Relax Into Surrender And Receive What Is Promised

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  What could be more insane than to oppose life itself which is now and always now?  Surrender to what is.  Say “yes” to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you”  – Eckhart Tolle

When you are in resistance to something you expend a lot of energy trying to stop something that can’t be stopped.

Imagine that you are holding a rubber band as far as it can be stretched.  At some point one of two things are going to happen.  The band will experience fatigue, break and snap your hands painfully, or you will let it go, releasing the tension.

If you find yourself exhausted every single day, you might want to check to see what you are creating resistance to.

What inner conflict and struggle is going on in your life?  What rigid habits or mind sets do you have which are in conflict with your journey?

Relax and tune into your inner guidance.  Follow where your intuition leads.  Then gently let go of what is creating this tension, the thing that is no longer serving you.  Experience the joy of renewed energy when you are in the flow of your life path.

Part of the process of learning to surrender to what is, is the process of learning to love who you are in this moment.  Accepting yourself with all of your imperfections actually empowers you to grow into your potential.

It is kind of opposite of what you may think.  You put yourself down thinking that condemning parts of yourself, is the way to change those parts of you that aren’t perfect.

Think of a metal spring.  Hold it between two of your fingers, pressing your fingers together so that it is totally compacted.  No space left.  This is how you treat yourself.  Like the expression, “too tightly wound”.  You compress your feelings, your desires.  You hold fingers tightly thinking that it puts you in control.  That you can force yourself to hide the parts you don’t want others to see.

“The greatness of a man’s power is in the measure of his surrender”  – William Booth

But at some point, your fingers are going to get tired.  When that happens you are going to let go of that spring.  Then that spring is going to bounce all over the room.

When that happens, you create a pattern of self-sabotage in your life.  Your life turns into a Greek tragedy. You implode and whatever you were trying to hide, will expose itself in a big way.

But what if instead of trying to hold tightly to the spring, you released the tension just a little bit?  Then a little bit more and more, until there is no tension left.  You find the spring just stands there, perfectly balanced.

By surrendering to who you really are, you empower yourself to become better.  Instead of being your enemy, it becomes your teacher.  You learn to work with it, instead of fighting against it.

“Surrender requires courage.  In meditation, you confront yourself with your problems again and again until you finally understand the absolute need to let go.  Otherwise, you will continue to emphasize the lack of acceptance, regrets, pain . . .   But  when acceptance comes, I can see smiles on your faces”  – Sahajananda

You can’t control other people’s actions or reactions.  You can’t really control your own.  You can learn to let go.

To be like water.  To flow through, under, over, around the obstacles in your life.

Trying to push the boulder uphill just uses up your energy and leaves you tired, angry and frustrated.  Going around the boulder and continuing down your path is much easier.  Don’t try to drag the boulder back down the hill with you.

Leave it alone.  When you surrender, you also release.  It is a do or don’t do thing.  You either surrender or you don’t.  There is no part way to surrender process.  Find the blocks and release them completely.  Or don’t.

It takes a great level of self-love and determination to live your life this way.  But it is the way to growth and change.  To be able to live life as the greatest version of your true self.

True surrender is not giving up or giving in.  It has nothing to do with failure.  It is not being defeated by something greater than you are.

It doesn’t mean that you become welcome mats and let everyone wipe their feet on you.

It is simply and profoundly going with the flow of life. 

Most of the rules you put into your life were built on the concept of fear.  Fear of being hurt, so you closed up.  Fear of being wrong, so you shut up.  Fear of being exposed or humiliated, so you became invisible.

Surrender is about being vulnerable to all of those fears.  To realizing that you are much stronger than you think you are.  That if the worst happens, you can live and grow through that experience in a new way.  You can transform through any experience to come out the other side, stronger and more beautiful than you were.

“The inspiration you seek is already within you.  Be silent and listen”  – Rumi

It is about accepting what is, not what you were in expectation of.  It is about letting go of the should’s and could’s, and accepting what is.  It is silencing the mind and listening to your heart and souls voice.

Go from being a “human doing” to a “human being”.  The mind is all about doing.  The heart and soul connection is all about being who you are at the center of your being.

Believe in your potential, have faith in what will be.  Like the caterpillar, have faith that when you emerge from the chrysalis an even better life will begin.

Music Is The Strongest Form Of Magic

“Music gives a soul to the universe, flight to the imagination, and life to everything”  – Plato

When you are having a really bad day, do you ever turn to music to shift your mind off whatever is happening in your life?  Isn’t it amazing how music even without any lyrics can clear your head so that you stop spinning in the endless anxiety loop?  Lift your spirits?  Heal your broken heart?  Do you have a play list that speaks to your inner world, one that you play when you are sad, or happy, or depressed, or in unspeakable joy?  A playlist that expresses where you are and a playlist that expresses where you want your vibration to return to; a playlist that expresses who you are as a person in your inner world, your soul being authentically real?

“Music unwraps the heart, sings out the prayer, dances the Spirit, and opens the Soul”  – Mary Davis

Music is used in so many ways.  There are lots of musical therapies out there with sound healing.  They play music at events to pump people up.  They have religious music that simply takes you into heavenly places.  Listening to a movie soundtrack you can feel the drama even without the visual scene happening.  Music can take you up on a emotional roller coaster, from laughing hysterically one moment and then down into the depths of sadness and despair the next.  It can be sexy, religious, militant or patriotic.  It can raise energy up and have you dancing across the room to a primal beat or soothe you to dreamland.

“Music makes us want to live.  You don’t know how many times people have told me that they’d been down and depressed and just wanted to die.  But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength.  That’s the power music has”  – Mary J. Blige

Music is the strongest form of magic.  Every culture has it.  No matter your situation in life, no matter how poor you are, you can find a way to make music in your life.  You can create a drum set from buckets or pots that you hit with a stick.  You can fill water glasses with different levels of water to create sound variations.  No matter what – your soul demands that you have music in your life.  Have you ever sat and listened to a street musician that plays on whatever is around him to make sound?  The pipe on the building, the concrete, the bucket – all make a different noise and the street musician knows how to tap each one to make a unique sound that he blends into music.

“Beautiful music is the art of the prophets that can calm the agitations of the soul; it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us” –  Martin Luther

One of my favorite bands Pentatonix, is a great example of music being created without instruments.  When you hear their songs, you would swear that instruments were being played.  They use the voice box, tongue, teeth, and lips to mimic the sounds of a drum, a guitar, and they create the music.  They take the idea of music being the sound of movement to a whole new level simply with their voices.  Listen to their version of “Hallelujah” and you will hear what I mean.

“Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black show sadness.  But as you go through life’s journey, remember that the black keys also create music”  – Shinzoo.com

Life can’t be all rainbows and lollipops.  It gives you both happiness and sadness, the full emotional range of experiences.  You appreciate the good days because you have experienced the bad ones.  You also get a chance to see that even the sad, bad experiences, have good moments wrapped up inside of them.  With music the sound creates the canvas for the musician to color with the lyrics.  I think that is what drew me to the quote for the photo.  Sometimes it is the music that reaches inside your soul to expresses your emotions when words just don’t seem to cover it.  Sometimes it is the lyrics that express perfectly what your hearts music is trying so hard to put into words.

“Whenever I have a problem, I sing.  Then I realize that my voice is a lot worse than my problem”  – Unknown

It is hard to tell someone in a way that they can hear, how much you love them.  How much a friendship has meant to your life.  I have these special girlfriends that I have known, some for just a few years and others for decades.  I know that I could call them right this second and say – I need you here right now, and they would jump in the car or book the flight within minutes.  And I would do the same for them.  It is such a blessing to be able to call someone and the first words out of their mouth is, how can I help – what do you need, and I know they mean it.  I am in gratitude that I have this in my life, both that I would gift it to them and they would gift it to me.

The lyrics of a song can sometimes convey what our minds and heart can’t think of to say.  The best lyrics help you smile through the tears.  They bring you to tears.  They give you goosebumps, or as we call them Godbumps.  The best lyrics help you realize answers to questions you didn’t even know you had.  Music can teach you things about how to live life.  Lady Gaga’s music may have conveyed to you that it is ok to be different, and to be proud of it.  Taylor Swift has every bad boyfriend song there is.  Michael Jackson taught us to look at the man in the mirror.  All of the music genres teach you something about life.

“Music is a world within itself, it is a language we all understand”  – Stevie Wonder

When my mom was in a good mood she was playing Neil Diamond.  When she was in a bad mood, the opera was playing so loud the people in the next town could hear it.  If the opera was playing, you either stayed outside or went quietly to your room.  If she was just humming, it was the best time to ask her for what you wanted.  My mom was totally into expressing her moods with her music.

Today I wish you the happiness of a Bob Marley song.  And make sure your hear that Reggae music in your head as you read it.  It makes it even more magical.

“Don’t worry about a thing.  Every little thing is gonna be alright” – Bob Marley

Living Life Outside Of The Ordinary

• Does it seem sometimes like what directs your life is the bills you have to pay?
• The things that other people want you to do?
• Is your life a list of things “to do”, a checklist of obligations?

Are you being directed by the problems needing to be resolved, or by the passions of your dreams?

We must take the time to define our own path.  Too quickly we can find the world defining it for us – unknown

What if instead of grocery lists, errands to run, and budgets with bills to pay; you instead created a different list?  This list would encompass what your ideal life would look like.  I’m not talking about the fancy car, or mansion.  It isn’t the number of pairs of shoes in your closet.  It isn’t things at all.

If you created this list, you would start with where you would be living:

• A cabin in the woods over looking the Oregon coast?
• An adobe home in the high desert?
• A boathouse on the Columbia River?

Then you would look at what your day would consist of:

• What would be the ideal way to spend your days?
• Traveling on the road, or at the office?
• Is your office in a skyscraper or a home office?
• Is it in the United States, Europe, South America?
• How many hours a day would you work?
• What would you do with your time after work?

If you could list everything that was truly important to you – would you have the courage to start building your life around that dream?

What do you tell everyone that you want to do?  Now what actions are you taking in your life to make that happen?

Because the disconnection between what you say you want and what you do about it, speaks to the fact of how much you “really” want it.  It is an idea you are comfortable with.  But if it isn’t happening, then it isn’t an idea that you have confidence in bringing into reality.  There is something missing in the connection.

It could be an old dream that you have grown out of, but you don’t want to give it up because you don’t really know what you want instead.  The passion which would lead to action is just not there.

It could be that it wasn’t really ever your dream. but someone else’s. Maybe your parents unfilled dream; maybe something you just sort of accepted as being yours because your best friend or partner thought it was something you could do together.  While it became the dream you talked about, it was never the dream that was as necessary to your life as taking the next breath.

“You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need” – Jerry Giles

How do you know when you have a real dream that is really a soul desire?  A heart commitment?

It feeds your soul.  You can’t take a breath without thinking about it in some way.  Even when you are on overwhelm you can’t go to bed until you have done something to take another step on that path of making the dream a reality.  You are constantly asking yourself what in your life needs to change to help you be the person who can accomplish that dream.

Adventures are when you go someplace new.  When you try something for the first time.  They can happen in your own backyard, or a 1,000 miles away.  It is in the doing of something new that we make discoveries about ourselves.

“I don’t believe I luck.  Luck = leaving things to chance and the outside world.  I believe in being harbingers of our fate, determining our own path, taking action and creating our own destiny in life.  This is your life and it is your to create.  Don’t ever let others do it for you.”  – Celestine Chua

Figuring out something for the first time usually has some trial and error involved.  Some frustration, when you swear you are following directions and it isn’t looking like the instruction sheet says it should.  It is when you discover that the manufacturer drilled the holes in the wrong spot, or didn’t provide enough screws or you are missing vital parts.

• It takes Courage.
• Persistence to continue.
• Patience to stop, relax, and begin again.
• Remember there are no limits to what you can do and be.
• Each time it seems you hit a limit, it is just a resting place.
• Embrace the uncertainty and a new door will open before you.
• Embrace Change.
• Embrace Life.

In Life’s Dance, Do You Partner With What You Want Or What You Fear?

“If you are resisting something, you are feeding it. Any energy you fight, you are feeding.  If you are pushing something away, you are inviting it to stay”  – Michael Singer

Every day in life, you will experience fear in some way.  Some days it feels like the wolf is at the door.  As he claws at the door you can see it starting to splinter apart.  He is fiercely growling, as he is threatening your life.  Your heart is pounding so loudly it almost drowns out the wolf’s noises.

Other times, you can hear the wolf in the distance, howling and teasing you that he is coming.  You can hear his claws as he paces around and around the house.  But he doesn’t try to come in.  He is content to pace outside and torment you that he might try to come in.

Some of these fears are false events, that you think might be coming true in your life.  You worry at them, like the dog at a bone.  You think about them constantly circling round them over and over.  You feel the non-ending stress with headaches and stomach aches.  You can’t sleep without nightmares.

Other fears are things that have happened to you, that you are afraid will happen again.  Traumatic events that replay in your mind.  Some of these events will take professional counseling to get over, others are something that you need to work through and release.

I have a process that I use when the event has too much pain contained within it.  I review the trauma and deal with releasing as much as I can.  Then I mentally pack the rest of it into a box and put it on a shelf.  I label the box with a date to reopen it.

“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong.  The amount of work is the same”  – Carlos Castaneda

On that date, I again work with the trauma and release another portion of it.  Then I repack it into a smaller box, labeled with a new date.  I continue the process until the last of the trauma has been released.

I know that I have reached that stage for two reasons.  (1) I can touch the trauma, and there is no longer a triggered reaction to it. Like touching a tooth ache, I touch it and it no longer causes pain.  (2) There is nothing left to put into a smaller box.  I can then give thanks that I had the strength, will, and courage to come through this trauma with the grace of God.

Part of releasing the pain, is finding one small thing that was a positive life lesson.  I look at it through a strangers eye.  I look for something that I would say as a stranger, to someone who had experienced that trauma.

I stop being the victim.  I stop being in the trauma.  I step outside the drama.

I look for how it strengthened the person’s character.  How they would be able to show more compassion and empathy for others now that they understand this experience.  I keep looking for some nugget of gold.

When I find it, I can release that much pain from the box.  Eventually the box is empty of pain, and instead of pain, I now have a room filled with priceless experiences.

“Opportunities to find deep powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging”  – Joseph Campbell

Some of your fears are not worrying about something bad happening to you.  Some of your fears are about how you are judging yourself.

• You fear being wrong.
• You fear making mistakes.
• You fear being left all alone.
• You fear being abandoned.
• You fear disappointing those you love the most by not being able to live up to their expectations.
• You fear not being able to be what they are trying to make you be.  And you are right.  If you try to be something that you aren’t, eventually you are going to fail.

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine”  – Bruce Lee

So what do you do with your world of fears?

• Don’t resist them.  That just makes them bigger and harder to overcome.  Instead get busy with looking inside your own heart and mind.
• Dig in the cave where the fear has rooted itself.  Dig it up.
• Get curious about what event planted it in that spot.
• Get nosy about what other interpretation could be possible as you examine the roots of the fear.
• Start digging up each individual root of the fear plant, making sure that you don’t leave any roots behind.
• Take it out of the dark cave into the bright sunlight.
• Taking action and getting curious about the fear, allows you to let go of the pain it was causing.
• Taking action you can release the doubts that the fear created and replace those doubts with courage and confidence.

By transplanting this fear out in the warm sunshine, you have faced the worst that the fear has to offer.  You came out of the battle victorious.

Not because you killed the fear, but because you transformed it into something even more powerful.  You transformed it into the treasures of dreams fulfilled.  Of achievements accomplished.  Of courage maintained.  Of emotions generated such as gratitude and happiness. Of having the best adventures, the best stories to share with others.  The best gift of all, is to truly know yourself.

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear”  – Jack Canfield

Always Believe In Yourself

Sometimes the words scatter from your mind, like leaves being tossed by the wind.  You reach out to catch them, and they skitter away, as though playing tag with you.  The words are carved into the leaves, like pain and joy, just as they are forever etched into your soul.

The leaves fall from the tree without regret.  You release them, and then quickly reach out to try to gather them back to your heart.  Even though they leave scars, they are familiar and portray themselves as your bosom friends.

Yet as time passes, you realize that you have to let the dead things go.  As the leaves fall to the earth, they cover up the path you have been walking.  They don’t want you to leave them behind.

Don’t let anything or anyone define you.  You are what you are, because of what you make of tough situations in your life – Demi Lovato

It is time to raise your eyes up to the sky.  To see that although you may have lost the path, the limbs of the trees are now bare, and you can see the hills beyond the trees.  You can see the stars up above, reminding you that life is enduring and goes on.  It is time to release the old way of life and embrace something new.  Clarity comes into our lives when we release the old.

The seeds of successful change and transformation are planted when we release the failures.  Things fall apart, so that new things can come together.

Some days breakfast should start with dessert.  When I am thinking deep thoughts about what is hanging in the balance of my life, it helps to turn things upside down.  How do you know when it is time to let go of something?  That it is truly dead?  That you aren’t giving up just at the point of when it was finally going to work and come together perfectly?

Is the greatest strength in the hanging on or the letting go?  Separation needs to happen, in order for you to come to the best decision possible.  You need to get quiet.  To go deep within.  To step outside of the expectation, the desire, the frustration, divorced from all emotions clouding your judgment.  To become still, motionless – to step into the pause between the inhale and the exhale.

Stay true to what makes you different.  As long as you’re unique, you’re irreplaceable – Olivia Wilde

• When you reach that still perfect moment, what does your heart whisper?
• What direction is your soul being called?

Return to the root of your soul.

• Build the chrysalis and go through another transformation?
• What seeds have fallen there to take root?
• What new life is sprouting?
• What new adventure is waiting there for you to discover?

Listen to the silence, and let it touch your imagination.

Watch as the wind catches your imagination and lifts off.  The leaves blow, dancing to the silent music that only they can hear.  Lifting off they uncover a new path.  You step softly onto it.  And slowly lifting your wings, you start whirling and twirling in the midnight air.

The leaves spin all around you, and you find the freedom to let them drift where they may.  No longer feeling that you have lost anything.  Realizing that it is in the separation that we become free to shed the old and transform into the new.

It isn’t saying goodbye to the old you with regret.  It is the joyous heart of welcoming the butterfly as she emerges from the chrysalis and stretches out her wings to take flight.

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

Entelechy is an interesting word.  It is according to Wikipedia: the inner strength directing life and growth to become all one is capable of being.  Just as the acorn is the entelechy of the Oak tree, a caterpillar is the entelechy of a butterfly.

We go through transformation to release all the things that we have acquired through life that don’t really belong to us.  They aren’t part of the essence of who we really are.  So, transformation isn’t so much about changing who we are, as it is about releasing who we are not and accepting who we are.

Pay attention to what centers you, calms you, makes you feel grounded and rooted in your life.  When you go for a walk in the woods, what are you naturally drawn to?  A river or brook or even a fountain?  A meadow, an old oak tree?

The beach with the smell of the salt in the air, the wind blowing your hair, and the sounds of the surf rushing to the shore and pulling back into the ocean?  Whatever it is that says, “this is home”?  Bring more of that into your life.

Make an appointment in your calendar to take time to connect to that feeling.  It brings you back to your roots.  It is your true north.  The magnetic path that your feet want to walk.  If you can’t believe in the magic of this connection, you will never find it.

Never stop believing in yourself.  Remember that those who have succeeded will encourage you.  And those that have failed will not – Olianna Portnoy

Life’s Adventures Unlock The Mystery of Who You Are, Start Now

“If happiness is the goal, and it should be, then adventures should be a priority” – Richard Branson

Why should adventures be a priority?  Because it is the best way to learn about yourself and the world.  You learn about what you are afraid of, what challenges you.  What deep seated beliefs you have that you might not be aware of.  It is in fact the best way to experience “LIFE”.  You go somewhere you have never been.

It could be a walk in the woods around where you live.  A hike in the mountains.  A walk along the sea shore, listening to the sea birds call out over the sounds of the waves crashing against the sandy beach.  It could be your first time in an airplane or a cruise ship.  Sitting in a train, you watch the majesty of nature roll by as you cross the rocky mountains, and someplace deep inside you feel the shift.

Somewhere along the line, something will happen out of the ordinary.  You will start out on a certain kind of journey, and along the way the mystery of why you chose that path will reveal itself to you.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen”  – Winnie The Pooh

What is so interesting about travel and adventure is the attitude you bring to it.  You can magnify every discomfort into an ordeal, or you can get curious about what is happening around you.  You can experience it all as an adventure.  You get out of the ruts in your life.  Adventures are the best way to let some stories happen to you.  Discover new trails you didn’t know existed.  Adventures answer questions you didn’t know you had, because with adventures you gain first hand knowledge and experience.

“The books we read answer questions we didn’t even know existed”  – Axel Marazzi

There might be switch backs along the trail and you decide to walk off the trail, and cut through straight up the mountainside.  You come to forks in the trail with no signs, so you have to choose to go this way or that way.  Sometimes the trees are so thick you can’t see the sun.

• It is in the getting lost, that you become aware of what is important.  What are you willing to do to get it?
• It is in the replacing of fear with curiosity that you truly see what your options are.
• It is in seeing the endless stream of possibilities are always there for you to see, but you get so single mindedly focused that you miss every door of opportunity.

“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams”  – Oprah

Are you a planner?  I like to get into the details and have things laid out.  It took a lot of practice for me to start leaving space in my plans to just be adventurous.  My husband loves to just get in the car and take a drive.  No real destination, just drive down a road we have never taken, with no idea where it would take us.  Everyone needs someone like my husband, who grabs your arm and says lets go have an adventure.

“Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure your live was meant to be”  – Steve Pavlina

Not planning gives me anxiety.  It feels unstable.  But slowly through years of practice, I allow for spontaneity in my life.  Is it easy for you to follow maps to the edges, and then step off the edge?  You know that the world isn’t flat.  You know there are no monsters of the deep to drag your boat down to the bottom of the ocean.

• Do you go to sleep with stars that you don’t recognize?
• How often do you order something you have never eaten before?
• Do you have the conviction, that whatever you are looking for in life, it is out there waiting for you to find it?

There is no end to what you can discover about yourself when you adventure out with your eyes wide open.  Let the journey unfold itself before you.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us”  – Charles Bukowski

A lifetime of adventures

One of my favorite movies is with Diane Lane, in “Under The Tuscan Sun”.  After a bad a breakup, she is gifted with a vacation in Italy by her best friend.  While on the tour bus, they pass by this house and all of a sudden she makes them stop and let her off.  And that is when her adventure really begins.  She ends up buying the house, restoring it, and meets all of these new people.  She has this idea of what she wants in her life to make her happy – her dream life.  At the end of the movie she has everything she wanted, but it all came to her in a totally different way than she planned.

When you try to make life conform to a plan, you miss the mystery and magic of what it is really supposed to be.  The best gift you can give yourself is a lifetime of adventures.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius

There is a wonderful book by Jack Canfield called “The Golden Motorcycle Club” and in it he writes that we travel in soul groups.  I can just see the ad for my soul group.

“Limitless soul seeking like minded limitless souls, to journey down to earth for a great adventure.  You will be leaving a good life here, to go for a greater experience of life there.  For in going out into the world of the physical body, you will succeed in discovering that you are far more than you ever dreamed of.  You will find that stories are not just something that you can read about.  Stories are what happens to you and for you when you live a life of adventure.  You will discover if you are, “the girl made up of adventure and wine and all things fine”, or “the girl made up of adventure, fine beer, brains and no fear”.

And so . . . the ADVENTURE BEGINS.  Let’s go do something remarkable.

Say Yes, Choose To Make A Difference, The Butterfly Effect

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.

  – R. Buckminster Fuller

I think that most of us have heard the concept of the butterfly effect.  That the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world, can cause a typhoon in another part of the world.  The concept of how making a single change in your life, effects the future of people all over the world.  Every time we make a change in our lives, it shifts who we are.  We in effect destroy the old personality, in creating a new personality.  The caterpillar creates a change by forming the chrysalis around its body.  Then the old body is completely destroyed.  A completely new body is created.  This kind of change is not temporary.  There is no going back to who you were.  Even small changes create revolutionary impacts in a persons life.  Science recognizes this as “The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions”, I like “The Butterfly Effect” much better.  LOL.

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet become something beautiful.

 – unknown

I had this experience of seeing how a very simple comment, completely changed my own life.  I was at a seminar and the speaker had asked a question of the audience.  I had raised my hand.  He looked at me.  His face had that expression you get when you think you know someone, but you aren’t sure who they are.  He asked me if I had attended any of his other events, and I said yes.  This was actually my third weekend course with his group. 

One day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die.

  – Beau Taplin

The next words out of his mouth shifted my whole life into a new space of awareness.  He dramatically raised his arm and made the motion of removing a cape.  He said “You are one of those people.  I am removing your cloak of invisibility.”  With those couple of sentences, I was forever changed.  I could feel a heavy weight had been lifted off of me.  It was like a darkness was removed.  I felt like I was standing in the spot light.  I felt every person in the room see me for the first time. 

Each small act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time – affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo.

  – Dean Koontz

I had been one of those people who could disappear into a crowd.  Now I can’t do it.  It is no longer natural.  It now feels uncomfortable.  I thank Jesse Koran for listening to that intuitive voice inside of himself, and saying what I needed to hear.  It was definitely time for me to transform.  My purpose in this world was calling to me.  This was just the first of many transformations my life purpose would require of me.

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth.  The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water.  Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts.  And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them is far reaching.

  – Swani Sivananda

What Jesse said was like a tiny grain of sand, a drop of water in the ocean, but that single action led to the creating of LemonadeMakers.  It lead to creating this blog.  It lead to my first book being written, and this summer it will be published.  It has led to a personal freedom in my life, because I finally said yes to me. I finally acknowledged that maybe I did have a gift with writing.  Now I wondered if maybe you would want to hear what I have learned through all of the lessons in my life.  That maybe, just maybe, you would be encouraged to make a shift and change in your own life.  I woke up, and I discovered that part of my own purpose in life, would be to help others wake up.

My writing had been calling out to me since I was a child.  But I was afraid to listen.  Now slowly that wall I had built between my life purpose and the life I was living, began to crumble.  With each new curious thought, I was able to remove some of that wall.  Curiosity is a huge wall demolisher.  Because it circumvents fears from stopping you.  It leads you to joyously take a risk and see what happens.  It is a prime movement of the transformation process.

By your hand millions – BILLIONS – of lives will be altered, caught up in a chain of events begun by you this day.

  – Andy Andrews

The reason why the butterfly effect is so interesting, is that I shift and transform a tiny grain of sand.  You in turn see something as small as a single sentence in this post, that causes you to shift and change one tiny grain of sand.  Your transformation, in turn inspires another to shift and change one tiny grain of sand.  Soon we have a whole mountain towering 5,000 feet in the air.  And it was built, one tiny grain of sand at a time.  One personal transformation of a small thing in your life, in the next persons life, and so on.  Until 5,000,000,000 grains of sand build a mountain.

Each of us is like that butterfly, The Butterfly Effect.  And each tiny move toward a more positive mindset can send ripples of positivity through out organizations, our families, and our communities.

  – Shawn Achor

At some point in our life, we start looking for our life purpose.  In looking at all of the butterfly’s around her in this photo, she finds the one that is perfect for her.  She finds her purpose in life.  While her yellow butterfly looks like many others, it is unique in its coloring.  It fits her perfectly.  She recognizes it as being hers and hers alone.  The question then becomes, what does she do with it?  Because taking up this butterfly will forever change her world.  She will grow and transform into something different and new.  She has the ability to change the world with her decision.  And the interesting thing is, that she will in fact change the world either by taking that butterfly, that purpose up or leaving it behind. 

Don’t quit before the miracle happens.

 – unknown

Every action and every non-action matters.  Every choice you make or don’t make matters.  Will you fully live your life, or just continue to exist?  Your time as a caterpillar has ended.  Will you take up your life purpose, your wings?  If you have said yes in the past, is it time to trade in the smaller wings for a large pair?  To expand your comfort zone?  To acknowledge and accept your bigger purpose in this world?

Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight.  Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.

  – Arthur C. Clarke

You might find something within this post that strikes you in a new way.  Nothing has been said here, that hasn’t been said elsewhere.  But as we grow into our life purpose, we see things differently because we are different.  So sometimes a sentence brings a new insight that we didn’t get before.  This information may or may not provide some new knowledge or understanding.  Knowledge applied becomes wisdom, so maybe something in this post served as a reminder to make a transformation.  It becomes wisdom when it transforms us in some small way.  That wisdom then provides foresight to the path that we are now walking down.  It provides a small grain of sand, to put onto our mountain top of transformation that we are building.  It tells us whether to take the right hand or the left hand of the path up ahead.

The very beating of your heart matters.  Every choice you make or choose not to make matters.  Your actions impact the world.  Choose them wisely.  Expand your comfort zone.  Seek out every opportunity to say yes to your life purpose.  Your actions will shape how your future unfolds.  Your story has been so far only one of many possibilities.  New choices, new actions, expansion, transformation – all sit in front of you at this moment.  Say yes to happiness, when your life purpose lands on your hand say yes to whatever will lead to expansion and growth.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

  – Charles Dickens

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Your Soul Is Your Greatest Teacher

 

“You have to grow from the inside out.  None can teach you; none can make you spiritual.  There is no other teacher but your own soul”  – Swami Vivekananda

Your soul comes with your purpose already planted within it.  Your gifts are inside, waiting to be discovered.  The divine will is waiting to be expressed through your life.

Unfortunately, you forget what you already knew as a small child.  You get lost.  This is where the divine teachings can assist you.

The universal laws point you in the right direction.  They lead you to re-discover what you have forgotten.

One of the Laws of the Universe.  But what does it really mean when you look at it through the lens of your life?

I love the vibrant health of this tree in our featured quote. It is not only fully supporting itself, it is also providing for the area around it. Everything is vibrant, growing and healthy.

You have the light of the truth being reflected in the lamps to light the darkness down in the root system.  They shine at night to show the way as you go seeking the truth among your deep roots. You have the butterfly of transformation.

You have the fruit of both the foliage around it and the tree itself. This fruit attracts you as you go seeking food for your soul. It is so beautiful, and it invites you to come and rest.

I was listening to a CD by Guy Finley and he talked about the importance of balance in how we show up in the world, comparing it to a tree. Picture the tree having a root system as you see above. This root system is as deep underground, as the trunk and branches of the tree that extend high above the ground. It is about balance of the structure of the tree. The balance of the trees roots below support the outward growth above.

He stated that if a tree that didn’t have strong deep roots (roots deep within), it would be in danger of toppling over. This was because the growth above ground wasn’t being fully supported. In turn, if all you did was work on the root system, then you would have stunted growth above, no fruits. There has to be a balance of inner and outer work, all happening at the same time.

We see this in the Ying/Yang symbols.  In giving, you are going up the outward growth of the tree and in receiving you are going down into the root system.  In breathing in, you are going to the root system, and in breathing out you are going up the growth of the tree.

“The constant in/out, give/receive plays out in so many systems in our lives”

I thought about this in my own life, and watching the lives of others that I see out in the world. We have all seen a number of people who achieved something great in their lives, who later implode through drugs, drinking or sexual escapades. Think of the Hollywood stars that have overdosed, the politicians and scandals that they have had. Even religious leaders have their fair share when they have built an empire that came crashing down on them.

These are all examples of a root system that couldn’t support the upward growth.

So what is the root system in our analogy?

It is the inner work that you  do on yourself. The roots remind you of where you have been, and who you are today. It takes work to get to know your shadows. To uncovering what I call the popsicle stories. The stories you created as a child, to explain something that you couldn’t understand at the time. It is the judgments, traumas and dramas you grew up with. It takes deep inner work to discover what they are, and how they play out in the patterns of your life.  You must go back and claim your past.  It is what helps you to understand your present.

“It is in the connecting the past to the present, that sets up what you can completely shift and change for a better future”

It is through the developing of your relationship with the divine, that you are able to align your souls purpose in being here now. It is about asking the right questions to yourself that you discover “your way home” to your true self and your purpose in being here.

It is exploring and questioning every truth you have acquired throughout your life.  Some of those earliest truths contradict to some of your latest truths.  Some of those older “truths” or stories need to be released.  They no longer serve or support your inward and outward growth.

You need to discover that, as in the Wizard of Oz, you already have what you are looking for outside of you.  It lives deep inside of you in the root system. You already know “the way to home”.

Home is the place of balance in this analogy. The bedrock of the foundation cornerstone. The place where the outward growth of “who you are in this world” is equal to, and growing in proportion to the inner growth of the root system of your tree.  It is the place of awakening.

You have filters in your mind, which serve as a protection.  These filters both serve you and sometimes hurt you.  This is because you miss seeing things that have always been there.

Have you ever driven down a road that you use all the time and see a store front for the first time?  Earlier this year a large commercial building was totally removed so they could build a new structure.  I drive by it 4 times a day, going back and forth to my office from home (I go home for lunch).  I didn’t notice the building was being torn down until they had completely removed all trace of it.

This is because my filter removed it from my field of vision.  This has happened to you too.  The more conscious and awake you become the more you can learn to remove the filters so that you can see those open doors of opportunity.

Several years ago, after the murder of my nephew and the collapse of my sisters nonprofit that she had created afterwards, I discovered my souls purpose with LemonadeMakers.

LemonadeMakers after several years of inner growth preparation it is starting to grow above the ground. The trunk and branches have been growing, and we are about to have a whole lot of pieces of what I have been working on finally come together.

Supporting LemonadeMakers has changed me in ways that I can’t even believe myself. I have grown and changed so much personally. I have seen just how important it is to invest in yourself, and have a personal coach. The time, effort, and money spent means that I have taken the zip line through the jungle, instead of traveling on foot and breaking the trail.

Without coaching I know that I would have probably given up. The hero’s journey with this business has suffered setbacks with our website when I spent a lot of money and the service provider went out of business.  Then with the financial freefall of 2007-2012 recovery when I suffered a large loss of income.  With the support of good friends, the support of great coaches, and my own blood, sweat and tears, whatever roadblock that appears, I manage to keep going and keep growing.

From the place of my own experience in transformational growth, I encourage you to seek out personal coaching in some way. It is hard to see what is happening deep within the root system below you, or high up at the tips of your branches. A good coach, friend or mentor is a mirror reflecting back to you what you can’t see. We all need that friend that removes the toilet paper trailing behind you when you walk out of the bathroom, or smooths out the wild hair in the back of your head.

Just remember that every second is a fresh start to begin nurturing the roots and the branches of your tree. Every day is what you chose to make of it, how you are living your dream out in the world. When you have unrestricted flow between the roots and branches of your tree, you will see the greatest harmony flow into your life.  You will think of something, and make the connection, and produce the result almost without effort.

Ask

Believe

Receive

Contact LemonadeMakers if you want to see if having a personal coach is your next step.

Connection Comes From The Unfolding Of The Deepest Truth Of Who We Are

 

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.  There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.  You feel it, don’t you?

 – Rumi

Mind, body, heart, soul, the physical body, the spiritual body – bringing them into harmony is like being the orchestra conductor for a symphony.  You have all these different instruments that you bring together to create this fine blend of harmonious sound, and not just a cacophony of sounds.  To weave the notes together to make a beautiful piece of music.  The rising out as a soloist and then the weaving back down into the harmony.   There is a space in this vast room for improvisation like in jazz, where they create bridges that lead in new directions as well as bring the music back to the beginning.

Everyone’s life is an evolution of emotions, spirit and beliefs.  The storyline changes, plots thicken, main characters mature and new spiritual journeys begin.  This is true of inspirational authors.  Their books represent only stages of their life.  New triumphs of the soul have yet to be written.

 – Shannon L. Alder

Instrument’s in effect disturb the air around them evolving into sounds, music.  The notes played arise out of the no-thing-ness of creation to blend into other vibrations thereby creating sounds that can fill you with peace, ecstatic joy, with a feeling of living outside of your own world.  You can reach any emotion with music, making people smile, laugh or bringing them down into intense sorrow.  Have you ever listened to a soundtrack from a movie and you can tell from the soundtrack this is the battle scene, the kissing scene, the near death and triumphant rescue scene?  You don’t even have to know the movie and you can tell based on the emotions within you, what must be happening in the movie at that particular point.  It is like going on a musical journey of someone’s personal soul journey, their heroes journey of personal transformation.

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential . . . these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.

 Each instrument is an individual point of consciousness for just those few minutes of playing a masters creation.  You can shift different instruments in and out of the piece and the piece totally changes.  Some changes are small, such as having three violins instead of four, or major such as all of the violins being silent.  In the same way small shifts in our mind, body and soul can be used to help us reach out and achieve our dreams, to reach our highest potential.

Always choose the path the feeds the soul

 – Confucius

 Music provides a detailed road map to where you are going with the piece being played.  There is a tangible vision of how it should be performed.  But there is also a space for the individual playing the piece to do their own version.  They can speed it up, slow it down.  Have you ever listened to various musicians cover a song where they take the song to a whole new place?  It is so interesting to me because when I have a favorite song and someone switches it up, sometimes I am “Wow that sounds wonderful”, and sometimes I am “Wow that really doesn’t work”.  It all depends on how tied I am to the original song.  The more connected I am to it, the more I want it to remain the way I heard it the first time.  No one way is the right way for everyone.  Always choose the one that feeds your soul.  That feels like the perfect fit – not too small or too big, but just right.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.  Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

 – Rumi

 In jazz there is a free flow of creativity among the players. The leadership of the piece of music being created is passed like a baton.  Each person has a unique contribution to the piece and at the same time, there is a collaboration to the piece.  A shared rhythm, melody and harmony is created because you build and shape the music as you go.  No one tries to lord it over the others, but rather hearing the direction one person is going, the others try to uplift it to an even higher plane of existence.  In this way, as each player changes their playing of their own instrument, they change the sound and direction of the music being played.  Not by directing it, but by exploring it.  As you explore yourself and shift and change, so does every other player.  You can see them sitting there, eyes closed, faces of joy, totally lost in the journey the music itself is directing.  The result sounds like they already knew where they were going, but in fact it was the exploration that directed the destination.

Unless someone can look into the core of your heart, and see the degree of your passion, or look into the depths of your soul and see the extent of your will, then they have no business telling you what you can or cannot achieve.  Because while they may know the odds, they do not know you.  Nor do they know the power of your angels.

  – Sandra Kring

It is interesting that when I write, especially poetry I hear music playing in my head.  It is usually a combination of different songs that kind of blend themselves in and out of the writing.  There is an emotional connection to the heart and soul when I write.  I can feel the searching for the right words, both from the meaning of the word and the vibration of the word.  For example, hope and faith.  I tend to go with faith, because to me the vibration of the word hope is lower.  It is more of a maybe word, whereas faith to me has an expectation that it will be so, that it will happen.  Hope has more of a maybe, I don’t know vibration to it.  That is my own personal relationship to the words.  Others would have a different relationship to the words and that is ok.  But what this does is to allow me to touch the personal passion I feel when I write.  Music does the same thing, touching emotional vibrations.

Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change with it.

 – Steve Maraboli

What is the mindset that changes everything?  It is having the courage to take risks, by wearing our heart on our sleeve.  To feel the emotions of everything we come in contact with, and not let it take us out, but rather let them flow on by.  It is about have the capacity to sacrifice the “I want you to like me” feelings, so that I can tell you want you need to hear, instead of what you want to hear.  It is being vulnerable enough within ourselves, to pull out all the bits of behavior and personality we have taken on to be accepted.  And leaving out in the open all the bits that make us who we are that we have hidden away, as not being worthy. It is the wearing those bits of who we are at a soul level, that connects our life to our consciousness.

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

  – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Living our truth; reaching for the stars; falling to the earth and trying again – that is the road we are on.  We have to be willing to be rejected because we live real, authentic lives.  We have to be willing to mark out our boundaries not our of fear of others, but love of ourselves.  When we change our mindset and live out loud who we are – that is when we are brave enough to climb that ladder. When we have the courage to reach higher and higher into our true potential – that is when life itself is an ecstasy.

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There are no endings. Just New Beginnings

“Keep going.  Everything you need will come to you at a perfect time” – unknown

Just keep swimming.  The storm clouds will pass, and the sun always shines once again.  It may seem like you are walking through the valley of shadows and death alone, but that is an illusion.

There is the invisible spiritual world that is always by your side.  There are friends and relatives that may not know how to help, what to say or do – but they are cheering you on.  There are people in this world who every night pray for those who feel they are lost on life’s journey.

Just as your faith can move mountains, your doubts are what put them there.  Stop creating barriers that you have to fight to get over.

“Have the courage to make the change, the strength to see you through it, and faith that everything will turn out for the best” – unknown

Some leave you because they are not interested in a transformational journey any longer.  They wish to stay safe within their comfort zone and make no waves that might swamp their little boats.

Some you leave because you realize that you can’t continue to carry their weight and still walk your own path.  You have to cut the chains that are dragging you down.

Out of the best of motives, you find that you have done too much for someone, and you have to stop.  It only hurts them to continue.  You are not giving up on them.  It was just time to release them to their own journey, and for them to find their own way.  It is not the end of your story, just the end of their part in your story.  And that is ok.

“Note to self:  None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought.  Eat the delicious food.  Walk in the sunshine.  Jump in the ocean.  Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like a hidden treasure.  Be silly.  Be kind.  Be weird.  There’s no time for anything else” – Nanea Hoffman

If you have never read any of Caroline Myss’s books or heard her speak I highly encourage you to check out her body of work.  To me she is that really critical aunt that drove you crazy as a kid, but you learn to love and appreciate as an adult.  Because everything that she says is total reality, no sugar coating, and is the best advice that you could get.

The whole reason to be on the path to personal self-transformation is to realize that there are parts of you that are not in balance.  To learn how to bring them back out of the shadow and into the light.  You can’t do that work unless you are willing to be totally honest with yourself.

“Facing personal truths and purging yourself of addictions or manipulative habits requires strength, courage, humility, faith, and the other qualities of a soul with stamina, because you are not just changing yourself; you are changing your universe.  Change one coordinate in your spiritual compass and you change your entire life’s direction” – Caroline Myss

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears” – Nelson Mandela

If you are willing to make a few mistakes, to have a few failures, you can learn how to release the monsters from under your bed.  You can take on one monster at a time.  You can talk to it and learn its story, its reason to exist.  They were created when you were small and most of their stories are just bits of truth wrapped up in drama, trauma, and misunderstanding.

If you can unwind the experience, you can help them take off their masks and their costumes.  You can take away their illusions.  You can help them understand that their help was exactly what we needed at the time.  You can thank them for protecting you.  And if you can change one small thing for them, you can transform their relationship with you.

One small change at a time, one degree makes all of the difference.

 

“It takes courage to grow up and become who we really are” e.e. cummings

Walking on the path of the transformation life, you sometimes find your path ends with a large body of water that needs to be crossed.  You might swim across, but sometimes that body of water has a strong current, rapids or even is close to the drop off of a waterfall.  So, swimming might seem too risky.

You could look for a way to build a bridge across.  But you might decide that you don’t have the “know how” to build a bridge.

You could build a boat to row across, but maybe you don’t have the funds to buy the lumber.

Or you could fly.

What you must never do is to be afraid of doing whatever is needed to get across that body of water.  Because the worst thing that can happen is that you build a house alongside that body of water, and never even attempt to get across.  That is guaranteed to give you a life of regrets.  To be always wondering “what if?”  What if you could have flown across?

What might you have accomplished in your life, if you had just risked continuing down the path of a transformational life?

What is necessary is that you are stronger than your excuses.  Whenever you hear yourself say the word, “but”, you need to stop what you are saying.  Because whatever follows but is an excuse.  You don’t need to unpack your backpack at the word “but” and build a home there.  What you need to do is to get a shovel and dig under the excuse to find the pattern of sabotage that is underneath the excuse.

Root out the pattern and recognize it as a fear.  Shift and change how you are dealing with that fear.  Doubt has built another mountain, and you can refuse to climb it.  You can instead have faith in yourself, in your friends and family, in your spiritual beliefs, and know that if you built that mountain, you can take it apart and keep on your journey.

“When it is all finished, you will discover that it was never random” – unknown

When I look back at what I thought were mistakes, I see these links.  I took a new job, which ended three months later.  I was laid off and I couldn’t find work.  I lost my car because I had no money.  I moved out of state.  I got a new job and the reason they hired me?

It was because of what I was doing at that job for three months.  That experience led to a promotion for a position that I had been aiming for, to teaching at two different community colleges, to creating and running a training program for seven branches of a savings and loan bank.  None of which would have happened without that job for three months.

So was it a mistake?  I don’t think so.  Nothing in that string of experiences was random.  I was following the path of self transformation.  Sometimes the path kicks you butt, and sometimes you kick it back.

So, what do we do?  You swim.  You just keep swimming.  You make mistakes and you keep swimming.  You try new things and you keep swimming.  You change yourself, your world and you just keep swimming.

I hope this year, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.
You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, wherever it is, art, or love, or work, or family, or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, DO IT.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
– Neil Gaiman

Your Future Lies In The Beauty Of Your Dreams

“Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you”  – Marsha Norman

Such a beautiful idea, dreams coming from your soul, as illustrations of what you can accomplish with your life.  What kind of life did you imagine when you were five?  Ten?  Twenty?  Forty?  Sixty?

• What came true and what did you throw away and abandon on the ground?
• What fears, excuses, and failures did you blame that abandonment on?
• Are you ready to turn a page and start the dream over?

Your dreams are waiting patiently for you to come back and try again.  But it isn’t a matter of doing the same things that already failed to bring your dreams into reality.

It is all about you transforming and changing yourself, so that you can become the person who can support that dream.  I think that is why many fail so many times.  You keep thinking that you just need to keep climbing the same slippery slope.  And every time you slide back down, you think you just need to try harder.

It isn’t about trying harder,

it is about getting smarter.

“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now” –  Mattie Stepanek

Dreams serve a dual purpose.  They grow you, shift and change you in order to accomplish them.

And they bring something wonderful into the world, to shift and change others besides yourself.  Dreams are realities not yet beheld.

The story of the Starfish –

What you are doing right this minute, is the beginning of that future.  Even if it is as simple, as saving one starfish.

“Don’t downgrade your dream just to fit your reality.  Upgrade your conviction to match your destiny” – Shinzoo.com

When you work on becoming the person you need to become, to bring your dream into reality, how do you know what you need to transform within yourself?  The clues are like key holes in the walls that you built out of your fears.

Take for example the fear of public speaking.  It is said to be one of the most common fears that everyone has.  You probably have this fear.  So the wall of fear that you have built is designed to avoid any situations in which you might be asked to speak.  Your body will fight against you.  Some people go into hot/cold sweats.  Some become nauseous and even throw up.  Some people get that deer in the headlight look and forget everything, including their own name.

So, what is the key to transforming this fear?

You have to discover what is lying underneath the rock called fear of public speaking.

• Was there something that happened in the past where you were subject to public humiliation?
• Is it tied to a lack of confidence that you have something to say that others would find worthwhile?
• Is it about your own judgment of how you look up on stage?
• Do you drown yourself in the “what if’s?”
  • What if I trip on the stage?
  • What if the microphone doesn’t work right?
  • What if I drop my notes and they are now in the wrong order?

Get curious as to what is underneath your own fear rock.

“Do what you have to do, until you can do what you want to do” – Oprah

When you pick up a literal rock, you might find dozens of different kinds of insects buried underneath it.  Within your rock of fear, there it isn’t just one answer buried underneath it.  It is usually several different items that are weaved together to create the illusion of a huge unmovable boulder of fears. But as you unwind and untangle each fear, acknowledge it, and see how you can transform it, the illusion of the boulder shrinks down into a manageable fear rock.

As you transform those fears with speaker training; As you practice and become well prepared; you realize that your speech isn’t about you.  It’s about helping your audience.  You discover that giving a speech can be a wonderful experience. Having some butterflies in your stomach before speaking is normal.  And having some nervousness with the first couple of sentences is common.  You are planting the seeds of your future success in bringing your dreams into reality.

“Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality” – Malala Yousafzai

What makes it a “Life Transformation” is the realization afterwards, that while it might not be perfect, you did it!  That someone in that audience needed to hear what you have to say. You spoke to that one starfish and helped it get back into the ocean.

You gain the confidence to realize that if you can conquer what might have been a crippling fear about being a public speaker; what else could you transform in your life that has been holding you back?

When you do something this transformational, you literally shift every cell in your body and become a new person.  You can’t go back to that person you were before.  Like the caterpillar, you just emerged from the chrysalis and spread your beautiful butterfly wings and took flight.

As you transform yourself with change after change, you discover that your dream itself keeps growing.  So the journey keeps going.

Along the way you will meet people who tell you logically, that you are wasting your time trying to save a beach full of stranded starfish.  You will experience epic failures.  You will be disappointed by other people who you thought were in the dream with you for the long haul.

If you stay true to your dream and honor your imagination and never, ever, give up – you will be a winner in bringing that dream a lot further than you could have imagined at the beginning.

• What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose?
• Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them?
• Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you?
• Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

Here at LemonadeMakers, we are happy to have those kinds of deep conversations, to help you figure out what is underneath the fears that seem to be holding you back from living your life purpose.  Contact us anytime.

Take The Time To Listen To The Souls Dreams

Sometimes you need to take a break from everyone and spend time alone, to experience, appreciate, and love yourself – Robert Tew

I have a confession to make.  Years ago, when all four of my children were little, I used to hide in the bathroom.  Sometimes the mommy, mommy, was just too much.  I didn’t want to referee who had what toy, who pushed who, or be the mean mom making them clean up their room.

I was tired out from working all day, coming home and fixing dinner, making sure their homework was done, that they all had their baths, and had clean clothes for the next day at school.  I just needed five minutes alone.

If your kids are like mine were, you didn’t get the five minutes alone until they were in bed, and after the 15th excuse to get out of bed, they had finally fallen asleep.

By then of course, you are too tired to even think, and you are falling asleep on the couch.  Just a few minutes of peace.

My husband was a wonderful man who in the summer would take the kids on overnight camping trips.  For one whole weekend, I would stay at home alone.  I slept in.  I read a book.  I would wallow in alone time and recharge.  It was a mini mommy vacation.  When they came home Sunday night all excited about fishing, I was a whole new mom, ready to listen to every story and adventure.

If you really love someone, there’s no such thing as not having enough time for them – unknown

For some reason now that the kids are all grown and out on their own, I have filled my life up with so many things to do.  It took a while to notice that I have let the habit of alone time disappear.  I am following my own advice and putting this time down on the calendar.

It is really important to carve out the space to be able to soul search.  To recover energetically. To be able to do some deep thinking, following the rabbit down the rabbit hole.  To just be without any agenda or schedule or purpose.  It is a part of having a healthy relationship with yourself.  It is a part of loving yourself and making time for just you.

• So, when you carve out some alone time, what do you do with it?
• How much time each month do you carve out to play?
• Try something new that you have never done before?
• If you were to go exploring in your neighborhood or your town, what would you do?
• When was the last time that you sat down and created something just for fun?
• Painting, drawing, sculpting, gardening, singing, dancing, playing an instrument, writing a story or a poem, sewing – whatever direction your creative juices take you.

Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own – Oprah

I love to garden, to crochet, and I have always wanted to play the piano.  I want to go on a hot air balloon ride.  I want to travel to Scotland and see where my dad’s family came from.  I want to explore medieval castles all over Europe.

I have been neglecting this part of my life because of not balancing myself between my day job, taking care of my husband and his health issues, being there for the grandchildren, and the amount of time it takes to promote and build LemonadeMakers.   The “I should be’s” overwhelm the “I want to’s“.

But what I know from life experience and lots of years of education, is that it is just as important to take the time to recharge my batteries.

So, like the sailor in the ship, you need to make course adjustments, to make sure that you don’t keep losing yourself in life’s often conflicting priorities.

Remember to take those moments, or those weekends to smell the roses.  You will come back reenergized and ready to take on whatever life is getting ready to throw in your direction.