There Is A Dance That Only You Know How To Do

In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being depressed or dispirited, they would ask the following four questions:

When did you stop dancing?
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop being enchanted by stories?
When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?

When I read George Carlin’s quote I thought of the above words – because the wolves being silent at the moon, and the moon howling back – this spoke to me of a wolf being dispirited and the moon howling back those questions. 

This quote by George Carlin with the wolves being silent also reminded me of a time of reflection. Being silent and going within to review the actions of the year. A time to release the baggage of the past.

And you were just like the moon, so lonely, so full of imperfections, but just like the moon, you shined in times of darkness – Unknown

Every January we think of the new year’s goals or resolutions, new dreams to grow into our lives. The things we want to accomplish or bring into our lives. In order to be ready for that contemplation, you need to create a clean slate.

A good way to do that is to examine what you set out to do last year, what happened along the way, and what you need to acknowledge and release. 

Part of what can be released is all of those dreams that didn’t happen. You can mourn and release those dreams that no longer are a part of your life, because you have outgrown them.

We all have shadows within us.  Dark places where you hide the things you don’t want to face.  Where you hide things you are ashamed of.  These things need to be brought into the light.  You need to release them, so that they can become what they were meant to be.  They are the broken bits of you, the dreams you abandoned because of someone or something that hurt you. 

You can also release any toxic relationships that have ended or need to now end.  Release the darkness.

And like the moon, she had a side of her so dark, that even the stars couldn’t shine on it; she had a side of her so cold, that even the sun couldn’t burn on it –  Abigail J

I have always thought the saying is so true, “We make plans, God laughs”. This is because you tend to make plans that you feel safe about, things you know that you can do. Those kinds of plans don’t grow you or accomplish all that you are capable of doing. So, God laughs because he will take those plans, tear them apart and rebuild them into better ones.  Those are the unanswered prayers, the dreams that won’t grow you towards your destiny.

Throughout the year you can look for those examples, where your small safe plan, was revised with divine humor into a much bigger plan.

Or it might be that because  you didn’t do a release from last year, that this year’s plans have not even got off the ground. 

Look not for the desires you have, for they are simply things that you want in your life.  Look for what your soul longs for.  What each heartbeat is sending to you, telling you that THIS IS WHY YOU ARE HERE! 

When the wolf howls at the moon, you can hear the yearning in his voice.  Give your own yearning a voice in your life.

Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon – Paul Brandt

So with the next full moon, you can again review, release, and restore life. Every quarter, the moon will usher in a new season.  That is a perfect time to release the old, failed, or aborted dreams, and plan anew. 

We dance for laughter,

we dance for tears,

we dance for madness,

we dance for fears,

we dance for hopes,

we dance for dreams,

we are the dancers, we create dreams.

Albert Einstein

One of my all-time favorite songs is “Moondance” by Van Morrison.  I love the summer and autumn nights of a full moon.  With a warm breeze blowing and sitting on a sandy beach, watching the moon rise over the water – there isn’t a better feeling.  You can feel the magic of the night strumming your heart strings. 

  

Specialize In The Impossible

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power to they have to change it.
Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration. It is a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
Impossible is nothing.

  – Muhammad Ali

Every great invention and every great exploration are great, simply because at one time, it was considered impossible.

Nothing is impossible to a willing heart – John Heywood

Consider the cell phone you have in your pocket:

• From a phonograph with vinyl records, to CDs to my Ipod – I can now carry around 1,000’s of songs on the cloud downloaded to my cell phone
• From the telegraph to party line phones, to land lines with expensive long-distance rates, to a cell phone that started out in a large box, to what we now carry around in our pocket – we can call anywhere in the world for just pennies a call, and I can talk with family members all over the world at the same time and see them “live” with Skype.
• From old fashion manual typewriters to electric typewriters, to word processors, to desk top computers, to my cell phone where I can text or email someone anywhere in the world and they get it in a minute.
• From pony express mail to mail delivered via planes, trains, and automobiles to email delivered to my cell phone.
• From the black and white TV to technicolor, to High Definition to 3D – I can now watch movies on demand, or TV shows when I want to (on demand) on my cell phone.
• From the camera on my phone I can record, download to YouTube and become a famous person, making my own videos.

I could go on to describe so many things that we now take for granted, that just 100 yrs. ago would have been considered impossible. So, when you think that you are in an impossible situation, remember the words of Muhammad Ali, “impossible is just temporary”.

It is an opportunity to think outside the box and consider the possibilities instead.  Impossible is not a fact., it is only an opinion. 

So, stop thinking that something can’t be done and instead wonder “why not”? The only limits to your dreams are the ones that you self-impose.  In fact, it is when you are in the middle of doing the impossible thing, that you suddenly find yourself.

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:  the fear of failure – Paulo Coelho

When I was a kid, they had a show on T.V. called “Mission Impossible”, which later became a movies series.  Every assignment was impossible to do, and somehow, they came up with a way to be successful. 

When you have a dream that others think is impossible, they will think that you are crazy.  They will ask you why you want to try to do such a thing – it is risky, it is dangerous, it is impossible.  But once the impossible thing has been done, then they want to know how you did it.  What’s your secret?

So many of you have lived through unimaginable tragedies in your life. If you can look at what you are capable of being and doing, it gives you hope.  You have hope that so many of the things you see wrong in your world, things that can be made right.

Nothing is impossible, unless you simply decide to live in the world that you have been given. If you decide that someone’s opinion is now a fact, then you won’t have the resources or potential to change it. 

What we can or cannot do, what we consider possible or impossible is rarely a function of our true capability.  It is more likely a function of our beliefs about who we are – Anthony Robbins

What gives me hope is that someone who reads this, is one of those kinds of people.

That you are one of those people who know in your heart that impossible is a dare to do something about it. That impossible is potential that you are going to harness and make something fantastic out of it. The impossible is no-thing, that it is nothing.

Together we can change the world, because for us, nothing is impossible. We can end world hunger. We can end poverty. We can end terrorism. We can end diseases and addictions that take away our loved one’s way too early in life. 

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible – Theodore Roethke

Live An Inspirational Life

 

“There are two primary choices in life:  To accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them”  – Dr. Denis Waitley

You can choose to be affected by the world or you can choose to affect the world. This little girl is not thinking consciously about affecting someone’s life, but she is doing so nonetheless. When you are walking down life’s path it is not just coincidence, happenstance, and luck, that you experience. It is an unexplainable, magically chartered course. That is what you see when you look at this girl. 

The girl in this photo isn’t seeing any limitations about what she can see, be or do. She hasn’t yet bought into the story of limitations. For her life is still simple. It can be that way for you too. You don’t have to make everything be complicated. It can be fun, instead of an adrenalin fueled drama of “guess what happened to me today?” It can instead be a joyful, “Guess what happened for me today?” 

Same story, just a different way of looking at it. If you just take a moment to step back from what is happening and say silently to yourself, “I wonder what happens next?” You give your brain a chance to go into curiosity, instead of drama, and you experience a better life.

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make” -Jane Goodall

Every person who is, or ever has been a part of your life, changed your life, and you changed theirs. You could put labels on the changes, and call them positive and negative. The truth is that most are simply neither. The story that you tell yourself about them, is what gives them the positive or negative charge in your memory.

“If you’re not making someone else’s life better, then you are wasting your time.  Your life will become better my making other people’s lives better”  – Will Smith

You never know what will happen in your life.  Sometimes something horrible and unforeseen happen.  You go to a peace rally and a terrorist plows his car into a crowd of people and takes the life of a beautiful young woman.  Her parents and friends lose someone they loved and were so proud of.  At the service, they talk about what a wonderful person she was.  You can see how much she meant to so many.  The circumstances of her death have in fact projected her into being a hero.  Someone who stood up for others.  Someone who cared about others, and had a true moral code she lived by.  That is how it plays out in so many peoples lives.  We stand up and talk about them after they are gone. 

From what you hear and read about this young woman, she fits this quote because her death is certainly waking up humanity:

“If you want to awaken all humanity, then awaken all of yourself.  If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.  Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self transformation”  – Lao Tzu

But how much do we communicate about the important things to our friends and family while they are here?  My Uncle Paul got a thank you post on his Facebook page from someone that was best friends with his son when they were growing up. It reminded me of how we all have memories of someone special in our lives that affected us in such a way, that they changed how we saw the world,.  They changed who we chose to be in the world by their actions. Most of the time we never know how we affected someone, because they don’t think to express it. 

Most of the time, our family finds out about it at our funeral, when they feel moved to talk about what we meant to them. This post reminded me of how important it is to say these things to people while they are still alive to hear it.

I edited it slightly, but here is the post. “Hello Paul, hope things are going well for you. I am sending you this note because I wanted you to know that I think of you often. I have never shared this with anyone before, but I have always considered you as my second father. I have tried to model myself after special traits from both my real father and from you.. One of your many special traits that I recognized early on was your very high degree of patience. One example that I think about often, is watching you make constant repairs to your hay bailer. When that damn thing broke you always were ready to fix it with huge degrees of patience, no cussing and no throwing of wrenches. Just fix it, even if the project took all day. And fix it you would. That has to be another one of your special traits, you seemed to be able to do anything and fix anything with confidence. You played a huge role in developing my love for the outdoors. So thank-you for that important role.”

He does a wonderful job of describing my uncle. He is a mechanical wizard. He is very methodical and I don’t remember him ever losing his patience with us, and we certainly did things as young kids that would have tried it. 

What I really loved about this heartfelt expression is that it was just my Uncle being his authentic self that impacted this young man. It wasn’t some heroic act, or awesome talent, it was how he handled himself on a daily basis as he worked on his farm. It was how he made this young man feel.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Dr. Maya Angelou

The lesson here is to be your authentic self.  To live on purpose in everything you do in your daily life.  To pursue what sets your soul on fire.  But how do you go about chasing those dreams you have?  Because when you are doing that, you are living a truly magical life.  An inspirational life.  A life that truly impacts and changes not only those you know, but the millions of people around the world you don’t know around the world.  Why?  Because living your life on purpose fulfills your God given destiny.

 

Reflect What You Desire, Mirror What You Admire

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it” – Ernest Holmes

This is a great time to reflect back on what transpired for the past few months of your life. What happened to the goals or resolutions that you set for the year? Did you achieve them? Did you give up on them? Did you rise up or fall down?

If you look at your reflection in the water, you see the outer surface of you, looking back at you. But if you put your hand through the reflection, you can see what lies beneath.

The question I always ask myself is “why am I doing this to myself? How can I do better?”

It’s in the looking at what’s beneath the fears of self-sabotage that you can see what is holding you back.  Then you can pierce the illusion(s) to find the real truth.

“When someone tells you it can’t be done, it’s more a reflection of their limitations, not yours” – Thegoodquote

Looking back helps you to see what you want to bring into your life.

• I trust that I deserve unconditional love.
• I trust that I can have happiness and success every day in my life.
• I trust my wings and fly. 
• I trust that I am right were I need to be, and that this year is going to be an amazing year.

It is not the things that happened in your life that define you, but how you coped and adjusted through them, that made you who you are today.

• Release this fear that became a protection. 
• Release that will power alone can make a transformation.
• Release the self destructive way of thinking.

“You can be stunned, awakened, and changed by what happens to you, but choose to grow from it, and refuse to be reduced by it”– Unknown

2022 is a year for deep self-reflection.  The past few months new things have been brought up from the depths beneath the surface and released.  Wars, a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter, Police brutality, a personal loss of income, stay at home orders, teaching children from home, working from home, and on and on.

“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

You are working on being a better person, and that includes your body, mind and soul.  So the reflection that you see right now, is showing you who you were. So reflect back to it, who you want to be.

“The ability to honestly and quietly reflect on one’s life is one of the most powerful tools for personal growth” – Richard Carlson

I saw a photo years ago of Carrie Fischer and Harrison Ford.  The article asked why it was ok for Harrison Ford to have aged, but not ok for Carrie Fischer – they were talking about 40 years ago when they filmed the first Star Wars movie to the start of the new Star Wars movie series how much she had aged. It is really sad that someone feel the need to say negative things about how someone looks.   Harrison Ford had aged too, but no one was commenting about that.   

Speaking in this way didn’t help anyone. I think Carrie Fischer was an amazing woman, who had her struggles, just like all of us. She was courageous because she did it in the public eye, and said what she thought. The way she was upfront about mental illness puts her in the category of being a hero in my book.  

“When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy.  This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits – anything that kept me small.  My judgment called it disloyal.  Now I see it as self-loving” – Kim McMillen

It means that you can say this to your own reflection:  “I love you” means that I accept you for the person that you are, and that I do not wish to change you into someone else.  It means that I will love you and stand by you even through the worst of times.  It means loving you even when you’re in a bad mood, or too tired to do the things I want to do.  It means loving you when you’re down, not just when you’re fun to be with. 

“I love you, means that I know your deepest secrets and do not judge you for them”  – Jonathan Safran Foer

So what do I do when I see someone extremely gorgeous? I stare, I smile, and when I get tired of holding up the mirror, I put it down.  🙂

 

I Rise Up

 

I Rise Up

The drum beats echo in the night,

calling my heart to wake up,

Whirlwinds suck up the ashes of my abandoned dreams,

I rise up,

Sparks catch the ashes and burst into flames,

igniting my souls dream to wake up,

Surging through the blood,

inflaming the passions of my heart, I rise up.

Dreams are the warriors of my soul,

stirring me to action, I wake up,

Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes ,

I rise up,

Dreams arise from the ashes remade,

even as I slide back into slumber, I wake up,

Rising from the ashes,

I again take flight, I rise up.

My heart rhythm matches the beats of the drum,

echoing in the heart of darkness, I wake up,

The roots imprisoning my feet stir at my souls fire,

heat rises up through my body, I rise up,

My soul breaks free of the restraints put upon it,

to slumber and sleep, I wake up

My soul rising up to take flight to the heavens,

chasing after the sun, I rise up

An eternal flame, a comet, I blaze across the heavens,

I have woke up,

The comet tail blazes across the sky,

it flares as I rise up,

Fully awake to my souls purpose,

once again I battle to fulfill it,

to wake the sleepers up,

For they too were conquered,

reduced to ashes they feel asleep, but now awakening,

WE RISE UP!

You remember what God’s destiny is for you when you are little. You have these hopes and dreams of what you will be when you grow up. Then you start school and like most of us, you lost sight of the those dreams. They got buried and forgotten.  Like tumbleweeds you were blown away by the dust devils across the fields, your dreams broken and unseen.

Then something happens that knocks the wind out of you. Everything that you thought was important in your life, is shown to be fools gold. You stumbled and fell down. You grieved your loss in sackcloth and ashes. And because you are really lucky, you are remembered or are remembering what you are here to do.

So grab your pillows and shake last nights dreams loose from the feathers that you bound them up in.  RISE UP.  Those abandoned dreams are not truly cold and dead.  They lay buried in the dream caverns, waiting for you to bring them back to life.  To blow upon them the breath of life, igniting them once again into a steady flame.

“We always have the potential to rise. Rise out of our slump. Rise out of our negative thoughts. Rise out of our comfort zone. Rise out of our complaints, GET UP AND RISE…, Rising is a choice that’s one powerful thought away” – Kris Carr

What will defines you, is the RISE UP part. Everyone will fall down.  You fall asleep because the going was so hard.  You told yourself that you deserved to take it easy just for a little while.  And so you fell asleep.  It is part of the human experience. There is a spark of divinity in you still, and it is in the RISE UP part.  It is how to become the person you were meant to be. The importance of this, is that the world is waiting for you and your gifts. It needs you to RISE UP, one more time and reenter the ring of life and fight the battle you were sent to fight.  Something happens, these small occurrences, these coincidences.  They start these sparks, that shine brightly .  They will draw you in, they will stoke up those hidden fires.  You will wake up.

“Coincidences are glimpses in to the creative mind of the universe”  – Deepak Chopra

Each time you are reborn like the phoenix, you are just a little bit wiser from life’s experiences. You are stronger because even though you got knocked down, you got back up one more time. As long as you don’t quit, the “fat lady hasn’t sang”. It isn’t over, and you can still be a winner, fulfilling your destiny.  Breathe your dreams to life, by taking one small step.  Listen to the whispers of your soul.  Enter the cave of your dreams and release them from their shackles of limitations, because in truth you have no limits.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”  – Joseph Campbell

So if you are feeling a little sore, like a semi truck ran over you, backed up, and ran over you again, remember – remember you are like the Phoenix and can rise up from the ashes. Remember that the spark is always buried in the ashes, and just needs you to blow on it to re-ignite the flames.  The dream doesn’t really die.  It doesn’t expire.  Look inside and awaken.  Undergo a radical transformation and like the Phoenix RISE UP. Listen to your heart and RISE UP.  RISE UP and follow your soul to the stars and beyond.

Remember that when life throws you to the wolves, you can come back leading the pack!

Come join us on March 7th for our next monthly free webinar on how to live your life with 20/20 focus. How to face the fears that are keeping you locked out of your destiny. How to unlock your cages and use those divine gifts with purpose to not only shift and change your world, but the entire world. Come and renew yourself. Find your voice and RISE UP!

To All Of The Dreamers

 

“Set a goal so big, that you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can” – Unknown

I don’t think that the importance of big dreams can be over emphasized.  When you were a small child, you believed that you could do anything, because your mom and dad said so.  Then as you grew older, you would try things and fail.  Because it doesn’t feel good to fail, you started putting limits on what you could do.

So, now as an adult when you set goals to bring a dream into reality, you typically made it something that you felt comfortable could be achieved.  It stays inside of the comfort zone.  Which defeats the purpose of the dream before you even get started.

“It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting” – Paulo Coelho

You have to trust in divine destiny.  In the fact that you have a purpose in being here at this moment in time.  That if it has been planted in your heart and soul, then it is yours to do.  It is a different kind of trust than you are used to.  You think that trust is something that is earned by how you behave and act.

This kind of trust though is different because it is not based on past actions.  It is based on your being willing to accept the risk.  No guarantees.  Not because it is safe or certain that this is the right way to fulfill that life purpose or destiny.  It could in fact be the failure that turns you to a completely different path, that leads to that destiny or life purpose.  The trust is that no matter what happens it will serve you.

Your dreams need to be bigger than your fears, because that is how they grow you.  If you don’t have faith in your ability to do something, or be something that you have never been or done, then there’s really nothing to believe in.  This is because you will just go through life doing things you know you can do.  And that is not accomplishing any dreams.

Unless you can imagine your dreams of doing something totally outside of your comfort zone coming true, they can’t get a purchase in your reality. Remember that you grow with your dreams, so they need to feel impossible in order to grow you. So, reach for the stars and change not only your world, but the world around you.

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

Think of the Wright Brothers and the airplane.  Think of President Kennedy and the “Moon Shot”.  Think of Roger Bannister who had been told that if he actually ran a four-minute mile he would die in the attempt.  Think of Felix Baumgartner who jumped to the earth from a helium balloon in the stratosphere.  He actually broke the sound barrier with his body he was coming down so fast.

All of these people did amazing things because they got out of their comfort zones.  Because they were willing to bust through their fear of failure and dare greatly to accomplish a dream.  A dream so powerful that no one believed it could actually be done.  So how did they do it?  What is their secret?

This means a couple of things have to happen.  You have to put action to the things you want to accomplish.  Your faith has to be stronger than the negative mind talk that is going to try and drown out those actions, into never getting off the ground.  Dreams are life realities waiting for you to make them come true.

• If you don’t feel scared.,
• If you don’t think that your dreams are impossible,
• If you don’t feel like quitting almost every day,

then your dreams aren’t big enough.

“Life is tough, my darling. But so are you” – Stephanie Bennett Henry

So, laugh a lot and realize how truly blessed life can be when you are dancing after your dreams.  It is what the answer is to feeling stuck, bored, and unhappy.  You just need to birth a new dream in your life.

So DARE TO FAIL and WAKE UP and LIVE!

It is reaching into your creative mind saying “I wonder if” to yourself as you think about what your logical mind has said is impossible.  Then you catch a whisp of an idea, that leads you down the rabbit hole.  There is a possibility here you say.  It will probably fail.  But if it did work, then wouldn’t that be wonderful?  And before you know it, it’s become inevitable that it is going to work!

“Some of us let those great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true” – W Wilson

When You Are Lost, You Finally Have The Chance To Find Yourself

As with a heavy fog on a road, what lies ahead on the path of life is never completely clear, but the choices we make can help shape out the shadows  – Bryson Staley

If you’re feeling frightened about what comes next, don’t be.  Embrace the uncertainty.  Allow it to lead you places.  Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path toward happiness; don’t waste time with regret.  Spin wildly into your next action.  Enjoy the present, each moment as it comes, because you’ll never get another one quite like it.  And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over.  Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart . . .  where your hope lives.  You’ll find your way again  – Everwood

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves –  Henry David Thoreau

A Heroes Journey Begins With A Call Or A Fall – What Will You Choose?

Most of us are in what Joseph Campbell calls “Sleepy Land”. We get so bound up in the day to day details of living, that we fall asleep to our purpose.

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, “Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there, and so it starts.

  – Joseph Campbell

Then one day it happens. We notice that we are missing something. We want more. We wake up to the fact that “more” is not more money.  It is not a better job.  It is not a bigger house.  It is not a more luxurious car. It is elusive, and we may not know what “it” is.  But we begin to figure out what “it” isn’t. It is our birthright,.  It is what takes our life from “normal” to “greatness”.

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.

  – Carol Pearson

Men like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson figured out what that was for them. And while they had all of the things that people think will make them happy, it was the “more” that actually brought them to greatness.  The dragons we must confront are all the lies that we told ourselves.  If I rise up in the ranks at work, I will be happy.  If I make six or seven figures, then I will be happy.  If only I had a sports car I would be so happy.  What we must discover is what “it” is.

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

  – Martin Buber

They may have started out after all of the material things, but they ended up with the “more”.  There is a Billy Crystal movie from years ago.  It was called City Slickers.  Billy Crystal’s character meets up with this cowboy who asks him if he knows the secret of life.  “One thing.  Just one thing.  You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.”  Billy Crystals character asks him what that one thing is, and the cowboy replies, “that’s what you have to find out.”  It isn’t things and stuff.  It is something more.  It is something that demands more of you than you think that you have to give.  And if you find it, and follow it where it leads, you will lead a life you never thought would be possible.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

  – Joseph Campbell

This something else is transcendence. Transcendence happens when we “reclaim the visionary, the utopian, the dream of the better or happier world”  – when everything that we touch becomes a prayer. 

The genuine exploration of one’s self as an individual is the greatest contribution you can make toward humanity and all life.  Ironically, inner self-reliance is what makes the whole of humanity stronger.

  – Unknown

So how do we discover what it is? We have to walk out the door of the safe comfortable space we have created for ourselves.  We have to walk down that path to the unknown. We have to enter the dark forest. You have to embark on the Hero’s journey. It is how you discover the vast resources that reside within you. A hero’s journey – finding the edge of your unknown forest, and entering into the heart of darkness.

What do you find there? You explore the caves of the past and you wake up to the dreams of the future. You let go of the life of existence, of “go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed and repeat over and over again”.  The journey is an individual one, and each persons journey is different.  We have to go within and listen to what our own truth is.  Some walks you have to take alone.  Otherwise your truth, your inner voice gets drowned out by others.

The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of your self.

 –   Joseph Campbell

Traveling down into the depths of the abyss we recover treasures of life. We recover the dreams we let die.  Se see that the stories that we have told ourselves about past hurts are not entirely true. We become excavator’s and dig up the bones of the past.  We let the past blow away like dust on the winds of healing. We see that most of the problems in our life have been mirrors being held up to us.  Most of the time, we were too blind or too scared to acknowledge the truth. By exploring the darkness we become enlightened.

The fatal mistake is waiting for life’s circumstances to be right before we begin.  Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel.  Practice knowing and you will know.

  – Hugh Prather

We become curious, our mind opens up to new ideas. Changes begin as we see new worlds to explore that have lain beneath the normalcy of our past life. We see possibilities instead of complications. We wonder. We release. We transform. We heal and become whole for the first time.  We have to enter the forest and break away, to walk the hero’s path.

We realize that although we were damaged, we survived and that makes us dangerous. Because we now know how to not only survive, we know how to become whole again. We become both a mentor and a teacher for ourselves.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

  – Rumi

Being a mentor to oneself with love, light, grace, and compassion. Being a teacher to yourself with rage, darkness, fear, and judgment. We are both.  Both are required for the heroes journey. Speaking love to overcome rage,.  Speaking light to overcome darkness.  Speaking grace to overcome fear.  Speaking compassion to overcome judgment.

I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.

  – Kami Garcia

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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

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Sending Love Wherever It Is Needed

We all have those days.  The days when nothing is seeming to go the way you planned.  That day when every mistake you made in the past year, shows up on your desk within 5 minutes of your sitting down.  Those days when you feel that the very idea of being able to control anything in your life, is life’s great joke on you.

“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen at once”  – Paulo Coelho

If you could see what was being hidden in each of our lives, I think that you would be more loving to one another.  There is a video that was done, where little thought bubbles come up as the camera goes down the halls and elevators in a hospital.    Someone is saying goodbye to their dying father.  One man was just told the tumor was benign, while another was told he has cancer.  An elderly woman with oxygen has been waiting for a heart transplant for 69 days.  An exhausted nurse is at the end of a 12 hour shift.  “

Those are the days when you need someone to hug you and say, “You are Good Enough.  You are Capable of Handling this.  You are Important.  You are more than Worthy.  You are LOVED.  You are NOT ALONE.”  These are the days that you need all of the light and love that the world can send you.  What you have to remember, is that at this very moment, someone in the world is either sending you that love, or is in need of you to send that love.

“Could a greater miracle take place, than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

It is when you are living your life from the place of passion and purpose, that you shine the brightest.  Knowing that your deepest dreams can be reached.  It is when you take that deep breath, and just let the emotions flow out of you, that you can reset yourself.  It is hard to be loving and empathetic when you are in survival mode.  You need to give yourself the oxygen mask, reset your emotions and then help others.  Find that spark inside of you, and let it shine first for you.  Then shine it for others to help them find theirs.

Recently driving into work, I was playing a CD with healing sounds.  A friend of mine knew that I have been having some health issues, and thought it might help.  So I purchased it and have been playing it all week.

I realized that every area in almost everyone’s life right now is undergoing some issues.  Work layoffs; health issues; injustices in life, and just watching the news can make you a  little stressed out about how everything is in a negative place right now.

Writing these posts and finding the “good news” articles and videos is what keeps my feet walking down my path of transformation.  It is keeping me sane.  It is why I write, and why I want to share what I find with all of the other LemonadeMakers out there.

“Remember . . .  the entrance to the sanctuary is within you”  – Rumi

Then you add in everything negative happening with the war in Ukraine, fighting in politics between the parties, terrorists’ attacks; the workplace and school shootings, countries at war within their own borders, or threatening to make war on other countries – it can all feel overwhelming.

None of these problems have easy solutions.  I think that we are all being called by the Divine to wake up.  To be the love and light that the world needs to heal.  We all need to heal in some way.

“Spread love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you with leaving happier”  –  Mother Teresa

When you lift someone else up, it automatically lifts you up.  As the saying goes, “you rise by lifting others”.  It is not dependent on the other person appreciating your showing them love.  It is not dependent on it being reciprocated back to you.  It could even be ignored.  It will still lift both of you up.

This is because your showing love to others means that you are actively involved in the growth and support of another person.  Right now, you may not be in a place of being able to offer a refugee a place to stay.  You may not be in a place to donate money to help support someone in need.  But you are always in a place of showing love to someone.  Even if it is just a smile and a small prayer that love light their way forward.  You are always able to shine out the love and light to others.

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

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This Is The Year I Am Unstoppable

This is the year, that I become the warrior woman that I didn’t think I could be.

This is the year, that every morning begins with a cup of the grandest vision I can imagine.

This is the year that I find the gold inside of me, and don’t try to dilute it.

This is the year that instead of allowing that critical voice inside my head to stop me, I will dust off my stiletto kick ass heals and crush it.

This is the year, that I let the wild and crazy girl go free.

This is the year that no one (not even me), can put out the burning desire that rages deep inside of me.

This is the year that “I am already everything I need”, becomes more than just a saying.

This is the year, that my “will” is stronger than fears resistance.

This is the year that I will forgive myself freely, and love myself relentlessly.

This is the year that my life is a living, breathing, screaming, invitation to believe in better things, not only for myself, but for the whole world.

This is the year that God is bringing new seasons of growth into my life.

This is the year that new doors of opportunity will up-level my life to a glorious future beyond my wildest dreams.

This is the year that the way I live my life, respects and enhances the freedom of others.

This is the year that I will always speak the truth, even if no one wants to hear, or will listen to it.

This is the year that I shine like a beacon through whatever dark nights come.

This is the year that I dance with change and transformation instead of fighting it.

This is the year that passion and purpose become that favorite dress that I wear for all occasions.

This year when I feel the start of something new, I am going to pay attention and follow the directions.

 

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