It is easy to run away from your problems. Fear is hard to face, hard to shrink, hard to work through.
Facing whatever is in front of you in life, is never easy. But doing so is building a muscle. The more you do it, the stronger you get. It not only makes you stronger, but you gain confidence that you can use in every area of your life.
We’ll inevitably face challenges in life. The best defense is believing that we are strong, we will survive, and we will be better for it – Lori Desehene
Each time a storm comes into your life, it is a chance to transform your life. Whether you choose it or you fight it, some part of you will change.
The change can be beneficial giving you strength, determination, self-confidence. It can bring you emotions of joy, happiness, and an expanded heart.
OR, you can fight the change, and become a defeated, bitter, a victim of life. It can bring emotions of anger, grief, injustice, and hatred.
It all depends on the path you choose to walk down.
My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, with a short window of time before she would die from it. The last 6 weeks I took care of her. I have five sisters and one brother, and I am the oldest. During those six weeks it was a reflection of what I am talking about here. Some family members were there every day, others came only once or twice. We had a service afterwards at her church. Some family members came, and some didn’t. That summer we had a family ceremony with all of her brothers and sisters and their families where we spread her ashes, and again some of my siblings came and some didn’t.
What I heard was how they couldn’t handle it – what I knew for myself is that even though it was the hardest thing I ever did, it was also the greatest blessing, and some of my siblings missed out on that blessing.
You can put a smile on your face each morning. Then begin the stresses of getting the kids to school on time, breakfast made, going to work on time. Then the car gets a flat tire or makes a horrible noise as you stop at a light. The engine dies and it won’t restart. Your boss reprimands you for something at work. Your teenager swears at you and slams their bedroom door. You get that phone call that our mom or dad is being admitted to the hospital with a heart attack.
The list could go on and on. Each day, every week, every month, you have something that happens that stresses you out and makes you wish life was easier.
So, you paste that smile back on our face, and if asks you how you are doing, you say “everything is fine”. You live a life on social media that only portrays the wonderful things in your life, because you’ve been taught that you don’t “air your dirty laundry”.
You think you have to pretend that you live a perfect life, because you think that everyone else does.
Let’s stop pretending things are ok when they are not, so we can pray for each other and know we’re not the only one who struggles – Renee Swope
Have you ever had something happened that seemed like the worst thing, but when you look back on it, you realize that it redirected you to where you were actually trying to go?
Years ago, I took a new job, that ended up being short term. When I was laid off, the mortgage market in Southern California had a small crash and I couldn’t find a job anywhere. We moved in with my mom temporarily and ended up moving out of state to find a new job. I had ruined my credit because of the long term unemployment.
It seemed like the worse decision I had ever made in taking that job that laid me off after only 4 months. A bad decision that put my family at risk.
But in hindsight, the job I got laid off from, had given me a new skill, which turned out to be just what I needed to land the underwriting job that had been my goal for several years. It looked like the wrong path, but was despite the rejection and pain, the perfect path.
You just need to believe in yourself. We are all made in God’s image, which means that no obstacle, no mountain, no immense body of water – nothing can stop you, except you.
While you may sometimes feel that life is unfair, too painful, not worth it – the truth is that life is full of people just like you, trying to overcome each new obstacle.
Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change it – Jamie Lee Curtis
So leave no path untaken. Every single one has something wonderful hidden within it.
So, stretch and keep choosing a new path to the life you are stretching for.
How can you tell if you still might be in a caterpillar stage of growth? Some questions to think about –
Do I hide my value or discount the gifts that I have for this world?
Am I tightly guarded, afraid?
Do I feel like I am stuck in the mud, unable to move?
Can I see my potential, but don’t know how to unlock it?
Do I feel vulnerable, tossed about with no control?
Unlike the real caterpillar, we have different phases of transformation. It isn’t a one time thing, go into the chrysalis and come out a butterfly for us. We have a mind, body, and soul, which is continually growing and expanding. Which means that we have different levels of transformation and growth. “Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past, so the universe can write a new one” Marianne Williamson.
Each time we feel stuck, we need to enter the chrysalis and undergo another change. Each time we realize that we have greater potential than we are using, we need to enter the chrysalis and undergo another change.
“It’s not about being perfect. It’s about effort. And when you bring that effort every single day, that’s where transformation happens. That’s have change occurs” Jillian Michaels. Transformation isn’t about “fixing” yourself like you are something broken. It’s about transforming what is no longer serving you, to grow into who you are to become.In this same way, when we get stuck, hide our value, and become tightly guarded, we are not producing anything positive in the world, but rather we are just using up the resources around us. We are not giving back. We are not contributing. “Unless you are prepared to give up something valuable, you will never be able to truly change at all, because you’ll be forever in the control of things you can’t give up” Andy Law
“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.” Gail Sheehy. But when we change, transform and grow, we are then in a space of being open, and sharing our values with the world around us. We pay it forward, because we delight in the joy of giving. We focus on how we can contribute to make the world a better place. We unfurl our wings to move freely in the expanded space of our transformation. We become a new creation, with a worthy cause fulfilling our divine purpose.
This chrysalis is the place to enter when we need a breakthrough. The breakdown results in a new way of thinking. It is about seeing yourself differently. Where we exercise the patience to grow and transform. The persistence to follow the breakdown through to the breakthrough. Knowing that the surrender is what leads to the life transformation will produce a new happiness of “we did it”. Bob Dylan said “behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”
When the butterfly has completed its change, the last step is to break through the chrysalis and unfurl its wings. Once they are dry, it is time to fly. The butterfly must care for itself to both emerge and then complete the process of self transformation.
I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.
– Audre Lorde
There is a story about how if you help the butterfly out of its coverings, it is crippled. This is because it needs to complete its growth through the releasing of its casing. If you enlarge the hole it creates, it deforms the wings. The same is true for us. We can be supported by the sun, to dry ourselves off. We can be uplifted with the winds. But we are the ones that must spread out our wings in order to thrive.
Damaged people are dangerous because they know they can survive.
– LoveFromASelfHammer
Sometimes life’s struggles are to help us realize that we need to grow stronger to complete our journey. Being courageous requires us to be vulnerable. It is a sign of strength when we put ourselves out there. You can’t really experience life, if you live without putting yourself out there to really live life. It is in fact a gift, this struggle, because all of us have far more strength than we ever dreamed possible. You must do the thing that you think you cannot do.
Strength comes from struggle. When you learn to see your struggles as opportunities to become stronger, better, wiser, then your thinking shifts from “I can’t do this” to “I must do this”.
– Toni Sorenson
Remember Star Wars when Luke is trying to lift his ship and he struggles and gives up. Then Yoda shows him. Luke could have done it the first time, but he doubted, he had a lack of faith not in God, but in himself. You must do the thing that you think you cannot do. It would not have been placed before you if God didn’t know that you could do it. It is there so that you can believe it yourself. To grow your faith, for the next time fear stops you.
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Looking at history, I think this quote best describes two people who suffered in Nazi Germany. Anne Frank, who still believed even after the things she experienced, that the world is filled with good people. We can read her diary, as well as the writings of those who new her. The other is Viktor Frankl. His book “Man’s Search For Meaning” should be required reading for everyone.
We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend.
– Brene Brown
When struggles happen to us we have a choice, they can define us or refine us. For Anne and Viktor they refined them. They both chose to reach toward the grief and pain of what was happening to her, to her family, to her people. They somehow knew, had that inner wisdom to realize that by reaching out, they was in fact healing themselves. Those who become defined by their struggles are true victims. They can’t move past the horrible thing that happened. They encase themselves with what happened and choose safety out of fear. They stop growing, becoming deformed inside, until they learn to “let it go”. To break out of the casing and unfurl their wings.
Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure.
– Bob Marley
Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly, like in the romantic movies. Laugh uncontrollably and giggle whenever you can. Never regret anything that brings smile to your eyes as well as your face. You take a chance of being wounded by living this way, but living any other way is not really experiencing life.
The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice.
– Ernest Hemingway
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In a recent notes from the universe, Mike Dooley wrote,
When life hurts, when it baffles and confuses, when it doesn’t seem to work, these are just signs from me – as if I were tapping on your shoulder or whispering in your ear, trying to point out that something really, really important, is being misunderstood.
Warm hugs,
-The Universe
This is when we need grace to come into our life. When we need to shift our thinking. When we need reminding that life isn’t happening to you, it is happening for you. When we realize that we haven’t been listening to the whispers of the soul. When we finally notice that we are holding onto the present so hard, that we are preventing the future from being able to move in.
There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.
– Ralph Marston
Imagine that you are driving down a long flat desolate desert road. You see nothing for miles and miles but desert scrub brush and more road. It is late afternoon and the sun is nearing sunset. Every time you think you must be nearing the end of it, all you can see is more miles of unending road. Then from the backseat you hear for the hundredth time, “are we there yet?” Those sweet darling children that are hot, tired and hungry, whose constant refrain for the past two hours has been, “are we there yet?”
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way, becomes the way.
– Marcus Aurelius
Obstacles in our path are actually a sign that we are making progress. Obstacles are not road blocks, they are stepping stones that confirm you are on the right path. They are like mile markers on the long desert road. The numbers get higher and higher telling us how many miles we have actually traveled. They are proof of progress.
Eventually all things fall into place. Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason.
– Albert Schweitzer
What we forget is that it is necessary for things to fall apart, in order that they can be shifted into coming back together in a new way. Think of the Rubik’s cube. The goal was to get each of the colors solid on each of the six sides of the block. They actually called them stress relievers. Are we in resistance when we are throwing the cube against the wall? Or are we in acceptance that we can figure it out ? Are we there yet? Do we have the vision to see obstacles as opportunities?
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.
– Eckhart Tolle
The road being unending is just an illusion, just like the illusions of water on the hot desert road that disappear as we get close to them. How long the journey takes us is neither good or bad, it just the illusion that we attach to it that makes it seem that way.
We are like those children, with our journey of self improvement and personal development. We are constantly asking the divine, “are we there yet?” This is because we are constantly in resistance to our journey. We are resistant to transformation and change. This is where grace comes in, as we stumble towards the light. Grace is seen in the power of letting go and the power of moving on.
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
– Socrates
Let the heat of the hot desert burn away all resistance. Let the hot winds of the desert strip away all of the excuses. Let the grace of a gentle healing rain restore your soul. Give up the need to know or understand.
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us.” Grace changes everything.
– Anne Lamott
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Grace comes into your soul when:
If you dig down to the bottom of the matter, you will find that you have done the best you can, with what you knew at that time. Sometimes that falls short of what you wanted to happen. It is impossible to see where the entire string of possible consequences of a decision can take you. It is impossible to know what you or will not do until the experience happens.
That’s when a real decision must be made on how to handle what’s happened. Hindsight only helps you to see where the smallest of your actions may have led you astray, unfortunately, hindsight all comes too late to be of any use.
It is vitally important when plans have gone astray to give yourself gifts as balms for our health and wellbeing.
To love a person is to see all of their magic and to remind them of it when they have forgotten. That is the beauty of reflection. When you see the goodness in me, you are also seeing it in yourself. The same is true of the judgments you make about others. It speaks to something in yourself that you have judged as being “not enough”. Grace helps you to accept the good and the bad in both.
“You can’t pick and choose what parts of her to love” – Heir of Fire, Sarah J Maas
Everyone is a rose with thorns. You are an Amazonian Queen with warriors’ blood that rises up when you are challenged. You are not reduced by failures, but rather grow stronger through each step through them. You don’t just go through the storm; you ride through it shaking the world. There are some who will find fault with you. They even throw stones, rocks, and arrows at you.
They are challenged by your not accepting the “norms”. By your not staying safely inside the box. What you have learned is that the only way to truly live life, is to dare greatly.
You might lose your way momentarily, but the winds of courage will blow away the clouds that covered your vision. You will win through, even though at times you may just want to die and be done. You came to earth to live your life on purpose. You don’t have to apologize for doing so. You may be flawed, but you are still priceless.
In life you are tested as you climb up the proverbial mountain. You may reach the top and think, ‘I made it!’ Test over. But you forget that you also have to climb down the mountain. It can be as hard to get down as it was to get up the mountain.
I always think of cats. They climb up into the trees, on the top of roofs etc. . . . but it is the getting down part that has them crying for help, seeking to be rescued.
In both going up and coming back down, grace is how you are able to navigate through both the darkness and the light. Accepting the lessons learned, taking them to heart, and processing them into wisdom is the meaning of divine grace.
A Strong Woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. Her tears flow just as abundantly as her laugher…,
A Strong Woman is both soft and powerful, she is both practical and spiritual…,
A Strong Woman in her essence is a gift to the world…,
A Strong Woman doesn’t “need” a partner to complete her, she is whole in herself…,
A Strong Woman is fierce, fearless and independent.
“Sometimes, being strong is to forgive in the name of love, to make someone smile when our own heart is broken, to comfort a friend when we ourselves needed help and to keep the faith when we have lost hope” – Brigitte Nicole
Starting in your own families, your own neighborhoods, you need to show that love is the answer to all of the questions. Remember how far “we” have come in society.
Life has always been “some steps forward, and some steps backward”, so don’t let the fear that is being dished out discourage you. Keep walking forward in faith that you have won battles in the past, and you will win battles today, and tomorrow.
“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet.
Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped.
Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other”– Elder Marvin J Ashton
Sometimes in both your personal life and in society, the breakthrough comes in the breakdown.
When you are tested to the breaking point, grace helps you to bend. To be flexible. To consider what is happening.
With peace in your heart dissipate the clouds of darkness and bring your heart back into the light. When you are in the depths of negative emotions, you make assumptions based on limited information. It is so common to put the worst viewpoint, to what is happening.
If you can instead seek deeper communications to fully understand what is happening, you will find that the light of reason almost always discovers a way to rise above the disaster. Transcend the challenges by listening to your heart and soul. You are the one that you have been searching for.
“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was” – Sade Andria Zabala
So let go of things, thoughts, attitudes, and feelings that don’t serve you. The moment that you accept yourself fully as you are, is when the real journey begins.
You are at that moment delivered into your own beauty and power.
It is in the unfolding of life as we are supposed to be living it that our hearts truly open.
Remember, we are here to support you in whatever way we can.
Dreamers make wishes when they blow out the birthday candles with complete confidence they will come true. They blow on the dandelions seeds and spread their wishes all over the world. They wish on the first star they see each night. The secret that they know is — we are all just dreamers in an endless universe. They know that each dandelion seed that lands, plants a new dream for our future. They are the new realities waiting to be born, to step out on life’s stage and say, “Hey, look at me!”. Pay attention, this is important.
Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than familiar ground.
– Judith Thurman
These dreamers, dream with eyes wide open, and say, “Why not?” It is about getting creative and caring more about doing it better in some way than doing it perfectly. Perfection creates limitations and silences the creativity. It squishes the dream into a tight container and makes it smaller. More narrow. More limited in possibilities.
The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
Doers take the dreamers up a notch. They believe in the magic, but they also know that it takes a little bit of elbow grease to make the machines run. They know that to take the dream into reality we must put it in writing. We must plant the seeds, water and fertilize them, weed when needed, and watch in amazement as the miracle of growth happens. Doers know that the energy goes when the attention flows, so rather than giving their energy to their fears, they focus their energy on their dreams. They know that action needs to follow the dream.
A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch, but on it’s own wings. Always believe in yourself.
– unknown
The reason I love this quote is that the basic foundation of your life, needs to be deep within in. Not in a spouse, a parent, a friend, a job. Not in being identified in someone or something else. This frees you to be the dreamer who is also a doer and thinker. Because you know it will not be any one thing that brings that dream into reality. It will be a combination of many small things, some things you will even think didn’t work – but the magic is that all of it is necessary for the birth and education of a dream.
The authentic self is the soul made visible.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
When we are totally immersed within the dream, we allow our true self to peak through the barriers. It is where the courage to be curious comes from, deep within the soul. The soul or your authentic self knows and believes in your true potential. Thinkers know that they can put the dream on steroids because they realize the power of thought and attitude. It is like strapping a rocket onto the doers goals, when the doer has the right thinking to get the dream off the doers paper and into reality. The trick is the right amount of thinking in combination with action.
If you want to be successful in this world, you have to follow your passion, not a paycheck.
– Jen Wleter
Creative thinking outside the box produces inspiring ideas that can change the world. Creative thinking doesn’t see mistakes. It sees disconnections. It knows that if you just keep tinkering with what you are doing, that the connections will come together. They aren’t afraid of taking risks, of making changes. To them change is synonymous with opportunity.
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
– Plato
When we go deep inside ourselves and draw up the dream, enhance it by stripping away all of the negativity about the dream that we have, we become free thinkers who can see without prejudice what the destiny of the dream is. We talk with our souls and see possibilities for the dream everywhere we look. This helps the doer to pick the best door to open to the best opportunities. We walk away from the fear of never getting what our dreams are reflecting back to us.
That brings us to possibilities.
When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t.
–Thomas Edison
What we come to realize is that every dream takes us up another level. And each level has new challenges and opportunities for growth. Each level demands we live outside the comfort zone of the previous level. Each level is a new passion, which burns away a new fear and exposes a new dream. The journey never ends. The possibilities just keep multiplying. If you are going to leave the world better than you found it, you need to climb each new staircase, ascending new summits. Be so passionate that you ignite the fire in everyone you meet, to rise up and bring the dream into reality.
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
–Thomas Edison
I think that this quote is certainly made by someone who knows it to be absolutely true. If he had not continued his work, then his numerous inventions, most famous being the light bulb would not have been invented. He founded General Electric, had a motion picture and record company in addition to others. All because failure to him was just more information to think about. A part of the process, and not something to be avoided.
In order to save myself I must destroy the me I was told to be.
– The Dreamer
Inside each of us is the space where we know. We know, that we know, that we know, that anything that comes into our heart and soul for us to do, is for us to do. And most important, that it is completely possible for us to do whatever is in our heart. I love the quote by Audrey Hepburn “I M Possible” instead of impossible.
So greet your dream with open arms, know that the doer and the thinker will show you the endless possibilities for you to bring that dream into reality – then go do it.
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There she was standing barefoot on the shore of all that would be. And the earth whispered her name, and she had faith. She was ready. She wanted to show the world how to love, how to open up and how to embrace each other. She was ready to be the change – Wild Woman Sisterhood
Be an original Wild Woman – Shake off whatever is holding you back. Say to yourself:
“Strong women aren’t simply born. We are forged through the challenges of life. With each challenge we grow mentally and emotionally. We move forward with our head held high and a strength that cannot be denied. A woman who’s been through the storm and survived. We are Warriors” – Attitude to Inspiration
There are times in your life when you hear unkind words that have been said about you; when you get those looks of judgment from others as you walk by. When that someone you thought would be your “happy ever after” leaves you. When you had to leave what you loved and move on because that love wasn’t healthy for you. You lost a job or a best friend. So many things that you have to shake loose from your soul and shake it off.
All of these situations require you to love yourself enough, that you remain centered. That you focus your energy, not on looking backwards and fighting to keep the same old way of life, but on building a new life. That you shake off the hurt, the disappointment, the feeling of abandonment or betrayal. That you forgive yourself for where you failed and forgive others for not living up to your expectations.
Be the woman who is not afraid to take risks. Not afraid to take that leap of faith across the chasm. Who would rather burst her heart with a wild song, than water down her life in fear of being left.
There is no competition among wild women. They are too damn wild to be caught in the tiny space of envy. Instead, they dance together and allow good to flow abundantly to them – Wild Woman Sisterhood
Wild women don’t allow themselves to be defined by words that simply define their looks. Their soul refuses definitions based on their hair, face, body, the way they dress.
They let loose their fiery hearts and release their wicked brains. To live life loud at full volume. To sing off-key, be brazen and boundless. To free themselves of the restrictions of being a “quiet good girl” and instead to live a fully passionate life. They listen to the drumbeats, and dance to their own rhythm.
AND each time she dances, she heals the broken bits of the worlds soul. She dances in the circle, where all are equal. No one is above or below you, but beside you as a sister. The circle is the symbol of unity, of sisterhood. The dance will shift, change and like the waves it will surge to the shore and then retreat to surge again. Ever shifting and changing it remains wild and free.
“Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with them” – Carrie Bradshaw
I was having a conversation this morning, about the art piece I posted. The artist made amazing pieces of art out of thrown away metal, gears, assorted bars, and pipes. When he talked about his art it came from a place deep within his heart. He was deep within his gift. His soul just poured out of him. He lays it down at your feet waiting for your reaction. And because it was all about the gift. It had nothing to do with ego. It wasn’t about his being invested in what you thought about his art. He does it, because he can’t not do it. Being that connected to your gift is your purpose, and when you are in that space, destiny collides with you.
Ego says, Once everything falls into place, I’ll feel peace. Spirit says, Find your peace, and then everything falls into place.
– Marianne Williamson
There is a moment when you are walking in your purpose, where the fears and dreams collide together.
Decisions determine destiny.
– Thomas S. Monson
You can follow the dream where it leads you, or you can bury it down in shadow, where it will become unbalanced. This imbalance create patterns in your life that won’t be beneficial to you. Have you ever felt like you had your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time? That is shadow patterns in your life at work. Have you ever experienced self sabotage? A time when you know that the words coming out of your mouth are like someone else is in control? You watch as before your eyes, you destroy something you love and you can’t help yourself? That is shadow patterns in your life. They come from fear. From fear wanting to protect you, even as it is destroying you.
Fear cannot isolate you, if you allow love to surround you.
– Sarah Jakes
When you are balanced in your life with your gift, you bring it out of the shadow. It is about being real as to who you are. No masks. No living from the opinions of others. You share your true self, and by doing so you touch the lives of others. We are all one creation based in love. It is only egos and fears that separate us. Those egos and fears create beliefs to further the separation. Live from the space of love. The space of being true and real is where it all starts. You character helps to shape your destiny into the reality you are reaching for.
It is when you realize that, like the artist above, you don’t have a choice but to live within the gift. It has a hold on you. Sleep, food, riches, fame – nothing matters except releasing that gift into the world. When I am in that space, my writing just flows out. Hours go by and nothing else matters. I reveal the elusive words, analogies, stories. Everything flow down into the characters on the blank page. My soul pours out and I can’t stop it. And then comes the moment, when the gift has used me all up. I come around to being hungry. I notice I am cramped from sitting in my chair too long. Once again awareness of the world around me seeps into my consciousness.
A successful life is one that is lived through understanding and pursuing one’s own path, not chasing after the dreams of others… In spite of your fear, do what you have to do.
– Chin-Ning Chu
This dream that leads you to your destiny is that one that keeps coming back. No matter how many times you push it away, it returns. The successes, failures, the ups and downs of life don’t shape your destiny. Your destiny shapes you by swinging back into your life, situation after situation. It serves your life, unless you push it down into shadow. Then it wrecks havoc in your life. No matter what, like a pendulum, it keeps swinging back into your life.
Even if your life hasn’t turned out the way you expected and you find yourself in an unexpected place, decide to make the most of where you are, because there is always a spiritual reason that your destiny has led you to this destination.
– Unknown
It is a constant collision that creates both order and chaos in our life, all depending on how we shape the way it swings. Order and chaos both have good purposes in our life. They are like the monster waves we are riding in the ocean. We can ride it for miles, exhilarated by the fears we are facing. It dances with us in the sunlight, unfolding past the fears. If we push it away it can drag us down into the depths of the dark water, spitting us back on the shore, exhausted and battered.
Your mission your purpose and your destiny will all be tied to one thing – your gift.
– Steve Harvey
My passion is to help everyone who reads my words to realize something wonderful about themselves. To glimpse their own dreams. To follow them wherever they lead. To not let the loose shale cause them to stumble. To not cut themselves on the sharp edges. To not fall into the pits of others opinions of what you can or can’t do. Rather to leap or crawl over the boulders of confusion. To realize that the only person who can truly stop you is you. To not let anything put you in the space of giving up.
Every time you rise up, your dream becomes stronger and your destiny flourishes. Use everything as part of the creation process, just like that artist. Realize that everything that comes into your life, can be used to further bring your dreams and destiny into reality. Just like that artist, every piece of metal, heated by the fire in your forge, can be bent and hammered to serve a purpose.
The universe conspires to reveal the truth and to make your path easy if you have the courage to follow the signs.
-Lisa Unger
Signs of a Good Life – adventure forth to learn all that you can. Remember the joy is in the journey, not the destination. Unleash your purpose to use everything that you experience in life, to grow into who you need to be to fulfill this destiny. Learn from nature, everything changes from day to day, season to season. Change is to be welcomed with all honor and dignity. The challenge from all this change is to guide it into growing, and shifting you in a way that serves you. The true essence of a life well lived, is to care for and befriend all you meet on your journey. Who you travel with could be the only way to reach your destination. Dare to care. Open your heart and let others in. See the beauty of life in giving away everything, knowing that by serving others, we serve our destiny.
Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.
– Brene Brown
So if you are scared. If you are lost. If you are unprepared. If you are falling apart. If you think that you can’t survive, and all hope is truly lost beyond recovery. Take heart. Rise Up! Rejoice! We have all been there. We have all done that. And still, here we are, walking onwards to fulfill the life purpose the Divine anchored in our hearts and souls. People come into our lives for a reason. Sometimes they need a hand, sometimes they give us a hand. When our worlds collide, let us take each others hand. Walk we me until your courage is restored. Light your candle with my flame. Every passion has its destiny, and for this moment in time, our destiny has linked hands. When you are ready, let go and fly away with your wings of destiny into the light.
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
– Anthony Robbins
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I had a great conversation today with one of my mentors. It was really interesting because 90% of the conversation was around potential, and what this year was opening up for me. What made it so interesting is that I had already written about most of what they were bringing up. I had written it with myself in mind, as that is what my writing this blog is all about. Writing what is showing up for me supports me in multiple ways. I love sharing it with you, in the hope that I can support you in your growth. It isn’t that you don’t already know everything I write. It is just that we all need reminders of how important it is to keep growing in our life. In turn you inspire me back with your likes, hearts, comments, and sharing of what I write.
What I realized during the conversation, is that I had this containment field around what I thought my potential was. It was an unconscious fence based on how I have been changing and transforming my life. Based on what I think LemonadeMakers is growing me into. I didn’t realize that I had put a ceiling on my potential. I had unconsciously concentrated on my writing gift, as all I had to offer to my community. A person can grow only as much as their horizon allows.
Only when we put our perceived potential to the test, can we learn to look, know where to look, and position ourselves to realize our true potential.
– Unknown
In the discussion with my mentor, we talked about music. My writing, especially my poetry has music enveloped within it. When I write I hear music. I have always maintained that I can’t sing. That I am tone deaf. I guess it came from around 4th grade, when I had a choir class. The only time I ever took choir was for just that few months. I remember this moment when the teacher made each of us sing by ourselves to try and find the person who was out of tune. I was terrified it was me. I mean really scared. I was standing there shaking, waiting to be humiliated. She didn’t find the person she was looking for, but after that experience I refused to take choir again. My mentors feel strongly that I have some hidden talents around music, so something new to explore this year.
If it’s both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it.
– Erada
As I have said in other posts, we moved around a lot when I was a child. I don’t think that I finished one whole year at a school until high school. So at one point, I remember music lessons in an elementary school. I wanted to learn piano, but my parents couldn’t afford to rent one. The school had a violin, so that was what I got to learn to play. I remember practicing, and of course I sounded horrible. My parents complained about the noise. When we moved, the violin went back to the school. I never took music lessons again. So when they said that I probably had some talent with music and singing, I remembered my childhood experiences. They were not favorable. So what do you do when someone tells you, you have a hidden talent waiting to be discovered, lying in a place that you abandoned in failure?
It is good to look at, to examine the stories we have created around things in our life. While stories help us to make sense of our experiences, they are inherently not true. Most of them are made up by us. They serve a purpose to try and make sense of our lives. But if we live our life as though they are true, we are doing ourselves a disservice. We will walk away from gifts and talents. We will assume the story is right. We will assume that we can’t do or be what we thought we could. We walk away from our full potential.
Inherent in being proactive and trying new things, and not waiting to be told what to do, is the fact that you’re going to fail, you’re going to make mistakes, and you’re probably going to piss people off. And it you’re not pissing people off, if you don’t have haters, if you’re not putting yourself in a situation that has some risks associated with it, you’re probably not going to realize your full potential.
– Gina Bianchini
Overcoming self-limiting beliefs and self-imposed limitations is often the biggest obstacle standing between you and the realization of your full potential. One way to see where our potential might be expanded is to make a list of your gifts and talents. Be sure to list the things that others say you are good at, but which you discount as being “no big deal”. Then look at each one, and see where the passion is on a scale of 1 – 10. Then taking the three highest ranking talents, ask yourself how in love with it you are. The one talent that you are passionate about, and also in love with – that is the one that has more potential just waiting for you to explore and expand.
In keeping with the discussion, I am meditating on what to do with this new challenge around music? Singing lessons? Take up piano lessons? Learn to play the American Indian drum I purchased years ago, but just play around with? I was just gifted with an Ukulele and it appears to be really easy to learn – at least that was what they told me when they gave it to me. I challenge you to take up some childhood dream that you had, that you felt like you failed at. What existing gift or talent can you try to unleash and find your own unlimited potential?
What can you pursue that is both terrifying, and amazing? What can you pursue that you will fail at trying, but know in your heart that you are supposed to be doing? You become a master at something when you have practiced the 10,000 hours. it is scary to think of how much potential is lost by those who don’t have the courage to unleash it. The edge of potential is where you are meeting difficulties in your life.
Change is inevitable, but transformation is by conscious choice.
– Heather Ash Amara
Do not dilute the truth of your potential. We often convince ourselves that we cannot change, that we cannot overcome the circumstances of our lives. That is simply not true. You have been blessed with immeasurable power to make positive changes in your life. But you can’t just wish it, you can’t just hope it, you can’t just want it…, you have to live it, be it, do it.
– Steve Maraboli
You have within you, right now, everything you could ever need or want to be a great success in every area of your life. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you have deep reserves of potential and ability. If you properly harness and channel it, it will enable you to accomplish extraordinary things in your life.
It’s about personal development. It’s about creating your own character and pushing it to the limit. It’s about pushing yourself so far out of your own and everybody else’s idea of who you are, and what you’re capable of, that you no longer believe in limits. It’s about reaching beyond your so-called potential, because your potential is never where you or anyone else expects it to be, not even close. It’s about being able to say with the last breath of your life, “I used all my potential and all my talents and pushed myself to the limit. I could not have fought any harder”..
– Charlotte Eriksson
Potential is in fact, limitless. It is unlocked by gratitude. In order to really experience what life has waiting for us, we need to break out of living close to the potential. We need to release the fears and unleash our creative potential. We need to pursue the things we dream about doing. We need to pursue the things that are pure and real to us, authentic to who we are becoming.
I love piano music. I can sit and listen to it for hours. I wanted to play as a child. I was given a free piano a couple of years ago. It sits in my living room as a place to put family photos. It just gathers dust because: I took it thinking that my grandkids who were living with me at the time could learn to play, not for me to learn it myself. It needs tuning. I really don’t have the time to take lessons. I probably can’t learn to read music, or understand how to get the timing of a piece of music. I could go on and on listing the reasons (excuses) why I haven’t even tried to learn to play even though it is sitting there looking back at me every single day.
I am going to listen to divine direction, and see what unfolds around music and/or singing in my life. I am going to see where inspiration is lying hidden, waiting for me to dig down to it. To uncover that vein of gold. I am going to see where the music in my soul is waiting for me to have the courage to pursue it and express it.
You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.
– Maya Angelou
So here we go. I am committing to unleashing my potential around music. What will you commit to? Your inner potential cannot develop without your willingness to commit. Please comment below and say it out loud to be witnessed. When you say it out loud, it is the first step to overcoming your current limits. Go do what you were created to do.
Use your special key. Unlock that potential
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Knowing my True North gives me courage to focus my energy where I believe it should be, not according to what is popular or pleasing to others – Jennifer Cummings
There are times when you feel drawn by something that you can’t quite name. It’s a whisper in your ears, a tug in your heart. You feel it pulling you towards “true north” or home. You may not understand it, but you know that you have to go there. When you are searching for your place in this life, you are looking for your soul’s home.
Your interior compass may seem to be spinning in all directions. You no longer have an interest in looking backwards. You just don’t know what direction to take.
Coincidence doesn’t exist and goosebumps never lie. Your body already knows the answer. All you have to do is turn down your spinning mind and continue to follow all signs. Because you are always worthy of becoming your best and most actualized self – Victoria Erickson
When you are at one of life’s transitions and trying to re-imagine a new life for yourself – that is when you need others. You can help each other to find the way to your own souls’ home.
You don’t throw limited beliefs into each other’s faces. You help to end the wobble in each other’s compass, so you can each find your own true north. These kinds of friends celebrate you living your own truth, your divine destiny. Sharing a path with such a person is a sacred gift.
The path to home is found in only in the direction of the winds of change. The storms of life are by design to help you change. They don’t happen to you; they happen for you. Recognize change when it comes upon you, learn what it has to teach you, and always keep your compass on your own True North.
We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction – Douglas MacArthur
How much you go through in these storms is determined by the attitude you have, by the actions you take, and how well you are listening and paying attention to what is happening. I think that the meaning you give to things has a large part to play in how you advance.
Are you retreating or advancing in a new direction? One view indicates failure, and one view indicates resilience.
The more clarity you take in, the less damage the storm brings with it, as you go through it.
You don’t have to get lost drifting in the “good old days” feeling sorry for yourself. You don’t try to avoid the truths that the storm reveals to you by using drugs or alcohol or sex to escape it. You cannot become who you wish to be, if you don’t push forward and leave the past behind you.
When you focus too much on your past, you give away your power in the present and the future.
Goals are my north star. My compass. The map that guides me along the road I wish to travel. Goals are motivations with wind in their sails, they carry me forward despite the storms – Richelle Goodrich
LemonadeMakers don’t wait for the world to change into a better place. They change themselves, guided by their journey to their own True North.
LemonadeMakers are driven by the passion they have in life, to do and be extraordinary. As each individual, upon each individual changes, the world changes with them. It may not happen overnight, and it may not happen as fast as you want it to happen. But it will happen.
LemonadeMakers are all just walking each other home. Home is not where you were born. It is not your current place of residence.
It is a place that you find deep within yourself. It is that space in your heart, where your soul resides. It is the place where you discover your true self.
And if the sun is too hot, or the rain is a down pouring torrent, or the snow becomes a blizzard, then we can be each a shelter for each other, until the path home becomes clear again.
Knowing my true north gives me the courage to focus my energy where I believe it should be, not according to what is popular or pleasing to others – Jennifer Cummings
Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others treat you.
– Steve Maraboli
Years ago I worked for a mortgage company in the Seattle, WA area. When I interviewed for a loan processor position, the branch manager told me that I shouldn’t take the job if swearing bothered me, as everyone in her office swore. I am good at tuning out what I don’t want to hear, so I went ahead and accepted the position.
I had been on the job just a month or two when one of the other employees in the branch came up to me with a question. She wanted to know what I had said to everyone that made them not swear when I was part of the conversation. I told her that I hadn’t even realized that they didn’t swear when they spoke to me, and that I hadn’t told them anything. She wanted to know why they were treating her different than they treated me. I told her something like the above quote. We subconsciously tell people how to treat us. If she wasn’t being treated how she wanted to be, then she needed to look inside of herself to determine what needed to be changed.
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
– Unknown
I think that the hardest part about giving and receiving love is that it puts us at risk of being hurt. We worry about whether this new being in our lives will hurt us, if we open our hearts up to giving and receiving love.
Faith ends where worry begins, and worry ends where faith begins.
– George Mueller
My father (stepfather) married my mother, and took on six girls ranging in ages from newborn to 9 yrs old (I was the 9 yr old). Not one time in over 49 yrs has the word “stepdaughter” ever come out of his mouth. Every time it has been “my daughter”. My parents went on to have one more child, my brother, who is my dads only “blood” child. My brother and my dad have a rocky relationship. What so many of us had a hard time with, is that we want people to behave in a certain way. We want a mother, father, spouse, brother or sister, to say or do certain things, and when they fall short of our expectations, we create trauma around it.
When you love someone, you love the whole person just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.
– Leo Tolstoy
My mom passed away over 20 yrs ago, and our dad has been living with my husband and I for the past 11 years. A couple of years ago, my brother and I had a long talk about his dad, and why I maintained our relationship after our mother died. With those that we love in our lives, our close friends and relatives, it can be easy to look at their faults. To see all of the “dirt” in their lives. Those faults pop up like neon lights blinking and blinking, “look here”, but there are also hidden nuggets of gold laying alongside each fault line.
None of us can be the perfect parent, son, daughter, sister, brother, or spouse. It has meant a lot to me that “step” never came before daughter. He has other well hidden (LOL) nuggets of gold, and he has his share of dirt, just like every one of us. We need to adjust our “glasses” to see others through the filters of gold, instead of just neon signs of dirt.
At the same time, we can’t live our own lives trying to live up to the expectations of others.
Stop seeing yourself through the eyes of others. You will never be able to live up to their expectations, and it will leave you feeling broken and insecure… Rather see yourself as the beautiful soul God made you to be, and know he made you to do great things.
– Karen Kastyla
Have your ever looked at yourself through the “fun house” mirrors at a fair? They distort your shape, making you tall, small, thin, fat. Some of them distort just a portion of your body and others the entire body. When we try to live our lives for others, we distort ourselves creating a fun house mirror – we don’t see us, we just see the distortion.
This is your own journey. Don’t let others define it for you. You shape the path of your journey through your effort, hard work, love, aspirations, dreams and always your pure intention.
– Abira Mukherjee
When I look at this photo, I see love on both the mans and the cats faces. The cat doesn’t expect the man to act like another cat. The man doesn’t expect the cat to be a dog. They see the nuggets of gold in each other. Their love is apparent. They may not live up to 100% of the expectations. And that failure to live up to expectations, doesn’t mean that they damn up their love behind a concrete barrier, demanding that the other behave a certain way.
I know that my cats expect breakfast each morning the minute my feet hit the bedroom floor. Since during the week I get up at 5 AM, on Saturday, Sunday, and any holidays, they still expect breakfast at 5 AM. They seem to live with the disappointment (although they can be quite demanding and noisy about it – LOL). They still rub up against me purring. They still hop in my lap and try to type on the keyboard when I am busy. I still pet them, feed them, and cuddle them. I know that I will have to remove at least one cat every time I sit down at the keyboard to compose one of these posts. I accept their need to interrupt me when I am not paying them enough attention, and they accept that I am eventually going to shut them out of the office so I can finish my post without kitty paws typing. (I blame all spelling errors on my cats!).
In the end nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.
– Daphne Rose Kingma
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Have you ever had a healing crisis? A healing crisis isn’t just a health related crisis. It can be healing any part of our life that just isn’t working out the way we know that it should.
Nothing has transformed my life more than listening to what needed to be heard.
– Jeffrey Shaw
Years ago, when I was first working in the financial industry I had just received a huge promotion. I was really working hard, and for some reason, the different aspects of the job were just not working out right. I finally had a long talk with my boss, and following her advice I turned things around. I knew that I was perfectly capable of doing the job, but I just couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I think that at different shifting points in our lives we run up against this road block. We need a different set of eyes to see what needs to be seen. To see what needs to be transformed.
If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
– Michael Jordan
Do you know why Michael Jordan was so successful? This quote gives us a clue. He didn’t reach a roadblock and say, “oh well, I guess I am not talented enough to do this”; or “oh well, I guess this dream was just too big for me to accomplish”. No, he practiced until he was able to break it down. He worked with coaches who were able to help him see what he couldn’t see.
Remember that your greatest talent is so much more powerful than your biggest fear.
– Unknown
There comes a time when we need to take a calculated risk. If you look at the game of baseball it really speaks to calculated risk. The player who is on first base, will watch the pitcher, the batter, and outfielders to gauge how far off the base he can go without getting caught. If he gauges it correctly, he can steal a base, or even make it to 3rd base with an infield hit from the batter because of getting the head start.
I think sometimes you forget that you were born to be awesome. (here’s your reminder)
– Unknown
In our lives, if we risk nothing, we get nothing. In personal transformation, we need to take calculated risks. In our life of personal growth, in order to grow we have to take our foot off the safe “base” we are on. We need to risk opening the chrysalis with the hope that we have finished our transformation, and the wings are ready to fly.
Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.
– Ronnie Max Oldham
This really is the only way to live your life. Not putting off things until we think it is safe. Really opening our hearts completely in how we care about others. To understand that the reality is that almost anything is possible. Whatever is currently stumping you, just means that you are not asking the right questions, or the right people for help.
Our thoughts are very powerful. When we focus on what we lack, we create blockages and limitations. We become imprisoned by the vibration of our negative energy.
– Randi G Fine
In other words if we think that we can’t we will be a self fulfilling prophecy.
If you think you can or you think you can’t you are right.
– Henry Ford
I find myself doing this sometimes. I stress about not having enough time and sure enough, unforeseen stuff starts filling up my life. Then I catch myself, and unlock the door to that cage, freeing myself and all of a sudden, the stuff just starts going away and I have my time back to do what needs to be done.
Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.
– Hal Elrod
So if you find yourself in any sort of “healing crisis” at the moment, just take some time to meditate as to how you just lost yourself in the woods. Transform the path by backing up or regrouping. Get back on the path that you were traveling.
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm’s all about.
– Haruki Murakami
This is another critical piece of the transformation puzzle, in really getting to know oneself.
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