Overcome Fear, Behold Wonder!

Updated 12/27/2018

There comes a time when the desire for transformation demands action.  Never let your fears be the deciding factor, of taking that action.

“Obstacles are like wild animals.  They are cowards, but they will bluff you if they can.  If they see you are afraid of them, they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight”  – Orison Swett Marsden

Action is required when the change comes from within you.  When you are facing the choice to enter through the gates of greatness, it is an internal change that is initiated by your desire to live a fully engaged life.  This change requires of you, just a touch of insanity because it means that you will no longer live a life of conformity.  It requires from you that you recognize and let go of beliefs that no longer serve you.  You begin by setting intentions and making conscious designs of how you want to change your life.  Something new is birthed into existence when this happens.  Like the caterpillar you emerge from the chrysalis a new creation.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing”  – Theodore Roosevelt

There comes a time when the caterpillar has to make the chrysalis.  He has to overcome the fear of what is going to happen when he closes it off with himself all wrapped up inside of it.  He has to let go of the fear of how will he be able to breathe?  How will he eat?  What happens if it something goes wrong?  How will he get out?

“It is when I struggle that I strengthen.  It is when I am challenged to my core, that I learn the depth of who I am” –   Dr. Steve Marboli

It is the struggle of the transformed butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis, that the wings become fully functional.  If you “help” it to escape, it will deform the wings and it will never be able to fly.

“Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid.  Having courage and showing courage means we face our fears.  We are able to say, “I have fallen, but I will get up”  – Maya Angelou

There is an analogy that tells of how an arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward.  When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something great.  So just focus, and keep your aim true.  I have always loved this story, because it is by the action of pulling back the arrow that it launches you through the gates of greatness.  It is such a great analogy of understanding that struggle is part of advancement.

“Fear, to a great extent is born of a story that we tell ourselves”  – Cheryl Strayed

I don’t know how many of you remember back to the late 70’s, but there was a gas crisis. We had lines around the block to get gas, and you could only get it on even or odd days depending on your license plate number.  It was around this time that all but two states, decided that we had to pump our own gas, it was all self service.

Now I had never had to pump gas.  I told myself this big fear story about how I was going to do it wrong, blow up the service station or something equally horrible.  For quite a while I got away with leaving my husband with the almost empty tank, until one day it happened.  The tank was on empty and I had to pump my own gas.  Well as you can guess it was simple and easy.  I didn’t pour gas all over the station, I didn’t implode, nothing caught on fire.  I laughed about my fears when I drove away – it was just a made up story, by my fear of the unknown.

“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life:  Overcome fear, behold wonder”  – Richard Bach

That is what I learned from that experience.  99% of your fears are just like mine.  They are a story of “what if’s”. What if this or that happens.  And they are just as silly as mine was.  Fear isn’t meant to shut you down – it is meant to wake you up to wonder.  I had let this fear limit how far I could drive.  I had let it stop me from filling up my car with gas.  I have always pulled that memory out when fears start getting in my way.  Fear was making me a prisoner, and overcoming that fear set me free. Behold wonder!

“You gain strength and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You must do the thing you think you cannot do”  – Eleanor Roosevelt

Free to go have adventures, to embrace transformation and change in your life. To take actions, which is to take risks.  Risk is always present when you are doing something that you don’t know how to do.  This is what bravery and courage is, not the absence of fear, but the ability to push through the fear and by taking action, to do it anyway.  There is nothing more liberating that doing something you didn’t think that you could do.  No matter how simple or easy it actually turns out to be.

“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will”  –  W. Clement Stone

It is the actions that move you forward. Actions say who you are, whereas the words, or talking about something, simply say who you want to be.  What you have to remember is that your lives are a message to all of those around you.  They see the actions that you take, how you go forward in the world, and that is how they see you.

Think of the iconic movie characters.  Rocky who fights against the odds and wins.  Indiana Jones who will find the treasure, then have to fight the bad guys and win against impossible odds.  John Wayne; The Lone Ranger; Darth Vader; Luke Skywalker; Bilbo Baggins; Gandalf; the Mandalorian; James T Kirk; Khan – when you say the names, you see the characters that they represent.  The reputations that the characters earned, by the actions that they each took – both good and bad.  Each one has a message to the world.  They have become archetypes of certain attributes.  Each name invokes a certain feeling in you.

“Adversity introduces a man to himself” –  Albert Einstein

Think about Luke Skywalker and how when he was training with Yoda and entered the cave. He asked what he would find inside and Yoda said, “whatever you take in with you”.  He took into the cave his fears of Darth Vader, but what did he see when he took the mask off of Darth Vader?  His own face.  His own fears that he would become what he hated.  That somehow he would fail and become evil too.  That is the story of his fear.  When he faced that fear, he saved not only himself, but also his father Darth Vader.  He inspired his father to change back from his evil ways.

“Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival”  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Your souls dreams lead you into transformation.  This transformation requires that you change.  Change requires that you initiate some sort of action to make everything happen.  When you are inspired by your purpose to seek change and transformation, your mind transcends the limitations or bonds that have kept you prisoner, held in place.  The whole world opens up to you.  You see things that you missed, because of the blinders your fear had in place.

“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to help you grow”  – Caroline Myss

Your talents and gifts come alive and expand to fill in the void created by facing your fears.  These gifts are that which is needed for transformation.  The caterpillar builds the chrysalis.  Then the divine takes over, as the caterpillar physically changes into the butterfly. The action of the caterpillar has to happen first.  So it is for us.

“The thing about being brave is it doesn’t come with the absence of fear and hurt.  Bravery is the ability to look fear and hurt in the face and say, move aside, you are in the way”  – Melissa Tumino

You feel the need to transform.  You take the needed action to start the process.  Then you transcend your limitations.  Your gifts come alive and you begin to see the divine purpose you have in being  here.  You discover that you are a greater person than you ever dreamed you could be.

Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside of you that the world is waiting for.  That the gifts you have been given are required in this time and place.  That these gifts can help you to overcome any obstacle.  Life has a habit of pulling out of you what is needed.  So don’t just dream about the life you wish you had.  Go out and make that life real.  Let your faith be bigger than your fears.

“What you fear will  not go away by constantly thinking about it.  It will go away when you see it for exactly what it is”  – Unknown

Just remember how silly I was to let the fear of pumping gas stop me from having adventures by limiting how far I could travel.  Every time you face a fear, you can laugh with me at how silly we are to let fear stop us for even 5 minutes.

If Your Dreams Dont Scare You, They Aren’t Big Enough

Updated 12/09/2018

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts –  Albert Einstein

This is so important when you are looking at the big dream, because 99% of people will tell you all the reasons why it can’t be done.  What Albert Einstein was really saying, is that the big dreams lay outside of the box of rules on how things are done.

There is a true story about a pilot who was born without arms, and how she learned to fly with her feet at the controls. There is another story about a woman born without legs who surfs and skateboards competitively. These two women have big dreams and accomplish them because they believe they can find a way to make it work. They defy the odds. They don’t let missing arms or legs be a limiting factor to their dreams. 

On “America’s Got Talent” there is the wonderful story of a young woman who lost her hearing as a teenager.  She was a singer and had big dreams of making it professionally.  She writes her own music, plays ukulele and sings beautifully.  She spent a few years raging against the world for taking away her dream to be a singer – then she figured out a way to do it anyway.

Janine Shepherd is a public speaker and author of several books including “Defiant: A Memoir”.  Shepherd had been an aspiring Olympic cross-country skier. She was nearly killed when she was hit by a truck during a training bike ride. Paralyzed and immobile for six months, she was given a grim picture for recovery.  Not only did she teach herself to walk again — she learned to fly — becoming an aerobatics pilot.  Her TED Talk is:  Janine Shepherd: How Can We Redefine Ourselves After a Tragedy?  Her story is amazing because she took her story and reformed it to continue to push the edges of her potential, not settling for the Janine Shepherd, disabled story.

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.  It will make or break a company . . .  a church . . .  a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past . . . we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.  I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.  And so it is with you  . . . we are in charge of our Attitudes – Charles R. Swindell

So, what are some tools you can use to lasso those big dreams into the barn? One suggestion is to have either a half day or full day block of time to write and brainstorm about the ideas on how to accomplish your dreams.

Another suggestion I read recently was to have what they called “implementation intentions”. We have all heard of intentions being set to bring something into your sphere of influence to assist you with a goal in your life. This is setting an intention with steps to implement the intention into reality. I have done this in my life without realizing what I was doing.

Years ago, one of my sons got engaged in the month of February. The wedding date was set for August and my goal was to save enough money to be able to pay for their honeymoon for them. I had it budgeted out and while it was a little tight, I knew that I could stretch and make it happen. Then in March they decided to move the wedding to the end of May. I looked at the numbers and I had no idea how I was going to be able to pay for it in less than 60 days.

I sat down and started writing out how happy I was that I had come up with a way to pay for their honeymoon. I wrote about how wonderful the wedding was and how much they enjoyed their honeymoon. I put every ounce of energy into the writing, with the words emoting all five senses as I wrote out how they loved Mexico – the sound of the surf, the smell of the flowers, the tastes of the spicy food. I expressed thankfulness and gratitude with every sentence.

After I finished the letter, I still didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I had my intentions pulling in all possibilities. About a week later I received a phone call out of the blue about a property that we have in Upstate New York. We owned a 10-acre parcel next door to our second home free and clear and the neighbors across the street wanted to purchase it for $17,000 and do a fast cash closing. With that money and what I had in savings; the honeymoon was paid for.

Set your intentions, be open to miracles, let go and let God take guided action.  Let your dreams unfold like a beautiful flower – Anna Taylor

That was a big dream that scared me, because I had no idea when the date changed that I could make it happen. I still am amazed at the timing of how it all worked out. I think that this is how all of the really big dreams happen.

You start out with the idea; which becomes a goal; which becomes an implemented intention. You get really specific in your mind as to what happened and leave the how’s to the universe, while at the same time, using all of your tools to bring your dreams into reality.

There is a Native American saying,

“Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.”

• Dream so big that everyone thinks you’re crazy.
• Don’t let yourself or anyone else limit you.
• It’s time to follow your passions.
• Lasso those dreams and bring in home. 

The goal is to die with memories, not just dreams of what could have been.

Who Are You?

Have you ever been so lost in a relationship trying to be who they wanted, that you lost yourself?

Have you ever been in a job, where you were constantly biting your tongue so that you didn’t lash out at a coworker or your boss who was bullying you?

Did you spend your childhood trying so hard to be the perfect child, that you pushed and pushed all of your rebellious self into a tight box and nailed that lid shut?

We are only as blind as we want to be.

  – Maya Angelou

I think that most of us could answer yes to at least one of those, if not all three.  I spent my entire childhood trying to be the perfect daughter with my mom, because my experience of her was that if you made her mad, she would divorce you (she was married five times). 

When I met my husband, I spent the first few years trying to be the perfect wife to him, and the perfect mother to our children.  I put unrealistic expectations on myself.  I exhausted myself and the not so funny thing about it, is that my husband never voiced or indicated in any way that this was something that he wanted.  I have had jobs where Sunday night I got stomach pains or headaches just thinking about going into work on Monday and having to deal with that toxic environment.

Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why do we allow these kinds of situations to develop?  Are we actually setting them up in the first place?  Why do we stay in them way too long?

You can’t change what’s going on around you until you start changing what’s going on within you.

  – YourTango

What I discovered in myself, was a pattern of behavior on my own part.  I was taking subconsciously that pattern of behavior with my mother “being the perfect child so you are liked and loved” and I transferred it to my husband and children.  I even transferred it to work, thinking that if I just worked harder, smarter, faster, they would like me and treat me better.

You have the ability to quickly change your patterns of thought, and eventually your life experience.

  – Abraham Hicks

The first step to change is to recognize your patterns.  We all have them.  They are a part of our human nature. They begin in childhood.  Most of us had that one parent that we wanted and worked at getting to love us.  We wanted their attention.  We did whatever we had to in order to get it.  Sometimes it was being the perfect child.  For others it might have been being rebellious, because being the perfect child didn’t get you any attention.  You had to be the squeaky wheel.  Maybe you were the family clown, to make everyone laugh and defuse your environment in some way.  What is the pattern of behavior that you had with that parent?  Now look at your life now.  How is that pattern of behavior showing up for you?

Once you see the pattern, how it shifts and changes in every aspect of your life, you can begin to shift it.  I called my pattern Cami – because she is so good at camouflage.  I might think that I have rooted her out, but she still shows up.  The thing about patterns is that they have become masters at disguise.  So I am always finding her same old pattern dressed up in different clothes.  When I find her, then I can scoot her out the door, and work on changing the situation that she has created in my life.  It has become a kind of game.  I don’t fail at shifting my pattern.  She just keeps camouflaging how she shows up, and I get to play detective and find her.

Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I’ve ever been.

– Iain Thomas

Now that I know and recognize the patterns, I see how I have set things up in the past to repeat the pattern of behavior.  It was what I was comfortable with.  I know how to act and react within it.  I find that now I recognize it before it sets itself up.  I can sidestep most of it, because I now know what to look for. 

The 3 C’s in life: Choice, Chance, Change. You must make the Choice, to take the Chance, if you want anything in life to Change.

– via Curianocom

I recognize that “the everything that has changed” is me.  I changed my own self destructive behavior by recognizing the signs before I activated it.  When you know what to look for, it is surprising how clearly you can see it.  My husband used to clean carpets for a living.  Everywhere we went, he would look at the carpets and comment on them.  It was automatic behavior.  We all have it, and making very small incremental changes to that automatic behavior shifts it into new and different patterns.  Slowly over time after he no longer had that job, he just stopped noticing whether a buildings carpets were clean or not.  It was no longer a focus of his behavior.  

One of the happiest moments in your life is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.

  – Unknown

So when you look at your own daily routine, what is holding your patterns of behavior in place?  What small incremental changes can you make in your life?  Do you have the courage to let go of the “safety net” your patterns are holding for you?  Do you have the courage to do something different?  Do you have the courage to release the chains of patterns of behavior that are anchoring you in place?  Great changes in our lives don’t come from remaining in our comfort zone, and it takes courage to walk away from the certainty of our lives, for the unknown that beckons to us.

At some point in your life you’re going to have to start demanding what you deserve and be willing to walk away if what you require can’t be provided.

– r.h.sin

 It really is as simple as looking at your life.  You know what you don’t want, even if the knowing what you do want part is not totally clear.  You know what you have done to create what you now have.  You also know that getting something different is just as simple as asking and then implementing actions to achieve it.  You might have a harder time accepting that you deserve the best things in life.  But you do.  So stop settling for less.  If you still have parts of you buried, dig them up.  Get to know who you are at the most basic parts of you. 

Will it be easy?  Nope.  Worth it?  Absolutely.

  – Elite Daily

Be courageous enough to live the life that you have always dreamed about.  It might not happen overnight, but step by step, accepting what you deserve and working at the small changes, you will progress to living the life of your dreams.

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You Have The Power To Free Yourself

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be”   – Alan Watts

You are on a spiritual journey of unlearning the fears created by your past life, and learning to accept yourself as who you really are.  At some point in your life, probably multiple times, you have let someone else tell us you were wrong to believe in the things you do.  They abandoned you.  They betrayed you.  They ridiculed you. They said and did hateful things.  They made you feel that you were not good enough, that you were stupid, a waste of space, not even useful as garbage.

“Whenever there is fear, there is opportunity.  When there is great fear, there is great opportunity”  – Andy Stanley

It may be that you didn’t live up to the expectations of your family, or at school or work, or with your so called friends.  So you became a victim and were abused, bullied, and treated disrespectfully.  Or it may be that they were so dysfunctional and unhappy that they didn’t know how else to treat you.  And you let it happen.  You believed them, you listened to them, and they shattered you.  Then in an act of self preservation you gathered up all of the broken pieces of yourself and put them deep inside a cage, so that no one could cause further destruction.

“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own”  – Jack Kornfield

Then your negative mind talk took up where the others left off.  It seeks to keep you inside of that cage, because it thinks by doing so you won’t be hurt again.  That it will be able to keep you safe.  But at some point that small child inside the cage starts making some noise.  It wants to be free.  It wants to come back into the light and start pursuing your dreams again.  At some point you start becoming conscious of this desire that is building up inside your soul  You have to start taking some risks.  You come to know that you can change your life. That it is a possibility, and not as hard as your mind wants you to think it is.

“Being strong means rejoicing in who you are, complete with imperfections”  – Margaret Woodhouse

In order to trust in the dreams, you go on a spiritual pilgrimage. A spiritual journey of discovering a path to happiness.  Of creating new paths of your own, breaking your own trail.  Of making changes even though they terrify you.  You discover doors to open that you never saw before.  You set yourself free from those shackles.  You used your key to unlock the cage you had locked yourself into.  You know in your bones that you deserve to be free and happy.

“Survival mode is supposed to be a phase that helps save your life.  It is not meant to be how you live”  – Michele Rosenthal

With every choice, with every small change you will go on a new heroes journey.  You begin to discover the possibility of a new life.  You stop being who you were and start uncovering who you really are.  Hope begins to find a home inside your soul again.  You know why the caged bird sings – because it’s about to experience true freedom.  You begin to love yourself without boundaries or restrictions.  You open up to the possibility of being loved, and loving others without boundaries.

“Hope is the magic elixir that energizes dreams, fuels possibilities, and lets you live beyond the limits of your historical thinking.  It is not a promise that something you want will happen – it is an invitation to enjoy the possibility of what you want while you and life negotiate the eventual outcome.  There is never a good reason not to hope!”  – Michael Neill

This begins the life of taking second chances.  It is the most powerful gift you can give yourself.  The opportunity to amplify your love.  To see life from the place of your restored hope.  To live a life of value, redeeming those qualities and values you abandoned.  To be made whole again.  To change the story of your life.  To expand out past your comfort zone, (the cage you imprisoned yourself in) and begin living a life of potential and possibilities.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”  – Alan Watts

Close the chapter in the book that contains the story of your being a victim.  That might have been who you were when you lost your way.  But now with your transformational compass firmly in your hands you are navigating your way to start living a life of purpose and meaning.  You are climbing back up the mountain in your heroes journey, refined.  Like the phoenix rising from the ashes you take flight.  You are starting out on a new journey, a new sacred destination of fulfilling your destiny once again.

“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.  If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist, because you’ll have already shut it out – you can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself”  – Mae Jemison

You look back at your life with gratitude, even for the stuff that was devastating.  You now see it was all a gift.  It bestows reverence on how God works with everything that happens, and turns it into something valuable.  It allows you to see the world through love, and creates these transcendent moments of awe that change you right down into the DNA of your cells.  You experience the world in a different way.  It becomes a daring adventure.  You become the brave hero exploring the new world.  Yes, you will fall down.  Yes, you will be hurt.  Yes, you will find yourself working to regain your vision.  But now you know that you can choose your thoughts.  That you can keep what brings you joy, peace, and happiness.  That never again will you find yourself having to imprison yourself to save yourself.  That you can release the things that make you suffer, let them take flight and be free.

“I wish for the same thing I’ve hoped for since the beginning.  I wish for a life so brave, so unpredictable, so full of unexpected joys and unforgettable love that no box could possibly contain all my memories.  Such a life won’t be perfect.  It’ll be something better.  It’ll be my own paradise”  – Patti Smith

Embrace Life, Each Day Is A Gift

Shel Silverstein is one of my favorite poets.  My kids all read his poems when they were little.  This is one of his poems that I wanted to share, because it is now part of my life with my dad.

The Little Boy and Old Man

“Said the little boy, Sometimes I drop my spoon.  Said the little old man, I do that too.

The little boy whispered, I wet my pants.  I do too, laughed the old man.

Said the little boy, I often cry.  The old man nodded, So do I.

But worst of all, said the boy, it seems Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.  And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.  I know what you mean, said the little old man.”

Recently I crossed over from being a daughter to being a parent for my father.  Some changes in your life, tear your heart into tiny pieces.  22 years ago, my mom went on to her next adventure.  She passed away at 56 yrs old from cancer.  I stayed with her and took care of her the last three months of her life.  My aunt and my mom’s best friend stayed with me as she needed around the clock care.  With them by my side, while I had hard moments, it wasn’t traumatic.  I miss her so much with each new family event.  My kids graduating high school.  college, marriages, and of course grandchildren and now great grandchildren. She missed it all.

It was a family understanding that when my dad retired from work that he would move in with us.  And because he had poor heart health, having a triple bypass, he actually retired a little early with disability and came to live with us.  At first he had a motorhome that he lived in, so he could keep his independence.  We had a motorhome pad, with electricity hook ups and everything.  Then came the day he had to move inside, because his health was deteriorating.

Then we purchased a hospital bed because he was having problems breathing at night, with a lot of coughing and this would allow him to raise it up enough that he could comfortably sleep.  Then more ups and downs.  He acquired a walker because he couldn’t walk more than a few steps before he was out of breath.  Then back and forth to hospitals, ER’s, tests and more tests. Changes of medication when they damaged his kidneys.  Changes of medications to help his heart failures.

My dad has a phobia around hospitals.  An intense fear.  He refuses to go, wanting to stabilize himself with drugs at home.  So that is very trying as it usually means intense discussions with both me and his cardiac specialists.  The drugs have started causing kidney damage and they have to dial back the dosage.  I feel horrible that he becomes defeated.  He sits in his chair and watches TV all day and I know he has feelings of depression and being defeated by his body.  Sometimes I feel like the worst daughter in the world, as I crossed over into being his parent.  I am his advocate when he doesn’t or just can’t understand what is happening and why.

There is a moral task of caregiving, and that involves just being there, being with that person and being committed.  When there is nothing that can be done, we have to be able to say, “Look, I’m with your in this experience.  Right through to the end of it.

Dr. Arthur Kleinman.

Why do I do this?  About 52 years ago, my dad married my mom.  She had six little girls, all eighteen months apart with a set of twins.  My dad has a lot of faults, like all of us.  But he also has some amazing qualities.  One is that when they got married, we were his daughters.  Not his step-daughters.  His daughters.  Not once in 50 years has the word “step” exited his mouth.  I think that many who read this will not understand how important that is to a child.  For me, putting the word “step” before me, makes me less than his own child.  I know how lucky we were that we were never step children.  When my mom died, 22 years ago, we were still his daughters.  No words can express this kind of love.  Believe me, if you met some of my sisters, you would understand how amazing it is, that he still calls them his daughters – lol.

Of all the lessons I’ve learned through my years of caregiving, the most important is to keep the love connection going.  Just tell them that you love them again and again and again.  You will never say it too much, ever.

Joan Lunden

It is scary to cross this transition from daughter to parent.  It was different from my mom, as I never felt I became her parent, I remained in caregiving mode.  It is scary to see that in the near future, he will go on to his next great adventure, leaving all of us behind him.  We are both scared right now.  What happens when we let our fears get ahold of our mouths?  We shout, we get angry, we say hurtful things.  But it is just us being scared.  Caregiving is hard, but it is also so rewarding.  I can remember when I was taking care of my mom, that some of my sisters were absent because it was too hard to watch the lung cancer take away her ability to care for herself.  I learned what the true meaning of words like grace, dignity, love, sacrifice really were deep under the surface of the meanings we usually give them.  I am again reminded of it now everyday.

To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors. 

Tia Walker

I wanted to share my story because I know that many of you are doing the same as I am.  Day by day watching a loved one fade away.  Sometimes with a fight and sometimes with a whimper.  It is hard to watch, and harder to experience it happening to oneself.  I wanted to say how while all of our experiences are different because of the people involved and other circumstances, I know how hard this is.  I know how fulfilling it is one moment and utterly draining the next.  But this is still a gift.  A gift of grace, love, and all the other virtues.

Caregiving often calls us to lean into love we didn’t know was even possible.

  Tia Walker

You are not alone, even when it feels like it.  If you feel overwhelmed, please join a caregiver group, whether online or up front and personal.  It helps to share what is going on and they can help you with getting assistance when it is needed.  Believe me, it is hard to find help when you don’t even know where to start and what is available.  Even the strongest person can have the weakest day of their life and having access to someone who knows and understands what is happening is priceless.

Remember the power of your angels.  Remember to be guided by love and take strength in the good memories, when those you care for are having a bad day and giving you waking nightmares.  And remember the grace of how those things we can’t change, can change us.

When we are in a state of severe loss, of pain and grief and a darkness of the soul – that is when life is at its hardest to bear.

But if we just take a deep breath, followed by more deep breaths we can walk into the middle of the chaos. It’s messy in the middle, but in the middle we have the space to start working through the story of our loss. And as we walk through the story, we eventually reach the end.

The end is the place of new beginnings. Our life has been forever changed by our tragedy. We must remember in this space of pain, grief, and loss that the new beginning will be waiting for us.

The sun will shine. The stars will shine brightly. New people will come into our lives. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, if we only will open once again to breathe in the love.

Heart’s Destiny

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.  I want to know what you ache for, and if you dream of meeting your heart’s destiny – Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Orian Mountain Dreamer is one of my favorite writers.  I invite you to read her books, they are small but mighty.  The Invitation is what this quote is from.  The poem is a wonderful deep dive into important questions that probe who we are and why.

Your words have power.  When you hide how you feel, what you think, you are trying to live your life using someone else’s light.  You can’t find your way home that way.

• There is always some truth behind the words that are followed by “just kidding”.
• When you say, “I don’t know”, there is always some knowledge that you judge as being incomplete.  So, you say you don’t know – when in fact you do know something about it.
• When you say, “I don’t care” you are not being truthful.  You think if you put your emotions in a cage and don’t let them out, you can’t be hurt by them.  The reality is that you are hurting yourself.
• When you tell others that you are “ok” when you aren’t, you rob them of the opportunity to help you.

May you always be guided by the light that shines forth from within you – solitaryview

Life is always about the meaning that you give to it.  If you take a lamp as the analogy, your soul is the light inside the lamp.  The things that happen to you are the glass that surrounds the light.  That glass doesn’t matter, it is the heart and soul – the light that matters.

You tell yourself stories about the events in your life, to give some meaning to what is happening to you. Some of you are writing horror stories, or stories that leave you drained from your fears and worries.

Others are writing stories about the gifts they have received as they travel through life.  The gifts from the wonderful things that have happened to you, as well as the tragic things.

The best way to count your blessings is to look at life through a variety of lenses. To bring things into and out of focus. To look into the depths of your soul to see what the storms dredged up for you to look at.  When you sift through it all, you can let go of everything that doesn’t serve you.  You can realize the lessons you have been taught.  You can keep growing into who you came here to be.

There is a big difference between making something happen and forcing something to happen.  Forcing something to happen isn’t natural.  It is like forcing yourself into something that doesn’t fit.

Have you ever laid on the bed to force your stomach to be flat so you can get your jeans buttoned and zipped up?  Or forced your foot into a shoe that you loved, but doesn’t really fit?  You might be able to get the jeans fastened, but it hurts your stomach when you try to sit.  You might be able to walk in those shoes for a little while, but eventually you have to take off the shoes because they hurt your feet so badly.  The vanity of false beliefs leaving you with blisters isn’t a good way to live.

And I know how broken you are, how heavy you feel, but still, you have to find the light in you.  You have to hold on to it with care and never let it go, even if it drags you to the end of the world – r.m. drake

Making something happen is really all about taking small steps to bring into reality what you are dreaming of.  It is catching the light of your soul and holding it up into the darkness, so that you can see where to go.

It is taking the voice or dancing lessons because you want to be in theater.  It is taking leaps of faith when you don’t know how to do something.  It is going for the brass ring as the merry go round flies around and around.  It is learning a foreign language for a trip of a lifetime to a foreign land.

It is taking big, medium and small actions, not just dreaming about it.  You don’t just sit there doing nothing to make it happen.

Have you ever gone somewhere new and experienced Deja vu?  That feeling that what is happening at this moment, has happened before?

Have you ever learned something new, and it was just so natural and easy that you didn’t even need instructions to do it?

For me, it feels like something that I have dreamed about, is now happening in real life.  That my mind already knows and sees the connections, like it was programmed into being.  I think that when this happens, you need to pay attention.  That you are in that moment, doing something that is important, even if your mind doesn’t understand it.

The Words I Speak Are All in Languages I Do Not Speak

And yet, when you get here, you are not given instructions.  There are no diagrams about how you are meant to live each day or directions on how to assemble some semblance of happiness.  You are not even told what colors to paint your feelings or given a purpose and a reason for your life.  You have to make all of it up.  You have to make all of it up yourself – Iain S. Thomas, from “I Wrote This for You”

No matter if you are in the first month or the last month of the year, take the time to reflect on what the year so far has been for you.  To see the places where life has been a blessing.  To see the places where you let your dreams fall by the wayside.  Pick them back up.  Dust them off.  Find within them the things that you are looking for.  Go beyond your means to make them come true for you.  Draw down deep within the story of them and bring it into reality.  Transform the pain and regrets of this year and past years into the blessings and joy of a new year.

The journey of life teaches you that growth happens when the dream is bigger and brighter than you ever thought it could be.

In the pursuit of your dream, you will illuminate your heart, capture your mind, and free your soul from the small box that you held it in.

You will discover that there are hidden maps within your soul.  That there are clues and invitations to walk through doors that will open your mind up to things you never dreamed could be true.  But you can only make those kinds of discoveries when you listen to your heart.

That is my wish for all of you today.  That you listen to your heart; that you hear the whisper of your soul and find the dream that is so big, that you too can grow beyond who you are today and enrich the universe.

Purpose is the Reason you Journey

There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work, than follow your passions in a way that serves the world and you – Sir Richard Branson

This photo speaks to me about how I offer the fire of my heart, my passion, to help wake up others. Passion is the energy that comes from bringing more of “you” into everything that you do.

The Latin root of passion means “to suffer or endure suffering or ridicule from others”. The root word for purpose means “an aim or a goal one wishes to achieve”. It is like the two words are married to each other, two parts of one whole. The only way to do great work, which is purpose, is to find the thing that sets you on fire igniting your passion.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence – Aristotle

This is the thing that keeps you up late at night and wakes you up when it is still dark with excitement to get up and get going. It is what makes you come alive.

Jeff Bezos reflected that “you don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.” If you pursue your life from this space, then at the end of your life you can say “I have no regrets”. It is your legacy you leave behind, because you lived life being who you really are and doing what you really loved.

Passion is living uncomfortably on purpose. To me this doesn’t mean that your passion doesn’t fit well with your soul. Rather it is what makes you the round peg in the square hole. It is what makes you take the path that is less traveled. It is your “why” for living this life. It is the link or connection to your personal genius.

Dig deep and you’ll find that a person who lacks motivation is a person who lacks purpose – redactedcoaching.com

In a thousand ways you can turn any so called “limitation” into a beautiful gift that you can offer to the world.  When you live your life from this perspective (with passion) it is what enables you to walk through the valley of shadows and death with serene peace that you are being guided on your journey.  You know from the bottom of your heart and soul, that this experience can be turned in solid gold, into a passionate life that enriches both you and others.

The suffering comes from the fact that this fire of passion reduces you to ashes. There are some things as you follow a passionate purpose driven life that must be left behind because they no longer serve you.  Your character will be sifted through the fire as it reveals both the light and shadows of who you are.

Even though many of life experiences can feel like you are being abandoned and you suffer the loss of what you have lost, you are also gaining so much more than you lose.  Look forward, look at the gifts you now have.   Like the Phoenix you rise again from the ashes, remade.

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning – Mitch Albom

Fear is what creates suffering.  Pushing through the fear(s) is part of your preparation. Pushing through the fear is what creates the gateway to accomplish your purpose – the purpose you came here to do, and which only you can fulfill. If you are not remade, then the gateway cannot appear.

Every door that you miss comes back around.  Every opportunity to create the life of your dreams keeps appearing until you recognize it.  So, when you look back on what happened today, this week, or this month – know that those misses will come back – be awake and keep looking for them.

When you feel lost and alone, you have become disconnected to your passion and purpose.  You bought into letting the opinions of others tell who you should be and act like.  You have lost yourself.

Or maybe you rejected who you are, because you felt somehow you were less than capable of being that person.  That you were somehow wrong for having those dreams, or that what you wanted in life was not good enough (you need to be a doctor or lawyer, not a gardener or musician).  Do not let anyone including your inner talk inside your head deflect you from your passion, your purpose.

Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart – Gordon B Hinkley

Every day your hair grows.  You can cut it and shorten yet, yet the next day it begins growing again.  In life things will cut you, hurt you, damage you.  But remember that your body regenerates your skin, your hair, your nails – no matter what they continue to grow.

Be like that.  Never stop growing.  Whatever got you off track, off purpose doesn’t matter.  You can still be positive and know that at every moment the dream that you have for your life is coming into focus.  At unexpected moments and in ways you weren’t expecting it to happen, you find your passion and purpose again.  You start back on your path.

At the end of life, what really matters is not what we have bought, but what we built.

Not what we got, but what we shared.

Not our competence, but our character.

Not our success, but our significance.

Live a life that matters.

Live a life of love.

Unknown

Shine The Light Of Your Soul To Live To Your Highest Potential

When we are clear in heart and mind…, only then shall we find courage to surmount the fear which haunts our world – Albert Einstein

I tend to get an idea of something I need to work on/with.  Then it percolates in my brain, and I start attracting thoughts and ideas.  The things I read in books or emails, from dreams, and the conversations I have with others.  Then one day the brain has gathered enough material to put together a post.

Recently I was reading an email from “Tanya – Sistership Circle” on being a Warrioress (Wonder Woman) Archetype.  She talked about how the word Warrioress is given an incorrect meaning for most of us, in that we think of a warrior as being in battle in a war.  Not necessarily so.

It is about being courageous enough to welcome failure on the trail of success.

It is about having the strength to blaze the trail, instead of following behind others.

It is about living a life of conviction and, 

being able to bounce back with resilience when it doesn’t work out the way you wanted.

It is about cleaning up our vision so that we have clarity, instead of chaos…

It is about taking action and breaking down the patterns of self-sabotage,

that keep you from your brilliant potential.

It is about being humble in the truest sense of the word

(That does not mean disparaging your gifts/talents).

It is about living a life of P’s – Purpose, Passion, Persistence,

and persevering even when the road gets rough.

It is about being independent, AND living with community,

because it takes a village to raise us up (even when we are adults).

There are actual studies that prove when you stand with your feet spread out and your hands on the hips (Wonder Woman Pose) that it actually makes you confident.  In June 2012 Amy Cuddy gave one of the most watched Ted talks of all time, “Your body language may shape who you are” in which she states that simply holding this pose for one minute causes your body chemistry and your behavior to change.

Now there is some controversy over her study, but I am of the belief that I can make statistics say whatever I want them to.  How many times have you seen studies which contradict each other? Such as bacon (or any other food) is bad for and then another that states it is good for you?

There is no accounting for the belief of the mind healing the body of diseases.  So, think positive and get up and stand like a superhero!

Do not wait to find courage, it will find you when you take your first steps forward – Mari Huertas

Confidence will help you to break out of the fears that are holding you back.  Every single person reading this post has told someone about something that they want to accomplish.

Speaking for myself, I have had a goal that I have been working towards now for a few years.  In fear I keep telling myself that I am not yet ready to do it.  I procrastinate, thinking that there is something else I have to learn how to do.  Fear of failure keeps me running the never-ending hamster wheel of something I am still missing.

It is like building a bridge across a chasm.  You need supports to come up from the bottom of the valley, or from the sides of the ravines.  You need wood or stone materials to build with.  You need a way to nail, screw or cement the structure together.  You might need plans from an engineer.  Then people to help you build it.  All of this comes together before you even start the structure.

Then there are the financial components that need to be in place to pay for the land you are building on, the materials and the labor to do it.  Now with all of these moving parts it can be overwhelming as fear sets in.

Fear of failure or success.  Fear of looking foolish.  Fear of starting and not being able to complete the structure because of lack of money, materials, or manpower.  So many fears creep into you, that you keep making lists and looking for what else you might need.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading – Lao Tzu

Have you ever noticed that if you look at something more than a second when you are driving down the road, that your vehicle starts to go in that direction?  If what you are looking at in life, is not what you want in your life, you need to change direction.

You will end up where you are putting your focus.  This is how fear becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy.  We are attracting the bad we don’t want to happen, because it is what is filling up our thoughts.

Part of being human is accepting that you are imperfect, you do have flaws, you do have dysfunction in your life.  You can, however, take responsibility to do better and be better.  You do better when you accept your failures and work on changing those dysfunctions.  You do have rough edges in your personality. You can rub others the wrong way.

My family has a habit of teasing everyone, especially friends and family.  We tease everyone.  And I have taken that teasing a bridge too far.  So, it is my responsibility to realize when I have, apologize and make it right.  It is my responsibility to be more aware of who and how I tease others.  To make sure it never ever crosses over from love to malice (which can happen in a moment of being triggered).

It is your responsibility to determine if your own rough edges need to be sanded down, and if so, to make those changes. It isn’t your responsibility to help someone else sand down their own rough edges.

May your heart be brave, and your soul have courage, while you travel your path to greatness – Amara Honeck

If you have a door that sticks for example, you can do several things:  You can push and shove it to open and close it.  You can let it warp, bend the hinges, damage the door handle and just let it deteriorate until it no longer functions or falls apart.  Or you can fix it.

Maybe it just needs a little planning on the top, bottom or sides where it is rubbing.  Maybe it needs a new door handle, or the hinges replaced?  Maybe you just need to repair the frame itself.  Bottom line is that you can fix it, or let it get worse.  Change it or let it be.

Whenever you think that you are in fear, then it is time to awaken your heart.

Whenever you think that you are all alone, it is time to awaken your heart.

When you are in the space of love, it widens out your awareness of life around you.  Love helps you to connect every aspect of your life and your purpose.  Love awakens and kindles anew your passion for life.  For why you are here now in this space and time.

Acting out of love in any situation takes your intentions to the highest heights.  You discover in that space of love, the peace and acceptance of what is.  You can see clearly the way to act upon your good intentions.

Love roots out fear.  Living with a heart, soul, spirit of love you can fully encompass your highest potential.  You can be fabulous!

Are You An Amateur Or Professional Change Agent?

You can’t change what’s going on around you, until you start changing what’s going on within you.

Zig Ziglar

What is the difference between a professional or an amateur, and what does that have to do with change?  Many things, but the first thing that comes to mind is this:  An amateur stops with the initial change, while a professional understands that the first change is just the beginning and that many more will follow. 

So an amateur might be the caterpillar that builds the chrysalis and thinks he is done.  He has changed his life.  While the professional takes a much longer viewpoint and realizes that he not only needs to build the chrysalis, but that there will be changes within the chrysalis and that at some point, which those transformations have been fully completed, he will need an exit strategy.  Then he will need to emerge into a new world, and that this world will expect more changes and transformations out of him.  Just like the butterfly, there is a new life to be fully explored.  The chrysalis was just the beginning.

Life is not always fair.  Sometimes you get a splinter sliding down a rainbow.

Terri Guillemets

We must live a multidimensional, multifaceted life.  The first viewpoint is just that – a first.  There are so many angles to view life from.  Part of that process of becoming a professional, is realizing that feedback or coaching shouldn’t be viewed as negative.  It shouldn’t be viewed as a personal attack, even if it is delivered like one.  I remember years ago reading something that really changed my life.  If someone is telling you that you did something wrong, and you didn’t do it – you should still listen to what is being said.  The very fact that it is being said means that somewhere in the garbage being unloaded on you, is a gold nugget.  Instead of getting mad, hurt, angry and yelling at the world for being unfair – look for the gold nugget.  We all have weak spots – things that we don’t see or recognize about ourselves.  Finding out what those are and working to bring them into our circle of competence is what will make us successful in any endeavor.

You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.

Nick Matthews

Professionals accept failure as a learning tool.  In sports such as baseball or basketball you learn that you can’t hit a homerun or have the basketball shoot through the hoop every single time you try.  But you can analyze your process and use the failure as a tool towards growth and mastery of the sport.  In the same way, the more consistent we are with our process of change, of transforming our lives through the failures, the better our outcomes will be.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

Knowledge is power, because we know what to do.  But the application of that knowledge is what is really important.  It is the correct application of knowledge that brings true wisdom to the fore.  It is this – the knowledge of why the rule is there, tells us when it should be followed and when it should be broken.  It is the understanding of bringing humanity into our decisions.  Of understanding when the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, or when the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many – both can be true.  It is the focus of both long term and short term results that tell you which way is the right way.  It is understanding second level thinking.

Old ways won’t open new doors.

Ashley Bridget

When we first meet someone, we make a judgment about the person.  Based on what they look like, how they present themselves, how they talk and move – we make a superficial judgment about who they are.  If you were to meet me on the street, because I dress very casually, and love to shop second hand stores and don’t live in an upscale neighborhood you might make a certain kind of judgment about me.  If you heard about how poor our family was when I was growing up and that I left school my senior year and didn’t get a college degree you might make another kind of judgment about me.  If you heard that I am a Director at one of the top five banks in the world, you might make another kind of judgment about me. 

Don’t judge my choices if you don’t understand my reasons.

Susan Surillo

All of those would be superficial and not take into account a million things that are also true about me.  Second level thinking goes beyond the superficial where most of us live our lives.  Second level thinking is deep, complex, and convoluted.  It is the kind of thinking required to play chess well.  It looks at all of the moves that can be made on both sides of the board, and levels that up to all possible plays with each new move.  It looks at each piece of knowledge; at where the decision paths converge and at when they then separate.  It creates a consensus of all of the data and of all of the probabilities, then it comes to the best decision based on everything that is known and can be guessed.

One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.

Unknown

It is the realization that the first answer we think of, the first thing we think is the right way to go is rarely so.  It is knowing that absolutes are almost never the right answer or the right way to think.  That black and white thinking keeps us in first level thinking and keeps us in the large amateur crowd.  We need to be curious and consider all of the probabilities and possibilities.  We need to understand that true reality is not what we want to see, but what’s true.  Get curiouser and curiouser.  Take the time to deep dive into exploration; into letting our minds run, and look for the inspiration to do and be different.

We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are.

Max Depree

So it all comes down to being curious.  To up-level our thinking to the second or even third level.  To looking at reality – not from what we want it to be, but what it is.  From making big and little changes, even micro changes – but always making new transformations in our lives.

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Curiosity Brings Satisfaction

“Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret” – Unknown

“Be curious always!  For knowledge will not acquire you:  you must acquire it” – Sudie Back

“The secret of making dreams come true can be summarized in four C’s.  They are curiosity, confidence, courage and constancy; and the greatest of these is confidence” – Walt Disney

“The future belongs to the curious.  The ones who are not afraid to try it.  Explore It.  Poke at it.  Question it and turn it inside out” – Skillshare.com

“Be curious, not judgmental” – Walt Whitman

“What if” becomes a mantra.

Creating a life filled with happiness and love starts with curiosity and self awareness – asking the right questions and not being afraid of the answers. Being 100% honest with yourself, will produce insight into not only the problem that presents itself, but the solution that comes from a new perspective. It is about looking under the facades that fears create, to delve deep and unseat those fears.

Approach every challenge in your life

from a loving peaceful curiosity of,

“what then?”

“I’m always curious to know about your past, because that’s the place from where you belong, and it will let me know how you built yourself” – Vishal Rastagi

“Curiosity, especially intellectual inquisitiveness, is what separates the truly alive from those who are merely going through the motions” –  Tom Robbins

Go Where There Is No Path, And Leave A Trail

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley – Theodore Roethke

Everything you see in your life at this moment, is the result of choices you have made.  The door in the photo is clearly open, but you can’t really see the steps through it or what lies beyond it.  Some of the choices you have made in life, lead you in directions that you didn’t even know were there.

Sometimes behind the waterfall, there is a path into a valley that no one has discovered.

Sometimes we fall through a hole in the ground and discover a buried city.

Sometimes we have a flat tire on a desert road, with no spare tire to change it – and we find a dusty path that leads to a hidden cache of gold.

There is always a choice of following a paved road with lots of signs or walking down a dirt path.  To stay safe on the paved road or taking on the risk of the unknown dirt path and seeing for yourself the genius of the universal design for your life.

Or never trying to see what is behind the waterfall in the first place (it is dangerous and you might fall down and hurt yourself); to immediately climb out of that hole you fell into without exploring it (it’s probably full of spiders, snakes, and rats) and ignoring the possibilities of discovery all around you; to stay beside that car on the hot desert road and wait for someone to rescue you (so much more sensible than striking out on your own).

So, stop being so worried about the million and one things that can go wrong.  Start instead dreaming about, and getting excited about, what is around the next corner.

Whatever you chose to be the next destination, you should always aim just a little higher.  If you are aiming for the lower mountain, you won’t know if you could have climbed the higher one instead.

Don’t put off the higher mountain as your goal, thinking that you need to be realistic, that you need to go in small definable steps.  As the saying goes, “Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land on the stars”.   Don’t be afraid to get lost.  Even landing among the stars, changes you, your world, and maybe even the whole world.

No one saves us but ourselves.  No one can and no one may.  We ourselves must walk the path – Buddha

Friends, loved ones, mentors, teachers – they can all set you on what they think is the right path.  Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes they are “almost” right.

It is up to you to decide what the correct life path is for us, at this point in your life.  No matter what path you take in life, no matter where you go or end up, you take a little bit of everyone you know with you.

Have you heard those voices in your head?  Your parents, your favorite aunt or uncle, your grandparents, those special friends from school – those voices that make insane comments about what is taking place in front of you?

Mine are these comedian’s talking commentary during a boring office meeting (picture the old men in the balcony from “The Muppets”).  My son Sam’s voice comes into play during movies, when they are doing anything military or medical, telling me they are doing it wrong.

I believe that you have at least three careers in your life, and that they can be completely different.

You shouldn’t confuse the path you are walking with the destination that you are going to.

Once I have mastered something, I get bored.  When I get bored, I know it is time to start exploring something new to learn, to have a new destination.

I am still walking my life path, the path of learning more about the world, about me, and what new sights are on the horizon.  There are times that the path can be a little blurry, because I haven’t yet discovered where the path is taking me.  So, I keep walking and I get curious.  I know that when the path gets crystal clear, I have a new destination and new life experiences coming into focus.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it – Paulo Coelho

This doesn’t mean that I am just sitting on the path waiting for it to define itself.  When I sit, it is like stepping off the deep end of the river and just sinking to the bottom.

If I sit, the world tries to define me.  To make me fit someone else’s mold, to do the things that they want me to do and be.  Then I lose myself, sitting submerged and wondering why I can’t breathe.

I have to take the time, the effort and the work to define the path, so that each step brings the focus sharper and more defined.  I have to swim back up to the surface of the river and determine which shoreline I want to step onto.

Sometimes when you are walking down the path, everything goes wrong.  A forest fire races through the valley and destroys all of the vegetation.  The river overflows its banks and takes out the bridge you were walking across.  A 40-car pile-up in the fog totals your car.

Sometimes what seems like a life ending event, is actually the first step on a new path.

You had expectations of where the path should be taking you, and so you were actually sleep walking down the side path.  Because of your expectations, that path might have led you to the correct destination, but without the right experiences.

Have you ever seen someone famous implode right after they achieved critical acclaim for their talents?  Hollywood, Politics, Musicians – we’ve all seen them reach a pinnacle of success, then drugs, alcohol, sexual exploitation – and down they tumble into scandal.

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

This is due to them not having strong enough roots to support their growth.  Somewhere along the path to finding themselves, they didn’t get lost.  They missed valuable life experiences that would have grounded their roots.  That would have forced them to grow deeper and discover more about who they were.

Because they didn’t have these valuable experiences, they allowed others even with the best intentions, to rescue them from falling on their face.  They covered things up. They didn’t let them experience the results of bad choices when they were small failures.  So, they just kept being rescued and didn’t learn the life skills of what failure really means.

What you will discover from failure is that sometimes it is the best thing that ever happened to you.

You see new ways to do something, which would never have happened if everything went according to plan.  You discover wonderful character traits that were only exposed because you felt you had no other choice than to force yourself to up your game.

My favorite movie scene is from “Facing the Giants” in the death crawl scene.  The player goes all of the way down the entire length of the football field, thinking that he is only trying to make it to the 50-yard line.  He couldn’t see where he was, and he was crawling with another player on his back.

At first the coach is only trying to get him to the 50-yard line, then he realizes the player has more in him than either of them knew.  You are like that player, capable of so much more.  It is the difficult parts of life that open up the possibilities of your tasting some of that greatness you have buried deep inside.

So, remember “to keep the mind even” – not letting doubts or over-confidence tilt us.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper – W.B. Yeats

Each day is a new adventure in walking your chosen life path.  Each day you can walk it in wonder, looking to see what is going to cross your path today.

You can be curious.  You can slow down and actually see what is on your right side, your left side, and directly in front of you.  Don’t miss the flowers that you’ve never seen in that color or shape before.  Look for the squirrels, bunnies, little lizards laying on the warm rock and enjoying the heat of the day.  Rest when you are tired.  Walk in the moonlight or lay back and count the stars.

This is your life path, your journey.  The world is full of friends, lovers, and new brothers and sisters waiting to get to know you.  The destinations are fun to get to, to master some aspect of your life.  But really, life is lived on the path, during the step-by-step walking, dancing, singing, along the road to the newest destination.  So don’t forget to enjoy it.

The journey is – Your Happiness.

Doubt Kills More Dreams than Failure Ever Will

Updated 8/13/2018

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.

When you have these big dreams, it is easy to look out and see that we are just a small insignificant thing that will probably have little or no impact on the world. That is when doubt starts creeping in. Then it is joined in by those parts of us that try to protect us from harm, as well as friends and family that are trying to protect us.

Don’t let the devil put a question mark, where God has already put a period.

  – Inspire Us Daily

The voices yammer inside our head that we will look foolish. We will be laughed at as failures. Who do we think we are? Do we really think so much of ourselves that we alone have the answer to even one of life’s problems? If this idea we had was valid they whisper, then someone would have done it a long time ago.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.

  –  Maya Angelou

I know that our parents want to protect us and sometimes in trying to do that they crush our dreams. Teachers may have told us that we were not smart enough or talented enough and so we give up on our dreams, because we think that they must know – they are older and know more than we do, we follow the advice and give up.

We may have bosses that belittled our idea once when we shared it, so we closed up like a clam shell, never to speak out an idea again.  Or we may have spoke up regarding what we believe to be the answer to a challenge at work and we are ignored.  Then we find out later that someone else stole that idea and how they are being given the credit for it – so we feel that no one will listen, so why even speak up or try.

Many times our ideas scare our friends into thinking that we will outgrow them and leave them behind, so they tell us to not even try – they tell us it is too hard, how you don’t have the money, influence or power to make a difference. Don’t speak up or you might get ostracized they whisper in our ears.  We feel like our life is the “Whack a Mole” game and if we stick our necks out, we will get hit by a giant hammer.

We spend so much time asking God to cure us of our hardships.  But we never stop to consider that our hardships are curing us.

  – Yasmin Magahed

The voices inside/outside of us come from many directions at once, so we freeze and do nothing. I think that one of my favorite people who talked about dreams was Martin Luther King Jr. When he started I can’t imagine that he knew what a difference he was going to make in our world. He must have been overwhelmed many times by the enormity of what he wanted to do. He inspired many to stand beside him, and his legacy goes on today as we remember him and his work every year.

For what it’s worth:  It’s never too later to be whoever you want to be.  I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.

  – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dreams take on lives of their own when they are divinely inspired. They grow inside of us and spread out to everyone, to inspire them to join with us and help grow the dream. The dream didn’t start with us, and it will not end with us. We are like a runner in a relay baton race, getting passed the baton to continue onto the next person who will be inspired to continue running with the dream. The dream can’t be stopped, because it has a life of it’s own.

If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits.

  – Don Ward

Our dreams live on, still free, still inspiring others to take up the baton in the race and be brave. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream still lives on. He wasn’t the first person to take that baton up and he wasn’t the last one.

It’s your life, not a show.  Don’t sit back watching it drift away.  Go out and fight with everything that holds you back.  Remove your doubts.  Kill your fears.  Overcome the challenges of your life and most of all, fight with the pain you have inside.

  –  Shubhanshu Tiwari

Whatever dream lives inside of you, take up the baton and join in the divinely inspired race. And when it is time to pass on the baton, know that your dream will live on through those that you were able to inspire to take up the baton and continue the race.

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