Challenges Change Everything

Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge – Eckhart Tolle

In 1885 the first practical auto was driven down the road.  The horse and buggy industry didn’t take notice.  They felt that this new fangled invention was just a temporary fad.  A few years later this industry discovered they were wrong, as the auto took over the roadways and became the common mode of transportation.

In March of 2009 Uber was founded and it is doing the same thing to the taxi industry.  In a few years the same thing will happen with the long-haul trucking industry as driver-less trucks will become the norm.

One of the constants in our world is change.  If you aren’t paying attention your industry could be impacted, and you might no longer have an occupation.

Just like these examples, most industries that we know and recognize in a certain way today, will at some point in our future totally change.  Most will be caught unaware when it happens.

In our personal lives, the same thing is true.  Everyday in some way, you are a new person.  In the past 24 hours you have probably learned something new.  You have probably changed your mind about something.  You realized, due to getting more information, or looking at it in a new way, that maybe what you thought about it wasn’t 100% true.

You outgrew a belief.  You adopted a new belief.  You released an old belief.

There are moments which mark your life.  Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts, before this, and after this – N. Kazan

Change builds resilience in you.  Resilience isn’t being numb to the changes.  It means that even though the change you experience may have felt like you are a failure, or hurt you in some way, that you kept going.

It takes courage to let go of what can’t be changed.  Sometimes this means that you have to learn a new job skill.  Sometimes you have lost an arm, a leg, went blind or deaf.  It takes courage to find a new and different way to still be able to live the dreams you have for yourself.

When I was growing up, I realized through hard life lessons that my parents were not, and could not be the foundation of my world.

When I married my husband, I thought that he would be the foundation of my world, and through a hard life lesson, I learned that this was also not true.

Then I thought that God would be the foundation of my world and discovered that this also was not true.

I had to be the foundation of my world.  Then on that foundation, I could build my spirituality, my family, my friends, my career, and everything else in my life.  But I had to build them upon me, as my own true foundation.

The reason this is true for me, is I had to accept responsibility for just me.  I had to accept reality, and not try to push decisions or the results of those decisions on anyone else, including blaming God for what was happening.

I had to be the one.  I had to be the “hot coal”.  If you have ever had to heat your home with wood or coal, then you know that if you bank the fire at night, it is easy to get going in the morning.  This is because underneath the cold looking ashes, lies a hot coal.  It is easy to get the fire going again with those hot coals.

There is no way for me to be a perfect woman, but there are a million ways I have can be a good wife, mother, sister, aunt, niece, and friend.

Look around you. Everything changes.  Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing . . . , changing.  You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant –  Dr. Steve Maraboli

You need to be like the hot coal.  You don’t want to be like a burning match.  When the winds of change blow into your life, if you are the match, you will burn out quickly and die.  But the winds of change blowing on the hot coals will cause you to burst into flames of light, and not burn out.

What you believe defines you.  What you tell yourself about who you are, how you react to change, is all a part of this definition of who you are.

In the cover photo you see the same tree.  The same field.  But each section presents a different season, time of day,

When you try to remain safe inside of the box, and resist change, you inhibit the natural growth that is supposed to happen in your life.  You in essence become a desert deep inside of yourself.   You stop living your life.  You stop loving yourself. That is the real tragedy in life.  You just stop living and just keep existing.

All you can change is yourself, but sometimes that changes everything –   Gary W. Goldstein

It really is up to you how you live your life.  You can’t blame anyone else – not your parents, or your spouse, your boss or God.  You can choose the green grass – a beautiful life; or you can choose to walk through the dried up dusty abandoned land of blame and abdication of change and the responsibility that it entails.

Do You Have The Courage To Break Those Chains And Redefine Your Life?

When we are at the airport and getting ready to check our luggage, they always ask, “Has anyone asked you to carry something for them in your luggage?  Has anyone else packed your bags?”  Have you ever wondered how much of what weighs you down is not yours to carry?  What beliefs do you carry around in your baggage that don’t really belong to you?  When we unpack the stories in our luggage, what we find is that we are carrying around stories that belong to our parents, our grandparents, our family, culture, tribe.  Most of those stories are not ours.  They are not who we are.  They belong to others and need to be unpacked, they need to be left with those that they really belong to.  That is the luggage that needs to be checked.  Release it.

“I can’t”. . . , “it’s not possible”. . . , “I’m not good enough”. . . , These are the lies the demons of your past use to scare away the possibilities of the present.

  –  Dr. Steve Maraboli

There is a movie that Lucille Ball made with her husband about a trip they were making in a car that was towing a big trailer.  Along the trip the character Lucille was playing kept putting in these large stones or rocks of everyplace they stopped.  Finally the weight was so much, they couldn’t tow the trailer up over the mountains.  This is the same for us. 

How many of us walk around being weighed down by the baggage of our journey?  You can’t possibly embrace that new relationship, that new companion, that new career, that new friendship, or that new life you want while you’re still holding on to the baggage of the last one.  Let go . . . , and allow yourself to embrace what is waiting for you right at your feet.

  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Our mind has these filters.  They sort through everything that we see and do, looking for proof of our beliefs.  We carry with us all of these heavy stones, which are stories of our past.  At some point the weight of the stories will pull us down, if they are weighted with negativity.  We need to unpack all of the “I should of’s” and “I shouldn’t have’s” and leave those stones at the side of the road you are traveling on.  We need to lighten the load, by releasing everything negative.

I am like a book, with pages that have stuck together for want of use.  My mind needs unpacking and the truths stored within must be turned over from time to time, to be ready when occasion demands.

  –  Seneca

The problem with our stories, is that they are usually one sided.  This is because our “truth” is never the entire truth.  It takes courage to break those chains and redefine your own life.  What we need to do is examine all of those stories.  We need to unpack the stories and ask, why they are important?  What about our true values do they reflect?  What about them brings us joy and happiness?  What do they tell us from a space of self love and trust? When we focus our light on the things that build us up, the things that were dragging us down will disappear on their own.  They can’t exist in our authentic light of love and truth.

Sometimes you don’t realize the weight of something you’ve been carrying until you feel the weight of its release

  – powerofpositivity.com

Our minds do not know the difference between actual events and our imagination.  Most of us carry these unconscious beliefs formed as a small child before we really understood what was really happening.  For example, when I was around four years old, I walked in on my mom having an affair.  Shortly thereafter my mom and dad divorced.  As a four year old, I assumed the responsibility of breaking up the marriage.  I felt that I wasn’t to be trusted, and that it wasn’t safe to be seen. 

That program ran my life all of my childhood and most of my adult life.  When I figured out what was creating the pattern of “my foot on the brake and gas at the same time”, I released that story.  I had nothing to do with the breakup of my parents marriage.  Now this pattern no longer shows up in my life.  Most of us have patterns created by a small child, that were made up by our imagination to explain something that we didn’t understand..

The things you want are always possible; it is just that the way to get them is not always apparent.  The only real obstacle in your path to a fulfilling life is you, and that can be a considerable obstacle because you carry the baggage of insecurities and past experience.

  –  Les Brown

So take a few moments and ask yourselves the questions we talked about.  Loosen up the load; put down the bags; unlock the chains and let them fall to the ground; unpack those bags.  Set yourself free.  Reminds me of the lyrics from 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover – Just slip out the back Jack and set yourself free.

Sometimes the most difficult part of any journey is believing that you’re worthy of the destination.  The one where you see that goal, that dream or what it is that you have always longed for.  You are brave enough to face the challenges and strong enough to see it through the end.  Never be afraid to take that first step.  With each new step, bringing you closer to it.  Believe it!  You can do it.

  – Brigitte Nicole

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

Just Because My Path Is Different, Doesn’t Mean I’m Lost

It’s better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.

 – Diane Grant

When we try to walk down another persons road, it leads to disillusionment and disappointment. That is because it isn’t “our” road. In the book “The Pilgrimage”, Paulo Coelho said that:

It is our decision to walk, that creates the road ahead of us.

 – Paulo Coelho

Trying to explain to someone what our personal truth is for the path we are walking, is like trying to explain rocket science to a baby.  It isn’t that the baby will never understand rocket science.  It is that the baby isn’t yet developed enough to understand.  We can’t explain our path to someone who isn’t yet at that same stage of their own truth.  It will only create misunderstandings, miscommunications, and lots of frustration.  Even we sometimes can’t put into words the necessity for why we have to do something.  We just know that we have to do it.  It has to do with our being conscious and open minded enough to realize when we are being directed.  It has to do with our acceptance of that direction, even when we don’t know why.

It takes courage to keep walking when the path is obscured by confusion.  TRUST.  BELIEVE.  And just keep walking.  The way will be revealed.

  – Sue Krebs

It is both being courageous and having curiosity, that keeps us forging ahead on the path. It is the journey itself, that grows us as a person. It is our attitude about what happens.  It molds us either for our greater good, or for living out life disappointed as a victim of circumstances and bad luck.  It is the difference between knowing what you need to do, and doing what needs to be done.  It is easy to get the knowledge, but the wisdom only comes from putting that knowledge into action.  It can’t just be “book learning”, it also has to be married to “learning in action”.

Getting lost along your path is part of finding the path you are meant to be on.

 – Robin S. Sharma

It has been said that it’s never about obtaining the “goal”. It is rather about who you need to become, to achieve the goal.  There are many different roads to walk. They go through many different landscapes.  It could be a forest path, with giant trees that shadow the land.  It could be through sand dunes and along beaches.  It could be a path of a river which sometimes meanders slowly, and other times rushes through rapids crushing you against the rocks, and then dumps you down a waterfall.  It could be the hot desert or the frozen tundra.  Each path will require different skillsets in order for you to become the master of your journey.  Different clothing, different shoes, different temperatures to be endured.  Different equipment from ropes, boats, sleds etc. . . .  It is always your choice of where you step, and which path(s) your choose.  If you don’t like the first road you chose, move over to a new one.

You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.

 – Marianne Williamson

It is always our decision to skip and sing our way along the yellow brick road, or to whine, complain, dragging our feet as we ask “are we there yet”?  Are you standing in your own truth?  Are you walking your own path?  Is your heart guiding you?  Look for the opportunities to better understand the journey.  Look for the helpers to guide us on our path.  The destination or outcome of our journey isn’t what is important.  It is who we are becoming, what we are actually doing that makes us successful.

I have always loved the saying, “It’s not the destination,… it’s the journey”. This is because the path we choose is our journey. It is where we live our life. It is all of life’s experiences. The good, bad, and the ugly. The messy parts, as well as the glorious adventures. We can see treasures every single day, if we just take the time to notice them.  Life goes on, it moves on.  It does it regardless of whether we are saying yes to our destiny or running the other way.  Since the path to happiness lies in the direction of our destiny, why not say yes?  Choose happiness.

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

 – Garth Nix

Along the way, we live life out loud. We can choose to taste and savor the experiences that that journey brings to us. The more that we can reach out in happiness, joy, and just plain exuberance, the richer our life is. The destination is simply a road sign. A sign that we made it to “X”. Then we begin planning a new destination or goal. It’s all about the road we choose, the path we forge.  Who we are becoming.  What we reveal and release that is not truly who we are at heart.

By choosing the path, we choose the destination.

 –  Thomas Monson

Have you ever heard the saying, “you can’t go home again”?  The reason why is that while you were away, you changed.  You look at things differently.  You think that everything changed.  But in reality it was you who changed.  The house you lived in as a small child, suddenly looks much smaller – the house didn’t change size – but your way of looking at the world changed.  We are all far from who we once were, and we are still farther from whom we are growing into.  What is really scary is when you go home again, and see those who haven’t changed.  They haven’t even put on foot onto their path.  They are still stuck back five, ten, or twenty years ago with the same victimhood mentality.  They are caution signs to keep walking on your path.

One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

 – Henry Miller

So cast off the bowlines. Sail out of the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds and see where they take you. Remember that you are always only one decision away from a totally different life. Embrace the journey and it will love you back.  Trust your journey, even when you don’t understand where destiny is taking you.  It could just be the biggest, most juiciest trip of your life.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray.

  – Rumi

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

Remove The Boundaries And Make Your Dreams A Reality

In 2013, in Oregon, teenage sisters Hanna (age 16) & Haylee (age 14) lifted a tractor to save their father pinned underneath.

In 2015, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Nick Williams lifted a four-wheel-drive vehicle to save a young boy pinned beneath its tire.

In 2015, in Vienna, Virginia, Charlotte Heffelmire was able to momentarily use incredible strength to free her dad from a GMC pick-up truck.

“The only thing limiting us in life is our belief that there are limits” – unknown

What do these three things have in common?

They are what you call miracles, extreme feats of strength. Adrenaline on overload. What they demonstrate is that the rules, boundaries and limitations don’t exist.

Why? Because you can blast through them, when you don’t stop to think about it. These examples show people who did something their logical minds would have told them was impossible. But because someone they loved was in danger, they did the impossible.

There was a commercial at Super Bowl XLIX for Always #LikeAGirl. In the video an adult female shows them what it’s like to run like a girl, then a young female teen, and preteen female and last a little girl. The older girls ran in an unreal way that was weak and ineffective. The younger girls ran as fast as they could. The commercial highlighted the fact that most women when they hit puberty, take in limitations to what they can do and be. 

“Our beliefs are just thoughts with emotions tied to them that we’ve taught ourselves to believe are true” –   JV Crum III

As teenagers, in order to fit in, you started holding back on what you were capable of.  75-80% of your negative thinking patterns come from negative beliefs that you have made up about yourself. 

When I started school, I was four years old, turning five in November.  I entered first grade, because my school didn’t have a kindergarten.  So, I was very small and always 1-2 years younger than everyone else in my grade. 

I was chosen last for any sport activity.  I formed the belief that I wasn’t good at sports.  Because of this belief, I never tried.  To this day, I am not active in any sports.  This is just a belief, and only my reality as long as I let it be. 

Ernestine Shepard, is a body builder.  She believes that age is nothing but a number.  Because of that belief she is doing some amazing things.  When she was 56 years old she decided to become a body builder.  In 2010 she entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female body builder.  At 83 years old she is still going strong.  “I am out running/walking at 3:30 a.m. in the morning with a group of people, seven days a week,” Ernestine told the Miami Times. “I eat very healthy and eat five meals a day every day. My gym schedule consists of going five days a week and doing a variation of 100 sit-ups per day.”

She has been on Oprah and recognized throughout the world for what she is doing. She teaches an Energy Fitness Class at a gym.  She has a video created by Prevention Magazine.  She is an excellent example of how it is never to late to take a negative belief about yourself, and break through any self imposed limitation with a new positive belief.

“Don’t limit yourself.  Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do.  You can go as far as your mind lets you.  What you believe, remember, you can achieve”  – Mary Kay Ash

All of us continue to allow limitations to rule our lives as adults. Some limiting beliefs are conscious and some unconscious. You need to realize that it is all just an illusion, a false belief of your imagination.

At one time there was a saying that if God meant for man to fly, he would have been given wings. The Wright Brothers refused to allow that limiting belief keep them from their dreams. 

Your beliefs challenge you to get creative.  You can choose to rise up and create what is needed to be successful.  Failures come when instead of rising up, your mind creates road blocks.  Your mind comes up with all of the perfectly good reasons why it can’t possibly work.  Why you are “not enough” of something to make it happen.  This path of limited thinking leads to failure.

People with boundary problems have distorted attitudes about who is responsible for failures in their life.

• Your parents made mistakes in how you were raised.
• Your have relationships right now don’t allow you the freedom you need to be successful.
• You don’t have a college degree.
• You are poor.
• Someone is out to get you at work.

The excuses list could go on and on.   The truth is that you have built boundaries all around your excuses and painted yourself into the proverbial corner.  The corner is limiting, but it feels safe.  You lack the courage to step over the line and actually risk pursuing something you want.  You are just plain afraid of any change in your life.  It happens to everyone all the time.

“Boundaries are for those who are too afraid to take the leap”  – quoted from @Business Beware

If you accept a limiting belief, it will become your truth.  What walls have you built over the door of opportunity that you are ready to blast into bits? What limiting belief are you ready to let go of?

Share with us your limiting belief that you are letting go of.   Your share will help all of us to do the same.

Keep Going. Everything You Need Will Be Provided With Divine Timing

Life is too short to think small.  If you think that something can be done, then it is too small.  If you think something is probably impossible, that is the goal to go for.  Not because the goal itself is the thing, but because of how trying to reach it will grow you.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.  Go for the moon shot kind of goals.

Moon shot goals involve others in coming together as a community to make the really big goals happen.  Moon shot goals help others to reach out past their own boundaries and limitations as they buy into helping you accomplish yours.

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.   – Sabine Mondestin

The hard work of the goal is in making the vision clear.  When you can see the minute detail, then you can make plans.  With plans come steps.  With steps, you begin moving into action.  You gain a tremendous feeling of confidence when this happens.  This confidence, grants you personal empowerment.  Empowerment fuels your passion to bring the goals into reality. This is how the miracles begin.

It is like the infinity circle in which one part feeds and fuels the next part, in an never ending cycle.  Clarity fuels the plans.  Then plans fuel the steps.

Then steps start the wheels moving and you get action.  Action gets you excited that stuff is finally happening.

Personal empowerment comes from actions taking place.  Personal empowerment in turn fuels passion.  Passion feeds back into clarity.  Clarity begins the whole process again.

This is because as the vision starts moving forward into implementation, you get more clarity.  Clarity starts new plans.  New plans lead to revised actions.  The whole cycle begins spinning again.

With engagement the divine one moves in with synchronicities and doors begin to open.  People show up, all to bring your goals into reality.  You are not meant to accomplish things by yourself.  But no one can help you, until you help yourself.

I used to extinguish under the weight of living, but one day, I reached into my chest, dusted off my courage, and asked myself, “where’s your fire?”  –   D. Antoinette Foy

Be strong about your goals, and flexible about your methods.  Be willing to try things you don’t think will work.  To try things that you have never done.  You learn by discovering what will work for you.

Has anyone ever tried you train you by having you watch them do the job?  They walk you through a program.  They tell you what your inputs should be.  You go back to your desk, and you can’t remember what to do.  Your notes don’t make any sense to you.

But when someone sits beside you, and guides you as you do the work, now it sinks in.  You learn by doing it yourself.  As you do the work, you have the space to think of the questions you need to ask to understand the process.  When you just learn the process you are just a cog in a machine. When you understand the process, now you can innovate.  Now you can teach it.

When you become visible, you take a huge risk.  Because not everyone is going to like you.  Some people are going to hate you, just because you are different.  There will be those people that will be mean and cruel.  That needs to be okay.  You need to understand that you are not here for everyone.

You are not here with your gifts for those who don’t want them.  You are here for those that do.

The only real difference between us, is that some of us have remembered why we are here.  Others are still asleep to their true purpose.   They don’t remember their divine inheritance.    They will find fault with what you are doing, without really understanding why it bothers them so much.  They act as a challenge to help you reach your highest potential.

If you are persistent, you will get it.  If you are consistent you will keep it.  – Unknown

Such an interesting quote.  Being persistent is how you learn something.  Have you ever listened to a two year old, asking “why”?  They are the most persistent creatures in the universe.  Persistence is how you learn.  Understanding comes from doing it consistently.

You literally sink the learning down into your bones.  I like to think of learning, as how you learned to ride a bike.  Most of us can ride a bike.

• But how many of us learned how to ride with no hands?
• Learned how to jump the bike over obstacles?
• Learned how to do a wheelie?

You were persistent enough to learn to ride, getting back on every time you fell.  But were you consistent enough to go past the basics and learn all of the tricks of riding a bike – did you become a master?

How do you let the amazing out?

• You get curious.
• You think, why not?
• You question, how come?
• You imagine, what if?
• You wonder, who can I collaborate with on this?

Curiosity is the compass that leads you to your purpose.  Your reason for being here now.

When you are tempted to give up, your breakthrough is probably just around the corner.  – Joyce Meyer

Then you work on your true inheritance, and accept that as you become masters on this earth, that your signature will become your autograph.

A signature is so much more than just a splash of ink across the paper.  A signature is style.  It is a “look”.  It is something that says who you are.  When you see the Nike symbol, what pops into your mind?  Nike is not just about shoes.

When you hear the Coca Cola jingle, “I’d like to teach the world to sing” how does it make you feel?  Coca Cola is more than just a drink.  That is what a signature is.

You have so much inside of your soul waiting to come out.  That is why you will risk becoming visible.  That is why you can’t think small.

Because some part of you deep inside knows how truly magnificent you really are.  Each of us is a thread in Gods tapestry.  Each of us has a part to play.  Each of us has to become visible, in order for the pattern to be seen.  Each of us has that special one of a kind signature that the world needs to see, feel, and hear.

Transformation Is the Dance Of Life

What Would Your Life Look Like, If I Gave You The Key To Unlock Your Full Potential?

Have you ever said, “I would be happier if .., fill in the blank ____________ (my spouse was …,, my job was…, my weight was ? lbs. less?  etc…)”  I am going to use my weight as the example, but you can substitute anything in your life, that is currently not bringing you into a state of joy.  As you read through this, you can just adapt the process around your job, your spouse, your family, your finances, etc…

Never put the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket  – Unknown

This includes the pocket of your self saboteur.  Have you ever counted calories?  Have you counted steps?  Weighed yourself every day to see if you released a single pound?   I know I have.  I have a Fitbit and I watch the numbers go up until I reach that 10,000 step mark.  I worry over what I am eating and snacking on.  What I recently discovered about this, is I am in fact disempowering myself.

Old ways won’t open new doors.  – unknown

A new way of saying Einstein’s definition of insanity.  I am “trying” over and over again to have better control, so that I can become healthier.  Old ways that didn’t work the first time.  It is sort of like banging my head against the door, hoping this time it will open for me.  I keep “trying” to get myself out of the obesity designation.  What I am in fact doing, is disempowering myself from being successful.  I am empowering my view of my weight, to have complete control of my eating and exercise habits, setting myself up for self sabotage.  I have put the keys to my happiness in the pocket of my self saboteur.

Find a heart that will love you at your worst and arms that will hold you at your weakest.  – Unknown

That heart and those arms need to be yours, not someone else’s.  When something isn’t working, then study, research, read and listen.  It never has failed me that someone will say something that triggers my mind to go down a rabbit hole and come up with something that my heart and soul have been trying to communicate with me.

Dear Destiny,  I am ready to listen now.  – unknown

When I walk every day, I listen to podcasts.  I have Tony Robbins, TED Talks, a NPR show called Scratch, EWomen’s Network, Success Magazine, and several others that I listen to.  I listen to whatever is next on the list.  This past week, I pieced something together from several different podcasts that became an “aha” moment. I needed to listen to my inner genius.  Those who listen to their inner genius often end up changing their world.  So I asked myself, “What is it still possible for me to do?”  Notice that I said do, not try.

I have been trying to discover through hits and misses what is contributing to the weight I have, and what I might do to be more successful in releasing the weight.  It isn’t as simple as diet and exercise.  What I received this week was a couple of keys.

Key #1 – Don’t try.  Trying doesn’t last long.  Trying is one of those words that sounds positive, but doesn’t have a high energy vibration to it.  Falling back to the famous Yoda quote – “Don’t try, Do or don’t do.”  Instead the key that fits into the transformation door, is to commit myself to “mastery” of releasing weight and becoming healthy.  Mastery is hard work.  You have to learn something completely.  To take it apart and put it back together again.  To understand the purpose and reason for every single part, and the actions it plays.  It takes time.  But when you become a master at something, it doesn’t just change you, it transforms you.

Mastery reflects understanding diet and nutrition, not generally, but as it applies to my individual DNA and my physical body.  It reflects understanding how the feelings I am feeling each day (my moods, and memories) enter into the equation.  It is about paying attention to my instincts or gut reactions to the pain and pleasure that is happening to me moment by moment.  And lastly it included my thinking or my intellect.

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.    – Orison Swett Marsden

Key #2 – Realize that my mind plays this game of chaos.  I can tell that my weight is affecting my general health.  I am exhausted.  I have digestive issues among other things happening.

But my mind likes the chaos it understands, better than the chaos it doesn’t know.  It started from fear.  It said it was trying to protect me from unwanted attention.  It told me that I didn’t want to be like my mom, and hurt people that I loved.

So add in a few pounds, plus a few more.  Still getting attention, don’t worry, just add a few more pounds.  My own subconscious good intentions will kill me.  I needed to forgive myself, and let go of the need for protection.

Forgiveness is not something we do for other people.  It’s something we do for ourselves to move on.   – unknown

Key #3 – I am changing the interior landscape a little each day.  I really never practiced self care.  It was always care for everyone else first, and I got whatever was left over. 

So it is like going from the hard dry desert to a beautiful flower garden with a stream flowing through the middle.  I had to dig up the soil.  I had to put in some fertilizer to bring it up to optimal healthy soil that would support the growth of the flower garden. 

I then planted seeds.  I watered them.  I weeded out what doesn’t belong or bring me joy.  I brought in some nice chairs to sit in.  A small table to put a nice glass of lavender lemonade on.  I transformed the desert of “not taking care of myself”, into a place that empowers me to do self care.

Your success and happiness lies in you.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.    – Helen Keller

 Key #4 – Gratitude.  Every day I am finding things about my body, my health, the way I am taking better care of me – ways I can be grateful that I have this opportunity to bring back vibrant health to me.  Gratitude pays homage and honors the steps I am taking.

It says that while I am not where I want to be, I am making progress.

It says that I don’t have to beat myself up on the days I fall short of 10,000 steps, or have the strawberry shortcake for dessert.  It says that I will continue to be committed to bringing my body into a completely healthy state.  The “friend” needs to be “you”.  Self Love.

I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me, and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.   – Abraham Lincoln

If you find yourself spending a lot of time and money, and not making any progress, you are in fact, stuck in neutral.  It feels like you are in drive, because you are counting calories, you are weighing in, you are restricting your food intake, but you are in fact stuck in neutral. This is evident when day after day, no weight is released. Your subconscious mind has you stuck in the chaos you know.  You are blindfolded as to what is really happening.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.  The world you desire can be won.  It exists  . . . it is real . . .  it is possible . . . it’s yours.    – Any Rand

When you are not reaching your goals, you need to stop.  Take a deep breath and look at what you are doing. First look to gratitude to where you are on the map.  Then look to the patterns of the familiar chaos – what is eating up your time, energy, money, contributing to your frustrations?  What story are you buying into that creates the “I am too tired” to walk tonight?”  What food cravings around caffeine, sugar, processed foods, fast foods are you having because you are bored or stressed out?  These stories are your self sabotaging patterns.  If you can start to recognize them, then you have the potential to transform them.

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.    – Confucius

When you have mapped out where you are, then you are ready to put the car back into drive and put your foot on the gas.  You do this by getting deeper into personal mastery.  The neutral gear is calling your attention to some part of the chaos, that is not working for you any longer.  Something that needs to be down shifted, released and/or transformed.  Once you have gotten this new piece of knowledge into your head, drawn it down into your heart to become wisdom, then you can release your passion to fuel your motivation.  You can realize your expanded potential and unlock a new door in your life of transformation.

You have always possessed the keys of transformation.  The divine puts the doors of opportunity in front of you, over and over again.  It is up to you to put the key in the lock, and go through the door. When you do that you discover untold potential and mastery within yourself.  You have more natural potential than you could use in 100 lifetimes.  Don’t let this life go by, not even using a small fraction of it.

Questions provide the key to unlocking your unlimited potential.   – Tony Robbin

An Inch Of Movement Brings You Closer To Your Goals Than A Mile Of Intention

Things do not change.  We Change

 – Henry David Thoreau

Transformation signifies that I can’t go back to what was.  I can only move forward.  I really like the thinking process that Jason went through, to get to this realization of treating transformation as a game. 

Transformation is my favorite game and in my experience, anger and frustration are the result of your not being authentic somewhere in your life or with someone in your life.  Being fake about anything creates a block inside of you. Life can’t show up for you if you don’t show up as you.

 – Jason Mraz

When my daughter was around 4 years old, she had to have a root canal done.  I was really worried that the experience would make her afraid of the dentist.  She had already had a bad experience with a pediatrician, and would cry when she had to go to the doctor.  I was referred to a specialist and wow!  What an excellent dentist.  He was talking to her and telling her some long complicated story.  I watched as he gave her the Novocain shot – he had her so involved in his story that she didn’t see or feel the needle in her mouth.  He went very slowly, and she didn’t ever notice that she got the shot.  At the end of the visit, she was happy and relaxed.  I was really impressed.  He treated the whole thing as a game.  She didn’t have a traumatic experience.  It really is all about the attitude that we have about it. 

The next part of his quote, is how when we are angry and frustrated in our life, it circles back to us – not something happening outside of us.  It might be that we had expectations that were not realistic, and so we are mad that it didn’t happen the way we expected.  Or it might be that we had the expectation of failure, and so set ourselves up to fail.  We created the block ,and then we banged our head against it in anger and frustration.

In my own life experience I have a large list of “reasons” why I can’t, or why it didn’t work out.  But under those “reasons” is the block that I put there to run into.  We need to learn how to be honest with ourselves.  Not cruel or mean, judging our efforts and calling ourselves a loser.  But rather, we need to dig up the block to see what it was sitting on.  This hidden knowledge, is the real reason why we are not transforming as we wish.  Some of things you might find are the “I’m not enough” excuses.  “I’m afraid” excuses.  “I will just fail” excuses.  I am sure that you could add a few of your own to this list.

I know this transformation is painful, but you’re not falling apart; you’re just falling into something different, with a new capacity to be beautiful.

  – William C. Hannan

For growth to happen, transformation is necessary.  It brings an opportunity into our lives.  We have to show up, for it to happen.  We have a choice to take up the challenge it creates, and work with and through it.  We can choose to fight it, to try to prevent it from happening.  When we resist transformation, it usually creates a crisis in our lives.

Every crisis contains within it the seeds for transformation and growth. 

  – Jodie Gale

It is so much easier to initiate the transformation, than to be pushed into it with a crisis.  Some change is inevitable.  It happens whether we want it to or not.  Other change is optional.  We choose to initiate a process of change, or we choose to not go down that road.

Change can be hard.  It requires no extra effort to settle for the same old thing.  Auto-pilot keeps us locked into past patterns.  But transforming your life?  That requires courage, commitment and effort.  It’s tempting to stay camped in the zone of That’s-Just-How-It-Is.  But to get to the really good stuff in life, you have to be willing to become an explorer and adventurer.

  – John Mark Green

For example.  We can chose to continue our education to go to college, or to not do so.  Either choice is a path that we can take.  What we choose may depend on our belief in ourselves to make it happen, the actions that we take to make it happen.  If we say we want to attend college, but don’t enroll, apply for student loans, etc… it is like waiting for a train to come down a track that is no longer in service.  We can sit there all week, but the train isn’t coming.  Life will present open doors to us, but we still have to get up and walk through the doors – we have to take action.

The best way to initiate change in our lives is to do small simple steps that bring joy to our hearts.  Take the example of college.  You might first start checking out the options.  Go online and google “colleges near me”.  Bible colleges, Cosmetology or Massage Schools, a traditional community college, a state college.  A two year degree or a four year degree?  Write down a few of the local colleges and contact the Admissions office and arrange a tour.  Meet some of the students and professors.  Sit in on a class.  Interview with an Admissions officer.  Pick up financial aid forms.  All of these are small steps to help you start towards your goals.

Maybe you have to work fulltime, and so you go through some of the same steps for an online college.  Including finding out from your HR department if the company will pick up some or all of your tuition or book fees, etc..

Once you have taken on some of the smaller action steps, it becomes easier to now turn in the financial aid package and actually enroll in some classes.  Of course, some of the changes in your life now will be a little harder to manage, as you now have class work time and homework that needs to fit into your schedule.  You will have to make sacrifices in time and money to bring this goal to its completion, but look at what you will have at the end.  You have an education; you can now get a better job.  You might be inspired to go on towards a masters degree or PHD.  But really what you have, is the knowledge that with some hard work and sacrifice, you can accomplish big goals in your life.  You can become a change agent.

The best thing you could do is MASTER the chaos in you.  You are not thrown into the fire.  YOU ARE THE FIRE.

  – Mama Indigo

So what are the changes in your life that you have the intention to make?  What are the changes you been putting off?  What are the things on your “to do” list that remain “just” a good intention?  The things that never take flight, because you just keep transferring it to a new piece of paper, never completing them? 

Take action!  An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention. 

 – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Sometimes you just need to put a different perspective to what you intend to do.  Try making a game out of it to get you started.  That could be the first step to take you miles down the road of action.

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

Are You Ready To Be A Hero For Your Own Life?

Can Life Be A Daring Adventure?

I have had on my desk for several years a large rock on which is inscribed, “It is not the destination, It is the journey”.  We think that accomplishing our big dreams or goals in life is the point.  But really that isn’t true.  There will always be a new destination, dream or goal.  It is who you become on the way to the destination. Every daring adventure is really all about the transformation.

Our brains will try to convince us not to go on the daring adventures.  It will insist that we have limitations.  It will try to close us off from transforming our life.  It tries to convince us that transformation will affect our very survival, that we can’t exceed the boundaries that it deems by logic to be safe and secure for us.

Getting our brain and heart to effectively communicate is a difficult process for most of us.  Take the analogy of the  shoreline here in the photo.  The sand is the logic of the brain.  The waves the emotions of the heart.  There is a point when the waves come up against the sand and they blend together.  That is the space that we are looking for, in having this internal conversation between the logical brain and the emotional heart..  That moment of overlap in which the different perspectives can be viewed.  A unity of understanding can be achieved in that moment of overlap, when the two meet energetically – the influence of chaos from the emotions with the logical rigid mind, which is demanding that we stick to the known rules and do not go exploring.

This is one of the things that we will be exploring in our upcoming seminar on “Living A Transformational Life”.  There is a wide difference of meaning between change and transformation.  When we change our lives, the majority of times it just doesn’t last.  We go on a diet, lose the 20 lbs and then less than a year later, the 20 lbs has crept back on.  Change is primarily achieved with willpower.  The problem with will power is that it is short lived.  At some point the rubber band that we have stretched out snaps back or breaks.  Then we are back to square one in the changes we had made. 

Transformation on the other hand, alters us to the point that we no longer have the option to return back to what we were before.  Once the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis it can’t return to the caterpillar’s body, no matter how much it might want to.  The transformation process has altered the DNA and physical form.  There is no way to return to that old body.

Some of the concepts that we will be exploring with the webinar are the acronym of FACES, being:  Flexible, Adaptable, Coherent (resilient), Energized and Stable.  It is about creating opportunities in the sea of potential, and seeing the potentialities on the plains of possibility.  About movement, about flow, and the charge of being truly alive.  It is about collaboration through creating harmonies out of differences.  Like the waves upon the sand, we will come together honoring the differences in our lives.  We will be linking the brain and heart together to create something new and different for each of us.

Is your life a daring adventure?  Come to our webinar and learn how to disolve the boundaries that have imprisioned you off from your heart and souls desires.  Listen to the words of William Ward:

“The adventure of life is to learn. 

The goal of life is to grow. 

The nature of life is to change. 

The challenge of life is to overcome. 

The essence of life is to care. 

The secret of life is to dare. 

The beauty of life is to give. 

The joy of life is to love.” 

 Ask yourself some great questions:  Where are you now?  How do you feel about it?  Where do you want to go?  How would you like to get there?  In what manner are you now traveling there?  What steps can I take?

Events

Life’s Storms

Revised 5/13/2019

I wrote this poem on a Sunday (see it at the bottom). It had been banging around in my head for a while wanting to be released. So, I took some quiet time while everyone was asleep and let it out. The entire poem is printed at the end of the post.

There is no growth without change. You’ve got to let go of some old stuff. And that can hurt. Often when I’m in the most pain, I realize it’s coming from my trying to control everything. Or resisting the changes that come with the progress. But you see that light . . ., that beautiful next level . . ., and that’s what you have to focus on – Ali Brown

I found the quote by Ali after I wrote the poem and was struck by how much of what I am trying to express in the poem is in her quote.

You have to release what no longer serves you. That could be the story that you have been telling yourself that holds you in chains of fear about success and failure. It could be the story that you tell yourself that you are not capable of being more. The stories you could be telling yourself go on and on.  They are varied and unending, depending on what your life has been about so far.

This control is when you stand up on the ship of your own destiny and release the anchor holding you to your stories. You drop the weight that holds you in place. You open to the winds of change.  You drop all of the baggage of blaming the world for where you are at this moment in time.  You decide to take your control back – control of how you think, how you react.

You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying.  What you can do is calm yourself.  The storm will pass – Thimber Hawkeye

It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the storm of fears and doubts. To realize that as you set sail on your ship, that there will be those who you leave behind, because they are still chained to their own stories. 

When I thought deeply about this I thought of Pompeii.  The volcano was going to erupt.  It had been giving signs of the coming destruction for months.  The people who were awake and listening, left the island behind.  But so many of the people didn’t believe what they were seeing on a day-to-day basis.  And they left fleeing to safety too late. 

I am sure that they fully believed the lies they were telling themselves, the false stories about how safety lay in staying – not in fleeing with nothing to their names, to untold dangers.  No, for them staying was the only smart thing to do.

You, however, face your fears of not knowing how you will steer the ship, or even where the next safe harbor will be.   You have the courage to face the fears of the unknown, to face the lies that you told yourself and make the right decision – to face and live through the changes that are coming.

There comes a time when you just have to listen to the music of your soul and set sail to the unknown. And so the journey begins. 

Life’s Storms

Storms without a name whip the seas into a fury, winds screaming through torrents of rain.
Waves crashing against the shore, bring in lost and forgotten debris.
Stand tall on the deck of your ship, as the birds scatter beneath the howling winds,
Let it blow away what no longer serves you. 

You feel the backlash of empty words with no truth, the shadows are winning.
No sunlight, every battle lost, and shadow is winning. No rescue. 
The lack of love, the hunger for life is insatiable, an open mouth that wails to be fed.
You can’t undo what has been done, it doesn’t serve you. 

Thunder rolls and lightning flashes exposing what still needs to be released.
Let it go out the door, don’t run after it as if falls off the deck and into the sea.
Feel the weight of the past, as the sounds of the anchor being lifted vibrate through your body,
The anchor being lifted from the bottom of the sea, the sound of your journey echoing onward.

Change, the anchor of our soul, it both drops into the sea, and is pulled back up into the ship,
Change moves us ever forward on the journey, unearthing the destination clue by clue, star by star.
Change reveals the next adventure, the next treasure that we are seeking,
Change reveals the next harbor in which to rest our soul

Bright morning stars, as day breaks open the dawn releasing the light, as it climbs the clear sky,
Light breezes blow as it fills the sails, with the dust blown clear, we see what has been done.
Every color sparkles as it plays upon the sea, as we awaken, transformed once more,
We hear the music of our soul, whispering as the journey begins again, echoing ever onward.

Every Leap of Faith is an Adventure

Adventures are how we grow and realize the hidden strengths that are inside each of us. Today I am started a new adventure with two great friends. For all three of us, it is a leap of faith headlong into a new adventure.

Martha Beck in her book, “Finding Your Way in a Wild New World” speaks about taking a leap of faith. She says that the term for a collective (like herd of cows) for leopards is a “leap”. A leopard will jump up into the branches of a tree with an antelope carcass in its mouth that outweighs it. Each time the leopard leaps, it is an act of faith that it will make it up onto a branch 10 feet above it. If the leopard doesn’t make it, it could mean it’s death, as it would most likely land on its back with the weight of the antelope on top of it.

She goes on to say that each time we face an unknown, with creativity instead of grasping at known quantities, we leap. Each time we dare to think that our art ( insert here whatever your personal genius is) can sustain us financially we leap. She reflects that each time we surrender to the way things want to happen (not under our control), we leap.

I highly recommend the book – I bookmarked it for you to check out. http://amzn.to/1Xbnz56

A Leap of Faith Helps Us Discover What We Are Really Made Of

What we discover when we leap, is what we are really made of. Do we shrink back at the challenges or opportunities that present themselves to us? Do we pass by the aid of angelic guides, because we think that what we see isn’t the answer we were looking for? That one is too easy, this one is too hard?

Today I took a leap. trusting in the magic of my soul. Today was the day that I took a deep breath, let go of certainty, trusted my heart, and leaped into “seeing what happens next.” D Elton Trueblood said, “faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation.” So today we traded in all of our fears for faith and trust without reservation in divine guidance.

I think of Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz. She learned so much about herself with her adventures. She had her companions with her, just as I do today. I don’t know the “how” part of this decision. But I listened to my heart, which said that it is the right decision. Dorothy didn’t know the “how” of getting home, but she listened to Glinda and set out on the journey. Glinda the Good Witch tells her at the end, “you had the power to go home from the very beginning”, so Dorothy of course asks, “why didn’t you tell me?” Because Glinda said, “you would not have believed it. You had to learn it by yourself.”

The same is true for me, and you. Adventures is how we learn what are powers are, and what we are capable of creating together.