Reflections Of The Heart Liberate The Soul

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, show me who I really am. Many fairy tales tell of magic mirrors. Mirrors that can tell the future. Mirrors that show you your loved ones.  Mirrors that twist everything to mean something different than it really means. And mirrors that reflect back the truth to you. How do you know that the reflection back to you is the truth?

“The more reflective that you are at a soul level, the more of the real you comes into reality”  – Sheryl Silbaugh

A fun house mirror with some twisting of reality, changes how you really look. One mirror shows you a reflection of being short and fat. Another mirror reflects back to you the image of a really tall, skinny girl. Because of the shape of the mirror, the reflections are changed and altered from the truth of what you look like in reality.

Mirrors reverse everything.  Look at how her hand is touching the mirror. The mirror image touching back to her. It looks like the left hand is touching the left hand.  But in reality, it is her left hand touching the reflections right hand. So even mirrors that are true, still change what you see reflected back to you. The reflection back to you is in fact, backwards to reality. It isn’t the real you.

“In a mirror is where we find a reflection of our appearances, but in a heart is where we find a reflection of our soul”  – Unknown

Mirrors are obstacles to light.  Fun house mirrors distort what you see, creating illusions.  What if there were all different kinds of mirrors, each reflecting a different “you” based on what path we took?  Shards of reality based on different life decisions.  How would you pick which reality you wanted?

Based on a multitude of small decisions, how would you be changed? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in real life you could be like Alice?  Just step through the looking glass to see what would happen if you chose this job or that job? Should you leave your bad situation now, or wait another year?

“Life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see”  – Unknown

The movie “Sliding Doors” is all about the thought of what if you made the train or missed it – how does something so small and simple change or not change your life. I love the concept of how a reflection actually bends back from the surface and allows one to think seriously or ponder what is being shown.

It takes some consciousness and understanding to start seeing who and what you really are. To see beyond the surface reflection, deep into the soul within the body. To understand why you make the choices you do? How much of what happens to you is really within your choices, and not fate or destiny driving you towards some unseen future.

“Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself”  – Paul TP Wong

The reflection you see in a mirror, is bent back from the surface.  It allows you to examine what you see from different angles.  You can bend the metaphorical light of your experiences, to see what is underneath.  It serves as a bridge between learning and experience.  You can remove the barrier of your feelings, thoughts, emotions from the experience.  You then see more of the truth, and less of the story that you tell yourself.

This internal dialogue stripped of the emotional charge, is what enables you to move from victim, past survivor, to a totally new space of thriving.  The depth to which you take these reflections, determines the kind of attitude and actions you take moving forward in life.

“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul.  to do this, you need to experience solitudes, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions”  – Deepak Chopra

Reflection provides an opportunity for you to open your heart and mind to your experiences. To see your wisdom and your foolishness. To see your strengths and weaknesses. It also allows you to delve in the possibilities of looking at those experiences through the viewpoints of others involved.

“Facing you, loving you and accepting you as you are can be painfully challenging, but it’s so necessary”  – Dau Voire

Recently my granddaughter got into a bit of drama with one of her friends. They had been out somewhere and my granddaughter borrowed some money from her friend. They didn’t discuss when it would be paid back. My granddaughter didn’t have a way to pay it back, since she didn’t have a job. She did some babysitting, but nothing on a regular basis. So this debt created some friction. Her friend asked her to pay it back, which upset my granddaughter because she didn’t have it. But they didn’t discuss their feelings, they both just pushed it inside.

“Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made.  If you want a different result, make a different choice”   – blog.zerodean

When my granddaughter had a new babysitting job, she paid back the debt. But instead of apologizing for taking so long, she said, “here’s your money, now you can stop bugging me about it.” Of course, her friend was really hurt by those words. So, it escalated into a huge fight. Both girls had a party to the misunderstanding.  Neither girl was able to see how their own lack of communication created a mountain out a molehill.  Neither so far has made it to the point of realizing they were both in the wrong and owning their own part in the debacle.

“It’s unfair to yourself to justify why you’re holding on to toxicity.  There are lessons in letting go and moving on”  – Alex Elle

It is times like this that I wish we could hit a replay button, and see how the story that you internalize is not the true story. Both girls think that they we totally right, and the other is wrong. You too hide behind this gate of reality. You see a distorted image of what happened, of yourself.  You don’t want to be the victim. You don’t want to be the perpetrator.  In most situations in life you are one or the other, and sometimes even both at the same time. So, you create a story and you create drama where there shouldn’t be any.

“Self reflection is a humbling process.  It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things . . . then better yourself”  – Sonya Teclai

No one else can unlock that gate for you. It can only be unlocked by you. You can’t open anyone else’s gate either by argument or emotional appeal. I’ve had talked to my granddaughter and so far, she hasn’t been able to open that gate. My granddaughter has a saying when we talk, that I am judging her. And she is both right and wrong at the same time. Anytime you want to fix someone or something, you are in fact judging it or them. You are saying that something is broken or disconnected. So in that sense I am judging her, because I can see what is broken. But I am not judging her as being bad, or unworthy or less than she is.

“If you are still searching for that one person who will change your life, look in the mirror”  – Unknown

You do that to yourself all the time. You judge the actions or inactions that you take. You beat yourself up.  You should have done a better job. You shouldn’t have forgotten that important thing. What you need to learn is to take the take for reflection. See what is broken or disconnected.  Ask what you can do to alter the outcome. What can be altered and connection restored?  What is beyond your ability to reconnect? Release the judgement. Accept them as they are, or let them go.

“Be a reflection of what you’d like to receive.  If you want love, give love.  If you want truth, be truthful.  What you give out will always return”  – Unknown

Look into the mirror.  Dig beneath the surface.  Love and accept what you find.  Reconnect with your soul, with your life purpose.  Get back onto the right path for you.  Transform what can be changed and release what can’t.

Believe In Yourself And Be UnStoppable

“The moment you give up all thought of retreat or surrender, you become an unstoppable force” – Tommy Newberry

44 years ago, I gave birth to my oldest son.  At that time natural childbirth was just getting started.  I had decided that I wanted to have Joseph without any drugs.  My mom, a very headstrong woman, was of the opinion that I would never be able to do it.  I would be begging for drugs as soon as the labor started getting difficult.

While this goal started as a personal decision based on the belief that it would be better for the baby, it became a goal so strong that nothing would be allowed to stand in my way.  I was determined to show my mother that I could do this.  Her belief that I was too weak and wouldn’t be able to handle the pain, became my conviction to show her she was wrong.

The hospitals at that time didn’t approve of natural childbirth.  The nurses thought it shouldn’t be done that way.  I wanted to have my son and then go home.  They were adamant that I should stay 3 days.  Nursing your baby wasn’t encouraged.  They liked the babies to stay in the hospital nursery and I wanted him by my side.

It was a fight on all sides, but fortunately my doctor was an amazing man and supported me all the way.  He had been my childhood doctor and had seen me through scarlet fever when I was in Junior High School and removed a benign tumor when I was a teenager.  He figured if I fought my way through that, I could handle childbirth without drugs.

I have wondered whether my intuition had come into play with my decision, because as it turned out, not only did I have Joseph without any pain medication – it saved his life.  As he was coming down the birth canal he hit his head and basically passed out.  He stopped moving down the canal.

He was too far down to do a C-Section and so the doctor used several different types of forceps to bring him out the rest of the way.  When he finally emerged he was blue and wasn’t breathing.  The doctor gave him mouth to mouth and CPR and got his breathing going.  It all happened so fast that by the time my husband and I realized he was in trouble, he was breathing on his own.

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction”  – John F. Kennedy

After they had run all of the tests, the doctor updated us that he was fine.   He told us that it was his opinion that the only reason he was able to revive him was because I hadn’t taken any drugs.

My intention to have a drug free childbirth, spurred on by my passion to show my mom I could handle it, saved my sons life.  I refused to give in to the pain, and breathed my way through every single contraction.  If my mom hadn’t hurt me by saying I wasn’t capable of handling the pain, I might have given in to it and had the drugs.  She spurred me on, and that direction that took me over the finish line.

In daily life you are constantly changing, transforming and transitioning.  Some of them are so small that they occur without anyone noticing.

I always think of children and their growth spurts in height, for a change that happens without anyone noticing.  Because the growth happens so slowly, when you are with them all day, every day, you don’t see it.  But you do notice it with your friends or relatives children.  You may not see them for a month or two and you see them again, and they have grown a couple of inches.

You only notice your own children’s growth by the fact that they need new clothes because everything they own no longer fits them.

“She was fierce, she was strong, she wasn’t simple.  She was crazy and sometimes she barely slept.  She always had something to say.  She had flaws and that was ok.  And when she was down, she got right back up.  She was a beast in her own way, but one idea described her best.  She was unstoppable and she took anything she wanted with a smile” – R.M. Drake

Some changes, transformations and transitions happen with a moment.  A single moment can change your life forever.

When you are pregnant with your first child, you think you know what it means to be a parent.  You think you know how it will change your life.

When you hold that precious baby in your arms for the first time, it dawns on you that you were right about your life not being the same.  You also realize that had no idea, what this would really be like.  You look into that tiny face, and for the first time you really truly understand unconditional love.

You might have doubts about how you are going to be a good parent.  You will realize you have no idea what you’re doing, and that you are probably going to fail over and over again.  But you also know that nothing is going to stop you.

You will figure out how to survive on two hours of sleep.  How to give a wiggly baby a bath.  How to clip fingernails and toenails without pinching their soft skin too.  How to balance a child, a bag of groceries, and open/close doors all at the same time.  How to kiss boo boo’s and make them better.  How to potty train your son and teach him to keep that urine stream pointed in the right direction.  You will rock them when they’re sick, and wish you could be sick instead.

You will do this because you are strong, fierce, and flawed, you will go to war for and with your child, you will be unstoppable.

I used to have a bumper sticker that said, “I can handle anything, I have teenagers”.  Teenagers are messy souls.  They are chaos in motion.  They will rip your heart into pieces one minute, and the next minute cuddle you and say how much they love you.  Parents of teenagers know what defeat is.  Slamming doors, screaming I hate you.  Having to talk for hours until you break through the defenses to find out what is really wrong.

Failure is not defeat.  When one door won’t open, you learn to try another.  Failure is just a detour.  I learned from my children, they were my greatest teachers in showing me how I could be better, and do better.

I learned about communication with my children.  How to reach down into their hearts and draw them out.  I knew when they were misbehaving that something was going wrong in their lives.  I knew if I could just find the right words, they would tell me what was wrong.

I learned how to use analogies.  I learned to find ways to tell stories that would help them put into words, what was happening in their lives that they didn’t know how to talk about.  I learned to go down deep within the well of their hearts, to bring up what was asking to be seen and acknowledged.

Sometimes I failed.  Sometimes I didn’t pay close enough attention.  Sometimes I wondered how I ever thought I could be a mom.  But I didn’t give up.

I loved the first photo because she is running in the rain.  She didn’t listen to that voice that said, don’t run today, it is raining.  It is cold.  You should just stay in your nice warm bed.

In every area of your life, you can be unstoppable.  Every new day dawns with a ray of hope.  Hope of it being a good day.  Of being a day with a fresh start in creating positive change, transformation and transitions into your life.

• The hope of resiliency.
• The hope of being a positive example for someone else.
• To inspire them to accomplish their dreams.
• To lead by example.
• To be perfectly imperfect and be ok with that.
• It’s all about being better than you were yesterday.
• To live a courageous life.
• Being willing to say, “I can do better, let me try this again”.

“Whatever your difficulty, whatever your hardship, dance and make the song you sing your prayer.  Sing it courageously, and with each step strengthen yourself with the knowledge and wisdom of your elders.  So that whatever next happens, you can survive and not lose your rhythm”  – Red Haircrow

Throughout your life there will be things to let go of, and there are things you need to pick up.

• You need to let go of the self judgment.
• You need to pick up self confidence to break through fears.
• You need to let go of perfection, and pick up the belief that just because you fail, you must be a failure.
• You need to pick up your self esteem, and realize that you are more than enough for anything that life throws at you.
• You need to let go of heart break and pick up the ability to be in love with vulnerability.

To realize that being vulnerable allows you to experience life at a whole new level.  You can love without being needy.  You can be grateful for every experience, because it made you powerful beyond measure.

Keep looking for new ways to express your creativity.  Keep looking for passion and purpose in your life.  Keep growing into a master of life.  Don’t settle.  Be the unique person that you are, a beautiful soul expressing Gods love here on earth.  Nobody else has your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.  Be unstoppable.

Music Is The Strongest Form Of Magic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what do you do with your world of fears?

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

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

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

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

Always Believe In Yourself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Return to the root of your soul.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  – R. Buckminster Fuller

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

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

 – unknown

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

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

  – Beau Taplin

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

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

  – Dean Koontz

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

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

  – Swani Sivananda

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

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

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

  – Andy Andrews

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

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

  – Shawn Achor

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

Don’t quit before the miracle happens.

 – unknown

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

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

  – Arthur C. Clarke

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

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

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

  – Charles Dickens

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

 

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

 – Rumi

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

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

 – Shannon L. Alder

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

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

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

Always choose the path the feeds the soul

 – Confucius

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

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

 – Rumi

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

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

  – Sandra Kring

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

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

 – Steve Maraboli

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

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

  – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

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There are no endings. Just New Beginnings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Or you could fly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Future Lies In The Beauty Of Your Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

It isn’t about trying harder,

it is about getting smarter.

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

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

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

The story of the Starfish –

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

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

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

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

So, what is the key to transforming this fear?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take The Time To Listen To The Souls Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hard Times Are Life’s Opportunity To Take Off And Fly Into Your Potential

Isn’t funny how you will look at someone as being “the overnight success” story.  There is no such thing as the overnight success.  Every step that we take in bringing our dreams into reality has a price.  People don’t see the 10,000 hours you put in to become the master that you are today.  They don’t see the hours that you continue to put in to hone your gifts into the genius category.  What if instead of getting mad about someone’s cutting remarks, we stayed silent.  And to take it one step further, what if instead of crying about what they just said or did (which is what they want) you laughed out loud about it?  What if you said, “if you hate this, just wait – I have more achievements that you can be mad about coming.”  And my personal favorite, “If you don’t like me and still watch everything I do, you’re not my haters, you’re my fans.”

Silence your critics.

Ignore your haters.

Delete your cynics.

 – Robin Sharma

The sad thing is that we listen to the critics at all.  We can have 10 people come up and gush all over us, how wonderful we are, so inspiring.  And then one person finds something negative to say about us, usually personal and not having anything to do with the job we do, and that is all we think about.  What if we turned it around?  Instead of taking it personally and getting wounded, what if we took it as a sign that we have something within us that needs to be released.  Thanking them, literally, because they just made you aware of some personal work that you need to do for yourself?  Just a little housecleaning to track down where that hurt you just felt is actually coming from.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

 – African Proverb

I have always loved the quote from Theodore Roosevelt.  It puts everything into perspective, because most haters are not putting themselves out there to accomplish their dreams.  They become haters because the truth that you are living, shows up the lies they are telling themselves.  They become haters because every time one of us puts ourselves out there, it reflects to them that they aren’t fulfilling their own personal destiny.  Every time we get back up from the failures, and keep going until we win through, it is like a stake in their hearts because they are too afraid to fail and so they don’t take even the first step into the arena.  They know that they have a divine destiny, a life purpose.  Instead of listening and following their souls calling, they smother their heart when it cries out to them to walk into the arena and get dirty.

It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deed could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 – Theodore Roosevelt

So how do you unlock your own potential?  You get curious.  You look for open doors to walk through.  You go on adventures.  You read, watch and listen and then think, think, think.  You wonder what if? What could I just do next?  What happens when I?  Like Alice in Wonderland, each step down the path brought something new into her life.  She realized that every single day she was a totally new person; that nothing was impossible; and that all of us are just a little bit mad; and it is always tea time.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough”

    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 

Whenever I hear the word relentless, I think of a small child.  You know that age where they ask “why”?  Why is the sky blue?  Why do dogs bark and cats meow?  Why, why, why?  At first it is cute.  Then it drives you mad.  Children are great examples of being relentless when they want something.  How many times as parents have we said no, only to give in later because we can’t take it anymore?  But like a lot of excellent childlike qualities at some point most of us lose that quality of being relentless.  We stop asking because they will just say no.  We don’t ask because what if they say no and we put ourselves out there just to be shot down.  We don’t want to be annoying, or look foolish or be a failure, and . . . . .  so we make excuses.  We place the blame on others.  We start looking around for things that won’t be hard to do.

Why Do I Succeed?

I am willing to do the things you are not

I will fight against the odds

I will sacrifice

I am not shackled by fear, insecurity or doubt

I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride

If I fall – I will get up

If I am beaten – I will return

I will never stop getting better

I will  never give up – ever

That Is Why I Succeed

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Find a purpose in life so big, that it challenges every belief you have.  That it challenges you to do things and try things that never occurred to you before.  Instead of following the crowd, break out and find your own path.  Change the way you think.  Your story gives you so many clues to your life purpose.  Your dreams are like sign posts pointing you in the direction to go forward and bring them into reality.  Your souls voice is you refusing to be quiet and invisible.  We can’t know your story until you tell it.  Whether that is from speaking, writing, acting, dancing, singing – whatever form it takes, it must be told.  Your story isn’t about being a victim, it isn’t about the tragedy that happened.  Your story is about how you overcame “all that stuff”, and how you took life’s lemons and made the best lemonade in town.

I recently read an article about a 10 year old boy in Texas who likes to invent things.  In his neighborhood, there had been a baby left in a vehicle in the summer that had died.  It really affected him.  Now he wasn’t like most of us, saying how could someone forget their child in the car.  He wasn’t thinking that they should go to jail.  What he was thinking was what could I invent so that when someone makes a tragic mistake, it doesn’t have to result in the death of a baby?  So he now has a patent pending for a little cooler that looks like a giant lego, that will turn on when the heat gets too high and the car seat is occupied by a child.  By cooling the baby, it makes time for the parent to remember they left the child in the car and rescue them.  What struck me about this story is that this totally preventable situation has been happening for years and it never occurred to millions of adults to create some sort of mechanism in the car seat to cool the child and buy enough time for the child to be rescued.  How many other opportunities are there out there for some great thinking outside the box that will save lives? 

How big is your purpose?

 

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Bring Your Unique Light To The World And Fulfill Your Life Purpose

In fairy tales when the princess was born, the King and Queen would give a feast and the wise women or fairies would bestow gifts on the child.  The gifts would range from virtue, to beauty, to wealth, to song.

I believe that you all have these wonderful gifts.  They feed into the pattern of what you came to earth to impact.  Impact is such a special word, because it has weight to it.  A small meteor falling to earth can create a large impact.  Every single one of us can make an impact in someone’s life.  In fact, we can impact the world.

Respond to every call that excites your spirit.  Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray – Rumi

Pattern is another word that has a special energy to it.  Every puzzle that is solved, every person who becomes a master at something. it is all a matter of finding the patterns to a thing, and then using those patterns to your advantage.

A person can say what they believe.

They can take actions to demonstrate that they believe, but it is the patterns that result that really tell the true story.

This is because you can’t manipulate the patterns, like you can manipulate words and actions.  It is the patterns that create the self-sabotages in your life.  It is the patterns that reveal the truth about who you are.  They show up in every aspect of the life that you live, revealing not what you say you believe about yourself, but what is hidden beneath the words.

You can shift and change the patterns in your life by letting go of the things that no longer serve you.

It is like that security blanket a small child has.  Once the child understands that it doesn’t really need the blanket to be safe, the child is ready to let the blanket go.

You have things in your life that served you once upon a time.  But as you grew in knowledge and learned to apply that knowledge wisely, you outgrew some of those old beliefs that kept you safe.

To release the old patterns, you need to try on new behaviors.  Release the training wheels off your bike and ride confidently down the street without them.  Go out and create totally new patterns, that will serve you in your life now.

Every day is a once in a lifetime event.  How much more exciting would our lives be if we embraced this truth and lived accordingly? – Steve Maraboli

What is the thing that your heart aches for?  What is your soul’s longing?  What dream keeps you up at night?

Your purpose is as simple as loving others,

and

as complicated as how do you reach out without fear

and

bring that love into reality?

 

There are challenges in your life.   There are the consequences of bad decisions you made in the past.  You have had your heart broken, and you have broken hearts.  You have scars both inside and outside of your body.  How can you reach out one more time, when you were beaten by life the last time that you reached out?

You must, must, must, let all of the baggage go.  Drop it and walk away from it.  Otherwise, you will spend the rest of your life drifting through it without purpose, or ever fully understanding how to create a life that fulfills you.

It is in the journey itself that you uncover those gifts that you were presented with when you were born.

It is in the pursuit of genius in each of those gifts that the pattern of your life begins to take shape.

Like the puzzle, at first the colors seem so similar that you don’t notice the variations.  The puzzle pieces themselves seem to be the same shape and you can try 20 or 30 different pieces before you find the one that fits perfectly into the space.  There comes a point where the picture takes shape, and you can see what the next piece is.  It gets easier and easier.

You see all of us start out the journey thinking that we know where we are going, and what we need to bring to the journey to arrive at the destination.  But for a special group of us, what we learn is that it is the journey itself, not the destination that truly reveals and uses those gifts we have received.

A strong woman knows she has strength enough for the journey . . .  but a woman of strength knows it is on the journey that she will become strong – Luke Easter

As you grow in knowledge, apply the wisdom and step outside the comfort zones in your life, you learn to listen to your intuition.  That voice that whispers to your heart.  That souls voice says, “go right”.  “Stop here”.  “Now go there”. 

When you follow the directions of the soul, you uncover depths to your life that you never knew could exist.

Your soul reveals that you already know who you are, and what you brought to this life.

• What the meaning of your life is.
• What your purpose is.
• What you are being called to do and how to do it.

All of these things are whispered to you from your intuitive inner knowing.  You just need to listen, accept and then act on it.

• Trust that your life has a purpose.
• Trust that your life is important to everyone that it has touched and will touch.
• Trust that these dreams have been given to you for a reason, and that they are important.
• Trust that your voice needs to be heard, that someone out there needs to hear you and your story, because without it they will be lost.
• Trust that you were born to make an impact.  A deep crater.
• Trust that your life purpose is to live your life out loud so that you can learn, grow, serve and dare to be the magnificent creation of God.

Trust that your soul has a plan, and even if you can’t see it completely, know that everything will unfold as it is meant to – Deepak Chopra