the butterfly, I know that each time I enter the cocoon I will come out a new creation. That there is some old part of my life, that is outgrown and no longer serving me or the world around me, that needs to end. And in that ending I will, once again have the strength to emerge, and will be transformed in some way to further the unfolding of divine destiny.

A Strong Woman is the full Circle

Strong women know that sometimes we just need to sit with the questions until a direction is clearly revealed.

Strong women can sit with another woman in the silence without needing to say anything to break the tension.

Strong women know that when another woman is venting she doesn’t want anything to be fixed, she just needs someone there to witness the removal of the splinter that is causing her pain.

Strong women know that they must make their own light. And if as it sometimes happens that their light goes out, another sister will be there to share hers, until we are strong enough to relight our own.

Strong women know that when the light goes out, we are facing the day, when we question everything. When something so tragic happens that all of our foundations crash into dust.

This is the day when we all circle around our sister as she faces her crisis of faith and reveals the doubts which will birth a new creation. This is the day when we nurture her. When each sister holds the soul of the other and whispers the words of transformation.

This is the day of transformation which strips away the old way of being. No longer trying to be what others want us to be, we accept “us” without reservations or restrictions.

We value who we are, no matter what anyone else thinks. 
We forgive ourselves completely. 
We trust ourselves wholeheartedly. 
We are brave enough to love ourselves just as we are, perfectly imperfect. 
We empower ourselves to fully embrace our intuition.
We begin to live our life being the wonderful creation we are.

If You’re searching for that one person that can change your life… Look in the Mirror.

Ernest Holmes said, “Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” This time of the year is a great time to reflect back on what transpired for the past twelve months of our 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?

Looking back helps us to see what we want to bring into our life. I trust that I deserve unconditional love. That I can have happiness and success every day in my life. That I can trust my wings and fly. I trust that I am right were I need to be, and that 2016 is going to be an amazing year.

If you look at your reflection in the water, you see of surface of 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?” Through the years of yo-yo dieting I have asked myself this question many times.

It is not the things that happened in my life that define me, but how I coped and adjusted through them, that made me who I am today. Somewhere along the way, weight became a protection. I release that. Somewhere along the way, my will power that had always controlled my life was crushed. I release that. I release the self destructive way of thinking.

Last year about half way through I hired a health coach because I haven’t been successful in losing it and keeping the weight off. So I ask myself “why am I regaining the weight?” The past few months new things have been brought up from the depths beneath the surface and released.

I am working on being a better person, and that includes my body, mind and soul. For whatever reason, the body fights back. So the reflection that I see right now, is showing me who I was. I am reflecting back to it, who I want to be.

I have been listening to all of the talk about Carrie Fischer and what she looks like today, versus almost 40 years ago when they filmed the first Star Wars movie. It is really sad that some of us feel the need to say negative things about how someone looks. Speaking as someone who is overweight I can testify that it doesn’t help me to lose weight. It doesn’t make me feel motivated to do anything positive. It just makes me feel depressed, because it is something that I am working on. I think Carrie Fischer is an amazing woman, who has had her struggles, just like all of us. She is courageous because she does it in the public eye, and says what she thinks. She is my hero.

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

The Soul Never Thinks Without a Picture

I love the Emily Dickinson poem in which she says, “hope is the thing with feathers – that perches in the soul – and sings the tune without the words – and never stops – at all”.

Hope is perching in our souls and singing to us everyday. It tells us these wonderful stories of what we can accomplish in our lives. Visualization is critical to this hope, as it helps to bring in everything we want in our lives.

I think that is why I love to read from real books, and not on a computer screen. I order the fictional books on my kindle now, but for those books that I know that I want to underline and really think about – those books have to be paper.

In the movie “The Secret” and the book that followed it, they talked about visualization. Many people will tell you that they have a hard time with it, but if you tell your mind not to picture “your kitchen”, 99% of us immediately see our kitchen in our minds eye. It is a little harder to build a visualization of something that you have never seen, but block by block, with practice it can be done.

When I learned how to do it, I started with visualizing an orange. First I would see a circle, then I added color (orange), then texture (the dimples, feeling the smooth bumps), then I would see it squirting juice down the side of the orange, feeling the spray on my face. When I reached that point of seeing the juice, I could actually taste orange juice in my mouth as I watched the juice run down the side of the orange. I just practiced every day for several weeks, until one day I didn’t need to do it step by step, it just instantly popped into my head. Then I moved on to other things. They seem real, because I put all of my senses into the visualization.

This really helped me to connect deeper to my imagination. When I read books, I now see the story in my mind. The sun shining on the ocean as it flashes bright lights along the cresting waves, hear the waves crashing on the shoreline, feel the wind blowing and digging my toes down into the cool part of the sand, smelling the salt air, – I can totally enter the world being created by the author. When I am in this space, I see connections and possibilities that I have never thought of before.

This is how I learn from everything that I read, because I enter into worlds I have no experience of. I love it when a really good movie brings you totally into the world they have created. You forget you are even watching a movie.

I am sure that you heard the joke of the man who was on his rooftop, the water in flood stage cresting higher and higher towards him. He prays for help and God sends him some people with a canoe and he says “no thanks, God is sending me help”. He prays for help and God sends him some people with a motor boat and he says “no thanks, God is sending me help”. Then a helicopter comes and he says, “no thanks, God is sending me help”. Then the flood waters come higher and he drowns. Upon entering heaven he asks God, “why didn’t you save me?” God says, I sent a canoe, a motor boat and a helicopter, but you wouldn’t get in.

This kind of visualization is how we can attract into our lives, the things we need, to bring to us the goals and dreams we want. We have to remember that part of the journey, is the lessons we learn and how we grow and change, as we go towards our destination. By visualizing into the space the gratitude of already having it, by using all of the senses, we make it so real, that the divine is busy seeing what doors of opportunity it can open for us. What kinds of synchronicity it can bring into our lives. But we have to get into the boat.

The most important thing for us is to be looking for the doors and opportunities as they pass by us and grab them. Go through them, no matter how scared we are. Take the leap of faith that this is your answer, and climb up the ladder being presented and get into the helicopter.

Music Gives a Soul to the Universe

On New Years Eve, my nephew got married in Bullhead City, AZ. We stayed in Laughlin, NV and then went to St George to see my Aunt. We came home Saturday the 2nd, leaving around 1:00 PM and driving back to LA was a nightmare. I foolishly thought that leaving on Saturday would be escaping the crawling traffic on Sunday. The six hour drive took nine hours and would have probably been more if I hadn’t cut off at Highway 58 and cut across to I-5 that way and then down to 118 and home.

I share this because when you are in solid bumper to bumper traffic people seem to lose any manners that they might have had. People were driving on the shoulders, driving alongside the road on the desert, they were cutting people off, honking horns and of course the hand gestures. Every once in awhile I would have to take a deep centering breath because I could feel the frustration, anger, anxiety coming into my car from the people surrounding us. Music has a way of soothing the soul when you are in these types of tense feeling situations.

The other quote I loved and considered for this post was, “music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it a rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.” I went with Plato because of “wings to the mind” and “flight to the imagination”. I love the visuals I get with the words, wings and flight.

The beats in a song are like the heart beating. A steady comforting sound. We hear the beating of our moms heart at conception. We put our ears against our lovers chest and hear the beating of their heart. It is life pumping through our body and soul until the last heartbeat echos off in the distance, and we return to our heavenly father.

There is also a rhythm to music and to beating of the heart. There is even a genre of music called “soul music”. It is a mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues music. It draws your body to move with the music. You might start dancing or clapping your hands, you just have to participate with your body.

When words fail us, music can still transport us up the vibrational scale from the depths of despair back into the nirvana of the soul, where beauty, joy and happiness live. It fills in the emptiness that we feel in our soul and like a string draws the soul up towards the light.

Martin Luther called music, “the art of the prophets” and said “it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” Music transcends generations of men. It lives on long after the composer has left the earthly realm. It doesn’t require to be translated like words into one’s own language but exists in all languages.

Think about the musical scores to the movie soundtracks. You can hear the music and your mind will take you directly to the scene in the movie that it applies to. It creates a wide range of emotional responses when you are watching a movie. You can be in another room and practically describe what must be happening in the movie based on the music that you hear. You can tell someone is experiencing great joy and happiness, that someone is dying or has died, that the climax of an action scene is happening, etc…., it can induce goosebumps, tears of both sadness and happiness, and joyous laughter.

It has even been said that “music is the prayer that the heart sings.” I know that there have been many times in my life that music was my only escape from the problems I was experiencing. It allowed me to regroup, put myself back together emotionally and go back into life feeling like things would be ok.

Years ago when my children were young, I would put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and clean my house. It made the housework go so much faster and not seem like such a chore. So whatever is going on with your life, just know that there is some music to go along with it, or to transport you away from it. You can go into deep meditation or get your party started and rock out your soul!

How Does One Become A Butterfly?

A caterpillar must endure a season of isolation before it turns into a butterfly.  Embrace the time you have alone, it will only make you stronger.

  – Steven Aitchison

Life is a journey of learning and discovery.  As young children we take in everything we can learn.  We are authentically ourselves.  Somewhere along the line of growing up, we learn to hide who we really are.  To keep ourselves safe.  To avoid ridicule.  To be the perfect person, so that we will be loved.   We have many reasons why we start hiding.  But there comes a time in our life, when we realize that in order to be truly happy, we have to transform back into who we really are.  We need to become the person we were created to be.

Butterflies can’t see their wings.  They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can.  People are like that as well.

  – Unknown

Transformation gives you the chance to rewrite the story of who you are and who you are capable of being. There are many things in our life that we give negative meanings to. But what if you gave pain the definition that it shows you that which is not for you? This would be a positive thing to know – what doesn’t belong to me or my life. Envy is another word that has a bad rap. What if envy simply shows you things which you may wish to empower in your life? That would be a great thing to know – things I want in my life and can empower myself to obtain.

To be nobody but yourself is a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting.

  – E.E. Cummings

The being that is forming in the cocoon is no longer a caterpillar. For the caterpillar the past is truly a place of reference. It can no longer live there, because that body is gone. Within the cocoon the caterpillars body literally melted into goo, and then formed a totally new body. As the butterfly’s body grows into its new shape, it becomes cramped as the wings want to expand out. It isn’t a place of residence for the butterfly, so it has to break loose and spread it’s wings and find a new home.  Even though everyone who knew you as a caterpillar is expecting you to still be a caterpillar, you can’t go back.  You have to fight to go forward, staying true to who you now are.

I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.

  – Mary Oliver

The butterfly had to break out of the old place of residence and begin a brand new journey, where everything is experienced for the first time. It must break open its heart to begin this journey, because it has to trust its intuition for flying, for finding food, for making a new home. Literally everything for the butterfly is a brand new experience.  You have to have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition.

You will know you made the right decision when you pick the hardest and most painful choice but your heart is at peace.

  – Unknown

Transformation is a scary business. Because I am a perfectionist, I hate doing something new for the first time. I am doing the best I can with my posts, knowing that I will have spelling errors or grammar mistakes in my writing. I can proofread this a dozen times and the minute I publish I find something I missed. When I sponsor the post, I can’t make any changes, so anything I missed becomes a permanent part of the post. I am living with being imperfect in order to just get the post out there.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

  – Steve Jobs

When we listen to our intuition, we are right where we are meant to be.  We can impact the people that we share the world with.  It may be a tiny corner of the world.  Or we could be like a comet and affect the entire world as we fly through the night sky.  It isn’t up to us to say how much of an impact we will make.  It is up to us to live life as fully as we can.  To follow the dreams that have been written in our hearts.  To break out of the comfort zone and spread our wings and fly.  It doesn’t even matter if we know where we are or where we are going.  It only matters that we fly.  That we soak up the sun.  The we soar with the breezes.  And if we can do that, then whatever we leave behind will be sufficient.

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