Ocean
When you look across the ocean with the sunrise or the sunset, you see the colors mirrored on the surface. This is like our appearance, beautiful when calm and serene. But if you dive down deep, into the depths, that is where the true beauty of a person lies, in their soul. This is the beauty that we miss, when we make surface judgments about someone.
Rumi says, “Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.” Self knowledge is the place to start. We need to dig down deep within us, and question all of the stories we have told ourselves about our life. What do we know to be 100% totally true?
If we seriously ask and listen to the answer to this question, most of us would have to acknowledge that most of our stories about life are made up. We make them up to make sense of the things we have seen, done, and experienced. John Lennon said, “The more I see, the less I know for sure.” This is because the more that we learn about life, the more we see that most of our knowledge is surface knowledge. The deeper we dive, the more we see how much more complicated and interconnected our understanding of life is.
“Knowledge is knowing the depths of the ocean. Wisdom is knowing where to swim” Saleem Sharma. Sometimes life can be hard to navigate. When the storms come in, the waves churn up from the bottom of the sea bed. Things come to the surface that have been long buried. We are like this when the storms of life blow in. All those things that we stuff down inside of us, because we either can’t, or don’t know how to deal with them, come churning up to the surface.
Instead of being afraid of what we have buried, we need to rise up and calm the waters. Be still. Breathe. Be at peace. Realize that God never brings anything into our lives that we can’t handle. Wake up to your dreams. Live them out in your reality.
Lean on the divine, and on those who love us. Change what can be changed, release the rest. See the hope of a new day, the beauty that lies within each of us, and the love that never dies. Remember that you can do anything you “think” you can do, and impossible really means “I m possible”.
GAPs
It is up to us to be a prisoner of our past, by remaining in it; or to be a champion of our future by building it. If your life path was to travel from one of these formations to the next one and so on to the end, how would you do it? You could climb down and walk to the next peak and scale up and repeat over and over again. Or, you could become a bridge builder. Neither way is wrong or right. Just different choices.
We could for sake of argument take opposing viewpoints on the better, faster way to walk this path. We could discuss how those that follow us would make better speed with the bridge. Or how scaling up each peak would define us, and make us stronger. But at the end of the day, the analogy is that each of us has our own path of divine destiny to walk.
Rainer Maria Rilke said, “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.” I love this. This is the synopsis my most recent experience of the past year. For many years I knew that in my journey in life, I was having one foot on the gas, and one foot on the brake in accomplishing my goals. The pattern began when I was four years old and I walked in on my mom having sex with a man that was not my father.
What I took from this experience is that it wasn’t safe to be seen. So I spent years of my life trying to be invisible, and it worked. Thus one foot on the brake, and one foot on the gas. Every time my foot on the gas caused me to be close to my goals, I slammed on the brakes and hid. I worked on this and in the past few years thought that I was no longer being invisible.
I had widened my circle of comfort and felt that I had my foot off the brakes. Instead of hiding in crowds I am very social. I speak on stages to hundreds without fear. But the chameleon quality of this life pattern came to my attention this past week. I had been trying very hard to get my website completed, and I realized that I was again driving with one foot on the brake. In the past 6 months I have been the hold up.
I am expanding my comfort zone and that invisible foot was being slammed on the brakes. I was being defeated by a “greater” thing. Many teach that we came into this life to have a certain experience.
Mine seems to be dealing with this pattern of foot on the brakes, when I am pushing hard on the gas to accomplish a goal. Now I recognize it has chameleon like qualities. I know that when I feel like I am not progressing towards my goals, I have to go looking for that sneaky lizard. This life pattern is my GAP – Gods Area of Preparation. This is where I learn about new ways that my life pattern has shifted, and I learn new ways to build bridges to close that gap. Can you see GAPs in your life pattern? Do you see where you need to learn to build bridges to close off the gap to get to your destination?
Martin Luther King Jr.
There are so many good quotes for Martin Luther King Jr. His most famous speech, “I have a dream” is full of lessons for us all. I thought about Martin Luther King Jr. a lot the past few days. What would he give a speech to us about today, if he were still alive?
The world is so full of injustice that it is like chains weighing us down. It is like that scene in Sleeping Beauty, where you are chopping down the vines that cover the castle and they regrow faster than you can chop them down. Wage inequality just gets worse every year. Men and women still are not paid the same wage for the same job. We see how terrorism is changing the face of racism, making us afraid of others based on not only their skin color, but their culture and religion. The war against drugs is never ending as drugs continue claim the lives of our young people every day. Lack of access to healthcare continues to be a major problem. I could go on to spit out depressing facts and figures as well as continue the list of things wrong in our world. But I won’t.
One of my favorite MLK quotes is “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?” I think that this quote would be a big part of his speech for us today. “What are you doing for others?” Because at the end of the day, it isn’t some governments policy, law, or program that is going to change our world. It is each of us individually standing up and stating, “I am going to change me”. And as each of us, “changes me”, we will inspire others to do the same for themselves. And individual by individual, the world will change.
What will make this transformation possible is love, forgiveness and lifting each other up. It is the realization that now is the time to do what is right. To teach our children critical thinking, because that is what is needed to lead us forward. To understand all holy scriptures fundamental teaching is that only light can drive out the darkness. All of these thoughts come from other MLK quotes.
If we all started out today, and every day going forward with these kinds of thoughts creating actions of change, the world would change overnight. This reminded me of the Berlin Wall falling down. It seemed to happen overnight, but it was actually the work of many over time. It was small actions that lead to the wall falling down.
The goal should be not to just think about these things one day a year, but rather to think about them daily. Because action goes where our attention is focused. And action is the only way to implement real lasting change upon ourselves.
A last quote “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” We can be disappointed that even though some progress has been made, it hasn’t happened yet,. Just don’t lose hope that if we all keep walking together hand in hand, that it will happen.
If you want to soar in life, you must first love yourself
If you want to soar in life, you must first love yourself.
“You have to love yourself because no amount of love from others is sufficient to fill the yearning that your soul requires from you” – Dodinsky
So many of you have put the cart before the horse when it comes to love. You spend all of your time “earning” the love of others by being who they want you to be. By doing everything in your power to make their life perfect. You put others ahead of yourself and at the end of the day, nothing turns out the way you wanted it to. You are left feeling like a failure, just “not good enough”.
There is a show on PBS called “Home Fires”. It takes place in England during WWII. It’s about a women’s group that contributes to the village and the war effort. In the first season there is one woman whose husband abuses her. Like all abusers he makes every time he loses his temper to be her fault. The real issue at hand for the story line is that he is a newspaper writer who can’t get enough work, so of course he takes it out on someone he is supposed to love.
A few of her best friends figure out what is happening, but at the point in history there really isn’t anything they can do about it. She is too ashamed to admit what is happening. The times that she struggles to fight back, he leaves her self-worth in even more tatters. At the end of the first season, one of her friends was successful in getting him a war correspondent job without him being aware of her having a hand in it.
He leaves the village to go to the front, and now his wife has the opportunity to start loving herself and building up her self-esteem. The hope being that she doesn’t fall back into the same situation when he returns. One of the underlying contributors of why women stay in abusive situations is that they don’t love themselves enough to gather up what remains of their self-worth and self-trust, to leave and not look back.
“Love yourself enough to take the actions required for your happiness. Love yourself enough to cut yourself loose from the ties of the drama filled past. Love yourself enough to move on” – Dr. Steve Maraboli
You may not be in such an extreme situation with your self-love, but you only have to listen to the comments you make to yourself, to know that it is something you can still do more work on.
When you live your life in such a way that reflects, you’re coming in last, you buy into a lie. A lie that loving yourself first will take away from loving others. A lie that says the only way to be worthy of self-love, is to prove that others love you first. How could you attract the love of others, if you don’t even love yourself?
Trying to in essence purchase the love of others by the self sacrifice of yourself, is like trying to fit the square peg in the round hole. You can push it, twist it, and pound the peg until it shatters, but it will never fit. It won’t fill that yearning from your soul, that begs you to put “love us” first.
5 Things to Quit – right now.
- Trying to please everyone
- Fearing Change
- Living in the past
- Putting yourself down
- Overthinking
You have the power to choose where you are going. You have the power to stop trying to get attention from those who hurt you most. You have the power to stop hating your body, your personality, and the pieces of you that don’t fit in the square hole.
You can start with loving yourself, saying “I love my thighs just as they are”, “I love my imperfect smile”, “I love that I snort when I laugh”, “I love me”. You can get the truth of the situation into your bones – nobody will ever love you more than you love yourself.
It is critically important to your health and happiness – both physical and mental – that you treat yourself right.
What if for the rest of this year you devoted yourself to loving you more? Your choices will change your life.
Make peace with your mirror and watch your reflection change. The loss of judgment in your eyes. The removing of the wrinkles of anxiety across the forehead, that you aren’t good enough. The curve of the smile of self-confidence, that says you are amazing, and you are rocking that outfit. The glow of inner peace and love that fills your space with light. And – LOL – Best hair day EVER!
A real miracle
A real miracle. My youngest son was in an accident that he survived by a miracle. It took the fire department hours to get him out of the vehicle and he had traumatic injuries. He too was driving too fast. The police, Fire Department and Paramedics all came to visit him and told him none of them thought he would make it and to make sure his second chance at life was well spent. He is in Nursing School to give back.
Here is her FB post about the accident and the miracle she witnessed. I cut a little out since it was so long. You can go to the link at the bottom to see all of it.
“Three seconds. That’s how long we had from the moment we drifted off the road until the truck hit the pilar at 85mph. In three seconds Hunter had to handle a situation that would either kill us immediately or save our lives…, And when we were both lying in our beds in the ER he found a way to come protect my heart and give me a hug.
I’m overwhelmed at how little damage was done to Hunter and I in a wreck that should have chopped our bodies in half. I’m in awe of the presence of God in this entire situation. Every part of this experience we went through points directly to Him. The way God helped Hunter to respond exactly the way he did behind the wheel, spinning the truck exactly where it should have to be able to smash into the pillar directly in the middle of me and Hunter so we were both untouched…, that doesn’t just happen. God doesn’t throw protection around like that for no reason. He does it because he’s not finished with us.
…, Looking to the drivers seat all I saw was his head through the windshield, a face full of blood, and a body that wasn’t moving. I looked straight out the truck and there was a man..bright with a big white beard. No other cars in sight…just this man. He was my guardian angel. He saw me and immediately told me that an ambulance was coming…, I don’t know if it was a hallucination or me unconsciously dreaming or a glimpse of heaven…but all I knew in that moment was that Hunter was safe with me…, I asked this man when the ambulance was coming. He told me in just a second. He walked away, I blinked and a flashlight was in my face. The paramedics were there helping me and Hunter.
Here is the miracle part: no broken bones, concussions that lasted not even 24 hours, no internal damage, and just a few stitches in my knee and hunters face…, All of our belongings in perfect condition,… and the only thing left behind at the crash scene is Hunters bible open, with a page marked with scripture telling us to not be afraid; Jesus is with us.
I am amazed. Absolutely taken away by the presence of God. So blessed for him sending me an angel…, So thankful for all the thoughts and prayers that were sent our way. The power of prayer is real, and it healed me and Hunter.
But tonight I’m praying for all of you…, I want everyone to to know the love and the power of God. He has a purpose…and it’s so clear that NOTHING…not even a car accident like this one will cause his plans for you to change…, And the plans he has for YOU and your life aren’t going anywhere…, Embrace the struggles and the joys of this life! Without a doubt it’s a miracle we’re alive, but more than that it’s simply Gods plan for us. We’re so grateful for this wreck and all it will do in our lives. We are blessed to be okay. And so in love with the amazing God we serve.”
Thankful Service
1,000 people attend funeral for Billy Aldridge, a US Marine Corp veteran with no family.
Billy died at the age of 80 in an Indianapolis nursing home last month and the company handling his arrangements posted his story on Facebook. They asked the public to help give this man a dignified funeral service.
I think they did a good job!
Shine On
Shine with all you have. When someone tries to blow you out, just take their oxygen and burn brighter.” ― Katelyn S. Irons
It is really the best revenge over who or whatever caused the storm – to still shine bright as a diamond. Use that storm to simply wash off the dust and grime that had dulled your shine and sparkle even brighter.
Be a shooting star lighting up the night sky with your brilliance.
As you shoot across the sky, find the rainbow and swallow the colors. Explode across the darkness like fireworks with all of the colors sparkling inside of you, releasing into showers of brilliance falling back to earth.
The Greatest Gift
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” ~Mary Engelbreit
It is really all about the words and the meanings that we assign to them. That is because words tell the story, and the story is what is perceived to be the truth. When in fact the truth is always just your perspective, “your” side of the story. The only way to have the “whole truth”, is to be able to tell the story from all points of view. The marriage of those points of view is probably the closest that we can ever come to the “whole truth”.
Perspective is from Latin perspectus “clearly perceived,” and is a way of regarding situations, facts, etc… and judging their relative importance.
I read a story of a mom that lost her daughter to sudden infant death syndrome and she was working with her third therapist in seven months.
She wanted to know what was wrong with her, that even though she was wearing a mask to the outside world that she was moving on in her life, she felt that she must be doing the “grief” wrong because inside she was hurting so much.
The therapist used words that transformed how she was viewing her grief. She said you are just very sad, and the depth of your sadness is simply a measure of how much you loved your daughter. This viewpoint of “how deeply she loved her daughter” allowed her to express the overwhelming grief, instead of bottling it all up because “seven months” had passed.
Stories allow us the space to heal the pain, and once we have healed the pain, perspective helps us to stop being a victim. Life isn’t always fair, and no one should lose a child, no matter their age. But it happens.
Every day if we look for it we can see evidence of injustice happening all around us. It is easy to get lost in the emotions created when it happens to us or someone we love. We see evidence of it in the news when the world erupts in moral outrage over things like the Paris bombing, or the kidnapping of the school girls in Nigeria, that still over one year later haven’t been found.
We have large and small things that happen to us, our friends and family that have an impact on our life. But hidden in the heartache and challenges are golden nuggets that are the gift of the trials and tribulations that we experience. It is all about perspective.
It is about not only what you look at with the experience, but also where you are looking from, a point of view. Every experience has something to offer us. When my nephew was murdered, and my sisters nonprofit that she started failed, that could have been the end of it.
But I didn’t want that to be the end of my nephews story. So I created LemonadeMakers to help the small community nonprofits be more successful. So that others like my sister can make a difference in this world. I believe with all of my heart that this is what my life has been leading me to. To this moment, to create this business to help all of the nonprofits that I can reach. Out of the pain of injustice, loss, and deep mourning came something good.
The smallest change in perspective can change a life. See life with new eyes and look for the gift. Pull out the telescope or binoculars and peer deep inside yourself. Dig deep and find the gold of the experience. Change the story, and realize just how blessed you are.
Asha Tyson said, “Don’t think that you’ve lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is the right time.” Now is the right time to let go of what can’t be changed, and live the life that the divine has put before us, with happiness, gratitude and grace.
be yourself
Mother Nature freely expresses herself every day, and she doesn’t apologize for it. Most of us learn at an early age what we are taught as “good manners”. Good girls are seen, but not heard. Don’t express a different opinion. Never contradict an authority figure, even if they are wrong. And so on, and so on.
I love the writing of Don Miguel Ruiz and his book The Four Agreements. The Four Agreements have more to them than this, but this gives you a taste of them.
Be impeccable with your word – I love how it includes not speaking against yourself. How many times have you called yourself dumb or stupid?
Don’t take anything personally – what people say and do is a projection of their own reality, not yours.
Don’t make assumptions – this is for me the most important thing, as we assume we know what someone else is thinking and they think they know what we are thinking and the truth is that most of the time we are having two totally different conversations.
Always do your best – this is the only way to avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
So the best advice is taken from the moon – be yourself and if you make some waves, just provide some beach towels. LOL.
Not my movie, not my drama
This is a really profound quote. It really struck a chord in my heart because I so resonated with the underlying truth. Really sit with the words, “tell me why they were so comfortable to say what they were saying to you”. What do you see about yourself that may have attracted this?
So what does it say about me, that someone might come to me with some “juicy” gossip that they are spreading about someone I know. What signals am I broadcasting that they think I want to join in and be a part of something like that? How am I telling them that I love the drama of someone else’s downfall?
People for the most part will not say to you a mean or hurtful thing about someone that you really care about. People for the most part will not gossip with someone that they know won’t put up with it.
There are some minor exceptions to this rule, like my father in-law. Years ago we were staying with my in-laws waiting for the closing on our home. I had went up to the kitchen to get something and he was there. He went off on a tear down of his son, about how he was a disappointment , that all of my father in-laws failures could be traced back to his children. He said mean, hurtful cruel things about his son. Finally he ran out of steam, and I just looked at him and said, “so what kind of response are you looking for here? Why are you telling me these things? I love my husband and he isn’t anything like the son that you are describing”, and walked away. He is the exception to the rule because he is so unhappy in his life, and he doesn’t want to take responsibility for how it has turned out, so he goes around trying to tear you down to his level. The only thing you can do with someone who has a toxic personality is limit the exposure to them.
Years ago I adopted the saying, “not my movie, not my drama”, for when people that I work with start down the road of tearing down someone in their life. My sister says, “not my circus, not my monkeys”. I try very hard not to join in or be around those kinds of conversations. If they won’t let the conversation be turned to something positive, then I excuse myself and walk away.
What we need in our lives is more positive conversations; more love shown in both our words and out actions. More up building and less tearing down. More compassion and less drama. More celebrating of the positive accomplishments of people and less glorification of the tragedy that takes someone out.
This even plays out in the feedback we provide around customer service. How fast are we to complain to someone in charge when we are not treated the way we want, but do we have the same rate of speed to ask for someone in charge to praise a persons excellent customer service in taking care of you?
This quote takes it a little deeper for me that just avoiding the “drama queens”. It says that the quality of the conversations that I am part of is due in some part (large or small) to what I am attracting – knowingly or unknowingly. Gives me a slice of a shadow that I didn’t realize might still be there to work on rooting out.
What do you think about this quote? Does it say anything special to you?
Do you believe in destiny?
Do you believe in destiny? That somewhere out there is the soul mate that you’ve been looking for? Is this really a FB glitch or the universe bringing two people together?
A man in another state suddenly finds himself logged in to someone else’s FB account. He has a flip phone and so nothing fancy. He tries to log out but the FB button is missing. He messages the FB account for the woman’s account he is in, and asks for her help to get him off. Nothing works until they try her friending him and finally he can get off her account and into his own.
Over the next couple of years they become friends, finally they both realize that it’s something more. This year they got married. So what do you think, were they fated to be together?
See the whole story here: http://www.liftbump.com/…/85910-what-a-man-realizes-when-…/…
Inspiration
What does it mean to be inspired?
The dictionary definition that I like the best is: a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation.
I think of it as the act of drawing in breath, breathing in God’s heart and mind.
Like most of us, I have a dream. LemonadeMakers is my vision that pulls me through each and every day. The space it currently occupies is a wide chasm from where I believe it can go. I know, from the bottom of my soul, that this is why I was born. And if I let my mind go wild, it is terrifying to think of everything that I need to do in order to grow it into what it is meant to do.
That is where inspiration comes in. It gives me the confidence to admit I don’t know it all, but I can find someone who does.
It gives me the courage to think outside the box to figure out a way to get everything done on a shoestring budget.
It helps me use my favorite words of improvise, adapt and overcome when I come up against 2 ton boulders that block my way. It gives me super powers to blast those boulders into pebbles and continue on my journey.
It gives me the grace to let someone else take the wheel when I am tired and not think that I have to do it all myself.
It empowers me, refueling my tank when it is low to keep on the path to the next destination.
Inspiration is the key to the kingdom.
